COTW: Arizona Indicts Trump Conspirators

More: The five-man Team Trump on the Supreme Court made it perfectly clear that they intend to further delay the criminal prosecution beyond the election at the oral argument about Trump's absurd absolute immunity claim on Thursday.  The Court already has caused at least six months of delay by scheduling argument for the last day of oral argument in  the current session, and refusing to take Trump's appeal directly from the DC District Court.  The Court has done this in other high-profile appeals (US v. Nixon, Pentagon Papers) Their questioning of appellate counsel did not concern the facts of the case before them, but rather scenarios involving "official" criminal acts.

The Boss' unprecedented attempted coup involved a string of acts related to his presidential campaign for life; facts pointed out by Justice Jackson-Brown. Thus, there is no need to create new jurisprudence concerning immunity for official acts and no immunity for those considered private. The Court is supposed to address cases and controversies before it under the Constitution, not create a "rule for the ages", as coined by Justice Gorsuch. A remand to sort factual distinctions in federal District Court will take time well beyond the election. Court observers do not expect a decision until at least the end of the current session in June. One silver lining to a remand: the Special Prosecutor could be able to publicly reveal evidence of Trumpilini's culpability not available to the January Sixth Committee at a fact-finding hearing before the election.

{25.04.24}The historic criminal trial of a former president got under way this week. The first witness was David Pecker, former publisher of the National Enquirer. Testified to an agreement between his tabloid magazine and Don Legit to "catch and kill" unfavorable stories about him before the election. A meeting took place in 2015 between Trump, Cohen and Pecker to discuss the arrangement after a Trump Tower doorman touting a story about Trump fathering an illegitimate child with a Tower maid. The prosecution emphasized in its opening address to the jury that the case is not about paying hush money to a porn star, but about falsifying business records to influence the election outcome.  Falsifying business records is a felony offense in New York if the records are used to commit other crimes.  In this case the other crimes are violations of campaign finance laws.

The prosecution has promised to submit corroborating evidence of how pay-offs were made to look like routine payments for legal fees from Michael Cohen.  Alan Weisselburg, former CFO of Trump.org took handwritten notes concerning the scheme to coverup the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels.  Cohen took out a home equity loan in order to advance the sum to Daniels

Justice Merchan has not yet ruled on whether the Ochre Menace should be held in contempt for violating his gag order that prohibits the defendant from speaking about jurors and witnesses.  A show cause hearing was held on Tuesday morning.  Apparently just hours before his attorneys argued in court that their client had not violated the order, the defendant taped an interview with an ABC reporter in which he criticized Michael Cohen as a "convicted liar without credibility".

In Arizona, a grand jury has indicted 18 supporters of the would be dictator including former chief of staff Mark Meadows, Trump lawyer Rudy Guiliani, Boris Epshetyn, and John Eastman.  Trump is described as an unindicted co-conspirator as is Ken Chesebro. Chesebro is known to have cooperated with the Arizona AG's investigation.  Eleven named conspirators are the those party activists who posed as electors for Trump despite Joe Biden's narrow victory in the state.  The indictment includes felony charges for fraud, forgery and conspiracy similar to what has been charged in Georgia.  The charging document says, “Defendants and unindicted coconspirators schemed to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency to keep Unindicted Co-conspirator 1 in office against the will of Arizona’s voters."  It is unlikely that any of the defendants will go to trial before the election in November, although some may decide to plea guilty. 

credit J. Heller

Cats Down Under

Readers know that US Person is a "cat person":  he is the devoted father of his neutered Burmese.  But he is sympathetic to conservationists in Australia who face a huge feral cat problem. Cats kill an estimated 459 million mammals every year in Australia. The clever, resourceful little hunters are eating pocket-sized marsupials at an alarming rate.  An ecologist at Charles Darwin--yes, that guy--University told The NY Times that cats pose a catastrophic problem  because Australian "frana have not evolved to cope with cats."  Feral cats have been declared a "nationally significant pest" and has declared war on them more than once.

Even Australians who admire the predatory prowess of cats are coming to the conclusion that they need to be reduced by any humane means available.  Cats are too entrenched to be eradicated entirely.  There are two sides to the predator-prey relationship, so a partial solution may be to equip prey such as bandicoots, bilbies and bettongs with some survival skills besides trapping and shooting cats.  Most Australians support controlling feral cat populations, but lethal methods are still controvesial since cats enjoy a close relationship with man.

