“Thanks, Dakinikat, for putting this in my head; I couldn’t sleep last night.” John Buss @repeat1968
It’s yet another crazy day with Donnie Dotard! Have you ever heard of one person indicted on 91 felonies in 2 state courts and several Federal venues out running amok on bail? There are so many articles out there that show how unfit this man is for office, and it’s not even funny! Let’s start out with this one at The Independent. Trump’s temper tantrums should land him in a jail cell and he almost did. “Donald Trump storms out of closing arguments in E Jean Carroll trial, The former president continued to attack the woman suing him for defamation after his testimony on Thursday.”
Roughly 20 minutes after walking into the courtroom, Donald Trump stormed out of closing arguments in a civil trial to determine how much money he owes E Jean Carroll for repeatedly defaming her.
The former president arrived in federal court in Manhattan on Friday morning after briefly testifying in his defence on Thursday afternoon, after which he unleashed more attacks and potentially defamatory statements about the former Elle magazine columnist.
In her closing statement, Ms Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan told jurors that the former president “acts as if these rules of law just don’t apply to him.”
His attacks didn’t stop after he was found liable for defamation and sexual abuse in a $5m jury verdict, she noted.
“Not at all,” Ms Kaplan said. “Not even for 24 hours.”
Mr Trump then stood up from the defence table, where he was seated next to attorney Alina Habba, and walked out of the hearing, to which he had arrived late.
“The record will reflect that Mr Trump just rose and walked out of the courtroom,” US District Judge Lewis Kaplan said.
Mr Trump returned to the courtroom for defence closing arguments from Ms Habba.
As he returned to the courtroom, his Truth Social account fired off several posts repeating incendiary and potentially defamatory claims about the case, claiming he is a victim of “extortion” and falsely labelling the case a “Joe Biden-directed Election Interference Attack” against him.
I really feel for this judge who has had to deal with this idiot for more than time than would be humanly possible for most people. Adam Klasfeld–The Messenger–reports this. “Judge Threatens to Send Trump Lawyer Alina Habba ‘in the Lockup’ at E. Jean Carroll Trial. The blockbuster remark came moments before closing arguments in Trump’s second trial in a case brought by E. Jean Carroll.”
A federal judge threatened Donald Trump’s attorney Alina Habba with jail time on Friday, after the former president’s lawyer kept contesting a ruling after it had been issued.
“You are on the verge of spending some time in the lockup,” senior U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan warned. “Sit down.”
The bombshell remark came moments before the start of opening statements in Trump’s second trial in a case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll.
Before the jury was let into court, Carroll and Trump’s attorneys had debated the boundaries for their closing arguments. Habba’s co-counsel Michael Madaio had sought to arguing about what he could display in a slideshow to jurors before his summations began, and Carroll’s legal team objected to the presentation of messages that were not entered into evidence.
Judge Kaplan sided with Carroll’s legal team, and Madaio unsuccessfully tried to urge the judge to reconsider his ruling. That’s when Habba jumped up and pressed on, insisting that she had to make a record. She stopped pushing her case after Kaplan threatened her with incarceration.
The jury then entered, and Carroll’s lead attorney Roberta Kaplan — who shares a name with but isn’t related to the judge — began her closing arguments.
His cognitive decline has been evident these days. This is from The New Republic. “Cognitive Decline? Listen to Trump Try to Describe Missile Defense. “Ding, ding, ding, boom, whoosh!”.”
Donald Trump took the road less traveled on Monday, opting to use sounds and shapes rather than words to explain what he had in mind for America’s military.
During a campaign stop in Laconia, New Hampshire—the last rally before the state’s Republican primary—Trump announced that under his leadership, the country would copy and paste Israel’s Iron Dome defense system over our own national borders. That idea, by the way, has previously earned him ridicule even by the likes of Fox News.
“I will build an Iron Dome over our country, a state-of-the-art missile defense shield made in the USA,” Trump said. “We do it for other countries. We help other countries, we build, we don’t do it for ourselves.”
But then, things got weird as Trump tried once again to assert his “extremely stable genius” status.
“These are not muscle guys here, they’re muscle guys up here, right,” Trump said, gesturing to his arms and then his head.
“And they calmly walk to us, and ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.… They’ve only got 17 seconds to figure this whole thing out. Boom. OK. Missile launch. Woosh. Boom,” he added.
The stunning performance comes after the 77-year-old bragged that he “aced” a cognitive test that required him to correctly identify a giraffe, tiger, and whale. According to Trump, that means his “mind is stronger now than it was 25 years ago.” In reality, that test is meant to measure dementia or cognitive decline, and it has never included the combination of animals Trump keeps mentioning.
Trump’s cognitive decline has been in question recently after the GOP front-runner was spotted with mysterious red sores on his hands. Trump has also been making increasingly nonsense remarks during his campaign tangents—last week, the former president said he would stop banks from “debanking” Americans—and confusing major players in American politics. During another campaign speech, Trump switched up former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and his only rival in the GOP race, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, several times, blaming Haley for the events of January 6 while claiming she turned down extra security. (The House committee assigned to probe the attack found no evidence to support Trump’s claim, which he has previously leveled at Pelosi.)
Trump’s political performances are just altogether weird. They are completely inappropriate–once again–for any one running for any office let alone the U.S. Presidency. This is from Stephan Robinson writing at Public Notice. “Trump’s stubborn defiance of normal political gravity. Trump’s Haley/Pelosi gaffe would’ve ended most campaigns. For him it was just another Friday.”
One week ago tonight in New Hampshire, Donald Trump confused Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — and it wasn’t a mere slip of the tongue.
Trump went on a full-length tear accusing his primary opponent of failing to secure the Capitol on January 6, despite the fact Haley wasn’t even in government at the time. (What Trump was trying to say still would’ve been a grotesque lie even if he’d gotten the names right.)
“You know, by the way, they never report the crowd on January 6,” he began. “You know, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley. Do you know that they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything. Deleted and destroyed all of it. All of it. Because of lots of things, like Nikki Haley is in charge of security. We offered her security, 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guard, whatever they want, they turned it down. They don’t want to talk about that.”
That sad spectacle would’ve devastated any normal candidate’s campaign. Several political commentators from Pod Save America co-host Dan Pfeiffer to David Corn at Mother Jones noted on social media with almost rueful resignation that had Biden done this, it would’ve dominated the news cycle. Alas, Trump is different. His staff didn’t even really try to clean the gaffe up, and he beat Haley in New Hampshire by double digits a few days later. How is that possible?
Indeed, how is this possible? I love this analysis.
The media grades Trump on an infinity curve
Although most media outlets did state categorically that Trump mixed up Haley with Pelosi, they failed to connect it to a larger narrative. Instead, they just … moved on. Compare this to the “Rubio bot” aftermath when the New York Times declared, ”How a Debate Misstep Sent Marco Rubio Tumbling in New Hampshire.” Journalist Molly Jong-Fast wondered, “Donald Trump confused Nancy Pelosi with Nikki Haley and Joe Biden with Barack Obama. Where are the ‘is Donald Trump too old’ think pieces?” But that might also miss a larger point: A narrative that Trump is “too old” or has “lost a step” since 2016 minimizes his threat. He’s not even trying to hide that he aspires to become a dictator.
Trump has interfered with current Congressional negotiations on the situation at the border just because the chaos suits his campaign goals. This is utter madness. This happens as the Governor of Texas has decided to ignore a Supreme Court Ruling. This is from U.S News & World Report as reported by the Associated Press.
A politically treacherous dynamic is taking hold as negotiators in Congress work to strike a bipartisan deal on the border and immigration, with vocal opposition from the hard right and former President Donald Trump threatening to topple the carefully
Senators are closing in on the details of an agreement on border measures that could unlock Republican support for Ukraine aid and hope to unveil it as soon as next week. But the deal is already wobbling, as House Speaker Mike Johnson faces intense pressure from Trump and his House allies to demand more sweeping concessions from Democrats and the White House.
“I do not think we should do a Border Deal, at all, unless we get EVERYTHING needed to shut down the INVASION of Millions & Millions of people,” Trump posted on social media this week.
It’s a familiar political dynamic, one that has repeatedly thwarted attempts to reform U.S. immigration law, including in 2013 when House Republicans sought to pin illegal immigration on a Democratic president and in 2018 when Trump helped sink another bipartisan effort. The path for legislation this time around is further clouded by an election year in which Trump has once again made railing against illegal immigration a central focus of his campaign.
Well, it done wobbled. This report is from CNN. “GOP senators seethe as Trump blows up delicate immigration compromise.”Election-Year Politics Threaten Senate Border Deal as Trump and His Allies Rally Opposition,” What role is there in current policy for a deranged, convicted rapist, and insurrectionist who has been indicted 91 times for his crimes against our country? He’s also pushing Policies friendly for Putin’s ugly regime.
Senior Senate Republicans are furious that Donald Trump may have killed an emerging bipartisan deal over the southern border, depriving them of a key legislative achievement on a pressing national priority and offering a preview of what’s to come with Trump as their likely presidential nominee.
