ABOVE THE LAW

 

 

A MASSIVE STROKE

 

MICHAEL TOMASKY

 

A Post–Labor Day Trump Insurrection Trial? Great, Bring It On.

Why it’s good if Trump is on trial come Election Day

 

PETER FOLEY/POOL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

I’ve had a few conversations with fellow liberals over the last two days that went something like this: I can’t believe the Supreme Court did that. Although I guess, you know, of course they did. But I still can’t quite believe it. I just didn’t think they’d be quite this corrupt about Donald Trump returning to the White House.

If nothing else, the court’s announcement Wednesday that it will hear the Trump immunity case seven weeks from now should tell us once and for all—yep, don’t put anything past these people. Anything. They are as capital-P Political and Partisan as we suspect at our most cynical. More so.

Now, the quickly formed conventional wisdom after the announcement is that while the court’s six conservatives are obviously trying to help Donald Trump by slow-walking the process here, surely they won’t all accept the facially absurd and unconstitutional arguments of Trump’s attorneys. I tend to go along with this. It’s hard to imagine judges of any sort ruling that our laws don’t apply to an ex-president.

And yet … I opened this piece saying that they keep surprising us. They keep Lucying the ideological football on us, and we keep falling for it. So what if—nah, it can’t be. No way five justices could really grant Trump immunity. Right?

Well, two probably will, and we know which two. Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are totally ready for authoritarian America. And from there, who knows? I mean, I’d like to have a dollar for every time I’ve heard someone say, Ah, they’d never stop a state recount. Oh, come on, are you kidding? They’ll never completely overturn Roe.

So count me unconvinced. I guess with a gun to my head I’d say it’s 60–40 they’ll reject Trump’s claims. But 40 is damn high.

Now. A late-June decision by the court against Trump would mean a late-September trial date in Judge Tanya Chutkan’s courtroom. She gave Trump’s lawyers 88 days to prepare for trial, and that clock starts ticking when the Supreme Court rules, so a June 30 decision, say, would mean (I think) a September 26 trial date. Here, the liberal impulse will be the fretful one: Oh no! That’s too close to the election! We can’t do that! It wouldn’t be fair!

Pardon me, but: bullshit.

First of all: If you’re thinking—worrying—that this is in Merrick Garland’s hands, exhale. It apparently is not. Yes, the Justice Department has a rule about not interfering in the political process in the fall of an election year. But that has only to do with charging people with crimes. It stems from Reagan-era Iran-Contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh’s decision to charge former Reagan official Caspar Weinberger four days before the 1992 election. It was after that that the department agreed upon an unwritten rule about not bringing those kinds of charges within roughly 60 days of a general election.

So that rule is only about charging. It’s not about when trials should be held. Here’s a good primer on the whole matter, debunking a recent Trump lie about it.

Also, Garland was asked this very question in January by CNN’s Evan Perez:

PEREZ: The department has policies about steering clear of elections. Is there a date in your mind where it might be too late to bring these trials to fruition? Again, to stay out of the way of the elections as the department policies?

GARLAND: Well, I just say what I said, which is that the cases were brought last year. [The] prosecutor has urged speedy trials, with which I agree. And it’s now in the hands of the judicial system, not in our hands.

So the feckless Garland, who has striven so hard to be apolitical that he’s actually become political in the other (pro-Trump) direction, has nothing to do with this.

With that out of the way, are there other objections to a late-September trial? Trump and MAGA world will howl. I’ve been told that we can expect this trial to last six to 10 weeks. That would mean that it won’t be over before Election Day.

Is there a political risk there? That Trump’s base will be ultra-energized? Sure. But why shouldn’t it also ultra-energize the pro-democracy base? It certainly should.

And more than that: It will make the election about Trump, not Joe Biden. If Trump is literally sitting in a courtroom on Election Day—or even if he’s not sitting there but, say, Cassidy Hutchinson is on the stand describing that steering wheel incident, or Mark Meadows is on the stand squirming and sweating—the election is about him, the insurrection, the future of democracy. Your typical swing voter in Oakland County, Michigan, is going to be walking into the voting booth thinking about that, not Biden’s age or gait.

