Todd Blanche has brought the DoJ to irretrievable depths. Under his aegis, the agency has ceased to investigate any criminal behavior connected to Trump: sexual abuse towards women and girls, white collar crime, civil rights violations against all but those poor downtrodden whites, and now antitrust cases. He has abandoned America for Bizzaro World.
One can no longer presume regular order for prosecutions. One can no longer trust what the DOJ is up to. Bad Bondi and Todd Blanche enabled this slide into infamy.
Swbv, yes, Bondi and Blanche did wreck DOJ, but they were permitted to do it by Senate Republicans who simply didn't care what those two fools would do, both of them Trump's personal stooges. Those Senate Republicans and any Democrats who voted for those two deserve at least as much blame because they ignored the facts about those two and every other jerk they approved to lead our government. They asked few if any relevant questions in their "hearings," and I suspect will do the same on Wednesday in Blanche's next hearing. Blanch is just another whiny white boy who thinks he is smarter than everyone around him when the only thing he is "smart" about his how to kiss Trump's nether regions in public and to do whatever his "Daddy Donnie" tells him to do.
Blanche is not an especially good lawyer (I have heard and read), but he has Trump's ear and other regions in mind and thinks he can do whatever he wants to do, and so far, he has been able to.
It is time he is put in jail until he releases the Epstein Files since he has been breaking the law for nearly 7 months. That is long enough to obey the law. A poor guy who stole a couple of bucks would have been held in jail from the moment he was caught. We know where Blanche works and it is time he is held accountable, imprisoned until he releases the documents, unredacted to Congress as Trump even signed that he should.
Any Republican in the Senate who votes for this incompetent sycophantic pseudolawyer needs to be held accountable too because they know better. Also, any who are lawyers need to be disbarred for breaking their oath to uphold the laws of this nation.
Agreed. And yet why? What benefit? A DoJ screen for Trump … earns Trump big money, scorn for his lickspittles — as usual, an arrangement benefiting Trump only.
There's gotta be money or prestige or favor or insider knowledge or college admissions or pardons for friends and family or some other baksheesh on the table as inducement.
GIVEN THAT TRUMP THOUGHT NOTHING OF LEANING ON THE PRESIDENT OF FIFA TO CHANGE THEIR DECISION, HOW MANY CALLS DID HE MAKE TO HIS PUPPETS ON THE SUPREME COURT TO INFLUENCE THEIR DECISIONS?
Trump admitted that he personally called the President of FIFA and asked him to “take another look at it” and to “review “ FIFA’s decision to suspend an American soccer player’s participation in the next game.
One would have to be an idiot not to read between the lines.
This was heavy duty pressure from the President of the United States, who sponsored these games in the U.S. and who had previously invited him to attend his Presidential inauguration and affairs at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Trump has consistently said he did not tell President Infantino what the decision should be, only that the play deserved another review.
"All I did was ask for a review because I didn't think it was a foul. I didn't tell him what to do. I can't tell him what to do….That wasn't a foul. That wasn't even an infraction. That was two guys running full speed that happened to crash into each other. You can't take your foot and properly place it on somebody else's foot when you're going full speed. These were two great athletes that got tangled up…Take another look at it. Review it.”
This was heavy duty pressure on the FIFA President.
Given that Trump’s call was merely standard operating procedure for him, one could easily believe that Trump may have placed similar calls into judges around the country, and especially Chief Justice Roberts or Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, or Kavanaugh to influence their decisions. Not a single judge would fail to understand Trump’s urging to “Take another look at it. Review it”.
This is the kind of political sleaze and slime that Trump excels in, along with coercions, shakedowns and threats of retaliation. What are Trump’s abiding principles of morality? He said it himself: “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me."
L.D., Trump is scum and slime and whatever disgusting words one can think of and they don't begin to go deep enough into what Trump really is. Unfortunately, many people in this nation voted him into office and some still stand by him as "the best president this country has ever had" (I heard that from someone being interviewed. I think the person was from Kansas or Nebraska).
Even in the throes of dementia, Trump can still blurt out the evil that has resided in his messed-up brain since childhood. He has nothing positive to offer anyone but the rich white boys that are willing to bow and scrape to him, and we just don't need that bowing and scraping here in our nation. I'm OK if our Baby Donnie wants to get people he has hired at his rich boy home in FL to bow and scrape to him, but not the American people. Trump needs to be impeached and found guilty of the many crimes he has been perpetrating, probably far more than we know. The word "treason" keeps coming into my head when I think of Trump, Blanche, Leavitt, Vought, Musk, Theil, Vance, the DOGErs, and the rest of Trumplandia.
