;)
April 1, 2023
What's New with the Indicted, Twice-impeached, Defeated Ex-president* & His Gang
Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times: "After a brief hiatus, The Trump Show is back.... Thursday ended in a cliffhanger -- the exact criminal charges against Mr. Trump remain unknown -- and new episodes are already on the horizon: Mr. Trump is potentially facing several more indictments.... Cable news viewership dropped after Mr. Trump left office. The news of his criminal charges turned that right around."
The New York Times' live updates of developments Friday in the Trump indictment matter are here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
"No Comment." Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "President Biden has nothing to say about the indictment of ... Donald J. Trump.... In fact..., he said nothing in four different ways: Would the indictment divide the country? 'I have no comment on that.' Was he worried about protests? 'No. I'm not going to talk about the Trump indictment.' What did the indictment say about the rule of law? 'I have no comment at all.' Are the charges politically motivated? 'I have no comment on Trump.' The strategy behind his 'no comment' response is twofold: Mr. Biden and his advisers want to avoid a situation in which Mr. Trump tries to bait him into a reaction.... But most of all, White House officials say, Mr. Biden believes that presidents should not comment on pending legal matters. (Not commenting on legal investigations, of course, was a common practice for presidents until Mr. Trump took office.)"
James McKinley & Jonah Bromwich of the New York Times: "Mr. Trump is expected ... to answer charges before a state judge on Tuesday.... Mr. Trump intends to travel to New York on Monday and stay the night at Trump Tower, people familiar with his preparations said. He has no plans to hold a news conference or address the public while he is in New York, the people said.... Late on Friday afternoon, Mr. Trump burst out on Truth Social..., writing in all capital letters that Democrats were 'INDICTING A TOTALLY INNOCENT MAN IN AN ACT OF OBSTRUCTION AND BLATANT ELECTION INTERFERENCE.' He concluded that it was all happening 'WHILE OUR COUNTRY IS GOING TO HELL!'... The case, which could drag on for months and whose outcome is far from clear, is likely to test the country's institutions and the rule of law." ~~~
~~~ Carol Leonnig, et al., of the Washington Post: "An advance team of Secret Service agents -- mostly comprised of New York field office agents -- conducted a site tour of the courthouse on Friday to map [Donald] Trump's path in and out of the building, according to a law enforcement official involved in the planning.... The official ... said that 'dozens and dozens of agents' will be required to secure the former president's travel between Mar-a-Lago ... and New York.... The former president will be fingerprinted, photographed and brought to the courtroom of Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan upon surrendering before the proceeding, where he is expected to enter a not-guilty plea. If the charges have not already been made public, they will be unsealed by the time of the arraignment."
How Not to Influence a Judge. Perry Stein & Shayna Jacobs of the Washington Post: "... New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan ... oversaw the grand jury that indicted [Donald] Trump this week and will preside over the criminal proceedings that follow. Merchan, 60, who has sat on the New York bench since 2009, also presided over the jury trial last year of Trump's namesake real estate company, which resulted in a conviction in December, and the prosecution of the company's longtime chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg. On Friday, the first former president ever charged with a crime lashed out at Merchan on social media, declaring that the judge 'HATES ME.' Merchan 'is the same person who "railroaded" my 75 year old former CFO, Allen Weisselberg, to take a "plea" deal,' Trump wrote. The former president continued: 'He strong armed Allen, which a judge is not allowed to do, & treated my companies, which didn't "plead," VICIOUSLY. APPEALING.'... On Tuesday, Trump is expected to appear before Merchan for an arraignment hearing...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Erica Orden of Politico (March 30): "The Manhattan district attorney's office asked for Donald Trump to surrender on Friday following a grand jury's vote to indict the former president. But lawyers for Trump rebuffed the request saying that the Secret Service, which provides security detail for the former president, needed more time to prepare." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Why, whoever would have guessed that Trump's lawyers lied to the D.A.??? ~~~
~~~ Julia Ainsley of NBC News, in a tweet: "Secret Service officials tell @NBCNews that Trump's detail is not to blame for him reporting to NYC for arrest Tuesday rather than tomorrow. 'Preposterous' one said.
