DL Open Thread: Saturday, May 16, 2026

Why Democrats Suck–Case #Infinity Plus 2:

DENVER (AP) — Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on Friday commuted the sentence of election conspiracy theorist Tina Peters following pressure from President Donald Trump, the latest instance of the president using his powers to reward those who echoed his baseless claims of mass fraud as the cause of his 2020 loss.

Trump has championed the case of Peters, a 70-year-old former county clerk who was sentenced to nine years behind bars after being convicted in a scheme to make a copy of her county’s election computer system. She gets released June 1.

In April, a Colorado appeals court upheld her conviction but ordered Peters to be resentenced because it said the judge who sent her to prison wrongly punished her for speaking out about election fraud, a decision that Polis praised.

In a letter to Peters, Polis wrote that Peters was convicted of serious crimes and deserved to spend time in prison. “However, this is an extremely unusual and lengthy sentence for a first time offender who committed nonviolent crimes,” the governor wrote.

He added Peters’ application “demonstrates taking responsibility for your crimes, and a commitment to follow the law going forward.”

President Donald Trump posted around the time of the announcement on his Truth Social platform: “FREE TINA!”

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, said “it was a dark day for democracy” and “selling out our state’s justice system for Trump is an affront to the rule of law.”

“A clear message is being sent to those willing to break the law and attack democracy for the president — they will likely not face consequences for their actions,” Griswold said at a news conference.

When you think of all those who Trump has gone after who have done absolutely nothing wrong, it only makes this pathetic gesture more egregious.

Meanwhile…:

President Donald Trump is expected to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service in exchange for the creation of a $1.7 billion fund to compensate allies who claim they were wrongfully targeted by the Biden administration, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.  

The commission overseeing the compensation fund would have the total authority to hand out approximately $1.7 billion in taxpayer funds to settle claims brought by anyone who alleges they were harmed by the Biden administration’s “weaponization” of the legal system, including the nearly 1,600 individuals charged in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol attack as well as potentially entities associated with President Trump himself. 

So. Trump brings a bullshit lawsuit against the IRS, then agrees to drop it in exchange for $1.7 billion that will go to those who took part in the Jan. 6 insurrection.  $1.7 billion in taxpayers’ money, BTW.  Hey, seems fair to me.  Right, Gov. Polis?

Brief Aside: You didn’t think the Supreme Court would rescue Virginia’s redistricting, did you?  The way they blew up the Voting Rights Act in time for the Confederacy to reestablish ‘Whites Only’ elections in 2026 should have been your first clue.  The Supreme Court is corrupt.  Full stop.

Xi Has Trump–And America–Figured Out:

Spare a moment, please, for the lame-duck superpower. It calls itself the leader of the free world, but the free world no longer believes it. When it extends its hand, nobody rushes to accept. When it threatens, nobody trembles.

After President Trump arrived in Beijing this week, Xi Jinping showered him with pomp befitting a summit of great powers. Yet the Chinese leader permitted potshots at his guest to go viral on his country’s internet rather than suppressing them, as some observers expected he would during a state visit. Xi answered Trump’s lavish praise by sternly lecturing him about meddling with Taiwan. In the end, Xi offered nothing of great substance—no solutions to the war in Iran, no sweeping trade deals, no promises of access to rare earth minerals. Xi used the visit to humor the lame-duck president, waiting for his time to pass.

During the first Trump administration, foreign leaders flattered and accommodated the president out of deference to American power. They feared it; they relied on it. During the second administration, and especially since the beginning of the Iran war, their calculus has quietly shifted—not because the strategy of obsequiousness has failed, but because it’s no longer worth the trouble. Like many of his counterparts around the world, Xi has begun to assume that it’s not just Trump who is term-limited; it’s also his nation.

Without exerting itself much, Beijing has profited from America’s self-immolation. China’s petroleum reserves and its investments in renewable energy have allowed it to offer Thailand, the Philippines, and Australia relief from the energy crisis that the United States instigated. Instead of applying diplomatic pressure on Iran to cut a deal, China has let the conflict linger, so that the United States continues to bear the blame for the disruptions to shipping. Meanwhile, China poses as the faithful steward of the rules-based order—the cooler head, the power on which even the U.S. must now rely.

American history is rife with the perils of lame-duck leaders. As their time in office grinds to a close, presidents grow eager to write a final chapter worthy of their saga. They reach for the grand gesture; they attempt to solve the intractable problem. But in their mad dash to assert their relevance, they manage merely to prove how little they matter to the rest of the world. Trump is now living that fate, and the consequences extend far beyond his presidency. Every failed deal, every summit that yields nothing, every boast that goes unfulfilled, confirms what adversaries already suspect. A lame-duck superpower exhausts itself in full view of the world, and the world moves on.

Am I the only one who isn’t depressed by this?  Hey, at least we have a totally screwed-up World Cup and a July 4 celebration of UFC on the White House lawn to look forward to…in other word, bread and circuses.

What do you want to talk about?