By Berthe Morisot, 1873
“Scranton is a place that climbs in your heart, and it never leaves,” Biden said. “For me it was 2446 North Washington Avenue.”
Wednesday Reads
Posted: April 17, 2024 Filed under: Corrupt and Political SCOTUS, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, just because, Media, The Media SUCKS | Tags: Biden's wardrobe, Fischer v. United States, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Melania Trump, mob violence, obstruction, Russian propaganda, Sen. Tom Cotton, Supreme Court, the NEW York Times, Trump NYC criminal trial 7 CommentsGood Morning!!
Reading Woman Daydreaming, by Henri Matisse
Those of us who are hanging onto hope that U.S. democracy can still be saved must not only fight Republicans, but also powerful media organizations, especially The New York Times and The Washington Post.
If you follow social media, you’ve undoubtedly seen people mocking New York Times headlines that suggest any good news for Biden is actually negative–along the lines of “The economy is booming–why that’s bad for Biden.”
Despite the fact that news organizations will certainly be persecuted by a second Trump administration, it really appears that at least the wealthy people in charge want another Trump presidency because they believe it will help their bottom line. Working journalists are facing layoffs these days, so perhaps fear of losing their jobs makes them willing to do their bosses’ bidding.
Right now, as Trump faces a historic criminal trial, the Times and Washington Post continue to publish gossipy lightweight stories.
David Kurtz writes in the TPM Morning Memo about a piece in the NYT yesterday on Melania Trump: NYT Is Said To Have Learned Nothing From Its Trump I Coverage.
Yesterday’s NYT apologia for Melania Trump was laugh-out-loud funny, by which I mean so, so bad. Reminiscent of its much-mocked coverage of Javanka during Trump I, the piece had all the usual hallmarks of NYT toadyism.
Let’s start with the passive-voice headline: “Melania Trump Avoids the Courtroom, but Is Said to Share Her Husband’s Anger”
“Said to” is one of the great journalistic sophistries. It does so much apparent work with so little actual effort.
What is this awkward headline construction meant to convey? That despite all her heartache over the Stormy Daniels affair, Melania, too, is outraged (OUTRAGED!) over Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s wrongful criminal prosecution of her husband.
How does the NYT know this? So glad you asked!
Melania hasn’t said anything publicly about her supposed outrage. She hasn’t attended legal proceedings with Trump. She hasn’t been by his side at the trial.
But wait! She’s has purportedly spoken “in private” about her feelings.
It’s the classic dipsy-do of the Javanka coverage: Why take any risk of speaking publicly when you can launder it through the NYT. We are never so courageous as we are in our private musings.
But how is the NYT privy to Melania’s private thoughts and comments?
The sourcing: “according to several people familiar with her thinking.” Yes! Bravo! It’s self serving on top of self serving, with two degrees of separation to play it safe.
Why are these “people familiar” granted anonymity? Because they can’t speak publicly “out of fear of jeopardizing a personal relationship with the Trumps.” Perfect! These brave truth-tellers are risking so much – by which I mean, so little – to get their essential truths out into the public sphere.
Here’s the nugget of “reporting” around which the entire article is built:
But Mrs. Trump, the former first lady, shares his view that the trial itself is unfair, according to several people familiar with her thinking.
In private, she has called the proceedings “a disgrace” tantamount to election interference, according to a person with direct knowledge of her comments who could not speak publicly out of fear of jeopardizing a personal relationship with the Trumps.
The rest of the piece is a filament of speculation, pop psychology, knowing winks about cliched relationship tropes, and lazy stereotypes about wives and mothers – all in service of trying to wring a drop of compassion from readers for the private turmoil that comes with being married to DJT.
Read the rest at TPM. But really, who the hell cares what Melania thinks? As the back of her famous jacket read, “I really don’t care, do u?”
Albert Reuss 1889-1975, Woman Reading
Another lightweight story from yesterday’s New York Times by style critic Guy Trebay (at least, I guess it’s favorable to Biden): The Biden Guide to Dressing Younger.
Joe Biden is a dapper guy. He always has been. When he turned up decades ago for a first date with the woman who would become his wife and the country’s first lady, her gut reaction was, “This is never going to work, not in a million years.”
Dressed in a sports coat and loafers, Joe Biden was too dapper for someone who had previously gone out with men in T-shirts and clogs.
They worked it out. And the future president stuck to his style. It was one that sometimes skewed Gatsby, for which in 1974 Washingtonian magazine noted his penchant for pinstripe suits and tasseled loafers when citing him as one of the best dressed men in the Senate. It was one that was sometimes too high-toned for its setting. In 1979, Mr. Biden, then a second-term senator, exuded confidence in a “tailored suit and expensive tie” for a campus speech at the University of Alabama, The New Yorker later reported.
It was one that, on occasion, even threatened to upstage the boss. Yes, it must have been flattering to be praised by The Chicago Tribune as the “best-dressed guy” at Bill Clinton’s 2000 State of the Union address. Politically, however, it was not the best look.
Still, dapper cred has stood President Biden in good stead. When Donald J. Trump, now 77, derides his 81-year-old opponent as doddering Uncle Joe, he is missing a point any tailor would be happy to clarify. There is getting old, and there is looking old. To avoid having your clothes add unnecessary years, make style your friend.
“Joe Biden’s style is timeless and doesn’t have any expiration date,” the designer Todd Snyder said recently. If you think that is accidental, you are not paying attention.
Meanwhile, Trump is a dumpy old guy in baggy suits and extra long ties who claims Biden has dementia, an obvious projection.
A campaign story from Clive Wootson, Jr. at The Washington Post: Scranton vs. Mar-a-Lago: Biden turns sharply to populism.
SCRANTON — President Biden’s schedulers did not publicly announce his second stop Tuesday during his visit to his hometown, but it came as little surprise that he’d end up at the gray house with black shutters where he spent the earliest years of his life. He even nodded to the visit in a speech that mixed his biography with his thoughts on tax policy.
But the trip was about more than sentiment during the first day of Biden’s three-day swing through this pivotal battleground state. He leaned into populist anger against the rich and worries of a world weighted against the middle class as he sought to draw distinctions between himself and his likely Republican opponent in November, Donald Trump.
“All I knew about people like Trump is that they looked down on us,” Biden told the crowd in his childhood town, contrasting his upbringing with Trump’s frequent visits to his resort in Palm Beach, Fla. “They wouldn’t let us into their homes and their country clubs. When I look at the economy, I look at it through the eyes of Scranton, not through the eyes of Mar-a-Lago.”
Biden will further stress that contrast Wednesday when he travels to Pittsburgh to address the United Steelworkers and unveil a raft of new trade protections for the steel industry. The president will call for a tripling of the 7.5 percent tariff on Chinese steel imports, as well as increased pressure to prevent China from shipping steel to America through Mexican ports….
The actions are just the latest sign of the president’s determination to be seen as a defender of American workers like those in the steel industry, whose employees are spread across states in the industrial Midwest, the so-called “blue wall” that could decide Biden’s political fate in November.
In making the argument, he has leaned into his middle-class upbringing, including the years he spent in Scranton, which he portrays as a scrappy, working-class town. He argues that Trump, on the other hand, is a billionaire who lives in a gilded club in Florida and would bolster other billionaires, the very people who have had an unfair advantage for too long.
Again, I guess at least it’s favorable to Biden.
In the News Today:
A serious piece from Mark Joseph Stern at Slate Magazine: Hundreds of Jan. 6 Prosecutions—Including Donald Trump’s—Are Suddenly in Peril at the Supreme Court.
Will the Supreme Court jeopardize the prosecution of more than 350 defendants involved with Jan. 6, including Donald Trump, by gutting the federal statute that prohibits their unlawful conduct? Maybe so. Tuesday’s oral arguments in Fischer v. United States were rough sledding for the government, as the conservative justices lined up to thwap Joe Biden’s Department of Justice for allegedly overreaching in its pursuit of Jan. 6 convictions. Six members of the court took turns wringing their hands over the application of a criminal obstruction law to the rioters, fretting that they faced overly harsh penalties for participating in the violent attack. Unmentioned but lurking in the background was Trump himself, who can wriggle out of two major charges against him with a favorable decision in this case.
There are, no doubt, too many criminal laws whose vague wording gives prosecutors near-limitless leeway to threaten citizens with decades in prison. But this isn’t one of them. Congress wrote a perfectly legible law and the overwhelming majority of judges have had no trouble applying it. It would be all too telling if the Supreme Court decides to pretend the statute is somehow too sweeping or jumbled to use as a tool of accountability for Jan. 6.
Start with the obstruction law itself, known as Section 1552(c), which Congress enacted to close loopholes that Enron exploited to impede probes into its misconduct. The provision is remarkably straightforward—a far cry from the ambiguous, sloppy, or muddled laws that typically flummox the judiciary. It’s a mainstay of the Department of Justice’s “Capitol siege” prosecutions, deployed in about a quarter of all cases. Overall, 350 people face charges under this statute, Trump among them, and the DOJ has used it to secure the convictions of about 150 rioters. It targets anyone who “corruptly … obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so.” And it clarifies that an official proceeding includes “a proceeding before the Congress.”
A Woman Reading, by Pablo Picasso, 1920
The government argues that some rioters attempted to “obstruct” an “official proceeding” by halting the count of electoral votes through “corrupt” means. That includes Joseph Fischer, the defendant in the current case. Fischer, who served as a police officer before Jan. 6, allegedly texted that the protest “might get violent”; that “they should storm the capital and drag all the democrates [sic] into the street and have a mob trial”; and that protesters should “take democratic congress to the gallows,” because they “can’t vote if they can’t breathe..lol.” Video evidence shows Fischer assaulting multiple police officers on the afternoon of Jan. 6 after breaching the Capitol.
Would anyone seriously argue that this person did not attempt to corruptly obstruct an official proceeding? For a time, it seemed not: 14 of the 15 federal judges—all but Judge Carl Nichols in this case—considering the charge in various Jan. 6 cases agreed that it applied to violent rioters bent on stopping the electoral count. So did every judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit except one, Judge Gregory Katsas. Both Nichols and Katsas were appointed by Trump. Their crusade to kneecap the law caught SCOTUS’ attention, and the court decided to intervene despite overwhelming consensus among lower court judges. The Supreme Court’s decision will have major implications for Trump: Two of the four charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith in the former president’s Jan. 6 prosecution revolve around this offense. A ruling that eviscerates the obstruction law would arguably cut out the heart of the indictment.
Stern writes that at least three justices–Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Samuel Alito appear likely to do that. Read the rest at Slate.
Catherine Belton at The Washington Post: Secret Russian foreign policy document urges action to weaken the U.S.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry has been drawing up plans to try to weaken its Western adversaries, including the United States, and leverage the Ukraine war to forge a global order free from what it sees as American dominance, according to a secret Foreign Ministry document.
