I don't think there really are any "polite" Republicans like that. There are plenty who would claim to be, but they still pulled the lever twice for Trump, and would do it again.

This seems to me the simplest and clearest case of the three. It's just such blatant clear and well-documented crimes. The Daniels stuff is less clear legally and the Georgia stuff seems to me to be less clear factually.

1: It's a big country; they exist. Just not enough of them to matter.

3 is why dreams stay with you.

1: I'm picturing members of Jammies' extended family. I bet the relative calmness of the Biden years has gone a long way to convincing them that Trump is a mess. They just want to be able to ignore government and make money.

I am really curious about that kind of person -- I used to know "sane" Republicans when I worked in law firms, but they're either nonexistent or very very quiet in my current office. Broad voting patterns I'm not all that puzzled by, you can reconcile a whole lot of crazy stuff by being both not terribly bright and not terribly focused on the topic. But bright politically focused conservatives with some sort of at least nominal commitment to being decent people? I can't picture what that's like these days.

My favorite part was when all the Republicans joined forces to publicize pictures of Hunter Biden's penis. It shows moral seriousness.

My one cousin, who is a public school teacher, told my sister he was a Republican at a wedding this spring. He was really drunk at the time. I didn't find out until the next day.

6: I think it really matters where you live. In NYC those kind of Republicans either don't talk about it or have become Bloomberg-style Democrats maybe who split tickets. But in a Red State they're still Republicans and they're afraid of their Trumpy voters and not making brave stands, but are still pretty visible.

Yeah, I'm sure they exist once you get outside my incredibly well-defended bubble, I just can't quite picture what it's like for them lately.

6: in MA, they register as independents. They didn't vote for Trump, but they voted Baker, and they whine about the income tax going up on people who make more than 1 million a year. I think there are some in the super rich sections of Connecticut too.

A friend of mine lives in Wellesley and is married to a guy who identified as Republican. Her husband's father was a Republican and his mother was an active Democrat and worked for their state legislator. She went to private school in DC, but he was against private schools, so they settled in suburban Wellesley, which is one of the towns that voted against said millionaire's tax by a wide margin. Circa 2017, I know he didn't vote for Trump.

There were confidential sources telling journalists Trump was blindsided by the indictment - that he had been assured it wasn't likely - followed by other confidential sources saying he totally knew it was coming, actually. Now he's fired two of his lawyers.

I don't know anyone that rich.

I guess it's too much to hope that the stress of the indictment completes one of the worst NMM triads in history, along with James Watt and Pat Robertson?

But bright politically focused conservatives with some sort of at least nominal commitment to being decent people? I can't picture what that's like these days.

Just to be clear, this is definitely not what I'm picturing.

What I see is bright people who are heavily avoidant of politics and selective of what they're exposed to. At most they want an email summary so that they don't look like an idiot if a topic comes up over happy hour. What they want is to live a wealthy-ish suburban lifestyle, with green yards and SUVs and golf, and they cultivate intense avoidance for anything that might threaten that worldview.

On "commitment to being decent people", they would define that 100% in terms of how you treat people you interact with in person. Do you volunteer your time for school PTA stuff? Are you nice to your server? Are you politely conflict-avoidant and generally not a giant ass? Then you're decent. There's absolutely no consideration to people that you don't ever see in person. And social strattification being what it is, that means all poor people for sure.

There's absolutely no consideration to people that you don't ever see in person.

With some variation even within this on grounds of "protecting our own". I was talking to someone earlier this week who learned that when she was a kid, there was a single mother living in a car parked on their street, and her father (a cop), one of these "decent" people, had seen to it she was moved.

A story about "nice polite republicans": [per Gellately in Backing Hitler] in 1933, soon after taking power, Hitler tried to run a nationwide boycott of all Jewish-owned businesses. It failed. The German people were not yet ready to hate that fiercely. Five years later, on Kristallnacht, they were ready. There's a term for it: "Cumulative radicalization".

There are no nice polite republications. What there are, are Dems and independents who used to be Republicans. People who pulled the lever for TFG, pulled the lever for GrOPers, are at this point all-in on their Fourth Reich. They might (like the Nazis who wrote to Himmler to beg for one of their favorite Jews to be spared the death camps) be personally nice to the people of color or LGBTQ people in their personal circle. But they still voted to send 'em to the camps.

Great to see it's going back to Judge Cannon, whose previous work on this case got reviews like "untenable" and "laughably bad".

LB: "But bright politically focused conservatives with some sort of at least nominal commitment to being decent people? I can't picture what that's like these days."