Jonah Bromwich & Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "A day after filing charges against Donald J. Trump, the Manhattan district attorney’s office wrote a letter criticizing three influential congressional Republicans [-- Jim Jordan, James Comer and Bryal Steil --] for their efforts to interfere in the investigation into the former president. The letter was addressed to three committee chairmen who had demanded that the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, provide them with communications, documents and testimony related to the inquiry into Mr. Trump.... Concluding her letter, [the D.A.'s general counsel Leslie] Dubeck urged the congressional Republicans to withdraw their demand for information about the investigation 'and let the criminal justice process proceed without unlawful political interference.' But she said that the office was willing to meet with the chairmen or their staffs, and asked for a list of questions for Mr. Bragg and a description of the types of documents they were requesting.... [Meanwhile,] In a statement, [Mr. Trump] called Mr. Bragg a 'disgrace' and said 'this Witch-Hunt will backfire massively on Joe Biden,' who ... has had nothing to do with the district attorney's investigation and has not commented on the indictment." The Hill has a story here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ The full letter, via Common Dreams, is here. Marie: Dubeck eviscerates Trump's elves. Here's a particularly sharp cut: "... based on your reportedly close collaboration with Mr. Trump in attacking this Office and the grand jury process, it appears you are acting more like criminal defense counsel trying to gather evidence for a client than a legislative body seeking to achieve a legitimate legislative objective." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Marie: Here's a story about the indictment of the Arrested Developer which I missed. ~~~
~~~ Ryan Schwach of the Queens Daily Eagle (March 30): "A Queens man was indicted Thursday for allegedly making hush money payments to a porn star shortly before he was elected president of the United States in 2016. Although the exact charges against former president and Queens native Donald Trump are still unknown, Trump will be the first former president to ever face criminal charges...."
Scott Wong of NBC News: "Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga..., said Friday she will travel to New York next week to protest the former president's indictment and urged other supporters to join her. 'I'm going to New York on Tuesday. We MUST protest the unconstitutional WITCH HUNT!' Greene tweeted to her 663,000 followers. The Tuesday protests would come on the same day Trump's attorneys have said the former president and 2024 Republican presidential front-runner is expected to be arraigned in court.... Less than two weeks ago..., she said on Twitter that Trump supporters 'don't need to protest about the Communists Democrat's planning to arrest Pres Trump and the political weaponization of our government and election interference.'"
David Gilbert & Mack Lamoureux of Vice: "Minutes after ... Donald Trump was indicted by a grand jury in New York, his supporters flooded social media and extremist message boards with violent and racist threats against the officials prosecuting Trump, as well as bloody civil war.... 'None of this will stop unless there is blood in the streets' ..., one member of the rabidly pro-Trump message board The Donald wrote on Thursday night.... On platforms like The Donald..., commenters openly called for violence that was largely racist in nature.... There were also many users calling for civil war on the platform. 'Yeah. I'm down with just getting 1776 round 2 over with. The build up is infuriating,' one user wrote.... Some users laid out more detailed plans, discussing militias and boycotts and tax avoidance, while another simply wrote: War.'" ~~~
~~~ Ben Collins of NBC News: "While there is little evidence of ... planning for real-world unrest just yet, extremism researchers are keeping a close eye on the varied calls for everything from targeted attacks on the district attorney who brought the case to a new civil war.... Animated by claims about liberal megadonor George Soros' ties to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, some users have consistently called for violence and assassination attempts. Soros has never met nor talked to Bragg, according to a report from CNBC, but Bragg did receive donation money, along with other progressive-leaning district attorneys, through the super PAC Color of Change after Soros donated $1 million to it.... [But] Advance Democracy's report said they 'had not identified any definitive plans by users to engage in violence or any large-scale organizing activities.' However, users on the pro-Trump forum [Patriots.com] encouraged those who did not want to 'form organized militias' to 'take on lone wolf mentalities,' 'weaponize suicidal people' and 'make the jurors public knowledge.'" ~~~
