Special Counsel Jack Smith filed his initial brief in the Supreme Court case brought by Donald Trump asking, “Whether and if so to what extent does a former President enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office.”  Smith’s filing is informative, complete, and scathing.  Just a taste:

A. Petitioner asserts a novel and sweeping immunity from the federal criminal laws that govern all citizens’ conduct. Under this Court’s established separation-ofpowers framework, a claim of presidential exemption from a statutory limitation requires the President to identify an Article II basis that precludes the application of that congressional act. No presidential power at issue in this case entitles the President to claim immunity from the general federal criminal prohibitions supporting the charges: fraud against the United States, obstruction of official proceedings, and denial of the right to vote. The President’s constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed does not entail a general right to violate them.

B.  History likewise refutes petitioner’s claim. The Framers never endorsed criminal immunity for a former President, and all Presidents from the Founding to the modern era have known that after leaving office they faced potential criminal liability for official acts.  The closest historical analogue is President Nixon’s official conduct in Watergate, and his acceptance of a pardon implied his and President Ford’s recognition that a former President was subject to prosecution.

Responding to a question about whether abortion could “ever be less” polarizing for Republicans, white nationalist Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene on Monday was noticeably ambivalent when speaking to the crowd at her town hall-style cult gathering in Georgia, just blithely mentioning fat former President Trump’s abortion policy statement “leaving it up to the states” rather than national ban the freaks crave. Greene went on for some length about being 100 percent pro-life and that abortion can ever be less polarizing “because of the issue itself,” and only at the end of the answer did she touch on the Orange God Emperor’s contrived stance, saying simply “President Trump did put out a statement today, um, if you wanna go check out his statement and see where he stands on it,” before moving on to some other bullshit right wing culture war issue.

It was not a ringing endorsement and we will update this if and when we get an actual video clip of Greene’s bit we will update. You can see it here at the still-ongoing stream if you rewind to where the RSBN’s time in the lower right-hand corner says 7:06 PM ET and watch from there.

As for the town hall as a whole, most if it was devoted to ripping into House Speaker Mike Johnson, who Greene called a Democrat and a traitor and all sorts of other shit, so yeah maybe she will actually move forward with the motion to vacate when the House reconvenes on Tuesday.

Judge Juan Merchan issued his final jury selection instructions and questionnaire for the scores of New Yorkers who will be considered for the final panel to determine Donald Trump’s fate in his Manhattan election tampering case, and it’s bad news if you’re a member of the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers or Q-Anon.

In a procedural issue, Merchan ruled that the court will dispense of the lengthy practice of interviewing people who have self-identified as unable to serve on the jury because of conflicts or other causes.  Noting that during the 2022 Trump Organization trial he presided over, the jury selection process was drawn out by the mandated interviews–a process Merchan notes would be more complicated in a criminal trial.

“This Court finds, after careful consideration of the circumstances of this case, that requiring individual inquiry of every prospective juror who has already self-identified that they cannot be fair and impartial, or that they are otherwise unable to serve, is unnecessary, time-consuming and of no benefit,” Merchan declared decisively, unlike his Florida federal counterpart.  “This Decision is well within the Court’s discretion.”  This decision by Merchan will shave days, if not weeks off the trial schedule because of the security measures needed to conduct each individual’s interview.

Marjorie Taylor Greene warned us sinners of the demonic eclipse and God’s wrath, and it didn’t take long for the Lord to take the first soul of a pagan worshiper:  On the way to a state park on Saturday to see Monday’s eclipse, a Long Island woman traveling in a camper being towed by a pickup truck fell onto the highway after the camper’s door unexpectedly opened, sustaining fatal head injuries.  For the record, the camper was made by Airstream, not Boeing.  According to the New York Daily News, police are investigating the accident that killed the 58-year-old woman, which was one of a number caused by the increase in traffic as people traveled to sites in the eclipse’s path, not caused by Lucifer’s lunar lark.

A New York appellate court on Monday took just a few hours to rule “Lol, no” on disgraced former President Trump’s desperate, last minute bid to move his upcoming criminal trial out of Manhattan, and thus delay the start, due to “polling and quantitative analysis of media coverage shows that a fair and impartial jury cannot be selected right now,” with Appellate Division Judge Lizbeth Gonzalez writing simply “Defendant’s application for a stay of trial, pursuant to CPL 230.30, pending the determination of defendant’s motion for change of venue, is denied,” on the application.

More than 70 corrections officers including a former warden from Missouri’s Potosi Correctional Center wrote to Republican Governor Michael Parson beseeching him to spare the life of Brian Dorsey, a condemned murderer set to be executed on Tuesday, saying the inmate is reformed and does not deserve to be put to death, the Washington Post reports.