That’s what liberals should want the election to be about. There are two warring explanations afoot in our land about Trump’s legal trials. One, his own, is that all these indictments constitute election interference—the deep state trying to stop him from rightfully recapturing that which was stolen from him in 2020. The other, the planet Earth explanation, is that he’s a uniquely corrupt sociopath who thinks the law doesn’t apply to him and wants to get back into the White House for two simple reasons: to absolve himself of all crimes and to illiberalize our institutions and wreck the democracy to the point that he can do anything he wants—including, probably, be president for life.

If that’s the debate the nation is having on election eve, if that’s what neighbors are discussing across the fence post as they prepare to go vote—I’m good with that, and you should be too. And if those corrupt bastards on the Supreme Court inadvertently helped make that happen, so much the better.

PUT THIS CROOKED FAT FRAUD IN JAIL

 

CHRISTO-FASCIST SCUMBAG

 

THIS ANTI-SEMITIC ASSHOLE WILL BE DEPORTED BY TRUMP IF HE'S ELECTED

 

 

To Sell EV Tractors, Manufacturers Need to First Sell Their Dealers

By Frank Lessiter posted on March 1, 2024 | Posted in Dealership Marketing

Car, truck and tractor companies need to get dealership sales teams on board first if they want buyers to follow.

In a Nov. 2023 Inc. article, Howard Tullman points out that most car dealers aren’t much interested in selling electric vehicles (EVs.) And the same is likely true for many farm equipment dealers.

The challenges to auto dealers outlined by the general managing partner with G2Tand Chicago High Tech Investors also represents good advice for farm equipment dealers and manufacturers as they confront the issues related to the future of EV vehicles in rural America.

On the car side, a recent survey indicates more than a third of U.S. auto dealers wouldn’t offer EVs to their customers even if they could. It’s because adding EVs, funding new staff training, increased equipment costs to maintain and service these cars, building out new showrooms, adding display space and facing uncertain near-term demand aren’t especially attractive undertakings. 

 “Dealers will need to be bribed, cajoled and dragged across the finish line to be happy with EVs…”

At the same time General Motors (GM), Ford and Stellantis North America (formerly Chrysler Corp.) and a number of foreign car manufacturers have delayed further investments in EV car and truck factories and battery plants. They recognize consumer demand for battery-powered cars and trucks is much slower than anticipated.

As a result, GM recently pushed back by a year opening an electronic truck factory in Michigan. It also scrapped an earlier goal of producing 400,000 EV cars and trucks over an upcoming 2-year stretch.

Skeptical Dealers

Tullman says the U.S. goal of having two-thirds of new cars sold be EVs by 2032 seems like a pipe dream to most auto dealers. He adds most established auto dealers are fairly fat and happy with the way things have gone over the decades for them and their families. While they may have family and generational challenges, they’ve enjoyed exclusive territories, scarce inventories, political protection and very little price competition. Most car dealers don’t like change, they don’t like spending new money and aren’t sold on the future of EV vehicles.

Right now car and truck manufacturers are trying hard to push EVs out the door — as a loaded dealer is a loyal dealer — because these higher-priced vehicles are much cheaper and easier to build than traditional gas- and diesel-powered cars and trucks. Tullman believes dealers are going to need to be bribed, cajoled and eventually dragged across the finish line to be happy with EVs. 

Cost Sharing Essential 

He says manufacturers need to understand that they’re going to have to share in the costs of the EV transition with dealers. 

“The OEMs are going to have to finance equipment, subsidize EV training in both sales and service, and lobby nationally for extensive state and federal investments in charging stations if they want to win over the roughly 12,000 auto dealerships out there today that are sitting on the fence,” he says.

In conclusion, Tullman points out that the bottom line for dealers is an old and simple rule: Nothing good happens to a business without salespeople who are willing to sell your product. 

That’s good advice for all farm equipment dealers and manufacturers.

CORRUPT AND CRIMINAL COURT