#ejeancarrollcase — Public Fediverse posts on home.social

Sky Dancing @[email protected] · 2026-08-17 · 16:54 UTC

Mostly Monday Reads: If at once You can’t succeed, fail and Fail again

“Shouldn’t the new US Attorney General be prosecuting Reflecting Pool Vandals instead of spinning on the Sunday News Shows?” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Regurgitating the past is so Trumpian. He’s the very model of a relic, an anachronistic trope. This week was full of reminders of how detached he is from reality. Once again, Orange Caligula tried to get the case brought by E. Jean Carroll overturned. Even the Supreme Court didn’t buy it. He may be able to control many of the folks he appointed to executive office, but his manipulation of U.S. democracy still only goes so far.

This is from NBC News‘ Lawrence Hurley. “Supreme Court turns away Trump’s latest bid to block E. Jean Carroll award. President Donald Trump filed an unusual request asking the justices to reconsider a decision they made not to hear his case several weeks ago.” E. Jean and her attorney, Roberta Kaplan, are real American heroes.

The Supreme Court on Monday declined for a second time to take up President Donald Trump’s bid to overturn a jury verdict that awarded $5 million to writer E. Jean Carroll for alleged sexual abuse and defamation.
In an unusual move, the president had asked the court to reconsider its decision from June that rejected Trump’s initial appeal. The court almost never grants such requests.
Trump has already turned over the $5 million dollars, plus interest
The case arose from a federal lawsuit Carroll filed in New York City alleging that Trump sexually assaulted her in the dressing room of a department store in 1996. The defamation claims relate to statements he made about her after his first term in office, in which he described her claims as a “con job” and “hoax.”
Trump has denied any wrongdoing and has said he does not know Carroll.
Trump has a separate appeal at the Supreme Court concerning a different defamation case in which Carroll won an $83 million judgment. That case concerns comments Trump made as president during his first term and has been tied up in litigation over whether he can claim immunity.
The court is not set to act on that appeal until later this year.

Good news. E. Jean Carroll spent a decade in court fighting one of the most powerful men in the world.She fought with tenacity and grace — and she won. She is one of my personal heroes.We owe her a debt of gratitude.https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/17/trump-supreme-court-e-jean-carroll.html
— Robert Reich (@rbreich.bsky.social) 2026-08-17T16:03:01.801585Z

And of course, he argued presidential immunity. This is from Politico.

Trump’s Supreme Court challenges to both verdicts argued in part that the verdicts were flawed because they relied on statements Trump made in 2019 about Carroll while he was serving as president and those statements should be considered immune from legal liability under the high court’s 2024 ruling granting presidents immunity for many acts they take while in office.

I wonder when the new AG is going to jump wily-nily into the case? I wrote a lot on Monday about the current treatment of the US Service members deployed to the Iran-Israeli/US war and their deplorable conditions. I mentioned that historically, Orange Caligula has shown mostly contempt for anyone who served in the military, voluntarily or not. My family has served this country since the Revolution, and I really don’t take kindly to the implications that my dad, uncles, or cousins, or any of the others that fall into the multiple greats, did so because they’re “suckers and losers”.

Public Notice‘s Noah Berlatsky takes on his constant denigration of the many who served. This happened after a Fox News “journalist,” Joey Jones, earned this headline from The Independent. “Fury erupts at Fox host who blasted ‘weak’ sailors on USS Abraham Lincoln: ‘Put him on that ship’. The former Marine Corps staff sergeant compared the carrier crew’s living conditions to his own deployment in Afghanistan.” The outrage over this continues. Here’s the take from Berlatsky: “Suckers and losers” as policy. The plight of the USS Lincoln lays bare Trump’s disdain for the troops.”

The Navy Times reported last week, based on interviews with family members, that multiple sailors have recently tried to jump overboard from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln — a ship has been deployed for 250 days as part of President Trump’s war of choice against Iran.
Food is deteriorating and being rationed, there are water shortages, the laundry facilities are broken. And the psychological toll has been brutal.
Trump started a war without provocation and has prolonged it because he does not want to admit he lost. But when questioned on Friday about conditions on the Lincoln, he responded not with compassion or regret, but with callous vindictiveness.
Asked if the deployment had lasted too long, he replied, “No. Not nearly long enough.”

Q: The family members of US service members are concerned about the conditions on the USS LincolnTRUMP: No they're notQ: Has the deployment gone on too long?TRUMP: No no no. Not nearly long enough.
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-08-14T17:16:35.974Z

Trump also claimed that a carrier was moving to the Middle East to relieve the Lincoln. That appears to be true. Still, his belligerent denial of the suffering of service members is shocking.
“Shocking,” though, does not mean surprising.
Over the last decade, Trump has consistently insulted and mocked US troops. His defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has made clear that he sees service members as props in his endless battle to win culture war accolades from Nazi bloggers and right-wing talking heads.
The fact that real men and women are experiencing mental health crises and are dying in service of their ill-informed and vindictive whims doesn’t trouble Trump or Hegseth. It should more than worry everyone else though.

