The Conversation -- August 28, 2023

Florida. Timothy Bella of the Washington Post (Aug. 23): "Black students at a Florida elementary school were singled out and pulled from class for an assembly about how it was a 'problem' that they had performed poorly on their standardized tests.... The incident drew outrage from parents and prompted an investigation by the school district. Only Black fourth- and fifth-grade students at Bunnell Elementary School in Flagler County, Fla., [between St. Augustine & Jacksonville] were taken out of class ... for the assembly on how to improve their grades -- even students who had passing grades. Students were selected to attend based on their race.... Black teachers showed the students a typo-laden PowerPoint presentation titled, 'AA Presentation,' which noted how Black students had underperformed on standardized tests for the past three years. On the slide titled 'The Problem,' the school district identified Black students as 'AA,' or African Americans, in its assessment of their low overall scores, according to the presentation obtained by The Post.... As an incentive [to improve their scores], the students were promised meals from McDonald's...." MB: What? McDonald's? Not fried chicken & watermelon? Thanks to RAS for the lead.

Devan Cole of CNN: "The federal judge overseeing Peter Navarro's contempt of Congress criminal case on Monday called his defense arguments 'pretty weak sauce.'... Navarro, Trump's one-time trade adviser, testified Monday in his defense during a key pre-trial hearing in his case. He's facing charges for defying subpoenas issued to him by the House select committee..., claiming he did so because Trump asserted executive privilege in the matter. But during the nearly three-hour hearing before US District Judge Amit P. Mehta in Washington, DC, the judge appeared highly skeptical of Navarro's testimony.... 'I still don't know what the president said,' Mehta told Navarro's attorney Stanley Woodward, referring to a February 20, 2022, call during which Navarro said it was made clear the former president was invoking executive privilege.... Navarro says Trump [commented] to him about regretting not letting him testify. The comment had been used by Navarro and his team to bolster their argument that Trump did invoke privilege because his subsequent regret indicated as much. 'The record is barren, there is nothing here, even after your client's testimony,' Mehta told Woodward."

Brett Samuels of the Hill: "Former President Trump and his campaign Monday lashed out at the federal judge overseeing his trial in Washington, D.C., over his efforts to subvert the 2020 election shortly after she scheduled his trial to begin for March. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan set Trump's D.C. trial for March 4 after special counsel Jack Smith's team asked for a Jan. 2 trial date. Trump's team suggested a trial date in April 2026, well beyond the presidential election. 'Today a biased, Trump Hating Judge gave me only a two month extension, just what our corrupt government wanted, SUPER TUESDAY. I will APPEAL!' Trump wrote on Truth Social, repeating his claim that his numerous legal problems amount to 'election interference' as he runs for a second White House term. Trump's team is likely to file motions and attempt to delay the trial, though the date itself cannot directly be appealed.... 'From setting a trial date for the day before "Super Tuesday" to sending a fundraising email the moment of President Trump's processing in Fulton County, the Biden regime is no longer hiding its nakedly political motivations,' [a campaign] statement said." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Maybe the "campaign" didn't notice that the Trump campaign sent out at least one "fundraising email the moment of President Trump's processing in Fulton County" and that it continues to try to fundraise off Trump's indictment & mugshot.

Ryan Nobles & Dara Gregorian of NBC News: "... Donald Trump criticized special counsel Jack Smith's office after a report that a member of Smith's team had a pre-indictment meeting at the White House earlier this year -- but a source told NBC News the meeting was with a career White House staffer and not, as Trump claims, a sitdown to get Biden administration approval for criminal charges. 'It has just been reported that aides to TRUMP prosecutor, Deranged Jack Smith, met with high officials at the White House just prior to these political SleazeBags Indicating me OVER NOTHING,' Trump wrote Monday on his social media platform.... 'If this is so, which it is, that means that Biden and his Fascist Thugs knew and APPROVED of this Country dividing Form of Election Interference, despite their insisting that they "knew nothing,"' Trump added. Trump was referring to a New York Post report on Saturday that said Jay Bratt, the Justice Department's top counterintelligence official, had a meeting at the White House on March 31 with Caroline Saba, who was then deputy chief of staff for the White House Counsel's office. They were also joined by an FBI field agent, the report said.... A source directly familiar with the meeting told NBC News that Saba had facilitated a meeting between Bratt -- a key investigator in the documents case -- and a career White House official who was in the same position in the Trump administration as well."

It Was Just a Christmas Vacation! The Washington Post's live updates of the Trump trials are here: "At a ... hearing in Atlanta, Trump's former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has been testifying for hours about Trump's efforts to reverse Joe Biden's victory in Georgia; the purpose of that hearing is to see if Meadows can move his state-level indictment to federal court....Meadows was repeatedly pressed by prosecutors on why he visited a suburban Atlanta facility where Georgia officials were auditing ballot signatures. Meadows insisted he traveled there on his own volition as a chief of staff because he was already in Georgia visiting his two children for Christmas.... Meadows insisted it did not cross the line into campaign or political work for the Trump campaign and said he only communicated with Trump and White House lawyers about it....

