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.
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.
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.
Solar Eclipse Monday Reads: Will Donald look at the Sun Again?
Posted: April 8, 2024 Filed under: just because, Solar Eclipse, U.S. Politics | Tags: @repeat1968, Here comes the Solar Eclipse!, John Buss 2 Comments
It’s Eclipse Day! Be safe out there! John Buss @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
It’s quite the day today! The country’s gone nuts over the Solar Eclipse, and it’s separated by nuts who think the Rapture is coming and nuts who are just plain enjoying their nerdy selves. Count me in the later number. Count Governor Hillbilly HuckaBuck in Arkansas as nutty with a lot of stupid on the side. “Gov. Sanders declares state of emergency ahead of eclipse.” This is from the NBC affiliate in Little Rock.
This reminds me of the approach to school here. Jefferson Parish is sending their students home early. New Orleans Parish says their students will use the opportunity to learn something. Scalise is the Jefferson Parish Congress Critter, just to let you know where they stand.
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared a state of emergency on Friday ahead of the solar eclipse, according to a news release.
Sanders said in the release that she released funds from the Response and Recovery Fund to help commercial carriers transport essentials to customers in the state during the eclipse.
The essential items listed in the order include groceries, pharmacy items, medical equipment, goods, commodities, fuel, poultry, livestock and feed.
The release said the decision was made out of caution due to the expected increase of visitors to Arkansas “potentially causing hardships.”
“We want to make sure Arkansans and all visitors have an enjoyable experience and come back again and again,” Sanders said in a statement.
The order will allocate $100,000 from the fund to address program and administrative costs and will be managed by the director of the Arkansas Division of Emergency Management.
The only idiot I know that’s stared at the sun during an eclipse is the Orange Dotard.
So, someone found this down here in Lafayette, Lousyana. Don’t even ask! Maybe that’s why we’ve got a few sprinkles of rain! He’s coming! He’s coming!
As for me, once a Girl Scout and Daisy and Brownie Leader, always one! Today, I’m going to try to see the eclipse. I got eclipse glasses for me and the neighbors. I’ve also been introducing all the AirBNB invaders to Ricky, Lucy, Rob, and Laura, the Gold Crested Night Herons, who are back in their nests in Oak Trees on the Neutral Ground. I also ranted about the highly inappropriate gentrifiers and the historical houses they wrecked during yesterday’s Bywater house tour.
We live in a historic district from the 1830s. Appreciate it! Your kitchens do not belong in the back parlor, which has been ripped open to the front parlor, with the historical features ripped off and sent to auction! Mine, the pocket door, and the original fireplace mantels are still there! There are plenty of burbs for your turquoise vinyl loveseats in little boxes built for that! I got that from my mother, who led the charge to restore a Victorian Mansion built by a Civil War General and Union Pacific Railroad man. Being a docent in that House was my very first job. It also taught me a lot about architectural styles and furniture. My Little House is perfect example of the period, precisely what I dreamed of owning. I don’t want to sit in an opened-up room staring at a kitchen and sitting in a room with furniture that looks like it came from my orthodontist’s office in the ’60s.
Lucy! I’m home!!!
Let’s get back to the Orange Dotard and his new ad. It concerns the Solar Eclipse, which is a doozy. This is from The Guardian. “Trump posts bizarre solar eclipse ad – with his head blocking out the sun, plunging US into darkness. During the August 2017 total solar eclipse, the then-president went viral when he ignored all eclipse safety recommendations by gazing directly at the sun with his naked eyes.” I really don’t ever want to see the word naked and Trump together in one headline.
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it the moon crossing the sun? No, it’s Donald Trump’s head.
Seven years on from the notorious moment where he stared directly at the sun during the last solar eclipse over the US, the former president is jumping on the sungazing bandwagon yet again.
On Sunday night, Mr Trump posted a bizarre campaign ad on Truth Social where his own head takes on the role of the moon – blocking out the sun and plunging America into total darkness.
The video begins with the words “the most important moment in human history is taking place in 2024” emblazoned over an image of the flaming sun, while dramatic music plays in the backdrop.
Images show large crowds gathered to watch the solar event, staring up at the sky wearing protective glasses.