In a classified addendum to Russia’s official — and public — “Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation,” the ministry calls for an “offensive information campaign” and other measures spanning “the military-political, economic and trade and informational psychological spheres” against a “coalition of unfriendly countries” led by the United States.
“We need to continue adjusting our approach to relations with unfriendly states,” states the 2023 document, which was provided to The Washington Post by a European intelligence service. “It’s important to create a mechanism for finding the vulnerable points of their external and internal policies with the aim of developing practical steps to weaken Russia’s opponents.”
The document for the first time provides official confirmation and codification of what many in the Moscow elite say has become a hybrid war against the West. Russia is seeking to subvert Western support for Ukraine and disrupt the domestic politics of the United States and European countries, through propaganda campaigns supporting isolationist and extremist policies, according to Kremlin documents previously reported on by The Post. It is also seeking to refashion geopolitics, drawing closer to China, Iran and North Korea in an attempt to shift the current balance of power.
Using much tougher and blunter language than the public foreign policy document, the secret addendum, dated April 11, 2023, claims that the United States is leading a coalition of “unfriendly countries” aimed at weakening Russia because Moscow is “a threat to Western global hegemony.” The document says the outcome of Russia’s war in Ukraine will “to a great degree determine the outlines of the future world order,” a clear indication that Moscow sees the result of its invasion as inextricably bound with its ability — and that of other authoritarian nations — to impose its will globally.
Albert Reuss, Lady Reading a Book
The Russians have clearly succeeded in subverting much of the Republican Party. Right now, far right Republicans are talking about getting rid of House Speaker Mike Johnson because he appears to be trying to pass some military aid for Ukraine.
The Washington Post: Momentum builds to oust Johnson from House speakership.
House Speaker Mike Johnson’s job is in serious jeopardy as two far-right lawmakers are threatening to oust him after the embattled Republican leader proposed a complex plan intended to fund key foreign allies during wartime.
Lazy Caturday Reads
Posted: April 13, 2024 Filed under: just because | Tags: abortion, election interference, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Hush money, Mar-a-Lago, Trump finances, Trump NY criminal trial, Truth Social 7 Comments
Katsushika Hokusai, A view of Mt Vesuvius with fat cats
Happy Caturday!!
Today’s cat art comes from Svetlata Petrova’s Fat Cat Art website. As you probably recall, Petrova inserts her now deceased orange cat into famous works of art.
As if we didn’t have enough to worry about in the Middle East, it appears there’s a danger of open conflict between Israel and Iran. Here’s the latest.
Reuters: Iran seizes cargo ship in Strait of Hormuz after threats to close waterway
DUBAI, April 13 (Reuters) – Iran’s Revolutionary Guards seized an Israeli-linked cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, days after Tehran said it could close the crucial shipping route and warned it would retaliate for an Israeli strike on its Syria consulate.
Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported that a Guards helicopter had boarded and taken into Iranian waters the Portuguese flagged MSC Aries, saying it was linked to Israel.
MSC, which operates the Aries, confirmed Iran had seized the ship and said it was working “with the relevant authorities” for its safe return and the wellbeing of its 25 crew.
MSC leases the Aries from Gortal Shipping, an affiliate of Zodiac Maritime, Zodiac said in a statement, adding that MSC is responsible for all the vessel’s activities. Zodiac is partly owned by Israeli businessman Eyal Ofer.
Video on Iranian news channels purporting to show the seizure included a figure abseiling from a helicopter on to a ship. Reuters was able to verify that the ship in the video was the MSC Aries but not the date it was recorded.
The incident comes amid rising regional tensions since the start of Israel’s campaign in Gaza in October, with Israel or its ally the United States clashing repeatedly with Iranian-aligned groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
Iran has threatened to retaliate for suspected Israeli airstrikes on its consulate in Syria’s capital Damascus on April 1 that killed seven Revolutionary Guards officers including two senior commander
A bit more from NBC News:
The move could escalate tension in a region reeling from the war in Gaza and a recent strike, suspected to have been carried out by Israel, that killed senior Iranian military officers. Since Hamas’ Oct. 7 deadly terror attack and mass hostage taking and Israel’s subsequent fullscale assault on the Gaza Strip, more than 33,000 people have died and 75,000 others have been injured.
Van Gogh’s The Siesta, with fat cats
And attacks by Iran-backed Houthi militants on ships in the Red Sea have already rocked global trade as several major shipping lines and oil transporters suspended their services through the waterway.
As companies avoid the Suez Canal, which feeds into the Red Sea, and opt instead to go around Africa to get to the Indian Ocean, it can add up to 14 days to a shipping route, incurring higher fuel costs. And since ships take a longer time to get to their destinations, delays in container and commodity deliveries are inevitable.
IRNA stated that the Portuguese-flagged ship was operated by the Zodiac shipping company, which is part of Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer’s Zodiac Group. Zodiac said in a statement that the ship is managed and operated by the U.K.-based shipping company, MSC, which confirmed on Saturday that the MSC Aries has been “boarded by Iranian authorities via via helicopter.” The shipping company also said there were 25 crew members onboard and that it is working with “relevant authorities” to ensure their safety….
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency said on X that the MSC Aries had been seized 50 nautical miles northeast of the Fujairah, an area close to the Strait of Hormuz that forms the entrance to the Persian Gulf.
David Ignatius at The Washington Post: Opinion–The Middle East is on the precipice of the wider war no one wants.
The Biden administration is using every diplomatic and military tool to contain what officials expect will be an imminent Iranian reprisal attack against Israel — in the hope that U.S. pressure can keep the conflict from escalating into a regionwide catastrophe.
A bit more:
The Iranians have responded through the Swiss, as recently as Wednesday, that they don’t want a confrontation with the United States. Tehran has sent the same message through China and other nations that have been passing messages.
“Iran has to respond, but it will be contained,” is how one source described the Iranian messages that have been sent through diplomatic channels. But U.S. officials worry that these reassurances might not be reliable — and that once direct conflict begins, it could move in unpredictable and dangerous ways.
The tension within the administration was palpable Friday as the window opened for expected Iranian action. The wider war that the White House has sought to avoid since Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack and Israel’s devastating response seemed possible within hours. “Praying that things stay calm,” one Israeli official messaged me.
This is not good.
Here in the U.S., we are still dealing with narcissistic psychopath Trump and his Republican supporters in the House. Speaker Mike Johnson is refusing to bring Ukraine military aid to a vote and increasing the danger that Russia will crush Ukraine and move to attack other European countries.
BBC News: Ukraine could face defeat in 2024. Here’s how that might look.
The former commander of the UK’s Joint Forces Command has warned that Ukraine could face defeat by Russia in 2024.
General Sir Richard Barrons has told the BBC there is “a serious risk” of Ukraine losing the war this year.
The reason, he says, is “because Ukraine may come to feel it can’t win”.
“And when it gets to that point, why will people want to fight and die any longer, just to defend the indefensible?”
Ukraine is not yet at that point.
But its forces are running critically low on ammunition, troops and air defences. Its much-heralded counter-offensive last year failed to dislodge the Russians from ground they had seized and now Moscow is gearing up for a summer offensive.
So what will that look like and what are its likely strategic objectives?
“The shape of the Russian offensive that’s going to come is pretty clear,” says Gen Barrons.
“We are seeing Russia batter away at the front line, employing a five-to-one advantage in artillery, ammunition, and a surplus of people reinforced by the use of newish weapons.”
These include the FAB glide bomb, an adapted Soviet-era “dumb bomb” fitted with fins, GPS guidance and 1500kg of high explosive, that is wreaking havoc on Ukrainian defences.
Scene from Hieronymus Bosch’s Temptation of St. Anthony
“At some point this summer,” says Gen Barrons, “we expect to see a major Russian offensive, with the intent of doing more than smash forward with small gains to perhaps try and break through the Ukrainian lines.
“And if that happens we would run the risk of Russian forces breaking through and then exploiting into areas of Ukraine where the Ukrainian armed forces cannot stop them.”
But where?
Last year the Russians knew exactly where Ukraine was likely to attack – from the direction of Zaporizhzhia south towards the Sea of Azov. They planned accordingly and successfully blunted Ukraine’s advance.
Now the boot is on the other foot as Russia masses its troops and keeps Kyiv guessing where it is going to attack next.
Russian Forces are deploying a new, long-range cruise missile, known as the Kh-69, as it steps up attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
The Washington DC-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), noted in its Friday report that the new air-to-surface missiles were part of Russia’s “continued efforts to improve strike packages and penetrate Ukraine’s degraded air defense.”
Russia has renewed its attacks against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in recent weeks, exploiting Kyiv’s dwindling air defense systems.
“We need air defense systems and other defense assistance, not just turning a blind eye and having lengthy discussions,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X.
The post was in response to a Russian missile attack overnight on April 11 that destroyed the Trypillia Thermal Power Plant. The plant is one of the primary energy suppliers to Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. The plant was hit by the new Kh-69 missiles, according to the Ukrainian military.
“ISW has not previously observed the Russian use of Kh-69 missiles in Ukraine,” it said.
“Russian forces have reportedly launched Kh-69 missiles from 400 kilometers away from their targets, exceeding a previous estimated range of 300 kilometers and the 200-kilometer range of the most recent Kh-59MK2 variant,” wrote the ISW.
Johnson is now talking about a “compromise” method for passing Ukraine aid. He’s terrified of the far right House members, even though an aid bill would easily pass without their votes. The New York Times: Johnson Floats Voting on Senate Ukraine Bill, With Conservative Policies as Sweeteners.
Shortly after congressional leaders met with Japan’s prime minister in Speaker Johnson’s ceremonial office in the Capitol on Thursday morning, the conversation turned to Ukraine aid.
Mr. Johnson was in the middle of another agonizing standoff with the ultraconservatives in his conference, after they had blocked legislation to extend a major warrantless surveillance law that is about to expire. His chief Republican antagonist, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, had intensified her threat to oust him. But on Ukraine, he offered his counterparts an assurance.
Henri Rousseau, Tyger’s Dream with fat cat
His comments, confirmed by multiple people familiar with the meeting, were consistent with what Mr. Johnson has been saying for weeks, both publicly and privately: that he intends to ensure the House will move to assist Ukraine, a step that many members of his party oppose.
Even as right-wing Republicans have sought to ratchet up pressure on their speaker, Mr. Johnson has continued to search for a way to win the votes to push through a Ukraine aid. He is battling not only stiff resistance to the idea among House Republicans, but also mounting opposition among Democrats to sending unfettered military aid to Israel given the soaring civilian death toll and humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza….
Mr. Johnson earlier this month floated bringing up the $95 billion emergency national security spending package for Ukraine and Israel passed by the Senate in February — and moving it through the House in tandem with a second bill containing policies endorsed by the conservative wing of his party, according to people familiar with the discussions.
That plan envisioned two consecutive votes — one on the Senate-passed bill, and another on a package of sweeteners geared toward mollifying Republicans who otherwise would be infuriated by Mr. Johnson’s decision to push through a bipartisan aid package for Ukraine. The second bill could include the REPO Act, which would pay for some of the aid by selling off Russian sovereign assets that have been frozen, as well as a measure forcing President Biden to reverse a moratorium on new permits for liquefied natural gas export facilities. It could also include some kind of border security measure.
