Sadly, this pathetic man has sold his integrity and morals to the worst, most corrupt, most criminal president in US history. What he doesn’t see because of his greed and lust for power, is that he will lose everything in the end. Being an attorney for Trump ALWAYS ends with the person destroying their lives and reputation. So good luck Mr. Blanche, your legacy with be that of every other traitor to our country.
The casualty list of Trump lawyers...reads like a cautionary tale nobody reads: Cohen went to prison. Giuliani..."America's Mayor"...disbarred and bankrupt. Eastman and Chesebro... indicted.
The retainer always gets paid...one way or ANOTHER...and it's never paid in money.
But...let me sharpen one edge on your comment: I'd bet against greed as the engine here. Greedy men are actually EASIER to predict; they stop when the math turns.
What we're watching...looks more like the layaway plan: a man so deep in SUNK ...COSTS that admitting the chain exists...costs more than STAYING chained. That man...is more dangerous than a greedy one...because he's convinced himself he's being loyal...not BOUGHT.
Either way, your bottom line stands. The house ALWAYS collects. And...history's ledger...doesn't take appeals.
Jack this quote jumped immediately to my mind when the alert on your new posting came up on my iPad…will read this article, but thought I’d share this now. I took a course on Shakespeare in college and find the wisdom often contained in his writings contain so much truth, and my “good name” has always been important to me!
Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls: Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him And makes me poor indeed
You reached for the exact right shelf...and there's a razor blade hidden in that quote...that makes it even BETTER than you know.
Those lines are spoken by IAGO. The most gifted integrity-thief Shakespeare ever wrote...delivering the most beautiful sermon on reputation in the English language...as a con. He's not warning Othello; he's setting him UP. The wisdom is true...AND it's bait...ALL in the same damn breath.
Which makes it the PERFECT epigraph for the Blanche story, doesn't it?!
The words about the jewel of the soul...spoken by the man PICKING the lock. Four hundred years old...and it reads like this morning's news.
Your good name has been important to you your whole life...and here's the part worth holding: that's NOT vanity. It's the ONLY asset that appreciates from SPENDING IT HONESTLY...and vanishes...from spending it ANY other way.
Thank you Jack…so much to treasure, reference in the Shakespeare I learned back in college and have loved ever since…Iago, one of the vilest of Shakespeare’s villains!
What a wonderful quote! Thank you for sharing it. My integrity has always been important to me, so this essay hit hard.
We're surrounded by people who have sold theirs for a promise that probably will never be fulfilled. Being a con artist means the Felon's promises are worth nothing. He's a lazy, entitled, unprincipled dipshit and he'll betray ANYONE to save his own skin. Many people have discovered that first-hand and STILL don't believe he'll betray them.
Carlye...you've hit the strangest wrinkle in the whole con: the evidence doesn't inoculate them.
That's what separates an amateur grift...from a professional one.
An amateur's marks wise up after they're burned. But...watch this one work: a man gets betrayed...publicly...humiliatingly...provably...and STILL believes he was the exception mishandled...NOT the rule applied.
Cohen went to prison believing. Half the January 6th defendants sat in cells believing...waiting on pardons for the man who called them patriots...and then dropped them like a hot rock.
Here's the mechanism: the mark's belief isn't IN the con man. It's in his OWN JUDGEMENT.
Admitting the betrayal was inevitable...means admitting he was a mark from day one...and most men will pay ANY price...including a second and third betrayal...to AVOID that invoice.
That's why they still don't believe it. The con doesn't have to outsmart them. Their own pride does the guarding...for FREE.
I hear you. It's horrifying. But I believe we'll get through it, hopefully with a better collective idea of what we want from ourselves and our country.
We’ve discussed leaving too…and part of me wants to go, but the other part is unwilling to leave what my family fought for, since 1637 when they arrived in Massachusetts Bay, to this corrupt regime and the idiots that worship at their alter of stupidity! There’s a stubborn, or you could call it tenacious, streak in me and it runs deep. If I were younger I’d be running for office…but now, at this point in my life, I will resist in whatever fashion I can!
