DL Open Thread: Thursday, March 21, 2024
This Judge Cannon…Does anybody really think that her appointment to this case was a mere coincidence? I don’t:
Lawyers and former judges said they are baffled by an order issued this week by the federal judge overseeing Donald Trump’s pending trial on charges that he mishandled classified documents — and believe her instructions suggest the case will not go to trial anytime soon.
On Monday evening, U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon ordered the defense lawyers and the prosecutors in the case to file submissions outlining proposed jury instructions based on two scenarios, each of which badly misstates the law and facts of the case, according to legal experts.
She has given the sides two weeks to craft jury instructions around competing interpretations of the Presidential Records Act, often referred to as the PRA. While the law says presidential records belong to the public and are to be turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration at the end of a presidency, Trump’s lawyers have argued the PRA gave Trump the right to keep classified materials as his personal property.
“What she has asked the parties to do is very, very troubling,” Nancy Gertner, a former federal judge in Massachusetts, said of Cannon. “She is giving credence to arguments that are on their face absurd. She is ignoring a raft of other motions, equally absurd, that are unreasonably delaying the case.”
It’s well past time for Merrick Garland to get off the sidelines and move to have this blatantly-biased judge removed from the case. Remember, this is widely-regarded as the ‘slam-dunk’ case.
Trump Begs ‘Patriots’ To ‘Save Trump Tower’: Guess it all depends on how much money the ‘patriots’ have left after throwing money at Trump for eight years:
In a campaign message sent out on Wednesday, Trump’s reelection team urged for donations to protect Trump Tower, the former president’s prized Manhattan skyscraper, from being taken by “radical Democrat” New York Attorney General Letitia James.
If Trump is unable to secure his total bond amount, which stems from a lawsuit brought against him by James, state prosecutors could start enforcing the penalty by seizing some of the former president’s assets on Monday.
“KEEP YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF TRUMP TOWER!” read the memo, which Reuters reported was sent out by a joint fundraising committee that allocates donations to Trump’s 2024 campaign and a separate political committee that has been paying the former president’s legal bills.
How The Baby Formula Lobby Effectively Enlisted The US To Quash Protections Abroad.
Just last March, at a meeting in Dusseldorf, Germany, U.S. officials opposed a reference to formula advertising bans in a new international food standard for toddler milk. The move came after industry lobbying.
At the center of many efforts was the Office of the United States Trade Representative, which advises the president on trade policy. Emails show its staff in regular contact with formula makers and their industry groups through meetings, calls and position papers — which the industry used to hammer its objections to regulations around the world. “Mead Johnson and other infant formula producers have been very vocal, expressing concerns to the Thai and U.S. governments about what they feel is the imminent passage of this measure,” U.S. officials wrote in 2016 as Thailand considered its formula marketing ban.
Notably, such advocacy has not only hindered local attempts to stop formula marketing that critics say is misleading or even predatory, but it has also undermined the work of U.S. foreign aid and health officials, who have long supported breastfeeding across the globe. They call it “one of the highest returns on investment of any development activity” because of its well-documented benefits for babies’ health and cognitive growth.
The meddling broke into public view in 2018, when officials from the Trump administration were accused of threatening to withhold military aid from Ecuador if the country didn’t drop its proposed resolution in support of breastfeeding at the World Health Organization; the U.S. ambassador later denied making threats. But ProPublica’s investigation found that the scope of the interference far exceeded that incident and continues today under the Biden administration. In fact, Ecuador and Thailand were just two stops on a worldwide crusade against regulation that has spanned Republican and Democratic presidential administrations and touched more than a dozen countries, including South Africa, Guatemala and Kenya, as well as Southeast Asian nations such as the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam.
Biden could end this policy. Will he?
Looks Like Brandywine School District Insiders Pulled A Fast One. Dirty dirty dirty. Had they done this before the most recent referendum, I would have switched my vote to no:
More than one hour into Monday’s Brandywine School District Board of Education meeting, Lincoln Hohler announced his resignation, with the apparent knowledge of several board members in advance.
A motion then came up to promote “employee number 24-111 as identified in executive session as Superintendent.”
The vote ended up 4-3 in favor of moving forward with an apparently internal candidate. (Did the insiders consult with Lonnie George and Bill Bush on how to pull this off?)
Board Member Dr. Shawn Jegede said she did not know this approval vote would be coming. Also, along the way, she said teachers were not given the opportunity for input.
Correct this mistake. Now! BTW, what the fuck is Ralph Ackerman still doing on that Board? Always gave me a Gene Reed vibe.
What do you want to talk about?
Legally, the AG does not want Trumps real estate. It has no actual equity. its all so mortgaged that if they took control and sold the assets they’d still be underwater. What it looks like will happen, unless Putin opens the pocketbook, is the courts will hold the assets in escrow
There are a couple of liquid assets she’ll likely seize first.
I’m tellin’ ya, take the plane! Ground his fat ass!
Take everyone’s f*cking private jet and tell them all to f*ck off. Put everyone’s fat ass on commercial flights.
“New York Attorney General Letitia James is already making preparations to seize former President Donald Trump’s properties in New York’s Westchester County as the Monday deadline for him to post bond in the civil fraud judgment draws near.”
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-properties-seized/
I’m pretty sure you’d need a silver bullet and a stake through the heart to get rid of Ackerman. He’s been sucking on that teat forever.
Assignment of Judges in SDFL is random. Sometimes random assignments lead to terrible results.
I know they SAY it was random.
Just gotten to the point where I don’t believe it was.
why? Is it just because Judge Cannon is so terrible? Why wouldn’t random assignment result in assignment to a terrible judge some times?
Round up all the MAGA actors including members of Congress in the Freedom Caucus and send them to “black sites” for the duration of the election. This of course includes the orange jock strap. Put every FBI agent under additional scrutiny to ferret out all the MAGA “leaners” or outright supporters. Terminate every one of them and send them to black sites too.Stop pretending there is nothing we can do to protect our democracy except rely on an untested and weak legal system. Take a page from Dick Cheney. He did it and we’re still here. Or, ask Cheney to do a bit more hunting, this time with the orange jock strap.
Dark Brandon:
I love it on two levels. 1) Unleashed Biden is a younger Biden. 2) It will bug the fuck out of Trump to be punked like this.
This is what the “Biden’s too old” crowd doesn’t get. Biden is a fighter. He could lose half his brains and he’d still be pugnacious. I can’t picture Gavin Newsom making that joke.
I took a look at Open Secrets to see if these gullible Trump donors were still sending money to Trump. Only one of the top ten most gullible dumbfucks is still a gullible dumbfuck. THOMPSON, BLAKE of Rehoboth. His last donation was over a year ago though, so even he may have wised up.
https://delawareliberal.net/2020/11/30/delawares-10-most-gullible-dumbfucks/