Posts Tagged ‘crime’
revisiting US ‘exceptionalism’, Trumpism and justice delayed
Canto: We’ve been watching US politics with a kind of painful obsessiveness, I suppose because it’s more colourful, but not in a particularly good way, than anything we experience in Australia. The Presidential system is largely a shocker, and should be best jettisoned altogether, IMHO, but that’ll never happen. The USA is exceptional only in its jingoism and its religiosity, as I’ve said many times and oft, and that is best seen in its attitude to its political system and its Dear Leader…
Jacinta: Well the thing is, before the advent of Trump we paid scant attention to the details of the US political system, but since the election of someone so obviously incapable of running a public toilet let alone a barely inhabited country, to the position of President of the most militarily and economically powerful nation on the planet, we’ve set ourselves on a steep learning curve.
Canto: Or we’re just watching like ghouls at a smouldering train wreck. By the way, I should point out that Russia has slightly more nuclear warheads than the USA (though as to the comparative cumulative power of those sets of warheads I’m not sure), though doubtless their non-nuclear materiel and personnel are far superior. And as for their economy, yes they have the world’s largest GDP, collectively (though I’m sure that’s an over-simplifying measure), but Ireland’s per capita GDP is quite a bit higher!
Jacinta: Yes I think per capita GDP is a better measure of economic success, but then you’d have to realise that’s just total GDP divided by population – doesn’t tell us about how the wealth is distributed. But it’s interesting to compare the USA with Australia, which has a similar land mass, especially if you exclude Alaska. The population of the USA is about 14 times that of Australia, and it’s not because the superiority of the USA’s ingenious people and political system has made it a magnet for immigrants. Most of Australia has infamously poor soil and climate for agriculture, as white colonists soon discovered, and it’s much further from Europe than the so-called New World is. We call ourselves ‘the lucky country’, dog knows why – presumably because every nation has to find or invent something positive to sing about itself, aka nationalism, but the fact is that Europeans found it very difficult to establish themselves here. We don’t have any records about the Aboriginal population that arrived here some 50,000 years ago, but my guess is that it was a slow, painstaking learning process, even if the climate was very different then.
Canto: So getting back to that steep learning curve, what the advent of Trump taught us was that, indeed, anyone can become the USA’s Dear Leader, even a tantrumming man-child who’s likely never read a book in his life and has spent the last fifty-odd years grifting, bullshitting and fucking people around. And what does that say about the USA?
Jacinta: And can it happen here? The reason that it’s unlikely to happen in Westminster-style countries like Australia, New Zealand, Canada and of course Britain is that a political leader first has to win his own local seat, then has to win over her political colleagues with her abilities – her understanding of policy, her articulacy, her charisma or je ne sais quoi, and so forth – which isn’t to say that a bunch of reasonably sophisticated pollies can’t be taken in by a pig-ignorant narcissist posing as one of their own – it’s just a lot less likely.
Canto: Yes, your point is that we don’t have a system where a wannabe demagogue can go straight to the people, bypassing parties, policies and local elections in an effort to be king for a few years. And we certainly don’t have a system which gives that demagogue/king massive pardoning powers, wholesale immunity, a White Palace to live in, and hand-picked courtiers in charge of foreign affairs, federal law, the treasury, the defence of the realm and dog knows what else.
Jacinta: And yet… with all the leeway given to Trump, I’m still amazed that someone so obviously a charlatan to us could have fooled so many into thinking he, of all people, would make a good leader, would somehow improve their lives, make their country ‘great’ in some vague way. Admittedly those people were never in the majority, he has never won an election on the numbers alone, but still a very substantial number were taken in by him. And still are.
Jacinta: There were probably some who thought him a useful idiot for their purposes – for example, libertarians who saw him as the sort of wrecker of government they were looking for – but their numbers wouldn’t have been that great. It’s a worry, but again it’s the US political system that’s largely at fault. As I said, the reason it’s unlikely to happen here isn’t because our population is smarter or less easily swayed by demagogues – it’s because of the checks and balances of our system. A Trump-like figure would have to persuade his political peers long before he tried to persuade the people. And if he couldn’t do that, he wouldn’t be in a position to go ‘to the people’. And of course we don’t do political rallies like United Staters do.
Canto: In any case, the Trump saga is becoming increasingly entertaining for us here in the peanut gallery, with a number of indictments converging upon him. Let me see – there’s the hush payments that Cohen was sentenced to three years’ jail for, and ‘individual one’, Trump, was regularly mentioned in the paperwork. It was obvious that Cohen only did it for Trump, so Trump should’ve gotten a much stiffer sentence than three years – at the time. Immunity for political leaders is total shite, and justice delayed is justice denied. I mean, duh!!!
Jacinta: Okay, calme-toi, better late than never. So that’s a biggie, and pretty much an open-and-shut case. Then there’s the classified docs case, which also looks straightforward, and looks even worse for him after recent revelations that he was personally involved in obstructing those trying to recover the documents. Again this is a jailable offence even without the obstruction, and Jack Smith, the DoJ’s Special Counsel, has himself handled lesser cases involving this crime, which have resulted in prison sentences. He’s also faced with a rape case brought against him by E Jean Carroll – in fact, now two cases involving rape and defamation, as the presiding judge refused to put them under one umbrella. You’ll be pleased to know that the defamation matter seems to hinge on whether the Dear Leader had immunity about what he said while holding office.
Canto: Yeah, despicable. So we’ve mentioned three, and there are at least two more – or no, three. There’s the investigation into Trump.org, which he can hardly be said to be innocent of. And then there’s the Fulton County case of election interference, which again looks open-and-shut, and of course the whole January 6 insurrection, resulting in well over 1000 people being charged thus far. And how involved was he in the fake electors scheme? It all makes me feel quite dizzy, in a pleasant way.
