Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

In ep. 6.02 of Better Call Saul we see the Kettlemans, Craig and Betsy, again. They were part of a subplot in season 1 of the series. Craig was the (fictitious) treasurer of Bernalillo County, NM, who embezzled $1.6 million from his own office. Betsy is his domineering and, frankly, delusional wife who kept denying they had the money even as she literally held a duffel bag with $1.6 million cash in her hands, and thought they could somehow avoid jail time without returning the money.

Kim was their lawyer for a while and arranged a plea deal for Craig: 16 months in prison if he returned the money. He faced a sentence of up to 30 years if he went to trial, and there was plenty of evidence to convict him, as he wasn't particularly good at hiding his tracks. He wrote, and cashed, numerous checks to himself! Betsy torpedoed the deal because she wanted to keep the money. Jimmy did a bad thing for noble purposes. He stole their stolen money to give it back to the county, forcing them to accept the deal.

The Kettlemans come back into the story in ep. 6.02 through Kim and Jimmy's con to destroy Howard Hamlin.



Jimmy visits their new place of business— they run a small-time tax preparation service out of a trailer on the outskirts of town—and tells them they could get Craig's conviction overturned by suing Howard Hamlin, their lawyer of record, for ineffective counsel as he was using cocaine at the time. (The notion that Howard is a coke addict is the core of their con to destroy his reputation.)

Curiously, while Craig is pleasant toward Jimmy, even congratulating him on his recent marriage, Betsy is nothing but bitter. She blames Jimmy for Craig's conviction. Never mind that Craig actually stole the money and almost certainly did so at her behest. Never mind that she fought against effect lawyering that would have gotten Craig a much lighter prison sentence than he deserved. To her it's everyone's fault but their own. "Our kids have to go to public school now because of you," she hisses at Jimmy. And that's where I found myself rooting for Jimmy in this stage of the con.

You see, the con's a con, and the Kettlemans are patsies. Jimmy asks them to sign him up as their attorney but doesn't actually want them to hire him. He wants them to hire anyone but him. He wants them to go shopping for lawyers all around Albuquerque, saying, "We think our former lawyer, Howard Hamlin, was on cocaine when he represented us."

Interestingly while Betsy is completely delusional about responsibility for the money her husband stole and she tried to conceal, she figures out Jimmy's con. She doesn't figure it out right away, though. She marches in to various lawyers' offices— we see her being a delusional jerk with Cliff Main, head of white-shoe law firm Davis & Main— and makes her allegations against Howard. Only after being laughed out of several offices in a row does she realize she's been played for a chump.

Jimmy using the Kettlemans to spread false innuendo had the potential backfire. Betsy, once realizing she's been played, could go back to all the lawyers she visited and say Jimmy put her up to it. Howard could sue Jimmy for slander. But Jimmy— and Kim, who's really the architect of this con— thought of that. They were prepared to shut down the Kettlemans' shot at revenge.

Jimmy goes to visit the Kettlemans' office again. Betsy confronts him with having figured out his con and threatens to turn him in. Jimmy offers a small wad of cash to buy her silence. Betsy is righteously indignant at the bribery attempt and refuses the cash. Then Kim drops the boom.

Kim figured out, perhaps as a lucky guess by knowing Betsy Kettleman is a narcissist crook, that their little tax prep business is a sham. She calls a contact at the IRS, in front of Betsy and Craig, and threatens to turn them in for defrauding customers with fake tax returns. Kim alleges that they file real paperwork with the IRS while giving fake paperwork to the taxpayer, pocketing the difference in the returns. Kim's lucky guess seems to have hit a bullseye, as Betsy hangs up her phone call and agrees to keep mum about the con.

And just to be nice, Jimmy gives them the bribe anyway. Maybe he feels bad for Craig, having a life sentence with Betsy.

Season 2 of Better Call Saul begins right where season 1 left off, with Jimmy declining an offer with high-end law firm Davis & Main because he found being a con artist so much fun. In fact episode 2.01 even replays the scene from episode 1.10 where Jimmy has second thoughts outside the courthouse and decides to bail. This version of the scene is modified, though, to show that Jimmy goes inside to meet the Davis & Main partners and decline their offer, rather than just ghost them like the version in 1.10 implied.

