“Quite the fashion statement.” John Buss, @repeat1968
I guess the endless TV coverage of Trump’s trials and tribulations wasn’t enough to send most of his followers to our safe space. We now get to watch Trump dupe the cult with more branding and marketing scams.
Today, I found out there’s a shitty gold ‘parfum’ to go with those shitty gold sneakers. If there is anything like overexposure, this is it! You may brace yourself and see it here if you have the intestinal fortitude. I guess we know how he thinks he will pay his lawyers now since New York State has shut down the Trump Family Crime syndicate.
If you’ve got Trump Burn-out, you are not alone. I frankly think the East Coast media has some masochistic addiction to it. This is from the New York Times. “Anti-Trump Burnout: The Resistance Says It’s Exhausted. Bracing for yet another election against Donald Trump, America’s liberals are feeling the fatigue. “We’re kind of, like, crises-ed out,” one Democrat said.” I’m not tired of despising him. I tire of seeing and hearing about him. Katie Glueck has the byline.
Democrats are hardly alone in their political fatigue: A Pew Research Center survey last year found that 65 percent of Americans said they always or often felt exhausted when they thought about politics.
“Exhaustion is underlying the entire attitude toward our presidential election,” said Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster. “When you’ve got two people that are opposed by 70 percent of Americans who want a different choice, it creates frustration, anxiety and discouragement.”
Ah, yes, the patented NYT bothersidersm.
Democratic pollsters and strategists say that no one is more motivating or terrifying to their voters than Mr. Trump.
Buoyed by strong showings in special elections last week, and other recent contests including a successful write-in campaign for Mr. Biden in New Hampshire’s primary, many believe their voters will grow increasingly engaged as the general election nears and Mr. Trump’s legal problems unfold.
He confronts 91 felony charges across four cases, is poised to be the first former president to face a criminal trial and now has staggering financial problems. He has also privately expressed support for a 16-week national abortion ban, with some exceptions, The New York Times reported on Friday, and Democrats see abortion rights as a powerful motivator for their base and for some swing voters.
But there are pronounced warning signs on the left, as well.
A CNN poll recently asked how motivated Americans were to vote in the election. Republicans, out of power and eager to regain it, were more likely to say “extremely motivated.” A Yahoo News/YouGov poll asked voters last fall about their attitudes toward the 2024 election. Thirty-nine percent of Democrats picked “exhaustion” from the list of sentiments offered (a close second to “dread”). Just 26 percent of Republicans chose “exhaustion.”
Broadly, surveys have shown erosion in the party’s standing with traditional Democratic constituencies. On the left, some groups have warned of funding challenges and voter apathy, and the most visible source of in-the-streets energy is progressive frustration with Mr. Biden over his support for Israel.
Lauren Hitt, a spokeswoman for Mr. Biden, said there was tangible evidence of enthusiasm in recent weeks, including on the fund-raising front.
She also signaled that the campaign’s messaging would go beyond simply opposing Mr. Trump, drawing contrasts with Republicans on abortion rights and gun safety as she described the stakes of the election, and nodding to Mr. Biden’s policy accomplishments on issues like combating climate change and child poverty.
“This election determines whether we build on that progress or we lose so many of our fundamental freedoms,” she said in a statement.
This has to end. Trump is pathologically narcissistic and chaotic. His dementia is worse than ever. There has to be some way of getting him out of the limelight. Today’s headlines are scathing. Every Anti-Trump Republican is out there with some form of media presence. This is even more maddening to me. Where were these people when they were feeding their base all the red meat that Trump now uses to his benefit? The last Trump nod to Putin has really got them squawking in the Chicken Hawk coops. Here are two examples.
This is from CNN. “Cheney warns of Republican Party ‘Putin-wing’ after Navalny death.” Jack Forrest reports on her interview on Sunday.
GOP former Rep. Liz Cheney on Sunday warned of a Republican Party “Putin wing” after former President Donald Trump responded to the death of outspoken Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny without actually mentioning him or Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We have to take seriously the extent to which you’ve now got a Putin wing of the Republican Party. I believe the issue this election cycle is making sure that the Putin wing of the Republican Party does not take over the West Wing of the White House,” Cheney told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”
President Joe Biden and Trump struck dramatically different tones in their respective responses to the death of the jailed Russian opposition figure.
Biden, in his comments at the White House following the announcement of Navalny’s death, forcefully pinned the blame on “Putin and his thugs.”
“Make no mistake: Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death. Putin is responsible. What has happened to Navalny is yet more proof of Putin’s brutality. Nobody should be fooled,” Biden said.
Trump, meanwhile, said nothing directly about Navalny in a post that his campaign said was his official response to the opposition leader’s death – instead posting more than 20 times about a variety of topics including his criminal cases and his political opponents.
“When you think about Donald Trump, for example, pledging retribution, what Vladimir Putin did to Navalny is what retribution looks like in a country where a leader is not subject to the rule of law,” Cheney said Sunday.
The former president earlier this month also said he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to any NATO member country that doesn’t meet spending guidelines and would not offer such a country US protection – a stance that NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said “undermines all of our security, including that of the US, and puts American and European soldiers at increased risk.”
“He’s basically made clear that under a Trump administration, the United States is unlikely to keep its NATO commitments,” Cheney said. She called Trump’s comments “dangerous” and said they show “a complete lack of understanding of America’s role in the world.”
Bill Kristol has joined the Anti-Trump Republicans at the Bulwark and writes this with Andrew Egger. “Trump-Putin 2024. Plus: Some good takes and some terrible takes on the significance of Alexei Navalny.”
We were slow in awakening to the threat of Putin. We have been sluggish in responding to that threat once awakened. But it is the most urgent foreign policy threat we face.
A broad coalition of political forces in the United States, ranging from Mike Pence on the right to Bernie Sanders on the left, is anti-Putin. Against them stand Donald Trump and some of his acolytes, who are pro-Putin.
The likely nominee of one of our two major political parties is pro-Vladimir Putin. This is an astonishing fact. It is an appalling fact. It has to be a central fact of the 2024 campaign.
But the political professionals say foreign policy doesn’t matter in elections. Americans vote on the economy. Or immigration. Or abortion rights.
That’s true to some degree. But not as much as we might think—particularly now that the post-Cold War era has ended in the wake of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The world we now live in seems more like that of 1972, or 1980, or 1988. In such a world, issues of foreign policy and national security matter in selecting a president. Putin matters.