Meanwhile, Johnson traveled to Mar-a-Lago yesterday to kiss Trump’s ring. ABC News: Trump holds Mar-a-Lago joint appearance with Johnson amid speakership threat.
Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson appeared together Friday at the former president’s Florida estate, a show of unity as the embattled Johnson faces a threat to his leadership.
“He’s doing a really good job under very tough circumstances and I appreciate that he came to Mar-a-Lago,” Trump said of Johnson.
William Holman Hunt, The Awakening of CATscience
The focus of their joint appearance was on what they call “election integrity” — a chief priority for Trump, who continues to lie about the results of the 2020 presidential race. Trump’s attention on the issue comes in an election year when there is expected to be another tight matchup against President Joe Biden.
Johnson, who was one of the 147 GOP lawmakers who voted to overturn the results of the 2020 election, said Friday congressional Republicans will introduce legislation to require people who register to vote in a federal election to prove that they are an American citizen.
As he outlined the proposal, Johnson made several false claims about noncitizens voting in elections — repeating assertions Trump has made in recent days.
Both leaders also used the opportunity to continue to slam President Joe Biden and Democrats over their handling of the southern border, with Johnson falsely stating that they wanted to turn migrants crossing the border illegally into voters, claiming that they could sway the November presidential election.
It is already a felony for non-citizens to vote in the U.S., even though Trump pretends otherwise. CNN: Fact checking Trump and Johnson’s election integrity announcement.
Former President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson raised concerns Friday about the integrity of US elections in a joint appearance at Mar-a-Lago that featured false claims about voting, immigration and other topics.
Trump’s team billed the event as being about “election integrity”– a phrase he often uses to describe the lie that the 2020 election was rigged, as well as his unfounded claims about future mass voter fraud….
House Speaker Mike Johnson raised baseless concerns about “potentially hundreds of thousands of votes” being cast by undocumented immigrants in the November presidential election.
“If an individual only asserts or simply states that they are a citizen, they don’t have to prove it, and they can register that person to vote in a federal election,” Johnson said, adding that “we only want US citizens to vote in US elections.”
To solve this issue, which he called a “serious problem,” Johnson said House Republicans would propose a bill that requires people to directly provide proof of US citizenship when registering to vote for federal elections.
Facts First: The system, as it is currently set up, is working, and effectively prevents mass voting by non-citizens in US elections. Despite Johnson’s focus on this topic, it is extremely rare, according to decades of voting data and nonpartisan experts. It’s so uncommon that voting experts don’t see it as a problem plaguing US elections.
In federal and state elections, where voting by non-citizens is illegal, it occurs on a microscopic level. (It’s true that a handful of municipalities have passed laws letting non-citizens participate in local elections, like for school board. But this wasn’t the focus of Johnson’s concerns about federal elections.)
When people register to vote, they must provide a driver’s license or social security number, and their identity is checked against existing databases. Voters are required to swear under penalty of perjury that they are a US citizen, and multiple federal laws make it illegal for non-citizens to vote, which can lead to imprisonment or deportation.
This system, as shown from decades of data, is very effective at stopping non-citizens from registering and voting in federal elections.
“It happens almost never,” said David Becker, founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research. “Making something illegal doesn’t stop it from happening, but we know how often it happens, and it’s extremely rare. This is a problem that is very small. And it has almost always occurred because of a misunderstanding.”
At least we can look forward to Trump having to sit in court next week for his criminal election interference trial after his last frivolous effort to get the case dismissed failed. AP: Judge declines to delay Trump’s NY hush money trial over complaints of pretrial publicity.
The judge in Donald Trump’s hush money criminal case on Friday turned down the former president’s request to postpone his trial because of publicity about the case.
It’s the latest in a string of delay denials that Trump has gotten from various courts this week as he fights to stave off the trial’s start Monday with jury selection.
After Van Gogh, Catcher in the Irises
Among other things, Trump’s lawyers had argued that the jury pool was deluged with what the defense saw as “exceptionally prejudicial” news coverage of the case. The defense maintained that was a reason to hold off the case indefinitely.
Judge Juan M. Merchan wrote that Trump “appears to take the position that his situation and this case are unique and that the pre-trial publicity will never subside. However, this view does not align with reality.”
Pointing to Trump’s two federal defamation trials and a state civil fraud trial in Manhattan within the past year, Merchan wrote that the ex-president himself “was personally responsible for generating much, if not most, of the surrounding publicity with his public statements” outside those courtrooms and on social media.
“The situation Defendant finds himself in now is not new to him and at least in part, of his own doing,” the judge added. He said questioning of prospective jurors would address any concerns about their ability to be fair and impartial.
Michael Gold, Jonah E. Bromwich, and Ben Protess at The New York Times: Trump Says He Intends to Testify in His Manhattan Criminal Case.
Donald J. Trump, having failed to fend off a criminal trial in Manhattan that begins on Monday, said that he planned to testify in the case stemming from a hush-money payment to a porn star.
Taking questions Friday from reporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., Mr. Trump, when asked whether he would take the stand, responded that he would.
“I’m testifying. I tell the truth,” he said, standing just off a sunny patio of the private club with Speaker Mike Johnson behind him. “I mean, all I can do is tell the truth. And the truth is that there’s no case. They have no case.”
That is highly unlikely, but NYT reporters prefer stenography to actual reporting.
Despite Mr. Trump’s comments, it is far from a sure thing that he will testify. Instead, his comments initiate a familiar two-step: It will not be clear whether the former president will take the stand until the moment he actually does.
Mr. Trump will most likely wait to see whether the prosecution presents a strong case — and whether the judge presiding over the trial plans to restrict prosecutors’ efforts to cross-examine him, according to people with knowledge of his planning.
In past cases, Mr. Trump has wavered after saying that he would testify, including during his civil fraud trial last year, when he canceled his defense testimony the day before he was scheduled to take the stand.
When he was called to testify by the New York attorney general’s office, which filed the case, it did not go well. The judge in the case, who found Mr. Trump liable for conspiring to inflate his net worth, criticized the former president for not answering directly and questioned his credibility.
Testifying in a criminal case would be even riskier. In the trial scheduled to start next week, Mr. Trump is for the first time facing the threat of criminal conviction. He will be at a disadvantage with a jury in Manhattan, a heavily Democratic county.
And Trump is still in trouble financially.
Lloyd Green at The Guardian: For all his bombast, Trump is plummeting – financially, legally and politically.
Donald Trump is doing his best Wizard of Oz imitation. These days, Trump is not looking like the “winner” he needs voters to believe him to be. Like the title character in L Frank Baum’s 1900 children’s fantasy and the 1939 movie, there is less there than meets the eye. The 45th president’s lead in the polls evaporates while his cash stash shrinks.
His upcoming felony fraud trial in Manhattan looms. For the record, he is zero for three in his bids to adjourn the trial, and lawyers are expensive.
At the same time, the stock price of Trump Media & Technology Group – his eponymous meme stock, DJT – has plummeted this week. “DJT stock is down again,” announced Barron’s on Thursday. “Trump’s stake in Truth Social parent has taken a hit.”
Elsewhere a headline blared: “Trump’s ‘DJT’ stock dives to lowest close since Ron DeSantis dropped out”. Reminder, Trump is a guy whose businesses are no stranger to bankruptcy or allegations of fraud. He leaves wreckage in his wake.
The spirit of Trump University remains alive. Like life in Oz, so much in Trump World is illusory.
Meanwhile, Trump’s attempts to bond New York state’s $454m judgment have run into a legal roadblock. The purported bond posted to avoid enforcement pending appeal may be legally insufficient. Letitia James, the state’s attorney general, demands clarification. Whether the paperwork will be sustained will be decided at a court hearing later this month.
If the court finds the bond to be insufficient or invalid, James may be able to immediately seek to collect what the state is owed. Financial humiliation set against the backdrop of the campaign is something that Trump can ill afford.
For the record, he has already posted a $91m bond to stave off enforcement in the second E Jean Carroll defamation case. His assets are getting tied up, his liquidity ebbs. To him, image is almost everything.
To push or not to push? Rene Magritte, Memory of a Journey with fat cat
Green next addresses Trump’s political problems because of the abortion issue.
At the same time, abortion has re-emerged as a campaign issue, to the horror of the presumptive Republican nominee and his minions. The death of Roe v Wade cost the Republican party its “red wave” in the 2022 midterms. This time, it may lead to another Trump loss and Hakeem Jeffries of Queens wielding the speaker’s gavel in the US House of Representatives.
Hell hath no fury like suburban moms and their daughters. The last thing they need is a thrice-married libertine seventysomething with a penchant for adult film stars and Playboy models telling them how to raise their kids or meddling in their personal lives.
When a guy who hawks Bibles for a side-hustle refuses to say whether any of his partners ever had an abortion, it’s time to roll your eyes and guard your wallet.
Read the rest at The Guardian.
As expected, Truth Social stock is tanking. Noah Kirsch at The Daily Beast: Truth Social Investors Try to Keep Hope Alive as Stock Tanks.
Donald Trump’s acolytes gathered at Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday evening to celebrate the public listing of his social media firm, even as the company’s stock continued to crater. Under the Palm Beach sky, right-wing radio host Sebastian Gorka sucked on a cigar, actor Jon Voight posed for photos, and country singer turned Bible salesman Lee Greenwood belted his runaway hit “God Bless the USA.” At the end of the song, he and the former president saluted.
In a speech, Trump encouraged investors to keep calm. “We have over $200 million dollars in cash, which is very liquid,” he said, according to a reporter from Right Side Broadcasting Network in attendance.
On Trump’s social media site, Truth Social, the mood is less ebullient. “Man I really thought we were gonna see a jump today. Especially after that party last night. There is always tomorrow,” one user lamented on Thursday morning.
“Doesn’t it seem strange that the price goes down steadily every day? Haven’t seen a green day for a while,” wondered another.
Shares of Truth Social’s parent company, Trump Media and Technology Group, have fallen more than 50 percent since late March, as the company’s dire financial position has become more clear. Last year, it brought in just $4.1 million in revenue and posted a $58.2 million loss.
Even after tanking, however, the business is still worth more than $4 billion on paper—a number that defies normal valuation metrics. Trump loyalists have helped keep the stock afloat as a way to financially support him, though TMTG remains heavily shorted by investors who believe its shares will continue to fall.
On Truth Social, retail investors are encouraging each other to keep the faith. “When the whole world is set on ruining you with everything that they have got, it’s a good sign that you are likely on the right side of things,” one person wrote on Thursday.
Another user sought to liken TMTG to high-growth tech companies: “I don’t understand all the concern about this stock going down. All of the big stocks were very low at the beginning,” the person said. “We are less than a month into this being an actual stock. I am optimistic about [Truth Social] and will continue to hold and keep buying when I can.”