I hear you! My mom's family includes Roger Williams, the Rhode Island rebel who got thrown out of the Bay Colony, and my dad's family came over as immigrants in the late 1800s. My dad and my husband both served in the military, and I traipsed around the world as a military spouse. I keep looking at options for leaving, but my husband says, "NO, not going to let these vile people drive me away." Jack's writing on being strong and holding fast are what makes it easier to stay.
You just dropped the EXACT book I'd hand anyone who thinks the Blanche essay was about Blanche.
Christensen's razor cuts deepest at one spot: it's easier to hold your principles 100% of the time...than 98% of the time. Because...the MARGINAL cost of "just this once" always looks tiny in the moment...and "just this once" is PRECISELY how every scandal in history got its start.
Nobody ever sold their soul in bulk. Retail ONLY.
And Christensen knew where the data came from: he wrote it...watching his OWN Harvard classmates...brilliant, decent men...end up in PRISON... one MARGINAL decision at a time.
The road to hell isn't paved with bad intentions. It's paved with EXCEPTIONS.
Justice may come for the scumbags...but Christensen's point is the one we can act on today: the 100% rule is free...right NOW...for every one of us. Cheaper than the alternative,,,by a country mile!
Thank you, Jack Hopkins, for your essay. What we need now is someone like John Dean, who regretted his role in Watergate and subsequently worked with federal authorities to bring other government entities involved in Watergate to account.
Pam...you reached for exactly the right file...and here's WHY Dean matters more than people remember:
He wasn't a hero who wandered into the White House. He was a fully IMPLICATED INSIDER...the man RUNNING the cover-up...who did the arithmetic...and figured out the machine would feed HIM to the prosecutors...FIRST.
His conscience got an assist from his survival instinct. That's usually how it works.
Which is the useful lesson for right now: don't WAIT for a saint. Watch for the ARITHMETIC to change.
Every one of these men...Blanche included...is loyal at the CURRENT price. Court orders...confirmation hearings...subpoenas...midterms: each one raises the cost of holding the line. Dean flipped...when the MATH flipped.
Somewhere in this administration...somebody is ALREADY doing long division at 2 a.m. History says the FIRST one to finish the math talks first...and gets the book deal.
Integrity IS the load-bearing wall of character. Everything else about a man...is decoration; that's the beam holding the roof up.
One addition, offered in your direction: "they will lose" is true, and history's fine print says they lose when...and ONLY when...enough ordinary people stay STEADY enough... LONG enough...to make the collecting happen.
The house wins in the end...but somebody has to keep the books...until it DOES.
That's YOU. That's this whole room.That's US. Keep the books, Mary!
Jack is correct that integrity is a practice, not a possession, and that the price only gets quoted after the sale. History confirms the mechanism with a name: state capture doesn’t require corrupt institutions. It requires competent people inside functioning institutions, each one telling himself the last step was the only reasonable one, until the institution answers to a man instead of a law.
File the date: July 2, 2026, the deadline a federal judge set for the Justice Department to unredact Epstein files under a law Congress passed with near unanimity. Note what the Attorney General’s office chose instead of compliance: silence in court, then an appeal, then the same spokesperson calling the judge’s reading “perverse.” A man who spent two decades enforcing court orders is now the government’s chief architect of not following one.
Jack is correct that Nixon is the comparison point, but note the comparison precisely. Nixon did not hand over the tapes because his conscience arrived intact. He handed them over because the Supreme Court ruled unanimously and left no legal ground left to stand on. The tapes were surrendered at the last possible moment, under the last possible pressure, by a man who had exhausted every alternative first. That is not a story about virtue. It is a story about a system that still had enough load-bearing walls left to force the outcome even when the man at the center had none.
File the date once more, then, for what is being tested right now: whether Judge Sullivan’s court still has those walls. Nixon’s obedience was not proof that officials keep their word. It was proof that institutions can still compel the word to be kept, when they are strong enough. Jack is correct twice over: once that the sale happens in installments nobody notices, and once that the 250-year experiment was never a bet on any single man’s integrity. It was a bet that the machine would still function once his ran out.
