‘There is an exciting piece deep inside this Daily Beast article regarding just how hard the 11th Circuit slapped down Judge Aileen Cannon whatever the game she is playing was. Cannon took the hit so hard she has reversed her bunk earlier order around the classified documents and Special Master, perhaps eliminating trump’s ability even to appeal the reversal by the 11th Circuit, but that’s not the bit that caught my eye.

Finally, the 11th Circuit basically held that the DOJ had already satisfied the most important element of an eventual prosecution under the Espionage Act (18 USC Section 793(d).

Here’s what Section 793(d) states:

“Whoever, lawfully having possession of [a document] relating to the national defense which information the possessor had reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation…willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it on demand to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it” violates the Espionage Act and “shall be…imprisoned not more than ten years” for each document willfully retained.

100 classified documents. 10 years per document. I wonder how much ketchup has been splattered against the dining room wall in Mar a Lago?…’

— Jason Weisberger via Boing Boing

Related: Are the walls really closing in on Trump this time?

 

‘Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: New developments have put donald trump in even more serious legal jeopardy.

 

A new civil fraud lawsuit from the New York attorney general’s office is threatening his business, while his efforts to stall the criminal investigation into whether he mishandled classified information seem to have failed. And a separate investigation into the January 6 attack scrutinizes his associates.

 

It all looks quite bad for him. Then again, for at least five years, much of the media has touted the seriousness of trump’s legal peril, portraying him as on the verge of a humiliating downfall — only to see him go, in his own words, “Scott Free,” again and again….’

 

— via Vox

‘According to Psychology Today, as many three-quarters of bereaved people report some kind of after-death communication with loved ones. This could come in the form of a dream, a feeling, a favorite song on the radio, just about anything, really. I’m going to discount the most likely and most boring explanation for this—the emotional upheaval of losing a loved one makes us imagine things to give ourselves comfort—and assume that it’s at least possible to communicate with the afterlife.

If it is possible to speak to the dead, how you do it can be hazy; this is the spiritual world we’re talking about after all. But each of these methods has its believers—and I’ve rated each one on an entirely arbitrary scale of usefulness, too….’

— via Lifehacker

‘The Special Master attending the trump v USA classified documents clearing wants to know why trump thinks the documents aren’t classified. Either trump magically declassified them, which may be a crime in and of itself, or he stole a bunch of classified documents. The Special Master needs to know which documents trump claims he declassified and how if he is to have a reason to believe marked documents that the USG claims are classified are not. trump’s team doesn’t want to explain how or why trump had these documents or how he declassified them. Either he claims to have potentially illegally and improperly declassified information, or he stole the documents. Which is it?…’

— via Boing Boing

’The liberation of Russian-occupied territory might bring down Vladimir Putin.…

Putin has refused even to allow Russians to contemplate an alternative to his seedy and corrupt brand of kleptocratic power. Nevertheless, I repeat: It is inconceivable that he can continue to rule if the centerpiece of his claim to legitimacy—his promise to put the Soviet Union back together again—proves not just impossible but laughable.’

— Anne Applebaum via The Atlantic

‘Daniel Holz studies the universe’s ultimate catastrophes. And he knows a thing or two about existential threats on Earth, since he helps set the Doomsday Clock.“We build these phenomenal instruments, these space telescopes, which peer back to the very beginning. It’s incredible. And yet, we’re on the verge of totally wrecking our only home.”…’

— via WIRED