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New study: Corporate investments in ‘carbon offset’ schemes were ‘probably junk’ that did nothing to negate pollution
By Olivia Murray
We’ve all heard of liberal logic or leftist logic—but what about Bill Gates logic? An individual can pollute the environment at an absurdly exaggerated rate compared to the average person because he or she is a pseudo-elite, and entitled to do so because they have the money to “invest” in mitigation schemes…commonly known as “carbon offset” technologies.
I mean, that’s how Bill Gates excused his luxury lifestyle of private jets, yachts, and mega mansions when he admitted to Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes that he “probably” has “one of the highest greenhouse gas footprints of anyone on the planet” and recognized the impact of his “personal flying alone” is “gigantic” so what he does is pay a “very high price” to a company that pulls carbon from the air and buries it underground to negate all the damage he’s doing to the environment. (However, when your existence in the world is deleterious to almost everyone else who lives here, you have to pretend you’re contributing in some way, so it’s not totally crazy.)
It’s the modus operandi of “net zero” zealots the world over, and it’s a virtue (signaling) campaign that has even been adopted by corporations. Yet….
Here’s this, from a brand new report out at The Guardian, and it’s especially stunning considering the source, known for its far-left bias:
Corporations invested in carbon offsets that were ‘likely junk’, analysis says
Some of the world’s most profitable – and most polluting corporations – have invested in carbon offset projects that have fundamental failings and are ‘probably junk’, suggesting industry claims about greenhouse gas reductions were likely overblown, according to new analysis.
Delta, Gucci, Volkswagen, ExxonMobil, Disney, easyJet and Nestlé are among the major corporations to have purchased millions of carbon credits from climate friendly projects that are ‘likely junk’ or worthless when it comes to offsetting their greenhouse gas emissions, according to a classification system developed by Corporate Accountability, a non-profit, transnational corporate watchdog.
Some of these companies no longer use CO2 offsets amid mounting evidence that carbon trading do [sic] not lead to the claimed emissions cuts – and in some cases may even cause environmental and social harms.
I mean, the whole premise of “carbon offsetting” was built on a political agenda instead of fact, so what other conclusion could one possibly reach? This is what an executive at the investigating non-profit said about the report’s revelations:
‘These findings add to the mounting evidence that peels back the greenwashed facade of the voluntary carbon market and lays bare the ways it dangerously distracts from the real, lasting action the world’s largest corporations and polluters need to be taking,’ said Rachel Rose Jackson, Corporate Accountability’s director of research.
A “greenwashed facade” is about as articulate as it gets.
And, here’s what Erika Lennon, a seasoned lawyer for an environmental law conservation organization, said about the “carbon offset” industry:
‘For all the talk about carbon credits accelerating climate action, they are actually greenwashing climate destruction.’
We have been saying this ad nauseam, so it’s nothing new as far as the information goes, but again, seeing this in print from a media outlet known for pushing the leftist agenda either through misinformation or disinformation, it’s quite a welcome surprise. But…will the “green” puppets voting in and supporting this consequential nightmare ever learn?
The Sierra Club is a disaster of an organization—it has been since its inception—but founder John Muir did identify something interesting:
God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, and avalanches; but he cannot save them from fools, — only Uncle Sam can do that.
Of course, “Uncle Sam” is the absolute worst “man” for the job (ironically proven by federal government “carbon credit” policies), but Muir’s recognition that “fools” can generate more carnage in the environment than all of nature’s fury is astute…and prescient.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/05/new_study_corporate_investments_in_carbon_offset_schemes_were_probably_junk_that_did_nothing_to_negate_pollution.html
Buried news: Mexicans looking to come here illegally has quadrupled since 2022, State Department poll finds
By Monica Showalter
But what this development shows is that Mexico has been turned into a living hell for ordinary Mexicans based on the growing strength of the cartels, whose profits have exploded based on Joe Biden's open border.
Travesty
By Monica Showalter
All it does it show us how vile and evil the left is, with absolutely no scruples of any kind as they seek to re-elect floundering Joe Biden and better still, knock Trump from the race by any means necessary. It's banana republic stuff and a sign of just how corrupted our court system has gotten.
Déjà vu all over again as US unemployment increases
By Ethel C. Fenig
As that other great philosopher, Groucho Marx, asked, "Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?"
Sure, some of us wear glasses but given Biden's history of... uh... misstating easily provable facts i.e., his law school class ranking, and soooooo much more, etc. and etc. and etc., I'll go with my eyeglass-improved truthful eyes.