Ruth, I think it was Roger Marshall from KS. He represents us and he has his head so far up Trumps ass that last time I looked there were 13 or 14 people running to replace him. His posts on FB get brutally taken down in the comments section, and his address of record is an old two-bedroom farmhouse out in the sticks, but he has a million plus mansion in Fl somewhere. I get his weekly newsletter, "The Doc is In," every Friday at about 4PM and just as I'm trying to enjoy a martini after about half of that can I read his BS. Sorry for the rant here, but an awful lot of us dislike him and are doing our best to get rid of him in November.
Bill, I wish you well. KS doesn't deserve what has been happening to it in the past decade or so. The people are being treated as though you all are irrelevant and whatever Trumplandia wants is law; it isn't, but I bet a lot of the overworked, underpaid, ignored people of KS and some other states too can't even take the time to do the research to learn that they are the victims of an organized plot to do harm to the heartland to keep them passive while attacking the coasts and Democratic cities. The usual places where the people can get information are spewing vile hatreds and expecting the people to swallow it whole. I am glad there are people in the heartland that are not tolerating the crap being thrown to them as though you all are not worthy of the citizenship you have, your long history, and the contributions you all have made to this nation. It's interesting that most of the folks doing this damage are Eastern elites and they are assaulting all of us for their own power and ability to steal from the American people. Truly outrageous!! It's also unacceptable!
Thanks for the word of encouragement, after Shrice Davids got elected as our representative they gerrymander her district and next election she was still elected and by a little more than a 10% margin. Our next-door neighbor (Missouri) is in worse shape and living in Kansas City we get both sets of commercials and its mind numbing the candidates put forth for election. Hell we have Ty Masterson a state senator running for governor and his accomplishments are he went to college and never graduated, started a construction business in 2011 and then later declared bankruptcy and got an endorsement from the president. That's it! What in the name of hell. Okay, I'm done.
Bill, and the challenge is to get the good information about quality candidates on our media which has a gigantic financial bias toward Baby Donnie and anyone he endorses even though he doesn't really know any of them, just that he has been told they will kiss butt whenever Trump demands it.
That is truly disgusting, but what the Republican Party has become. There is no quality, no integrity, no empathy, no comprehension, nothing but blind loyalty to Idiotland and a delight in playing the part they have been assigned despite their oath of office. Truly appalling!
I think that you're being overly generous to Trump. While there are presently enough words in the deep sewage of the English language to describe him , he still has another 2 years of repulsively evil doings to pile on to the vile verbiage he has currently earned. He has not yet reached the bottom, wherever that is.
L.D., you are right. Yeah, there are plenty of words, but I just couldn't get the right ones to describe someone who is totally empty of anything but what has been part of who he is throughout his life. Trump didn't just become the despicable cretin he is now; he developed that along the way by blaming everyone else for his own bad actions, insulted everyone to try to undermine them in their eyes and in the view of everyone else, consulted corrupt politicians and lawyers and got hold of their finer points, made way into the graces of the corrupt corporations and their corrupt owners and CEOs. They saw immediately that he could be used as long as they didn't invest too much of their resources on him. Only those that could be made up through government contracts, tax breaks, and other perks could be sacrificed for a block of orange Jello to be elected.
One of the problems with soccer officiating, especially in FIFA, is that there is no formal mechanism for requesting adjudication of judgments on the field, which is fine if you want to go by old time baseball rules (such attempts at review were simply denied; the umpire on the field made the decision and you went on with the game). Otherwise, you need a special review structure that provides clear and specific rules for protesting or requesting a post-game review, and there should be a neutral board or committee responsible for making the decision or at least doing the initial review and providing a recommendation.
In this US case, the entire situation was suspect. Personally, I probably agree with Trump that the call felt overly severe, but without a proper avenue for requesting review of a judgment call, you just have to accept the call and move on. The very idea of the President of the United States picking up the phone and calling the President of FIFA to request such a review is absurd and Infantino should have refused immediately.
FIFA probably NEEDS to create a way to protest calls that feel really off base, but right now that doesn't exist, and as an old time baseball and basketball official, we always tried to convey that without such options (especially at lower levels like high school where instant replay is generally not available to review) people just needed to accept the fact that errors might be made in officiating and move on. My experience at all levels I officiated is that given the minimal compensation paid to officials, the level of competence is pretty surprisingly good. Its not perfect (even major league umpires making $150,000-$400,000 a year aren't "perfect") but it is pretty damn close.
