CSotD: Recons, retcons and just plain cons

Andertoons (AMS) picks up today’s Fortuitous Timing Award, particularly since he offers all three possible pleas, including the one that might well emerge if Trump’s lawyers don’t keep a lid on their client.

That’s not just my politics wisecracking. There has been significant speculation, including from some attorneys, about the dubious strategy of turning Trump loose on the microphones, and a fair amount of commentary that, if they were representing him, they’d be thrilled that New York State has strict rules about cameras in the courtroom in general and that the judge has barred them from covering Trump’s hearing live.

On the other hand, he’s reportedly planning to make a speech at 7 pm, so we may still get a sideshow anyway. I understand Leslie Stahl is standing by to cover it, practicing her eye rolls and repeatedly saying “Wow!” to demonstrate her journalistic insights and analysis.

Christian Adams has that post-plea speech covered, though he might have backed up a bit so we could see the flood of cameras dutifully covering the event.

The fact is that the indictment of a former president is news and should be covered, though, as Fiona Katauskas suggests, it may not be everything Trump was hoping for.

As it is, he’s lucky to be the first former president indicted for anything; John Tyler would likely have claimed the honor, had he not died while serving in the congress of the Confederacy.

It’s not entirely clear what strategy Trump’s legal team will put forward, though Pedro X. Molina (Counterpoint) suggests that their client may be hoping to go with what has (almost) worked before.

While Steve Brodner points out that illegal campaign expenditures to silence former sexual partners may prove to be the least of his several worries. I’ve heard people suggest that Bragg shouldn’t have led off, that this relatively minor case might better have waited for more substantive matters to be resolved.

This presumes a level of communication among the various prosecutors that would be unseemly, but, more to the point, there’s nothing wrong with starting out with a test case before rolling out major matters, while the E. Jean Carroll case has been ongoing for quite a while.

Our boy Donald has his tiny hands full, and I’m not convinced that it matters a great deal in which order things come at him.

However things go in Manhattan today, Dave Granlund makes the point that Trump hasn’t got the least competent attorneys in the country, though one or two of them have been censured, disbarred or otherwise had their paddies slapped.

It is, however, gobsmacking that Ron DeSantis unleashed his mighty legislative hordes upon Disney and promptly had his head so ridiculously handed back to him.

If you haven’t heard, or bothered to trace the laughter, it seems that DeSantis decided to go communist and have the Central Government take over private industry in order to silence the free market’s First Amendment Rights. (He didn’t phrase it that way.)

Whereupon the baddest, most notorious ass-kicking attorneys in these United States simply had the district regulatory board pass legislation to make it impossible. DeSantis now says he plans to have that action overturned, which, given how utterly foolish it was to allow it to happen in the first place, sounds like a cry of “Let me up! You’ve had enough!”

As Granlund notes, DeSantis had been hailed as the alternative to renominating Trump for president. What else ya got?

The real joke being that the outgoing board properly published their plans in the legals section of the local paper and DeSantis’s crack team never even noticed, much less showed up in time to oppose them.

Meanwhile, speaking of things that should perhaps have not gone unnoticed, Russia has now rotated into the presidency of the UN Security Council, and, as Marian Kamensky (Cartoon Movement) explains, there are few applauding the move, and his name is Xi.

There is something deliciously bizarre about the idea that the head of the Security Council has to worry about where he travels, lest he be arrested and hauled off to Brussels to stand trial for war crimes.

However, I said “bizarre,” not “funny.” I have a well-established taste for gallows humor, but this is way too dark even for me.

Though I did get a laugh over Morten Morland’s latest, which is based upon the death of a Russian pro-war blogger in Petrograd, killed by a bomb hidden in a statue with which he was presented.

One well-known Russian exile is claiming that the assassination was carried out by a dissident group within Russia, while Russian officials are dodgy, at best, about what they know.

However, as Morland suggests, it may be a sign that Putin himself isn’t winning any popularity contests.

And that, if he does, he should accept the certificate but leave the trophy out on the porch.

Not only can she play upon him, but she may fret him, too!