"Meadows claimed that Donald Trump's effort to find fraud in the 2020 election took a small fraction of Meadows's time, with many other enormous tasks on his plate.... Meadows also said a large part of his job as White House chief of staff was setting up phone calls and managing the president's calendar. He said he attended numerous meetings and listened in on many phone calls that were political in nature simply to end the conversations a the right time....

"On several occasions, Mark Meadows claimed to have no knowledge of the Trump campaign's efforts to contest the election results. On Donald Trump's phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, on Jan. 2, 2021, which Meadows participated in, he said he did not know that three lawyers on the call -- Cleta Mitchell, Kurt Hilbert and Alex Kaufman -- had participated in a campaign lawsuit against Raffensperger.... When questioned about an Oval Office meeting he attended with Trump and Michigan state lawmakers, Meadows said he didn't know that the campaign was contesting the results in that state." MB: Totally believable. You testify for three hours that you have to know everything, you testify that the only reason you went to a signature verification audit near Atlanta was that you read about it in the papers. Yet you had no idea Trump & Co. had filed some 60 lawsuits & taken other actions contesting swing-state results in an effort to overturn the election. ~~~

     ~~~ From Monday's CNN liveblog: "The all-day hearing on former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows' request to move the Georgia election interference case to federal court in Atlanta has concluded. US District Judge Steve Jones did not rule from the bench on Monday. He acknowledged that arraignments in the criminal case were scheduled for September 6, and said he would rule as quickly as possible....

"Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has taken the stand in Mark Meadows' court hearing. He was called as a witness by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.... Before his testimony concluded, Raffensperger testified that he believed his January 2021 call with Donald Trump was held on behalf of Trump's campaign -- undercutting Meadows' argument that it was part of his role as a federal official.

"Mark Meadows testified Monday that ... Donald Trump's January 2021 phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was Meadows' attempt to resolve Trump's concerns about voter fraud and 'land the plane' on the 'whole transfer of power. to Joe Biden. Trump's concerns about voter fraud were a 'roadblock' to the transfer of power, Meadows said. Therefore, Meadows said he tried to get this off the former president's list of concerns by getting on the phone with Raffensperger.... [Meadows] was on the stand for roughly 3 1/2 hours....

"Meadows denied one of the allegations in the indictment, saying he 'did not ask' Trump White House aide John McEntee to write a memo about how to disrupt the certification of the election on January 6, 2021. Meadows was pressed by prosecutors on how the federal government had a role in a state's determination of its election results. 'There is a role for the chief of staff to make sure those campaign goals and objectives are implemented at the federal level,' Meadows testified."

