Priorities
"As you know, we're not entitled to a jury, which is pretty unusual in the United States of America. And I think it's very unfair that I don't have a jury," Trump complained outside the New York courthouse yesterday. Like anyone else, he is entitled to a lawyer. He is not entitled to a good lawyer, and Alina Habba, the Florida lawyer famous for representing a parking garage, did not know that in New York you have to request a jury in a civil case. Now she knows. Meanwhile, the bench trial proceeds, with the defendant ranting several times a day about the "KILL TRUMP decision," the "Deranged, Trump Hating Judge," the "racist" attorney general and how he'd rather be campaigning (as if there's a difference).
If anyone ever needed a sharp lawyer, it's Trump. He incriminated himself in the super-courteous Meet the Press interview, he created more grounds for a felony charge by buying a gun in South Carolina, and he has the self-control of a rabid raccoon. What did he choose to focus on last night?
"Now that the 'strike' is over, the talentless, low rated CREEPS of Late Night Television are back." Yes, his ancient enemies Colbert, Kimmel and Meyers actually made fun of him, and he is psychologically incapable of turning off the television. He tried to get Disney to order ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel in 2018, and in the closing days of his term he wanted the FCC to silence them. I hope they have made arrangement to flee the country in the event of a second term. Damaged people like Trump have no capacity for humor; this catastrophe began when Barack Obama made jokes about him at the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner.
Joe Biden has a robust sense of humor -- how else could he have survived fifty-plus year in politics? He must be chuckling today, as Kevin McCarthy struggles to hold onto the office he sold himself for over the course of fifteen ballots. Matt Gaetz, who hates McCarthy even more than he does Biden, provided this gem: "It is going to be difficult for my Republican friends to keep calling President Biden feeble when he continues to take Speaker McCarthy's lunch money in every negotiation." Not that they won't. At this hour the House in its majesty is "debating" the ouster of the Bakersfield Bomber and Minority Leader Jeffries says no Democrat will lift a finger to save him.
We go now to Sacramento, where Governor Gavin Newsom thought, "How can I keep my promise to appoint a Black woman to the Senate while lighting every Republican's hair on fire?" Then he announced that Dianne Feinstein's seat would go to Laphonza Butler. She's an adviser to Kamala Harris. She's the president of Emily's List, which works to elect pro-choice women to office. She's California's first openly gay senator. I suppose Angela Davis might have been a more incendiary choice (the Lenin Peace Prize!), but she's 79.
Like Cassidy Hutchinson, Ivanka Trump has decided to hire her own lawyer in the New York fraud case, perhaps influenced by the way Daddy threw her brother under the eighteen-wheeler. (Deposition: "My son Eric is much more involved with it than I am.") Of the three, she has the least to lose -- there's always Prince Bin Salman's two billion to fall back on, assuming her husband has even a vague idea how to run a hedge fund. Republican families like the Gosars, the Tubervilles and the Trumps must be amazed when they see how much Joe Biden is prepared to stand by his son Hunter. Trump especially must consider him a "loser," like the soldiers whose graves he hated to visit. "What's in it for me?" is the family motto.
Any time Newt Gingrich quotes Nancy Pelosi with approval, you have to read the whole op ed. In today's Washington Post he recommends that the House expel Matt Gaetz, who "has no sway" there. His antics are a distraction from their very serious agenda of chopping money out of appropriations, advancing the Biden "impeachment" and anything else Trump orders. I'll be honest, I don't know which side to root for and I don't care. They can hand the gavel to Derrick Van Orden, the freshman from Wisconsin who got drunk and swore at the pages during a late-night session. Or Ronny "Candyman" Jackson, the pill-pusher from Texas. Or that Florida guy who did an inventory of all the bathrooms in Mar a Lago. Just so he's incompetent and divisive and, if possible, chemically impaired.
Gag order! Trump posted a picture of Judge Arthur Engoron's clerk Allison Greenfield "palling around" with Chuck Schumer at a campaign event, and a slur about her being "in [the judge's] ear on every single question." If she met Schumer, it's clear evidence that she "hates Trump." Judge Engoron wasn't having it, ordering him not to make public comments about court staff -- not even those big, burly men with tears in their eyes at his Christ-like persecution. It's a limited gag order and he can hardly whine that it prevents him from campaigning, but it looks like Trump finally got his hair mussed.
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