I've known two such men. One, well, he *was* one of my closest friends. He's about as white as you can get, and I'm pretty brown. I can say that in his personal interactions, he was always, always, unfailingly kind and decent. Never a hint of any sort of racism. And yet, even back in 2000, he was clearly an RWNJ. I mean, like, such outre' opinions that at a party his GF gave, her school friends were shocked at his beliefs. Even I thought he was joking (never having heard his political beliefs until then). Only the next day, when I joked about it, did he insist that he was serious. Over the years, he became more overt in his expression of beliefs, and of course he would quote stuff from The Corner (National Review Online) and other cesspools. I remember distinctly in the runup to the 2004 election, he told me "Chet, what's the big deal about a few stress positions" and insisted that we weren't in the throes of creeping fascism. At that point, it became clear that we couldn't talk politics and remain friends. And his friendship meant so much to me that I was willing to do that. [yes, ok, I was wrong] And so, that persisted for the next decade-and-change. Until the 2016 election.

After that, I sent all the people in my life of whom I wasn't certain they'd voted against Trump, letters letting them know that I couldn't be friends with Trumpists, b/c I had no white supremacist, racist, misogynist friends. I was clear that I was hoping each of them would respond with "Chet, what are you *on*? How could you even think for an instant that we could vote for that asshole?" But he responded with an *incredibly* butthurt letter, writing that I'd made him an unperson, that I'd tarred him unfairly for his political beliefs, etc, etc. In short, yeah, he'd voted for TFG, and felt that that was not disqualifying: that I should remain friends with him just as before, that it was just politics.

Two other (former) friends did the same, and while the butthurt response used different language, it was pretty much the same: they didn't feel that I could ostracize them for what they viewed as merely political choices.

I think that that's how they justify it to themselves: it's purely political, and that doesn't bring with it any moral stigma.

The indictment is out. On page 9 it gives five different quotes from Trump, all from 2016, all about the importance of classified intelligence and its scrupulous protection.

12: Now he's fired two of his lawyers.

They claim they resigned. Who knows. Liars the lot of them. But I think the lawyers may be slightly more credible.

Indictment unsealed.

Something that's clear in the actual indictment that has only been implicit so far is that these documents were stored extremely carelessly and any halfway-competent intelligence asset could have copied them all a hundred times over without even picking a lock.

[yes, ok, I was wrong]

I'm just working off your summary, but I don't know that you were wrong. I'm inclined to think it was a reasonable decision to maintain the friendship, and also a reasonable decision to cut it off when you felt like that was what you needed to do.

After that, I sent all the people in my life of whom I wasn't certain they'd voted against Trump, letters letting them know that I couldn't be friends with Trumpists, b/c I had no white supremacist, racist, misogynist friends. . . . Two other (former) friends did the same, and while the butthurt response used different language, it was pretty much the same: they didn't feel that I could ostracize them for what they viewed as merely political choices.

Again, just working from the summary, I think your decisions are reasonable, and I'd hesitate in reading too much into the tone of their response because, on some level, many people could go their whole life without getting a letter like that*, and the response might reflect surprise and confusion as well as their underlying feeling.

* "I could live my whole life without a phone call the likes of which I got today . . . "

Like, I did think he maybe at least kept them in his private office or a locked closet and not in plain view on the stage of the ballroom.

Once you've sold them, why bother locking the originals?

26: Resale market value?

With the indictment out, now there's also the potential the lawyers resigned because they are among Attorneys 1, 2, or 3 whose misconduct is described in it. Attorney 1 went through the boxes after Trump had had a number of them be taken away, which he didn't seem to know about, but before and after that review Trump suggested over and over to get rid of "bad" stuff or make it disappear. (He did memorialize it all, at least.) Attorney 3 (referred to with female pronouns) signed an attestation nothing classified remained on Trump's orders despite not being part of any search or reviewing Attorney 1's folder or even the subpoena it was all in response to.

But, oddly enough, Attorney 3 (who is Christina Bobb, this has been publicly reported many times) is not being charged with making false statements, Trump is being charged with causing her to make them.

Yes, I was looking for who his female attorneys were at the moment and she popped up, so not one of the two who left.

I guess Alina Habba is either gone or never worked on the documents.

Does it say what they bill at? I'm curious.

I don't know, but I did find that campaign filings show his PAC spent $16 million on personal legal expenses over 2021 and 2022.

It is nice to see that at least whenever Trump heavily implied Attorney 1 should do crimes, he memorialized the conversation in detail down to what was being implied.

I assume Attorney 1 is Evan Corcoran? He apparently was very thorough in his notes.

