Even if those courts ultimately reject Trump’s immunity arguments — an outcome that most legal experts expect — the protracted delays help the former president, whose strategy across his various trials has been to drag them out for as long as possible. Lengthy delays in his federal criminal cases create the possibility that, if he wins the presidency this November, Trump could avoid the charges altogether by having the Justice Department end the prosecutions or perhaps even by pardoning himself.
Wednesday Reads
Posted: January 31, 2024 Filed under: 2024 presidential Campaign, Donald Trump | Tags: Blue voters in red states, David Weiss, Hunter Biden, MAGA conspiracy theories, Mike Johnson, presidential immunity, Rick Perlstein, Taylor Swift, Texas border standoff, Travis Kelce, Trump legal expenses 7 CommentsGood Morning!!
I’m an old lady now, and I haven’t followed popular culture for years. For example, I’ve never watched a reality TV show or any recent situation comedies. I don’t have that much time left on earth; and I’d rather focus on things I care about, like reading good books and following politics.
Obviously, I’ve heard of Taylor Swift, I know what she looks like, but I’ve never heard her music. It would be difficult not to know that she’s dating a member of the Kansas City Chiefs, Travis Kelce. But now I’m learning more about her, because she has become the focus of the latest insane MAGA conspiracy theories.
HuffPost: The Right’s Newest Conspiracy Is The Super Bowl-Taylor Swift-Joe Biden ‘Psyop.’
It’s a conspiracy involving the deepest of deep states: The world’s most popular entertainer, America’s most popular sporting event and the president of the United States. Its goal, according to theories circulating in the outskirts of MAGA world, is to covertly compel fans to throw the 2024 election to the Democrats.
Right-wing speculation reached a fever pitch this week around pop mega-star Taylor Swift and boyfriend Travis Kelce after Kelce’s team, the Kansas City Chiefs, qualified for Super Bowl LVIII on Sunday, a victory the two celebrated with much-photographed postgame smooch. A day later, The New York Times ran a piece noting President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign is hoping for Swift’s endorsement.
Those two seemingly unrelated events — and the possibility that Swift would use her massive star power and huge online reach to help Biden beat Donald Trump — are driving right-wing media into a meltdown. And that one of the country’s biggest celebrities will use her fanbase to help Biden is already being treated as inevitable by some of the right’s biggest influencers….
But there’s more to this than the possibility of a Swift nod swinging a close election. For years, right-wing conspiracists have pushed the notion that Swift, who began her career in the conservative world of country music and was once referred to as “Aryan goddess” by white supremacists, is somehow a Democratic “agent” because she endorsed Democrats in the 2018 midterms and Biden in the 2020 presidential election. (Swift has admitted she regrets not getting involved in 2016.)
“There have been have claims for several months that she’s a psyop, that she’s a Pentagon asset, that she’s a political weapon,” said Brennan Suen, the deputy director of external affairs for Media Matters, a left-leaning media watchdog. “The claims have gotten completely wild.” [….]
Kelce, for his part, appeared in a Pfizer commercial promoting the COVID vaccine. COVID shots have long been the subject of right-wing conspiracies, with adherents falsely believing the government is covering up adverse reactions or that the vaccines harbor microchips.
Now, high-profile conservative figures are promoting the unfounded idea that Swift, the NFL and the Democratic Party are together involved in a “psyop” campaign to deliver the election to Biden. Fox News host Jesse Watters recently suggested that Swift was a “front for a covert political agenda” and bizarrely called her a “Pentagon asset” — which, of course, the Pentagon denied….
By that logic, Swift’s appearances at Chiefs games isn’t to cheer on her boyfriend or even to promote her tour — it’s really to get the country to vote blue in November.
There’s more nutty nonsense at the HuffPost link.
Rolling Stone: Trump Allies Pledge ‘Holy War’ Against Taylor Swift.
Singer-songwriter Taylor Swift hasn’t even endorsed President Joe Biden for reelection yet. That hasn’t stopped members of MAGAland’s upper crust from plotting to declare — as one source close to Donald Trump calls it — a “holy war” on the pop megastar, especially if she ends up publicly backing the Democrats in the 2024 election.
According to three people familiar with the matter, Trump loyalists working on or close to the former president’s campaign, longtime Trump allies in right-wing media, and an array of outside advisers to the ex-president have long taken it as a given that Swift will eventually endorse Biden (as she did in 2020). Indeed, several of these Republicans and conservative media figures have discussed the matter with Trump over the past few months, the sources say.
While Swift has not yet issued an endorsement in the 2024 race, The New York Times reported Monday that Swift is a key name on Biden aides’ “wish lists of potential surrogates.” A potential Swift appearance at Super Bowl LVIII alongside her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, has already prompted the MAGA right’s culture-war pugilists into a conspiracy-fueled froth about how this NFL season has been rigged to boost Biden.
Behind the scenes, Trump has reacted to the possibility of Biden and Swift teaming up against him this year not with alarm, but with an instant projection of ego. In recent weeks, the former president has told people in his orbit that no amount of A-list celebrity endorsements will save Biden. Trump has also privately claimed that he is “more popular” than Swift and that he has more committed fans than she does, a person close to Trump and another source with knowledge of the matter tell Rolling Stone.
Last month, the source close to Trump adds, the ex-president commented to some confidants that it “obviously” made no sense that he was not named Time magazine’s 2023 Person of the Year — an honor that went to none other than Swift in December.
Noah Berlatsky at Public Notice: Why Trumpers are losing it over Taylor Swift.
Swift is not running for election and is not really a political figure. Thus targeting her seems at best pointless and at worst counterproductive for a political movement.
But the conservative media marketplace often has different incentives than the Republican Party — which is part of why the Republican Party is such a mess. Swift’s music now effectively functions as the soundtrack for the GOP crawling into a dumpster and setting itself on fire….
Why have Republicans chosen this moment for their much-more-than-two-minutes Swift hate? Well, this week Swift released a provocative album titled The GOP Sucks and So Does Donald Trump.
Ha ha. No, she didn’t do anything like that at all. Instead, her sin was … attending a football game. Last Sunday, she went to see the Kansas City Chiefs/Baltimore Ravens matchup because she’s dating Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce — who has been reviled by the right for making ads for the Pfizer covid vaccine and (gulp) alleged woke beer brand Bud Light. The Chiefs won, giving them a berth in the Super Bowl and destroying right-wing talking points about Swift being the Chiefs’ Yoko Ono.
During the game, cameras kept panning to catch Swift’s reaction, which makes sense since she’s a massively famous pop star and her presence at NFL games this season is driving huge TV ratings.
Swift didn’t ham it up for the cameras to try to make herself a focus of attention. Nonetheless, her presence annoyed right-wing punditry, which saw Swift and collectively started gibbering and snorting like rabid warthogs.
“End Wokeness,” a large right-wing account that Elon Musk is fond of, tweeted that “What’s happening with Taylor Swift is not organic and natural. It’s an op.” [….]
As this newsletter is being readied for publication late Tuesday, examples of right-wing figures revealing that Swift has given them a terminal case of brainworms are so plentiful that it would be impossible to cite them all.
Newsmax host Greg Kelly went as far Monday as to accuse Swifties of “elevating her to an idol … and you’re not supposed to do that. In fact, if you look it up in the Bible, it’s a sin!” Another Newsmax host dismissed the Swift-Kelce relationship as “fake.”
Meanwhile, one of Fox News’ “hard news” shows devoted a segment to attacking Swift, her fans, and Kelce, who a commentator derisively referred to as “Mr. Pfizer.”
But that was nowhere near as wild as a segment earlier this month during which Fox News host Jesse Waters described Swift a “Pentagon asset” developed at a NATO meeting and deployed to help Democrats.
Where do they get this stuff? It’s so difficult for me to comprehend the way these people think.
I’ve mentioned a couple of times that historian Rick Perlstein is now writing a column called “The Infernal Triangle” for The American Prospect. His focus is on the rise of authoritarianism in the U.S. Today he quotes a letter he received from a reader in Arkansas:
Oh, Rick, you get it … My husband and I are old and sitting right slap dab in the middle of red Arkansas with MAGA friends and family all around. They try to pull us into their discussions but we change the subject. I stopped going to church because the churches no longer teach Christ’s message, but Trump’s message. We are too old to move but if I was young I’d get out … Even if Trump doesn’t win, his followers will take up arms (Our relatives love to show off their assault rifles) much worse than Jan. 6 so either way we are screwed … Will my son lose his job as a government inspector? Will my black, gay, openly political blue neighbors be imprisoned or simply lynched the way it was done here in the ’50s or ’60s? And if so, how do I stay neutral while horrible things are happening to good people? I have no fight left in me … Sorry to rant on so long so I’ll wrap this up now. I could use your help though. How do we prepare in a practical sense? How will this affect my everyday life? How do people in Russia go on about their lives and jobs? I assume I will have to kiss ass like in North Korea in order to live but then there are some things worse than death!
I won’t quote the rest of the piece–it’s about the need for fiction that spells out what could be coming if Trump wins and democracy dies. But this letter shows what it’s like for ordinary people in red states who can’t accept the MAGA brainwashing. Dakinikat and J.J. have a better idea what it’s like; here in blue Massachusetts, I have no direct contact with Trump crazies. Reading that letter from Arkansas brought home to me the danger we face.
More interesting reads from today’s news:
Elie Mystal at The Nation: Texas Is Spoiling for a Civil War.
