Lazy Caturday Reads

Posted: June 22, 2024 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: cat art, caturday, Corrupt and Political SCOTUS, Donald Trump, SCOTUS | Tags: immigration, Judge Aileen Cannon, Justic Sonia Sotomayor, Obergefell v. Hodges, same sex marriage, Special Counsel Jack Smith, Supreme Court | 6 Comments

Happy Caturday!!

Cat Thief, by Pil Hwa

Not surprisingly, there is quite a bit of Supreme Court news today. The right wing justices seem determined to help Trump prevent his criminal trials from going forward before the November election. We are waiting for SCOTUS to release a decision on Trump’s claim of “presidential immunity” for crimes he committed in office, and it looks like they are going to hold off announcing that decision until the bitter end.

And, of course, District Court Judge Aileen Cannon is working to help Trump avoid being tried for stealing and hoarding top secret government documents in a bathroom, a ballroom stage, an unsecure storage area, and of course, in his bedroom and even his desk.

Here’s the latest on the Supreme Court’s activities:

Josh Fiallo at The Daily Beast: What the Hell Is Going on With the Supreme Court’s Trump Ruling?

The Supreme Court released a slew of new rulings on Friday morning, but, once again, none of them included the decision weighing heaviest on Americans’ minds—whether Donald Trump should be granted king-like immunity for his criminal indictments.

Friday marks 114 days since the case was accepted by the high court—an inexcusable amount of time to rule on something so consequential to the country, a top legal expert tells The Daily Beast.

Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard University, said Friday it’s clear that the Supreme Court, which has operated with a comfortable conservative majority since Trump’s presidency, is doing the ex-president’s bidding.

With each day that passes without a decision, the chances of a Trump trial before the 2024 election grow slimmer.

“They’re obviously delaying to benefit Donald Trump,” he said.

Tribe said, realistically, an appropriate time for the court to reach a decision on Trump would have been sometime in December, and Trump’s trial would’ve been completed by now.

Instead, it’s taken the Supreme Court more than twice the time to rule on Trump’s immunity—a matter an appeals court comprehensively rejected—than it took to rule on the much more complex United States vs. Richard Nixon case, which took 54 days.

What’s more, the arguments in Trump’s case were so outlandish that it should have been easy for the court to dispatch with them quickly, one former Supreme Court law clerk said this week.

Robert Reich agreed, saying that the court is in effect giving Trump immunity by their delay tactics. Another legal expert, Robert J. DeNault, told Fiallo:

While just a theory, he said it’s possible the court is contemplating two things—slating Trump’s case for “re-argument,” which would delay things even longer, or potentially ruling that special prosecutors like Jack Smith, whose team brought the election-subversion charges at the heart of Trump’s case, are unconstitutional

With their slow-walking of this case, the court has deliberately interfered in the 2024 election.

Wooster and Sauce, by Richard Adams

Lia Litman, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School and former court clerk to Justice Anthony Kennedy, published an op-ed at The New York Times on June 19: Something’s Rotten About the Justices Taking So Long on Trump’s Immunity Case.

For those looking for the hidden hand of politics in what the Supreme Court does, there’s plenty of reason for suspicion on Donald Trump’s as-yet-undecided immunity case given its urgency. There are, of course, explanations that have nothing to do with politics for why a ruling still hasn’t been issued. But the reasons to think something is rotten at the court are impossible to ignore.

On Feb. 28, the justices agreed to hear Mr. Trump’s claim that he is immune from prosecution on charges that he plotted to subvert the 2020 election. The court scheduled oral arguments in the case for the end of April. That eight-week interval is much quicker than the ordinary Supreme Court briefing process, which usually extends for at least 10 weeks. But it’s considerably more drawn out than the schedule the court established earlier this year on a challenge from Colorado after that state took Mr. Trump off its presidential primary ballot. The court agreed to hear arguments on the case a mere month after accepting it and issued its decision less than a month after the argument. Mr. Trump prevailed, 9-0.

Nearly two months have passed since the justices heard lawyers for the former president and for the special counsel’s office argue the immunity case. The court is dominated by conservatives nominated by Republican presidents. Every passing day further delays a potential trial on charges related to Mr. Trump’s efforts to remain in office after losing the 2020 election and his role in the events that led to the storming of the Capitol; indeed, at this point, even if the court rules that Mr. Trump has limited or no immunity, it is unlikely a verdict will be delivered before the election….

Mr. Trump’s lawyers put together a set of arguments that are so outlandish they shouldn’t take much time to dispatch. Among them is the upside-down claim that, because the Constitution specifies that an officer who is convicted in an impeachment proceeding may subsequently face a criminal trial, the Constitution actually requires an impeachment conviction before there is any criminal punishment.

That gets things backward: The Constitution confirms that impeachment is not a prerequisite to criminal prosecution. And yet Mr. Trump’s lawyers continued to take the untenable position, in response to questioning, that a president who orders the assassination of a political rival could not face criminal charges (absent impeachment by the House and conviction in the Senate).

It does not take weeks to explain why these arguments are wrong.

Read the whole thing at the NYT.

On another issue, Justice Sonia Sotomayor suggests that previously decided marriage rights could soon be in jeopardy. The New Republic: Sotomayor Issues Dire Warning on Supreme Court Ruling on Noncitizens.

In a ruling delivered Friday, the Supreme Court decided 6–3 that U.S. citizens have no constitutional interest in their noncitizen spouses being able to enter the United States—despite the fact that a married person has an inherent interest in their spouse being able to live in the same country as they do. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned the ruling is an obvious sign the court will seek to overturn protections for marriage equality next.

Sotomayor issued a dire warning in her dissent, accusing the conservative supermajority of chipping away at constitutional protections for married couples and saying they’re making “the same fatal error” as they did in Dobbs v. Jackson, the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that overturned federal abortion protections.

By Stephanie Lambourne

“The majority, ignoring these precedents, makes the same fatal error it made in Dobbs: requiring too ‘careful [a] description of the asserted fundamental liberty interest,’” Sotomayor wrote. “The majority’s failure to respect the right to marriage in this country consigns U.S. citizens to rely on the fickle grace of other countries’ immigration laws to vindicate one of the ‘basic civil rights of man’ and live alongside their spouses.”

The case involved Sandra Muñoz, a U.S. citizen whose husband was denied a visa by the U.S. consulate in El Salvador. That denial came from a broad provision in U.S. immigration law that disqualifies a person from obtaining a visa if the consulate knows “or has reasonable ground to believe” that a person is trying to enter the U.S. “to engage solely, principally, or incidentally in” unlawful activity. Her husband was denied because of tattoos he has, which a court-appointed gang tattoo expert later determined were not gang-related.

Muñoz sued the State Department, arguing that her husband’s inexplicable denial of entry into the U.S. infringed on her constitutional liberty interest in her husband’s visa application and their inability to start a life together in the U.S. In upholding the denial, the Supreme Court’s conservative justices decided not just that the State Department doesn’t need to provide reason for denying a visa but that a citizen’s right to be married doesn’t supersede the state’s strict, and often questionable, immigration processes. The conservative supermajority of the Supreme Court’s ruling chips away at the core of Obergefell v. Hodges—the landmark ruling that legalized same-sex marriage in 2015—which decided that citizens have a right to marriage.

In her dissent, Sotomayor cast urgent warnings on the impact of restricting who is allowed to be married in the U.S., noting that the conservative decision will extend to couples “like the Lovings and the Obergefells, [who] depend on American law for their marriages’ validity.”

We knew this was coming. Clarence Thomas told us so after the Dobbs decision.

Yesterday, Judge Aileen Cannon began holding hearings on the question of whether the appointment of Special Counsel Jack Smith was unconstitutional.

Gary Fineout and Kyle Cheney at Politico: Judge Cannon wants to know whether Merrick Garland is supervising Jack Smith.

The federal judge overseeing Donald Trump’s classified documents case grilled special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutors Friday on how closely Attorney General Merrick Garland oversees their work.

Under persistent questioning from U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the prosecutors declined to divulge details and seemed caught off-guard by the inquiries. At one point, Smith deputy James Pearce said he was “not authorized” to discuss the level of communication that occurred between the attorney general and the special counsel.

