Just go already!

I have been watching with astonishment the dogged efforts by Luis Rubiales, the president of Spain’s football federation (RFEF), to stay on in his position despite calls from all sides for him to leave. This has been a major news story for several days.

It all began after the Spanish women’s team won the World Cup for this first time in its history. In the jubilation that followed, as the players went in a line after the final game to be congratulated by Rubiales and others, he grabbed forward Jenni Hermoso’s head and kissed her full on the lips. In the uproar that followed, he claimed that the kiss had been consensual, which Hermoso denied.

To add insult to injury, Rubiales had later ordered the coaching staff to attend a speech given by him at an extraordinary meeting of the RFEF where he defended his actions and blasted “false feminism” and a “social assassination” of his character and vowed not to resign. That was not all the offensive things he did.
[Read more…]

Indictments are not good for Trump

We know the routine by now. Whatever awful thing that happens to serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) is portrayed by him and his supporters as being good for him and making him more popular. That has become an article of faith and I have to give him credit for using this face-saving tactic to turn what are political disasters into fund-raising opportunities and to raise the spirits of his cult followers.

But as with all things involving SSAT, much of this bravado is all smoke and mirrors and his support has been steadily declining as his legal troubles mount and he becomes increasingly unhinged in his comments.
[Read more…]

The ‘big’ question to be answered today

Eight of the candidates for the Republican nomination for president had their first debate yesterday. Fox News decided to not allow any of the other streaming services to show it so I did not watch it. I have only had time to briefly read some reviews (here’s one and here’s another) but they were all over the map afterwards with no one having a breakout performance or a ‘viral moment’ as the kids say these days. The views expressed seemed to be entirely predictable, with the only variation lying between extremist and utterly nuts. But one consensus was that Florida governor did not do anything to stop his slide in the polls.

Serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) did not take part despite desperate pleading from the Republican National Committee organizers of the debate. He has been angry with Fox News for whatever reason and he gave them the middle finger by having his interview with Tucker Carlson released at the same time as the first hour of the debate. The rambling interview seemed to be the same old whining and ranting.

Today SSAT will turn himself in to the Fulton County jail for processing and that will include a mug shot and other things that he was spared in his previous three occasions. There has apparently been keen interest in the betting markets on what his weight and height will be. There had been speculation that the numbers given by his White House physician had been shaded so that his BMI index would be just below the obese marker. That weight had been given as 244 lb but the betting over/under line today is 278.5 lb. There has also been speculation that SSAT uses lifts in his shoes to make him look taller and whether his height will be measured today without shoes, which would also increase his BMI.

So there may be at least one ‘big’ question answered today, unlike in yesterday’s debate or interview.

When thieves fall out, the prosecution wins

One of the tactics that prosecutors use against defendants is to try and pressure lpeople to testify against their bosses. If that fails, then they charge them with offenses and use that to pressure them to turn against one another in exchange for a favorable plea deal. This works particularly well against low-level people who may not have the resources to pay for expensive attorney and for whom the prospect of any jail time would be alarming. They may well wonder why they should take the fall for doing the bidding of others.

The Georgia case with its 18 defendants in addition to serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) provides plenty of opportunities for such negotiations and it looks like the process the process has already started.
[Read more…]

Two-tier health care in a post-Roe US

When the US Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade precedent, we knew that it would result in the red states proceeding to ban abortion in almost all instances, even in cases of rape or incest or when the life of the mother is in danger from the pregnancy. What may not have been anticipated is how wide ranging the ripple effects might be. We seem to be moving into a situation where we have two health care systems, one for the blue states and one for the red states, where the red states do not just not have access to abortion but also lose other services as well as lose people who can afford to move to other states.

Idaho is a good example of what is happening where small towns in red states are in danger of losing all obstetrics and gynecological services since physicians are worried that by providing medical care for problematic pregnancies, they may be laying themselves open to criminal prosecutions.
[Read more…]

The NFT racket

I was skeptical about cryptocurrency and was utterly baffled by the appeal of NFTs. The former seemed risky and the latter felt very much like a speculative bubble driven by hype in which the underlying entity being bought and sold had no intrinsic value. So I was not surprised by the collapse of various cryptocurrency endeavors like FTX and even less surprised by the recent lawsuit filed against Sotheby’s auction house, accusing them of fraud in inflating the value of the ugly Bored Ape BFT and using celebrities to hype it.
[Read more…]

Not the greatest idea in counter-programming

Serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) seems to take great pleasure in tormenting the Republican party, the very organization that he seeks to become the presidential nominee of. He refuses to commit to attending the first Republican National Committee (RNC) debate debate among the primary contenders to he held this coming Wednesday the 23rd from 9:00pm-11:00pm Eastern time on Fox News or whether, if he does decide to take part, whether he will sign the pledge to support the eventual nominee, whoever that is. At present, eight people have met the donor and polls threshold (Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Doug Burgum, SSAT, Mike Pence, and Chris Christie) and only the first five have signed the pledge. Late news has businessman Perry Johnson (who?) also qualifying for the debate.

