Jack Smith's "receipts"

Trump attorney Jennifer Little has corroborated testimony by Trump attorney Evan Corcoran about Trump's understanding of the consequences of hiding classified documents from the DOJ, and added to it.

[W]ithin days of the Justice Department issuing a subpoena last year for all classified documents at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, she "very clearly" warned Trump that if he failed to fully comply -- but then swore he did -- "it's going to be a crime."

[...]

On May 23, 2022 -- 12 days after receiving the subpoena -- Little and Corcoran met with the former president at Mar-a-Lago. It was Corcoran's first time meeting Trump in person, and Little allegedly wanted to help ease Corcoran into his new role.

But, as sources described it to ABC News, Little told investigators she had a bigger purpose in going to that meeting: She wanted to explain to Trump that whatever happened before with the National Archives "just doesn't matter," especially because Trump never swore to them, under the penalty of perjury, that he had turned everything over, sources said. But whatever happens now has "a legal ramification," Little said she tried to emphasize to Trump, according to the sources.

[...]

[I]f there are any more classified documents, failing to return all of them moving forward will be "a problem," especially because the subpoena requires a signed certification swearing full compliance, the sources said.

"Once this is signed -- if anything else is located -- it's going to be a crime," sources quoted Little as recalling she told Trump.

The sources said that when investigators asked Little if those messages to Trump "landed," she responded: "Absolutely."

The former president said something to the effect of, "OK, I get it,'" the sources said she recalled to investigators.

  ABC

He just figured he was above the law.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Orange Jesus and the media

Dems CAN do things in the Senate if they want

UPDATE 12/02/2023:

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to move forward with subpoenas for wealthy judicial influence-buyers, like Harland Crow and Leonard Leo. The vote was 11-0. That’s because, by the time the vote was called, the Republican members had all walked out of the hearing in a performative huff. The walkout came after they spent nearly two hours acting like ill-behaved chimpanzees, figuratively throwing their own feces at the committee and its chairman, Senator Dick Durbin.

[...]

A few weeks ago, the ranking Republican member on the committee, Senator Lindsey Graham, promised a “shit show” should Democrats try to subpoena their donors. It turns out that every Republican on the committee was willing to show their whole entire ass on C-SPAN in order to protect Crow and Leo from public scrutiny.

[T]he promised festivities began to take shape a couple of weeks ago when Republicans began proposing what would amount to over 170 amendments to the subpoenas.

[...]

Thursday, Durbin and the Democrats had their own procedural games to play. The meeting on Thursday started with what was supposed to be the confirmation of a couple of Biden appointments, with the idea being that the committee would only later get to the subpoenas. But Republicans decided to start their objections early by slamming some of the proposed judges. So Democrats invoked a rule to cut off debate.

That’s when Republicans decided to throw a temper tantrum. The rule Durbin used was something that Senator Chuck Grassley has invoked in the past, when Republicans were in the majority.

[...]

Senator John Cornyn threatened, “You understand, what goes around comes around”—because, I assume, he was unable to process that what the Democrats were doing was the coming around part of what Republicans had started.

[...]

And then, of course, there was Lindsey Graham, who whined and seethed and accused Democrats of pulling a political stunt. Graham has a habit of engaging in fits of pique in which he pretends to have acted in good faith in the past while vowing that he will act only in bad faith going forward. It’s a very strange thing to promise to be a jerk when everybody already knows you’re a jerk.

[...]

After every Republican got their turn to mug for the cameras, they left the hearing room. Graham stayed behind to offer some additional procedural objections but, after those objections were ignored, he too left the room.

The point of the walkout, I believe, was to cause more procedural mayhem. After the 11-0 vote, Senators Cruz and Mike Lee claimed that the subpoena was invalid because the committee lacked a quorum when the vote was taken and because, thanks to the Republican histrionics, the vote took place just after the two-hour mark and Republicans claimed to invoke the “two-hour rule.” I’m not a Senate parliamentarian or an expert on the arcane minutiae of how this antidemocratic institution avoids doing the work of the American people, so I cannot fully assess their claims. I think they’re wrong, because there was a quorum at the start of the meeting, and I know from judicial confirmation hearings that merely walking out of the room does not stop the committee from doing business. But who knows? If there is any possible way for Republicans to shield Crow and Leo, they will take it.

[...]

This is all happening because Republicans are terrified of the committee’s putting Crow and Leo under oath and asking them questions.

