April 25, 2024 Edition
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LITIGATION TRACKER ... Trump Trials Clearinghouse
https://www.justsecurity.org/88175/trump-trials-clearinghous
THIS WEEK'S
BEST QUOTES ....
“The last thing we
should be doing today is rushing a bill through the
legislative process to repeal a law (the state’s 1864 law
banning abortion) that has been enacted and reaffirmed by
the Legislature several times.” — Arizona Speaker Ben
Toma (R). https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/17/us/arizona-abortion-ban-repeal.htmlMarjorie Taylor Greene offers an amendment to make funds from the Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act available “for the development of space laser technology on the southwest border.” https://twitter.com/Fritschner/status/1780749668021850506 Note: The entire list of amendments is at https://rules.house.gov/bill/118/hr-8034
"But let's talk about what this really is, Steve, this is a war on Christianity. The Ukrainian government is attacking Christians. The Ukrainian government is executing priests. Russia is not doing that.” — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), praising Russia because "they're not attacking Christianity " — saying "as a matter of fact, they seem to be protecting it.” https://www.rawstory.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-russia-2667719065/
“Look, you’re my ticket to the White House: you, Pennsylvania. No, it’s not hyperbole. You’re the ticket to the White House.” — President Biden. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/20/biden-protests-pennsylvania-election/
“The trial is expected to last six weeks — or until the courtroom sketch artist runs out of orange, whichever comes first.” — Jimmy Kimmel. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/16/arts/television/jimmy-kimmel-trump-manhattan-trial.html
“The next six months is going to be intense. And we need to strap on our—let’s see, what do we want to strap on? We’re going to strap on our seat belt. We’re going to put on our helmet or your Kari Lake ballcap. We are going to put on the armor of God. And maybe strap on a Glock on the side of us, just in case.” — Kari Lake, the GOP's Arizona Senate candidate, suggesting supporters should arm themselves for the 2024 election season. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/the-maga-right-is-flirting-with-political-violence
"The Kennedy family endorses Joe Biden for president. We want to make crystal clear our feelings that the best way forward for America is to reelect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to four more years.” — Kerry Kennedy, a sister of independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who, along with over a dozen members of RFK Jr.'s family, including six of his siblings, endorsed President Biden. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rfk-jr-siblings-biden-endorsement-philadelphia/
Speaker Johnson, you don't get an award for simply doing your job. President Biden told us months ago that Ukraine needed us. What did House Republican do? Nothing. MAGA extremism has gotten you nothing. Democrats have been the ones to stand up. -- Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass). https://twitter.com/DNCWarRoom/status/1781336247853592601“What have we done?” — Stormy Daniels’ then-attorney Keith Davidson in a text message to National Enquirer editor-in-chief Dylan Howard, as it became apparent on Election Night 2016 that Donald Trump would win. — https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1782528763500151013
Zelensky thanks Speaker Mike Johnson (D-Ukraine) for sending $61 BILLION of your hard-earned tax dollars to fuel a foreign war. Johnson once again passed a bill with the help of Democrats while the majority of the Republican majority voted against it. Not only is Mike Johnson a traitor to our conference, he’s a traitor to our country. — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. https://twitter.com/RepMTG/status/1781752811585188230
“Donald Trump’s opponents don’t just want to see him jailed for his alleged crimes, they actually want him murdered somewhere in jail. This is how serious they are.” — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. https://www.thedailybeast.com/democrats-want-donald-trump-murdered-in-jail-marjorie-taylor-greene-claims
“That jury was picked so fast. 95% are Democrats. The area is mostly all Democrat. You think of it as a purely Democrat area. It’s a very unfair situation that I can tell you.” — Donald Trump violating his gag order by calling the jurors in his “hush money” criminal trial “Democrats.” https://lamag.com/politics/trump-violates-his-gag-order-by-calling-jurors-democrats
VIDEOS ...
“So they have to do everything they can to keep him out of that White House ’cause they know Donald Trump gets in for four more years, the jig is up for them. The gloves are off. There are no holds barred here. He is going full-throttle. He’s not worried about winning another election. It’s four years of scorched earth when Donald Trump retakes the White House.” — RNC co-chair Lara Trump, speaking at a fundraiser. https://twitter.com/patriottakes/status/1781058172205088824”They're spiritual entities, they're supernatural. They've been here a long time. And there's a ton of evidence that they're under the ocean and under the ground.” — Tucker Carlson talks about aliens on "The Joe Rogan Experience." https://twitter.com/TheInsiderPaper/status/1781408707638673550
IN THE NEWS ....