Jon, my husband, who was a soccer referee for 38 years, and I agree that the call was overly severe. We watched the slo-mo of it multiple times, and my take is that Balogun probably was losing his balance. We agree that there was a foul, because stepping on another player's foot is against the rules, but the foul did not deserve a red card. Yellow, maybe. Free kick definitely. But trumps thumb on the situation is what, IMO, ruined the game for the US because all the players knew that what trump did was wrong.
Why did U.S. Soccer go along with trump's attempt to rig the Belgium/U.S. match?? If U.S. Soccer officials and players believe in the primacy of fair play per the international rules and regulations, then the right thing to have done would have been to tell trump to get the fuck away by refusing to honor the suspension of the suspension. Instead they took the path of least resistance and obeyed in advance. So, even if the team would have won, Trump's U.S. would still be seen as the loser, bigly time.
Interesting thought. My brain never went there. The one thing I could say is that the team gave trump what he deserved. And the decision to honor the reversal of the suspension was probably managment, which never gets out on the field to play.
Whatever you think about the validity of the red card --- and I agree with the consensus of outside or non-involved experts that Balogun’s challenge was not serious foul play, did not endanger the opponent, and did not involve excessive force and moreover, that the VAR review was mishandled --- FIFA violated its own rules and its political interference laws that it ordinarily treats as sacrosanct. FIFA’s statutes are explicit: Governments may not intervene in footballing matters. Not in refereeing, not in discipline, not in federation decisions. This rule is so strict that FIFA has suspended entire countries for far less. A head of state calling FIFA about a red card is exactly the kind of interference FIFA is designed to prevent --- unless, of course, it has recently presented him with a made-up, gaudy "peace" prize.
Whatever call was right or wrong did not excuse Trump's sleazy back-door insinuation of the weight of his office to promote his own country's team. There simply is no excuse for it.
What are the chances Todd Blanche can be indicted under a Democratic administration? Trump could pardon him, of course, but depending on Trump's health there might be no pardon in time.
It wouldn't matter. Any pardon Trump can't grant because of a rapid onset of health conditions will be granted by his successor, i.e., JD Vance.
Anyway, until Jan. 20, 2029, there is a Republican administration, even if the Dems regain control of both the House and Senate in the 2026 midterms. And they aren't going to indict their own AG. The House could choose to impeach Blanche, and it might get to trial in the Senate, but unless 2/3 of the Senate miraculously decide to vote against Trump (highly unlikely), the result will just be another failed impeachment, as two have already failed against Trump so far.
The best bet for stopping Blanche in his tracks is refusing his appointment by a majority vote in the Senate. That is not as unlikely as it sounds. I think Cornyn from Texas just might decide to take Trump down a notch after Trump turned on him in the Texas primary for Senate. With McConnell and Graham out of the running for a while, it might only take one more Senator to turn against Blanche. Tillis who is retiring this year could be one. So could Susan Collins if she actually thinks it might help her reelection campaign in Maine.
it is my idea that if/when trump dies, vance will revert to his original opinion that yrump sucks and vance will present himself to the country as a type of saviour for return of america to a democracy.
Vance is a total chameleon who will say or do whatever will get him the most praise, money, accolades, future options. He might try to present himself as human and reasonable and intelligent - but he has said and done so much that directly contradicts that image that it could ultimately only be seen as an illusion in the end.
So sorry Susan (about being a Texan!) And I agree, Cornyn returning to a level of sanity that I don't think he ever had is a very long shot. But these days, small hopes are all we've got!
I distinctly remember that last year Cornyn was boasting about how he was reading "The Art of the Deal" and how great it was. He recommended it to everyone. So out of touch!
Jon, I live in El Paso, which is a long way from any of the rest of Texas, and it's the best place I've ever lived. I just wish we could get good senators. I will hope with you for the best.
Blanche has drawn the ire of judges and legal groups for his defense tactics, including ethical complaints and a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals order demanding he explain apparent misquotes in a brief.
Two specific judges have directly challenged his actions and legal strategies in major cases:
• U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan: Found that Blanche (as Acting Attorney General) violated the Epstein Files Transparency Act and issued a preliminary injunction ordering the Department of Justice to release unredacted Epstein files.
• Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg: Oversaw a contempt of court inquiry involving Blanche and his deputy regarding the transfer of detained persons in alleged violation of a temporary restraining order.