Jacinta: Meanwhile, there seems to be no appetite for diluting Presidential power or changing their system, or any realisation that it’s the screamingly obvious problem that outsiders see it as being.
Canto: And most of the current Republican leadership seem to be supporting Trump! How can that nation ever recover from this disaster? My view has long been that Biden (now 80 years old) should have declared himself a one-term President ages ago. They need renewal, to get over all this…
Jacinta: Yes, age limits might be a good idea. But I don’t want to be ageist – Biden has a lot of experience, and he’s surrounded himself with a very competent team, to be fair. Still, limiting all Presidential terms to four years would be an excellent reform, methinks.
Canto: The good thing, re Trump, is that they’re much more prepared now against his shenanigans. Let the court cases begin! The next year or so will be most memorable for Trumpworld.
References
https://www.worlddata.info/largest-economies.php
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/04/02/trump-mar-a-lago-obstruction-classified/
Getting wee Donny 5
DA Fanni Willis – going for it
Canto: so our last conversation on this topic was subtitled ‘the waiting game’. We’re still waiting.
Jacinta: Never fear, the arc of the universe bends slowly, but it bends towards getting wee Donny.
Canto: Yeah well I want it to happen within his lifetime thanks. It seems the number of civil and possibly criminal cases keeps rising, but it’s like heaven, where nothing ever happens.
Jacinta: Yes, we are not amused, but we are a bit. Wikipedia even has a page called ‘list of lawsuits involving Donald Trump’, but it’s probably well out of date.
Canto: I suppose we need to divide them into civil cases – suits for damages – and criminal cases. We’re certainly not lawyers, though of course we’re super-smart, so we should be able to make sense of it all.
Jacinta: Yes, well we’re not going to deal with them in order of importance, because there’s a certain degree of subjectivity in such ordering – many civil cases are of vital and immediate concern to some but not to others. For us non-United-Staters little of this is of direct concern, we’re just watching from the peanut gallery.
Canto: Yes, so Trump v Vance – which has been rather long-running, but with important recent developments. It started with a subpoena by Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance in August 2019 to obtain multiple wee Donny documents from the Mazars accounting firm – though there’s been pressure on the wee one to present his tax returns ever since his infamous election.
Jacinta: Yes, and it’s been resisted with BS like he’s perennially under audit, that nobody cares about his taxes, and that he’s the boss of everyone so nyanya. Anyway, on July 20 2020 the US Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision, found that a sitting president wasn’t above having to comply with a state criminal subpoena. The case was sent back to do the rounds of the lower courts, on the basis that Donny and his wee minions might be able to find other reasons for not complying, and so it went – the lower courts dismissed claims that the subpoena was over-broad, and the case eventually arrived back at the Supreme Court, which sat on it from October 2020 to February this year, presumably because of the election, but eventually it denied the request to hear the case again, so Mazars has handed over the docs for review by a grand jury in Vance’s criminal case, which started with hush money payments to Stormy Daniels but has since clearly broadened. The House Oversight and Reform Committee, which issued a subpoena for the same Mazars records some years ago and was ignored, has now reissued that subpoena, which the wee one will no doubt fight.
Canto: Expensive business. But the Vance case has generated much attention due to his hiring of forensic analysts and a highly-touted mob prosecutor recently. An interesting piece in the New Yorker last month, though, presents the case as running for at least the rest of this year, just in its investigative phase, which means Vance will have retired by the time we get to see any action. It’s still very much a waiting game.
Jacinta: The other major case is out of Georgia, where they’re trying to rig elections beforehand, so that future trumpery types don’t have to get their hands dirty trying to throttle votes out of hapless officials next time around. Fulton County DA Fanni Willis, who’s pursuing wee Donny on illegal interference, including ‘solicitation of election fraud, the making of false statements to state and local governmental bodies, conspiracy and racketeering’ in the 2020 election in Georgia, has hired one John Floyd, a lawyer who has written a book on prosecuting racketeering cases. I suspect, though that these possible charges will end up being watered down.
Canto: Well it might be that Willis has a thing for racketeering, as she won a high-profile racketeering case, re cheating on school tests, but this one takes high-profile to a higher level, to put it mildly.
Jacinta: Anyway Willis is being gutsy, in a traditionally Republican state (though it might well be changing, as witness the Ossoff and Warnock victories), taking on the Republican enfant terrible, wee Donny, when the Republican governor is doing his utmost to support the wee one by trying to make it impossible for Democrats to win there again.
Canto: But I really think the Republicans are shooting themselves in the arse with all this voter suppression shite. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out over the next few months, with, it seems, the Democrats on the up and up re popular support. But I must say, I rather enjoy watching United Stater politics compared to the Australian version. I’m talking just as a spectator sport. There are just so many arseholes, lick-spittles, gold-diggers, out-and-out morons, and their counterparts, underdog heroes, justice warriors, passion-spun vloggers and the like – it all makes Australian politics look hopelessly staid.
Jacinta: Well, having 14 times Australia’s population certainly helps, with the good, the bad and the ugly. But getting back to wee Donny, clearly his criminal activities over a lifetime should see him in jail for the rest of his hopefully long and painful life…
Canto: And may dogs have mercy on his bloated carcass.
Jacinta: … but we’re talking about the USA here, so he won’t get much if anything in the way of jail time. For example, like Al Capone, he might get caught on his tax dodges, but not on fomenting insurrection or causing widespread death through covid disinformation and negligence.