And American voters know who Putin is. In an August Gallup poll, 95 percent of all Americans had an opinion of the Russian dictator, making him better known than any American politicians other than Biden and Trump. In that poll, Trump was seen favorably by 41 percent of Americans and unfavorably by 55 percent, while Biden’s favorable/unfavorable split was 41 percent to 57 percent.
Putin’s numbers in that poll? 5 percent favorable, 90 percent unfavorable. A YouGov poll last week was a bit rosier: 13 percent in favor of the Russian dictator, 81 percent unfavorable.
It’s actually striking that all the work of the pro-Putin right—from Trump himself to Tucker Carlson—has had so little effect in improving Putin’s image. Putin turns out to be a very hard sell.
Which is all the more reason to hang Putin around Trump’s neck. It could well make Trump a harder sell to some number of swing voters.
Nice to have to read about the worst president ever on President’s Day! Kristol apologizes for being Debbie Downer. I shamelessly will wear the title until we get no more years of Trump Trauma. But here we go! Off his Rocker is a perfect way to lead into Tim Dickinson’s latest at The Rolling Stone. “Trump Compares Himself to Navalny in Bizarre Presidents’ Day Rant. On Truth Social, Trump groused about his expensive court losses and compared himself to the Russian dissident who died in an arctic penal colony.”
IT’S PRESIDENTS’ DAY, and America’s 45th is having a real one.
Donald Trump spent the morning of the Monday holiday railing against the nearly half-billion-dollar court judgment levied against him for fraud in New York state, and grotesquely comparing himself to the Russian political dissident Alexei Navalny, who died last week in an Russian arctic penal colony.
Trump started shitposting not long after dawn on his Truth Social network. Stinging from his massive court defeat, Trump seemed determined to keep litigating his fraud case in the court of public opinion. In seething ALL CAPS, Trump railed against the court finding that he and his family business had fraudulently and systematically overstated the value of real estate assets — including by inflating the square footage of Donald’s own Trump Tower penthouse apartment.
the “crooked, hand picked judge” whom he claimed failed to include in court calculations the “brand value” of the Trump name, which the former president modestly suggested is “known and accepted to be worth many billions of dollars.” (Over the weekend, Trump attempted to leverage that brand value with the launch of $400 “Never Surrender” high tops at Sneaker Con.)
The annual President’s Day poll of America’s historians ranking Presidents is out. Here are the results from the New York Times. “Poll Ranks Biden as 14th-Best President, With Trump Last.” President Biden may owe his place in the top third to his predecessor: Mr. Biden’s signature accomplishment, according to the historians, was evicting Donald J. Trump from the Oval Office. This is reported by Peter Baker. TRUMP IS OFFICIALLY THE WORST PRESIDENT EVER!!
President Biden has not had a lot of fun perusing polls lately. He has a lower approval rating than every president going back to Dwight D. Eisenhower at this stage of their tenures, and he trails former President Donald J. Trump in a fall rematch. But Mr. Biden can take solace from one survey in which he is way out in front of Mr. Trump.
A new poll of historians coming out on Presidents’ Day weekend ranks Mr. Biden as the 14th-best president in American history, just ahead of Woodrow Wilson, Ronald Reagan and Ulysses S. Grant. While that may not get Mr. Biden a spot on Mount Rushmore, it certainly puts him well ahead of Mr. Trump, who places dead last as the worst president ever.
Indeed, Mr. Biden may owe his place in the top third in part to Mr. Trump. Although he has claims to a historical legacy by managing the end of the Covid pandemic; rebuilding the nation’s roads, bridges and other infrastructure; and leading an international coalition against Russian aggression, Mr. Biden’s signature accomplishment, according to the historians, was evicting Mr. Trump from the Oval Office.
“Biden’s most important achievements may be that he rescued the presidency from Trump, resumed a more traditional style of presidential leadership and is gearing up to keep the office out of his predecessor’s hands this fall,” wrote Justin Vaughn and Brandon Rottinghaus, the college professors who conducted the survey and announced the results in The Los Angeles Times.
Mr. Trump might not care much what a bunch of academics think, but for what it’s worth he fares badly even among the self-identified Republican historians. Finishing 45th overall, Mr. Trump trails even the mid-19th-century failures who blundered the country into a civil war or botched its aftermath like James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce and Andrew Johnson.
The Independent is frank about the dishonorable loser who wears the 45 label. “Trump ranks as worst president in US history in new academics poll. The results are in from the US academics, and it does not bode well for the GOP nominee.” This is Amelia Neath’s take.
Mr Trump ranked in the very last place, scoring just 10.9/100 – the same spot he occupied in the previous survey (he was not included in the first survey, which was conducted during Barack Obama’s presidency).
He was also awarded “most polarising” president in the poll.
Meanwhile, Abraham Lincoln stood at the top of the presidential rankings, as the country’s greatest president, with an average score of 93.9/100.
Franklin D. Roosevelt came in at number two, followed by the nation’s first president, George Washington. Fourth place went to Theodore Roosevelt and fifth to Thomas Jefferson.
Respondents were able to disclose their own political leanings, which produced an interesting insight into how the presidents fared between differing parties.
Unfortunately for Mr Trump, the Republican scholars did not help his low ranking, as he still came out in 41st place out of 45 among Republicans only. Among Democrat scholars, he placed 45th.
President Joe Biden meanwhile was ranked at number 13 by Democrats and at a low 30 by Republicans.
Mr Rottinghaus and Mr Vaughn said that Mr Biden’s ranking may have been influenced by him being viewed as Mr Trump’s greatest blocker.
“Biden’s most important achievements may be that he rescued the presidency from Trump, resumed a more traditional style of presidential leadership and is gearing up to keep the office out of his predecessor’s hands this fall,” they wrote in an article for the Los Angeles Times.
Makes me proud to be a lowly little undergrad History major. (sniff, sniff)
Two last things to tie back to the post title and the featured funny by John.
This is a headline from The Guardian. “John Oliver offers to pay Clarence Thomas $1m a year if he resigns from supreme court. Late-night host gives justice, under fire over undisclosed donations, 30 days to accept offer, which includes a tour bus.” Hot Damn!