Judge Picks World Obesity Day, Super Tuesday Eve for Trump Trial. From a CNN liveblog on the trials of Trump: "... Donald Trump will go to trial in March 4, 2024, on charges alleging he worked to overturn the 2020 presidential election, federal Judge Tanya Chutkan said Monday." MB: That's all there is. I'll get up a full story soon. P.S. Thanks to Forrest M. for the obesity thing. Update: Here we go: ~~~

~~~ Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "The federal judge overseeing ... Donald J. Trump's prosecution on charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election set a trial date on Friday for early March, laying out a schedule that was close to the government's initial request of January and that rebuffed Mr. Trump's extraordinary proposal to push off the proceeding until nearly a year and half after the 2024 election. The decision by Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, issued at a contentious hearing in Federal District Court in Washington, to start the trial on March 4 potentially brought it into conflict with two other trials that Mr. Trump is facing that month. The district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., has proposed taking Mr. Trump to trial on charges of tampering with the election in that state on the same day. A second trial in Manhattan, in which Mr. Trump has been accused of more than 30 felonies connected to hush-money payments to a porn actress in the run-up the 2016 election, is set to go to trial on March 25. While Judge Chutkan noted that she had already spoken to the judge in the Manhattan case, the fact that three of the four criminal cases confronting Mr. Trump could go before separate juries in separate cities within weeks of one another reflects the extraordinary nature of the former president's legal situation....

"In remarks from the bench, Judge Chutkan ... played down arguments made by Mr. Trump's lawyers that they needed until April 2026 to prepare for the trial given the voluminous amount of discovery they will have to sort through. The judge also noted that ... she was not going to let the intersection of his legal troubles and his political campaign get in the way of setting a date. Mr. Trump, like any defendant, will have to make the trial date work regardless of his schedule,' Judge Chutkan said, adding that 'there is a societal interest to a speedy trial.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Also from the CNN liveblog: "Federal prosecutor Molly Gaston said during Monday's hearing in Washington, DC, that it was important to take the special counsel's election subversion case against ... Donald Trump to trial as soon as possible in part because of Trump's social media posts. 'On a near daily basis, the defendant posts on social media about this case,' Gaston said. Gaston also sought to use some of Trump's attorney John Lauro's own public statements in her arguments. Despite his complaints earlier in the hearing about the time it would take to go through the material, Lauro previously called the prosecution a 'regurgitation' of the House select committee's investigation in an interview after the indictment was first unsealed." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Reporters on MSNBC say Judge Chutkan repeatedly asked Lauro to propose a date more reasonable than 2026 and he refused to do so. Lauro also made his arguments in such an excited manner that Judge Chutkan twice told him to "take the temperature down."

MEANWHILE, in Georgia: From the CNN liveblog: "Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is fleshing out how his daily activities were all part of his role as chief of staff -- a crucial point that his' legal team is trying to argue to show his post-2020 election activities were part of his official duties. 'I would get invited to almost every meeting that the president had,' Meadows testified in Monday's Georgia hearing.... Meadows said that, at times, he was a principal player in the meetings, while other times he was more of an observer.... 'There was a political component to certainly everything we did,' he said."

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     ~~~ Here's the full transcript of Dr. King's speech, via NPR. Here's the full audio:

Charles Kaiser of the Guardian on the March on Washington: "One hundred years after the civil war, the treatment of African Americans persisted as a gaping wound in the purported land of the free. Then, suddenly in the 1960s, the bleeding from lynchings, bombings, beatings and shootings finally had a seismic effect. It galvanized the noble group who made the 60s so electric: the nimble, passionate and utterly fearless Black and white citizens who banded together to rescue America's soul."

President Joe Biden in a Washington Post op-ed: "Sixty years ago, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and hundreds of thousands of fellow Americans marched on Washington for jobs and freedom. In describing his dream for us all, Dr. King spoke of redeeming the 'promissory note to which every American was to fall heir' derived from the very idea of America -- we are all created equal and deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives.... Each day of the Biden-Harris administration, we continue the march forward. That includes a fundamental break with trickle-down economics that promised prosperity but failed America, especially Black Americans, over the past several decades.... Vice President Harris and I came into office determined to change the economic direction of the country and grow the economy from the middle out and bottom up, not the top down. Our plan -- Bidenomics -- is working.... Black unemployment fell to a historic low this spring and remains near that level."

David Lynch of the Washington Post: "President Biden ... continues a remarkable break with decades of trade policy that spanned both Republican and Democratic administrations. Blending a tough-on-China stance with lavish federal subsidies for favored industries, the president is reshaping the U.S. approach to cross-border commerce to focus on the needs of Americans as workers rather than consumers. Left out of the president's strategy, to the irritation of many business groups, have been traditional trade deals, which gave American companies greater access to foreign markets in return for allowing producers in those countries to sell more goods in the United States. The White House says the old approach cost many American factory workers their jobs. The president, who counts labor unions among his strongest supporters, surprised some in the business community by retaining Donald Trump's tariffs on Chinese imports after criticizing them during the 2020 campaign as 'erratic' and 'self-defeating.'... Biden's approach rejects the trade liberalization doctrine that held sway for nearly three decades after the Cold War's end."

The Trials of Trump

Perry Stein & Devlin Barrett of the Washington Post: "Pretrial jousting is now officially underway in all four of [Donald] Trump's criminal cases -- a packed schedule of court dates that will play out uneasily alongside his campaign activities as the front-runner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary race.... To help you keep track, here is a recap of what happened with the various cases last week, and what to watch for in the week ahead[.]" ~~~

~~~ Stephen Collinson of CNN: "Americans are about to learn significant new details on the timing and the substance of the trials of Donald Trump.... Two key hearings on Monday -- one in Georgia and one in Washington -- will take the drama over Trump's quadruple criminal indictments into a new phase, following the extraordinary scenes and political maneuvering that culminated in the release of Trump's booking mug shot last week. In Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis will sketch the first substantive evidentiary arguments in any of the cases facing Trump in a hearing on ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows' bid to get his state case moved to federal court.... At the same time in Washington, Judge Tanya Chutkan will hold a status hearing to consider dueling arguments by special counsel Jack Smith and Trump's defense team over the date for a trial in the federal investigation into Trump's alleged attempt to prevent now-President Joe Biden from taking office. Smith wants the trial to begin January 2 -- two weeks before Trump's first big test in the 2024 primary race in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses. The ex-president's team has asked for much more time, and is proposing a date of April 2026." ~~~

~~~ Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Donald Trump's path to the GOP nomination is littered with court dates. He is a defendant in seven pending cases: four criminal prosecutions and three civil lawsuits. Starting this fall and continuing through the first half of 2024, he is likely to face a near-constant string of trials that will overlap, and perhaps overshadow, the primary calendar.... He is unlikely to attend his three civil trials, all of which are scheduled over the next six months. But he'll be required to be in court for his four criminal trials across four jurisdictions, and those could last for weeks at a time while voting is underway.... Here's a look at what we know about Trump's upcoming trials, the key variables that could shake them up and how they will intersect with the primaries, which begin in January."

Tal Axelrod of ABC News: "The most recent ABC News/Ipsos poll, conducted Aug. 15-17, showed some problems for ... Donald Trump in terms of public opinion on his mounting criminal charges amid his comeback bid for the White House. The poll, released after his fourth indictment, over efforts to reverse his 2020 loss in Georgia, shows that he's not getting the post-indictment bounce with Americans that he's been touting on the campaign trail."

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Florida. Aaron Morrison & Russ Bynum of the AP: "Hundreds of people gathered Sunday at prayer vigils and in church, in frustration and exhaustion, to mourn yet another racist attack in America: this one the killing of three Black people in Florida at the hands of a white, 21-year-old man who authorities say left behind white supremacist ramblings that read like 'the diary of a madman.' Following services earlier in the day, about 200 people showed up at a Sunday evening vigil a block from the Dollar General store in Jacksonville where officials said Ryan Palmeter opened fire Saturday using guns he bought legally despite a past involuntary commitment for a mental health exam. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis..., who has loosened gun laws in Florida and who has antagonized civil rights leaders by deriding 'wokeness' -- was loudly booed as he addressed the vigil." ~~~