Suckers.
That’s all I have for you today. Have a great weekend, everyone!!
Wednesday Reads: Abortion Politics: Be Enraged!
Posted: April 10, 2024 Filed under: 2024 Elections, 2024 presidential Campaign, A thread for Ranting, abortion rights, Donald Trump, just because | Tags: Abortion politics, Arizona Supreme Court, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, Florida, Roe v. Wade, States Rights 8 CommentsGood Day!!
I’m sure you’ve heard about the latest outrage from the woman-hating Arizona Supreme Court. If this law takes effect, women in the state will not be able to get an abortion unless they are at death’s door. If that means you can’t ever get pregnant again, too fucking bad. If you’re 12 years old and you’ve been raped and impregnated by your stepfather, tough shit. You’re carrying that fetus to term young lady, and you’d better not complain about it. Welcome to the post-Dobbs world. Never forget: Trump did this. For now, Republicans are pretending to have problems with this decision, but if Trump is elected and Republicans control Congress, this will likely be the law of the land.
The New York Times: Arizona Reinstates 160-Year-Old Abortion Ban.
Arizona’s highest court on Tuesday upheld an 1864 law that bans nearly all abortions, a decision that could have far-reaching consequences for women’s health care and election-year politics in a critical battleground state.
“Physicians are now on notice that all abortions, except those necessary to save a woman’s life, are illegal,” the court said in a 4-to-2 decision.
But the court, whose justices are all Republican appointees, also put its ruling on hold for the moment and sent the matter back to a lower court for additional arguments about the law’s constitutionality. Abortion providers said they expected to continue performing abortions through May as their lawyers and Democratic lawmakers searched for new legal arguments and additional tactics to delay the ruling.
The ruling immediately set off a political earthquake. Democrats condemned it as a “stain” on Arizona that would put women’s lives at risk. Several Republicans, sensing political peril, also criticized the ruling and called for the Republican-controlled Legislature to repeal it.
The decision from the Arizona Supreme Court concerned a law that was on the books long before Arizona achieved statehood. It outlaws abortion from the moment of conception, except when necessary to save the life of the mother, and it makes no exceptions for rape or incest. Doctors prosecuted under the law could face fines and prison terms of two to five years.
Planned Parenthood Arizona, the plaintiff, and other abortion-rights supporters argued that the 1864 ban, which had sat dormant for decades, had essentially been overtaken by years of subsequent Arizona laws regulating and limiting abortion — primarily, a 2022 law banning abortion after the 15th week of pregnancy.
But the territorial-era ban was never repealed. And the Arizona Supreme Court said Arizona’s Legislature had not created a right to abortion when it passed the 15-week ban. Because the federal right to abortion in Roe v. Wade had now been overturned, nothing in federal or state law prevented Arizona from enforcing the near-total ban, the court wrote.
“Because the federal constitutional right to abortion that overrode § 13-3603 no longer exists, the statute is now enforceable,” the court’s four-person majority wrote, using the statutory number of the 1864 ban.
Republicans are in trouble.
The Washington Post: ‘Catastrophic,’ ‘a shock’: Arizona’s abortion ruling threatens to upend 2024 races.
A near-total abortion ban slated to go into effect in the coming weeks in Arizona is expected to have a seismic impact on the politics of the battleground state, testing the limits of Republican support for abortion restrictions and putting the issue front and center in November’s election.
Arizona’s conservative Supreme Court on Tuesday revived a near-total ban on abortion, invoking an 1864 law that forbids the procedure except to save a mother’s life and punishes providers with prison time. The decision supersedes Arizona’s previous rule, which permitted abortions up to 15 weeks.
Elisabetta Sirani, Timoclea Killing Her Rapist, 1659
Arizonans are poised to consider the issue in November, now that the groups working to amend the state’s constitution to enshrine abortion rights — which include the ACLU of Arizona and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona — say that they have acquired enough signatures to establish a ballot measure, according to the Arizona Republic. Meanwhile, Republicans in the state are asking Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) and the Republican-led state legislature to come up with a solution.
The developments in Arizona are part of a wave of state actions to reckon with the future of access to reproductive care after the U.S. Supreme Court, with a conservative majority installed during Donald Trump’s presidency, overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. While several states enacted abortion restrictions as a result of overturning Roe, protecting access to reproductive care has broadly been a winning issue for Democratic candidates and for ballot measures that protect abortion access in the elections since the 2022 ruling.
As a battleground state, there is a lot on the line in Arizona’s looming elections. President Biden is running for reelection after winning the state in 2020 by fewer than 11,000 votes, and the race for a Senate seat in the state could prove crucial in determining which party controls the body next year. The balance of the statehouse is at stake this election cycle, too, with Republicans holding a one-vote majority in each chamber.
Polls show that abortion is a motivating issue for Arizona voters.
All of a sudden, Arizona Republicans are not so sure they like what’s happening, now that they got their wish to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The Guardian: Arizona Republicans denounce revived 1864 abortion ban in sudden reversal.
Hours after Arizona’s supreme court declared on Tuesday that a 160-year-old abortion ban is now enforceable, Republicans in the state took a surprising stance for a party that has historically championed abortion restrictions – they denounced the decision.
“This decision cannot stand,” said Matt Gress, a Republican state representative. “I categorically reject rolling back the clock to a time when slavery was still legal and we could lock up women and doctors because of an abortion.” [….]
“Today’s Arizona supreme court decision reinstating an Arizona territorial-era ban on all abortions from more than 150 years ago is disappointing to say the least,” said TJ Shope, a Republican state senator.
“I oppose today’s ruling,” added Kari Lake, a Republican running to represent Arizona in the US Senate and a Donald Trump loyalist. Lake called on the state legislature to “come up with an immediate commonsense solution that Arizonans can support”.
Lake has made multiple statements in support of the 1864 law, as Ron Filipkowski has been documenting on Twitter. Back to the Guardian article:
Since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, leading the GOP to stumble in the 2022 midterms and abortion rights supporters to win a string of ballot measures, including in purple and red states, Republicans have struggled to find a way to talk about abortion without turning off voters. But their response to the ruling on the 1864 ban may mark their fastest and strongest rebuke of abortion bans since Roe fell.
Scowling woman, by Hope Gangloff
“This is an earthquake that has never been seen in Arizona politics,” said Barrett Marson, a Republican consultant in Arizona, of the decision. “This will shake the ground under every Republican candidate, even those in safe legislative or congressional seats.” [….]
Some of the criticisms of the Tuesday ruling came from politicians who had previously supported the 1864 ban or cheered the end of Roe v Wade. Lake previously called the ban a “great law”, according to PolitiFact. David Schweikert, an Arizona congressman who is facing one of the most competitive House races in the country this November, said on Tuesday that he does not support the ruling and wants the state legislature to “address this issue immediately”, but in 2022 said the fall of Roe “pleased” him.
The speaker of the Arizona state house and the president of the state senate, who are both Republicans, also released a joint statement saying that they would be “listening to our constituents to determine the best course of action for the legislature”. In contrast, on the day Roe fell, the Republican-controlled state senate released a statement declaring that the 1864 ban was in effect immediately. That statement unleashed confusion and chaos among abortion providers in Arizona, prompting them to stop offering the procedure out of an abundance of caution.
Here’s an example of what goes on in the Arizona Senate. This happened the day before the Supreme Court ruling came out.
Arizona Central: Arizona lawmaker leads prayer circle on state seal at Capitol building, sparking backlash.
Arizona Sen. Anthony Kern invited a prayer group to the Senate floor on Monday.
Seen in a video filmed by an anonymous attendee, Kern led the group, who spoke in tongues, through a prayer as they knelt over the state seal.
This public display comes a day before the Arizona Supreme Court upheld an 160-year-old law that bans nearly all abortions on Tuesday.
“Let it be so, Father God,” Kern said. “Lord, right now, we ask thee to release the presence of the lord in the senate chamber.”
The video of the senator and his group was originally shared on TikTok by Tony Cani and reposted on many social media platforms. Jeanne Casteen, the executive director of Secular Arizona, a nonprofit advocacy organization that promotes the separation of church and state in Arizona, called attention to the video on X, formerly known as Twitter.
In her replies, many users were baffled by the senator’s behavior, citing First Amendment violations and false practices of Christianity….
However, Kern doubled down on his actions as he responded to critics in an X post.
“Looks like our prayer team stirred up some god-haters … Not to worry though…prayer over our state at the State Senate is way more powerful,” he wrote.
The Washington Post’s Dan Baltz on the political fallout from the Arizona decision: The Arizona Supreme Court just upended Trump’s gambit on abortion.
It took little more than a day for Donald Trump’s political gambit on abortion to come undone.
On Monday, the former president declined to support any new national law setting limits on abortions. Going against the views of many abortion opponents in his Republican Party, Trump was looking for a way to neutralize or at least muddy a galvanizingissue that has fueled Democratic victories for nearly two years. He hoped to keep it mostly out of the conversation ahead of the November elections.
Auguste Toulmouche’s 1866 painting The Hesitant Fiancée
On Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court showed just how difficult it will be to do that. The court resurrected an 1864 law that bans nearly all abortions, except to save the life of the mother. The law also imposes penalties on abortion providers.
Trump had said let the states handle the issue. The Arizona court showed the full implications of that states’ rights strategy.
The Arizona ruling came in a state that will be especially crucial in deciding the outcome of the presidential election, a state that President Biden won by fewer than 11,000 votes and that Trump’s campaign team has eyed as one of the best opportunities for a pickup. It is likely that a referendum to protect abortion rights will be on Arizona’s ballot in November. The court ruling only heightens the significance of the issue for the rest of the campaign year.
But the court ruling reverberated far beyond Arizona’s borders. The Biden-Harris campaign and other Democrats pounced on the ruling in an effort to further their argument that Trump and Republicans are a threat to freedoms.
All abortion politics are national, not local. Abortion developments — new laws, new restrictions, new stories of women caught up in heart-wrenching and sometimes life-threatening decisions — are no longer confined to the geography where they take place. They are instantly part of the larger debate.
Joyce Vance had some choice words about the Arizona situation at Civil Discourse: Welcome to 1864.
When the Supreme Court decided Dobbs, it opened up Pandora’s Box, undoing fifty years of protection for abortion rights under Roe v. Wade. In the wake of that decision, states pulled lots of horribles out of the box and used them to prevent women from making their own choices about reproductive health care. In some cases, those decisions involved their ability to conceive and carry to term in the future and even their lives. Arizona now seems intent on joining them.
This is Dobbs in action, which leaves it up to each state to decide whether women have abortion rights and, if so, to what extent. Your gerrymandered state legislature is now in charge of your healthcare and the lives of people you love….
In a couple of weeks, virtually all abortions will be a felony event in Arizona. Doctors and providers, including people who help others obtain abortions, can be prosecuted and sentenced to two to five years in prison if convicted. There are no exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. As we’ve seen in other states, the mere threat of consequences like this is enough to shut down abortion procedures across the state. Welcome back to 1864.