In recent weeks, Trump has been lobbying Republicans both in private conversations and in public statements on social media to oppose the border compromise being delicately hashed out in the Senate, according to GOP sources familiar with the conversations – in part because he wants to campaign on the issue this November and doesn’t want President Joe Biden to score a victory in an area where he is politically vulnerable.
Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged in a private meeting on Wednesday that Trump’s animosity toward the yet-to-be-released border deal puts Republicans in a serious bind as they try to move forward on the already complex issue. For weeks, Republicans have been warning that Trump’s opposition could blow up the bipartisan proposal, but the admission from McConnell was particularly striking, given he has been a chief advocate for a border-Ukraine package.
Now, Republicans on Capitol Hill are grappling with the reality that most in the GOP areloathe to do anything that is seen as potentially undermining the former president. And the prospects of a deal being scuttled before it has even been finalized has sparked tensions and confusion in the Senate GOP as they try to figure out if, and how, to proceed – even as McConnell made clear during party lunches Thursday that he remains firmly behind the effort to strike a deal, according to attendees.
“I think the border is a very important issue for Donald Trump. And the fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and congresspeople that he doesn’t want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it is … really appalling,” said GOP Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, who has been an outspoken critic of Trump.
He added, “But the reality is that, that we have a crisis at the border, the American people are suffering as a result of what’s happening at the border. And someone running for president not to try and get the problem solved. as opposed to saying, ‘hey, save that problem. Don’t solve it. Let me take credit for solving it later.’”
GOP Sen. Todd Young of Indiana called any efforts to disrupt the ongoing negotiations “tragic” and said: “I hope no one is trying to take this away for campaign purposes.”
How do we get rid of this meddlesome former guy? The Border Standoff now includes multiple Governors defying a Supreme Court ruling as I mentioned above. This is playing with fire. PBS News Hour has this headline. “Border standoff between Texas, feds intensifies as governor defies Supreme Court ruling.” My stupid-ass governor as well as others are joining in the defiance. This is from a transcript of an interview of Stephen Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law by Laura Barron-Lopez.
Laura Barron-Lopez:
And Governor Abbott is claiming that he has this authority under the U.S. Constitution because the federal government isn’t protecting Texas against a — quote — “invasion.” That’s the way he’s been describing it.
Is this a reasonable interpretation of the Constitution?
Steve Vladeck:
No, and in two different respects.
I mean, the first is that, obviously, an influx of asylum seekers, however many we’re talking about, is not what the founders had in mind when they used the word invasion. But, Laura, second, even if you’re not persuaded by that, the clause Governor Abbott’s relying on in Article 1, Section 10 of the Constitution was dealing with the specific scenario of the ability of states to respond to invasions until federal authorities were able to respond.
This is the time in American history when the federal military was small. It was very spread out. It took weeks to travel. Congress was usually out of session. There’s no support in our history, there’s no support in founding or other materials for the idea that states can decide for themselves that they’re under invasion, and, even if the federal government disagrees, that somehow it’s the state’s determination that would control.
Laura Barron-Lopez:
Recently, three migrants drowned in the Rio Grande in this section that Border Patrol agents have been trying to access.
And all this comes as a number of Republican governors still say that they support Texas, that they stand by Texas. What are the larger implications of this standoff between Texas and the federal government?
Steve Vladeck:
I mean, the larger implications are pretty staggering.
It’s not just the specter of a physical confrontation between federal and Texas officials along the border in Eagle Pass. It’s also basically a relegation of a debate that we had in American law for the first 70 years of this country about the ability of states to effectively nullify those federal laws that they disagreed with, that they thought were unconstitutional.
For better or for worse in our constitutional system, federal law supersedes state law, even when we don’t like how the federal government is or is not enforcing those federal laws. The remedies for those disagreements are not to allow every state to go out on their own and to have their own policies.
The remedies, if you really have a problem with the policies, is to change the people who are making them. Otherwise, it’s a federal system, Laura, in name only.
Laura Barron-Lopez:
And Governor Abbott also claims that the federal government has — quote — “broken the compact with states.”
Where have — what do you think he means by that? And have states in the past used that language to justify defying the federal government?
Steve Vladeck:
Yes, I mean, the compact theory of the Constitution is a pretty outlier view, especially these days, about the way the Constitution was formed.
The basic premise is that the federal government, the constitutional system we have was formed by the states, and, therefore, the states can control its terms. That was the argument on which the Southern states predicated secession and helped to precipitate the Civil War. There’s a reason why we tend not to hear that much of it these days.
Again, I mean, I think there’s a lot of folks who are going to have strong views about whether the Biden administration is or isn’t doing what’s best for the country at the border. But the way to air those disagreements is through the federal electoral process.
In a world in which states can follow this version of the compact theory as a justification for interfering with federal authority, what’s to stop California from doing that to the next Republican president? What’s to stop Vermont from doing that to the next Republican president? And then we’re talking about a system in which the states have all the power, and the federal government is basically impotent to do anything.
Laura Barron-Lopez:
And Governor Abbott also claims that the federal government has — quote — “broken the compact with states.”
Where have — what do you think he means by that? And have states in the past used that language to justify defying the federal government?
Steve Vladeck:
Yes, I mean, the compact theory of the Constitution is a pretty outlier view, especially these days, about the way the Constitution was formed.
The basic premise is that the federal government, the constitutional system we have was formed by the states, and, therefore, the states can control its terms. That was the argument on which the Southern states predicated secession and helped to precipitate the Civil War. There’s a reason why we tend not to hear that much of it these days.
Again, I mean, I think there’s a lot of folks who are going to have strong views about whether the Biden administration is or isn’t doing what’s best for the country at the border. But the way to air those disagreements is through the federal electoral process.
In a world in which states can follow this version of the compact theory as a justification for interfering with federal authority, what’s to stop California from doing that to the next Republican president? What’s to stop Vermont from doing that to the next Republican president? And then we’re talking about a system in which the states have all the power, and the federal government is basically impotent to do anything.
This is another example of hour Republicans are basically trying to destroy our system of government. It’s coming from all sides. I’m not sure this will all end even if Trump manages to choke on McDonald’s fries and head off to a different hell realm out of our reality.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Here we are, faced with choice
Shutters and walls or open embrace
Like it or not, the human race
Is us all
History is what it is
Scars we inflict on each other don’t die
But slowly soak into the DNA
Of us all
Of us all
Us all
I pray we not fear to love
I pray we be free of judgement and shame
Open the vein, let kindness rain
O’er us all
O’er us all
O’er us all
Us all
Songwriters: Bruce Cockburn
Welcome back to the fold, DeSantis. John Buss, @Repeat1968
We no longer have Ron DeSantis to kick around! Well, we’ll still kick him around for a least a few more days here. He’s such an easy target. DeSantis ended his bizarro world campaign with a hat tip to a fake Churchill Quote just before bending the knee. This is from The Daily Beast. Jake Lahut has the coverage. “DeSantis Campaign Uses Fake Churchill Quote in Final Message. “The International Churchill Society once referred to it as “a double misquote” in a blog post on the same set of words.” I’m pretty sure SNL will have a heyday with this one. His campaign was as misbegotten as his personality. Do all Republicans appear to have Personality Disorders, or is it just my take from the few courses I took at University?
The Ron DeSantis large language model appeared to hallucinate on Sunday, with the campaign running an apparently fake Winston Churchill quote as the title of the candidate’s drop-out announcement video.
It was a fitting touch for a campaign whose launch was a glitchy mess on Twitter, ending with another farce on the same site now called X.
“Defeat is never fatal. Victory is never final: it is the courage to continue that counts,” the quote attributed to Churchill by the DeSantis campaign read.
Unfortunately, Churchill not only never said that, but he didn’t even say the next closest quote that’s more commonly falsely attributed to him—amounting to what the International Churchill Society once referred to as “a double misquote” in a blog post on the same set of words.
According to the Churchill remembrance outfit, the former British prime minister and military leader never said anything close to the phrase that the DeSantis campaign attributed to him.
“Ok, one more toon drop in celebration of the glorious crash and burn that was Awkward Himmler’s campaign of cringe.” Jesse Duquette.
I’m not sure these days how some of these folks even made it out the door for kindergarten, let alone a public career. Bye, Felicia!
NBC News has this analysis of the crash and burn. “‘A total failure to launch’: Why Ron DeSantis was doomed from the start. Muddled messages, hiring too many staffers and even a puzzle — how it all went wrong for DeSantis’ presidential bid.” I thought this guy was the worst candidate I’ve ever seen. No amount of high-paid staffers and public relations gurus can correct that. I really wonder about the brains of those Dark Money Billionaires that got behind him. I think a toddler could slice and dice this disaster.
Iowa was supposed to be make-or-break for Ron DeSantis.
The Florida governor essentially moved his campaign there late last year, and Never Back Down, his allied super PAC, spent tens of millions of dollars knocking on doors in the state.
“We’re going to win Iowa,” DeSantis declared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Dec. 2
But in the week before the all-important caucuses, Scott Wagner, the recently installed head of the super PAC, was doing something that aides found puzzling: He was literally doing a puzzle.