“I don’t want to make it seem like I’m hiding something,” Pearce then said.

The questioning came at the end of a five-hour hearing focused on a long-shot effort by Trump to have the charges against him thrown out. Smith has accused Trump of hoarding national secrets at his Mar-a-Lago estate after his presidency and obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them.

Trump contends that Smith’s appointment by Garland as special counsel in November 2022 is unconstitutional and that Smith lacked the legal authority to bring the case against the former president.

Sophie Sperlich’s Solo Cat

Though other courts have uniformly swept aside similar challenges to the validity of special counsel appointments, Cannon — a 2020 Trump appointee to the bench — scheduled lengthy oral arguments on the matter, a sign that she was taking it seriously. During Friday’s proceedings, she gave little indication of how she intends to rule….

In questioning prosecutors about Garland’s supervision, Cannon seemed to be trying to determine how much independent authority Smith has in practice.

Smith’s team, led by Pearce, sharply rebutted arguments that Smith’s appointment was illegal and described Smith’s role as an uncontroversial exercise of Garland’s ability to organize the Justice Department as he sees fit. Pearce emphasized that Smith was “in compliance” with longstanding Justice Department rules and regulations regarding his appointment and his handling of the case.

The exchanges marked the beginning of a three-day stretch of intense hearings called by Cannon that will continue Monday and Tuesday. Monday’s hearing will focus on another aspect of Trump’s effort to invalidate Smith’s appointment — a claim that he is being improperly funded by an indefinite Justice Department budget line item.

The judge’s intense dive into an issue that has been brushed aside by most other courts has caused head-scratching in the legal community and drawn renewed criticism of her handling of the sensitive case. Adding to the unusual dynamic: Cannon permitted three outside experts — two in favor of Trump’s position and one in favor of Smith’s — to address the court for 30 minutes apiece, nearly unheard of in criminal matters.

The good news is that if Cannon does decide that Smith was illegally appointed, he will be able to appeal the decision to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals–which is why Cannon probably won’t decide that. She’ll just keep wasting time until it’s too late to try the case before the election.

The rest of this post is devoted to insane Trump news, so be forewarned.

Asawin Suebsaeng and Adam Rawnsley at Rolling Stone: Trump’s Not ‘Bluffing’: Inside the MAGA Efforts To Make a Second Term Even More Extreme.

“OF COURSE WE aren’t fucking bluffing.” That’s the message one close Trump adviser and former administration official — who requested anonymity to speak candidly — wants to get across to the press and public, when asked about Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign vows of “retribution,” unprecedented force, and militaristic action.

Indeed, this sentiment is shared widely among the upper echelon of Trumpland and the MAGAfied Republican Party, with various officials and conservatives with a direct line to the former president insisting that so-called “moderates” or alleged “establishment” types will be tamed or purged, if Trump retakes power next year.

Rolling Stone spoke with a dozen sources who are playing roles in Trump’s “government-in-waiting” or are in regular contact with the ex-president, including GOP lawmakers, Trump advisers, MAGA policy wonks, conservative attorneys, and former and current Trump aides. They universally stress that the former (and perhaps future) U.S. president and top allies are serious about following through on his extreme campaign pledges. These promises run the gamut from siccing active duty military units on not just American cities but also Mexican territory, all the way to prosecuting and potentially imprisoning Trump foes.

Several of these sources say that a wide range of litmus tests, loyalty screenings, and “guardrails” are already being implemented, or discussed with Trump, to root out so-called “RINOs” (Republicans in Name Only) and MAGA-skeptical conservatives from embedding themselves within a possible second Trump administration. These processes would be largely aimed at drastically curtailing the number of squishy Republican officials who would be able to get in Trump’s ear to, in the words of one GOP lawmaker on Capitol Hill, try to “scare Trump off of what needs to be done or should be.” This lawmaker cited former senior administration officials such as Mark Esper and John Kelly who, at times, urged the then-president to moderate his policy desires.

The long engagement, by Susan Herbert

One idea regularly kicked around Trump’s government-in-waiting is a dramatic increase in the use of “lie detectors” across the federal apparatus, to root out or charge leakers and other subversives. These devices, called polygraphs, are frequently unreliable and inadmissible in courts of law….

Sources close to the former president and several of those counseling him on second-term policy add that one big reason they feel confident a revived Trump White House won’t be, in their minds, tamed in the ways it was during the first term is because Trump presumably won’t be running for reelection….

Further, many of Trump’s political and policy allies feel emboldened by the federal judiciary being (thanks to Trump) significantly more right-wing than it was when he first came into office. This would allow Team Trump, in the words of one conservative attorney close to the ex-president, to “get away with a lot more” than elected Republicans used to, in the face of an expected barrage of constitutional challenges to their executive actions or policies, if Trump wins in November.

There’s more at the link if you can get past the paywall. I got through by just wiping out my search history.

Politico: Trump keeps flip-flopping his policy positions after meeting with rich people.

Donald Trump privately hinted at a shift in immigration policy at a Business Roundtable meeting last week. He told the group “we need brilliant people” in this country, according to one of the attendees, who was granted anonymity to describe a private meeting. And when he talked about finding ways to keep American-educated talent at home, some top CEOs, like Apple’s Tim Cook, were seen nodding their heads.

The public move came a week later: On “The All-In Podcast” on Thursday, Trump said foreign nationals who graduate from U.S. colleges and universities should “automatically” be given a green card upon graduation.

It was the latest major policy shift from a candidate who has proven equal parts hardline and chameleon-like over time. Trump’s pivot on immigration followed his reversal on TikTok, embracing an app he once tried to ban, and his shift on cryptocurrency.

To the former president’s allies, the reversals are evidence of a nuanced politician taking thoughtful new positions on rapidly changing issues.

But there is also plainly a pattern of Trump aligning his political stances with the views of wealthy donors and business interests.

An automatic green card on graduation? Wouldn’t that attract even more immigrants to the U.S.? And hasn’t Trump said he was going deport all immigrants, whether they are here legally or not? I wonder how Stephen Miller feels about this latest Trump policy?

More on the green card promise from Chris Cameron at The New York Times: Trump Says He Would Give Green Cards to All Foreign College Students at Graduation.

Donald J. Trump said he would push for a program that would automatically give green cards to all foreign college students in America after they graduate, a reversal from restrictions he enacted as president on immigration by high-skilled workers and students to the United States.

But hours after Mr. Trump’s remarks aired, his campaign’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, walked back the former president’s comments, saying in a statement that there would be an “aggressive vetting process” that would “exclude all communists, radical Islamists, Hamas supporters, America haters and public charges” and that the policy would apply only to the “most skilled graduates who can make significant contributions to America.”

By Dee Nickerson

Appearing with the host David Sacks, a Silicon Valley investor who backs the former president’s 2024 campaign, on a podcast that aired Thursday afternoon, Mr. Trump had repeated his frequent criticism of high levels of immigration as an “invasion of our country.” But he was then pressed by Jason Calacanis, another investor who hosts the podcast, to “promise us you will give us more ability to import the best and brightest around the world to America.”

“I do promise, but I happen to agree,” Mr. Trump said, adding “what I will do is — you graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically, as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country, and that includes junior colleges.”

It would have been a sweeping change that would have opened a vast path to American citizenship for foreigners. The State Department estimated that the United States hosted roughly one million international students in the academic year that ended in 2022 — a majority of whom came from China and India. The United States granted lawful permanent residence to roughly one million people during the year that ended in September 2022, so such a policy change would significantly increase the number of green cards issued.

Mr. Trump suggested on the podcast that he had wanted to enact such a policy while in office but “then we had to solve the Covid problem.” The Trump administration invoked the pandemic to enact many of the immigration restrictions that officials had wanted to put in place earlier in Mr. Trump’s term.

Mr. Trump also lamented “stories where people graduated from a top college or from a college, and they desperately wanted to stay here, they had a plan for a company, a concept, and they can’t — they go back to India, they go back to China, they do the same basic company in those places. And they become multibillionaires.”

It’s crazy, but obviously it will never happen.