Don't bring a knife to a gunfight
By Richard Kline
I'll wager if the West Point Association of Graduates had surveyed the graduates themselves, Obama would not have been selected. Obama ranks in popularity with West Pointers right next to Jane Fonda. Uttering his name almost always brings forth a stream of four-letter epithets.
A meme for Biden: Let’s go!
By Noel S. Williams
There’s just so much fodder to portray Biden as an imbecile, liar, Grim Reaper, cheat, and Dem demagogue. Actually, it wouldn’t be portraying him as such, but more reflecting reality.
Doing right by Pennsylvania students
By Greg Maresca
Democrats grease the rails in the race-to-the-bottom throughout the public education industrial complex as they refuse to give minorities the key that will free them from their dependency chains.
American justice?
By Eric Utter
Judge Merchan and his kangaroo court have destroyed American jurisprudence. They have tossed out the concepts of rule of law, equal justice under the law, a jury of one’s peers, and innocent until proven guilty. And they don’t care.
President Donald Trump’s sacrifices are like no other leader in the history of America
By Rajan Laad
Well, even after winning the presidency he could have chosen to save himself.
He probably could have struck a deal in 2017, just when the Russia Collusion hoax was hatched. Perhaps resign citing health reasons in exchange for immunity. Instead, he implemented policies that caused a strong economy, low inflation, low unemployment, controlled immigration, and peace around the world.
Biden’s Gaza Policy Leaves Israel Vulnerable to Hezb’allah
By Stuart Creque
The Biden administration has been arguing with itself over its support of Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza. Secretary Antony Blinken, in particular, seems to take both sides, claiming variously that Hamas must be destroyed, that Hamas cannot be destroyed, that the Biden administration isn’t telling Israel how to fight the war, and that Israel must totally withdraw from Gaza. Now the administration wants to signal that it is happy to send Israel weapons while withholding (among other things) 500- and 2,000-lb. bombs and JDAM kits that convert those bombs into precision weapons.
But the current existential threat to Israel comes from Lebanon, and the Biden administration’s fixation on Gazan civilians is leaving Israel fatally vulnerable.
To bolster its case that its commitment to Israel’s security is “ironclad,” the administration (correctly) points out the success of destroying almost all of the 300 missiles launched at Israel by Iran, many by U.S. and other military forces. President Biden evidently believes that this, and the success of Iron Dome in thwarting missile attacks from Gaza, means that Israel is fully secure against external threats and needs at most simply to rebuild and strengthen the Gaza border fence. This explains why Biden advised Israel to “take the win” and not respond militarily to Iran’s attack, and why President Biden told CNN’s Erin Burnett that his “ironclad” commitment to Israel’s security is completely fulfilled by shipments of missile defense munitions.
However, the missile threat from Hezb’allah is nothing like that from Gaza, or even Iran. Writing in Forbes, Eric Tegler points out that Hezb’allah had an arsenal of more than 130,000 rockets in 2018, mostly short-range but including anti-ship missiles and some longer-range ground missiles that can strike Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Since then, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies estimates that arsenal had grown to 150,000 to 200,000 projectiles. The Arrow and David’s Sling elements of Israel’s missile defenses are not designed for this threat; only the Iron Dome and the yet-to-be-deployed Iron Beam (laser-based) systems are.
And, whereas Iran chose to launch 300 projectiles in one attack from hundreds of miles away, FDD estimates that Hezb’allah can sustain launch rates of 3,000 to 4,000 projectiles a day, at least initially. FDD estimates that perhaps ten percent of these will evade the Iron Dome, meaning 300 to 400 warheads striking targets in Israel daily. Moreover, within a few days, Israel’s reserves of Iron Dome interceptors would be exhausted, raising the daily successful strike rate tenfold.
Despite the good intentions and pledges of the United States, it is powerless to defend Israel against this threat in the same way as it did against the Iranian attack. There will be no time to move ships and planes into position into range to intercept these rockets, nor would those assets be effective against them anyway. U.S. jets and shipboard systems had time to detect and intercept ballistic missiles and drones during their flight from Iran and Yemen, but the flight time and trajectory of short-range missiles from Lebanon render the U.S. assets useless for Israel’s defense, though they might help defend Israel’s eastern flank against an Iranian attack coordinated with Hezb’allah.
Even now, as Dov Lieber reports in the Journal, 60,000 Israelis remain displaced from their homes near the Lebanese border. Israeli missile defenses are inadequate to protect their communities from a continual string of attacks from Hezb’allah. In the eight months since October 7, Hezb’allah has fired 4,500 rockets into Israel — but in a full-scale war, it could launch that many in less than 48 hours.