Very true, with one more bit of information: Nixon handed over the tapes bc of that Supreme Court AND the fact that his own party told him they wouldn't support him.
In this case, the Extreme Court has already sided with the Felon, at least to an absurd degree, and his party is still mostly his, so what comes next is probably a litmus test re the hold he still has.
I've no idea how this will play out, but it's a critical moment. If the court holds firm, it's a good sign. I guess we'll see.
This one is a stomach turner for me…… I have done some sketchy things, mostly in the arena of personal relationships and endured some hard lessons as a result. The lines are much brighter these days.
That said, I do understand the professional one. I was never asked to go down the Blanche road and….. I honestly can’t say what I might have done (or not). I’ve always had a complicated relationship with authority figures (authoritarian upbringing with a goodly dose of abuse anyone?) so there was a very strong survival mechanism active in my psyche. I ‘get’ how someone can go there.
Con men gonna con…. that’s who they are and are much harder spot if you’re needy… I don’t know Blanche’s story beyond what’s related here. I do wonder what got him to take the steps, why he didn’t step back while he could still recover? I’ve also read that t has an almost preternatural charisma that can pull you in like some evil vortex….. maybe Blanche thought he’d be the exception like so many before him…….?
In any event….. this cannot be allowed to stand (defiance of the law). I believe judges can utilize the US Marshals to arrest and jail ppl? Given Blanche is supposed to be the top cop, this is some hold your breath territory and my stomach is not even a little happy about it……
Thank you, Jack! This article is so important on so many levels. And yes, whatever integrity you have, in the end, is pretty much all you take with you when leaving this earth…..
Deb...this is the most honest comment on the page...and I want to point at the exact spot where the honesty lives.
You wrote: "I can't say what I might have done." Deb...that sentence is worth more than a HUNDRED confident declarations of virtue.
The people....MOST likely to walk the Blanche road...are precisely the ones CERTAIN they never would...because certainty means they've never inventoried their OWN machinery. You HAVE.
You know where your levers are...who installed them...and what pulls them. A man who knows his own survival mechanisms...is a man those mechanisms can't QUIETLY drive.
You answered your OWN question about Blanche...without even noticing. You asked WHY he didn't step back while he could STILL recover...then two lines earlier you'd already said it: con men are MUCH harder to spot...if you're NEEDY.
Need...is the universal solvent. Doesn't matter if the need is safety...belonging...or a night-school kid's hunger...to finally sit at the BIG table. The con doesn't hook the greedy...nearly as reliably as it hooks the HUNGRY.
On the legal mechanics...your stomach is reading the map right: judges DO have contempt power...and...the Marshals do enforce it.
But...here's the catch-22 nobody wants to say out loud; the Marshals report to the Justice Department. See the problem?
The man they'd be sent to arrest...RUNS the agency that commands them.
That's why this is hold-your-breath territory: we're about to find out WHICH oath those institutions actually run on.
My honest read: the courts will escalate PAPER... before anyone escalates handcuffs, ...and...the REAL enforcement mechanism is political...confirmation votes...subpoenas, elections.
Your last line is the ENTIRE ledger: integrity is the ONLY luggage allowed on the final trip.
You've done the hardest kind of accounting there is...your OWN. The lines are brighter now...because you paid for the light.|
I remember those individuals who worked with Blanche and stood up for him as he was becoming the AG-they had hopes he would stick to his ideals, and remember all the hard work it took to get him there!! They were sadly disappointed ☹️
Sad to see people destroy themselves for greed...power...a place of belonging...But it still ruins them when they tie themselves to the worst president ever in this world. Blanche worked from the bottom up and he may end up in prison with the rest when this is all over for this administration. I also believe if drumpf does not get charged and imprisoned as well as kegsbreath it will not bode well in regaining our place of dignity we lost with him. It will make us look weak...
"Somewhere in this administration...somebody is ALREADY doing long division at 2 a.m. History says the FIRST one to finish the math talks first...and gets the book deal."