In yet another deranged Orange Caligula moment, we see his priorities. This is from the AP. “Trump blames vandals for damaged grass in the same spot where he held his big July 4 celebration.” WTAF? Is this paranoia or some odd brain fart? He’s done more damage to the District than the British ever did!

President Donald Trump on Sunday said vandals are to blame for large swaths of dead grass on the National Mall near the World War II Memorial — in the same spot where Trump had a stage built and hosted crowds for his July 4 celebration.
Trump made the accusation in a social media post without saying why he believes it’s the work of vandals instead of trampled turf from the Independence Day festivities. He posted a photo showing a once-grassy area by the World War II Memorial, now patchy and brown across much of the sprawling turf.
“Look what VANDALS did to the grass connecting the vandalized World War II Monument and the vandalized Reflecting Pool, which will be opened again, and better than ever, shortly,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.
“Anybody who thinks the Reflecting Pool wasn’t vandalized should go back to Law School!” he added.

Trump has been obviously obsessed with World War II and its generals recently. Does he want to be Eisenhower now? Does he really think starting WW III would be a terrific idea to cement his place in history? I just don’t get any of this. Can someone please stop this madman before the country declines beyond repair?

In a truly bizarre move, Trump decided joint military exercises with South Korea should be ended because he’s such a good friend of the bizarro leader of North Korea. This is from the New York Times‘ Helene Cooper. “Trump Orders Pentagon to Curtail Military Exercises With Ally South Korea. In a social media post, the president scolded South Korea for not helping denuclearize Iran, and also praised North Korea and its leader.”
President Trump said on Sunday that he had instructed the Pentagon to reduce joint military exercises with South Korea, a longtime U.S. ally and a linchpin of America’s national security strategy in the Asia-Pacific region.
The announcement may heighten growing worries among Asian allies over what the United States is now willing to do to deter China, given the enormous distraction and resource drain of the U.S.-Israel war against Iran. The United States is running low on critical weapons and has been moving military resources out of Asia to the Middle East.
In a convoluted social media post, Mr. Trump complained that Seoul did not “join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” In the same post, he said that North Korea under Kim Jong Un had been “unthreatening and respectful” while he has been president.
In his post Mr. Trump did not mention a rift in relations in 2017, when the North Korean leader called him a “mentally deranged dotard” after Mr. Trump delivered a speech at the U.N. threatening to “totally destroy” North Korea if the United States had to defend itself or its allies.

Now Mr. Trump is speaking only of what he on Sunday called his “very good relationship” with North Korea and its leader. In his post, he said that because of those ties, he was “not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military exercises with South Korea.”
“These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful,” Mr. Trump said in his post.
Mr. Trump said that because it was too late to cancel the exercises entirely, he had asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “substantially reduce” U.S. participation.
The U.S. and South Korean militaries have held joint exercises for more than 70 years, since 1955, after the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War.
The South Korean Defense Ministry confirmed that the joint military exercises had begun on Monday as scheduled. In a statement last week, the allies emphasized that the 11-day annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises were “defensive in nature” and aimed at enhancing the countries’ readiness and capabilities by “incorporating realistic threats, including lessons learned from recent conflicts.”
But North Korea’s Foreign Ministry on Friday had reiterated its condemnation of the drills, branding them “a rehearsal for an aggressive war.” In response, the country conducted two ballistic missile tests off its east coast this month, vowing to “respond to a new level of a threat with a new level of a deterrent.”

I don’t know about you, but I think having a President so totally located in a completely different reality, in charge of things — especially the military — is an extremely dangerous place to be.

So, let’s end this on hope, a wing and a prayer. This is from Axios‘ Mike Zapler and Ben Berkowitz. “Even some Republican voters sour on Trump.” I would hope they could. How can you live in this country today and afford anything? How could you have draft-age children or grandchildren and not be worried?