It is clear that SSAT has nothing but contempt for the GOP as am independent political entity and thinks that he, as an individual, is the only one that matters and that the GOP’s role is to merely support him. He may well be right in that judgment.

There has been speculation that he will skip the debate but since he is loath to give up the spotlight, yesterday comes reports that he may agree to an interview with Tucker Carlson at the same time as the debate, as a form of counter-programming. Typically, he just drops this as a possibility, not really committing to it, and is likely to be ambivalent right up until almost the last moment, thus keeping everyone off-balance.
[Read more…]

The violence to come

As serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) becomes increasingly embroiled in legal troubles, he is lashing out more and more at the prosecutors who have brought indictments against him, the witnesses who have testified or will testify in the cases, and the judges overseeing the cases. It is therefore not surprising that some of his cult followers will see his rants as a call to take up arms on his behalf, such as this woman.

A Texas woman has been arrested and charged with threatening to kill the federal judge overseeing the criminal case against the former US president Donald Trump in Washington DC, and a member of Congress.

Abigail Jo Shry of Alvin, Texas, called the federal courthouse in Washington DC and left the threatening message, using a racist term for the US district judge Tanya Chutkan, on 5 August, court records allege. Investigators traced her phone number and she later admitted to making the threatening call, according to a criminal complaint.

In the call, Shry told told the judge, who is overseeing the election conspiracy case against Trump: “You are in our sights, we want to kill you,” according to the documents. Prosecutors allege Shry also said: “If Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you.” She also threatened to kill Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas Democrat representative running for mayor of Houston, according to court documents.

[Read more…]

Georgia on his mind?

Keeping score of all the criminal charges against serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) is not easy because there are so many of them. As of now, he has been indicted in four different jurisdictions (Washington DC, Manhattan, Miami, and Atlanta) by three different prosecutors (Jack Smith, Alvin Bragg, and Fani Willis) for a total of 91 criminal counts. SSAT has managed to evade consequences for his actions for all his life, mainly by lying, not putting down anything is writing, using verbal commands to get other people to do his bidding, and then buying their silence or threatening them.

But it seems unlikely that SSAT can sweep the board and be acquitted on all the 91 charges and he faces the real threat of going to prison. His best bet is to try and win back the presidency. If he does so, he can use the presidential pardon process to try to pardon himself. Whether he can do so is an untested issue and will surely be challenged in the courts. But even if it is found that he can, that can only be done for the federal offenses that have been brought by Smith. What he is more likely to do if he becomes president is to order his attorney general to drop the federal cases and you can be sure that he will only appoint an AG who will agree in advance to do that. That and any self-pardon should be impeachable offenses but the unprincipled Republicans in congress will do no such thing.
[Read more…]

Trump and 18 others indicted in Georgia

Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton county Georgia, has released the indictments issued by a grand jury against serial sexual abuser Donald Trump (SSAT). While the indictments had been long expected, I was startled by how wide and sweeping they were. In addition to SSAT, 18 others were indicted on 41 felony counts and Willis said that they would be tried together and were expected to voluntarily turn themselves in by Friday, August 25th at noon. She would like to hold the trial within six months. You can read the indictment here.

The named defendants are: SSAT, Rudolph Giuliani, John Eastman, Mark Meadows, Kenneth Chesebro, Jeffrey Clark, Jenna Ellis, Ray Stallings Smith III, Robert Cheeley, Michael a. Roman, David Shafer, Shawn Still, Stephen Lee, Harrison Floyd, Trevian c. Kutti, Sidney Powell, Cathleen Latham, Scott Hall, and Misty Hampton.

While eight of the names (SSAT, Giuliani, Eastman, Meadows, Chesebro, Clark, Ellis, Powell) are familiar to me, the rest are not. I suspect that they are members of the Georgia GOP. [UPDATE: This article has more on the people indicted.]

Every one of the defendants will be charged with one count of violating Georgia’s RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act that is usually used to go after organizied crime.

The act essentially allows prosecutors to link together different crimes committed by different people and bring criminal charges against a larger criminal enterprise. The law requires prosecutors to show the existence of a criminal enterprise that has committed at least two underlying crimes.

Prosecutors have long used the federal Rico act to go after the mafia. But Georgia’s version is even more expansive than the federal statute. It allows prosecutors in the state to bring racketeering charges if a defendant attempts or solicits a crime, even if they don’t bring charges for those crimes itself.

I expect that SSAT will be seething that he will be tried together with all the rest, including people who are relatively unknown, since he likely sees himself as special even when being charged with crimes. You can expect SSAT to go on a major rant in the coming days.

UPDATE:

This article has more on the people indicted as well as the others who are somehow involved.