In the headquarters of Never Back Down in West Des Moines, Iowa, Wagner was, according to some of his staff, spending a significant amount of time in the precious final few days constructing a peaceful 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle of a landscape.
In a photo taken on Jan. 9, shared with NBC News by a Never Back Down team member, others in the room were hunched over their laptops.
“Staffers are putting their dedication and devotion to electing Gov. DeSantis and they come in and the CEO, the chairman of the organization, is sitting there working on a puzzle for hours,” said a Never Back Down staffer who was there.
Another Never Back Down staffer also said Wagner worked on it for “hours” in the week before Iowa.
Let me reconsider the value of those “high-paid staffers and public relations gurus.” My guess is they’ll never put Humpty DeSantis back together again. This guy probably put that “Churchill” quote in the final speech.
The fact that one of the top people in charge of securing a win for DeSantis in Iowa was spending time on something unrelated to the caucuses was emblematic of the mismanagement and wasted efforts that many of DeSantis’ own supporters say have plagued the campaign from the very beginning.
In a comment to NBC News, Wagner noted that the “office puzzle” was “there when we arrived” and “became a sense of pride for the entire team and everyone chipped in a few minutes a piece to get it done.”
“I could not be more proud of every person in our Iowa office. I came out to work with our Iowa team and our incredible COO Jordan Wiggins in person for the final two week push in Iowa and I came away with a group of people I would go to war with any time, anywhere. We worked non-stop together on operations in terrible weather conditions,” he said, adding, “The operation worked nearly 24/7 throughout for the Gov and was absolutely seamless. I am so proud of what we achieved in Iowa and will achieve beyond.”
Desantis quit and then endorsed Orange Caligula. This is from the New York Times. “Ron DeSantis Ends Campaign for President. The Florida governor, who once appeared to be Donald Trump’s most daunting challenger, ran a costly, turbulent campaign that failed to catch on with Republican voters.” Is it just me, or do all these headlines sound like something that should be in a film noir review?
Mr. DeSantis’s devastating 30-percentage-point loss to Mr. Trump in the Iowa caucuses last Monday had left him facing a daunting question: Why keep going? On Sunday, he provided his answer, acknowledging there was no point in soldiering on without a “clear path to victory.”
“I am today suspending my campaign,” Mr. DeSantis said in a video posted after The New York Times reported he was expected to leave the race, adding: “Trump is superior to the current incumbent, Joe Biden. That is clear. I signed a pledge to support the Republican nominee, and I will honor that pledge. He has my endorsement because we can’t go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear.”
Tell that to all those folk still pissing themselves and lying about the presidency of Ronald Reagan.
Peter Wehner–writing at The Atlantic–has the bigger picture. “The Party of Malice. Donald Trump has made the Republican Party cruel, xenophobic, exclusionary, and bigoted.” Ya think? But, after all that’s what they were going for with the Southern Strategy, right? Ronald Reagan announced his presidency with a slap in the face-like hint. Republicans have been after this a long time since John Brown and Abe Lincoln’s bodies have been moldering in the grave. Reagan read it like the C-level actor he was over and over. But back to the current state of the party.
You knew it was coming.
As soon as former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley emerged as the main threat to Donald Trump in the battle for the Republican nomination, it became inevitable that she would be targeted by him. Any front-runner would do the same thing. But Trump did it with his typical touch.
Last week, Trump reposted on his Truth Social account a conspiracy theory that Haley, who was born in South Carolina, was not qualified to be president because her parents, born in India, were not U.S. citizens at the time of her birth. In fact, the Fourteenth Amendment establishes that any person born on American soil is a citizen of the United States and therefore can serve as president.
Last Tuesday, Trump decided to ratchet up the racism a few notches. On Truth Social, he wrote this about his former ambassador to the United Nations:
Anyone listening to Nikki “Nimrada” Haley’s wacked out speech last night, would think that she won the Iowa Primary. She didn’t, and she couldn’t even beat a very flawed Ron DeSanctimonious, who’s out of money, and out of hope. Nikki came in a distant THIRD! She said she would never run against me, “he was a great President,” and she should have followed her own advice. Now she’s stuck with WEAK POLICIES, and a VERY STRONG MAGA BASE, and there’s just nothing she can do!
That was three days ago. Dark Brandon isn’t waiting for the New Hampshire Primary tomorrow.
Why wait for Haley to throw in the towel? They have attacked Trump in a series of new ads. This is from The Hill. “Biden campaign features OB-GYN who left Texas for abortion in new ad.”
President Biden’s reelection campaign on Monday dropped an ad to mark the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade that features an OB-GYN who couldn’t receive an abortion in Texas after the landmark law was overturned
The 60-second ad, entitled “Forced,” is narrated by Dr. Austin Dennard, an OB-GYN in Texas and mother of three, who placed the blame squarely on former President Trump, the GOP front-runner in the 2024 election, for having to leave the state for the procedure.
Dennard said in the ad she had a planned pregnancy two years ago and learned the fetus had a fatal condition with no chance of survival.
“In Texas, you are forced to carry that pregnancy and that is because of Donald Trump overturning Roe v. Wade. The choice was completely taken away. I was to continue my pregnancy, putting my life at risk,” she added.
The ad went live Monday in battleground states and will broadcast nationally during the season premiere of ABC’s “The Bachelor.” It will also run on channels like HGTV, TLC, Bravo, Hallmark, Food Network, and Oxygen, according to the Biden campaign.
It hits right at the heart of Trump being in charge of turning women into walking coffins. That will be one of the core issues of 2024. But also, Dark Brandon and company have gone for Trump’s jugular. His mental decline is oblivious. They even dare to use Nikki against him.
Other issues haunt Trump. He’s got all those court appearances and trials. This is from Ankush Khardori, who is writing for Politico. “Polls Show Trump Could Be Doomed If He’s Convicted. Will a Trial Happen in Time? Here’s the real timeline for Trump’s criminal trials. “
The results in Iowa last week were a win for Donald Trump, but they also underscored that the former president’s ongoing legal troubles are among his biggest liabilities in a rematch with Joe Biden.
Nearly a third of Republican caucusgoers told pollsters that Trump would not be “fit” for the presidency if he is convicted of a crime — a sizable defection that, if it held, would likely doom Trump’s general election chances.
Polling in this area is challenging, so it is best to take this figure with a considerable grain of salt. Some portion of these people, for instance, may believe Trump would literally be incapable of serving as president if convicted of a crime — perhaps because he would immediately be hauled off to prison or disqualified — which is not true, and which they would eventually come to learn if things moved in that direction.
But what is clear is that some lingering courtroom questions are now essential electoral questions as well: When will Trump’s myriad trials take place? And can any jury deliver a verdict before this November?
The answers are crucial to understanding how the 2024 campaign could ultimately unfold. Over the coming year, federal and state prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges — including the Supreme Court — will have to maneuver amid an inflexible political calendar. Here’s the timeline for how it’s likely to go.
Hurry! … Oops, too late. The Disgraced Former Guy running again and again and again. John Buss,@repeat1968
Khadori argues that “Among All Trump’s Trials, the Jan. 6 Case Is Key. For both political and legal reasons, the most important case is the Justice Department’s prosecution over Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election.” You may read more at the link.
This one story is from The Washington Post, where Trump’s antics have been outrageous. ” In Judge Kaplan’s court, Trump plays with fire. “
In the high-stakes world of presidential trials, there are no judges like Lewis A. Kaplan.
At 79, after decades on the bench, the senior judge is one of the most well-regarded legal minds in New York. And he has a unique history that makes Donald Trump’s courtroom behavior over the past
Trump is on trial in a civil case as writer E. Jean Carroll seeks damages from Trump, who has been found liable for defaming her when he made disparaging remarks denying he sexually assaulted her decades ago in a department store.
Trump has claimed that he intends to testify in the case on Monday — which would probably produce a dramatic courtroom showdown. But it’s unclear whether Trump will really show up. For one thing, he has made similar claims in the past, then not appeared. For another, Tuesday is the New Hampshire primary, and Trump is again running for president.
If he does testify, legal experts said, his time on the witness stand could be something akin to a suicide mission.
Over the past week, Kaplan’s handling of the damages trial in Lower Manhattan shows how different a federal courtroom is from most other parts of public life — even state court, where Trump and his lawyers had more leeway to squabble with a judge overseeing a different civil trial in another New York courthouse over the past several months. Kaplan has not tolerated similar behavior, and Trump has railed on social media that the federal judge is “a totally biased and hostile person.”
The former president claimed that he only lost a previous lawsuit brought by Carroll over the sexual assault and a different set of defamatory commentsbecause he didn’t appear in court personally. Kaplan oversaw that lawsuit, too.
In recent weeks, Trump has been attending more court hearings than he needs to, seemingly deciding that the best way to fight his legal critics — and win the GOP nomination — is to try to shout them down. He has spoken out of turn in the courtroom and denounced the proceedings.
Legal experts warn that if he does so on the witness stand in Kaplan’s courtroom, he could end up humiliated and threatened with contempt of court.