Disgusting. I continue to be shocked by (well everything) Blanche’s likely confirmation. This reminder tonight prepares me for this real possibility. How can I still be shocked? I think it may be a good thing, a healthy thing. It means I have not and cannot normalize any of this or brush it off; and that I deeply care.
Sending a prayer that you, and other truth tellers, will be guided and guarded. Two other people I follow, Sharon McMahon and Dave Columbo, have both recently talked about how drastically governing has changed. How Presidents, legislators & judges just did their jobs, relatively quietly, and we expected them to govern appropriately. It wasn’t idyllic, however, we didn’t wake up every morning to a report of the social media rants and threats of a United States President, who clearly regards us as disposable inconveniences.
Thank you, Professor. You don’t have to worry about a proof reader. Blanche will have a hard time getting through because of the death of Lyndsey Graham. Trump’s wheeler and dealer from the senate.
Blanche has one chore and that is at all costs, saving his leader and master mr. trump from all woes and dangers. That is not the job of the DOJ and therefore he is not fit for the office. This dept. needs reforming as to how a head is picked. Otherwise it can no longer serve the needs of the people.
Seems unlikely Blanche will be stopped. Something worth spending time on for South Carolina voters is a strategy for voting in the special primary to see who the Republican Senate candidate will be. for Graham’s seat. SC, at least for now (a lawsuit to stop it has reportedly been filed), has an open primary, so cross-over, strategic voting for a possible candidate is possible. As I understand it, this will be a new election, and voting in a prior Democratic primary will not prevent voting here. See ChatGPT for a summary of the law. https://chatgpt.com/share/6a53eec0-f610-83ea-aa9f-f1ea1c06acaf
If you need to vote absentee, watch the deadlines and request a ballot if you qualify from your county election commission. Cannot be requested by email. https://scvotes.gov/
Have already called my two complicit feckless Senators Moreno/Husted and will do so again.
Please contact your senator’s office and tell them to vote NO on confirming Blanche. Your senators need to hear from you, now.
The Senate switchboard is (202) 224-3121. Elected officials prioritize their own voters, so please share your name and your city/town so the staff knows you live in their state.
Have received enough form letters from both of their offices that have nothing to do with the multitude of calls and letters to have a bonfire seen in near by states. But there’s a certain persistent in “Keeping this Republic” because it’s up to each of us because “We Can and Should”…
Blanche is the 21st century of Hans Frank. Frank represented Hitler in over 2,400 cases during the 1920s and early 1930s. Later Frank became a high-ranking Nazi official and Governor-General of occupied Poland. Following World War II, he was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg and executed in 1946..
after "i love you sir", no one should expect this corrupted lawyer to behave in any way other than as the trumped-up thug's personal attorney. And anyone paying attention has seen that he is already acting like it. Just watch the spineless republicans confirm this new roy cohn. The real disgrace over the past 10 years have been those who have enabled or have been complicit in this destruction of our democracy.
The lack of shame, embarrassment, and guilt in abandoning the enforcement of basic competency and moral clarity to the serious job of United States Attorney General is appalling. Not even attempting to create a patina of optics of legitimacy or integrity.
The current GOP has made governance unrecognizable.
EPSTEIN. Blanche's mis-handling of the files is a disgrace. Maxwell to a cushy pad in a low detention Texas Club Fed is a disgrace. Add to that the cop-beater slush fund proposal and the cultivation of a culture in which all prosecutors, at any level, understand that their agenda is Trump's revenge agenda and not the country's business make him deeply unqualified.
The key thought: he's never, ever stopped being Trump's personal lawyer. Tell the Judiciary Committee:
Todd Blanche has brought the DoJ to irretrievable depths. Under his aegis, the agency has ceased to investigate any criminal behavior connected to Trump: sexual abuse towards women and girls, white collar crime, civil rights violations against all but those poor downtrodden whites, and now antitrust cases. He has abandoned America for Bizzaro World.
One can no longer presume regular order for prosecutions. One can no longer trust what the DOJ is up to. Bad Bondi and Todd Blanche enabled this slide into infamy.
Swbv, yes, Bondi and Blanche did wreck DOJ, but they were permitted to do it by Senate Republicans who simply didn't care what those two fools would do, both of them Trump's personal stooges. Those Senate Republicans and any Democrats who voted for those two deserve at least as much blame because they ignored the facts about those two and every other jerk they approved to lead our government. They asked few if any relevant questions in their "hearings," and I suspect will do the same on Wednesday in Blanche's next hearing. Blanch is just another whiny white boy who thinks he is smarter than everyone around him when the only thing he is "smart" about his how to kiss Trump's nether regions in public and to do whatever his "Daddy Donnie" tells him to do.
