Showing posts with label DOJ. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DOJ. Show all posts

June 4, 2023

How article about Jack Smith reconvening grand jury sent me a mystical message about justice's jigsaw puzzle

 How article about Jack Smith reconvening grand jury sent me a mystical message about justice's jigsaw puzzle

By Hal Brown


I read through this article (shown above):

NBC News: Grand jury in Trump classified documents case expected to meet this coming week after hiatus

A grand jury that has been hearing evidence in the case against former President Donald Trump is expected to meet this coming week in Washington after a lull.

It lays out in great detail how Trump is likely to be charged in the Mar-a-Lago documents case and what his various defense tactics could be. You can read the article above or a summary here:


After I read the NBC News article I scrolled through the names of the five reporters who are credited with the scoop.

(On halbrown.org and most platforms this is published on you can click the following images to enlarge them.)


 and came to the following:

It often happens that I open advertising websites accidentally because the trackpad on my laptop is very sensitive. If I touch it lightly when the cursor is over and ad the ad opens. By mistake I clicked on the animated ad from CRAFTHUB for jigsaw puzzles on the left above. This took me here:

Sometimes ads pop up in the middle of articles that seem to be there because some artificial intelligence was playing a joke or making a snark comment in reaction to the text surrounding the ad. In this case were the cybergods saying making a commentary about the evidence and aspects of the legal morass in this particular case, and even about all of the literal trials and testicle twisting tribulations facing Donald Trump.

Full Disclosure: I write the following as a secular Jew who doesn't believe in God and considers the Bible to be book of fables mixed with accounts of actual events.

There are lots of pieces to the judicial jigsaw puzzle, or puzzles, involving Trump, but eventually the American judicial system may have its come to Jesus moment.* Despite in significant instances from the ironically named Supreme Court to lesser courts having followed the Fallen Angel into his domain, it will have a  redemption of near Biblical proportions.

It is a sickly icky irony that the far right member of these courts wear the cloaks of Christianity while making rulings that if there was to be a Second Coming Jesus would be having a serious sit-down with them to enlighten them about the errors of their ways. Of course considering that John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett are Catholic they don't have to wait until the End of Times. They could confess their transgressions to their priest.


Related article:




March 6, 2023

The are briefs and there are briefs. One kind may be ominous for Trump.

 By Hal Brown


The other day I wrote about various kinds of blockbusters in 

Another Trump legal jeopardy blockbuster, give me a break (link).


This morning, trying to get a blog written in the 90 minutes before Xfinity shuts off the Internet for an upgrade, I looked at the articles on Raw Story, and found one that I wanted to share once I thought of an illustration to put together which conveyed my thoughts about it. Okay, the two kinds of briefs have nothing to do with each other so it is lame and from an often shared picture of Trump golfing he does at least occasionally seem to wear briefs.


Click above to read article

This story uses the word ominous though it could have easily called the new DOJ brief a "blockbuster".

The word ominous is used twice in the article.

Click above to enlarge image

My computer dictionary defines the word as "giving the impression that something bad or unpleasant is going to happenthreateninginauspicious."

The thesaurus offers synonyms for the word:

threateningmenacingbalefulforbiddingsinister, inauspiciousunpropitiousportentousunfavorable, direunpromisingblackdarkwintrygloomyugly.
Back to the word blockbuster. We all know what it means in terms of movies, but may not know that the origin of the word went back to the 1940's:

Click above to enlarge



Mar-a-Lago without Mar-a-Lago, lovely beachfront property.

What's more ominous for Trump than one or more briefs that could bust the entire block that he lives on? 

I am hyperbole adverse when it comes to describing the latest example of a, to use the language the MAGA's hate, caso legal contra Trump.

Even if, and hopefully when, Trump is indicted for a felony which has as its penalty a prison term, I'd hesitate to call this an ominous blockbuster.

I'd prefer not seeing hyperbole at all.  I'd like a straightforward headline that has the words  indictedconvicted, sentenced, and prison in it. 

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January 21, 2023

DOJ assures Jim Jordan will become Jimmy the Snarling Jester Jordan

 DOJ  assures Jim Jordan will become Jimmy the Snarling Jester Jordan 
By Hal Brown



My illustration added this image to one of Jim Jordan which I modified from a color photo.:
There are jesters and there are jesters.
Click below to enlarge. 
Lower right: In Batman, Jester is the son of the Joker and Harley Quinn. His mother sent him to be trained by an assassin in order to fulfill his father's wish to kill the heroes.

I added my illustration to the article 

DOJ signals to Jim Jordan that it won’t share information about pending investigations from The Hill, but it could be on any of the various stories about this announcement from the Justice Department.

