The real threat to democracy: Alvin Bragg

"The best that Democrats can get out of this is to call Trump a “convicted felon,” which they’re currently working to death. As usual, they don’t know how to phrase things. A felon is a felon, making “convicted” is redundant. For example, in Democrat talk, Hunter Biden is an “unconvicted felon.' ”  Christopher Garbacz

Interference: Bragg's Office Demands Trump Gag Order Remain In Place – HotAir   "The trial concluded nearly a week ago. The jurors have gone home, as have the witnesses. Stormy Daniels has taken her act on the road, literally, and publicly advising Melania Trump to leave her husband now that he's a convict. Both Daniels and Alvin Bragg's star witness Michael Cohen have declared publicly that Donald Trump should get prison time, with Cohen demanding "solitary confinement" for the crime of falsely entering business records. 

"With all of the witnesses making their case public, the only person who can't comment is ... Donald Trump himself. Judge Juan Merchan didn't lift the gag order Thursday after recording the guilty verdict, and has yet to respond to a defense motion to vacate it so Trump can respond to the public criticism. 

"And if prosecutors get their way, Trump will remain gagged until just before the Republican convention:" . . .

Judge Merchan may need to rethink his obvious desire to imprison Trump - Christopher Garbacz  "Judge Merchan seems to have no alternative but to sentence Trump to jail, given the obvious fact that Merchan and his rabid constituents are inflamed by the enormity of Trump’s conviction on thirty-four felony counts. However, there are problems that place the judge between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Here are some possible issues:

"What if the Republican convention is moved forward to, say, July 4th to be convened at Mar-A-Lago? Trump would be chosen as the Republican nominee for President. Then, Merchan would be sentencing the Republican nominee for President. That’s an escalation that might cause the judge to pause about his options.

"Where does a prison sentence leave Merchan when it comes to the armed Secret Service? Does he say that Trump must give up Secret Service protection in prison? No, because he lacks the power to do this. Therefore, by sending Trump to prison, he effectively sentences his Secret Service agents to prison as well. This would create a constitutional crisis that SCOTUS would have to settle.

"Normally, once someone is convicted of a felony in New York City, that person is immediately placed in the custody of NYC law enforcement and sent to Rikers Island Prison. Rikers Island, as Law & Order TV fans well know, is a hell-hole. It is likely that the Secret Service would allow this for its agents? There’s another constitutional crisis." . . .

Image by Andrea Widburg using AI.

The real threat to democracy - Ronald C. Tinnell   "I am really tired of hearing that Trump is a "threat to democracy."  Democrats seem to be repeating this mantra endlessly.  Actually, they are right, but you have to understand what they really mean.  Let's make a distinction between two flavors of democracy:

"democracy:  rule by the people

“ 'Democracy”:  rule by Democrats, specifically by members of the Democratic party

"Trump is truly a threat to “Democracy.”  When Democrats make this claim, they really mean that he is a threat to their ascendancy, but they want you to think that they mean that he is a threat to rule by the people." . . . 

BORIS JOHNSON: This was a machine-gun mob-style hit job on Trump. It was nakedly political - and will make his victory more likely, not less | Daily Mail Online   "Whaaat??? How can anyone survive that? By all the laws of politics the Trump campaign should today be a smoking ruin.

"He's a felon. He's a criminal – and he is the first president in US history to be convicted of such ostensibly serious offences.

"Every time that jury foreman pronounced the word 'Guilty' in the Manhattan court on Thursday, he should by all normal logic have been dealing a death-blow to Donald Trump's hopes of regaining the White House.

"He said it not just once but 34 times. This was no ordinary political assassination. This was a machine-gun mob-style hit-job on Trump." . . .

Wait - Who's Lying? Jonathan Turley Flips 'Blatant Lie' Charge Against Fox Host Back on Biden Campaign

Mike Miller – RedState

The Biden administration on January 22, 2021 – just two days after Joe's inauguration – put a freeze on Trump's plan to lower insulin prices. So Biden literally reversed Trump's insulin cap as one of his first EOs, and now comes back, more than three years later, and tries to take credit for it.