Many Democrats treat the Empire of Texas as an alarming sideshow. Sure, the state executes the most people in the country, places bounties on those who smuggle pregnant people out of state to receive reproductive care, and uses migrants for target practice—but for many liberals Texas is just a sick joke that can be disregarded until Ted Cruz shows up for a football game. Even now, as the state openly repudiates federal laws, the most common refrain from the “always-online” liberal community is “Good: Give Texas back to Mexico.”
Razor wire at the Texas border
That is not the right answer. First of all, Texas doesn’t want to leave. It wants to invade the rest of the United States and remake the country in its own Christofascist image. Moreover, as is typical with these “states’ rights” types, the definition of “freedom” envisaged by the white guys running Texas is one where they are the only ones forever free—and they are allowed to subjugate women and people of color in their grabbable areas. But most important, allowing a state like Texas to thumb its nose at human rights and federal authority does nothing but give aid and comfort to other would-be rebel states to do the same.
Texas is not a sideshow; it is ground zero in the battle to reassert states’ rights over individual rights and the federal government. And, with the help of Republican judges and a Democratic administration that still seems bound by a rule book Texas is eager to torch, Texas is more or less winning the first battle in this Civil War reenactment.
The flash point for this crisis is, of course, the border. I have written before about Eagle Pass, Tex., as a place along the Rio Grande where it is popular for immigrants to make the crossing. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has erected a series of sadistic obstructions across this part of the river—including buoys ringed with razor wire and underwater traps—meant to maim and even drown people trying to swim across the river. Should people, and their children, survive Abbott’s gauntlet, Texas officials on the other side have been accused of pushing them back into the river, or denying the survivors medical aid or even water.
In response to this murder-barrier, which is in clear violation of both federal law and international human rights laws, US Attorney General Merrick Garland… filed a lawsuit. Because when a rebel force erects a literal death trap on federal lands, the right answer is to use the slow and plodding legal process instead of sending, I don’t know, a Zumwalt-class naval destroyer into the river to clear the obstructions. The lawsuit is still pending while people drown, of course.
Whether Donald Trump faces a potential prison sentence in 2024 is at the mercy of a federal appeals court that’s operating on its own schedule — at a time when every day matters.
More than 50 days have elapsed since Trump’s criminal proceedings in a Washington, D.C., trial court — on charges for attempting to subvert the 2020 election — were paused indefinitely. They won’t resume until the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and, most likely, the Supreme Court resolve the question hanging over the entire case: whether Trump, as a former president, is immune from criminal prosecution.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing Trump’s federal election case, has tried to keep it on an expeditious track, and the trial is officially slated to begin on March 4. Chutkan, though, has strongly suggested she’ll push back that start date to account for each day of delay caused by Trump’s immunity appeal.
Even if the appeal were resolved this week against Trump, that calculation would put his earliest trial date in late April. But if the D.C. Circuit and the Supreme Court take additional weeks or months to deliver a final ruling, the opening days of Trump’s trial could be pushed to the summer or fall.
If, at that point, Trump retains his grip on the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, he and his allies are certain to exert intense pressure to postpone the trial until after the election. Chutkan, an Obama appointee, could plow forward with a trial anyway — and she’s repeatedly indicated that the campaign calendar has no bearing on her own.
The New York Times: Trump’s PACs Spent Roughly $50 Million on Legal Expenses in 2023.
Donald J. Trump piled up legal expenses in 2023 as he was indicted four times, spending approximately $50 million in donor money on legal bills and investigation-related expenses last year, according to two people briefed on the figure.
It is a staggering sum. His lone remaining rival in the 2024 Republican primary, Nikki Haley, raised roughly the same amount of money across all her committees in the last year as Mr. Trump’s political accounts spent paying the bills stemming from his various legal defenses, including lawyers for witnesses.
The exact figure spent on legal bills will be reported on Wednesday in new filings to the Federal Election Commission. But even those totals can be imprecise depending on how certain expense items are categorized by those doing the paperwork.
The broader picture expected to be outlined in the documents is one of a former president heading toward the Republican nomination while facing enormous financial strain….
Mr. Trump, who has long been loath to pay lawyers himself and has a history of stiffing those who represent him, has used funds in his political action committee, known as Save America, to underwrite his legal bills. The account was originally flooded with donations that were collected during the period immediately after the 2020 election when he was making widespread and false claims of voting fraud.
But with Save America’s coffers nearly drained last year, Mr. Trump sought to refill them through a highly unusual transaction: He asked for a refund of $60 million that he had initially transferred to a different group, a pro-Trump super PAC called MAGA Inc., to support his 2024 campaign.
In addition, Mr. Trump has been directing 10 percent of donations raised online to Save America, meaning 10 cents of every dollar he has received from supporters is going to a PAC that chiefly funds his lawyers.
Mr. Trump has paid legal expenses through both Save America and a second account, called the Make America Great Again PAC, which is an outgrowth of his 2020 re-election committee. In the first half of 2023, Save America transferred $5.85 million to the Make America Great Again PAC, which spent almost all of that sum on legal and investigation-related costs….
The net result was redirecting $42.5 million from a super PAC devoted to electing him as president to a committee now chiefly devoted to paying his lawyers. The refund was nearly equal to the $43.8 million the super PAC spent on so-called independent expenditures, such as television advertising, to shape the 2024 primary last year.
Hunter Biden’s lawyers working to dismiss their client’s gun case argued Tuesday far-right extremists and former President Donald Trump unduly pressured prosecutors once willing to cut a deal.
A new filing in Delaware’s federal court — where Hunter Biden stands accused of lying about drug use to purchase a firearm he kept for fewer than two weeks — contends political motivations tainted special counsel David Weiss’ case after a plea deal was in the works last year.
“In response to that outcry from former President Trump, extremist House Republicans, and right-wing media looking to make Mr. Biden’s fate a political issue in the next presidential election, the prosecution blew up that deal,” his lawyers write.
“[Weiss] now has brought felony charges against Mr. Biden both here in Delaware and in California and is seeking a heavy prison sentence for charges the prosecution was willing to resolve for probation just months ago.”
The deal in question would have seen President Joe Biden’s 53-year-old son plead to two counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax and agree to certain legal stipulations, reports show.
After it fell apart in July, Weiss charged Biden with three gun charges in Delaware and nine tax charges in California.
Biden’s lawyers now say those charges would not have been brought had their client’s father not been Trump’s primary opponent in the 2024 presidential election.
Roger Sollenberger at The Daily Beast: The ‘Profound Influence’ of Christian Extremists on Mike Johnson.
A Daily Beast investigation of [Mike Johnson’s] affiliations, influences, and public statements shows that Johnson’s worldview was forged in a radical theological tradition—the leaders and adherents of which have disputed some of the country’s most important constitutional principles, including amendments that freed the slaves and extended basic rights to all citizens.
That may sound dramatic, but Johnson’s connections to one particular strain of Christian fundamentalism elicit legitimate questions about the speaker’s biblical and constitutional interpretations. Those questions are all the more pressing given how open leaders of this movement have been about using anti-democratic means to achieve their desired religious ends—and given Johnson’s own prominent role in the GOP effort to overturn the 2020 election.
While Johnson’s legal endeavors to keep Donald Trump in office have been well documented, so, too, have his ties to that fundamentalist strain, known loosely as Christian dominionism.
In a definitional sense, Christian dominionism is the belief that Christians should hold “dominion” over things like media, culture, and politics. In practice, it’s a radical theology—unifying a number of fundamentalist ideologies—advocating for biblical interpretations of law and society and hard-line views on issues like abortion and marriage.
More broadly, Christian dominionism seeks to establish the United States as a Christian nation governed by biblical law. And several leaders in the dominionist movement have had a profound impact on Johnson personally—by Johnson’s own admission.
In December 2021, for instance, Johnson publicly praised David Barton, a Christian nationalist whose historical studies have been rejected as wildly inaccurate. The Southern Poverty Law Center’s entry on Barton notes that he has repeatedly “demonized LGBTQ persons and communities, arguing that HIV and AIDS are god-given consequences for living out one’s LGBTQ life.”
And yet, Johnson said just two years ago that Barton has had “a profound influence on me, and my work, and my life, and everything I do.”
Those comments came at a national gathering of Christian lawmakers in North Texas, where Johnson said he was first introduced to Barton and his ministry “a quarter-century ago.”
Read the rest at The Daily Beast.
Those are my recommended reads for today. What stories are you following?
Mostly Monday Reads: devaient essayer
Posted: January 29, 2024 Filed under: just because | Tags: And they call it democracy, devaient essayer, E. Jean Carroll, Javert, The Great American Experiment, The Texas Border Insurrection, Trump legal and tax problems 10 Comments
John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The first English Translation of Alexander de Tocqueville’s”De La Démocratie en Amérique” (Democracy in America )was translated into English by Henry Reeves in 1835. It was Reeves who translated a section of the work that coined the phrase “the great experiment”. for Tocqueville’s phrase “devaient essayer,” which better translates into something more like “would attempt to build”. It seems apt that confusion about what our country is and was about is not something novel. JJ texted me David Dayen’s latest at The American Prospect earlier today. DDay explains in his compelling long-form essay, “America Is Not a Democracy. The movement to save democracy from threats is too quick to overlook the problems that have been present since the founding.”
