Busy Courts, News Bits

The Supreme Court is finished with this year’s session but still making decisions. DDT’s White House trade adviser Peter Navarro again failed to get out of jail in Miami although Justice Neil Gorsuch took his plea to the entire high court. Navarro is serving his four months’ sentence for contempt in refusing a subpoena from the House January 6 investigative committee. Chief Justice John Roberts had denied the case in mid-March before Navarro went to jail, but Navarro used his arrest to advertise his book and ask for money.

Elon Musk also lost his case before the Supreme Court after he tried to back out of a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission after regulators alleged Musk’s tweets to be fraudulent. In 2018, he claimed he had “funding secured” to take Tesla private at $420 a share, a statement the SEC called untrue, leading to the stock price’s wild swings. In a “Twitter sitter provision, a company lawyer must approve his social media posts about Tesla which Musk later decried  as a violation of First Amendment rights. A district court and the 2^nd Circuit Court earlier rejected Musk’s request.

As the Supreme Court ponders whether U.S. presidents have absolute immunity for any crimes they commit, the legal world discusses how conservative textual originalists have lost their philosophy. They frequently used the “history and tradition” test to rule against people’s rights such as refusing a charity drag show at West Texas A&M, permitting almost unlimited gun carrying, and overturning abortion rights in Roe v. Wade. They even allowed a football coach to gather a crowd to pray with him on the field after games despite separation of church and state. After creating new law with those cases, the conservative justices reversed their need for originalism, a focus on the past, in arguments on DDT’s request for absolute immunity.

Originalism has never consistently applied and ignored history because the belief is to apply the constitution only as it was written. DDT-appointed judge Matthew Kacsmaryk used originalism in the drag show case when he cited an 18th-century treatise about “licentiousness” and the 1873 ban on mailing “lascivious” materials to block the drag show. The judge also wrote that older rules set an “outer limit” on “sexualized ‘expressive conduct.’” The Supreme Court refused a repeal, and the case waits at the 5^th Circuit Court.

The Constitution doesn’t allow immunity, which makes the history-and-tradition test appear laughable with conservative justices. Emily Bazelon wrote that “the legal standard has been recently adopted by the court’s conservative majority to allow judges to set aside modern developments in the law to restore the precedents of the distant past … a freewheeling survey of the 18th and 19th centuries.”

The 4^th Circuit Court is the first appeals court to rule that state health-care plans must pay for gender-affirming surgeries. The majority opinion stated that the West Virginia policy restrictions were “obviously discriminatory” based on both sex and gender. Earlier this month, the appeals court decided that a federally funded middle school could not ban a trans 13-year-old from playing on the girls’ track and field team. The case will be appealed to the Supreme Court.

In 2018, North Carolina state employees challenged coverage of trans individuals objecting to the exclusion of surgical treatment for gender dysphoria, a clinical diagnosis of a disconnect between a person’s gender and birth sex. Both objecting states cited no bias, only cost concerns for what they called specialized care. North Carolina covered the treatment in 2017 but quit when the state elected a new treasurer. Twenty-one Republican-led states asked the court to rule against the plaintiffs, and 17 states supported the coverage.  

Texas AG Ken Paxton has dropped his subpoena for information about transgender minors treated at Seattle Children’s Hospital, legal in Washington, in a settlement between his office and the Washington state hospital. The state hospital argued that Paxton’s offices doesn’t have jurisdiction over it. In a sworn affidavit, the hospital system’s chief medical operations officer said the hospital doesn’t employ staff in Texas who provide gender-affirming care or provide any care remotely to anyone outside Washington. Washington’s “shield law” blocks officials in the state from turning over records “related to protected health care services that are lawful in the state of Washington” to officials in other states in response to “a subpoena, warrant, court order, or other civil or criminal legal process.”

Paxton already demanded similar information from a Georgia-based telehealth clinic. In February, he also sent a civil investigation demand to PFLAG National requesting records related to the families of transgender young people in Texas seeking to maintain gender-affirming care. Last month, a Texas judge granted a temporary injunction blocking Paxton’s demand. Last week, a 10-page Democratic congressional report found that Paxton and other Republican AGs had used “abusive legal demands” to collect trans patients’ medical records in pursuit of “ideological and political goals.” Such investigations have contributed to hostile anti-LGBTQ+ social and political climates and have also worsened queer people’s mental health, leading to “suicidal ideation, severe depression, and intense anxiety,” the report added.

Texas has joined two other “law & order” states in the claim they will ignore President Joe Biden’s new Title IX guidelines protecting transgender students. Gov. Greg Abbott wrote a letter to Biden ranting about the revised rules. Wyoming, South Carolina, and Oklahoma have also complained about the new protections for LGTQ+ students.

Last Friday, Biden reinstated healthcare for LGBTQ+ people that DDT had rescinded, issuing a rule that the Affordable Care Act’s ban on sex-based discrimination in Section 1557 applies to LGBTQ+ people. DDT permitted anti-LGTBQ+ discrimination.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is continuing her hate campaign toward LGBTQ+ people, especially transgender youth. When the father of a ten-year-old transgender girl asked what she wanted from her life in ten years, she said she wanted to be on Netflix. Greene’s message for the girl, misgendering her, is that “he” will be an “anorgasmic 20-year-old … with no chance of ever having his own family,” using her vitriol to push her bill banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors at the federal level and create difficulties for gender-affirming care for adults.

Many of Greene’s vicious comments have been directed at Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, especially after he and his husband Chasteen adopted infant twins in August 2021. Buttigieg has always kept his cool, even managing to smile as he took the tiny toddlers on a city bus trip—very unlike Greene who has tried to trip an aide walking next to her and exhibited other rude, inappropriate behavior.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore has signed the Freedom to Read Act, prohibiting libraries that receive state funding from banning books and blocking censorship of books based on the creator’s background, origin, or viewpoints, as well as partisan disapproval. The bill also protects school and public library staff who adhere to the state library standards outlined in the bill, shielding them from retaliation. Last year, the 148 book challenges in public schools and libraries put the state among the 17 to exceed 100 contested titles. Moore also signed a bill requiring anti-bias training for all school employees.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has a contender on the GOP primary, former naval aviator Aaron Dimmock. With the typical ignorance about the definition of grammar, Gaetz said, “Our pronouns are USA and MAGA.”

Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) proposal for a bill to protect him with special security escorts at airports was blocked from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization because Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, objected. Cruz’s provision would have provided security escorts and special screenings for members of Congress, cabinets and judges along with their families. The bill would have addressed security only in where everyone had already been screened for weapons.

Absence apparently makes the heart grow fonder: today’s voters are far more positive about DDT than when he was in office, based on polling. CNN found that 55 percent of people view DDT’s time in the white House as a success, but in January 2021, the same percentage saw him as a failure. Sixty percent of voters in three swing states—Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—view DDT’s economy as good.  

The sharp division between Biden and DDT comes from whether people follow political news. Those who ignore it view DDT and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. more positively than Biden. Their position is that they know who they are supporting and aren’t changing. The poll considered traditional and digital media (social media, digital websites and YouTube/Google). Among registered voters, 54 percent self-identify as primarily traditional news consumers whereas 40 percent see themselves as primarily digital media consumers. Biden is 11 points ahead among traditional news consumers; DDT is three points ahead of Biden among digital media consumers. More voters, 59 percent of those voting in both 2020 and 2022, primarily consume traditional media, 40 percent use digital media, and nine percent don’t follow political news.

For months, DDT bitterly complained about trials cutting into his campaigning time, statements that worsened since he started sitting in a courtroom three to four days a week. With no trial last Wednesday, DDT was back on the golf course at his Bedminster Golf Club—no campaign events.

Another Sunday with No Wins for DDT

Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) regrets his kind words about independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after polls show that he could take votes from DDT. Friday night, DDT called RFK a “Radical Left Liberal” secretly working to help President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign and focused on RFK’s “NASTY … Environmental moves,” saying he would choose Biden over their opponent because “our Country would last a year or two longer prior to collapse.” DDT called RFK’s anti-vax “Views on Vaccines … FAKE,” which they are, yet DDT’s supporters are more likely to be in agreement with RFK’s false skeptical beliefs about vaccinations. Recently, DDT said he would not “give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or a mask mandate.”

Biden’s lead over DDT grows when third-party candidates factor into the equation. In a Marist College poll, Biden is only three points ahead with just DDT but five percent ahead with the others listed. With only the top two candidates, Biden trailed by two points but rose to two points ahead with third-party candidates. Kennedy takes twice as much of his support from those who picked DDT in the head-to-head survey—15 percent of the voters. Republicans like Kennedy 40 to 25 percent, but Democrats dislike him 53-16 points.

Court is exerting its toll on DDT who usually has almost daily rounds of golf, cheers at Mar-a-Lago when he walks in and out of rooms, and control of everything he does with his staff members. He usually spends his day making phone calls, posting on Truth Social, holding meetings, and wandering among his adoring public. His germophobia causes him to avoid restaurants outside his properties. During the trial, however, he spends long hours without caffeine from Diet Coke and sitting until the judge provides a break. No supporting family or friends are present. The media reports he seems to be shrinking.

On the criminal trial’s second day, one of two teens commented that “the defense attorney was basically annihilated in opening statements” because “he had no evidence.” The other one said that DDT kept “nodding off.”

Many others don’t believe that DDT’s trial is a partisan sham. In a Quinnipiac University survey, 60 percent consider the charges either “very” or “somewhat” serious, and 46 percent think he did something illegal with another 27 percent believing he committed something unethical if not illegal. Only 18 percent think he didn’t do anything wrong. Results of this polling is similar to the recent one from Pew Research, and in a Times/Sienna survey, 46 percent said DDT should be found guilty, compared to 36 percent who believe the opposite.

Congressional members are also not following his directives in how to vote on bills. He said, “KILL FISA,” and GOP passed the new law. The same for aid to Ukraine. Last fall, DDT wanted Jim Jordan (R-OH) for House Speaker; Republicans elected MAGA Mike Johnson (R-LA). He told them to shut down the government and use the debt ceiling to default on U.S. obligations. Republicans did neither. DDT also failed to get Mitch McConnell (R-KY) replaced as Senate minority leader, derail the bipartisan infrastructure package, and kill the reform of the Electoral Count Act. Republicans call him the leader of their party, but they don’t always obey him.

