Month: May 2024

It’s time to go into the Wayback Machine, all the way to July 27, 2015, when Brandy Zadrozny and Tim Mak of The Daily Beast wrote about Donald Trump raping his first wife. The piece appeared six weeks after Trump descended the Trump Tower escalator to formally announce his candidacy for the presidency of the United States of America and accused Mexican immigrants of being rapists.

Donald Trump introduced his presidential campaign to the world with a slur against Mexican immigrants, accusing them of being “rapists” and bringing crime into the country.

“I mean somebody’s doing it!… Who’s doing the raping?” Donald Trump said, when asked to defend his characterization.

It was an unfortunate turn of phrase for Trump—in more ways than one. Not only does the current frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination have a history of controversial remarks about sexual assault, but as it turns out, his ex-wife Ivana Trump once used “rape” to describe an incident between them in 1989. She later said she felt “violated” by the experience.

The Daily Beast is now a subscription-only outfit, but it reports Tuesday that Trump will sue the people responsible for making a film about him called “The Apprentice” which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday night. This is in part because the movie graphically depicts Trump’s alleged rape of Ivana. Here’s part of the Washington Post review by Jada Yuan:

In details that seem to be based on a 1990 divorce deposition from Ivana Trump, we see him go under the knife, in gory detail, to get liposuction and a scalp reduction surgery, as a solution to his growing love handles and bald spot.

And we watch when, as Ivana also alleged in that deposition, Trump pushes her to the floor of their home during an argument and rapes her. (Ivana’s testimony had brought the concept of marital rape into mainstream American conversation at the time, but she recanted her statements about it in 2015.)

Vanity Fair wrote about the surgery in June 2017:

In 1990, Ivana Trump said under oath that her husband flew into a fit of rage due to the pain and displeasure with a scalp reduction surgery, performed in 1989. Also known as alopecia reduction, the surgery is intended to correct balding, and involves cutting the bald spot out and sewing the remaining skin back together. The tightened scalp can cause headaches and swelling. The man who allegedly performed the surgery was Ivana’s own doctor, Dr. Steven Hoefflin. He’s most famous for extending his services to Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor, and Joan Rivers, among other stars. Hoefflin also performed liposuction on the chin and waist of our now president, according to Ivana’s deposition. (She rescinded part of the deposition, which included rape allegations, in a 2015 statement).

Trump has always denied that he had the surgery at all, but there’s clearly something fucked up about his scalp. The story was told in Harry Hunt III’s 1993 book Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump.

After a painful scalp reduction surgery to remove a bald spot, Donald Trump confronted his then-wife, who had previously used the same plastic surgeon.

“Your fucking doctor has ruined me!” Trump cried.

What followed was a “violent assault,” according to Lost Tycoon. Donald held back Ivana’s arms and began to pull out fistfuls of hair from her scalp, as if to mirror the pain he felt from his own operation. He tore off her clothes and unzipped his pants.

“Then he jams his penis inside her for the first time in more than sixteen months. Ivana is terrified… It is a violent assault,” Hurt writes. “According to versions she repeats to some of her closest confidantes, ‘he raped me.’”

Following the incident, Ivana ran upstairs, hid behind a locked door, and remained there “crying for the rest of night.” When she returned to the master bedroom in the morning, he was there.

“As she looks in horror at the ripped-out hair scattered all over the bed, he glares at her and asks with menacing casualness: ‘Does it hurt?’” Hurt writes.

When all of this came back up in July 2015, an interesting character rose to defend Trump against the allegations.

Michael Cohen, special counsel at The Trump Organization, defended his boss, saying, “You’re talking about the frontrunner for the GOP, presidential candidate, as well as a private individual who never raped anybody. And, of course, understand that by the very definition, you can’t rape your spouse.”

“It is true,” Cohen added. “You cannot rape your spouse. And there’s very clear case law.”

At the time, more focus was on Cohen’s incorrect notion that it’s legally impossible to rape your wife than on the implications of the allegation being true. But the form of Cohen’s argument was “the incident may have happened but you can’t call it rape and you can’t speak ill of the Republican frontrunner for president.”

Ivana also reiterated a denial she had first made in 1993 at the time The Last Tycoon was published. That first denial was interesting.