Robert Katzberg, a veteran New York white-collar criminal defense lawyer, said Kaplan is “the worst possible draw for Trump,” not because of any personal or political bias, but because of the type of judge he is.
“He’s really smart and takes no guff from either side. He expects lawyers to be professional and toe the line, and if they do not, holds them accountable,” said Katzberg, who is now consulting counsel for Holland & Knight.
“Even if you had the most pro-Trump judge in America overseeing the trial, Donald Trump should not testify. Multiply that by a million with Lewis Kaplan on the bench,” he said. “Given both his lack of any relevant facts as to the only issue remaining — the damages suffered by Ms. Carroll — and Donald Trump’s inability to control himself emotionally, he is begging not only to be debased before the jury, but contempt citations will be looming large.”
Media outlets are already taking notice of Biden’s ads and the basic look of Trump in Court. So are Political Cartoonists! This is from The Guardian. “Video released of petulant Trump in civil fraud trial deposition. Smirking, pouting and defiant ex-president bragged about properties and claimed he prevented nuclear war with North Korea.”
Months before Donald Trump’s defiant turn as a witness at his New York civil fraud trial, the former president came face to face with the state attorney general who is suing him when he sat for a deposition last year at her Manhattan office.
Video made public on Friday of the seven-hour, closed-door session last April shows the Republican presidential frontrunner’s demeanor going from calm and cool to indignant – at one point ripping into the lawsuit of the attorney general, Letitia James, against him as a “disgrace” and “a terrible thing”.
Sitting with arms folded, an incredulous Trump complained to the state lawyer questioning him that he was being forced to “justify myself to you” after decades of success building a real estate empire that is now threatened by the court case.
Trump, who contends James’s lawsuit is part of a politically motivated “witch-hunt”, was demonstrative from the outset. The video shows him smirking and pouting as the attorney general, a Democrat, introduced herself and told him that she was “committed to a fair and impartial legal process”.
James’s office released the video on Friday in response to requests from media outlets under New York’s Freedom of Information Law. Trump’s lawyers previously posted a transcript of his remarks to the trial docket in August.
James’s lawsuit accuses Trump, his company and top executives of defrauding banks, insurers, and others by inflating his wealth and exaggerating the value of assets on annual financial statements used to secure loans and make deals.
Judge Arthur Engoron, who will decide the case because a jury is not allowed in this type of lawsuit, has said he hopes to have a ruling by the end of January.
Friday’s video is a rare chance for the public at large to see Trump as a witness.
Sahil Kapur of NBC reports this headline as Democratic candidates look poised to flip some seats. ‘It’s embarrassing’: Republicans worry they have no achievements to run on in 2024. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, has openly questioned whether the GOP deserves to keep the House majority, lamenting the lack of accomplishments this Congress. He’s not alone.” Ah, poor widdle babies.
When Congress began the new year, Rep. Andy Biggs gave a television interview and made a startling confession: House Republicans have done nothing they can run on.
“We have nothing. In my opinion, we have nothing to go out there and campaign on,” the Arizona Republican said on the conservative network Newsmax. “It’s embarrassing.”
Anchor Chris Salcedo responded with a bemused chuckle. “I know,” he said. “The Republican Party in the Congress majority has zero accomplishments.”
The exchange captured a dynamic that looms over Republican lawmakers heading into the 2024 election: They’ve passed little substantive legislation since winning the majority in 2022 and struggled to do the basics of governing with a Democratic-led Senate. Their first year was instead marked by fractiousness and chaos, complicating the party’s pitch to voters this fall. The challenge is accentuated by likely GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump making “retribution” against his enemies, rather than shared policy goals, the centerpiece of his comeback bid as he continues to spread fabricated claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
With 10 months until Election Day, Republicans still have a few opportunities to salvage what has been a historically unproductive congressional session and pass new laws in the divided government.
A spending deal between House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., gives the GOP a chance to achieve spending cuts. A potential Senate immigration deal gives them an opportunity to toughen asylum and border laws. And a bipartisan tax bill that overwhelmingly passed through committee on Friday presents a rare opening to deliver tax breaks for GOP backers in the business community.
Yet none of those measures are guaranteed to become law. Right-wing members, including Biggs, are rebelling against some of them for being insufficiently conservative. The emerging immigration bill’s prospects may hinge on Trump, who is seeking to wield chaos at the border as a weapon against President Joe Biden in the general election.
The tax bill faces some skepticism from Senate Republicans and fierce opposition from the business-aligned Wall Street Journal editorial board, which complained that it would “give Democrats a huge policy victory” on the child credit. “Republicans haven’t done much in the 118th Congress, and in their scramble to compensate they may now do real policy harm,” the paper wrote.
It’s not looking like Trump or Republicans have the momentum right now, even though polls don’t reflect that. I’m waiting until at least Super Tuesday to really take any poll seriously. I’m just focused on the insane weather around me right now. It’s supposed to get better tomorrow. I hope you have some bright and sunny days! No matter where you are, it will not be bright or sunny during the election 2024 season.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
DRILLERS by Reima Ratti 1936
“We are the United States of Amnesia; we learn nothing because we remember nothing.”
Gore Vidal
There are some alarming headlines in the News today. Most of them are related to messes made by Donald Trump or his Republican enablers. The Republican-appointed judges on the Supreme Court continue to be the focus of alarm. Their continued efforts to reshape policy continue to kill people and give concentrated power to the Federalist billionaires that brought them there.
The economy is good, but corporations are taking advantage of the recent spate of inflation to line their pockets. Prices are higher than they should be. Again, this is because of a decades-effort by billionaires to rig policy. I’ve been horrified at Trump whining about being Herbert Hoover but simultaneously hoping the stock market crashes. Rather than focus on dealing with the budget, that same group of crazies in Congress are turning committees into bedlam. What on earth possesses people to send folks uninterested in solving problems but quite interested in creating drama where there should be none?
You’ll notice that my paintings today come from another difficult time in US history. Please enjoy the paintings by the CCC artists who painted the workers rebuilding the American dream in the 1930s. Maybe some of the Infrastructure Money landing around the country will turn into these kinds of good jobs. Here’s an interesting tidbit. You know all that inflation that’s still hanging around? The reason is pretty disgusting. This is from The Guardian and was written by Tom Perkins. “Half of recent US inflation due to high corporate profits, report finds. Thinktank report says ‘resounding evidence’ shows companies continue to keep prices high even as their inflationary costs drop.”
A new report claims “resounding evidence” shows that high corporate profits are a main driver of ongoing inflation, and companies continue to keep prices high even as their inflationary costs drop.
The report, compiled by the progressive Groundwork Collaborative thinktank, found corporate profits accounted for about 53% of inflation during last year’s second and third quarters. Profits drove just 11% of price growth in the 40 years prior to the pandemic, according to the report.
Prices for consumers rose by 3.4% over the past year, but input costs for producers increased by just 1%, according to the authors’ calculations which were based on data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and National Income and Products Accounts.
“Costs have come down substantially, and while corporations were quick to pass on their increased costs to consumers, they are surprisingly less quick to pass on their savings to consumers,” Liz Pancotti, a Groundwork strategic advisor and paper co-author, told the Guardian.
Since pandemic inflation spiked in 2021, a high-stakes debate has played out about its sources. Many progressive economists pointed to corporate profits – or “greedflation” – and supply chain issues as a driver of high prices, while their more conservative counterparts singled out government stimulus cash and high wages.
The report’s authors scoured corporate earnings calls and found executives bragging to shareholders about keeping prices high and widening profit margins as input costs come down.
The findings come as the Federal Reserve has hiked interest rates to their highest point in 20 years. The report casts serious doubt on the need for further interest rate hikes, and instead calls for stronger policies to rein in “corporate profiteering”.
Greg Sargent takes on the “Presidential Immunity” defense at The New Republic. “Trump’s Angry Rant About His Legal Mess Reveals an Ugly MAGA Truth. His immunity defense isn’t merely a legal argument. He’s priming his base to back wanton lawbreaking if he wins back the White House.”
Donald Trump’s lawyers have been arguing in court that he should have immunity from prosecution for crimes related to his insurrection because they constituted official acts committed while he was president. Special counsel Jack Smith has countered that this is tantamount to saying presidents should “operate in a realm without law.”
Now Trump has effectively confirmed it: A presidential realm without law is exactly what I want, Jack. In an angry, all-caps social media rant, Trump declared that “A PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES MUST HAVE FULL IMMUNITY” in order to “PROPERLY FUNCTION.” As observers quickly noted, this is best seen as a threat and a promise: A second Trump term, if voters give him one, will certainly include an untold amount of presidential lawbreaking.
But there’s more. What if this openly telegraphed intention to strain the boundaries of the law in office—or even to commit crimes—is not merely an incidental by-product of Trump’s legal defense but has become a key feature of his political appeal? There are strong indications that Trump is intentionally trying to raise expectations among his core supporters for just that—a presidency unbound by the law. And there are even signs it’s having exactly that effect.