Nor can the Biden administration (or the IDF, for that matter) rely on the notion that there would be intelligence forewarning of a full-scale Hezb’allah attack. Israel’s television network Kan reported that an IDF assessment before Oct. 7 deemed it likely that a surprise attack by Hezb’allah over the northern border would succeed in overrunning many border villages and even IDF bases before reinforcements could arrive. The head of military intelligence at the time, Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, said that it would not be possible for such an attack to be conducted with complete surprise; shortly thereafter, Hamas accomplished exactly that and overran kibbutzim and IDF bases. Haliva has since resigned.
Israel must assume that its first confirmation of a Hezb’allah attack will be a barrage of several thousand incoming missiles. According to the FDD, because so many of Hezb’allah’s missile launchers are highly mobile, the only way for the IDF to counter this threat once war breaks out is to carry out an invasion of south Lebanon, beginning with intensive bombing raids into Lebanon to destroy Hezb’allah’s missile stockpiles and other military installations. Hezb’allah, like Hamas, has constructed underground tunnels and bunkers that can be destroyed or disabled only with heavy bombs, including 2,000-lb. bombs. Israel’s survival depends on its ability to deliver the maximum number of these bombs to Hezb’allah targets in the shortest possible time.
Clearly, the Biden administration does not understand this imperative. In his CNN interview, President Biden confirmed that his administration has paused shipment of bombs and JDAM kits, and even said artillery shells would be held back if Israel entered Rafah in force. In his zeal to mollify critics of his policy toward Israel and Gaza, and to shake the epithet “Genocide Joe,” he wants to cripple the IDF’s capabilities to conduct offensive war. Israel, he seems to believe, should be happy to be the target of rocket, missile, and drone fire from all sides, since it will lose only a few civilians and soldiers as a consequence — something he sees as a “win.”
Should Hezb’allah initiate a war with several thousand missile launches a day, it would become immediately apparent that no missile defenses could adequately protect Israel for attacks on that scale, and equally apparent that U.S. missile defense assets would be useless in that situation. However, even if President Biden immediately ordered expedited shipment of offensive munitions to Israel for use against Hezb’allah, it would be too late for them to be delivered in time to suppress Hezb’allah’s attacks. If the Biden administration forces Israel to deplete its stockpiles of bombs in its campaign in Gaza, the IDF will not have enough bombs to conduct a sustained suppression campaign against Hezb’allah.
The doomsday scenario in this situation would be Iran taking advantage of Israel’s combat with Hezb’allah to launch a much larger and stealthier missile strike on Israel. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) says, “Iran possesses the largest and most diverse missile arsenal in the Middle East.” Iran Watch estimates that Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal alone numbers over 3,000.
Would President Biden’s ironclad guarantee of Israel’s security extend to U.S. military strikes on Lebanon, or would the president simply ask Secretary Blinken to shuttle between Beirut and Jerusalem? What would the president do if Iran launched not 300 missiles and drones toward Israel, but 3,000? It will be better for the United States to see to it that Israel has the munitions it needs to defend itself — which necessarily means the munitions it needs to conduct offensive operations against its enemies.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/05/biden_s_gaza_policy_leaves_israel_vulnerable_to_hezb_allah.html
Criminal Convictions and the Presidency
By Ben Voth
The Justice Department is showing itself to be a partisan organization that views its operations of law enforcement to be subordinate to an ideological goal that is the defense of the Democrat Party and its hold upon the executive branch.
What MSNBC Can Teach The Atlantic about January 6
By Jack Cashill
On Memorial Day, during the Annual Ashli Babbitt Freedom March in D.C., I had the chance to speak with Hanna Rosin, who was covering the march for the Atlantic magazine with fellow reporter Lauren Ober.
As I tried to explain while we were walking, Ober and Rosin have an extraordinary opportunity. They can be the first journalists to share with their half of America the epic story of January 6 — the true story, that is. I cautioned, however, that as MSNBC learned the hard way, there are powerful people who do not want that story told.
The ignorance about January 6 is staggering. The tourists near the Peace Monument where the march began just looked confused. They all know who George Floyd was, but most, I am sure, had not a clue about Ashli Babbitt.
Ashli, 35, was the 14-year Air Force veteran shot and killed by the Capitol Police on January 6. The corporate media have no interest in sharing her story and even less in telling the story of Rosanne Boyland. Few, even on the right, know about Rosanne. A year younger than Ashli, Rosanne was the second woman killed by police action on January 6 and the woman whose death MSNBC vainly tried to investigate.