The footage moves between the awestruck crowds and the sun where a huge silhouette begins to slowly move across it.
But, it’s not the moon causing the rare phenomenon. It’s the outline of Mr Trump’s head – complete with quiff, bushy eyebrows and long neck.
As his head covers the entirety of the sun – creating its own solar eclipse – a phrase flashes across the screen: “We will save America. And make it great again.”
And that was the meme world comeback!
Coincidentally, one of my fellow brownies sent this to me today. It’s a picture of a driving tour pamphlet my mother wrote about old Houses in Council Bluffs, Iowa. I illustrated it in high school. I love restored old houses.
There are a lot of headlines you might want to check out, and I will list a few. I need to focus on the natural world and my neighbors right now! I’m getting ramped up for rain that will ruin my eclipse view. Hey! A Girl Scout has to do what a Girl Scout does!
- Washington Post: Trump says abortion should be left to states, declines to endorse national limit.
- Jose Pagliery, writing for The Daily Beast: Trump’s $175 Million Bond Is Even Shadier Than It Looks
- Marianna Sotomayor, writing for the Washington Post: Speaker Johnson’s job is on the line as the House returns
- USA Today: Biden promises student loan relief as early as this fall through new plan
- David Gilbert, writing for Wired: Inside the Election Denial Groups Planning to Disrupt November
- New York Times: Trump, at Fund-Raiser, Says He Wants Immigrants From ‘Nice’ Countries
Update: New Orleans Rains and clouds did not cooperate with viewing the eclipse. I enjoyed chatting and meeting with the Underground Women’s Astronomy and Shit-stirring Committee. Thanks to Anne Renee, and Nancy! Also, the gay couple across the street was out on the porch with the eclipse glasses I gave everyone I could, only to find out the local libraries were doing that, too. You can always depend on New Orleans Librarians! They are fierce!
Let us know how you made it out. I hope you can get through whatever WordPress is doing to make it impossible for nearly everyone–including me–to reply to threads!!
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?
Finally Friday Reads: Inquiring Minds want to Know
Posted: April 5, 2024 Filed under: just because | Tags: @repeat1968, Bedminster Earthquake, Bone Spurs and Bone Saw redux, John Buss, Kari Lake and Roseann Barr Do Mar-a-Lardo, Trump's Loser Meme Stock 6 Comments
John Buss, @repeat1969,
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
We woke up to the news of an earthquake centered in Bedminster, N.J., which means Orange Caligula’s summer palace is likely damaged somehow. I’m visualizing lots of nuclear secrets flying out of the grave of his first wife, Ivana. Perhaps more boxes will turn up, giving Jack Smith a possible new venue outside the loose Canon’s reign of ignorance.
Of course, the Orange Dotard was down in Mar-a-Lardo at an event that should have seen fewer white jackets and a lot of straight jackets. It was a fundraiser for Crazy Kari Lake with a special message from guest Rosann Barr, who is on the NF list these days. She is definitely Not Funny. But, she’s gone full metal maga jacket and QAnon. See the tweet below.
Trump’s meme stock is doing terribly, even by Trump standards. This is from Reuters. Basically, it’s no Game Stop. “Trump-and-dump: Speculators bet on Truth Social ‘meme’ stock.” Abigail Summerville has the lede.
(RDDT.N), and X found that most were looking to score a quick profit.
They bet that Trump supporters’ fascination with the stock was untethering TMTG’s stock price from the company’s business fundamentals.
TMTG’s current valuation of approximately $6.6 billion is equivalent to about 1,600 times the loss-making company’s revenue in 2023 of $4.1 million, according to LSEG data.
No other U.S. company of similar market capitalization has such a high valuation multiple, the LSEG data shows. This is despite TMTG warning investors in regulatory filings that its operational losses raise “substantial doubt” about its ability to remain in business.
The stock is also among the most actively traded, according to Trade Alert data. While social media posts indicate some Trump supporters have bought TMTG shares, a lot of the trading volume is coming from speculators looking for a quick flip.
