Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Nobody can say anything about Joe Biden except how old he is. Nothing else is relevant apparently. Except that his age is actually irrelevant, particularly when you look at what he’s done. Any progressive should be proud of accomplishments like this:

The Biden administration Tuesday identified 10 expensive prescription drugs that have been chosen for price negotiations with pharmaceutical manufacturers as the government seeks to ease the financial burden on older and disabled Americans. The announcement marks an unprecedented step in a long political war over the nation’s exorbitant drug costs even as the pharmaceutical industry is still trying to block the plan.

Half of the drugs chosen first for price negotiations are medications to prevent blood clots and treat diabetes and were taken by millions of people on Medicare in the past year, according to a list released by federal health officials who oversee Medicare, the vast public health insurance system. Others are used to treat heart trouble, autoimmune disease and cancer. Consumers will not see benefits swiftly; the lower, negotiated prices are due to become available in early 2026.

The three highest-cost drugs on the widely anticipated list of 10 are Eliquis, a blood thinner; Jardiance, which treats diabetes and heart failure; and Xarelto, another blood thinner. They cost Medicare $16 billion, $7 billion and $6 billion, respectively, in the past year.

Medications could be targeted for price negotiation if they are available under Medicare drug benefits, lack certain competition to push down their prices and have been sold for at least several years to give drugmakers time to help recoup the expense of developing them.

Tuesday’s step toward reducing Medicare drug prices was a significant element in last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, a law that President Biden and his aides herald as a policy victory, even though the number of medications and the timing of the first price reductions are less ambitious than some Democrats had sought for many years. And the fate of the entire negotiation plan rests with the courts because six drug manufacturers, the Chamber of Commerce and the pharmaceutical industry’s main trade group have lodged separate lawsuits around the country trying to obstruct it.

Still, the Biden administration, Democratic allies in Congress and consumer health-care advocates portrayed this initial list of 10 drugs as a milestone to shore up the financial stability of the Medicare system and ease the burden on its beneficiaries. Medicare is a federal insurance system for people who are at least 65, along with younger adults who have disabilities. When last year’s law passed, the Congressional Budget Office predicted the negotiations would save the program slightly more than $100 billion during the following decade.

“There is no reason why Americans should be forced to pay more than any developed nation for life-saving prescriptions just to pad Big Pharma’s pockets,” Biden said in a statement issued by the White House, reflecting his intention to use the issue as a feature of his campaign for reelection.

The list also hands congressional Democrats a political opportunity ahead of the 2024 election to argue they are focused on pocketbook issues that can help millions of Americans. House members and senators lauded the release of the list. Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (N.J.), the ranking Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, pointedly blamed Republicans for the high cost of prescription drugs, saying in a statement that Tuesday’s announcement “marks the end of a 20-year handout from Republicans in Congress to the pharmaceutical industry.”

Advocates for America’s patients and older Americans also praised the step forward in price negotiations. “We can’t allow seniors to be Big Pharma’s cash machine anymore,” said Nancy LeaMond, executive vice president for AARP, the large lobbying group for people 50 and older.

More than 60 percent of the 65 million people on Medicare take prescription medication, and 25 percent take at least four prescriptions, according to a survey this summer by KFF, a health-care policy organization.

The rest of the list consists of Januvia, Farxiga and NovoLog, which treat diabetes among other conditions; Enbrel and Stelara, for arthritis and psoriasis; and Entresto, for heart failure; and Imbruvica, for cancers of the blood.

Wall Street analysts widely expected that many of the 10 drugs selected for price negotiations would appear on the list, based on Medicare expenditures and their sales in the United States, among other criteria. For seniors enrolled in Medicare, their average, annual out-of-pocket costs ranged from $121 for diabetes drug NovoLog to $5,247 for cancer-drug Imbruvica, including those with financial assistance. All told, HHS estimates that about 9 million seniors enrolled in Medicare’s prescription drug program used one or more of the 10 drugs in 2022, and paid a total of $3.4 billion out of pocket.

For an old guy he seems to be doing a lot of good things. Maybe his age isn’t really the most important thing about him after all?