The question has been, what did we do to arrive at this situation today? Many historical events- notably the Civil War and the Whiskey Rebellion- were violent rebellions. Many are more recent and just don’t get play in modern history books. I’ve always thought that Donald Trump and the worst of his advisors have always found ways and, indeed, are now finding better ways to exploit the loopholes that were opened in the Constitution. The document has obvious nods to slaveholders and wealthy white men in its construction and details. It may not have been kingdom and aristocracy based on birth, but it certainly gave a few classes of individuals more democracy than others. Have a good conversation with the survivors of all of the Indian Wars and Slavery, and you’ll see it still rocks our form of government.
Trump is a more than worthy subject of concern for anyone hoping for democracy in 2025. Last time he was president, he actively resisted the peaceful transfer of power, a hallmark of despots the world over. To the extent he and his authoritarian-friendly advisers learned anything from the first term, it was how to neutralize obstacles to expanding power. His musing about being a “dictator on day one” is really not loose talk. The plans emanating from Team Trump to destroy the civil service, hire government lawyers to rubber-stamp unconstitutional actions and prosecute personal enemies, and even deploy troops on American soil are truly alarming.
But something troubles me about that term, “threat to democracy.” It has become a catchall phrase for resistance to conservative extremism, and specifically Trump. Yet the deficiencies in American democracy go back to the very founding, and the long arc of history hasn’t come close to correcting all of them. The larger crisis we now face is not solely attributable to an individual with malign intent for our government; it’s more about the system of government itself.
Exactly what part of democracy are we trying to save? Is it our democratic legislature, gerrymandered and malapportioned beyond recognition, with supermajority thresholds that deny rule even by that corrupted majority? Is it our democratic presidency, which Trump legally took over after losing the popular vote in 2016, and George W. Bush in the same fashion 16 years earlier? Is it our democratic judiciary, morphed into a super-legislature and habitually twisting the Constitution to advantage those with power, money, and influence?
Are we worried about a democracy that can be so easily purchased, where corporate lobbyists either win whatever they want on Capitol Hill, or win by regulatory change or international trade treaty whatever they don’t? Has this government, where the most important modification of our democracy’s original sin, the second-class citizenship of Black people, is now being steadily reversed by state legislatures and the courts, earned our support? Is there despair over losing something that has produced unequal opportunity, unequal justice, and the conversion of economic power into political power? Where can we find this democracy we need to fight to preserve?
No democracy perfectly distills the will of the people. But America is uniquely terrible at achieving democratic outcomes. It’s worth focusing our energies to repair that, because the alternative really is too grim to contemplate. But there are only a few options here. We can defend “democracy” as an amorphous concept that this country has almost never lived up to. We can uncover escape hatches, short-term circumventions of the rules, either to disqualify Trump and the threat he represents, or to take action on policy challenges. We know the names of these band-aids: budget reconciliation, the Electoral Count Reform Act, the 14th Amendment.
But we don’t deserve to live as political Houdini figures, trying constantly to work our way out of shackles imposed on us by our own system of government. If a political movement is going to style itself as the savior of democracy, it should also speak plainly about the myriad deficiencies in our democracy, and what it would actually take to fix them.
Spend some time with it if you can. I did this morning. Here are some other reads to put into that framework. Phillip Bump writes about what’s going on at the Texas Border. It’s a horrifying event that will not reflect well on our future history.
Interest from the political right in policing the border is itself a long-established pattern. In 2006, after incidents involving self-appointed, right-wing border patrols had attracted national news attention, the Congressional Research Service compiled a report noting that vigilante efforts to confront border crossers extended back more than a century. The report also noted that such organized efforts, when not in violation of state or federal laws, had the right to exist.
In another social media post on Saturday, Trump exaggerated the danger posed by immigrants to the United States, 45 percent of whom in December were families or children traveling alone.
“Today we have a catastrophe waiting to happen. It is the WORST BORDER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD,” he wrote. He added: “There is now a 100% chance that there will be MAJOR TERROR ATTACKS IN THE USA. CLOSE THE BORDER!”
This is the mix in play at the moment: Trumpian rhetoric, antagonism to federal law enforcement and armed individuals taking matters into their own hands, particularly at the border.
BB and I have both written about this situation last week. My MagRat Governor is one of those sending our Guard to interfere with the Federal Agents there. Greg Sargent updates us on how Trump and MAGA Republicans are trying to tank a border deal so Trump can make political hay from it.
The concerning words there are “ethnonationalist savagery.” This is from his new home at The New Republic. “GOP Senator Reveals the Sick Truth About the Trump-MAGA Border Scam. It’s not just that a deal might help Biden. It’s that a compromise bill now could prevent Trump and Stephen Miller from doing a much harsher bill later.”
Republican Senator James Lankford, who is leading negotiations over a border security bill, is discovering to his great shock that Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans are not operating entirely in good faith. Lankford went on the Sunday shows and appeared to admit that they are trying to kill his bill to deny President Biden a bipartisan victory.
That triggered a flurry of social media excitement. But his appearances revealed something deeper about this whole affair: Trump and MAGA Republicans can’t allow this bill to pass, not just for crass political reasons, but because it might succeed on the substance, denying them an opening to pass hideously onerous restrictions later.
Lankford’s first reveal came on Fox News Sunday, when he was asked why on Earth he’d act on the border if it might help Biden (on Fox, this is not a negative, just a statement of the obvious). Lankford noted that Republicans themselves demanded that funding for Ukraine and Israel be tied to border policy changes, and said he is merely trying to deliver what they asked for.
“Now, it’s interesting, a few months later, when we’re finally getting to the end, they’re like, ‘Just kidding, I actually don’t want a change in law because it’s a presidential election year,’” Lankford said, alluding to the open declaration from some Republicans that any compromise will deny Trump a weapon against Biden.
That alone is revealing enough. But it gets more interesting when viewed alongside what Lankford said on CBS’s Face the Nation. Anchor Margaret Brennan aired video of Trump urging Republicans to sink the deal, declaring: “I’d rather have no bill than a bad bill.”
Judd LeGum calls it the “Second Insurrection.”
Access to Shelby Park is important to federal authorities because it is used as a “staging area for policing and interdiction operations along the Rio Grande.” This includes the use of a boat ramp in the park to access the Rio Grande.
Texas’ seizure of Shelby Park and refusal to allow federal officials access have created an extremely dangerous situation. On January 12, three migrants — a woman and two children — drowned in the Rio Grande near the park. When Border Patrol agents went to Shelby Park to address the situation and help other migrants in distress, guardsmen from the Texas National Guard refused to let them enter, saying “they had been ordered not to allow Border Patrol access to the park.”
The legal battle between Texas and the federal government over Shelby Park began when Texas sued the federal government for cutting and removing some of the razor wire it installed along the Rio Grande. Border Patrol argued that the razor wire was putting its agents and migrants legally entitled to claim asylum at risk. Texas argued that the federal government was illegally destroying its property. The state eventually won an injunction from the Fifth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals, prohibiting the federal government from disturbing Texas’ razor wire. The federal government, however, appealed to the Supreme Court. On January 22, in a brief order, the Supreme Court sided with the federal government and lifted the injunction.
Texas’ response to the Supreme Court order has been alarming. Abbott issued a statement stating that “[t]he federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the States.” Compact theory was championed by John C. Calhoun, one of the staunchest defenders of slavery. It essentially views states as “independent sovereigns” that are free to reject federal authority. It was used to justify the “nullification” of federal laws and, ultimately, secession from the union by Southern states.
The bill these folks want is nothing short of sending the “savages” to hell if need be. Meanwhile, while learning about the rule of law, Trump’s performances continue to be off-the-wall. This is from The Daily Beast. “Trump Throw Tantrum Over Court Monitor’s Financial Bombshell. ‘JAVERT LIKE QUEST’. A lawyer for the Trumps slammed Judge Barbara S. Jones in a court filing Monday morning, vehemently denying Trump lied about a missing $48 million loan.” Who would think we’d get a Les Mis reference from the Trump Lawyer Camp?
Now that the retired federal judge babysitting the Trump Organization has uncovered potential tax fraud at the company, the Trumps responded over the weekend by tasking their own accountant as a monitor that monitors the court monitor.
In an indignant court filing Monday morning, a lawyer for the Trumps for the first time launched an all-out attack on Judge Barbara S. Jones—calling her latest report on the family company an absolute lie, a cheap attempt to justify her government-mandated job, and a last-minute ploy to bolster the New York Attorney General’s bank fraud case that just wrapped up.
“Further oversight is unwarranted and will only unjustly enrich the monitor as she engages in some ‘Javert’ like quest,” he wrote, making a reference to the fictional French law enforcement officer in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, who’s defined by his obsessive pursuit and lack of empathy.
The Trumps also complained about the $2.6 million they’ve had to pay Jones to do her job, dismissing her findings wholesale.
“That the monitor seeks to now perpetuate this folly is beyond the pale,” wrote Clifford S. Robert, who represents the Trump family.
The counterpunch comes just days after Jones revealed a bombshell about former President Donald Trump’s finances. In the run-up to the AG’s trial against the Trumps for lying about real estate values, New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur F. Engoron ordered that a court monitor watch over the sprawling family company to ensure it doesn’t shift or hide assets ahead of a potentially huge judgment that could cripple the business empire. Since then, Jones has issued nearly half a dozen reports indicating that, for the most part, all is well.