"According to his lawyers' notes, Mr. Trump made a 'plucking motion' that he believed implied, 'why don't you take them with you to your hotel room and if there's anything really bad in there, like, you know, pluck it out.'"

"Let the record show that the witness made the drinky drinky motion"

Oh, and Corcoran isn't one of the two who just bowed out (those are Trusty and Rowley). He probably left earlier.

Yes. He has recused himself from the Mar-a-Lago stuff since at least April if not before. Apparently still represents him on other things like Jan 6.

"For ethical reasons I am only representing Mr. Trump on one of his major threats to national security, not the other one."

Phil Hartman's loss is really coming home now.

NickS: "I'm inclined to think it was a reasonable decision to maintain the friendship"

With respect, *no*. I'm brown, my entire family brown, and I have several LGBTQ friends. All my siblings are women. That these Trumpists could not see, did not want to see, that they were voting for people who wanted to put me and my loved ones in camps, is not something I can look past. I looked past a lot before -- arguably too much. I looked past this guy's advocating for literal torture of prisoners of war and captives by our troops ("What's a few stress positions, Chet?") and that was wrong on my part. Hannah Arendt wrote that Facism consists in bring the methods and tools of Imperialism home to the metropole, and this is a great example of what she was talking about: these people voted to do to me and mine, what Bush's legions did to Iraqis. Just because they wouldn't do it *personally* doesn't mean shit: Himmler famously got physically ill when he inspected a death camp; that didn't stop him from continuing to work to ensure the efficiency of those machineries of death.

As far as I'm concerned, these people are not my countrymen, and if horrible things happen to them, I will have precisely the same level of concern that I would have if horrible things happened to Russians. By contrast, every injury and harm that comes to Ukrainians pains me greatly, and I think about their welfare well-being every day. Ukrainians are much more my countrymen than these wastes of protoplasm. And I can write this, while still being the same person who misses that person I described above, pretty much at least on a monthly basis. Love and hate can coexist, it turns out.

Also, just to clarify: I've sent that "I hope when you receive this letter, you'll think I've gone off my rocker, and 'how could you think that of me, Chet?'" letter a bunch of times. I always have a long preface explaining that I really, really, really hope I'm wrong, and that if so, I hope that the recipient will respond and tell me so, and I'll apologize profusely and never mention it again. Several people to whom I've sent the letter have responded in precisely that way, and it has always occasioned a great conversation about the state of things, and their own worries. So these 4 guys (so far) who either didn't respond, or were enormously butthurt, clearly were Trumpists. B/c the letter is set up so that I assign myself all the blame if I misjudged them.

Also, Boris Johnson has stepped down. A great day for barbers on both sides of the Atlantic.

39 is completely fair, thank you.

(and 39.last is interesting but, honestly, I probably shouldn't have offered an opinion, I know that you are thoughtful, and have purpose to your actions).

All of us white, but in November 2016 I said something to a relative hosting Thanksgiving on this coast to the effect of "I'm assuming there aren't any Trump supporters present..." knowing her partner was some brand of conservative but assuming him to be in the offended-by-Trump class. To my surprise she responded with offense and successfully made me feel bad for having broached the topic at all. We had an apolitical Thanksgiving, but in the next couple of years I decided "I have no time for people like this" and dropped out of contact / into active avoidance.

(She even made it seem like it was strange I would assume she knew her partner's stances on candidates!)

Sorry Chetan. I'm surprised the friendship lasted as long as it did.

I'm in the smallest room in Trump's house. I have classified documents in front of me. Soon they will be behind me. I'll transmit the photos from a secure location.

28: Bobb seems to have been sharp enough to realize that she was potentially being set up to take the fall when Corcoran asked her to sign the form instead of him, and she insisted on wording changes that she was only attesting "to the best of her knowledge." (Which was basically zero, since Corcoran was the one who conducted the search.) Also, she was one of the first to lawyer up and offer cooperation to the investigators once the shit hit the fan with the actual search. Those moves seem to have done a sufficient job of CYA for her, but Trump is still on the hook since he knew that the declaration he was arranging was false.

The Saudis are so disappointed about the lack of establishment white people to buy that they had to compensate by taking over golf.

The indictment sure makes it sound like Corcoran was deceived. Why Bobb signed a statement attesting what he told her he was told is a mystery.

What is a lawyer supposed to do when a client starts unsubtly hinting they should destroy evidence? Is not doing it and then taking careful notes to cover your ass a best practice?

I have written off all of my Trump-voting relatives and doubt we will speak again unless at a funeral.

Ventriloquism is crazy that way.