High prices, a persistent war and anxiety about corruption are quickly eroding President Trump’s support among Republicans, a warning sign for the White House with less than 80 days to the midterms.
Why it matters: Democrats look likely to take control of the House already, but Trump’s weakness could cost Republicans more seats and further endanger the Senate.
The loss of one or both chambers would guarantee two years of scrutiny and gridlock for the end of Trump’s presidency.
By the numbers: Three surveys out in the last week paint a clear picture of growing dissatisfaction among the president’s base.
📉 An Economist/YouGov poll out Tuesday had Trump’s approval rating among Republicans at a second-term low of 79 percent — a decline of 12 points from shortly after he took office.
In that time, the percentage of Republicans who “strongly approve” of Trump’s performance has dropped more precipitously —by 20 points (from 68 to 48 percent).
Trump is barely above water among non-MAGA Republicans, who make up about 30 percent of the party. Only 51 percent approved of his performance, vs. 47 percent who disapproved. The positive rating among non-MAGA Republicans fell 13 points in one week.
⬇️ A Financial Times poll out this weekend had Trump’s net approval rating among Republicans off 8 points from just a month prior.
💰 Republican consumer sentiment fell 9.5 points in August from July, per the University of Michigan monthly survey out Friday — one of the largest declines the decades-old project has ever recorded. The Republican decline was more than double the overall headline number.
Driving the news: It’s no secret what’s behind the numbers: the war in Iran, high gas prices and stubborn inflation.
These recent findings come on the heels of polls that show rising Republican skepticism of the war and GOP wariness over whether Trump is using his office for personal profit.
The intrigue: Trump’s political strength has long derived from outsized loyalty among Republicans, so even a slight slippage could be consequential.

I also was under the delusion that Republicans were deficit hawks. But, I guess that was just another gaslighting session. If you have time, check this one out by Max Boot from the Washington Post. Too bad it took some of these assholes so long to figure things out. “I’m a hawk. I’m shocked by a $1.5 trillion defense budget. The request would top World War II spending while funding boondoggles and sweetheart deals.”

So, anyway, it’s another hot, humid Monday down here in New Orleans, and I have to go water the small patch of sod that is now the middle of my small backyard. I’m still trying to teach folks economics and finance, but nothing fits the reality these days. The entire Data Center thing and the supposed “financing” of it are totally outside my realm, as a PhD in Financial Economics. Call me churlish, but this looks more like the Command-and-Control economics and policies of the old Soviet Union than those of the United States. Then there’s this, which is so far outside the bounds of legality I can’t even think straight about it. “Trump family crypto business World Liberty gets preliminary approval to establish a bank.” The flunky he appointed as Comptroller of the Currency has already approved it. Let’s see how he manipulates the Federal Reserve System and the SEC! Don’t even get me started on RFK Jr’s latest romp through medicine and the vaccines that have saved so many people.

As usual, more at the links.

Anyway, I can’t believe what’s going on. I really can’t. None of this should be happening. Let me know what you think. As usual, more on any of this can be found at the links.

What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?

#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #EJeanCarrollCase #Republicans #SCOTUS #TrumpAndNorthAndSouthKorea #TrumpAndTheUSNavy #TrumpLosingSupportFromRepublicans #TrumpThinksTheMilitaryIsFullOfLosers

#scotus #trumpandnorthandsouthkorea #trumpandtheusnavy #trumplosingsupportfromrepublicans #trumpthinksthemilitaryisfulloflosers #johnbussbskysocialjohnbuss

Sky Dancing @[email protected] · 2026-08-17 · 16:54 UTC

Mostly Monday Reads: If at once You can’t succeed, fail and Fail again

“Shouldn’t the new US Attorney General be prosecuting Reflecting Pool Vandals instead of spinning on the Sunday News Shows?” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Regurgitating the past is so Trumpian. He’s the very model of a relic, an anachronistic trope. This week was full of reminders of how detached he is from reality. Once again, Orange Caligula tried to get the case brought by E. Jean Carroll overturned. Even the Supreme Court didn’t buy it. He may be able to control many of the folks he appointed to executive office, but his manipulation of U.S. democracy still only goes so far.

This is from NBC News‘ Lawrence Hurley. “Supreme Court turns away Trump’s latest bid to block E. Jean Carroll award. President Donald Trump filed an unusual request asking the justices to reconsider a decision they made not to hear his case several weeks ago.” E. Jean and her attorney, Roberta Kaplan, are real American heroes.

The Supreme Court on Monday declined for a second time to take up President Donald Trump’s bid to overturn a jury verdict that awarded $5 million to writer E. Jean Carroll for alleged sexual abuse and defamation.
In an unusual move, the president had asked the court to reconsider its decision from June that rejected Trump’s initial appeal. The court almost never grants such requests.
Trump has already turned over the $5 million dollars, plus interest
The case arose from a federal lawsuit Carroll filed in New York City alleging that Trump sexually assaulted her in the dressing room of a department store in 1996. The defamation claims relate to statements he made about her after his first term in office, in which he described her claims as a “con job” and “hoax.”
Trump has denied any wrongdoing and has said he does not know Carroll.
Trump has a separate appeal at the Supreme Court concerning a different defamation case in which Carroll won an $83 million judgment. That case concerns comments Trump made as president during his first term and has been tied up in litigation over whether he can claim immunity.
The court is not set to act on that appeal until later this year.

