MAY 16, 2024 Edition
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LITIGATION TRACKER ... Trump Trials Clearinghouse
https://www.justsecurity.org/88175/trump-trials-clearinghous
Who’s ahead in the national polls?
The updated average for each candidate in 2024 presidential polls, accounting for each poll's recency, sample size, and methodology is at https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/national/THIS WEEK'S
BEST QUOTES ....
“There’s only one
solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Two states
for two indigenous people between the Jordan River and the
Mediterranean. And if you’re not for that, if you’re not
for ending the violence and for hostage release, if you’re
only condemning one side and not the other, you’re not
morally serious.” — Thomas Friedman. https://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2024/05/11/smr-friedman-on-bidens-pause-on-israel-aid.cnn“Real men respond to testimony by being sworn in and taking the stand in court. Oh … wait. Nevermind.” — Stormy Daniels. https://twitter.com/StormyDaniels/status/1788705226477736284
“The person on the other side of the aisle is not an enemy. They’re a fellow American. Our enemies are like Hamas and Hezbollah and the people who are trying to kill us. These are our political adversaries.” — Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA). https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4655916-speaker-johnson-calls-for-house-unity/
“We have to know that sometimes people will open the door for you and leave it open. Sometimes they won’t, and then you need to kick that fucking door down.” — Vice President Kamala Harris. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/13/kamala-harris-talk-doors-down
“Have to admit I’m surprised that Speaker Johnson wants to be in the ‘I cheated on my wife with a porn star’ club. I guess he’s not that concerned with teaching morality to our young people after all.” — Liz Cheney (R-WY) assailing Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) for his appearance at Donald Trump’s hush-money trial. https://twitter.com/Liz_Cheney/status/1790365490868846815
“I think it’s a little demeaning to show up in front of the courthouse — and particularly one where we’re talking about an allegation of paying a porn star. And it’s really, really very difficult to watch. There’s a level of dignity and decorum that you expect the people who are running for the highest station in the land, and going out and prostrating themselves in front of the public to try and, apparently, curry favor with the person who’s our nominee is embarrassing.” — Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) about the Republicans who showed up at Donald Trump’s porn star hush money trial. https://www.mediaite.com/politics/mitt-romney-shreds-fellow-republicans-prostrating-themselves-by-showing-up-at-trumps-porn-star-hush-money-trial/
Trump attorney Todd Blanche cross-examined witness Michael Cohen in the former president’s criminal “hush money” trial:
BLANCHE: On April 23, you went on TikTok and called me a crying little shit.“That’s why I was interested when Bobby came to me and said, ‘Would you think about being my running mate?’ And I said, ‘Are you serious? I’m a fucking football player.’” — Aaron Rodgers, on being asked to be Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s running mate. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4665114-aaron-rodgers-robert-f-kennedy-jr-football-player-vp-spot/
COHEN: That sounds like something I would say.
BLANCHE: “You called Trump a boorish cartoon misogynist? You called President Trump a Cheetos-dusted cartoon villain? You said, ‘I fucking want to see him locked up?’ You said President Trump should be in handcuffs?”
COHEN: “Sounds like something I would say.” https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-trial-day-17-my-name-is-todd
VIDEOS ...
Elizabeth Vargas: "Did Mike Pence do the right thing or the wrong thing on Jan 6?"
Kristi Noem: "I don't answer hypothetical questions."
EV: "It's not a hypothetical."
KN: "It is, ‘cos it will never happen again."
EV: "What he did that day —"
KN: "I wasn't in the situation.” https://twitter.com/NiallStanage/status/1787838678020059568
"President Biden is being mean to Trump by announcing a $3.3 billion investment in Wisconsin at the same site where Trump promised a new plant and then didn’t deliver." -- Fox reporter https://www.threads.net/@bidenharrishq/post/C6t7Z6fvZkI
“I promise you he won’t.” — President Biden sounding the alarm on former President Trump not committing to accept the election results. https://twitter.com/OutFrontCNN/status/1788367387944726849
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday performed Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World” at Barman Dictat, a local underground cocktail bar and music venue in Kyiv. https://www.threads.net/@cspan/post/C6-AdwdsTO7
IN THE NEWS ....
The Borowitz Report: Worm Leaves
Scathing Yelp Review of RFK Jr.’s Brain
In the latest setback for Robert F.
Kennedy Jr.’s presidential bid, a worm who dined in the
candidate’s brain wrote a brutal Yelp review shortly before
dying, the reviewing site confirmed on Monday.The worm’s review began on a discouraging note, claiming that Kennedy’s brain was “almost impossible to find.”