Jack, I was a jury trial attorney for almost 30 years. I didn’t get my ticket till I was 28 years old. I went through a lot of shit before that. I was raised on a street where either your father knew nothing about raising a kid or you’ve been raised by a mother who was a drunk. Most of the young guys were tough. I wasn’t that tough, but I had to survive.
In any event, I’ll skip the ship that happened before I got into college. I went to a non-accredited night school for a year. I had to take a baby bar in California and I passed it after taking a class from a guy who was a dean of a law school taught me everything about taking test to tell you that much. Then I got into an accredited law school in San Francisco but I had to repeat my first year. I’ve been working since I was 13 so I just I worked when I was going to law school. Especially after I had already taken the first year classes it was an easy year for me. Just like in college I took a six month field study and went to work for a couple of criminal attorneys in Oakland, California. They had a boutique law firm right off Lake Merritt. I became such good friends with the number one partner. We started going kind of sideways. I bumped into a gangster who had a warehouse in Oakland. Back in the day a lot of the big bands Rolling Stones you name it they would play at the Colosseum. It was called on the Green. Afterwards, many of them would come and play at my buddy the gangsters warehouse, which is all set up for big private parties. There are a lot of rooms in that place too on more than one level. It came a time when I got really close to this guy and he lost his ability to put on any more big named band so he was getting into pornography. He was already big into cocaine. And invited me to watch and maybe get involved afterwards and fucking some of these pornography stars and that’s when I made the decision I was done. I didn’t want to go down that line of drugs and criminal.
I got myself solid, luckily landed a job next to a top-notch civil jury trial attorney mostly going after fraudulent, attorneys chiropractors clinics, etc. working a lot with DAs and AG‘s. A whole different lifestyle. I got lucky I got to the top had my own firm in Oakland down in Jack, London Square.
But I got sick, I got cancer. Scared the shit out of me. Probably my earlier life lifestyle decisions. I’d stop smoking at 35 but all that shit I did before that. So I have my early 50s. I walked away from my law firm and moved out in East Bay right next to the wilderness that I’ve been watching crumble from climate change for 24 years. I worked another four years as an attorney, but the medicine not a bad back was just too much for me to handle. I’ve made it to the top AV rated California trial attorney. Took me two years from my head to become un swollen.
I slowed down grandkids came around or adults now now I have more six and a 10-year-old and even a 2 1/2 year-old grandchild. I almost died earlier this year.
So this piece about Todd Blaché really resonated with me. I know that he invested 100,000 and one of the gigs that Trump had for him. I’m sure that just like this secretary of the interior was in on the wire fraud for the state fair debacle that Todd got a lot of criminal deals with Shaw companies and the Caymans making him big money. But he lost his soul, didn’t he. I still am far from perfect but I’m old and I’m glad I changed my route. I’m sure, as many other criminal defense attorneys have done, I would’ve gone to the dark side D Mac Twitter the handle@worldflood1
Thank you Jack. I had no idea of this guy’s history. My opinion of him is even worse. He’s such a betrayal to his family, himself and his country. What a fool.
Sadly, this pathetic man has sold his integrity and morals to the worst, most corrupt, most criminal president in US history. What he doesn’t see because of his greed and lust for power, is that he will lose everything in the end. Being an attorney for Trump ALWAYS ends with the person destroying their lives and reputation. So good luck Mr. Blanche, your legacy with be that of every other traitor to our country.
Al...you're standing on solid actuarial ground.
The casualty list of Trump lawyers...reads like a cautionary tale nobody reads: Cohen went to prison. Giuliani..."America's Mayor"...disbarred and bankrupt. Eastman and Chesebro... indicted.
The retainer always gets paid...one way or ANOTHER...and it's never paid in money.
But...let me sharpen one edge on your comment: I'd bet against greed as the engine here. Greedy men are actually EASIER to predict; they stop when the math turns.
What we're watching...looks more like the layaway plan: a man so deep in SUNK ...COSTS that admitting the chain exists...costs more than STAYING chained. That man...is more dangerous than a greedy one...because he's convinced himself he's being loyal...not BOUGHT.
