…it might have got beyond parody at this point

One day after attorneys for former President Donald Trump asked a judge to hold special counsel Jack Smith in contempt for filing motions ahead of deadlines

…I’m…tempted to go ahead & assume it means he doesn’t understand what a deadline is…but…let’s face it…the truth is that in a sane world filing the motion would in fact be admissible evidence of contempt of court by…well…him…it’s the court’s intelligence he’s insulting in the first instance, after all…relying on its hidebound nature to prevent it from saying so comprehensibly to enable that performative act to make “jack smith accused of improper action” equatable in the minds of his supporters with “they cheat so we can do no wrong” or whatever bullshit self-perpetuating cycle of cognitively dissonant circular logic it is that keeps these assholes sated & prevents them from noticing the mile-high billboard on which he continues to telegraph a conspicuous consciousness of guilt that ought to be beyond incriminating…in the court of public opinion if not the sort that grinds exceedingly fine

Chutkan’s ruling to pause the proceedings said that if her court continues on the case, she would consider whether to keep or change the dates of future deadlines. She specified that the deadlines were temporarily paused, “rather than permanently vacated.”

Smith’s filing noted that three days before Chutkan entered her order pausing deadlines in the case, prosecutors informed all parties in a public filing that they would continue to voluntarily comply with the previously established deadlines.

The prosecution, Smith’s office wrote in Friday’s memo, “did what it said it would do.”

Smith’s office went on to argue that no action is required of Trump, and that he has not explained how “the mere receipt” of documents that he doesn’t have to reply to “possibly burdens him.”

Prosecutors in Smith’s office said that they have not violated a court order in the federal election interference case. [NBC]

…&…mechanistically…the potential to spin wheels by continuing the appeals process all the way up to the supreme court…for…*checks notes*…being prepared to hand in your homework early…& confident enough in your work not to take an optional extension…being evidence of underhanded & improper behavior on the part of a prosecution on behalf of the state against a man who has publicly & serially demonstrated wholesale contempt for the rule of law & the nature of government to the point of inciting a bona fide (if thankfully for the most part inept) insurrection while propagating what amounts to an assault on the fabric of US society that the original architects of the active measures playbook would have considered beyond their wildest imaginings…welp

NBC News and The Des Moines Register sat down with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy this week in Iowa and asked all three of them if they would accept a Biden victory in November.

In particular, DeSantis’ and Ramaswamy’s reluctance to readily accept the possibility that Biden could achieve a legitimate victory reflects the continuing hold on the GOP of former President Donald Trump’s unfounded belief that the 2020 election was stolen from him — three years after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol to try to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s win.

Even Republicans who don’t accept Trump’s belief that he won in 2020 recognize that many voters in the party don’t fully trust the system any longer.
[…]
“I think that in some ways, this question is based on a fictitious premise that people who are allowed to run for president even are able to run for president. We’re having a discussion about one of the two major candidates being removed forcibly from the ballot,” Ramaswamy added. “So we have major forms of election interference staring us in the face.”

Republicans cast doubt on whether Biden can win legitimately in 2024 [NBC]

…seriously…it’s…it’s fucking beyond dumb is what it is…through a glass fucking darkly got nothing on people not only swallowing but positively lapping up an argument that removing from the ballot a man whose own actions render him an illegitimate candidate on an a priori basis ipso facto renders any & all other candidates who might legitimately enter the contest equally illegitimate via the transitive property of “I’m rubber, you’re glue”…is…seriously denting my faith in the baseline of people’s capacity to comprehend the meaning of the things they think they think…& I don’t mean the craven specimens horking up this bilge…or even necessarily the products of the perverse incentives of the so called information economy overlapping with this lucrative attention economy I hear so much about in order to have somehow wound up force feeding people a diet they think they’re asking for of such mind-numbingly fucking obtuse bullshit that it plays…but…just at the sheer lack of any trace of joined-up thinking required of its audience to maintain the cycle of addiction…in gaiman & pratchet’s good omens famine, while idling away his time awaiting the call to mount up & ride for armageddon, becomes extremely wealthy flogging edible stuff with no nutritional properties as diet food…so people can pay a premium to starve…&…that might be less fucking stupid than this shit

Three years after a right-wing mob stormed the U.S. Capitol in an effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, the federal government has secured hundreds of convictions on charges ranging from unlawful picketing to seditious conspiracy.

