Enough is enough.  TFG, who has done, and continues to do more to destroy our country than anyone in US history, should have his bail revoked and jailed until trial.  Not only has he made fascism and authoritarianism acceptable in polite society, he is intentionally stepping over the limits of the law by defaming and threatening judges, their staffs, prosecutors, and witnesses.  Worse, he regularly defames their families with intensely personal and childish attacks insulting everything from their looks to their politics, which are definitely off limits and none of his fucking business.

Last week, almost immediately after NY judge Juan Merchan, who’s presiding over TFG’s hush money case, imposed a limited gag order against him, he attacked the judge’s 30 something year old daughter, calling her a “Trump hater”, among other vile accusations.  Yesterday, he posted a video of a pickup truck festooned with Trump flags including a tailgate mural of Biden hogtied in the bed of the truck.  The post went viral instantly, blowing up the internet.  Contrary to normal conduct, his lawyers are actively enabling this behavior by filing a continuous stream of idiotic motions demanding that TFG be given special rights because being forced to not threaten others is required because doing so is “election interference” and a violation of his “First Amendment rights”.

TFG regularly and loudly complains that he’s being singled out while falsely claiming that Biden is behind all the prosecutions, including the state cases.  That’s all bullshit, of course, except for the being singled out part; but it’s not like he says.  He is definitely being singled out, allowed WHILE ON BAIL to freely travel, use social media to attack his perceived enemies, shoot off his mouth, spread vicious lies about witnesses, attorneys, judges, and their families, and generally be a 24 karat gold asshole.  No other indicted felon on bail would be allowed to do anything close to what he does on a daily basis.  Yesterday, former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance said that if anyone else had posted a picture of Biden being kidnapped the Secret Service would be knocking on that individual’s door within hours.  TFG gets a pass because he’s, well, TFG.  She also said this about TFG conduct:

“Actions have consequences. Judges have the ability to compel good behavior from defendants on bond pending trial in their court. They can go so far as taking away their guns once they’re indicted or prevent them from contacting and threatening witnesses and victims. They should tell him he can’t threaten the President of the United States. It’s time for the courts to stop bending over backward to protect Trump. He’s entitled to all the constitutional protections any other criminal defendant receives, but he’s not entitled to more.”

TFG is a threat to the nation, to individuals personally, and to the rule of law.  And we know why he’s doing what he’s doing – he’s trying to run out the clock to the election, AND is working hard to intimidate witnesses and the jury pool in 4 different jurisdictions.  It’s simply go to stop.  As Vance says, the courts are bending over backwards to accommodate his behavior.  Judge Cannon is actually in the bag for him as well as more than a few of SCOTUS justices.  It’s up to the state or federal judges to take action.

Take custody of this shitbag and confiscate his phone.  Let him sit in jail wearing an orange jumpsuit until his trials.  If they do that, I’ll guarantee his lawyers will then stop the delaying tactics.  Time to return to the rule of law.  Jail him. NOW.

As we expected, Judge McAfee, the judge overseeing the Georgia Racketeering case, ruled today that the romantic relationship between DA Fani Willis and her chief prosecutor Nathan Wade did not avoid the appearance of conflict while not technically violating the law.  He gave her the choice that either she or Wade had to go.  He talked extensively about Willis’ poor judgement in a case this important and her unprofessional behavior during testimony.  Wade resigned a few hours later.  Legal experts are saying that this debacle almost assures that the case will unlikely go to trial before the election.

As I said before, this is 100% Willis’ fault.  What she did was stupid, but exceptionally stupid when she was going after a former president of the US.  The carelessness is breathtaking.  In another slow moving disaster, the NY hush money case was delayed today for at least 30 days because, after a YEAR of waiting, the SDNY US attorney’s office dumped 150,000 pages of evidence that DA Bragg had requested.  TFG’s lawyer asked for a 90 day delay but the judge delayed for 30, but that will surely be appealed.