“During a deposition given by me in connection with my matrimonial case, I stated that my husband had raped me,” Ivana Trump said in a statement at the time, as the Daily Beast reported. “[O]n one occasion during 1989, Mr. Trump and I had marital relations in which he behaved very differently toward me than he had during our marriage. As a woman, I felt violated, as the love and tenderness, which he normally exhibited towards me, was absent. I referred to this as a ‘rape,’ but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense.”

Cohen’s denial that spousal rape is possible landed with a thud and Trump disavowed his comments. Cohen then apologized.

“As an attorney, husband and father there are many injustices that offend me but nothing more than charges of rape or racism. They hit me at my core,” Cohen said. “Rarely am I surprised by the press, but the gall of this particular reporter to make such a reprehensible and false allegation against Mr. Trump truly stunned me. In my moment of shock and anger, I made an inarticulate comment — which I do not believe — and which I apologize for entirely.”

Notice, the form of Cohen’s denial had changed. He was no longer arguing about the semantics of a brutal sexual encounter he implicitly admitted had taken place. Now he was saying reporting of the encounter was “reprehensible and false.” Either way, Cohen was demonstrating the typically fierce defense of  Trump he was known for at the time.

Ironically, Cohen finished testifying against Trump in the Stormy Daniels hush money case on the same day as The Apprentice movie debuted in France. Trump announced he would sue the filmmakers on Tuesday, the same day his defense rested and the trial began a week-long hiatus before closing arguments.

The moviemakers depict what looks like a rape, but they aren’t prosecutors or a jury. They don’t determine how the act is legally interpreted. What’s important is that even as Ivana disavowed the word “rape” that she used in a divorce deposition, she described an encounter in which Trump acted out of anger and without love or tenderness, and which left her feeling violated. She filed for divorce shortly thereafter after it became clear that Trump was having an affair with Marla Maples.

Trump denies he had liposuction or scalp-reducing surgery, so obviously he couldn’t have been angry about how the surgery had gone. He claims it was all fabricated by Ivana as part of her effort to win more money in the divorce settlement. It presages his defense in the Stormy Daniels trial. Rather than concede that he had sex with Daniels and just argue that he wasn’t responsible for false business records produced to cover up a hush money payment, he says that the whole thing is a hoax and a witch hunt conducted in a kangaroo court.

As for Cohen, he performed the same service in both cases. He denied the charges and attacked the press, suggesting it was all political. It eventually landed him in prison. Next week, we’ll find out if lands Trump gets convicted. Later on, we’ll find out if he’ll go to prison, too.

As for the movie, I expect a lot of Americans to see it. They can judge whether what he did to Ivana is something they find acceptable in a president. Or they can just take Trump’s word for it that it never happened.

On April 11, I wrote that despite President Joe Biden’s best efforts, famine had arrived in northern Gaza and that Israel was “using famine as a weapon” in violation of international law. I warned Biden that he risked being caught up as an accomplice if he did not do more to separate himself from Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies. Today, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, requested warrants of arrest for Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for “causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, deliberately targeting civilians in conflict.” Khan also requested warrants for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh for “extermination, murder, hostage-taking, rape, and sexual assault.”

Both Hamas and Israel, joined by the Biden administration,  complained about being the equivalence implied in being mentioned in the same breath as the other, but that’s immaterial. If the warrants are approved, the Hamas and Israeli leaders will be subject to arrest if they travel internationally. Khan explained that he issued repeated warnings to Israel that this day may come.

Since last year, in Ramallah, in Cairo, in Israel and in Rafah, I have consistently emphasised that international humanitarian law demands that Israel take urgent action to immediately allow access to humanitarian aid in Gaza at scale. I specifically underlined that starvation as a method of war and the denial of humanitarian relief constitute Rome Statute offences. I could not have been clearer.

As I also repeatedly underlined in my public statements, those who do not comply with the law should not complain later when my Office takes action. That day has come.;

As I noted in April, in the immediate aftermath of the October 7 massacres, “Biden warned Israel not to be consumed with rage and repeat the mistake America made in response to the 9/11 attacks.” I wrote that he had anticipated by several months that famine would come and had screamed “bloody murder” for Israel to do more to let in more aid while also announcing a plan to build a temporary port in Gaza. That port is now operational. Biden as well as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also made clear in that time period their belief that Israel should call quick elections to replace Netanyahu because he is not fit to lead.