DDT succeeded in replacing Ronna Romney with his daughter-in-law Lara Trump as chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC), but McDaniel walked away with $118,769.99, almost half of her pay for last year. She will likely bring in another tidy sum from her lawsuit against NBC for her untimely firing after a week from her two-year contract at  an annual $300,000. 

Lara Trump has promised to join DDT in a “scorched earth” retribution during his second term with “no holds barred.” DDT plans to pardon “loyalist” violent criminals, enact radical anti-immigration plans, crack down on journalists, hire right-wing lawyers to exact revenge against his political foes, and seize control of government departments and agencies legally independent. And of course, commit crimes with immunity. 

The Federal Reserve is one independent agency that DDT plans to control. His allies claim he can oust Chair Jerome Powell, who he appointed in 2017. Biden re-appointed him in 2021, and Powell cannot be fired without cause. Several senators said they will oppose his plan, but his attempts could damage the financial standing of the U.S. and its markets, ending up in court. The Fed is run by a board of governors appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, but the president has no legal power over its decisions.

Presidential pardons aren’t forever, as GOP operative Jesse Benton discovered. DDT pardoned him for trying to buy an endorsement for Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) in his 2016 presidential campaign. After the pardon, a DDT super PAC hired him in 2016, and he was then arrested for moving an illegal Russian donation to DDT’s 2016 campaign. Convicted in 2022, Benton’s appeal to the Washington, D.C. Circuit Court failed.

Benton’s re-arrest isn’t unique: of the 238 people he pardoned or had their sentences commuted, at least nine others are under investigation, charged with a crime, or convicted. DDT’s pardons included dozens of friends and political allies as well as celebrities, lawmakers, and former aides convicted of crimes from fraud to murder. Only 25 went through the appropriate process with the Office of the Pardon Attorney to examine pardons’ merits, an “historic low.” DDT pardoned his aide Steve Bannon, friend Roger Stone, and former national security director for 22 days Michael Flynn who believed they are above the law.

DDT said the 2017 deadly neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville (VA) was a “peanut” compared to the protests against Israeli’ destruction of Gaza that killed over 33,000 people. According to DDT, the 2017 protesters, who killed one woman and injured dozens of people while terrifying hundreds, didn’t exhibit the hate as the non-violent actions against the Israel war. At Charlottesville, white supremacists chanted “Jews will not replace us” while marching with torches.

DDT spews his lies in trying to get protesters out on the streets to “rally behind MAGA” and “go out and peacefully protest” at courthouses across the country but bemoans protections and security at the New York courthouse where the trial is located. He falsely said that “Palestinian protesters, and even rioters [are] threatening Supreme Court Justices right in front of their homes.” DDT posted that “people who truly LOVE our Country, and want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, are not allowed to ‘Peacefully Protest,’ and are rudely and systematically shut down and ushered off to far away ‘holding areas,’ essentially denying them their Constitutional Rights.”

On Sunday morning, DDT privately met with Floria Gov. Ron DeSantis in Miami several hours, hoping that DeSantis will fundraise for him. DeSantis supposedly agreed to help DDT who said he has “officially retired” his nickname “Ron DeSanctimonious.” DeSantis allies say he is interested in running for president in 2028.

Legal Issues:

In another DDT mystery, five of his political committees show an $8 million payment to an unknown firm or firms during the past 15 months through the firm handling political accounting, Red Curve Solutions, money possibly violating reporting requirements of the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) and its contribution limits and prohibitions. The company is the biggest single recipient of DDT’s “reimbursement for legal” costs or expenses since he left the White House, but the compliance firm Red Curve doesn’t provide legal services. It is run by Bradley Crate, treasurer for the five committees making the payment. The use of Red Curve appears to be hiding the true recipients of the money, a criminal act.      

E. Jean Carroll – Sexual Assault/Defamation:

Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected DDT’s motion for a new defamation trial and dropping the $83.3 million judgment against him. He claimed that the judge had restricted his testimony and claims that he is innocent. Kaplan’s limitations on DDT came after his defamatory comments following Carroll’s win in her first civil trial against DDT. DDT’s lawyers stated Kaplan blocked DDT from describing his mental state in relation to Carroll.

New York – Civil Business Fraud Costs:

Earlier this week, Judge Arthur Engoron accepted DDT’s $175 million bond for the civil trial conviction with additional requirements guaranteeing that the bond is secure by remaining as cash and not traded for securities. The bond holder will not withdraw funds and provide monthly statements.

New York – Criminal Business Fraud/Hush Money to Stormy Daniels to Interfere with 2016 Election:

Under a grant of immunity, David Pecker testified that he rigged stories in the National Inquirer to influence the 2016 election in DDT’s favor and believed he and his company violated election law for DDT. A detailed accounting of trial events is in the past week’s posts. Transcripts of the trial. 

Florida – DDT’s Taking Classified Documents:

DDT had promised to pardon one of his co-defendants if charges were filed, according to new court documents. The information refutes DDT’s argument (lie?) that he had a standard order to declassify anything he had. According to a witness who urged DDT to return records to the National Archives, Walt Nauta had been told the case was politically motivated. Prosecutors had released documents in response to DDT’s claims that he needs Smith’s communications because he faces political persecution.

MAGA Gateway Pundit, now in bankruptcy, lied about “smoking gun” evidence about Biden’s administration pushing the National Archives to demand classified documents. Unredacted materials don’t support Gateway’s claims.

Supreme Court:

Even if the Supreme Court rules immunity for DDT’s “official acts,” special counsel Jack Smith could continue other trials on his private acts to avoid further delay.

While DDT faces a jury, his allies have been indicted in five swing states—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin.

Catch-up on Good News to Help People

The first cargo ship has used the newly-opened deep-water channel since the collapse of Francis Scott Key Bridge four weeks ago.

For seven years, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) tried to pass legislation sanctioning the entire fentanyl supply chain from Chinese chemical suppliers to the Mexican cartels trafficking the drugs into the U.S. He finally succeeded: his bill was included in the $95 billion package largely for federal aid that became law last week. The law declares fentanyl trafficking a national emergency. Brown’s opponent in November, Bernie Moreno, would have voted to provide aid to Israel but not the rest of the package.

An Arizona judge preserved the state’s signature matching and drop box procedures from right-wing challengers who falsely claimed that county recorders were not properly verifying signatures on early mail-in ballot envelopes and not monitoring drop boxes. Almost 90 percent of ballots were cast through the mail and drop boxes in 2020. Arizona has eight anti-voting lawsuits, seven of them challenging the state’s elections procedures manual.

Almost 18 months ago, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis flew 49 undocumented immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard without any warning. Some of those migrants are now available for visas for victims of crimes, able to legally work in the U.S. with temporary protections from deportation until their visas become available.

Three months after a New York jury ruled NRA executives guilty of illegally taking money for their own personal use, Washington, D.C. settled with its NRA for violating nonprofit law in taking money from its charitable foundation for its shrinking finances. Since 2013, NRA’s membership dues dropped by over half, 20 percent going to outside lawyers. The organization has only the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act to give its legal protection, buy the DOJ finalized rules closing loopholes permitting people sell firearms online, at gun shows, and at other information venues without background checks on purchasers.

The far-right blog Gateway Pundit, purveyor of conspiracy theories, filed for bankruptcy after being sued for its coverage of the 2020 election. One of the lawsuits comes from two George election workers who won a defamation case against Rudy Giuliani who accused them of election fraud.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted 3-2 to reinstate “net neutrality” regulations for the internet which former Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) removed. Service providers will no longer be able to  throttle or block some websites. The FCC needs a definition for the current internet. Unable to speed up or slow down content on the consumer internet, broadband providers may run “fast lanes” for unspecified specialized services. Industry groups will find a loophole to sell premium tiers of service. Social media platforms such as X throttle traffic to rivals’ websites, a violation for internet service providers but outside the FCC purview.

The Building Trades Union (NABTU) representing over 3 million workers in the U.S. and Canada endorsed Biden for president, calling DDT a lackey for “his billionaire buddies.” The union president said the union believed DDT in 2016 “that he would have a worker-centered agenda and deliver on long-stalled issues such as infrastructure investment.” In advertising, the union condemns DDT as a dangerous egomaniac.

For weeks, Biden has methodically been implementing policies to benefit people in the U.S., tackling the following issues. He is working to complete these regulations because the 1996 Congressional Review Act allows Congress to overturn federal agency rules finalized after late May in a streamlined process if DDT were elected. CRA resolutions can pass with a simple majority in the Senate instead of being subject to the filibuster, prohibits added amendments, and caps debate at ten hours. The law covers only rules submitted to Congress within 60 legislative days of a congressional adjournment, days when Congress is in session, a date expected to be May 22. After that date, rules must wait for a year before being submitted.

The CRA was used only once until DDT used it to overturned 16 Obama administration rules, blocking accurate records of workplace injuries, expansion of heathcare for low-income women, deterrence of corruption among resource extraction companies, etc. Biden overturned only three DDT regulations, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) overturned protection of waterways in the Appalachian Mountains from harmful mining practices, receiving $335,000 from the mining industry between 2013 and 2018. New rules disapproved under CRA not only can’t take effect but also “may not be reissued in substantially the same form” unless granted permission from Congress, known as “salt the earth.”

Climate:

Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon refused to apply for any Climate Pollution Reduction Grants (CPRG) to reduce pollution and greenhouse gases., leaving most communities without assistance to upgrade infrastructure, reduce pollution, and reduce costs for local governments. Applying for almost $5 billion, however, two cities including Cheyenne and the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone tribes can qualify on their own for these grants under the Inflation Reduction Act.

A suite of rules cuts or captures hazardous, planet-warming pollution generated by power plants by 90 percent by 2032 in new natural gas plants, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 75 percent compared to its peak in 2005. Other rules deal with neurotoxin mercury emitted from smokestacks and require safer disposal of toxic wastewater and coal ash, byproducts of making electricity. The West Virginia AG said he will fight the rules in court, less restrictive than Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan. Plants could burn less-polluting fuels including hydrogen or retire fossil fuel plants, shifting to less expensive and cleaner sources of energy like wind and solar. Power plants are the second biggest source of planet-heating greenhouse gasses behind transportation.