So, with a big assist from the Trump-Thomas SCOTUS when they rewrote the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, it looks like TFG’s going to win by running out the clock.  Add that to TFG’s handpicked judge in Florida slow walking the documents case and that’s almost a certainty.  What’s infuriating is that Garland, the NY DA, and Fani Willis dragged their feet so long that we’re now up against the election and it’s almost certain that no trial, much less a verdict, will happen before the election.  Garland sat on his ass for almost two years before he was shamed into prosecuting Trump only after the Select Committee on January 6th produced a warehouse full of damning evidence of insurrection.  He also KNEW TFG was sitting on thousands of government documents, 800 of which were classified TOP SECRET, but waited 21 months to finally do something.  Because of that negligence and the stupidity on Willis’ part, we’re not going to get any justice before Election Day.

There’s a good chance TFG’s going to win the election, and if he does, the documents case and the election interference cases will certainly be dropped by his new AG.  The NY hush money case and Georgia case will continue, but prosecuting a sitting president will be almost impossible, and the Trump-Thomas SCOTUS will make sure nothing happens.  Fani Willis will probably lose her re-election bid and the new DA could just drop the Georgia case. But those aren’t the biggest problems – the biggest problem is that TFG will gut the DOJ and FBI, pardon the almost 1,000 charged or convicted insurrectionists, and undo all the progress we’ve made while Biden has been in office.   He’ll pack the WH and his cabinet with criminals, white supremacists, and authoritarians, and it could easily be game over for the US as we know it.  If by chance he loses the election, he most certainly won’t accept it and will call for civil war.  There’s no good result here, and you can thank the Trump-Thomas Court, Merrick Garland, and Fani Willis.  Thanks for nothing.

34 felony counts including conspiracy.  The DA also asked the judge for a protective order to stop TFG and his henchmen from publicly threatening him and his family.

So let’s be crystal clear about this issue.  Ashli Babbit, brainwashed by bullshit from Trump and his sycophants, was part of the mob that unlawfully stormed the US Capitol to stop the Electoral College count, violently confronting police who were defending the buildings, the politicians, and staff who worked there.  She was part of the lead group of extremists who was attempting to smash there way into the Speakers’ lobby where US Representatives and their staff were trying to escape.  These extremists smashed the doors to the lobby, and when the windows were broken, Babbit was the first one to attempt jumping through  to pursue those representatives.  A security officer just behind the smashed door fire one shot, killing Babbit.  Babbit was violently breaking the law, endangering herself and everyone around her.  She was killed for that, because the security personnel had one job, and that was to protect the Congress and the Vice President.  Unfortunate, certainly, but she bears 100% responsibility for the consequences of her violent criminality.

There are several videos of the incident and all of them show Babbitt being shot while breaching the door of the Speaker’s Lobby her actions were unquestionably criminal and endangering federal officials.  Shortly after the shooting, though, The Noise Machine cranked up, and has been slowly building momentum to recast Babbitt as a “martyr”.  I even ran across a right-winger on social media last week who said that Babbitt was “executed” for “doing nothing”.  There’s a lot of words for what Babbitt did that day, but “nothing” isn’t one of them.  Trump co-conspirator, Paul Gosar, has gone out of his way to defend Babbitt, even saying last week that officers were “lying in wait” to kill her.  Setting aside the fact that he and other Teabagging Q Republicans should be brought up on insurrection charges, Gosar is playing with fire by repeating Fox  Noise-OAN bullshit, and it’s all part of the orchestrated effort by Republicans to downplay the actual insurrection and felony violence committed by Babbitt and thousands of others that day.

It’s important that everyone else relain clear-headed and focused on bring all these people, including the Inciter-in-Chief to justice.

It’s becoming pretty clear now that the attack on the Capitol on Wednesday was not just some spontaneous demonstration by wild eyed Trumpists that got out of hand.  Evidence is emerging of a coordinated attack on our government with the intent of insurrectionists to not only stop the Electoral College vote certification, but to also kidnap and even kill US officials to take control of the US government and hand it to Trump in a coup.  Fortunately the coup failed and our democracy endured, but that’s not the end of the story, not by a long shot.