~~~ President Joe Biden, in a statement, via the White House: "On Saturday, our nation marked the 60^th Anniversary of the March on Washington -- a seminal moment in our history and in our work towards equal opportunity for all Americans. But this day of remembrance and commemoration ended with yet another American community wounded by an act of gun violence, reportedly fueled by hate-filled animus and carried out with two firearms.... We must refuse to live in a country where Black families going to the store or Black students going to school live in fear of being gunned down because of the color of their skin....Silence is complicity and we must not remain silent."

News Ledes

AP: "Tropical Storm Idalia was near the coast of Cuba Sunday on a potential track to come ashore as a hurricane in the southern U.S., the National Hurricane Center said. At 10 p.m. CDT Sunday, the storm was about 145 miles (235 kilometers) off the western tip of Cuba with maximum sustained winds of 60 mph (95 kmh). The storm was stationary at the time, the hurricane center said.... Forecasters said they expected Idalia to become a hurricane on Tuesday in the Gulf of Mexico and then curve northeast toward the west coast of Florida."~~~

~~~ Weather.com Update: "T​ropical Storm Idalia may rapidly intensify into a major hurricane by the time it makes landfall in Florida on Wednesday. Life-threatening storm surge, damaging winds and flooding rain are all expected in parts of Florida later Tuesday through Wednesday, spreading to the Southeast coast by Wednesday and Thursday. If you live in an area prone to storm surge, be sure to follow the advice of local officials if evacuations are ordered. The latest on evacuations for Idalia can be found here."

New York Times: "An assailant fatally shot a faculty member in a laboratory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Monday, forcing the campus into lockdown for several hours as students barricaded themselves in classrooms, dorms and bathrooms, the authorities said. Brian James, chief of the U.N.C. Police, said at a news conference on Monday evening that a suspect was taken into custody at 2:31 p.m., about 90 minutes after the police received a 911 call reporting that shots had been fired at Caudill Labs, a science building on campus. He did not name the suspect, saying that formal charges had not been filed. Chief James and Kevin M. Guskiewicz, chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, did not name the faculty member who was killed, saying that relatives were still being notified. The police are continuing to investigate the killing and have not identified a motive or recovered the weapon that was used, the chief said. He declined to discuss what relationship, if any, the faculty member and the assailant might have had." An AP story is here.

The Conversation -- August 27, 2023

Fox "News" personality Jessica Tarlov of the Fox show "The Five" gave Fox viewers a taste of reality Friday. Stephanie Kaloi of the Wrap: Tarlov responded to a comment from her co-host Will Cain who opined that Donald Trump's mugshot was like Martin Luther King, Jr.'s. After pointing out that the reasons for Trump's and King's arrests were completely different, Tarlov turned her attention to "the many indictments that the former president still faces.... 'This wasn't Joy Reid and Rachel Maddow sitting there. It was regular people's most loyal base of voters continues to support him, the 'average American' doesn't seem to be a fan. As she noted, recent polling indicates that '62% [of Americans] think he committed a crime, including 67% of independents. 61% think that he must stand trial before the election.'... [When Cain said the public was concerned about a two-tiered system of justice,] Tarlov fired back, 'I don't think when they think of a two-tiered system of justice, they think of a white billionaire who tried to overthrow the election.'"

Russia. AP: "Russian authorities on Sunday confirmed the death of Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, putting to rest any doubts about whether the wily mercenary leader turned mutineer was on a plane that crashed Wednesday, killing everyone on board. Genetic testing on the 10 bodies recovered at the crash site 'conform to the manifest' for the flight, Russian Investigative Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said in a statement. Russia's civil aviation authority had said Prigozhin and some of his top lieutenants were on the list of seven passengers and three crew members. The Investigative Committee did not indicate what might have caused the business jet to plummet from the sky halfway between Moscow and St. Petersburg, Prigozhin's hometown." The Washington Post's story is here.

Marie: I think I've linked a couple of stories that related Stupid Things Trump Said to TuKKKer during the GOP "debate," but to cover the whole fascinating interview in two minutes, RAS found this: ~~~

This is an annotated version of Tucker Carlson's interview with Donald J. Trump on the night of the first GOP Presidential debate. It's Trump without Trump. You won't have to listen to his voice. I break it down in 2 minutes. Trump was all over the place for this one. 🤔 pic.twitter.com/lZsMF8hOk6

— Decoding Fox News (@DecodingFoxNews) August 26, 2023

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Aaron Morrison & Ayanna Alexander of the AP: "Thousands converged Saturday on the National Mall for the 60th anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington, saying a country that remains riven by racial inequality has yet to fulfill his dream.... A host of Black civil rights leaders and a multiracial, interfaith coalition of allies rallied attendees on the same spot where as many as 250,000 gathered in 1963 for what is still considered one of the greatest and most consequential racial justice and equality demonstrations in U.S. history."

Trump Family Crime Blotter

Indictments Are Breaking Up That Old Gang of Trump's. Richard Fausset & Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "Even as ... Donald J. Trump and his 18 co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case turned themselves in one by one at an Atlanta jail this week, their lawyers began working to change how the case will play out. They are already at odds over when they will have their day in court, but also, crucially, where. Should enough of them succeed, the case could split into several smaller cases, perhaps overseen by different judges in different courtrooms, running on different timelines.... All [of the defendants] bring their own agendas, financial concerns and opinions about their chances at trial."

[Donald Trump] has not learned yet that ... three people you don't want to throw into the bus like that: your lawyer, your doctor and your mechanic. Because one way or the other, you're gonna go down the hill and there'll be no brakes. -- Michael Cohen, former Trump lawyer who found himself under the wheels of the Trumpmobile ~~~