Posted by TD

"To intentionally use an awkward double negative, Joe Biden can't not lie. As his mortal enemy Donald Trump might say, "Everyone knows it. People are telling me that, if you want to know the truth."

"Welp, turns out that everyone also knows that the Biden presidential campaign is no more than an extension of a dishonest man who lacks the capacity to be honest and will stoop to any low to survive.

"What follows is a quintessential case in point.

"The Biden campaign on Monday attacked veteran Fox News host John Roberts for questioning Biden’s claim that he was the first president to push through a cap of $35 for a one-month supply of insulin medication. 

I seem to remember that back in May of 2020, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid said that President Trump had signed an executive order to cap the price of insulin for Medicare recipients at 35 bucks. Now, maybe I’m misremembering that, but I think it kind of already happened.

"The collective minds of Team Biden promptly went crazy. 

FACT CHECK: This is a blatant lie. Trump did not cap insulin costs, President Biden did for seniors through the Inflation Reduction Act. Trump’s Project 2025 wants to repeal it, which would raise insulin costs for over a million Americans.

"Yeah, no. Better check the facts. And they attacked Roberts, who has had a distinguished career, not Trump. But the mere notion that Donald Trump did something first that Biden is now pushing led them to lose it."

"Enter George Washington University law professor and Fox News legal analyst Jonathan Turley.

"Incidentally, among my worst nightmares is entering a courtroom as either an attorney or a defendant and seeing Jonathan Turley on the other side". . . . 

Chief Justice for 11th Circuit Court of Appeals Tells Clerk to Trash All Further Complaints Against Judge Cannon and Make it Public

 “The Chief Judge for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals is putting an official end to the THOUSANDS OF COORDINATED COMPLAINTS against Judge Aileen Cannon. Democrats are totally hysterical when they can’t control a courtroom (or a SC Justice like Alito).”  ~ Mark Mendlovitz

The Last Refuge (theconservativetreehouse.com)  " When the extreme leftists cannot get their way by manipulating the legal system through Lawfare, they come unglued.

"The tribal leadership of Norm Eisen, Mary McCord, Andrew Weissmann and the larger Lawfare community have been waging an open media campaign against Florida Judge Aileen Cannon because in the Jack Smith documents case Judge Cannon is not giving them what they want.

"It’s somewhat personal to the Lawfare crew because from the outset it has appeared that Eisen, McCord and Weissmann write the briefs and motions that Jack Smith files with the court.  If the Lawfare effort is being rejected, dismissed or diluted by Judge Cannon, the Lawfare tribe takes it personal and make appearances on leftist media networks, broadcasts and social media telling their followers to file judicial complaints against her.

"In response to what the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals calls an “orchestrated campaign,” Chief Judge William Pryor of the 11th CCA has published a blistering order [SEE HERE], informing the clerk of the court not to accept any more complaints and to trash them." . . .

California ‘clean energy’ company set to bulldoze more than 3,500 Joshua trees, so coastal homes can go ‘carbon neutral’

  Olivia Murray - American Thinker

Destroying carbon-consuming trees in favor of problematic “carbon neutral” technologies, all so the coastal denizens can feel eco-friendly and virtue signal their “sustainability,” is peak irony—and pain.

“What’s yours is mine, and what’s mine is my own.” James Joyce penned those words while writing Ulysses, but he could have easily written them were he composing a report on the political attitudes of the pseudo-elite greenie left of the modern era.

"From an article by Greg Rehner at Fox News:

California clean energy project threatens thousands of protected Joshua trees: reports

A California-based renewable energy company plans to clear thousands of protected Joshua trees in the Mojave Desert to make way for a solar project that will generate electricity for nearly 180,000 homes in coastal neighborhoods instead of the impacted communities, according to reports.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the company, Avantus, is planning to build the Aratina Solar Project on 2,300 acres near Boron and Desert Lake, California, two towns in Kern County.