The Borowitz Report: Ukrainian Army
Celebrates Major Victory Over Marjorie Taylor Greene
After six months of what seemed at
times an unwinnable battle, on Saturday the Ukrainian army
scored a stunning victory over Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.Jubilant Ukrainian soldiers cheered as news spread that their despised foe from Georgia’s 14th congressional district had been dealt a humiliating defeat.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who greeted his front-line troops with a flurry of high-fives, declared, “This is a war between freedom and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Ukraine chooses freedom.”
Answering a reporter’s question, Zelensky signaled that he might be open to direct talks with Greene, but added, “We would need an interpreter since only I speak English.” https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/ukrainian-army-celebrates-major-victory
Trump is a co-conspirator in Michigan's 2020 false electors plot, state investigator says
Michigan prosecutors consider former President Donald Trump and some of his top aides co-conspirators in the plot to submit a certificate falsely claiming he won Michigan's 2020 election, an investigator for Attorney General Dana Nessel's office testified Wednesday in court.That means prosecutors believe they participated, to some extent, in an alleged scheme to commit forgery by creating a false document asserting Trump had won Michigan’s 16 electoral votes when Democrat Joe Biden had won them.
Howard Shock, a special agent for Nessel, said Trump; Mark Meadows, who was Trump's chief of staff; and Rudy Giuliani, who was his personal lawyer, are "unindicted co-conspirators" in Michigan's false elector case. In total, over the last two days, Shock has identified 11 conspirators who haven't been charged. That means prosecutors believe they participated, to some extent, in an alleged scheme to commit forgery by creating a false document asserting Trump had won Michigan's 16 electoral votes when Democrat Joe Biden had won them. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2024/04/24/donald-trump-unindicted-co-conspirator-in-false-electors-plot-michigan-rudy-giuliani-mark-meadows/73420368007/
Republicans are starting to worry about RFK Jr.
Republicans are waking up to the reality that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could sink their standard-bearer just as easily as he could hurt President Joe Biden, after a pair of new polls showed the presence of third-party candidates on the ballot might not necessarily benefit former President Donald Trump.Even Trump is acknowledging his potential problem.”
Said Trump: “They say he hurts Biden. I’m not sure that that’s true, and I think he probably hurts us both. But he might hurt Biden a little bit more, you don’t know.” https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/22/republicans-are-starting-to-worry-about-rfk-jr-00153763
Emergency rooms are refusing to treat pregnant women, leaving one to miscarry in a lobby restroom
One woman miscarried in the restroom lobby of a Texas emergency room as front desk staff refused to admit her. Another woman learned that her fetus had no heartbeat at a Florida hospital, the day after a security guard turned her away from the facility. And in North Carolina, a woman gave birth in a car after an emergency room couldn’t offer an ultrasound. The baby later died.Complaints that pregnant women were turned away from U.S. emergency rooms spiked in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, federal documents obtained by The Associated Press reveal.
The cases raise alarms about the state of emergency pregnancy care in the U.S., especially in states that enacted strict abortion laws, sparking confusion around the treatment doctors can provide. https://apnews.com/article/pregnancy-emergency-care-abortion-supreme-court-roe-9ce6c87c8fc653c840654de1ae5f7a1c
Bill Would Strip Secret Service from Trump If Convicted
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), the former chair of the January 6 select committee, has filed legislation (the ‘‘DISGRACED Former Protectees Act’’) that would strip Secret Service protection for anyone sentenced to jail for a felony. https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000018e-f719-d1c7-a3ef-ffdd12f40000Conviction of GOP Aide Upheld
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the conviction of Republican operative Jesse Benton for orchestrating an illegal payment from a Russian national to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee. (Note: Jesse Benton was pardoned by Donald Trump for an earlier conviction under a different criminal statute.) https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24556644-bentonTrump Owns the Most Extreme Abortion Laws
Donald Trump presumably thought he was taking a moderate position on abortion by saying he would just leave it up to the states.But now that Arizona Republicans are refusing to repeal their state’s draconian 1864 abortion ban, Trump now owns that law that’s scheduled to take effect before summer begins.
And he owns the abortion bans in 21 other states too.
That’s what “leaving it to the states” means.
Many of these laws ban abortion entirely without exception for rape, incest or the life of the mother. Many of these laws ban abortion before a woman even knows that she is pregnant.