Okay, so I will leave you to your President’s Day activities. Share your thoughts!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
I may binge-watch a few things today, including Northern Exposure. I wonder what wanders around Mar-a-Lardo in Florida since a moose wouldn’t work.
This symbol of the endless knot features the Green Wood-Dragon. Wood Dragon years come every 60 years. The dragon is associated with incredible strength, positive transformation, and challenges. The element wood symbolizes creativity and adaptability.
It would be now if we ever needed an auspicious Lunar New Year prediction. Fortunately, we are in the year of the Green Wood Dragon. So, here’s the soothsaying for the year from CNN. “What’s in store for the Year of the Dragon?” The Dragon is the only mythical creature in this zodiac. That’s special.
“This year will also be significant because it’s the year when the world enters a new chapter from the eighth period to the ninth period of Xuan Kong flying star.”
She explains that there are nine Xuan Kong flying stars that affect the feng shui of the world. Each of them lords over us for two decades before passing the torch to the next star.
The year 2024 marks the beginning of the next 20-year reign under the ninth flying star.
“The number nine star represents feminine energy – so ladies are going to take over in a lot of the areas. It also represents technology, art and design as well as spirituality,” says Chow.
I always see reading these forecasts as aspirational; in other words, if we think about them, we can make them happen. We certainly need to make something happen right now.
Yesterday was an insane news day. The SCOTUS hearing on the Colorado 14th Amendment was heard yesterday morning. There weas a live stream broadcast of the voices only. I heard Clarence Thomas fall asleep a few times and leave early via a young activist I follow on Threads. I also found out that was not unusual. When you’re just a paid vote, there’s not much to say, do, or think about.
I will make this our top story today, even though it appears the media is more interested in parsing every word President Biden spoke while looking through one of the more opinionated special counsel reports I’ve ever seen. The press is less involved with the idea that Joe was not determined to have any grounds for prosecution than with the description of him as an elderly man who forgets many things. If I were questioned on the past 40 years of my life while trying to handle the US response to the Hamas attack on Israel, I’d be a bit muddled, too. We also learned that Special Counsel Jack Smith is questioning a decision on how flooded everyone will be with various top-secret documents that the folks who moved the boxes around probably didn’t even see.
This is from NBC News. “Supreme Court signals unlikely to let Colorado kick Trump off the ballot. Trump is appealing a Colorado Supreme Court ruling that said he could be barred from the Republican primary ballot because of his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.”
he Supreme Court on Thursday signaled deep skepticism that Colorado had the power to remove former President Donald Trump from the Republican primary ballot because of his actions trying to overturn the 2020 election results.
A majority of the justices appeared to think during the two-hour argument that states do not have a role in deciding whether a presidential candidate can be barred from running under a provision of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment that bars people who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office.
Justices from across the ideological spectrum raised concerns about states reaching different conclusions on whether a candidate could run, and several indicated that only Congress could enforce the provision at issue.
Throughout the argument, the justices barely touched upon the meaty issue at the center of the case: whether Trump participated in an insurrection. The ruling is unlikely to hinge on that question.
The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, is tackling several novel and consequential legal issues concerning Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, enacted in the wake of the Civil War. Colorado voters filed a lawsuit saying Trump should be barred because of his efforts to defy the 2020 election results in events that led to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Section 3, aimed at preventing former Confederates from returning to power in the U.S. government, says anyone who had previously served as an “officer of the United States” and was then involved in an insurrection would be barred from holding federal office.
But during the oral argument, justices pushed back on the idea that the provision can be enforced by states.
So many of these oral arguments were framed around various words. Trump’s lawyers have been arguing various things around the applicability of the presidency to the idea of an “office.” I just have one question. If that’s the case, why have a big parade and inaugural whoop-ti-do surrounding the president taking “the oath of office.” If we’ve done this inaugural oath for a long time and named it as taking an ‘oath of office’, doesn’t that mean he’s an “officer of the United States.” I hate word games, and this seemed a lot like one.
You might find it interesting that this case is known as Trump V Anderson. Norma Anderson is a 91-year-old Legislator from Colorado and a lifelong Republican. This is from Politico.
Norma Anderson — the Anderson in the Trump v. Anderson case that the Supreme Court will hear on Thursday — is taking on Trump over whether he is eligible to serve as president after his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
Anderson, a lifelong Republican who rose through the state party to become one of the top GOP lawmakers in Colorado, said she immediately agreed to participate when recruited by an attorney working with the liberal government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
“When asked, and when duty calls, you do it,” she told POLITICO. “My reason for doing it is saving democracy. Because Donald Trump will destroy our democracy.”
The case rests on an interpretation of a clause in the 14th Amendment that says those who “engaged in” an insurrection against the United States after taking an oath to “support” the Constitution are ineligible to hold future office.
It takes a lot of chutzpah and bravery to face down the crazies in the Trump Cult. This is from The Atlantic. “The Supreme Court Is Eager to Rid Itself of This Difficult Trump Question. It just doesn’t know how.” This analysis is written by Quinta Jurecic
Two things seemed clear after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Trump v. Anderson, the case concerning whether Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment bars Donald Trump from the presidency as an insurrectionist. First, most of the justices want to rule in Trump’s favor. Second, they’re struggling to figure out how to do so.
Maybe Section 3 doesn’t apply to the presidency per se, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Ketanji Brown Jackson said—and perhaps, along those same lines, it doesn’t prohibit oath-breaking former presidents from holding future office either? Or perhaps, Justice Samuel Alito pondered, the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits insurrectionists from holding office, but not from running for it? Justice Brett Kavanaugh seemed enamored of the idea that the amendment doesn’t allow states to disqualify candidates for federal office—as Colorado did here—without Congress first giving the go-ahead. In a related line of inquiry, which the justices seemed to coalesce around as arguments went on, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan suggested that perhaps there’s something inappropriate about allowing individual states to make decisions that could potentially determine a national election.
Brandi Buchman reports on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s move last night in the Stolen Documents Case. This is from Law & Crime. “‘Relentless and misleading’: Jack Smith shreds new Trump motion as proof he will ‘stop at nothing’ to delay Mar-a-Lago documents case.” Judge Loose Cannon is at it again.
In a new motion, special counsel Jack Smith shredded Donald Trump’s latest attempt to indefinitely delay the classified documents case in Florida before U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, urging the court to resist the former president’s efforts to “stop at nothing” to delay facing a jury.