"And, according to Rehner, this construction project spanning “2,300 acres will mean the “destruction” of more than 3,500 “protected” Joshua trees. So, not only will the electricity generated be diverted away from the community that’s actually generating it, but the people who live there will now be left with an ugly landscape of barren desert, screaming of corporate colonialism and “green” elitism.

"Here’s this, also from Rehner: . . ."

Hilarious: Joni Ernst Nails Biden With What May Be Best Hot Mic Moment Ever

  RedState   "Joe Biden was given a border under control. 

"But after he came in, he immediately enacted executive orders undoing everything former President Donald Trump had done to keep order. 

"Now, as the election looms and Biden's prospects are bleak, particularly when it comes to the border, he's trying to make a move by EO despite saying for some time that he needed Congress to act. 

"House Speaker Mike Johnson said from what they know, it's a mess. 

“From what we’re hearing, it will ignore multiple elements that have to be addressed, the elements that were in our legislation that we passed over 14 months ago to fix the broken asylum program, to fix the broken parole process, to reinstate the remain in Mexico policy, to end the catch and release policy that they’ve advanced,” Johnson said, in reference to the GOP-led border crackdown legislation passed more than a year ago.

. . . "But then she had a hilarious moment when she was caught on a hot mic as the Republicans were leaving the podium after their presser. This perfectly summed up why no one should ever trust Joe Biden "

   HOT MIC: @SenJoniErnst to @SenJohnKennedy following the Senate GOP border press conference -- "Bottom line, never trust a man whose uncle was eaten by cannibals."

😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/eb8mUGhc0r

— Joe Karwacki (@JoeKarwacki) June 4, 2024

 

Flashback: Barack Obama Offered Jeremiah Wright Hush Money During 2008 Campaign

  Matt Margolis – PJ Media

If Obama’s actions didn’t warrant criminal charges, why was Trump charged? Either both men broke the law or neither did. Which is it? If Obama violated the law, he should be put on trial and found guilty; otherwise, it only proves that we do have a two-tiered justice system. 

"According to the radical left, a payment to silence someone from making potentially damaging statements to influence the outcome of a presidential election is a serious crime. A felony at that. That’s the entirely hocus-pocus legal theory behind Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against Donald Trump that resulted in a conviction.

"In that case, Barack Obama ought to be charged with a similar crime.

"That's right, Obama also offered hush money to someone specifically to influence the 2008 election. The media never talked about it, and you can bet they’d have some amusing and laughable explanation for why what Obama did was “different.” But the fact is that Obama has been accused of offering money to his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, to buy his silence during the 2008 presidential election.

As you may recall, Wright’s inflammatory, anti-American rhetoric was a huge problem for Obama during his first presidential campaign, and he tried to shut Wright up to save his campaign — which the prominent leftist legal scholars of the day call corruptly influencing an election.

"Edward Klein broke the story in the New York Post on May 13, 2012, revealing that Obama's camp made a hush offer to Wright during the 2008 campaign. The deal involved a hefty sum of $150,000 and was made through an intermediary who was a close friend of Obama’s — and Obama himself even stepped in, urging Wright to keep quiet for the sake of his presidential campaign.

" 'Man, the media ate me alive,” Wright told Klein. “After the media went ballistic on me, I received an e-mail offering me money not to preach at all until the November presidential election.' ”. . .

Dems Want You To Check Your Brain at the Door

  RealClearPolitics

“ 'Do you accept the verdict of the New York jury that found Donald Trump guilty on all 34 counts?” That will be the question asked of every Republican from now until the presidential election in November, and if Republicans don’t know how to answer, they will look like idiots, which is exactly what the left-leaning media wants." 

