The Donald Trump Score Card

We be moving to Antarctica. Sayonara.

 

He is now, after today's Supreme Court ruling, at least for official acts.

The Supreme Court today expanded presidential immunity from civil cases (a ruling in 1982) to criminal cases.

 

Steve Bannon predicts Trump will win by a 'landslide'

excerpt:

"Former White House chief strategist and longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon said he thinks former President Trump will win this November's election by a "landslide."

"We have a 100% certainty we could beat [President Joe] Biden and beat him big and take the Senate and pick up seats in the House," Bannon said in an interview Sunday with "This Week" co-anchor Jonathan Karl.

Bannon, an architect of Trump's 2016 campaign who later spent just seven months in the White House, told Karl he talks with Trump "frequently enough.""

 

The John Roberts Guide To Doing A Coup And Not Getting Caught

excerpt:

"The Court on Monday imbued former presidents with so much immunity from prosecution — some absolute, some presumptive, but with very little guidance about how to sort official acts into those buckets — that it’ll make it nearly impossible for prosecutors to make criminal cases against them going forward. This is, of course, most immediately relevant in special prosecutor Jack Smith’s long-stalled Jan. 6 case against Donald Trump.

Luckily for Trump, per the Court’s ruling, he seems to have led the Jan. 6 insurrection in a way that secures him near-blanket immunity. Even some actions Trump took that look a lot like unofficial acts — tweets that egged on the crowds, his speech at the Stop the Steal rally on the Ellipse — might just merit some immunity after all, Chief Justice John Roberts mused in his majority opinion.

“Some Presidential conduct — for example, speaking to and on behalf of the American people, — certainly can qualify as official even when not obviously connected to a particular constitutional or statutory provision,” Roberts wrote, suggesting he saw himself to be casting a very wide net."

 

The John Roberts Guide To Doing A Coup And Not Getting Caught

excerpt:

"In a total get-out-of-jail-free card, Roberts asserted that Trump’s attempts to bully and leverage his Justice Department into leaning on states to replace their slates of electors with Trump-friendly fake ones warrants absolute immunity.

“The President may discuss potential investigations and prosecutions with his Attorney General and other Justice Department officials to carry out his constitutional duty to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,’” Roberts shrugged, seemingly unconcerned with the torpedo he’d just taken to the Justice Department’s independence.

Trump’s threats to fire the DOJ’s noncompliant officials and replace them with low-level stooges? That also gets absolute immunity."

 

The John Roberts Guide To Doing A Coup And Not Getting Caught

excerpt:

“Of course, the President’s duty to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed’ plainly encompasses enforcement of federal election laws passed by Congress,” Roberts wrote. “And the President’s broad power to speak on matters of public concern does not exclude his public communications regarding the fairness and integrity of federal elections simply because he is running for re-election.”

 

Chief Justice Roberts has an uncanny ability to defend the fox in the hen house while claiming those who try to hold the fox accountable (prosecutors) can't be trusted.

 

The Supreme Court Puts Trump Above the Law

excerpt:

"The Court writes that presidents cannot be prosecuted for “use” of their official powers, but what it actually means is they cannot be prosecuted for the flagrant abuse of them. That renders the plain disclaimer on which the opinion rests—that the president is not above the law—a lie. More significant, this opinion depends on an implicit belief that the only person who would act so brazenly is Trump, and that because the majority of the justices on the Court support Trump and want him to be president, he must be shielded from prosecution. In this backhanded manner, Trump’s justices acknowledge that he poses a unique threat to constitutional government, one they just happen to support because he is their guy. These are not justices; these are Trump cronies. This is not legal reasoning; this is vandalism."

 

The Supreme Court Puts Trump Above the Law

excerpt:

"Like many opinions from this Court, this one covers its radicalism with a pretense of moderation—presidents can be prosecuted for “unofficial” acts—that would nonetheless allow a president to escape prosecution for the most heinous abuses of power imaginable. The Court rejects Trump’s claim that a former president must be impeached and convicted before being prosecuted for anything, while laying down a standard that makes it impossible for a president who attempts to seize power to be prosecuted for doing so.

“Distinguishing the President’s official actions from his unofficial ones can be difficult,” Roberts writes. Then he makes it more difficult, writing that “in dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives.”"

 

https://www.salon.com/2024/07/01/ma...al-experts-alarmed-at-stunning-scotus-ruling/

excerpt:

"When dissenting justices warned that the majority may have just legalized murder by one individual in our country, that warning is to be taken very seriously," he said. "Nor are the consequences of the majority opinion able to be read in isolation. We can not ignore the trend towards authoritarianism."