It’s the latest effort to spare the 52-year-old man who was convicted of the double murder of his cousin and her husband in 2006, as he was on a three-day crack bender.  After being awake 72 straight hours because drug dealers he owed money to threatened to kill him, he murdered the couple and stole cash, guns, jewelry and other items to pay off the drug debt.  Once arrested, Dorsey cooperated with investigators and prosecutors. Advocates note that Dorsey was diagnosed with a major depression disorder as a child, but never received effective treatment, instead using alcohol and cocaine to self-medicate.  Since he’s been in prison, he’s received regular, effective treatment which has significantly changed his behavior.

“There isn’t a nicer guy than Brian. He is one of the most pleasant people we know.  He doesn’t deserve to be executed,” the letter reads, noting that Dorsey was housed in an “honor wing” set aside for the best-behaved inmates.  “We know that he was convicted of murder, but that is not the Brian Dorsey that we know. We urge you, Governor, to exercise your authority under the Missouri Constitution to commute Brian’s sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.”

“Senator Lindsey Graham is doing a great disservice to the Republican Party, and to our Country. At first he wanted no Abortions under any circumstances, then he was up to 6 weeks, where you’re allowed Abortion, now he’s up to 15 weeks, where you’re allowed Abortion, but what he doesn’t understand, or perhaps he does, is the Radical Left Democrats, who are destroying our Country, will never approve anything that he or the Republicans want. They love this Issue, and they want to keep it going for as long as Republicans will allow them to do so. Terminating Roe v Wade was, according to all Legal Scholars, a Great Event, but sometimes with Great Events come difficulties.”

“Many Good Republicans lost Elections because of this Issue, and people like Lindsey Graham, that are unrelenting, are handing Democrats their dream of the House, Senate, and perhaps even the Presidency,” posted fat former President Trump, threatening us with a good time.

Donald continued with more bullshit, posting “When the Supreme Court had the courage to do the right thing LEGALLY, and terminate Roe v Wade, all of those people, including Lindsey Graham and Marjorie Dannenfelser of Susan B Anthony that were ‘hardliners’, one day after the Victory, were gone and of absolutely no help, as the Democrats staged rallies and won Elections they should never have won. Lindsey, Marjorie, and others fought for years, unsuccessfully, until I came along and got the job done. Then they were gone, never to be heard from again, until now. We cannot let our Country suffer any further damage by losing Elections on an issue that should always have been decided by the States, and now will be,” then adding “Sending this Issue back to the States was the Policy of the Republican Party and Conservatives for over 50 years, due to States’ Rights and 10th Amendment, and only happened because of the Justices I proudly Nominated and got Confirmed.”

The fat bastard later tried to say he didn’t make up all that bullshit about Dems murdering babies right after they’re born, citing some video of former Virginia Gov Ralph Northam talking about delivering non-viable fetuses, something that didn’t actually have anything to do with abortion, at all.

A new report in the Huffington Post about Elon Musk’s testimony during a deposition in a defamation lawsuit brought by California man Ben Brody – whom Musk misidentified as a “fed” infiltrator disguised as a Neo-Nazi in a video of a June 24, 2023 brawl between the Proud Boys and the Rose City Nationalists in Portland – is some good stuff on its own. Musk is so addled he thinks Brody’s lawyer is Brody – even though he’s Mark Bankston, the pit bull who took Alex Jones for $1 billion, admits he “may have done more to financially impair” Twitter than help it since he took over, that he’s “guilty of many self-inflicted wounds,” and that he had no idea what the fuck he was talking about when he accused Brody of being a “fed” sent to stir shit up with the Proud Boys.

But beyond that it’s fun to think of how this transcript would be received if it were Joe Biden being deposed, like how much screaming about the 25th Amendment and everything we’d have to sit through if he sounded this fucking stupid and cowed while being interrogated. Even more fun to think of how the absolute genius of Musk will never be questioned despite ample evidence of self-inflicted senescence wrought by drug abuse and living as the nexus of internet-pilled batshittery.

“The Constitution subjects the armed forces of the United States to civilian control and the rule of law. These limits on the military are bedrock features of our democracy and are deeply rooted in our nation’s history. From the Founding to the present day, a steadfast commitment to these principles has successfully guided us through two world wars and numerous other conflicts; provided the stability needed for our democratic republic to flourish; and ensured that the military has the capacity to defend our nation by being trained and ready to fight and win its wars.”