As the marchers, perhaps 50 strong, proceeded eastward toward the D.C. jail down Massachusetts Avenue, the neighbors alerted Ober and Rosin to the character of the D.C. jury pool. Many, virtually all white, volunteered their disgust at the caravan, some in very colorful language. I was particularly impressed at how well young D.C. women have mastered the F-bomb.
The Atlantic has as its motto “Exploring the American idea through ambitious, essential reporting and storytelling. Of no party or clique since 1857.” This is not exactly true, but in contrast to CNN or the New York Times, as Rosin conceded, The Atlantic has at least the potential to be unpredictable.
After leaving the march — I had a flight to catch — I texted Ashli Babbitt’s mother, Micki Witthoeft. “Had a long talk with Hanna from the Atlantic. You never know when the media might crack.” Replied Witthoeft, “We’ve been talking with her partner Lauren for months — she follows us to the courthouse — hearings — even CPAC — because you’re right, you never know.”
I handed Rosin a copy of my newly released book, Ashli: The Untold Story of the Women of January 6. Given the depth of their reporting, she and Ober will have no excuse not to read it. When they do, they will confront the towering wall of official disinformation that has shielded America from the truth these last three-plus years.
Rosin was unaware of MSNBC’s futile attempt to crack that wall. As I explained, network anchor Ayman Mohyeldin had an inside track on the death of Rosanne Boyland. He attended high school with Rosanne’s brother-in-law, Justin Cave. Cave and his liberal wife Lonna wanted help in exposing what they saw as the diabolic seduction of Rosanne by President Trump and the elusive QAnon. Mohyeldin was eager to oblige them.
Soon enough, however, Mohyeldin discovered that the plot line he hoped to follow was a red herring. The real story would lead him beyond the MSNBC pale and down a rabbit hole whose end he would never quite reach. Without his effort, however, little would have ever been known about Rosanne’s tragic death.
As the evidence clearly showed, Rosanne got caught up in a scrum at the front of the tunnel entrance on the west side of the Capitol. The D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) took the offensive, spraying the protesters with a chemical irritant, which left many of them breathless. The police then pushed the lot of them down the makeshift steps set up for the impending inauguration.
Rosanne found herself at the bottom of this human pile, desperate for air, until pulled out from under by the other protesters. As Roseanne lay at the tunnel entrance, either dead or dying, MPD officer Lila Morris picked up a tree branch, raised it up, and struck Rosanne over the head at least three times before the branch snapped and flew out of her hands. For her heroism, Morris was rewarded with a trip to the Super Bowl a few weeks later.
The media paid little attention to Rosanne’s death. Those few who bothered to report on the incident suggested she had been “trampled” by a riotous mob. Not one outlet investigated the tragedy. Nor did any journalist protest the official ruling from the complicit D.C. medical examiner’s office. Its pathologists waited until the very last day of the ninety-day reporting window to claim that Roseanne died of “acute amphetamine intoxication.”
The Boylands were appalled by the report. At the time, the only drug Rosanne was taking was the Adderall prescribed for her ADHD. For the authorities, the drug overdose ruling smeared Rosanne and, by extension, tainted all other protesters. The autopsy report also cleared the police of any wrongdoing. The DOJ did not bother to speak to a single eyewitness or review the beating that was captured on video. For its part, the voluminous House subcommittee report did not mention Rosanne's name, not even in the footnotes.
Although reluctant to see the larger picture, Mohyeldin was getting a glimpse into the workings of D.C. justice. He and his team contacted the medical examiner several times, but “all our requests were denied,” he lamented in MSNBC’s five-part podcast on Rosanne. “The trampling, the riot, the video evidence, none of this was even mentioned in the official autopsy report.”
Of note, too, the relevant body cam footage in Rosanne’s death was strategically withheld. As Mohyeldin admitted, “We requested the officer in question’s body camera footage, but we were denied.” Rosanne’s father Bret Boyland applied through the Freedom of Information Act for Morris’s bodycam footage and was denied as well.
In the concluding chapter of his podcast, American Radical, Mohyeldin met with Lonna Cave for the final time. The Boylands, it was clear, no longer trusted his motives. They hoped to learn more about Rosanne’s fate. He wanted to learn more about QAnon. The podcast series ended inconclusively, with him guilt-tripping Rosanne’s sisters for not saving Rosanne from “dangerous conspiracy theories designed to entrap vulnerable people like her.”
I have to wonder how Rosin and Ober will conclude their series. They are investigating a historic injustice, the greatest mass injustice here at home since Japanese internment. My book lays out the larger story in undeniable detail. They have done enough spade work on their own to provide the necessary color. Better still, on their side of the aisle, they have no competition.