~~~ Tom Sullivan of Hullabaloo: "Alleged coup plotters, election subverters, and concealers of classified documents now find themselves under state and federal indictment. After doing the bidding of ... Donald Trump they risk not just jail for themselves and ruined reputations, but also financial ruin for their families.... Trump co-defendants Jenna Ellis (former Trump lawyer), Cathy Latham (former Republican Party chair of Coffee County, Georgia), John Eastman (former Trump lawyer), and Jeffrey Clark (former Department of Justice official) have all launched crowd-funding appeals to pay for their defense. Their piles are less than yooge. Former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani is so short on cash for his defense that his son is organizing fundraiser dinners[.]... Co-defendant Harrison Floyd remains behind bars after a judge denied bail, Reuters reports: 'Harrison Floyd said at his first court appearance that he could not afford a private lawyer and had been denied representation by a public defender because he did not qualify....' [Judge Emily] Richardson denied Floyd bail because he is accused in a separate case in Maryland of assaulting an FBI agent who tried to serve him with a subpoena. She considers him a flight risk."

Jeremy Bailey of the Wrap: Social media users compared Donald Trump's mugshot to Stanley's Kubrick's maniacal characters: "Trump as jail bird joins a photo montage of villains from three of Kubrick's Warner Bros. classics -- Malcolm McDowell as Alex in 1971's 'A Clockwork Orange,' Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance in 1980's 'The Shining' and Vincent D'Onofrio as Private Pyle in 1987's 'Full Metal Jacket.'" ~~~

"The Kubrick Stare" is one of director Stanley Kubrick's most recognizable directorial techniques. A method of shot composition where a character stares at the camera with a forward tilt, to convey to the audience that they are at the peak of their derangement pic.twitter.com/qd2XWc3oHU

— Cry-Baby Chloe 🦋 (@ChloeNumberIII) August 25, 2023

     ~~~ Marie: I have seen only one of the three films Chloe cited -- "The Shining" -- but my first visceral reaction to the Trump mugshot was, "Jesus, he's doing Jack Nicholson."

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times: "If there were any justice in the world, Donald Trump would have taken the Mug Shot of Dorian Gray. It should have shown Trump's corroding soul rather than his truculent face.... Trump has long felt that squinting or scowling is a good look for him.... Thursday night was performative for Trump: sweeping in with his private jet and giant motorcade that screamed two-tiered justice system, with law enforcement clearing the Atlanta streets, like centurions clearing the way for Caesar." (Also linked yesterday.)

Jen Psaki, in an MSNBC opinion piece, writes that Trump's promotion of his lovely mugshot will backfire. "He thinks this is a political winner for him. But as New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu told me in an interview that airs Sunday, 'independents hate it.'... It is hard to imagine that this image, of Trump scowling into the police camera, will make him more appealing to anyone who is not already a hardcore supporter."

See also yesterday's Comments thread for thoughts on the mugshot seen 'round the world. Patrick, for instance, pointed out that Trump seems to think that scowling into the camera makes him seem Churchillian. And Akhilleus noted that not only did Trump just claim he didn't know what "mugshot" means, last month Trump also claimed he didn't know what a subpoena was. According to Wikipedia, "From the 1980s until he was elected president in 2016, Donald Trump and his businesses were involved in over 4,000 legal cases in U.S. federal and state courts, including battles with casino patrons, million-dollar real estate lawsuits, personal defamation lawsuits, and over 100 business tax disputes." That means he and his businesses have received or issued more than 4,000 subpoenas over the years. I suppose the point of Trump's ridiculous claims of ignorance is to show that he is an innocent naif so unfamiliar with the justice system that he doesn't have even a passing knowledge of universally-known tools of the system.