“Their objective is plain — to delay trial as long as possible. And the tactics they deploy are relentless and misleading — they will stop at nothing to stall the adjudication of the charges against them by a fair and impartial jury of citizens. The Court should promptly reject the defendants’ motion,” Smith wrote in the 9-page brief filed in Florida late Thursday.
A tentative May 20 trial date has been set but it increasingly looks like that won’t get off the ground as Cannon has agreed to extend deadlines for other pretrial issues. For now, the next hearing approaches on March 1 when federal prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers will convene to discuss the schedule.
Meanwhile, Smith is eager to keep things on track and in the terse motion, lamented to Cannon that Trump’s pretrial motions for the indictment were due in November and yet, he reminded her, that deadline was vacated the same day.
Trump’s lawyers were either simply unprepared or were flatly ignoring court orders, according to the special counsel, and now, three months on, as Trump’s team has filed requests to adjourn the case completely, they still come asking for more time to file pretrial documents.
“This sequence of events fully exposes the defendants’ motive here: to achieve delay,” Smith wrote.
So, I have to write about the Hur Report, which basically showed a contrast between a President who did everything to hold on to documents he purposefully heisted and one who thought his aides were doing everything correctly and didn’t check on them. It’s turned into a discussion about Biden’s mental state, which is way out of this guy’s pay level. Now, we’re just endlessly hearing about the age thing. This is from Josh Marshall, who wrote it in Talking Points Memo. People age somewhat differently. My mother was unable to fend off dementia in her 70s. My father was good up until his 90s. I have senior moments, but I can’t do my job or live my life. Trump’s got advanced dementia. Biden has senior moments.
Let me share a few thoughts on the Biden special counsel report.
First off, this is another example of the universal rule: Republican special counsels are chosen to investigate Democrats. And Republican special counsels are chosen to investigate Republicans. It may not have been a great idea for Merrick Garland to have a two-time Trump appointee investigate Joe Biden. But here we are. Robert Hur totally slimed Biden with these gratuitous comments about his mental acuity and memory, referring to him as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Even if you assume they are the product of a good faith evaluation they are still wildly inappropriate.
DOJ guidelines make clear that if you’re not bringing charges you don’t bash the subject of the investigation in your announcement (a la James Comey). You certainly aren’t supposed to affirmatively attempt to demean the subject of the investigation with clearly political attacks that aren’t even related to what you’re investigating. Hur might as well have called him “Fake News Joe Biden.” It’s really that transparent and that bad.
Are we sure that Hur let his political bias get in the way of his professional judgment? Can we draw that from his background as a politically connected Republican lawyer? I don’t even think it’s a serious question. The lengthy and gratuitous comments speak for themselves. Of course he did.
The descriptions in the report sound bad because they are designed to sound bad. These are from a five hour discussion the day after the October 7th attacks on Israel when I’m sure Biden was focused on that unfolding crisis. Without watching the interview we have no way of knowing whether these are representative of the tenor of the conversation or cherry-picked gotchas.
But there’s no crying in baseball. Entirely justified outrage from Biden supporters won’t counter whatever damage these comments will have. The White House will need to get Biden in front of interviewers, where he actually does quite well, and in widely seen venues, to counter it. It’s really as simple as that.
On the merits, some of these quotes that Hur came up with really do suggest that Biden knew in some sense that he had classified material in the documents or at least made references to it being in his possession. I need to look more closely at the specifics. And it’s still a prosecutor’s brief. But that did surprise me. And not in a good way.
Emptywheel has a few things to say about the report, too. “ROBERT HUR’S BOX-CHECKING.” She really breaks it down for us.
This is a closing argument. This language is wildly inappropriate in a declination memo, because Hur didn’t find the evidence to back this story!
Worse still, it’s stupid. Because all Biden needed for vindication was that 40-page memo, the one he mentioned in the very same sentence as he mentioned the classified documents. The one stored inside the house, not in a discarded box in the garage. The one he never used during the 2020 election.
But Hur was undeterred by a stupid motive argument.
Next, after admitting that the FBI never succeeded in tracing the Afghan documents, much less proving they were in the basement of the Virginia house, he used this photo analysis to claim that the box found in the garage is the same one that appeared in two pictures taken in Biden’s Wilmington office in 2019, shortly after everything was shipped from Virginia to Delaware.
If you look at news aggregators like Memorandum, you’d think this was the only story in the world to follow right now. What we have here is a failure to communicate. A few articles like this are up today, given Nevada’s debacle of a primary/caucus vote. Blocking votes is a Republican strategy. “How Trump turned the GOP into the party of lawless disorder. Can Republicans win by promoting contempt for the rule of law? We’re about to find out.” It’s written by David R Lurie at Public Notice.
In the wake of his loss, Trump gave up any pretense of standing for law and order. He schemed to undue the outcome of the election, culminating in a violent attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters in a desperate attempt to prevent the certification of Biden’s victory.
With his recent victories in the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary, Trump made it a virtual certainty that he will again be the Republican Party’s presidential candidate. But as he prepares for his third general election campaign, Trump is making clear that he will be a very different candidate this time.
It is Trump the insurrectionist who will be running at the top of the 2024 GOP ticket. Trump has discarded even the pretense that he intends to “fix” the nation, let alone foster order and respect for the rule of law. The upcoming election is therefore lining up as a test of whether an anti-law and order Republican can win the presidency. Trump and his supporters have made that all the more clear over the past several weeks, after Trump’s early primary victories sealed his status as the presumptive GOP presidential candidate.
Trump celebrated his New Hampshire win by setting out to further alienate women voters. During his “victory” speech, he relentlessly engaged in misogynistic and racist attacks on his sole remaining primary opponent, Nikki Haley.
Trump them flew to New York for the apparent purpose of drawing further attention to the fact that a jury found him liable for sexually assaulting and then defaming E. Jean Carroll. He devoted his short time in the courtroom to expressing contempt for Carroll, the judge and even the jury, which proceeded to award Carroll more than $83 million.
Unsurprisingly given all this, a recent Quinnipiac University poll found that, just over the past several weeks, Trump managed to widen the already gaping gender gap he faces in November. Women voters now support Biden over Trump 58 to 36 percent, versus 53 to 41 percent in December 2023. Apparently pleased with that debacle, Trump indicated that he plans to spend the campaign shuttling between courtrooms wherein he is a criminal defendant.