Bettongs died out on the mainland in the 20th century and now only live in predator-free, fenced reserves or on coastal islands.  Researchers see reserves as only a temporary measure, the goal being to establish a balance in the greater ecosystem.  Research has revealed that most of the killing is done by larger toms who are often serial killers.  Given this information, one approach is to subcutaneously  implant a toxin capsule that dissolves in the stomach of a killer cat.  Another is the traditional and less gruesome one of improving traps, but the best hunters are the most difficult to trap.  Cats are very reluctant to feed on human scraps that bait a trap, preferring their own fresh kills.  The Felixer is an AI-aided trap that senses the proximity of a feral cat and sprays it with a toxic gel that the fastidious animal will clean of fits fur by licking.  In one six week trial one Felixer appeared to kill thirty-three cats.  Two hundred have been deployed across the Outback.  

releasing a bilby

Dr. Katherine Moseby proposed an unusual idea. [photo credit NY Times]   She decided that since native fauna is naive when it comes to hunting cats, she would experiment with training prey to avoid their feline predators.  She put five feral cats into a fenced paddock with the bittongs and bilbies to see if they would learn.  After two years the prey species became more cautious than counterparts living in protected areas.  After five years the bettongs had larger heads and feet.  Apparently, selection is driving this development since cats are more likely to prey on smaller animals.  Dr. Moseby thinks reintroducing protected small marsupials to native quolls, a carnivorous marsupial, may help sharper their avoidance behavior against cats. Will these adaptive changes be enough to save the marsupials from eventual extinction?  No one knows at this point. No approach appears to be foolproof against the stealthy, intelligent and deadly Felis catus.

Protecting the Arctic

 The concept of "multiple use" has always been at the heart of public land management, but over the decades policy has been severely skewed towards development at the expense of conservation. That may change with the announcement this week of new rules for the BLM. The agency manages over 245 million acres, so the rules impact should be significant.

Under the new regulations restoration of public land and water is promoted. onservation goals are integrated into the agency's decision making process utilizing scientific data and indigenous knowledge, while broadening the use of land health standards. The changes intend to conserve healthy public lands to support wildlife, connectivity of habitat, old-growth forests, and ecosystem functioning. In short the new public land rule recognizes conservation on an equal footing with other uses.

melting permafrost forms grid pattern in NAPR

Recognizing the need to rapidly reduce fossil fuel burning significantly, the Biden-Harris government put out-of-bounds the western half (13 million acres) of the National Arctic Petroleum Reserve and the Beaufort Sea (3 million acres) to oil and gas development.  Biden drew intense criticism from environmentalists for approval of the massive Willow Project proposed by ConocoPhillips.  The Project plans 200 wells spread across three drilling pads with associated infrastructure such as roads and pipelines.   The administration considered the approval to be a trade-off for protecting the western portion of the Reserve. Conservationists do not consider the trade-off to be worthwhile.  Predictably the oil industry called the protection decision, "a step in the wrong direction". [photo credit: AP]

The Reserve was created about a century ago to provide the US Navy with an emergency supply of oil. Since the 1970's it has been managed by the Interior Department. It is home to polar bears, caribou, and millions of migrating birds. The rules announced Friday will place restrictions on future leasing and industrial development in areas designated for their wildlife or subsistence values and require BLM to regularly evaluate new areas or bolster protection of existing designations. The Arctic is undergoing rapid change due to global warming [see photo]. As a consequence plants and animals are significantly impacted.

TWIT: Uncontrollable and a Lot Less Orange

Update: All twelve jurors and one alternate have been seated in the Manhattan trial today. Five more alternates have been selected.  Jury selection was notably rapid. Opening statements will begin on Monday.

US Person, aka Brand X, agrees with those pundits who have identified Donny as a "narcissistic sociopath". According to the DSM-5, the psychiatric manual used to diagnose those with personality disorders of various types, a person must be diagnosed with symptoms of both narcissism and anti-social personality disorder.  Trumpilini has publicly exhibited both types of disorders.  His anti-social behavior ranges from compulsive lying, cheating on golf, failing to pay business debts, to lack of concern for the safety of others. (Comparing COVID to the flu.)  He also has engaged in behavior considered criminal (sexually assaulting E. Jean Carrol in a Bergdoff changing room.) 

His narcissistic disorder is also unmistakable.  He has engaged in a life-long pursuit of money and power, which feeds his grandiose sense of self-importance (He is the 'Chosen One').  His sense of entitlement is off the charts. (Keeping national defense secrets as his personal property.)  Arrogance and willingness to exploit others for personal gain is beyond denial (From a record of numerous fraudulent business dealings to selling NFTs, Bibles, and sneakers to pay his legal expenses).  He has no guilt for these abusive behaviors. Mary Trump, his niece and a trained psychologist, reveals that Donny has a fragile self-esteem which makes him insecure and easily affronted.  He suffered under an abusive and domineering father, that has contributed to his famously thin skin. Falling asleep during voir dire and not standing for the jury are examples of his narcissistic contempt for others not considered his equal.