These are important defenses against complicity in the Gazan famine and charges of using famine as a weapon. But they won’t quiet critics and they aren’t absolute defenses. It’s a tremendous challenge to stand by Israel as an ally when their government is run by a hard-right coalition of extremists that is heedless of warnings about violating international law against war crimes. Now the Biden administration is reduced to slamming the ICC, which it does primarily for domestic political reasons but secondarily because of their own potential liability.

Because there is no plan to rebuild Gaza or any hope for new Palestinian or non-Israeli political leadership in the Strip on the horizon, the situation will only get worse, with Israel increasingly held accountable for the conditions there. This is one reason why Benny Gantz, the only member of  the three-member Israeli war cabinet who is not facing ICC arrest, is threatening Netanyahu with a withdrawal from the coalition if he doesn’t produce a plan by June 8. Gantz says the plan should include “a governing body, overseen by the U.S., European and Arab parties, and unspecified Palestinians, to manage Gaza’s civilian affairs after the war.”

Netanyahu’s hard right coalition, however, wants Gaza under Israeli control in perpetuity, preferably with no Palestinians present. This is the context in which Biden is trying to negotiate an end to hostilities and a path forward. It’s a completely unenviable situation.

 

 

June 6th is the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, and France is planning a big commemoration. As part of the festivities, President Emmanuel Macron has extended an invitation to a Russian delegation. Now, for those of you who don’t know, the Russians did not participate in D-Day. Here are the countries that contributed at least some troops: United Kingdom, United States, Canada, France, Australia, Czechoslovakia, Polish government-in-exile, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Greece, South Africa, and Southern Rhodesia.

That’s not to say the Russians didn’t play the main role in defeating the Nazis. The Soviet Union was absolutely pulverized by the German Wehrmacht. It’s estimated that an astonishing 27 million Soviets died of war-related causes, and whatever else we might say about Josef Stalin, we owe him our gratitude for refusing the give up in the face of the most formidable and brutal attack in recorded history. That level of sacrifice should be honored, and I suppose that is Macron’s reasoning.

But the other main D-Day participants aren’t amused. A U.K, official is “disturbed.” The Americans are displeased.

The White House is not pleased about the move, two administration officials told POLITICO. “We would defer to the government of France, which organizes the commemoration at Normandy,” one of the officials said. “But perhaps this will remind the Russians that they actually fought real Nazis once, not imaginary ones in Ukraine.”

Putin attended the 60th and 70th anniversaries, which is a reminder of how long he’s been in power, but he is not invited this time around. If he came, he’d probably be arrested since there’s a warrant outstanding from the International Criminal Court. And that’s really a clue for why perhaps playing by the old diplomatic niceties isn’t appropriate under current circumstances.

King Charles is scheduled to attend, as is Joe Biden and German chancellor Olaf Scholz. The three leaders represent a new alliance fighting against fascism, but now they are expected to break bread with the Russians. The French defend their position as a refusal to “revise history” by writing the Russians out of the struggle to defeat the Nazis, but the decision doesn’t honor the current struggle. The people who died or were wounded on D-Day weren’t fighting so that 80 years later new fascists could come and disingenuously honor their sacrifice.

To me, this is dishonorable and a sign of weakness. My hope is that Russians don’t have the gall to accept.

Hello again painting fans.

This week I will be continuing with the painting of the Flagstaff, Arizona scene. The photo that I’m using (My own from a recent visit.) is seen directly below.

I’ll be using my usual acrylic paints on a 6×6 inch canvas panel.

When last seen the painting appeared as it does in the photo seen directly below.

Since that time I have continued to work on the painting.

I have now started the large shrubs seen in the photo. Note that this is only the pitiful start. All will be refined later on.

The current state of the painting is seen in the photo directly below.

I’ll have more progress to show you next week. See you then.

On Thursday, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced that it will end new coal leasing in the Powder River Basin, a region that straddles the Montana and Wyoming border and represents the largest coal-producing region in the United States. The consternation was immediate, with Montana Governor Greg Gianforte saying in a statement that, “Every action taken by the Biden administration is driving up the cost of affordable energy and threatening the reliability of our electrical grid,”  and Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso accusing the White House of “waging war on Wyoming’s coal communities and families.”

