Winning Battles and Winning Wars

become president is bullshit. And so a panel of three judges, two Democrats and one Republican decided unanimously in a three to zero vote that Donald Trump's grounds for appeal on this issue that Judge Chunkin initially ruled on is bullshit. And so now their fifty seven page ruling, of course, is going to be appealed either to the full I think it is like the full panel of federal judges, or most likely just going directly up to the Supreme Court,

which Donald Trump has stacked. Now, a couple of things that I want to say about this and what I've been hearing on the news since this broke, which is one that the Supreme Court about to put themselves out of a job if they don't just decide to not hear this case, let the lower court's decisions stand and move forward and allow Judge Chunkin to move forward with

her case. And why do I say that, Because if you have, if you are essentially the Supreme Court, and you are going to rule in favor of Donald Trump, you are ruling against your own power. And if there is anything that this Supreme Court loves more than anything

in the fucking world, it is power. Right. And so if you say that a president can go ahead and crime as much as the fuck they want because everything that they do can no longer be held to the same rule of law that the rest of us are, then we are absolutely a fucking banana republic, right like, there is no way around that understanding. So essentially, then what do I need a Supreme Court for? If I

am a king right or a queen? If I am you know the above all answer, and everything that I say and do is right and is beyond reproach, what the fuck do I need you for? I don't right. And so the further that we inch towards full on authoritarianism in this country, the less you are needed if you are a judge, right, Because what do I have judges for when I'm giving all power to one person? Right? And so I really hope that the Supreme Court takes that takes their ego and their own personal power into

consideration when deciding on this case. The fact, folks, you know that we are even here, right, that this is even up for debate, that it took three fucking weeks for the circuit judges to come back and decide what it is that we should have just known from jump. If you commit crimes, you're not immune from those crimes. It doesn't matter if you're the president of the United

States or a pauper in the street. Like there's one set supposedly one set of laws, and becoming president of the United States does not make you immune to that fact. Donald trump sole reason to become president of the United States again is to create a get out of jail

free card. Donald Trump knew that if he were able to announce that he was running for the presidency, then he could use that as a talking point that everything is a witch hunt and that he alone again can quote unquote fix it, right, that if they're coming after me, then they're going to come after you. No, motherfucker. People only go after right. Law enforcement only goes after people

when they commit crimes. Right. Do you see what I'm saying here, Like people at your level, I'm not talking about you know, the thousands upon thousands of black and brown people that are serving out thirty forty fifty sixty year life sentences right on some white supremacy bullshit that they were that they were caught up in. And because of our broken system, which is not actually broken, it is working to encage, rite and enslave black men and

women and brown people. Like if you are at the level that Donald Trump is, and you have the complexion for the protection Donald Trump now is just he wants to go one step above what is normally afforded to white, straight cis super wealthy and famous men and be like, no, no, I'm really teflon don I'm really above reproach. And the courts just said, no, the fuck you are not. So. Unfortunately, this is not the last time that we are going to hear this case, and it is going to be

put in the hands of the Supreme Court. Donald Trump is already on his broke ass social medt platform lobbying the Supreme Court to do his bidding, which is what he put them all in place for. And so we will see, right, we will see, because I'm assuming you know that Clarence Thomas will be on the side of Ginny and be on the side of his billion dollar sugar daddy Harlan Crow and do whatever he is told

to do, step and fetch it. And I'm pretty sure right that we have other folks that are hardcore aligned with doing whatever Donald Trump wants. So, you know, sadly, we are in a place where, you know, everything is up for grabs, that there is no far gone you know, conclusion to be made here and the assumption that like justice will prevail, because that's not the reality that we

live in anymore. Nonetheless, this initial ruling is a blow to Donald Trump and his attorney's desire to say that he can't even be charged whatsoever, and every case against him should be dismissed because he shouldn't be able to be persecuted because he was president of the United States. And what the fifty seven page report said was just like, nah, you are no longer president. You are just a regular citizen like everybody else. So if you commit crime, you're

going to do some time, but most likely not. Next up is what I think is actually really interesting another case that I haven't really talked about here on the show too much, but I think that it's worth noting, which is the case of Jennifer Crumbly in Michigan. Now, Jennifer Crumbly, and this is according to the New York Times, was convicted on four count of involuntary manslaughter, one for each student that her son killed in Michigan's deadliest shooting.