Brett Baier spreading doubt about the new vaccine. He doesn’t have to do this but it’s what his audience wants to hear so that’s what they’re serving up.

BRET BAIER (HOST): There’s a lot we don’t know. We don’t know really the stats. They don’t seem to match up, even today after all that we’ve been through. 

DR. MARTY MAKARY (CONTRIBUTOR): That’s right. There’s a lot subject to interpretation because some people point to statistics that are massively inflated. We know that the hospitalization numbers are not real. We know the COVID death numbers are not real. 

BAIER: Why do you say that? 

MAKARY: Well, maybe half of those are real numbers because we don’t know who’s in the hospital for COVID versus an incidental COVID positive test. And when you test positive in the hospital when you’re in there for another reason, like heart failure, you get a stigma, you get a label. And so that goes down as a COVID hospitalization. 

BAIER: And we as a country have not delved into the problems with vaccines, right? Other countries have, I know Germany had a big study. But we haven’t. 

MAKARY: That’s right. It’s been frowned upon, it’s been sort of labeled vaccine hesitant work if you want to do research in that field. There’s no funding for it. The CDC hasn’t looked into their own VAERS database that has 1.6 million complications, self-reported. And the White House was sending emails to social media companies to take down true stories of vaccine-related complications. 

BAIER: But you’re telling people, make this decision with your doctor. There are some cases in which it does reduce the severity of the illness. 

MAKARY: That’s right. One thought is that this new COVID booster is going to be targeting the two strains that are out there now. So by the time it’s available, if those strains are still a threat and you haven’t had COVID this year, maybe it could be a good idea to get it if you’re high risk. But there’s myocarditis, there’s other complications in young, healthy kids. And how many doses are we going to give to young, healthy kids? 75 in the average lifespan of a 5-year-old in America? It’s not completely benign. 

BAIER: These are states up to date with COVID-19 vaccines. But you have colleges that are mandating it again. Now, it’s interesting to hear the president and today the White House press secretary saying it’s suggested use. It’s not a mandate. But there are places that are mandating it already. 

MAKARY: Well, there is a strong feeling from within the government that this meeting on September 12th is going to result in a strong recommendation by the CDC for all 300 million Americans that are over the age of 12 to get the shot. Now, the last time the White House pushed a new COVID booster without clinical data, only 17% of Americans said yes.

So, they would do themselves a favor to go through the normal process. Some people are raising eyebrows at the fact that the president sort of declared it effective and necessary. There are probably meetings with pharma that were private. Now the FDA’s going to approve it after the president declares it effective. People don’t like that process. 

…

BAIER: If you’ve had it before, if you’ve had it multiple times before, are you protected better against this new strain? 

MAKARY: Well, depends when you had it. But if you had it in the last year, the strain that this new COVID booster is designed for was a strain circulating earlier this year. And it’s believed to work against the two current strains. It’s just unknown if, a month from now, those are going to be the dominant strains or if this new BA.2.86 in Michigan is going to become the dominant strain. 

BAIER: It’s really helpful for you to be here. Bottom line, talk to your doc. 

MAKARY: Talk to your doc. Remember there’s the flu shot, it’s supposed to be a good match this year and that’s probably a good choice. 

That myocraditis bullshit is especially dishonest. COVID causes way more heart problems in young people than the vaccine. (Overall, the numbers for either are low.) This doctor almost surely knows this but also knows it’s a right wing talking point to devalue the vaccines so he’s pushing it anyway.

I’ve become philosophical about this because it’s been so politicized that it’s pointless to even discuss it. It’s every man for himself now. Get vaccinated if you care about your own health or the health of people around you. Protect yourself from miscreants who have decided to just let ‘er rip. Good luck.

I just watched Andrea Mitchell attempt to interview the fast-talking hustler Vivek Ramaswamy. It wasn’t pretty.

