Could be an interesting time with a felon in the White House

Felon Donald Trump was scheduled for a pre-sentencing interview with a probation officer after his hush money trial conviction last month. The interview will be virtual and Trump attorney Todd Blanche will be present. Typically, a convicted defendant meets with a probation officer without an attorney. Trump does not have to cooperate with the routine pre-sentencing investigation, but a judge can take a negative inference from a defendant’s lack of cooperation with the process.

[Hypothetically, if felon Trump ends up in the White House in January, not only will he have to see a probation lawyer but also be tested for drugs. Of course, Trump will end up quashing the guilty verdict by pardoning himself. He will claim he is not a felon (or maybe was never) but according to the Department of Justice web site, the felony conviction is there for life.]

“You know, we have 88,000 missing children now. … That’s a holocaust. That’s as bad as, I mean, think of it.” During Trump reign, he implemented a “zero tolerance” policy at the border that resulted in children being separated from their families. The policy was widely condemned before Trump reversed course. After President Biden took office, he formed a task force to identify about 5,000 children who had been separated from their families. The children aren’t missing — and they aren’t dead. They haven’t responded to phone calls from a government agency.

[Trump used a New York Times article in 2022 saying “the agency could not reach more than 85,000 children” – not missing. Adding to the fact that he’s comparing supposedly missing children to the holocaust.]

The day before the conviction of felon Trump in the hush money trial, someone posted on Facebook claiming that Trump has been convicted. Judge Merchan got word of it about a week later and informed the lawyers. Unsure if anything can be done. The individual [if real] is a non anti-Biden, pro-Trump supporter.

Trump has told potential wealthy donors recently that they’ll get a better tax bill with him in charge; without his help, he says, they could face “the biggest tax increase in history.” Extending all of the Trump tax law [that was put in place during the Trump reign] would add $4.6 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Trump is still claiming they can lower the taxes for all [not just wealthy] while bringing down inflation and the debt.

Meanwhile, Biden and other global leaders have marched toward a unified corporate minimum tax rate of 15 percent to prevent businesses from shopping around the world for tax havens. A lower corporate rate, as some Republicans seek, would unwind that arrangement.

Trump was on Capitol Hill for the first time since the Trump Insurrection and had some comments. While he did the usual ranting, he said:

• Trump was ranting about crime rates and so-called election integrity issues, Trump called Milwaukee – where Republicans are holding their convention this summer – “horrible.” A Republican from Wisconsin had to butt in saying Trump meant the crime in the city and not the city itself. But the mayor said his comment is about the city and “could cost him the election.” [I doubt it.]
• “Why would she [Taylor Swift] endorse this dope [President Biden]… He doesn’t know how to get off a stage.”
• Trump called Nancy Pelosi’s daughter a “wacko” and then claimed her daughter once told him that he and Pelosi would have had a “great romance” in another life, according to a lawmaker in the room. In response to Trump’s comments, one of Pelosi’s daughters posted on X: “speaking for all 4 Pelosi daughters — this is a LIE. His deceitful, deranged obsession with our mother is yet another reason Donald Trump is unwell, unhinged and unfit to step foot anywhere near her — or the White House.”
• Trump boasts that all but two who voted to impeach him are off Capitol Hill.

Trump is claiming it was him only who set up the $35/month insulin mandatory cap and not Biden. He said “It was all done long before he so sadly entered office. All he does is try to take credit for things done by others, in this case, ME!” Trump created the program that was announced in 2020 and launched in the final month of the Trump presidency in 2021. But it was Biden who implemented it, in particularly with the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Biden’s policy applies the $35-per-month cap to every insulin user in Medicare Part D, $35 cap to Medicare Part B and $35 cap on all covered insulin products. Trump’s policy didn’t and covered some insulin products.

At a rally, Trump said migrants are let in as part of a plot to import voters who will help his opponent, though non-citizen voting is illegal in almost all cases and extremely rare. He accuses them of “taking the place” of American kids in schools and even “poisoning the blood of our country” — a statement that half of Americans agreed with in recent polling.

Trump has always stated he would pardon those sentenced in the Trump Insurrection. Now he said it would be on a case by case basis.

[So that means if you give him a crap load of money, you will be pardoned. If you can’t afford to pay, you are up a creek without a paddle.]

US District Judge Aileen M. Cannon ruled that she will delete a paragraph in the federal superseding indictment against Trump that alleges he mishandled classified materials after he left the White House and thwarted officials’ attempts to retrieve them. A case that will never go to trial. The judge said that prosecutors’ inclusion of paragraph 36 — which alleges Trump showed a classified document in September 2021 about a military operation to someone without a security clearance — is inappropriate because it is not connected to a specific crime that Trump is accused of committing.

[Judge Cannon’s career as a judge could be short lived according to some. She has made a mess of the case from the start. Some are asking why an inexperienced district judge got this case. On the other hand, she could be the Attorney General under a Trump if he wins.]

The Supreme Court struck down a federal ban on bump stocks approved by Trump, the latest opinion from the conservative court rolling back firearm regulations. Bump stocks allow a shooter to convert a semi-automatic rifle into a weapon that can fire at a rate of hundreds of rounds a minute. Trump had pushed for the ban in response to a 2017 mass shooting that killed 58 people at an outdoor music festival in Las Vegas.

[The ruling was divided along political lines with all conservatives voting against. Another Trump loss.]

So with the conviction of Hunter Biden on gun charges, one of Trump’s arguments regarding justice is mostly shot down. Trump has always claimed that the justice departments is out to get him and not others. So this mostly kills it as we know Trump will claim that Biden should have had more charges. Sentencing could be in October, weeks before the elections. Of note, there are some Republicans siding with Hunter Biden because it is related to gun laws. Many of them says there is some conspiracy theories – headed by Marjorie Taylor Greene.

[President Biden has already said he won’t pardon his son. Something I’m sure Trump would do to someone in his family. Of course an appeal will follow. Hunter Biden will probably end up with probation as a first time offender – and son of a President. Note that Trump also has had at least one greater family member with addiction. Within a month a former president and a son of a sitting president found guilty. Never had either of these before.]

[Trump was found guilty in NYC where supposedly (according to him) everyone dislikes him because of him or as a Republican. Compare that with Hunter Biden’s conviction where it is in the Biden family’s home state of Delaware – where many knows about them.]

Hunter Biden has more serious federal charges for a trial that will happen in September and could result in maybe 17 years in prison. This is for tax issues.

In a new book coming out [just in time for the elections!] about his years running The Apprentice TV “show”, Trump said this about Taylor Swift in the book: “I think she’s beautiful — very beautiful! I find her very beautiful. I think she’s liberal. She probably doesn’t like Trump. I hear she’s very talented,” he said. “I think she’s very beautiful, actually — unusually beautiful!”

[Creepy and weird.]

Trump lovers have claimed that Swift had been rumored to be a secret Republican during the 2016 election cycle. But in 2020, she voted for the Democrats saying once “these aren’t your dad’s Republicans”. She was upset at various things that happened during Trump’s reign.

[Anything to get a few young votes.]

Oh and Happy Birthday, Donnie the Felon.