227 Comments

Judge Merchan is a heroic public servant. Other government workers have been planning to subvert the orange felon's second term, just like we did during his first. We will protect our sacred democracy from Project 2025: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/resisting-project-2025-from-within-government

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Good luck!

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I tried to subscribe to your Substack, but it won't let me.

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How? did it instantly decline your card for no reason? That just happened to me last week with another Substack.

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It wouldn't even let me subscribe with my email address, I never even got to the payment page.

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I had a complaint about one of my subscribers trying to upgrade. too. He was on an iPhone. When he switched devices, it worked. I tried to find where to report bugs to Substack, and failed miserably.

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I was wondering when my previous subscription was up....was it as of January 1 ? I only know I need to supposedly resubscribe in less than a year because I no longer see the "subscribed" notice when I read Jay's columns...just an "Upgrade to paid." I was wondering how I would know when my substack subscriptions run out and I guess that's how....

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I get an email reminder when my subs are about to renew

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That sounds great! Not sure what's happening with mine but what happened to you is what I sort of expected to happen so I'm sitting here a little confused.

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Wow, I guess Mom really Did like you best!

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What device are you using?

On my Windows laptop, I simply click on the downward carat on my avatar in upper right of page (to right of subscribe/upgrade button). One option is to "Manage Subscription". It is very clear from that point.

For the app, click on your avatar and then the ellipsis (3 vertical dots) and one of the options is "Manage Subscription". My tablet is Android.

I have no clue about Apple devices.

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Thank you....I'm sitting her with a lovely MAC computer. I can look at my substack receipts from last year...I'm going to add dates that I join a substack in my calendar but your idea was great.

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Same. Got an error message 'something went wrong.'

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Even go so far as to make the title "Heroic Super Public Servant."

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One of the few joys of Trump’s first term was seeing how clearly miserable he was. So there’ll be that to look forward to, anyway.

Still don’t understand why Merchan can’t just say “You knew you were on trial/convicted the entire time you were running for president. You are not currently being prosecuted, and you are not currently president. If this proceeding impedes you from doing the job, you can resign,” sprinkling in whatever Latin words apply.

Finally, I understand the hesitation of Garland and Merchan in the face of a criminal who has already summoned violent mobs to do his bidding. I really do. But I don’t know how much clearer we can make it for them that he is going to attack them anyway. It’s literally all he has ever known how to do. He is an abuser. There is no peace in his orbit. You might as well be attacked for doing the right thing.

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Donnie's and Rudy's and Elon's behavior is childish. Do bad things and throw a temper tantrum when the Adult or Parent says Stop It and pay the penalty. Cover up the evidence of bad behavior. No spankings. No controls. "Give me more candy or I will beat you up!" "I can steal Greenland and Panama and Canada if I want to!" The bratty child will continue to act like a brat until a grownup puts a stop to it.

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I am so at odds with trump's mental state, listening to him rant and lie about everything he's been convicted of. Blaming everybody for the consequences of his own fuckups. One would almost think he can't possibly be in his right mind. I hope Marchan is able to do a conditional dismissal with that F hanging over trump's his head for the rest of his life. At the same time please have the DOJ release Smith's report. The world needs to know exactly what trump is capable of and what he has done to this country!!

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Completely agree!

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"If this proceeding impedes you from doing the job, you can resign,” sprinkling in whatever Latin words apply. LOVE IT!!!

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What happens if he just ignores the proceeding? Neither in person or virtually. And if none of his lawyers show then it will go bad for them.

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He'd likely be held in contempt of court, I believe. Which could be another punch in the gut for his ego if nothing else.

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Wouldn't normally a bench warrant be issued in that case? Since he isn't President at that point yet, his own Secret Service detail may be tasked with arresting him and taking him to court.

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That would be such a sight to witness.

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If only.

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Isn’t “subdural hematoma” Latin? I forget.

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Two things: Can djt just keep stalling the sentencing until after the 20th? And Garland needs to, no has to, release the findings - it is the peoples right to know! Maybe we can get djt to really throw a fit!

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He is certainly trying.

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So, Jay - since President Biden is the Executive, could he order DOJ (specifically Garland and Smith) to release the report despite any legal shenanigans by the Orange Menace. He has been granted 'Broad Presidential Immunity', after all.

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Love it. Let Cannon whine that her bogus suck-up/order is being ignored . . .

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It should be ignored, anyway.

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perhaps incite a massive heart attack? Hmmmm

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But remember, Dumpy's death would give us a Pres Justa Dick Vance.

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yea, I know. But one asshat at a time right?

Justa Dick Vance... OMG I'm using that now :)

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I know it's weird to say this, but I don't think Vance's evil is baked in the way Trump's is. I think Vance is just a spineless, immoral opportunist. That somehow feels a hundred times better than whatever Trump is.