Cyrus: It's my fault entirely that it lasted 16 years too long. If I had had the appropriate empathy for oppressed people both in America and the rest of the world, I'd have ditched the man when I realized he was parrotting NRO talking points at me -- in 2000. But I didn't have that empathy: I believed myself (somehow, it eludes me now) to be part of the mass of "regular Americans", and hence, not part of one of those oppressed categories.

To return to heebie's OP, I believed that "nice polite Republicans" didn't have any particular animus towards me, nor my family, nor my friends, even though I knew explicitly that the Republican Party was anti-woman, anti-Black, anti-people-of-color, and definitely into imperialism overseas. I just blocked it out, b/c I wanted to "belong".

2016 ripped away any such illusions completely. It was my fault entirely.

I blame Comey and the NYT for 2016.

I blame American voters.

I blame insufficient attention to the proper handling of confidential government materials.

Hilary's server guy must feel terrible.

I feel like I can't write off Trump relatives, mostly because they're on Jammies' side so it's mostly not up to me, second because they're completely silent/avoidant on matters so it's technically informed speculation, and third because my sister-in-law and nephew are not white, and are also without other family in this country, and I'd feel like I was abandoning them.

Spike: "Hilary's server guy must feel terrible."

Just to dredge it up .... remember when the State Department non-classified email system got hacked? And of course, since Hillary didn't use that system, her emails weren't hacked? *grin* good times. IIRC, the server she used was the same one that WJC and their foundation used -- so, vetted by WJC's Secret Service detail. And it was never hacked. Not ever.

I can readily believe they would call themselves "independents" if pressed, however. Maybe that's the key difference, like someone said above - polite Republicans go by "independent" these days, because the alternative is embarrassing.

Last night our Trumpist semi-relative (widower grandpa rebound) started making fun of how our gender nonconforming 13yo looks during a celebratory dinner for our 18yo, so that was fun. I responded by making fun of Jesus which she said wasn't allowed because we're Jews but it at least redirected attention away from the kid.

56: There's lots of history you can look at if you want to see how to abandon not white people.

56: Heebie, you have my sympathies. Everybody has to make their own decisions on these things, and if it had been a family member, I don't know that I'd have written them out of my life -- probably not, actually. I was lucky that it was only one of my best friends.

SP: Oh god, I'm so sorry for you and your child (and your children). That must have been horrible. Good on you for not silently letting it pass! No child should be belittled like that, esp. from a relative.

Apparently James Watt was still alive this morning.

NMM to the inventor of the steam engine.

Probably a different guy.

Even were he alive I would not masturbate to the blackguard who ushered in the Anthropocene. My moral principles are few but firm.

Which one did that?

Like, so Eurocentric.

And, you, poor Knifecrime? Does any silver lining glimmer through the twinned bankrupt assholes?

James Watt didn't invent the steam engine and almost all the steam engines ever built were built to a completely different design from James Watt's, and most coal burned throughout history was burned for heating, industrial heating, power generation and metallurgy, not to power steam engines.

Is there a "How to Defend Famous Scottish People" day in high school there? Like in Nebraska, we had a day where we had to learn about George Norris and William Jennings Bryan.

I feel better about my clutter knowing that Trump has about as many files in his bathroom as I have in the basement.

I think that that's how they justify it to themselves: it's purely political, and that doesn't bring with it any moral stigma.

Yeah, this is the thing that I am like LB about, in the sense of being quasi-fascinated but absolutely not able to understand it. I have met (still meet, on a regular basis, through my work) people who I think genuinely believe *both* that voting is extremely important and it would be a disaster if Democratic candidates won, AND that voting doesn't have any actual consequences for any people. It is utterly confounding to me. I don't know how they reconcile the cognitive dissonance.

Some of them even vote for Democrats and yet still don't understand the stakes! I just had dinner a few months ago with a work colleague I've known for almost 10 years. He's genuinely doing good, caring work every day for immigrants and refugees, is passionate about disability and access issues, etc.

And yet when I tried to explain why some of my nearest and dearest wouldn't feel safe moving to his state, he was utterly confused. He just tried to tell me how blue the big cities in his state are.

If I'd been thinking more clearly I would have personalized it even more and reminded him that I am a straight woman of childbearing age and said that I would be* scared to travel to his state knowing that if I were unexpectedly pregnant, the hospitals there might let me bleed to death rather than treat a miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy. I would have told him about sitting in an ER with my friend who DID have an ectopic pregnancy and how scary that was, even 15 years ago in a much less frightening political environment.

*If I were in a relationship at the moment.