Canto: Hopefully all the lawsuits will lighten his wallet, but I have to concede that he’s an expert sponger and grifter, and I imagine that an ex-President’s emoluments would be eye watering from our modest perspective, never mind all the real estate he’s accumulated.
Jacinta: Well let’s be optimistic, apart from the 29 lawsuits, most of which are undoubtedly of the sort any decent lawyer would love to act on, it really does look like the Manhattan case has legs. Everybody knows he’s a tax crook – he’s more or less admitted it himself.
Canto: Interestingly, an Australian news piece agrees that he could see jail time, though they quote some of his associates saying he’s more likely to flee the country – something I’ve often thought myself. Vlad would welcome him – he’d get an erection at the very thought of harbouring wee Donny, and having him speak out endlessly against the US from his new home.
Jacinta: Yes, Vlad would make him very comfy, that’s for sure. More fodder for the peanut gallery. It would be amusing if these turkeys didn’t do so much damage…
References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lawsuits_involving_Donald_Trump
https://abcnews.go.com/US/fulton-county-da-opens-criminal-probe-trumps-efforts/story?id=75804119
getting wee Donny 4: the waiting game
the USA’s massive incarceration system – and the details are much worse – but the worst get rewarded
Canto: So we’re sick of wee Donny, and more importantly there’s so much that’s more valuable to write about….
Jacinta: But to be fair, and to be positive, this is about justice and reform, so that nobody like that can ever be allowed such power in the future, in a country that claims ad nauseam that it’s a paragon of nations etc etc.
Canto: Yes, reform of the political and the justice system – neither of which is likely to happen in the near future – is obviously required in the USA, and with their new, highly-regarded Attorney-General, not yet sworn in, hopefully some vital reforms can happen.
Jacinta: So the US Supreme Court has finally decided not to take up the appeal by the trumpets regarding the handing over of financial documents to the Manhattan DA. And this is another area requiring reform – endless appeals processes which not only deliberately waste time but use up the resources of the justice system for no good reason. There need to be penalties for this, and restrictions on the appeals process, which obviously favours the wealthy.
Canto: Though as to how wealthy this money-grubbing serial bankrupt is, that’s to be ascertained….
Jacinta: He seems to always have lawyers to pursue all these appeals, and they wouldn’t be stupid enough to do it gratis – or would they? I’ve never had the money to hire any lawyer, not that I’ve ever needed to. What a boring life I’ve led. Anyway, all these financial docs relating to wee Donny’s businesses for an eight-year period, 2011 to 2019, have been handed over to Cyrus Vance, the Manhattan DA, who has hired forensic tax and financial specialists and a crack lawyer, Mark Pomerantz, all of which indicates that this will be a Big Show, involving wee Donny’s wee kiddies and his long-time CFO, Allen Weiselberg, among others.
Canto: I just hope it happens soon and doesn’t drag on – justice delayed is justice denied. Pundits are talking about the ‘bad look’ of an ex-Prez perhaps being jailed, which infuriates me. World leaders are precisely those whose wrong-doings have the most profound consequences – in this case covid-19 fatalities, vulnerable kids permanently losing track of their parents, Kurds left high and dry in the Middle East, Saudi princes rewarded for murderous deeds, and the rise of hate crimes within the USA, all due to wee Donny’s soi-disant leadership. Not to mention all the victims of a fifty-year white-collar crime spree before that.
Jacinta: Well, he’s still at large, and campaigning for his trumpets in Ohio, Georgia and elsewhere. Pundits are disputing whether or not he’s a spent political force. It’s astounding. The prospective A-G is promising to get to those behind the attack on the Capitol, and the stink leads directly to wee Donny. And there’s so much else. Where did all that 2016 campaign money go? What’s now to be uncovered from the Mueller enquiry? What dodgy material is there from his time in office? Dodgy deals with Saudi Arabia, inaction on the Khashoggi murder, and of course Russia and Putin. It goes on and on. What a nation.
Canto: People are claiming that the GOP is being destroyed by the continuing presence of this wee bloke. Poor GOP. Many of them are still talking of election fraud, though the result of the election was in line with every opinion poll, left-wing, right-wing, centrist and aggregated, over four years. Wee Donny was on the nose – something to do with his nappy – within a few weeks of being elected, and he stayed that way throughout. So his 2020 loss was as predicable as the sunrise.
Jacinta: Well I draw some hope from Michael Cohen, who’s currently capitalising on his role as reformed trumpet. He claims that wee Donny hates being the defendant in court cases, because he always loses. So bring on the civil cases as well as the criminal ones. Cohen himself is suing Donny’s Disorganisation for $2 million in legal fees – proof that even bad lawyers don’t come cheap in the USA.
Canto: Haha, actually they’re legal bills, incurred during the Mueller and congressional probes. The Donny Disorganisation promised to indemnify him for those costs, according to Cohen, who’s been assisting the legal authorities on all this stuff for some time. And wee Donny’s wetting himself about it all, of course.
Jacinta: So – felony charges in Atlanta, Washington DC and New York, and civil cases all over the place, and yet we seem to be in a holding pattern, with as yet no A-G, no charges being laid, and with Donny’s supporters going crazy for him, imagining he’ll return to office on March 4, or that he’ll have a second coming in 2024. To do what?
Canto: What about the sexual allegations? Business Insider Australia did a report on this back in 2017. Apparently some 26 women have accused Donny of sexual misconduct, but the E Jean Carroll sexual assault claim seems the stickiest.