Now, in a year shaping up to be one of the most consequential in American politics, prosecutors are preparing for the trial of the biggest Jan. 6 defendant of them all: former President Donald Trump. Trump is currently set to go on trial as soon as March in the election interference case brought by special counsel Jack Smith; he has pleaded not guilty.

The third year of the sprawling investigation into the Jan. 6 attack — the largest criminal probe in Justice Department history — saw some major achievements for federal prosecutors and the FBI as hundreds of cases made their way through the court system, even as hundreds of additional rioters remain at large, with just two years left to bring charges before the statute of limitations expires.

Looming over all of the Jan. 6 criminal cases — more than 1,200 of them — is the potential of a Trump presidency. Trump has promised to pardon “a large portion” of the rioters “very early on” if he wins in 2024. After spreading lies about the 2020 election in the lead-up to Jan. 6, Trump is now making false claims about the events of that day, proclaiming on the eve of the third anniversary that the attack was “antifa” and the “FBI” was “leading the charge” on Jan. 6. (There is zero evidence to support Trump’s claim, and many of the rioters who far-right figures have alleged were antifa or undercover federal agents were subsequently arrested and revealed to be Trump supporters.)

…now…there are existing mechanisms by which the statute of limitations can be extended…not the least of which is the one where if you KEEP FUCKING DOING THE CRIME the clock stops & doesn’t start over until YOU FUCKING STOP DOING THE CRIME…which…I would be strongly inclined to argue…means if the thing you did was try to subvert a fucking general election then basically you & everyone you got to help you remain fair game for as long as it fucking takes to ensure you don’t get to escape conviction by purposefully running out the clock while campaigning on the very fact that you will in fact entirely undermine the entire system of justice & the rule of law you put yourself forward to uphold in order to indemnify yourself in your continued pursuit of your own narrow self-interest in defiance of the interests of anything else up to & including aspects of reality that are literal matters of life or death for vast numbers of people…but…I dunno…I’m weird like that…guess I was just born grumpy or something…oscar was my favorite sesame street character…which…probably invalidates anything I have to say on this or any other subject according to the implied rule set the fucking headlines operate…so I apologize for inadvertently taking it out on you poor innocent folks with monday looming just over the horizon

Online sleuths, or “sedition hunters,” who have aided the FBI in hundreds of cases against Jan. 6 rioters, meanwhile, say they will continue to put pressure on federal authorities to take action against the hundreds of additional rioters they’ve identified who have not faced charges to date. Online sleuths told NBC News that there are about 1,000 other Jan. 6 participants who have been identified but not arrested.

One citizen investigator who has played a critical role in the effort, speaking to NBC News on the condition of anonymity, said it was “frustrating” to know the identities of hundreds of rioters, many of them caught on tape committing violent attacks on law enforcement, and be stuck waiting on action from federal authorities.

“On my mind would be making sure to keep Jan. 6 in the public eye, to continue to not only try to hold rioters accountable for their actions but also law enforcement, the DOJ as a whole,” the investigator said.

“There is a struggle even within the community of harnessing that frustration and using it in a way that’s not harmful to our work but productive and gets the attention of the people that need the attention brought on them,” she said.
[…]
“Many citizens from around the country have already come forward to identify individuals connected with the Jan. 6 attacks. As a result of these tips, scores of individuals have been identified and will soon be prosecuted for violent acts at the Capitol and other violations of federal law,” [Matthew] Graves [the top federal prosecutor in Washington] said.

One of the individuals featured in Graves’ presentation, as well as in an ad released by Joe Biden’s 2024 campaign, has been identified for more than 700 days, online sleuths say. Sleuths dubbed him #BluePlaidSprayer and have been calling out the FBI field office in his home state on social media, asking for action.

Even with hundreds of cases likely to go, 2023 was easily the most consequential year of the Jan. 6 investigation to date. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes — one of the first Jan. 6 rioters convicted of seditious conspiracy — was sentenced to 18 years in prison, with a judge calling him “an ongoing threat and a peril to this country.” Former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio — whose lawyer told jurors that prosecutors were making him a “scapegoat” for Trump — was also convicted of seditious conspiracy, along with three other Proud Boys. Tarrio received a sentence of 22 years in federal prison, the longest sentence ever given to a Jan. 6 defendant.