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I agree. I don't think Justa Dick Vance (had to use it!) in power is necessarily a good thing but it does feel different. The scariest part is he is 100% P2025 so that playbook is a 100% go. He is also going to be totally enamoured with Muskrat so that doesn't go away. I feel the advantage to having Vance is I don't think he holds the power over the House and Senate Rs. I think if Tritler is out we see more defectors. Or maybe that's a hope because I honestly don't see Tritler making it 4 more years.

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Yeah, Trump is a unicorn, for one thing. For another, Vance couldn’t lead frightened employees out of a burning donut shop.

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LOL

I don't want to think of him as a unicorn- they are fun and magical.

But it certainly is a mystery how he holds this spell over so many. I mean he's not an eloquent speaker, his voice is whiny, his hands are tiny, his rhetoric is angry- he's exactly what would turn most people off yet here we are. Well we do know the angry rhetoric is what attracts the worst of them, I don't get how it attracts the rest though.

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And on top of it, Vance doesn't possess Trump's skills as a Mafia boss. He'd crash and burn in no time.

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That would be fun to see

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MAGA will fall apart without Trump.

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I believe this. Vance does not have the same kind of "star power." It's really a cult of personality, and it is TRUMP's personality.

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Which I honestly don't get. WHAT about his personality? I think his personality is offputting. But he draws them in like moths to the light, it's baffling

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Sadly, that speaks volumes about our fellow citizens - none of it good.

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If you keep in mind the kind of people that turn to MAGA. They probably think Vance is a great, smart candidate.

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I don't think it will. MAGA (under the names Minutemen, then Tea Party) came first, Trump just took advantage of the preexisting radicals. They won't fall apart, but they will be leaderless chaos demons, same as before Trump.

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djt did not make MAGA- he just called it that. You can thank the Heritage Foundation for the substance of MAGA. They have been around since 1973, it took a leading role in the conservative movement in the 1980s during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, whose policies were taken from Heritage Foundation studies, including its Mandate for Leadership.[4]

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So it would and while Justa Dick is certainly on Peter Thiel's puppet strings I don't think JD can command the fear and obedience from the Senate or the House--let alone the MAGA crowd--the way that Trump does.

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Yea that's what I think. He doesn't have the same control over the party as a whole. He's smarter than Tritler but you can tell by his post election absence he has no significance within the party. He was mearly a pawn in this whole scheme

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OMG

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I don’t trust Garland to do the right thing. I wish Biden had never appointed him.

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Indeed. If we had had a competent AG with a spine, things would be quite different (I feel much the same about Schumer . . .).

Weenies in positions of power are ungood.

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He needs to pay consequences for his actions for once in his life!

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Maybe it will piss him off enough he'll have a stroke✌🏻💙

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That's the outcome I'm hoping and praying for! A a big fat tantrump with flung catsup and jumping off the floor with both feet...a chest-clutching tantrump.

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Hard to predict what Garland will do, but the special counsel report on Biden was released while Biden was actually serving as president. So I won’t be surprised if he releases one on just a president-elect.

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The rules that apply to Democratic presidents don't seem to apply to Republicans, so I'm not holding my breath for Garland to do anything that might inconvenience Trump. I will also not be even mildly surprised if Garland decides to go ahead and release the audio transcripts from Biden's deposition, which Biden had requested not be released.

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I pray for a blizzard to disrupt all public inauguration activities - that would be a bit of justice for the felon (who thrives on an adoring crowd) trying to take our nation down the road to autocracy. I hope for icy covered roads and total shutdown. He’ll still be sworn in but without the public crowning and fawning

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Even better to not only have the weather be bad, but for Trump to become ill like Benjamin Harrison did during his inauguration

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Preferably another case of Covid, wouldn't that be poetic?

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Oooooh, that would be a delicious act of Karma! I wonder how hard we need to appeal to Her to make it happen...

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Wouldn’t that be something!

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I just wrote the same thing before reading yours! Love you Granny!🧊🥶🧊

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I would so love to see that happen.

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I sure would like to live in a country where the punishment for treasonous felons was more than just "make them angry." :(

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I would like to live in a country where the populace would not elect a convicted felon president!

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Or where a constitutionally ineligible traitor gets to run for President & has the richest people in the world, including our #1 foreign enemy, fix the election for him, & there is absolutely no pushback from the opposition -- no investigation, no recount, no enforcement of the Constitution, no rejection of his unconstitutional certification, no resistance whatsoever, even though the opposition knows it means the end of our democracy & the beginning of a fascist tyranny.

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Me too!!

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Prosecution was not the task of Muller. Only findings, which was proved!

Little Billy Bar is a Traitor to his government and the Constitution.

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The question become does Garland have the backbone to release the report. We'll see; soon I hope.

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Thank you Jay for helping keep my sanity through all of this. I’m one that has said from day one that there would never be any prison time. I’m okay with that. My biggest fear is the violence we’re all aware of that has been forged by this thing they call a human. It is so mind boggling to me and millions of others that we are in this situation.