Anyway, this is making the rounds today:

WATCH: In 2003, Rev. Al Sharpton schools a young student named Vivek Ramaswamy who questioned the then-presidential candidate's political experience. https://t.co/NKp94fHi4d pic.twitter.com/55btP73Bgx

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) August 29, 2023

Philip Bump has this interesting take:

This Oct. 27, 2003, exchange between Sharpton and Chris Matthews, host of the MSNBC show “Hardball,” has reentered circulation in the past few days because there was a 2024 Republican presidential candidate in the room. The event was hosted by the Harvard University Institute of Politics and, at the time, Vivek Ramaswamy was a Harvard student. So when Matthews turned to the audience for questions soon after the event started, Ramaswamy was the first to offer one.

“Rev. Sharpton, hello, I’m Vivek,” he began. “I want to ask you — last week on the show we had Sen. [John] Kerry and the week before we had Sen. [John] Edwards, and my question for you is: Of all the Democratic candidates out there, why should I vote for the one with the least political experience?”

And right there, you can probably see why the clip has gained new attention. Ramaswamy entered the 2024 presidential race without any experience in elected office, something that was leveled against the candidate during the first primary debate held last week in Wisconsin.

Sharpton, being Sharpton, had a clever response ready.

“Well, you shouldn’t,” he told Ramaswamy, “because I have the most political experience.”

The crowd laughed.

“I got involved in the political movement when I was 12 years old,” Sharpton continued. “And I’ve been involved in social policy for the last 30 years. So don’t confuse people [having] a job with political experience.” Just because an official there in Cambridge, Mass., has a position, he added, “doesn’t mean that they have political experience and it doesn’t mean they have experience to run the United States government.”

“I think that we confuse titleholders with political experience as we have seen with the present occupant in the White House,” Sharpton continued. “George Bush was a governor and clearly has shown he doesn’t have political experience.”

Ramaswamy, of course, would substitute his business background for Sharpton’s experience in social movement. But Sharpton was also almost 50 years old in 2003, 12 years older than Ramaswamy is now.

The current candidate’s critics note not only that his question suggested that those without experience in elected office should be viewed with skepticism but that he was considering voting for a Democrat in the 2004 primary — itself an obvious point of criticism for his opponents. There’s a trivial rejoinder Ramaswamy can offer, of course: The most recent Republican president was a guy with no political experience who used to vote Democratic.

The emergence of this video snippet marks a broader evolution than Ramaswamy’s own, of course. As years pass, it will become only more common for candidates to be presented with their past comments or views, thanks to the increase in how often we are recorded and how easy it is to retrieve those recordings. Even when we aren’t recording ourselves, we’re often around cameras. And the ability of automated systems to pick out our faces from even blurry, crowded photos and videos continues to improve. A 37-year-old candidate running for the presidency in 2044 will have grown up entirely in the iPhone era. Good luck to her, escaping her past comments.

In its totality, the exchange between Matthews and Sharpton is a remarkable political time capsule. It was held only weeks after Arnold Schwarzenegger usurped California Gov. Gray Davis’s position in a recall election, something that Sharpton lumped in with the 2000 presidential results to declare that “we’ve gone through a nonmilitary civil war.”

That was one of Sharpton’s approaches to the nomination that year: Pick up rhetoric from the activist base of the party and hope to parlay it into votes. It’s what Ramaswamy is doing this year, albeit with a more virulent base and a flimsier anchor to established political values.

Sharpton made it to mid-March 2004, earning no delegates. Kerry, who spoke at Harvard the week before Sharpton, got the nomination. In November, Bush was legitimately elected to a second term in office.

Not exactly the path Ramaswamy or his party want to follow.

Ramaswamy is a masterful fast-talking hustler. It is completely unsurprising that he was able to get funding for his company before he was even out of law school. There is a certain kind of person who is very attracted to people like him. He sounds like he knows what he’s talking about but it’s really all chutzpah.

“A man hears what he wants to hear….”

Judd Legum wonders why President Joe Biden gets no credit for what on paper is a good economy:

1. The unemployment rate is 3.5%

The U.S. has added an average of 312K jobs every month for the last year

GDP growth has been 2.0% or higher for a year

Inflation is down to 3.2%

If the U.S. economy is doing well, why do so many Americans say it’s terrible?

1. The unemployment rate is 3.5%

The U.S. has added an average of 312K jobs every month for the last year

GDP growth has been 2.0% or higher for a year

Inflation is down to 3.2%

If the U.S. economy is doing well, why do so many Americans say it's terrible?