That is, until Friday, when she updated Engoron with a report that, as The Daily Beast first reported, suggested Trump lied for years about a supposed personal loan he made to one of his own companies—sleight of hand that may have allowed him to dodge taxes on nearly $50 million in income.
“When I inquired about this loan, I was informed that there are no loan agreements that memorialize the loan, but that it was a loan that was believed to be between Donald J. Trump, individually, and Chicago Unit Acquisition for $48 million,” she wrote.
E Jean’s $83 million was the center of discussion at Good Morning America Today. She will also appear on the Rachel Maddow Show tonight. She appeared on GMA with her fantastic lawyer, Robbie Kaplan. This is from The Guardian. “E Jean Carroll aims to give defamation money ‘to something Trump hates’. Former Elle columnist tells Good Morning America: ‘If it’ll cause him pain for me to give money to certain things, that’s my intent’.” Irony is not dead.
E Jean Carroll intends to spend the $83m awarded to her in her defamation trial against Donald Trump on something the former president “hates”, she revealed just days after the judgment.
On Friday, the jury in Carroll’s case decided that she should receive $18.3m in compensatory damages and $65m punitive retribution in the case pitting her against Trump. Of the $18.3m, Trump was told to pay Carroll $11m to fund a reputational repair campaign and $7.3m for the emotional harm caused by statements he made against her in 2019.
Carroll and her legal team did not speak to reporters as they left court but broke their public silence on Monday in an interview with Good Morning America.
Alongside her lawyer Roberta Kaplan, Carroll told host George Stephanopoulos that Friday’s win had left her overcome with “elation”.
“It filled me up … It was almost painful,” she said, adding: “Today, I’m very happy.
Stephanopoulos asked her to give the public an idea as to how she planned to spend the millions of dollars she’s won, and Carroll provided a clear outline.
“I’d like to give the money to something Donald Trump hates,” Carroll said. “If it’ll cause him pain for me to give money to certain things, that’s my intent.”
Carroll also said that she would perhaps explore giving to “a fund for the women who have been sexually assaulted by Donald Trump”.
Trump went on his Truth Social platform to decry Friday’s decision as “absolutely ridiculous” and said he would be filing an appeal.
“Our Legal System is out of control, and being used as a Political Weapon,” Trump’s Truth Social post said in part. “THIS IS NOT AMERICA!”
Pointing to Trump’s combative response, Stephanopoulos asked Carroll’s attorney whether or not their side expected to collect the money awarded to them. Kaplan said that she was “pretty confident”.
“We might not get it right away. But one way or the other, he owns a lot of real estate. It can be sold. We will collect the judgment,” Kaplan said.
In the weeks leading up to the trial, Carroll revealed that she wasn’t sleeping or eating in anticipation of facing the former president.
There are a few things to like about this new “normal,” although most of it sucks eggs. The Justice Department is detaining a former IRS contractor for leaking the Tax Records of Trump and other toxic Billionaires. This is from NBC News. “Ex-IRS contractor sentenced to 5 years in prison for leaking Trump tax records. Charles Littlejohn had pleaded guilty to leaking thousands of tax records, including for Trump and billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.” I don’t suppose this could be considered whistle-blowing.
The former Internal Revenue Service contractor who leaked the tax records of former President Donald Trump to The New York Times as well as the tax records of billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk to ProPublica was sentenced Monday to five years in prison.
Charles Littlejohn pleaded guilty in October, and prosecutors sought the statutory maximum of five years in federal prison, saying that he “abused his position by unlawfully disclosing thousands of Americans’ federal tax returns and other private financial information to multiple news organizations.” Prosecutors said that Littlejohn “weaponized his access to unmasked taxpayer data to further his own personal, political agenda, believing that he was above the law.”
Littlejohn was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes at a hearing at the federal courthouse in Washington. He will also have to pay a $5,000 fine.
“You can be an outstanding person and commit bad acts,” Reyes said. “What you did in targeting the sitting president of the United States was an attack on our constitutional democracy,” she added.
Reyes compared Littlejohn’s actions to other recent attacks and threats against elected officials as well as to Jan. 6 defendants she has recently sentenced. She described his actions as a deliberate, complex, multiyear criminal scheme, but said she believed he “sincerely felt a moral imperative” to act as he did.
Littlejohn’s attorney argued that he had committed the offense “out of a deep, moral belief that the American people had a right to know the information and sharing it was the only way to effect change” and that he believed he was right at the time.
I imagine if we compare the trial of this man to Trump, we’d get a huge contrast in what it’s like to be treated like a criminal. But just about any other criminal in the system will be treated less humanely than the former guy. They’d have shot him by now if he was black. Are rights applied differently real rights in a real democracy? Asking for a friend.
Well, this is getting long, and I need to eat some lunch. I hope y’all have a good week!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Lazy Caturday Reads
Posted: January 27, 2024 Filed under: cat art, Cats, caturday, just because | Tags: "God's Army", Alabama, Anne Appelbaumn, Border bill, Donald Trump, execution, Greg Abbott, nitrogen gas, Supreme Court, Texas, U.S. House, U.S. Senate, Ukraine aid 5 CommentsHappy Caturday!!
NOTE: The artwork in today’s post is from the Los Angeles Cat Art Show.
Amanda, by Mark Ryden
Yesterday Dakinikat wrote about Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s refusal to accept the decision of the right wing, corrupt Supreme Court that Federal law supersedes Texas state law; and therefore, Biden can order the removal of Abbott’s lethal razer wire from the Texas border with Mexico.
Unfortunately, other Republican Governors have come forward to back Abbott, and Donald Trump is urging these governors to send National Guard troops to support Abbott’s illegal activities. This is dangerously close to threatening civil war.
Vice News: Trump Calls on ‘All Willing States’ to Send National Guard Soldiers to Texas.
Like pouring water on a grease fire, former President Donald Trump has weighed in on the escalating standoff between the federal government and Texas.
In a multi-part social media post shared Thursday night, Trump called on “all willing states” to deploy their national guard forces to Texas “to prevent the entry of illegals, and to remove them back across the Border.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told Tucker Carlson on Friday, that so far, ten governors had sent National Guard or other law enforcement resources to assist on the border, and will be “disappointed” if others do not follow suit.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt told Fox News on Friday that he also “absolutely” plans to send national guard soldiers to Texas. ““We’ve already started putting the numbers together,” said Stitt.
(Less than 24 hours earlier, Stitt joined Newsmax host Carl Higbie for a casual chat about potential “force-on-force conflict” breaking out at the border.)
Stitt is one of 25 red state governors who have released statements expressing support for Abbott, who is continuing to defy the Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this week that found that the federal government, not states, have ultimate jurisdiction over border enforcement
The background:
The Court’s 5-4 ruling gave a green light to Border Control to cut down the miles of razor wire that Texas forces had erected without federal permission along the Rio Grande and around Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, which is an epicenter for unauthorized border crossings.
Yawning Toothy Silhouette, by Brandon Boyd
Two weeks ago, the Texas National Guard seized control of Shelby Park, blocking Border Control’s access to the area and effectively preventing them from conducting rescue missions. Rio Grande. Days later, a migrant woman and two children drowned, which the Biden Administration blamed Texas for.
Abbott has doubled down on border enforcement activity since the Supreme Court ruling. He published a strongly-worded letter on Wednesday that accused the Biden Administration of abdicating its constitutional responsibility to protect states from “invasion.” “The federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the states,” Abbott asserted.
Abbott cited a dissenting opinion from the 2012 Supreme Court case Arizona v. United States that argued that states have a constitutional authority to protect themselves if the federal government fails to.
Cori Alonso-Yoder, an associate professor from George Washington University Law School’s Fundamentals of Lawyering Program, told VICE News that she believes Abbott’s statement falls “more into the realm of political theater than actual supported legal theory.”
There’s also a bunch of crazy “christians” who say they will march to the border.
Business Insider: A convoy calling themselves ‘God’s army’ plans to head to the Texas border to stop migrants from entering the US.
A convoy of hundreds of people plans to head to the Texas border to stop migrants crossing into the country from Mexico.
The group, called “Take Our Border Back,” is organizing on Telegram and now has more than 1,600 followers.
One of the group’s organizers described them as “God’s army” in a planning call, according to Vice.
“This is a biblical, monumental moment that’s been put together by God,” one organizer said, per Vice.
Another said: “We are besieged on all sides by dark forces of evil.”
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. It is time for the remnant to rise,” they said.
Pete Chambers, a lieutenant colonel organizing the group, has claimed he was a Green Beret. He explained the group’s plans while speaking to conspiracist Alex Jones on his Infowars show on Thursday.
“That’s what Green Berets do. Unconventional warfare is our bread and butter. Now we’re doing domestic internal defense,” Chambers said.
More at the Insider link.
The Senate is now working on a new border bill, and President Biden has endorsed it. It’s not yet clear what House Republicans will do, but Speaker Johnson has said the bill is dead on arrival.
Politico: Biden says he’ll shut down the border if deal gives him authority.
President Joe Biden on Friday urged Congress to pass a bipartisan bill to address the immigration crisis at the nation’s southern border, saying he would shut down the border the day the bill became law.
Katsunori Miyagi, Gravity Cat
“What’s been negotiated would — if passed into law — be the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we’ve ever had in our country,” Biden said in a statement. “It would give me, as President, a new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed. And if given that authority, I would use it the day I sign the bill into law.”