~~~ AND Then There's Aunt Pittypat. Brad Reed of the Raw Story: "Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Friday bizarrely suggested that ... Donald Trump could avoid prosecution in New York by attacking police officers and committing acts of vandalism.... '"On the way to the DA's office on Tuesday, Trump should smash some windows, rob a few shops and punch a cop. He would be released IMMEDIATELY!' Graham's tweet as an apparent dig at the wrongly held belief that Black Lives Matter protesters who rioted in the summer of 2020 were never prosecuted for committing crimes." ~~~
~~~ BUT. To Know Trump Is to Despise Him. Brad Reed of the Raw Story: "Appearing on CNN, [New York Times reporter Maggie] Haberman said that several former Trump Organization employees were 'cheering' on the fact that their one-time boss has now been indicted.... '... there is a long trail of people who feel burned, in one way or another, by Donald Trump,' she said. 'We certainly saw that in the White House. This was a pattern that existed for decades in the Trump Organization. And the number of people I heard from yesterday who worked for his company who were really happy, one person texted with the words, "Wonderful news."'"
The Zombie That Ate Donald Trump
~~~ Jonah Bromwich, et al., of the New York Times: "One year ago this week, the Manhattan district attorney's investigation into Donald J. Trump appeared to be dead in the water. The two leaders of the investigation had recently resigned after the new district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, decided not to charge Mr. Trump at that point.... [But Mr. Bragg's investigators went] back to square one, poring over the reams of evidence that had already been collected by his predecessor. For a time, their efforts were haphazard as they examined a wide range of Mr. Trump's business practices, including whether he had lied about his net worth, which was the focus of the investigation when Mr. Bragg had declined to seek an indictment. But by July, Mr. Bragg had decided to assign several additional prosecutors to pursue one particular strand that struck him as promising: a hush-money payment made on Mr. Trump's behalf to a porn star during the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign. On Thursday, Mr. Trump was indicted on that strand." The report continues, describing how the focus of the investigation changed, as did the make-up of the lead investigators. ~~~
~~~ Glenn Thrush & others at the New York Times try to explain why the Justice Department has not brought charges against Trump in regard to the hush-money payments inasmuch as the Department charged Trump fixer Michael Cohen for his part in the hush-money scheme. The reporters conclude that, under AG Merrick Garland, "The decision not to indict appeared to be rooted in lingering concerns about Mr. Cohen's credibility and cooperation as a government witness." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Oddly, Thrush, et al., never mention Bill Barr's earlier intervention. As Steve Benen of MSNBC (and others) recently reported, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York initiated the hush-money case. It was they who charged Cohen, who pleaded guilty and went to jail. "... according to [a book by SDNY's Trump-appointed U.S. attorney Geoffrey] Berman..., then-Attorney General Bill Barr not only intervened in the case, he tried to kill the ongoing investigation and even suggested that Cohen's conviction should be reversed.... [The investigation ended "because Trump's attorney general told them to stop." Now Trump finally has been indicted on what some attorneys in the Manhattan office call a "zombie case"; it has died three times, killed first by Bill Barr, then by Merrick Garland, then by Alvin Bragg.
** Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "... it is a mistake to treat this indictment ... as tangential to Trump's other misdeeds.... The conduct at issue in this case is directly tied to the 2016 election and the question of whether Trump cheated to win it.... It's part of a pattern of anti-democratic behavior.... In addition to hearing about the payoff to the porn film star Stormy Daniels, the grand jury in New York heard extensive questioning about the payoff to a Playboy model, Karen McDougal. Both women were going to tell their stories before the 2016 election. Unlawful means were used to silence them.... It's impossible to know what impact these stories would have had if the electorate had been allowed to hear them.... Nevertheless, it should matter whether Trump broke the law in the service of securing his minority victory. Especially given all the evidence that he continued to defy the law in order to hold on to it."