MEANWHILE. Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "Donald Trump has turned his Georgia mugshot into a record-breaking fundraising haul. The former president has raised $7.1 million since he was booked at an Atlanta jail Thursday evening, according to figures provided first to Politico by his campaign. On Friday alone, Trump raised $4.18 million, making it the single-highest 24-hour period of his campaign to date, according to a person familiar with the totals. The campaign's fundraising has been powered by merchandise it has been selling through his online store."

Jack Shafer of Politico, in Politico Magazine, argues that [Donald] Trump's return to Twitter-currently-trying-to-be-known-as-X will prove he can never go home again. "Trump's [X-Twitter] post [of his mugshot], essentially concedes that his plan to build his own social media empire under the Truth Social banner is a bust.... But no man ever steps in the same river twice -- it's not the same river, and he's not the same man, as the sage said.... Thanks to inertia, changing technology, fickle tastes and Musk's determination to wreck it, the site has lost its cachet.... Trump became a Twitter star by two means. The first was the novelty of a presidential candidate popping off like a sloppy drunk at closing time.... [The second -- I guess, Shafer isn't clear -- is that journalists dutifully copied down & reported on Trump's tweets.] It's not the same press corps that transmuted his tweets into news stories back. They learned a lesson." (Also linked yesterday.)

Presidential Race 2024

A Bold Slogan Mocks Cowardly Candidates. Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "The word 'DEMOCRACY' was emblazoned in all-capital letters on the back wall of the stage at the Republican presidential debate ... on Wednesday, a seeming reminder of what is at stake in the 2024 election. Yet during two hours of bickering and disagreement among the eight participating candidates, the topic was never seriously addressed.... Perhaps it is no surprise that the party led by [Donald] Trump and those allied with it are uneasy about discussing the issue.... That the state of democracy and the threats Trump poses remain relevant was underscored by comments the former president made during ... his counterprogramming interview with Tucker Carlson.... He declined to condemn [political violence] outright or call for calm in the upcoming election and the trials he might face during the election year. 'There's a level of passion that I've never seen,' he said. 'There's a level of hatred that I've never seen. And that's probably a bad combination.'... He called [January 6, 2021,] a day of 'love and unity,' saying, 'People in that crowd said it was the most beautiful day they ever experienced.' He claimed the events of the day were not reported 'properly' by the media."

Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: on the first GOP "debate": "... the issue wasn't just that Trump was unavoidable; it was that none of the other candidates had much to say for themselves.... Trump's absence underscored the extent to which he is the only Republican of national stature with the political chops to appeal to Republican voters as well as a considerable chunk of the American electorate."

Several days ago, contributor RAS linked to a piece by Radley Balko in which Balko listed a number of very good questions that the Fox "News" moderators should have asked of those very flimsy candidates for president*. I don't expect the candidates would have come up with satisfactory answers, but that's the point.

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Kansas. Jonathan O'Connell, et al., of the Washington Post tell the story of the police raid on the Marion County Record and how small-town animosities led to an extraordinary -- and likely unconstitutional -- police action against a newspaper. The story gained international attention and condemnation from many free-press advocates. MB: One thing I find odd: the immediate catalyst for the raid was a local luminary's public -- but probably bogus -- assertion that the Record had unlawfully obtained information about her 15-year-old DUI conviction. The Record did not publish a story about the woman's DUI. Yet the article never mentions, as it explores the motivations other folks to act as they did, that the judge who issued the search warrant "was arrested at least twice for driving under the influence," according to NPR and other news outlets, including the Wichita Eagle. It certainly seems to me that this is a case of judging under the influence of the judge's own experience as a drunk driver. This appears to be a highly relevant element of the overall dynamic, and the Post reporters never mention how the judge's personal bias may have colored her decision to approve a questionable warrant. Meanwhile, if you think small-town life is the American ideal, this story will cause you to think again.

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Russia. Brutal Strongman v. Brutal Strongman. Robyn Dixon of the Washington Post: "Russians mourning the presumed death of Wagner chief Yevgeniy Prigozhin have set up makeshift memorials in nearly two dozen cities across Russia and occupied Ukraine in recent days, a sign of the commander's lingering popularity and potential challenge for President Vladimir Putin amid divisions within the elite and in the military over the conduct of the war.... The memorials ... showed Prigozhin's support across Russia in hard line pro-war circles, and highlighted the Kremlin's delicate task of managing potential anger among his supporters, with many in Russia's elite convinced Prigozhin's presumed death was an assassination ordered by the Kremlin." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The cult of Prigozhin is a reminder that Trumpbot delusion is not unique. I saw a CNN story in which Prigozhin fans were laying memorial flowers. One middle-aged woman told the reporter, "Russia needs another Stalin." It would seems there are millions and millions of people who have determined that it's better to have a dictator telling you what to do than to think for yourself about the messy problems humans face.

