This was some news week and that was before the dramatic flourish at the end, the long expected but nevertheless shocking execution of Aleksei Navalny in a Siberian prison. It’s been noted that Donald Trump has never ever mentioned Navalny and there’s a reason for that.
The reason is obvious, as you’ll see from the short clips below where Trump rhapsodizes about how Vladimir Putin has “eaten Joe Biden’s lunch” and “put himself at the forefront as a world leader.” Make no mistake, if Trump would be reelected, Putin would become our ally, translating as America would in effect soon be a Russian colony. Take a look and then we’ll get to the news story that is flying under the radar and how it could finish Trump off politically, which is a recipe for America’s health and happiness.
Trump works for Putin https://t.co/kuw06sjOXb
— CosmicRewind🚀 (@TomorrowVenture) February 16, 2024
Trump admires Putin. Trump wants to be Putin, to rule with an iron fist. That would suit his insecurities just fine, to be a Putin-esque dictator. Now here’s what’s standing in his way and it has flown under the radar this week.Â
But for my money, the worst part of Trump’s week came in the filing by special counsel Jack Smith to the Supreme Court in response to the Trump team’s request for a stay on that trial, which is the January 6 insurrection case. In a 40-page filing, Smith and his attorneys dismantled Trump’s arguments one by one. Smith had until February 20 to file this response, but he did it eight days early and he means business: “The charged crimes strike at the heart of our democracy. A President’s alleged criminal scheme to overturn an election and thwart the peaceful transfer of power to his successor should be the last place to recognize a novel form of absolute immunity from federal criminal law. Applicant seeks a stay to prevent proceedings in the district court from moving towards trial, which the district court had scheduled to begin on March 4, 2024, before applicant’s interlocutory appeal necessitated postponement of that date. Applicant cannot show, as he must to merit a stay, a fair prospect of success in this Court.”
Getting it there so early gives the justices that much more time to study the matter and arrive at a conclusion.
Why is this filing so important? Three reasons. First, Smith urges the court to act quickly. He still wants the trial to start in March. If the court agrees, picture it: Trump on trial in two separate courtrooms, on charges that strike precisely at the heart of the two biggest manifestations of his moral turpitude: in New York, as a private citizen, as a man who treats women like garbage; in Washington, as a public, um, servant who mocks the Constitution and believes that no law applies to him. It will be a perfect stereo spectacle for Americans to spend the spring observing.
Second, while it’s true that we’re dealing with a very politicized Supreme Court here, and it’s obvious that at least two justices (Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas) will rule for Trump on just about anything, Smith’s response makes a very strong set of arguments that should appeal to at least some of the court’s conservative originalists. “The Framers,” Smith writes, “did not provide any explicit textual source of immunity to the President.”
And third: The Smith case is the most important of all for the simple reason that inciting the January 6 insurrection is the worst thing Trump has done. Granted, there is stiff competition for his most mortal sin. But egging on a crowd to overthrow the government and hang your own vice president still takes the cake. If Smith succeeds in convincing the Supremes to expedite this case and goes on to win a preelection conviction, that ought to seal Trump’s fate. Some recent polls have shown that swing-state swing voters would be highly disinclined to vote for Trump if he were convicted of a crime.
We’ve seen the conventional wisdom turning on this question in recent weeks. Last year, the standard media line was to say that all the indictments were helping Trump, which was true if you were talking only about Republican primary voters. But now the attention of the media and of pollsters is turning toward general election voters, and they see matters differently.
Every one of these cases is important because each one points to a grotesque deficiency of character that demonstrates why Trump should never be president again. But the insurrection case is the first among equals. A conviction in this case before November 5 really should be the end of the road for Trump. It all depends on the Supreme Court agreeing with Smith’s motion this week. He made as strong a case as could be made.
And the bottom line is: do we want to see a man returned to office who did try to overthrow the government and get his vice president hanged, on the same day? The simplicity of what took place on January 6 often escapes a lot of people. But that is what it distills down to and how historians will remember it. Trump cares about nobody but Trump. I truly believe that if Mike Pence had been injured or God forbid killed, that Trump would have felt that he had it coming to him.
And never forget the drama of Mike Pence refusing to get in the limousine. He was afraid to. “You’re not driving that car,” he said to his Secret Service chief. So who was driving the car? Or more pointedly, who did Mike Pence think might be driving the car? I’ll bet you Stephen Miller has an idea. Trump and Miller spent a lot of time on the phone that day, according to the White House phone records.