Sotomayor, joined by Brown-Jackson and Kegan, authored a scathing dissenting opinion.

"Never in the history of our Republic has a President had reason to believe that he would be immune from criminal prosecution if he used the trappings of his office to violate the criminal law. Moving forward, however, all former Presidents will be cloaked in such immunity," Sotomayor wrote. "If the occupant of that office misuses official power for personal gain, the criminal law that the rest of us must abide will not provide a backstop."

"With fear for our democracy, I dissent," she concluded.

 

Chief Justice Roberts made statements in his opinion that the three liberal justices on the court were over-reacting with their concerns. He practically accused them of having 'Trump Derangement Syndrome'.

At the same time, Roberts seems to have a derangement syndrome of his own by anticipating (without giving a good argument why) a never-ending slew of what he refers to as enterprising prosecutors will wreck the Constitution's separation of powers by prosecuting Trump.

 

Trump seeks to have hush money conviction overturned after Supreme Court ruling gave him immunity.

Trump's sentencing could be delayed. It's currently scheduled for July 11, four days before the start of the RNC convention.

A delay in sentencing would save Trump from an embarrassing situation of being sentenced right before the convention.


Donald Trump seeks to toss New York hush money conviction hours after Supreme Court ruling

excerpt:

"In March, defense lawyers sought to exclude a government ethics form that disclosed Trump's reimbursement to Cohen as well as a series of tweets from 2018 that prosecutors alleged were part of a "pressure campaign" against Cohen.

"Under these appropriate standards, President Trump's social media posts and public statements-while acting as President and viewed in context-fell within the outer perimeter of his Presidential duty, to which communicating with the public on matters of public concern was central," Trump's lawyers wrote in the March motion that the judge rejected the motion ahead of trial."

 

Trump gets another break.

Prosecutors in the hush money case agree to postpone sentencing. A judge still has to rule on it.


Manhattan Prosecutors Agree to Delay Trump’s Sentencing

 

Tampa is the rioter central of Trump's supporters.


https://www.wfla.com/news/hillsboro...ion-ruling-impacts-tampa-bay-capitol-rioters/

excerpt:

"TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — The Tampa Bay area has the most Jan. 6 rioters charged per capita in the United States, and some may be impacted by Friday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling about an obstruction-related charge."

 

It's been hard to imagine that one individual could so pollute the democratic government, the judiciary, the social contract of written and unwritten laws most citizens have willingly acceded to, the election systems that have worked for so long----but not any more. We don't have to imagine nightmare scenarios of a great ( in some ways) country falling apart before us citizens and the whole world. Or imagine that half our legislators have been corrupted , our highest court is occupied by bribe takers bought and paid for by billionaires, not to mention liars and sexual assaulters. Nope---don't have to imagine any of this any more, cuz it's here. And it is Donald J. Trump.

 

Giuliani has been disbarred in NY because of his lies about the 2020 election.


Giuliani Disbarred From the Practice of Law in New York

 

The editorial boards of the NY Times and other media outlets are calling to Biden to remove himself from the campaign.

They don't seem to be saying the same about convicted felon Trump, in spite of all the outlandish remarks he's been making about electric planes, Hannibal Lector, and his quest for revenge against his political opponents that is now bolstered by the Supreme Court giving him immunity.

An article about how America has lost its mind.


Should Biden drop out? Ask that same question about Trump

 

Hodges was crushed in a doorway repeatedly by Trump's rioters (who Trump thinks are victims and heroes).


'Democracy was on the line, and it still is on the line': January 6 officers campaign against Trump in Wisconsin

excerpt:

"Hodges, who's still an active officer with the D.C. Metro Police, said he was campaigning for Biden despite not being "a big fan of Democrats in terms of public safety."

"Donald Trump is not a man of law and order," he said during the Milwaukee event."

 

'Democracy was on the line, and it still is on the line': January 6 officers campaign against Trump in Wisconsin

excerpt:

"Dunn's connection to politics is rather clear. He ran as a Democrat for a House seat in Maryland but lost the primary contest last month. During his campaign and during the Wisconsin visit, Dunn said he was driven by a desire to keep Mr. Trump from returning to the White House.

"It's no question that Donald Trump is the biggest threat to our democracy," Dunn said. "We've already seen what his presidency would look like, and he's telling us what his next one would look like.""