I have no doubt that the bloodthirsty Jim Jordan is salivating at the prospect of pouncing wolf-like onto his Democratic Party victims and devouring them with his incisive incisors.

This DOJ announcement is more than a "not so fast buddy boy." The Department of Justice is telling him in no uncertain terms what the J in DOJ stands for. They are telling him that he is not the king of the hill (and The Hill) that he fancies himself.

My understanding is that the DOJ may comply if asked, or subpoenaed, to provide information about other matters besides ongoing investigations, in other words, about concluded investigations. The fly in in ointment for Jordan is this from The Hill:

Assistant Attorney General Carlos Uriarte said in the letter, obtained by Politico on Friday. “Longstanding Department policy prevents us from confirming or denying the existence of pending investigations in response to congressional requests or providing non-public information about our investigations.” 
If I am interpreting this correctly, all the DOJ has to do is refuse to provide information without explaining why they are doing so.

If or when the DOJ provides information I think Jordan will find that he is on a snipe hunt, literally a fool's or jester's errand. They will bluster and bloviate about all the damning evidence of malfeasance they'd uncovered, but like with Benghazi time will show that there was no there .

The same goes for attempts by the Oversight Committee looking into the so-called weaponization of the DOJ,    as they spin their wheels investigating the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the origins of Covid, Big Tech, oh, and the biggest nothing-burger, Hunter Biden. 

No - there - there... not here, not here, not here, not there, not there, not there, sorry dudes and dudettes, not anywhere.

Jim Jordan, the former wrestling champion in the 134 lb. weight class,  and OSU wrestling coach accused of covering up sexual abuse at the college (something that earned him the nickname of Gym Jordan) likes to fleck his muscles. 

Like the typical winning wrestler on the mat, Jordan is very aggressive. I had a couple of friends in high school who wrestled. One of them went on to be a college wrestler. He handily pinned me in about a minute in an intramural wrestling competition. I can attest to the fact that although very aggressive when in a match, they were mild mannered everywhere else.

Not so with Jim Jordan. Not only is he aggressive but obnoxiously so. If he was the least bit likable we might have cause to be a tiny bit worried. The same goes for just about every prominent House Republican. For example, likable in the same sentence with Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, and others, is the very definition of an oxymoron. 

Update: On MSNBC commentary, an observation that if DOJ refuses to give some information the House committee can take it to court, but these cases can take months or even years to resolve.
Republican never-Trumper Stewart Stevens just noted what I did mentioning Marjorie Taylor Greene and (I think) Paul Gosar saying that they aren't even likable people and who would want to be sitting next to them.




October 9, 2022

What does it mean when a former federal prosecutor say the DOJ should stop playing Trump's reindeer games?

 What does it mean when a former federal prosecutor say the DOJ should stop playing Trump's reindeer games?

By Hal Brown

Click image to read article. Screen grab adapted with free use image

I didn't understand what was meant by the reference e to reindeer games in this quote the title and text from former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner who said enough is enough and the DOJ needs to indict him in the Katie Phang show in the above article:

"Donald Trump is now exposing himself as somebody who is willing to take property that he stole and leverage it to his own benefit for other information that he wants, that he has no right to, from the federal government," he elaborated. "I analogize it to a situation where your neighbor stole your TV, and then said if you want to back give me $500. Well in concrete terms, that's what Donald Trump was doing with these stolen documents."

"I do wish that the Department of Justice would stop playing Donald Trump's reindeer games, stop playing on Donald Trump's playing field because civil litigation is Donald Trump's playing field and it's where he can best weaponize the delay that is inherent in the civil litigation process and you know how the DOJ can put an end to all of that? Indict him in federal district court in Washington D.C." he insisted.

"Reindeer Games" is the name of an American action crime thriller starring from 2000 American action crime thriller film directed by John Frankenheimer in his final feature directorial outing before his 2002 death. It stars Ben AffleckGary SiniseCharlize Theron, and Dennis Farina. 

The use of the term "reindeer games" puzzled me so I did some research. Here's the plot of the movie which takes place around Christmas.

I decided to look up the meaning and it then became clear why Kirschner used it.

Reindeer games is a colloquial expression generally used for the bullying activities of a clique or for festivities around the Christmas season.

Here's an excerpt from the article about the term.

As early as the 1960s, lesson plans suggest Christmas-themed reindeer games children can play, referencing the song (Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer). These games, while allusive, are fun-spirited, whereas the phrase reindeer games took on a snarkier tone in mainstream culture as a term for the cruel or bullying actions popular in-groups used to exclude outsiders.

The 1988 dark comedy Heathers notably features such a use of reindeer games when a snooty clique leader (Kim Walker) delivers a threat to an unruly follower (Winona Ryder) to change high schools: “Transfer to Washington. Transfer to Jefferson. No one at Westerburg is going to let you play their reindeer games.”