Luke Broadwater at The New York Times: On the House Floor, Republicans Gag Mentions of Trump’s Conviction.

The history-making felony conviction of former President Donald J. Trump has raised some historic questions for the House’s rules of decorum, which have existed for centuries but can be bent to the will of whichever party controls the majority-driven chamber.

The Republicans who now hold the majority have used those rules to impose what is essentially a gag order against talking about Mr. Trump’s hush-money payments to a porn actress or about the fact that he is a felon at all, notwithstanding that those assertions are no longer merely allegations but the basis of a jury’s guilty verdict. Doing so, they have declared, is a violation of House rules.

Scene from a Train, by Richard Adams

In short, perhaps the only place in the United States where people are barred from talking freely about Mr. Trump’s crimes is the floor of what is often referred to as “the people’s House,” where Republicans have gone so far as to erase one such mention from the official record.

In recent weeks, Republican leaders have cracked down on Democrats who refer to Mr. Trump’s court cases on the floor, citing the centuries-old rules of decorum, which date back to the days of Thomas Jefferson. Merely mentioning that Mr. Trump is a felon prompts an admonishment from whomever is presiding when the offending fact is uttered. (Mr. Trump is also indicted on felony charges in cases related to his handling of classified documents and attempting to overturn the 2020 election.)

“The chair would remind members to refrain from engaging in personalities toward presumptive nominees for the office of the president,” is now a common phrase heard in the chamber after the mention of the words “Trump” and “felon.”

On one occasion, Republicans barred Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts, from speaking for the rest of the day and deleted his comments from the Congressional Record after he railed against Mr. Trump and his court cases.

“When they censor any mention of Donald Trump’s criminal convictions, they are essentially trying to ban a fact,” Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said in an interview. “I am not aware of any precedent where factual statements have been banned in our lifetime.”

So what else is new?

At The New Republic, Greg Sargent writes that Trump will try to blame Biden for crimes committed by immigrants: Trump Just Revealed How He’ll Attack Biden at Debate—and It’s Vile.

You can’t say you weren’t warned: At the upcoming presidential debate on June 27, Donald Trump plans to highlight a handful of horrific murders—allegedly by undocumented migrants—and blame them on President Biden. We know this because Trump told us so right on his Truth Social feed.

“We have a new Biden Migrant Killing—it’s only going to get worse, and it’s all Crooked Joe Biden’s fault,” Trump seethed, referring to the horrible death of a 12-year-old Texas girl. “I look forward to seeing him at the Fake debate on Thursday. Let him explain why he has allowed MILLIONS of people to come into our Country illegally!”

Now that Trump has telegraphed this coming assault, the Biden campaign has time to prepare a response. What should it be?

First, let’s be clear on why this line of attack is pure nonsense. Trump and MAGA figures have aggressively highlighted such killings lately, in many forms: Trump sometimes brings up victims at campaign events. MAGA lawmakers put them on T-shirts. Fox News airs visuals of migrant mug shots. And as Aaron Rupar shows, Fox sometimes even puts individual crimes in chyrons.

The argument is always that Biden’s policies are to blame for these horrors. But at the most obvious level, this is absurd, because immigrants do not commit crimes at higher rates than native-born Americans do. That includes undocumented immigrants. There is no link between immigration and violent crime.

Of course, the real Trump-MAGA message is that all undocumented immigrants should be presumed violent and dangerous, regardless of what any pointy-headed statistics say. MAGA figures are highlighting specific killings to smear millions—that is, they’re arguing by anecdote.

But even at the anecdotal level, the claims implode under scrutiny. Take Rachel Morin, a young mother who was horrifically murdered in Maryland, allegedly by a migrant from El Salvador. Trump highlighted her at a recent rally, and MAGA figures regularly cite her to criticize Biden’s new legal protections for the undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens.

We’ll just have to wait and see what happens on Thursday. I’m sure Trump’s behavior will be deranged and nonsensical. I don’t know if I can stand to watch it. At least we know that their mikes will be shut off while the other candidate is speaking.

That’s all the politics news I have for you today. I hope the cat art will make it somewhat bearable.

Wednesday Reads: If You’re Not Voting for Biden, You’re Voting for the End of Democracy. Period.

Posted: May 1, 2024 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: abortion rights, democracy is threatened, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Surreality | Tags: "presidential immunity", concentration camps, deportations, immigration, mob violence, state monitoring of pregnanacies, Supreme Court, Time interview with Trump | 6 Comments

Good Morning!!

Rene Magritte, The False Mirror, 1928

Yesterday, Time Magazine published an interview with Donald Trump. Why did he choose Time to reveal his plans for rescinding the Constitution if he is elected in November? I’d guess it’s because he wanted another Time cover to add to his collection. He’s a demented old man who doesn’t realize that Time long ago became fairly irrelevant. But they certainly got the attention of the the political world yesterday. Trump spelled out his plans for 2025 and beyond and they are horrifying.

I agree with this tweet that Aaron Rupar posted after reading the article:

I increasingly believe this election will be a referendum on whether anything matters anymore. There’s no rational case for Trump, but there’s a loud contingent on the left that just wants to burn it down. Combine that with low information voters and Republicans circling the wagons around their guy, and you have the outlines of a calamity. Hopefully people wake up.

Here’s the Time interview, followed by commentary from other publications. I’ve cut out the author’s cutesy commentary and just included Trump’s plans.

Eric Cortellessa at Time: How Far Trump Would Go.

Six months from the 2024 presidential election, Trump is better positioned to win the White House than at any point in either of his previous campaigns. He leads Joe Biden by slim margins in most polls, including in several of the seven swing states likely to determine the outcome. But I had not come to ask about the election, the disgrace that followed the last one, or how he has become the first former—and perhaps future—American President to face a criminal trial. I wanted to know what Trump would do if he wins a second term, to hear his vision for the nation, in his own words.

What emerged in two interviews with Trump, and conversations with more than a dozen of his closest advisers and confidants, were the outlines of an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world. To carry out a deportation operation designed to remove more than 11 million people from the country, Trump told me, he would be willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military, both at the border and inland. He would let red states monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans. He would, at his personal discretion, withhold funds appropriated by Congress, according to top advisers. He would be willing to fire a U.S. Attorney who doesn’t carry out his order to prosecute someone, breaking with a tradition of independent law enforcement that dates from America’s founding. He is weighing pardons for every one of his supporters accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, more than 800 of whom have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury. He might not come to the aid of an attacked ally in Europe or Asia if he felt that country wasn’t paying enough for its own defense. He would gut the U.S. civil service, deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit, close the White House pandemic-preparedness office, and staff his Administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen.

Trump remains the same guy, with the same goals and grievances. But in person, if anything, he appears more assertive and confident. “When I first got to Washington, I knew very few people,” he says. “I had to rely on people.” Now he is in charge. The arranged marriage with the timorous Republican Party stalwarts is over; the old guard is vanquished, and the people who remain are his people. Trump would enter a second term backed by a slew of policy shops staffed by loyalists who have drawn up detailed plans in service of his agenda, which would concentrate the powers of the state in the hands of a man whose appetite for power appears all but insatiable. “I don’t think it’s a big mystery what his agenda would be,” says his close adviser Kellyanne Conway. “But I think people will be surprised at the alacrity with which he will take action.” [….]

In a second term, Trump’s influence on American democracy would extend far beyond pardoning powers. Allies are laying the groundwork to restructure the presidency in line with a doctrine called the unitary executive theory, which holds that many of the constraints imposed on the White House by legislators and the courts should be swept away in favor of a more powerful Commander in Chief.

TV Man, by Michael Vincent Manalo

Nowhere would that power be more momentous than at the Department of Justice. Since the nation’s earliest days, Presidents have generally kept a respectful distance from Senate-confirmed law-enforcement officials to avoid exploiting for personal ends their enormous ability to curtail Americans’ freedoms. But Trump, burned in his first term by multiple investigations directed by his own appointees, is ever more vocal about imposing his will directly on the department and its far-flung investigators and prosecutors.