I wonder if some of it is differences around what level if safety is expected? Like I get that it's a genuine real safety concern, but compared to 40 years ago it's surely still safer to be in a red state now, just due to doctors being less likely to kill you on accident. A certain level of risk of death is always there. I think a lot of people (especially optimists!) just don't worry much about low probability bad events. Is your friend an older optimist?

Like I'm a cautious anxious pessimist, so I'm with you here. But I think if you're trying to understand why people are behaving like your friend I think a lot of it is personality traits like optimism and low-anxiety.

I think a lot of people don't worry about low probability bad events that happen to other people.

I mean yes lots of people don't care about what happens to other people, but it didn't sound like that's what was going on with that particular person.

There are also lots of people who ride motorcycles.

I'm not saying that they don't care. I'm saying that when it's other people bearing the cost, 1% or 2% become zero much easier than they do if you're bearing the cost yourself.

Moby: "I'm not saying that they don't care."

There's a saying: "Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker." As we all know, it refers to how to get a woman in bed. And the heart of that quip, is that a woman you're trying to get into bed is an NPC (non-player character), so her agency doesn't actually matter. This is also the heart of the "one weird trick" series of vids (which I've never seen, but sure, I agree they exist): again, if you know the one weird trick, you can get women to go to bed with you -- it has nothing to do with what those women want for themselves, and has everything to do with your own actions. The men thinking these things, doing these things, Do. Not. Care. what women think, want, etc.

This belief that some people are NPCs is, I think, pervasive in conservatism. And it comes from Calvinism: the belief that some are Elect, the rest are Damned, and they were so from birth (heck, from conception) by God. If you're among the Elect, you're going to Heaven, and if you're Damned, well, y'know, buh-bye. Only the Elect are moral subjects, b/c no matter what, the Damned are going to hell, eh?

Sure, when face-to-face with one of the Damned, these people can even do good works. But it's because they're Elect, and y'know, Calvinism tells us that to be Elect, is to live a Godly life. But fundamentally, if some action you took in your Godly (b/c you're Elect) life caused downstream effects that really hurt the Damned, well, y'know, you still lived a Godly life, riiiiight?

They don't care.

Sure, which is why the historically Calvinist part of the country is leading the charge here... Stay away from Massachussets everyone!

And yet when I tried to explain why some of my nearest and dearest wouldn't feel safe moving to his state, he was utterly confused. He just tried to tell me how blue the big cities in his state are.

I feel a little weird about this. It's complicated.

I know a lot of people (including some of my liberal family members) who seem to believe that self-interest is the highest moral good. If something would benefit other people but slightly inconvenience you, then you should absolutely not be expected to do it, whether or not it is the Right Thing to DO.

I've seen them do this with the most bizarre, minor things as well as some bigger ones. They agree that some sort of ethical code of good/bad behavior exists in the abstract, but they also think that personal inconvenience is an expected and legitimate reason not to follow it. Anyone who goes at all out of their way to do something helpful to the community is an amazing ideal that no one should even try to live up to because it's unreasonable.

I thought this was just my weird selfish family for a while but I've seen the same arguments all over the place so I think it's some sort of mutated Puritan Work Ethic thing that has wormed its way into many people's worldview.

"Well of course that's TECHNICALLY the right thing to do, but if someone doesn't feel like then it's not fair to blame them for refusing"

My self-care involves immiserating others.

Why is everyone blaming the puritans! New England is the best part of the US!

That's fair. I should stop blaming them. I would, but I don't really want to.

"This belief that some people are NPCs is, I think, pervasive in conservatism. And it comes from Calvinism"

OK, this is outright deranged now.

Also, NMM to the Unabomber.

Whose self-care also involved immiserating others.

At least it's an ethos.

I suppose "Hurt people hurt people" could be prescriptive.

I don't actually know if that even applies to him.

It's pretty much all mathematicians.

80: I've never been to Massachusetts.

"Hey, you know what the problem with American capitalism is? It's all secretly run by this little religious group who think that some people are chosen by God and everyone else is worthless! That's why they think it's OK to oppress everyone else!"

Not gonna lie, Chet, I really thought you were going in a different direction than "it's all a Calvinist conspiracy".

Pretty sure that's not what Chet actually meant

It's probably about time to put a new religious minority in all of the conspiracies and why not Calvinists?

He meant it's because of people who think temperature should be measured relative to absolute zero. Those guys are super selfish.

No no no. It's that children's show, Calvin and the Hipmonks.

OT: I just heard the "to the window, to the wall" lyrics sung to the tune of "Just the Two of Us." It was great.