🧵

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) August 28, 2023

2. But an August survey by Quinnipiac University found that 71% of Americans describe the economy as “not so good” or “poor.”

Just 3% say the economy is excellent.

What explains this discrepancy?

If the U.S. economy is doing well, why do so many Americans say it’s terrible?The leading economic indicators show the U.S. economy is performing well, but most Americans still believe economic conditions are extremely poor — as if the country was mired in a deep recession. Wha…https://popular.info/p/if-the-us-economy-is-doing-well-why

3. One factor is partisanship. More people today will rate the economy as poor if they don’t like the person in the White House, regardless of economic conditions.

So with Biden in the White House, a lot of Republicans are going to say the economy is bad, no matter what.

Americans’ expectations about the economy jumped 13 points after Donald Trump’s election in 2016. So it goes.

4. But only 45% of Americans lean Republican, so partisanship is not the only factor.

Another factor: millions of Americans are mired in low-paying jobs, watching the fruits of their labor get funneled to wealthy CEOs & investors

5. A new report by @IPS_DC looks the 100 public companies with the lowest wages. The report found at these companies, a group that includes the nation’s largest employers, “CEO pay averaged $15.3 million and median worker pay averaged $31,672.” That’s a ratio of 603 to 1. 

6. For example, at @DollarTree — a company that employs 200K people — the median wage is $14.7K but its CEO, Michael Witynski, made $13.98 million. That’s a ratio of 951-to-1

Over the last 3 years, the median wage of a Dollar Tree employee decreased by 4.4%

7. It’s not hard to see how Dollar Tree employees would have a negative view of the economy, notwithstanding positive aggregate economic data.

And Dollar Tree is not an aberration. Millions of other workers face similar circumstances.

8. The company with the highest CEO-to-employee pay ratio is Live Nation, the parent company of TicketMaster. In 2022, CEO Michael Rapino made $139 million, while the median Live Nation employee was paid $25,673 — a ratio of 5,414-to-1.

So why do so many Americans say the economy is terrible? My bet is on “all of the above” with a heavy dose of #3 (partisanship). Meaning where the numbers look good and CEOs see green, working people see themselves falling behind, and Republicans see tan.

Nine years ago today, Barack Obama wore a tan suit, easily the biggest scandal in presidential history. pic.twitter.com/bEkPfk7OdF

— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) August 28, 2023

“Ronald Reagan regularly wore tan suits to official events while he was president,” James Surowiecki tweeted. “So why did right-wingers pretend it was scandalous when Obama wore one to a press conference?”

For the same reason Republicans insist the economy is in the toilet. They see what they want to see and disregard the rest.

Ronald Reagan regularly wore tan suits to official events while he was president. So why did right-wingers pretend it was scandalous when Obama wore one to a press conference? pic.twitter.com/y1ad7Hob0b

— James Surowiecki (@JamesSurowiecki) July 24, 2023

Oh, by the way:

Medicare will now negotiate prices on 10 drugs, bringing down prices & saving $100 billion.
It's a huge defeat for Big Pharma.
Biden has done something Presidents Clinton, Obama, & Trump (!) all said they wanted to do – but failed to do.

My explainer:pic.twitter.com/SdY4nXzxX2

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) August 29, 2023

(h/t Carolina Forward)

James Bedford Forrest Crow III

Well, you can’t accuse Tennessee Republicans of not being transparent about their contempt for democracy (The Tennessean):

The House Democratic caucus on Monday walked off the floor of the lower chamber to protest a disciplinary vote against Rep. Justin Jones, sparking a scene remarkably similar to legislative protests earlier this year in which the freshman Democrat was expelled from the General Assembly.

Lawmakers voted 70-20 to discipline Jones, D-Nashville, after House Speaker Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville, twice ruled Jones out of order during the House floor session Monday afternoon for what Sexton saw as Jones speaking off topic on the bills at hand.

The disciplinary vote meant Jones was silenced for the remainder of the floor session, though he could cast votes. A second vote during this special session could lead to a three-day silencing.