Biden’s Friday evening statement resembles a ramping up in rhetoric for the administration, placing the president philosophically in the camp arguing that the border may hit a point where closure is needed. The White House’s decision to have Biden weigh in also speaks to the delicate nature of the dealmaking, and the urgency facing his administration to take action on the border — particularly during an election year, when Republicans have used the issue to rally their base.
The president is also daring Republicans to reject the deal as it faces a make-or-break moment amid GOP fissures.
It comes after a hectic week on the Hill, as Senate negotiators try to salvage monthslong talks to reach a border deal and unlock aid for Ukraine. The White House has continued to engage in talks and has publicly signaled optimism that a deal can be struck, even as some House Republicans say any bill is dead on arrival in the lower chamber. Donald Trump has also tried to scuttle the talks, adding another layer to complicated negotiations.
On the developing deal:
The contours of the deal are still subject to negotiation. But the negotiators have long discussed setting triggers for daily border crossings after which the Biden administration could shut down the border between ports of entry. Under the current proposal, asylum seekers would still be authorized to present claims at authorized ports of entry, although they would face a much higher standard for being granted the opportunity to apply for asylum.
Republicans who support a deal say the authority would both force Biden’s hand and strengthen that of his potential successor.
“This is an opportunity to put laws on the books that someone who is genuinely interested in securing the border will be able to use,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said as the Senate adjourned Thursday. “President Donald J. Trump in 2017 asked for laws like this. We’re going to deliver it and if he becomes president, he’ll be glad that we did.”
The terms of the deal under discussion, which is largely agreed to but not yet final, would also give DHS expulsion authority if border encounters hit an average of 4,000-a-day over the course of a week, a metric that includes asylum appointments. That authority would become mandatory if daily crossings average more than 5,000 people for a week or crest over 8,500 a day, according to two people briefed on the emerging agreement and who were granted anonymity to discuss the details.
Read more at Politico.
Manu Raju at CNN: Biden endorses emerging deal to give US new power to clamp down on border crossings.
Senate negotiators have agreed to empower the US to significantly restrict illegal migrant crossings at the southern border, according to sources familiar with the matter, a move aimed at ending the migrant surge that has overrun federal authorities over the past several months.
President Joe Biden has vowed to use the authority offered by the deal, embracing measures that are far more draconian than he’s previously considered in an area many voters perceive him as weaker than former President Donald Trump.
Kitty Bread Time, by Travis Lampe
The Senate deal, which is expected to be unveiled as soon as next week, would also speed up the asylum process to consider cases within six months – compared with the current system, under which it could take up to 10 years for asylum seekers.
The details provide a new window into high-profile negotiations that have been going on for months – as Senate leaders hold out hope they can attach the deal to aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan as domestic and international crises loom. The plan would also put pressure on Republicans to decide whether to greenlight these new authorities or reject the plan as Trump has urged the GOP to defeat anything short of what he calls a “perfect” bill.
Under the soon-to-be-released package, the Department of Homeland Security would be granted new emergency authority to shut down the border if daily average migrant encounters reach 4,000 over a one-week span. If migrant crossings increase above 5,000 on average per day on a given week, DHS would be required to close the border to migrants crossing illegally not entering at ports of entry. Certain migrants would be allowed to stay if they prove to be fleeing torture or persecution in their countries.
Moreover, if crossings exceed 8,500 in a single day, DHS would be required to close the border to migrants illegally crossing the border. Under the proposal, any migrant who tries to cross the border twice while it is closed would be banned from entering the US for one year.
The goal of the trio of negotiators – GOP Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut – is to prevent surges that overwhelm federal authorities. The Biden administration and Senate leaders have been heavily involved in the talks, and more details of the deal are expected to be released in the coming days.
Meanwhile, it appears Congress is continuing to block aid to Ukraine.
Pablo Manriquez at The New Republic: Senate Republicans Are on a Major Ukraine Collision Course.
In the Senate battle over Ukraine funding, one surprising issue has emerged that has led to a fascinating intra-Republican dispute—and one of the most aggressively anti-Ukraine Republicans is very vocally leading the “anti” side.
The issue is whether the United States and other Western countries should pay to prop up Ukraine’s entire economy, and specifically its social safety net and old-age pensions, or just replenish its critically diminished supply of munitions in its war with Russia. On December 11, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy traveled to Washington to make his case to Congress for $61 billion in emergency assistance the White House has requested for Ukraine.
Paul Koudounaris, Warhol Cat
“If there’s anyone inspired by unresolved issues on Capitol Hill, it’s just [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and his sick clique,” Zelenskiy said, only to fly home empty-handed because many MAGA Republicans in both chambers of Congress have soured on America’s Ukrainian ally—a position in lockstep with Donald Trump’s longtime geopolitical bromance with Russia’s leader-oligarch, Vladimir Putin.
Walking point in that platoon is Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, once an anti-Trump moderate who was reincarnated on the 2022 campaign trail as an ultra-MAGA scourge of liberals and university professors and elite educational institutions (he has a law degree from Yale). “Even if you support funding for Ukraine for some national defense purpose, which obviously I do not, I think it suggests that they’re effectively becoming a welfare client if we’re funding their pensioners,” said Vance, who is considered a possible vice presidential pick for Trump.
In December, Ukraine’s minister for social policy, Oksana Zholnovych, said that 500,000 civil servants, 1.4 million teachers, and 10 million pensioners could experience payment delays if foreign humanitarian assistance is not approved soon.
Vance and other MAGA senators have since gone out of their way to throw cold water on Biden’s funding package for Ukraine, which has been tied down in the Senate with unrelated immigration policy concessions Senate leaders in both parties have demanded to push a deal through.
Read the rest at TNR.
Anne Appelbaum at The Atlantic: Is Congress Really Going to Abandon Ukraine Now?
As I write this I am in Warsaw, 170 miles from Poland’s border with Ukraine. The front line, where Ukrainians are right now fighting and dying, is another 450 miles beyond that. Not so far, in other words. A long day’s drive. I am well within range of Russian missiles, the kind that have hit Kyiv, Odesa, and Lviv so many times over the past two years.
Tens of millions of other people—Poles, Germans, Romanians, Finns, Estonians, Swedes, Slovaks, Lithuanians, Czechs, Latvians, Norwegians—are also in range of Russian conventional missiles, whether launched from Belarus, Russian-controlled parts of Ukraine, or Russia itself. Anyone in Europe could also be hit by Russian nuclear weapons, of course, as Russian television propagandists so frequently like to remind us. Dmitri Medvedev, a former Russian president, in recent months has threatened Poland with the loss of its statehood, threatened Sweden and Finland with nuclear and hypersonic missiles, and said the Baltic states belong to Russia anyway.
Most of the time, the possibility of Russian aggression doesn’t affect anybody or change anything. No one talks about it. Life goes on as normal. In Finland and Romania, preparations for presidential elections are under way. In Germany, farmers are on strike. Lithuania is holding an international light festival.
The moment the Ukrainians start to lose, all of that will change. For the past few months, Western observers have been tossing around the word stalemate, as if the Russian invasion of Ukraine had settled into some kind of dull, permanent stasis. In fact, the battlefield is dynamic. The front line is constantly changing, and the changes, both material and psychological, are starting to favor Russia. The Ukrainians are just as brave as they were a year ago and just as innovative. Their drones recently hit a Russian gas depot near St. Petersburg, hundreds of miles from Ukraine, among other targets. With no navy of their own, they have pushed much of the Russian Black Sea fleet away from their shores. But on the ground, in the southern and eastern parts of their country, they are rationing ammunition. They’ve never had sufficient missiles and bullets, and now they are at risk of not having enough to keep fighting at all.
Marc Dennis, Night Out
Were their front line to fall back dramatically, the horrific violence alone would trigger a shock wave through the rest of Europe. Russian occupation of more territory would continue to mean what it has meant for the past two years: torture chambers, random arrests, and thousands of kidnapped children. But an even deeper, broader shock wave would be triggered by the growing realization that the United States is not just an unreliable ally, but an unserious ally. A silly ally. Unlike the European Union, which collectively spends more money on Ukraine than Americans do but can’t yet produce as many weapons, the U.S. still has ammunition and weapons to send. Now Washington is on the verge of refusing to do so, but not because the White House has had a change of heart.
The looming end of American aid to Ukraine is not a policy decision. For two years, the Biden administration successfully led an international coalition to provide not soldiers but rather military aid to Ukraine. Officials convened regular meetings, consulted with allies, pulled in military support from around the world. Majorities in the U.S. continue to support Ukraine. Majorities in both houses of Congress do too. The Senate is said to have its legislation almost ready to go. But now, for reasons that outsiders find impossible to understand, a minority of Republican members of Congress, in a fit of political pique, are preparing to cut it all off. They might succeed.
Read the rest at The Atlantic. If you can’t get past the paywall, Applebaum has posted a gift article on Twitter.
On Thursday night, Alabama executed Kenneth Eugene Smith using nitrogen gas, a method never before used, but approved by the right wing Supreme Court. It did not go well, but Alabama will pretend that it did.
One more story before I call it a day.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall on Friday vowed to continue using nitrogen gas in executions and offered to assist other states interested in the novel method, while fending off concerns that an inmate executed the night before did not become unconscious as quickly as expected and thrashed on the gurney, according to witnesses.
“What occurred last night was textbook,” Marshall told reporters after the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith on Thursday evening by nitrogen hypoxia, in which he was forced to breathe only nitrogen through a mask and was denied oxygen.