To be clear, Trump’s demand for immunity—which is being decided by a federal appeals court—is weak and likely to fail, as I recently detailed. Indeed, this is exactly why Trump is loudly calling on the Supreme Court to rescue him from accountability by enshrining the notion that post-presidents cannot be prosecuted for crimes committed in office:
ALL PRESIDENTS MUST HAVE COMPLETE & TOTAL PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY, OR THE AUTHORITY & DECISIVENESS OF A PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES WILL BE STRIPPED & GONE FOREVER. HOPEFULLY THIS WILL BE AN EASY DECISION. GOD BLESS THE SUPREME COURT!
Trump also declared that even presidential acts that “CROSS THE LINE” must be given “TOTAL IMMUNITY” from prosecution. The Justice Department has a long-standing rule against prosecuting sitting presidents. But here Trump insists (inflating his lawyers’ arguments into something even more grotesquely absurd) that for presidents to be effective, they must be free to cross legal lines with immunity from future prosecution that is absolute.
Isn’t this the sort of thing that caused the colonists to overthrow the king in 1776? At least Trump’s enablers are beginning to face the music. “U.S. seeks jail for Trump adviser Navarro in Jan. 6 contempt case. The former Trump White House trade adviser acted without a lawyer in defying a House subpoena and failed to substantiate a claim that Trump asserted executive privilege to bar his testimony.” This is from Spencer S. Hsu, reporting for the Washington Post. Six months in jail is for contempt, not that crime.
Federal prosecutors asked a judge Thursday to sentence former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro to six months behind bars for contempt of Congress, saying he put allegiance to former president Donald Trump over the rule of law in refusing to cooperate with a House committee probing the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
Navarro, 74, was found guilty in September of two contempt charges for refusing to produce documents or testify after receiving a House subpoena in February 2022. A former trade and pandemic adviser who served throughout Trump’s term in office, Navarro claimed credit for hatching a scheme with longtime Trump political adviser Stephen K. Bannon to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential race.
In a 20-page sentencing request, prosecutors said Navarro’s “bad-faith strategy of defiance and contempt” deserved severe punishment. Like the rioters, Navarro “put politics, not country, first, and stonewalled Congress’s investigation” even after learning that his claim of executive privilege would not excuse his actions, the prosecutors said.
We must remember that Trump’s plans for his next move into the West Wing include lower lifeforms than this guy. We’ve already had hints about how “radical” his staffing would be. Trump was inkling Tucker Carlson as VEEP. This week, he offered up Elise Stefanik. This is from NBC. “‘She’s a killer’: Trump eyes Rep. Elise Stefanik as a potential VP pick. The former president has spoken highly of the New York congresswoman, and his allies say she’s high on the list of vice presidential prospects.”
Ever since then, Trump and a growing group of allies have started to look more closely at Stefanik as a running mate, according to eight people familiar with the matter, including people in Trump’s orbit, Stefanik fundraising bundlers and former Trump administration officials.
At the time, the 39-year-old congresswoman was at the crest of a wave of national publicity after taking on the top leaders of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Their answers to the question, “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate [your college’s] rules on bullying and harassment?” eventually resulted in two of them resigning and brought a firestorm of criticism on the schools.
But Stefanik was on Trump’s radar long before that hearing, because she possesses one of the key attributes he’s looking for in a 2024 running mate: loyalty. That, mixed with her ability to drive the news on key issues, may be an irresistible mix for a vice presidential pick.
“Stefanik is at the top,” said Steve Bannon, who was Trump’s chief strategist in the White House and the architect of his 2016 campaign strategy.
“If you’re Trump, you want someone who’s loyal above all else,” a Republican campaign operative said. “Particularly because he sees Mike Pence as having made a fatal sin.”
On Wednesday, after this story was published, Stefanik announced she would be campaigning with Trump in New Hampshire.
Once a moderate Republican who worked on Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, Stefanik shifted to the right and rebranded herself as one of Trump’s top allies on Capitol Hill after he won the White House in 2016.
“She’s come a long way, and now she’s really, really with us,” Trump said during a lunch in the spring of 2022, according to a source familiar with his comments, adding, “She was kind of with us before, but she’s really with us now.”
Stefanik declined to comment on whether she would be interested in being Trump’s running mate, telling NBC News she was focused on her role in Congress.
“I’m not going to get into any of my conversations with President Trump. I’m honored to call him a friend. I’m proud to be the first member of Congress to have endorsed his re-election, and he had a huge win in Iowa. So we’re very excited about that,” she said.
We will also be dealing with an insane amount of propaganda and disinformation like this crazy one fact-checked by Reuters on Journalist Mehdi Hassan.
Journalist Mehdi Hasan was not arrested by the U.S. Navy’s legal branch for “treason,” as suggested by an article from a website that regularly publishes false claims about high-profile arrests.
The website Real Raw News published an article on Jan. 9 with a headline that reads: “JAG Arrests Mehdi Hasan.” Screenshots of the Real Raw News headline, “JAG Arrests Mehdi Hasan” surfaced on X, and Facebook.
The Jan. 9 article falsely claims that the MSNBC host was arrested by the Navy’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAG Corps), the body that provides legal services to the Navy and Marines soldiers and the Army, for his coverage of COVID-19 vaccines after Hasan announced on Jan. 7 that he was leaving the U.S. TV news channel MSNBC, where he presented his own show.
There is no such case involving Hasan logged in Navy-Marine Court filings, or in cases logged by the U.S. Court Martial Public Record System.
All this stuff is so crazy you wish it wouldn’t take up valuable news space. For example, I’d like to hear more about what’s happening in Ukraine. But wow, we need to know how crazy and how far off normal the Republican party has gone. We’re still facing a possible government shutdown because the Republicans in Congress prefer performance art to governing. We are facing yet another threat of a government shutdown, and possibly another tossed Speaker of the House. This is from Newsweek. “Mike Johnson’s Problems Are Getting Worse.”
Despite Mike Johnson passing a Congressional funding deal on Thursday, the House speaker is still facing political pressure from within his party.
On Thursday, the House of Representatives voted for a short-term funding extension to avoid a government shutdown. It is a temporary fix while Congress decides on details of a $1.66 trillion deal that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Johnson, a Louisiana Republican who became House speaker in October, agreed to earlier this month.
However, more Republicans voted against the bill than voted against a similar bill to avoid a government shutdown in November, with 106 opposing Thursday’s continuing resolution and 93 opposing the November deal, meaning 13 more Republicans were against it than last time.
The Republican Party’s obsession with ensuring the USA maintains a white ruling majority is not only impact how the budget bill goes in the US Congress but pops up all over red states in some truly awful ways. This is from The Guardian. “Outrage as Oklahoma Republican’s bill labels Hispanic people ‘terrorists’. Lawmaker JJ Humphrey seeks punishments for ‘acts of terrorism’ and defines terrorist as ‘any person who is of Hispanic descent’.” MAGA Republicans continue to enable blatant racists.
An Oklahoma lawmaker is facing backlash for proposing a discriminatory bill that deems people of Hispanic descent as “terrorists”.
The Republican state representative JJ Humphrey introduced the bill, HB 3133, which seeks to combat problems in the state, such as drug and human trafficking, and lay out punishments to those who have committed these “acts of terrorism”.
The punishment for such a crime would be forfeiting all assets, including any and all property, vehicles and money.
In addition to “a member of a criminal street gang” and someone who “has been convicted of a gang-related offense”, the bill defines a terrorist as “any person who is of Hispanic descent living within the state of Oklahoma”.
You would think someone who spends time in Oklahoma City would know precisely who the terrorists have been there.
I can’t imagine any of these hijinx will improve over the year. The New Hampshire Primary is on Tuesday. I can’t imagine it being anything to follow on the news. That doesn’t seem right for a country that claims to be a democracy. Elections used to be like Baseball games to me. Now, they’re more like being hit by a baseball bat.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Time to celebrate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion! It’s also time to remember our history so we can work together to form a more perfect union for every one of our citizens and citizens-to-be. The paintings today are the work of two African American Women Artists. Faith Ringgold, 93 years old, paints with various materials. She’s an intersectionalist artist who is most known for her narrative quilts. Malcah Zeldis, 92 years old, is known for art that reflects biblical, historical, and autobiographical themes. Zeldis has painted themes that present Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King and his life and legacy. Both of these artists should be celebrated for their contributions to art and the lives it represents. Thanks to JJ, who sent me down this rabbit hole! Please spend some time with the links to their stories and art.
Today is also the Iowa Republican Caucuses. I find it odd they chose this day but probably felt that a holiday might increase turn-out. However, Mother Nature had a different idea. NBC reports this. “Highlights: Trump and Haley nabbed big endorsements in freezing Iowa. “The candidates braved record-low temperatures as they made their final pitches.” The Polar Vortex making its way here and will give us temps all day tomorrow in the 20s. Hence, I will be spending the afternoon wrapping pipes. Everyone farther north has the brutal cold.
I agree with this from Lakota Man on his threads feed. I’m not sharing his photos. I want it all to be about the images of these fabulous artists!
Ron DeSantis has banned Black authored books and African-American history from Florida schools. And Nikki Haley still won’t attribute the Civil War to slavery. So, any kind of MLK related statement they make today will be totally and completely full of shit and more Republican hypocrisy.