At Hawaii's dance team performance at the end of 8th grade, the "goodbye 8th graders" song was the weirdest rendition of Dancing Queen I've ever heard, made all maudlin and cloyingly sad. It was bizarre and I still teared up, because I'm a sentimental sap.

No, the children's show is Calvin and HOBBES

Well the answer to 14 was the unabomber.

People who are inexplicably still shipping Taylor Swift with her ex from before Joe, the Scottish DJ?

People who love Invisible Cities?

To the window, to the wall. Till the ray transmorgify them all.

Ajay: "Not gonna lie, Chet, I really thought you were going in a different direction than "it's all a Calvinist conspiracy"."

I do NOT mean that it's a Calvinism conspiracy. Rather, consider the way that Evangelicals divide the world into the Saved, and the Damned, and tell me how they got to where basically anything goes against the Damned. I mean where does "Not perfect, just forgiven" come from, if not Calvinism? Where does this incessant focus on words and not deeds, this focus on tribal affiliation over any kind of good deeds, come from?

I mean, if you want to go with "it's Christianity that's at fault here" or "all religions are murder cults", sure, have at it. But I'm tryin' to, y'know, not tar all Christians with that one blood-soaked brush.

Again: I mean that the intellectual roots of this belief system in America come from Calvinism, b/c Calvinism teaches that you can divide the world into those who are Saved (at birth) and those who are Damned (again, at birth). And that all is forgiven of those who are Saved, while no amount of good works can save the Damned. If you are among the Saved, then you don't need to worry about the downstream effects of your actions: just make sure that you act like a Saved person (that means if you rape any children, for goodness sakes do it without witnesses!) and it's all good.

Dave is saved. The chipmunks are damned because Noah didn't brink no chipmunks in his ark.

he also didn't bring no chipmunks.

And he neither brought nor brinked no chipmungs neither

The Chipmunks wear clothing that could not possibly cover their genitals but have no visible penises. The Chipettes have their groins covered. This suggests that the Chipmunks are exceptionally poorly endowed even for rodents.

They're eunuchs obviously

Yes, they've been made castrati to preserve their soprano voices.

107: for God's sake, just say Jews, this is taking forever.

They were made into castrati to preserve their Jewish voices?

I don't think you're supposed to cut off the penis when you castrate an animal. Maybe it's different for singers.

I'm with Chet here. Calvinism is a wretched moral philosophy that convinced bad people that they are good, and it has been hugely influential on the American capitalist system.

"Peace to you, Crom, and blessing to you, Crom, and sleep to you, Crom; and may the heat of the Moon be ever on you and on us all."

I have an actual, on topic question: How much can Cannon wreck the trial? Is it just a matter of accumulating lots of things that will be appealed afterwards? Or can she somehow insulate things from higher courts and actually prevent a lot of evidence and mess with voir dire and whatever else to secure the verdict she wants?

There's an opinionated mohel tip joke to be made here but I can't find the right words.

I feel like maybe she'll just say it's all too political and needs to be delayed until such time as Trump is no longer a candidate.

119: She can wreck it a whole lot. In an ordinary case, I would say a judge who wanted to could no question prevent a defendant from being convicted with the kind of evidentiary rulings that are very hard to fix on appeal. In this case, she will be so on display, and her bias has been so clearly established, that maybe there will be some way to prevent that? But it's a big problem.

A man with God is always in the majority.

Damn. I assume she also controls the degree to which the media has access to the proceedings?

122 I would think that the 11th Circuit might just be about half an iota more likely to take interlocutory issues, but only that much. Judge Cannon can do tremendous damage. Whether or not she does is going to depend on the Trump team, to some extent. She'll give them what they ask for, and if they ask for dumb shit way outside the mainstream -- as they did with the special master -- it's going to be fixable. Trump is a ridiculous client, and if he hears that some whacko on the internet has suggested some kind of silver bullet, he'll insist his lawyers try it.

On the religious question, I think you go back to Albion's Seed and instead of blaming the Puritans of New England, we should blame the Scots who settled the app highlands, who have successfully conquered (culturally) the Cavaliers of the lowland South. Still Calvinists, but it's John Knox instead of Roger Williams.

81 In the US, most people live in blue cities in otherwise red states. It's just the Philadelphia, Chicago, and NYC are big enough, and their respective states small enough, that the states can appear to be blue -- and only from time to time in Pennsylvania. Houston isn't big enough and Texas is otherwise too big to get blued in this way.

OK, not just Scots, but Scots who spent a couple of generations settled in Ireland learning about NPCs.

In the US, most people live in blue cities in otherwise red states

I don't think this can be literally true. Maybe if you add up the people in blue states plus those in blue-cities-in-red-or-purple-states.

