Today is Monday, February 5, 2024.   Today a new CNN poll shows that most Americans want to see a verdict on the federal charges former faux president Donald Drumpf faces related to election subversion in 2020 before this year’s presidential election, according to a new poll conducted by SSRS.   This look-see into the minds of most Americans concerning the legal jeopardy of the chaos agent known as Drumpf is seen in an online CNN article by Jennifer Agiesta and Ariel Edwards-Levy entitled “CNN Poll:   Most Americans want verdict on Trump election subversion charges before 2024 vote.”

Looking ahead, most Americans expect Drumpf to pardon himself of any federal crimes he’s convicted of if – God forbid! – he wins the presidency – or to refuse to concede if he loses in November.     I can’t see him doing this again since he failed so miserably in 2020, but who am I to predict the mind of this raging psychopath.

In the poll, half of Americans, 48 percent, say it’s essential that a verdict is reached before the 2024 presidential election, and another 16 percent that they’d prefer to see one.   So this totals a majority of 64 percent if you combine the percentages.  Just 11 percent say that a trial on the charges should be postponed until following the election, with another quarter saying the trial’s timing doesn’t matter to them.   So this totals a slim 36 percent of voters who are not moved by having a verdict before the election, which isn’t huge.  A 72 percent majority of Democrats and 52 percent of independents say it’s essential that a verdict is reached preelection.  Republicans, however, are more split. While 38 percent say that a verdict should be reached before the presidential election, including 20 percent who call that essential, another 39 percent say it doesn’t matter when the trial is held, and 23 percent that they think the trial should be held after this election.  Here the number of Republicans wanting a verdict before the election amounts to 58 percent, which is a slim majority as well.

At the moment, Drumpf currently faces four separate criminal indictments, including federal charges related to his alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.   The trial date in that case, originally set for March 4, was postponed Friday, after the survey was conducted.

Some aspects of the case are likely to be appealed to the “Extreme” Court.  Only 42 percent of Americans express a great deal or a moderate amount of trust in the Supreme Court (I’m surprised the number is even this high!) to make the right decisions on any legal cases related to the 2024 election, with 35 percent saying they have just some trust in the court, and 23 percent that they have none at all.  Republicans (it figures!) are more likely than Democrats to express at least a moderate amount of trust (52 percent to 36 percent).     Among those who see a pre- election verdict in the federal Chump election subversion case as essential, just 35 express trust in the Supreme Court on election-related cases. 

Views of Dump’s efforts to remain president following the 2020 election remain effectively unchanged from where they stood a year and a half ago amid public hearings on the January 6,2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol:     45 percent say he acted illegally, 32 unethically, and 23 percent that he did nothing wrong at all (what’s wrong with these people?   Are they living in another universe?)    As you would expect, 80 percent of Democrats say he acted illegally.  About half of Republicans (what else is new?) (49 percent) say Drumpf did nothing wrong following the last presidential election, with 40 percent saying his actions were unethical, and just 11 percent that they were illegal.  So here the numbers add to a 51 percent majority agreeing that the former president’s actions were not kosher. 

As for facing accountability, Drumpf could face his first criminal trial beginning this March in New York.   Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is set to take him to trial in late March for allegedly falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election.

This is not the trial that most Americans prefer to go on before the election. It’s his 2020 election subversion case in Washington, D.C., that is currently on hold pending an appeals’ court ruling on presidential immunity – setting up court action that could push the trial back for months (Shit!) and prompting the trial judge on Friday to cancel an early spring start date.  (Oh drat!)   

The other trial involving the misuse of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residency may also have its trial date pushed back because of the first trial’s proceedings.  But the judge, a Drumpf appointee in South Florida, has left open the possibility of revisiting the trial schedule at a hearing on March 1.    Don’t get your hopes up too high for this one either!    The judge, Aileen Cannon, is an unvarnished supporter of the Orange Fiend and she has rendered earlier rulings on his behalf. 

The state-level judge presiding over Dump’s 2020 election conspiracy case in Georgia has yet to set a trial date.   And, unfortunately, the prosecutor in this case, Fani Willis, is embroiled in her own personal imbroglio, as it has come out that she was having an affair with another prosecutor in her office.  I don’t see how this should affect the outcome of the case, but as you would expect from the cretin and his legal team, they’re already exploiting this situation and demanding a new prosecutor.   As of now, there has been no resolution in this messy affair yet.

The rest of the poll concerns itself with what Americans feel the bastard would do if he is elected – Heaven forbid! – because it’s all preventable.   If he is the damn nominee, vote for Biden as if the very fabric of democracy is at stake, and it sure is.  The respondents who were polled said that Drumpf would use the power of the White House to pardon himself for any convictions on federal crimes – only if he’s been convicted before the election; that he would launch federal investigations of his political rivals (Fascism 101!); and enact a number of sweeping and largely unpopular policy changes, including deporting millions of undocumented immigrants, undoing the Affordable Care Act, and purging the federal workforce of civil servants who oppose his policies.  Again, this is not a fait accompli so let’s all join together and vote against this from ever happening.

The CNN poll was conducted by SSRS from January 25-30 among a random national sample of 1,212 adults drawn from a probability-based panel.    Surveys were either conducted online or by telephone with a live interviewer.  Results among the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.  

Thus this poll evidences what anyone would expect:  that a majority of Americans want to see a verdict rendered – any verdict! – in any Drumpf trial before the 2024 election. 

In the meantime, the Trump legal team presented a laughable brief before the Supreme Court asking that his disgusting name be left on Colorado’s ballot; the “Extreme” Court is expected to hear oral arguments for and against the Orange Turd from staying on all state ballots this coming Thursday.   What they presented in the brief is just so ridiculous since it was Drumpf who tried to destabilize millions of voters in the 2020 election.  Don’t these assholes see the irony here?    In their brief, they write, “He is the presumptive Republican nominee (too bad!) and the leading candidate for President of the United States.”   This is what makes me laugh: ”The American people – not courts or election officials – should choose the next President of the United States.” 

What is even more outrageous from Drumpf’s legal team is that they compared the litigation seeking to remove him from the ballot to antidemocratic efforts in Venezuela.    And if this asshole ever becomes president again, he’d turn this country into another Venezuela by his autocratic actions.   How dare they use this comparison in their argument!

Meanwhile, a group of Colorado voters claim the actions that Drumpf instigated on January 6 amounted to an insurrection and that the Constitution bars him from holding office.  The groups challenging Drumpf’s eligibility for the ballot want to keep the high court focused on the big picture, specifically by arguing Trump’s words at a campaign-style rally outside the White House incited the mob that attacked the Capitol.    

Another specious argument that Drumpf’s team is maintaining is that the term “officer” in the 14th Amendment doesn’t apply to presidents and that Congress must pass a law before Section 3 can be enforced.    Whatever this means!  But isn’t it clearly apparent to anyone that the president is definitely an officer of the government.    If he’s judged not to be, then what the hell is he?

I can’t wait to see what this disgraced and unpopular court is going to decide.   Of course, at least one Extreme Court judge, Clarence Thomas, should recuse himself from rendering any decision on Drumpf, but I doubt he will. 

It promises to be an explosive week, politics-wise.

Stay safe and be well. 

Here’s our little daredevil sitting on top of his scratching post.