Then, after the GOP successfully forced Biden to accept a “border security” bill filled with GOP priorities in return for providing funding for Ukraine, Trump stepped in to successfully pressure Republicans to scuttle the Republican bill.
Trump, and his most loyal MAGA acolytes, were open and transparent about the reason for their about face: They want the Department of Homeland Security to remain as overwhelmed and under-resourced as possible during the months prior to the election. In short, they want to maintain an appearance of chaos.
All this chaos is really tough on this old lady. But I’m now near the incoherent stream of blather from the Orange One. Neither too much wine or lack of sleep or signs of aging make me sound this insane. Trump sounds like he has an inchoate understanding of reality day in and day out.
This is only early February, and I already feel overwhelmed by the election stupidity. Do we have any functional institutions anymore?
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Happy Groundhog Day to those who celebrate. John Buss, @repeat1969
When I get around friends these days, the topic of conversation isn’t so much about Mardi Gras Parades or the usual stuff in their lives. It’s about how challenging it is to deal with anyone they know in the Kool-Aid Cult or simply trying to watch the day’s news. Open any list of today’s news items, and it will return you to bed. I’ve had conversations with everyone, from a friend since sixth grade to folks I’ve just met in front of my house. Just gazing at any social media site makes me wonder what Star Trek Timeline I landed in. Is it possible I will also bump into the evil Spock?
But you don’t have to ask me.
Ask Elmo. Why Is Elmo a Topic on the Evening and Morning News Shows? He showed up on social media asking how everyone felt, and they told him. This is from CNN and AJ Willingham. The Screen Capture from yesterday got 5.4 million views. I retweeted it. I wasn’t alone. “Elmo asked people online how they were doing. He got an earful.” The Elmo beat is mainstream now.
When Elmo posted a kind-hearted check-in this week on X, formally known as Twitter, he may have assumed he’d be shielded by these social mores. But he comes from “Sesame Street,” which is no place for lies.
“Elmo is just checking in!” he wrote. “How is everybody doing?”
Thousands of replies and a few interventions from his “Sesame Street” pals later, and it was pretty clear: The people are not doing well, Elmo!
It’s not surprising. The world is experiencing a grinding war in Ukraine, potential famine in Gaza and a seemingly endless drumbeat of mass shootings in the US. Many young Americans are struggling with anxiety and depression as the country faces a well-documented mental health crisis. And in many places we’re in the middle of a cold, dark winter.
The tenor of the responses to Elmo reflect much of that — and some welcome dark humor in unburdening ourselves to a fuzzy puppet. Elmo’s query also led to some heartwarming conversations about emotional health and the importance of checking in with friends.
We are not OK, thanks
“Elmo each day the abyss we stare into grows a unique horror. one that was previously unfathomable in nature. our inevitable doom which once accelerated in years, or months, now accelerates in hours, even minutes. however I did have a good grapefruit earlier, thank you for asking.”
“Every morning, I cannot wait to go back to sleep. Every Monday, I cannot wait for Friday to come. Every single day and every single week for life.”
“Elmo I’m depressed and broke.”
“I’m at my lowest, thanks for asking.”
“Elmo I’ve got to level with you baby we are fighting for our lives”
And, one of the most brutally honest replies:
“Elmo I’m gonna be real I am at my f***ing limit.”
After a few hours of people trauma dumping on the Muppet, the official “Sesame Street” account called time with a follow-up post directing people to — yes, really — mental health resources.
Or, as someone else on X said, “Elmo sorry but this above Elmo’s pay grade.”
I didn’t add anything to the list, but I sure could’ve. We have an excellent economy, and the response of many major corporations is to price gouge us after four years of Trump, three years of COVID-19, and all the war news that’s never fit to print but must be. I was not okay as a kid watching the Vietnam War unfold on my parent’s black and white console TV or watching a bunch of Southern Cops use fire hoses on Black children my age on the same TV. At least it wasn’t 24/7, but we got newspaper delivery twice daily and the weekly news magazines. Still, seeing Donnie Dotard on TV and hearing that voice is worse. It’s like a peep show into the psycho ward at the Super Max prison for the criminally insane.
President Biden, whose approval rating has suffered amid high inflation, is beginning to pressure large grocery chains to slash food prices for American consumers, accusing the stores of reaping excess profits and ripping off shoppers.
“There are still too many corporations in America ripping people off: price gouging, junk fees, greedflation, shrinkflation,” Mr. Biden said last week in South Carolina. Aides say those comments are a preview of more pressure to come against grocery chains and other companies that are maintaining higher-than-usual profit margins after a period of rapid price growth.
Mr. Biden’s public offensive reflects the political reality that, while inflation is moderating, voters are angry about how much they are paying at the grocery store, and that is weighing on Mr. Biden’s approval rating ahead of the 2024 election.
Economic research suggests the cost of eggs, milk and other staples — which consumers buy far more frequently than big-ticket items like furniture or electronics — play an outsize role in shaping Americans’ views of inflation. Those prices jumped more than 11 percent in 2022 and 5 percent last year, amid a post-pandemic inflation surge that was the nation’s fastest burst of price increases in four decades.
Nothing is more traumatizing than watching a feeble dotard former guy and his absolutely deluded and mean followers sickeningly scream about their assumed grievances. It’s absolutely mood-killing. The economy is doing phenomenally. The Biden Administration has done everything that Economists know about running a good economy, and it’s going gangbusters in terms of employment and growth. Again, price-gouging is an issue, but only Congress can enact a law to curb that, and they won’t do anything that would make Biden look good. I mean seriously. They’ll kill us over selling out the Orange Snot Blossom. Biden spent 2023 shaming them in speeches, but that only goes so far.
But still, wow, the economy rocks. Just ask Hillary. The link is from Steve Benen at MSNBC. New report points to blockbuster U.S. job growth as 2024 begins. “By every metric, the latest jobs report points to a robust U.S. job market. The political implications have the potential to be dramatic.” The word ‘potential’ is essential. Will Fox News viewers ever see the results of Bidenomics?
Expectations heading into this morning showed projections of about 185,000 new jobs having been added in the United States in January. As it turns out, according to the new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the job market managed to do much better than that. CNBC reported:
Job growth posted a surprise increase in January, demonstrating again that the U.S. labor market is solid and poised to support broader economic growth. Nonfarm payrolls expanded by 353,000 for the month, much better than the Dow Jones estimate for 185,000, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. The unemployment rate held at 3.7%, against the estimate for 3.8%.