“Once I managed to get there, I couldn’t believe how cramped it was,” the worm continued. “I’m all for intimate dining but this place was ridiculously tiny.”
The worm also slammed the noise level in the candidate’s brain, complaining, “I couldn’t hear myself think with all the different voices in there.”
With one star, Kennedy’s brain ranks last in Yelp’s “Worm Dining” category, tied with Kristi Noem’s brain. https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/worm-leaves-scathing-yelp-review
Top Republicans, led by Trump, refuse to commit to accept 2024 election results
Top Republicans, led by former president Donald Trump, are refusing to commit to accept November’s election results with six months until voters head to the polls, raising concerns that the country could see a repeat of the violent aftermath of Trump’s loss four years ago, the Washington Post reports.The question has become something of a litmus test, particularly among the long list of possible running mates for Trump, whose relationship with his first vice president, Mike Pence, ruptured because Pence resisted Trump’s pressure to overturn the 2020 election.
The refusal to commit to accept elections results is deeply concerning, said Steven Levitsky, a government professor at Harvard University who studies democracy around the world. Accepting the results of elections is in effect the cardinal rule of democracy. It is the first rule of democratic politics. If a major party is not willing to accept defeat in elections, democracy cannot be stable. https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2024/05/08/trump-republicans-2024-election-results/
Did Trump Get Out Over His Skis?
He’s been prodding Biden to debate him for months, but we wonder if his lightning-speed agreement to Biden’s terms will exasperate some Trump allies. It might not help that, just as in 2020, Trump is setting expectations for Biden’s performance below the floor (and below reality): If Biden can ‘put two sentences together,’ he’ll have overperformed Trump’s threshold. https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook-pm/2024/05/15/the-unanswered-questions-about-the-biden-trump-debates-0013233317% of Voters Blame Biden for the End of Roe
The latest New York Times/Siena poll finds that 17% of voters in battleground states says that President Biden is responsible for ending the constitutional right to abortion, despite the fact that he supports abortion rights and that his opponent Donald Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices who made it possible to overturn Roe v. Wade. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/15/upshot/abortion-biden-trump-blame.htmlWith Trump's trial underway, most Americans now believe he falsified records to hide hush money payment
For the first time, a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows that a majority of Americans — 52% — believe Donald Trump falsified business records to conceal a hush money payment to a porn star — the charge at the center of his ongoing criminal trial in Manhattan.This represents a new high — and a significant increase from previous Yahoo News/YouGov polls conducted before courtroom testimony began last month, suggesting that coverage of the trial may be shifting perceptions of Trump’s conduct. https://www.yahoo.com/news/new-yahoo-newsyougov-poll-with-trumps-trial-underway-most-americans-now-believe-he-falsified-records-to-hide-hush-money-payment-194508677.html
Trump blasts his trial judges. Then his fans call for violence.
In a review of commenters’ posts on three pro-Trump websites, including the former president’s own Truth Social platform, Reuters documented more than 150 posts since March 1 that called for physical violence against the judges handling three of his highest-profile cases – two state judges in Manhattan and one in Georgia overseeing a criminal case in which Trump is accused of illegally seeking to overturn the state’s 2020 election results.Those posts were part of a larger pool of hundreds identified by Reuters that used hostile, menacing and, in some cases, racist or sexualized language to attack the judges, but stopped short of explicitly calling for violence against them. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-election-threats-courts/
Russian Disinformation Videos Smear Biden Ahead of U.S. Election
Russian operatives are leaning into videos, many of them that falsely purport to be made by independent journalists or whistle-blowers. The videos, opposed to blog or social media posts, are more likely to spread beyond the conspiratorial fringes of America and become part of mainstream discourse. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/15/us/politics/russia-disinformation-election.htmlTrump’s GOP ‘Surrogates’ Take Turns Bashing Judge’s Daughter
In the last several days of courtroom drama, Trump has been accompanied by an entourage of prominent Republican lawmakers eager to be seen offering their public support to the indicted former president. Not only is their presence an act of theatrical solidarity, they have been acting as mouthpieces for Trump, who remains bound by a gag order barring him from attacking witnesses, jurors, court staff, prosecutors, and the families of those involved in the case.On Tuesday, Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, addressed reporters gathered outside of court and repeated attacks against witnesses and the daughter of Judge Juan Merchan, who has led a Democratic consulting firm, that have previously landed Trump in hot water.