Nearly every weekday over the last year, Jan. 6 rioters were facing judges at the federal courthouse in Washington, pleading guilty, on trial or being sentenced for their roles in the Capitol attack.
[…]
There will be challenges ahead. The Supreme Court is reviewing one of the charges being used to prosecute more than 300 Jan. 6 defendants, including Trump.Meanwhile, the person who left pipe bombs outside the Republican and Democratic national committees on the eve of Jan. 6 has still not been identified, and the $500,000 reward the FBI offered up last year remains in effect.
[…]
“Our work continues,” he said. “The Justice Department will hold all Jan. 6 perpetrators, at any level, accountable under the law — whether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy.”

After hundreds of convictions, there are still hundreds more cases left to go, including the trial of the biggest Jan. 6 defendant of all: former President Donald Trump. [NBC]

…it’s…well, I’d be tempted to call it staggering…only…it doesn’t even break stride…let alone get trains of thought to jump their chosen tracks even when sticking to them defies the laws of physics as egregiously as I’m torturing this analogy…&…damn it…it is enough of a wind up some days to be a serious distraction…there’s usually a bunch of different things I could argue are variables beyond my control that conspire to make me post these late…but today I can honestly say that what’s held me up is just being so indescribably pissed off at the thin gruel on offer that my attempt to concoct any kind of a coherent description or attempt to digest a path through it has run into a wall of incipient frustration that it first requires the tacit acceptance involved in swallowing that the lens through which it must perforce be viewed is that it is in fact intelligible at face value…because some bullshit bit of fine print in the social contract apparently demands that we not shatter the illusion that our mutually agreed upon reality is composed largely of things abstract enough to be mutable by pointing out where they are at best woeful distortions of the less mutable & mortally binding reality in which we actually exist by doing something so utterly crass as drawing attention to the dizzying heights of towering arrogance & hubris that implicitly requires of us…or the pretzeled logic required to isolate that from the kind of thing we feel comfortable recognizing as insanity like the dot on the i in jeremy bearimy…but

How a symbol of support for the police came to be borne by rioters as they smashed through a police line is a story that encompasses 70 years of rhetoric about policing, crime and politics in the creation of a new tribal identity — one that swept Mr. Trump into office and tried to keep him there. But it starts an ocean away, during the Crimean War, 169 years ago.
[…]
At what seemed a pivotal moment in the battle, the Russian cavalry advanced on the woefully outnumbered soldiers of the British 93rd Regiment standing between them and a base. Mr. Russell wrote that the scarlet-clad regiment — arranged in two lines rather than the usual four — looked like a “thin red streak topped with a line of steel.” The 93rd fired two volleys at the approaching Russian troops. At the second volley, the troops turned aside, the base was saved, and a legend was born.

A few months later, The Times reported that during a debate in the House of Lords about whose feats of valor should be honored with medals, the Earl of Ellenborough praised the heroism of “the ‘thin red line’ who had met and routed the Russian cavalry.” The earl was almost certainly referring to Mr. Russell’s account, but whether his poetic rewording was an accidental paraphrase or an intentional gloss is history’s secret. Either way, it was this version of the phrase that took hold in the popular lexicon, and so completely that even Mr. Russell, years later, seems to have forgotten that the line had ever been a streak.

Almost as soon as the phrase was coined, its definition was broadened to become shorthand for the British military more generally, particularly its courage in the face of long odds or superior numbers. Color-swapped one-off riffs followed — the thin white line of British colonizers, the thin yellow line of conservative activists.

…in the parlance of the times louis l’amour set most of his stories in…I’d say a yellow streak would be a pretty good candidate for the common denominator at work in what passes for the current definition of the US conservative project…so…I suppose it’s thematically appropriate in a poetic irony sort of a way

In the United States, Willis John Abbot, a military journalist, wrote of how, at the Battle of Vicksburg, “the Confederates were seen to fall into confusion, waver, and give way before a thin blue line” — the advance guard of the Union troops. Other writers deployed the concept to refer to the Rough Riders at San Juan Heights and the American frontier garrisons that stretched across the West.

…on second thoughts…a pretzel isn’t twisted enough…you gotta perform the full möbius loop to achieve the inversion by the time you complete the circuit

The thin blue line would become the dominant metaphor for the police. In 1981, President Ronald Reagan said the thin blue line held back “a jungle which threatens to reclaim this clearing we call civilization”; in 1993, President Bill Clinton called it “nothing less than our buffer against chaos, against the worst impulses of this society.”