What’s more, while January’s jobs report showed employers adding 353,000 positions last month, we also learned that wage growth continued to outpace inflation, and the unemployment rate remained at 3.7%. In fact, the jobless rate has been below 4% for 24 consecutive months — a streak unseen in the United States since the 1960s.
Also note, the jobs report that comes every year in early February is especially notable because it includes revisions for all of the previous year. With this in mind, we now know that 3.05 million jobs were created in 2023 — well above the previous 2.7 million estimate.
As for the politics, let’s circle back to previous coverage to put the data in perspective. Over the course of the first three years of Donald Trump’s presidency — when the Republican said the United States’ economy was the greatest in the history of the planet — the economy created roughly 6.35 million jobs, spanning all of 2017, 2018 and 2019.
According to the latest tally, the U.S. economy has created roughly 15.1 million jobs since January 2021 — more than double the combined total of Trump’s first three years.
In recent months, Republicans have responded to developments like these by pretending not to notice them. No one should be surprised if GOP officials keep the trend going today.
Biden and Nikki Haley are not holding back on attacking Donnie Dotard. Most of the funds raised by his supporters go to take care of his massive legal troubles. The Washington Post reported yesterday that “Trump spent more than $55 million in donor money on legal fees last year, filings show.” Given that Nikki now has a large donor base filled with Republican billionaires, his uneducated SDE base is really on the hook for it.
Former president Donald Trump is cruising toward the Republican presidential nomination after victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, but he is diverting enormous sums of donor money to his mounting legal fees as he faces multiple lawsuits and 91 felony charges across four criminal cases.
The new figures for his legal spending were outlined in campaign disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday night. Trump’s advisers have said the money that is being spent on legal expenses is not only for Trump’s defense, but also for the lawyer fees for some of his advisers and associates. Here are a few early takeaways from the new filings:
Two of Trump’s committees, Save America leadership PAC and the Make America Great Again PAC, spent $55.6 million on legal bills in 2023, including $29.9 million in the second half of the year, according to the new reports released Wednesday.
According to Politico, Biden has many behind-the-door things to say about Trump. I say let Biden be Biden. “What Biden *really* says about Trump behind closed doors.”
President JOE BIDEN has a reputation for salty language behind closed doors. But it nearly slipped out in public during his speech at Valley Forge last month to mark the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection. Animated and angry, he derided DONALD TRUMP and his followers for drawing glee from political violence.
“At his rally, he jokes about an intruder, whipped up by the Big Trump Lie, taking a hammer to Paul Pelosi’s skull,” Biden said.
“And he thinks that’s funny,” the president continued. “He laughed about it. What a sick …”
Biden let his voice trail off as the crowd cheered and chuckled.
In private, he doesn’t stop short.
The president has described Trump to longtime friends and close aides as a “sick fuck” who delights in others’ misfortunes, according to three people who have heard the president use the profane description. According to one of the people who has spoken with the president, Biden recently said of Trump:
My thoughts exactly, Mr. President. “”What a fucking asshole the guy is.”
But you don’t have to take my or his word for it. Here are some recent examples reported in the news. This is from CNN. “Roberta Kaplan says Trump threw papers across table at Mar-a-Lago deposition because his legal team agreed to feed her lunch.” It gets worse.
Attorney Roberta Kaplan said former President Donald Trump threw papers across a table and stormed off during a deposition at Mar-a-Lago after learning that his legal team had agreed to provide her lunch.
Kaplan, who has represented clients in high-profile cases against Trump, including E. Jean Carroll, said on an episode of the “George Conway Explains it All (to Sarah Longwell)” podcast recorded Thursday that she rejected the former president’s request that they work through a lunch break because he believed the deposition was “a waste of my time.”
“And then you could kind of see the wheel spinning in his brain. You could really almost see it,” Kaplan told Republican strategist Sarah Longwell and conservative attorney George Conway, a longtime Trump critic. “And he said, ‘Well, you’re here in Mar-a-Lago. What do you think you’re going to do for lunch? Where are you going to get lunch?’”
Kaplan said she told him that his attorneys had “graciously offered to provide” her team with lunch — a common civil practice between opposing legal teams.
“At which point there was a huge pile of documents, exhibits, sitting in front of him, and he took the pile and he just threw it across the table. And stormed out of the room,” Kaplan shared, adding that Trump specifically yelled at his lawyer Alina Habba for providing them lunch.
“He really yelled at Alina for that. He was so mad at Alina,” she said.
Kaplan continued: “He came back in and he said, ‘Well, how’d you like the lunch?’ And I said, ‘Well, sir, I had a banana. You know, I can never really eat when I’m taking testimony.’ And he said, ‘Well, I told you,’ — it was kind of charming. He said, ‘I told you, I told them to make you really bad sandwiches, but they can’t help themselves here. We have the best sandwiches.’”
His misogyny was worse in a prior case that Kaplan was handling.
Kaplan was deposing Trump at Mar-Lago in a lawsuit alleging the former president was involved with a fraudulent marketing company. A federal judge dismissed the suit last month.
In a separate anecdote, Kaplan detailed the end of the deposition when she was set to leave, saying that Trump told her: “See you next Tuesday” – a phrase that is often used as a derogatory euphemism directed at women.
“We come in the room and I say, ‘I’m done asking questions’ and immediately I hear from the other side, ‘Off the record. Off the record. Off the record.’ So they must have planned it. And he looks at me from across the table and he says, ‘See you next Tuesday,’” she recounted.
See you next Tuesday is derived from a combination of the letters c and u, which when pronounced aloud sound like “see you,” and the first letters of the words next and Tuesday. This forms an acronym rebus that, when taken together, stands for cunt. The phrase is sometimes typed out as c u next Tuesday.
So, here’s some more Donnie Dotard and friends-related links if you are so inclined.
Jose Pagliery / The Daily Beast:
Trump PAC Paid to Investigate Stupidity of Trump’s Own LawyersSuzanne Blake / Newsweek:
Republicans Want New Hampshire to Leave United StatesAna Swanson / New York Times:
Trump’s Tariffs Hurt U.S. Jobs but Swayed American Voters, Study Says
Oh, it’s a folly holiday with Donnie. No wonder it’s Donnie we abhor!!! (With apologies to Burt, the Chimney Sweep.)
