News bits: Prosecutor asks for immediate whacking of DJT; 14th A, Sec. 3 is for real?; Car ride for a cow

Egads, there's a mountain of undisputed evidence in the case! This is from the prosecutor in DJT's New York business fraud case. I thought this was the weakest of the four indictments. Apparently the prosecutor believes the case is strong enough to move for summary judgment! PBS reports:

New York’s attorney general says a judge doesn’t need to wait until an October trial in her civil lawsuit against former President Donald Trump to rule that he committed fraud while building his real estate empire.

In court papers made public Wednesday, Attorney General Letitia James urged Judge Arthur Engoron to issue an immediate verdict endorsing her claim that Trump and his company defrauded banks and business associates by lying on financial statements about his wealth and the value of his assets.

Engoron has scheduled a Sept. 22 hearing on James’ request. Her lawsuit, which seeks $250 million in penalties and a ban on Trump doing business in New York, is scheduled to go to trial Oct. 2 in state court in Manhattan.

To rule, Engoron needs only to answer two questions, James’ office argued: whether Trump’s annual financial statements were false or misleading, and whether he and the Trump Organization used those statements while conducting business transactions.

“The answer to both questions is a resounding ‘yes’ based on the mountain of undisputed evidence” in the case, James’ special litigation counsel Andrew Amer said in a 100-page summary judgment motion.

Based on that, Amer argued, no trial is required to determine that Trump, the Trump Organization, and other defendants, “presented grossly and materially inflated asset values” in the financial statements and then used those statements “repeatedly in business transactions to defraud banks and insurers.”

“At the end of the day this is a documents case, and the documents leave no shred of doubt that Mr. Trump’s (statements of financial condition) do not even remotely reflect the ‘estimated current value’ of his assets as they would trade between well-informed market participants,” Amer wrote.  

In seeking summary judgment on the fraud claim, James’ office pointed to evidence that shows Trump inflated his net worth by up to 39%, or more than $2 billion, in some years. James’ office said Trump’s “blatant and obvious deceptive practices” included wildly overstating the size and value of his homes in Florida and New York, marking up the value of unsold condominiums and rental space, and claiming he could do more with certain land that allowed — like building more homes on his Scottish golf course that the local government had approved.

Well dang! Now we see why those businesses who committed sleaze DJT wanted the evidence sealed and kept from the public. DJT and everybody involved his was a big steaming pile of lying, rotted criminal guts.

Now I'm starting to think that maybe, maybe probably, DJT might really get his ass kicked in the courts. Nah, that's too good to be true.

Disgruntled citizen

And, he's not wrong

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A month or so ago, two lawyers associated with the powerful, anti-democratic radical right Federalist Society wrote a legal analysis of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. They concluded that the constitution prohibits DJT from running for president again. 

Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection and Other Rights

Section 3 Disqualification from Holding Office

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.  

Summary of relevant bits: No president (DJT) who previously took an oath to support the constitution of the United States (which DJT did), engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the constitution (which DJT also did), or gave aid or comfort to the enemies thereof (he did that too). 

Although the legal argument seemed sound, I immediately dismissed it. First, laws like this often aren't applied against rich or powerful people. Second, the analysis felt like a Federalist Society publicity stunt to make the organization look less authoritarian than it actually is. But in recent weeks, lawsuits have been threatened in several states to force DJT off the ballot. PBS repports:

Liberal groups seek to use the 14th Amendment to block Trump from 2024 ballots

  

The 14th Amendment bars from office anyone who once took an oath to uphold the Constitution but then “engaged” in “insurrection or rebellion” against it. A growing number of legal scholars say the post-Civil War clause applies to Trump after his role in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election and encouraging his backers to storm the U.S. Capitol.

Two liberal nonprofits pledge court challenges should states’ election officers place Trump on the ballot despite those objections.

The effort is likely to trigger a chain of lawsuits and appeals across several states that ultimately would lead to the U.S. Supreme Court, possibly in the midst of the 2024 primary season. The matter adds even more potential legal chaos to a nomination process already roiled by the front-runner facing four criminal trials.

In 2021, the nonprofit Free Speech For People sent letters to the top election official in all 50 states requesting Trump’s removal if he were to run again for the presidency. The group’s legal director, Ron Fein, noted that after years of silence, officials are beginning to discuss the matter.

“The framers of the 14th Amendment learned the bloody lesson that, once an oath-breaking insurrectionist engages in insurrection, they can’t be trusted to return to power,” Fein said.

Ahead of the 2022 midterms, the group sued to remove U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene and then-Rep. Madison Cawthorn, both Republicans, from the ballot over their support for the Jan. 6 protest. The judge overseeing Greene’s case ruled in her favor, while Cawthorn’s case became moot after he was defeated in his primary.

That a judge ruled in favor of MTG exemplifies why some people (e.g., me) are skeptical about the rule of law applying to rich or powerful people. Maybe there more to this than I initially thought. Time will tell if this is just a mole hill or something a lot bigger. It still seems more like a mole hill than anything else.

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Everyone is reporting about Howdy Doody the cow that got a car ride. The cow is big.

In Norfolk Nebraska, pop. ~24,000, police stopped the driver of the car because they thought it was unsafe to be tootling abound town with a big cow in the car. Since the cow was too big to take to the dog pound, police asked the man to dive his cow home and put it away.

Howdy Doody examining the horns

mounted on the front of the car