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Judge Juan Merchan deserves a Profiles in Courage Award. Standing virtually alone in a field of compromised lawyers, judges and federal justices, he's had the fortitude to stand up to Donald Trump and his threats.

Convicted Felon. What a deliciously lovely dark cloud to hang over DonnieConvict's flag-at-half-staff MAGA prom.

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Along with exhortations to not "comply in advance" I think it's important for any legal proceedings to not treat him like a President until he actually IS A PRESIDENT. Which won't be for a couple more weeks.

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This is a gray area for sure. There isn’t a lot of case law about presidents-elect, so I understand why Merchan wants to tread very carefully and not set up a situation where the Supreme Court again gives out an immunity idol.

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He's not my president. I'll continue to call him "Dumpy.c

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I will continue to call him Benedict Donald, Traitor Trump, the Siberian Candidate, Agent Orange, the Orange Caligula, Mango Mussolini, Twitler, the Orange Antichrist, the Malignant Sadonarcissist, Felonious Punk, Mega MAGA Megalomaniac, Putin's Puppet, etc.

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I call him Bozo.

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You are so very good at making sense out of nonsense, Jay. And thank you for including the legal document which will be my treat to read with my morning coffee and dark chocolate.

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GOOD GOOD GOOD!!It couldn't happen to a better PRICK!!He deserves all of it in SPADES!

Just loving to hear it!

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"Trump’s inauguration could be overshadowed by its many details while the 2020 election gets relitigated in the press."

The same press, unfortunately, that brought him to power a second time and turned the Mueller report into a dusty historical footprint.

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I hate to say it, Charles, but you are 💯 right. The press, who have woefully ignored their duty already, will say nothing and all the MAGA Cult members will see or hear is what their rightwing television (not just Fox/OAN, but 200+ “local” stations owned by the rightwing billionaires of the Sinclair Broadcast Group) and radio (iHeart Media’s 800+ “local” radio stations, including a HUGE number of rightwing talk radio) choose to tell them, ie they’ll totally ignore it!

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Also, good on you for the quotes around LOCAL.

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Having sold high-technology software/hardware to the “M & E” market (“media and entertainment”) for over 4 decades, I know the biggest players in global media markets, as they were my clientele.

Sinclair is known for dictating their editorials from corporate, then *requiring* the local “trusted” talent to read them on air, and they’ve got multiple stations in each of the major media markets, so you can flip the channels and *still* hear the same opinion!

Anyone that still believes that old canard of the “liberal bias” of US media simply hasn’t been paying attention over the last few decades. Right wing media is now dominant and the MSM just goes along with the story for the clickthroughs and eyeballs, and I’m certain it will only get worse in the next 4 years.

Though I don’t know why I should be surprised at the ignorance of the American media-consuming public, I still find it hard to believe what’s happened to our once important “free press” and just how *little* Americans seem to care.

It’s the prime reason I’m using the term “Dunning Kruger Effect” virtually every day now. Almost half of our nation seems to think they’re “aware” of what’s happening in the world around them, yet they are unfortunately ignorant of even the basics.

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And Apartheid Leon's 300 million Twitter subscribers.

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Rupert Murdoch cannot die fast enough, and his toxic control over media worldwide with him.

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Unfortunately, the worst people tend to beget dynasties: Trump, Koch, Bush, Murdoch... Rupert just hands it over to son Lachlan.

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Luckily Rupert and Lachlan just lost a case to do just that - Murdoch set up a trust that splits the empire between all his kids, only for three of the four to decide they hate Dad's Politics and are sick of the constant legal action against his companies for all that very real lawbreaking.

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As I’ve pointed out, while Murdoch’s “empire” is significant (ie Fox, WSJ, etc), he is only ONE part of the rightwing media ecosystem: Sinclair Broadcast Group in television (200+ stations), iHeart Media in radio (800+ stations), and others are controlling what a majority of Americans see or hear as “news”. That will absolutely NOT change with Rupert’s death…..

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The press didn't have anything to do about the Mueller report, our dear AG Bill Barr took care of it and the report wasn't supposed to go to him, was meant for Congress. They didn't see it until Barr had redacted most of it.

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True, but the press hasn’t mentioned it since.

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Thanks for a great explanation of what’s going on here, Jay. My hopes for what’s possible when it’s about containing Trump are pretty small at this point. As much as I pray that Merchan is able to sentence him later this week - and bless that man for holding firm - a convicted felon in the presidency doesn’t serve the needs of power, so I’m not counting any chickens. Same for Jack Smith. In the meantime, I’m am so glad that the judge and the prosecutor are not making it easy for Trump and that the coverage of all this is taking place just when he wants to be basking in glory. I take my small pleasures where I can.

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Email Merrick Garland‘s office…

Let them know they need to release Jack Smith’s report and maybe while you’re at it you can tell Mr. Garland what a frigging disappointment he has been ?!

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I did this last night. There was a link in a post by Mueller She Wrote.

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