In our Mar-a-Lago interview, Trump says he might fire U.S. Attorneys who refuse his orders to prosecute someone: “It would depend on the situation.” He’s told supporters he would seek retribution against his enemies in a second term. Would that include Fani Willis, the Atlanta-area district attorney who charged him with election interference, or Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA in the Stormy Daniels case, who Trump has previously said should be prosecuted? Trump demurs but offers no promises. “No, I don’t want to do that,” he says, before adding, “We’re gonna look at a lot of things. What they’ve done is a terrible thing.”

Trump has also vowed to appoint a “real special prosecutor” to go after Biden. “I wouldn’t want to hurt Biden,” he tells me. “I have too much respect for the office.” Seconds later, though, he suggests Biden’s fate may be tied to an upcoming Supreme Court ruling on whether Presidents can face criminal prosecution for acts committed in office. “If they said that a President doesn’t get immunity,” says Trump, “then Biden, I am sure, will be prosecuted for all of his crimes.” (Biden has not been charged with any, and a House Republican effort to impeach him has failed to unearth evidence of any crimes or misdemeanors, high or low.)

On his goal of mass deportation of immigrants:

Trump’s radical designs for presidential power would be felt throughout the country. A main focus is the southern border. Trump says he plans to sign orders to reinstall many of the same policies from his first term, such as the Remain in Mexico program, which requires that non-Mexican asylum seekers be sent south of the border until their court dates, and Title 42, which allows border officials to expel migrants without letting them apply for asylum. Advisers say he plans to cite record border crossings and fentanyl- and child-trafficking as justification for reimposing the emergency measures. He would direct federal funding to resume construction of the border wall, likely by allocating money from the military budget without congressional approval. The capstone of this program, advisers say, would be a massive deportation operation that would target millions of people. Trump made similar pledges in his first term, but says he plans to be more aggressive in a second. “People need to be deported,” says Tom Homan, a top Trump adviser and former acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “No one should be off the table.”

For an operation of that scale, Trump says he would rely mostly on the National Guard to round up and remove undocumented migrants throughout the country. “If they weren’t able to, then I’d use [other parts of] the military,” he says. When I ask if that means he would override the Posse Comitatus Act—an 1878 law that prohibits the use of military force on civilians—Trump seems unmoved by the weight of the statute. “Well, these aren’t civilians,” he says. “These are people that aren’t legally in our country.” He would also seek help from local police and says he would deny funding for jurisdictions that decline to adopt his policies. “There’s a possibility that some won’t want to participate,” Trump says, “and they won’t partake in the riches.”

Helen Lundeberg, Biological Fantasy, 1946

On Abortion:

As President, Trump nominated three Supreme Court Justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, and he claims credit for his role in ending a constitutional right to an abortion. At the same time, he has sought to defuse a potent campaign issue for the Democrats by saying he wouldn’t sign a federal ban. In our interview at Mar-a-Lago, he declines to commit to vetoing any additional federal restrictions if they came to his desk. More than 20 states now have full or partial abortion bans, and Trump says those policies should be left to the states to do what they want, including monitoring women’s pregnancies. “I think they might do that,” he says. When I ask whether he would be comfortable with states prosecuting women for having abortions beyond the point the laws permit, he says, “It’s irrelevant whether I’m comfortable or not. It’s totally irrelevant, because the states are going to make those decisions.” President Biden has said he would fight state anti-abortion measures in court and with regulation.

Trump’s allies don’t plan to be passive on abortion if he returns to power. The Heritage Foundation has called for enforcement of a 19th century statute that would outlaw the mailing of abortion pills. The Republican Study Committee (RSC), which includes more than 80% of the House GOP conference, included in its 2025 budget proposal the Life at Conception Act, which says the right to life extends to “the moment of fertilization.” I ask Trump if he would veto that bill if it came to his desk. “I don’t have to do anything about vetoes,” Trump says, “because we now have it back in the states.”

There’s much more at the Time Magazine link.

Two brief commentaries from TNR:

Elie Quinland Houghtaling at The New Republic: Trump Hints Another January 6 Could Happen If He Loses the Election.

Donald Trump hasn’t quite let go of the possibility of utilizing mob violence if he loses the next election.

In a sprawling interview for Time magazine, Trump hinted that leveraging political violence to achieve his end goals was still on the table.

“If we don’t win, you know, it depends,” he told Time. “It always depends on the fairness of the election.”

And from Trump’s perspective, that’s winning rhetoric. According to him, his incendiary comments supporting a mob mentality, his early warnings of forthcoming abuses of power, and his threats to be a dictator on “day one” are only inching him closer to the White House. “I think a lot of people like it,” Trump told Time….

Meanwhile, the trial that will determine Trump’s level of involvement on the day that his followers actually attempted to overthrow Congress’s certification of the 2020 vote has been indefinitely waylaid by the former president’s claim of presidential immunity. The Supreme Court heard arguments for that case last week. It is currently unclear how the justices will decide the case, though they are expected to issue an opinion sometime between the end of June and early July.

Also from TNR, by Hafiz Rashid: If This Trump Warning on 2024 Doesn’t Scare You, You’re Sleepwalking. Donald Trump is warning that 2024 could be America’s “last election.”

If you ask Donald Trump, the election could determine the fate of the United States itself.

“If we don’t win on November 5, I think our country is going to cease to exist. It could be the last election we ever have. I actually mean that,” the former president said at a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Tuesday.

JeeYoung Lee, Panic Room, 2010

In fact, looking at Trump’s plans for a potential second term, it’s more likely that the opposite is true. He has claimed that he wants to be a dictator, but only on “day one,” and plans to install his legal allies at all levels of government. And his Cabinet? It’s sure to be full of ideologues, immigration hard-liners, and outright fascists. Even conservative judges claim he’ll shred the legal system.

But Trump’s remarks could also be a veiled threat that he should win, or else. The far right, from Trump down to militias, hate groups, and grassroots MAGA supporters, could react violently if the election doesn’t go in their favor.

As Brynn Tannehill wrote for The New Republic in March, “The election cycle either ends in chaos and violence, balkanization, or a descent into a modern theocratic fascist dystopia.” It might not be a stretch to suggest that Trump could plan another January 6–type event if he loses. After all, only months prior to the Capitol insurrection, he urged the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” on a debate stage.

Molly Olmstead at Slate: The Most Alarming Answer From Trump’s Interview With Time.

On April 12, former President Donald Trump sat for an interview with Time. That interview, which ran with some follow-up questions from this past Saturday, was published on Tuesday, and it included a number of alarming tidbits from Trump, many of which reaffirmed his earlier extreme positions or took them further.

But perhaps the most shocking response dealt with a hypothetical posed by the reporter, Eric Cortellessa. Relatively early in the conversation, Cortellessa pushed Trump to take a stance on a federal abortion ban. Trump refused, insisting that his views on abortion did not matter—that he was leaving it up to the states to decide, and that was that. Even as Cortellessa insisted that it was “important to voters” to know where he stands, Trump didn’t budge, even when asked how he felt about women being punished for having abortions. Cortellessa then raised the prospect of a surveillance state keeping tabs on women and their reproductive systems:

Cortellessa: Do you think states should monitor women’s pregnancies so they can know if they’ve gotten an abortion after the ban?

Trump: I think they might do that. Again, you’ll have to speak to the individual states. Look, Roe v. Wade was all about bringing it back to the states.

Trump’s refusal to take a stance on such a sinister possibility shows he remains just as concerned about disappointing his white evangelical base as he is about alienating more moderate voters. But he may have underestimated just how radical this nonstance really was, and just how unsettling it may seem to voters.

That ended up being a theme of the more than hourlong interview: Trump dodged so many questions by railing about his victimhood, boasting about his victories, or just straight-out lying, but when he did give a direct response, it showed a man who had learned no lessons from his 2020 loss or his ongoing legal challenges. The Trump of the interview was just as extreme as ever.

Read the rest at Slate.

Ed Pilkington at The Guardian: Trump threatens to prosecute Bidens if he’s re-elected unless he gets immunity.

Donald Trump has warned that Joe Biden and his family could face multiple criminal prosecutions once he leaves office unless the US supreme court awards Trump immunity in his own legal battles with the criminal justice system.

In a sweeping interview with Time magazine, Trump painted a startling picture of his second term, from how he would wield the justice department to hinting he may let states monitor pregnant women to enforce abortion laws….