The question remains as to whether Rosin and Ober will find the courage to follow the truth where it leads. Mohyeldin did not — could not, really. At MSNBC, too much truth can kill a career. But at The Atlantic, where writers pride themselves on “essential reporting and storytelling,” there may be hope, at least a glimmer thereof. As Ashli’s mom observes, “You never know.”
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/05/what_msnbc_can_teach_the_atlantic_about_january_6.html
California Experiencing Fiscal Horror Story
New Pew study examines financial health of the 50 states.
by Andrew Moran | May 31, 2024
Despite possessing one of the world’s largest economies, the Golden State is the lead character in a fiscal horror story. California’s debt is about $1.6 trillion, the annual budget deficit is projected to be as high as $70 billion in the coming years, and lawmakers are tapping into the rainy-day fund to maintain the basics. This is Newsomonics in Newsom Nation. A new study highlights how bad the situation is in sunny California.
The Fiscal State of California and Others
The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Fiscal 50 project analyzed state tax revenue trends in the second quarter of 2023, concluding that 32 states outperformed their 15-year trends and 18 states reported falling tax revenues. Researchers say that the data, adjusted for inflation and seasonality, offers state leaders “a deeper understanding of long-term trends” and determine “whether their budgets are on a sustainable path and allow for better-informed fiscal planning and policy formulation.”
Alaska topped the charts, collecting 1,041% more than its long-term trend. This was followed by Wyoming (37.7%), New Mexico (32.5%), West Virginia (10.6%), and Montana (10%). Florida and Texas also outperformed their long-term trajectory thanks to their notably “strong” collections. On the other end of the fiscal spectrum, California suffered the weakest tax revenues, sliding 16.2% compared to the 15-year trend. This was followed by Minnesota (negative 4.9%), New York (negative 4.8%), and Connecticut (negative 4%).
Overall, total state tax revenue growth was $4.2 billion, 1.2% below the 15-year trend. Here is the most damning part of the report’s findings: “For the first time since 2000, no state had fewer than a month’s worth of operating funds in its total balances. Between fiscal years 2007 and 2021, 8 states ran long-term deficits, carrying forward costs of past services and government operations.”
The results were unsurprising. Alaska is awash in energy. Florida and Texas keep attracting businesses and families. New York is gradually becoming a strange concoction of Escape From New York, Mad Max, and Soylent Green. California decays by the day through vacuous public policy pursuits and a population exodus. As Liberty Nation has reported over the years, the fiscal snapshot of state and local finances is deteriorating through overpromising and underdelivering.
In the case of California, officials are entertaining various ideas to stop the bleeding.
‘Democracy Is on the Ballot’
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has contemplated a plethora of prescriptions for his state’s fiscal illness. With tens of thousands of folks waving goodbye yearly, desperate times apparently call for desperate measures.
The governor, considered a presidential candidate for 2028, called for a windfall tax on energy titans because “greedy oil companies fleece Californians.” In January 2023, the legislature proposed imposing a wealth tax, with the kicker being that it would also apply to residents who flee the state and relocate to another jurisdiction. Because more people are driving electric vehicles in California, officials are also thinking about transitioning away from a gasoline tax to a mileage levy, a concept that experts say would penalize EV drivers more than conventional motorists.
The newest endeavor attempts to prohibit voters from approving new taxes. Democrats contend that citizens lack the knowledge to understand taxation complexities and therefore should not be granted decision-making power. “The state Democrats are apoplectic over the prospect of citizen control over revenue and taxes,” opined legal scholar Jonathan Turley. “What was a quaint element of democratic empowerment is now challenging a core vehicle of Democratic power.”
As Bad as Uncle Sam
Washington’s finances are worsening, but politicians on either side of the aisle do not seem to have any plan to halt the country’s fiscal demise. Instead, lawmakers want to double down by spending, printing, borrowing, and taxing more than they already do. The annual Festivus report, courtesy of Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), offers insight into how much the nation’s capital wastes the $5 to $6 trillion in annual revenues.
But it is just as bad at the state and local level. Nearly every day, local news reports on state or city lawmakers demanding new taxes, fees, surcharges, and other dubious methods to confiscate wealth. What is comical is that these levies usually fail, as in the hilarious case of Philadelphia’s soda taxes: Sales of sugary beverages declined, prices rose, and the majority of the funds dedicated to education were allocated to the city’s general coffers. In Illinois, legislators want higher taxes to give themselves a raise. New York maintains a remote work tax that forces workers to pay income tax if their employers are situated in the Empire State.