(Map: Existing 148 and 382 retired coal plants. Grey – proposed/in progress/completed retirement; yellow – partially proposed/retired; red – no retirement plans. Size reflects megawatts.)  

An energy saving rule in new houses obtaining federal loans can save people $2 billion on utility bills in 140,000 new homes each year.

Healthcare:

New rules will require the hiring of thousands of nurses and aides in severely understaffed nursing homes and provide oversight for the approximately 15,000 homes in the U.S. Regulations will need additional payrolls for 4 in 5 homes. Despite a 27 percent increase in wages since 2020, homes still struggle to compete against better-paying work for nurses at hospitals. Rural facilities have the longest time, five years, to meet the staffing mandates.  

Another rule “protects consumers from junk health insurance” and avoids scams from low-quality coverage forcing them to pay thousands of dollars in medical bills or deny life-saving care.

Patients have a right to privacy for their medical information, even if they travel to another state for an abortion, IVF, birth control, or other reproductive healthcare, according to the new HIPAA Privacy Rule to Support Reproductive Health Care Privacy. It prohibits the disclosure of this health information and strengthens privacy for patients, their families, and their doctors if the healthcare is legal in the state where it is received.

The Campaign for Accountability has asked attorneys general in five states to investigate privacy practices of crisis pregnancy centers who could be misusing private health information for anti-abortion goals. The goal of these over 2,500 centers is to persuade women to not have abortions. Federal health data privacy laws do not apply to these centers because the service is free. The new rules don’t apply to these facilities.

Fees:

To rid people of junk fees, the Biden administration has a set of rules, one of them requiring airline to provide automatic cash refunds to passengers when owed and protect consumers from surprise airline fees.

Agencies such as the FTC and FCC are proposing rules against junk fees.

Employment/Retirement:

President Obama expanded overtime pay for millions, but DDT overturned that policy. Benefitting 4 million salaried workers, Biden’s administration now requires overtime for employees with a salary under $1,128 per week, about $58,600 a year, when they work over 40 hours in a week. Obama’s administration doubled the threshold for overtime pay from $23,660 to $47,476 and added cost-of-living increases. That rule didn’t go into effect because 21 GOP-controlled states sued the administration. Texas ruled against it, and DDT dropped the threshold to $35,000 and scrapped cost-of-living increases.

The Defense and State departments signed an agreement permitting spouses of military service members to work remotely while they are overseas.

The Federal Trade Commission’s new rule to ban most noncompete clauses, contracts restricting former employees ability to work for or start a competing business, is already attacked in court by the Chamber of Commerce. About 30 million U.S. workers are subject to these agreements keeping their wages low or forcing them to move elsewhere. The FTC estimates that these clauses block 8,500 new startups a year; loss of bans would increase average salaries by $524 a year and lower healthcare costs by almost $200 billion over a decade. The term “noncompete,” of course, means reducing competition. Most of the Chamber’s work supports big corporations. Also suing to overturn the rule is DDT’s tax adviser, dedicated to “liberating our clients from the burden of being overtaxed.” His lead counsel is Eugene Scalia, DDT’s former Labor secretary and son of the conservative Supreme Court justice who was hired gun for business interests. The case was filed in Texas with a DDT-appointed federal judge.

Another rule protects retirement savings from financial advisers’ conflicts of interest by requiring them “to give prudent, loyal, honest advice free from overcharges.” Institutions must have “policies and procedures to manage conflicts of interest and ensure providers follow these guidelines.”

Other rules protect LGBTQ+ students, provide relief for student loans, give grants for solar projects, strengthen protection of endangered species, protect government employees if DDT is elected, guide government in artificial intelligence—probably just the tip of the iceberg.

Now conservatives and big business will attack these rights in court.

DDT’s Trial Plus House, State Issues

DDT Trial Day 8:  After lawyers for Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) finished cross-examining David Pecker from the National Inquirer, two new witnesses testified. Rona Graff, DDT’s executive assistant and long-time senior executive at the Trump Organization, handled his phone calls and schedule. She had a “vague recollection” of seeing Stormy “waiting in the reception area of the 26th floor” of Trump Tower. DDT is paying for Graff’s lawyers, and she testified under subpoena. Bank executive Gary Farro had worked at First Republic Bank and said that DDT’s personal lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen was his client when Cohen wired $130,000 in “hush money” to Daniels’ attorney shortly before the 2020 election. Farro described Cohen’s “urgency” in opening new accounts and wanting no address on the checks. Thirteen days later, Cohen said he didn’t want to open that new account and instead wanted one for another corporation registered in Delaware, described as a real estate consulting company.

The trial resumes on Tuesday, April 30, when Farro returns to testify, and the hearing on DDT’s alleged violations of the gag order has been moved to Thursday, May 2.

Earlier this week, he ranted that his payment to Stormy Daniels was a “legal expense” that he didn’t even deduct—which looks suspicious. Former FBI special agent Asha Rangappa said:

“This guy deducted his son’s $5 Boy Scout dues as a charitable donation. More evidence of trying not to leave a paper trail.”

Anyone watching the television series Bull is aware of jury consultants who develop jury profiles to determine how jurors may vote. DDT is using Magna Legal Services that examine jurors’ answers and body language and provide detailed research about them. DDT’s legal team used Magna in the E. Jean Carroll defamation trial that he lost.

The Supreme Court’s case about DDT’s absolute immunity concluded this year’s session, and the former conservative “originalists” who claimed that they strictly followed the text of the U.S. Constitution have morphed into activists to change the law—the same direction conservatives complained that liberal judges did. A majority of the justices indicate that any conclusion won’t happen for at least several months.

In 1974, the high court ruled that President Nixon had no right to withhold the Oval Office tapes from Congress in 99 days from the date that Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski served a subpoena for the tapes; the decision was 8-0 because William Rehnquist refused himself out of conflict of interest. In 2000, justices determined George W. Bush won the Florida election in only three days. The current court has already stalled the case for at least five months since Judge Tanya Chutkan declared the president is not a king and the Washington, D.C. Circuit Court concurred. Conservative justice show no sense of immediacy in making a decision. Will they decide that DDT was right when he told a rally that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue with no repercussions?

Giving up on President Joe Biden’s and Alejandro Mayorkas’ impeachments, the House searched for a new victim and picked AG Merrick Garland. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Judiciary Chair, and James Comer (R-KY), Oversight chair, threaten to hold Garland in contempt for not giving them the audio recordings of Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur in his classified documents investigation. The DOJ has already provided them with the transcripts and Hur’s interview with Biden’s ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer. DOJ Assistant Attorney General Carlos Uriarte wrote:

“[T]he Committees’ inability to identify a need for these audio files grounded in legislative or impeachment purposes raises concerns about what other purposes they might serve.”

Uriarte implied that Comer and Jordan can’t be trusted with the audio, writing that it could be manipulated by “cutting, erasing, and splicing” with concern “that the Committees may be seeking conflict for conflict’s sake.”

Tennessee Republicans have been busy passing laws. A year after a shooter killed six people at a school near Nashville, legislators’ cure for gun violence is to permit teachers to carry concealed guns in school. The law bans parents from knowing which teachers are packing, and schools cannot opt out. A parent submitted a letter with over 5,300 signatures warning that the legislation “ignores research that shows the presence of a gun increases the risks posed to children.” In another objection to the new law, several teachers at the site of the school killing were armed. The GOP rejected all Democrats’ amendments including guns being locked up until a security breach and teachers’ civil liability for using their guns.

Another new Tennessee law forces LGBTQ+ identified youth to be taken in by anti-LGBTQ+ foster and adoptive parents. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) has signed a law explicitly allowing anti-LGBTQ+ foster and adoptive parents to take in LGBTQ+ youth with no provision to take into account the young person’s wishes on the matter. The legislation states that “such beliefs do not create a presumption that any particular placement is contrary to the best interest of the child.” The state will review a decade-long policy requiring children to be cared for in a way that “promotes dignity and respect for all children/youth and families inclusive of their gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation.” Many foster youth have already been rejected or mistreated from their family of origin because of their sexual identity or orientation, and the new “parents” can force children into conversion therapy.

The conservative party of law and order reports that they don’t need to follow it themselves. Louisiana Superintendent of Education told schools to ignore President Joe Biden’s Title IX rules prohibiting anti-transgender discrimination, conflicting with the law banning trans athletes playing sports. The directive doesn’t mention trans athletes. This refusal makes schools at risk of losing federal funding. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis followed Louisiana by saying his state “will not comply” with Biden’s Title IX changes.

The conservative majority on the board of the Murrieta Valley Unified School District (MVUSD) voted to ignore California’s order rescinding the policy requiring teachers and school administrators to out any trans or nonbinary student asking to be called by a name or pronoun different than those on their birth certificates. The district’s law firm warned that the decision could cost $500,000 in legal expenses. The district is in Riverside County southeast of Los Angeles.

DDT may pick South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem as his running mate after she bragged about killing her 14-month-old puppy and gunned down a goat, both in the family’s gravel pit. She said she killed the dog because she couldn’t train it, and the “nasty and mean” goat allegedly chased her children because it had not been castrated and smelled “rancid.” About a week earlier she put down three horses.  The stories are in her new book No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward. She wrote that this violence prove she is capable of dealing with anything that’s “difficult, messy and ugly.” In her book, Noem wrote, “hated that dog.”

Noem may have forgotten the criticism of Mitt Romney when he transported his dog on top of the car during a family vacation while he was a presidential candidate. Let’s wait for the GOP spin on Noem’s pride in killing animals because she can do “ugly” things.

Officials claim no problem, but bird flu has been detected in milk from 33 herds across at least eight states. Supposedly, pasteurization inactivates pathogens. The strain of avian flu, H5N1, has circulated for over 20 years but leaped into cows only recently. Jumping among animals increases the possibility of mutation for person-to-person transmission that can fuel a pandemic. Only one daily worker in Texas has tested positive for the virus in the current outbreak. Testing of cows has been voluntary, but a new federal rule requires testing and a 30-day wait before cows are moved across state boundaries. The nation has roughly 8 million lactating cows.