 "That will be the question asked of every Republican from now until the presidential election in November, and if Republicans don’t know how to answer, they will look like idiots, which is exactly what the left-leaning media wants.

"You can’t just say yes because the implied premise of the question is that the verdict was fair, and that could not be further from the truth. But you can’t just say no either, because the verdict is a fact, just like the O.J. verdict. It exists, and it has to be explained.

"Of course, what the media inquisitors will try to do is paint Trump supporters into a corner. If you say you don’t support the verdict, you will be “justice deniers,” in the term smartly coined by talk-show host Dan Bongino last week. But Republicans can’t let that be the final word.

"They have to explain that when you say you are accepting the verdict, it just means you are accepting that the verdict was the inevitable result of a corrupt New York legal system. Anyone who represents Trump or the MAGA movement has to be fully in command of the facts and be prepared to explain them. Start with the assignment of Judge Juan Merchan to the case and ask why this is the third Trump-related case he has been assigned to. Talk about the judge’s refusal to recuse himself despite his status as a Joe Biden donor and his daughter’s status as a multi-million dollar fund-raiser for Democrats.

"Then demand answers for the multiple reversible errors Merchan committed in creating the court record – the salacious and irrelevant testimony of porn star Stormy Daniels, the refusal to allow Trump to present an expert witness who could explain federal election law to the jury and why Trump didn’t violate it. How about the unconstitutional decision to withhold from Trump and his attorneys the exact nature of the underlying crime, which turned misdemeanor charges into felonies, and Merchan’s claim that the jury did not even have to be unanimous in identifying such an underlying crime?

"Of course, CNN, MSNBC, and the Sunday morning news shows won’t raise any of those troubling issues, so when a Trump supporter tries to explain the difference between a fair trial and a show trial, they will be shouted down by their interviewers." . . .

"But it’s not necessary to deflect; you just need to answer the question the way a smart person would answer any similar question:

No, I’m not going to accept the results no matter what. I’m going to accept them when it is obvious that the election was conducted in a free and fair manner. Do you really want me to pledge to accept the results of a rigged election? Or are you really so naive as to believe that neither political party would ever attempt to rig an election?

News in Brief

 Cracks Are Already Showing in the Trump Case (legalinsurrection.com)

. . ."The judge donated money — a tiny amount, $35, but in plain violation of a rule prohibiting New York judges from making political donations of any kind — to a pro-Biden, anti-Trump political operation, including funds that the judge earmarked for “resisting the Republican Party and Donald Trump’s radical right-wing legacy.” Would folks have been just fine with the judge staying on the case if he had donated a couple bucks to “Re-elect Donald Trump, MAGA forever!”? Absolutely not."

Standing Up for What’s Right Week in Education:  "Meanwhile, campus progressives are winning the approval of all the wrong people."

•   Al-Qaeda Leadership Cheers Anti-Israel Protests on College Campuses
• Iran’s Supreme Leader Praises U.S. Campus Protests: “You have now formed a branch of the Resistance Front”

"Some people are handling this the right way. Others not so much."

• Students at New College of Florida Who Disrupted Commencement Speech to Face Punishment
• President of Vassar College Caves to Anti-Israel Mob

NFL Team Hit with Major Backlash, Leaves Fans Disgusted by 'Pride Month' Post - 'This Is Embarrassing'   . . ."While of course some comments on the post were thrilled with having LGBT values forcibly pushed into football, the vast majority of comments were negative.

"And why shouldn’t they be?

“Pride month” has absolutely nothing to do with football.

"Imagine if every NFL team made a post about how they supported Israel and condemned Palestine and Hamas.

"Leftists would be up in arms, gathered outside headquarters with pitchforks and torches, repeating actions similar to what they’ve done on college campuses.

"But because this ad celebrates what they happen to like, it’s A-OK." . . .