  Elie Mystal @ The Nation

Finally

I've been saying Satan's spawn don't die, but apparently they do.  Just after a long life of evil.

Could there be a starker contrast to Rosalynn Carter whose memorial service was two days ago?

When a person dies, should he be remembered accurately? That question is acutely posed by the demise of Henry Kissinger. The veteran diplomat passed away on Wednesday at the age of 100, leaving behind a long legacy that includes such highs as the opening to China, as well as foul deeds that resulted in mayhem and death—thousands and thousands of deaths. His obituaries will be filled with hosannas from the foreign policy establishment that hailed him as the wisest of wise men.

[...]

[I]t is an insult to history that he is not equally known and regarded for his many acts of treachery—secret bombings, coup-plotting, supporting military juntas—that resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands.

[...]

Throughout his career in government and politics, Kissinger was an unprincipled schemer who engaged in multiple acts of skullduggery.

[...]

Is it an appropriate moment to revisit Kissinger’s dark past? We can only imagine what the dead would say. Here’s the roll call.

  Mother Jones

Continue reading.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 03:52 pm:

Bourdain visited more than 80 countries — a number of them in Southeast Asia — during his career and frequently shared his disdain for Kissinger while documenting his travels.

[...]

“Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking,” he wrote.

[...]

“Witness what Henry did in Cambodia — the fruits of his genius for statesmanship — and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to [Slobodan] Milosevic.” [...] “While Henry continues to nibble nori rolls and remaki at A-list parties, Cambodia, the neutral nation he secretly and illegally bombed, invaded, undermined and then threw to the dogs, is still trying to raise itself up on its one remaining leg.”

[...]

“Any journalist who has ever been polite to Henry Kissinger, you know, [expletive] that person. I’m a big believer in moral gray areas, but, when it comes to that guy, in my view he should not be able to eat at a restaurant in New York.”

  MSN

UPDATE 04:41 pm:

You won't shut him up, but try anyway

During the 14-day period of the administrative stay, Trump attacked the Judge, his clerk, and even the Judge's wife multiple times. If he does it now, he could be subject to contempt fines or even jail. The gag orders prevent trump and his lawyers from attacking the court staff - but not the Judge or the Judge's family.

  Mueller, She Wrote

Donald Trump renewed attacks on the wife of the judge in the New York civil fraud trial of his business empire, before and almost immediately after an appellate court on Thursday reinstated a gag order against him in the case.

[...]

Trump on Wednesday attacked Dawn Engoron, the wife of the judge, Arthur Engoron, and the judge’s clerk, on his social media platform Truth Social.

He called Dawn Engoron a “Trump hating wife” and said that she and Arthur Engoron’s law clerk had “taken over control of the New York State Witch Hunt Trial aimed at me, my family, and the Republican Party”.

[...]

Trump posted screenshots of vulgar and profane anti-Trump messages on X, formerly known as Twitter, purported to have been made by Dawn Engoron – prompting her swiftly to assert that she does not have an account.

“I do not have a Twitter account. This is not me. I have not posted any anti-Trump messages,” Dawn Engoron told Newsweek.

  Guardian

Time to cover the judge's family. Remember Paul Pelosi?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Just another Republican sex scandal

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

A surprising bit of good news

Pence's "courage" was actually his son's

The spirit of ignorant fascism lives on

The Japanese suffered the consequences during WWII in American internment camps, which Trump promises to bring back.  But the House GOP would like to get a jump on it by deporting Palestinians. Then the camps won't have to be so big, I guess.

[A] GOP bill, introduced earlier this month by Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) with 10 Republican co-sponsors, would ban or revoke visas, refugee status and asylum for Palestinian Authority passport holders dating back to Oct 1, shortly before the Hamas attack on Israel.

[...]

[A countering] two-page resolution [...] is being introduced by Reps. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) and Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), both of whom are Jewish and steadfastly pro-Israel.

[...]

The resolution says the GOP bill “dangerously conflates Palestinians with Hamas” and “is un-American, bigoted, and is designed to inflame tensions which could result in violence.”

[...]

"Calls to expel Palestinians from the United States are racist, xenophobic and have no place in the government of the United States," Goldman said.

  Axios

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway, he did not say.

House GOP: pathetic, shitty people

Simply vindictive assholes.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The 8th Circuit out to end democracy

Republicans have done a remarkable job eviscerating voting rights in America. Given that Chief Justice John Roberts has arguably made it his life’s work to make voting harder for millions of people, it’s unsurprising to see the lower courts following suit.

