Upside down flag represent, I think, distress or coercion or something. As in, “we need rescuing” type of distress. Could be that.

So the older boys are making them do it, and they want their mums to come and pick them up now.

Of course, whilst all this is going on, the investigation in Georgia into his attempts to overturn their election results continues. As I understand it, this is the one that carries the greatest personal threat to Trump, particularly in terms of potential jail time. This being because his fingerprints are all over this (unlike say the NY stuff where it is the corporation being pursued, not him personally). If he gets found guilty in Georgia he’s going down. And you can bet that the rats like Giuliani are busy chuckinghim as many buses as they can find!

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/31/politics/mary-peltola-alaska-house-special-election/index.html

This is supposedly a very red state, and Sarah Palin, who seems to be heading for defeat, is a big name for the right. The penny must finally be dropping for the Republicans that **** with reproductive rights and trying to end democracy may not go down well even with their own vote.

(They’ll say that this is only a special election, and will get done over in November, but still…)

That’s done now. Peltola has won. She was ahead of the Orange Gibbon endorsed Palin anyway, but picked up enough 2nd choice votes from the other Republican challenger to win.

So lots of Republican voters preferred to make a Democrat their 2nd choice rather than the other Republican candidate.

The runes are going to make interesting reading. It can – and will – be argued that it was only a special election and they tend to deliver strange results (a bit like some of our by-elections which – usually – return to type once a General Election hoves into view) and that it will revert to type in November. However, given the state of play right now, the high profile nature of the candidate and the fact that she was endorsed by Trump, it doesn’t look very good from a hardline MAGA perspective 🤔

In the meantime the Orange one’s lawyers have submitted their request for the court to approve their desperate delaying tactic / appoint a Special Master to conduct an independent review of the seized documents. This from Potitico:

WEST PALM BEACH, FL – Donald Trump’s lawyers contended Wednesday that the Department of Justice is trampling on his rights and demanded an independent review of materials the FBI seized from his Mar-a-Lago estate. But the former president’s lawyers sidestepped the most serious obstruction-of-justice claims prosecutors aired against him just hours earlier, and Trump’s legal team notably avoided echoing an assertion their client resurfaced earlier in the day: that he had declassified the documents at issue in the dispute.

In a 19-page court filing, Trump’s attorneys insisted that an outside “special master” should consider whether any of the materials seized from Trump’s estate are subject to executive privilege. They argued that they couldn’t simply accept the Justice Department’s word that it had carefully screened out any attorney-client privileged records, particularly because investigators have not yet provided a detailed inventory of the items seized from Mar-a-Lago.

“There is no guarantee that the ‘limited set’ of potentially privileged materials identified by the Privilege Review Team constitutes all privileged materials among the Seized Materials,” Trump’s attorneys Lindsey Halligan, James Trusty and Evan Corcoran wrote as they pushed U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon to appoint an outsider to conduct a review. “Left unchecked, the DOJ will impugn, leak, and publicize selective aspects of their investigation with no recourse for Movant but to somehow trust the self-restraint of currently unchecked investigators,” the Trump lawyers wrote.The newest member of Trump’s legal team, former Florida Solicitor General Chris Kise, did not sign on to the filing.

Trump’s filing landed after what appeared to be a key admission. In a social media post just hours earlier, the former president indicated he had been aware of the documents marked “top secret” that were, in his words, stashed in “cartons’’ in his personal office at Mar-a-Lago. Trump’s attorney had asserted in June that no such documents remained on the property.

“They took them out of cartons and spread them around on the carpet,” Trump said, after criticizing FBI agents for displaying the documents for a photo that the Justice Department revealed publicly Tuesday night.

The Trump filing Wednesday also made no mention of any declassification. The Justice Department asserted Tuesday that neither Trump nor his lawyers ever mentioned “declassification” during months of talks ahead of the Aug. 8 FBI search–a claim Trump’s team did not dispute Wednesday. Rather, the former president’s attorneys focused much of their argument on whether the government failed to adequately account for the give-and-take of the Presidential Records Act, the Nixon-era law that governs the retention of White House records by the National Archives.Trump’s rebuttal to the DOJ comes as the department appears to be mulling a significant obstruction of justice case against the former president and his team, underscored by evidence the department revealed Tuesday in response to Trump’s lawsuit. The department has argued that privileged documents seized at Mar-a-Lago would inherently be property of the government, not Trump, particularly when they consist of extraordinarily sensitive national security records.

So one of the key arguments that the buffoon has been putting forward – that he magically declassified the records himself – has been quietly dropped (because it was bollix obvs). In addition his pique-filled verbal incontinence has quietly scuppered any claims that he had cooperated, and/or that he had thought his people had cooperated. After all he’s admitting that the docs were in his office!