Trump is counting on the crazy vote. This is from Mike Wendling for the BBC. “Iowa caucus: Trump counts on evangelicals to carry him to victory.”
The video is bombastic, even by Mr Trump’s standards. Just consider the title: God Made Trump.
“God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker,'” a voiceover intones over a minimalist piano track. “So God gave us Trump.”
The former president, according to the narrator, is carrying out the will of God. He’s “a shepherd to mankind” who will “fight the Marxists” with “arms strong enough to wrestle the deep state”.
The video is based on So God Made a Farmer, a 1978 speech by American radio host Paul Harvey which extols the virtues of simple rural American life.
Independently produced by a group calling itself “Trump’s Online War Machine”, the clip started to pick up steam a week ago when Mr Trump shared it with millions of followers on his Truth Social account. It immediately enraged some religious leaders here in Iowa.
“He’s not the saviour,” said Michael Demastus, pastor of the Fort Des Moines Church of Christ in the state capital. “Our allegiance as evangelicals is to Jesus, not to the Republican Party or to Donald Trump.”
But despite Mr Demastus’ insistence that many voters agree with him – and that a surprise is in store on Monday – opinion polls show a different story, with Mr Trump poised for a runaway victory over his Republican rivals.
Evangelical support is crucial here in Iowa, with born-again Christians expected to make up around two-thirds of all Republican caucusgoers.
They are a diverse voting bloc – made up of various denominations and including more traditional churchgoers along with others who may not even regularly go to a church, yet still define themselves as evangelical.
American People Series #4: The Civil Rights Triangle, 1963 ©Faith Ringgold
I first met these folks in 1980 when the Nebraska Chair of the Democratic Party sent me to try to stop the Republican Party’s foray into theocracy. I went to the County convention to save the platform from folks trying to remove support from the ERA and decimate Reproductive Health. Pat Robertson’s political campaign had ignited them. They had to be bussed in because they simultaneously showed up like some kind of cult army. They all carried the list of who and how they should vote on colored cards. The women were versions of each other. Hand-made pioneer=looking dresses of little floral prints, long dull hair, bowed heads and herded like sheep by men. I watched them later in 1992, screaming and yelling about ‘multicultural influences’ in the school curriculum. They never gave up, and here we are. They are angry, violent, and hateful. They are everything I always was taught that biblical Jesus was not.
This is from Politico. “Trump consolidates evangelical vote in Iowa. Kari Lake swooped into Bob Vander Plaats’ church on Sunday, a show of force — if not an outright troll — ahead of the caucuses.” Trump suits them to a tee.
Just as the Sunday morning service started here at Soteria church, a top Donald Trump surrogate and Arizona firebrand, Kari Lake, walked in.
To any political observer, it appeared to be an obvious troll. In a metro area rich with churches, Soteria has hosted several Republican presidential candidates in the past year. But the Baptist church, with its 1,300-member congregation, also has a well known parishioner: the Iowa social conservative leader Bob Vander Plaats, who endorsed Ron DeSantis and angered Trump and his allies in doing so.
Lake said she woke up on Sunday and just wanted to go to church.
But it was also a flex. For all the attempts by DeSantis and his evangelical allies to court the conservative Christian vote, Trump not only remains dominant with the group, but is relying on it to fuel his massive lead in Iowa ahead of the caucuses on Monday. A critical faction of the GOP that once blocked his ascendance here in 2016, evangelicals are now a primary reason he is so far ahead.
“Of course I’m caucusing for President Trump,” said Judy Billings, a loyal member of the congregation, clutching her Bible as she entered the foyer. “I just love the guy. I think he’s a total hero, and he has my full support … I think he’s the only one that can win and lead our country.”
Some Republicans are saying the quiet part out loud now that Donald has made being openly racist cool again.
Malcah Zeldis, Martin Luther King, 1995
Elizabeth Spiers has a great Op-Ed up in the New York Times. “What Nikki Haley — and I — Learned at a Segregation Academy.”
After her failure to identify slavery as the cause of the Civil War generated a wave of criticism last month, Nikki Haley assured her potential constituents that she had Black friends, and that she understood the war’s origins. Growing up in South Carolina, she said, “literally in second and third grade, you learn about slavery.” Conveniently producing Black friends is, alas, not surprising, but claiming she learned that the Civil War was a battle over slavery in second and third grade is.
Governor Haley attended a segregation academy, a type of private school established in the years after the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education by white parents who did not want their children attending school with Black children.
By 1975, the number of private schools in South Carolina grew more than tenfold, enrolling as many as 90 percent of the white children in some majority Black counties. The Supreme Court eventually ruled that discrimination on the basis of race wasn’t legal at private schools, either, but even today, many segregation academies remain overwhelmingly white.
Ms. Haley graduated in 1989 from Orangeburg Preparatory School. Orangeburg was the product of a merger between Wade Hampton and Willington Academy, also segregation academies, the former of which was named after one of the largest slaveholding families in South Carolina. At one point, graduates of Hampton received Confederate flag lapel pins, which were meant to symbolize resistance against integration. The year Ms. Haley graduated, her high school yearbook featured at most a handful of Black students.
I believe they refer to this as passing. No wonder Haley identifies as white on the census and other forms. While Haley haunts Iowa, our Vice President speaks at an NAACP conference in South Carolina. She also did this virtual speech.
Another black woman defending the rule of law in our country has taken the podium today.
Slave Rape #3: Fight to Save Your Life, 1972 © 2021 Faith Ringgold
Meanwhile, back in Iowa, John McCormack of The Dispatch reports this. “Courting the Kook Vote in Iowa, Vivek Draws the Ire of Trump. Ramaswamy is fourth in the polls, but top-of-mind for the former president.” I admit I’m giggling over these sparring bullies.
Vivek Ramaswamy was just going through his implausible plan for firing 75 percent of the federal workforce—“the first four agencies we’re going to shut down outright are the FBI, the ATF, the CDC, and the U.S. Department of Education”—when he was interrupted by a man in the crowd.
“What about the CIA, sir?” asked an Iowan named Nathen Trausch. “That’s where all the pedophiles are.”
“Well, CIA is a major problem, but they shouldn’t even exist outside of the military,” Ramaswamy replied. He tried to turn the conversation back to his plan to slash the federal government before Trausch interrupted him again.
“Department of Defense has 5,000 pedophiles in it that in 2019 got arrested by Trump,” Trausch said.
“Well, you know, they deserve to actually be held accountable,” Ramaswamy replied. He later promised Trausch that he would arrest even more child sex-traffickers than Trump did.
It was par for the course for Ramaswamy, who in recent weeks has made an aggressive play for the kook vote. At the December 6 GOP presidential primary debate—the last he qualified for—Ramaswamy emphasized that he was the only candidate on stage who would say that “January 6 now does look like it was an inside job.” He spent the last week campaigning with Candace Owens, a media personality who has made headlines in recent months for her anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric, and former Iowa congressman Steve King, who was stripped of his committee assignments and defeated in a GOP primary following his comments questioning whether white supremacy should be considered “offensive.”
What does Ramaswamy have to show for it? The final Des Moines Register poll conducted by the highly respected J. Ann Selzer found Ramaswamy ticking up a few points since December, from 5 percent to 8 percent, while Donald Trump ticked down a few points, from 51 percent to 48 percent.
Malcha Zeldis (NY/Israel 1933-) Peaceable Kingdom
Vivek, however, evidently can’t pass as white. This is from The Independent. “Voter tells Vivek Ramaswamy’s wife that some Iowans don’t support him because ‘they think he’s Muslim’. The presidential hopeful’s religion and skin colour are still factors that prospective voters are considering, locals told Apoorva Ramaswamy.” I also wonder about the current hatred of immigrants among Republicans impacting the few bits of diversity we find in its presidential candidates.
Some voters in Iowa are still hesitant to throw their support behind Vivek Ramaswamy because they “think he is Muslim”, according to supporters of the presidential hopeful.
Mr Ramaswamy’s religion and skin colour are still factors that prospective voters are considering, locals told his wife Apoorva Ramaswamy at a recent campaign event.
According to polling by FiveThirtyEight, Mr Ramaswamy lags far behind his three Republican rivals on both a national and state level – commanding just 6.6 per cent of the vote in the latter survey – ahead of the Iowa caucuses on Monday.
At a campaign meet-and-greet on Thursday, Ms Ramaswamy asked supporter Theresa Fowler “what do people say” about why they were not supporting her husband.
“Well, the only one I have and I couldn’t even remember who said it to me, but they mentioned his dark skin and they think he’s Muslim,” Ms Fowler said.
“I kind of set them straight on that. I don’t know if they believe me or think I was covering for him, I don’t know.”
Ms Ramaswamy replied: “Not much we can do about that one.”
No, there’s not much you can do about that one. It’s why we need to up the Voting Rights Act, which is something Republicans abhor. Why be a part of that? Why put your children through that? Why teach your children to be like that?