Currently, Wyoming supplies more than 40 percent of the coal produced in the United States, and this BLM policy change won’t change that. Demand for coal is quickly dimming as natural gas is preferred for power stations. Natural gas is cheaper and more environmentally friendly, and there are enough extant coal leases that what demand exists can be satisfied.

But coal barons and their bought-and-sold politicians are freaking out.

“I am horrified to see the Biden administration’s latest assault on our nation’s domestic energy production,” said Senator [Cynthia] Lummis. “Wyoming has been targeted left and right by rule after rule handed down by this administration as it works to cater to the extremists within the Democratic Party. The Cowboy State produces some of the cleanest and best coal in the world. This RMP [resource management plan] will push our country to rely on foreign adversaries for energy needs at a time when our grid is pushed to the brim and Wyoming coal is needed now more than ever to power our nation and the world. I will work with my colleagues every step of the way to prevent this RMP from going into effect.”

In truth, the BLM is responding to a federal judge.

In 2022, in response to a challenge from conservation groups, a federal judge found that the two resource management plans failed to address the public health consequences of allowing massive amounts of coal, oil, and gas production from public lands and minerals in the Powder River Basin, including approximately 6 billion tons of low-grade, highly polluting coal over 20 years. The court ordered BLM to redo its environmental analysis.

In the ruling, U.S. District Judge Brian Morris found that BLM failed to comply with a previous court order directing the agency to account for the environmental and human health impacts of burning publicly owned coal. The judge also held that BLM failed to consider alternatives that would limit or end new coal leasing in the Powder River Basin in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act.

As a result, the BLM opted to end rather than merely limit new coal leasing. You’ll notice that contrary to Sen. Lummis’s claim that Wyoming produces “some of the cleanest and best coal in the world,” the coal at issue was judged to be “low-grade [and] highly polluting.”

I drove across northern Wyoming a few years ago, and it seemed like the main economic activity was coal mining. Sen. Barrasso claims that the economic costs of these restrictions will be debilitating: “This will kill jobs and could cost Wyoming hundreds of millions of dollars used to pay for public schools, roads, and other essential services in our communities.” I’m sure there will be some economic impact, but I’m not sure it will be as severe as Barrasso suggests.

What I do know is that when I think about U.S. Senators and Powder River Country, I think about the Johnson County War of 1892. I might write a whole post about that conflict, but the short version is that cattle barons grew murderously frustrated that homesteaders were legally grazing their small herds on public land they wanted to monopolize. With the full knowledge of the governor, they hired an assassination crew made up largely of employees of their Wyoming Stock Growers Association to terrorize the homesteaders. The posse carried a list of 70 people they were authorized to kill. The cattle barons controlled all the newspapers and had the state’s U.S. Senators in their pockets, and in the years leading to the war they spun a tale that the homesteaders were rustling their herds, but it was bullshit.

That same year, 1889, Johnson County juries acquitted suspects in five cattle theft cases. Big cattlemen reacted in fury, stating publicly and in private correspondence that the acquittals proved it was impossible to present evidence to a Johnson County jury—no matter how compelling—that would produce a conviction.

A close review of contemporary newspaper articles and court documents, however, shows the cases brought against the accused men to be deeply flawed, seemingly motivated by huge reward money and a frantic determination by owners of big herds to punish owners of small herds who claimed rights to grazing on public land.

When the homesteaders rose up to defend themselves and cornered the assassination posse, the governor telegraphed President Benjamin Harrison for help. When the telegraph was inexplicably not received, the two Wyoming senators awoke President Harrison in the middle of the night and convinced him to send in the military. The military arrested the assassins but only to save them from certain death. The governor then made sure that none of them faced justice for their actions.

In today’s Wyoming, the coal barons don’t have to worry about competition from homesteaders, and therefore they can more easily convince the public that environmentalists are attacking their livelihood rather than monopolizing the industry. But the average citizen of Wyoming has just as much right to public lands as the corporate bigwigs, and that means they have an interest in the preservation of the public lands.

Just as it was in the late 19th-Century, baron control of the media and the state’s politicians means that looking out for the little guy always comes last. They will spin a tale that dirty coal is clean and low-grade coal is “the best.” They’ll say the Biden administration cares more about helping China than the citizens of Wyoming. Hopefully, this time around they won’t murder anyone, but you can sure they’d support a second Trump coup should he lose the November election.