Far from being a moderate stance, Trump’s position is that he approves of these laws.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/17/us/arizona-abortion-ban-repeal.html
Former US Treasury Secretary warns Trump plans would ‘set off an inflationary spiral’
A second Trump administration plans to raise tariffs and restrict imports could “set off an inflationary spiral.” He also suggested that Trump would likely undermine the Federal Reserve’s policy independence, leading “to higher inflation expectations, which would prove self-fulfilling,” and blow out the budget deficit. The U.S., he said, would run the risk of following in the footsteps of Latin American cautionary tales like Argentina that saw their economies sink as their leaders embraced similarly populist policies. —https://www.semafor.com/article/04/17/2024/former-us-treasury-secretary-larry-summers-warns-trump-plans-would-set-off-an-inflationary-spiralMicrosoft finds Russian influence operations targeting U.S. election have begun
Microsoft said on Wednesday that Russian online campaigns to influence the upcoming U.S. presidential election kicked into gear over the past 45 days, but at a slower pace than in past elections.Russia-linked accounts are disseminating divisive content aimed at U.S. audiences, including criticizing American support of Ukraine in its war with Russia, researchers at the tech giant said in a report.
The Russian embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment, but the Kremlin said last month it would not meddle in the November U.S. election. It also dismissed U.S. allegations that it orchestrated campaigns to sway the 2016 and 2020 U.S. presidential elections.
While the Russian activity Microsoft observed is not as intense as around the previous elections, it could increase in the coming months, the researchers said.
"Messaging regarding Ukraine - via traditional media and social media - picked up steam over the last two months with a mix of covert and overt campaigns from at least 70 Russia-affiliated activity sets we track," Microsoft said.
The most prolific of such Russian campaigns is linked to Russia's Presidential Administration, they added. Another one is aimed at posting disinformation online in various languages, with posts typically starting with an apparent whistleblower or citizen journalist posting content on a video channel. That content is then covered by a network of websites that include DC Weekly, Miami Chronical and The Intel Drop. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/microsoft-finds-russian-influence-operations-targeting-us-election-have-slowly-2024-04-17/
Fox News outs Trump trial juror
Fox News host Jesse Watters on Tuesday broadcast extensive biographical details about Juror No. 2 -- her neighborhood, occupation, education, marital and family status, and what industry her fiance works in.He concluded by saying, "I'm not so sure about Juror No. 2."
He claimed last night that "undercover liberal activists" are trying to get on the jury -- comments Trump promoted.
That juror has now asked to be excused, saying people had asked her if she was a juror. https://twitter.com/AaronBlake/status/1780970065552113792
Biden Leads Trump Among Young Voters
A new Harvard Institute of Politics poll of voters under age 30 finds Joe Biden leading Donald Trump 56% to 37% among likely voters.Said pollster John Della Volpe: “For a Democrat to comfortably win the Electoral College, he or she needs to win 60 percent of the youth vote. Biden and Obama, ’12 and ’20, won 60 percent. Obama got 66 percent in ’08. John Kerry and Hillary Clinton got 55 percent. Biden is in the mid-50s. Can you improve that to get to 60 percent? It’s within reach.“ https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000018e-ee5d-d3bc-adfe-fe7dafb20000
Trump’s Donor Base Is Shrinking
In another troubling sign for Republican fundraising efforts, Trump has 270,000 fewer unique donors than he did at the same stage of his 2020 White House run. His campaign and affiliated political action committees got money from 900,000 donors from July 2023 to the end of the first quarter of 2024, down from 1.17 million four years earlier.This shrinking donor base leaves questions about how Trump will sustain the costs of his legal battles on top of what is expected to be the most expensive presidential race in US history. The bottom line is he needs to step it up now when it comes to fundraising, especially while he’s stuck in court and off the campaign trail. https://www.ft.com/content/6cc31f51-69f5-44aa-844a-75945c54526c
Inside the Efforts to Try Russians for Ukraine War Crimes—In Argentina
Since the war began, The Reckoning Project (TRP) has gathered more than 300 testimonies from victims of crimes that occurred in Ukraine. This week, thanks to key stakeholders in Argentina and Ukraine, the first universal jurisdiction complaint against members of Vladimir Putin’s military and its affiliates was filed in Buenos Aires. The initial case will present charges based on the testimony of one key survivor—and loads of supplemental evidence—accusing occupying soldiers of committing thousands of acts of extreme torture. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/prosecutors-seek-to-try-russians-for-ukraine-war-crimes-in-argentinaTrump campaign says it will deploy thousands of election workers to monitor poll sites
Former President Donald Trump’s political operation said Thursday that it plans to deploy more than 100,000 attorneys and volunteers across battleground states to monitor — and potentially challenge — vote counting in November.The program underscores Trump’s ongoing fixation with election security, which he deployed in an attempt to undermine the results of the 2020 election despite the widespread conclusion, even among Republican officials, that there was no widespread fraud.