[...]

Immediately after Shelby County [2013] came down, states previously covered by the preclearance rule moved to pass laws designed to make it harder to vote. Texas’s photo ID law went into effect only 24 hours after the decision. That law had been challenged by the Texas NAACP and the Mexican-American Legislative Caucus because the acceptable forms of ID listed in the law disproportionately affected Black and Latino voters. North Carolina enacted a photo ID law, got rid of same-day voter registration and voter registration drives, and drastically restricted early voting. That law was challenged by the DOJ, the League of Women Voters, and the North Carolina NAACP. Those suits were all brought under Section 2 of the VRA, which bans any law that denies or limits the right to vote based on race or color.

So, even though Section 4’s preclearance requirement was gone, groups like the NAACP and the ACLU could still sue states over racist voting laws under Section 2.

Until now.

[...]

[N]ow, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has gone further than Roberts ever did, and its ruling will make it even more difficult to use the courts to ensure free and fair elections.

The ruling the Eighth Circuit handed down last week eliminates the right of private groups to sue to enforce the Voting Rights Act (VRA).

  Public Notice

Voters can't sue for voting rights. Sure.  And that means, in essence and in practice, voting is no longer a right.  

Now, at least in the Eighth Circuit — Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota — only the DOJ can pursue these cases.

[...]

Most challenges to voting laws are brought by groups like the NAACP, the League of Women Voters, the ACLU, and Common Cause. These organizations have the organizational capacity and institutional knowledge to effectively fight the near-ceaseless barrage of laws restricting voting rights, particularly after the 2013 Shelby County decision.

[...]

The Eighth Circuit’s decision in Arkansas State Conference NAACP v. Arkansas Board of Apportionment eliminates the ability of any private group or person to sue to enforce the VRA. The majority opinion was written by Judge David Stras, a former Clarence Thomas clerk and Trump appointee, and it radically reshapes the voting rights landscape.

[...]

DOJ doesn’t have enough attorneys to cover the whole country all at once, and “over the course of over 50 years, private plaintiffs have also brought those cases so that residents of a small county in Arkansas are just as well protected as residents of the entirety of the state of California.”

Not any more.

And do you think Trump's DOJ if he gets elected will file ANY suits to protect voters?

[In Trump's first term,] Bill Barr’s DOJ worked to protect voting restrictions rather than fighting them, and his administration brought no cases at all under the VRA until May 2020.

[...]

The Eighth Circuit’s decision is so extreme that it puts that court at odds with the Fifth Circuit, arguably the most conservative appellate court in the country. Earlier this month, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit came to the opposite conclusion, throwing out Louisiana’s attempt to limit voting rights enforcement to the DOJ only. Having two different federal courts of appeal come to two different conclusions sets up a circuit split, which typically has to be resolved by the US Supreme Court.

Place your bets.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Try again, Cheeto

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Poor Marj

Apparently, unlike Don Jr's book, the RNC must not be buying up MTG's to make her look good, because she has pretty much the same fans.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

News you can trust

"I have been sounding the alarm bell about the northern border for a long time," said Vivek Ramaswamy during a lengthy interview about an incident he did not witness, was not a subject-matter expert on, and had no insight into.

"This is a mounting crisis. We're ignoring it."

[...]

Meanwhile, on social media, Republican Arizona politician Kari Lake called this a terrorist attack caused by Joe Biden's open border policies.

  CBC

And the car was on the US side heading toward Canada.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Greetings from Columbia, South Carolina

I expect somewhere near there is one of those gigantic billboard signs I've seen elsewhere saying "Go Brandon".

It's Sunday

It's Sunday

[A] new book, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism, by Tim Alberta, an influential reporter and staff writer for the Atlantic, will be published on 5 December.

[...]

As [the 2016 presidential] candidates jockeyed for support from evangelicals, a powerful bloc in any Republican election, Trump was asked to name his favourite Bible verse.

Attempting to follow the advice of Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, the thrice-married, not noticeably church-going New York billionaire and reality TV star introduced it as “Two Corinthians”, rather than “Second Corinthians”, as would have been correct.

“The laughter and ridicule were embarrassing enough for Trump,” Alberta writes. “But the news of Perkins endorsing Ted Cruz, just a few days later, sent him into a spiral. He began to speculate that there was a conspiracy among powerful evangelicals to deny him the GOP nomination.