But Mr. Parker’s vision went beyond policing as a profession. In 1965, he told a civil rights commission investigating the Watts riots that “the police of this country, in my opinion, are the most downtrodden, oppressed, dislocated minority in America.” This belief, a half-century later, would animate an identity politics that blurred the blue line. For its adherents, being a police officer would not be necessary to be considered a soldier in the battle between order and chaos. Eventually, it would not even be sufficient. And in some cases it would even be disqualifying. This identity group would have a flag that would embody Parker’s favorite metaphor.
[…]
As the country was roiled by protests after decisions not to indict police officers for the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, as well as the shooting of Tamir Rice, [Andrew] Jacob [a University of Michigan student] sketched out a black and white American flag with one blue stripe running just below the stars. Weeks later, after two New York police officers were killed by a man vowing to avenge Mr. Brown and Mr. Garner, he began producing and selling that flag and helped to catalyze a movement.

Blue Lives Matter is not just an expression of support and solidarity for the police, but a response to and rejection of Black Lives Matter. It suggests that it is not Black people whose lives are undervalued by society, but police officers.

[…]Similarly, Blue Lives Matter is a movement that belies the simplicity of its name: It can certainly mean that the police deserve respect for doing a critical and dangerous job. But it can also mean that overzealous racial politics have inverted the criminal justice system, punishing the peacekeepers, coddling the criminals and turning those who carry a badge into the most embattled and victimized group in the nation. Blue Lives Matter transformed policing into a tribal affiliation.

This is why the thin blue line flag fit so comfortably alongside the other symbols borne by the coalition of the far right that gathered in Charlottesville, Va., for the deadly Unite the Right rally in 2017: the alt-right’s faux-ironic Nazi homage, the flag of Kekistan; an updated version of the cluttered mash-up of the Nazi Party and American flags that is the banner of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement; the teal and white Dragon’s Eye of the white nationalists of Identity Evropa; swastikas and Sonnenrads; Confederate battle flags. Mr. Jacob immediately denounced the use of the thin blue line flag’s use by white supremacists, but its symbolic potential had been demonstrated months earlier. When Representative Steve King was criticized for keeping a Confederate battle flag on his desk — he represented Iowa, a Union state with no Southern heritage — he quietly replaced it with a thin blue line flag.

The flag’s closest forebear is the now largely forgotten black and white American flag employed by Black Lives Matter protesters in the immediate wake of the killing of Mr. Brown in Ferguson, Mo. Functionally, it recalls the minimalist color swap of the artist David Hammons’s African American flag, which changes out the red, white and blue for the red, black and green of the pan-Africanist movement. With its minimalist palette, it powerfully evokes the desaturated American flag patches sometimes worn on military camouflage. As the L.G.B.T. American flag does, it exploits a visual pun, but much less playfully: The blue line divides America against itself.

Like other mash-ups of identity flags with the American flag, the thin blue line flag is a rallying point for a marginalized identity, a way to lay claim to the American birthright, a demand for long-denied respect. And you don’t have to be a police officer to wrap yourself in it.

…& that…ladies & gentlemen

At the Republican National Convention, Vice President Mike Pence laid out the consequences of Mr. Trump losing the election in stark, personal terms: “The hard truth is you will not be safe in Joe Biden’s America. Under President Trump, we will always stand with those who stand on the thin blue line.”

…is how you wind up

To defend Americans from what he said was the conspiracy to steal the election and destroy the country, Mr. Trump suggested that his supporters — the police, the military, bikers, construction workers — would confront his enemies in the streets, rhetorically deputizing his allies as a law unto themselves: “They’re peaceful people, and antifa and all — they’d better hope they stay that way.”

…to how you wind up pitching through the looking glass with a visual metaphor staring you in the face that really ought to make you stop & think unless you’re all in on embodying that adage about rushing in where angels fear to tread

In the aftermath of Jan. 6, when the nation saw that flag held aloft by the rioters who attacked the Metropolitan Police officer Michael Fanone (he says they literally beat him with it), the thin blue line flag has become increasingly controversial among police officers. In 2023, the Los Angeles Police Department banned its public display on the job. In an email explaining his decision to his officers, Chief Michel Moore lamented that “extremist groups” had “hijacked” the flag.