Now here's what is interesting about this case. Ethan Crumbley. If you all remember when he was I believe fifteen years old, he shot and killed four of his classmates

and injured several others. And the four classmates that were killed Madison Baldwin seventeen, Tate Meyer sixteen, Justin Schilling seventeen, and Hannah Saint Juliana fourteen, and he pleaded guilty to twenty four charges, including first degree murder, and was sentenced last year to life in prison without the possibility of parole. This is the first case, however, that we have seen where the parents of the shooter are also being held

responsible for the deaths that their son committed right. Why is this well? Because Ethan crumbly Is was a clearly mentally disturbed child that was found by teachers in class to be drawing pictures of bullets and guns and was showing erratic behavior that was brought to the attention of his parents on different occasions. On the day of the shooting, his parents, I believe, were called into the school to essentially take him the fuck home because they had noticed,

like some really unnerving behavior. They didn't take him home, they also bought him a gun. He turns around, brings it to school and killed four of his classmates, including injuring several others, right, And basically the question that was being asked was, how could you not have seen this? Right? Like, how could you not have seen that your son was having delusions right about ghosts and all of these things, on top of which he was writing in journals about

killing people. And you think that the appropriate gift to get this kid is not apparently a therapist, right and some intervention, but is to get him a gun. Right. So she is now both of the parents are on trial and separate trials because they have both turned on each other, and the one the father was blaming the mother, the mother blaming the father as to why their son committed this horrific mass shoot. So now she's been found guilty and the maximum sentencing for manslaugh four counts of

manslaughter is fifteen years in prison. This is incredibly significant, right, This is significant for so many reasons because you can't sue the gun manufacturers, right, Congress has made that impossible to do. So who are you left to hold accountable when a school shooting like this takes place? Is it not the job of the parent right to know what

the fuck your kid is doing and up to? And maybe if parents now who have guns and own guns can now see that, if in fact, your kid is not okay and shoots up an entire school, that they're not the only ones that are going to fucking jail, And maybe that will be a deterrent. Maybe that will

be something that begins to hold people accountable. I don't know, Maybe that's just pie in the sky thinking, right, Because as Jonathan and I have talked about on so many occasions and will again this week in terms of his new book, what We've become Living and Dying in a Country of Arms, which is that the approach that we have had as Democrats in talking about gun reform has been from a moral standpoint right in terms of shifting hearts and minds and doing what is morally right, because

we assumed that everyone would be aligned with the fact that children should not have to learn how to army crawl, that we shouldn't be turning whiteboards into safe rooms, right and doing all everything the bulletproof backpacks and the like, that our children should be protected. But we don't all agree on that because guns for white people, but particularly from white men, are tied to their power, privilege, and masculinity in this country. And so you know, we look

at this decision. I still look at this decision as a win. But if we want to win the actual war that we are in, then we need to be looking at this not through the vantage point of trying to shift and change hearts and minds, but trying to win the power necessary to put the judges that are in place that actually give a shit about the fact that we have five hundred million guns in circulation in this country. That is two and a half guns for

every human, every person in this country. There's only three hun and thirty million people, but there are five hundred million guns. Make it make sense? It does not, you know, folks, I say, you know, I bring up these two cases and these two initial wins, knowing that these cases will wind, you know, their way through. I think that Crumbly's is pretty much done, right like, I think that she going to jail. It's just going to be about what the

sentencing looks like. Does she get the maximum do does you know, does she only get a few years? And then what will now how will this affect her her husband's case, which is coming up in a few weeks,

right like, so that will be something to watch. But I want to change gears because I want to talk about the presidential election and the fact that a recent poll came out that showcases the fact that a majority of Americans, sixty percent of Americans believe that Joe Biden is doing a terrible fucking job when it comes to the Middle East, when it comes to Israel and Gaza right now, and that while we want to say that this issue is extraordinarily complicated and people are only getting