Have a wonderful day! Those Caucuses have coverage tonight, but I’ll be doing something else. I can’t imagine listening to the press interview any Iowa Republicans these days. It makes my stomach churn just thinking about it. Anyway, I’m off to load up on some hot steel oats and take on those pipes and faucets.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
‘Dueling Guanos’, @repeat1968, John Buss,
The headlines are tough out there for the Orange One. Since he’s such a toddler, will he actually thrive on the lousy attention today?
This is from Politico. It’s written by Michael Krause. “‘This to Him Is the Grand Finale’: Donald Trump’s 50-Year Mission to Discredit the Justice System. The former president is in unparalleled legal peril, but he has mastered the ability to grind down the legal system to his advantage. It’s already changing our democracy.” I’m waiting for Don the Con to become Don the Con if you catch my drift.
What happened in Room 300 of the New York County Courthouse in lower Manhattan in November had never happened. Not in the preceding almost two and a half centuries of the history of the United States. Donald Trump was on the witness stand. It was not unprecedented in the annals of American jurisprudence just because it was a former president, although that was totally true. It was unprecedented because the power dynamic of the courtroom had been upended — the defendant was not on defense, the most vulnerable person in the room was the most dominant person in the room, and the people nominally in charge could do little about it.
It was unprecedented, too, because over the course of four or so hours Trump savaged the judge, the prosecutor, the attorney general, the case and the trial — savaged the system itself. He called the attorney general “a political hack.” He called the judge “very hostile.” He called the trial “crazy” and the court “a fraud” and the case “a disgrace.” He told the prosecutor he should be “ashamed” of himself. The judge all but pleaded repeatedly with Trump’s attorneys to “control” him. “If you can’t,” the judge said, “I will.” But he didn’t, because he couldn’t, and audible from the city’s streets were the steady sounds of sirens and that felt absolutely apt.
“Are you done?” the prosecutor said.
“Done,” Trump said.
He was nowhere close to done. Trump’s testimony if anything was but a taste. (In fact, he said many of the same things in the same courtroom on Thursday.) This country has never seen and therefore is utterly unprepared for what it’s about to endure in the wrenching weeks and months ahead — active challenges based on post-Civil War constitutional amendments to bar insurrectionists from the ballot; existentially important questions about presidential immunity almost certainly to be decided by a U.S. Supreme Court the citizenry has seldom trusted less; and a candidate running for the White House while facing four separate criminal indictments alleging 91 felonies, among them, of course, charges that he tried to overturn an election he lost and overthrow the democracy he swore to defend. And while many found Trump’s conduct in court in New York shocking, it is in fact for Trump not shocking at all. For Trump, it is less an aberration than an extension, an escalation — a culmination. Trump has never been in precisely this position, and the level of the threat that he faces is inarguably new, but it’s just as true, too, that nobody has been preparing for this as long as he has himself.
BB, JJ, and I had another one of those conversations yesterday where we basically admitted that we can no longer watch him, listen to him, or see his pictures. Most of what I saw was a new, very icky hairstyle that was reminiscent of Dennis the Menace. The people who surround him–mostly lawyers right now–are weird, too. Please, make him go away somehow. Trump’s last words for the Trump Family Crime Syndicate’s fraudulent activity are hard to describe. I cannot imagine any crook already found guilty would get an opportunity like this. This is from the Washington Post. “Trump assails his fraud trial in courtroom speech as case winds down.” Who, but Trump, would insult a judge that’s deciding how many hundreds of millions of dollars to grab from you as they shut down your ability to ever do business in New York State again? State AG Leticia James and her team brilliantly executed the prosecution case. Trump forced his lawyers to ask the judge for an opportunity to speak. It was the usual Trump shitshow.
On Thursday in court, Kise revived his request for Trump to be able to speak as part of his side’s closing remarks. Engoron asked if Trump would agree to stick to subjects related to the case, echoing his emailed request. Instead of answering directly, Trump launched into a speech from his seat in the courtroom.
“What’s happened here, sir, is a fraud on me,” Trump said. “If I’m not allowed to talk about [the political motivation] — it really is a disservice. I would say that’s a big part of the case. I would say it’s 100 percent.”
Engoron asked Kise to “please control your client,” but Kise did not appear to make any effort to do so. Engoron audibly sighed and gave Trump one minute to wrap up his remarks.
“I know this is boring to you,” Trump said. “You have your own agenda. You can’t listen for more than one minute.”
Engoron also challenged Trump on a claim that he had never been in trouble with banks before.
“By the way, you said you’ve never had a problem — haven’t you been sued before?” Engoron said.
“I should have won it every time,” Trump replied.
After Trump spoke, Engoron said the defense had used its allotted time and that the court would break for lunch. Later in the afternoon, Trump spoke to reporters, repeating his complaints about James and the case.
The New York case is a civil matter, not criminal, so nobody faces possible time behind bars as a result. Trump has also been charged in four separate criminal cases in New York, D.C., Florida and Georgia. He has denied wrongdoing in all of those cases, as well.
This unwanted speech came on the same day as the Judge and his family endured a bomb threat. Trump’s creepy cult swatted the Judge. This is from the New York Times. “Judge in Trump’s Civil Fraud Trial Is Swatted at His Home. Authorities responded to a fake bomb threat at the home of Justice Arthur F. Engoron on the day he was set to hear closing arguments in New York’s suit against Donald Trump.
Nassau County authorities on Thursday responded to a hoax bomb threat at the house of the judge presiding over the civil fraud trial of Donald J. Trump.
A spokesman for the Nassau County Police Department confirmed that there had been a swatting incident — a fake threat intended to prompt a mass police response — at the house of the judge, Arthur F. Engoron, who is currently hearing closing arguments in Mr. Trump’s case. Two people with knowledge of the matter said that the threat involved a bomb and that the bomb squad came to the house.
The threat came the morning after Mr. Trump again attacked Justice Engoron on Truth Social, his social media site, saying that the judge and the New York attorney general, who brought the fraud case, were trying to “screw me.” And it came just days after the police in Washington were called to the home of the federal judge overseeing Mr. Trump’s election interference case.
Mr. Trump planned to speak in his own defense at closing arguments Thursday. Justice Engoron said he would have to abide by rules that apply to lawyers giving closing arguments and refrain from delivering a “campaign speech.”
Swatting by the Trump Cult is an orchestrated event these days. Jamelle Bouie has this Op-Ed in the New York Times. “Trump Is Playing With Fire. To be a Republican politician in the age of Trump is to live under the threat of violence from his most fanatical and aggressive followers.”
In the aftermath of the Civil War — when political allegiances were up for grabs in much of the former Confederacy — opponents of Black suffrage, of Black governance and of the Republican Party used violence and intimidation to dissuade and discipline those whites who either contemplated cooperation or had already reconciled themselves to the new order.
There is also a parallel to draw with the present in the way that this and other forms of Reconstruction-era violence interacted with the political system. “The objective was not simply to destroy the Republican governments by attacking and dispersing their supporters,” the historian Michael Perman noted in a 1991 essay on the subject, “but to enable the Democrats to regain power by winning elections. Ironically, the intention was to use violent and illegal means to win power legitimately, through the electoral process.”
You can get a good illustration of what this looked like in the historian George C. Rable’s account of the 1875 Mississippi statewide elections, in his 1984 book “But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of Reconstruction.” On Election Day in one county, Rable points out, Democratic partisans “placed an old cannon on a hill ominously aimed toward the polls.”
You should think of the intimidation and death threats — along with Trump’s recent warning that there will be “bedlam in the country” if he’s disqualified from the ballot — as a more modern cannon on a hill, ominously aimed toward the polls.
The former president is no longer in a position to try to subvert an election outcome using the power of the federal government. But Trump can try, whether he is the nominee or not, to use the fervor of his followers and acolytes to tilt the playing field in his direction. He can use the threat of violence to make officials and ordinary election workers think twice about their decisions. And he can use the example of those Republicans who have crossed him as a warning to wavering lawmakers — to anyone who resists the force of his will.
The story we like to tell about American democracy is that for the most part, our experiment in self-government has been characterized by restraint and nonviolence more than the reverse. The opposite is true, of course; violence is deeply entwined with the American experience of democracy.
But there are times when the violence is more pervasive than not, when the conflicts are more acute. And the thing to keep in mind is that political violence doesn’t simply wind down of its own accord. There is almost always a settlement. There is almost always a winner. The violent campaign against Reconstruction ended with the so-called Redemption of the South — with the defeat of Southern Republicans and the victory of counter-revolutionaries and recalcitrant ex-Confederates.
He’s also back to his old antics of birtherism. This is from NPR. It’s written by Franco Ordoñez, “Bringing birther back, Donald Trump questions Nikki Haley’s right to be president.” There’s no one that can go lower than Trump.
As Nikki Haley surges in Republican polls, former President Donald Trump has turned to his social media outlet where he is promoting a “birther” conspiracy theory against the former South Carolina governor.
Trump posted an article on his Truth Social account from a right wing outlet that claims Haley is ineligible to be president because her parents were not U.S. citizens when she was born.
While her parents became citizens after her birth, Haley was born in South Carolina. Under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, being born in the United States makes her a natural-born citizen. She is therefore eligible to become president.