Portrait of the Late Mrs. Partridge, by Leonora Carrington

Trump made a direct connection between his threat to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Bidens should he win re-election in November with the case currently before the supreme court over his own presidential immunity.

Asked whether he intends to “go after” the Bidens should he gain a second term in the White House, Trump replied: “It depends what happens with the supreme court.”

If the nine justices on the top court – three of whom were appointed by Trump – fail to award him immunity from prosecution, Trump said, “then Biden I am sure will be prosecuted for all of his crimes, because he’s committed many crimes”.

Trump and his Republican backers have long attempted to link Biden to criminal wrongdoing relating to the business affairs of his son Hunter Biden, without unearthing any substantial evidence. Last June, in remarks made at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, Trump threatened to appoint a special prosecutor were he re-elected “to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family”. [….]

Several of Trump’s comments in the Time interview will ring alarm bells among those concerned with the former president’s increasingly totalitarian bent.

Trump’s remarks raise the specter that, were he granted a second presidential term, he would weaponize the justice department to seek revenge against the Democratic rival who defeated him in 2020.

Despite the violence that erupted on 6 January 2021 at the US Capitol after he refused to accept defeat in the 2020 election, which is the subject of one of two federal prosecutions he is fighting, Trump also declined to promise a peaceful transfer of power should he lose again in November.

Asked by Cortellessa whether there would be political violence should Trump fail to win, he replied: “If we don’t win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election.”

Pouring yet more gasoline on to the fire, Trump not only repeated his falsehood that the 2020 election had been stolen from him, but said he would be unlikely to appoint anyone to a second Trump administration who believed Biden had legitimately prevailed four years ago. “I wouldn’t feel good about it, because I think anybody that doesn’t see that that election was stolen – you look at the proof,” he said.

Philip Bump at The Washington Post: Trump won’t say what he plans to do as president.

The cover story of Time magazine is presented as definitive.

“If he wins,” it states over a picture of former president Donald Trump sitting on a stool. The story from reporter Eric Cortellessa bears the headline, “How far Trump would go,” and interweaves quotes from a lengthy interview Trump granted Cortellessa with the reporter’s assessments of what it tells us about a potential second Trump term.

Max Ernst, The Barbarians

But as is often the case, a lot of what Trump is reported as planning to do is constructed from murky, noncommittal answers Trump offered to specific questions. The interview is very revealing about Trump’s approach to the position in that it strongly suggests he hasn’t thought much about important issues, and makes clear how relentlessly he relies on rhetoric to derail questions.

The interview is not revealing about what Trump is firmly committed to doing. But that’s revealing in its own way: It makes it obvious that a second term, like the first, would see policy and executive actions driven by whomever is around Trump. And Trump is clearly committed to having around him only people who share his political worldview.

Before we list the firm policy commitments Trump offered to Cortellessa, which won’t take long, it’s useful to point out all the revealing comments Trump made simply by being given the space to talk.

For example, when asked whether he would use the military to help deport immigrants despite prohibitions against deploying the military against civilians, Trump told Cortellessa that “these aren’t civilians.” He claimed they were, instead, part of an “invasion,” rhetoric he’s used before. This is false — but revealing about Trump’s potential willingness to use force as part of a deportation effort.

I don’t know about this. I thought Trump made his plans pretty clear–especially because we can base our interpretations on what he has already done. But you can read more at the WaPo link.

Nicholas Nehamas and Reid J. Epstein at The New York Times: Biden and Democrats Seize on Trump’s Striking Interview.

The Biden campaign is mounting a concerted push to attack former President Donald J. Trump over statements he made to Time magazine in a wide-ranging interview published Tuesday morning, particularly on abortion.

In the interview, Mr. Trump refused to commit to vetoing a national abortion ban and said he would allow states to monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violated abortion restrictions.

“This is reprehensible,” President Biden wrote on X. “Donald Trump doesn’t trust women. I do.”

Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Mr. Biden’s campaign manager, said in a statement that Mr. Trump would “sign a national abortion ban, allow women who have an abortion to be prosecuted and punished, allow the government to invade women’s privacy to monitor their pregnancies and put I.V.F. and contraception in jeopardy nationwide.”

Abortion has become a winning issue for Democrats, and Mr. Biden has argued that Mr. Trump and Republicans will continue to erode abortion rights. He and Vice President Kamala Harris have campaigned heavily on the issue in battleground states, and Democrats hope that state ballot initiatives to protect abortion rights will help their candidates for president, Congress and state offices. Their messaging has sought to pin state abortion bans directly on Mr. Trump, whose appointees to the Supreme Court helped overturn Roe v. Wade….

The former president also told Time that he would deploy the U.S. military to detain and deport migrants, and did not dismiss the possibility of political violence should he lose the election.

Democrats highlighted some of those statements as well.

“Donald Trump’s repeated threats of political violence are as horrifying and dangerous as they are un-American,” said Alex Floyd, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee. “Trump is hellbent on threatening our democracy, win or lose.”

Hillary Clinton urged her followers on X to read about Mr. Trump’s plans for a second term and “take them seriously.”

That’s all I have today. I truly believe that our democracy is hanging in the balance. Whatever you think of Joe Biden, he has generally been a good president. Trump was a disaster last time, and if he wins again, it will be be far worse–beyond anything we can imagine.

Wednesday Reads

Posted: February 14, 2024 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: 2024 Elections, just because | Tags: Alejandro Mayorkas, Donald Trump, immigration, Jim Prokopiak, Joe Biden, Lindsey Graham, Merrick Garland, NATO, Pennsylvania state house, snowsstorms, special elections, Tom Suozzi, Ukraine, weather | 7 Comments

Good Morning!!

Winter landscape, by Pablo Picasso

Yesterday, the Boston area was supposed to get up to a foot of snow. For several days, meteorologists predicted a huge winter storm was on the way. They were confident it would happen. But at the last minute, Mother Nature changed her mind. There was a big storm, but its path shifted to the South, and guess what we got where I live? Nada. Some sleet and rain.

I really love snowstorms, and I was looking forward to this one. In addition, the entire Boston school system was shut down and many businesses closed for the day. That has to be expensive, right?

We’ve had several of these failed predictions this winter. What is the problem? Are meteorologists predicting these storms too many days ahead? I don’t know. But I’m disgusted. I’m never believing their forecasts again. There is supposedly another snowstorm on the way. I’ll believe it when I see it.

On with today’s reads.

Yesterday’s Special Elections

Democrats got some good news last night as they won special elections in New York and Pennsylvania.

The Washington Post: Suozzi wins New York special election, replacing George Santos.

Democrat Tom Suozzi won a hotly contested special election for Congress on Tuesday, the Associated Press projected, retaking a seat in suburban New York and offering his party some reassurance amid high anxiety about President Biden’s political vulnerabilities.

Suozzi beat Republican nominee Mazi Pilip to replace Republican George Santos, who was indicted on a charge of fraud and then expelled from Congress late last year amid revelations that he fabricated much of his life story. The race for New York’s 3rd District — long viewed as a dead heat — played out in a suburban part of Long Island that favored President Biden by eight points in 2020 but then swung toward Republicans, backing Santos by the same margin.

With more than 93 percent of the vote counted early Wednesday, Suozzi led Pilip by nearly eight percentage points.

National issues dominated the campaign, making Tuesday’s vote this year’s first high-profile test of the parties’ messages on abortion, the economy and, above all, immigration. Suozzi represented the area for six years previously and campaigned as a moderate who wanted to work across the aisle. But with New York City struggling to absorb more than 100,000 migrants arriving from the southern border, much of the campaign centered on what polling suggests is Democrats’ toughest issue….

In New York, Suozzi’s victory capped a long list of Democratic wins in recent special elections, which have showcased the party’s ability to turn out its base and tap into anger at GOP-backed abortion restrictions since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Democrats spent millions of dollars attacking Pilip’s “pro-life” stance even though she said she would not support a national ban on abortion.

road-in-the-village-of-baldersbronde-winter-day-1912-laurits-anderson-ring

Road in the Village of Baldersbronde, Winter Day 1912, by Laurits Anderson Ring

I’m not sure immigration will be the Democrats’ “toughest issue” anymore, since Republicans in Congress refused to pass an immigration bill that was supported by the Border Patrol Union and the U.S. Chamber of Congress simply because Donald Trump order them to vote no.

