This Blog Should Not Exist,, Part 2.05: All In

(Blogger's Note:  2.04 (a response to the Nashville shootings) was deleted by request of some readers, the same ones who have had me boycott coverage of the Sochi Olympics and the last two FIFA Men's World Cups.)

As I'm beginning to write this, Donald Trump is shooting his mouth off, six and a half hours after being officially arraigned in New York City Supreme Court (and I knew this from my time in the system and in Rikers':  The highest appeals court in the state is called the Appeals Court.  The Supreme Court, specifically in New York, is the felony criminal court.), pleading not guilty to 34 felony counts surrounding falsification of business records.  He becomes the first President of the United States of America to be officially arrested and charged with a criminal offense.

That's the benign part.  And the fact that it was as brief as practice-able and that Trump pled not guilty -- all normal and to procedure (though I can't think, to my experience, his lawyers are crazy about his plea (you are supposed to stand silent and let that plea be entered on your behalf) or of tonight's bloviation.

It's the rest of this you need to worry about -- because all sides of the political spectrum have probably shoved all the chips to the center of the table.

The 2024 election and the very future of this country will almost certainly now be decided in a New York City criminal courtroom.

The very fact we have a Constitutional Republic, Democracy, whatever you wish to call it, will be decided in the next months in that courtroom if we make it that far before Main Street explodes (and that's an entire separate 2.xx part of This Blog Should Not Exist I should probably do, and quickly!).

The reasons are not only having to do with the results, but with the charges.

Let's start with the latter.

Donald Trump is charged with 34 separate violations of New York Penal Code 175.10 - Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree.  Each is a Class E Felony, each carries a potential 1-5 year prison sentence and a fine.

There are two very prescient facts which makes this situation dangerous for the country:

The first is the charge itself being First Degree Falsification of Business Records -- for the difference is that the act has to be what would be a Falsification of Business Records in the Second Degree (NYPC 175.05), but it also has to be an act which covers up or is in commission of another criminal offense.

(At the press conference, DA Alvin Bragg was asked of that distinction -- and says several laws, including at least one New York election statute, are in play.  Some believe this might be an avenue the Trump lawyers could pursue -- but isn't the Presidential election, on a state-by-state basis, run by each individual state?)

The second is that each and every one of the charges, as I stated in the other post, between February and December of 2017.  Meaning these acts are alleged to have taken place in the first year of Donald Trump's Presidency.

This has a number of damning implications, not the least of which is that, if convicted, Donald Trump has not only committed an impeachment series of offenses with the direct offense, but one more or impeachment offenses by the laws being covered up or committed, and those will have to be spelled out and proven that the false records covered up these offenses as well.

This leads to the results, which is why this is completely All In for America.

Trump has made a lot of the fact that he and those of sufficient "legitimate purpose" (to quote at least two other NY Penal Codes) are above all semblance of law -- it was the center of what got him elected President!  So, if something was found, they had to go to this situation.

So there are three potential outcomes (with several other realities which now come of this):

• If Trump walks (either through the charges being dropped or through a complete acquittal):  Then the theories of the Republican pundits are probably correct -- Trump is the next President in an electoral landslide.  If done soon enough, I could see him grimace (he can't have been happy with Mike Pence) with Ron DeSantis as a VP to help finish the job on the democracy.  As a result, now that DA Bragg has arrested him and arraigned him, this must either go to a plea or go to trial -- and, with what even a plead-out would give (see the third outcome), it must go to trial.
• If Trump walks, but through a hung jury or series of hung juries, then he may well also win an electoral landslide, but with less effect on the surface than a full acquittal/exoneration.  He gets to tell his base that he is above the law, so he almost certainly wins another term.  Sadly, with the political reality and division this son of a bitch has stirred up in this country, it will be nearly impossible to get a jury through selection (and an eventual appeals process) which won't hide it's biases when the votes are taken.  Hence, I see this as the most probable outcome.
• In either of these two cases, the complete legal abolition of the Democratic Party would probably occur in the next 24 or so months.
• If Trump is convicted of any crime (and this can be through plead-out or through a jury decision):  You could see the end of the entire Freedom Caucus/America First/MAGA movement -- because, now, every Congressperson who failed to impeach or remove him through three Congresses (2017-18, 2019-20, and, yes, 2021-22 (meaning you, MTG and Fivehead!)) could be removable for dereliction of their Constitutional duty.  It's one thing to allege a High Crime or Constitutional Misdemeanor.  It is quite another to actually have presented actual Constitutional Misdemeanors against the President and doing nothing.
• As a result, I could easily see a conviction, etc., resulting in the complete abolition of the Republican Party as the terrorist organization it is.

There is one piece of bad news, however, in all of this:  The next in-person hearing for the Orange Bloviator is December 4, 2023.