Greg Sargent & Paul Waldman of the Washington Post: "Because the indictment of a former president is unprecedented in U.S. history, it has become a media cliche to assert that the prosecution of Donald Trump will 'test our democracy.'... But this gets the story wrong.... If anything is posing a test, it's largely the Republican response to it.... Many are taking the position that any charges against Trump ... should be seen as presumptively illegitimate no matter the counts against Trump or the facts that underlie them.... Even worse, some elite right-wing media figures are hinting at violence.... The position implied here is that the price of social peace is absolute impunity for Trump.... This appalling civic conduct is itself a major story.... It's perfectly plausible that the charges against Trump prove damning, the process is handled with integrity and Trump is found guilty -- and a large swath of voters cannot accept that as a legitimate reckoning, precisely because one of our major political parties refused to acknowledge it as such. If so, that would constitute a truly glaring failure of our 'test.'"
Jeremy Peters & Katie Robertson of the New York Times: "Fox News suffered a significant setback on Friday in its defense against a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit that claims it lied about voter fraud in the 2020 election. A judge in Delaware Superior Court said the case, brought by Dominion Voting Systems, was strong enough to conclude that Fox hosts and guests had repeatedly made false claims about Dominion machines and their supposed role in a fictitious plot to steal the election from ... Donald J. Trump. 'The evidence developed in this civil proceeding,' Judge Eric M. Davis wrote, demonstrates that it 'is CRYSTAL clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true.' Judge Davis said the case would proceed to trial, for a jury to weigh whether Fox spread false claims about Dominion while knowing that they were untrue, and to determine any damages. The trial is expected to begin April 17.... He rejected much of the heart of Fox's defense: that the First Amendment protected the statements made on its air alleging that the election had somehow been stolen." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) Politico's story, by Josh Gerstein & Kyle Cheney, is here. ~~~
~~~ Adam Klasfeld of Law & Crime: "In a 'rare' ruling, Dominion Voting Systems scored blockbuster victories against Fox News on multiple issues.... The remarkable, 130-page ruling from Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric M. Davis found that there was no need for a jury to establish that the broadcasts at issue were false.... [Davis wrote,] '... The evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that is CRYSTAL clear that none of the Statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true.' (emphasis in original)... He also removed multiple other defenses from Fox's arsenal, except for actual malice."
Trump Supporter Convicted. Colin Moynihan of the New York Times: "According to federal prosecutors, [during the 2016 presidential campaign] one man, Douglass Mackey, crossed a line from political speech to criminal conduct when he posted images to Twitter that resembled campaign ads for [Hillary] Clinton and falsely stated that people could vote simply by texting 'Hillary' to a certain phone number. On Friday, after just over four days of deliberation, a jury in Brooklyn found Mr. Mackey guilty of conspiring to deprive others of their right to vote. He is scheduled to be sentenced in August and faces a maximum of 10 years in prison." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) The Justice Department's press release is here.
Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "It's no surprise that House Republicans leaped to Donald Trump's defense after news of his indictment broke late Thursday. What was striking, though, was how many elected GOP officials now sound like Trump.... They aped Trump ... in their vulgarity..., in demanding vengeance... and in stoking paranoia among the unstable[.]" Milbank also had fun mocking Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) on instigating the "Great Public Pee Pee Debate of 2023." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Frederic Frommer of the Washington Post: "Four days before he was assassinated, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his final Sunday sermon at Washington National Cathedral, highlighting the country's widespread poverty and the urgent need to address it. Then he stepped outside the cathedral and delivered a stark warning: If social unrest continued, it would lead to a right-wing or fascist takeover of the United States.... King's prediction of popular unrest and right-wing backlash would echo a half-century later, when the United States had its largest nationwide demonstrations for racial equality in the wake of George Floyd's murder in 2020 -- followed by a right-wing mob storming the U.S. Capitol the next year in an attempt to overturn the presidential election."