Gregory Krieg at CNN: Takeaways from New York’s high-stakes special election.

Democrat Tom Suozzi is heading back to Congress after defeating Republican Mazi Pilip in the special election to replace serial fabulist and expelled former GOP Rep. George Santos. The result will further narrow the GOP’s already thin House majority and hand President Joe Biden’s party a boost as the general election campaign comes into focus….

Both parties poured cash into the race for New York’s 3rd congressional district, but Democrats’ fundraising and registration advantage combined with Suozzi’s brand – he’s spent most of the last 30 years at or around the center of Long Island politics – and a fired-up base, angry over the Santos fiasco, delivered a victory that means the House GOP will now become even harder to corral.

For Pilip, who has vowed to run again in the fall, defeat meant an almost immediate rebuke from Trump, who called her a “very foolish woman” in a social media post Tuesday night. Pilip refused until the final days of the campaign to say whether she voted for Trump in 2020, though she did follow his lead in dissing a highly touted bipartisan Senate border bill – a decision that helped Suozzi tie her more tightly to the former president over the last week….

The campaign was staked on a series of issues from the beginning: immigration, inflation, Israel and abortion. Suozzi talked about reproductive rights but didn’t make it a centerpiece of his campaign. Inflation has mostly leveled out. And there was no political or policy space to speak of between the candidates who both fully backed Israel.

On the immigration issue:

Understanding this, Pilip and Republicans set about hammering Suozzi over the migrant crisis in New York City, claiming he caused it along with Biden – a line that ultimately didn’t quite wash with voters who have long recognized Suozzi as a moderate or centrist. When Pilip suggested he was in league with the progressive “squad,” Suozzi at their debate was prepared.

“For you to suggest I’m a member of the squad,” he said, “is about as believable as you being a member of George Santos’s volleyball team.” (And that was before a knowing reference to Rick Lazio, which only seasoned New York voters would appreciate.)

Most notably, though, Suozzi and state Democratic leaders didn’t repeat their mistakes from 2022. They aggressively countered Pilip’s migrant message and it never felt like the issue, typically a winner for the GOP, put Suozzi on the backfoot.

The weather was a factor in this election. Many Democrats vote early or by mail, while Republicans mostly vote on election day. The snowstorm may have kept Republicans from getting to the polls.

If you’re interested, there’s another good analysis of the NY 3 election by Noah Berlatsky at Public Notice: NY-03 gives Republicans lots to worry about.

Super Moon, by Jef Bourgeau

NBC News on the Pennsylvania special election: Pennsylvania Democrats pad narrow state House advantage with special election win.

Democrats won a state House special election in Pennsylvania on Tuesday night, preserving the party’s narrow majority in the closely watched battleground state, The Associated Press projected.

In the race for the open seat in the 140th state House District, Democrat Jim Prokopiak, a school board member in Bucks County, defeated Republican Candace Cabanas.

Prokopiak’s victory gives Democrats a narrow 102-100 majority in the state House, preventing another tie in the chamber.

The party had a one-seat majority, 102-101, before Democratic Rep. John Galloway resigned after he won a judgeship in November.

His departure created a tie. But another resignation Friday, by Republican Joe Adams, gave Democrats a fresh 101-100 advantage.

Republicans control the state Senate, while Democrats hold the governorship.

The win in Bucks County — a purple slice of the northern suburbs of Philadelphia — was hailed as positive news by national Democrats, some of whom had viewed the contest as an early bellwether of the party’s fortunes among suburban voters ahead of the 2024 election.

Even the Biden campaign weighed in on the victory, touting it as evidence that Bucks County voters would reject Donald Trump in the fall.

“With control of the state House on the line, Pennsylvanians again defeated Republicans’ anti-abortion agenda and voted for Jim Prokopiak, a Democrat who has stood up for women and working people,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement.

More News:

House Republicans spent yesterday impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas based on zero evidence.

David Kurtz at TPM Morning Memo: Congrats On Your Bogus Impeachment, Champ.

The GOP-led House finally got its act together enough to stage an impeachment performance last evening, claiming the scalp of Biden Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

The same three Republican members who stymied the effort last week voted against impeachment again, but Rep. Steve Scalise’s return from cancer treatment gave the Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) the critical vote he needed to complete the flimsiest impeachment in history:

no claims of high crimes or misdemeanors;

no evidence of wrongdoing or graft;

no shame in using impeachment to salve the hurt feelings of Donald Trump over his two impeachments and to boost Republicans’ signature election year issue: ~~immigration~~ xenophobia.

It’s totally appropriate to categorize these kinds of maneuvers by Republicans as performative or as playing politics or as engaging in political stunts. All true. But it’s also fundamentally an abuse of power. House Republicans are hikacking the levers of power that come with the offices they hold to advance their own partisan political aims and hold on to that power.

Not every example of an alignment between official acts and partisan political advantage is an abuse of power. But when you strip away any ostensibly objective motive for the official act, when you offer no pretense for the official act, when you’re only using the powers of the office to further your own political aims, when you stretch the law and the rules and bend them to your own grubby ends, you’re engaged in abuse of power. When, at the same time, you’re engaging in the wholesale breaking of government and institutions for the sake of it, all you’re left with is politics of the grimy, self-serving, and self-perpetuating variety.

There will have to be a trial in the Senate, but the “impeachment” is dead there. This is disgusting.

Sven Kroner, Hocuspocus

President Biden condemned Trump’s attack on NATO and his encouragement to Russia to attack our European allies.

BBC News: Biden slams Trump criticism of Nato as ‘shameful.’

President Joe Biden has blasted criticism of Nato by his likely 2024 election challenger, Donald Trump, as “dumb”, “shameful” and “un-American”.

The Democrat assailed Mr Trump for saying he would “encourage” Russia to attack any Nato member that did not meet its defence spending quota.

Mr Biden said the remarks underscored the urgency of passing a $95bn (£75bn) foreign aid package for US allies.

The bill just passed the Senate, but it faces political headwinds in the House.

At the White House on Tuesday, Mr Biden said a failure to pass the package – which includes $60bn for Ukraine – would be “playing into Putin’s hands”.

He said the stakes have risen because of Mr Trump’s “dangerous” remarks over the weekend.

“No other president in history has ever bowed down to a Russian dictator,” Mr Biden said.

“Let me say this as clearly as I can. I never will. For God’s sake. It’s dumb. It’s shameful. It’s dangerous. It’s un-American.”

Lindsey Graham, to his everlasting shame, voted against aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Gaza.

The Washington Post: Lindsey Graham, a longtime foreign policy hawk, bows to Trump on Ukraine.

Last May, Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) visited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, warmly embracing the embattled leader and later urging President Biden to “do more” to help the nation as it fights off Russia’s invasion.

But this week, Graham voted repeatedly against sending $60 billion in aid to that nation as well as against other military funds for Israel and U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific. The longtime hawk dramatically announced on the Senate floor that he also would no longer be attending the Munich Security Conference — an annual pilgrimage made by world leaders to discuss global security concerns that’s been a mainstay of his schedule.

“I talked to President Trump today and he’s dead set against this package,” Graham said on the Senate floor on Sunday, a day after the former president said at a rally that he would let the Russians do “whatever the hell they want” to NATO allies that did not spend enough on defense. “He thinks that we should make packages like this a loan, not a gift,” Graham said.

Claude Monet, A Cart on the Snowy_Road at Honfleur, 1865 or 1867

Graham’s about-face on Ukraine aid sends a stark warning signal to U.S. allies that even one of the most aggressive advocates for U.S. interventionism abroad appears to be influenced by the more isolationist posture pervading the Republican Party.

It marked a departure for the senator who was harshly critical of Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policy when he ran against him for president in 2015, in part on a message of launching a U.S. invasion of Syria. And even as he cozied up to Trump once he became president on numerous other issues, the Air Force veteran continued to criticize Trump on foreign policy, including for wanting to withdraw from Afghanistan and Syria….