Howdy! I hope you all are getting through another week. To break at least yesterday’s Trump insanity down for us, here is Seth Meyers on A Closer Look:

Hey, we might as well laugh.

Cheers!

It’s possible that Trump is going to face some incareratory punishment before the week is out. This is because, as I noted yesterday, surrogates of the disgraced ex-president showed up outside of a Manhattan courthouse on Monday and Tuesday where he’s on trial in the Stormy Daniels hush money case, and they attacked the presiding judge’s daughter and Michael Cohen, a witness who was testifying at the time. Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, was the most prominent participant.

The reason this is problematic for Trump is that on April 1, Judge Juan Merhcan issued a clarification of his previous gag order limiting what the defendant can say about the trial outside of court. The reason the original order was revisited was that Trump had been attacking Merchan’s daughter, referred to below as “a family member of the court.” The prosecutors objected to this on Merchan’s behalf. Here’s the relevant part of the revised gag order, and I think it’s important to note that Merchan found that attacking his daughter served “no legitimate purpose” and “injects fear in those assigned or called to participate in the proceedings. ” The Judge further wrote (with italics for emphasis) that Trump’s vitriol was making family members “fair game.”

Therefore, Merchan made the following orders, and the important part here is that he not only prohibited Trump from making future attacks, but also from “directing others” to do so. This explicitly included “family members of…the Court,” meaning Merchan’s daughter. It also included witnesses like Cohen.

So, it’s very clear that Trump cannot “direct” comments against people covered by the gag order, but on Tuesday he referred to those ripping Cohen and the judge’s daughter as his “surrogates” and said they were “speaking very beautifully.” But the most damning evidence comes from journalist Andrew Rice. Rice was sitting close enough to Trump in court to see him annotating and editing the talking points his surrogates were hitting outside the courthouse. Trump was doing this during Cohen’s testimony.

Wow. Andrew Rice says on MSNBC that yesterday during the trial he personally witnessed Trump "editing" and "making notations" to quotes his Republican allies made to the press. pic.twitter.com/99643vJkxN

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 15, 2024

Wednesday is a day off from the trial, but on Thursday I hope Judge Merchan demands that Trump turn over these annotations for his review. In addition to Rice’s description, further evidence of foul play was provided by some of the surrogates, including Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama.

Tommy Tuberville admits on Newsmax that "one of the reasons he went" to NYC yesterday was to "overcome this gag order" pic.twitter.com/cGCK5iAcsZ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 14, 2024

Now, to be clear, Sen. Tommy Tuberville is not subject to the gag order, but Trump is not allowed to direct him or others to say things that are barred under the order. By referring to the attackers, including Tuberville, as his “surrogates” and approving of their “beautiful” words, Trump is definitely walking right up to the line. But if he was providing them direction in the form of talking points, he definitely defied the order.

Merchan has already found Trump in criminal contempt of court twice and imposed ten $1,000 fines which is the maximum allowed for individual violations of the gag order under New York State law. But he realizes that this paltry sum isn’t a deterrent to someone of Trump’s wealth, particularly when he fundraises off of every sanction. That’s why he warned on April 30, that he may have to imprison Trump for future transgressions.

The judge explained that because the fines, which are limited by state law, were relatively little in comparison to Trump’s wealth, they might be unlikely to deter the former president from abiding by the court’s order. Merchan said that while he would prefer to impose commensurately larger fines, he instead had to consider “whether in some instances, jail may be a necessary punishment.”

I believe the prosecutors would need to raise these issues with the judge in order for him to act, and maybe they think the trial is going well and don’t want to interrupt the flow by pushing for Trump’s incarceration. Yet, theres’s no reason to believe these surrogate attacks will stop on their own, and their purpose is to intimidate. Frankly, the judge’s daughter is under attack and deserves protection.

If Trump will not produce his notes, I believe he should be locked up. And if does produce the notes and they indicate that Rice’s account is correct, he should also be locked up. And, I can definitely see either outcome actually happening, as shocking as it is to contemplate.

Now, I recently told you that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is now beholden to congressional Democrats for his gavel. The Democrats came to his rescue when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia initiated a motion to vacate the chair, which is a term for creating a vacancy in the Speakership. Ten House Republicans voted to remove Johnson from power which was well more than was needed if the vote was strictly partisan.