Or maybe you mean "most people in red states live in blue cities." That seems plausible, if you include their suburbs.

What are the avenues for appealing a "wrongful acquittal"? I thought prosecutors only got the one shot at it.

Illinois outside of Chicago is red. NY outside of NYC (and maybe a couple of other cities?) is red. PA outside of Philly and P'burgh is famously red. Colorado/Denver. Arizona/Phoenix. NM/Albuquerque. There's nothing noteworthy about this: rural areas are red, and suburbs only blue in recent cycles. Witt's interlocutor apparently isn't concerned about statewide issues, like abortion restrictions, but the cultural feel of where he lives.

So in your rubric Illinois is a red state? That is certainly a way you could define it, but dirt don't vote.

Chicago is a blue city in an otherwise red state. Big enough to dominate the state. Hence a blue state.

Oh, I guess the procedure is you appeal pre-trial decisions, not the outcome of the trial itself? What if the judge just freestyles the jury instructions?

heebie: IANAL, and I sure don't know if this is accurate, but this MediasTouch vid (via dKos) seems to argue that Cannon will either recuse, or be recused: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9BUPk9PmIM
From dKos link: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/9/2174445/-MeidasTouch-host-Ben-Meiselas-Explains-Why-Judge-Aileen-Cannon-Will-Be-Recused
Partial Transcript, starting at 1:55:

"First and foremost let me explain to you why I am not worried that this case has been assigned to judge Aileen Cannon. So it's assigned to judge Aileen Cannon for now. However under 11th Circuit Court of Appeals precedent which is binding on federal judges in the southern district of Florida and all the federal courts in Florida judge Aileen Cannon should on her own recuse herself from this case. Or upon a motion for recusal brought by the Department of Justice she should recuse herself. If she does not voluntarily recuse herself the Department of Justice can then appeal that to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and they should then order that she be recused. There is an 11th circuit case called U.S versus Martin which is the binding precedent there, which holds that where a judge has shown prior bias and where the judge has engaged in potential prior misconduct and there is an appearance of impropriety the judge should be removed from the case. And if they don't voluntarily recuse the 11th circuit can remove the judge. So I ultimately do think judge Aileen Cannon will either recuse herself or be removed by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals under the U.S versus Martin 11th circuit precedent, because the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has already made a ruling where they removed judge Aileen Cannon from assuming jurisdiction. Extraordinary jurisdiction which she didn't have and in the order they basically accused her of interfering improperly with the Department of Justice's criminal investigation into Donald Trump. So where there is an order essentially already reprimanding her the remedy here would be recusal and I think that is what the Department of Justice is I'm going to pursue. So I don't think she's going to be on this case for any significant period of time."

Who knows if this is accurate? Certainly not I.

OK, you originally said "otherwise red states" so you aren't - quite - characterizing the whole state.

But I don't find that especially culturally informative as truly rural areas are a tinier and tinier part of most states. Our world is mostly blue cities and purple suburbs, with suburban shifts tilting the balance. The median state is 73% urban (Census definition including suburbs), and the median urban resident lives in a state that's 84% urban (specifically, Texas). The "feel" of rural areas affects you when you... travel to rural areas. There may be guns out there, but mass shooters I think usually are from the urbs where everyone else is.

I was comparing the situation of Witt's friend to Witt's. Their local communities are blue, so they're both surrounded by people with similar values. At a wider remove, they're surrounded by people with different values. Fortunately for Witt, enough people who share some of her values were able to get their votes counted in the last couple of cycles, so her state is blue. For now.

I have no confidence hat she will recuse. If she does it will be a big Trump talking point. If she stays it is my understanding that she does have lots of ways to subtly wreck (and certainly delay) the proceedings.

And is is true there are 3 open seats in that jurisdiction that are due mainly to blue slips? Assumption is that if they were filled Cannon would have been less likely to have been assigned.

This is all very depressing.

137 It may depend on where the opening are within the district. SD Fla, like a lot of federal districts, is divided into divisions, and assignment of cases is based on the division.

134 It took me a while to find the right US v. Martin. It's a 2006 case, where the 11th Circuit was vacating, for the second time, a too-lenient sentence. 455 F.3d 1227, 1242. The appeals court has the power to order reassignment of a case on remand when reviewing an order that is properly before it. The only way the 11th Circuit gets involved under Martin is if there's something both appealable and ridiculous. I don't see how Martin lets it reach down into the district court and sue sponte vacate a case assignment.

(The DC Circuit did the same thing with Judge Lamberth in the Cobell case . . .)