The episode has also eroded Graham’s credibility among colleagues who worked closely with him to shape a bipartisan package of border policy reforms that Republicans demanded be attached to the foreign aid in exchange for their votes — only to backtrack and help kill it in the end.

What an asshole.

According to Newsweek, Merrick Garland’s Future Looks Bleak.

Merrick Garland is highly unlikely to serve a second term as attorney general amid mounting criticism of the Biden classified documents report, a law professor has said.

Professor Anthony V. Alfieri, a law professor at the University of Miami in Florida, was reacting to Garland’s appointment of Robert Hur as special counsel to investigate President Biden’s handling of the documents.

Garland has been under pressure for the perceived unfairness of the report and his silence in its aftermath.

The report said that Biden claimed he couldn’t remember details of classified documents he held after leaving the White House as vice president, and would likely claim forgetfulness if put on trial.

“Garland’s lack of fairness in this case, and the ensuing political fallout, renders a second term of service highly unlikely,” Alfieri told Newsweek.

“Attorney General Garland’s appointment of Robert Hur as Special Counsel, despite a notably conservative pedigree and record, is less controversial than Garland’s conclusion that Hur’s report was neither ‘inappropriate’ nor ‘unwarranted’,” Alfieri said.

“That conclusion and his release of the report to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees without addition, redaction, or modification, both explicitly and implicitly approves formally descriptive but substantively gratuitous, ad hominem and politically charged language prejudicial to Mr. Biden.”

Finally Friday Reads: Convicted Rapist “Storms out of Court”

Posted: January 26, 2024 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: just because | Tags: @repeat1968, Asylum seekers, Donnie Dotard, E. Jean Carroll, immigration, John Buss, The Donnie Dotard Club House, Trump's Trial Antics | 12 Comments

“Thanks, Dakinikat, for putting this in my head; I couldn’t sleep last night.” John Buss @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

It’s yet another crazy day with Donnie Dotard! Have you ever heard of one person indicted on 91 felonies in 2 state courts and several Federal venues out running amok on bail? There are so many articles out there that show how unfit this man is for office, and it’s not even funny! Let’s start out with this one at The Independent. Trump’s temper tantrums should land him in a jail cell and he almost did. “Donald Trump storms out of closing arguments in E Jean Carroll trial, The former president continued to attack the woman suing him for defamation after his testimony on Thursday.”

Roughly 20 minutes after walking into the courtroom, Donald Trump stormed out of closing arguments in a civil trial to determine how much money he owes E Jean Carroll for repeatedly defaming her.

The former president arrived in federal court in Manhattan on Friday morning after briefly testifying in his defence on Thursday afternoon, after which he unleashed more attacks and potentially defamatory statements about the former Elle magazine columnist.

In her closing statement, Ms Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan told jurors that the former president “acts as if these rules of law just don’t apply to him.”

His attacks didn’t stop after he was found liable for defamation and sexual abuse in a $5m jury verdict, she noted.

“Not at all,” Ms Kaplan said. “Not even for 24 hours.”

Mr Trump then stood up from the defence table, where he was seated next to attorney Alina Habba, and walked out of the hearing, to which he had arrived late.

“The record will reflect that Mr Trump just rose and walked out of the courtroom,” US District Judge Lewis Kaplan said.

Mr Trump returned to the courtroom for defence closing arguments from Ms Habba.

As he returned to the courtroom, his Truth Social account fired off several posts repeating incendiary and potentially defamatory claims about the case, claiming he is a victim of “extortion” and falsely labelling the case a “Joe Biden-directed Election Interference Attack” against him.

I really feel for this judge who has had to deal with this idiot for more than time than would be humanly possible for most people. Adam Klasfeld–The Messenger–reports this. “Judge Threatens to Send Trump Lawyer Alina Habba ‘in the Lockup’ at E. Jean Carroll Trial. The blockbuster remark came moments before closing arguments in Trump’s second trial in a case brought by E. Jean Carroll.”

A federal judge threatened Donald Trump’s attorney Alina Habba with jail time on Friday, after the former president’s lawyer kept contesting a ruling after it had been issued.

“You are on the verge of spending some time in the lockup,” senior U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan warned. “Sit down.”

The bombshell remark came moments before the start of opening statements in Trump’s second trial in a case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll.

Before the jury was let into court, Carroll and Trump’s attorneys had debated the boundaries for their closing arguments. Habba’s co-counsel Michael Madaio had sought to arguing about what he could display in a slideshow to jurors before his summations began, and Carroll’s legal team objected to the presentation of messages that were not entered into evidence.

Judge Kaplan sided with Carroll’s legal team, and Madaio unsuccessfully tried to urge the judge to reconsider his ruling. That’s when Habba jumped up and pressed on, insisting that she had to make a record. She stopped pushing her case after Kaplan threatened her with incarceration.

The jury then entered, and Carroll’s lead attorney Roberta Kaplan — who shares a name with but isn’t related to the judge — began her closing arguments.

Trump's lawyer Alina Habba appears again to deny Carroll's claims, prompting an objection.

Judge Kaplan reminds the jury that it's been established that Carroll wasn't lying.

Habba: "It is established by a jury."

Judge snaps to Habba: "It is established and you will not…

— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) January 26, 2024

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 former president provides an elaborate description of missile defense technology: Ding ding ding ding boom whoosh boom pic.twitter.com/PgWRVJh8xI

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 23, 2024

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

Trump’s resilience from normal political gravity is aided by the mainstream press. Here’s how NBC News reported the Republican frontrunner’s mental collapse: “Donald Trump appeared to mistakenly refer to GOP rival Nikki Haley instead of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, when discussing the Jan. 6 riot at a campaign rally in New Hampshire.” But he didn’t appear to confuse Haley and Pelosi. That’s a cowardly presentation of events we saw with our own eyes. PBS did the same: “Trump appears to confuse Haley and Pelosi while making false Jan. 6 claims in New Hampshire.”

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.”

GOP Senator Thom Tillis slams his “immoral” Republican colleagues for scuttling an immigration-Ukraine aid deal on behalf of Trump:

“I didn’t come here to have the president as a boss or a candidate as a boss. I came here to pass good, solid policy.
It is immoral for me to… pic.twitter.com/VXkt9WJaiG

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) January 26, 2024

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

Lazy Caturday Reads: Two Wannabe Tyrants and A Struggling One

Posted: September 24, 2022 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: caturday, Donald Trump | Tags: Adolf Hitler, Hillary Clinton, immigration, Ron DeSantis, Vladimir Putin | 13 Comments

Happy Caturday!!

079258366aa3aa1cb71e700f59e9028d Hillary Clinton dared to speak the truth about Trump in an interview yesterday. Mary Papenfuss wrote about it at HuffPo: Hillary Clinton Compares Trump To Hitler In Disturbing Interview.

In a stinging interview Friday one-time presidential candidate Hillary Clinton compared Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler, and his political rallies to Nazi gatherings.

She zeroed in on Trump’s rally last week in Youngstown, Ohio, where members of the crowd raised a stiff-armed, one-finger QAnon salute to the former president in a gesture chillingly reminiscent of the “heil Hitler” salute.

The QAnon gesture stands for WWG1WGA, or: “Where We Go One We Go All.”

“I remember as a young student, you know, trying to figure out how people get basically brought in by Hitler. How did that happen?” Clinton asked during an onstage interview at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin.

“I’d watch newsreels and I’d see this guy standing up there ranting and raving, and people shouting and raising their arms. I thought, ‘What’s happened to these people?’” she added.

“You saw the rally in Ohio the other night,” Clinton noted. “Trump is there ranting and raving for more than an hour, and you have these rows of young men with their arms raised. What is going on?”

She added: “I think it is fair to say we’re in a struggle between democracy and autocracy.”

Trump had another rally in North Carolina yesterday. He did plenty of ranting and railing, but his security people stopped audience members who raised their arms in the “heil Hitler”-like gesture. Either Trump or his advisers must have been paying attention to the negative public reaction.