Despite the rightwing media blitz of bullshit that the rioters were “infiltrated by Antifa and BLM”, well known Nazis, white supremacists, Qanon nutbags, and radical gun nuts were at the front of the line.  One such radical is retired Air Force Lt. Colonel Larry Rendell Brock, Jr. who’s family and friends have described him as increasingly unhinged and radical.  He was photographed in the well of the Senate chamber on Wednesday wearing body armor, a military issue combat helmet and carrying zip tie handcuffs.  He was also photographed enter Nancy Pelosi’s office and then quietly pushing past the mob and out.  Here he is in the chamber:

Other disturbing videos and photos have been posted online of other radicals carrying zip ties and weapons.  The video of the shocking scene of radicals smashing doors and the ultimate shooting of a Trump radical was the entrance to the Speaker’s lobby just outside of the House chamber.  The person shot and killed was trying to climb through the window of the door.  Her name was Ashli Babbitt, another Air Force vet, Qanon conspiracy nut, and extremist who’d become more and more radicalized.  The target of the violence?  House members who were evacuating through the lobby down a secure elevator.  The intent is clear.

Even worse, it is now pretty apparent that someone, or some persons, at the Pentagon either overtly or tacitly supported this attempted coup by confusing or delaying military and Capitol Police response.  As we talked about yesterday, governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, announced yesterday that he was denied clearance numerous times to deploy National Guard troops to the Capitol.  Dithering/stonewalling from the Pentagon caused loss of control at the Capitol resulting in numerous injuries and 5 deaths including a Capitol Hill Police officer who was beaten to death with a fire extinguisher.

On top of all this evidence, security experts in allied countries are now speaking out about the apparent conspiracy to support the attempted coup by Trump.  These experts, speaking anonymously, said what we all know, that keeping a building like the Capitol secure is not a secret.  The techniques that keep bad actors out of secure buildings all over the world are the same, and well known by security experts who share information and regularly train together.  One NATO official interviewed said to Business Insider, “Today I am briefing my government that we believe with a reasonable level of certainty that Donald Trump attempted a coup that failed when the system did not buckle.  I can’t believe this happened.”  Now THAT, kids, is a scary but also very likely correct conclusion.

In the coming days I believe that there will be, and should be, criminal conspiracy charges against individuals in US government agencies including in the Pentagon, Homeland Security, and even the White House.  Then, we’ll have to grapple with the conclusion that millions of Americans still support the person who tried to steal our government from us.  I’m not hopeful we can pull out of this.

You can say one thing about Donald Trump.  He commits his crimes in plain sight of the American people.  He fires officials who dare disagree with him; he fires officials who tell the truth; he engages in quid pro quo using the full force of the federal government for is own personal gain.  He engages in nepotism, daring anyone to challenge him; he lies when it’s easier to tell the truth.  He’s now decapitated the Pentagon, putting his loyalists in place most certainly there to either destroy evidence or stonewall investigations of Trump’s malfeasance.  AND, at this hour he has Michigan legislative Republicans in the WH to twist their arms to subvert the Michigan election and throw their electoral votes to him.  So let’s be clear here – Trump and his merry band of criminals knows there’s no voter fraud in the election.  They have failed in all the swings states where they have alleged fraud.  Now that those efforts have failed, Trump is now just trying to steal the election by convincing (bribing) Republican state legislatures to disenfranchise their own constituents and throw the electoral count to him.  In a word, Trump is instigating a coup against the new President, Joe Biden, who has been duly elected in both the majority of voters and electoral votes.  He’s doing that because he’s staring at a long stretch of hard time once he loses the shield of the presidency.

Trump has bent, broken, ignored, and subverted so many laws, regulations, traditions, and customs that nothing is normal.  He understands nothing but brute force, doesn’t give a shit about the Constitution, and doesn’t care if you live or die.  This is all about Donald Trump and only about Donald Trump.  If you don’t like what you’re seeing, here’s John Cornyn’s and Ted Cruz’s phone number.  It’s long past time they should have gotten off their fat asses to do their Goddam jobs, but I’m certainly not holding my breath.

John Cornyn – 202-224-2934

Ted Cruz – 202-224-5922