Douglas Murray on the Hamas detailed planning of their attack

Arabs were given a state to govern. How did that work out?  A terrorist state dedicated to the murder of every Jew. TD

Iranian Leader Thanks College Students For Their Support And Says If Any Of Them Are Interested He Has A Few Wife Slots Open In His Harem

  Babylon Bee

"TEHRAN, IRAN — In a touching, romantic statement on X (formerly Twitter), the Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei let American college students know that he appreciates their anti-Semetic protests and support of his regime and that he also has a few open slots in the harem if any of the women might happen to be interested.

""Dear university students in the United States of America, you are standing on the right side of history," Khamenei wrote in his X post. "Thank you for all the effort you put into hating the Jews. Also, if any of you women over there happen to be into wearing hijabs, having no freedom, and genocidal psychopaths in their 70s, a few slots in the presidential harem have opened up ;)"

" 'Applicants can apply for a visa through the Iranian government website," Khamenei wrote in a follow-up post.

"While Khamenei's post has been well-received by college protesters, most of the female college students have decided "swipe left" on the Supreme Leader of Iran, citing the lack of Starbucks in Iran and the fact that they could be executed for showing a bit too much nose.

"At publishing time, Khamenei had retracted his offer after all of the students who responded to his offer turned out to be gay men or transgender women."

Masked protester hoists ‘Kill Hostages Now’ sign during Israel Day parade in NYC (msn.com)    "The Israel Day parade in New York City turned heated Sunday as pro-Israel demonstrators squared off with counterprotesters, including one who held up a sign that read, "Kill Hostages Now." 

"The counterprotester wore a black mask and a Palestinian flag as he held up the incendiary sign. Police officers nudged him back onto his side of the protest so as not to escalate an already tense situation. " . . .

Looks like one of those wretches who tore down photos of hostages; those who will not show their faces. TD

Never, never forget the sexual violence committed by Hamas

 Members of the Congressional "squad", you have defended and flown the flag of those who committed these acts! 

RealityBites by Broc Smith

Released hostage recounts being raped by Hamas (youtube.com)

"Executive Director of the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, Orit Sulitzeanu, speaks to i24NEWS on the first time a released hostage has publicly spoken about their treatment in captivity."

Israeli doctors suspect female hostages being raped, may return from Gaza pregnant   Comment to this post: "And Western feminists still remain silent about the violence against the Israeli women. Their silence is disgusting."

From the river to the sea, this will happen to Israelis living there if pro-Palestine killers dominate and the ignorant sheep on campuses cheer them on. TD

Growing evidence of Hamas’ sexual crimes against women during the attack, Israeli investigators say - YouTube

"Israeli investigators say there’s growing evidence Hamas unleashed repeated rapes and sexual assaults against women during their October 7 attack. Hamas has denied committing sexual crimes against women. NBC News’ Hala Gorani reports on the chilling eyewitness accounts and the investigation."

Attackers laughed as they raped and murdered a woman in Israel on October 7, witness says | CNN

What Hamas Did to the Intersectional Left - The Atlantic

"The terror attack on Israel by Hamas has been a divisive—if clarifying—moment for the left. The test that it presented was simple: Can you condemn the slaughter of civilians, in massacres that now appear to have been calculatedly sadistic and outrageous, without equivocation or whataboutism? Can you lay down, for a moment, your legitimate criticisms of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, West Bank settlements, and the conditions in Gaza, and express horror at the mass murder of civilians?. . .

"In corners of academia and social-justice activism where the identity of the oppressor and the oppressed are never in doubt, many people failed that test. In response to a fellow progressive who argued that targeting civilians is always wrong, the Yale professor Zareena Grewal replied: “Settlers are not civilians. This is not hard.” (She has since locked her X account.) Chicago’s Black Lives Matter chapter posted a picture of a paraglider, referencing the gunmen who descended on civilians at a music festival near the Gaza border from the air." . . . 