Jack Smith has meticulously handled this case and the classified documents case. Even Aileen Cannon refused to give Trump another delay, a move which many found sobering. Could it be that the judge realizes she’s on thin ice and could be asked to recuse herself or worse yet, removed from the case?
All the ducks are in a row under Jack Smith’s guidance. It’s going to be a very interesting spring. The crocuses will be blooming and the Trumps will be croaking, something like that. It will be a spring to remember, in any event.
It kind of throws me, why certain people need him to be convicted to be convinced. I don’t know if they don’t believe the media, which showed us all of this in real time. I just don’t get how much it takes to convince them what menace and danger to our country he actually is.
45 can’t say Navalny’s name in any positive fashion. Even saying RIP. Putin OWNS 45.
I agree Ursula. It’s unimaginable that the President of the United States would violate his oath of office, forment a conspiracy to steal the office after stealing it the first time with our enemies’ help, get 140+ police injured, and some killed defending the capital, and now be the other major party’s nominee for the very same office. Maybe I’m incensed as a veteran. Maybe I’m incensed because I’m educated. Maybe I’m incensed, having been sent to prison first offense for allowing some 16 and 17 year olds smoke weed,(with no evidence other than my honesty of willingness to agree to the idea but no evidence it ever happened), in a state that now allows it recreationally to be grown. I was told by the parole board I should never have been arrested after serving four months in the penitentiary, facing threats daily 24/7. I have a letter from them supporting my pardon that has been in a file for over 40 years. I’m proud to be a felon in a country this evil. Maybe it’s watching a true traitor walk on more real crime than I can imagine. Maybe it’s because the ‘nice’ citizens have allowed all of this hypocrisy and evil in our name. Maybe it’s because as a Religion major having studied with real scholars of language and ancient history, our culture blathering hypocrisy and ignorance at every turn, that justifies evil in the name of some phucking concept of ‘god’ between their ears. Maybe it’s because I’ve done several kinds of acid, including pure LSD from Switzerland, coleus, animita muscaria and psilocybin mushrooms, and challenged my own perceptions of ‘reality’. Maybe it’s because I’ve read a plethora of pulitzer prize winning books on history and know more than I want to about how evil has risen to power time and again because timid, well trained ‘good’ people stood by with hands in their pockets. Maybe it’s because I grew up with a man who transformed into a werewolf as early as I can remember, while I cowered in hiding hoping my mother lived through it, and eventually who had to shoot the man she loved. It taught me the complexity of love. Maybe it’s because I once belonged to Mensa. Maybe it’s because I lived with radical political activists on 230 Mccauley street in chapel hill in 1975-76, one of whom hung herself while her professor daddy was in China with Nixon. I could go on, but in the end, the system was right. I’m not going along with the program. I, like general Washington, who drew his sword to kill his own troops as they fled from the British, as they lost NY, have no tolerance for cowardice in the face of evil that threatens the survival of all the species, including ours, on this planet. I have no phucking idea what I’m going to do should the fascists steal another election. Having faced real violence all my life for no good reason, I guess I can face it again for a good one. One thing I’m sure of…this country was never founded or saved by cowards, or those who played it safe.
I’m incensed because I watched the damned thing on TV in real time! I wish the mob had gotten their hands, at least temporarily, on Pence. Maybe that act of violence would have shaken up some people more than ‘just’ the threat to our democracy has. I also wish the police would have had weaponry at the time, and used it. One was not enough.
There’s so much evidence about Trump’s criminal connections with Russia it’s not funny. It’s been the subject of many highly researched books by credible journalists, a good many of which I’ve read. But it hasn’t reached the general public because none of the many cases being prosecuted against Trump, with the possible exception (to some extent) of the Mar-a-Lago docs case, don’t address it. Russia was addressed in the Mueller investigation and the impeachments, all of which occurred while Trump was still president and none of which achieved what they were supposed to because of political pressure and shenanigans from Barr and others. The truth is, 91 felony counts just doesn’t do Trump justice. On top of everything else, he is the biggest traitor in American history. And up to now he and those MAGA bastards — think Tucker Carlson just for starters — are still doing it.
As an American president (pains me to acknowledge that) he met with Putin alone early on in his presidency. No one knows what was discussed or ever will, tons of documents shifted to Florida, will never know how many were shared or with whom. we know that Trump is too stupid to play checkers, so who has he sold us out to who can play chess? I am guessing more than player one. and all they have to do is simply say, I know you are, but what am I.