Either way, your bottom line stands. The house ALWAYS collects. And...history's ledger...doesn't take appeals.
Thanks for being here, Al.
-Jack
Roy Cohen did not go to prison. He was disbarred.
There's no E in Cohn.
There are two Coh(e)ns here; Michael Cohen and Roy Cohn. Which is which?
Michael Cohen
They both earned their place on the list
Ah, yes. Too many lawyers to keep track of! They never learn.
Jack this quote jumped immediately to my mind when the alert on your new posting came up on my iPad…will read this article, but thought I’d share this now. I took a course on Shakespeare in college and find the wisdom often contained in his writings contain so much truth, and my “good name” has always been important to me!
Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls: Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him And makes me poor indeed
Christie...I LOVE THIS.
You reached for the exact right shelf...and there's a razor blade hidden in that quote...that makes it even BETTER than you know.
Those lines are spoken by IAGO. The most gifted integrity-thief Shakespeare ever wrote...delivering the most beautiful sermon on reputation in the English language...as a con. He's not warning Othello; he's setting him UP. The wisdom is true...AND it's bait...ALL in the same damn breath.
Which makes it the PERFECT epigraph for the Blanche story, doesn't it?!
The words about the jewel of the soul...spoken by the man PICKING the lock. Four hundred years old...and it reads like this morning's news.
Your good name has been important to you your whole life...and here's the part worth holding: that's NOT vanity. It's the ONLY asset that appreciates from SPENDING IT HONESTLY...and vanishes...from spending it ANY other way.
Good stuff, Christie.
-Jack
Thank you Jack…so much to treasure, reference in the Shakespeare I learned back in college and have loved ever since…Iago, one of the vilest of Shakespeare’s villains!
What a wonderful quote! Thank you for sharing it. My integrity has always been important to me, so this essay hit hard.
We're surrounded by people who have sold theirs for a promise that probably will never be fulfilled. Being a con artist means the Felon's promises are worth nothing. He's a lazy, entitled, unprincipled dipshit and he'll betray ANYONE to save his own skin. Many people have discovered that first-hand and STILL don't believe he'll betray them.
Carlye...you've hit the strangest wrinkle in the whole con: the evidence doesn't inoculate them.
That's what separates an amateur grift...from a professional one.
An amateur's marks wise up after they're burned. But...watch this one work: a man gets betrayed...publicly...humiliatingly...provably...and STILL believes he was the exception mishandled...NOT the rule applied.
Cohen went to prison believing. Half the January 6th defendants sat in cells believing...waiting on pardons for the man who called them patriots...and then dropped them like a hot rock.
Here's the mechanism: the mark's belief isn't IN the con man. It's in his OWN JUDGEMENT.
Admitting the betrayal was inevitable...means admitting he was a mark from day one...and most men will pay ANY price...including a second and third betrayal...to AVOID that invoice.
That's why they still don't believe it. The con doesn't have to outsmart them. Their own pride does the guarding...for FREE.
-Jack
Exactly. The ego can’t admit at least outwardly, it was had, so it digs an even bigger hole for itself, in an attempt to save face.
Boy…you expressed exactly what I feel about this fraud! Still can’t believe we are here!
I hear you. It's horrifying. But I believe we'll get through it, hopefully with a better collective idea of what we want from ourselves and our country.
Otherwise, I'm moving! 🥴🥹
We’ve discussed leaving too…and part of me wants to go, but the other part is unwilling to leave what my family fought for, since 1637 when they arrived in Massachusetts Bay, to this corrupt regime and the idiots that worship at their alter of stupidity! There’s a stubborn, or you could call it tenacious, streak in me and it runs deep. If I were younger I’d be running for office…but now, at this point in my life, I will resist in whatever fashion I can!
I hear you! My mom's family includes Roger Williams, the Rhode Island rebel who got thrown out of the Bay Colony, and my dad's family came over as immigrants in the late 1800s. My dad and my husband both served in the military, and I traipsed around the world as a military spouse. I keep looking at options for leaving, but my husband says, "NO, not going to let these vile people drive me away." Jack's writing on being strong and holding fast are what makes it easier to stay.