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
“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
John (repeat1968) Buss
John Buss nailed his cartoon today. Poor, poor pitiful Orange Caligula has taken the Airing of The Grievances to new heights. So, I borrowed it bigly. Thanks, John, for the daily smile! Poor me will write about it, I needed that smile! It also gave me a reason to think of my late ninth-ward neighbor, Fats Domino. I loved every moment of watching him play at every place possible here! Plus, he made great hog’s head cheese!
Take a breath. It’s the airing of the Grievances at the Donnie Dotard Club!
I’ve read a lot of American History in my day, and I’ve now lived a portion of it enough to say I don’t recall any Presidential Campaign being a Revenge Tour. But then, we’ve never had a President–and hopefully, never again–like Trump. That appears to be what today’s Republicans want, according to Sarah Longwell, writing today at The Bulwark. “You Have to Think of Trump’s Election as Year Zero. Because Republican voters say they don’t want any part of a Republican party that looks anything like it did before 2016.”
THERE ARE EVENTS SO EPOCHAL that they create clear periods of before and after: Hiroshima; the fall of the Berlin Wall; 9/11. Eight years after he declared his intention to run for president, it’s now clear that we should consider Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign not as part of America’s political continuum but as one of these temporal dividing lines.
In American politics, there were conventions and candidates that existed in 2015 Republican politics as the before times. 2015 BT. Before Trump.
Before the escalator and “grab ’em by the p***y.” Before Muslim bans and a wall Mexico would never pay for. Before we’d heard of Marjorie Taylor Greene, or Lauren Boebert, or the QAnon shaman. Before an American president sided with Vladimir Putin over his own government’s intelligence network. Before Donald Trump became the first president to turn his back on the peaceful transfer of power.
This period has existed outside of nearly all established norms, yet many Americans seem to believe that it is an interregnum. An aberration. An accident of history that will undo itself—soon—as norms and the old equilibrium return.
I think this view misunderstands the true nature of what has happened to the Republican party because it does not see what has happened to Republican voters.
I’ve sat through hundreds of focus groups with GOP voters over the last four years and one thing is perfectly clear: The Republican party has been irretrievably altered and, as one GOP voter put it succinctly, “We’re never going back.”
IT’S EASY TO IDENTIFY people who don’t realize the transformation undergone by GOP voters. Many of them, in fact, have been talking about running for president. Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Chris Christie, Asa Hutchinson, Mike Pompeo—these are Before Trump (BT) politicians who don’t quite realize they’re living in an After Trump (AT) world.
Rock ‘n’ roll legend Fats Domino’s two-home compound at Caffin Avenue and Marais Street has been a landmark of the Lower 9th Ward since 1960.
Polls show that the Republican base is still solidly in Trump, but that doesn’t transfer to a recapture of the White House in 2024. This McClatchy report of a GOP firm Public Opinion Strategies’ poll indicates DeSantis might win against Trump. Either result would be pretty depressing in my book.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis narrowly leads President Joe Biden in the battleground states of Arizona and Pennsylvania, according to a poll of a hypothetical matchup between the two men in the 2024 presidential race. The same survey, however, finds Biden leading former President Donald Trump in the two swing states, albeit by tight margins. The poll, conducted from April 11 through April 13 by GOP firm Public Opinion Strategies and obtained by McClatchyDC, should bolster the argument from many DeSantis supporters that the Florida Republican is more electable than the former president. Trump lost reelection in 2020 and has continued alienating some moderate voters with his ongoing false claims that the race was stolen from him
Given the legislative actions down here, I wonder why I stay in the South. I think I may have to retire to a nice mountain retreat in Nepal if Average Joe doesn’t win again. Here’s the latest from Lousyana as proof life is certainly getting more terrible post-Trump. This is from Business Insider. “Republican state officials in Louisiana ask lawmakers to ban the study of racism at universities, citing divisive ‘inglorious aspects’ of US history.” We’re not quite Floridoh or Texass but give these nitwits a chance, and we’ll be a theocratical fascist state too.
The Louisiana GOP wants to prohibit the study of racism at state colleges and universities.
A GOP resolution, seen by NOLA.com, claimed the “inglorious aspects” of American history were too divisive.
It comes amid a nationwide GOP effort to scrub race issues from public schools and public life.
Republican officials in Louisiana are proposing a ban on teaching about racism at the state’s higher education institutions — the latest move amid a wave of legislation across the country aimed at legislating curriculum in the nation’s classrooms.
GOP Party officials in the state want Louisiana lawmakers to prohibit the study of racism at colleges and universities, claiming the “inglorious aspects” of American history are too divisive, according to NOLA.com, which cites a GOP resolution on the matter.
The state GOP leadership also wants to nix diversity, equity, and inclusion departments at colleges and universities, claiming without evidence that such agencies stir political tensions on campuses and have overgenerous budgets, NOLA.com reported. A third of Louisiana residents are Black, according to the US Census Bureau.
Remind me who the snowflakes are again? Here’s another indicator from MediaITE that grievances and hurt feelings rule the policy agenda in the party. It’s why Donnie Dotard is so well-suited for them. “Former president Donald Trump offered some unconventional legal advice to Fox Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch on the eve of the Fox News-Dominion Voting Systems trial.”
In an all-caps post on Truth Social, Trump urged Murdoch to “EXPOSE THE TRUTH ON CHEATING IN THE 2020 ELECTION.” Fox is the defendant in a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion, which says that Fox knowingly amplified false claims about the company in order to promote Trump’s disproven theories about how the election was stolen from him and handed to Joe Biden. According to Trump, Fox’s acknowledgement that the election was not stolen from him represents a legal liability.
“FOX NEWS IS IN BIG TROUBLE IF THEY DO NOT EXPOSE THE TRUTH ON CHEATING IN THE 2020 ELECTION. THEY SHOULD DO WHAT’S RIGHT FOR AMERICA. WHEN RUPERT MURDOCH SAYS THAT THERE WAS NO CHEATING IN LIGHT OF THE MASSIVE PROOF THAT WAS THERE, IT IS RIDICULOUS AND VERY HARMFUL TO THE FOX CASE,” argued Trump, before addressing Murdoch directly. “RUPERT, JUST TELL THE TRUTH AND GOOD THINGS WILL HAPPEN. THE ELECTION OF 2020 WAS RIGGED AND STOLLEN…YOU KNOW IT, & SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE!”
