I don’t know who needs to be reminded of this (cough, cough), but you are not bound to obey an unlawful order. And it’s not contemptuous to refuse to obey an unlawful order either. You run the risk that you’re wrong, of course, & that a higher court will therefore say you ARE in violation of a lawful order & impose consequences.

But, it’s still true that you don’t have to obey an order that is unlawful while the courts take their time figuring it out.

This was the only just outcome. These people were ALL over-charged, over-prosecuted, had unconstitutional conditions imposed on them when released pre-trial, had the most draconian & unlawful pleas imposed on them, & were over-sentenced.

https://twitter.com/foxnews/status/1881515033563455659

Not even the cases where there was bad behavior by defendants were handled appropriately so as to justify the punishments handed out.

DJT has appeared at the sentencing with Todd Blanche, seated in front of an American flag.

Per CNN Bragg’s office has asked for the unconditional discharge sentence.

So you know. I would never counsel a client to not show up for a court hearing, especially a sentencing.

However, as I said last night on Spaces, if it were me - if I were the client- in this situation, I would absolutely not attend the sentencing hearing tomorrow. I would instead have my lawyer put out a statement explaining that I view the hearing as ultra vires so I’m not attending.

I’m happy the Right of Center now sees how awful the criminal justice system is.

But don’t expect me to be particularly outraged at how these prosecutors & judges have acted because IT’S NOT NEW & IT’S NOT NEWS TO ME.

It’s been this way the whole time & you didn’t care before. So welcome to the fight, but don’t act like you are dropping breaking news on me, because you are actually late to the party, and I have been at this party since 1996.

Judicial Appointments. DJT's new administration needs to put pedal to the metal on judicial appointments.

Right now the breakdown of all federal judges is:

496 appointed by Dem POTUSs;
382 by Repub POTUSs. Biden appointed fewer than DJT, 214 to 237 as of today.

But, Biden still has two months to put thru appointments, and has about 40 pending. That would then eclipse DJT's number.

House update. As we know the Republican took control yesterday with 2 non-California seats. Since then 2 more seats have resolved; 1 for Ds, 1 for Rs. These were tossup seats.

There are now 6 races left. Alaska's at-large seat and 5 CA races. Right now it stands: R219 to R210. Of the 6 remaining races, Rs will almost certainly win the AK race.

3 of the CA races that are D leaners - 1 is still w/in 1%, 1 is 2.4%D, and 1 is 2.5%R.

So, Rs will likely take 1, maybe 2 of these races.

These liberal loons are lucky that Trump ISN’T the kind of person who would illegally & unconstitutionally use the powers of his office to target his enemies & critics, because some of them actually fucking deserve it. They won’t like having accountability imposed on them within constitutional limits either, but that’s too fucking bad.

Fortunately for them, our love (& DJT’s) for the Constitution will protect them from what some of them did to him.

In the "it's never too early to get started" department, these are the Senators up for election in 2 years:

1. Alaska (Sullivan)(R)
2. Alabama (Tuberville)(R)
3. Arkansas (Cotton)(R)
4. Colorado (Hickenlooper)(D)
5. Delaware (Coons)(D)
6. Georgia (Ossoff)(D)
7. Idaho (Risch)(R) 8. Illinois (Durbin)(D)
9. Iowa (Ernst)(R)
10. Kansas (Marshall)(R)
11. Kentucky (McConnell)(R)
12. Louisiana (Cassidy)(R)
13. Maine (Collins)(R)
14. Massachusetts (Markey)(D)
15. Michigan (Peters)(D)
16. Minnesota (Smith)(D)
17. Mississippi (Hyde-Smith)(R)

Let’s check on Jennifer Rubin. Her pinned tweet. 👇🏻🤣🤣🤣
Let’s check on Andrew Weissmann:

No tweets for the last 12 hours. Oh dear! 🤣

If you’re a traditionalist & planning to vote tomorrow, as I am, be sure to have a plan.

Get on your official state election site today & double check the opening & closing hours of the polls (& the address if it’s new to you.) Put that in your phone or write it down. Don’t let the day get away from you because of other things. Plan to go at a specific time & plan around it.

But pick out two times during the day when you could go, in case stuff happens tomorrow & you have to change your schedule around.

Election prediction.