Great essay!
This was the thesis of Clayton Christionson’s book “How Will You Measure Your Life?” (great read) and aligns with the road to hell.
I hope to see a day when all of these scumbags are brought to justice.
Art...thank you.
You just dropped the EXACT book I'd hand anyone who thinks the Blanche essay was about Blanche.
Christensen's razor cuts deepest at one spot: it's easier to hold your principles 100% of the time...than 98% of the time. Because...the MARGINAL cost of "just this once" always looks tiny in the moment...and "just this once" is PRECISELY how every scandal in history got its start.
Nobody ever sold their soul in bulk. Retail ONLY.
And Christensen knew where the data came from: he wrote it...watching his OWN Harvard classmates...brilliant, decent men...end up in PRISON... one MARGINAL decision at a time.
The road to hell isn't paved with bad intentions. It's paved with EXCEPTIONS.
Justice may come for the scumbags...but Christensen's point is the one we can act on today: the 100% rule is free...right NOW...for every one of us. Cheaper than the alternative,,,by a country mile!
-Jack
So do I!!!
A Faustian bargain reaching the inevitable conclusion...I have no fucks to give...
Succinct...and dead on, James. Agreed!
-Jack
Great article, Jack. Thank you. I’ve Restacked.
Jane...thank you, for both the compliment...AND the Restack!
-Jack
Thank you, Jack Hopkins, for your essay. What we need now is someone like John Dean, who regretted his role in Watergate and subsequently worked with federal authorities to bring other government entities involved in Watergate to account.
Pam...you reached for exactly the right file...and here's WHY Dean matters more than people remember:
He wasn't a hero who wandered into the White House. He was a fully IMPLICATED INSIDER...the man RUNNING the cover-up...who did the arithmetic...and figured out the machine would feed HIM to the prosecutors...FIRST.
His conscience got an assist from his survival instinct. That's usually how it works.
Which is the useful lesson for right now: don't WAIT for a saint. Watch for the ARITHMETIC to change.
Every one of these men...Blanche included...is loyal at the CURRENT price. Court orders...confirmation hearings...subpoenas...midterms: each one raises the cost of holding the line. Dean flipped...when the MATH flipped.
Somewhere in this administration...somebody is ALREADY doing long division at 2 a.m. History says the FIRST one to finish the math talks first...and gets the book deal.
-Jack
I love the Math illustration! “Everyone is loyal at the CURRENT price.” It will make the next chapter in this mess very interesting to watch!
Excellent article. Integrity comes first when looking at anyone’s character, what’s happening today with the lack of this in this
administration like you said, all for greed and power. They will lose
Mary...thank you.
You put your finger on the right test.
Integrity IS the load-bearing wall of character. Everything else about a man...is decoration; that's the beam holding the roof up.
One addition, offered in your direction: "they will lose" is true, and history's fine print says they lose when...and ONLY when...enough ordinary people stay STEADY enough... LONG enough...to make the collecting happen.
The house wins in the end...but somebody has to keep the books...until it DOES.
That's YOU. That's this whole room.That's US. Keep the books, Mary!
-Jack
Jack is correct that integrity is a practice, not a possession, and that the price only gets quoted after the sale. History confirms the mechanism with a name: state capture doesn’t require corrupt institutions. It requires competent people inside functioning institutions, each one telling himself the last step was the only reasonable one, until the institution answers to a man instead of a law.
File the date: July 2, 2026, the deadline a federal judge set for the Justice Department to unredact Epstein files under a law Congress passed with near unanimity. Note what the Attorney General’s office chose instead of compliance: silence in court, then an appeal, then the same spokesperson calling the judge’s reading “perverse.” A man who spent two decades enforcing court orders is now the government’s chief architect of not following one.