“When Cruz’s allies began using the ‘Two Corinthians’ line to attack him in the final days before the Iowa caucuses, Trump told one Iowa Republican official, ‘You know, these so-called Christians hanging around with Ted are some real pieces of shit.’”

Alberta adds that “in private over the coming years”, Trump “would use even more colourful language to describe the evangelical community”.

  Guardian

This should surprise no one. He thinks everyone except his immediate family and the world's dictators are "pieces of shit" - and often enough, no doubt, he even thinks those people are.

Evangelicals remain the dominant bloc in Iowa, 55% of respondents to an NBC News/Des Moines Register poll in August identifying as “devoutly religious”. But despite his lengthy rap sheet, Trump’s hold on such voters appears to remain strong.

[...]

According to exit polls, in the 2020 presidential election he was supported by 76% of white evangelical voters.

Evangelical voters would welcome a dictator. As long as that dictator put church above state. Have I got news for them. If he doesn't need their votes, because he's achieved his position as dictator, he won't need to appease them. 

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Here's your 202 voter fraud

And it's yet another GOP case.

Why is it that every time we read about actual voter fraud, it involves Republicans?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Another telling war crimes statistic

This is not surprising in a war in which the aim is to completely destroy the "enemy".  I've heard soldiers are often told that, coming upon a mixed group, they should kill the women first, because they are like a lioness guarding cubs - they are unafraid to put their bodies on the line to fight back.

An unsurprising headline

The attack is reported to have happened on Friday at the Federal Correctional Institution, Tucson, a medium-security prison that has been plagued by security lapses and staffing shortages.

[...]

In a statement, the agency said responding employees contained the incident and performed “life-saving measures” before the inmate, who it did not name, was taken to a hospital for further treatment and evaluation.

[...]

Chauvin, 47, was sent to FCI Tucson from a maximum-security Minnesota state prison in August 2022 to simultaneously serve a 21-year federal sentence for violating Floyd’s civil rights and a 22½-year state sentence for second-degree murder.

[...]

In Minnesota, Chauvin was mainly kept in solitary confinement “largely for his own protection.”

[...]

Floyd, who was Black, died on 25 May 2020 after Chauvin, who is white, pressed a knee on his neck for 9½ minutes on the street outside a convenience store where Floyd was suspected of trying to pass a counterfeit US$20 bill.

Bystander video captured Floyd’s fading cries of “I can’t breathe”.

[...]

Last week, the US supreme court rejected Chauvin’s appeal against his murder conviction. Separately, Chauvin is making a bid to overturn his federal guilty plea, claiming new evidence shows he didn’t cause Floyd’s death.

  Guardian

Can't wait to hear that "evidence".

In November 2022, an inmate at the facility’s low-security prison camp pulled out a gun and attempted to shoot a visitor in the head. The weapon, which the inmate shouldn’t have had, misfired and no one was hurt.

"Shouldn't have had." No kidding?

In July, disgraced sports Dr Larry Nassar was stabbed by a fellow inmate at a federal penitentiary in Florida.

Also not surprising, as Nassar is "disgraced" by virtue of having sexually abused young people in his care.

But/and...

Vindman for Congress

Eugene (Yevgeny) Vindman, Alexander's twin brother and fellow whistleblower on Trump's attempt to blackmail Ukraine, is running for Congress in Virginia.  Great candidate. 

Sad!

Donald Trump had his worst day yet in his ongoing civil fraud trial in New York on Tuesday at the hands of his own key witness, a former Trump Organization executive who linked the former president directly to the fuzzy math at the center of the case.

[...]

Jeffrey McConney, who was the comptroller and spreadsheet czar at the Trump Org [...] had been called to the witness stand by the defense, but on cross-examination by lawyers for the state attorney general's office Tuesday, he linked Trump firmly to the conspiracy and fraud counts that have yet to be decided in the non-jury trial.

[...]

[The state's lawyer, Andrew Amer, asked] whether Trump would get the final review of every net-worth statement until leaving for the White House in 2017, after which Eric Trump would approve the drafts.

"That was my understanding, yes," McConney answered again. Asked whether that was his handwriting on the drafts — the thin blue pen marks — McConney also said yes, it was.

[...]

Trump, who has not attended the trial for the past two weeks, had said on the witness stand on November 6 that he had little involvement in the drafting of these net-worth statements. In a pretrial deposition, he denied knowing who had written "DJT to get final review" on that 2014 draft.

[...]