Blanche is not an especially good lawyer (I have heard and read), but he has Trump's ear and other regions in mind and thinks he can do whatever he wants to do, and so far, he has been able to.
It is time he is put in jail until he releases the Epstein Files since he has been breaking the law for nearly 7 months. That is long enough to obey the law. A poor guy who stole a couple of bucks would have been held in jail from the moment he was caught. We know where Blanche works and it is time he is held accountable, imprisoned until he releases the documents, unredacted to Congress as Trump even signed that he should.
Any Republican in the Senate who votes for this incompetent sycophantic pseudolawyer needs to be held accountable too because they know better. Also, any who are lawyers need to be disbarred for breaking their oath to uphold the laws of this nation.
Agreed. And yet why? What benefit? A DoJ screen for Trump … earns Trump big money, scorn for his lickspittles — as usual, an arrangement benefiting Trump only.
There's gotta be money or prestige or favor or insider knowledge or college admissions or pardons for friends and family or some other baksheesh on the table as inducement.
Or the pure prestige of propping up Donald Trump, shining beacon of benevolent autocracy — money grubbing & power grabbing exalted.
IMHO the most INCRIMINATING thing for Blanche is Titgate.
The us has become a disgusting fascist country. The fireworks reflect demise. Not continuation of a great democracy.
GIVEN THAT TRUMP THOUGHT NOTHING OF LEANING ON THE PRESIDENT OF FIFA TO CHANGE THEIR DECISION, HOW MANY CALLS DID HE MAKE TO HIS PUPPETS ON THE SUPREME COURT TO INFLUENCE THEIR DECISIONS?
Trump admitted that he personally called the President of FIFA and asked him to “take another look at it” and to “review “ FIFA’s decision to suspend an American soccer player’s participation in the next game.
One would have to be an idiot not to read between the lines.
This was heavy duty pressure from the President of the United States, who sponsored these games in the U.S. and who had previously invited him to attend his Presidential inauguration and affairs at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Trump has consistently said he did not tell President Infantino what the decision should be, only that the play deserved another review.
"All I did was ask for a review because I didn't think it was a foul. I didn't tell him what to do. I can't tell him what to do….That wasn't a foul. That wasn't even an infraction. That was two guys running full speed that happened to crash into each other. You can't take your foot and properly place it on somebody else's foot when you're going full speed. These were two great athletes that got tangled up…Take another look at it. Review it.”
This was heavy duty pressure on the FIFA President.
Given that Trump’s call was merely standard operating procedure for him, one could easily believe that Trump may have placed similar calls into judges around the country, and especially Chief Justice Roberts or Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, or Kavanaugh to influence their decisions. Not a single judge would fail to understand Trump’s urging to “Take another look at it. Review it”.
This is the kind of political sleaze and slime that Trump excels in, along with coercions, shakedowns and threats of retaliation. What are Trump’s abiding principles of morality? He said it himself: “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me."
I assume that the speed-dial buttons on his White House phone include the numbers for Roberts' Thomas, and Alito. Probably also Kavanaugh.
I think that Kavanaugh is suck-up #1.
L.D., Trump is scum and slime and whatever disgusting words one can think of and they don't begin to go deep enough into what Trump really is. Unfortunately, many people in this nation voted him into office and some still stand by him as "the best president this country has ever had" (I heard that from someone being interviewed. I think the person was from Kansas or Nebraska).
Even in the throes of dementia, Trump can still blurt out the evil that has resided in his messed-up brain since childhood. He has nothing positive to offer anyone but the rich white boys that are willing to bow and scrape to him, and we just don't need that bowing and scraping here in our nation. I'm OK if our Baby Donnie wants to get people he has hired at his rich boy home in FL to bow and scrape to him, but not the American people. Trump needs to be impeached and found guilty of the many crimes he has been perpetrating, probably far more than we know. The word "treason" keeps coming into my head when I think of Trump, Blanche, Leavitt, Vought, Musk, Theil, Vance, the DOGErs, and the rest of Trumplandia.
Ruth, I think it was Roger Marshall from KS. He represents us and he has his head so far up Trumps ass that last time I looked there were 13 or 14 people running to replace him. His posts on FB get brutally taken down in the comments section, and his address of record is an old two-bedroom farmhouse out in the sticks, but he has a million plus mansion in Fl somewhere. I get his weekly newsletter, "The Doc is In," every Friday at about 4PM and just as I'm trying to enjoy a martini after about half of that can I read his BS. Sorry for the rant here, but an awful lot of us dislike him and are doing our best to get rid of him in November.
