O PLeez O Pleez O Pleez

It's reported that the Secret Service has begun to plan what it will and must do if former President Donald Trump is held in contempt in his criminal hush money trial and sentenced by Judge Juan Merchan to short-term confinement.

We are not yet seeking an incarceratory penalty, one assistant district attorney said. But the defendant seems to be angling for that.

Few observers believe Judge Merchan will jail Trump before or during the trial. But more notably, there's been little if any discussion about what to do if Trump is indeed convicted and sentenced to prison.

Space Lasers and Iron Domes

When Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene used a typically under-the-radar legislative process to send political messages Wednesday about foreign aid funding bills, one of her Democratic colleagues decided to strike back.

Greene filed a flurry of amendments to the Ukraine aid bill with the House Rules Committee, including one to require any member who votes in favor of the package “to conscript in" the Ukrainian military. Several congressional experts dubbed it a troll amendment, AKA something outrageous meant to provoke a response.

Florida Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz took the bait. He offered his own amendments. One would appoint Greene as Vladimir Putin’s Special Envoy to the United States Congress. Another would rename her Cannon office the Neville Chamberlain Room.

Our favorites of MTG's shensanigans? She filed more than 20 amendments to the Ukraine aid bill and four to the Israel aid bill. Her first proposal on the Israel package would provide funding for the development of space laser technology on our southwest border – apparently a reference to her comments, made before she was elected to the House, regarding the cause of a massive 2018 wildfire in California. Another Greene amendment calls for an iron dome to be built on our border with Mexico.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

MTG, Matt Gaetz, and a couple of their MAGA buddies, as part of their effort to oust Mike Johnson as Speaker, have designated themselves the Floor A ction R esponse Team.

Emphasis mine; the fact that they didn't anticipate it says everything

A Not-So-Thinly-Veiled Threat

In the New Testament, the Book of Revelations lists the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as conquest, war, famine, and death. In Trump-era politics, there are only three horsemen, but they're almost as scary and dangerous as the Four.

We consider the three to be (no surprise here) Marjorie Taylor Greene (R GA 14), Lauren Boebert of Colorado, and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R FL 01) who today threatened Speaker Mike Johnson with removal.

We notified him that any effort to change the threshold of motion to vacate would likely induce the motion to vacate, Gaetz is reported to have said.

Translating HAGA-speak, what Gaetz meant was that, if Johnson should change House rules in order to require more than a single Representative to move to fire the Speaker, the Maga caucus would fire the Speaker.

Another Hardship for 45

Trump's hush-money trial kicked off on Monday in a Manhattan courtroom; by the close of business Tuesday, seven jurors had been selected, and Defendant Trump had been chided by the judge.

As the court prepared for the first day of jury selection, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan said Trump's attorneys had asked that the former president be allowed to be absent from the trial on May 17, so that he could attend Barron Trump's high school graduation in Florida. Marchan declined to rule on the request at that point, sayig It really depends on if we are on time and where we are in the trial.

Jury selection, once expected to last up to two weeks, is at least one-third complete.

Under the Microscope

Jury selection for Donald Trump's frst criminal trial will begin n Monday, April 15. Prosecutors and defense lawyers will have differing goals. Mr. Trump’s attorneys will want a jury that includes:

• white working-class men
• public employees like police officers, firefighters and sanitation workers

because such folks may believe that the trial is politically motivated.

On the other side of the dress rehearsal, prosecutors will seek more educated voters from Democratic neighborhoods, fishing for those who consume news from sources like MSNBC. Each potential juror will answer a uniform set of questions, and lawyers can ask follow-ups. Some queries may be designed to uncover biases against — or allegiances to — Mr. Trump. And even after the questioning is complete, each side will be able to remove a few potential jurors without explanation, using what's called in legalese a peremptory challenge. Finally. either side can ask for jurors to be removed if it's felt those individuals cannot be fair and impartial.

Counting Down to a Different Date

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear Donald Trump's claim of presidential immunity from prosecution on April 25, 2024.

The court released the hearing date shortly after it agreed to take the case. Just this week, Special Counsel Jack Smith fied a brief strongly urging SCOTUS to overrule 45's claims to immunity. Also at that time, another request, called an amicus brief, was put before the Supremes, in which a number of former military and executive-branch officials pointed out that Trump's claim of immunity could result in serious threats to national security.

Depose This!

Andy Litinsky and Wes Moss, former contestants on Trump's reality TV show The Apprentice who were closely ivolved with setting up Trump's Truth Social platform claim that in 2021 they were pledged 8.6% of pre-merger Trump Media stock for helping to launch the company.

The co-founders accused Trump Media of denying them their stake, which they own through their United Atlantic Ventures partnership, by trying to dilute their stock. Trump Media, for its part, sued Litinsky and Moss in Florida on March 24, and is seeking to strip them of their stock, which it said they failed to earn due to mismanagement.

Does this surprise any of us? Devotees of 45 havibg the rug pulled out from under them, and 45 doing the pulling?

Delaware judge Sam Glasscock is expected to hold a hearing to resolve the dispute before the end of April. What's particularly piquant about all this is that the date set for Mr. Trump's deposition is the sane on which his trial in Manhattan will launch - April 15 2024.