My personal view is that the Lichtman keys are the best tool for predicting the outcome of an election. They cover the things that actually factor into why people vote as they do.

That being said, I don’t always agree with how Lichtman scores the keys. For example, this year he claims 8 of the keys favor Harris (scored as “trues”), which means she should win.

But when I score them, I get at a minimum 6, & more fairly 8, & more aggressively 10, as “false,” which would mean a Trump win.

Accordingly, I think DJT wins this year.

Supremes rule (6-3) for Virginia in voter roll case.

I’m glad because I really couldn’t see what else the Governor was supposed to do in order to himself stay within the law.

usatoday.com/story/news/pol… The SCOTUS ruling stays the district (federal trial) court’s ruling while any appeal (4th Circuit) & petition for cert to the SCOTUS is pending.

This lets the legal issue become final - & the law thereby become established - before Youngkin & other election officials must act.

Bannon case.

Judge Nichols has now ruled on Bannon's request to be released with Bail or put on Supervised Release (so he can use his First Step Act credits of ten days, which would mean he should have been released on Oct 19th), but there is something not right with the order. The order, which is a "minute order" -which in DC federal court means an order written into the docket as opposed to an order that's a separate document that gets filed on the docket- says that the judge finds the relief Bannon asks for is "warranted," but it DENIES the motion.

Steve Bannon case. I've seen social media claiming that Bannon is being held by the Bureau of Prisons past his lawful release date in violation of the First Step Act. I've looked into this & the claim is not legally correct because of the technical way the First Step Act works. Bannon is set to be released on Oct 29, 2024 after serving his 4 month sentence. Judge Nichols sentenced him to only that plus a fine.

Bannon is not eligible for ordinary good time credits because those only apply to prisoners with a sentence of more than 1 year.

My hometown Congressional District -MD 6- is in a tight race this year. It’s the Mountain Maryland district. Which is solidly Republican (really libertarians who vote Republican) except it’s been gerrymandered to be blue by adding sections of liberal Montgomery County to it. This is a seat that could likely nevertheless still be consistently red if the Republican Party paid more attention to it.

Central Maryland is liberal, but Mountain Maryland (MD6) and Coastal Maryland (MD1) are not. They are libertarian & conservative.

Because he knows there’s absolutely no justification whatsoever to hit a woman in the face because he didn’t like how she’s acting.

He has no defense to being a domestic abuser.

Even if he wants to say he’s not the candidate, he should still admit the conduct & regret it.

https://twitter.com/shipwreckedcrew/status/1844833787168821280

Someone could have mitigation to this - like an alcohol or drug problem, or a mental health issue that they’re dealing with. But if that were true then he’d be more humble about it & he’d apologize & explain that he wasn’t well then & has tried to do all he can to make amends.

For anyone not understanding the 6th Amendment (confrontation) issue, I’ll try to explain it simply.

It’s subtle, so can be easily missed or misunderstood. Normally facts are established in criminal cases by presenting evidence, which is then subject to cross examination and/or confrontation. The confrontation is part of the package. It colors the evidence offered. It can contradict that evidence on the spot, making it worthless.

DJT DC case.

“Facts” & allegations “supported” by evidence (testimony, statements, documents) that hasn’t been subject to cross examination or confrontational techniques are not properly or constitutionally established.

They thus cannot satisfy the govt’s burden of proof. The manner in which Judge Chutkan is permitting the Special Counsel to develop the “factual record” - as directed by the Supreme Court to determine the question of immunity in the case - is patently unfair & a violation of the 6th Amendment.

The reason Kamala Harris so often spins out “word salad” - statements or answers to questions that string together a lot of words but contain very little meaning - is that she’s a narcissist.

There’s a certain type of them that’s very performative, but is lacking intellectually. Because they have no ideas, feelings, or values of their own as narcissists, they can only simulate them by regurgitating things they’ve heard others say. And they know what intellect “sounds” like - the very educated or smart often use more words & complex sentence structure.

Hunter Biden plea. So you know:

An “Alford” plea is a plea where the defendant concedes that the govt has sufficient proof for conviction by a jury but still maintains that he is actually innocent.

The federal prosecutors almost never agree to an Alford plea in a plea deal. Technically, as the defense you can ask the court to accept an Alford plea w/o the govt’s agreement.

99.9999999% of the time, the court will not accept an Alford plea w/o the govt agreeing.