woke to things, you know, right now, and they don't understand the intricacies of what is happening in the history

of this land, and bah blah blah blah blah. The reality is is that people know right from wrong most of the time, and they know right now as they are scrolling through their social media and they are seeing war, the ravages of war, the baby that are being left for dead right because hospitals are being evacuated and AID can no longer get in, the people that are starving to death because the Israeli government will not allow AID to get into certain places, bombing the shit out of

civilians right, tell them to go north, then we bomb the north. Tell them to go south, We bomb the south, and then there's just nowhere else to go. Right, And the fact is that our tax dollars have been forever since the creation of Israel, have been going to fund right and apartheid system that has different roads, different license plates, different laws, different housing, different restrictions for Palestinians versus Israelis. You do not need to be a fucking Middle Eastern historic,

you know, historian to understand how fucked up that is. Right, And so if folks are just getting woke to this now, I'm not gonna say, oh, well, where were you blah blah blah, blah. The fact is you know now, and what you know now is not fucking sitting right with you, and I get that. What I also get is that if in fact, Donald Trump is able to steal this election because of people's opinion about how Biden is working

in look, I am with you. What I am saying is the Palestinian people will have zero fucking chance if Trump becomes president. You cannot fight for other people's liberation when you are no longer free. That's what I want people to understand. Some election. They're not about progression, they are just about holding on. And I will continue to say that over and over and over again. Do I think that what this administration is doing is write apps

a fucking lutely? Not? Absolutely not. What I also know is that Donald Trump will be the end of this country as we know it. Project twenty twenty five lays that all the way out on the Heritage Foundation's page Heritage foundation dot org. Pull up the report. What do they put in place? There? A nine hundred page plan on how they are going to rid government agencies of career appointed people with institutional knowledge of how government works so that they can gut the system and rig it

for Trumpism. How are they gonna do that because they already have a database of twenty thousand people to who have been vetted, who have received training on how to dismantle the agencies from the inside out. There will be no fucking recourse, right because what Donald Trump wanted to do when people were protesting during this summer of twenty twenty in front of the White House, he wanted to shoot those people in the leg General Milly said, Uh, yeah,

we can't do that, that's against the law. Donald Trump said, eh, there will be no General Milly. And when Donald Trump says, pull out the tanks, shoot him in the legs, round them up. They're all a threat to our country. Who gonna stop him? And before you say that can never happen, let me remind you of Japanese internment camps World War two. Rounded up all Japanese Americans, put them in camps, no due process, no nothing, because they were considered enemies of

the state. That's all that the president would have to utter. We are already watching how universities are firing presidents, as they did Claudine Gay at Harvard, as the other president resigned in at Penn State. There's already attacks on higher education and academics where critical thought and free thought thrives. You go after the professors and the academic institutions first. You make examples of them. You blacklist people for speaking

their truth, You put them on lists. One of the things that they'd love to do with the Heritage Foundation is to create a new McCarthyism. As a matter of fact, the head of the Heritage Foundation said in a very fluffy New York Times piece that was done a couple of weeks back, is that McCarthy went about things wrong, but his you know, what he was trying to do

wasn't terrible. His strategy just was I'm sorry, what the red scare rounding up those that were just labeled communists that had nothing to do with communism, but you saw them as a threat. Joe McCarthy, that is held out as like a red flag. But the Heritage Foundation president thinks that he's a model. Wake up, folks, you ain't

getting another bite at this apple. If we give this election to Donald Trump by virtue of the fact that we decide that we are sitting home because we don't like what is happening in Palestine and Gaza, you don't like what is happening in Gaza, then I tell you to actually vote for the person that you can pressure, that you can push, not the one that sees themselves as a dictator on day fucking one and think that you'll just get him again in twenty twenty eight. There

will be no twenty twenty eight. That's all I have to say today, folks, on this Woke Wednesday, A little bit of good news and a lot of reality. What is it for me today, dear friends on woke A app as always power to the people and to all the people. Power, Get woke and stay woke as fuck.