Judge signals he plans to sentence Donald Trump to a good talking to
By 
Perhaps a bit more, although I doubt it.
A New York judge on Friday upheld President-elect Donald J. Trump’s criminal conviction but signaled that he was inclined to spare him any punishment, a striking development in a case that had spotlighted an array of embarrassing misdeeds and imperiled the former and future president’s freedom.
The judge, Juan M. Merchan, indicated that he favored a so-called unconditional discharge of Mr. Trump’s sentence, a rare and lenient alternative to jail or probation. He set a sentencing date of Jan. 10, and ordered Mr. Trump to appear either in person or virtually.
An unconditional discharge would cement Mr. Trump’s status as a felon just weeks before his inauguration — he would be the first to carry that dubious designation into the presidency — even as it would water down the consequences for his crimes.
Unlike a conditional discharge, which allows defendants to walk free if they meet certain requirements, such as maintaining employment or paying restitution, an unconditional discharge would come without strings attached. That sentence, Justice Merchan wrote in an 18-page decision, “appears to be the most viable solution to ensure finality and allow defendant to pursue his appellate options.”
While it’s true that the crimes Trump was convicted of committing would not normally lead to jail time for a “first-time” (that joke isn’t funny any more) offender, keep in mind that those crimes are normally motivated by nothing more than a desire to dodge some taxes, as opposed to, say, an illegal coverup regarding a level of sheer grossness that, had it been revealed immediately before the election, would probably have been the end of Donald Trump’s political career (The 2016 election was decided by a razor-thin margin, and the American electorate hadn’t been as thoroughly coarsened as it has been by the subsequent eight years).
But of course to the Ariana Grande voters this will, assuming they even pay any attention to it, which of course they won’t, signal that the whole thing was no big deal — just another one of those crooked political things that happen in politics, because politicians are all crooks, and Trump just doesn’t hide it, which means he’s not as bad as the rest, or something.