The Trump campaign has long said that he would target whoever was most threatening him in the Republican primaries. Haley has emerged as his top rival in recent weeks. A new University of New Hampshire/CNN poll shows Haley trailing Trump in the Granite State by just single digits.
This is not the first time, Trump has raised birther claims. For five years, Trump routinely questioned former President Barack Obama’s birthplace – a lie that many saw as a racist dog whistle.
The Haley campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
Famously, Trump also has a parent born outside of the U.S. His mother, Mary, is from Scotland.
This opinion is from the Op-Ed pages of the New York Times. It is written by David French. “The Greatest Threat Posed by Trump.”
I dread the division and conflict of a second Trump term, and I don’t minimize the possibility of Trump doing permanent political damage to the Republic. But the problem I’m most concerned about isn’t the political melee; it’s the ongoing cultural transformation of red America, a transformation that a second Trump term could well render unstoppable.
To put the matter as simply as possible: Eight years of bitter experience have taught us that supporting Trump degrades the character of his core supporters. There are still millions of reluctant Trump voters, people who’ve retained their kindness, integrity and good sense even as they cast a ballot for the past and almost certainly future G.O.P. nominee. I have friends and family members who vote for Trump, and I love them dearly. But the most enduring legacy of a second Trump term could well be the conviction on the part of millions of Americans that Trumpism isn’t just a temporary political expediency, but the model for Republican political success and — still worse — the way that God wants Christian believers to practice politics.
Already we can see the changes in individual character. In December, I wrote about the moral devolution of Rudy Giuliani and of the other MAGA men and women who have populated the highest echelons of the Trump movement. But what worries me even more is the change I see in ordinary Americans. I live in the heart of MAGA country, and Donald Trump is the single most culturally influential person here. It’s not close. He’s far more influential than any pastor, politician, coach or celebrity. He has changed people politically and also personally. It is common for those outside the Trump movement to describe their aunts or uncles or parents or grandparents as “lost.” They mean their relatives’ lives are utterly dominated by Trump, Trump’s media and Trump’s grievances.
You can go to social gatherings here in the South and hear people whisper to friends, “Don’t talk about politics in front of Dad. He’s out of control.” I know that rage and conspiracies aren’t unique to the right. During my litigation career, I frequently faced off against the worst excesses of the radical left. But never before have I seen extremism penetrate a vast American community so deeply, so completely and so comprehensively.
Greg Sargent–writing from his new home at The New Republic–offers this up about Trump’s political acolytes. “Elise Stefanik’s Ugly “Hostages” Barb Points to Serious GOP Mayhem Ahead. Not all House Republicans agree that the January 6 criminals are hostages. This is a division that is sure to deepen between now and Election Day.”
GOP Representative Elise Stefanik no doubt thought it was shrewd to describe the rioters who attacked the Capitol as “January 6 hostages.” This sort of talk hits a sweet trifecta for a GOP leader with seemingly limitless ambition. It reassures the right-wing media that the GOP leadership is fully behind Donald Trump. It fires up the MAGA base’s small-dollar donors. And it infuriates the libs, which excites the right-wing media and MAGA voters all over again.
But it turns out vulnerable House Republicans aren’t too thrilled about Stefanik’s barb. The Washington Post reports that many are distancing themselves from it, a sign that being associated with pro-insurrection sentiments is politically dangerous in swing districts across the country
News flash, vulnerable Republicans: This will almost certainly get much worse. If you think some throwaway sound bite designed to pump up Sean Hannity creates political problems for you, what will it mean for you if Trump goes to trial this year or even earns a criminal conviction?
Here’s an overlooked possibility to contemplate: While commentators often assume the prosecutions of Trump are only driving the GOP to unite behind Trump, it’s perfectly plausible that when his legal travails grow more serious, it will ensure that GOP divisions grow deeper—perhaps much deeper.
Stefanik’s insurrectionist outburst suggests a misplaced confidence that none of this threatens the party. Last month, Trump said of the hundreds of people charged or convicted in relation to January 6, “I don’t call them prisoners. I call them hostages.” Then on Meet the Press last Sunday, Stefanik brashly echoed his language: “I have concerns about the treatment of January 6 hostages.”
The way vulnerable Republicans ran from this is telling. “They’re criminal defendants, not hostages,” said Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania. “I don’t defend people who hit cops, who vandalized our Capitol,” added Nebraska’s Don Bacon, pointedly adding of the “hostage” language: “The broad, broad electorate doesn’t like it.”
Given that Fitzpatrick and Bacon represent two of the 17 districts held by Republicans that Trump lost in 2020, that’s an indication of how politically outside the mainstream it is to deny the gravity of January 6 and smear the justice system’s response to it as illegitimate.
The really horrifying thing is watching the Grand Inquisitors of the White Christian Nationalist movement preach this crap from a pulpit. This is from Axios. It’s written by Sophia Cai. “Tectonic shift in power”: How MAGA pastors boost Trump’s campaign.” It’s easy to see the historical role of religion in oppression and supporting evil in this campaign.
How we got here: “It’s a tectonic shift in power,” said Matt Taylor, a scholar at the Baltimore-based Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies, who has a book coming this fall on charismatic evangelicals and their ties to Trump.
- “You have all these pastors who would have been laughed out of the room 20 years ago,” Taylor said.
- Now, they’re “driving the dynamics.”
The author and another contributor have a list of some horrifying people and their role in the Iowa Caucuses. Iowa has been a hotbed of this kind of activity since the Pat Robertson campaign for President. It’s poisoned the wells of the surrounding states, too. As you know, I’ve been in the middle of these creepy, angry crazies, and they’re scary.
But then, Trump surrounds himself with fellow evildoers. This is from MediaIte. “EXCLUSIVE: Here’s The Tape of Roger Stone Discussing Assassination of Democrats — Which He Denied Ever Doing.” All the bottom-feeders are attached to Trump.
Roger Stone has contested Mediaite’s reporting this week regarding comments he made on tape floating the assassination of two members of Congress.
“I never spoke about assassinating anyone,” Stone wrote in an X post Thursday. “Fake Mediaite can’t produce the recording they claim to have.” In another post he wrote that Mediaite “has produced NO audio of me threatening 2 Dem Congressmen. Where is it? Post it !”
Mediaite is now publishing an excerpt of the audio, which was recorded in person at Caffe Europa, a public restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, weeks before the 2020 election. It has been lightly edited in order to protect our source, who requested anonymity out of fear of repercussions from Stone, whom they believe to be dangerous.
“Roger spent election day and the months prior calling for acts of violence,” the source told Mediaite.
The conversation, which can be heard above, was between Stone and his associate Sal Greco, who at the time served as both an NYPD officer and security for the longtime political operative and confidant to Donald Trump. During the discussion, Stone speaks with Greco about assassinating two prominent House Democrats, Jerry Nadler and Eric Swalwell.
“It’s time to do it,” Stone told Greco. “Let’s go find Swalwell. It’s time to do it. Then we’ll see how brave the rest of them are. It’s time to do it. It’s either Swalwell or Nadler has to die before the election. They need to get the message. Let’s go find Swalwell and get this over with. I’m just not putting up with this shit anymore.”
How many sheriffs, federal marshalls, and other law-enforcement officials will be needed to protect people this year? Why can’t we stop this?
Monday is our national celebration of Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, who spent time in prison. Here’s a section from one of his Letters from a Birmingham Jail from April 1963. This was just over 60 years ago. I chose this section because he addresses the idea that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.” I think about this as Trump whines daily about the Justice Department’s dealings with him. His reign has left women bereft of reproductive healthcare, pitted family members against each other, supported Dictators over struggling democracies and allies in the fight for genuinely representative democracies, and you may add to the list because I’ve gone on long enough. King spent time in jail for just being there and speaking up for those unable to do so. What a difference in human character that is from the perpetually aggrieved Orange Shitgibbon.
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the
oppressed. Frankly, I have never yet engaged in a direct-action movement that was “well timed” according to the timetable of
those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “wait.” It rings in the
ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This “wait” has almost always meant “never.” It has been a tranquilizing
thalidomide, relieving the emotional stress for a moment, only to give birth to an ill-formed infant of frustration. We must come
to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.” We have waited for more than
three hundred and forty years for our God-given and constitutional rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike
speed toward the goal of political independence, and we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup of coffee
at a lunch counter. I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say “wait.” But when you
have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen
hate-filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize, and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you see the vast
majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when
you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she
cannot go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her little eyes
when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little
mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when
you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son asking in agonizing pathos, “Daddy, why do white people treat colored
people so mean?”; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable
corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs
reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger” and your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you
are) and your last name becomes “John,” and when your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are
harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never knowing what to
expect next, and plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of
“nobodyness” — then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs
over and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of injustice where they experience the bleakness of corroding
despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.
So, who among us needs the sweet relief of justice received and the scales of Themis, and who needs to feel her sword? Who are the oppressed, and who are the oppressors? Donald Trump does not confuse the majority of us. We need to make that known.
Have a very good long weekend! I’ll see you on the other side.
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