During the revised scene, Jimmy also pulls attorney friend Kim aside to ask her if "us"— his clumsy onscreen way of implying that he wants something more from their so-far platonic friendship— depends on him taking the job. Kim is confused at first then says no, they're separate issues. Jimmy confidently declines the job offer and leaves, stopping to chat with parking attendant hit-man Mike on the way out about "What stopped us from taking that $1.6 million?"

We next see Jimmy at a resort hotel in the area, relaxing on a pool float while enjoying food and drink. Kim accosts him and demands to know why he's throwing away a sterling opportunity for his law career. I'll skip the explanation and cut to the chase; Jimmy agrees to meet Kim in the bar to talk about it, and their (mis)adventure goes from there.

In the resort bar, Jimmy invites Kim to "follow my lead" as he approaches a fellow patron who's conducted an obnoxiously loud mobile phone call about his stock trading advice. Jimmy is onto another con. He poses as a man who's just inherited a sizable sum of money and has limited understanding of how to invest it. He deftly draws in the broker— the "mark" in con artist terminology— getting him first to offer a tiny bit of advice, then more advice, then invite them for a sit-down to discuss them signing him up as their financial broker. The con isn't to actually hire him as a broker, though. It's to scam free drinks off him at the bar.

Jimmy asks the mark if he likes Zafiro Añejo tequila. Jimmy had seen it on the menu before coming up with this con and noted it was $50. The waiter assured him it was worth it. (BTW, Zafiro Añejo is a fictitious brand of tequila. It's a bit of a Breaking Bad Easter egg as it featured as the instrument of revenge in episode 4.10 where Gus Fring poisons the entire leadership of a drug cartel.)

Working the name Zafiro Añejo into his con, Jimmy gets the mark to order a round for the table without looking at the price. Then another round. And another. Pretty soon Jimmy, Kim, and the mark have consumed nearly the entire bottle. Their bar tab is likely north of $1,000— in 2002 prices. Jimmy and Kim sign the broker's papers (with their fake names) and scoot before he sees the bill they've stuck him with.

Jimmy and Kim, both drunk, hook up that night back at Kim's place. In the morning neither seems to have any regrets that their friendship has turned romantic. Kim does warn Jimmy that "I can't continue like this"— but what she means by that is that she, a lawyer, a member of the state bar, cannot be known to associate with a con artist. Jimmy decides that he's has hid last hurrah and tells Davis & Main that he'll accept their job offer.

One wonders, now, how long before James M. McGill, Esq. slips back to being "Slippin' Jimmy" again.

In a move that should have surprised absolutely no one, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. suspended his campaign yesterday and announced his support for Donald Trump. Well, okay, the exact timing of Kennedy ending his failing campaign— he was down to about 5% support in polling averages— was anybody's guess. But the fact he aligns with Trump should be no surprise to anybody.

Kennedy rose to national prominence as an anti-vaccine skeptic and crusader. In 2007 he founded a fringe nonprofit that has gone on to become the most well funded anti-fax organization in the US. He promoted health conspiracies during the Covid pandemic, argued that the government should force medical journals to publish provably flawed research, and wanted Anthony Fauci to be prosecuted. Oh, and recently campaigned on dismantling the HHS. He called the NIH, CDC, and FDA "corrupt" and called for replacing their leadership with "like-minded"— read: antivaxx, anti-government crackpot— people.

This is just one that Kennedy has championed, but it's a big one and it's clearly Trump/extreme right aligned. Still, Kennedy campaigned for the Democratic nomination in 2023 before dropping out and seeking the Libertarian party nomination, then running as an independent. Along the way he's done a lot of his campaigning through extreme right wing media.

Kennedy does have some credibility as a Democratic candidate. Frankly, though, his biggest credential is his name. He's the son of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy.

Earlier this year it was widely reported repeated in the news that Kennedy's independent campaign was a big threat to Joe Biden, as he would likely siphon off more Biden voters than Trump voters. This argument was published in right-wing echo chamber media such as Fox News and the National Review. The craven mainstream media credulously repeated these claims, attempting no factual counterpoint— this is why I replaced "reported" with "repeated" above— not even scratching the surface of the claims to show audiences how untrue what they were repeating was.