News Lede

AP: "A United States Marine Corps aircraft with 23 Marines aboard crashed on a north Australian island Sunday, killing at least three and critically injuring at least five during a multinational training exercise, officials said. Three had been confirmed dead on Melville Island and five were flown in serious condition 80 kilometers (50 miles) to the mainland city of Darwin for hospital treatment after the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey aircraft crashed around 9:30 a.m., a statement from the Marines said."

The Conversation -- August 26, 2023

Jack Shafer of Politico, in Politico Magazine, argues that [Donald] Trump's return to Twitter-currently-trying-to-be-known-as-X will prove he can never go home again. "Trump's [X-Twitter] post [of his mugshot], essentially concedes that his plan to build his own social media empire under the Truth Social banner is a bust.... But no man ever steps in the same river twice -- it's not the same river, and he's not the same man, as the sage said.... Thanks to inertia, changing technology, fickle tastes and Musk's determination to wreck it, the site has lost its cachet.... Trump became a Twitter star by two means. The first was the novelty of a presidential candidate popping off like a sloppy drunk at closing time.... [The second -- I guess, Shafer isn't clear -- is that journalists dutifully copied down & reported on Trump's tweets.] It's not the same press corps that transmuted his tweets into news stories back. They learned a lesson."

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times: "If there were any justice in the world, Donald Trump would have taken the Mug Shot of Dorian Gray. It should have shown Trump's corroding soul rather than his truculent face.... ... Trump has long felt that squinting or scowling is a good look for him.... Thursday night was performative for Trump: sweeping in with his private jet and giant motorcade that screamed two-tiered justice system, with law enforcement clearing the Atlanta streets, like centurions clearing the way for Caesar."

~~~~~~~~~~

Trump Family Crime Blotter

Inmate No. P01135809

Alex Gangitano of the Hill: "President Biden on Friday chimed in on former President Trump's mug shot.... When asked about the mug shot, Biden told reporters, 'I did see it on television. Handsome guy.'... Biden spoke to reporters while on vacation in Lake Tahoe, Nev." MB: Biden was smiling broadly when he weighed in on Trump's good looks.

Jennifer Behney of Mediaite: In a NewsMax interview Thursday night, Donald Trump said his booking in the Fulton County jail was a &"terrible experience." "'I came in, I was treated very nicely. But, it is what it is; I took a mugshot, which, I'd never heard the words "mug shot." They didn't teach me that at the Wharton School of Finance,' Trump said before railing about what he called 'election interference' by a 'radical-left district attorney.'" MB: So here's Trump, Leader of the People, portraying himself as superior to them. He's treated very nicely, implicitly because he's better than the usual inmate who would get roughed up or maybe even killed at the Fulton County Jail. He's never heard of mugshots because people in his rarefied circle have no occasion to discuss or even read about such things. He had a very fine education -- where professors are fastidiously silent on the travails of the "other" -- because he's a very fine person. Oh, and he showed up in Atlanta in his own jet plane and traveled to & from the jail with an entourage & an escort of maybe 100 law enforcement officers. I'm still waiting to learn how that happened.

Richard Fausset of the New York Times: "As of late Friday morning, all 19 defendants in the state election interference case involving ... Donald J. Trump had turned themselves in. Jeffrey A. Clark, the former high-ranking Justice Department official..., was booked at the Fulton County Jail early on Friday, a few hours after the former president's dramatic booking at the same Atlanta facility.... The last two defendants in the case, Trevian C. Kutti and Steven C. Lee, surrendered on Friday morning before noon, the deadline the Fulton County district attorney, Fani T. Willis, had set for them to appear at the jail before she would start to issue arrest warrants. All but one of the 19 defendants negotiated bail agreements with prosecutors ahead of time, and were released immediately after being processed at the jail. The one defendant [Harrison Floyd] who did not do so was still being held at the jail on Friday." (Also linked yesterday.)

Michael Conway, a House Judiciary Committee counsel during the Watergate investigation, in an MSNBC opinion piece: "... the felony charges against little-known Georgia residents [Scott] Hall, Cathy Latham and Misty Hampton -- who have been charged with conspiracy to commit election fraud, computer fraud, illegal access to voting machines and invasion of privacy -- reveal the extent of the Trump campaign's effort to overturn the election. Their brazen intrusion and the futility of their efforts recall ... the hapless criminal conduct of the White House's so-called Plumbers[, which] was a major element of the Watergate scandal that led to President Richard Nixon's resignation. Both Nixon's Plumbers and the Coffee County Three tried to seize sensitive information.... And it was the need to subsequently hide the existence of the Plumbers -- whose members, [Gordon] Liddy and [Howard] Hunt, oversaw the burglary -- that was a key factor in the Watergate cover-up.... The Trump loyalists who breached the voting machines in Coffee County, Georgia, made little effort to conceal their activities.... Just as the rule of law punished the guilty almost five decades ago, the prosecutions of those who broke the law to do Trump's bidding must succeed in order to preserve our democracy."

Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Attorney John Eastman, an architect of Donald Trump's last-ditch bid to subvert the 2020 election, may not postpone his ongoing disbarment hearings just because he's been indicted in Georgia, a California judge ruled Friday. Yvette Roland, a judge on the California State Bar Court, said Eastman had effectively waived any rights against self-incrimination by taking the stand in his disbarment proceedings in June -- even though he knew he could be indicted in either Washington, D.C., or Georgia."

MEANWHILE, in Arizona. Alex Henderson of Alternet: Rolling Stone reports, "'Investigators assigned ... by Arizona's Democratic attorney general Kris Mayes have recently asked potential witnesses and other individuals specific questions not only about [Rudy] Giuliani's behind-the-scenes [post-election activity], but that of other key Trump lieutenants at the time, as well.... Prosecutors appear particularly interested in a number of notable meetings and phone calls, including a late November 2020 meeting with members of Arizona's state legislature convened by the Trump legal team, which aired bogus claims of voter fraud and lobbied lawmakers to "take over" the state's selection of electors, the sources say.'... [Rolling Stone reporters Adam] Rawnsley and [Asawin] Suebsaeng report that Arizona investigators, sources say, 'have also at times inquired about [Donald] Trump's level of personal involvement in' the 'Arizona-focused pressure campaign....'"

Darlene Superville of the AP: "President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will observe Monday's 60th anniversary of the March on Washington by meeting with organizers of the 1963 gathering and relatives of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who delivered his 'I Have a Dream' speech at the Lincoln Memorial. The Oval Office meeting will be held six decades after President John F. Kennedy and King met at the White House on the morning of the march on Aug. 28, 1963.... Biden also will speak later Monday at a White House reception commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a nonpartisan, nonprofit legal organization that was established at Kennedy's request to help advocate for racial justice.... Black civil rights leaders and a multiracial, interfaith coalition of allies will gather in Washington on Saturday to mark six decades since the first march."

More Trouble in Winger World. Natalie Allison of Politico: "The vice chair of the Conservative Political Action Coalition has resigned from his longtime position on the organization's board and is calling for investigations into the group's top leader and its financial practices, among other issues. Charlie Gerow, an attorney and communications executive who has served on the board of CPAC and its parent organization, the American Conservative Union, for nearly two decades, submitted his letter of resignation on Friday.... Gerow's resignation follows months of turbulence at the prominent conservative organization, where Chair Matt Schlapp earlier this year was sued by a former Herschel Walker Senate campaign staffer over allegations of sexual assault. Board member and treasurer Bob Beauprez resigned from his position in May, citing concerns over the organization's financial reports, while Randy Neugebauer and Mike Rose also stepped down from the board earlier this year."

Matthew Chapman of the Raw Story: "Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) could face new corruption charges as prosecutors meet with lawyers to weigh a decision, reported the Wall Street Journal on Friday. According to the report, prosecutors are looking into whether he or his wife Nadine Arslanian sold political favors in exchange for gifts. They are also investigating how a New Jersey businessman became the sole certifier of Halal meat exported from the United States to Egypt one month after a meeting with Menendez. A report earlier this summer found that another person caught up in the probe, real estate magnate Fred Daibes, has ties to the mob."

Presidential Race 2024

Hannah Demissie & Laura Gersony of ABC News: "... over the past few weeks a growing body of conservative scholars have raised the constitutional argument that [Donald] Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election make him ineligible to hold federal office ever again ... [under] Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment.... On Tuesday, Bryant 'Corky' Messner, a lawyer who lives in New Hampshire, became the first person to announce concrete plans to ... keep Trump off the ballot.... New Hampshire's Secretary of State Office confirmed to ABC News that Messner met with Secretary of State David Scanlan Friday to discuss Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. 'Secretary Scanlan will be conferring with the New Hampshire Attorney General and other legal counsel on this issue; however, he believes any action taken under this Constitutional provision will have to be based on Judicial guidance,' Anna Sventek, communications director for Scanlan, told ABC News...." Two public advocacy organizations, CREW & Free Speech for People, also say they are pursuing efforts to keep Trump off state ballots.

Lisa Lerer & Nicholas Nehamas of the New York Times: Ron DeSantis is using an unverifiable story of a botched abortion that was supposed to have taken place in 1955 as his rationale for draconian anti-abortion laws. MB: That's pretty odd. There have been numerous verified stories about botched state-run executions, yet this year DeSantis made it easier to impose the death penalty.

News Lede

AP: "Multiple people were fatally shot Saturday inside a Jacksonville, Florida, Dollar General store, the city's mayor has told a television station. Mayor Donna Deegan told WJXT 'there are a number of fatalities' inside the store but didn't give a precise number." MB: Officials have released very little information about the shootings. ~~~

     ~~~ The story has been updated. New Lede: "A white man fatally shot three people inside a Jacksonville, Florida, Dollar General store on Saturday in a predominately Black neighborhood in an attack that the local sheriff called 'racially motivated.' The shooter then killed himself. 'He hated black people,' Sheriff T.K. Waters told a news conference. 'There is absolutely no evidence the shooter is part of any larger group.'"