“I invested $10,000 last Tuesday because MAGA is crazy and they will pump the stock,” said Sarah, a 21-year-old software developer from Pennsylvania who asked for her last name not to be published. MAGA stands for Trump’s campaign slogan, ‘Make America Great Again’.
The appeal of TMTG to speculators helps explain the stock’s volatility. The shares have risen as much as fivefold in the last two months and are currently valuing Trump’s majority stake in the company at about $3.8 billion.
A bout of this volatility came on Monday, as the stock lost more than fifth of its value. It remained unclear whether hedge funds and other Wall Street firms will get comfortable with such risks to join the speculation. Big investment firms will be required in a few weeks to disclose what, if any, their position in TMTG was as of the end of March.
Like Kari Lake, he’s not having much luck in the courtroom.
Kari herself is fresh off a loss in a defamation case. I guess she is just following in Trump’s footsteps. This is from MSNBC’s The Reid Out’s Ja’han Jones. It was reported last week. “Kari Lake is literally about to pay for her war on fellow Republicans. The Arizona Senate candidate conceded in court that she had said untrue things about a local election official. Now, she’ll fight over how much she has to pay him.” I guess running for high office as a Republican is the best way to get your court mishaps paid for by someone else.
On Tuesday, Kari Lake essentially admitted defeat in the latest stage of her crusade against a Maricopa County election official whom she falsely accused of cheating her out of a gubernatorial election victory in 2022.
Lake announced she won’t contest a claim that she defamed Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, a fellow Republican, after spending the better part of the past two years spreading conspiracy theories about him. Richer filed a defamation lawsuit last year alleging that Lake and her allies drastically altered his life and forced him to hire security after they spread lies about him online and at various events.
As NBC News reported:
Lake’s legal team on Tuesday filed a default judgment motion that indicated she was not challenging her culpability. She instead seeks to dispute the damages. She also said Richer should have to turn over relevant medical and psychiatric records to show that his health was negatively affected, as he detailed in his lawsuit. Lake requested a jury for the default judgment hearing. Lake, a staunch Trump ally, has repeatedly pushed the lie that she won her 2022 bid for governor, and in doing so she took aim at Richer.
This amounts to a pretty pitiful retreat on Lake’s part. But as you might imagine, she’s not framing things that way. Instead, she’s leaning into victimhood and portraying her decision not to challenge the defamation claims as tactful politicking.
In a video posted on social media Tuesday night, she called the lawsuit “ludicrous” and said it was part of an effort by “political elites” to empty out her coffers. “Since they can’t blackmail or bribe me, they’ve resorted to filing a punishing lawsuit to try to stop me,” she said. She claimed, without even a hint of self-awareness, that she and putative Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump are being subjected to “lawfare” — conservatives’ favorite buzzword these days — designed to “punish, impoverish, and destroy” political opponents through the legal system. She ended by saying that she “won’t be taking part” in the suit.
I hope Trump doesn’t turn on her if she starts peddling a line of Bibles. Also, I don’t think Roseanne’s advice had any chance of hitting folks with solid university degrees in Florida.
Trump had two very bad days in Court last week although the Cannon decision left him some breathing room. BB did a great job of covering those. The fallout is rather deliscious. This is written by Katherine Doyle for NBC News’ ‘The nuclear button’: Special counsel could seek removal of judge in Trump classified docs case, attorneys warn, Special counsel Jack Smith and Judge Aileen Cannon traded terse words in filings this week.” Good Night Aileen, Good Night Aileen!
Special counsel Jack Smith could soon seek to have the judge presiding over former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case recused, prosecutors and defense attorneys warn, describing Smith as being pressed to the “breaking point” over arguments his office said could taint a trial irrevocably.
Smith faulted Judge Aileen Cannon in a scathing rebuke for seeming to take at face value Trump’s “fundamentally flawed” claim around a president’s official and personal records when she asked both sides to put forth competing versions of instructions for jurors in the case and said her request would “distort” the trial. Smith indicated in that filing that if Cannon ruled against federal prosecutors, this could be a trigger for an appeal to the 11th Circuit that could remove her from the case.
“He is close to pushing the nuclear button,” said Palm Beach County State Attorney David Aronberg. “It is a high burden to reach, and it is rarely done, but her proposed jury instructions may have pushed him to the breaking point.”
