(Cartoonist Gilbert Shelton, now 85, created the Freak Brothers more than 40 years ago. He may appreciate today’s rambling reality as bettering those of his boys).

There is the start of a full-blown ‘freakout’ over the endless election campaign. It is striking in this short week after the solemn holiday that celebrated our Fallen. There may be other things waiting to join them, according to the headline in Red State on our screens this morning. It sparked laughter when the Production Meeeting lurched into a jerky start. There were freak-outs in progress on several fronts, both external and internal.

A favorite today was the trial about attempting to interfere in elections in New York. The Adminstration dispatched a team, featuring virulent retired actor Rober De Nio to make an impassioned address in front of the Courthouse. Commentators claiming legal knowledge wondered, under the precident of the Sheppard v Maxwell decison, whether a criminal defendant’s right to a fair trial isn’t violated when the President of the United States sponsors a press conference outside the courthouse, the day before the jury begins deliberations, to demand a conviction.

This was part of the wrap-up publicly-funded multi-faceted judicial circus. The New York Episode is lurching to a conclusion. The Mar-a-Lago classified documents case in Florida has had a hickup over too many outstanding pre-trial motions to continue, while the other part, the “obstruction of justice” part is also having some troubles under Special Council Jack Smith up in New York.

(Faces in Judge Merchan’s Court in New York, compiled from the mandatory pastels suitable for broadcast).

One of the issue is a new gag order someone was taking seriously at the time of the raid, since the special agents who conducted it were authorized deadly force. That was presumably in case the Secret Service assigned to protect the former Chief Executive objected with the threatened use of their own guns. It might have been better handled with an official letter delivered to an office, but this isn’t about letters or law any more. Reports this morning are of meetings between the Secret Service and New York jail officials in case a guilty verdict results in the former President’s incarceration.

Down in Florida, Judge Cannon is presiding on another chapter in the cavalcade of justice. She is a Trump appointee. We mention that only because of the other sudden changes in jurisprudence. Judges appointed to non-partisan positions under attack for being stridently partisan is a common theme. With Congress in brief recess, this is the momentarily visible part of the continuing struggle in process.

Jack Smith’s other case in the legal cascade is in DC. It is about alleged obstruction, but is on hold, pending a SCOTUS ruling on whether the former President could legally retain papers about his administration. We will probably only know when the Decision Season in the senior court is complete. If the legal proceedings they affect are then pushed beyond the timeline of the election, the impetus behind them will evaporate. It will doubtless cost hundreds of thousands of taxpayer (and Trump) dollars to close them all out. But that is just another facet of the LawFare strategy that keeps the lawyers conducting paid, driving decent EV automobiles and well fed despite rising grocery prices.

(DA Fani Lewis. In her court appearance, Pundits opined she may have worn the red dress backward. Freaky. Photo AP).

District Attorney Fani Lewis in Atlanta is riding a roller coaster of her own. Her installment of the four campaign-related court cases remains in a sort of legal limbo. Her segment was something about a re-count of Fulton County’s half-million votes in the 2020 election. We rode along with her in the February proceedings that accompanied the start of the integrated campaign to influence the election- the next one, not the last one.

Legal maneuvering has so far featured colorful allegations. They include a possible wardrobe misjudgment, some extra-martial relations and piles of loose cash. The result had her fire the Prosecutor she appointed to manage the case and take her relationship with him off the docket. Despite the negative publicity, she just won a primary bid for re-election in Fulton County. Shhe veiws this as vindication. There will doubtless be more to come, but if legal delays are successful, this too may drift away as the carnival packs up and moves to another focus on another venue.

That part was summed up in a curious preview by First Lady Dr. Jill. She took stage with Mika Brersinski on the MSNBC this week to explain the horrors of re-electing a fairly successful former Chief Executive.

That clip gave a glimpse on what the thinking behind one of the messaging streams is at this moment. There is a growing sense of fear settling in at the highest levels of the Democratic Party over President Joe Biden’s reelection prospects. That includes officeholders and strategists who had previously expressed buoyant confidence about the coming battle with Donald Trump.

There had been trouble throughout the last few months. The problem had been presented as a “messaging issue,” which brings it to us. Strategists seemed to be unable to absorb the fact that many people seem apprehensive about the fundamental transformation being imposed unilaterally on our shared nation. That failure added to the problems, since they apparently think some extraordinary things are happening, Inflation is manageable, for example. Or is, if you have plenty of money. Hamas is a genocidal target, and their guilt in other previous murders irrelevant. The Green Revolution is being accomplished, like it or not. A host of new biologies is now celebrated with great pride. Disagreement with any of it is condemned.

Those are apparently not universally shared views. The polling shows it. Nearly five months from the election, the previous mild anxiety has now morphed into palpable trepidation. It is reflected even in their own message memes. It’s not just that Biden is lagging in the polls due to his tenure as President. It’s that their messaging and LawFare gambits appear to be failing. Retired actor Robert De Niro’s performance in front of the courthouse yesterday demonstrated fairly effectively.

This Memorial Day break has Congress on recess to raise cash back home produced slow news days here in your Nation’s Capital. The Supreme Court is preparing to issue the decisions for this session, many of which will spin off into their own spirals of messaging. The court activity across that land, from SCOTUS to New York and Florida, is just the part of the conflict they are revealing to us at the moment.

Today will mark the first Jury deliberations in the Hush Money trial. Summations and instructions from the Judge are complete. Pundits have been predicting guilty verdict since they saw the Judge, the venue and the jury selection. If this works as intended, the jury could meet, take the instructions from Judge Merchan, vote unanimously and then go home for lunch.

It is also possible that the legal presentation has been so flawed that despite the set-up, the trial will not produce the desired unanimous verdict. If one or two jurors are not convinced, to avoid a mistrial there will be significant pressure on them to agree. Worse than that applied to the jury considering the fate of Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis. That will include doxxing and possibly worse.

So, that is the next hurdle in this part of the LawFare campaign, It could wind up in a mistrial. But if it goes as planned, one candidate will become a ‘Convicted felon” until it is overturned on appeal. After it no longer matters.

So, only one of four cases may produce a useful political result for messaging. Today, even that is uncertain. The weakness and mendacity displayed in DA Alvin Bragg’s case was apparent. The prosecution star witness admitted to grand larceny on the stand, a distinct impediment to taking his other claims of veracity seriously. There is the distinct possibility that despite the Judge’s best efforts, they will come to naught. Worse, it has revealed a broader issue, Our justice system isn’t just. It is just a tool in messaging to achieve something else much more important,

People seem to have noticed. This was never a perfect system, but it managed to work fairly well for most people. We will see how it survives this assault by people who are convinced they are right, whether anyone else agrees or not.

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com