Jacinta: Great choice of words mate. According to a recent David Pakman video, and a CNN political piece, another woman, Summer Zervos, also has a defamation suit against Donny, related to sexual assault allegations. That case was put on hold recently and will be argued before the Court of Appeals. If Donny loses these cases – and the Carroll case looks the more serious – I presume it will mean he’s been caught lying, and the women have been caught truth-telling, and then they could go on to criminal proceedings. Pakman, though, is doubtful, and talks of a two-tiered justice system, which I have to say, seems to exist everywhere. Most people who get caught up in the justice system can’t afford any lawyers, let alone those who’re adept at running out the system for their clients.
Canto: Yes I don’t suppose it’s worthwhile to spend too much more time waiting on justice for someone who’s been so easily able to flout the law for so long. And yet…
Jacinta: There are so many victims, let’s not forget.
References
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/women-accused-trump-sexual-misconduct-list-2017-12?r=US&IR=T
UH-OH: Trump May Have to Answer Rape Allegations…Under Oath (David Pakman video)
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/07/politics/summer-zervos-trump-lawsuit/index.html
getting wee Donny 2: tax stuff etc
this goes back to 2016, but still no sign of justice
Canto: So there’s the more general matter of tax evasion, tax fraud, bank fraud, wire fraud and so forth – we’re no tax or finance experts, but we’re prepared to learn, for the fun of finding out how bad things might be for wee Donny.
Jacinta: Or should be, given effective white-collar crime legislation, and limitations to these endless appeals processes. By the way, I heard there was more news on the attempt, or desire, to evict him from Mar-a-Largo. Can that be included as a legal problem?
Canto: Why not? And what is this ‘largo’ thing? I’ve seen Key Largo – some thing to to with the Florida Keys…
Jacinta: That’s an archipelago, nothing to do with the keys to Mar-a-Lago (spelt without the ‘r’). Largo’s a coastal town in Florida, so I don’t know if it’s worth connecting the dots. As to tax matters, I heard a while back that ‘forensic accounting experts’ have been hired re investigations into wee Donny’s taxes, which reporters say is a big deal.
Canto: Okay so we’re leaving Mar-a-Lago for now (unlike Donny). Yes The Washington Post reported on this in late December. It concerns the DA’s office for Manhattan, headed by Cyrus Vance. They’ve been investigating Donny since 2018, initially in regard to alleged hush money payments made in 2016. But the investigation has since expanded to include insurance fraud as well as bank and tax fraud.
Jacinta: Stuff that appears to have been overlooked for decades. In fact they admit as much, since ‘the probe is believed to encompass transactions spanning several years’, according to the paper. All of this comes ‘from sources close to the case’ – Vance and his hirelings are naturally keeping mum about it all.
Canto: It’s explosive stuff, but heartening. Anyway, the forensics company they’ve allegedly hired is FTC consulting, and it’s a bonafide ‘global business advisory firm’. The paper mentions an ‘ongoing grand jury investigation’, so that’s a thing. We don’t do grand juries in Australia, so we might have to learn about that.
Jacinta: Vance’s office is battling to obtain years of tax returns and such from Mazars USA, the accounting firm Donny uses. It’s described as ‘an independent member firm of Mazars Group, an international audit, tax and advisory organization with operations in over 90 countries’. It sounds legit – but everything wee Donny touches dies, according to Rick Wilson – so I suspect Mazars USA is feeling the breath of death on its nape right now. The tax records are described as the final piece in an already well-advanced investigation. We shall see.
Canto: So this is a big one. Donny’s lawyers, such as they are, have been fighting all this, and the Supreme Court has already rejected the idea that he was immune from state court proceedings as Prez, which he ain’t no more. But of course the litigation has continued, with Donny’s lawyers claiming the subpoena for this financial stuff was ‘overbroad’ and issued ‘in bad faith’, and now it’s before the Supreme Court again, though Donny is no longer able to hide behind the presidency – which of course he should never be able to do. But in a banana republic…
Jacinta: Apparently he’s been granted a stay by the Supreme Court, and the technicalities of this are unclear to me, and I’ve been finding it hard to get free info about the length of this stay, so it’s frustrating.
Canto: It’s a ridiculous ongoing situation, hopefully an only in the USA situation – I pity any other country that allows such legal horrors. But with Donny now being unemployed, there should be an easier path to justice – it’s much easier to charge unemployed people there than anyone else.
Jacinta: Hmmm. I found reporting from early October that a federal appeals court then ruled against Donny’s lawyers, who tried to block the handover of tax documents to the Manhattan DA. Presumably that’s when the lawyers took it to the Supreme Court, and they granted a stay, presumably in mid-October.
Canto: Mein gott, so what exactly is a stay, for what reasons can it be given, and surely there’s a time limit on them?
Jacinta: Good questions, but I’ve found a very interesting article by Richard Lempert on the Brookings Institution website from October 19, when an appeal was on its way to the Supreme Court, arguing that the Supreme Court should end things now – meaning then. In its first para, I learn that the New York Times already has Donny’s tax returns – the stuff Vance is filing for – and is sharing them with the public. Whether that’s the whole kit and caboodle, I don’t know. And of course Donny claims the docs are false. Anyway the article points out that Vance is asking for more than tax returns – supporting docs are needed to prove criminality. The article then goes into a lot of legal detail about subpoenas, Article 2 powers, precedent and how courts deliver their rulings, but Lempert’s essential view is that Donny’s legal arguments in the initial case were weak, and they’ve come up with nothing new in the interim. So the Supreme Court shouldn’t take up the case.
Canto: But they have taken it up?
Jacinta: It does seem as if they have. Or maybe not. An article from Bloomberg, dated January 20, so quite recently, said the case was ‘now before the Supreme Court’, but that they hadn’t acted on it for three months, without providing reasons. The pay wall descended before I could work out whether that meant they’d deferred looking at the case or they’d deferred a decision to look at the case. But their decision may not matter, as apparently Vance may have sufficient material for his case already. I suppose only he and his legal team would know.