“Petitioner’s theory of presidential immunity from criminal prosecution is an assault on these foundational commitments. The notion of such immunity, both as a general matter, and also specifically in the context of the potential negation of election results, threatens to jeopardize our nation’s security and international leadership. Particularly in times like the present, when anti-democratic, authoritarian regimes are on the rise worldwide, such a threat is intolerable and dangerous,” says an amicus brief to the US Supreme Court signed by 19 retired generals, admirals, and secretaries of the branches, among them former CIA Director General Michael V Hayden, signed in support of Jack Smith’s case in United States v Trump ahead of arguments this month.

A much smaller group of MAGA military officers last month argued in a brief that it was silly to think that Trump could order the Navy SEALs to murder political opponents because officers would object to those orders. The fact that Trump could just pardon them aside, their contradicting what Trump lawyer argued in front of the DC Appeals Court probably isn’t the flex they think it is.

Watch this and you see pretty quickly that there’s not really any other way of slicing what this New York State Kennedy campaign manager – whatever the hell her name is – is saying. She just straight up admits she wants to see Biden defeated because he’s Trump and RFK’s mutual enemy.

Disgraced former President Trump’s legal team have filed a lawsuit against Manhattan Judge Juan Merchan to get an appeals court to delay the trial and to challenge the gag order imposed after he wouldn’t shut up about Merchan’s daughter and Assistant District Attorney Matthew Colangelo, the New York Times reports. Separately Law360’s Frank Runyeon reports the fat fuck is also trying to get the trial moved out of Manhattan as part of the relief sought in the lawsuit.

For more than a year now we’ve been hearing about how these charges were not that big of a deal relative to the other ones – or at all – and that it was a stretch for Alvin Bragg to charge Trump with 34 felonies over his hush money payments to Stormy Daniels and so on and so forth. Yet here we are with Donald plainly desperate beyond imagination to stop this trial from happening at all costs short of simply pleading guilty. His actions here should tell you more about how he sees it than any of the shit he or any of his cultists or even MSM segment legal experts say publicly.

Sub-Saharan African currency experts are taking a “wait and see” approach to whether Zimbabwe’s newest effort at establishing a new national unit used for the exchange of goods and services can go the distance that the last five attempts within the last decade did not, Bloomberg reports.

The name “ZiG,” short for Zimbabwean Gold – which it is backed by, as well as foreign reserves – is definitely kind of playful, catchy, and lends itself easily to use as a verb, eg “ZiG me now you cheap motherfucker!” That’s a plus. A minus is that it’s Zimbabwe, where in 2008 the Zimbabwean Dollar hit a 500 billion percent inflation rate. That’s what Bloomberg wrote. It sounds like some kind of pointless abstraction from a 10 year-old kid who says his Fortnite Nerf gun is 500 billion times cooler than the generic one you had when you were his age, but apparently it really happened. On the plus side, Bloomberg’s article seems to say that Zimbabwean officials are taking it slow this time around, with the only real legal mandate for the ZiG for now is requiring businesses to pay at least half of their tax bill in the unit. Other than that they aren’t clamping down on USD quite yet.

Investors still might want to stick to “holding pattern” to see if some irresponsible fucking asshole is just going to print like 900 bajillion ZiGs to pay government vendors and workers. That’s how they got into trouble with hyperinflation the last time around. And the seven or eight times before that.

9-second clips out of context will not save your campaign.

Sorry that your candidate can't do live interviews anymore, but if you think lying and misleading voters like this is a winning strategy, get ready to lose in November.

Watch President Trump's complete statement here… https://t.co/g5Jvu4jxQw pic.twitter.com/vu6NRemeL0

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) April 8, 2024

This is exactly where they wanted to be, publicly arguing “context” with the other team just hours after their candidate rolled out his coup de grace announcement to crush all doubts about his ability to navigate a clusterfuck that he created and has already exacted a grievous cost on his party electorally for the last two years. What’s even better is that they haven’t “clapped back” yet at Biden HQ’s posts highlighting any of the other clips from the four-minute and change long video.

Leashed sub South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham tells CNN’s Manu Raju that he’s not on the same page with his Orange Dom on reproductive issues. “I respectfully disagree with President Trump’s statement that abortion is a states’ rights issue. Dobbs does not require that conclusion legally and the pro-life movement has always been about the wellbeing of the unborn child – not geography,” said Lindsey, which is funny because the opposing side can point to geographic disparities in the wellbeing of the women – like a JAMA study published in January finding that at least 60,000 rape victims were forced to carry to term in the Red States where total abortion bans came into effect or were enacted since the Supreme Court’s June 2022 Dobbs decision.