Another concern is the movement of the virus into pigs near the infected dairies because they are an intermediate host of avian viruses to humans. Scientists also worry that the USDA could be repeating mistakes that made Covid-19 devastating by moving too slowly  and not providing enough information. The USDA also doesn’t require tests of asymptomatic herds although it found one herd was infected.

Eric Hovde, who lives in California and running against Democratic incumbent Tammy Baldwin for U.S. senator from Wisconsin, declares he is deeply patriotic who loves the U.S. He expressed outrage about anyone disparaging the Pledge of Allegiance—but can’t remember it. Somehow he failed to say “under God” after “indivisible” and had to catch up to the recitation. Older people may struggle with this change by President Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s, but Hovde was born a decade after Eisenhower added the phrase. Hovde’s patriotism includes his bank Sunwest Bank, where he is CEO, named as co-defendant alleging elder abuse in a senior living facility that the bank partially owns. He had ragged about his expertise “in the nursing home industry as a lender to such residences.” Hovde also wants to block people in nursing homes from voting because they’re going to die, and he agrees with DDT that the 2020 election had “irregularities.”

April 25: Full Courts

For the past few weeks, non-violent protests in against the Israel-Hamas war have burgeoned in universities across the U.S. as students call for the schools to separate themselves from companies advancing military efforts in Gaza. Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) daughter was one of those arrested.  Last week over 100 demonstrators at Columbia University were arrested after they set up a tent encampment. The arrests turned out to be motivational for protests at more universities.

At the University of Texas at Austin, police and state troopers in riot gear and on horseback made 57 arrests, including a journalist, and forced hundreds of peaceful students off the school’s main lawn. A backlash to this treatment led 46 of them to be released, and the university allowed a demonstration on the main square under the school’s clock tower.

Other protests were at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Harvard University locked most gates to limit access to those with school identification. It also warned against tents or tables on campus without permission, but protesters set up 14 tents after the school’s suspension of the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee. At California State Polytechnic University in Humbodt, protesters used furniture, tents, chains, and zip ties to block entrances to an academic and administrative building on Monday. Students occupied a second building on Tuesday, and three students were arrested. At the downtown Boston campus of Emerson College, 108 people were arrested at an encampment. Other encampments were at New York University, Emory University, Northwestern University, Yale University, Fashion Institute of Technology, City College of New York, Indiana University at Bloomington, Michigan State University at East Lansing, University of Connecticut, and The University of Southern California which canceled its main stage graduation ceremony from safety concerns.

Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson (R-LA) and other GOP lawmakers were loudly heckled and drowned out when they held a press conference at Columbia University on Wednesday to condemn the pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus. He told them to “go back to class and stop the nonsense” and called for the resignation of President Nemat (Minouche) Shafik “if she cannot immediately bring order to this chaos.” After meeting with Shafik, he told reporters he wanted President Joe Biden to consider calling in the National Guard to “bring order to these campuses.” Johnson was born two years after the National Guard members killed four unarmed students and wounded another nine at Kent State University during a Cambodian campaign protest in 1970.

Holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos, told student anti-genocide protesters to “just keep doing it.” He said:

“There is a question of historical responsibility towards injustice, genocide, and fascism. If you are indifferent, if you do not take a stand, you acquire a degree of guilt.”

Kapos is part of a small group of Shoah survivors and their descendants who “demonstrate disagreement with the use of the Holocaust experience as a cover by the Zionists and the state of Israel.” He told protesters that they are on the right side of history in demonstrating against slaughter and starvation of Palestinians. Over 122,000 Palestinians have been killed or maimed during 202 days of almost relentless Israeli attacks on Gaza, and 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced. Israel’s far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked U.S. authorities to crack down harder on students, calling them an “antisemitic mob.” Conservatives call Holocaust survivors who support Palestinian rights “self-hating Jews.”

A day full of court news began with New York’s Court of Appeals overturning Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 conviction for felony sex crime charges, 4-3, because prosecutors allowed testimony describing crimes that Weinstein wasn’t charged with. DA Alvin Bragg must now decide whether he wants a retrial. In 2022, California sentenced Weinstein to 16 years in prison.

DDT Trial Day 7:    DDT was angry because he was required to attend his criminal trial instead of watching the Supreme Court arguments.

More David Pecker testimony about his collusion with DDT to swing the 2016 election with the National Inquirer:Communicating with DDT, he paid Karen McDougal to bury her allegations of an affair with DDT, politically protect him, and influence the election. Pecker also made Dylan Howard remove a negative Radar Online story about DDT and encouraged DDT to buy and bury Stormy Daniel’s story about her alleged affair with DDT. He also testified that DDT’s worries about the affairs becoming public weren’t out of concern for his family. DDT thanked Pecker for saving him from scandals in front of former FBI Director James Comey.

After Pecker’s counsel sensed a legal problem with the contract paying McDougal, Pecker became nervous because he, DDT, and Cohen had created a shell company to confuse the control of McDougal’s contract. Pecker said that he structured the agreement to avoid triggering campaign finance law and sought election law advice. He also said that DDT kept checking with Pecker about “our girl”; even after the election, DDT asked Pecker about “Karen.”

DDT became angry because Pecker amended the agreement to allow McDougal more freedom in publicly speaking despite DDT’s personal lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen’s objections. She then talked to CNN Anderson Cooper after the election. After the interview, DDT set up a conference between two of his White House aides, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Hope Hicks, and Pecker. He told them he planned to extend the agreement with McDougal to keep her from speaking more widely about her affair with DDT. McDougal filed suit against American Media Inc., and Pecker settled the claim and released her from her non-disclosure agreement.

Mark Sumner gave a lengthy summary of Pecker’s testimony with social media commentary by legal experts. Judge Juan Merchan has not yet ruled on the motion to deal with DDT’s first ten violations, but since the hearing on that last week, DDT made another four possible violations. The judge called for another hearing next Wednesday, a day that he usually oversees both the Veteran Treatment and Mental Health courts in New York, “problem-solving” outside incarceration to connect defendants with supervised treatment. Merchan also angrily directed comments to DDT’s lawyer Emil Bove about the lawyer’s attacks on Pecker, trying to make him appear to the jury that Pecker was unreliable or rehearsed.

The few pro-DDT protesters outside the courthouse has dwindled to one person, according to Norm Eisen.

In The Prospect, Harold Meyerson wrote that the pediment over the front doors of the Supreme Court building needs to add these words to “Equal Justice Under Law”: “Except for Republican Presidents, Who Are Henceforth Immune When They Violate It.” His reference was to Supreme Court arguments on Thursday about whether DDT deserved “absolute immunity” for any crimes he might commit.

(Some people considered the proceedings to be a “kangaroo court” because three of the justices were appointed by DDT, and a fourth, Clarence Thomas, is married to a woman who participated in the attempted coup.)

Although a majority of the justices may not have agreed that presidents deserve this unlimited right, they considered how to stall DDT’s trial for trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh pondered returning the matter to the D.C. Circuit Court for further analysis; Justice Amy Coney Barrett proposed the creation of a test for presidential defense to prosecution falling short of absolute immunity, also returning to lower courts for further ruling. Therefore DDT’s three appointed judges could save him from any trial until after the election and then for another four years if he is elected in November.

Gorsuch pompously intoned that “we’re writing a rule for the ages,” ignoring the possibility that any future Supreme Court could overturn the ruling, just as he did with Roe v. Wade. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said:

“The most powerful person in the world could go into office knowing that there would be no potential penalty for committing crimes. What disincentive is there for turning the Oval Office into the seat of criminality in this country?”

A few outrageous, if not surprising, arguments:  

Samuel Alito: Guilty parties in the assaults to U.S. democracy are not the president who incited the insurrection but the prosecutors trying to hold him accountable. Prosecuting DDT is a greater threat than his attempt to overturn the election.

Clarence Thomas: If presidents aren’t prosecuted for foreign coups, they shouldn’t be prosecuted for domestic ones.

John Sauer, DDT’s lawyer: A president should be immune for ordering the killing of an opponent, if he thinks the person is corrupt, and selling nuclear secrets should be covered by immunity. Both these are “official acts.” (Justice Sonia Sotomayor told Sauer the president would be doing it “for personal gain.”)

Conservative justices didn’t want to hear anything that DDT might have done wrong. Whenever government lawyer Michael Dreeben would try to bring up specifics of the case against DDT, Roberts, Gorsuch, and Alito cut him off.

Arizona’s Republicans decided to nullify the fall election on ratifying Supreme Court justices before the election. Law allows voters to decide retention of state Supreme Court justices every six years, and two who voted to keep the 1864 abortion ban are up for election in November. A vote against them could cause vacancies filled by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs. To nullify the election results this year, GOP senators voted for a constitutional amendment requiring lack of “good behavior” If the House votes in favor of the bill, it goes to voters in November. With a majority vote, the amendment “applies retroactively” and makes retention elections null and void.  

Pennsylvania primary election:

Primaries are far quieter with presidential candidates already chosen for 2024, and Pennsylvania’s election on April 23 was not exception. The vote for these candidates, however, did have a perspective on both these candidates. Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) brought home over 83 percent of the vote, but Nikki Haley, who resigned from the race six weeks ago and did no campaigning, got the remainder of the votes, over 156,000 ballots. By contrast, President Joe Biden got over 93 percent of the vote over candidate Dean Phillips, who also had dropped out, and 141,000 more votes than DDT.

In the Democratic primary against Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), an election-denying leader of the House conservatives, former news anchor Janelle Stelson, once a Republican, defeated four other Democrats. Journalist Greg Sargent called some of Perry’s “election denialism … extremely serious or even deranged.” Perry refused a subpoena from the House January 6 investigation committee which referred him to the Ethics Committee.

Elected for the first time two years ago, progressive Rep. Summer Lee won the Democratic primary against Bhavini Patel, an opponent funded by billionaire Jeff Yass, close friend to DDT, by over 20 points. Yass spent hundreds of thousands on the race, and pro-Israel groups spent significant amounts against Lee in her 2022 primary.