The execution, the first in the U.S. using nitrogen gas, lasted roughly 30 minutes from the time it started to Smith’s time of death. Marshall said Friday that nitrogen hypoxia “is no longer an untested method — it is a proven one.”
But the physical reaction of Smith, who was 58 and on death row for over three decades for a 1988 murder-for-hire slaying, was already being highly scrutinized after a 2022 attempt to execute him by lethal injection failed when prison staff could not locate a suitable vein.
Media witnesses to Thursday’s execution said Smith was conscious for several minutes into the execution and then appeared to shake and writhe on the gurney for two minutes. They said that was followed by several minutes of deep breaths until his breathing slowed and it was no longer perceptible….
…one media witness said it appeared to take longer than the state had suggested for Smith to become unconscious and die.
“It’s interesting to see the attorney general say that everything went consistent with plans that they laid out,” Lee Hedgepeth, an Alabama reporter, said on MSNBC.
“We saw him begin violently shaking, thrashing against the straps that held him down,” Hedgepeth said of Smith. “This was the fifth execution that I’ve witnessed in Alabama, and I’ve never seen such a violent execution or a violent reaction to the means of execution.”
He added that Smith had dry-heaved into the mask.
There’s more at the link.
That’s all I have for you today–not a lot of good news, I’m afraid. What stories are you following?
Finally Friday Reads: Convicted Rapist “Storms out of Court”
Posted: January 26, 2024 Filed under: just because | Tags: @repeat1968, Asylum seekers, Donnie Dotard, E. Jean Carroll, immigration, John Buss, The Donnie Dotard Club House, Trump's Trial Antics 12 Comments
“Thanks, Dakinikat, for putting this in my head; I couldn’t sleep last night.” John Buss @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
It’s yet another crazy day with Donnie Dotard! Have you ever heard of one person indicted on 91 felonies in 2 state courts and several Federal venues out running amok on bail? There are so many articles out there that show how unfit this man is for office, and it’s not even funny! Let’s start out with this one at The Independent. Trump’s temper tantrums should land him in a jail cell and he almost did. “Donald Trump storms out of closing arguments in E Jean Carroll trial, The former president continued to attack the woman suing him for defamation after his testimony on Thursday.”
Roughly 20 minutes after walking into the courtroom, Donald Trump stormed out of closing arguments in a civil trial to determine how much money he owes E Jean Carroll for repeatedly defaming her.
The former president arrived in federal court in Manhattan on Friday morning after briefly testifying in his defence on Thursday afternoon, after which he unleashed more attacks and potentially defamatory statements about the former Elle magazine columnist.
In her closing statement, Ms Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan told jurors that the former president “acts as if these rules of law just don’t apply to him.”
His attacks didn’t stop after he was found liable for defamation and sexual abuse in a $5m jury verdict, she noted.
“Not at all,” Ms Kaplan said. “Not even for 24 hours.”
Mr Trump then stood up from the defence table, where he was seated next to attorney Alina Habba, and walked out of the hearing, to which he had arrived late.
“The record will reflect that Mr Trump just rose and walked out of the courtroom,” US District Judge Lewis Kaplan said.
Mr Trump returned to the courtroom for defence closing arguments from Ms Habba.
As he returned to the courtroom, his Truth Social account fired off several posts repeating incendiary and potentially defamatory claims about the case, claiming he is a victim of “extortion” and falsely labelling the case a “Joe Biden-directed Election Interference Attack” against him.
I really feel for this judge who has had to deal with this idiot for more than time than would be humanly possible for most people. Adam Klasfeld–The Messenger–reports this. “Judge Threatens to Send Trump Lawyer Alina Habba ‘in the Lockup’ at E. Jean Carroll Trial. The blockbuster remark came moments before closing arguments in Trump’s second trial in a case brought by E. Jean Carroll.”
A federal judge threatened Donald Trump’s attorney Alina Habba with jail time on Friday, after the former president’s lawyer kept contesting a ruling after it had been issued.
“You are on the verge of spending some time in the lockup,” senior U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan warned. “Sit down.”
The bombshell remark came moments before the start of opening statements in Trump’s second trial in a case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll.
Before the jury was let into court, Carroll and Trump’s attorneys had debated the boundaries for their closing arguments. Habba’s co-counsel Michael Madaio had sought to arguing about what he could display in a slideshow to jurors before his summations began, and Carroll’s legal team objected to the presentation of messages that were not entered into evidence.
Judge Kaplan sided with Carroll’s legal team, and Madaio unsuccessfully tried to urge the judge to reconsider his ruling. That’s when Habba jumped up and pressed on, insisting that she had to make a record. She stopped pushing her case after Kaplan threatened her with incarceration.
The jury then entered, and Carroll’s lead attorney Roberta Kaplan — who shares a name with but isn’t related to the judge — began her closing arguments.
His cognitive decline has been evident these days. This is from The New Republic. “Cognitive Decline? Listen to Trump Try to Describe Missile Defense. “Ding, ding, ding, boom, whoosh!”.”
Donald Trump took the road less traveled on Monday, opting to use sounds and shapes rather than words to explain what he had in mind for America’s military.
During a campaign stop in Laconia, New Hampshire—the last rally before the state’s Republican primary—Trump announced that under his leadership, the country would copy and paste Israel’s Iron Dome defense system over our own national borders. That idea, by the way, has previously earned him ridicule even by the likes of Fox News.
“I will build an Iron Dome over our country, a state-of-the-art missile defense shield made in the USA,” Trump said. “We do it for other countries. We help other countries, we build, we don’t do it for ourselves.”
But then, things got weird as Trump tried once again to assert his “extremely stable genius” status.
“These are not muscle guys here, they’re muscle guys up here, right,” Trump said, gesturing to his arms and then his head.
“And they calmly walk to us, and ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.… They’ve only got 17 seconds to figure this whole thing out. Boom. OK. Missile launch. Woosh. Boom,” he added.
The stunning performance comes after the 77-year-old bragged that he “aced” a cognitive test that required him to correctly identify a giraffe, tiger, and whale. According to Trump, that means his “mind is stronger now than it was 25 years ago.” In reality, that test is meant to measure dementia or cognitive decline, and it has never included the combination of animals Trump keeps mentioning.
Trump’s cognitive decline has been in question recently after the GOP front-runner was spotted with mysterious red sores on his hands. Trump has also been making increasingly nonsense remarks during his campaign tangents—last week, the former president said he would stop banks from “debanking” Americans—and confusing major players in American politics. During another campaign speech, Trump switched up former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and his only rival in the GOP race, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, several times, blaming Haley for the events of January 6 while claiming she turned down extra security. (The House committee assigned to probe the attack found no evidence to support Trump’s claim, which he has previously leveled at Pelosi.)
Trump’s political performances are just altogether weird. They are completely inappropriate–once again–for any one running for any office let alone the U.S. Presidency. This is from Stephan Robinson writing at Public Notice. “Trump’s stubborn defiance of normal political gravity. Trump’s Haley/Pelosi gaffe would’ve ended most campaigns. For him it was just another Friday.”
One week ago tonight in New Hampshire, Donald Trump confused Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — and it wasn’t a mere slip of the tongue.
Trump went on a full-length tear accusing his primary opponent of failing to secure the Capitol on January 6, despite the fact Haley wasn’t even in government at the time. (What Trump was trying to say still would’ve been a grotesque lie even if he’d gotten the names right.)
“You know, by the way, they never report the crowd on January 6,” he began. “You know, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley. Do you know that they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything. Deleted and destroyed all of it. All of it. Because of lots of things, like Nikki Haley is in charge of security. We offered her security, 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guard, whatever they want, they turned it down. They don’t want to talk about that.”
That sad spectacle would’ve devastated any normal candidate’s campaign. Several political commentators from Pod Save America co-host Dan Pfeiffer to David Corn at Mother Jones noted on social media with almost rueful resignation that had Biden done this, it would’ve dominated the news cycle. Alas, Trump is different. His staff didn’t even really try to clean the gaffe up, and he beat Haley in New Hampshire by double digits a few days later. How is that possible?
Indeed, how is this possible? I love this analysis.
The media grades Trump on an infinity curve
Although most media outlets did state categorically that Trump mixed up Haley with Pelosi, they failed to connect it to a larger narrative. Instead, they just … moved on. Compare this to the “Rubio bot” aftermath when the New York Times declared, ”How a Debate Misstep Sent Marco Rubio Tumbling in New Hampshire.” Journalist Molly Jong-Fast wondered, “Donald Trump confused Nancy Pelosi with Nikki Haley and Joe Biden with Barack Obama. Where are the ‘is Donald Trump too old’ think pieces?” But that might also miss a larger point: A narrative that Trump is “too old” or has “lost a step” since 2016 minimizes his threat. He’s not even trying to hide that he aspires to become a dictator.
Trump has interfered with current Congressional negotiations on the situation at the border just because the chaos suits his campaign goals. This is utter madness. This happens as the Governor of Texas has decided to ignore a Supreme Court Ruling. This is from U.S News & World Report as reported by the Associated Press.
A politically treacherous dynamic is taking hold as negotiators in Congress work to strike a bipartisan deal on the border and immigration, with vocal opposition from the hard right and former President Donald Trump threatening to topple the carefully
Senators are closing in on the details of an agreement on border measures that could unlock Republican support for Ukraine aid and hope to unveil it as soon as next week. But the deal is already wobbling, as House Speaker Mike Johnson faces intense pressure from Trump and his House allies to demand more sweeping concessions from Democrats and the White House.
