Dem
47
GOP
53
Donald Trump had already struck out at every level of the New York judicial system, and yesterday he struck out with the Supreme Court. By a 5-4 vote, the justices rejected his request to block sentencing in his New York fraud case.
Readers can surely guess the four, but just in case, they were Associate Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch. Since it was just a request for cert, they did not have to explain their reasoning. Too bad, because we'd love to see them twist themselves into pretzels while explaining how it's not OK to sentence a person who is not yet the president for a crime they committed while they were not yet the president.
Judge Juan Merchan has indicated that he will sentence Trump to unconditional discharge today, with the result that Trump's only punishment would be that he would be "convicted felon Donald Trump" for the rest of his life. However, even that is hateful to Trump, so the President-elect has already promised that he's going to appeal his conviction until all appeals are exhausted. That means that a battle will end today, but the war is not yet over. (Z)