The Frankish Reich

Meanwhile: Biden going on and on in that special yelling style that he thinks communicates vim and vigor.

You mean he was elected because he paid off a sex worker to keep her quiet? (sorry, had to go there)

I've never done a "sex worker." Guess I'm in the minority on this one.

Giving me head on the unmade bed While the limousines wait in the street - L. Cohen Meanwhile: Biden stepping all over the big news of the day with boring Holocaust Remembrance speech. Ever heard of keeping them waiting for 20 minutes or so?

Stormy: Old Spice in his room. Unmade bed. MSNBC has gone all puritanical now. Say they're not going to relate "all the details" because they're graphic. Damn liberals.

I knew you'd be ready for this!

Yeah, saying to a sex worker "you remind me of my daughter" is the kind of press any creep desires.

Keep pretending. We all know you follow what I say. What's the stupid movie line your old namesake used to quote, something about living rent free in your brain?

What makes you think he didn't think he could get away with it 😁

Really deserves its own thread. She's still testifying. Trump's wingman invites her to "dinner" with the boss. She meets him in his hotel room. He answers in satin pajamas. Starts asking her about her life and career, whether she's tested for STDs, etc. Trump: "you remind me of my daughter." 🤮 Yeah, that's normal.

MSNBC (gasp!) is doing a good job of summarizing testimony in real time. And their legal commenters are surprisingly even-handed. So now we know a little more about Trump's game. It wasn't just "grab 'em by the p[]ssy." No, he had his wingman approach Stormy to say that Trump would like to have dinner with her. She goes to his room. He's in silk pajamas (!) She asks him to change for dinner. He doesn't "just start kissing her." He pretends to be interested in her life. And then? Well, I guess we'll hear that soon.

Glenn Reynolds is an actual law prof. He obviously is more interested in his blogging career now. But he is a serious person. And he's right: the "over criminalization" thing is a problem. So like he says, go ahead and try to correct what you think is selective prosecution through the political/electoral system. If we believe Trump, that is where Reynolds is wrong. Trump believes that these prosecutions make him more popular and more likely to be elected. So much for this comment:

You keep that up and I'm going to have to pretend to ignore you! (and what exactly was trolling about pointing out that blasting the national anthem at midnight harmed normal students more than pro-Palestine protesters?)

Guess who just can't ignore me anymore!

I don't know the percentage in the encampments who are students. But Harvard Yard is surrounded by freshman dorms ...

And succeeds in waking up all of those apolitical freshmen trying to get a decent nights' sleep before finals.

This is the stupidest "there must have been fraud" theory ever. How many people flocked to Eugene McCarthy rallies in 1968? George Wallace rallies that same year? As opposed to Nixon rallies. Did more people show up for Bernie vs. Hillary? What makes anyone think that those who attend rallies are representative of the electorate in general?

Probably. This could get interesting. As many of you know, I've been waiting for the testimony about Trump's penis. The judge seems to have just ruled that out. For now. If the defense starts asking questions about exactly what happens, that door can open ...

From the deleted Trump post: "no time for lawyers to prepare." What? No time to prepare for something they knew was coming for at least a year?

I vote for the first option. And I might add: a damn fool.

I respectfully decline to answer. But I will say that Ozempic is a human rights violation.

https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2006/february/food-stamps-and-obesity-ironic-twist-or-complex-puzzle/#:~:text=Weight differences were especially striking,incomes above the eligibility limit. What percentage of people on SNAP are obese? Weight differences were especially striking for women; 42 percent of women who participated in food stamps were obese, compared with 30 percent of eligible nonparticipating women and 22 percent of women with incomes above the eligibility limit.

You mean 3 fewer sacks? 😁 Actually, this is a tricky one. Since you can be credited with a half sack, maybe it should be less.

Yeah, but he didn't shoot Commander. Or Major. And he never banged Corey Lewandowski.

You need to focus on the elements that will be in the judge's jury instructions. Of course, we don't have those yet. But we know it will include things like this: - were business records falsified? This one is a no-brainer. - did Trump cause those records to be falsified? There's some wiggle room there. The accountant did it at Cohen's urging, etc, with Trump strangely unaware. - was it done for the purpose of influencing the election? There's a lot of room there. Following generally, I see that Hope Hicks (a prosecution witness) testified that at one point Trump was calling her about whether the Stormy thing had hit the press and had stopped having the newspaper delivered to his residence in the hope that if it was, at least Melania wouldn't see it. So the defense can argue that Trump's motivation - even if they establish the other elements - was primarily to protect his family from embarrassment. The prosecution will, of course, argue that the furious activity right after the "grab 'em by the p[]ssy" tape - the expressed need to get it done immediately - shows that the election was the primary purpose. As I said above, I think the prosecution has already put on enough evidence for a reasonable juror to infer from the circumstantial evidence that the charge has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt. There's also enough for the defense to argue that it hasn't. - here's where the jury instructions will be critical: is it enough that the prosecution shows that influencing the election was one purpose of the scheme, even if there were others? That's the most favorable instruction for the prosecution. Or maybe it has to be the primary purpose, or even the sole purpose; the defense would love that. I just don't know the law here since it hinges largely on NY State decisions (not my turf) and how much will fall on the judge vs. established case law. When the case was brought, I thought the legal theory was kind of a stretch. I think they've convinced me it's pretty solid, and that the verdict will turn on the instructions and how the 12 jurors make inferences from circumstantial evidence.