“I do not think we should do a Border Deal, at all, unless we get EVERYTHING needed to shut down the INVASION of Millions & Millions of people,” Trump posted on social media this week.
It’s a familiar political dynamic, one that has repeatedly thwarted attempts to reform U.S. immigration law, including in 2013 when House Republicans sought to pin illegal immigration on a Democratic president and in 2018 when Trump helped sink another bipartisan effort. The path for legislation this time around is further clouded by an election year in which Trump has once again made railing against illegal immigration a central focus of his campaign.
Well, it done wobbled. This report is from CNN. “GOP senators seethe as Trump blows up delicate immigration compromise.”Election-Year Politics Threaten Senate Border Deal as Trump and His Allies Rally Opposition,” What role is there in current policy for a deranged, convicted rapist, and insurrectionist who has been indicted 91 times for his crimes against our country? He’s also pushing Policies friendly for Putin’s ugly regime.
Senior Senate Republicans are furious that Donald Trump may have killed an emerging bipartisan deal over the southern border, depriving them of a key legislative achievement on a pressing national priority and offering a preview of what’s to come with Trump as their likely presidential nominee.
In recent weeks, Trump has been lobbying Republicans both in private conversations and in public statements on social media to oppose the border compromise being delicately hashed out in the Senate, according to GOP sources familiar with the conversations – in part because he wants to campaign on the issue this November and doesn’t want President Joe Biden to score a victory in an area where he is politically vulnerable.
Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged in a private meeting on Wednesday that Trump’s animosity toward the yet-to-be-released border deal puts Republicans in a serious bind as they try to move forward on the already complex issue. For weeks, Republicans have been warning that Trump’s opposition could blow up the bipartisan proposal, but the admission from McConnell was particularly striking, given he has been a chief advocate for a border-Ukraine package.
Now, Republicans on Capitol Hill are grappling with the reality that most in the GOP areloathe to do anything that is seen as potentially undermining the former president. And the prospects of a deal being scuttled before it has even been finalized has sparked tensions and confusion in the Senate GOP as they try to figure out if, and how, to proceed – even as McConnell made clear during party lunches Thursday that he remains firmly behind the effort to strike a deal, according to attendees.
“I think the border is a very important issue for Donald Trump. And the fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and congresspeople that he doesn’t want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it is … really appalling,” said GOP Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, who has been an outspoken critic of Trump.
He added, “But the reality is that, that we have a crisis at the border, the American people are suffering as a result of what’s happening at the border. And someone running for president not to try and get the problem solved. as opposed to saying, ‘hey, save that problem. Don’t solve it. Let me take credit for solving it later.’”
GOP Sen. Todd Young of Indiana called any efforts to disrupt the ongoing negotiations “tragic” and said: “I hope no one is trying to take this away for campaign purposes.”
How do we get rid of this meddlesome former guy? The Border Standoff now includes multiple Governors defying a Supreme Court ruling as I mentioned above. This is playing with fire. PBS News Hour has this headline. “Border standoff between Texas, feds intensifies as governor defies Supreme Court ruling.” My stupid-ass governor as well as others are joining in the defiance. This is from a transcript of an interview of Stephen Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law by Laura Barron-Lopez.
Laura Barron-Lopez:
And Governor Abbott is claiming that he has this authority under the U.S. Constitution because the federal government isn’t protecting Texas against a — quote — “invasion.” That’s the way he’s been describing it.
Is this a reasonable interpretation of the Constitution?
Steve Vladeck:
No, and in two different respects.
I mean, the first is that, obviously, an influx of asylum seekers, however many we’re talking about, is not what the founders had in mind when they used the word invasion. But, Laura, second, even if you’re not persuaded by that, the clause Governor Abbott’s relying on in Article 1, Section 10 of the Constitution was dealing with the specific scenario of the ability of states to respond to invasions until federal authorities were able to respond.
This is the time in American history when the federal military was small. It was very spread out. It took weeks to travel. Congress was usually out of session. There’s no support in our history, there’s no support in founding or other materials for the idea that states can decide for themselves that they’re under invasion, and, even if the federal government disagrees, that somehow it’s the state’s determination that would control.
Laura Barron-Lopez:
Recently, three migrants drowned in the Rio Grande in this section that Border Patrol agents have been trying to access.
And all this comes as a number of Republican governors still say that they support Texas, that they stand by Texas. What are the larger implications of this standoff between Texas and the federal government?
Steve Vladeck:
I mean, the larger implications are pretty staggering.
It’s not just the specter of a physical confrontation between federal and Texas officials along the border in Eagle Pass. It’s also basically a relegation of a debate that we had in American law for the first 70 years of this country about the ability of states to effectively nullify those federal laws that they disagreed with, that they thought were unconstitutional.
For better or for worse in our constitutional system, federal law supersedes state law, even when we don’t like how the federal government is or is not enforcing those federal laws. The remedies for those disagreements are not to allow every state to go out on their own and to have their own policies.
The remedies, if you really have a problem with the policies, is to change the people who are making them. Otherwise, it’s a federal system, Laura, in name only.
Laura Barron-Lopez:
And Governor Abbott also claims that the federal government has — quote — “broken the compact with states.”
Where have — what do you think he means by that? And have states in the past used that language to justify defying the federal government?
Steve Vladeck:
Yes, I mean, the compact theory of the Constitution is a pretty outlier view, especially these days, about the way the Constitution was formed.
The basic premise is that the federal government, the constitutional system we have was formed by the states, and, therefore, the states can control its terms. That was the argument on which the Southern states predicated secession and helped to precipitate the Civil War. There’s a reason why we tend not to hear that much of it these days.
Again, I mean, I think there’s a lot of folks who are going to have strong views about whether the Biden administration is or isn’t doing what’s best for the country at the border. But the way to air those disagreements is through the federal electoral process.
In a world in which states can follow this version of the compact theory as a justification for interfering with federal authority, what’s to stop California from doing that to the next Republican president? What’s to stop Vermont from doing that to the next Republican president? And then we’re talking about a system in which the states have all the power, and the federal government is basically impotent to do anything.
Laura Barron-Lopez:
And Governor Abbott also claims that the federal government has — quote — “broken the compact with states.”
Where have — what do you think he means by that? And have states in the past used that language to justify defying the federal government?
Steve Vladeck:
Yes, I mean, the compact theory of the Constitution is a pretty outlier view, especially these days, about the way the Constitution was formed.
The basic premise is that the federal government, the constitutional system we have was formed by the states, and, therefore, the states can control its terms. That was the argument on which the Southern states predicated secession and helped to precipitate the Civil War. There’s a reason why we tend not to hear that much of it these days.
Again, I mean, I think there’s a lot of folks who are going to have strong views about whether the Biden administration is or isn’t doing what’s best for the country at the border. But the way to air those disagreements is through the federal electoral process.
In a world in which states can follow this version of the compact theory as a justification for interfering with federal authority, what’s to stop California from doing that to the next Republican president? What’s to stop Vermont from doing that to the next Republican president? And then we’re talking about a system in which the states have all the power, and the federal government is basically impotent to do anything.
This is another example of hour Republicans are basically trying to destroy our system of government. It’s coming from all sides. I’m not sure this will all end even if Trump manages to choke on McDonald’s fries and head off to a different hell realm out of our reality.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Here we are, faced with choice
Shutters and walls or open embrace
Like it or not, the human race
Is us all
History is what it is
Scars we inflict on each other don’t die
But slowly soak into the DNA
Of us all
Of us all
Us all
I pray we not fear to love
I pray we be free of judgement and shame
Open the vein, let kindness rain
O’er us all
O’er us all
O’er us all
Us all
Songwriters: Bruce Cockburn
Wednesday Reads: New Hampshire Primary
Posted: January 24, 2024 Filed under: 2024 presidential Campaign, Donald Trump, just because | Tags: 2, New Hampshire art, New Hampshire primary, Nicki Haley, PUMA, Republicans debasing themselves, Tim Scott, Trump's cognitive decline 16 CommentsGood Day Sky Dancers!!
By G.D. Thompson
It wasn’t a surprise that Trump won the New Hampshire primary, but he wasn’t happy with the result. Nicki Haley failed. She lost, but not by enough to satisfy the psychopathic former “president.” His “victory” speech was ugly and rage-filled. What a loser.
Sam Brodey at The Daily Beast: Trump Wins NH Primary, But Not Quite the Victory He Wanted.
If Haley’s performance wasn’t quite what she hoped for, it also wasn’t what Trump predicted either. Both candidates managed to sound disappointed Tuesday night—with Trump raging that Haley wouldn’t drop out, and Haley not hiding that the outcome was, factually, a defeat.
Either way, New Hampshire still managed to offer a split decision. Trump may have marched closer to the nomination, but Haley did well enough to march on—at least for now.
While the final results won’t be available until both candidates have left the state, at no point in the night did Haley come close to giving Trump a scare.
After the polls closed at 8 p.m., it only took a matter of minutes for the Associated Press to call the primary for Trump. By midnight, the former president was up by about 11 points, 54 percent to 43 percent, with two-thirds of New Hampshire ballots reporting.
Trump’s reaction:
Trump and his team will, of course, celebrate the win, but it’s far from the massive victory Trump had spent days predicting—underscoring how his political operation has been hamstrung by his own inability to rein in his boasts. On Monday night, he was bringing up polls showing him beating Haley by 40 and 50 points, predicting the numbers will be “higher even than what you’re seeing.”