Trump has warned supporters, without evidence, that Democrats could try to rig the 2024 election. Trump made the same false claims about the 2020 election, which he unsuccessfully tried to overturn. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/19/trump-campaign-election-monitoring-00153217
THE DAILY GRILL …
"At first I wasn’t sure, but I have come to believe he knew well he had lost the election. Someone who engaged in that kind of bullying about a process that is fundamental to our system and to our self-government shouldn’t be anywhere near the Oval Office." — Bill Barr in August 2023. https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/03/politics/bill-barr-trump-arraignment-2020-election/index.html
VERSUS
"I think the real danger to the country — the real danger to democracy, as I say — is the progressive agenda. Trump may be playing Russian roulette, but a continuation of the Biden administration is national suicide in my opinion." — Bill Barr in April 2024. https://www.foxnews.com/video/6351096940112
August 2020, Trump issued an executive order that would have banned TikTok if the company was not sold within 45 days by its Chinese owners, which he accused of spying on American citizens and harvesting data in a way that threatened U.S. national security. https://www.mediaite.com/politics/trump-completes-total-flip-flop-on-tiktok-ban-wants-everyone-especially-the-young-people-to-know-biden-is-responsible/
VERSUS
Just so everyone knows, especially the young people, Crooked Joe Biden is responsible for banning TikTok. —Trump on Truth Social, April 2024. .https://www.mediaite.com/politics/trump-completes-total-flip-flop-on-tiktok-ban-wants-everyone-especially-the-young-people-to-know-biden-is-responsible/
OPINION …
Molly Jong-Fast: Defendant Trump Is Not Helping Candidate Trump
The former president came off looking sad, old, and tired during his criminal trial—and it’s only just getting started.Week one of Donald Trump’s hush money trial could have been mundane. It entailed what the legal world refers to as voir dire, during which the judge makes evidentiary judgments to determine which jurors can rule impartially on the case. Yet the first four days of the New York criminal proceedings, which continued with opening statements Monday, painted a rather surprising portrait of a man who could no longer outrun the wheels of justice. They pierced through Trump’s armor in ways both profound and absurd, shattering the public’s perception of a man who may have seemed legally invincible. I knew that this case, compared to those of the past, would prove harder for Teflon Don to repel. But even still, I didn’t think the coating would wear off quite this quickly.
Trump’s political impenetrability has always been rooted in his ability to puff himself up—much like a blowfish, covered in spikes that only the most loyal sycophants can avoid. He is notoriously allergic to apologizing, never owns up to his own mistakes, and often doubles down on the thing he’s done wrong. The one and only time Trump did deliver a proper mea culpa was shortly after the release of the Access Hollywood tape in 2016—but even then, he quickly pivoted to attacking Hillary and Bill Clinton. “I’ve said some foolish things, but there’s a big difference between the words and actions of other people,” the former president said. “Bill Clinton has actually abused women, and Hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed, and intimidated his victims.”
It was an “apology” that we’d later come to understand as an example of classic Trump whataboutism. But such rhetorical games are not given any airtime in criminal court. And while the former president might not be treated like your standard defendant, there are certain rules and regulations that he simply can’t bend to his liking: In court, Trump is not allowed to drink Diet Coke; or play with his phone; or eat fast food; or control the thermostat (despite his lawyer’s plea to have it turned up “just one degree”). With Trump facing this harsh new habitat, it appears the only thing he can manage to do is fall asleep—which he did not once but multiple times last week, as Maggie Haberman wrote in The New York Times. “Nodding off is something that happens from time to time to various people in court proceedings, including jurors, but it conveys, for Mr. Trump, the kind of public vulnerability he has rigorously tried to avoid,” she reported. “The mundanity of the courtroom has all but swallowed Mr. Trump, who for decades has sought to project an image of bigness, one he rode from a reality-television studio set to the White House.” https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/defendant-trump-is-not-helping-candidate-trump
Stephen Markley: A Planetary Crisis Awaits the Next President
The stakes of the climate crisis render the cliché of “This is the most important election of our lifetimes” increasingly true because every four years those stakes climb precipitously alongside the toppling records of a radically new climatic regime.Climate is not just another issue. We live in a complex and precarious world, one that our consciences are torn by a web of domestic challenges and geopolitical upheavals. But we are in denial if we do not recognize that this is the crisis that will define this century, and if we fail, the entire human future. Our fossil fuel system is driving the planet to a set of conditions that humanity has never experienced, where even the imagination of novelists will fail us.
And yet the climate crisis is also the foundation on which we can build a more just, equitable and prosperous world. Every election is precious, every ballot we cast is a moral record of what we did in this crucial historical moment. Do not sit on your hands, do not deny the stakes, do not waste that vote. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/20/opinion/trump-biden-climate-election.html
David Axelrod: What Donald Trump Fears Most
Trump would spin a potential conviction as well. He has already begun to do so: To Trump, the district attorney who brought the charges, Alvin Bragg— who is Black—is a craven politician, trying the former president on contrived charges for his own glory while he allows violent criminals to go free. Merchan, the judge—who is Hispanic—is biased and conflicted because he appears to have donated $15 to Joe Biden’s campaign in 2020, and his daughter is a Democratic consultant. Manhattan—and, by extension, the jury—is filled with Democrats and Trump-hating liberals. President Biden orchestrated the whole production.If the jury returns a guilty verdict, we will hear it all.
