ABC settled its defamation suit with Trump for $15 million. Meta settled its suit with Trump for its post-January 6th suspension of his accounts for $25 million. The New York Times is reporting that Paramount, owner of 60 Minutes, is in settlement talks with Trump for editing the interview with Kamala Harris. What all three of these cases have in common is that enterprises that would normally fight to the death over challenges ranging from far-fetched to utterly frivolous have chosen instead to pay. And pay pretty big money.

Bribes? Some would say so, although the word bribe implies they are getting a quid pro quo, something concrete in exchange for their cash. There is no evidence that there is any quo for their quid. Continue reading →

The first I heard of it was from Chris Halkides in a succinct comment to yesterday’s post about Trump’s ignorance of law, governance and presidential authority.

The Vaeth memo freezing spending makes the firing look like small potatoes by comparison.

And indeed, it does. Putting aside the question of whether the executive has any authority to “usurp” the power of the purse, a prerogative reserved by the Constitution for Congress, the memo from the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, Matthew J. Vaeth, is a stunning display of ass-backwards incoherence that created a depth of chaos and instability that undermined any sense of reliability in the federal government. To call it a bludgeon where a scalpel was needed is far too kind. Continue reading →

After Trump’s firing of inspector generals with neither the specific explanation nor 30 day notice required by the Inspector General Act of 1978, an obvious question arose. What happens when Trump shamelessly breaks the law? It may not be the biggest deal law ever, but it’s still a law. You may not like the law, or believe the law is constitutional, but it’s still the law. And Trump just, well, broke it.

Josh Blackman tried his very hardest to muster some rational explanation for Trump’s actions, but, despite his best efforts, came up empty. In response, David Post made the obvious observation that Josh tried so hard to avoid. Continue reading →

There has been harsh criticism of Trump for having pardoned or commuted the sentences of violent criminals in his grandiose, yet shallow, display of pandering to his MAGA base that saw them as patriots and hostages. To those who believe in faeries, he was a hero, kind of keeping his campaign promise and bringing home the well intended, if none too bright, patriots he told to storm the Congress to save the nation.

To others, he was his usual simplistic fool, doing pretty much what one would expect of any simplistic fool, uninterested in distinguishing between unworthy defendants and unwilling to put in the effort when the only purpose of his act was to pander to sycophants who similarly wouldn’t care either way. It was a cheap way for Trump to buy himself some adoration and, if necessary, useful idiots to take to the streets again if he needed some very fine people to do his dirty work. Continue reading →

No, Trump didn’t get a “mandate.” He didn’t get a majority of the popular vote and had the smallest winning percentage of any president in generations. No, “woke” isn’t just being courteous, and DEI isn’t just being against discrimination. And no, yours isn’t the side of good and theirs isn’t the side of evil, and everyone who fails to live up to your purity test isn’t part of the evil tribe.

I blame myself for trying to be as accommodating of differing views as possible. It had been my hope that commenters here would police themselves and each other, would exercise some modicum of self-control so as not to spew their tribe’s lies and delusions, as if to challenge me and others here to disprove them. Continue reading →

No one has ever accused Donald Trump of being deep, nuanced and petty subtle. But then, no rational person believes that the avalanche of Executive Orders marked with a sharpie come from the mushy-minded Trump. The “tell” is that they aren’t in all caps, use big words spelled correctly and are generally coherent. Someone came up with all these ideas, save the silliness of renaming the Gulf of Mexico and Denali, and Trump is channeling his best Governor William J. Le Petomane.

Among the proclamations are two Executive Orders seeking to eradicate, overnight, the dreaded Diversity, Equity and Inclusion machinery that have properly come under fire for their infusion of race and sex discrimination under the woke guise of remediating past discrimination by exploiting current discrimination. The Supreme Court says no. Americans say no. Even those it was putatively supposed to help say no. So what’s not to like? Continue reading →

If you were privileged to know Judge Richard G. Kopf at all beyond the blawg posts or comment section replies, you were fucking spoiled.

You had the ear of a federal Judge who would give you his 100% no bullshit opinions on anything and everything. If he felt like he could impart some wisdom in the process, so much the better. Continue reading →

The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is about to reach its one week anniversary, longer than many had anticipated. The next step requires Hamas to release four female hostages, while Israel is to release more than 100 Palestinian terrorists. For a variety of reasons, this should strike people as a pretty lousy deal. Obviously, the ratio is horribly skewed in favor of Hamas. Then, too, are the “equivalences” of kidnapped hostages to convicted terrorists. How, then, did such a bad deal get struck?

It’s entirely understandable that Israelis whose loved ones were kidnapped and held hostage, often sex slaves, in Gaza would do anything to secure their return. Give up 1000 terrorists? Anything. End the war in Gaza? Anything. If it was your child/parent/spouse in captivity for all this time, would you put geopolitics ahead of their life? Continue reading →

Caught in between the January 6th defendants who had already completed their sentences and those sentenced for many years of imprisonment to come were some whose prosecutions had commenced, but had not yet been completed. Nicholas DeCarlo and Nicholas Ochs were two defendants who had already pleaded guilty, already allocuted under oath that they committed the crimes with which they were charged, and were awaiting sentence when Trump directed the prosecution to trash the case.

I further direct the Attorney General to pursue dismissal with prejudice to the government of all pending indictments against individuals for their conduct related to the events at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Continue reading →

It’s said that unexplaining lies and irrational arguments to people who passionately desire to believe them and lack the education, experience and knowledge to grasp why the arguments are fundamentally absurd takes a magnitude of effort greater than creating them. Whether that’s true is doubtful; there is no unexplaining lies and irrational arguments to people incapable or disinterested in facts and reason, no matter what effort is mounted.

This was overwhemingly demonstrated in yesterday’s Tuesday Talk, perhaps the most disgraceful showing of ignorance and idiocy I’ve ever suffered here, and which has given me reason to put an end to TT lest Simple Justice become a cesspool of idiocy. Just as I refuse to let the woke have their way with their fantasy version of the world, I refuse to contribute to stupidity by giving space to the Trump faithful. There are other places happy to do so. Go there, not here. Continue reading →