The Democratic caucus left the floor en masse in what they said was solidarity and frustration with unfair application of House rules.

Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton ruled Rep. Justin Jones out of order twice, preventing Jones from speaking more today and from introducing a motion of no confidence in Sexton.

It was a feat of raw power under new rules meant to silence Democrats like Jones. pic.twitter.com/ObNcLFctic

— David Heath (@davidhth) August 28, 2023

It’s not as if Jones, a freshman since April, is trying to maintain a low profile. Jones came to play, in sportscaster-speak, not to sit at the kiddies’ table. (Or should we say, at the back of the bus?) Jones declared earlier Monday morning his intention to call a no-confidence vote in Sexton.

This morning, my office delivered this letter to Speaker Cameron Sexton and my legislative colleagues, sharing the intent to call for vote of no confidence in the Speaker due to his continued abuse of power and dishonor to the public office he holds.

Tennesseans deserve better. pic.twitter.com/uaWDlceTuY

— Rep. Justin Jones (@brotherjones_) August 28, 2023

“The House is out of order under Cameron Sexton’s leadership. This is very disheartening, this is very troubling. This is a step toward authoritarianism, and we should all be troubled by this,” Jones said. “Our Democratic caucus was united. We walked out because that’s a charade, a sham happening in there. And the people are united in challenging authoritarianism.”

Just left the Chancery Court appeal hearing against Speaker Sexton’s extreme sign ban.

The state’s “defense” was a terrifying show of authoritarianism, claiming they are not obligated to listen to the people’s voice and that their power in the legislature can’t be checked. pic.twitter.com/WyF28Zynj7

— Rep. Justin Jones (@brotherjones_) August 28, 2023

The young man doesn’t know his place, apparently. Expelling him and another Black Democrat, Rep. Justin Pearson, D-Memphis, earlier this year gave Tennessee Republicans a national black eye. Constituents swiftly voted the two back into office. Undeterred and, given the dearth of fainting couches for GOP members, their remedy on Monday was to silence Jones using tricksy “newly enacted rules designed to punish disruptive members” perhaps (to no one’s surprise) selectively applied:

[Pearson] rose to point out that Rep. Gino Bulso, R-Brentwood, had been gaveled out of order twice while presenting a different bill. But the House clerk argued Sexton had issued first an unofficial warning to Bulso before finding him out of order.

This explanation appeared to infuriate the public gallery, and Democrats on the floor.

As the vote went down, the crowd screamed at Sexton, yelling, “This is a fascist state!” and “You’re racist!”

Chants only grew louder as state troopers began swarming the gallery to clear it. Demonstrators stayed in their seats as troopers began asking them to leave, but slowly cleared out into the halls to continue chanting.

The move by Sexton and his caucus had the benefit of keeping Jones from calling his non-confidence vote.

Just left the House Chamber after Speaker Sexton forced a vote to silence me for the remainder of the legislative day (for speaking “off topic”) and ordered the public cleared out of the gallery.

This is the authoritarianism we are fighting against. pic.twitter.com/xfDAh9DpmI

— Rep. Justin Jones (@brotherjones_) August 28, 2023

The Lost Cause never dies

It’s not as if Jones hasn’t rankled GOP feathers even before his election to the Tennessee House, as TPM reported in April:

Justin Jones, one of two Black members expelled from the state’s House of Representatives in April 2023, had run afoul of House leadership before. In 2019, as a private citizen, he was arrested following his actions in protesting a bust in the state capitol honoring Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and later Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

The Klan leader’s bust was removed to the Tennessee State Museum in July 2021, 42 years after its installation. Forty-two years. Do the math. The Lost Cause never dies. The backlash to the Civil Rights movement never did.

Nor does Jim Crow. Or his progeny, James Bedford Forrest Crow III.

Soon enough, Republicans will insist Black Democrats count jelly beans in a jar before admitting them to state legislatures.

Update:

Holy shit. This is inside the Tennessee Capitol as Republicans continue silencing Justin Jones & refusing to take action on gun violence. Gen Z is paying attention, making their voices heard, & not backing down. The South is changing for the better — & it’s because of Gen Z. pic.twitter.com/6I63OK4YFA

— Victor Shi (@Victorshi2020) August 29, 2023

Mark your calendar. That’s the day Trump goes to trial.