Our Antifa generation, if I may refer to the campus youth, employed by wealthy leftists and guided by professional instigators, who appear to have no original thoughts and appear grossly ignorant of why they do what they do.TD

UPDATE: Bill Maher Calls Out Campus Protesters for Ignoring the Oppression of Women in Muslim Countries (legalinsurrection.com)

.........

Biden's evil smirk and the left dancing like demons about Trump's punishment, their imaginations afire

 M. Walter - American Thinker  

Today, Saturday, my stomach is turning at the heavy, pervasive evil we’ve seen emanating like a poisonous fog from the progressives on television — and I don’t even have cable! 

Trump campaign already out with an ad on Biden’s Creepy Smirk

pic.twitter.com/pmjK94JokJ

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) May 31, 2024

 "By now, we’ve had a couple of days to absorb what happened in lower Manhattan on Thursday.  Many of us were unsurprised at the verdict, but if you are like me, you are surprised at your reaction to it.

"To be clear: I, like most capital-C conservatives, do not fall in love with my candidates. I regard them as dispensers of policy.  That’s it. If I like their policy, their personal peccadilloes mean very little to me. They affect me only to the extent they may affect policy. So this isn’t a lament that one Donald John Trump got a railroading. It’s a lament that a former American president — albeit the most conservative of my lifetime (yes, more than Reagan), whom I’d like very much to win in November — was so clearly lawfared by the sitting president into facing over a hundred years in prison for … something.

"We’re still not sure what the predicate crime to the expired misdemeanors was. It wasn’t even on the verdict form the jurors returned! We’ve got 34 expired misdemeanors which required a predicate crime in order to be alive again like Frankenstein’s monster and we’re left with a whole lot of thunder but absolutely no animating lightning! 

"How is this possible?

"But putting that minor (bitter sarcasm) detail aside, the following video reactions to the verdict made me sick. 

"Physically nauseous." . . .

"This morning. I wasn’t this way yesterday. Thursday I was angry. Friday I was sad." . . . 

I guess the only thing to do is congratulate the teachers' unions for producing half a country full of people who have absolutely no idea what the Constitution is or what it means to be an American and who have no healthy fear of government having too much power.  And also to congratulate the garbage media for keeping that half and who knows how many more well-meaning Americans in the dark about what’s actually going on.  It’s a one-two punch that made me feel sick this morning and well, misery loves company.

Hillary Clinton Condemns Trump For Paying Hush Money To Political Liabilities Instead Of Just Killing Them | Babylon Bee

. . .As of publishing time, Clinton had called her friend Guido to see if he could do anything about Trump.

Cryin' Adam Kinzinger Reminds Us Why He Is a Laughingstock

 Jeff Charles – RedState  

What Kinzinger and his ilk don’t want to confront is that, regardless of their criticisms of the former president, the Democrats are clearly trying to leverage the state to influence the outcome of the presidential election. 

"Cryin’ Adam Kinzinger is at it again. After former President Donald Trump was convicted, Democrats and their anti-Trump Republican comrades have been making the rounds, trying desperately to convince the nation that the politically motivated prosecution effort has nothing to do with politics. In essence, they are begging the public to ignore what their eyes and ears are telling them.

"During a recent appearance on CNN, the former Illinois representative said he was “very disappointed” in House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) for speaking out against the verdict in the Manhattan trial.

"After the verdict was announced, Johnson, along with other Republicans, issued a scathing rebuke against the decision.

Today is a shameful day in American history. Democrats cheered as they convicted the leader of the opposing party on ridiculous charges, predicated on the testimony of a disbarred, convicted felon. This was a purely political exercise, not a legal one.   

The weaponization of our justice system has been a hallmark of the Biden Administration, and the decision today is further evidence that Democrats will stop at nothing to silence dissent and crush their political opponents.   

The American people see this as lawfare, and they know it is wrong—and dangerous. President Trump will rightfully appeal this absurd verdict—and he WILL WIN!

Johnson also said the verdict “will probably guarantee” that Trump wins reelection in November, which seemed to rankle Kinzinger’s feathers.