Tuesday Open Thread

10 thoughts on “Tuesday Open Thread”

1. And to think that Epicurus lived in 300 B.C. The guy was clarvoyant regarding Evangelical views today.

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   1. I'm old enough to remember when Evangelicals were a religion and not a political party. 

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2. The Trump defense seems to be "The way Donald Trump runs organizations is in a way where we can never be sure of his intent. He hires shady people who are willing to put themselves at risk to carry out agreements that are verbal only. His record keeping is shoddy at best which makes accountability impossible causing fraud, waste and abuse of the money that goes into organizations he runs. Donald Trump is unwilling, and quite possible uncapable, of running an organization in a way that allows anyone to hold him accountable. This is why there's no solid proof that he commited a crime."

   This seems like a great criminal defense strategy and might just work. However it also should be used against him in the Presidential campaign along the lines of "Trump cannot be trusted to run the US government. Just look at how he runs his other organizations!"

   To be fair, this strategy will not affect the MAGAts who will vote Trump no matter what, but it might make a difference with others.

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   1. One telling element — how many members of Trump’s cabinet have endorsed him for 2024?  Time’s interview this spring had a note “[Editor’s note: Roughly half a dozen Trump cabinet members had endorsed him at the time of this interview.]” 

      In March, when VP Pence explicitly said he would NOT support Trump, the Washington Post said “Fewer than one-third of the more than 40 people who served in Cabinet roles under Trump have publicly aligned with him during the 2024 campaign.  While even fewer have publicly endorsed him….”

      According to Wikipedia’s running list, Cabinet-level officials from Trump’s Sad!-ministration who are endorsing Trump for 2024 are:

      • William Barr, U.S. Attorney General (2019–2020)
      • David Bernhardt, U.S. Secretary of the Interior (2019–2021)
      • Ben Carson, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (2017–2021)
      • Kelly Craft, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (2019–2021)
      • Nikki Haley, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (2017–2018), [pointedly avoided the word “endorse”]
      • Linda McMahon, Administrator of the Small Business Administration (2017–2019)
      • Steven Mnuchin, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury (2017–2021)
      • Mike Pompeo, U.S. Secretary of State (2018–2021) and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (2017–2018)
      • Wilbur Ross<, U.S. Secretary of Commerce (2017–2021)
      • Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (2019–2021) [I’m not certain OMB is a cabinet-level office}
      • Matthew Whitaker, Acting U.S. Attorney General (2018–2019)

       

      That’s 11 with some form of endorsement or support — and depending on who is counting “Cabinet-level” positions and whether “the Acting” are included or not, the number is at least 29 and could be as high as 44,

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      1. Today I learned that OMB reports directly to POTUS. It is not a Cabinet department.

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3. Whatever criminal defense strategy his attorneys push for, they must be uncertain that it will be accepted by his Orangeness. He has undercut an attorney or two in his day, I am told.

   PS…What would “solid proof” look like? The preponderance of evidence not enough here?

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   1. I was just paraphrasing the defense's argument. I was not making any judgment on the validity of the evidence.

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4. Former Trump attorney @JennaEllisEsq agrees to a three-year suspension of her Colorado law license for a felony guilty plea in Georgia for attempting to overturn the 2020 election results.

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   1. Let me guess.

      She still insists she did nothing wrong. She a victim of the atheistic secularists running the Deep State. YADDA YADDA YADDA  Big hoax!  Stop the steal! God forgives!  

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   2. The letter from Jenna Ellis, according to a Colorado Sun article,

      In a letter earlier this month to to the Colorado Supreme Court, Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel and the judge presiding over her disciplinary case, Ellis expressed regret.

      “In the beginning of my involvement I genuinely believed that the election challenges were made in good faith — basically a repeat of a Bush v. Gore situation, not an effort to undermine the public faith in the integrity of elections,” she wrote. “But I admit that I was overly zealous in believing the ‘facts’ being peddled to support the challenge, which were manufactured and false. Had I done my duty in investigating these alleged facts before promoting them as the truth, I do not believe I would be here. I turned a blind eye to the possibility that senior lawyers for the Trump campaign were embracing claims they knew or should have known were false. I just went along with it. I was wrong.”

      She added: “I will hopefully encourage others who may still believe that the election was ‘stolen’ to consider changing their position. Everything that has come out since has not proven that claim.”

      There is a possibility of assessing her action:  "To reinstate her law license at the end of the three-year suspension she will have to file a petition."

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