The Moon will briefly enter celestial conjunction with the Sun over a swath of the eastern United States on Monday. It is strongly recommended that you wear a pair of special protective glasses or a welding mask to view this event, otherwise you could permanently damage your eyesight, as even though the Sun’s ultraviolet rays are diminished by the Moon they are still very powerful.

And yeah that’s about all you actually need to know. For everything you don’t actually need to know, check out “Will the total solar eclipse disrupt your cell service?” at CNN, “List: Schools in our region dismissing early, late on Solar Eclipse Day” at WFXR Roanoke, “What time is the 2024 total solar eclipse on April 8 in Indiana? Search your ZIP code” at The Indianapolis Star, “Live updates: Solar eclipse to darken the sky today in North Jersey” at the Bergen County Record, “2024 solar eclipse may spark behavioral changes in pets, other animals” at the Detroit Free Press, “Here’s your complete guide to the 2024 solar eclipse” at Delmarva Now, “It’s the morning of the total solar eclipse. Are there traffic issues in Erie region?” at the Erie Times News, “Millions get rare look at solar eclipse 2024: Live updates” at The Hill, “Trump Posts Bonkers Eclipse-Themed Campaign Video – But Does He Stare At The Sun In It?” at Mediaite and we can keep going but you probably got the point: There’s a lot you don’t need to know about the eclipse and the media’s zeroed in on it.

Biden to unveil new student loan handout that could slash debt for millions before election dayhttps://t.co/Kr4NFcMuJN

— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) April 8, 2024

“We are deeply disappointed in President Trump’s position. Unborn children and their mothers deserve national protections and national advocacy from the brutality of the abortion industry. The Dobbs decision clearly allows both states and Congress to act,” Susan B Anthony Pro-Life president Majorie Dannenfelser tells CNN in a statement reacting to fat former President Trump climbing down from a national abortion ban in his Monday morning “policy” announcement video.

“Saying the issue is ‘back to the states’ cedes the national debate to the Democrats who are working relentlessly to enact legislation mandating abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy. If successful, they will wipe out states’ rights. With lives on the line, SBA Pro-Life America and the pro-life grassroots will work tirelessly to defeat President Biden and extreme Congressional Democrats,” Dannenfelser continued, plainly not in on the kayfabe that this is just Trump saying whatever bullshit he thinks will help get him elected and after that he’ll reverse again and do whatever they demand if he wins. Also missing was anything like “I’m not going to vote for Trump” because lol she and her pals would never walk away from their Holy Orange Messiah.

Fat former President Trump’s Second Reich-in-waiting plans criminal prosecutions of President Joe Biden, former Trump White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, former Attorney General Bill Barr, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley, and former Mueller Investigation defense lawyer Ty Cobb as revenge for various transgressions, according to separate reporting printed Monday.

In Axios’s report on the Orange God Emperor targeting Biden, a Trump campaign source says “everything you have seen from the Biden DOJ,” in terms of the charges against Trump, “you can expect to see from the Trump DOJ,” which we guess means they don’t expect the US Supreme Court to rule in Donald’s favor on “presidential immunity.” The pretext of course will be the stupid “criminal referrals” planned by House Oversight Chairbilly James Comer to be the centerpiece of the final report on his failed impeachment effort, though that may be a tall order given that Comer and pals need to actually identify a statute crime and evidence of it in a referral.

The other four revenge targets are listed casually in an excerpt of Isaac Arnsdorf’s new book “Finish What We Started – The MAGA Movement’s Ground War to End Democracy,” posted Monday at Vanity Fair, with John Kelly somehow to face charges for confirming reporting about Trump privately shit-talking veterans as “losers” and suckers, Mark Milley for saying “We don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator” in his farewell speech, Ty Cobb for saying “America must be better than Trump to survive,” and Bill Barr for saying “a very petty individual who will always put his interests ahead of the country’s” and not going along with the fat fuck’s post-2020 coup attempt.

Disgraced former President Trump was somewhat surprisingly true to his word in hyping a “statement” about his abortion policy goals… by completely reversing his stated goal for a national 15 or 16 week ban and now saying it’s up to the states. It’s in the middle of this lengthy load of bullshit that he starts with more than a minute of false platitudes about supporting IVF (skipped ahead past it), then falsely accuses Democrats of murdering live babies and claiming that both sides hated Roe v Wade. “We must win, we have to win,” was the overall message here, that Trump’s trying to defuse abortion as an issue while still taking credit for appointing the justices that killed it.

His forced-birther fans aren’t going to be happy about this. They should, as he’s telling them point-blank that they matter less than not antagonizing moderate voters opposed to abortion bans.