Jack is correct that Nixon is the comparison point, but note the comparison precisely. Nixon did not hand over the tapes because his conscience arrived intact. He handed them over because the Supreme Court ruled unanimously and left no legal ground left to stand on. The tapes were surrendered at the last possible moment, under the last possible pressure, by a man who had exhausted every alternative first. That is not a story about virtue. It is a story about a system that still had enough load-bearing walls left to force the outcome even when the man at the center had none.
File the date once more, then, for what is being tested right now: whether Judge Sullivan’s court still has those walls. Nixon’s obedience was not proof that officials keep their word. It was proof that institutions can still compel the word to be kept, when they are strong enough. Jack is correct twice over: once that the sale happens in installments nobody notices, and once that the 250-year experiment was never a bet on any single man’s integrity. It was a bet that the machine would still function once his ran out.
#HOLDFAST
Very true, with one more bit of information: Nixon handed over the tapes bc of that Supreme Court AND the fact that his own party told him they wouldn't support him.
In this case, the Extreme Court has already sided with the Felon, at least to an absurd degree, and his party is still mostly his, so what comes next is probably a litmus test re the hold he still has.
I've no idea how this will play out, but it's a critical moment. If the court holds firm, it's a good sign. I guess we'll see.
Jack .. your posts here are always spot on.. and I usually restack them.. there’s always worth the read…
Jeff, thank you...and...those restacks are great!
Much appreciated.
-Jack
This one is a stomach turner for me…… I have done some sketchy things, mostly in the arena of personal relationships and endured some hard lessons as a result. The lines are much brighter these days.
That said, I do understand the professional one. I was never asked to go down the Blanche road and….. I honestly can’t say what I might have done (or not). I’ve always had a complicated relationship with authority figures (authoritarian upbringing with a goodly dose of abuse anyone?) so there was a very strong survival mechanism active in my psyche. I ‘get’ how someone can go there.
Con men gonna con…. that’s who they are and are much harder spot if you’re needy… I don’t know Blanche’s story beyond what’s related here. I do wonder what got him to take the steps, why he didn’t step back while he could still recover? I’ve also read that t has an almost preternatural charisma that can pull you in like some evil vortex….. maybe Blanche thought he’d be the exception like so many before him…….?
In any event….. this cannot be allowed to stand (defiance of the law). I believe judges can utilize the US Marshals to arrest and jail ppl? Given Blanche is supposed to be the top cop, this is some hold your breath territory and my stomach is not even a little happy about it……
Thank you, Jack! This article is so important on so many levels. And yes, whatever integrity you have, in the end, is pretty much all you take with you when leaving this earth…..
Deb...this is the most honest comment on the page...and I want to point at the exact spot where the honesty lives.
You wrote: "I can't say what I might have done." Deb...that sentence is worth more than a HUNDRED confident declarations of virtue.
The people....MOST likely to walk the Blanche road...are precisely the ones CERTAIN they never would...because certainty means they've never inventoried their OWN machinery. You HAVE.
You know where your levers are...who installed them...and what pulls them. A man who knows his own survival mechanisms...is a man those mechanisms can't QUIETLY drive.
You answered your OWN question about Blanche...without even noticing. You asked WHY he didn't step back while he could STILL recover...then two lines earlier you'd already said it: con men are MUCH harder to spot...if you're NEEDY.
Need...is the universal solvent. Doesn't matter if the need is safety...belonging...or a night-school kid's hunger...to finally sit at the BIG table. The con doesn't hook the greedy...nearly as reliably as it hooks the HUNGRY.
On the legal mechanics...your stomach is reading the map right: judges DO have contempt power...and...the Marshals do enforce it.
But...here's the catch-22 nobody wants to say out loud; the Marshals report to the Justice Department. See the problem?
The man they'd be sent to arrest...RUNS the agency that commands them.
That's why this is hold-your-breath territory: we're about to find out WHICH oath those institutions actually run on.
My honest read: the courts will escalate PAPER... before anyone escalates handcuffs, ...and...the REAL enforcement mechanism is political...confirmation votes...subpoenas, elections.
Your last line is the ENTIRE ledger: integrity is the ONLY luggage allowed on the final trip.
You've done the hardest kind of accounting there is...your OWN. The lines are brighter now...because you paid for the light.|
Well done!