Now we learn that Kennedy, in a Trump-like move, apparently hit up both campaigns (Harris and Trump) offering his endorsement in exchange for the promise of a cabinet level position. The Harris campaign rejected his overtures through intermediaries, while sources speaking on condition of anonymity say Eric Trump has been brokering conversations with him for weeks.

Kennedy's latest Trump-like move came in his public comments on his endorsement,. He went long on complaining about "attacks on democracy" while endorsing Trump, who's spent 4 years promoting conspiracy theories about the 2020 election being stolen. This is the mindset of the guy they thought would take votes from Democrats?

Trump, who previously called Kennedy "one of the most Liberal Lunatics ever to run for office" and "the dumbest member" of the Kennedy family, now calls him "a brilliant guy", "very smart", and indicates he may offer him a cabinet role in his administration.

A jury in Manhattan surprisingly returned a verdict late this afternoon in the case against Donald Trump for falsifying business records. Prosecutors charged that the former president paid hush money to porn actress Story Daniels to cover up an alleged affair, then lied about those payments in his business records to cover up the coverup. After just 2 days of deliberation the jury found Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts.

I've been following news of trial daily the past few weeks, though not blogging about it because— like I've written a few times before— I'd rather this blog not be consumed by politics. I've got to say, as a person reading the news daily, I'm surprised the jury convicted.

Why is it a surprise? Because, quite to the contrary of what Trump and his propaganda allies in the right-wing media and Congress have claimed without fact the judge said in the courtroom, a guilty verdict requires a unanimous decision by the jury. All 12 member must vote to convict. All it takes is one juror finding reasonable doubt; their vote to acquit prevents a guilty verdict.

Was there reasonable doubt? In my opinion from what I saw of the evidence, no. But I am not representative of the mindset of every person in this country. Some 40% of the electorate believe the lies repeated every morning, noon, and night by Trump and his allies— that the trial is rigged, the judge is corrupt, the judge made numerous outright violations of the law, all the prosecution's witnesses were lying, and it was all orchestrated by President Biden to knock Trump out of the 2024 presidential race.

All it would've taken was one out of 12 people on the jury to be a hardliner among that 40% and claim reasonable doubt, and then we'd have a hung jury and a mistrial. That's what I expected: a hung jury. Instead we got an unanimous vote to convict... and on all 34 counts... and quicker than just about anybody expected.

Do these guilty verdicts change the 2024 presidential campaign? Indications so far are "Not really." Trump being convicted does not make him ineligible to run, or to be elected, or to serve as president. He could even run from prison, if he's sentenced to prison. That's been done before by other presidential candidates! And Trump very well could still win in November. Most of the people who were going to vote for him already believed the trial was an utter sham and a miscarriage of justice. Him being convicted only proves what they already believed, that President Biden is the corrupt one. Plus, there's the right of appeal. Anything could happen on appeal, from the case being overturned on a technicality to the far-right-wingers on the Supreme Court making up some outrageous new legal theory setting aside the conviction.

It's time for me to comment on US Senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey. Actually it's well past time. I've been meaning to do it for months but haven't gotten around to it. The situation with Sen. Menendez is that he's facing federal charges for conspiring to act as an agent for foreign governments, specifically Egypt and Qatar. Authorities allege that he and his wife accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for official acts taken to benefit the countries.

Part of the reason I say it's past time for me to write about this is that in the past 12 months I've written numerous times about US Representative George Santos (R-NY). Recall he's the clown who lied up and down about his qualifications for political office, spent months telling even wilder lies when confronted about the first set of lies, also faced federal charges for what he did, and after surviving a few failed expulsion votes earlier in the year was finally expelled from Congress in December.

In the time that I posted numerous times about Santos and called for his resignation and/or expulsion, I've posted nothing about Menendez. Yet aren't Menendez's alleged crimes way more serious than Santos's? Where's my outrage on Menendez? Why haven't I also called for Menendez to step down?

For one, as I've noted before, this isn't a politics blog. Although politics is a thing I pay attention to daily, I write about it when the mood strikes me and I have time. So the fact I've written about one thing and not the other isn't an indication one is more important than the other.