[McConney] had testified on direct examination Monday that he would review each year's draft net-worth statement with Weisselberg, who would then give the approved draft to the outside accounting firm, Mazars USA, which would print the final statement.

This chain of command — McConney to Weisselberg to Mazars — leaves out one very important link, as the state's lawyer, Amer, pointed out on cross on Tuesday.

"I believe there was a step in between that involved Donald Trump prior to 2017?" Amer said to McConney, who appeared uncomfortable on the stand as he said Trump indeed did the ultimate signing off.

McConney's blue-ink handwriting is all over the net-worth statement drafts, showing he revised language and even added cautionary notes that were then passed along for Trump's "final review."

[...]

In one key cautionary note from the 2015 draft, McConney made a notation in ink that "this computation also includes forecasted deals that have not signed yet." In the note, McConney asked whether Trump wanted to exclude some $151 million in as-yet-fictional assets from the net-worth statement.

The final version of that year's net-worth statement shows McConney's suggestion was ignored, possibly by Trump himself.

  Business Insider

Obviously by Trump himself since he always got "final review."

The attorney general's office [...] appears poised to argue that these handwritten notes show McConney, Weisselberg, and Trump intentionally conspired in cooking the numbers each year. Intent and conspiracy are two elements that must be proved for the attorney general to win all six of the yet-decided counts in the case.

[...]

New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron has already found, pretrial, that Trump's 2014-through-2021 statements fraudulently inflated his wealth.

[...]

The trial is meant to determine whether the five defendants further broke six specific state laws: falsifying business records, filing false financial statements, insurance fraud, and conspiracy to commit each of these counts.

[...]

McConney's many handwritten notes indicate it was Trump and his top executives who made the last edits and then signed off on these net-worth statements. As such, the notes do serious damage to the primary Trump defense: blame Mazars, blame the accountants.

Now he's going to blame McConney.

The fact that these incriminating, hand-scrawled drafts were turned over to authorities by Mazars but not by the Trump Organization could come up at the end of the trial as evidence that Trump's side failed to retain and turn over documents as required by state subpoenas.

[...]

Since the case is civil, not criminal, the judge will not issue a "guilty" verdict. Instead, his verdict will find whether the five defendants are "liable" for monetary and other penalties for violating these six laws.

I think we all know the answer to that.

McConney's cross-examination came minutes after a dramatic, tearful conclusion to his direct testimony.

The longtime Trump executive became weepy in answering the final question from the defense lawyer Jesus Suarez, who asked why he'd left the Trump Organization after 35 years working there.

He left to "stop being accused of misrepresenting assets for the company that I loved working for," he said, wiping away tears.

I wonder who was accusing him of that.

"It was like working with family," he said.

Yeah, pal. That family stuff only goes one way in Trumpland. And it's not from them to you.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

14th Amendment pleading

CREW has filed a pleading arguing for disqualifying Trump from holding the office of the president.

Here's the ToC:

And, here's a link to the entire pleading.

And, as Andrew Weissman said in a podcast, how absurd to think that Section 3 bars insurrectionists from every position below the presidency, but not the presidency itself!

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 11/27/2023:

Happy Thanksgiving Day

I hope it's not our last in a democracy, such as it is.

Call and response

He knows it, and that's why he does it.

Meanwhile in Colorado

UPDATE 11/27/2023:

A major victory indeed

That was maybe the shittiest voting suppression deal of all in Pennsylvania.  After all, that's what postmarks are for.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Lithium-free battery

Know the facts

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

One more win for democracy

Now he'll NEVER go back to Twitter (aka X)

Elon Musk’s X platform handed over 32 direct messages from Donald Trump’s account with the social media platform to special counsel Jack Smith as part of his election subversion probe.

[...]

Details of the messages, which were obtained with a search warrant, were included in a brief that was filed under seal in May to the US Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington DC, reported CNN.

Twitter had appealed a judge’s sanctioning of Elon Musk’s company for its delay in handing over the messages to prosecutors.

The company did not want to hand over the messages because of a court order that prevented it from telling the former president about the warrant, and there were concerns that Mr Trump might try and use executive privilege to block it.

The brief was unsealed on Friday, along with another court filing that stated the warrant covered a period from October 2020 to January 2021.

  UK Independent

I don't suppose we'll ever get to see the messages. Unless they're presented at trial, that is. 

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Order on Judge Chutkan's gag order

Well, no shit.  There would be no such thing as a gag order if it were otherwise.