Indeed, Trump was already complaining about the result before polls had even closed, posting to his Truth Social account that it was “SO RIDICULOUS” that Democrats and independents are allowed to vote in the primary. (Registered Democrats are not allowed to vote in the primary.)
“BUT WORD IS WE ARE DOING REALLY WELL!!!” Trump nevertheless insisted.
In subsequent posts on social media—made after New Hampshire was called and Haley spoke—Trump continued to fume about his victory, exclaiming “DELUSIONAL!” in reference to his rival. “Haley said she had to WIN in New Hampshire. She didn’t!!!”
Onstage in front of a cheering crowd in Nashua later, Trump told several lies—such as claiming he won New Hampshire in the 2016 and 2020 general elections even though he lost both times—but one lie particularly stood out: that he wasn’t mad.
“I don’t get mad,” he said. “I get even.”
He is incapable of taking the win and being magnanimous toward the loser. I watched a bit of Trump’s speech with the sound off. The most striking part was Tim Scott of South Carolina grinning maniacally right behind Trump–obviously this was designed by Trump to humiliate both Scott and Haley (Haley appointed Scott to the Senate).
Winslow Homer, The Bridle Path, White Mountains, 1868
More on Trump’s reaction to the results from Politico Playbook:
He rage-posted about her speech in real time on Truth Social. “DELUSIONAL!!!” he wrote. When he came on stage at his own event 30 miles south in Nashua, he could barely contain his anger. Gone was the sunny Trump of Iowa caucus night who magnanimously praised his defeated rivals.
Trump began his remarks with a falsehood. He claimed to have won New Hampshire in both the primaries and the general election. Nope: HILLARY CLINTON beat him there in 2016 and JOE BIDEN won in 2020. This was a particularly noteworthy claim at the top given the subject of his remarks: the fact that Haley did “a speech like she won” even though she lost by 11 points.
“This is not your typical victory speech,” he warned, and he was right. As the clear victor, he had one job: ignore Haley and focus on Biden and the general election. But he couldn’t let it go.
He attacked her as unelectable. He suggested New Hampshire Gov. CHRIS SUNUNU uses drugs (“He’s got to be on something”). He hinted darkly that she would be under investigation (“a little stuff that she doesn’t want to talk about”). He even mocked her outfit (“the fancy dress that probably wasn’t so fancy”)
Josephine Harvey at HuffPost: Sen. Tim Scott Said 4 Words To Trump That Made People Cringe To Their Cores.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) left critics cringing on Tuesday with a stunning display of sycophancy to former President Donald Trump.
The senator, who dropped out of the GOP presidential race in November, was one of two former candidates onstage with Trump in Nashua to celebrate his victory over Nikki Haley in the New Hampshire primary.
In 2012, when she was governor of South Carolina, Haley appointed Scott, then a member of the House of Representatives, to his Senate seat to replace retiring Sen. Jim DeMint.
“Did you ever think that she actually appointed you, Tim?” Trump said of Haley during his speech. “And you’re the senator of her state. And [you] endorsed me.”
“You must really hate her,” he added.
Scott, who had been standing behind Trump, approached the mic and said: “I just love you.”
“That’s why he’s a great politician!” Trump said.
Trump: You’re the Senator of his state. She endorsed me. You must really hate her
Scott to Trump: I just love you pic.twitter.com/fwo60526nK
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 24, 2024
Read Twitter reactions at HuffPost.
At Public Notice, Noah Berlatsky writes: Why Republicans are (still) humiliating themselves for Trump.
With close to 90 percent of the vote counted early Wednesday morning evening, Donald Trump had beaten Nikki Haley by just over 10 points in the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary.
For Haley, that margin is a victory of sorts, since she was further behind in polls and finished a weak third in Iowa. But a moral victory isn’t enough….
Trump has long had a commanding lead in the polls. But even with Haley still in the race, prominent Republicans are rushing to anoint him and remove all doubt about who leads the party.
Melissa Anne Miller, View from the Studio after a Light Snow
Primary rivals entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott— the last actually appointed by Haley — all endorsed Trump. So did Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, a think tank which had been one of the big conservative institutions backing DeSantis. Texas Sen. John Cornyn immediately endorsed Trump following his New Hampshire victory.
“I have seen enough,” Cornyn tweeted, hopping on the MAGA bandwagon before it becomes too late to get credit for it. Even Republican National Committee (NRC) Chair Ronna McDaniel went on Fox News late Tuesday and all but endorsed Trump by urging Haley to get out of the race.
Trump’s consolidation of Republican support isn’t exactly a surprise. But it’s a chilling reaffirmation that the GOP is his party, and stands for what he stands for — authoritarianism, cruelty, election denial, corruption, criminality, conspiracy theories, and mob-style threats like the one Trump made against Haley during his unhinged New Hampshire victory speech.
Since Trump’s ascent in 2015, Republican rivals and critics have repeatedly been forced to come crawling back to him on their bellies, begging forgiveness and humiliating themselves.
During the 2016 campaign, Trump suggested that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s wife was ugly and (utterly without evidence of any kind) accused Cruz’s father of being involved in JFK’s assassination. Cruz said then that Trump was a “bully” and “pathological liar.” Yet, this year he “enthusiastically” endorsed Trump.
Cornyn, Ohio Sen. JD Vance (who once called Trump “America’s Hitler”) and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham have all performed similar reversals.
Even Haley, who has sharpened her rhetoric against Trump in recent weeks as he’s crudely insulted her and hit her with birther smears, has indicated she’ll support Trump if he’s the Republican nominee.
Read more at the PN link.
From Mark Alesia and Alexandria Jacobson at Raw Story:
Even by the standards of Donald Trump, the former president spent the past week in New Hampshire unloading extreme rhetoric against Nikki Haley.
And even though Trump managed to spew racism, fascism and cruelty in his remarks and social media posts, New Hampshire didn’t punish him, giving him a convincing victory over Haley in Tuesday’s primary.
Here’s some of what Trump said in New Hampshire:
— After a man at a Trump rally Monday shouted, “12 years of Trump”: “You’re right. Don’t say that too loud. … You know they love to call me a fascist.”
— Widely seen as a racist dog whistle, Trump referred to Haley’s birth name of Nimarata as “Nimrada.”
— “You know I’ve been indicted more than Al Capone. You ever heard of Al Capone? Probably the greatest mobster of them all.”
— Speaking about former President Jimmy Carter, 99, who is in hospice care: “He’s happy because his presidency is now considered brilliant in comparison to Joe Biden.”
— On the media: “These are sick people. We have to straighten out our free press.”
— Trump’s reaction to the notion that Haley would be stronger in the general election against President Joe Biden: “BIRDBRAIN HAS BEEN LYING ABOUT THIS, AND MANY OTHER THINGS, FOR WEEKS. SHE CAN’T BEAT THE DEMS.”
— “Nikki Haley, I know well. Sadly, she’s made an unholy alliance with the RHINOS, the never-Trumpers … the globalists, the radical left communists.”
— “Nikki Haley is using radical Democrat money to fund the radical Democrat campaign operation that she’s running.”
— Reacting to a person who said, “Free the J6ers”: “We will.” He also referred to the jailed lawbreakers from the January 6 insurrection as “hostages.”
A couple of journalists wrote about growing red flags for Trump.
Sam Stein and Natalie Allison at Politico: Donald Trump has a big problem ahead.
Donald Trump has a problem no matter what happens in New Hampshire on Tuesday night: There’s a whole swath of the Republican electorate and a good chunk of independents who appear firmly committed to not voting for him in November if he becomes the nominee.
It’s an issue that became starkly apparent in polling ahead of the Iowa caucuses, when an NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll of voters in that state found that fully 43 percent of Nikki Haley supporters said they would back President Joe Biden over Trump. And it’s a dynamic that has been on vivid display as the campaign shifted this week to New Hampshire.
“I can’t vote for Trump. He’s a crook. He’s too corrupt,” said Scott Simeone, 64, an independent voter from Amherst, who backed Trump in 2016 and 2020. “I voted for him, and I didn’t realize he’s as corrupt as he is.”
Primary elections can create intra-party divisions that, in the moment, seem impossible to heal. In 2008, a bloc of Hillary Clinton supporters started the PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) movement as a threat to never back Barack Obama after that bruising primary. Bernie Sanders’ supporters vowed to never support Clinton eight years later. In 2016, Trump himself faced pushback to his nomination all the way up to the convention floor.
But 2024 is different. Trump is not making his pitch to voters as a first time candidate. He is a known quantity who is being judged by the electorate not for the conduct of his current campaign so much as his time in office. And that, political veterans warn, makes it much harder for him to win back the people he’s alienated, including those once willing to vote Republican.
The data supports the idea that there are problems ahead for the former president. Even before the Iowa survey, a New York Times/Siena College poll found that — including independents who say they lean toward one party over the other — Biden had slightly more support among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (91 percent) than Trump did among Republicans and GOP-leaning independents (86 percent).
That’s far from a majority of Republicans preparing to pass on Trump in November. But in a close election, it could be enough to tip the scales for Democrats. At a minimum, it is a major liability for the GOP should the party, as expected, push Trump through as its nominee.
I can’t believe they reference PUMA!
Aaron Blake at The Washington Post: Trump’s increasing flubs risk blunting big polling edge on mental sharpness.
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