Good news. E. Jean Carroll spent a decade in court fighting one of the most powerful men in the world.She fought with tenacity and grace — and she won. She is one of my personal heroes.We owe her a debt of gratitude.https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/17/trump-supreme-court-e-jean-carroll.html
— Robert Reich (@rbreich.bsky.social) 2026-08-17T16:03:01.801585Z

And of course, he argued presidential immunity. This is from Politico.

Trump’s Supreme Court challenges to both verdicts argued in part that the verdicts were flawed because they relied on statements Trump made in 2019 about Carroll while he was serving as president and those statements should be considered immune from legal liability under the high court’s 2024 ruling granting presidents immunity for many acts they take while in office.

I wonder when the new AG is going to jump wily-nily into the case? I wrote a lot on Monday about the current treatment of the US Service members deployed to the Iran-Israeli/US war and their deplorable conditions. I mentioned that historically, Orange Caligula has shown mostly contempt for anyone who served in the military, voluntarily or not. My family has served this country since the Revolution, and I really don’t take kindly to the implications that my dad, uncles, or cousins, or any of the others that fall into the multiple greats, did so because they’re “suckers and losers”.

Public Notice‘s Noah Berlatsky takes on his constant denigration of the many who served. This happened after a Fox News “journalist,” Joey Jones, earned this headline from The Independent. “Fury erupts at Fox host who blasted ‘weak’ sailors on USS Abraham Lincoln: ‘Put him on that ship’. The former Marine Corps staff sergeant compared the carrier crew’s living conditions to his own deployment in Afghanistan.” The outrage over this continues. Here’s the take from Berlatsky: “Suckers and losers” as policy. The plight of the USS Lincoln lays bare Trump’s disdain for the troops.”

The Navy Times reported last week, based on interviews with family members, that multiple sailors have recently tried to jump overboard from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln — a ship has been deployed for 250 days as part of President Trump’s war of choice against Iran.
Food is deteriorating and being rationed, there are water shortages, the laundry facilities are broken. And the psychological toll has been brutal.
Trump started a war without provocation and has prolonged it because he does not want to admit he lost. But when questioned on Friday about conditions on the Lincoln, he responded not with compassion or regret, but with callous vindictiveness.
Asked if the deployment had lasted too long, he replied, “No. Not nearly long enough.”

Q: The family members of US service members are concerned about the conditions on the USS LincolnTRUMP: No they're notQ: Has the deployment gone on too long?TRUMP: No no no. Not nearly long enough.
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-08-14T17:16:35.974Z

Trump also claimed that a carrier was moving to the Middle East to relieve the Lincoln. That appears to be true. Still, his belligerent denial of the suffering of service members is shocking.
“Shocking,” though, does not mean surprising.
Over the last decade, Trump has consistently insulted and mocked US troops. His defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has made clear that he sees service members as props in his endless battle to win culture war accolades from Nazi bloggers and right-wing talking heads.
The fact that real men and women are experiencing mental health crises and are dying in service of their ill-informed and vindictive whims doesn’t trouble Trump or Hegseth. It should more than worry everyone else though.

In yet another deranged Orange Caligula moment, we see his priorities. This is from the AP. “Trump blames vandals for damaged grass in the same spot where he held his big July 4 celebration.” WTAF? Is this paranoia or some odd brain fart? He’s done more damage to the District than the British ever did!

President Donald Trump on Sunday said vandals are to blame for large swaths of dead grass on the National Mall near the World War II Memorial — in the same spot where Trump had a stage built and hosted crowds for his July 4 celebration.
Trump made the accusation in a social media post without saying why he believes it’s the work of vandals instead of trampled turf from the Independence Day festivities. He posted a photo showing a once-grassy area by the World War II Memorial, now patchy and brown across much of the sprawling turf.
“Look what VANDALS did to the grass connecting the vandalized World War II Monument and the vandalized Reflecting Pool, which will be opened again, and better than ever, shortly,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.
“Anybody who thinks the Reflecting Pool wasn’t vandalized should go back to Law School!” he added.

Trump has been obviously obsessed with World War II and its generals recently. Does he want to be Eisenhower now? Does he really think starting WW III would be a terrific idea to cement his place in history? I just don’t get any of this. Can someone please stop this madman before the country declines beyond repair?

In a truly bizarre move, Trump decided joint military exercises with South Korea should be ended because he’s such a good friend of the bizarro leader of North Korea. This is from the New York Times‘ Helene Cooper. “Trump Orders Pentagon to Curtail Military Exercises With Ally South Korea. In a social media post, the president scolded South Korea for not helping denuclearize Iran, and also praised North Korea and its leader.”
President Trump said on Sunday that he had instructed the Pentagon to reduce joint military exercises with South Korea, a longtime U.S. ally and a linchpin of America’s national security strategy in the Asia-Pacific region.
The announcement may heighten growing worries among Asian allies over what the United States is now willing to do to deter China, given the enormous distraction and resource drain of the U.S.-Israel war against Iran. The United States is running low on critical weapons and has been moving military resources out of Asia to the Middle East.
In a convoluted social media post, Mr. Trump complained that Seoul did not “join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” In the same post, he said that North Korea under Kim Jong Un had been “unthreatening and respectful” while he has been president.
In his post Mr. Trump did not mention a rift in relations in 2017, when the North Korean leader called him a “mentally deranged dotard” after Mr. Trump delivered a speech at the U.N. threatening to “totally destroy” North Korea if the United States had to defend itself or its allies.