I also told you that this means that Johnson serves at the Democrats’ pleasure. That’s true because any member of the House can bring a new motion to vacate the chair, and the motion is privileged and can be invoked at any time. So, not only can Greene or some other Republican House member move to remove Johnson again, but the same is true for all the Democrats in the House. And each time there is a vote, the Democrats have the option of ousting Johnson.

On Tuesday, Speaker Johnson traveled to a courthouse in Manhattan to demonstrate his fealty to Donald Trump who is on trial for 34 felony counts related to his hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels. He attacked the case, he attacked a witness and he attacked the judge’s daughter.

As a key witness testified inside the Manhattan criminal courthouse on Tuesday morning, an increasingly familiar scene unfolded outside, as another in a parade of well-known visitors — this time House Speaker Mike Johnson — stepped to a microphone.

“This is a man who is clearly on a mission for personal revenge,” Mr. Johnson said, attacking the man on the stand, Michael D. Cohen, former fixer to Donald J. Trump. “He is someone who has a history of perjury. No one should believe a word he says in there.”

….Mr. Johnson took a shot at the judge’s daughter, a political consultant who has worked with Democratic candidates, saying she was “making millions of dollars doing online fund-raising for Democrats.”

Donald Trump is under a gag order not to attack the judge’s family members (as well as witnesses and prosecutors) after he spread false allegations about the daughter’s defunct Twitter/X account. But that hasn’t prevented surrogates like Sen. Rick Scott of Florida from falsely accusing her of raising tens of millions of dollars for Democrats. She is a political consultant who has worked for both candidates and left-leaning organizations, but she is not some massive fundraiser.

Now that Johnson has decided to join the chorus of Trump toadies attacking a sitting judge’s daughter, I think there’s good reason to revisit whether the Democrats want to be led by him. They essentially elected him the Speaker of the bipartisan majority coalition responsible for enacting must-pass legislation like appropriations, extending the debt ceiling, and providing foreign and military assistance to our allies. This coalition is made up primarily of Democrats, and they saved Johnson because his willingness to defy his own party to get needful things done.

But if he doesn’t behave himself, they can toss him. I don’t think he is behaving himself.

Well, look at this. According to New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena College surveys, the Democrats are ahead in most of the key 2024 Senate races even as Biden is being slaughtered in the swing states and is on course to lose his reelection bid. And the disparate results come from the same states. Trump is ahead in Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and Pennsylvania, and he is one point behind in Wisconsin. The Democratic Senate candidates are ahead in Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. There are no Senate races in Georgia or Michigan in this cycle.

Amazingly, the accompanying analysis argues that Trump’s coattails may not be sufficient to carry the Republicans to a Senate majority, when one would expect to hear the opposite argument–that a man who is currently on trial for 34 felonies, and is facing three other felony trials, in addition to recently being found liable for sexual assault and defamation and having his company convicted of fraud, is a drag on his party’s Senate candidates.

This is why we’re seeing commentators like CNN’s Fareed Zakaria arguing that Biden is very unlikely to win in November. I don’t want to believe it, but I am not going to stick my head in the sand either. Nate Cohn says the problem is that young and non-white voters are still behaving like Democrats downticket, but they have turned on Biden:

What’s more surprising is the U.S. Senate results. This is the first time we’ve asked about Senate races this year, and the Democratic candidates led in all four of the states we tested: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada.

Not only do Democrats lead, but they also seem to do so in an entirely customary way, with ordinary levels of support from young and nonwhite voters, even as Mr. Biden struggles at the top of the ticket.

Take a look at Nevada:

Nevada was ground zero for this striking ticket splitting. Mr. Trump led the poll by a staggering 12 points among registered voters, thanks to an eye-popping nine-point lead among Hispanic voters and a 13-point lead among those 18 to 29.

But in the Senate race, everything looks “normal.” The Democratic senator Jacky Rosen led her likeliest Republican challenger by two points among registered voters, including a 46-27 lead among those 18 to 29 and a 46-28 lead among Hispanics.

Remarkably, 28 percent of Mr. Trump’s Hispanic supporters and 26 percent of his young supporters back Ms. Rosen.

The Nevada results seem like an outlier even among these other bad results for Biden, but I think it’s reasonable to feel some degree of panic here.