-Jack
I remember those individuals who worked with Blanche and stood up for him as he was becoming the AG-they had hopes he would stick to his ideals, and remember all the hard work it took to get him there!! They were sadly disappointed ☹️
Sad to see people destroy themselves for greed...power...a place of belonging...But it still ruins them when they tie themselves to the worst president ever in this world. Blanche worked from the bottom up and he may end up in prison with the rest when this is all over for this administration. I also believe if drumpf does not get charged and imprisoned as well as kegsbreath it will not bode well in regaining our place of dignity we lost with him. It will make us look weak...
#HOLDFAST
Teri
Blanche isn't going to walk away like Barr, he's in too deep now.
That's the Key to our entire escape from this disaster. Thanks Jack. The conversation is the message. we must all keep sharing and caring.
This is the key:
"Somewhere in this administration...somebody is ALREADY doing long division at 2 a.m. History says the FIRST one to finish the math talks first...and gets the book deal."
Jack, I was a jury trial attorney for almost 30 years. I didn’t get my ticket till I was 28 years old. I went through a lot of shit before that. I was raised on a street where either your father knew nothing about raising a kid or you’ve been raised by a mother who was a drunk. Most of the young guys were tough. I wasn’t that tough, but I had to survive.
In any event, I’ll skip the ship that happened before I got into college. I went to a non-accredited night school for a year. I had to take a baby bar in California and I passed it after taking a class from a guy who was a dean of a law school taught me everything about taking test to tell you that much. Then I got into an accredited law school in San Francisco but I had to repeat my first year. I’ve been working since I was 13 so I just I worked when I was going to law school. Especially after I had already taken the first year classes it was an easy year for me. Just like in college I took a six month field study and went to work for a couple of criminal attorneys in Oakland, California. They had a boutique law firm right off Lake Merritt. I became such good friends with the number one partner. We started going kind of sideways. I bumped into a gangster who had a warehouse in Oakland. Back in the day a lot of the big bands Rolling Stones you name it they would play at the Colosseum. It was called on the Green. Afterwards, many of them would come and play at my buddy the gangsters warehouse, which is all set up for big private parties. There are a lot of rooms in that place too on more than one level. It came a time when I got really close to this guy and he lost his ability to put on any more big named band so he was getting into pornography. He was already big into cocaine. And invited me to watch and maybe get involved afterwards and fucking some of these pornography stars and that’s when I made the decision I was done. I didn’t want to go down that line of drugs and criminal.
I got myself solid, luckily landed a job next to a top-notch civil jury trial attorney mostly going after fraudulent, attorneys chiropractors clinics, etc. working a lot with DAs and AG‘s. A whole different lifestyle. I got lucky I got to the top had my own firm in Oakland down in Jack, London Square.
But I got sick, I got cancer. Scared the shit out of me. Probably my earlier life lifestyle decisions. I’d stop smoking at 35 but all that shit I did before that. So I have my early 50s. I walked away from my law firm and moved out in East Bay right next to the wilderness that I’ve been watching crumble from climate change for 24 years. I worked another four years as an attorney, but the medicine not a bad back was just too much for me to handle. I’ve made it to the top AV rated California trial attorney. Took me two years from my head to become un swollen.
I slowed down grandkids came around or adults now now I have more six and a 10-year-old and even a 2 1/2 year-old grandchild. I almost died earlier this year.
So this piece about Todd Blaché really resonated with me. I know that he invested 100,000 and one of the gigs that Trump had for him. I’m sure that just like this secretary of the interior was in on the wire fraud for the state fair debacle that Todd got a lot of criminal deals with Shaw companies and the Caymans making him big money. But he lost his soul, didn’t he. I still am far from perfect but I’m old and I’m glad I changed my route. I’m sure, as many other criminal defense attorneys have done, I would’ve gone to the dark side D Mac Twitter the handle@worldflood1
Thank you Jack. I had no idea of this guy’s history. My opinion of him is even worse. He’s such a betrayal to his family, himself and his country. What a fool.