Arizona women can still travel to nearby California, New Mexico, or Colorado, where abortion is accessible, at least for now. But the distances can be long, travel prohibitively expensive for some women, and impractical for those with jobs or with children and/or parents to care for.
Arizona is leaning into the national trend. The Guttmacher Institute tracks abortion laws across the country. As of this week, only two states, Vermont and Oregon, provide what they characterize as the “most protection” for abortion. Fifteen states are in the “most restrictive” category, which includes measures like the complete ban with very limited exceptions in Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, and South Carolina. We can add Arizona to that list after today’s decision. Guttmacher categorizes six additional states as “very restrictive,” (this is where Arizona used to be) and another seven states as “restrictive”. The map is stark and getting worse.
Read the rest at Civil Discourse.
Three more pieces on Trump and his waffling on abortion politics.
Jessica Valenti at Abortion, Every Day:
If you missed Donald Trump’s abortion ‘announcement’ yesterday, the short version is that he’s trying to wash his hands of the issue by saying abortion should be up to the states. He knows abortion is a loser for the GOP—and if there’s anything Trump hates, it’s losing.
CNN notes that the disgraced former president has been waffling behind the scenes for months, and The Washington Post reports that anti-abortion advisors like Kellyanne Conway and Sen. Lindsey Graham tried to talk Trump out of yesterday’s announcement.
Blue Monday, by Annie Lee
They not only told him that his stance meant he’d be supporting the states that allow ‘abortions up until birth’, but that he’d also be implicitly supporting the states whose bans he thinks are too restrictive—like Florida’s and Arizona’s.
Indeed, a Biden campaign spokesperson didn’t waste any time before tweeting that Trump was “endorsing every single abortion ban in the states, including abortion bans with no exceptions…and he’s bragging about his role in creating this hellscape.”
The response from anti-abortion groups and other Republicans has been mixed. While groups like Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America made clear that they’re focused on defeating President Joe Biden, they also took a couple of hits at Trump. SBA president Marjorie Dannenfelser, for example, said the group is “deeply disappointed.” Sen. Lindsey Graham also spoke up, saying he “respectfully” disagrees and that he’s going to push ahead with federal legislation. (Because Trump takes criticism so well, he lashed out at the pair in a series of posts on Truth Social.)
Former vice president Mike Pence, who has said he’s not endorsing Trump, called Trump’s stance a “slap in the face to millions of pro-life Americans.”
Others, however, aren’t so worried. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, for example, told The Washington Post that he was confident that Trump would still sign a federal ban: “I take the president’s statement with a comma, not a period.”
David R. Lurie at Public Notice: Trump’s deeply misogynist lie about moms killing babies.
On Monday, Donald Trump released a video announcing his much heralded abortion “policy.” The statement was typically garbled, deliberately vague, and chock full of absurd assertions.
For example, Trump bizarrely asserted that that “both sides wanted and, in fact, demanded” that Roe v. Wade be “ended.” His suggestion is that the entire nation was clamoring for the end of reproductive rights that he engineered with his Supreme Court nominations, when in fact national polling shows that a solid majority supports legal abortion. (If you can stomach it, you can watch Trump’s entire video statement below.)
As has long been typical, many in the press misreported the gist of the statement. A New York Times headline declared that Trump had said “Abortion Restrictions Should Be Left to the States.” This is incorrect, and gives Trump undeserved credit for his typical, and deliberate, ambiguity.
Trump did not say he would refuse to sign a federal abortion ban into law, and his record is to the contrary. He supported a federal 20-week ban when he was in the White House and said was “disappoint[ed]” when it was filibustered in the Senate.
But the headlines not only misstated what Trump said, they also omitted the most repugnant and revealing portion of his presentation — his repulsive lie that women have been “execut[ing]” their own children “after birth,” with the assistance of doctors.
Trump said:
“It must be remembered that the Democrats are the radical ones on this position because they support abortion up to and even beyond the ninth month. The concept of having an abortion in the later months and even execution after birth. And that’s exactly what it is. The baby is born, the baby is executed after birth is unacceptable. And almost everyone agrees with that.”
The claim is a grotesque derivation of the “partial birth” abortion smear GOP politicians have employed for years as a cover for their agenda to wholly, or near wholly, ban abortion care, which they have succeeded in doing in large swaths of the nation since SCOTUS ended federal abortion rights in June 2022.
Trump’s version of this familiar lie is not only over the top, but it reveals his deep affinity with the Christian right. It’s an affinity rooted not in a shared faith with right-wing Christians, but rather in a deeply shared fear of women’s empowerment, with the policy goal of taking it away.
Angry Woman, by Van Winslow
Kimberly Leonard and Arik Sarkissian at Politico: Trump’s abortion stance could put Florida Republicans in a bind.
MIAMI — There’s no state that will need to navigate Donald Trump’s abortion stance quite like Florida, which has authorized one of the strictest abortion bans in the country but also could broadly enshrine abortion rights protections in the state constitution through a ballot measure in November.
The Republican Party of Florida and key conservative lawmakers, including Gov. Ron DeSantis, consider Florida’s ballot initiative “extreme” and want voters to oppose it. But they’re not calling on Trump to pick up a megaphone over the cause. They generally support his stance to leave one of the most politically treacherous issues for Republicans up to states to decide — even as abortion rights supporters in Arizona, a key battleground state, also are trying to put a similar initiative on the ballot.
“I’ve always believed this is a states’ issue,” said Evan Power, the Republican Party of Florida chair. “That is why we will fight to oppose the Florida constitutional amendment because the people’s representatives here in Florida have adopted a Florida constitutionally-sound approach.”
State Sen. Joe Gruters, a longtime Trump ally and an RNC national committee member, agreed with Power’s assessment about state decision-making and called the former president’s statement “perfect.” Asked whether he wanted Trump’s help on getting the word out about the referendum, Gruters replied that DeSantis — someone he has clashed with in the past — could keep championing the issue.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican who has drawn several Democratic challengers, also said this is a “states rights issue.”
“He’s doing exactly what he’s supposed to be doing,” she said of Trump.
Florida Republicans have good reason to tread lightly around Trump. The former president attacked one of his close allies, Sen. Lindsey Graham, after the South Carolina Republican broke with the president over abortion. One of the nation’s most influential anti-abortion groups, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, also stated it was “deeply disappointed” by Trump’s decision. Marjorie Dannenfelser, the group’s president, later reiterated the organization’s support of Trump.
Read the rest at Politico.
That’s all I have for you today, because women’s reproductive freedom is all I can think about right now. I’m hoping other angry women and men around the country will react by voting for Democrats in November.
Lazy Caturday Reads
Posted: April 6, 2024 Filed under: 2024 presidential Campaign, cat art, caturday, Donald Trump, Joe Biden | Tags: 2024 campaign fund raising, Don Hankey, iran, israel, Judge Arthur Engoron, Letitia James, Nancy Pelosi, Trump's incoherent speeches, Trump's NY fraud case, Trump's role in January 6 insurrection, Trump's wealthy financial backers, Ukraine war 4 CommentsHappy Caturday!!
Painting by Artush, 2013
I’ve been trying to understand what is going on with the bond Trump tried to post in order to appeal his fraud conviction in New York. He supposedly posted a bond of $175 million, but then problems arose. Here’s what I’ve found so far.
Ben Protess and Matthew Haag at The New York Times: New York Attorney General Questions Trump’s $175 Million Bond Deal.
The New York attorney general’s office on Thursday took exception to a $175 million bond that Donald J. Trump recently posted in his civil fraud case, questioning the qualifications of the California company that provided it.
The dispute stems from a $454 million judgment Mr. Trump is facing in the case, which the attorney general’s office brought against the former president and his family business. The attorney general, Letitia James, accused Mr. Trump of fraudulently inflating his net worth, leading to a monthslong trial last year that ended with a judge imposing the huge penalty.
Mr. Trump had to obtain the bond as a financial guarantee while he appeals the penalty — or else open himself up to the possibility that Ms. James would collect. Without a bond in place, she could have frozen his bank accounts and begun the complicated process of trying to seize some of his New York properties.
Mr. Trump appeared to stave off this calamity on Monday when he posted the $175 million bond from the California firm, Knight Specialty Insurance Company. Although he was originally required to secure a guarantee for the full $454 million judgment, an appeals court recently granted him a break, allowing him to post the smaller bond.
By providing the bond — which is a legal document, not an actual transfer of money — Knight essentially promises New York’s court system that it will cover $175 million of the judgment against Mr. Trump if he loses his appeal and fails to pay. In return, Mr. Trump pays a fee to Knight, and pledges it a significant amount of cash as collateral.
So what happened?
Now, however, Ms. James is raising questions that could imperil the deal with Knight, which is owned by Don Hankey, a billionaire who made his fortune with subprime loans. And the judge in the case, Arthur F. Engoron, has tentatively scheduled a hearing for April 22 to discuss the bond.
In a court filing on Thursday, Ms. James noted that Knight was not registered to issue appeal bonds in New York, and so she demanded that the company or Mr. Trump’s lawyers file paperwork to “justify” the bond within 10 days. Ms. James is seeking to clarify whether Knight, which had never posted a similar court bond before aiding Mr. Trump, is financially capable of fulfilling its obligation to pay the $175 million if Mr. Trump defaults.
Even if Knight lacks the funds itself, the company should be able to tap the collateral Mr. Trump pledged.
In an interview this week, Mr. Hankey said that Mr. Trump pledged $175 million in cash as collateral that was being handled by a brokerage firm. Mr. Trump, in the meantime, is able to earn interest on the money.
So I guess we’ll all have to wait a couple of weeks until this gets addressed in court on April 22.
By Alison Friend
From Kaitlin Lewis at Newsweek: Donald Trump Bond Rejected Due to Low Fee, Insurer Suggests.
The billionaire behind the surety company that posted Donald Trump‘s civil fraud bond said that insurers “probably didn’t charge” the former president enough when covering the pledge.
Trump posted a $175 million bond on Monday as he appeals a ruling by New York State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, who found the former president and others associated with The Trump Organization liable of misleading insurers and lenders to obtain stronger financial terms.
But the bond was rejected by the court’s filing system later that same day due to missing paperwork, including a “current financial statement.” New York Attorney General Letitia James later raised questions about the “sufficiency” of the bond.
Don Hankey, chairman of the Los-Angeles based Hankey Group and owner of the Knight Specialty Insurance Company that posted Trump’s bond, told Reuters in an interview published Friday that his firm charged the former president a low fee when agreeing to put up the $175 million bond. The businessman reportedly declined to disclose the fee, but said that Knight picked a lower amount because it did not believe there was much risk involved.
According to online agency Insureon, which handles small-business insurance, a surety bond’s fee can range from 1 percent to 15 percent of the total bond amount.
