Maybe the guy in charge of representing the United States should ask the Trump attorney if Trump is immune to repercussion if he gives the official order to drone-strike the Supreme Court.

Well, we can safely assume that Trump will chicken out of the debate he's agreed to. On top of every other reason he's doomed to lose such an event: the Secret Service will be in the room to treat him like a suspected assassin from whom the President much be protected (which he has tried to do when he had a Covid infection), and not the other way around. Which means he's got to be remote, which means he's easy to turn off if he tries anything.

All of which assumes he's not already in a New York State prison, of course. One of the remote debaters being forced to participate in his prison greens, and absent any grooming aids not approved by the system, would be less than flattering to that debater (if NYS-DOCCS even lets it happen, which is unlikely).

Oh, and the smart money is that his defense attorneys will up the dosage on his sleeping pills if that's what it takes to force him to similarly chicken out of testifying under oath in his trial. If he does that, we can safely wager whatever we want he'd be in prison by June.

You know as well as I do that Trump could spend the entire debate making nothing but fart noises, and it would make absolutely no difference to his popularity.

It wouldn't hurt him with his base, but they can't elect anyone. It would hurt him with the otherwise clueless, who'd basically be reminded of all the things they've been repressing about why they hated his term of office.

Anyone who's "forgotten" what Trump was like never thought he was that bad to begin with. If they weren't bothered about the incompetence, corruption and bigotry the first time around, they're unlikely to care much more now.

To that segment of the voting public, Trump was just some arseclown whose antics were good for a laugh but didn't affect them personally, so what's the problem with voting for him again?

I think the ones who will actually be bothered to vote can be reminded (Trump is losing among the 'voted in 20 and 22' crowd). But that aside.

He's now talking about leaving the country if he loses the election. Ok, fine; but assuming he's not already in prison at the time, then he would still be out on bail on felony indictments in several jurisdictions. Leaving the country would be yet another felony in all of them (bail jumping), and the Secret Service agents on his detail would be obliged to be unamused.

Still, one suspects he'd try if he could; staying wouldn't be much fun for a number of reasons.

Tempted as I am to be singing 'Donald Trump's a convict scum, doo dah, doo dah', I wouldn't do that. It would be wrong. But it will be interesting to see how he behaves between now and the sentencing in July; since it will be the job of his lawyers to impress on him that the judge has the absolute right to send him to Sing Sing and plenty of cause already, while his personal inclination will be to BS his way past that.

Equally interesting will be what the polls look like in two weeks in the swing states, between this and the Republicans abandoning the airwaves to the Democrats (aside from a friendly billionaire in Pennsylvania, there's no Republican spending worth discussing in any of the swing states; literally not a penny by the party itself).

I thought the sentencing would be on June 11?

Also, I won't show the same restrain as you do:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BQZCIEsroM

July 11. Just before the Republicans are supposed to nominate him. And color me surprised that John Oliver went there. Yup, real surprised.

It's just a cut from a series of skits that took place a few years ago, when he was still president:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9mbhr4YYRg

I just posted the bit that was still relevant now.

Just for what it's worth: two weeks ago Trump was up 4 to 5 points in national polls with a screen of 'all adults', and two days after he was found guilty of various naughtiness 'all adults' was tied. Whatever else might honestly be said about it, one can't say it's helped Trump's campaign in the short term.

Sentencing him is probably going to be fun, btw. If imprisoned it has to be straight into mandatory solitary confinement for the duration; he's too likely to trade national secrets for (as Michael Cohen put it) a bag of tuna or a book of stamps. Always assuming he isn't instantly killed at the behest of one of his plutocratic or dictatorial buddies to make sure he doesn't betray one of their secrets in the same manner.

1. YAAAAAAY.
2. I'm just gonna enjoy Trump being a big fat loser.
3. John Oliver is a treasure.
4. Most legal experts don't expect Trump to face any jail time, first time convicted white collar criminals rarely do, even the ones who aren't ex-presidents. They think he'll just get probation. But can they at least take his phone away? Pretty please?
5. Unfortunately Trump can still vote in Florida as long as he stays out of jail; New York only disenfranchises felons in prison, and Florida doesn't disenfranchise felons convicted in other states.
6. I'm not sure how much of an impact traditional political ads make on voters anymore given the existence of Fox News, the right wing media ecosystem, plus the armies of podcasters, YouTubers, and social media ranters, many of whom are willing to spread Trump propaganda for ad dollars and macho branded herbal supplement sales.
7. The loss of door-knocking campaigns probably would make a difference to getting out the vote, but right-wing churches probably make up for a lot of that.
8. I don't expect the polls to move much. Maybe like two points down. Temporarily. It's still months to November.

Just FWIW on point 4: most first time white collar convicts don't make a point of pissing in the judge's beer while attacking him, his family, his staff, and the rule of law. They especially don't go on national media to do it. Finally, they don't blow off the pre-sentencing interview; which is pretty much a given in this case.

Merchan has been bending over backward to be nice to Trump through this whole trial; but Trump's tying his hands. He really has no choice but to imprison him, and even the Republican whores at the appellate level of New York's courts won't be able to do much about it so long as we see all the appropriate jots and tittles.

Yeah it was a running gag because, of course, we didn't get him. >.<

Ah, well.

Interesting bit of data, btw. There's a Democratic polling house, Navigator Research, whos thing is running and publishing real polls; on the basis that it's politically useful to know what people really think about politically salient subjects and who would respond to what appeal. It's kind of the opposite number of all the right wing polling houses who get paid to lie that Republicans are doing better than they really are, in order to distort polling aggregators and warp public opinion (it's a great deal of why Republicans so consistently underperform the polls in actual elections these days).

Now because it's coming from where it's coming from, Navigator took the very rare step of segregating the data of the double haters. It's thought to be about 1/7th (14%) of the electorate right now, and they're basically going to decide who's the next president. So what do they think about Trump's 34 felony convictions?

Short form, two out of three think Trump should not be running at all. It doesn't look like they'll be breaking his way this time come the election, they way they did back in 2016 to put him over the top.

Oh, and just for what it's worth: for all that folks speak ill of him, Trump is now one of those increasingly common professional Republicans who can prove that he has convictions.