Just an observation . . .

[Charmonium]

Something else I hadn't thought of. In 2016, the population of IA was about 3.1 million. Estimated pop in 2023 is 3.2M - so a diff of at least 100k

Now look at the caucuses - 2016 turnout was over 180k. This year it was closer to 100k.

So . . . bigger population this year but significantly lower turnout.

No wonder Orange Jesus always seems to be covered in flop sweat.

 

[Charmonium]

I love Chris Hayes (MSNBC). He always seems to use 'the less traveled path' and comes up with amazingly insightful segments.

The best one tonight was where he showed how ballots were collected in the cauci - paper bags, popcorn drums (seems disparaging to call them "cups"), plastic ziplocs, etc.

Now stop for a minute. What is your first thought about that.

Now contrast that with how election workers like Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss were treated by Trump and his minions.

 

[Charmonium]

One last factoid for today.

Since the cauci turnout was very close to 100k, you can look at the following (less the "k") as either numbers or percentages.

It seems that they did 'entrance' polls and 66k/% said that they thought the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. But only about 50k/% actually voted for him.

I'm sorry but that's causing me a bit of cognitive dissonance.

 

[Charmonium]

Since last week, I've been looking forward to the next episode of the Trump show in NYC. In case you missed it, the last line of dialog last week went something like this
judge Kaplan - you can't control yourself
Trump - you can't either (read that in a 5 year old's voice)

So, since Trump seems to be ready to push some limits, I have been waiting with an expectant joy I haven't known since being a child at xmas, for the next appearance of Orange Jesus.

 

[Charmonium]

It looks like Haley won't beat Trump outright but she may as well be an attached trailer. So even if she bombs in SC, her home state, it won't matter. With all of that Koch super PAC money, she's probably with us til at least super Tuesday.

 

[cytg111]

I submit evidence C

 

[Charmonium]

@cytg111 Wrong thread?

I'm still watching the coverage on NH. It's worth having it on in the background since they always have some interesting tidbits.

Tonight some info "leaked" from Biden camp that probably wasn't supposed to - 2 of his top advisors are moving to Delaware to work on his campaign.

IOW, Haley? Haley who? They want to run against Trump so, so badly . . . .

 

[Charmonium]

I was thinking about the CO hearing on the 9th. You know Thomas and Alito will vote to reverse, probably based on some bullshit that isn't even well crafted. I think it boils down to Roberts. If you have him, my bet is that you have Kavanaugh. Add the 3 Dem apptments, that's 5 to affirm.

 

[Charmonium]

It might be just me, but isn't it obvious that the talking heads are ignoring all of the Trump voters who have NOT been showing up?

 

[Charmonium]

Just here to register my displeasure with Trump's court appearance today. How they got him to "heel," I have no idea.

 

[Charmonium]

I think I was watching Inside Edition and they showed an old clip of Habba [the Hutt] being asked if she would rather be pretty or smart. She said roughly 'pretty because I can fake being smart.'

Mmm, not so much.

late edit and apologies to Jabba (see square brackets)

 

[Charmonium]

It seems that the Rs have something like a one or two vote majority, what with Rs outright leaving or whatever. I've lost count.

So if the Ds make a petition to bring the Senate bill to the House floor, they only need peel off 2 or 3 Rs to get it to pass (the border bill). And yet, God's messenger, Magat Mike seems to think the bill is DOA. These folks really are living on another planet.

edit - and the flop sweat just keeps coming.

 

[Charmonium]

Have you wondered about why there have been so many threats against public officials by Trump's cult members and yet so little actual carnage? It's the 1000+ cases against J6 rioters. That made it clear that the feds were not going to tolerate ANY lawlessness from his "base."

If that's the reason that Garland was so late in appointing Jack Smith, I'd have to cut him some slack because that choice is now bearing fruit. Have you noticed that pretty much all of the aforesaid officials, even the spineless Rs inCongruous no longer seem to afraid of Orange Jesus.

 

[Charmonium]

I hope SCOTUS understands that if Trump is the nominee, that he will be so badly beaten in November - especially with Haley becoming a "kinder, gentler" attack dog than Christie - that the Ds will almost certainly try to "pack" the court.

Because it's not just Trump that will lose - so will all of his magat minions in Congress, state legislatures, governors and so on. All you need to do is look at the state of red-state R organizations. If they're not going bankrupt, they've been so badly mismanaged that they will be soon.

And then there's the RNC looking for a line of credit. As one commentator noted, there's a finite amount of small dollar donations available out there and OJ is sucking those up like a hungry black hole. So even in the unlikely event that the Rs get some folks that are actually competent to run, nobody is going to know about them.

 

[Charmonium]

So, today the hammer came down - DC circuit found Trump has no immunity of any kind and referred to him as "Citizen Trump." There was never any doubt about this result but Orange Jesus still may have benefited from the delay.

It's a good sign that the court gave OJ only until Monday to file his appeal. Normally you have 90 days.