What's New with Normal People
Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Biden vowed on Friday that the federal government would help Mississippi recover and rebuild from devastation caused by a deadly tornado that ripped through rural parts of the state last week. The storm left at least 26 people dead and injured dozens in Rolling Fork, a town of about 2,000, and across a wide swath of the Mississippi Delta, leaving the struggling region grasping for help to respond on behalf of those affected. 'This is tough stuff,' Mr. Biden said after arriving in his motorcade, which drove past home after home that had been reduced to piles of lumber and twisted metal.... Mr. Biden and the first lady, Jill Biden, met privately with families affected by the storms at South Delta Elementary School, which had parts of its roof ripped off and trees toppled."
Amy Goldstein of the Washington Post: "The Biden administration told a Texas federal court Friday that it plans to appeal an order by a judge that invalidates the Affordable Care Act's promise of free preventive health services to every American with private health insurance. The one-paragraph filing by the Justice Department says the defendants in the case, including Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, intend to appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, a conservative circuit based in New Orleans. The notice came a day after U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor issued an order that immediately invalidates nationwide the ACA's guarantee of preventive services -- including cancer screening and medicines to prevent HIV or heart disease. O'Connor is the judge who, in 2018, ruled the entire ACA unconstitutional in a case that reached the Supreme Court, which preserved the law for the third time in a decade."
Steven Mufson of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department filed a major civil suit Friday against Norfolk Southern Railway after one of its trains carrying toxic chemicals derailed near the Ohio town of East Palestine on Feb. 3 and burst into flames.... The Justice Department is asking for penalties of $64,618 a day for every violation of the Clean Water Act as well as civil penalties of $55,808 a day or $2,232 per barrel of oil or hazardous substance. Costs could mount as each part of the train crash could invoke separate penalties."
Annie Karni of the New York Times: "Senator John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, announced on Friday that he had checked out of Walter Reed Military Medical Center six weeks after having admitted himself to be treated for clinical depression, using the occasion to urge those suffering from mental health challenges to seek help. Mr. Fetterman is set to return to the Senate on April 17, after a two-week holiday recess, according to his spokesman, who said that the senator planned to spend the time until then in Pennsylvania with his family and constituents. His office said that Dr. David Williamson, the neuropsychiatry chief and medical director at Walter Reed, had determined that Mr. Fetterman's depression was now in remission." NPR's report is here.
Guardian & Agencies: "The bodies of eight people believed to have died trying to cross from Canada into the United States have been found in the past two days, authorities said on Friday, including two children. Six people, described as members of two families of Romanian and Indian descent, were found on Thursday in a marshy area of the St Lawrence River, which forms part of the Canada-US border. And on Friday, the bodies of two more migrants were found.... Shawn Dulude, the Mohawk police chief, said authorities were still looking for a man, identified as Casey Oakes, 30, who was last seen on Wednesday operating a boat that was found next to the bodies."
Beyond the Beltway
Minnesota. Ernesto Londoño of the New York Times: "The city of Minneapolis agreed on Friday to make sweeping changes in policing, including a pledge to rein in the use of force and discontinue the practice of using the smell of marijuana as a pretext to search people. The promised changes are part of a legal settlement between the city and the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, which found in a report last year that the Minneapolis Police Department had routinely engaged in racially discriminatory practices and failed to punish officers for misconduct. State and city officials called Friday's agreement a milestone in the quest to change the culture of the police force that sparked a national reckoning over systemic racism in law enforcement after the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in 2020."
Minnesota. Matt Sepic of Minnesota Public Radio: "A federal jury on Friday found Anton 'Tony' Lazzaro, a one-time Minnesota Republican political operative and top donor, guilty on all counts of sex trafficking five girls, ages 15 and 16.... Lazzaro faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years." MB: Might there be some connection between Republicans' obsession with legislating against everything remotely sexual and the unusual number of Republicans found guilty of sex-related crimes?