Looking at Wikipedia, it looks like all three vacancies are in the Miami division. Judge Cannon is all by herself in the Ft. Pierce division.

So it was a foregone conclusion that she'd be the judge, once it was decided to file in the Mar-a-lago district?

She's a loose cannon.

Why did nobody else do that?

141 I was thinking that, but Mar a Lago is in the West Palm Beach division. Trump filed he case in Ft. Pierce division before because he was assured of getting Cannon.

I don't know whether it went to her because of a related case rule, or if Cannon gets a percentage of WPB cases because the WPB division is understaffed. That could be because the Miami division is understaffed, so there's the problem of not getting nominees for districts with only red senators.

OK, it's fairly complicated. Check of pp 5-7 of the IOP: https://www.flsd.uscourts.gov/sites/flsd/files/17-10-17-Internal-Operating-Procedures.pdf

There's a math problem lurking in there . . .

Is there a narrative where it makes sense for the DOJ to file the case in Cannon's district? What were they thinking?

146: They didn't. See Carp's 145. As he says, it's complicated, but the gist is that S.D. Fla. includes judges from neighboring divisions when they assign criminal cases. So DOJ knew this was a possibility, but it wasn't a certainty.

119, 122 et al.: As I understand it (i.e., based on what I've read on Twitter from people who actually know what they're talking about), the real nightmare scenario isn't so much bad evidentiary rulings and the like, it's that she'd grant a Rule 29 motion and issue a judgment of acquittal before submission to the jury. She'd have to conclude that the evidence presented was insufficient for a jury to convict, which would presumably be impossible to say with a straight face, but would also be unappealable under current double-jeopardy doctrine. It would be completely outrageous on a number of levels--as a factual matter obviously, but also because rulings on Rule 29 motions are generally reserved until after the jury returns a verdict (or hangs), specifically to avoid the double-jeopardy problem (i.e., if the jury says guilty, and then judge issues a judgment of acquittal, the govt can appeal--if the the judge's order is reversed, the jury verdict of guilty is still there; but if there's no jury verdict in the background in the first place, there's nothing anybody can do, because jeopardy has attached and an appeal would be a dead letter even if the judge got it completely wrong). So, if all that's right (and it seems so crazy that it can't be, but I can't figure out why it's not), and if the case isn't reassigned one way or the other, the only things standing in the way of all this is norms and a sense of shame, or I suppose some innovation by the higher courts.

Hmm, looks like I screwed up the links. Rule 29: https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcrmp/rule_29 Supreme Court case on non-appealbility: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/430/564/.

Oh, and sorry, I misread 146 (and elided district/division), so never mind 147.1!

146 The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury; and such trial shall be held in the state where the said crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any state, the trial shall be at such place or places as the Congress may by law have directed.

This is Fed R Crim P. 18: Unless a statute or these rules permit otherwise, the government must prosecute an offense in a district where the offense was committed. The court must set the place of trial within the district with due regard for the convenience of the defendant, any victim, and the witnesses, and the prompt administration of justice.

I read somewhere that one of the West Palm judges is now almost exclusively doing Miami cases (presumably due to lack of Miami getting filled) and so that increased Cannon likelihood. So maybe the shortfall indirectly contributed.

130: MA? We aren't immune to Trumpers. Central Mass is kind of Trumpy, because it's downtrodden. The North Shore used to be Republican, because there were some very rich mutual fund manager types. MA is a famous,y suburban place. Boston (as opposed to the Greater Boston area) is pretty small.

Western MA is rural-ish but way more liberal than Central MA which is de-industrialized, not rural. A fair number of hippy types. It's the part of the state where people consistently support Medicare for All.

https://www.wbur.org/news/2016/11/08/massachusetts-election-map

The top corner dark blue is a college town, but not all of the rest of the blue in the west is college towns.

2020 was much bluer but the reddish suburbs were only barely 51% blue. Rowley was light red in a very blue area of the North Shore in 2016

https://www.wbur.org/news/2020/11/03/2020-massachusetts-election-map

NMM to Silvio Berlusconi

Shoot. He was great in Fargo.

So, in the last few days: Berlusconi died, Trump got indicted, Johnson resigned from Parliament, Sturgeon got arrested, and the Ukrainians began their counter-offensive.
And it was my birthday.

Did someone at least give you five dollars?

And Taylor Swift plays here on Friday.

And I started my low residue diet for my upcoming colonoscopy.

158: My librarian colleague is going to that concert! Are you?

No. It was impossible to get tickets except resales at a huge mark up.

159: Doctors have the best euphemisms.

huge mark up

Stadium floor seats above $2k. In CA, equivalents are $5-7k.