Arizona abortion law, indictment of fake electors:

The Arizona House voted to repeal the state’s 1864 near-total abortion ban, 32-28 with three Republicans from swing districts joining the Democrats for the “yea” vote. A majority of the GOP state Supreme Court had revived the law. After refusing to repeal the 1864 law twice, the GOP-led Senate is starting the process of repeal which requires at least two Republican votes. Even if a repeal succeeds, it can’t go into effect until 90 days after the end of the legislative session which has no date. At the same time, Republican lawmakers are working on two or three initiatives, confusingly called anti-abortion, in an effort to keep the real anti-abortion citizens initiative from passing in November.  

An Arizona grand jury also brought charges of fraud, forgery, and conspiracy against 18, 11 of them named and two in the legislature, for pretending to be 2020 electors to overturn the legal election of Joe Biden for president. Others also indicted, their names redacted, are likely DDT’s attorneys Christina Bobb, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, and Rudy Giuliani; and DDT’s chief of staff Mark Meadows and DDT’s top 2020 campaign advisor Boris Epshteyn and campaign aide Mike Roman. Positions of those indicted are here.

DDT is an unindicted co-conspirator in the grand jury documents, as is former lawyer Ken Cheseboro who allegedly devised the strategy for DDT. Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar have been subpoenaed by the investigators. The fourth state charging fake electors, Arizona joins Georgia, Nevada, and Michigan to bring criminal charges. Michigan’s investigation into 16 GOP fake electors made names of several “unindicted co-conspirators” public including DDT, Giuliani, Meadows, and Ellis.

Supreme Court hearing Moyle v. United States about emergency medical treatment:

The news about the indictment in Arizona overwhelmed the abortion case heard in the Supreme Court today, one that 97 percent of the voters know nothing about but one that can potentially kill thousands of women.  Emanating from Idaho, the case, Moyle v. United States, concerns whether hospitals are bound by a 1986 federal law, Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), requiring hospitals receiving federal funding to provide stabilizing emergence care for whatever reason.

Anti-abortion laws, however, have so frightened doctors and other medical care personnel that women are turned away from receiving care even if their lives are threatened and the fetus has no chance of survival. Idaho doctors tell seriously ill pregnant women they must go to another state after warning her she needs to have an abortion to avoid sepsis, hemorrhage, or even death. In many of these cases, the water breaks so early that the fetus has no chance of survival. In one example, a Florida woman delivered the fetus in a beauty salon bathroom after being turned away from a hospital and lost half the blood in her body from hemorrhaging.

Idaho argued that it did not need to follow EMTALA because a state law permits abortions only if a woman’s life is at risk. Without mentioning abortion, the Christian law firm employed by Idaho, Alliance Defending Freedom, argued that the federal law cannot compel doctors to offer state illegal care. Six other states require a patient’s life to be at risk before having an emergency abortion, but the criteria for “at risk” are vague. Justice Samuel Alito referred to a fetus as “the child” and indicated that life begins at conception with full legal rights and protections despite a conflict with the pregnant woman’s right to live.  

Wednesday’s arguments reveal a division between male and female justices. The four women pushed back the hardest against the Idaho that can imprison doctors for five years. Justice Elena Kagan told Idaho’s attorney Joshua Turner that federal law says “you don’t have to wait until the person is on the verge of death.” She added that a woman’s loss of reproductive organs is “enough to trigger this duty on the part of the hospital to stabilize the patient” which can require an abortion. Justice Sonia Sotomayor described several real-life situations when women faced medical but not necessarily life-threatening emergencies forcing doctors to make decisions about abortions. Justice Amy Comey Barrett asked Turner about how much discretion doctors actually have in medical emergencies that may not be life-threatening. Turner said they were on a case-by-case basis, and she accused him of “hedging.”

The Supreme Court already blocked the enforcement of EMTALA while the case is pending. In a 12-day period last October, Idaho’s largest hospital chain transported four patients out of state for emergency abortions. In the 15 months following the overturning of Roe, Idaho lost 22 percent of its practicing obstetricians, three hospital labor and delivery units were shuttered, and another two stopped labor and delivery services.

The largest group of nonprofit healthcare providers, Catholic hospitals refuse medical care for pregnant women even in blue states because of their Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services. Catholic providers may not terminate a pregnancy if fetus is alive—even if it has no possibility of surviving—until the woman’s life is in danger. Therefore a woman in agonizing pain, both physical and emotional, must wait until the fetal heartbeat stops. Even with an ectopic pregnancy when the embryo implants outside the uterus, a sure death for it, Catholics follow “expectant waiting” although surgical delay can cause catastrophic bleeding.

Turner said that Idaho law doesn’t allow for medical care even for an ectopic pregnancy. Alito supported the case several times, once saying that a little “temporary” organ damage might not be so bad if suffered for the benefit of a fetus.

In oral arguments, Turner refused to acknowledge the deadly conditions arising from pregnancy such as hemorrhage, sepsis, infertility, an emergency hysterectomy, stroke, and kidney failure—even death. He said, “There is no imminency requirement,” but that has happened in Idaho as well as several other states.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked whether Idaho law conflicts with EMTALA, but again Turner hedged. Yet doctors are airlifting pregnant women out of state for medical care and fleeing the state; Idaho accuses them of not understanding the law. Kavanaugh questioned whether “there shouldn’t be an injunction” against Idaho because it weakened its abortion law after litigation began. Kagan, however, pointed out that hospitals are still so uncertain about when they can perform an abortion that they are sending patients out of state.

Over 20 states have tightened restrictions on abortion in the almost two years since this court has overturned Roe v. Wade, but the decision from Moyle will affect all the states. Destiny Lopez, acting co-CEO of the Guttmacher Institute, declared that “at its core, this Supreme Court decision will reflect who we are becoming as a society: Are we okay with requiring pregnant individuals who face severe complications to suffer life-threatening health consequences rather than granting them access to abortion? Are we okay with forcing doctors to choose between violating federal law by not providing emergency abortion care or violating state law if they do?”

Cicadas:

Two different broods of cicadas, one on a 13-year cycle and the other 17 years, are emerging in the eastern U.S., making so much noise in one South Carolina county 40 miles northwest of Columbia that residents are calling the sheriff’s office about sirens or a loud roar. The noise comes from male cicadas wooing mates after over a decade of dormancy. Collectively their singing can be as loud as jet engines. Cicadas also produce huge amounts of urine, called honeydew or cicada rain, in high-velocity jets. After consuming 300 times their weight in xylem, plant sap, daily, they release the urine as high as ten feet in the air in a second.

DDT’s Trial Days – Too Much News!

Former Rep. George Santos (R-NY) made news again today when he dropped his candidacy as an independent for the House, saying he didn’t want to take votes from the GOP candidate in the district. His campaign has raised $48,128, spent $76,746, and owes $781,932.

The Senate required two days to pass the foreign aid stalled in the House for two months. By 79 to 18, the Senate voted for the four House bills in one package to give aid to Israel, Taiwan, Ukraine, Gaza humanitarian aid, and a package of miscellany including requiring TikTok to be divested from the Chinese company ByteDance within 30 days. Most of the bill’s contents were in the bill that the Senate passed by 70-29 in February. Earlier in the day, the Senate had voted 80-19 to forward the bill.

New, inexperienced MAGA Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) hoped to use the Ukraine aid battle to depose veteran Senate leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and become vice president candidate for Deposed Donald Trump (DDT), who is keeping wannabees dangling. Supporters of the Ukrainian aid have criticized Vance for inaccurate information, overestimating Ukraine’s needs for weapons and didn’t use classified information. McConnell allies compared Vance to Sen. Robert Taft (R-OH) who opposed the 1941 Lend-Lease Act to help Britain fight the Nazis and the formation of NATO.

DDT is telling young people that President Joe Biden wants to get rid of TikTok although U.S. investors, including DDT’s Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, want to purchase the social media. He lied that Biden wants to make “his friends over at Facebook become richer and more dominant.” Four years ago, DDT issued an executive order to attack TikTok which failed in Court. Yet he continued to claim that it should not exist on U.S. phones and said in July 2020, “we’re banning them from the United States.” In the House, 186 Republicans, including the entire GOP leadership, voted to take TikTok from its Chinese owner.

With the passage of the House bills, MAGA Mike Johnson (R-LA), who has been fiddling during the Ukrainian fire for his entire Speaker tenure, faces a contentious caucus. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) hopes for more support to depose Johnson and continues to rage against human rights for publicity—much like DDT. Last Friday, she declared a collection of fringe anti-LGBTQ+ activists “champions” in response to President Joe Biden’s new school protection for LGBTQ+ students under Title IX. On X, she misrepresented his ban on discrimination “on the basis of sex” as “changing the definition of ‘sex’ to mean gender identity.” The new rules are based on the Supreme Court’s 2020 Bostock v. Clayton County decision, that laws forbidding sex-based discrimination include sexual orientation and gender identity and thus forbid discriminatory or harassing behavior towards all students, including ones who are pregnant or have terminated a pregnancy.

Greene’s support for Russian President Vladimir Putin is developing opposition from not only her colleagues but also the conservative media. Tabloid New York Post’s headline ”NYET, MOSCOW MARJORIE” topped her photograph in a Russian fur cap after she fought to block aid for Ukraine.The story states that Johnson “crushed a putsch” by Greene and other rebels. DDT’s open defense of Johnson may also show Greene, once a DDT favorite, that she is on the wrong MAGA side.

Elise Stefanik (R-NY), also wishing to be DDT’s vice president, was another vote against Ukrainian aid after opposing the invasion two years ago, calling it “an unwarranted and unjustified invasion by a gutless, bloodthirsty, authoritarian dictator.” She added:

“Vladimir Putin is a war criminal and deranged thug. We must stand with democracies under assault.”

Stefanik was the only GOP House leader to oppose the foreign aid for Ukraine but didn’t issue any statement giving her reason.  

Democrats not only joined a minority of Republicans to provide aid to Ukraine but also saved the government from shutting down, reauthorized the surveillance law, passed a bipartisan compromises on tax policy that the House GOP leadership supported, and provided the military with funding in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Last spring, Democratic votes saved the U.S. economy by helping to pass the bipartisan debt ceiling solution.  

