this article on the first Jan. 6 trial makes clear how much work and time it takes to collect evidence and defend challenged charges if the defense lawyers are good ones

and that's for someone who was actually on the Capitol grounds. Throw in a pandemic delaying things.

You can't "lock em up" based on accusations in the media or by opposing politicians, that's not the way our system works. If people have the money to pay lawyers and the stamina to have charges hanging over their head while they are challenged, they might just be able to do that to the end of their lives. (Those without the money and/or stamina take the plea deal.)

Yeah, reputation is the thing that is the punishment in the meantime, justly or not. (Hence the common line once an accused is exonerated "where does xxx go to get their reputation back?")

Just sayin'

now here's where I as a taxpayer would support some defunding of "police" 

It's all Pence's fault. (Perhaps wishing what he calls "the people" would have actually been successful at hanging him?)

WTF?

two more years, could get interesting -

Opinion: Trump’s lies are failing ​in Georgia. That’s good news for all of us.

By Greg Sargent Columnist @WashingtonPost.com, today at 11:15 a.m. EDT

We’re at a hinge point in our politics: In the coming weeks, we will get a clearer sense of the influence that Donald Trump wields over GOP primaries. Nowhere is this more pressing than in Georgia, where Trump has staked a great deal on his endorsements of a slate of Trumpist candidates who are challenging establishment Republican incumbents.

Trump’s candidates may be in trouble, and some observers are interpreting as a sign of his weakening hold on the GOP. But something else is on the ballot, too: Whether running on a vow to subvert future election losses by any means necessary will be a political winner for Republicans going forward.

In a new report on the Georgia primaries, NPR finds that Republicans in the state have little confidence that Trump’s candidate for governor will prevail. Trump has endorsed former senator David Perdue, who is running a primary challenge to sitting Gov. Brian Kemp.

Trump endorsed Perdue for the express reason that Kemp refused to help Trump steal the 2020 election. But Perdue “lags behind Kemp in fundraising and polling,” reports NPR, and Georgia Republicans say Kemp appears likely to hang on.

That’s because Kemp is still seen as conservative, due to things like his opposition to covid-19 mandates and his support for Georgia’s voter suppression law. Republican voters appear to think Kemp delivered for them, despite refusing to irredeemably corrupt himself on Trump’s behalf. Indeed, as Josh Kraushaar reports, Perdue is trailing Kemp even though most GOP voters do know Trump endorsed him, a clear sign his 2020 lies may be falling flat.

If Perdue loses, it will be a comeuppance for one of the sleaziest political hustlers we’ve seen in some time. Perdue’s argument basically amounts to pitching himself as more willing than Kemp to debase himself and corrupt our democracy for the Trumpist cause [....]

From Saturday's rally:

Trump gets attention for saying he lost election

BY KELSEY CAROLAN - 04/05/22 3:53 PM ET

If he keeps doing it, that would be his greatest flip-flop yet, YUGE!

legal eagle Colin Kalmbacher at "Law & Crime" reporting:

Compare and contrast: styles of Presidenting

Twitter trending - Piers Morgan - Television host Piers Morgan shares a clip from an 'explosive' upcoming interview with Donald Trump in which the former president can be seen ending the conversation early and walking off set

etc.

‘I’ve Had It With This Guy’: G.O.P. Leaders Privately Blasted Trump After Jan. 6

In the days after the attack, Representative Kevin McCarthy planned to tell Mr. Trump to resign. Senator Mitch McConnell told allies impeachment was warranted. But their fury faded fast.

By Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin April 21, 2022, 5:01 a.m. ET

In the days after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol building, the two top Republicans in Congress, Representative Kevin McCarthy and Senator Mitch McConnell, told associates they believed President Trump was responsible for inciting the deadly riot and vowed to drive him from politics. Mr. McCarthy went so far as to say he would push Mr. Trump to resign immediately: “I’ve had it with this guy,” he told a group of Republican leaders.

But within weeks both men backed off an all-out fight with Mr. Trump because they feared retribution from him and his political movement. Their drive to act faded fast as it became clear it would mean difficult votes that would put them at odds with most of their colleagues.

“I didn’t get to be leader by voting with five people in the conference,” Mr. McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, told a friend.

The confidential expressions of outrage from Mr. McCarthy and Mr. McConnell, which have not been previously reported, illustrate the immense gulf between what Republican leaders say privately about Mr. Trump and their public deference to a man whose hold on the party has gone virtually unchallenged for half a decade.

The leaders’ swift retreat in January 2021 represented a capitulation at a moment of extraordinary political weakness for Mr. Trump — perhaps the last and best chance for mainstream Republicans to reclaim control of their party from a leader who had stoked an insurrection against American democracy itself.