I image part of the reason he can’t find lawyers is they keep telling him to take a plea deal. To which in his own mind he’s the president the most powerful man on the planet and copping for it, much like taking the fifth, is for losers 😀

How much longer are some of the investigations into Trump going to go on? We have the Washington Riot, New York property fraud, Georgia election, Mar-a-Lago, secrets and there is probably a few more. But all appear to be crawling slowly through judicial mire. There is a new Presidential Election approaching rapidly, and if Trump goes for nomination, then all the prosecuting agencies will face a whole heap of trouble in the eyes of MAGA and other nutters, for attempting to prosecute a Presidential candidate. Is it not time for one of the prosecutors to step up and start proceedings before it is too late.

Is it not time for one of the prosecutors to step up and start proceedings before it is too late.

They have a grand jury system in the USA where a prosecutor can be building a case without the intended targets knowledge for a long period of time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_juries_in_the_United_States
It’s why sometimes a massive case can appear out of nowhere fully formed as the grand jury system puts a gag order on reporting too. So if the feds turn round to reporters and say zip-it on a subject they have to. We have gag orders on criminal cases too, it just works in a different way here.

Nothing will happen before the mid terms in November. After that they’ve got until July 2024 (roughly when the Republican convention will declare their candidate) to charge and convict. They’re not going to back off somebody because they’re a declared candidate. Otherwise every Tom, Dick and Harry facing legal jeopardy would be chucking their hat into the ring!

Now if the Republican primaries decide to throw their weight behind a known spiv facing numerous legal challenges and who might, come election time, be disqualified from standing and/or in prison, then that’s their prerogative. But they’d probably better have a plan B..

Is it not time for one of the prosecutors to step up and start proceedings before it is too late.

I think Trump’s team are using every delaying tactic in the book, which makes rapid prosecution harder – see the Mar-e-Lago court filing as a great example.

He’s refused to testify too (as he’s entitled to do). But that places more emphasis on other forms of evidence, which take longer to acquire and validate. I reckon if Trump had co-operated with the NY tax investigation, it would be over by now.

documents marked “top secret” that were, in his words, stashed in “cartons’’ in his personal office at Mar-a-Lago. Trump’s attorney had asserted in June that no such documents remained on the property.

Which means the lawyers are going down to. Courts take a dim view of their officers misleading them. The term rats in a sack comes to mind.

Trump’s lawyer just confirmed on TV that the documents would not have been on the floor like that. They were in the desk drawers all neatly.

In an office used to meet and greet all sorts of people.

And the same office she searched diligently and signed a legal document to say that there definitely wasn’t any secret documents there….

And then

"I wouldn't be surprised if there were more highly classified documents at Bedminster or some other residence of his."

— Former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton thinks Donald Trump possibly has more classified documents pic.twitter.com/ske21YcLhA

— The Recount (@therecount) August 31, 2022

I think the modus operandi of trump is clear now, as if it wasn’t clear before.

‘Do what you want as long as you can afford to grind down your competitors long enough that they can’t afford to continue litigation’

He really is a nasty sack of shit.

There’s no integrity here, it’s just pure pre-meditated evil.

They’re going to have to dig up Ivana aren’t they?

There’s no integrity here, it’s just pure pre-meditated evil.

The question is whether that approach will work now or whether he has failed to adapt to changing circumstances.
The outspend them or pay them off after threatening to outspend them is fine against a porn star escort or some family building company who, assuming they have honest lawyers, will listen to the advice that whilst they might win the chances are they will be outspent in appeal after appeal so best settle/give up since the possible returns simply arent worth it.
It isnt clear it will work so well against a state or national investigators who will shrug and go “not my money”.

They’re going to have to dig up Ivana aren’t they?

i think she’s stuffed in a carton somewhere on Trump property too.

This bit here is exactly why no lawyer ever wants Trump to take the stand. He’s called it “the perjury trap” as if that’s a thing, when that’s essentially just admitting that he can’t stop lying.

But this “I had no top secret documents, fake news, also I tell you that the top secret documents I didn’t have were stored in boxes in my office and the FBI took them out of the boxes, very bad.” is absolute perfection.

i think she’s stuffed in a carton somewhere on Trump property too

For tax avoidance reasons – he’s pure class…

For tax avoidance reasons – he’s pure class…

Its actually bancruptcy protection – you can’t have land seized from you to pay off your creditors if there are relatives buried on it.

Biden’s Twitter account is well worth a look for some maxed out triggering of the MAGA mob

https://twitter.com/JoeBiden?s=20&t=VTvJPW8HRp45lcRZYnfy5w

It’s not in the Democrats interest to hurry along any prosecutions. He’s doing more damage out there to the Republicans than any amount of democrat money can do.

Keep it rolling to 2025 please.

I just looked at Biden’s twitter – it does indeed appear to a non-stop stream of trolling the Maga fans rather than appealing to his own supporters. I wonder if it’ll make any of them stop and reflect or is it too late?

james-rennie
I wonder if it’ll make any of them stop and reflect or is it too late?

Just like Brexit, it’s a cult and no amount of rational argument or even goading will make them reconsider their position.

Turns out you can’t stop a stupid person being stupid by calling them stupid. It just makes them angry and they do more stupid.

My first reaction to this was that it was someone taking the piss, but then I realized that he’s serious (I think, impossible to know for sure.)

Donald Trump has a more powerful serve than Andy Roddick, a better backhand than Roger Federer, and more swagger than Andre Agassi in his prime.

The tennis world needs to spend less time talking about Serena Williams and more time appreciating the greatness of Donald Trump! pic.twitter.com/fo0gNDDZuq

— Nick Adams (@NickAdamsinUSA) September 2, 2022

Just like Brexit, it’s a cult and no amount of rational argument or even goading will make them reconsider their position.

Turns out you can’t stop a stupid person being stupid by calling them stupid. It just makes them angry and they do more stupid

Well said. It’s people thinking with their emotions, not their thinky brains

My first reaction to this was that it was someone taking the piss, but then I realized that he’s serious (I think, impossible to know for sure.)

Omg that’s hilarious!

The same sort of thing the propogandists say about Kim Jong-un, isn’t it?

https://t.co/tDBxMecle8

— 🌻🌻Marnshibski🌻🌻 (@marnshibski) September 3, 2022

I do love the idea of librarians being his undoing. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-national-archives-classified-b2158785.html?amp

@stwhannah Those librarian films and the TV series weren’t fiction, documentaries every one.

Oh, the conspiracy nutters are going to have a field day with this.

10 to 1 it's Israel. https://t.co/pnnEQdxtkB

— Google “1999 Moscow apartment bombings” (@PETEKEELEY) September 7, 2022

Yeeeeeeeeeees.

It’s really frustrating, because everyone is focusing on the fact that he had these documents (which is undisputed I think?) – what I really want to know is WHY did he have them? What was he doing/intending to do with them?

It’s one thing pinching classified material – it’s another thing distributing….. or even selling it.

The trouble will be proving that latter part. They could get him for holding the docs, but proving his intention to sell to a foreign agent will be near impossible.

I’d say it is possible for him (he could get good money for them), but a prosecution would need someone to confirm that.

Wasn’t there a claim that there’s a second criminal case being investigated, linked to this one but not public? I thought there were court documents signed by same judge and interrelated evidence, but which were not made public.

With how sensitive things are it really would not surprise me if the investigating team did have more accusations, but choosing which to follow and to keep them private until full evidence is established, and without revealing national secrets as they go.

But hey, I’m getting into conspiracy theory stuff…

If you look at the photo of the docs there’s a UK government coat of arms on one of the headers

They could get him for holding the docs, but proving his intention to sell to a foreign agent will be near impossible

Just being in possession is enough. I don’t see how he gets out of this.

Oh, the conspiracy nutters are going to have a field day with this.

There really aren’t that many nuclear-capable states.. if it turns out he’s been selling Israeli nuclear secrets to the Saudis, then I’d imagine that the DOJ would be the least of his problems.

if it turns out he’s been selling Israeli nuclear secrets to the Saudis, then I’d imagine that the DOJ would be the least of his problems.

You know that Israel is run by Jews, right? (That’s not a conspiracy theory, it really is run by Jews.) So, Jared has business ties with the Saudis, Donald has the dirt on the Jewish nuclear bomb, the FBI and CIA are involved, Hunter’s laptop… etc. Every conspiracy nutter’s Christmas come true, they’ll tie this all up into some outlandish nonsense theory.

It’s one thing pinching classified material – it’s another thing distributing….. or even selling it.

Mishandling classified information is enough to get you jail time. I don’t think that is in dispute

Every conspiracy nutter’s Christmas come true, they’ll tie this all up into some outlandish nonsense theory.

We appear to be living in a reality which quite literally trumps most previous conspiracy theories. You have to be into intergalactic lizards to push the boundaries these days.

Hopefully JHJ can pop along to keep us up to date on the latest.

I suspect his reason for holding the documents was to make himself look and feel important