But it wasn’t opportunistic interlopers who turned a blue stripe on a flag into something that divides America. The idea, from the beginning, was woven right into the fabric.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/04/opinion/thin-blue-line-capitol.html

…& that…particularly when I’m feeling this offended by the insult to everyone’s intelligence that seems so routinely served up like an unavoidable buy one get one free deal…is why it’s hard not feel like this sort of thing

Why Trump can’t use the ‘idiot’ defense other Jan. 6 defendants often lean on

Capitol rioters and their lawyers often concede they were “gullible” for believing 2020 election lies. Donald Trump’s lawyers have to argue his concerns were fact-based and reasonable. [NBC]

…smacks more than a little of ignoring the elephant in the room given that the [useful] idiot defense seems in several senses to not only be all it’s got…but a literal absurdity…not to mention a metaphorical indictment of so much as to boggle the mind

Impeachment proceedings, the House Jan. 6 committee’s inquiry and two separate criminal investigations have established a comprehensive set of facts about Mr. Trump’s deep involvement in overlapping efforts to remain in office despite having been defeated at the polls.

But when — or even whether — he will ultimately face a trial on charges related to those efforts remains unclear. One of the most decisive factors in getting an answer to those questions will be the success or failure of the arguments his legal team plans to make on Tuesday in a federal appeals court in Washington.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers are banking on a long shot, hoping to convince a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that the Constitution affords him complete immunity from actions he undertook as president. The assertion, while untested in the courts, has the advantage to the former president of chewing up time in the service of his strategy of trying to delay any trial until after Election Day.

Should Mr. Trump be elected, he could seek to order the federal charges against him to be dropped. The pace and outcome of the appellate challenges stemming from his immunity claim could also affect the timing of the three other criminal cases he is facing.
[…]
Mr. Trump has been making plans to attend the appeals court hearing even though he is not required to be there, a further indication of how central fighting his prosecutions has become to his political strategy heading into the Republican primary campaign.

When Mr. Trump was impeached for inciting the events of Jan. 6, 2021, his defenses were that the First Amendment protected his baseless claims of voter fraud, the House had rushed its inquiry and the Senate could not convict him because he was out of office by the time it held a trial.

But his plan to the tell the three appellate judges in the federal courthouse three blocks from the Capitol that he is immune from prosecution raises broader constitutional issues.

…now…I suppose if one were so inclined it might be possible to argue that there’s an elegant simplicity of thought involved in attempting to manipulate a precedent-based judicial system by the strategic deployment of unprecedented behavior…if for the sake of the metaphor you’re willing to concede that carpet bombing following the napalm on the jungle school qualifies for the term “strategic”…but…on the whole…I don’t incline that way

His immunity claim has already bounced around various courts for nearly three months, forcing the trial judge to put the larger case on hold until the issue is resolved. The question is likely to end up at the Supreme Court, but even if the justices eventually reject an immunity defense, the time consumed by the arguments could help run down the clock enough to keep the case from going to trial before this fall’s election.

…no…I incline towards the “literally all of this reads as a consciousness of guilt so explicitly telegraphed as to be the tent pole for the entire circus” school of thought

In court filings in the federal election case, Mr. Trump’s legal team has contended that the Constitution gives courts no jurisdiction to review the official acts of presidents unless Congress has already impeached and convicted them for the same behavior.

…in the instance where it was obvious I was not only indictable but very clearly required a slew of hypocritical individuals to contradict their own statements/actions/experiences in order to pretend to have grounds to avoid convicting me as adherence to their oaths would in turn have required I successfully subverted the duly-appointed formal avowal of said guilt & thus accord myself the unilateral privilege of investing myself with the unique attribute of being beyond reproach by grace of the auspices of an office I have proven beyond a reasonable doubt I am profoundly unfit to hold or even campaign to be awarded

His lawyers have also claimed that all of the steps that Mr. Trump took to reverse the election results were exercises of his powers and responsibilities as president, undertaken to protect the integrity of the vote against the possibility of fraud as he saw it.

…see…full inversion in effect

Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who is handling the case at the trial level in Federal District Court in Washington, rejected Mr. Trump’s immunity claim in December. She ruled that “former presidents do not possess absolute federal criminal immunity for any acts committed while in office.”