A mixed bag from this week’s Supreme Court decisions:

A majority of justices rejected a challenge to Texas vote-by-mail restrictions blocking anyone other than senior citizens from automatically using this process. Republicans believe that they can only win elections by increasing difficulties to casting ballots. Forced to vote in person, younger voters face lack of transportation, long lines, trouble finding or accessing polling places, and limited time off work. The majority of the few cases of voter fraud come from Republicans.

In its next session, the Supreme Court will hear a case concerning Biden’s regulations controlling homemade “ghost guns,” those made from kits. The three-judge 5th Circuit Court panel appointed by DDT upheld a district judge in Texas who invalidated the regulations, but a 5-4 vote in the high court temporarily stayed the ruling last summer by reinstating the 2022 federal regulation requiring serial numbers on incomplete frames and components receivers. The number of ghost guns submitted to police for tracing grew from 1,600 in 2017 to 19,000 in 2021. In 2022, the DOJ seized 25,785 ghost guns in the U.S. Philadelphia sued two ghost gun manufacturers after a mass shooter killed five people, and Colorado’s ghost gun ban went into effect this year.

Can a city block homeless from camping if it doesn’t provide other accommodations? The Supreme Court heard arguments on that question on Monday with conservatives skeptical of challenge to the crackdown in Grants Pass (OR). The Eighth Amendment, barring cruel and unusual punishment, has been used to prevent these laws. Punishment in the city ordinance includes fines up to several hundred dollars every time they are found. Justice Neil Gorsuch equated laws against homeless camping to urinating or defecating in public. Chief Justice John Roberts believes that courts don’t have a role in homeless policy and questioned why “these nine people are the best people to judge and weigh those policy judgments.”

Opponents to the law argued that cities already have the power to regulate encampments without driving the homeless out of these cities. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked if the city could “execute homeless people” if they couldn’t use the Eighth Amendment. The 9^th Circuit Court ruled 2-1 that Grants Pass cannot “enforce its anti-camping ordinances against homeless persons for the mere act of sleeping outside with rudimentary protection from the elements, or for sleeping in their car at night, when there is no other place in the city for them to go.” In 2018, the same court, covering nine western states, made that ruling in Martin v. Boise.  

The Supreme Court decision concerns the 650,000 homeless people in the U.S. Housing experts agree that civil and criminal penalties are counterproductive, but governments use them to satisfy critics of homelessness without addressing its causes, one of them lack of affordable housing. City officials argue that their policies are intended to encourage homeless people to seek housing although the city has no shelter. The U.S. has a demand for an additional 7.3 million affordable rental units, and 22.4 million spend more of their incomes on homes than deemed financially prudent. The median price for a one-bedroom apartment in Grants Pass is $1,250 a month, but the median per capita income is $30,649. The average person spends half of their income before taxes on rent. Grants Pass has one Christian-run overnight shelter for adults with 100 beds, and people must attend daily religious services. Pets, including service animals, are prohibited. Grants Pass has 600 homeless people.

On Tuesday, the high court seemed to support Starbucks for firing seven union activists, creating difficulty in a rapid halt to labor practices challenged as unfair under federal law. The National Labor Relations Board had ordered the workers’ reinstatement. Starbucks has opposed employee unionizing for several years.

The high court rejected an appeal from Arizona’s U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake to ban the use of electronic vote-counting machines in the state after she lost the 2022 gubernatorial election. Lake had no reason for her request, and a federal judge had sanctioned Lake’s attorneys for filing a “frivolous” and deceptive complaint. No justices dissented. After the ruling, Lake accused Hillary Clinton of wanting to assassinate her and said that “many of her friends … mysteriously died or committed suicide.”

DDT Trial Days 5-6: Judge Juan Merchan ruled that prosecutors can cross-examine DDT about his lies in two civil lawsuits—the sexual assault and defamation of E. Jean Carroll and the business fraud case—if he decides to testify. The judge also stated he opposes “jury nullification,” directing the jury to convict DDT if they find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. After opening statements on both sides of the criminal business fraud case and 20 minutes of testimony from David Pecker, former CEO of the tabloid company American Media, the court closed early

In opening statements the prosecution stated that DDT knowingly lied and broke state laws “to undermine the integrity of a presidential election.” The defense attorney said “trying to influence an election” isn’t wrong. “It’s called democracy.” He also said he will call DDT “president.”

Pecker continued his testimony on Tuesday. High points:

Pecker’s meetings with DDT and DDT’s personal lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen to plan coverups for DDT’s affairs with women and “catch-and-kill,” paying for stories and then not publishing them. Two of them were $30,000 to Trump Tower doorman Dino Sajudin about DDT’s fathering a child with a maid who worked in the building and $150,000 to Karen McDougal about her alleged affair with DDT. Stormy Daniels received a flat payment of $130,000.

DDT’s failure to pay Pecker for McDougal’s $150,000.  

DDT’s personal review and approval of invoices and other financial documents despite his claim that he delegated everything to Cohen.

An increase in meetings with DDT to sometimes over once a week after he became a candidate in 2015.

Pecker’s promise to DDT that he would publish lies in the National Inquirer about his opponents such as the involvement of Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) father being involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Pecker’s testimony is important to the DA’s case changing misdemeanor charges for business records falsification to felonies in conspiring to promote an electoral campaign through unlawful means.

In the hearing about DDT’s violation of his gag order, Merchan appeared skeptical about arguments from DDT’s lawyers that he should not be held in contempt about his multiple violates of a gag order. Merchan postponed a decision on a $10,000 fine for attacking expected trial witnesses but told the lawyer that he wad “losing all credibility with the court.” The lawyer had tried to excuse DDT by saying that he was responding to political attacks and reposting Jesse Watters’ posts. Merchan pointed out that DDT had made his own additions to the post and put quotation marks around it. The Secret Service is meeting to determine how to handle its protection if DDT goes to jail.

The trial continues on Thursday.

Melania broke her silence during her husband’s criminal trial by advertising a $245 gold-plated necklace for Mother’s Day with the engraving “Love & Gratitude.”

April 22, 2024 – 54th Anniversary of Earth Day

Former Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) increased climate warming while President Joe Biden tries to slow it down.

On Earth Day 2024, Biden announced distribution of $7 billion in 60 Solar for All grants to lower energy costs and create good-quality jobs helping 900,000 households and reducing 30 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions. On his visit to Virginia’s Prince William Forest Park, he also announced that almost 2,000 corps positions across 36 states are part of his New Deal-style American Climate Corps green jobs training program. The park was established in 1936 as a summer camp for underprivileged youth from Washington, part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps to create jobs during the Great Depression.

EPA’s new rules to curb carcinogenic emissions at hundreds of U.S. chemical plants will help Blacks and the poor. About 104,000 people live within approximately six miles of these synthetic organic chemical plants in Texas, Louisiana, and other states with St. John the Baptist Parish west of New Orleans one of the largest U.S. sources of these emissions.

A new rule establishes the first national standard to limit dangerous “forever chemicals,” per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), contained by almost half the country’s drinking water, found in the blood of 97 percent of people in the U.S. Water utilities will be required to filter five of over 12,000 types of these chemicals: PFOA, PFOS, PFNA, PFHxS and HFPO-DA, also known as GenX chemicals. Regulations limit mixtures of any two or more of PFNA, PFHxS, PFBS, and GenX chemicals. Used to help products repel water and oil, the chemicals are tied to cancer, thyroid disease, reproductive issues, and heart and liver damage, likely more dangerous at levels thousands of times lower than previously believed. Government of $1 billion in funding are part of a $9 billion investment helping communities manage contaminated water. Small, disadvantaged, and rural communities can also access the EPA’s Water Technical Assistance program.

Chemicals expose people through food, clothing, household products such as nonstick pans, cosmetics, waterproof apparel, dust, etc. Changed food packaging may help, but states are responsible for enforcement. Maine is the first state to establish valid thresholds for these chemicals. More contamination from these chemicals came from DDT’s administration that wrote legal loopholes for their use and exemptions allowing release of additional “foreign chemicals.”   

Another rule requires polluting companies to pay for their eradication. Three chemical companies—DuPont de Nemours, Chemours, and Corteva—have reached a $1.18 billion deal to resolve complaints about polluting U.S. drinking water systems. Chemical manufacturer 3M will begin payments over contamination with forever chemicals.

Changing previous policies to favor the oil industry and livestock on U.S. public lands, Interior Department secretary Deb Haaland finalized a new rule for balanced managing of U.S. 245 million acres, one-tenth of U.S. land and mostly in 12 western states, with protection, restoration, and science-based knowledge. Leases will be issued only to qualified groups, not foreigners or when incompatible with existing uses. Royalty rates for fossil fuel companies to drill and mine on public lands have been increased for the first time since 1920. Perimeters of two national monuments in California between Napa and Mendocino and east of Los Angeles will be increased.

Biden’s administration also banned fossil fuel drilling on almost half of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, 13 million acres in the Western Arctic and 40 percent of the remote area NPRA-A, home to protected animal species including polar bears and caribou.

For the first time in over 60 years, the Bureau of Land Management will require oil industry companies to set aside more money for plugging old wells to stop them from leaking oil, brine, and toxic or climate-warming gasses. Previously, money set aside would cover the cost of only 0.5 percent of these tens of thousands of wells, leaving taxpayers on the hook for the remainder. Even the new rule won’t cover all the well clean-ups because of BLM inaccuracies: the mandated bond is $71,000 for each well, but just one well in Alaska cost $13 million to plug. The rule does require amounts to be adjusted each decade to cover inflation.

A failed private project shows the importance of government in the climate battle. About 150 homeowners in Salisbury (MA) paid $600,000 for a sand dune project to protect their homes that lasted three days. The government needs to take action: the Gulf of Mexico covers a football-field sized piece of land in Louisiana every hour. 

Global heating is pushing the world’s coral reefs to a fourth planet-wide mass bleaching, the worst one on record. About 54 percent of ocean waters with coral reefs have enough heat stress to cause bleaching. The first event in 1998 exposed 20 percent of the ocean’s coral reef corals to heat stress causing bleaching. In 2010, 35 percent reached that threshold, and the third from 2014 to 2017 ended up at 56 percent. The fourth one will soon surpass that one with a one percent increase per week. Rich in biodiversity, coral reefs, one percent of the ocean, provide habitat for one-fourth of all marine species. Coral containing tiny algae build the reefs, but heat causes coral to expel the algae and then starve. At the current rate, 99 percent of the reefs will die off by the end of the century.