Canto: Michael Cohen was on cable news recently, arguing for SDNY to swiftly move on the matter of campaign finance violations, for which he was jailed, and also expressing an expectation that the new head of the DOJ, Merrick Garland, once approved – which may ultimately take another month – would look into Donny’s financial affairs as president, which will be interesting. Biden seems to want the DOJ to keep out of politics, but have Donny’s financial shenanigans ever really been political?
Jacinta: We can only await events. Meanwhile, there seems to be a real concern about the dangers of neo-fascism in the country. Those right-wingers who’ve gone against wee Donny recently seem to be running scared. Could the fear of reprisals be inhibiting legal action against wee Donny? That’s another thing to look into, as well as the situation in Georgia, where they have pretty strong evidence of serious attempts to overturn a fair election. Still a lot to get to…
References
Trump’s tax returns: Why the Supreme Court should end things now
getting wee Donny 1: 2016 campaign finance violations
one of wee Donny’s ‘reimbursement’ cheques – a smoking gun?
Canto: So we both agree that free will is a myth, and that this has major implications for crime and punishment, but we’re also both human – at least I am – and we want to see nasties being punished, and in fact we delight in it. As a person with a lifelong loathing of bullies, I’ve too often fantasised about bullying those bullies, even torturing them endlessly. And I do wonder if my sudden interest in US politics from the time wee Donny looked like he might bullshit his way into their presidency has more to do with gunning for his downfall than anything else.
Jacinta: Yes we think similarly but we have the capacity also to step back and be more analytical and curious about a system that allows such an obvious scammer to take up the very top position in what so many ‘Americans’ – and I put that in quotes coz I’ve heard quite a few inhabitants of that double continent getting annoyed that these ‘Americans’ refer to themselves in that exclusivist way…
Canto: But what should we call them? Yanks? Uessians? United Staters?
Jacinta: Yeah, good, let’s call them United Staters from now on. So many United Staters think they have the world’s greatest nation…
Canto: As the Brits did in their days of glory in the 19th century…
Jacinta: True, the myth of economic power entailing moral superiority dies hard, and jingoism is a major barrier to national self-analysis. So we, as outsiders and non-nationalists might be better equipped to examine why it is that wee Donny, with his so obvious incompetencies, manipulations and deceptions, has gotten so far and damaged so much, with so few consequences. What does it say about the USA, are these deficiencies shared by other nations (leaving aside the out-and-out dictatorships and undemocratic oligarchies), and can the USA redeem itself by imposing some sort of justice on this character, for the first time in a long lifetime?
Canto: Yes, so this series, ‘getting wee Donny’ will look at his crimes, at the system that allowed them, and how the system might reform itself, or transform itself into something more respectable, so that nothing like wee Donny can arise again. And this means not only looking at their criminal justice system, but the anti-government ideologies that have supported wee Donny’s destruction of responsible and effective government. There’s a malaise in that country, which might prevent wee Donny from facing justice, for fear that the malaise turn into a pandemic of self-slaughter. Are we facing the downfall of the USA?
Jacinta: Unlikely. Too many WMD for a start. And the nation has a lot of smarts, in spite of all the morons.
Canto: Morons with guns, and lots of them. And enough brains to make plans…
Jacinta: Yes, there are a lot of obstacles to getting wee Donny, but first I want to look at the plans to get him, now he’s unprotected by infamous and absurd claims to presidential immunity, unworthy of any decent nation.
Canto: Actually, I’d like to look at how Australia and other Westminster-based nations, and other democracies in general, deal with crimes committed by political leaders while in office. I agree with you that immunity for those in the highest political office is absurd, they’re the last people to be given immunity, and should have a whole panoply of laws applied to them, but look at Israel, where Netanyahu appears to be getting away with all sorts of dodgy behaviour. We can’t go blaming the US without checking out any possible beams in the eyes of others, including ourselves.
Jacinta: Haha well I wouldn’t describe the USA as having nothing more than a mote in its political eye, but point taken. We’ll look at the legal accountability for Australian and other political leaders as we go along, but wee Donny is now a private citizen, and I recall that one of his first crimes in relation to the whole presidency thing occurred when he was a candidate, and he paid off a couple of women to remain silent during his campaign. His then lawyer and ‘fixer’ Michael Cohen was sentenced and imprisoned for a range of crimes, including campaign finance violations at the behest of ‘individual one’, known to be wee Donny. This was confirmed by Cohen in congressional testimony, and two cheques signed by Donny, reimbursing Cohen, were presented as part of that testimony. Six other reimbursement cheques were shown to the New York Times, but it seems none of these cheques provide details of what these reimbursement were for, if indeed they were reimbursements at all.
Canto: Mmm, so far, so weak. It would be worth having a closer look at that part of Cohen’s charge sheet that includes, from memory, two charges of campaign finance violations. Also, did his sentencing go into detail about what part of it was specifically for those violations? Clearly the fact that he was convicted of of campaign finance violations makes some sort of evidence in itself. Cohen wasn’t the one running for office, he did it for Donny, as the charge sheet presumably states…
Jacinta: There’s a press release from the Southern District of New York from August 2018 stating that Cohen pleaded guilty to, among other things, one count of ‘Causing an unlawful corporate contribution’ and one count of ‘Making an excessive campaign contribution’, each of which could incur a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment. But here’s the thing – Cohen pleaded guilty, and wee Donny would never do that. And another problem is that, according to Stephen Weissman, writing in the Washington Post, there’s a legal requirement for campaign finance violations to be ‘wilful’, that is, done with knowledge that they’re illegal.