Ohio. Joe Vardon of the Athletic, republished in the New York Times: LeBron James, his business partner Maverick Carter and his foundation are reviving downtown Akron, his hometown. He just opened a Starbucks like no other, where baristas are receiving comprehensive job-training for the hospitality industry. He has also opened a public school, provided college scholarships for students and built housing for their families.
Tennessee. Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the implementation of a Tennessee law aimed at restricting public drag performances, hours before it was set to go into effect.A Memphis theater company that frequently stages drag performances, Friends of George's, challenged the law this week, arguing that the ambiguity of the law violated the theater's constitutional rights.... The murkiness of the language [of the law], paired with a concerted effort among conservative lawmakers across the country to limit the rights of the L.G.B.T.Q. community, had raised concerns about the implications for drag performers and transgender and gender-nonconforming people. Judge Thomas L. Parker agreed to delay the law's implementation for at least 14 days, acknowledging that the company's concerns about upcoming performances -- whether to impose an age restriction or risk legal scrutiny -- were not 'trifling issues for a theater company -- certainly not in the free, civil society we hold our country to be.'" MB: Parker is a Trump appointee. CNN's report is here.
Way Beyond
Ukraine, et al. The Washington Post's live briefing of developments Saturday in Russia's war on Ukraine is here: "Russia took up the presidency of the U.N. Security Council on Saturday, a rotating role that it will hold for one month. Moscow last held the position in February 2022 -- the month it invaded Ukraine.... Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba called Russia's presidency 'a stark reminder that something is wrong with the way international security architecture is functioning.' Pressure is mounting on Moscow to release Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, a U.S. citizen who was detained in Russia this week on espionage charges. The Journal denied the charges and said the 'minimum' it expects of the Biden administration is to expel Russia's ambassador and Russian journalists working in the United States. [President] Biden called on Russia to 'let him go,' but told reporters expelling diplomats is 'not the plan right now.'... Finland will formally join NATO "in the coming days," the alliance's head Jens Stoltenberg said, finalizing what he described as 'the fastest ratification process in NATO's modern history.'... Stoltenberg said he hopes Sweden can join 'as soon as possible.'
:The International Monetary Fund approved a $15.6 billion economic program for Ukraine, allowing around $2.7 billion to be immediately disbursed to Kyiv, the organization announced Friday. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said in a statement that the four-year program 'will support economic growth, strengthen good governance and anti-corruption efforts, and set the foundation for longer-term reconstruction.'" ~~~
~~~ The Guardian's live updates of developments Saturday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here.
News Ledes
New York Times: "Tornadoes in Arkansas injured at least 30 people. One person was killed and at least 28 others were hospitalized after a roof collapsed at a theater in Illinois." Across the Midwest and South, the storms killed at least seven people." ~~~
~~~ New Lede: "Communities in at least six states on Saturday began assessing destruction left by a powerful storm system on Friday that spawned ferocious tornadoes, killing at least 21 people and causing a roof at a packed venue in Illinois to collapse -- the second such deadly outbreak of severe weather in the region in a week." An AP report is here.
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Reader Comments (10)
It's amazing that 45 having sex with a porn star resulted in something
worse for him than Eric and Donald Jr.
Like Stormy said, it's the little things in life that count.
Dana Milbank is unsurprised that Republican congresspeople are rushing to the Pretender's defense in his hour of need.
Who would? I'd guess all of them would have done the same in the same circumstances: to clarify, that is, unhesitatingly ignored election rules in order to win. Not only that, but many of his loudest defenders, the ones addressed and skewered by the Manhattan District Attorney's office, are the same slimes who were complicit in the Jan. 6 insurrection and hence a just a little nervous about the Smith investigation. Their defensiveness is only to expected. The Pretender's guilt doesn't stop with him and they know it.
And on the Pretender's manufactured delayed arrival in New York to surrender: He can continue to fund-raise over the long weekend...