On Monday, at a federal courthouse steps from the Capitol, special counsel Jack Smith — under guard by deputy U.S. marshals — watched as one of his prosecutors, Cecil VanDevender, argued for the reinstatement of the gag order.

[...]

In her order, Chutkan barred Trump from “targeting” potential witnesses or referencing the subject of their testimony. She also forbade Trump from going after prosecutors by name, while permitting him to make broader attacks on the Biden administration and the Justice Department. [She] also barred Trump from attacking court personnel.

[...]

After the panel suspended the gag order while it hears Trump’s appeal, Trump used the interim to resume his attacks on Smith’s team — and even on Smith’s family members — as well as potential witnesses.

[...]

The three-judge D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel raised concerns that the order — which bars Trump from targeting witnesses, prosecutors and courthouse staff in the criminal case related to his effort to subvert the 2020 election — created murky restrictions that stifled the former president’s right to push back against his detractors, particularly in the heat of a presidential campaign.

Judge Patricia Millett, an appointee of President Barack Obama, suggested the gag order could amount to a straitjacket for Trump if his prosecution became the focus of attacks during a presidential debate.

  Politico

So you can't draw up a gag order that makes an exception to debating?

Another appeals judge, Nina Pillard, suggested on at least five occasions that the trial judge’s order goes too far by appearing to bar Trump from making hostile comments about individuals in the public eye who could be witnesses in the case.

Yes, that's called witness intimidation. WTF, judges?

Despite the panel’s concerns with the breadth of the gag order, imposed last month by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, the appeals judges nevertheless seemed prepared to endorse a narrower version of it, agreeing with prosecutors that Trump shouldn’t have carte blanche to make statements that could intimidate witnesses or threaten the integrity of the proceedings.

[...]

Both Millett and Pillard suggested that Trump’s attorneys gave too little weight to Chutkan’s responsibility to protect the trial. And the appeals panel’s third judge, Bradley Garcia, an appointee of President Joe Biden, noted that Chutkan had issued the gag order after holding a detailed hearing on the matter and gathering voluminous facts to support her decision.

[...]

It’s unclear whether the appeals court panel intends to rewrite the gag order itself or send it back to Chutkan with new instructions. The timeline for action is also unclear. The panel took up the case on an emergency basis, but it often takes weeks or months for an appeals court panel to rule on complex issues of law. And the panel is likely not the final word: The losing side may appeal the panel’s decision to the full bench of the appeals court or the Supreme Court.

[...]

The appeals court judges sharply criticized Trump’s position that virtually any restriction on his ability to discuss the case publicly would be a violation of his First Amendment free speech rights. But they seemed at times to be equally confounded by prosecutors’ efforts to draw lines about which aspects of Trump’s speech were acceptable and which weren’t.

At one point, to the judges’ consternation, VanDevender said Trump’s description of a prospective witness as a “liar” would be impermissible, but he could describe the same witness as someone who tells “untruths.”

“I know that’s a little bit of a fine line,” VanDevender said.

It's ridiculous is what it is. Again, WTF, judges?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 08:10 am:

Yes, THAT John Dean - a man well versed in attempting to thwart the Constitution and criminally interfere with a presidential election.

Also, I suspect if Trump gets away with any of this, there will indeed be more people running for office to avoid prosecution.

Voting rights setback

Undoubtedly on its way to the Supreme Court.  It's generally assumed the Supreme Court will rule with the 5th Circuit, but who knows in this environment?  Pretty sure Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch will go with the 8th Circuit, and would probably wish they could reverse the entire VRA.

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in one of the language minority groups identified in Section 4(f)(2) of the Act. Most of the cases arising under Section 2 since its enactment involved challenges to at-large election schemes, but the section's prohibition against discrimination in voting applies nationwide to any voting standard, practice, or procedure that results in the denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen to vote on account of race, color, or membership in a language minority group. Section 2 is permanent and has no expiration date as do certain other provisions of the Voting Rights Act.

  Civil Rights Division, US DOJ

UPDATE 12/11/2023: JFC

Stop electing Republicans!

UPDATE 12/16/2023:  The 5th Circuit disagrees.  This will definitely be going to the Supreme Court.

Project 2025

Stop electing Republicans.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The rich are killing us

Rather than reduce carbon emissions from factories and power plants, the Forest Service is considering piping them to national lands and storing the C0₂ underground.  Don't think that's a good idea? 

The Forest Service has opened public comments on the proposed rule change until Jan. 2, 2024.

  NPR

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.