That proposal for jury instructions, a final version of which would be delivered to jurors at the end of a trial, seemed to consider Trump’s interpretation of how classified documents could be preserved after leaving office, which is at the center of the charge against him.
The latest, most exciting story on Trump and his travails and travels leads to Saudi Arabia. This is from Brian Buetler’s Substack Off Message. “Unmask Donald Trump. If President Biden knows Trump and his henchmen are sabotaging U.S. foreign policy for partisan gain, he should let the American public know before the election.”
President Biden may have reached his wits end, however belatedly, with Benjamin Netanyahu. A readout of their most recent conversation suggests that, in the wake of the World Central Kitchen killings, and the subsequent flight-to-safety of humanitarian workers, U.S. aid will be conditioned going forward on a rapidly implemented ceasefire (of uncertain length) in order to meliorate the catastrophe on the ground.
But Biden’s larger picture goal—and perhaps the only way to lastingly tie this Israeli government’s hands—is a grand settlement, along the lines he’s been negotiating, that would sweeten the deal for Israel by normalizing its relations with Saudi Arabia.
He should thus be alarmed at the news (if it is indeed news to him) that Trump has held at least one undisclosed phone call with Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, in recent days.
Trump has been strangely at pains of late to imply that he is at odds with the rest of his party, which lusts for bloody retribution against Palestinians. He recently told a duo of right-wing Israeli journalists, “You have to finish up your war,” and stressed the same thing to the Republican apparatchik Hugh Hewitt, insisting in his television-addled way that Israel is “absolutely losing the PR war.”
On its face, that suggests agreement with Biden. If we could ever take Trump at face value or trust his motives, his private contacts with MBS might not be so worrisome. There is speculation and reporting to suggest that Trump views Netanyahu as disloyal for having congratulated President Biden on winning the 2020 election—perhaps this is his retribution? And he may see some advantage in getting caught advocating for Israel to end its war, so that he might claim credit if a ceasefire materializes in the coming weeks.
But the clear optimum for him—what is in his best interest, the only interest he cares about—is to scuttle Biden’s efforts to reach a grand diplomatic settlement in the region. And between his secret conversations, his private business arrangements with Saudi royals, and his control over Republicans in Congress, he almost certainly has the clout required to subvert U.S. foreign policy in this way. Just as he’s subverted Biden’s Ukraine policy and border-security negotiations for personal gain.
He’s also not necessarily working alone. We learned this week that Netanyahu hosted Jared Kushner for dinner in December, and that Trump treats his degenerate former national-security henchman Richard Grenell as an “envoy” to right-wing leaders abroad.
What’s more likely: that Trump is Biden’s earnest partner seeking an end to the war in Gaza? Or that he would like to create that impression domestically, while working behind the scenes to prolong it? Biden shouldn’t just wonder if Trump and his lackeys are collectively up to no good. He should suspect it. And insofar as he has access to information that confirms his suspicion, he should reveal it to the American public.
Okay, I’m done with this. I can’t handle the daily garbage skow trip that carries the latest grift, insanity, and stupidity of Trump and his cronies. I nearly puked at a picture of Roger Stone and Rosanne Barr sitting beside each other. It’s like a circus of goons!
So, here’s the good news, and it’s always down in the fine print or a quick chyron. “Job growth zoomed in March as payrolls jumped by 303,000 and unemployment dropped to 3.8%.” This is reported by CNBC’s Jeff Cox. This is something that needs to be SHOUTED IN ALL CAPS.
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Nonfarm payrolls increased 303,000 for the month, well above the Dow Jones estimate for a rise of 200,000.
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The unemployment rate edged lower to 3.8%, as expected, even though the labor force participation rate moved higher to 62.7%.
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Wages rose 0.3% for the month and 4.1% from a year ago, both in line with Wall Street estimates.
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Health care led with 72,000 new jobs, followed by government (71,000), leisure and hospitality (49,000), and construction (39,000).
Nothing moves an economy like a big infrastructure boost from the Federal Government. Thank you, Dark Brandon!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
And this is for Orange Caligula.
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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