First thing this morning, I opened the computer and checked the primary results. I wasn’t so much looking for who won (it was NOT going to be a surprise – in the GOP primary, Trump, in the Dem primary, Biden).
Instead, I was looking at the numbers of people who voted.
In IL, GOP is still pretty much a lost cause. There are sufficient numbers of Dems in charge of Chicago and other big cities, that any ‘downstate’ votes will nearly always be overtaken by the Machine Vote. When you vote in IL, you’re playing against the House, and the House ALWAYS wins, no matter what it takes.
But the numbers in OH and many other states showed a LARGE imbalance in turnout – and, in nearly every case, favoring Trump.
Even taking nearly all of the Non-Trump vote (mostly Haley) and giving it to the Biden totals doesn’t provide a decisive win for Biden in most cases. So, I’m beginning to think this election might not be as much of a nail biter as thought.
The big question is:
Will the Supreme Court fail to act to allow Trump to pursue appeals? If they don’t disallow the massive amount of money Trump would need to liquidate (and, as much of that is held in illiquid assets, it’s simply not possible to manage in the time allowed), allow him to pledge his assets, or permit him to secure bank loans, he will lose his right of appeal. I could be wrong, but that principle, allowed to stand, would ensure that ANYONE convicted of a crime, no matter how badly the law was twisted to force a guilty verdict, could never prevail in court without, at best, a lengthy prison stay.
If the Left can bankrupt Trump in that over-the-top fine, he may not be able to recover sufficiently to run in the presidential election.
And, it IS clear that the fine is over-the-top. If the plaintiff was, in fact, defamed (hard to see that a woman who has publicly stated that rape – actual rape, not simply ‘sexual imposition’ – is laughable and not all that serious), the actual damages should not be greater because the defendant can presumably afford it. And, the punitive damages were carefully calculated to completely clean Trump out.
I don’t think either Trump or his lawyers anticipated this turn of events. They realized that the judge was NOT going to make it possible for the trial to have any other outcome than “guilty”. They expected to have to take this to a higher court.
But, the twisted NY law that makes an appeal impossible unless the defendant comes up with the TOTAL amount of the damages AND fine has to be a violation of Constitutional Law. That the Supreme Court has shut off any stay of the damages and fines, and will force a fire sale of his assets, in order to secure an appeal, is bad law – REALLY bad law. Only those adjudicated completely impoverished will be able to pursue justice.
In a twist on the old saying about how the law forbids both the wealthy and the poor to sleep under bridges (meaning that only the poor are affected), this makes any attempt to get fair treatment under the law out of reach for all but the richest people and corporations. That’s a bad precedent for all Americans – it virtually guarantees the courts will be owned by the Left, and their allies, the multinationals.
