So nobody's actually seen the charges yet, have they? The speculation I've heard that Bragg probably stacked up multiple fraud charges for each of the 11 payments Trump gave Stormy Daniels.

Also, since this is a state level prosecution, they can't actually get him for federal campaign finance violations, so they'll have to focus on his creative accounting within the state of New York. Meh. It's the old getting Al Capone for tax evasion play.

I'm gonna wait for someone to do something more interesting, like indict Trump for trying to steal either the election or the giant pile of classified documents.

Well, he has been arrested. That makes the second time an ex-president managed that little trick; though Grant wasn't indicted at the time (he just paid his fine for speeding).

I'm waiting to see what kind of restrictions the judge is going to slap him with, besides an all but inevitable gag order.

What gag order? He's still mouthing off.

It looks to me like the "falsifying business records" part is a slam dunk, but they might have trouble sufficiently proving "in furtherance of a crime". If that's the case, they'll only be able to convict him of a misdemeanor.

Proving an underlying crime shouldn't be too hard, since there are a number of them involved; election fraud under state law, election fraud under federal law, tax fraud for TrumpCo, and tax fraud for Michael Cohen. Any one of them will do, and none of them need to be charged to be established. It's also precedented under New York law (or so I read) for a Federal crime to be the underlying crime even if it can't be charged, so that talking point won't get far.

Oh, and I hear the right-wing lie machine is trying to turn $25 dollars in political donations into the Watergate break-in. Well, maybe not that specific crime; but something equivalent. I'm inclined to doubt it will work any better than the rest of their weaseling involving this case; but that's the hand they dealt themselves, so they've got to play it.

So Murdoch settled the Fox News Dominion libel case. He paid Dominion about half of the $1.6 billion they asked for and Fox News will learn nothing, except maybe to stick to lying about people with fewer lawyers.

glob. Dominion should really have made it to the trial.

Eh, there's still another trail coming for Fox; and this time there's $2.6 billion as an ask and all of the legal heavy lifting has been done.

As for Dominion, well, they settled for the value of the company plus 35 years of gross revenues all in one check. And everyone but the lowlifes who watch Fox understand that they proved their case and Fox caved. Now they get to go after the smaller fry who don't have 3/4 of a billion dollars (like the lousy pillow guy), and will have no interest in settling. So we'll still get some legal porn out of the deal.

The lowlifes' eyeballs are all Fox cares about. I mean Fox is kinda screwed either way. If they stop shovelling the fact-free outrage bait their audience demands, they wither. If they don't stop shovelling lies, they get sued.

But as big and ugly as they pay-out is, I think Rupert Murdoch can swing it (he'll probably have liability insurance cover a chunk of it), and he's not going to force a fundamental change in Fox's behaviour. They'll maybe just get a bit smarter about their lying.

I think the tail's wagging the dog at this point. The right wing alternative fact-o-sphere has achieved fission chain reaction and if big corporations stop selling them the fuel, they'll spawn a dozen more Alex Joneses on their own to supply it.

Quick thought on the rape case: if Trump doesn't show up to testify, then his lawyer can't defend him (only attack her, which is not the bestest way to deal with a rape case); and the jury is free to decide he's admitting guilt by hiding from the case. But if he does show then he doesn't have much choice but blatant perjury; because pretty clearly he did do what she accused him of (everything he's done so far regarding this case is pretty much a signed confession), and simply taking the fifth repeatedly negates any possible benefit of him showing up. But perjury or the 5th is all he's got, so he may actually try it.

Now Trump being found guilty of rape is blatantly not a problem for male Republican voters. But even the most dedicated of Republican women can get a bit funny about rapists; recall what happened to that letter where a bunch of female Republican operatives stated that Kavanaugh was always a gentleman, once they realized that they were defending him specifically for being a rapist (they all repudiated or backed away from it). That's not how general election magic is made for either Trump or his ostensible party.

Rape charge or no, it doesn't look as though the Republicans have found anyone else to nominate. Ron DeSantis is burning his 15 minutes of fame on an idiotic crusade against Disney, Nikki Haley is the candidate nobody asked for, and the MAGAs would still see Mike Pence as a traitor if they bothered to think of him at all, which they don't. Maybe one of the randos in the back will rise to the top in the next 1.5 years, but it seems unlikely. So the old turd will probably limp to the nomination again with about 30% of the primary vote.

Sigh. So as much as I want to believe that there's no way that Americans would put that urinal cake of a human being back in the White House, I'm not going to completely discount the possibility. Between all the election shenanigans (they'll learn to cheat better next time), a meh economy, Biden's mediocre poll numbers, and the fact that society wants to forget the Covid was ever a thing, we're probably looking at another trench warfare 51%-49% election battle. The only thing that would save Biden's arse is *banned topic*.

Perhaps; but there are a lot of phony independents who will sit out the top of the ticket if they can't lie to themselves that they're not just another lowlife Republican if they don't. Trump's going to be alienating a lot of them again, much like last time when Republican senators were elected in states Trump lost (but this time it would be worse).

Which is not to say that the Republicans won't do everything corrupt and criminal that they can to steal power; but their ability to do it in states they don't actually run is somewhat diminished from what it was three years ago, and they don't control enough states to steal the election just by falsifying returns where they can commit election fraud from the state capitol. Honestly, their chances would probably be better if some utter loser like DeSantis gets the nod; he may be a war criminal who would disgust a golden retriever; but he probably won't be a convicted rapist and con man by November of next year.

As long as Democrats avoid matching the Republicans' lack of enthusiasm with their own. They're their own worst enemies in that regard, but it does seem less likely that they'll stay home when the Republicans are threatening actual concrete legal rights.

Also, Trump technically won't be a convicted rapist, E Jean Carrol is suing him for defamation and he won't actually go to prison. I'm sure Fox News will beat that point to death should he lose the case.

Actually, he will be a convicted rapist; he just won't be criminally liable. Her original suit was just defamation owing to statute of limitations restrictions, but New York let her add a civil rape charge to the suit with their recent exception for old sex crimes; so if she wins she'll have proven in fact and in law that he raped her.

Oh, and the judge dealing with his suit against the New York Times, for publishing the tax information they got from his niece, not only threw it out but awarded the defendant all costs. Which is to say Trump not only has to pay his own lawyers, he has to pay the Times'. Needless to say his similar suit against his niece may not last for too much longer.

What about the would-be purple states that they've kept by gerrymandering the crap out of them and kneecapping any blue elected officials?

Those would be states they run. An outright majority of the electoral college votes come from states they don't (if not a vast majority). Now if they can take over a few more states, and do it as the party of a shrinking minority, then they can lock that up; but for now the Republicans can't steal the presidency quite that blatantly when they lose badly.