Yet, as Trump sits and watches the criminal trial he hoped to avoid unfold, he must know that a potential reckoning he has spent a lifetime eluding could be coming. He has been reduced to a criminal defendant in a courtroom where someone else has absolute power and the rules very definitely apply. The weariness and vulnerability captured in those courtroom images betray a growing recognition that he could wind up as the thing his old man most reviled.
A convicted criminal?
No, worse. A loser. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/04/donald-trump-manhattan-trial-fear/678144/
Liz Cheney: The Supreme Court Should Rule Swiftly on Trump’s Immunity Claim
On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear Donald Trump’s arguments that he is immune from prosecution for his efforts to steal the 2020 presidential election. It is likely that all — or nearly all — of the justices will agree that a former president who attempted to seize power and remain in office illegally can be prosecuted. I suspect that some justices may also wish to clarify whether doctrines of presidential immunity might apply in other contexts — for example, to a president’s actions as commander in chief during a time of war. But the justices should also recognize the profoundly negative impact they may have if the court does not resolve these issues quickly and decisively.If delay prevents this Trump case from being tried this year, the public may never hear critical and historic evidence developed before the grand jury, and our system may never hold the man most responsible for Jan. 6 to account.
Mr. Trump believes he can threaten and intimidate judges and their families, assert baseless legal defenses and thereby avoid accountability altogether. Through this conduct, he seeks to break our institutions. If Mr. Trump’s tactics prevent his Jan. 6 trial from proceeding in the ordinary course, he will also have succeeded in concealing critical evidence from the American people — evidence demonstrating his disregard for the rule of law, his cruelty on Jan. 6 and the deep flaws in character that make him unfit to serve as president. The Supreme Court should understand this reality and conclude without delay that no immunity applies here. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/22/opinion/trump-immunity-supreme-court.html
Eric Lutz: The MAGA Right is Flirting With Political Violence
The MAGA right exists in a perpetual
state of overheated grievance. But as the November
election nears, the temperature seems to be rising,
getting dangerously high.
This week, following Gaza war protests that disrupted
travel in major American cities Monday, Senator Tom Cotton
explicitly called on Americans to “take matters into
[their] own hands" to get demonstrators out of the way.
Asked to clarify those comments Tuesday, Cotton stood by
them, telling reporters he would “do it myself” if he were
blocked in traffic by demonstrators: “It calls for getting
out of your car and forcibly removing” protestors,” he
said.
The right-wing senator’s comments came on the heels of
Kari Lake, the GOP candidate for Senate in Arizona,
suggesting supporters should arm themselves for the 2024
election season. “The next six months is going to be
intense,” she said at a rally Sunday. “And we need to
strap on our—let’s see, what do we want to strap on? We’re
going to strap on our seat belt. We’re going to put on our
helmet or your Kari Lake ballcap. We are going to put on
the armor of God. And maybe strap on a Glock on the side
of us, just in case.”
And those comments came a couple weeks after Donald Trump,
who regularly invokes apocalyptic and violent rhetoric,
shared an image on social media depicting President Joe
Biden—his political rival—hog-tied in the back of a
pick-up truck. “This image from Donald Trump is the type
of crap you post when you’re calling for a bloodbath or
when you tell the Proud Boys to ‘stand back and stand
by,’” a Biden spokesperson told ABC News last month,
referring to the former president’s dog-whistle to
extremist groups during a 2020 debate and to cryptic
remarks he’s made from rally stages this spring suggesting
Biden’s reelection would mean a “bloodbath”—for the auto
industry and for the border. This kind of thing is nothing
new—not for Trump, not for his allies, and not in American
history, which is what makes these flirtations with
political violence all the more dangerous. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/the-maga-right-is-flirting-with-political-violence
Edward-Isaac Dovere: Kamala Harris emerges as the Biden campaign’s lead prosecutor on top issues
After years of being shunted to
politically toxic and fruitless parts of the
administration portfolio, such as overseeing
migration negotiations with Central American leaders,
or clearly junior varsity ones like chairing the National
Space Council, these days are so full of plum assignments
for Harris that her trip to Arizona was originally
supposed to be to promote the latest round of student loan
debt cancellation — only to get quickly changed when the
state Supreme Court ruled that Arizona must adhere to
its 1864 abortion ban.