Is it any wonder why states are enduring fiscal challenges?
https://www.libertynation.com/california-experiencing-fiscal-horror-story/
The Sentencing Singularity – Examining the Trump Guilty Verdict
What comes next for the former president?
by Liberty Nation Authors | May 31, 2024
Former President Donald Trump was found guilty on all 34 charges of falsifying business records in the first degree on Thursday evening, May 30. This is the first time a former president has been convicted of a felony, let alone almost three dozen. Judge Juan Merchan set the sentencing date as July 11th, just four days before the Republican National Convention, which begins July 15. What does this mean for Trump’s presidential campaign? What are his options going forward, and what sort of sentence might he face? We go to Liberty Nation’s Legal Affairs Editor Scott D. Cosenza, Esq., to answer this and more.
James Fite: Scott, the first question that comes to mind is what sentence awaits Trump now that he has been convicted on 34 Class E felonies? What does the sentencing guideline suggest, and what seems likely in this case?
Scott D. Cosenza: There are five felony classes in New York, and E is the least serious. By definition, felonies are crimes carrying potential incarceration terms of a year or more. These were non-violent felonies committed by someone with no criminal record, however. District Attorney Alvin Bragg declined to state what sentence he would request in post-trial comments. No custodial sentence is required here, and Juan Merchan will not likely sentence Trump to any time behind bars. That would be consistent with what NY-based attorneys report with other first-time offenders convicted of non-violent class E felonies.
Defense motions on sentencing are due in court by June 13, while the state has until June 27 to respond.
The Trump Appeal Pathway
James: What are the former president’s options for appeal? What would that process look like, and how long might it delay the sentencing should any appeal prove successful?
Scott: Donald Trump’s defense has an abundance of pathways that may lead to a successful appeal. Lead defense attorney Todd Blanche filed a motion for acquittal immediately after the guilty verdict, which Merchan just as quickly denied. That’s the last time Merchan will be deciding such matters, however. Future appeals from Trump will be in state appellate courts and, eventually, federal court if needed.
We should expect to see Trump’s pleadings challenging all manner of things, including many of Judge Merchan’s rulings that prejudiced the defendant’s fundamental rights. Another thing that springs to the front of my mind is Merchan allowing the jury to hear multiple times that Trump violated campaign finance laws and have that presented as a fact rather than a prosecution theory.
James: Donald Trump is a convicted felon – at least for now – but the Constitution doesn’t prohibit felons from running for and, therefore, becoming president. If Trump wins in November as the polls suggest he will, how might his sentencing affect his taking office in January? Alternatively, if he appeals and that delays his sentencing beyond Election Day, how might a win in November affect the eventual sentencing should his appeal fail? Finally, as president, would Trump be able to pardon himself?
Scott: The President may grant pardons for federal convictions. Trump cannot pardon himself unless he becomes Governor of New York. If he wins, he will likely be able to appeal sentencing until after his presidency. There is no printed rulebook for this kind of thing, and avoiding chaos and perhaps a genuine Constitutional crisis are great reasons to wait.
https://www.libertynation.com/the-sentencing-singularity-examining-the-trump-guilty-verdict/
The Trump Verdict: What Cost to the Republic?
May 30, 2024, is a day that will live in infamy.
by Tim Donner | May 31, 2024
Show me the man, and I will show you the crime. So said the right-hand man to Joseph Stalin, architect of the infamous show trial, the centerpiece of the Soviet system of justice. Today, many Americans are wondering whether their own justice system is any less capricious or politically biased. In less than 12 hours of deliberation, 12 supposedly unbiased jurors – guided by a judge whom many have suggested has displayed a nakedly partisan stance throughout the trial – convicted a former president and leading candidate to reclaim the Oval Office on 34 felony counts. His crime? A long-expired bookkeeping misdemeanor rejected by three authorities but somehow sculpted into a still-undefined felony – based on the testimony of a convicted liar and concocted by a Manhattan district attorney who campaigned on a promise to get Trump by whatever means availed themselves.
So Alvin Bragg has now reached the promised land, and the left has finally achieved what it has thirsted for from the moment Donald Trump claimed the presidency: to label him a convicted felon, thought to be the one surefire way to drive him out of politics. Judge Juan Merchan – a donor to Democrats with an activist family who defied astronomical odds by miraculously landing not one, but all three Trump-related cases in what was supposed to be a random selection process, and as an acting judge no less – closed the deal with consistent rulings favoring the prosecution and silencing the defense. He then gave voluminous instructions which seemed to encourage jurors to conclude there was some amorphous stain of guilt on the defendant – which they could determine themselves. The actors out to take down Trump with their stacked deck played their hands effectively to a willing judge and jury.