Trump’s mid-morning missive on Monday followed a 2:39 AM post in which he submitted that “IF FOX WOULD FINALLY ADMIT THAT THERE WAS LARGE SCALE CHEATING & IRREGULARITIES IN THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, WHICH WOULD BE A GOOD THING FOR THEM, & FOR AMERICA, THE CASE AGAINST THEM, WHICH SHOULD NOT HAVE EXISTED AT ALL, WOULD BE GREATLY WEAKENED.”
“BACK UP THOSE PATRIOTS AT FOX INSTEAD OF THROWING THEM UNDER THE BUS,” continued the former president. While various reporters and anchors — including Bret Baier and Jacqui Heinrich — have taken care to debunk Trump’s claims of widespread fraud, others, including star opinion host Tucker Carlson, have doubled down on them.
Why does the Saint of Grievances always use ALL CAPS? Certainly, the Faux New Network All-Stars know better.
Well, this makes for interesting reading.
In a statement, the company said that “the core of this case remains about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, which are fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution” and protected by legal precedent. It added, “Dominion has mischaracterized the record, cherry-picked quotes stripped of key context, and spilled considerable ink on facts that are irrelevant under black-letter principles of defamation law.”
But if a jury looks at the messages from Fox hosts, guests and executives and concludes that people inside the network knew what they were putting on the air was false, it could find Fox liable and reward Dominion with substantial financial damages.
On Nov. 7, 2020, Mr. Carlson told Mr. Pfeiffer that claims about manipulated software were “absurd.” Mr. Pfeiffer replied later that there was not enough evidence of fraud to swing the election.
A graphic of a text exchange between Pfeiffer and Carlson.Said privately on Nov. 7, 2020Nov. 8, 2020
Donny Dotard does have some reason to sing the blues. Things are going badly for him on all the court trials front. This is from NBC News. “Judge denies Trump’s bid to delay civil rape trial. A lawyer for Trump had argued that the former president should be allowed a “cooling off” period following his recent historic indictment by a Manhattan grand jury. ” There’s ketchup on the walls at the Donnie Dotard Clubhouse today! It’s Monday! Monday is Ketchup on the Wall Day there!
A federal judge on Monday denied former President Donald Trump’s bid for a four-week delay in the civil rape and defamation trial against him.
Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina asked U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in a letter last week to postpone the trial in the lawsuit brought by writer E. Jean Carroll, scheduled to start April 25, until the end of May. Carroll’s lawsuit alleges that Trump raped her at a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s, which Trump has repeatedly denied.
Tacopina argued that his client should be allowed a “cooling off” period following his recent historic indictment by a Manhattan grand jury in a case involving hush money payments made during his 2016 presidential campaign, which drew a surge of media coverage.
In a 10-page opinion denying Trump’s request on Monday, Kaplan wrote that “there is no justification for an adjournment.”
“This case is entirely unrelated to the state prosecution,” Kaplan wrote. “The suggestion that the recent media coverage of the New York indictment — coverage significantly (though certainly not entirely) invited or provoked by Mr. Trump’s own actions — would preclude selection of a fair and impartial jury on April 25 is pure speculation. So too is his suggestion that a month’s delay of the start of this trial would ‘cool off’ anything, even if any ‘cooling off’ were necessary.”
Kaplan also rejected the notion that delaying the trial would decrease the possibility of “negative publicity” before the trial. In the request to delay the trial, Tacopina argued that the influx of media coverage of Trump’s indictment and arraignment could taint the jury pool.
Kaplan wrote, “It is quite important to remember [also] that postponements in circumstances such as this are not necessarily unmixed blessings from the standpoint of a defendant who is hoping for the dissipation of what he regards, or says he regards, as negative publicity. Events happen during postponements. Sometimes they can make matters worse.”
Kaplan also noted that “at least some portion” of recent media coverage of Trump’s indictment “was of his own doing” and that the alleged sexual conduct at the heart of the Manhattan district attorney’s case, which involves adult film star Stormy Daniels’ allegations that she had an affair with Trump — accusations that Trump denies — and was paid to keep quiet, is “dramatically different” from Carroll’s allegations of rape by the former president.
Nowhere is the front line for Trump revival duty failing more than at this debacle’s New York City location. It’s the Dotardteers on tour! “House GOP escalates defense of Trump with New York field hearing seeking to discredit Manhattan DA” via CNN. Place all your liquids in cups on the table before reading this. Spew Warning!
House Republicans on the Judiciary Committee are exemplifying the lengths they are willing to go to discredit Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s criminal case against former President Donald Trump with a Monday New York field hearing on Bragg’s home turf.
House Republicans are seeking to make the case that Bragg is more focused on going after Trump for political reasons than addressing crime in New York City, a claim Bragg vehemently denies.
Democrats are pushing back, arguing that Republicans are acting as an extension of Trump’s defense team and saying they should focus instead on public safety issues like gun violence. A spokesperson for the Manhattan DA’s office said in a statement ahead of the hearing that the event is a “political stunt.”
The hearing, billed as focusing on crime in New York, comes as the legal drama between Bragg and House Republicans has intensified in recent days. Bragg sued House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and sought to block him from taking certain investigative steps, arguing that Congress doesn’t have oversight authority over state-level criminal prosecutions.
t serves as the latest example of how Trump continues to wield enormous power on Capitol Hill as House Republicans seek to curry favor with the former president, coming to his defense through their investigations and routinely updating him and his closest advisers on their progress. In the wake of his indictment, Trump called up members of House GOP leadership and key committee members to shore up support on Capitol Hill, a person familiar with the matter told CNN.
House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan opened Monday’s hearing by going after Bragg for being “soft on crime.”
“Here in Manhattan, the scales of justice are weighed down by politics. For the District Attorney, justice isn’t blind. It’s about looking for opportunities to advance a political agenda, a radical political agenda rather than enforcing the law,” Jordan said in his opening remarks.
Maybe Jordan suffers damage from multiple piledrivers?
So, this has been a bit of a weird post, but then, we live in weird times. Thankfully, my therapeutic shoe therapy shopping results arrived at the door today!
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