Now Mr. Trump is speaking only of what he on Sunday called his “very good relationship” with North Korea and its leader. In his post, he said that because of those ties, he was “not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military exercises with South Korea.”
“These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful,” Mr. Trump said in his post.
Mr. Trump said that because it was too late to cancel the exercises entirely, he had asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “substantially reduce” U.S. participation.
The U.S. and South Korean militaries have held joint exercises for more than 70 years, since 1955, after the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War.
The South Korean Defense Ministry confirmed that the joint military exercises had begun on Monday as scheduled. In a statement last week, the allies emphasized that the 11-day annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises were “defensive in nature” and aimed at enhancing the countries’ readiness and capabilities by “incorporating realistic threats, including lessons learned from recent conflicts.”
But North Korea’s Foreign Ministry on Friday had reiterated its condemnation of the drills, branding them “a rehearsal for an aggressive war.” In response, the country conducted two ballistic missile tests off its east coast this month, vowing to “respond to a new level of a threat with a new level of a deterrent.”

I don’t know about you, but I think having a President so totally located in a completely different reality, in charge of things — especially the military — is an extremely dangerous place to be.

So, let’s end this on hope, a wing and a prayer. This is from Axios‘ Mike Zapler and Ben Berkowitz. “Even some Republican voters sour on Trump.” I would hope they could. How can you live in this country today and afford anything? How could you have draft-age children or grandchildren and not be worried?

High prices, a persistent war and anxiety about corruption are quickly eroding President Trump’s support among Republicans, a warning sign for the White House with less than 80 days to the midterms.
Why it matters: Democrats look likely to take control of the House already, but Trump’s weakness could cost Republicans more seats and further endanger the Senate.
The loss of one or both chambers would guarantee two years of scrutiny and gridlock for the end of Trump’s presidency.
By the numbers: Three surveys out in the last week paint a clear picture of growing dissatisfaction among the president’s base.
📉 An Economist/YouGov poll out Tuesday had Trump’s approval rating among Republicans at a second-term low of 79 percent — a decline of 12 points from shortly after he took office.
In that time, the percentage of Republicans who “strongly approve” of Trump’s performance has dropped more precipitously —by 20 points (from 68 to 48 percent).
Trump is barely above water among non-MAGA Republicans, who make up about 30 percent of the party. Only 51 percent approved of his performance, vs. 47 percent who disapproved. The positive rating among non-MAGA Republicans fell 13 points in one week.
⬇️ A Financial Times poll out this weekend had Trump’s net approval rating among Republicans off 8 points from just a month prior.
💰 Republican consumer sentiment fell 9.5 points in August from July, per the University of Michigan monthly survey out Friday — one of the largest declines the decades-old project has ever recorded. The Republican decline was more than double the overall headline number.
Driving the news: It’s no secret what’s behind the numbers: the war in Iran, high gas prices and stubborn inflation.
These recent findings come on the heels of polls that show rising Republican skepticism of the war and GOP wariness over whether Trump is using his office for personal profit.
The intrigue: Trump’s political strength has long derived from outsized loyalty among Republicans, so even a slight slippage could be consequential.

I also was under the delusion that Republicans were deficit hawks. But, I guess that was just another gaslighting session. If you have time, check this one out by Max Boot from the Washington Post. Too bad it took some of these assholes so long to figure things out. “I’m a hawk. I’m shocked by a $1.5 trillion defense budget. The request would top World War II spending while funding boondoggles and sweetheart deals.”

So, anyway, it’s another hot, humid Monday down here in New Orleans, and I have to go water the small patch of sod that is now the middle of my small backyard. I’m still trying to teach folks economics and finance, but nothing fits the reality these days. The entire Data Center thing and the supposed “financing” of it are totally outside my realm, as a PhD in Financial Economics. Call me churlish, but this looks more like the Command-and-Control economics and policies of the old Soviet Union than those of the United States. Then there’s this, which is so far outside the bounds of legality I can’t even think straight about it. “Trump family crypto business World Liberty gets preliminary approval to establish a bank.” The flunky he appointed as Comptroller of the Currency has already approved it. Let’s see how he manipulates the Federal Reserve System and the SEC! Don’t even get me started on RFK Jr’s latest romp through medicine and the vaccines that have saved so many people.

As usual, more at the links.