Hankey added during the interview that his company had “been getting a lot of emails” and phone calls since backing Trump’s bond, adding, “Maybe that’s part of the reason he had trouble with other insurance companies.” The former president’s lawyers had pleaded with a New York appeals court to lower the bond amount from Trump’s original $454 million order in damages, arguing that it was a “practical impossibility” to meet the penalty.
Hankey also said that he was shocked that James had questioned the bond, telling Reuters that he was “surprised they’re coming down harder on our bond or looking for reasons to cause issues with our instrument.”
I don’t completely understand that. Maybe Daknikat can make more sense of it than I can.
ProPublica has a scoop on Trump’s efforts to mislead the appeals court that ended up lowering his bond amount: Trump’s Lawyers Told the Court That No One Would Give Him a Bond. Then He Got a Lifeline, but They Didn’t Tell the Judges.
Former President Donald Trump scored a victory last week when a New York court slashed the amount he had to put up while appealing his civil fraud case to $175 million.
His lawyers had told the appellate court it was a “practical impossibility” to get a bond for the full amount of the lower court’s judgment, $464 million. All of the 30 or so firms Trump had approached balked, either refusing to take the risk or not wanting to accept real estate as collateral, they said. That made raising the full amount “an impossible bond requirement.”
But before the judges ruled, the impossible became possible: A billionaire lender approached Trump about providing a bond for the full amount.
The lawyers never filed paperwork alerting the appeals court. That failure may have violated ethics rules, legal experts say.
In an interview with ProPublica, billionaire California financier Don Hankey said he reached out to Trump’s camp several days before the bond was lowered, expressing willingness to offer the full amount and to use real estate as collateral.
“I saw that they were rejected by everyone and I said, ‘Gee, that doesn’t seem like a difficult bond to post,’” Hankey said.
As negotiations between Hankey and Trump’s representatives were underway, the appellate court ruled in Trump’s favor, lowering the bond to $175 million. The court did not give an explanation for its ruling.
Hankey ended up giving Trump a bond for the lowered amount.
It appears Trump’s attorneys could get in trouble over this. According to the article, even if the lawyers didn’t know about the new offer until after the appeals court decision, they were required to inform the court about the new offer after the fact. Read more details at ProPublica.
Brandi Buchman has an important legal story at Law and Crime: The Trump Docket: A window into Trump’s ‘private’ acts on Jan. 6 may soon be opened by a federal judge.
Very soon, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., is expected to issue a ruling that could expose key pieces of discovery that some lawyers say prove Donald Trump acted in his “private” capacity on Jan. 6, 2021 — not in his official role — when whipping up a mob of his supporters at the Ellipse and urging them to descend on the Capitol where lawmakers were meeting to certify the 2020 election.
This is a key distinction for a group of former and current U.S. lawmakers and police suing Trump for violations of the Ku Klux Klan Act, as Law&Crime previously reported. Just this week, the former president filed a motion to stay that civil litigation indefinitely, invoking his brewing immunity question before the Supreme Court.
Law&Crime spoke to Joseph Sellers, an attorney representing the lawmaker plaintiffs. The parties met this week to finish briefing the requests for discovery before U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta.
Trump argues the overlap between the civil claim and his criminal indictment prosecuted by special counsel Jack Smith is too great and that going to trial, or even beginning pretrial proceedings like discovery, would threaten his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
While there may be some overlap in the details of the respective cases, Sellers said Trump’s wait-and-see approach by invoking the immunity question doesn’t hold up.
“The criminal case that’s before the Supreme Court on the question of immunity is framed entirely differently in this respect and it’s quite important. In our civil case, the question is whether his conduct was primarily of an official or private nature. That’s pivotal,” he said.
When the Supreme Court set arguments on Trump’s immunity question, they framed the question in a way that assumes Trump’s conduct on Jan. 6 was official and as a result, the question was whether he was immune from criminal prosecution.
The private-versus-official distinction isn’t presented there, Sellers said.
Because of this, the lawmakers say that no matter what the high court does, it should have no impact on the availability of immunity in the civil case. Invoking Trump’s criminal Jan. 6 trial, which is currently in purgatory itself, is a “grossly overbroad request,” the attorney said.
Head over to Law and Crime to read the rest.
By Heidi Taillefer
The Guardian has an interesting article on Trump’s insane, rambling public rants at The Guardian by Rachael Leingang: Trump’s bizarre, vindictive incoherence has to be heard in full to be believe.
He’s on the campaign trail less these days than he was in previous cycles – and less than you’d expect from a guy with dedicated superfans who brags about the size of his crowds every chance he gets. But when he has held rallies, he speaks in dark, dehumanizing terms about migrants, promising to vanquish people crossing the border. He rails about the legal battles he faces and how they’re a sign he’s winning, actually. He tells lies and invents fictions. He calls his opponent a threat to democracy and claims this election could be the last one.
Trump’s tone, as many have noted, is decidedly more vengeful this time around, as he seeks to reclaim the White House after a bruising loss that he insists was a steal. This alone is a cause for concern, foreshadowing what the Trump presidency redux could look like. But he’s also, quite frequently, rambling and incoherent, running off on tangents that would grab headlines for their oddness should any other candidate say them.
Journalists rightly chose not to broadcast Trump’s entire speeches after 2016, believing that the free coverage helped boost the former president and spread lies unchecked. But now there’s the possibility that stories about his speeches often make his ideas appear more cogent than they are – making the case that, this time around, people should hear the full speeches to understand how Trump would govern again.
Watching a Trump speech in full better shows what it’s like inside his head: a smorgasbord of falsehoods, personal and professional vendettas, frequent comparisons to other famous people, a couple of handfuls of simple policy ideas, and a lot of non sequiturs that veer into barely intelligible stories.
Leingang provides many examples of Trump’s incoherence. Here’s just one long quoted section:
Some of these bizarre asides are best seen in full, like this one about Biden at the beach in Trump’s Georgia response to the State of the Union:
“Somebody said he looks great in a bathing suit, right? And you know, when he was in the sand and he was having a hard time lifting his feet through the sand, because you know sand is heavy, they figured three solid ounces per foot, but sand is a little heavy, and he’s sitting in a bathing suit. Look, at 81, do you remember Cary Grant? How good was Cary Grant, right? I don’t think Cary Grant, he was good. I don’t know what happened to movie stars today. We used to have Cary Grant and Clark Gable and all these people. Today we have, I won’t say names, because I don’t need enemies. I don’t need enemies. I got enough enemies. But Cary Grant was, like – Michael Jackson once told me, ‘The most handsome man, Trump, in the world.’ ‘Who?’ ‘Cary Grant.’ Well, we don’t have that any more, but Cary Grant at 81 or 82, going on 100. This guy, he’s 81, going on 100. Cary Grant wouldn’t look too good in a bathing suit, either. And he was pretty good-looking, right?”
This is a long piece, so if you’re interested, head over to the Guardian and read the whole thing.
The fund-raising race in the presidential campaign is the focus of a number of stories today.
Politico: Biden campaign announces pulling in $90M in March.
President Joe Biden’s campaign said it raised $90 million in March, a sum that’s likely to grow the president’s significant financial edge over former President Donald Trump.
The Biden campaign said it had $192 million in cash on hand, a total that includes funds from the campaign, the Democratic National Committee and related joint fundraising committees. It’s the largest war chest amassed by any Democratic presidential candidate at this point in the cycle, according to a Biden campaign memo announcing the totals on Saturday. Aides released the total ahead of the monthly Federal Elections Commission filing deadline later this month.
Biden’s monthly totals come on the same day as Trump is holding his own major fundraiser. The former president’s campaign said they expect to raise more than $43 million at a one-night event in Palm Beach, Florida. Saturday’s Trump fundraiser aims to top the “three presidents” extravaganza in New York City last week, when Biden, joined by former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, hauled in more than $26 million on a star-studded night.
Biden’s financial edge has remained a bright spot for the president, who continues to struggle with stubbornly low approval ratings and trails Trump narrowly in national polling averages.
Biden and the DNC ended February with more than double the cash-on-hand that Trump and the RNC had. Trump has failed to match his 2020 fundraising totals, and he’s also diverted millions of dollars to help pay his legal fees.
Former President Donald Trump has secured commitments totaling $50 million for a Saturday fundraiser in Palm Beach, Florida, according to four sources familiar with an effort that could bring in double what three Democratic presidents raised last week for President Joe Biden’s re-election push.
Hosted by hedge-fund billionaire John Paulson, the event will benefit Trump’s campaign, his Save America PAC, the Republican National Committee and state chapters of the GOP under a joint-fundraising agreement.
“Saturday’s event signifies the GOP’s finance team is all back home,” said one of the sources, who plans to attend the fundraiser. “Should produce a record haul.”
Trump also held a call with donors and fundraisers on Friday, in which he said he expected to double the amount Democrats raised at the recent Democratic event, according to one of the other sources, who was on the call.
It was not immediately clear whether all of the committed money would be collected by Saturday night.
This is from The Hill: Biden campaign hits Trump over guests at upcoming Palm Beach high-dollar fundraiser.
President Biden’s reelection campaign hit former President Trump on Friday over the guest list for his high-dollar fundraiser in Palm Beach, Fla., this weekend….
In a statement first sent to The Hill, the Biden campaign focused on the expected attendees to hit Trump on his fundraising strategy of looking to billionaires who have targeted programs such as Social Security.
Taking Inventory, by Erica Oller
“If you want to know who Donald Trump will fight for in a second term, just look at who he is having over for dinner Saturday night – tax cheats, scammers, racists, and extremists,” Biden campaign senior spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said.
“Make no mistake, Donald Trump will do the bidding of his billionaires buddies instead of what is best for the American people. He’ll take their checks and cut their taxes, and leave hard working Americans behind, shipping their jobs overseas, gutting Social Security and Medicare, ripping away health care protections, and banning abortion,” she added.
The Biden campaign pointed to Paulson, whom Trump has reportedly considered for Treasury Secretary if he wins, and who said during a 2018 New York University panel that Social Security could be switched to “to defined contribution from defined benefit.”
It called out Jeff Yass, a billionaire businessman and major investor in TikTok, as an expected attendee who floated privatizing Social Security accounts in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece in 2019….
Additionally, the campaign pointed to Michael Hodges, founder of a payday lender, as an attendee. He reportedly told other payday lenders in 2019 that contributions to Trump’s 2020 campaign could mean access to the then-administration, according to The Washington Post. It also pointed out that members of the Mercer family are Trump donors and that hedge fund manager Robert Mercer has argued that the Civil Rights Act was a mistake, citing The New Yorker.
The Biden campaign also pointed to John Catsimatidis, who is expected at the dinner. Catsimatidis, a billionaire who ran for New York City mayor in 2013, compared former President Obama’s plans in 2013 to raise taxes on the wealthy to how “Hitler punished the Jews,” according to Newsweek.
IMO, it’s great that Biden’s campaign is pointing out the creepy rich guys who are supporting Trump.
Some foreign policy stories:
CNN: US preparing for significant Iran attack on US or Israeli assets in the region as soon as next week.