Because that flat conclusion rendered irrelevant the distinction between private and official acts, she did not delve into how to think through whether Mr. Trump was acting as the president or as a candidate in his postelection conduct. But Mr. Trump has raised that question again as part of challenging her decision before the federal appeals court.

…if the facts are against you…pound the law…if the law is against you…pound the facts…if the law & the facts are against you…pound the table…or…I suppose…pound on the scales of justice with whatever blunt instrument affords itself & hope it turns out to have the effect of a judicious thumb on the scales at the hour of judgement…which…judging by his namecheck of brett-likes-beer as a stand up guy who’d stand up & be counted on when it comes to the clutch just the other day…is very much the sort of desperate hope being clung to by the degenerate asshole in chief these days

There are no direct precedents on the broad question of whether presidents have criminal immunity for their official actions.

The Supreme Court has held that presidents are absolutely immune from civil lawsuits related to their official acts, in part to protect them against ceaseless harassment and judicial scrutiny of their day-to-day decisions. The court has also held that presidents can be sued over their personal actions.

The Supreme Court has further found that while presidents are sometimes immune from judicial subpoenas requesting internal executive branch information, that privilege is not absolute. Even presidents, the court has decided, can be forced to obey a subpoena in a criminal case if the need for information is great enough.

But until Mr. Trump wound up in court, the Supreme Court has never had a reason to decide whether former presidents are protected from being prosecuted for official actions. The Justice Department has long maintained that sitting presidents are temporarily immune from prosecution because criminal charges would distract them from their constitutional functions. But since Mr. Trump is not in office, that is not an issue.

…for the love of all that is holy…actions taken during a period of time in which an individual nominally held an office they made it abundantly clear they understand neither the purpose not mechanisms of…are not in any way, shape or form a priori official actions…or actions taken in the commission of the office of the presidency simply because that office comes with a talisman of protection against consequence & personal liability…& that should not be a thing it requires an entire judicial branch to parse…goddamnit

Mr. Smith’s team has argued that Ford’s pardon — and Nixon’s acceptance of it — demonstrates that both understood that Nixon was not already immune. Mr. Trump’s team has sought to counter that point by arguing — inaccurately — that Nixon only faced potential criminal charges over private actions, like tax fraud. But the special prosecutor weighed charging Nixon with abusing his office to obstruct justice.

Mr. Trump’s team has argued that denying his claims risks unleashing a routine practice of prosecuting former presidents for partisan reasons. But Mr. Smith’s team has argued that if courts endorse Mr. Trump’s theory, then future presidents who are confident of surviving impeachment could, with impunity, commit any number of crimes in connection with their official actions.

“Such a result would severely undermine the compelling public interest in the rule of law and criminal accountability,” prosecutors wrote.

…or…to paraphrase…if you acknowledge my obvious guilt then when we inevitably attempt to subvert that precedent to obstructively trumpet false allegations against innocent parties in order to gain partisan advantage that has no basis in fact you’ll have shot yourself in the foot so it’s better for you if you don’t

The acts by Mr. Trump cited in the indictment include using deceit to organize fake slates of electors and to try to get state officials to subvert legitimate election results; trying to get the Justice Department and Vice President Mike Pence to help fraudulently alter the results; directing his supporters to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and exploiting the violence and chaos of their ensuing riot.

In their court filings, Mr. Trump’s team has sought to reframe those accusations not only as official actions, but innocuous or even admirable ones.

“All five types of conduct alleged in the indictment constitute official acts,” they wrote. “They all reflect President Trump’s efforts and duties, squarely as chief executive of the United States, to advocate for and defend the integrity of the federal election, in accord with his view that it was tainted by fraud and irregularity.”

…in related news…water no longer wet…roses no longer available in red…up is down…black is white…& racists are now so confused several have in fact forgotten to breathe

Judge Chutkan issued her ruling rejecting Mr. Trump’s immunity claim without any detailed analysis of whether his acts were “official.”

If the D.C. Circuit panel on Tuesday — or, later, the full appeals court or the Supreme Court — were to send the matter back to her to take a stab at answering that question before restarting the appeals process, Mr. Trump will, at a minimum, have used up additional valuable time.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/05/us/jan-6-trump-immunity.html

…the fuck happened to “we hold these truths to be self-evident”?

Six tech legal battles to watch in 2024 [WaPo]

…so…anyway…that’s why this is an hour late surfacing…what’s your excuse?

Look What We Made Taylor Swift Do [NYT]