Anyway, I can’t believe what’s going on. I really can’t. None of this should be happening. Let me know what you think. As usual, more on any of this can be found at the links.

What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?

#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #EJeanCarrollCase #Republicans #SCOTUS #TrumpAndNorthAndSouthKorea #TrumpAndTheUSNavy #TrumpLosingSupportFromRepublicans #TrumpThinksTheMilitaryIsFullOfLosers

#trumpthinksthemilitaryisfulloflosers #trumplosingsupportfromrepublicans #trumpandtheusnavy #trumpandnorthandsouthkorea #scotus #republicans

Sky Dancing @[email protected] · 2024-03-20 · 16:26 UTC

Good Morning!!

At the Gardner Museum, an empty frame hangs where a painting was stolen.

Before I get started on today’s political news, I wanted to note the anniversary of the Isabella Stewart Gardner heist on Monday. It’s a Boston story I’ve always found fascinating. I’m illustrating this post with some of the 13 missing works of art.

CBS News: Isabella Stewart Gardner art heist happened 34 years ago, FBI still receiving tips.

BOSTON — Thirty-four years ago two thieves robbed the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, making off with hundreds of millions of dollars in stolen artwork. The heist has been the subject of mystery and documentaries ever since.
“I have been here for a long time looking for these, and I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t affect me. I walk by the empty frames every day,” said Anthony Amore, Director of Security at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
In 1990, two men snuck into the museum disguised as police officers answering a distress call. The duo tied up to two guards and were in the museum for 81 minutes. They made off with numerous pieces of art including 13 works from famous painters like Rembrandt. The art is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
“I believe that information is going to come in, or I am going to get the stuff first, but one way or another we will get the art back,” said Amore.
Over the past year, the museum and the FBI have received hundreds of tips and emails. Amore says most are theories or conjecture, but a few are an occasional tip. He says 20 of those calls came from people who thought they spotted the works of art on the wall during house showings or on pictures from Zillow. They were just reproductions used to stage the homes for sale.
“There is a lot of these things out there, and when we do see things from Zillow, or any other real estate website, we don’t look at it and say, ‘That is our painting.’ Nevertheless, we follow it,” said Amore. “I am amazed that people notice because Zillow has millions of listings, and people go through and go, ‘That’s that missing Gardner painting.”

There is a $10 million reward for information leading to finding the paintings.

The New York Times: Empty Frames and Other Oddities From the Unsolved Gardner Museum Heist.

In the pre-dawn hours of March 18, 1990, following a festive St. Patrick’s Day in Boston, two men dressed as police officers walked into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and walked off with an estimated $500 million in art treasures. Despite efforts by the local police, federal agents, amateur sleuths and not a few journalists, no one has found any of the 13 works lost in the largest art theft in history, including a rare Vermeer and three precious Rembrandts.

The Concert, by Johannes Vermeer

The legacy of the heist is always apparent to museum visitors who, decades later, still confront vacant frames on the gallery walls where paintings once hung. They are kept there as a reminder of loss, museum officials say, and in the hope that the works may eventually return. Last month, Richard Abath, the night watchman who mistakenly allowed in the thieves, died at 57. He was a vital figure in an investigation that remains active, but where the trails have grown cold.
Here are five oddities that make this one of the most compelling of American crimes.
The thieves took a really strange array of stuff.
Important paintings were taken from their frames during the heist. But other items that were stolen were not nearly of the same caliber: a nondescript Chinese metal vase; a fairly ordinary bronze eagle from atop a flagpole; and five minor sketches by Degas. The thieves walked past paintings and jade figurines worth millions, including a drawing by Michelangelo, yet they spent some of their 81 minutes inside fussing to free the vase from a tricky locking mechanism.
The handcuffed guard was later scrutinized.
Abath, one of two guards on duty, was handcuffed and gagged with duct tape. He was never named a suspect. But over the years investigators continued to review his behavior because he had, against protocol, opened the museum door to the thieves. (The second guard, who is still living, was never a focus of investigative interest.) The F.B.I. monitored Abath’s assets for decades but never saw any suspicious income. He consistently said he told investigators everything he knew, and an F.B.I. polygraph he voluntarily took was deemed “inconclusive.”
The empty frames have stayed on the walls.
The museum was once Gardner’s home and she wanted to ensure that her expansive art collection was displayed in the same manner she had arranged it. She stipulated in her will that not a thing was to be removed or rearranged, or the collection should be shipped to Paris for auction, with the money going to Harvard University. Though it’s long been reported that the empty frames are left hanging to accord with that will, the museum says that is actually a long uncorrected mistake. “We have chosen to display them,” it said in a statement “because 1.) we remain confident that the works will someday return to their rightful place in the galleries; and 2.) they are a poignant reminder of the loss to the public of these unique works.”

Read the rest at the NYT.