Bill, I wish you well. KS doesn't deserve what has been happening to it in the past decade or so. The people are being treated as though you all are irrelevant and whatever Trumplandia wants is law; it isn't, but I bet a lot of the overworked, underpaid, ignored people of KS and some other states too can't even take the time to do the research to learn that they are the victims of an organized plot to do harm to the heartland to keep them passive while attacking the coasts and Democratic cities. The usual places where the people can get information are spewing vile hatreds and expecting the people to swallow it whole. I am glad there are people in the heartland that are not tolerating the crap being thrown to them as though you all are not worthy of the citizenship you have, your long history, and the contributions you all have made to this nation. It's interesting that most of the folks doing this damage are Eastern elites and they are assaulting all of us for their own power and ability to steal from the American people. Truly outrageous!! It's also unacceptable!
Thanks for the word of encouragement, after Shrice Davids got elected as our representative they gerrymander her district and next election she was still elected and by a little more than a 10% margin. Our next-door neighbor (Missouri) is in worse shape and living in Kansas City we get both sets of commercials and its mind numbing the candidates put forth for election. Hell we have Ty Masterson a state senator running for governor and his accomplishments are he went to college and never graduated, started a construction business in 2011 and then later declared bankruptcy and got an endorsement from the president. That's it! What in the name of hell. Okay, I'm done.
Bill, and the challenge is to get the good information about quality candidates on our media which has a gigantic financial bias toward Baby Donnie and anyone he endorses even though he doesn't really know any of them, just that he has been told they will kiss butt whenever Trump demands it.
That is truly disgusting, but what the Republican Party has become. There is no quality, no integrity, no empathy, no comprehension, nothing but blind loyalty to Idiotland and a delight in playing the part they have been assigned despite their oath of office. Truly appalling!
the word treason stays in my head when it comes to that group
I think that you're being overly generous to Trump. While there are presently enough words in the deep sewage of the English language to describe him , he still has another 2 years of repulsively evil doings to pile on to the vile verbiage he has currently earned. He has not yet reached the bottom, wherever that is.
L.D., you are right. Yeah, there are plenty of words, but I just couldn't get the right ones to describe someone who is totally empty of anything but what has been part of who he is throughout his life. Trump didn't just become the despicable cretin he is now; he developed that along the way by blaming everyone else for his own bad actions, insulted everyone to try to undermine them in their eyes and in the view of everyone else, consulted corrupt politicians and lawyers and got hold of their finer points, made way into the graces of the corrupt corporations and their corrupt owners and CEOs. They saw immediately that he could be used as long as they didn't invest too much of their resources on him. Only those that could be made up through government contracts, tax breaks, and other perks could be sacrificed for a block of orange Jello to be elected.
I agree, I don't think there is an existing word to put on trump. No word is bad enough to cover all of his actions.
One of the problems with soccer officiating, especially in FIFA, is that there is no formal mechanism for requesting adjudication of judgments on the field, which is fine if you want to go by old time baseball rules (such attempts at review were simply denied; the umpire on the field made the decision and you went on with the game). Otherwise, you need a special review structure that provides clear and specific rules for protesting or requesting a post-game review, and there should be a neutral board or committee responsible for making the decision or at least doing the initial review and providing a recommendation.
In this US case, the entire situation was suspect. Personally, I probably agree with Trump that the call felt overly severe, but without a proper avenue for requesting review of a judgment call, you just have to accept the call and move on. The very idea of the President of the United States picking up the phone and calling the President of FIFA to request such a review is absurd and Infantino should have refused immediately.
FIFA probably NEEDS to create a way to protest calls that feel really off base, but right now that doesn't exist, and as an old time baseball and basketball official, we always tried to convey that without such options (especially at lower levels like high school where instant replay is generally not available to review) people just needed to accept the fact that errors might be made in officiating and move on. My experience at all levels I officiated is that given the minimal compensation paid to officials, the level of competence is pretty surprisingly good. Its not perfect (even major league umpires making $150,000-$400,000 a year aren't "perfect") but it is pretty damn close.
Jon, my husband, who was a soccer referee for 38 years, and I agree that the call was overly severe. We watched the slo-mo of it multiple times, and my take is that Balogun probably was losing his balance. We agree that there was a foul, because stepping on another player's foot is against the rules, but the foul did not deserve a red card. Yellow, maybe. Free kick definitely. But trumps thumb on the situation is what, IMO, ruined the game for the US because all the players knew that what trump did was wrong.
