For He’s a Jolly Good Felon

Last Friday, a federal court ruled that most of Trump’s tariffs were illegal.
 
Courts were shut down for the next three days for the Labor Day holiday.  That means they opened up again on Tuesday, yesterday. 
 
And so, yesterday, another federal judge ruled that when Trump ordered national guard troops to Los Angeles, he acted illegally.
 
Then in the afternoon yesterday, Trump received yet another loss in the courts.  This time, it came when a federal appeals court upheld a lower court's ruling that Trump acting illegally when trying to "fire" an FTC commissioner, which is an independent agency, without cause.

And wait, there's more!  Yes, really.  Because late last night, another federal appeals court ruled that Trump could not declare Venezuelan migrants to be an invasion and deport them.
 
That’s your trifecta.  And all in one day, no less.  It's the sort of illegal activity you really only expect from someone – anyone, not even just the Chief Executive of the United States – unless they’ve been convicted of 34 felonies, been adjudicated a rapist and been found guilty of business fraud.
 
Or as they say – a felon’s gonna felon.

But this is Trump so don't think for a moment that's the full deal.  Oh, no, because Trump is really on a streak.  After all, keep in mind that courts were shut down for three days over the Labor Day holiday, which means that the last day they were open before yesterday was the previous Friday.  And it was on that day a federal court ruled that most of Trump’s tariffs were illegal.

Four court rulings that declared as illegal four of Trump's Executive Orders and overturned them two "court-days" in a row.  No wins.  0-4.  That is quite an achievement.  Especially for a needy, insecure guy who's taken to wearing a cheap baseball cap that says, "TRUMP HAS BEEN RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING."  Except, well, y'know, the law.  Among other things.

But then -- a felon's gonna felon.

[UPDATE: After writing this article last night, it turned out that today, Wednesday, a federal court once again ruled against Trump and said that his Executive Order freezing funding for Harvard was illegal.  So, 0-5.  Three days in a row.  Another trifecta.]
 
So, hey, no one should be shocked that on the heels of all this, Trump still says he is prepared to go ahead and order National Guard troops to Chicago,  Despite the court ruling saying it was illegal in Los Angeles.  And despite two eloquent, powerful, blunt speeches yesterday by Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson who both explained in detail why Trump’s actions would be illegal and completely unwanted.
 
Because a felon’s gonna felon.
 
It’s not surprising at all, therefore, to take a step back and see how Trump treats the law through his self-appointed surrogates.  And that in the midst of all this, we see (as indicative of convicted felon Trump's appreciation of the law) the cartoonish and incompetent actions of Trump’s appointed U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., the former Fox TV host Jeanine Pirro.

Actually, just saying "Trump’s appointed U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., the former Fox TV host Jeanine Pirro" is all that's really needed to demonstrate how unseriously Trump takes the law and views the concept as quaint and his personal plaything he can mishandle and break whenever he wants.  But still, even that only shows the scratched, mangled surface.  After all --
 
It's a well-known legal axiom that a prosecutor can get a Grand Jury to indict a ham sandwich. Well...for the fifth time – in only a matter of months -- Pirro failed to get an indictment. (Three of those tries were failing to get an indictment against the same person.)  I noted last week that she didn’t get an indictment about the fellow who threw a Subway sandwich – alas, it wasn’t ham.  If so, perhaps she’d have had better luck).  And then yesterday, a Grand Jury refused to grant yet another of her over-reach attempts at a felony indictment.
 
Man, was it ever a really bad day yesterday for Trump when it comes to following the law.  In fairness, it’s wrong to expect otherwise since that’s pretty much standard he’s set, and they were appointed to their positions to – not follow the law, but -- play Follow the Leader.
 
Still, though, with Ms. Pirro -- and putting aside how U.S. Attorneys are supposed to always be able to get felony indictments (and her failing on five…already) -- you’d think that with her boss being convicted her of 34 felonies, she would recognize what a tremendous resource he was and therefore would check with him first for advice on what it takes to get a felony indictment before hoping to impress him by cramming through an unsupportable indictment and flimflamming a Grand Jury that refuses to buy the turkey hoagie she’s trying to sell them as ham.
 
It all comes down to Trump – personally and who he’s chosen to surround himself with – and his tangential relationship with understanding or caring about the law.  Which explains why he’s so often on the wrong side of it.

Not just with his 34 felony convictions, rape adjudication and business fraud guilty decisions -- but a man who has been sued over 4,000 times in 40 years, which averages to being sued twice a week, every week, for four decades!

And yes, I know that it goes so much deeper than just this with Trump and those he surrounds himself with.  (Not to mention the 86 orders he's made that have been blocked as being illegal or temporarily blocked by the courts, along with the additional 33 that have been blocked but are under appeal.)  But I can only type so much before getting finger cramps.  And that's why I decide to only go back as far as...yesterday.  And any of the leftover dregs related to it.

But however deep you go into the world of Trump, the core principle is always there --
 
A felon’s gonna felon.

Unfortunately for Trump, for all their biases, miscarriages of justice, and overlapping with politics, at their core courts act as courts and push back to uphold the law as best they can against other pressures.  It's why, in the end, Trump is a 34-time convicted felon.  And an adjudicated rapist.  And guilty of business fraud.

And the public tends to push back, too, when they see someone trying to get away with what they know they can't -- and shouldn't.  It's one reason why, in the end, Trump has only a 38% approval.  And why, even if the far-right Roberts Court caves and lets Trump get away with murder -- still an "if" -- the public never likes seeing that, either.  Most especially when it's someone they already dislike so much that his starting point is just a 38% approval.

While knowing he's a 34-time convicted felon, adjudicated rapist and guilty of business fraud.

Who is surrounded by unqualified incompetents who have no skills to help him.  So, it will only get worse for him.  All the more so because he has dementia, which is degenerative.