This account of the private discussions among Republican leaders in the days after the Jan. 6 attack is adapted from a new book, “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future,” which draws on hundreds of interviews with lawmakers and officials, and contemporaneous records of pivotal moments in the 2020 presidential campaign.

Mr. McConnell’s office declined to comment. Mark Bednar, a spokesman for Mr. McCarthy, denied that the Republican leader told colleagues he would push Mr. Trump to leave office. “McCarthy never said he’d call Trump to say he should resign,” Mr. Bednar said.

No one embodies the stark accommodation to Mr. Trump more than Mr. McCarthy, a 57-year-old Californian who has long had his sights set on becoming speaker of the House. In public after Jan. 6, Mr. McCarthy issued a careful rebuke of Mr. Trump, saying that he “bears responsibility” for the mob that tried to stop Congress from officially certifying the president’s loss. But he declined to condemn him in sterner language.

In private, Mr. McCarthy went much further.

On a phone call with several other top House Republicans on Jan. 8, Mr. McCarthy said Mr. Trump’s conduct on Jan. 6 had been “atrocious and totally wrong.” He faulted the president for “inciting people” to attack the Capitol, saying that Mr. Trump’s remarks at a rally on the National Mall that day were “not right by any shape or any form.”

During that conversation, Mr. McCarthy inquired about the mechanism for invoking the 25th Amendment — the process whereby the vice president and members of the cabinet can remove a president from office — before concluding that was not a viable option. Mr. McCarthy, who was among those who objected to the election results, was uncertain and indecisive, fretting that the Democratic drive to impeach Mr. Trump would “put more fuel on the fire” of the country’s divisions.

But Mr. McCarthy’s resolve seemed to harden as the gravity of the attack — and the potential political fallout for his party — sank in. Two members of Mr. Trump’s cabinet had quit their posts after the attack and several moderate Republican governors had called for the president’s resignation. Video clips of the riot kept surfacing online, making the raw brutality of the attack ever more vivid in the public mind.

On Jan. 10, Mr. McCarthy spoke again with the leadership team and this time he had a plan in mind.

The Democrats were driving hard at an impeachment resolution, Mr. McCarthy said, and they would have the votes to pass it. Now he planned to call Mr. Trump and tell him it was time for him to go.

“What he did is unacceptable. Nobody can defend that and nobody should defend it,” he told the group.

Mr. McCarthy said he would tell Mr. Trump of the impeachment resolution: “I think this will pass, and it would be my recommendation you should resign.”

McCarthy contemplated a total break with Mr. Trump and his most extreme supporters.

During the same Jan. 10 conversation when he said he would call on Mr. Trump to resign, Mr. McCarthy told other G.O.P. leaders he wished the big tech companies would strip some Republican lawmakers of their social media accounts, as Twitter and Facebook had done with Mr. Trump. Members such as Lauren Boebert of Colorado had done so much to stoke paranoia about the 2020 election and made offensive comments online about the Capitol attack.

“We can’t put up with that,” Mr. McCarthy said, adding, “Can’t they take their Twitter accounts away, too?”

Mr. McCarthy “never said that particular members should be removed from Twitter,” Mr. Bednar said.

Other Republican leaders in the House agreed with Mr. McCarthy that the president’s behavior deserved swift punishment. Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the second-ranking House Republican, said on one call that it was time for the G.O.P. to contemplate a “post-Trump Republican House,” while Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the head of the party’s House campaign committee, suggested censuring Mr. Trump.

Yet none of the men followed through on their tough talk in those private conversations.

In the following days, Mr. McCarthy heard from some Republican lawmakers who advised against confronting Mr. Trump. In one group conversation, Representative Bill Johnson of Ohio cautioned that conservative voters back home “go ballistic” in response to criticism of Mr. Trump, demanding that Republicans instead train their denunciations on Democrats, such as Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden [....]

meanwhile Trump keeping himself busy tonight digging holes at a Heritage conference (retweeted by Rick Wilson)

CIRCUS STARTS IN JUST A FEW HOURS -

Trumpies vs. Desantis fans on culture wars? not exactly a pretty look for the GOP -

Donald Trump held in contempt for not complying with New York subpoena

Twitter events, 15 minutes ago, lots of coverage at link

On Monday, New York Judge Arthur F. Engoron held former president Donald Trump in contempt for failing to comply with a subpoena related to state attorney general Letitia James' investigation into the Trump Organization. Trump was ordered to turn over materials sought by James and will be fined $10,000 per day until he does so, according to The New York Times.

CNN exclusive - Mark Meadows’ 2,319 text messages reveal Trump’s inner circle communications before and after January 6

there's a new nickname for Trump trending on Twitter: "Velveeta Voldemort"

FWIW #DementiaDon currently trending on Twitter, stemming from reaction to his Nebraska rally

having some fun pointing out Trump grifting, chapter 2,926: