Time's up

Dick's bargain with the Devil's due at last;
no cardiologist butts in, this time.
There's Hell to pay in earnest for his past
and nothing to extenuate his crime.
Unbounded by conventions, or constraints
contemptuous of morals, and of laws
Geneva, he dismissed as merely "quaint"
and tramples on our treaties, clause by clause.
One vote for Kamala can't expiate
his decades waging Class War from above.
Abe Lincoln's party's sold on Greed, and Hate.
despite the Scripture's stark command to love.
His sulfur stench may take years to dispel
For now, we're much relieved that he's in Hell.

thuggery

Another court's found ICE exceeds it's writ
detaining citizens without due cause.
While pundits quibble "quis custodiet..."
these Trumpanzees feel unconstrained by laws. 
Their president can pardon all their crimes
from treason down to trafficking in hemp.
If any one of them is to serve time,
it's only for the days they're in contempt.
Until, of course a new regime prevails
that serves the People, not the banking firms.
Trump's thugs will serve the next four years in jail
if we're allowed legitimate midterms.
Tripartite government is ours to lose,
and lose we will, if these are whom we choose.

tzedekh, tzedekh tirdof

Contrition's not a tune Trump's learned to sing;
his cultists like their hero never wrong.
like some exalted ancient Persian king
commanding minstrels when he wants a song.
Probation officer's charged to assess
if monetary fines might bring him 'round.
But Trump's explicit, no one needs to guess:
he'd gladly tear the whole Republic down.
Judge Cannon's on the take; now it's the States
that wield the power to see Justice done.
With feds demuring to adjudicate
New York has shown such cases can be won.
Still, sentencing's an independent stage;
where fines are toothless, put him in a cage!

showtime!

"Come see the tyrant!" Echoing MacBeth
New York has staged a spectacle so big,
the hordes that won't break stride for plagues, or Death
appreciate that Trump's thrown in the brig.
Full half a century of unpaid debts,
and specious lawsuits to intimidate
are nothing Gothamites will soon forget.
He took the White House once, but lost his state.
July, we'll learn what all these verdicts meant;
the sentencing's an independent phase.
Abject example of a life misspent,
can't be atoned in dollars, but in days.
Manhattan's really not his kind of town;
it's Florida that loves retired old clowns

blind Justice

The jury's charged; the prosecution rests;
they've demonstrated Trump knew what he did.
Key co-conspirators have all confessed;
intention's manifest in what they hid.
"Mens rea" can be devilish to prove;
a stringent test of prosecutors' art.
But jurors saw the evidence get moved;
defendant in this case just ain't that smart.
The jury 's spoken: "guilty on each charge"!
While sentencing's an independent stage,
for now, the felon must remain at large,
'til New York State can gild a plus-sized cage.
For one who dreamt he'd made himself a king,
The chants of"Lock Him Up!" have got to sting.

tissue of lies

"concealing assets" Giuliani's warned
"could be felonious" she emphasized.
Instructions from the bench are thick with scorn;
her honor's had her fill--and more--of lies.
Trump's never one to keep one set of books
his valuations rise and fall at whim.
An enterprise of flim-flam men, and crooks
whose factual mistakes all favor him.
Trump's legal team keep lawyers of their own
The system groans, o'erburdened with delay.
Each trusting he'll get blood out of a stone
A fool could see; they're never getting paid.
A former prosecutor, turned to crime
with no cards left, can only play for time.

Supreme Arrogance

Chief justice Roberts chooses to be blind
as SCOTUS blunders off the moral cliff.
So confidant the voters wouldn't mind
that Thomas swims in unreported gifts.
Pacific jaunts that eldest justice took,
where Krakatoa's new volcanoes grow
are nowhere on his tax-accountant's books;
emoluments from "dear friend" TrammelCrow.
Jane Roberts also profits on the side
when litigants desire her husband's ear.
No penalty's incurred for laws defied
when perpetrators know they have no peer.
"[O]n good behaviour" rather than "for life"
requires we ask: "who's bought the judge's wife?"

comeuppance

An asset valued low when it's for tax,
and high when bankers want a guarantee
has just one market worth, in point of fact
such double books incur a felony.
A lifetime stiffing those who'd done his work;
it's fitting maybe it should end this way.
The shameless woman nails the shameless jerk;
the only time the worker got her pay.
A life of crime took decades to get caught;
Roy Cohn scheps nachas from this gilded ass.
The inconvenient witness can be bought
and prosecution's rare for ruling class.
No court should take this felon at his word,
Letitia James is staunchly undeterred.

one for the books

The memoir some purport Trump means to write
divulging secrets to our detriment,
would be a joke, except that "our" far Right
derides the notion of Good Government.
These "patriots" exult in doing harm
without contrition or a pang of guilt.
As long as they can promenade their arms,
they'll smash what better generations built.
The military school Trump's parents thought
might drum morality into their son
could not deliver what cannot be bought;
he just liked dressing up with sword and gun.
To write a book's a most unlikely deed
for one who struggles pitifully to read.

priceless

Letitia James brought first the civil suit;

Discovery's where so much work gets done.
When once NewYork gets paid what's in dispute,
the feds can prosecute the 1001.
The bankers Hillary'd relo'ed to woo
trust their collateral would still be there
if they must liquidate when loans come due.
They want to hold real assets, not hot air.
Assessors jeopardize their very job
to value high to lenders, low for tax.
When they're coerced, or bought to serve the mob
they share exposure for their faithless acts.
Failed president, who'd lost his own homestate
now sweats as those he'd cheated weigh his fate.

Fishes rot from the head

The Secret Service trusted with Trump's leash
Would never trust the moron with control.
The steering wheel's kept firmly out of reach;
they'll trot him out in time to speak his role.
'Til then, his backseat door stays firmly locked;
he'd just break something, left at large, alone.
The crazies mustn't penetrate his box,
And--if they could--they'd smash his god-damned phone.
Each agent's vetted; tough case to suborn!
But Trump knows any mortal has a price;
some burn for hookers, some crave bootleg porn.
There's opportunity exploiting Vice.
As midterms loom, there's not a lot of time
to stem Trump's tidal wave of gangland crime.

Auto da fe

John Dean'd been taught "the Truth will set you free"
but understood the fetters forged by fear.
The path he blazed in"use immunity"
led some who'd been estranged to now draw near.
Republics stand because the voters trust
our public servants serve the public good.
A venal slave to Mammon and to Lust
lacks any sense of what he ought, or should.
Steve Bannon smells the trap and wants control
of narratives explaining what went down.
Of all these crimes, which highlight his own role
and which we must attribute to the clown.
The race is on! Who'll be the first to break?
The last to sing gets roasted at the stake.

wannabe

Judge Schroeder gave Kyle Rittenhouse a gift
dismissing charges of "illegal gun".
It's not been proven he was taking grift
but this ain't how a good courthouse is run.
Black robes exalt the judge from common folk;
in office, he speaks for the very State.
But in Kenosha, justice is a joke;
he's advocating for this reprobate.
A hundred years, "discretion's" served the Klan
selecting whom it is we'll prosecute.
This adolescent posing as a man
gets special dispensation, 'cause he's cute.
Two men lie dead, a third's been gravely maimed;
were their assailant black, 'twere not the same.

Banditry

the pirate raid that Lukashenko staged
won approbation from his Kremlin boss.
All Europe slammed the borders in outrage.
But Putin scores this triumph worth that cost.
Now, landlocked Belorussians must look East
For food, for fuel, or any form of Trade.
Still, no one's sanctioning the Russian beast
who underwrote the scheme, and gladly paid.
The dream of Europe unified's a threat
to one who craves the empire of a czar
But only Moscow's eager to forget
the horrors of a continent at war.

Where Biden sees a planet to be saved
Vlad Putin seems increasingly depraved.

Chauvin

Kentucky blames the victim every time
and jurors must pretend this makes some sense.
Your shattered skull is witness to your crime
when officers resort to violence.
'Til Rodney King, such video was rare;
we're told cops' testimony'd earned our trust.

White voters just assumed police must care,
and had good motives when then made a bust.
When ev'ry murder's broadcast to our 'phones

it takes an effort staunchly to not see
the crimes are ours, not officers' alone.
Our fundamental right must be to be.
Keith Ellison assures us laws can hold
if our Executive is staunch, and bold.

Florida politics

Matt Gaetz discovered girls a little late;
his high-school years were spent with dolls, and toys.
When headlines blare "That Loser Got a Date"
his colleagues still presume that meant with boys.
Like Foley, Gaetz was smitten with a page
who copied documents, and scored good pot.
Untroubled that the lad was half his age
these later Humberts find pubescence "hot".

Without consent, relations are a crime;

each State enumerates who can't, or can.
Transporting juveniles across State lines,
or out of country violates that ban.
When even Trump disdains to take his calls

the prosecution's got Matt by the balls.

Sedition

Eleven senators think they can choose
which bits of constitution they'll obey.
Seditious scoundrels rally to Ted Cruz;
no moral principles get in the way.
Untroubled by the lack of evidence
they peddle both uncertainty and doubt.
Their fealty's complete to Trump and Pence
as if those losers hadn't been thrown out.

Eleven senators moved to secede

in 1861 to keep their slaves

from getting what all citizens would need

preferring that they shut up and behave.

Joe Biden's got a world to fix next week;

Pelosi mustn't seat this Quisling clique.

Damned

The Ghost of Christmas Future woke Bill Barr
to teach abuse of office has a cost.
A zealous advocate can go too far

in representing such a crooked boss.

If Hunter's been evasive on his tax,
The IRS will find him in due course.
Not innuendo, but established facts
established by a court, wield proper force.
A second tenure at the DoJ

where once, he'd sheltered shipments to Iran
defaults to scandal at a later day
the constant lawyer, to a different man.

Too late to save his name, Bill Barr's now quit
smeared for posterity in all Trump's shit.

Pinochist

Chad Wolf deploys a mercenary force
who won't ID themselves, but let drop hints
...armed to the teeth...emotionally coarse...
the latest Enterprise of Erik Prince.
The Pentagon enriched him in Iraq,
an ill-got fortune grafted on his own.
This year, he'd brought his buccaneer boys back
to break some citizens' skulls here at home.

Wolf's jackboot thugs are taking Oregon

they spurn insignia or names in sight

Like Deng Xiao Peng deployed in Tiananmen

without regard for basic civil rights.
If Trump wants citizens to just comply
he'd have sent agents of our FBI.

Scalia's clerk

Judge Barrett deemed a Justice should recuse
when statute challenges the Vatican.
Preferring silence, rather than to choose
between dogmatic rules, and laws of Man.
One wonder if there're other debts she owes;
that covenant's still secret from our eyes.
Who'll move her lips, when just her Handmaid knows
how Amy's judgements might be compromised?
What secret combination'd supercede
Enlightenment's self-rule experiment?

Subordinating to their private Creed
the public function of our government?
This cultist on the bench ain't gonna work
But Trump's enamored of Scalia's clerk.