Donald Trump will go to trial in Washington, D.C., on March 4, 2024, on charges that he conspired to subvert the 2020 election and disrupt the peaceful transfer of power, a federal judge ruled Monday.

U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan set the date, contending that the six-month lead-up to trial would be adequate for Trump’s well-resourced attorneys to prepare for trial while acknowledging the public interest in resolving the case expediently.

That schedule met an immediate protest from Trump’s attorney John Lauro, who said he doesn’t believe he can effectively defend Trump on a six-month timeline. He and co-counsel Todd Blanche had pushed for an April 2026 trial, a date Chutkan called “far beyond what is necessary.”

The trial date raises the likelihood that Trump will spend nearly all of the presidential primary season in a criminal courtroom. In addition to the trial in Washington, he’s slated to face jurors in New York on March 25 on charges stemming from hush money payments to a porn star, and he’s scheduled to stand trial in Florida on May 20 on charges that he hoarded classified information at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Chutkan indicated on Monday she had already spoken to New York state judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over Trump’s hush money case. The trial in that case might now be rescheduled from March 25 to accommodate the federal trial in Washington, which is expected to last over a month.

A trial date in Trump’s fourth criminal case — racketeering charges in Georgia for his efforts to subvert the election — has not yet been scheduled. The lead prosecutor there, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, previously signaled she wanted to take the case to trial on March 4 — the same day chosen by Chutkan for the federal election trial.

March 4 is one day before Super Tuesday, when more than a dozen states will hold their primaries in the GOP presidential campaign.

Two hours after Monday’s hearing ended, Trump took to Truth Social to vent his frustration, attacking Chutkan as “biased” and “Trump Hating” and suggesting he will “appeal” her trial date. However, trial dates are typically not appealable.

The bulk of the hearing focused on the sheer volume of evidence prosecutors have handed over to Trump’s defense team to prepare for the trial: 12.8 million pages or files, drawn from grand jury interviews, the National Archives, the House Jan. 6 select committee’s evidence and Trump’s campaign and PACs.

Prosecutors on the team of special counsel Jack Smith indicated that their efforts to provide this information to Trump was “substantially complete” and came in five batches over the last several weeks. They said they had taken extraordinary steps to organize, digitize and annotate the evidence to help facilitate Trump’s ability to prepare for trial.

But Lauro, who at times grew heated in his response, said there was no way he could be ready for trial without years to prepare. He noted that there are more than 250 government witnesses he has to research, as well as additional witnesses he may decide to call. He said he’s also in the process of drafting a long series of motions seeking to shrink the case against Trump or get it dismissed altogether.

“This is an enormous, overwhelming task,” he said.

Lauro underscored the degree to which Trump’s team intends to inject national politics into the case, noting that he plans to file a motion arguing that the Justice Department is selectively prosecuting Trump because he is a political opponent of President Joe Biden. The motion, Lauro indicated, will invoke the president and his son, Hunter Biden.

Lauro accused the government of attempting to put on a “show trial” rather than seek justice.

“This man’s liberty and life is at stake,” Lauro said. “He’s no different than any American.”

He also said he expects to file a motion contending that Trump has “executive immunity” for the actions he took to overturn the 2020 election under constitutional principles related to faithfully executing federal law. And he said he separately intends to file motions to dismiss each of the charges Trump faces — including for three alleged conspiracies aimed at disrupting the transfer of power.

Chutkan repeatedly sympathized with Lauro’s burden to prepare for trial but noted that she had never seen the government take such extraordinary lengths to assemble and curate the evidence as she has in this case. Typically, she said, delays in trial dates are for defendants who can’t get competent attorneys or who are involved in multidefendant cases with superseding indictments.

She twice told Lauro to “take the temperature down” after he raised his voice to complain about the “outrage to justice” represented by prosecutors’ own expedited trial proposal of Jan. 2, 2024. Chutkan agreed that the special counsel’s timeline was too rapid but still proposed a date far closer to Smith’s preference than Trump’s.

Senior assistant special counsel Molly Gaston argued during her own remarks that Trump has had nearly a year to begin preparing to face charges in this case, noting that he’s been aware of the grand jury investigation since last September. And she noted that his attorneys have been involved in sealed grand jury proceedings beginning even earlier — in August 2022 — about the testimony of 14 witnesses. Many of those sealed proceedings have been the subject of news reports, featuring efforts by Trump to block or limit testimony from figures like former Vice President Mike Pence, chief of staff Mark Meadows and Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone.

Gaston also noted that 7.8 million pages and files — out of the 12.8 million total — come from sources Trump has had ready access to: his own campaign, PACs and National Archives records, many of which have been the subject of prior litigation and review by his attorneys. Much of the evidence is also derived from the public filings of the Jan. 6 select committee, Gaston noted.

Of the remaining 5 million pages, about 57,000 are transcripts of grand jury witness interviews and associated exhibits. She also said prosecutors had annotated the 45-page indictment with citations to key pieces of evidence underlying every fact and allegation, an effort to point Trump’s lawyers toward the documents and testimony they intend to rely on at trial.

“It is essentially a roadmap to our case,” Gaston said.

And she said they also took the unusual step of highlighting evidence they think Trump will consider favorable to his case.

Chutkan emphasized that she would treat Trump, in her courtroom, like any other defendant, and would not give him any “more or less deference.” And she said his political schedule as he campaigns to regain the White House would not factor into her decisions. She compared him to a professional athlete facing criminal charges, saying it would be “inappropriate” to schedule a trial around that athlete’s schedule.

“Setting a trial date does not depend and should not depend on the defendant’s personal and professional obligations,” Chutkan said. “Mr. Trump, like any defendant, will have to make the trial date work regardless of his schedule.”

We’ll see. They’re going to try to get something before the Supremes that will either delay or discard the case. I’d guess that’s entirely possible…unfortunately.

Peter Navarro is batshit crazy:

The federal judge presiding over the criminal contempt of Congress case against former President Donald Trump’s onetime trade adviser Peter Navarro in DC called some of the evidence from the defense “pretty weak sauce.”

Navarro says he defied subpoenas from the House January 6 committee because Trump directed him to do so. But US District Judge Amit P. Mehta, sitting in the same courthouse as Judge Tanya Chutkin, seemed unconvinced. 

“I still don’t know what the president said,” Mehta told Navarro’s attorney Stanley Woodward, referring to the February 20, 2022, call during which Navarro said it was made clear the former president was invoking executive privilege. “I don’t have any words from the former president.” 

“That’s pretty weak sauce,” Mehta said, referring to a comment Navarro says Trump made to him about regretting not letting him testify. The comment had been used by Navarro and his team to bolster their argument that Trump did invoke privilege because his subsequent regret indicated as much.  

“The record is barren, there is nothing here, even after your client’s testimony,” Mehta told Woodward toward the end of Monday’s pre-trial hearing. 

The judge said he would make a decision later this week on whether Navarro’s testimony could be used in his trial next month. 

Navarro stood for the duration of the hearing with his arms folded, even as he fielded questions from the attorneys. When he was off the stand, he paced back and forth near his team of attorneys, and he became testy with the prosecutor once they began their cross-examination, causing the judge to instruct him on how to conduct himself.

Good lord, what a lunatic. What a horrible client.

He was a top adviser in the Trump administration. Only the best people …

I wrote this last week:

On Tuesday, Meadows became the first defendant in the Georgia case (but surely not the last) to announce that he would request moving his case to federal court because his alleged criminal activity “all occurred during his tenure and as part of his service as Chief of Staff.” In his statement, Meadows explained that “arranging Oval Office meetings, contacting state officials on the President’s behalf, visiting a state government building, and setting up a phone call for the President” were all part of his duties and that you would expect the president’s chief of staff “to do these sorts of things.” It sounds like Meadows’ defense will be, as they say, that he was just following orders.