Two, the availability of facts is not comparable. Allegations against George Santos began with investigative journalism. Ample facts about him were established in the public domain months before criminal charges were filed and almost a year before the successful expulsion vote against him. During that time any reasonable person could look at the publicly available evidence and determine that the guy was totally full of shit. Moreover, Santos acknowledged many of these facts publicly— while at the same time adding more obvious lies to the public record.

With Menendez there are lurid allegations from authorities, but the facts behind those allegations are not public, they are secret. The facts won't become public until at least the start of a criminal trial a few months from now. Menendez has denied all the allegations. It's also worth pointing out that when authorities made similar charges against Menendez years ago, he was acquitted.

I don't minimize the severity of what Menendez is alleged to have done. If he did it, he should resign. If or when facts emerge to support the charges, he should be expelled if he hasn't already resigned. But right now we don't have those facts.

BTW, if this sounds like "Innocent until proven guilty," it is. Sort of. I am not holding as the standard that a politician must be proven guilty in a court of law before calling for their removal. In Santos's situation there were ample facts in the public record for a reasonable person to make determination, based on facts, that he was unsuitable for continuing in public office. With Menendez whatever facts exist are largely not in the public record so we'll probably have to wait for the criminal trial to run its course before we know.

On Friday the US Congress voted to expel representative George Santos. The Congressman's constant and outrageous lies, about everything from his family history and educational achievements, to how he spent campaign contributions on personal clearly expenses, were ultimately too much even for his fellow Republicans in the House. The vote passed 311 to 114, with 105 Republicans voting in favor of expulsion. Example news coverage: CNN live news, 1 Dec 2023.



Friday's vote was not Congress's first attempt to oust Santos. Congress voted, and failed, to expel him a month ago. That motion, which was also introduced by fellow Republican members, didn't even gain a majority vote. The constitution specifies a two-thirds majority is required to expel someone from Congress.

So, what's the difference between a month ago and Friday? What moved an additional 81 Republicans— though none of the top four GOP leaders— to vote to boot Santos?


The one thing that's changed is the House ethics committee completed its report. Recall they created a distraction during the previous expulsion vote by promising they'd release "something" (yes, they literally promised something) in a few weeks. Well, that report came out (CNN article 16 Nov 2023), and while it was quite damning it was also nothing new. It was merely a summary of evidence already available in the public record. The committee made no formal finding of guilt, nor did it even recommend expulsion. It merely recommended the DOJ prosecute Santos... which is a farce because the DOJ already started prosecuting him several months earlier.

While the ethics report was essentially a nothingburger... or at least a nothing-new burger... it did make it harder for Republican members of Congress to keep countenancing Santos's behavior. It was surprising to me that almost half of them gave up their previous "No expulsion until a member is convicted of crimes" position and voted to expel Santos now.

I suppose if nothing else his ongoing and ridiculously transparent lies were making it hard for them to sell to the American public their false, evidence-free narrative that Democrats are actually the party constantly telling lies. I mean, all George Santos needed to do, probably, was just shut up and let better liars tell lies. But he couldn't stop.

BTW, I paused to consider whether to include the second political cartoon above. Some would argue that depicting Santos in a dress is a jab at LGBTQIA people— a group that includes Santos, who is openly gay and has admitted he enjoys cross-dressing. I would argue that it's actually a further jab at the hypocrisy of his GOP colleagues, many of whom routinely rail against LGBTQIA people and want to erase them from public life by force of law— for example, House Speaker Mike Johnson has introduced multiple pieces of legislation to criminalize LGBTQIA people and has spoken countless times about how LGBTQIA people are attempting to destroy America by being who they are— yet continued defending Santos because he was a vote in their column.

I wrote yesterday about Representative George Santos getting in deeper trouble from his ongoing lying and cheating. There's more news about him, of course. This past week the House of Representatives held a vote to expel him from Congress. Two house speakers now have waffled on doing such a thing. ...Actually, no, they haven't waffled; they've outright said they won't do it. Worse, they've said out loud the reason is they don't want to imperil their narrow majority. So they're explicitly fine with (admitted) liars and (alleged) thieves in Congress. Today's GOP, ladies and gentlemen!