Canto: So in some cases, ignorance of the law is an excuse.
Jacinta: Well, yes, perhaps because some kinds of law, like these, are intricate and complex, and it might be easy to break them in all innocence.
Canto: Innocent wee Donny, sure. I think you could make a case stick here.
Jacinta: Hmmm. We’ll have to wait and see – until after this empêchement shite has failed – if SDNY goes ahead on this front. Meanwhile there are many other trails – and possible trials – to follow.
References
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/how-michael-cohen-broke-campaign-finance-law
https://www.vox.com/2019/2/27/18243038/individual-1-cohen-trump-mueller
what do we do with a problem like the US?
Canto: So with covid19 continuing its destruction throughout the USA, abetted by blundering blustering bragging bully-boy in a china-shop, what do you think will happen next year, and what do you think should happen?
Jacinta: Well, that’s a huge question, or pair of questions. I think our interest in science, and all the smart people who do science, has made us, or me, tend to think in rather elite terms, for better or worse. For example, my very first impressions of Trump made me think, or be aware, that there was something very wrong with him. And I mean very wrong. And everything I’ve observed since has confirmed this.
Canto: Yes, and this sciencey bent has made us particularly alert to what the relevant scientists, i.e. neurologists, might have to say about him.
Jacinta: Exactly – though what science would have to say about such a neurologically damaged and deficient person managing to become the most powerful person in a country that prides itself on being the most advanced, sophisticated country on the planet – well, I would love to know.
Canto: Of course, the claim to great sophistication is worth contesting – it’s a nation full of the crooked timber of humanity, like any other – but my initial questions are, I suppose, based on the assumption that Trump, at some time or other in the next few months, will admit electoral defeat.
Jacinta: I’m not sure even of that. I don’t think he has any real chance of winning the election fairly and squarely, but, I suspect like most onlookers, I have no idea how far he will go to cling to power. It will probably depend on how much he thinks he has to lose by having submitted his lifetime of corrupt dealings to public and legal scrutiny. I think he knows the danger he’s in, and will be working behind the scenes to build a shield against taking responsibility for his crimes, while still hoping to bluster his way to victory, by any means available. That includes fomenting violence while denying responsibility for it. So I think the next few months will be fascinating, in a ghoulish way, and well worth watching from a very safe distance. But as to the questions, once the dust has settled, I doubt very much that the things that need to happen will happen. Nobody’s talking much over there about the reforms required to stop a phenomenon like Trump ever happening again.
Canto: Such as brain scans for presidential candidates?
Jacinta: Seriously, yes of course. There has to be something more than voting for one person or another based on whatever bullshit they decide to promulgate. Trump’s accession is an indication of the poor judgment of millions of people, and it could happen everywhere, and already has. In Brazil, in Italy, in many places. An effective democracy depends on an informed, educated electorate. Desperate, angry people who feel deprived of hope, and who’ve lacked enrichment in many more ways than one, will follow anyone who offers them a way out. Or maybe I’m getting it wrong. I honestly don’t know why people would follow Trump – apart from anti-state anarchists and some of the super-rich, and they’re hardly a majority, or even a substantial minority.
Canto: Well, as we speak, this is becoming even more topical, as Trump is telegraphing that he won’t go quietly, and I’ve just read Barton Gellman’s article ‘the election that could break America’, in The Atlantic, which is a useful companion to the recently read book Will he go? by Lawrence Douglas. Again, much is made of the Electoral College, an absurd institution that I’ve given up trying to comprehend. Quantum chromodynamics is a cinch by comparison.
Jacinta: I’m sure most Americans are in that boat, but yes, it’s going to be messy, and bloody, at the end of the year, something we’ve been forecasting for a long time, but I’m looking to the period after the bloodshed. Will the country have the gumption, and the self-critical capacity, to institute root and branch reform to its disastrous federal system? Again I hear Pelosi and others utter almost teary-eyed, and certainly bleary-eyed, devotion to their clearly outmoded and inadequate constitution, and castigating those that don’t recognise and follow its ‘spirit’.
Canto: Yes, typical response from such a ‘spiritual’ country I suppose, but they need far more than vague, well-meaning wording, they need L-A-W. They need laws about emoluments. They need laws about presidential accountability. They need laws limiting political interference in the judiciary. They need tighter laws around tax evasion. They need laws that more clearly define the separation of powers and the specific branches of government. But laws aren’t really enough. I would scrap the superhero-worshipping presidential system entirely. They even remember their Presidents by numbers, it’s just so childish. They’re so keen to have a Big Daddy looking after them. And the money they waste on electioneering, not to mention the corrupt lobbying….
Jacinta: Well there’s no sense getting het up, they’re never going to listen to us. We could go into detail about the failings of our Australian system, after all. But I think it’s true that outsiders can see more clearly what many insiders are blind to, which makes watching all this so frustrating, as well as giving us that lovely smug feeling.
Canto: So let’s get back to my question – assuming that the Democrats have a decisive victory in the polls, what do you think will and should happen?
Jacinta: Well there’s a fair chance that they’ll gain control of both houses, but they’ll be inheriting a mess, and the pandemic will still be raging, perhaps worse than it is now, though there’s a good chance of a vaccine early in the year. They may try to do something about the Supreme Court, but that’s all up in the air at the moment. There will undoubtedly be a lot of turmoil, or much worse, having been stirred up by Trump’s antics, and I really think that quelling civil unrest will be a time- and energy-consuming task, what with the madness of their second amendment. So I think the Democrats are likely to go softly softly for a while, trying to heal the country, with good old ‘Uncle Joe’ being as placatory as possible. That’s on the domestic front. Internationally, I think they’ll move swiftly to repair Trump’s damage, fixing alliances, reconnecting with international bodies and so forth.