“She has been front and center on so many of the most
politically potent issues right now,” said Julie Chavez
Rodriguez, who was a top aide to Harris for years before
becoming the Biden reelection campaign manager, calling
these “new opportunities to speak to the coalitions we
know she already has a deep affinity to, but on issues
that are top of mind for those voters.”
“As a former prosecutor, she can
prosecute the case on so much,” Rodriguez said.
It means getting to talk about gun control and
reaching out to younger voters like the gym full of high
schoolers in Vegas who cheered even more loudly for her
than they did when Marvel actress Xochitl
Gomez took the stage first. (“She’s killing it!” an
excited 15-year-old in a Barbie-pink denim jacket
exclaimed after pushing up to take a photo with
Harris as Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” played on
the speakers.) https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/21/politics/kamala-harris-campaigning-biden-2024/index.html
Bess Levin: “I’m Here…to Represent
Jesus Christ”: Arizona Republicans Block Second Attempt to
Repeal Civil War–Era Abortion Ban
After the Arizona Supreme Court
reinstated a 1864 law banning virtually all abortions,
including in cases of incest and rape, the response across
the country was deafening, and not in a good way. From
people who believe in reproductive rights, sure, but also
from many Republicans, including Donald Trump, who fear
the move will cost the party elections. It went “too far,”
the man who brags about killing Roe v. Wade told
reporters, adding, desperately, “I’m sure that the
governor and everybody else are going to bring it back
into reason.” But a week later, things have not been
brought back “into reason,” because Republicans in the
state are apparently intent on letting the barbaric law
stand.
On Wednesday, Arizona Republicans blocked the second
effort in two weeks to repeal the Civil War–era abortion
ban. According to The New York Times, after GOP lawmakers
initially resisted Democratic efforts to reverse the law
last week, “cajoling” from Trump and Arizona Senate
candidate Kari Lake* looked like it was going to translate
to an about-face this week, with Democrats signaling “that
they were optimistic of having enough Republican support
to secure a majority and send the repeal bill to the State
Senate.” But after a Democratic lawmaker attempted to
bring forward legislation to repeal the ban, Republicans
blocked it on procedural grounds, preventing a vote on the
floor. “The fact that we will not even entertain a motion
to allow those who have been raped or pregnant by incest
to be able to have an abortion is extremely, extremely
disappointing,” state representative Alma Hernandez said
Wednesday. “Why won’t these cowards allow the vote to come
to the floor?” Rolande Baker, who was sitting in the
gallery, asked the Times. “What are they afraid of, that
it might just pass? That Arizona just might get ourselves
out of the year 1864? Before the end of the Civil War?
Before women had a right to vote?” https://www.vanityfair.com/news/arizona-republicans-block-second-attempt-to-repeal-civil-war-era-abortion-ban
Mark McKinnon: Trump Snags Another Top Republican: Oh No, Not You Too, Sununu
It’s hard enough to accept that we
had someone who, I would argue, is a mob-boss-like madman
as president of the United States. And it’s hard to
swallow that almost 75 million Americans voted for the guy
in 2020. But what I find most shocking and stunning of all
is the number of “leaders” in the Republican Party who, in
their naked pursuit of power, have been willing to abandon
their principles and bend the knee to him.
Donald Trump’s rogues gallery of Klingons is full of
characters like South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, who
once said Trump was “unfit” to be president but is now
among his chief lapdogs. It also takes a special breed of
groveler–such as Texas senator Ted Cruz–to endorse a man
who previously slandered your father (implying he might
have been some kind of accomplice in JFK’s assassination)
and suggested that your wife was unattractive.
But in an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos over
the weekend, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu vaulted
ahead of the pack to enter the Shameless Bootlickers Hall
of Fame–on the first ballot.
Sununu once observed–admittedly, at the Gridiron Club’s
annual dinner, where the jokes and jibes flow freely–that
Trump was “f--king crazy.” He went on to clarify, “I don’t
think he’s so crazy that you could put him in a mental
institution. But I think if he were in one, he ain’t
getting out.”
Well, it appears the lunatics now run the GOP asylum. And
it’s not so funny now that the once reasonable, clear-eyed
adult in the room, Chris Sununu, is in there with him. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/donald-trump-chris-sununu
David Frum: Trump Deflates
On aid to Ukraine, Trump got his way
for 16 months. When Democrats held the majority in the
House of Representatives in 2022, they approved four
separate aid requests for Ukraine, totaling $74 billion.
As soon as Trump’s party took control of the House, in
January 2023, the aid stopped. Every Republican
officeholder understood: Those who wished to show loyalty
to Trump must side against Ukraine.