Moths, important pollinators, also show the negative effect of an air pollutant tied to car exhaust and wildfires that changes the smell of flowers and makes the nectar unrecognizable. In addition, diesel exhaust disrupts honeybee pollination; traffic noise stifles bird calls and therefore mating; the draw of streetlights kills; and highways keep bats from hunting.

This year, the earth broke many climate records—flooding, snowfall, heat, hurricane speed, melting icebergs, etc. Snowpack and groundwater are declining, and hurricanes need a sixth category for increased wind speeds over 192 mph. Examination of sclerospones, an ocean creation living for hundreds of years, shows the Earth warming at a faster rate for the past two decades than expected, and 2023 was the hottest year on record.

Extreme heat also hurts the economy. Last summer, the heat wave in Texas cost the state $9.5 billion, a 0.47 percent lower growth rate and second only to the pandemic on small businesses. Meanwhile, home energy bills increased by 11.7 percent. With climate change disasters, insurance companies are also underpaying claims but charging higher premiums.

In 2023, researchers predicted that the Atlantic Ocean system of currents could collapse this century, resulting in natural disasters and change Western Europe into Alaska. Currents deliver warm water from the equator to the poles and return with cold water back south, heating up Europe and cooling the tropics for milder and stable climate in both regions. The tipping change could occur anytime between 2025 and 2095 if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced.

Since 2000, 4 million people have died from climate change, an under-estimate and health emergency. Low-income countries lack mortality data, but another 14.5 million are estimated to die globally from climate change by 2050, again conservative figures. Climate-induced medical costs will be $1.1 trillion for healthcare systems.

An experiment in the effect of climate change on gene expression shows that it can result in depression, autism, schizophrenia, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Women pregnant during the 2012 Superstorm Sandy bore children with an extremely high risk of psychiatric conditions as early as preschool through changes in the brain. Fossil-fuel-induced changes from rising temperatures to extreme weather to heightened levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide alter brain health from memory to language. Heat increases aggression, decreases memory, and limits brain coordination. It is also associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Continued burning of fossil fuels produces more dementia in younger people.

Shell oil company knew about alarming climate change from fossil fuel as far back as the 1960s, according to former Shell staff, people close to the company, and public archives from 2017 to 2022. In the 1980s, Shell scientists gave two pathways: “one where energy companies undertook a smooth transition to clean energy and one where fossil fuel demand continued to rise, creating ‘more storms, more droughts, more deluges.'” A Shell spokesperson said that Shell “did not have unique knowledge about climate change.” The company made $40 billion profit in 2022, and the former CEO Ben van Beurden received $11.7 million last year, up from $7.9 million the previous year.  ExxonMobil also knew about the damage of fossil fuels several decades ago.

Darren Woods, ExxonMobil CEO, declared the public is to blame the world’s failure to meet climate goals. He claimed that they could make fuels with lower carbon “but people aren’t willing to spend the money to do that.” Woods’ company lobbied to fend off provisions in an earlier version of the legislation that would have levied heavy taxes on polluting companies to pay for climate efforts. Exxon received subsidies from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act to build its clean energy, but Woods said it “is not a long-term sustainable strategy.” Most of Exxon’s investments go into fossil fuel expansion while the company spends billions to influence public opinion.  

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gained fame from environmental protection, but his conspiracy theories have led to former colleague on the Natural Resources Defense Council to ask him to withdraw from the 2024 presidential election. A dozen other national environmental organizations issued a letter calling him a “dangerous conspiracy theorist and a science denier” who promotes “toxic beliefs” on vaccines and on climate change. Kennedy now thinks that the free market will solve the climate crisis.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) opposes windmills for energy because they kill whales. He also ranted against Biden’s “racist” agenda supporting a solar project in Angola. According to Johnson, believers in climate science are “driven” by the desire to take “control over our lives.”

DDT Worse Off after First Week of Criminal Trial

Usually Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) delivers speeches in excess of 50 minutes, but in Pennsylvania he outdid Abraham Lincoln’s two-minute speech at Gettysburg (PA) with a 50-second speech about the Battle of Gettysburg:

“Gettysburg, wow. I go to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to look, and to watch, and, uh, the statement of Robert Lee—who’s no longer in favor, did you ever notice that? No longer in favor—’Never fight uphill, me boys. Never fight uphill.’

“What an unbelievable, I mean it was so much, and so interesting, and so vicious, and so horrible—and so beautiful in so many ways.”

DDT failed to give names of the “great general” who Lee supposedly lost at Gettysburg, perhaps because no “great general” died there. A long way from Lincoln’s speech that begins: 

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

No matter what DDT says, his base remains loyal. New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu called DDT “crazy” and an “a——” who was neither a “real Republican” nor a genuine conservative who “absolutely contributed” to the January 6 insurrection. Yet Sununu supports DDT because he’s doing well in the polls.

DDT’s former AG Bill Barr plans to “vote for the Republican ticket,” after describing DDT: “inexcusable” behavior on January 6 and “a betrayal of his office,” an “incorrigible” and “erratic” narcissist whose post-election lies did “a disservice to the nation,” “dismaying” that DDT would run a third national campaign, “will not endorse Trump,” voting for him is comparable to “playing Russian roulette with the country,” and “a defiant, 9-year-old kid.” Barr said that DDT “cared only about one thing: himself. Country and principle took second place.” It’s the GOP/MAGA values: destroy democracy to stay in power.

The critics omitted “thief” in their evaluations of DDT. According to reporters, DDT is “funneling” campaign money “into his businesses” and raising “ethical concerns.” A report to the Federal Election Commission shows DDT’s joint fundraising committee writing three checks in February and one in March to Mar-a-Lago with another in March to Trump National Doral Miami, totaling almost $500,000. Other GOP candidates have given Mar-a-Lago sizeable sums of money: Ohio U.S Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, $109,000; Nevada U.S. Senate candidate Jim Marchant, $67,000; and Giuliani Defense, $2,400. DDT has endorsed both Moreno and Marchant.

Truth Social shares have increased a bit in price, but DDT warned Nasdaq of “potential market manipulation” by “naked” short selling of shares, betting against a public company, and gave shareholders detailed instructions about how to avoid it. He complained to the SEC which responded that a short sale trade isn’t necessarily improper trading activity. CEO of Citadel Securities and billionaire GOP donor, Ken Griffin, called Truth Social a “proverbial loser” and accused Devin Nunes, CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), of trying to deflect blame for the company’s recent price drops. DDT won’t lose money on his shares because he didn’t pay one cent to get the tens of millions of shares.

Beyond DDT’s corruption, his policies will badly damage the people in the U.S., especially the poor in his MAGA base. He wants a flat 17 percent income tax, reduction of Social Security taxes to destroy the program, and higher inflation by devaluing the dollar and raising the tariffs. 

“I hate wind,” DDT told oil industry leaders at Mar-a-Lago, promising to open up the Gulf of Mexico to drilling leases and reverse regulations to deploy electric vehicles. Then he asked for donations.   He also wants “a minimum of 5%” of all donations received by candidates who use his name and image. In 2021, he sent cease-and-desist letters to his party’s officials to stop using them so that he can get the donations instead. Three GOP members of the FEC passed a ruling that permits DDT to take legal fees from the RNC. That decision takes money from down-ballot candidates and state party organizations.

DDT is also bleeding his Save America PAC dry with legal fees. Last month, the PAC spent almost $3.7 million—almost $3 of every $4 it collected with another $886,000 in outstanding fees. Just the New York criminal trial cost $1.14 million in March. DDT’s opponent, Joe Biden, spent over $29 million for its campaign last month, almost $22 million in producing and placing ads. Fundraising at a Florida billionaire’s home supposedly raised over $50 million, but DDT doesn’t get all this money and the amount has not been verified. The Robert F. Kennedy Jr. campaign received $5 million, $2 million from his new VP candidate, Nicole Shanahan. He spent $4.5 million on consulting, events, advertising, and payroll.

President Joe Biden plans to win in 2024 by campaigning and meeting with people. DDT plans to win the election by sending over 100,000 election workers to monitor poll sites and challenge voters.

DDT’s niece Mary Trump, a psychologist, believes his “psyche” is beginning “to fray at the edges” because he no longer has “control over either the narrative or the proceedings” of the criminal trial.  She added that his “serious psychological trauma … is basically short-circuiting him.”

Publicly DDT said that he is “proud” and “honored” to be the object of the criminal trial, but privately he fumes, especially about Maggie Haberman’s reporting that he slept during the trial during at least three of the four days, resulting in ridicule from late-night TV and sketches of him. (A collection of sketches of DDT in the courtroom.) DDT asked if the sketch-artist is out to get him and whined about the “freezing” temperature in the courtroom, the jury selection process, and the gag order—that he frequently violates. DDT’s former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said that the courtroom doesn’t have “a group of people that cater to his every whim” as he does everywhere else.

DDT’s presence during jury selection forces him to hear how some people don’t worship him. To help his delicate ego, an aide, Natalie Harp, sat two rows behind him with a wireless printer to provide him with good news from the internet until a security official required her to sit with the aides.

Legal Issues:

This coming week:  

Monday: New York criminal trial opening statement; DA presenting witnesses and evidence; hearing in civil trial about New York AG Letitia James’ challenge to DDT’s $175 million bond.

Tuesday: New York hearing about DDT’s contempt of court for violating gag order in criminal trial.

Thursday: Supreme Court arguments about DDT’s claim of absolutely immunity.

DDT may face another criminal investigation for tax evasion regarding a mysterious $50 million loan listed in his disclosures to the court that may not exist. 

DDT lost another appeal, this one to pause civil lawsuits blaming him for the January 6 insurrection. He wants them postponed until special counsel Jack Smith’s criminal case is resolved, after the Supreme Court rules on his appeal for immunity. DDT argues that a trial about presidential immunity would undermine his criminal defense; the judge disagrees.