I wish I could spend the day reading about famous art thefts and missing or recovered paintings, but I suppose I’d better take a look at the politics news . . .

On Monday Judge Aileen “Loose” Cannon shocked legal observers with a strange order.

USA Today: Judge in Trump classified documents case proposes ‘insane’ jury instructions, experts say.

The judge presiding over charges against former President Donald Trump for allegedly hoarding classified documents after leaving the White House proposed on Monday jury instructions for the eventual trial that favor his claim that he declassified the records.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s proposal tips the scales so far in Trump’s direction that legal experts say the prosecutor, Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, might ask an appeals court to remove her from the case.
Joyce White Vance, a former U.S. attorney, said the Presidential Records Act isn’t a way around rules for handling classified documents because the records are still government property, not Trump’s personal possessions.

Rembrandt von Rijn Self-Portrait

“Expect their response to be hard-hitting,” Vance said of prosecutors in a post on Substack. “The bottom line is that the Presidential Records Act doesn’t forgive Trump for violating criminal laws regarding handling of national secrets.” [….]
Cannon gave lawyers for Trump and Smith until April 2 to submit proposed jury instructions for the eventual trial. The order on Monday came after a hearing in which she didn’t resolve the dispute over whether the documents fell under the Presidential Records Act.
But her order called for lawyers on both sides to “engage” with two possible instructions she proposed.
In one, Cannon said jurors should “make a factual finding as to whether the government had proven beyond a reasonable doubt” the records are personal or presidential.
In the other, Cannon proposed telling jurors “a president has sole authority under the PRA to categorize records as personal or presidential during his/her presidency. Neither a court nor a jury is permitted to make or review such as categorization decision.”

Neither of those instructions reflects what the Presidential Records Act says.

Legal experts blasted the order as “insane” and “nuts.”
“This second scenario is legally insane,” and under it Cannon could simply dismiss the charges, said Bradley Moss, a national-security lawyer.
George Conway, another lawyer and frequent critic of Trump, argued Cannon shouldn’t be hearing the case and shouldn’t even be a federal judge. Cannon was appointed by Trump and has been widely criticized for decisions that have delayed the trial, including two overturned by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“This is utterly nuts,” Conway said.
Vance said both proposals from Cannon “virtually direct the jury to find Trump not guilty.”
“It turns out it’s two pages of crazy stemming from the Judge’s apparent inability to tell Trump no when it comes to his argument that he turned the nation’s secrets into his personal records by designating them as such under the Presidential Records Act,” Vance said.

Read more about the Presidential Records Act at USA Today.

Jose Pagliery at The Daily Beast: Mar-a-Lago Judge’s Stark Ruling: Jury Sees Secret Files or Trump Wins.

The MAGA-friendly federal judge who keeps siding with Donald Trump in his Mar-a-Lago classified records case has forced prosecutors to make a stark choice: allow jurors to see a huge trove of national secrets or let him go.
U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon’s ultimatum Monday night came as a surprise twist in what could have been a simple order; one merely asking federal prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers for proposed jury instructions at the upcoming trial.

Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee, by Rembrandt van Rijn

But as she has done repeatedly, Cannon used this otherwise innocuous legal step as yet another way to swing the case wildly in favor of the man who appointed her while he was president.
Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith must now choose whether to allow jurors at the upcoming criminal trial to peruse the many classified records found at the former president’s South Florida mansion or give jurors instructions that would effectively order them to acquit him.
Alternatively, Smith could appeal to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, where more experienced judges have already overturned Cannon and reined her in. But doing that will only further delay a trial that’s at least three months behind schedule, entirely by the judge’s own design. (She froze the investigation and tried to slow-roll document review until the appellate court forced her to stop.)

Ray Brescia at The Daily Beast: Judge Aileen Cannon Could Get Herself Booted From Trump’s Classified Documents Case.

…[O]ver the last six months, a slow-moving car-crash of a case has been unfolding, with a judge who seems committed to protecting the former president at every turn of the road. In that case, Judge Aileen Cannon is adjudicating the prosecution of the former president in the classified documents case in a haphazard way at best. At worst, she is doing all she can to protect the former president from facing the classified documents case before the election, if at all.
Her recent rulings—announcing she is likely to release the names of the government’s witnesses and potentially expose them to ridicule and violence, and a highly questionable decision on how she may instruct the jury should we ever get one—do not just make special counsel Jack Smith’s case more difficult. In a perverse way, the more difficult she makes it, she might actually help Smith in the end.
Should Smith ask an appellate court to review Judge Cannon’s rulings, not only is he likely to get those decisions reversed, her actions to delay and attempt to block the effort to bring the former president to justice may end up getting her removed from the case altogether.
In many respects, we’ve been here before. Back in 2022, in a highly questionable move, Judge Cannon presided over a case challenging the FBI’s entry into Mar-a-Lago pursuant to a lawful subpoena to determine whether the former president was harboring classified documents there (he was). Her willingness to entertain such a brazen and unprecedented effort should have been laughed out of court. Instead, she intervened in that case to protect the former president.