David Jackson of USA Today has an article on Donald Trump’s preparations for a possible guilty verdict in the Stormy Daniels hush money case. On Friday, the prosecution announced they only have two witnesses left to call, including former Trump hatchet man Michael Cohen, and may well finish their presentation of the evidence by the end of next week. Astonishingly, Jackson manages to write an extensive piece without once contemplating a possible sentence if Trump is convicted. This seems to be a trend. Every time I see an article of this genre, I read it in the hope of getting some analysis of how Judge Juan Merchan might rule, and I generally get nothing.

An exception comes from David Stobbe of The Dispatch who looks at the logistics of sending an ex-president who has Secret Service protection to prison. He also helpfully discusses New York’s typical practices in cases like this, meaning Class E felonies. The maximum sentence is 4 years but of course he’s facing 34 counts. It’s highly unlikely that Merchan would treat each count separately, but theoretically he could. In practice, the sentencing range is more in the probation to two years range. Assuming the eventual sentence involves at least a few days of incarceration, the question is whether Trump would be free on appeal. Arguing in favor of this is the fact that he’s:

• a first-time offender,
• due to his age considered a vulnerable inmate, and
• in possession of a demonstrated record of showing up for his court appearances and not considered a flight risk.

I might add, he’s also a presidential candidate and jailing him would prevent him from campaigning.

The length of sentence will dictate which organization oversees his incarceration:

If Trump is sentenced to less than one year, the New York City Department of Correction would get the honor of dealing with the resulting headache (which includes figuring out how Secret Service protection factors into the incarceration). A sentence of more than a year would punt it to the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Service. Officials in both jurisdictions are probably praying the other gets responsibility. For both, the combination of Trump’s unique prison vulnerability, profile, and Secret Service protection would likely mean an unused section of an existing facility would have to be activated or some other structure would have to be designated as a temporary correction facility.

Now, there are still things I am curious about that are lacking in this analysis. First is the idea of being a first-time offender. In this case, this clearly means that Trump has never before been criminally convicted of a crime in New York, or any place else. But that doesn’t mean he has a good record in New York. Just in the time period since he was elected president in 2016, he’s paid out a $25 million judgment for running the fraudulent Trump University, and been held civilly liable for sexual assault and defamation. The Trump Foundation, a supposedly charitable organization, was shut down for misconduct, and Trump was fined $2 million for misusing charitable funds for his own political gain. And the Trump Organization was found guilty of criminal tax fraud and falsifying business records. In a criminal case involving falsifying business records, it seems like Trump has some priors, and I wonder if Merchan can consider that record when deciding on a sentence.

Second, there’s the matter of the so-far ten counts of criminal contempt of court that Merchan has issued to Trump during this trial. If the typical first-time offender only receives probation in cases like this involving falsifying business records, that doesn’t necessarily apply to defendants who show repeated contempt for the proceedings. And, of course, these contempt citations only arose because of a gag order that Trump violated. The gag order was only necessary because of Trump’s recored of intimidating witnesses and jurors. So, it’s a big ball of wax, and on the whole it presents an incentive to send a message to future defendants not to go after family members or staff of the presiding judge or otherwise try to terrorize the justice system and the integrity of trials.

And finally there’s the matter of remorse and accountability. A defendant who refuses to accept the guilty verdict and ask for forgiveness presumably can expect a harsher sentence. After all, in such situations there’s no reason to believe they won’t repeat their crime at the first opportunity.

I can imagine Merchan citing these considerations in choosing to impose a period of incarceration on the president. I don’t know that he will, but he can amply justify it. And some of the same considerations can go into whether the sentence will be stayed pending appeal. I’d argue that Trump actually is a flight risk. Imagine that he loses the election while his New York case in on appeal. What’s his incentive to stay in the United States knowing that he faces prison in not only the hush money case but the Georgia criminal case and two federal cases?

As for him being a vulnerable defendant due to his age, his Secret Service protection eliminates that as a concern. His record of inciting violence, most famously on January 6, 2021, also argues in favor of not leaving him free to rail against the nation’s legal systems.

I don’t envy Merchan if he has to make these decisions. There simply are not any solutions that will avoid vociferous criticism. As an example, imagine that he gives Trump some jail time but frees him on appeal to avoid disrupting the campaign. If Trump is then elected and takes office in the interim, and then loses his appeal, we’ll have a president in prison.

We should talk about these possibilities more, especially in articles that are purportedly about the outcome of this case.