So the good news is that the bill to exonerate the SubPostmasters gained Royal Assent last night, freeing up the fixed compensation scheme for those whose convictions are now quashed (or allowing them to apply to have their individual case assessed).
The, perhaps, not so good news, as much legal commentary has been focusing on is the (potential) precedent it sets for governments to reverse the decisions of Courts.
In this case it would seem pretty just, but in the future?
@DemocracyMattersALot There can hardly be any doubt, that Trump would like to turn the United States into a Mafia state à la Putin's.
Haven't the criminal years from Jan 2017 until Jan 2021 enough of a mobbed-up dry run?
To the disadvantage of most Americans of all political preferences.
Despite a judge’s ruling that #FultonCounty DA #FaniWillis can continue prosecuting…, the relentless campaign to attack her & discredit the case against #Trump continues full-steam ahead.
Through a barrage of dubious accusations, Trump & his allies seek to tarnish Willis’ reputation, delegitimize the judicial process & the #RuleOfLaw, & distract from the substantive #facts of the case.
We’re witnessing a concerted effort by #Trump & #MAGA#politicians to cast doubt on the legitimate & strong #FultonCounty#ElectionInterference case by attacking the prosecutor. It’s an effort that takes advantage of every avenue of #government#power to which Trump’s allies have access. Their goal? #Delay#accountability for Trump’s alleged attempt to illegally overturn a presidential election.
Though not serving as Trump’s attorney when he appeared as a witness today in Trump’s trial for criminally falsifying business records, Robert Costello is a lawyer, bound by New York’s Rules of Professional Conduct. Costello repeatedly showed his ethical unfitness, violating the most basic principles that inform the entire code. I’ve screenshot the very first paragraph of the entire code, highlighting the most pertinent phrases. 1/ #LawFedi#Ethics#LegalEthics
I’ve noted before how Trump himself is treating the trial as an attempt to belittle and weaken judicial institutions as a whole, part of his ongoing attack on #RuleOfLaw. Costello’s performance today was part and parcel of this tactic. For a lawyer to be complicit in such a project is utterly reprehensible. 2/
@GreenFire@AE4WX@dworkin The problem with today's "Republicans" is, that the majority of them in fact aren't Republicans.
They're militant enemies of Abraham Lincoln's world of thought, his Republican Party & his understanding of a free, democratically governed nation without masters & slave.
Would that be reconcilable with enemies of democracy?
Hard to imagine.
Cross-examination of #MichaelCohen resumes, an opportunity for the defense to poke holes in his testimony & perhaps trip up or provoke the state’s key witness. The questioning of Cohen, #Trump’s fmr fixer, is the beginning of the end of Trump’s #criminal trial, which began April 15 & might conclude before Memorial Day weekend at this pace.
Three climate activists have been found guilty under the new law that seeks to repress protests that interfere with key national infrastructure.
With the jury instructed to ignore the defendants' reasoning behind their actions its perhaps unsurprising they were found guilty... all a bit ironic given the unseasonal heat in the court room.
Sentencing is to come & will show how serious an impact the law may have... but its not going to be good!
Trump is not & has never been a victim of justice. He's a crook.
And "Republicans" knew it all the time.
"...
What’s unusual about Trump is not that a politician got into legal trouble, or even that a professional scammer went into politics, but that a political party allowed a crook to rise to its top. That, in turn, reveals the deeply unhealthy state of the GOP, not any extralegal steps being taken by his opponents.
Before he won the Republican nomination the first time, Republicans were perfectly aware that his decades of bilking customers and counterparties, lying to everybody, and surrounding himself with known criminals posed a series legal risk. Now that that risk has gone from theoretical to actual, and it is being shared by the Republican Party, they seem to believe it’s not fair to hold him legally accountable.
But no plot was necessary here. The law finally catching up to a lifelong crook is utterly predictable.
..."
Don Harwood responds to New York Times editor Joseph Kahn, who says that the attack on democracy represented by Trump is not the premier campaign issue:
"Donald Trump is the first American presidential candidate to explicitly threaten the democratic system on which a free press depends. He could win. Considering the stakes for the country, that ought to be the campaign issue that dwarfs all others."
"The democratic experiment cannot long endure if one of the two major political parties is itself anti-democratic. Democracy itself can’t regularly be on the ballot. The democratic consensus must be deeper and broader than that for the rule of law to survive."
@DemocracyMattersALot Instead of openly withdrawing their mandated ratification of the Reconstruction Amendments, the neo-Confederate subverters of Lincoln's Republican party obviously think it smarter to just torpedo any officially granted right based on a SCOTUS decision referring to any of the Reconstruction Amendments.
Which amounts to rebellious attacks on the Constitution, too.
Today's "GOP" seems to be committed to beam the nation back into times before the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, then-advocated for by former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
Glenn Kirschner puts it succinctly and bluntly, regarding #Trump amd his recent #TimeMagazine interview - "Sometimes it feels like we're sleepwalking ... to the end of our Republic ... Do we respond with a collective shrug? What the hell are we doing?"
"In what country could voters read the following paragraph and still say, 'Shit Lurleen, we needs more of that Trump feller.'
'To carry out a deportation operation designed to remove more than 11 million people from the country, Trump told me, he would be willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military, both at the border and inland.'"
"'He would let red states monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans. He would, at his personal discretion, withhold funds appropriated by Congress, according to top advisers. He would be willing to fire a U.S. Attorney who doesn’t carry out his order to prosecute someone, breaking with a tradition of independent law enforcement that dates from America’s founding." (And the paragraphn continues….)
Every day of these proceedings, he should surround the Supreme Court with armed soldiers. Make all those judges walk past rows of soldiers on their way in and out of court. Make them think long and hard about the consequences of declaring presidents above the law.
There is simply nothing more dangerous to the viability of a democratic system of government and to the rule of law than someone who is willing to break the law and commit crimes to keep themselves in power — Citizens for Ethics #quotes#quote#Democracy#RuleOfLaw#Crime#Trump
@DemocracyMattersALot When he's not facing a crowd of equally sociopathic soulmates cheering him, but sincere folks not withholding their disgust with his abhorrent antisocially disordered personality Trump folds like a wet napkin.