Reindeer games also supplied the title of a 2000 thriller starring Ben Affleck and Charlize Theron. Set during Christmas, Reindeer Games is about a complex casino heist (the robbers dress up in Santa Claus suits) and the various manipulative “games,” or deceptions, they end up having to play to pull it off. Reindeer games, here, is used ironically for Christmas-set scheming.

Of course what Trump and his "clique" are doing is doing what Trump does all the time as a classic bully. He's a malignant narcissist whose stock in trade is being a bully. 

Malignant narcissism is a psychological syndrome comprising an extreme mix of narcissismantisocial behavioraggression, and sadism. Grandiose, and always ready to raise hostility levels, the malignant narcissist undermines families and organizations in which they are involved, and dehumanizes the people with whom they associate  Wikipedia

Perhaps I am out of it when it comes to understanding some colloquial expressions, but I think many viewers of the Katie Phang show or readers of RAWSTORY won't know exactly what was meant by the reindeer games reference although in context it sounds like it is just a term referring to another nasty Trumpian manipulation.

Comment on this story on Twitter or on Facebook

Below, as I find stories,

with my own comments.

Hunter Biden

Republicans are salivating about the prospect of winning one or both houses of Congress so they can open committee investigations into Hunter Biden. However, waste of time as this would be, ultimately whether he's prosecuted or not is a decision that rests with the DOJ. 

The decision about this is, as the headline above shows, is anything but simple. If the the. U.S. attorney who will make this decision follows the rules and usual procedure, it will be difficult to claim the fix was in. Here's why:

 The decision of whether to charge the younger Biden will be made by David C. Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Delaware who was appointed by former President Donald Trump. Unlike other U.S. attorneys, he has not been replaced by Biden. Attorney General Merrick Garland has also promised not to interfere in Weiss’ decision. According to Garland,“We put the investigation in the hands of a Trump appointee from the previous administration.”

Two pots stories from AXIOS:


I suppose Gov. Abbott thinks most Texans smoke Marlboros or chew tobacco and figures nobody in Texas uses pot.


Trump on Twitter again?





If Musk buys Twitter and allows Trump, who was banned, back will he succumb to having a much larger audience or be content to keep using the platform he had created just for him to get his message out. Perhaps he'd stay on Truth Social as the following quote from The Hill article says he will. Or maybe he has some much ego, or money, or both invested in his platform he will stick with it.


Elon Musk’s renewed interest in purchasing Twitter is again raising the prospect that its most famously banned user could be allowed back.

Former President Trump has been adamant that he will stick with Truth Social, the fledgling social media platform he helped found, regardless of whether he is welcomed back to Twitter. But experts and Trump allies believe the allure of the massive Twitter audience would be too great to resist, putting his future there front and center as the Musk deal shows new signs of life.

As things stand now just about all the posts he puts on Truth Social make the news so it may not mean much to him to be able to put the same messages on Twitter. Twitter has a major drawback for him. This is that his tweets generate many critical and sarcastic replies, some with snarky illustrations, with a few of the most biting or nasty being republished on various websites.

Here's a related article which is from The Miami Herald:

Behind the scenes of how Trump’s Truth Social was born, and how it could fall apart 


Aside from losing face it's hard to see if Trump would lose anything else if Truth Social went under: According to the article the former president put up no equity but controls almost all of Trump Media’s stock.

With Trump not posting there, the platform which was supposed to attract a range of conservative posters failed to do so. It was primarily a way for Trump to get his message out to his cult. He's the one who is keeping it afloat.

From The Herald: In mid-August 2022, Trump was reported to have 3.9 million Truth Social followers. He previously had 89 million on Twitter and 34 million on Facebook before the twice-impeached president was banned for repeatedly claiming the 2020 election was “stolen” from him.


Michael Cohen, a tale of redemption, addresses the fate of Donald Trump

I was talking to a friend on the phone when Michael Cohen was on MSNBC. I said that he was a tale of redemption that I really believed in, or wanted to. I am generally cynical abut such things. I think of the inmates who find Jesus in prison to impress the parole board. With Cohen I think he is probably or mostly sincere even though taking the stance he has keeps him in the public eye and will help him sell books.



 I'll maintain some skepticism which is why is say he's probably or mostly sincere. I still can't help liking the guy.

Below is an interview with him:


Hometown News: Portland Police

I'd like to know what the Portland police considered a higher priority than a call reporting someone with a gun outside a school, anyone, let alone a call from a school official. They should have responded within minutes with more than one car. Have an EMT unit respond also seemed appropriate. I know downtown traffic can be bad at times but Portland p0lice cars have lights and sirens.

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