But at what cost to the republic?
The Trump Verdict: The Undoing of Our Country?
The Rubicon has been crossed. The once-unthinkable has happened. The distance between the United States of America and any of the world’s many lawless banana republics has just significantly narrowed. Make no mistake, the magnitude of the jury’s swift and unanimous verdict has sent shockwaves around the world. The many who love or hate the 45th president are predictably giddy or outraged at the verdict, but how about the many everyday Americans without strong opinions either way who have always believed their nation is based on the rule of law and not subject to the political persecution of those who dare to threaten the established order? Have we not always believed that we were above the tactics of petty tyrants in a prototypical one-party state?
Ask yourself this simple question, the answer to which should remove any lingering doubts about the justice of the verdict and the trial itself: Would anyone else in the entire country have been indicted, not to mention convicted, on these novel, paper-thin charges? And remember, this was long thought by the left to be the weakest of the four cases brought against their archenemy. The beleaguered prosecutors targeting Trump in three other venues – long under pressure to advance their cases – will undoubtedly be energized by this verdict despite delays that threaten to deaden the desired political impact of their own prosecutions.
And now, with the twisted outcome in hand, and just to make sure the political impact of the verdict sticks, the notorious – or heroic, depending on your viewpoint – Judge Juan Merchan set sentencing for July 11, conveniently four days before the start of the Republican National Convention. Nothing is left to chance when Trump is in the crosshairs.
At the same time, not just Trump loyalists but, more importantly, almost every single Republican across the land will be more motivated than ever to bank their vote as early as possible. Non-Trump-deranged but skeptical or moderate Republicans will likely vote in record numbers on principle alone, perhaps offsetting any gains for Biden based on the convicted felon label. Poll watchers will work around the clock attempting to determine the political impact.
Only God knows the consequences for the loser of what has now officially become, unlike the many proclaimed as such before, the most important election of our lifetime. The one thing on which Americans have always counted, the rule of law, not to mention the very credibility of our elections in the wake of a lawfare campaign designed to disqualify a hated rival, is now undoubtedly on the line. The progressives who have been calling the shots in the Biden administration have won the battle – though not yet the war – and they will now be emboldened beyond measure to continue deconstructing the American way of life.
The 2024 presidential election, if it wasn’t already, has become boom or bust for both sides, the stakes and consequences now more consequential than ever. But for the American system of justice, the damage has already been done. Former Congressman Trey Gowdy said of the verdict on Fox News what so many have undoubtedly thought in the aftermath of the stunning verdict: “It may be the undoing of our country.” Indeed, it is impossible to calculate the cascading effects of the historic turn of events on May 30, 2024 – a day that, as Franklin D. Roosevelt once said of the attack on Pearl Harbor, will live in infamy.
https://www.libertynation.com/the-trump-verdict-what-cost-to-the-republic/
Gloat While You Still Can
“The hour is much later than you think…on multiple fronts: Financial, political, medical and geopolitical.” — Edward Dowd
James Howard Kunstler
May 31, 2024
In the pre-gloat hours before the verdict in Judge Juan Merchan’s courtroom, Lawfare caporegime Andrew Weissmann (“Mueller’s Pitbull”) confessed Valley Girl style from his MSNBC clubhouse perch, “. . . I mean, I am, like, now I have a man-crush on him, he is such a great judge!” Bromance on, looks like! If the two happen to frequent the same athletic club in downtown Manhattan, Judge Merchan better be careful in the post-workout shower when he bends over to pick up the soap. The Pitbull cometh!
Of course, the Alvin Bragg victory in the artfully constructed “Stormy Daniels Payoff Case” decided late Thursday calls to question how come the Mueller Special Counsel Probe into 2016 election interference (actually run by Mr. Weissmann, due to Mr. Mueller’s declining cognitive ability) failed to spot the same web of evidence — hard as they toiled, and they had a good two years and millions of taxpayer dollars to git’er done?
My guess: too many white lawyers on the Mueller staff. Everybody knows now from watching the latest crop of television commercials that white people are unusually stupid and helpless and cannot cope with common problems without assistance from helpful people of color (POCs). So, God bless Alvin Bragg for finally fixing what Bob Mueller’s fifteen bloodhounds led by a pitbull somehow botched.
The former president is now convicted on thirty-four counts of book-keeping errors in furtherance of an alleged 2016 federal election violation that the Federal Election Commission declined to charge — that is, paying a porn star to sign a non-disclosure agreement about a sexual liaison — because it is not a crime under federal election law, and about which the head of the FEC, James E. “Trey” Trainor III, was barred by Judge Merchan from testifying on during the course of the trial for reasons yet unknown.