If Fatty had been taken to the cleaners at the time we discovered he paid the hush money, at the time when Lindsey, Cruz, and other Republicans were calling him names ––psychopath, liar, nut=job, –- he would not have become president. It's ironic that now that the tables are turned our Republican turncoats lap up the Donald's poisonous position. Blame Billy Barr? You bet! It was the start of something bigly rotten in the justice dept. The whole scenario is weird and in time will make a dynamite documentary.
And I like this question: "MB: Do you suppose there just might be some connection between Republicans' obsession with legislating against everything remotely sexual and the unusual number of Republicans found guilty of sex-related crimes?"
Well, if you connect those obsessive dots with the lot of thems that get caught I'd say you be on to something.
In the good news department:
Sent to me by my Seattle lawyer son, with the comment, "Finally, a law that makes the world a better place."
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/king-county-council-votes-unanimously-for-the-oxford-comma/
""In 1920, Eugene V. Debs, the Midwestern socialist leader, ran for president while locked up at a federal penitentiary in Atlanta. He had been convicted under the federal Sedition Act for giving an antiwar speech a few months before Armistice Day, the end of World War I. Campaign lapel pins and other paraphernalia played up what supporters believed to be his unjust imprisonment: “For President — Convict No. 9653,” one of them declared.
Mr. Debs received 897,704 votes, putting him at a distant third behind Warren G. Harding, the Republican winner, and James M. Cox, the second-place Democrat. Mr. Harding ordered Mr. Debs released from prison toward the end of 1921." From the NYT
@Ken Winkes: I'm not going to click on your link because I don't want to use up any Seattle Times hits I'm allowed, but I get the gist of it from the URL. I'm actually kind of surprised a presumably-progressive bunch like the King County council would favor a retro punctuation mark like the Oxford comma. I don't normally use it, but if it seems necessary for clarity, I throw it in. (Or I do so on the occasions I bother to proof-read what I've written.) I'm not sure it's correct to write a piece where I don't use the Oxford comma five times, then I use it once for clarity. A purist surely would object.
Hold onto your seats! It's just been reported that Fatty has been snatched from getting on a plane heading for Russia disguised as a woman with a fake passport. It appears that he paid his secret service a goodly sum to help in this venture. The giveaway was when he was frisked––-false boobs and a mushroom dick. And to think this occured on April Fool's Day!
@P.D.Pepe: For me, it's kind of natural to be partisan, even though I try to be more-or-less even-handed in what stories I link. Thus, if there's a legitimate story that looks bad for a Democrat, I link it.
But for the most part, Republicans are knee-jerk tribalists. Even if they take the trouble to try to think through some obviously bad act of "one of their own," they will almost always fall back on the philosophical maxim, "He's a jerk, but he's our jerk." And of course they'll make up ridiculous criticisms of Democrats, the most infamous one being the Great Tan Suit Scandal of 2014.
While it's amusing to call them out for their double standard, in fact it's a real problem. For instance, where Dana Milbank points to all the Congressional Republicans who are aping Trump's claims as if they're copying them from a Trump-Approved Talking Points bulletin (and maybe they are!), they really are undermining the judicial system, they're spreading false stories and their inviting right-wing super-extremists to take violent actions against anyone in the judicial system, right down to the ordinary citizens who serve on juries that bring indictments or convict Republicans.
Marie,
As you can tell, my conservative core, that still speaks selectively to me, remains partial to the Oxford comma.
But things do change, language and its usages especially. Just learned what others have apparently known for a long time: Style books have apparently eliminated the double space after periods and colons. As you can see on this post, my stubborn fingers refuse to comply and that's OK with me.
What??!! Say it ain't so, Ken!! I am still using a double space. It looks crowded without it; and, it's harder to read expressively. Nope, not doing it. As for the Oxford comma, I don't like it. I plan to go on NOT using it, unless as Marie states, clarification is needed so the series doesn't look stupid or change the meaning. Call me stubborn...