Why did U.S. Soccer go along with trump's attempt to rig the Belgium/U.S. match?? If U.S. Soccer officials and players believe in the primacy of fair play per the international rules and regulations, then the right thing to have done would have been to tell trump to get the fuck away by refusing to honor the suspension of the suspension. Instead they took the path of least resistance and obeyed in advance. So, even if the team would have won, Trump's U.S. would still be seen as the loser, bigly time.
Interesting thought. My brain never went there. The one thing I could say is that the team gave trump what he deserved. And the decision to honor the reversal of the suspension was probably managment, which never gets out on the field to play.
Whatever you think about the validity of the red card --- and I agree with the consensus of outside or non-involved experts that Balogun’s challenge was not serious foul play, did not endanger the opponent, and did not involve excessive force and moreover, that the VAR review was mishandled --- FIFA violated its own rules and its political interference laws that it ordinarily treats as sacrosanct. FIFA’s statutes are explicit: Governments may not intervene in footballing matters. Not in refereeing, not in discipline, not in federation decisions. This rule is so strict that FIFA has suspended entire countries for far less. A head of state calling FIFA about a red card is exactly the kind of interference FIFA is designed to prevent --- unless, of course, it has recently presented him with a made-up, gaudy "peace" prize.
Whatever call was right or wrong did not excuse Trump's sleazy back-door insinuation of the weight of his office to promote his own country's team. There simply is no excuse for it.
Todd Blanch makes me ill. I can barely stand the corruption anymore. He is a nihilist. How did we get here?
Blanche is the son of a Pentecostalist preacher who managed to be so obnoxious that he was driven out of Colorado Springs. I think that’s a tell.
https://www.nationalmemo.com/todd-blanche-trump
Wow thanks for that. It was really interesting.
Oh my heavens! Just read the piece in The National Memo! No wonder he’s so crazy!
Definitely does not sound like somebody all glued together mentally or socially.
For sure. I had no idea.
Sounds right to me!
What are the chances Todd Blanche can be indicted under a Democratic administration? Trump could pardon him, of course, but depending on Trump's health there might be no pardon in time.
It wouldn't matter. Any pardon Trump can't grant because of a rapid onset of health conditions will be granted by his successor, i.e., JD Vance.
Anyway, until Jan. 20, 2029, there is a Republican administration, even if the Dems regain control of both the House and Senate in the 2026 midterms. And they aren't going to indict their own AG. The House could choose to impeach Blanche, and it might get to trial in the Senate, but unless 2/3 of the Senate miraculously decide to vote against Trump (highly unlikely), the result will just be another failed impeachment, as two have already failed against Trump so far.
The best bet for stopping Blanche in his tracks is refusing his appointment by a majority vote in the Senate. That is not as unlikely as it sounds. I think Cornyn from Texas just might decide to take Trump down a notch after Trump turned on him in the Texas primary for Senate. With McConnell and Graham out of the running for a while, it might only take one more Senator to turn against Blanche. Tillis who is retiring this year could be one. So could Susan Collins if she actually thinks it might help her reelection campaign in Maine.
it is my idea that if/when trump dies, vance will revert to his original opinion that yrump sucks and vance will present himself to the country as a type of saviour for return of america to a democracy.
Lol...
LOL...
ROTFLMAO...
Sorry Patricia, I really enjoy reading your comments!
But... but... seriously, have you lost your mind? LOL LOL LOL!
JD Vance as the return to sanity?
As Mike Myers used to say, "... and monkeys might fly out of my butt!"
Thanks, I'm here all week. But seriously, it will be a trick, but you watch vance sing a new tune...given the chance.
Vance is a total chameleon who will say or do whatever will get him the most praise, money, accolades, future options. He might try to present himself as human and reasonable and intelligent - but he has said and done so much that directly contradicts that image that it could ultimately only be seen as an illusion in the end.
As a Texan, I'm hoping that Cornyn sees the light, but given everything I know about him now, I don't trust that he would vote against Blanche.
So sorry Susan (about being a Texan!) And I agree, Cornyn returning to a level of sanity that I don't think he ever had is a very long shot. But these days, small hopes are all we've got!
I distinctly remember that last year Cornyn was boasting about how he was reading "The Art of the Deal" and how great it was. He recommended it to everyone. So out of touch!
Jon, I live in El Paso, which is a long way from any of the rest of Texas, and it's the best place I've ever lived. I just wish we could get good senators. I will hope with you for the best.