The US is on high alert and actively preparing for a “significant” attack that could come as soon as within the next week by Iran targeting Israeli or American assets in the region in response to Monday’s Israeli strike in Damascus that killed top Iranian commanders, a senior administration official tells CNN.
Senior US officials currently believe that an attack by Iran is “inevitable” – a view shared by their Israeli counterparts, that official said. The two governments are furiously working to get in position ahead of what is to come, as they anticipate that Iran’s attack could unfold in a number of different ways – and that both US and Israeli assets and personnel are at risk of being targeted.
A forthcoming Iranian attack was a major topic of discussion on President Joe Biden’s phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday.
As of Friday, the two governments did not know when or how Iran planned to strike back, the official said.
By Christina Bernazzani
A direct strike on Israel by Iran is one of the worst-case scenarios that the Biden administration is bracing for, as it would guarantee rapid escalation of an already tumultuous situation in the Middle East. Such a strike could lead to the Israel-Hamas war broadening into a wider, regional conflict – something Biden has long sought to avoid.
It has been two months since Iranian proxies attacked US forces in Iraq and Syria, a period of relative stability after months of drone, rocket and missile launches targeting US facilities. The lone exception came on Tuesday, when US forces shot down a drone near al-Tanf garrison in Syria. The drone attack, which the Defense Department said was carried out by Iranian proxies, came after the Israeli strike on the Iranian embassy in Damascus.
“We asses that al-Tanf was not the target of the drone,” a defense official said Tuesday. “Since we were unable to immediately determine the target and out of safety for US and coalition partners, the drone was shot down.”
The incident came after the Israeli airstrike on the Iranian embassy in Damascus on Monday, though an Israel Defense Forces spokesman told CNN that their intelligence showed the building was not a consulate and is instead “a military building of Quds forces disguised as a civilian building.”
More at the CNN link.
Axios: Pelosi joins call to halt U.S. weapons transfers to Israel.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) signed onto a call by progressive members of Congress for the U.S. to stop transferring weapons to Israel over a strike that killed seven aid workers in Gaza.
Why it matters: It’s a significant break with Israel by a long-standing supporter that underscores growing fissures between Democrats and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Driving the news: The letter, led by Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wisc.), Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), was released on Friday with 37 signatures from 37 other Democrats, including Pelosi.
“In light of the recent strike against aid workers and the ever-worsening humanitarian crisis, we believe it is unjustifiable to approve these weapons transfers,” the lawmakers wrote to President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Isabelle Khurshudyan at The Washington Post: With no way out of a worsening war, Zelensky’s options look bad or worse.
KYIV — As Russia steps up airstrikes and once again advances on the battlefield in Ukraine more than two years into its bloody invasion, there is no end to the fighting in sight. And President Volodymyr Zelensky’s options for what to do next — much less how to win the war — range from bad to worse.
Zelensky has said Ukraine will accept nothing less than the return of all its territory, including land that Russia has controlled since 2014. But with the battle lines changing little in the last year, militarily retaking the swaths of east and south Ukraine that Russia now occupies — about 20 percent of the country — appears increasingly unlikely.
Negotiating with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war — something Zelensky has rejected as long as Russian troops remain on Ukrainian land — is politically toxic. The Ukrainian public is hugely opposed to surrendering territory, and Putin shown no willingness to accept anything short of Ukraine’s capitulation to his demands.
The status quo is awful. With the fight now a grinding stalemate, Ukrainians are dying on the battlefield daily. But a cease-fire is also a nonstarter, Ukrainians say, because it would just give the Russians time to replenish their forces.
Ukrainian and Western officials view Zelensky as largely stuck. Aid from the United States, Ukraine’s most important military backer, has been stalled for months by Republicans in Congress. Previously approved modern fighter jets — the U.S.-made F-16 — are expected to enter combat later this year — but in limited quantity, meaning they will not be a game changer. NATO countries are still exercising restraint in their assistance, evidenced by the recent uproar after French President Emmanuel Macron said European nations should not rule out sending troops.
“How will Zelensky get out of this situation? I have no idea,” said a Ukrainian lawmaker who, like other officials and diplomats interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid about the highly sensitive politics. “And of course it concerns me.”
The responsibility for this nightmare belongs solely to House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is loyalties are to Trump and Putin, and not his country.
That’s it for me today. What do you think? What other stories are you following?
Wednesday Reads
Posted: April 3, 2024 Filed under: 2024 Elections, 2024 presidential Campaign, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, just because | Tags: 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, Benjamin Netanyahu, Gaza hunger, Israel-Hamas war, Jose Andres, Judge Aileen Cannon, Judge Juan Merchan, Ruby Garcia, Special Counsel Jack Smith, Tom Fitton, World Central Kitchen 13 CommentsGood Afternoon!!
It’s spring, but here in New England, we are awaiting a winter storm–a Nor’easter with high winds, torrential rains, and even snow in some areas. The storm is expected to last from this afternoon into Friday. It’s supposed to get stormy later this afternoon, but I can see outside my window that it is already raining. It’s a good day to read book and maybe take a nap.
The world news is awful. Benjamin Netanyhu is a monster. Yesterday, we learned that 7 workers for José Andrés’ World Central Kitchen were killed in 3 Israeli strikes in Gaza that sound targeted. The charity said they had coordinated with the IDF and had large signs on the roofs of their vehicles identifying them as aid workers.
David Graham at The Atlantic: A Deadly Strike in Gaza.
Seven people working for a humanitarian aid group led by the chef José Andrés were killed in an Israeli air strike in the central Gaza Strip today. The strike is a black mark for the Israel Defense Forces, and likely to turn world opinion further against the Gaza campaign. But more than its geopolitical significance, the strike is a horrifying moment on a human level. Innocent people, doing good work to feed a starving population, have died for no reason at all.
The group, World Central Kitchen, has been engaged for months in efforts to feed severely malnourished Palestinians in Gaza. WCK said the workers were “traveling in a deconflicted zone in two armored cars branded with the WCK logo and a soft skin vehicle,” and that the strike happened despite the group coordinating its movements with the Israel Defense Forces. Footage shows a puncture directly through the WCK emblem prominently displayed atop a vehicle.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged the strike, which he described as an accident. “Unfortunately, there was a tragic incident in which our forces unintentionally hit innocent people in the Gaza Strip,” he said. “As it happens in war, we are investigating the matter fully, we are in contact with the governments, and we will do everything possible to prevent this from happening again.”
When Netanyau made this statement, there was an obvious smirk on his face.
Back to the Atlantic:
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the trucks were traveling along a route approved by the IDF when they were struck by an Israeli drone. Security forces believed that there was an armed Hamas member in the convoy, but the target was not actually traveling in any of the vehicles at the time of the strike. After each of the first two vehicles was struck, the passengers moved the wounded to a third, before another strike hit that one, killing the seven people. A Haaretz source inside the defense establishment blamed units in the field for acting rashly.
Writing on X, Andrés mourned the deaths: “The Israeli government needs to stop this indiscriminate killing. It needs to stop restricting humanitarian aid, stop killing civilians and aid workers, and stop using food as a weapon. No more innocent lives lost. Peace starts with our shared humanity. It needs to start now.” [….]
The deaths are the latest senseless act of violence in a cycle that began with Hamas’s October 7 attacks, which killed more than 1,000 Israelis. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have died in Israel’s campaign in Gaza since. Netanyahu says the operation will destroy Hamas, though many commentators inside and outside of Israel find that goal unrealistic. The IDF has blamed civilian casualties on Hamas, which has intertwined its operations with noncombatants. Many aid workers have died, as well as nearly 100 members of the media, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The New York Times: José Andrés: Let People Eat.
In the worst conditions you can imagine — after hurricanes, earthquakes, bombs and gunfire — the best of humanity shows up. Not once or twice but always.
The seven people killed on a World Central Kitchen mission in Gaza on Monday were the best of humanity. They are not faceless or nameless. They are not generic aid workers or collateral damage in war.
People gather around the carcass of a car used by US-based aid group World Central Kitchen, that was hit by an Israeli strike the previous day in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on April 2, 2024. (Photo by AFP) (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)
Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha, John Chapman, Jacob Flickinger, Zomi Frankcom, James Henderson, James Kirby and Damian Sobol risked everything for the most fundamentally human activity: to share our food with others.
These are people I served alongside in Ukraine, Turkey, Morocco, the Bahamas, Indonesia, Mexico, Gaza and Israel. They were far more than heroes.
Their work was based on the simple belief that food is a universal human right. It is not conditional on being good or bad, rich or poor, left or right. We do not ask what religion you belong to. We just ask how many meals you need.
From Day 1, we have fed Israelis as well as Palestinians. Across Israel, we have served more than 1.75 million hot meals. We have fed families displaced by Hezbollah rockets in the north. We have fed grieving families from the south. We delivered meals to the hospitals where hostages were reunited with their families. We have called consistently, repeatedly and passionately for the release of all the hostages.
All the while, we have communicated extensively with Israeli military and civilian officials. At the same time, we have worked closely with community leaders in Gaza, as well as Arab nations in the region. There is no way to bring a ship full of food to Gaza without doing so.
That’s how we served more than 43 million meals in Gaza, preparing hot food in 68 community kitchens where Palestinians are feeding Palestinians.
We know Israelis. Israelis, in their heart of hearts, know that food is not a weapon of war.
Israel is better than the way this war is being waged. It is better than blocking food and medicine to civilians. It is better than killing aid workers who had coordinated their movements with the Israel Defense Forces.
The World Central Kitchen has pulled out of Gaza for now, and without them Palestinians will starve.
Reuters: Biden ‘outraged’ by Israeli airstrike that killed aid workers in Gaza.
U.S. President Joe Biden said on Tuesday he was “outraged and heartbroken” by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza that killed seven people working for World Central Kitchen (WCK) and he called on Israel to do more to protect aid workers.
Israel’s investigation of the incident “must be swift, it must bring accountability, and its findings must be made public,” Biden said in a statement.
“Even more tragically, this is not a stand-alone incident,” he said. “This conflict has been one of the worst in recent memory in terms of how many aid workers have been killed.” [….]
Biden said Israel has not done enough to protect aid workers or civilians in Gaza.
“The United States has repeatedly urged Israel to deconflict their military operations against Hamas with humanitarian operations, in order to avoid civilian casualties,” he said.
Biden also spoke to Chef Andres by phone. Read about it at Axios. That’s a start, but Biden needs to do more. I think he should cut off military aid to Israel.
As usual, there is lots of Trump news.
First, late last night Special Prosecutor Jack Smith filed a response to Judge Aileen Cannon’s order that both sides submit jury instructions based on her faulty interpretation of the Presidential Records Act.
Hannah Rabinowitz and Tierney Sneed at CNN: Special counsel blasts judge’s jury instruction request in Trump documents case.