Of course, that is but one of a great many points of law that will merit appeal in what everybody — even some white people (people of non-color, PONCs) — knows was a case so crookedly contrived that it is fated to get tossed in the higher courts, and probably with harsh remonstrance to the degenerate officers of the court who brought it and adjudicated it. But you will have to wait on that because the mills of the law grind slowly.
Now, in the radiance of the full Woke gloat, we await Judge Merchan’s sentence, to be announced a mere few days before the Republican Convention in Milwaukee in early July. Jail time at Rikers? Home confinement (with ankle bracelet)? Severe travel restrictions? Reporting to a parole officer? Drug tests? Hey, No one is above the law! It is hard to imagine that the judge will demur from inflicting maximum humiliation on this wanton repeat violator (thirty-four times!) of book-keeping errors. It would tend to interfere with the presidential candidate’s campaign schedule, but so what? Where does it say in the Constitution that an election must be fair?
Or Judge Merchan could suspend all that pending appeal and just allow Mr. Trump to go about his election business free on bail. But why would he? After all the trouble he went to. And all the glory he’s reaping for it. “Joe Biden’s” party has Mr. Trump exactly where they want him, they think: pinned down like a moth in a shadow-box, inert and pathetic. (But, in reality, more like King Kong, chained in the rank basement below the stage of a Broadway theater before busting loose in midtown and upending subway cars so as to devour the little humans tumbling out like so many tic-tacs.)
Expect Mr. Trump’s lawyers to file writs to the SCOTUS requesting expedited attention to the denial of due process issues and the election interference question. The situation is comparable to the year 2000 presidential race, where the SCOTUS stepped in on probable cause that the lower court (in Florida that time) had violated the Equal Protection clause of the constitution.
In the meantime, through the luminescent fog of gloat, perhaps you did not notice that “Joe Biden” took a giant step yesterday toward commencing World War Three. The move was framed as the US gives Ukraine permission to use American missiles to strike deep within Russia. That was a bit disingenuous, you see, because Ukraine’s military lacks the know-how to actually launch the missiles, so American military “advisors” will have to be on hand to do it, meaning US military personnel will commit an act of aggression upon Russia.
Voila! That world war you’ve all been clamoring for. . .? The perfect climax to “Joe Biden’s” catastrophic, fraudulently-acquired term in office. I scent the acrid, burnt-flesh odor of miscalculation here, as of a bunch of American cities get turned into radioactive bonfires that will blot out that sublime luminosity of gloat.
Apparently, the “Joe Biden” team has never seen a Clint Eastwood movie — too lowbrow, I’m sure — and they don’t grok the role of the underdog in the American psyche. They have succeeded in making Donald Trump the greatest underdog in US history under the direst circumstances the nation may have ever faced — worse than Valley Forge, Bull Run, or Ardennes Forest. Sinister forces are driving the country straight into a communo-fascist despotism alien to our nation’s very soul, demonic forces bent on depriving Americans of their rights, their property, and their liberty. This is the “all-in-lost” moment in that movie. This is where the hero comes back from the edge of eternal darkness, raging like Kali the Destroyer to smite the cowards arrayed against him, against the country’s honor, against the people. You asked for it. Now you’re going to get it.
https://jameshowardkunstler.substack.com/p/gloat-while-you-still-can?publication_id=2076970&post_id=145165138&isFreemail=true&r=rd9j8&triedRedirect=true
GM g m s-
Nice article, thanks for sharing. I am in total agreement.
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Hey Bob-
It was no less than expected all along. IMHO I think it will solidify more of the Trump base and expand it as so many articles I have read saying many independents and even democrats saying this was a railroad job and totally unfair. Also many legal experts are saying this will never hold up on appeal. Doesn't much matter now as the damage to our justice system has already been done. I just hope cooler heads will prevail and make this right before it's too late.
.............al
Hey posh-
Now that is a brilliant read on things. It seems to have started right outside the courthouse. I don't think these liberals are going to want to mess around too much. Too many pissed off MAGAs many now with an axe to grind. Like I just told Trinity, glad I'm in rural America. There's more cows that people here and more guns than cows.
..................al
Doxing-
the action of finding or publishing private information about someone on the internet without their permission, especially in a way that reveals their name, address, etc.:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/doxing
I had never heard of this word until democrats and leftists starting using it as a weapon against people they didn't like. It may be time for putting the shoe on the other foot. JMHO
....................al