At the beginning of this year, Trump was able even to blow
up the toughest immigration bill seen in decades—simply to
deny President Joe Biden a bipartisan win. Individual
Senate Republicans might grumble, but with Trump opposed,
the border-security deal disintegrated.
Three months later, Trump’s party in Congress has rebelled
against him—and not on a personal payoff to some oddball
Trump loyalist, but on one of Trump’s most cherished
issues, his siding with Russia against Ukraine. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/04/trump-republican-vote-ukraine-aid/678148/
Jonathan Chait: Trump Threatens
‘Four Years of Scorched Earth’ If Trump Retakes Power
Presidential candidates usually
promise that everybody will be happy if they win. One of
the historically unusual aspects of Donald Trump’s
presidential campaign is that he is promising to punish
his political enemies in the event he gains power. “I am
your warrior, I am your justice. And for those who have
been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution,” he
vowed last year.
Trump has been persuaded to turn down the volume on the
threats of vengeance, but his allies are continuing to
advance this message. Lara Trump, the candidate’s
daughter-in-law whom he installed as co-chair of the
Republican National Committee because the incumbent merely
cast doubt on the 2020 election without going so far as to
conclusively say Trump won, unleashed this terrifying
promise:
He showed us a whole lot that we didn’t know was going on
— within the media, within Washington, D.C. He exposed a
lot of people. So they have to do everything they can to
keep him out of that White House ’cause they know Donald
Trump gets in for four more years, the jig is up for them.
The gloves are off. There are no holds barred here. He is
going full-throttle. He’s not worried about winning
another election. "It’s four years of scorched earth when
Donald Trump retakes the White House."
This is consistent with the approach Trump has
consistently taken to the office. As president, Trump saw
himself as the leader of a faction, rather than the entire
country, openly favoring states and areas that he saw as
loyal. He used policy to punish owners of independent
media, and sicced special prosecutors on his “deep state”
enemies.
As a candidate, he’s promising pardons for the violent
offenders who assaulted police officers in a coup attempt
and manically insisting presidents should be given “total
immunity” to commit crimes while in office. (He’s made
five posts on this theme Friday morning alone.)
Trump’s conservative apologists either ignore all this or
wave it away by pointing to his first term, when Trump’s
attempts to weaponize government against his enemies
proved ineffectual or were thwarted by uncooperative
appointees.
But this isn’t some obstacle Trump is unaware of. The
candidate and his inner circle are deeply aware of his
inability to crush his enemies during his first term. They
are engaged in serious planning efforts to make sure that
doesn’t happen again. Now, it’s possible they will fail.
But to ignore their plain intention to turn the government
into a weapon of vengeance against a slew of enemies,
ranging from political figures to media, is to gamble with
the future of the republic. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/lara-trump-four-years-of-scorched-earth-if-trump-wins.html
NY Times Editorial: Donald Trump and American Justice
While a Manhattan jury weighs the
evidence of Mr. Trump’s alleged crimes, it’s the American
people who will weigh the evidence of Mr. Trump’s actions.
His party has allowed him to act with impunity, but voters
still have the power to deliver accountability. They
should consider not only the facts presented during the
trial — the details about his judgment, his character and
the way he conducted his life and his business — but also
his disregard for the rule of law and his willingness to
demean American justice when it suits his interests. Those
actions render him manifestly unfit for office and would
pose unique dangers to the United States during a second
term. The greatest of those dangers, and the one that
Americans should be most attuned to, is the damage that a
second Trump presidency would inflict on the rule of law.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/17/opinion/donald-trump-trial.html
David Atkins: The Putin Republicans Have the Upper Hand
It may sound outlandish to normie
voters, but an increasingly large number of Republicans
are big fans of Putin and want America to look more like
Russia, not the other way around. To the Trump right,
Putin’s Russia, like Viktor Orban’s Hungary, is seen as an
anti-LGBTQ, patriarchal, pro-oil, anarcho-capitalist,
anti-woke, Christian nationalist state they wish America
could be. The Russian strongman is their beau ideal of a
leader, and Republican politicians like Ted Cruz have
shared videos of macho posturing Russian military
propaganda to denigrate America’s own supposedly woke
armed forces. The GOP base is drowning in anti-Ukraine
rhetoric. Fox News’ former star host, Tucker Carlson,
actively wants Russia to win the war.
Trump himself has both corrupt and ideological incentives
to help Putin and Russia. The former president’s business
ties with Russian oligarchs are well documented, but they
also share a worldview. Trump finds democracy messy, likes
authoritarianism, and wants to be a dictator himself.