To be fair, though, it's not all GOP members who are okay with this. The motion to expel was introduced by a few Republican members from districts neighboring the one George Santos represents. Consider it enlightened self interest if nothing else. The rules of the privileged motion in Congress allow it to bypass the ability of the speaker to refuse to schedule a vote.

The vote to expel was held Wednesday. It failed 179-213, with 13 voting Present. Note, while the motion didn't even receive a simple majority of the votes it needed a 2/3 supermajority to pass.

The votes to expel Santos were not cast along strict party lines. 24 Republicans voted in favor of expulsion. 31 Democrats voted against.

The rationale cited by Republicans against expulsion is that Santos hasn't been convicted of a crime... yet. (The Justice Department announced an expanded, 23 count indictment a few weeks ago.) And the House ethics committee hasn't finished its own investigation yet.

Not coincidentally the (Republican) committee chair announced after the motion was made and before the voting started that they would have something to report in two weeks, maybe. Understand that the house ethics committee is generally not known for vigorous investigation. In the past it has recommended expulsion only well after a member has been convicted in a criminal court. It seems likely that the committee chair's announcement was a deliberate move to shift the outcome of the vote by giving members a procedural fig leaf to hide behind.

Democratic members of the house who voted against expulsion cited similar rationale. They asserted that the threshold for expulsion should be a criminal conviction. That's not written in the Constitution or even in the House rules anywhere, so it's just a tradition. I'm a bit leery of that for two reasons. One, I think the House can hold itself and its members to a higher standard than "Don't get convicted of crimes we think are significant enough." Two, something that's merely a tradition, a norm of politics, can be broken at any time by politicians who don't care about political norms. See also, the entire MAGA movement.

Democrats voting against expulsion also warned that expelling Santos right now would set a dangerous precedent. They explain the current ad hoc standard of "No expulsion until after conviction of [certain] crimes" protects Democrats who've recently been accused by various Republican members, frequently without evidence, of lying and committing crimes.

On that basis I'm fine with keeping the standard of waiting until a criminal conviction before expulsion. The only remaining problem is that the wheels of justice turn so slowly. Though in the case of unpopular George Santos, he could lose reelection in 12 months even if his court case takes longer to resolve.

It has now been 3 weeks since Rep. Matt Gaetz made a "Motion to Vacate" Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy from office. With help from a small band of hardliner Republicans, Gaetz's motion passed. With no Speaker, the House was plunged into chaos, unable by its rules to work on any official business except holding votes to elect a new speaker. As that chaos now enters its 4th week we are... apparently not any closer to getting a new speaker.

News today was that the Republican conference chose Tom Emmer, its party whip and thus its #3 leader in the House, to be its nominee and go to a full vote on the floor. Accounts of this secret nomination meeting say it was raucous. Representatives shouted at each other, they traded f-bombs, one openly threatened physical violence on another, and that person's target begged him to come over and try it. Yes, these people carrying on like adolescent schoolyard bullies are our elected leaders. And at the end of the day, after putting forth Emmer as the nominee, he... withdrew.

Emmer withdrew because Donald Trump worked behind the scenes to torpedo his nomination. "He's done," Trump bragged to an ally. "It's over. I killed him."

This shows, BTW, that Trump is very much calling the shots in leading the Republican party. Ironically Trump's boast about killing Emmer came after his spokespeople insisted to the news media today that he has no opinion on this matter and is not at all getting involved.

And Emmer's trouble with Trump? He wasn't sufficiently loyal. Apparently 10 years ago he supported something Trump doesn't like today because it would hurt his chances of winning an election today.

Emmer was no Trump hater, though, even though Trump derided him as a "Never Trumper" in social media. Emmer, in fact, was one of the 120+ sitting Congresspeople to vote to reject the results of the Electoral College on January 6. At least unlike the previous Speaker nominee, Jim Jordan, Emmer didn't participate in plotting the attempts to overturn the will of the people on January 6.