The appeals court “roundly criticized” Trump for filing the case and Cannon for accepting Trump’s arguments and order the case dismissed.

That order to dismiss the underlying case was one filed by Trump. Here, should Smith appeal and prevail on any of the questionable decisions issued by Judge Cannon, the remedy would not include dismissal of that case.
That does not mean Smith is without recourse. Should Smith prevail, an appellate court would be well within its rights to send it back to the trial court, but unlike where it ordered Cannon to dismiss the case brought by Trump, here, it could direct that a different judge take up the matter.
And that is exactly what might happen if Judge Cannon continues to do what should seem obvious that she is doing to anyone watching this matter: she is putting her thumb on the scale in favor of the defendant over and over again.
If Judge Cannon keeps going down this road, Smith can seek an immediate appeal of any of those orders that seem to improperly hamstring his prosecution and ask the appellate court. In this instance, that would be the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, the same court that previously overturned Cannon in her fool’s errand related to the search of Mar-a-Lago. Smith can ask the court to not just overturn those orders, but also re-assign the case to a different judge.

I hope this latest insanity from Cannon will convince Smith he needs to get her removed from the case.

Landscape with Obelisk, by Govaert Flink

More Trump legal news:

BBC News: Trump needs a $464m bond in six days. What if he can’t get it?

If Mr Trump wants to continue his appeal in the case without the state seizing the fine from him, he must submit the full amount in cash or secure a bond from a private company by 25 March.
But on Monday, his lawyers said that despite their “diligent efforts” it had been “practically impossible” to find a company willing to act as a guarantor of the full sum and asked for a pause.
“We really are in a moment of serious crisis for Trump personally, as well as for his business,” said Professor Will Thomas from the University of Michigan Ross Business School.
So with the clock seemingly ticking, here’s what could happen next in the case.

If Mr Trump wants to continue his appeal in the case without the state seizing the fine from him, he must submit the full amount in cash or secure a bond from a private company by 25 March.

But on Monday, his lawyers said that despite their “diligent efforts” it had been “practically impossible” to find a company willing to act as a guarantor of the full sum and asked for a pause.

“We really are in a moment of serious crisis for Trump personally, as well as for his business,” said Professor Will Thomas from the University of Michigan Ross Business School.

So with the clock seemingly ticking, here’s what could happen next in the case….

A panel of appeals court judges will decide by 25 March whether the $464m judgement can be paused while Mr Trump appeals.

This would be a best case scenario for the former president, who is no doubt eager to avoid having to pay an estimated 16% of what Forbes reports is his $2.6bn net worth.

The fact that Mr Trump has assets in the state of New York that can be seized, however, could reassure a court that he would be able to pay the penalty if he lost the appeal, according to Mr Thomas….
“I think it is very likely that he will get some kind of stay – unless they find some other stopgap option,” he told the BBC.

I certainly hope that doesn’t happen. Trump has gotten enough special treatment. The next possibility:

Mr Trump could still find a way to secure a bond – for a fee – if his request for a stay is rejected, although according to his lawyers, this could be difficult.
The bonding company would be agreeing to pay the financial penalty if Mr Trump loses his appeal and cannot do so himself.
But his legal team said they had already approached 30 companies without success.

Read about the other possibilities at the link. Again I’m sick and tired of Trump getting special treatment.

Édouard Manet, Chez Tortoni

CNBC reports that the Chubb Group, which covered Trump’s bond in the E. Jean Carroll case, wasn’t interested in giving Trump any more financial support: Chubb ended Trump fraud bond talks after backing E. Jean Carroll appeal bond, court filing says.

Donald Trump and his co-defendants were in talks with insurance giant Chubb for a $464 million appeal bond in the former president’s civil fraud case, but the company backed out — days after it raised eyebrows for giving Trump a bond in a separate case, according to a Trump lawyer.
Chubb was one of more than 30 companies that refused to craft a bond that would put the massive business fraud judgment on pause, attorneys for Trump said in a New York appeals court filing Monday.
The attorneys in that filing asked the appeals court to “put the brakes” on the judgment before New York Attorney General Letitia James can start to collect on it — a process that could begin as soon as next week. James has said she will seize Trump’s assets if he cannot pay the judgment.
A panel of judges on that court has yet to rule on Trump’s request to pause the judgment without him having to post a fully secured bond.
Alan Garten, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, said in that filing that Chubb was the only company willing to consider underwriting an appeal bond secured by a blend of liquid assets and real property.
The other companies — which included Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, Liberty Mutual, Allianz, and Travelers — wanted only cash or other liquid assets.