So, it is fortuitous that Justice Merchan has experience dealing with mentally-ill persons as a judge on the court handling mental health issues. He should exercise caution with a neurotic defendant attempting to disrupt and distract from his criminal prosecution by attacking witnesses and potential jurors. His goal is to delay and discredit the legal process, and provide basis for appeals. Trump's repeated attempts at intimidation may not be entirely under his control, but yet another symptom of his Cluster B personality disorder. Two of the seven jurors seated this week were removed for cause. One of them stated she was concerned about being identified after a Trump media hack exposed her identity on-line. That post was re-posted by bully-boy Trump. Proceed with caution at your contempt hearing next week, your Honor! Incarceration for contempt should be a last resort. Larger fines, say in the neighborhood of $10,000, or removal from the courtroom might be enough to get him to stop his damaging behavior.

On another legal front, the fifty million dollar 'ghost' loan that appeared in his company's financial disclosure documents and flagged by the independent court-appointed monitor in New York, has triggered a complaint from CREW, Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington to the DOJ. Tax experts have suggested the phantom loan may have helped him avoid taxes. Stayed tuned for developments.

credit: Britt

COTW: Nuclear Power Producers

The US is on top producing more that the next two countries combined, China and France. France is the most nuclearized country, producing 60% of its electric power from nuclear fission compared to only 29% for the US.  Its nuclear infrastructure is aging however, with many plants nearing their designed lifespans with no replacements coming on line.  Only major project is ongoing in Georgia and it is widely over budget War torn Ukraine is heavily dependent on nuclear power, but its largest plant (six reactors) has been captured by the invader and is currently off-line. Zaporizhzhia has been subjected to bombardment.

According to the to Lawerence-Berkeley National Laboratory the United States already has close to enough alternative energy seeking access to the national grid to meet Presidemt's Biden 2035 goal of zero carbon electricity production. But these sources of clean energy face enormous hurdles both economic and technical. According to the 2022 report 2,000GW of energy production and storage is in line to connect. These interconnection queues are an indication of the extreme need to modernize the power grid and reduce competition from vested utility interests, if the US is to successfully switch off fossil fuel power generation. Only 21% of projects reached commercial operation between 2000 and 2017

Coral Reefs Dying Across Globe

Coral reefs are experiencing more frequent and severe bleaching events. Bleaching occurs when the host coral organism ejects symbiotic algae that photosynthesize nutrients due to elevated sea temperatures.This global event stared in 2023 in the Northern Hemisphere summer when seas reached record warm temperatures. Prolonged and severe bleaching can kill coral animals, but they can recover if temperatures receed rapidly. Previously bleached corals are weaker and have difficulty reproducing. Coral reefs are hotbeds of diversity, providing habitat for a quarter of marine species while covering less than 1% of the ocean.

Australia's Great Barrier Reef has experienced the most widespread bleaching event on record in 2024. GBR is suffering its fifth mass bleaching event in eight years. In 2024, 80% of the reef area is affected; previously the record was 60% in 2017. Prof Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a pioneer of coral research among the first to link bleaching to global heating, told the Guardian: “It’s a shock. We clearly have to prevent governments from investing in fossil fuels, or we won’t have a chance in hell". Current climate models predict that every reef on Earth will experience severe, annual bleaching sometime between 2040 and 2050. They will not survive this assault.

TWIT: The Trial(s) To Come

Finally, Donny Boy will face a jury of Manhattanites beginning Monday in the historic first criminal trial of a former President. They will have to do their civic duty while looking at the Ochre Menace frowning at them for six or eight weeks. His last ditch efforts to delay the inevitable were unsuccessful. He even went so far as to sue Justice Merchan for alleged bias because his daughter has Democratic Party affiliations; that suit is going nowhere. Fortunately, Justice Merchan has not taken the legal bait laid at his feet by Trump, delaying the trial even more. Merchan rejected his fourth attempt to dismiss the case today.  Trial proceedings will start with jury selection in the city that knows him best.  In Georgia, Judge McAfee ruled that the RICO case against Don Legit should also go forward, rejecting an appeal from the defendant on free speech grounds.

His accounting minion, Allen Weisselberg, was sentenced to five more months at Rikers Island for perjury on Wednesday. He is accustomed to the food since he already served 100 days for tax evasion.  Weisselberg will not have to testify against his former boss in his campaign finance violations trial as part of the plea deal.

Another red flag for AG Letitia James as the civil fraud bond posted by Defendant Trumpilini comes under legal scrutiny:  Knight Speciality Insurance is backed by a reinsurer located in the Cayman Islands, notorious as a secretive tax haven.  One insurance specialist told the Daily Beast that the arrangement "stinks to high heaven" because collecting from the insurer becomes more difficult in the event of a default.
 

credit: M. Wuerker, Politico.com