Also, unlike Jordan, Emmer had the good sense to withdraw when he saw he wasn't going to get enough votes. Jordan failed 3 times and kept pushing until his nomination was terminated by the conference over members' objections to his strong-arm tactics— which included his political supporters making credible violent threats against fellow Republican representatives and their families.

It's interesting (and by "interesting" I mean sad) that a pattern is emerging among Speaker nominees. We have the reasonable people vs. the unreasonable ones ...Actually they're all unreasonable ones, having voted on January 6 to overturn the will of the people. So really it's the extremists-who-can-be-reasoned-with-a-little versus the complete braying jackasses. The slightly-reasonable extremists like Scalise (another recent nominee who withdrew) and Emmer can at least see the reality of what's coming and step aside before being embarrassed. The braying jackasses like Jordan will stand there loudly hee-hawing until dragged away. Sadly that means the braying jackasses are running the show.

After House Republicans ousted Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House last week Tuesday, Congress has been plunged into chaos. By its own rules the House of Representatives is literally not able to act on anything without a Speaker. (There is an Interim Speaker, but the only one thing that person is allowed to do is preside over the process of electing a speaker.) What does that jeopardize? Well, aside from all the business of the US Congress coming to a standstill a few big-ticket items that could reach crisis stage soon are:

• Funding for the federal government. Two weeks ago the House passed short-term funding measures to keep the government operating for just another 45 days. Those expire in mid November. Congress needs to be working on proper, long term spending agreements now to avoid another crisis and potential government shutdown next month. Ironically, of course, it was specifically because of McCarthy's bipartisan deal to pass those 45-day temporary measures that he was sacked.


• Military aid to Ukraine. This was clipped out of the temporary funding bill to appease right wing hardliners. Without more support we could soon see this democratic country fall to Russian invasion.


• Military aid to Israel. The terrorist group Hamas launched attacks of breathtaking scale on Israel Saturday. Israel has declared war. The US, Israel's biggest supporter in the world, is limited in ability to support its ally without a functioning Congress.

While Congress remains on leave most of this week, and was on leave last week after the surprise ouster, two representatives have announced bids for the speakership. Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Jim Jordan of Ohio have thrown their hats in the ring. And even McCarthy, just today, has proposed that he could be selected speaker again. What an awful choice those three make.

While Kevin McCarthy was bad enough, with his post-facto support for subverting the will of the people on January 6 and his support for evidence-free investigations of President Biden's son, Hunter, and the president himself, the other two are even worse. Scalise is even more of the same, and Jordan is not just a supporter of lies but an active planner of them. Jordan leads the committee that has pursued investigations of the Bidens despite no evidence of wrong-doing. Even when witnesses blow up in his face and say there's no evidence, he's kept going. Former Congresswoman Lynn Cheney has said in speeches that the January 6 committee she sat on found evidence that Jordan was a co-conspirator with former president Trump in the days before January 6 on exactly how to do it. We're clearly headed toward even worse chaos when the people who subverted the Constitution for partisan gain are now positioning to gain control of the Constitution's levers of power.

On Monday this week (Aug 14) a grand jury in Georgia handed up an indictment against Donald Trump and 18 co-conspirators on state charges stemming from their attempt to fraudulently overturn the 2020 election. The crimes charged in the document include false statements to statewide officials, false statements to the state legislature, harassment of election workers, and tampering with election equipment. These are just a few of the 41 counts in the indictment. Example coverage: CNN article updated Aug 15.

Yes, tampering with election equipment. Some of the people charged broke into vote counting machines and/or attempted to do so. So yes, there was vote fraud in the 2020 elections— but not the kind of fraud 40% of US voters think marred the election. The fraud was committed by Trump cronies trying to steal the election for Donald Trump.

And now we see some of those people being charged. Unlike Special Counsel Jack Smith's Aug 2 federal indictment against Donald Trump which described, but did not name, 6 co-conspirators the Georgia indictment names 18 co-defendants. In addition to Trump's election-subverting lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, and Sidney Powell, who are almost certainly among the unnamed co-conspirators in the federal indictment (though analysts quickly concluded who at least 5 of the 6 are based on the actions described), the Georgia indictment also names charges against former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark. Example coverage: CNN article Aug 16; full text of indictment, annotated by CNN (Aug 15).

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