I guess I was right. Much to the surprise of most legal observers, Meadows testified today in the hearing to request his trial be moved to federal court:

In the hearing, Mr. Meadows said that Mr. Trump directed him to set up the now-famous phone call on Jan. 2, 2021, between Mr. Trump and Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia Secretary of State. During the call — a major focus of the case — Mr. Trump pressed Mr. Raffensperger and said he wanted to “find” nearly 12,000 more Trump votes, enough to reverse his defeat in Georgia.

“I was asked to reach out,” Mr. Meadows testified.

I’m sure that’s true. But he participated in the call:

Meadows: So Mr. President, if I might be able to jump in and I’ll give Brad a chance. Mr. Secretary, obviously there is, there are allegations where we believe that not every vote or fair vote and legal vote was counted and that’s at odds with the representation from the secretary of state’s office.

What I’m hopeful for is there some way that we can we can find some kind of agreement to look at this a little bit more fully. You know the president mentioned Fulton County.

But in some of these areas where there seems to be a difference of where the facts seem to lead, and so Mr. Secretary, I was hopeful that, you know, in the spirit of cooperation and compromise is there something that we can at least have a discussion to look at some of these allegations to find a path forward that’s less litigious?

Was that part of his official duty? Was this?

Meadows: Mr. President. This is Mark. It sounds like we’ve got two different sides agreeing that we can look at these areas ands I assume that we can do that within the next 24 to 48 hours to go ahead and get that reconciled so that we can look at the two claims and making sure that we get the access to the secretary of state’s data to either validate or invalidate the claims that have been made. Is that correct?

Germany: No, that’s not what I said. I’m happy to have our lawyers sit down with Kurt and the lawyers on that side and explain to my him, here’s, based on what we’ve looked at so far, here’s how we know this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong.

Meadows: So what you’re saying, Ryan, let me let me make sure … so what you’re saying is you really don’t want to give access to the data. You just want to make another case on why the lawsuit is wrong?

That is not anyone’s idea of an official duty of a presidential chief of staff. It’s campaign business and has nothing to do with the office of president.

He broke the law. He should have known better.

“Your policies caused this!” Ron DeSantis is booed so much at vigil for the Jacksonville shooting victims, he’s forced to stop talking. pic.twitter.com/833Vp4BIvX

— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) August 28, 2023

Governor Ron DeSantis was heckled and booed at a Sunday vigil held to honor victims of the racist mass shooting at a Jacksonville store the previous day.

The boos began from the moment the Florida governor was introduced and continued as he tried to deliver his remarks. DeSantis acknowledged Ju’Coby Pittman, the city councilwoman who organized the prayer vigil, and promised assistance from the state government to go toward security for Edward Waters University, a historically Black university that the gunman initially visited prior to the shooting.

“We’re not going to allow these institutions to be targeted by people,” he said, stopping as the noise from the crowd grew even louder.

At that moment, Pittman got up and grabbed the microphone from the stand and addressed the hundreds of people gathered, telling them to let DeSantis continue.

“It ain’t about parties today. A bullet don’t know a party,” she said.

The BBC reports that DeSantis was ultimately able to finish his speech, reiterating comments he had made the day of the shooting.

“The fact of the matter is you had a major-league scumbag come down from Clay County here and what he did is totally unacceptable in the state of Florida,” he said. “We are not going to let people be targeted based on their race. We’re going to stand up and we’re going to do what we need to do to make sure evil doesn’t triumph in the state of Florida.”

During his tenure, DeSantis has faced criticism for his weakening of gun laws statewide, as well as his ongoing war against what he calls“anti-woke” ideologies, which has resulted in drastic changes to Florida school curriculums and a rejection of a planned AP African American Studies course.

Actually, bullets do have parties. Gun nuts like the racist freak who killed those people aren’t Democrats.

And evil is already triumphing in Florida. They elected DeSantis.

At the point that picture was taken, 200,000 people had died of COVID in the previous three months and Trump was telling everyone to drink bleach. Good times for sure.

He self-soothes by re-posting memes like that over and over again. He seems to be having a particularly tough day and it’s not surprising. His DC trial is set for March 4th, one day before Super Tuesday.

Gentle reminder: that man is the front runner for the Republican nomination for president.