Canto: Well I’ve heard that there’s an article out in the Guardian – I’ve not read it – arguing that this might be the end of the US. Talk of California seceding, and such things.
Jacinta: Haha – it’s an understandable reaction. In fact I had that kind of thought-bubble years ago, before Trump slimed to the top. It was probably during the ‘tea party’ years, early in the Obama administration. It seemed to me that the country was so rabidly partisan, and so uncompromising was the air of certitude on both sides, that they would be best to split in two on something like civil war lines – the states could decide which nation to be a part of, and see where that leads the states that chose to turn their backs on the east and west coasts, which had all the money and most of the smarts – but then how could such a division work? There’d be plenty of states stuck in the middle, what they now call the purple or swing states, and how could you create a nation out of the east and west coast states, with all that territory between?
Canto: Not to worry, it’ll never happen, it’s too much like hard work. And that’s not an anti-American remark, it’s just a human observation. Starting more or less from scratch after all that work trying to create a united states, it would be an admission of failure – think of the sunken cost fallacy…
Jacinta: You’re right, they have too much pride to admit such failure to the world. But it’s an interesting thought, they could at last ditch their super-brilliant eighteenth century constitution with a couple of shiny 21st century versions, and whole batches of new laws for the digital and post-digital age. They could make the Americas great again.
Canto: Right, but which America gets the nuclear weaponry? A minor issue no doubt. Anyway, no succeeding with the seceding, but whatever happens we have the best seats on the planet for viewing – on the other side of the world, not too pandemic-damaged, and neither Trump nor his allies – or his enemies – are blaming us for anything, yet. Australians, let us all rejoice – we’re almost dipshit free!
America’s disgrace – presidential criminality in plain view
As an outsider looking in, I’m appalled by the US Presidential system, and the licence given in that country to its head of state. I’ve learned over the past few years of watching the slow train wreck that is this presidency, that the US head of state is granted a level of immunity that should never be granted to any individual in a democracy. This is a total disgrace, and seems to have infected the judgment of many observers and commentators. I suspect they’re blinded by the power granted to the US head of state, and by the ease with which anyone, no matter how corrupt and incompetent, can become the head of state (providing they have sufficient funds and influence). Presidents in the USA seem to be idolised beyond normality, in a land of Superheroes. This love of Superheroes, in film and elsewhere, is a somewhat juvenile trait, and a dangerous one. Its dangers have generally gone unnoticed because most US heads of state have been cognisant of, and respectful of, the rule of law. The problem has become evident with the advent of a charlatan posing as the greatest Superhero of all, and who is perfectly willing to take advantage of the power granted to him to realise any of his whims and desires.
Just today, at the end of the first day of public impeachment hearings, I’ve listened to the opening statement of career diplomat George Kent. His statement highlighted for me the enormous damage done to a sovereign state, Ukraine, by those working for the personal interests of this President. And yet I heard a panel of journalists, I believe from CBS, more or less agree that there was wrong-doing which however wasn’t impeachable. I couldn’t help but feel that this commentary was shocking and disgraceful.
Impeachment is a process derived from the United Kingdom, where it is now obsolete. It has never been a part of the Australian system and should, I think, be removed from any democratic system, and replaced by solid, clear law. Hopefully Americans will wake up to this one day, though I’m hardly sanguine about it.
Americans – and I’m really talking here about the intelligentsia – seem overly obsessed with their constitution. Some are even describing this latest crime of their President as bribery, simply because that crime gets a specific mention in the constitution, which is preposterous. The eighteenth century constitution doesn’t go into great detail about the crimes a President might commit, nor should it, because it should be evident that the President would be held accountable for any law-breaking, to the same extent as any other US citizen. To accept or facilitate any other outcome for the head of state would itself be a form of corruption or criminality.
The US President, and his acolytes, notably Rudi Giuliani, are clearly guilty of extortion – demanding a thing of great value for the President, with menaces, or via coercion. This crime has essentially been proven. This particular case is also at the very high end for this type of crime, as it involves the extortion of an entire nation, an ally of the USA, endangering countless lives and a nation’s freedom. A very hefty prison term should be demanded for all involved. This should not be in any way controversial.
Failing this – impeachment? To describe this as a poor substitute would be the greatest understatement in American history. The democratic world watches with bemusement tinged with contempt.
The boy in the white palace 4: extortion for dummies
Beneficence is always free, it cannot be extorted…
Adam Smith
Jacinta: I’ve been bemused by the sloppy way, IMHO, that the boy king’s adversaries – the Great Patriots – are handling their strategy for the defence of the realm. Some are still using the Queer and Daft (Q&D) term quid pro quo, as if that’s going to be an effective rallying cry for the country’s GPs. In fact it’s so feeble that the boy’s courtiers and epigones are happy to use it themselves, saying quid pro quos are great things, very handy for the MAGA cause….
Canto: Yes but I do notice that some of the more quick-witted GPs are almost at the point of considering, in a consistent way, a more obviously criminal term for the lad’s crimes. Whoduv thunk it? Unfortunately they’re not quite sure which crime to bruit about.
Jacinta: And Q&D terminology is still de rigueur for many, especially the courtiers and epigones. The two more serious, and accurate, terms for the crimes being particularly focussed on – re impeachment….
Canto: And impeachment’s a process we’re going to have to deconstruct – to use a shitty po-mo term most appropriate for the occasion – in another post.