The question I have is this - since this will be a continuation of an interlocutory appeal, do SCOTUS rules require 5 justices to vote for taking the case or the normal 4. It should be 5, the requirement for interlocutory appeals. But the circuit court opinion seems to have taken so long so as to make it clear that there is no substantive issue here, so I don't think they can get 5 votes. Also, I'm pretty sure they have no such interest.

The Colorado case is a different kettle of fish and I've already given my call on that. I would add something though. A decision to NOT take the immunity case may well be a harbinger of CO being upheld - IOW,Trump is ineligible. It wouldn't technically make the immunity issue moot but you could look at it that way if your main concern is political rather than legal. That means that there would be no more delays for OJ and therefore no hope of putting the J6 trial off until after the election.

edit - That doesn't really matter from the legal POV though.

In other news, it looks like Engoron, the judge in the civil fraud case, is going to need to take more evidence since it appears that Weiselberg lied to that court. If he decides to therefore strike his testimony, the only direct witness testimony left regarding Trump's instructions on how to cook the books is Michael Cohen. That's going to be a very, very bad day for OJ.

edit2 - As mentioned before, cable news doesn't like to get too far into the weeds on these things but apparently, Jack Smith's appeal to SCOTUS to decide the immunity issue was a "special" kind of interlocutory which requires 5 votes. But an appeal by OJ at this point seems (by comments from legal experts) this would just be ordinary certiorari and therefore only require 4. The only real diff I see is that granting JS's motion would have jumped over the circuit court.

 

[Charmonium]

Wow, forget what I said about Rs growing a spine. In the evening after Bitch McConnell said that he supported the border bill, he had a "secret" meeting with R senators and said don't vote for it. You can guess what the reason was.

There's a weird dynamic going on. You got a small handful of Rs in the house that voted down the Magic Mike border bill. But people like Buck probably have pretty secure districts.

If the Supremes don't give us something, this is all going to be one fugly mess until the election

 

[Charmonium]

Well, you see from the SCOTUS arguments today that they have no intention of uphold the Colorado case, which is just some next level bullshit.

Courts are entitled to take "judicial notice" of facts not in evidence when those facts are universally accepted.

So there is absolutely NO reason why this court couldn't take judicial notice of the fact that Orange Jesus clearly and repeatedly attempted to nullify the 2020 election - what amounts to an insurrection.

So once again it looks like the court is back to its familiar practice of rewriting the constitution in their own facilely corrupt image.

When the Ds completely blow all of insurrectionists and their followers out of the water in November, will it really be any surprise that they'll promptly proceed to pack the court?

 

[Charmonium]

It seems the least stupid choice for SCOTUS to make regarding Trump's qualifications is to toss it to the Congress to decide and then run and hide.

But the problem with that is that at that point, they are quite literally rewriting the constitution. That's going cut very deeply into the alleged originalist/textualist image that they have cultivated for decades.

Unfortunately (or fortunately), they don't have any other options. They can say that Trump isn't an officer w/in the meaning of the 14th amendment but that's an exercise in absurdity. They can affirm but just for Colorado, but there appears to be absolutely no appetite for that sort of bullshit even from the liberal members.

They are very much on the horns of a dilemma so it will be fascinating to see what they decide. And all of the commentators are saying that it had better not be a 6-3 decision if they want to restore any credibility. So . . . pull up a chair, get out the hookah and put up your feet because this isn't getting resolved any time soon.

 

[Charmonium]

It's sorta a shame that Maddow is only on on Monday nights but when she IS on, it's almost always worth watching.

For example, did you know that Pakistan's former prime minister is in jail and yet his party won the recent election there? Yeah, me neither. You mean there are things like other countries and shit? No way.

So they're trying to figure out how this guy is going to rule the country from jail. You can't make this shit up.

Also of note, the former prez of Costa Rica (I think) is now holed up in the Nicaraguan Embassy along with his desk, couch and his dog Bruno.

 

[Charmonium]

It looks like OJ is going to appt his daughter-in-law Laura (Eric's wife) to head the RNC. I was so worried that they'd pick someone competent.

 

[Charmonium]

Mike Johnson is such an ass clown. He seems to think that he can block the Senate bill passed last night. Moron. The Ds are just going to file a discharge petition and force a floor vote thereby once again embarrassing this douchebag.

 

[Charmonium]

Wow. So OJ finally got the Mayorcas impeachment thru by one vote (Scalise).

Ya feel better now Donnie you puss sack? But wait, there's more - this week you're gonna have to pull $370M out of your fat ass.

 

[Charmonium]

You gotta luv da orange Jesus.

He's been saying ' the blacks' like him because of his criminal indictments.

Donnie doesn't bother shooting himself in the foot,he goes straight for his face

 

[Charmonium]

Only 20% of SC vote is in but looks like the polls were off by at least 15 points

 

[cytg111]

@cytg111 Wrong thread?

I'm still watching the coverage on NH. It's worth having it on in the background since they always have some interesting tidbits.

Tonight some info "leaked" from Biden camp that probably wasn't supposed to - 2 of his top advisors are moving to Delaware to work on his campaign.

IOW, Haley? Haley who? They want to run against Trump so, so badly . . . .

Holy shit