I live in Texas and totally agree.
Blanche has drawn the ire of judges and legal groups for his defense tactics, including ethical complaints and a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals order demanding he explain apparent misquotes in a brief.
Two specific judges have directly challenged his actions and legal strategies in major cases:
• U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan: Found that Blanche (as Acting Attorney General) violated the Epstein Files Transparency Act and issued a preliminary injunction ordering the Department of Justice to release unredacted Epstein files.
• Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg: Oversaw a contempt of court inquiry involving Blanche and his deputy regarding the transfer of detained persons in alleged violation of a temporary restraining order.
Disgusting. I continue to be shocked by (well everything) Blanche’s likely confirmation. This reminder tonight prepares me for this real possibility. How can I still be shocked? I think it may be a good thing, a healthy thing. It means I have not and cannot normalize any of this or brush it off; and that I deeply care.
Sending a prayer that you, and other truth tellers, will be guided and guarded. Two other people I follow, Sharon McMahon and Dave Columbo, have both recently talked about how drastically governing has changed. How Presidents, legislators & judges just did their jobs, relatively quietly, and we expected them to govern appropriately. It wasn’t idyllic, however, we didn’t wake up every morning to a report of the social media rants and threats of a United States President, who clearly regards us as disposable inconveniences.
Thank you, Professor. You don’t have to worry about a proof reader. Blanche will have a hard time getting through because of the death of Lyndsey Graham. Trump’s wheeler and dealer from the senate.
Blanche has one chore and that is at all costs, saving his leader and master mr. trump from all woes and dangers. That is not the job of the DOJ and therefore he is not fit for the office. This dept. needs reforming as to how a head is picked. Otherwise it can no longer serve the needs of the people.
Seems unlikely Blanche will be stopped. Something worth spending time on for South Carolina voters is a strategy for voting in the special primary to see who the Republican Senate candidate will be. for Graham’s seat. SC, at least for now (a lawsuit to stop it has reportedly been filed), has an open primary, so cross-over, strategic voting for a possible candidate is possible. As I understand it, this will be a new election, and voting in a prior Democratic primary will not prevent voting here. See ChatGPT for a summary of the law. https://chatgpt.com/share/6a53eec0-f610-83ea-aa9f-f1ea1c06acaf
If you need to vote absentee, watch the deadlines and request a ballot if you qualify from your county election commission. Cannot be requested by email. https://scvotes.gov/
Not legal advice.
Thank you Joyce, with or without a proofreader. It is important information for us to have. I appreciate your efforts.
Thank you Professor Vance for your tireless work.
Have already called my two complicit feckless Senators Moreno/Husted and will do so again.
Please contact your senator’s office and tell them to vote NO on confirming Blanche. Your senators need to hear from you, now.
The Senate switchboard is (202) 224-3121. Elected officials prioritize their own voters, so please share your name and your city/town so the staff knows you live in their state.
Have received enough form letters from both of their offices that have nothing to do with the multitude of calls and letters to have a bonfire seen in near by states. But there’s a certain persistent in “Keeping this Republic” because it’s up to each of us because “We Can and Should”…
Blanche is the 21st century of Hans Frank. Frank represented Hitler in over 2,400 cases during the 1920s and early 1930s. Later Frank became a high-ranking Nazi official and Governor-General of occupied Poland. Following World War II, he was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg and executed in 1946..
Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a place where we don’t celebrate our elected officials demise. And yes I am guilty.
I think most of the world hopes for their leaders demise...we are just not used to being one of them !
after "i love you sir", no one should expect this corrupted lawyer to behave in any way other than as the trumped-up thug's personal attorney. And anyone paying attention has seen that he is already acting like it. Just watch the spineless republicans confirm this new roy cohn. The real disgrace over the past 10 years have been those who have enabled or have been complicit in this destruction of our democracy.
The lack of shame, embarrassment, and guilt in abandoning the enforcement of basic competency and moral clarity to the serious job of United States Attorney General is appalling. Not even attempting to create a patina of optics of legitimacy or integrity.
The current GOP has made governance unrecognizable.
EPSTEIN. Blanche's mis-handling of the files is a disgrace. Maxwell to a cushy pad in a low detention Texas Club Fed is a disgrace. Add to that the cop-beater slush fund proposal and the cultivation of a culture in which all prosecutors, at any level, understand that their agenda is Trump's revenge agenda and not the country's business make him deeply unqualified.
The key thought: he's never, ever stopped being Trump's personal lawyer. Tell the Judiciary Committee:
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/about/members