Trump would turn the United States into a right-wing
authoritarian state where theocrats run social policy, oil
companies dominate energy policy, and big business runs
economic policy. He and Putin both want to carve up the
world between America, Russia, and other far-right
governments into spheres of influence. They want to
destroy NATO and the liberal international order and
destabilize liberal democratic leaders in favor of
like-minded tyrants. Both Putin and Trump would turn their
respective countries into isolationist fortresses
explicitly hostile to immigration, cosmopolitanism, human
rights, or the defense of vulnerable democracies such as
the Baltic states.
Many old-school Republicans, like former Representative
Liz Cheney, balk at this vision of the future. There are
still enough Congressional Republicans to pass aid to
Ukraine and Taiwan with Democratic support, but they are
rapidly being eclipsed by the pro-Putin faction. Last
week, House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner of
Ohio, a supporter of Ukraine aid, told CNN’s Jake Tapper
that Russian propaganda has “absolutely” seeped into the
comments of some of his GOP colleagues. Earlier this
month, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael
McCaul of Texas, who also favors assistance to Kyiv, told
Puck’s Julia Ioffe that Russian propaganda had “infected a
good chunk of my party’s base.” Senate Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell expressly cited this divide as one of the
reasons for his looming retirement from leadership at
year’s end.
Should Trump be reelected, the world will be shrouded in a
global axis of far-right authoritarianism. But this could
not just be the struggle of a single generation. As
artificial intelligence technology develops exponentially,
the information ecosystem in which it grows and the values
it is trained in could shape human societies around the
globe for a long time to come.
Passing assistance for Ukraine quickly—and ensuring that
the beleaguered European nation does not fall under
Putin’s control—could determine the fate of the world for
decades to come. https://washingtonmonthly.com/2024/04/17/the-putin-republicans-have-the-upper-hand/
Robin Givhan: Trump, hush money and the increasingly quaint notion of embarrassment
The New York charges, of which there are 34, have sometime been referred to as comprising the “runt” of the criminal cases against Trump because legal experts view them as the fuzziest and weakest. The road to Bragg’s accusation of election interference winds through a sordid field of tabloid stories, porn, payoffs and sex. Nonetheless, sitting in a courtroom as a criminal defendant is serious business and having to do so as a former president speaks to both the power of this democracy and the fragility of it. There’s nothing small about this case, it’s just that the country’s fealty to decency, respectability and honesty has retreated further and further into the distance. The elements of the New York case
occurred back before Trump’s election lies helped to spark
an insurrection, before Trump saw “good people” among the
white nationalists marching in Charlottesville clutching
tiki torches and spewing hate, before Trump aspired to use
the American military to intimidate fellow citizens
exercising their right to free speech and assembly. Those
things shocked the consciousness until they no longer did.
Until they became mere markers on the road to … where? As
the completed jury was being settled, a man tossed
pamphlets filled with conspiracy theories into the air and
set himself ablaze across from the courthouse. Bystanders
screamed, police and civilians attempted to douse the
flames, and the man was rushed to a hospital. Law
enforcement made statements. Security was discussed. The
trial would press on. And then, within minutes, it seemed,
the horror had faded. The surprise had dissipated. We are
numb.
This case isn’t marked by dire references to top-secret
documents or calls to halt the peaceful transfer of power
or a shady plot to find votes. It’s more human scale than
that. And so, it takes us back to a time when we still —
occasionally — treated each other like humans instead of
adversaries, mobs, monsters and heretics. Despite all the
attendant security, scrutiny and Trump’s own bluster, this
is the trial that reminds the public that the former
president is merely a man — not a god, not an omnipotent
leader, not the bearer of Everyman’s burden. His alleged
crimes are those borne out of fear and shame. This is a
trial that reminds us of the smallness of Trump even as
the idea of him, the myth of him has become outsize.
The former president and his lawyers have worked mightily
to delay the start of this case, but now that it has
launched, it’s moved more briskly than many expected. It
was both heartbreaking and heartening to follow along as
the jury was assembled. New Yorkers’ anxieties and fears
bubbled to the surface in the cold, dingy courtroom in
Lower Manhattan as they considered the pressure they would
face and what it would mean if their identity were made
public as members of the jury sitting in judgment of
Trump. Some even wept. But as riddled with emotion as they
were, they retained an earnest desire to do right by a
fellow citizen even if it was one whose political beliefs
they abhorred, whose personality they found savage and
whose behavior they deemed foul.
The public knows little about the jurors as a matter of
security. But the details that are known paint them as New
Yorkers with varying political opinions and professions
who are engaged with the daily news to widely different
degrees. They are tasked with looking into our past and
brushing the dust off old saws such as shame, shock and
dignity.
They have promised to be fair, which is to say that
they’ve agreed to treat the defendant with respect. That,
too, is a quaint notion. Bless them for holding fast to
it. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/04/20/trump-hush-money-increasingly-quaint-notion-embarrassment/
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