In perhaps prosecutors’ strongest rebuke yet to how Judge Aileen Cannon has handled the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump, special counsel Jack Smith said in court filings late Tuesday evening that the judge had ordered briefings based on a “fundamentally flawed” understanding of the case that has “no basis in law or fact.”
Smith’s team harshly critiqued Cannon’s request for jury instructions that embraced Trump’s claims that he had broad authority to take classified government documents and said it would seek an appeals court review if she accepted the former president’s arguments about his record-retention powers.
In an unusual order last month, Cannon asked attorneys on the classified documents case to submit briefs on potential jury instructions defining terms of the Espionage Act, under which Trump is charged over mishandling 32 classified records. Specifically, Cannon asked the special counsel and defense attorneys to write two versions of proposed jury instructions.
The first scenario would instruct a jury to assess whether each of the records that Trump is accused of retaining fell into the categories of “personal” or “presidential” as laid out by the Presidential Records Act, a post-Watergate law that governs how White House records belonging to the government are to be handled at the end of a presidency.
The second version Cannon asked for assumes that as president, Trump had complete authority to take records he wanted from the White House, which would make it nearly impossible for prosecutors to secure a conviction. If she were to institute this sort of instruction, Smith’s team said, “the Government must be provided with an opportunity to seek prompt appellate review.”
“Both scenarios rest on an unstated and fundamentally flawed legal premise — namely, that the Presidential Records Act and in particular its distinction between ‘personal’ and ‘Presidential’ records, determines whether a former President is ‘authorized,’ under the Espionage Act, to possess highly classified documents and store them in an unsecure facility,” the special counsel’s team wrote.
If allowed to be presented to a jury, prosecutors said, “that premise would distort the trial.” [….]
Prosecutors have repeatedly said that PRA is not relevant to the charges against Trump, as the conduct he is accused of happened after his term as president ended. Trump’s claim that he deemed the records personal are “pure fiction,” invented once the National Archives had retrieved boxes with classified information from Mar-a-Lago two years after he left office, they wrote Tuesday.
Their new filing sheds light on some of the evidence that investigators have collected about Trump’s record-keeping habits during his presidency. According to the prosecutors’ account, there is no evidence that Trump designated the relevant classified records as personal when he left the White House, and the prosecutors said he got the idea that he did have such power many months later, from the leader of a conservative legal organization.
That leader is Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch. Fitton is not an attorney.
Alan Feuer at The New York Times: Frustrated Prosecutors Ask Trump Documents Judge to Act on Key Claim.
In an open display of frustration, federal prosecutors on Tuesday night told the judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s classified documents case that a “fundamentally flawed” order she had issued was causing delays and asked her to quickly resolve a critical dispute about one of Mr. Trump’s defenses — leaving them time to appeal if needed.
The unusual and risky move by the prosecutors, contained in a 24-page filing, signaled their mounting impatience with the judge, Aileen M. Cannon, who has allowed the case to become bogged down in a logjam of unresolved issues and curious procedural requests. It was the most directly prosecutors have confronted Judge Cannon’s legal reasoning and unhurried pace, which have called into question whether a trial will take place before the election in November even though both sides say they could be ready for one by summer.
In their filing, prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, all but begged Judge Cannon to move the case along and make a binding decision about one of Mr. Trump’s most brazen claims: that he cannot be prosecuted for having taken home a trove of national security documents after leaving office because he transformed them into his own personal property under a law known as the Presidential Records Act.
The prosecutors derided that assertion as one “not based on any facts,” adding that it was a “justification that was concocted more than a year after” Mr. Trump left the White House.
“It would be pure fiction,” the prosecutors wrote, “to suggest that highly classified documents created by members of the intelligence community and military and presented to the president of the United States during his term in office were ‘purely private.’” [….]
Mr. Smith’s prosecutors told Judge Cannon in their filing on Tuesday that the Presidential Records Act had nothing to do with the case and that the entire notion of submitting jury instructions based on it rested on a “fundamentally flawed legal premise.”
Instead, they asked her to decide the validity of the Presidential Records Act defense in a different way: by rejecting Mr. Trump’s motion to dismiss the case based on the same argument. That motion has been sitting on her desk for almost six weeks.
The prosecutors want Judge Cannon to take that course of action, because any decision she makes on the motion to dismiss can be challenged in an appeals court. But if the case is allowed to reach the jury, any ruling she might make acquitting Mr. Trump cannot be appealed.
Read the rest at the NYT.
Marcy Wheeler puts it in plain language: Jack Smith to Aileen Cannon: Treating Non-Lawyer Tom Fitton’s Theories as Law Will Lead to Mandamus.
Both Trump and Jack Smith have responded to Aileen Cannon’s whack order to write proposed jury instructions as if the Presidential Records Act says something it doesn’t. Neither are all that happy about it.
Trump used his response to claim that having the jury assess whether Trump really did make these documents personal records rather than simply steal them would put them in the role that, he’s arguing, only a (former) President can be in.
Smith — as many predicted — spent much of the filing arguing that Cannon cannot leave this issue until jury instructions because it must have an opportunity to seek mandamus for such a clear legal error; they cite the 11th Circuit slapdown of Cannon’s last attempt to entertain this fantasy in support.
Along the way, though, Smith also did something I had hoped he would do: explain where, and when, Trump’s own whack theory came from in the first place.
It came from Tom Fitton’s Xitter propaganda in response to the public report, in February 2022, that Trump had returned documents, including classified ones. But even after Fitton first intervened, Trump’s handlers continued to treat any remaining classified documents as presidential records for months.
Read about Fitton’s half-baked “theory” at the link. As I understand it, madamus means that Smith would ask the appeals court to remove Cannon from the case and replace her.
Earlier yesterday, the Judge Juan Merchan, who is in charge of the New York criminal case against Trump for interfering in the 2016 election by paying off women he was sexually involved with, added family members to his gag order. The Guardian: Trump faces an expanded gag order. It won’t stop the death threats.
When Judge Juan Merchan issued a gag order last week to bar former president Donald Trump from attacking potential witnesses and others involved in his pending hush-money trial in New York, he left open a loophole that Trump jumped to exploit.
The former president immediately went on the attack against Merchan’s own daughter, falsely accusing her of posting social media content that called for Trump to be jailed.
Merchan’s original gag order had covered potential trial witnesses, jurors, district attorney Alvin Bragg’s staff and Merchan’s staff while excluding the prosecutor and the judge – but hadn’t explicitly included Merchan’s and Bragg’s family members.
Merchan responded by expanding the gag order on Monday to cover their families, writing that Trump’s attacks on his daughter were part of a broader pattern of attacking family members of the judges and attorneys involved in his cases that “serves no legitimate purpose. It merely injects fear in those assigned or called to participate in the proceedings, that not only they, but their family members as well, are ‘fair game’ for Defendant’s vitriol.”
Judge Juan Merchan
That pattern has played out in case after case – and if the past is prologue, his supporters will take it one step further. When Trump attacks those involved in his cases, death threats soon follow.
Bragg, whom Trump has called an “animal” and “degenerate psychopath”, and Merchan, who he’s claimed “HATES ME”, have received death threats ever since the case began.
Read more at The Guardian.
Erica Orden and Meredith McGraw at Politico: ‘It’s clearly strategic’: Why Trump kept attacking judges’ families.
Every time prosecutors and judges tried to muzzle Donald Trump, he lashed out at their families.
In three different court cases over the past six months, judges imposed gag orders that restrained the former president from vilifying witnesses, court employees and others involved in the proceedings against him. In each case, Trump responded by verbally attacking not only the prosecutors and judges themselves, but also their family members.
“It’s clearly strategic,” said Ty Cobb, who served as a White House lawyer under Trump but has become a frequent critic of the former president.
“His attacks are designed around his traditional approach to delegitimizing the proceedings.” [….]
After Trump spent several days denigrating the adult daughter of Justice Juan Merchan, the judge overseeing Trump’s Manhattan criminal case, Merchan issued an expanded gag order barring Trump from attacking the judge’s own family. Merchan also expanded the gag to cover the family of the lead prosecutor, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
“The average observer, must now, after hearing Defendant’s recent attacks, draw the conclusion that if they become involved in these proceedings, even tangentially, they should worry not only for themselves, but for their loved ones as well,” Merchan wrote. “Such concerns will undoubtedly interfere with the fair administration of justice and constitutes a direct attack on the Rule of Law itself.”
It’s not just the rule of law that’s under threat. Outside the courtroom, Trump’s judges have faced persistent threats to their personal safety, including “swatting” calls directed at their homes and a racist voicemail threatening murder.
In his latest fusillade on social media, unleashed within days of Merchan’s original gag order, Trump called Merchan’s daughter a “Rabid Trump Hater” due to her work at a digital marketing agency that has Democratic clients. And he claimed that she had used an image of Trump behind bars as a profile picture for a social media account, although a court official said she had abandoned and deleted that account, and that it had been taken over by someone else.
How can this horrible person actually have been president? And how can he be permitted to run again? And if he is elected in November the plan is for him to run again in 2028 (if we still have election then).
Lisa Needham at Public Notice: Project 2025 reveals its goal: Trump as president for life.
Project 2025, the Republican plan to functionally annihilate not just the federal government but democracy as well if Trump wins in November, is an unceasing parade of horrors.
Kristen Eichamer holds a Project 2025 fan in the group’s tent at the Iowa State Fair, Aug. 14, 2023, in Des Moines, Iowa….AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Banning the abortion pill nationwide? Check. Rolling back protections for LGBTQ people? Check. Deporting literally millions of undocumented immigrants? Check. But amid each objectively horrible aim is an even more more insidious one: abolishing the 22nd Amendment, which limits presidents to two terms. It’s an unvarnished, right-out-in-the-open plan to keep Trump in office well past 2028.
It’s not as if this is genuinely unexpected. By July 2019, Trump had “joked” at least six times about being president for life. Floating that as a possibility, as Peter Tonguette did last week over at The American Conservative, is a great opportunity to show fealty to a candidate who values loyalty over all else.
The American Conservative is a “partner” of Project 2025, along with such luminaries as Stephen Miller’s America First Legal law firm (currently suing everyone over the mildest of diversity efforts) and the Claremont Institute, which gave us Christopher Rufo and Moms for Liberty.
As Media Matters notes, the reasoning in Tonguette’s piece is dubious at best, but that doesn’t really matter. Project 2025 doesn’t rest on solid law, respect for democracy, or an understanding of history. It rests only on the notion that Trump should be allowed to exhibit raw, vicious, and unchecked power.
Read the rest at the link.
At least one family pushed back on Trump’s lies yesterday. In a speech in Michigan yesterday, Trump talked about Ruby Garcia, a woman who was murdered allegedly by an undocumented immigrant.
The Washington Post: Trump said he spoke to murder victim’s family. The victim’s sister said it never happened.
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Donald Trump used his campaign event in Michigan on Tuesday to denounce what he called “Biden’s border bloodbath,” zeroing in on the case of a young woman killed by someone immigration officials say had entered the country illegally.
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