Jacinta: Indeed – the two crimes being whispered way too softly by the GPs are bribery and extortion, with bribery being, unfortunately, the most favoured. But the Great Patriots are wrong.
Canto: That’s bad.
Jacinta: I think the only reason they prefer bribery is because, apparently, it’s in the SACUSA…
Canto: Scusi?
Jacinta: What? Oh yes, dummy, the Sublimely Awesome Constitution of the USA. Get out from under your rock, mate. It’s apparently mentioned in the SACUSA as one of the high Crimes and Mis Demenours you’re not allowed to consort with. We’ll look into that later. But I think extortion’s the thing, to set before the wee king, because, well, it’s much more nasty-sounding. I also think it’s more accurate. Off the top of my head, it’s about demanding money – or a thing of value – with menaces. And the boy king doesn’t need money – he’s been rolling in it since he was in his nappies, according to the New York Times. He’s far more in need of something to trounce his enemies, so that he can stay in the White Palace until he’s all growed up – and that’s a long long time.
Canto: Is he still in his nappies d’you think? I’ve heard rumours…
Jacinta: Well, I don’t think I’d have the stomach for that piece of investigative journalism, but it would certainly raise a stink if that were true. But here’s the thing. Ukraine has a new leader, with an overwhelming mandate to beat off Madame Putain and fight internal corruption. It’s a vastly important, and simply vast, country lying between La Putain and his or her designs on Europe, and it desperately needs an alliance with the USA, Europe and any other region it can ally itself with, but their President, when he came to office, hadn’t yet cottoned on to the fact that the USA is an ex-democracy and that its wee king had googly eyes for La Putain. ..
Canto: So he was ripe for extortion, I get it. The boy loves La Putain and wants to be like him, master of all he surveys, so he wants to have the Ukraine slay his rival, so he menaces them with a range of shite – saddling the country with being behind interference in his ascension to the throne in 2016, refusing to have an alliance with it, and with-holding funds and weapons, in the hope that La Putain will invade, slay the putative wrong-doers and share the spoils with the wee laddie.
Jacinta: Yeah, something like that. But let’s just get back to demanding a thing of value with menaces. I think it’s pretty straightforward.
Canto: Yes, others use the term coercion, but it’s the same thing, and it definitely applies in this case. The boy’s courtiers even drafted exactly what they demanded the Ukrainian Prez had to publicly say about the poor wee Biden boy and his nasty papa.
Jacinta: It’s time to look more closely at what the SACUSA has to say on the matter. Impeachment gets a mention very early on (Article 1, Section 2), but the nub of the matter is expressed, albeit briefly, in Article 2, Section 4, entitled ‘Disqualification’:
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
So only two actual crimes are specified, which is a wee bit disappointing for dealing with the Most Powerful King in the Multiverse – but I don’t want to get into the impeachment disaster here, we’ll save that for another post. For now I’ll just say that ‘high Crimes and Misdemeanours’ however vague, was surely meant to cover more than nothing, and extortion sounds pretty lofty as crimes go. So let’s look more closely at extortion.
Canto: I have one dictionary definition here: ‘the practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats’. Sounds like just the Right Thing.
Jacinta: Yes, and what the boy-king wanted to obtain was far more valuable to him than all the gold in Ukraine….
Canto: Encyclopedia Brittanica gives the definition as ‘the unlawful exaction of money or property through intimidation’, but in an article about white-collar crime it describes extortion as ‘a threat made to obtain a benefit from either a private individual or a public official’, and the threat here made by the boy and his courtiers, was ‘if you don’t invent something to besmirch the reputation of my domestic enemy, or announce that he has a reputation as a criminal, you will have no alliance with our mighty kingdom, no aid or support in defeating your enemy, La Putain (my own true love), and your people will die in great numbers, crushed by his or her mighty fist’.
Jacinta: Hmmm. A more clear-cut and extremely serious case of extortion could hardly be found. A girl-boy lawyer would win the case with a few hours’ training, except that the king is apparently above all law. He’s only subject to the law’s feeble sibling, impeachment.
Canto: I note that one of the Royal lad’s acolytes, one Nikki Hayley, has sought to churlishly dismiss the affair by pointing out that Ukraine finally received the aid, so no problem. However, the above definition points out that the threat is the crime, not the success or otherwise of the threat.
Canto: It also should hardly need pointing out that Ukraine finally received the promised aid because the scheme against the country was being leaked out – the lad’s courtiers had learned about the whistleblower complaint – not because there was a change of heart. In fact it’s widely believed that mirabile dictu, the withered boy has never managed to develop a heart, the poor sod.
Jacinta: That’s ridiculous, a piece of fantasy emanating from the Deep Kingdom….
Canto: We should operate on the boy to find out – we need real, pulsating evidence. I’m even prepared to do it under anaesthetic. I’d like him to do us a favour though…
learning about Trump
Getting rid of the dictator is only a first step in establishing a free society. The dictatorship must also be disassembled.
George Ayittey
More about how I became drawn in to the Trump horrorshow
Trump as dysfunctional crime machine
One way to look at Trump is not so much as anything human but as a machine for generating crime – but as a somewhat dysfunctional one, in that everything he does is crooked but not all of it rises to the level of crime – which is I think, one of his major failings, and I’m sure he’s disappointed about it. For example he lies as others breathe, but not all his lies are crimes, so they don’t get the attention he wants them to get. In interviews or press conferences he doesn’t present talking points, he presents lying points. He doesn’t play golf, he cheats at golf. He doesn’t have advisors, he has echo-chambers.
But he’s also undisciplined, and sometimes falls down on the job and blurts out the truth. That’s when he gets into trouble. It’s like the ghost in his machine, and it scares the bejesus out of him.