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For Those Of You Who Think Nothing’s Happening

From The Palmer Report:

Yesterday, attorneys for Donald Trump and his family complained to the New York Supreme Court about how unfair it was that they were being forced to testify against the Trump Organization (and essentially against themselves) in the New York Attorney General’s civil probe into the Trump Organization’s finances. They pointed out that any such testimony will then be used to help prosecute them in the related criminal case. They also pointed out that if they refuse to testify, New York will use this as a basis for ruling against the Trump Organization and dismantling it. The court didn’t dispute any of this, but ruled that they must testify anyway. So now what?

The Trumps will try to stall this a bit more in court, but that won’t last long. From there, the most likely outcome is that the Trumps will repeatedly invoke the Fifth Amendment during their testimony against the Trump Organization, under the premise that it’s better to lose their money than their freedom. Letitia James will then use this as the basis for ruling against the Trump Organization, dismantling it, and effectively taking away the Trump family’s assets.

This will leave the Trump family without income or assets, fighting off creditors, even as New York prepares to bring inevitable criminal charges for financial fraud. Donald Trump is surely a lock for indictment, and conviction. The big questions are which if any of Trump’s kids will also be indicted, and whether any of them will end up cutting a plea deal against him in exchange for some kind of immunity.

None of this will happen tomorrow or the next day, of course. The legal process still moves at the speed that it moves. But this New York Supreme Court ruling clears the way for Letitia James to drop the hammer against the Trump Organization on her timeline, not on Donald Trump’s timeline. And it means new Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg can bring criminal indictments as soon as his case is ready. Even before Bragg took office last month, the case was reportedly already deep into the grand jury process. At this point the Trumps don’t control the timeline or the outcome.

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Maintenance is Important

We’re planning a road trip next month. I supposedly had another thousand miles or so to go before I was scheduled for an oil change, but I took Rabbit into MINI Tempe a couple days ago anyway. I also wanted a tire rotation and the various air filters changed.  While I could have changed the air and cabin filters myself, I just didn’t want to deal with it. At this point in my life, it was worth the added expense to just have them do it. I learned (but not too surprisingly, BTW) that the car was also due for a tuneup and a fuel system flush.

Considering that in all likelihood Rabbit will be my last car*, and I’ve been driving it exclusively in Sport Mode (which may or may not cause more engine wear; I can’t seem to get a definitive answer from anyone) I want to do everything I can to keep it in top condition, so I bit the bullet and told them to go ahead and do it all. Totally worth it.

*I’m planning my retirement date to coincide with the last payment on the auto loan.

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What if COVID Happened in the 80s?

It was a question Ben posed at lunch today.

If COVID happened in the 80s, I think it would’ve been addressed much more aggressively. (Let’s leave HIV out of the discussion for now since at the time it affected a smaller population and it was a population of—let’s face it—”undesirables” and forty years later there is still no vaccine against it.

The anti-max movement hadn’t taken hold in the 80s. Similarly, there was no internet to spread disinformation and conspiracy theories. Surely such things still existed back then; they just didn’t have the global reach they do now.

At the same time, since there was no internet, people wouldn’t be working from home; they’d wither not be working at all, or they’d be forced to work in person, thereby increasing the rate of transmission until the population had been sufficiently inoculated. In either case I still believe commerce would’ve ground to a halt much like it did during the first few months of our own pandemic. I won’t go so far to say the threat would’ve been eliminated any more quickly than it is currently happening, but we wouldn’t be facing this widespread resistance and denial we are now which  is slowing the eradication of COVID down.

What do y’all think?

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