From Eric Garcia, reporter at The Independent, who attended the rally: QAnon, the Big Lie and misogyny: Inside Trump’s Wilmington rally. Trump was supposedly there to support Republican candidates; but, as usual, the rally was all about him and his many grievances.

Former president Donald Trump held a rally in Wilmington on Friday, his first since New York attorney general Letitia James announced her civil lawsuit against him, his three eldest children, his business associates, and the Trump organisation this week….

Indeed, before Mr Trump took the stage, the two monitors on the sides of the stage played a segment from Fox News’ host Jesse Watters comparing Mr Trump’s storage of documents with that of the previous four former presidents.

But the former president also used the rally to air his grievances against Ms James’s lawsuit against him, his family and his business organization, which she called “The Art of the Steal” at a Wednesday press conference.

“There’s no better example of the chilling obsession with targeting political opponents than the baseless, abusive and depraved lawsuit against me, my family, my company, by the racist attorney general of New York state,” he said, giving her the moniker “Letitia ‘Peekaboo’ James.” [….]

Mr Trump’s dislike of female public figures who challenge him – be they Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Meryl Streep or Rosie O’Donnell – is well-known. But throughout his speech, he repeatedly ridiculed Ms James, a Black woman, in incredibly personal terms, saying that she is more focused on attacking him than focusing on violent crime.

“This raging maniac campaign for office ranting and raving about her goal – her only goal is, we got to get Donald Trump,” he said about Ms James. “In fact, I was watching it and I said ‘boy, that woman is angry, I don’t think she likes me too much.’”

Garcia on the QAnon salute:

During his rally in Ohio last week, Mr Trump and rally goers confused many when he played dramatic music while attendees pointed one finger in the air. Mr Trump repeated the practice this time, albeit it looked like fewer people raised their fingers in the air during the rally.

A few people who attended the rally had QAnon memorabilia, with some attendees wearing QAnon hats and one truck having an image of Mr Trump with John F Kennedy Jr and former president John F Kennedy, prominent figures in the QAnon conspiracy theories.

Gay Gaines said she approved of the use.

“I loved it, it was very emotional, very touching, very inspirational, very uplifting, and hopeful,” she said. “Good way to end it.”

ShortStack_265125897_1_Carol_Ramsey_MLedit Trump has been “retruthing” QAnon messages regularly on his imitation Twitter website, but yesterday he really outdid himself. Insider: Donald Trump shares Truth Social photo proclaiming him as second only to Jesus.

Former President Donald Trump shared a post on his Truth Social account on Friday, declaring him as “second” only to Jesus.

The post by Truth Social user @austinnegrete said: “Jesus is the Greatest. President @realDonaldTrump is the second greatest.”

It accompanied an image of a painting of Jesus by artist Dan Wilson.

Trump “ReTruthed,” or reposted, the Jesus comparison to his 4.1 million Truth Social followers.

Of course this is ridiculous, as is the QAnon craziness; but we know from past experience that Trump’s ranting and his sway over his audiences is dangers. Mark Follman writes at Mother Jones: Trump Continues to Escalate His Dangerous Incitement.

As the ex-president faces advancing federal and state investigations ranging from Mar-a-Lago to New York to Georgia, he has escalated an insidious form of political incitement, behavior that seems to signal a growing desperation over his legal predicaments. As I first reported beginning two years ago, Trump has long honed a rhetorical method that security experts call “stochastic terrorism”: By continually demonizing his “enemies,” he stirs random violence from extremist supporters as a means to exert and try to maintain political power.

Investigation of the January 6 insurrection showed the consequences of this technique on a mass scale—and further revealed Trump’s explicit willingness to resort to it after attempts to overturn the 2020 election via Congress and the courts had failed. According to sworn testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide in the White House, Trump knowingly urged armed supporters to descend on the Capitol that day and had wanted to lead them there. Ever since, Trump has successfully spread the use of incitement among GOP leaders, as I documented recently.

Repetition across various media is key to the technique and increases the likelihood of violence, according to recently published research from threat assessment experts. Trump has delivered on that in recent weeks: He has continued to target various agencies and individuals using his Truth Social platform, speeches at political rallies, and interviews on Fox News and other more fringe media outlets.

And he has used particularly grim rhetoric. At a Sept. 3 rally in Pennsylvania, Trump calledthe FBI and Justice Department “vicious monsters” and President Biden an “enemy of the state.” During an interview on a right-wing radio show on Sept. 15, he predicted there would be “big problems” in the country if he were to be charged by the Justice Department. “I don’t think the people of the United States would stand for it,” he told host Hugh Hewitt. On Truth Social, Trump promoted a QAnon meme featuring him as a heroic icon of the lunatic conspiracy-theory movement regarded by the FBI as a domestic terrorism threat. Soon thereafter, Trump gave an apocalyptic speech at an Ohio rally where he used music evoking a QAnon theme song, prompting fascistic salutes from the crowd.

Trump hammered home similar messages again on Wednesday in a lengthy sit-down at Mar-a-Lago with Fox News anchor Sean Hannity. Asked by Hannity to comment on a new lawsuit from New York Attorney General Letitia James over alleged financial fraud by Trump, the ex-president laid into the state’s top lawyer and her staff: “They were demeaning me constantly, these people,” he said. “There’s something wrong with them. I really believe they hate our country.”

His effort specifically to provoke feelings of contempt among his supporters is no accident and furthers the risk for violence.

Read the rest at the link.

On MSNBC this morning, former Trump fixer Michael Cohen had a few choice words for his former boss. Raw Story: Cornered Trump ‘doesn’t care if he burns the country down’: former adviser.

Speaking with host Ali Velshi, Cohen said the former president has big legal troubles coming at him from different directions and painting him into a corner.

He then predicted the former president won’t go down quietly.

“What stands out to you, what’s the thing you’re most thinking about right now?” host Velshi asked.

“There are so many investigations and you wouldn’t believe — if this was a television show you would turn around and say, ‘it’s too stupid! I can’t watch this, it’s stupid, it can never happen,'” Cohen exclaimed. “But it is happening in real-time in our lives.”

“Our democracy is in peril because of one man; one man who goes ahead and weaponizes the United States Department of Justice against his critics, against the country against anybody who was not one of his supporters, he is willing to go after.”

“He doesn’t care if he burns the country down in doing it,” Cohen

0b834e1e3ab544c08f19500a8ffeccb6 Enough about Trump. Let’s turn to the Trump wannabe in Florida who is also a danger to democracy could end up running for president in 2024–Ron DeSantis. Could he be facing a serious backlash from Florida voters?

Greg Sargent at The Washington Post: Ugly new details about Ron DeSantis’s stunt point to a deeper scam.

Who paid for the migrants to be transported from Texas to Florida?

That question emerges from new revelations about Gov. Ron DeSantis’s vile stunt, in which he transported two planeloads of migrants from Texas to Florida and on to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts.

The Florida Republican refuses to release the state contract that funded the flights. That suggests DeSantis is seeking to bury critical facts even as reporters fill in details about the flights — and their questionable legality.

This potentially points to a deeper scam. DeSantis — whose presidential ambitions emit a stench akin to Limburger rotting in an old sock — is gushing with own-the-libs bluster, vowing to keep shoving migrants in the faces of elite liberals everywhere. But the ones truly getting “owned” by this farce are right-wing voters and Florida taxpayers. The more information that comes out, the clearer this will become.

In a useful piece NBC News’s Marc Caputo reports that the outfit contracted to ship migrants — Vertol Systems Company Inc. — has contributed tens of thousands of dollars to super PACs backing Florida GOP candidates. One funded Matt Gaetz, a right-wing media troll who moonlights as a congressman.

That company has been paid $1.6 million so far, per NBC, and the contract totals $12 million, supposedly to cover future shipments of migrants to other states. NBC also reports:

“But the state budget authorizing the program specifies that “unauthorized aliens” are supposed to be flown from “this state” of Florida — not any other state — and Republicans who crafted the program this year said publicly that Venezuelans seeking asylum are not considered “unauthorized aliens” because they’re allowed to be in this country.”

So a big question is whether state funding of the transport of migrants from Texas to Florida violated that budgetary language. On this basis, a Democratic state senator filed a lawsuit Thursday to block further funding for the flights.

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