New York – Civil Business Fraud Costs:

If Judge Arthur Engoron accepts James’ challenge to reject DDT’s $175 million bond, contending the bond company may not have sufficient resources for the bond, DDT would have seven days to find a new bond for $465 million.

New York – Criminal Business Fraud/Hush Money to Stormy Daniels to Interfere with 2016 Election:

Beyond his muttering and sighing, DDT fails to understand court protocol. He won’t stand when the jury enters and leaves the courtroom. Then he tried to leave while Judge Juan Merchan was still talking. Merchan ordered to sit down again. In the trial, DDT has decided to use his wife Melania as an excuse for paying off women to cover up the affairs. He claims he didn’t want to upset her.

Georgia – RICO Conspiracy to Overturn Election:

A special prosecutor will investigate whether Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones should face criminal charges over his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state. Executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia Pete Skandalakis will lead the probe; Fulton County DA Fani Willis cannot prosecute Jones because of her RICO case against DDT and other defendants. Jones declared himself an elector naming DDT for the electoral votes although Joe Biden won the state.

Florida – DDT’s Taking Classified Documents:

Judge Aileen Cannon denied motions from DDT’s co-defendants to dismiss the charges against them. They claimed no clear evidence exists that they obstructed the government in retrieving classified materials from DDT’s property. She has still not set a date for the trial.

Supreme Court Decisions for DDT:

The Supreme Court decision about DDT’s claim of presidential immunity will affect both the federal election interference case and Fulton County (GA) RICO case.

DDT plans to erase all “every diversity, equity, and inclusion program across the entire federal government,” but his company Trump Media & Technology Group has a section called “Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion.” Ethnically diverse organizations outperform less diverse companies by 36 percent.

Are you better off now than four years ago?  Stephen Robinson lists DDT’s mistakes in handling Covid.

DDT’s fixation to debate Joe Biden is reaching a high: he wants ten debates instead of the usual three. Four years ago, DDT, still in the White House, lied, raged, heckled, erupted, and interrupted while saying he had been tested for Covid when he carried the disease. He also encouraged the neo-fascist group Proud boys to “stand back and stand by.” And that was when DDT was more restrained.

 

April 20 (Weed Day) Brings Good News

The big news for the day: After stalling for two months, the House passed a package totalling $95 billion for national security aid that the Senate passed as one bill. To make themselves look independent, Republicans separated it into four different bills. The vote:

Ukraine aid, $61 billion: 311-112, with 210 Democrats and 101 Republicans voting in favor. One hundred and twelve Republicans opposed the bill. Seven did not vote, and 1 voted present.

Israel and Gaza humanitarian aid, $26.4 billion: 366-58, with 173 Democrats and 193 Republicans in favor. Fifty-eight Democrats and 21 Republicans opposed the bill. Seven did not vote.

Indo-Pacific aid, $8.1 billion: 385-34, with 34 Republicans opposing the bill. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) voted present, and 11 did not vote.

Variety of GOP national security priorities including a TikTok ban if it leaves its Chinese parent, ByteDance, within 360 days: 360-58. Thirteen did not vote.

Another bill of mixed GOP border priorities failed, 215-199. Seventeen did not vote. The bill was considered under suspension, needing a two-thirds majority to pass.

A breakdown of all individuals’ votes. The House has four vacancies. The Senate will hold a vote on the package on April 23. Specifics in the bills.

Democrats bailed out Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson, but he still criticized them in a press conference, saying that separating the bills was the only way he could get them to support the bills. Yet at least 173 Democrats voted for each of the bills in the package, and three of the four received at least 210 Democratic votes. Over 100 Republicans voted against Ukrainian aid.

Other Good News:

The U.S. Judicial Conference’s Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules has proposed that organizations—including corporations—must identify their financial backers when filing amicus briefs to allow knowledge of secret funds for those who will benefit. Corporate groups, frequently tied to billionaire benefactors, use these filings to push for personal benefits such as repealing tenants’ rights and block unions’ power to strike. The new rule would also require publishing names of donors contributing over $100 for preparing, drafting or submitting the brief if the person or entity had been a filing organization for under 12 months.

The 7^th Circuit Court has ruled that the Canadian operator of Enbridge drain the parts of the pipeline crossing Native American land in Wisconsin although the U.S. claims the decision violates a 1977 treaty between the two countries to keep the oil flowing. The U.S. admits that Enbridge is trespassing on trial land in carrying 540,000 barrels of mostly Canadian oil per day through Wisconsin to Ontario.

Colorado has become the second state after California to ban the use of a non-scientific term “excited delirium” in justifying use of force in police custody deaths. The term was used in at least 225 deaths throughout the U.S., and Colorado medics administered ketamine to 902 people for “excited delirium” in two and a half years, 17 percent of people experiencing complications. 

UAW got a huge union win in the South at a Chattanooga (TN) Volkswagen plant. In an 84 percent turnout, almost three-fourths of the 3,613 workers voted for the union, the biggest organizing UAW victory in years and a success after failing in 2014 and 2019. A majority of workers at Vance and Woodstock (AL) Mercedes Benz manufacturing plants have already signed union authorization cards for the UAW where workers will vote in mid-May. Recently, the UAW filed unfair labor charges against Mercedes for illegally firing union activists, disciplining workers for discussing the union at work, and prohibiting distribution of union information.

The U.S. Army will no longer allow permit military commanders to permit solders to dodge accusations of serious crimes by resigning instead of going on trial. Instead, the newly created Office of Special Trial Counsel, a group of military attorneys who specialize in handling cases involving violent crimes, must also approve the decision. The new rule applies only to cases under the Counsel’s purview such as sexual assault, domestic violence, child abuse, kidnapping, and murder. More than half of the 900 soldiers allowed to leave the Army in the previous decade rather than go to trial were accused of violent crimes. They had to acknowledge they committed an offense punishable under military law but were not required to admit guilt to a specific crime or face any consequences from a conviction such as registering as a sex offender.

Federal law will protect the rights of LGBTQ+ students and victims of campus sexual assault have new safeguards under new Biden administration rules based on a revised regulation from Title IX, a 1972 law barring sex discrimination in schools receiving federal funding. New provisions dismantle sexual assault rules by DDT’s former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and her requirement that unwelcome sex-based conduct must be “severe, pervasive, or objectively offensive.” Student cross examinations through representatives in live hearings are no longer mandated. New rules allow remote hearings and bar “unclear or harassing” questions. The changes protect trans students, but a provision forbidding schools from banning transgender athletes is on hold. The GOP party line is that the new rules damage progress for women and girls.

Biden’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has revealed new rules protecting pregnant workers, including time off for a number of reasons including prenatal doctor’s appointments, childbirth recovery, postpartum depression, miscarriage, and abortion. Pregnant workers can also be exempted from heavy lifting and have scheduling changes for those suffering from pregnancy symptoms like nausea or morning sickness. The rules are the last one issued for the 2022 Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA).

The Mine Safety Health Administration (MSHA) has announced an updated standard for safe exposure levels to toxic silica dust, thrown in the air during mining that contributes to progressive, incurable, and deadly black lung disease in coal miners. The particulate is especially common in low quality coal found in central Appalachia, causing progressive massive fibrosis which is a fatal hardening of lung tissue. The new rule increases medical surveillance with more clinical visits at no cost, silica dust monitoring, and greater site compliance with stricter consequences. In fiscal 2023, mining deaths jumped by 31 percent while MSHA suffered from a smaller budget increase. A problem is the use of an eight-hour day to estimate silica exposure whereas most miners work for 10- or 12-hour shifts, and inspections for mines are only annual.

By blocking construction of a 125-mile Ambler Road, the Biden administration is stopping a major mining project through the protected Arctic National Park and Reserve in northern Alaska to protect tribal subsistence hunting and fishing, a major part of some tribal lifestyles. DDT had approved the mining development days before he left the White House by the Interior head who covered up environmental and tribal impacts in the planning process, an approval condemned by the state’s bipartisan congressional delegation.  

For the first time, Ukraine shot down a Russian bomber as it returned from a mission killing several Ukrainians. One pilot was allegedly killed, and another crew member is missing. Russia claimed it crashed from a “technical malfunction.” Ukraine used a Soviet-era S-200 anti-air system dating back to the 1960s and considered obsolete. A second Russian aircraft armed with missiles turned around after the attack.

Pieces about “Lawmakers”:

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), under investigation by the House Ethics Committee, attended a 2017 party with minors where drugs were present, according to a sworn statement by a woman. She said a 17-year-old minor was naked at the party attended by other men and bedrooms available for sexual activities. The committee is probing whether Gaetz used illegal drugs and was under the influence of the drugs at parties while in Congress. Gaetz denied having a relationship with any minor.

Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R-AR) vigilantism about protesters on the Golden Gates Bridge in San Francisco demonstrates the conservative hypocrisy: Republicans believe in violent opposition against protesters only when they are liberals. In February 2022, U.S. conservatives were ecstatic when Canadian truckers shut down much of Ottawa to protest public health measures during the pandemic. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said:

“Civil disobedience is a time-honored tradition in our country, from slavery to civil rights to you name it. Peaceful protest, clog things up, make people think about the mandates.”

On Fox, Sean Hannity said the truckers “are taking a stand for freedom, human dignity and autonomy, and for liberty,” and Tucker Carlson called it “the single most important human rights protest in a generation.” Cotton criticized Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for invoking emergency powers to deal with the disruption caused by the truckers’ blockade. GOP-controlled states such as Oklahoma and Florida provided immunity for people driving cars into protesters about George Floyd’s death. Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, illegally took a gun he illegally obtained across state lines and fatally shot two people. Exonerated by the law, he became a hero to conservatives, including DDT.

In more conservative hypocrisy, Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) claims to be an aggressive opponent of China and called on people in the U.S. to punish China with boycotts of products. He said, “You don’t do business with your enemies,” while he made money off Chinese businesses. While governor, Scott tried to recruit Chinese business to establish operations in his state, to his personal profit, and his firm was also fined $1.7 billion for Medicare fraud. With his wife, Scott ha invested millions of dollars in corporations with major interests in China.

Austin Smith, leader in Turning Point Action spreading conspiracy theories of “election fraud,” resigned as Texas state representative after he was accused of forging voter signatures on petitions for him to run for office.