“Among the atrocities here, the judge’s own daughter is making millions of dollars doing online fundraising for Democrats,” Johnson said.
Johnson was not the only one of Trump’s guests to target Merchan’s daughter.
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), another member of the ring-kissing delegation on Tuesday, called the trial a “joke and a farce,” and accused Merchan’s daughter of “making money” off of the case. Fellow Florida Rep. Cory Mills stood alongside Donalds, and later appeared on Fox News from outside of the court to tell the outlet that “people like the judge’s daughter” are fundraising off of the trial on behalf of the Democratic Party.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) echoed Trump’s pre-gag order attacks against Merchan’s daughter a day earlier. “The judge inside, his daughter is making millions of dollars running against Donald Trump, raising money for Trump’s political opponents,” Vance said.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who showed up at the trial last week, also attacked Merchan’s daughter on Monday, claiming “the judge’s daughter is a political operative and raises money for Democrats.”
The trial is a perfect opportunity for Republicans desperate for Trump’s approval to score some points with the de-facto party leader. It was also an opportunity for the House Speaker to raise some money. “President Donald Trump is on trial for one reason and one reason only: to interfere with our election. Democrats are weaponizing the justice system to defeat,” Johnson wrote in an email to potential donors. The communique included a photo of Trump and Johnson clad in virtually identical suits and ties.
In the early days of the trial, the former president was infuriated by the lack of visible support from his allies at the courthouse. “Where are they?” he complained earlier this month, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. Another source noted that Trump had privately grumbled that Republicans he’d endorsed were failing to pay proper homage.
The response has been swift, although several of the Republicans who showed up claim they are there voluntarily and were not asked to attend by Trump. The former president is well aware of their role, though, noting to reporters on Tuesday that he has “a lot of surrogates and they are speaking very beautifully.”
“They come from all over Washington, and they’re highly respected and they think this is the biggest scam they’ve ever seen,” he added. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-gop-surrogates-attack-judge-daughter-1235020780/
Luna leads House GOP push to award Trump the Congressional Gold Medal
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) is leading a handful of GOP colleagues in a push to award a Congressional Gold Medal to Donald Trump.It comes as Trump sits in New York amid an ongoing criminal case concerning hush money payments to former porn star Stormy Daniels. https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/05/14/congress/congressional-medal-for-trump-house-gop-00157932
Schumer Signals New Push on Border Security Bill
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer continues to strongly signal that he may try again to move forward on the bipartisan border agreement blocked by Republicans in February.Said Schumer: Well, three months later, we’re not walking away from trying to resolve the problems at the border.
He added: We hope Republicans will change course and join us instead of just a lot of speeches, pointing lots of fingers and laying blame. Let’s get something done. https://punchbowl.news/
Trump’s Lawyer Had to Wake Him Up
For several minutes, Trump appeared to be sleeping in his seat as Todd Blanche continued to conduct his cross-examination of Cohen. Trump was motionless, his head hanging down.His lawyer Susan Necheles, who sat two seats away from him with an empty seat between them, appeared to attempt — unsuccessfully — to get his attention. Failing to do so, she moved into the empty seat between them, at which point Trump appeared to awaken. https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/05/14/trump-hush-money-criminal-trial/trump-snooze-watch-lawyer-edition-00157948
Stormy Daniels Wore A Bulletproof Vest To Court For Trump Trial Testimony
Stormy Daniels took major precautions to protect herself while testifying in Donald Trump’s New York hush money trial. According to her lawyer the adult film star wore a bulletproof vest underneath her clothes every day until she got to the Manhattan courthouse where the trial is taking place.Offering some insight into Daniels’ headspace during the trial, her attorney Clark Brewster said, "I can tell you that before she came on Sunday, I mean, she cried herself to sleep."
"She was paralyzed with fear, not of taking the stand or telling her story, but what some nut might do to her, he continued. And I’m genuinely concerned about it as well." https://www.huffpost.com/entry/stormy-daniels-bulletproof-vest-trump-testimony_n_66438039e4b0d915e0fba30b
Unusually aggressive Arizona grand jury indicted Trump’s allies
The Arizona grand jury that recently indicted 18 people for their roles in former President Donald Trump’s scheme to subvert the 2020 election cast a far wider net than state prosecutors had publicly foreshadowed.The panel of 16 Arizonans displayed unusual independence from the prosecutors supervising the investigation, according to a rare inside look at the secret proceedings based on interviews with eight people familiar with the probe and documents signed by a top prosecutor.
The grand jury took aggressive steps to haul in witnesses and even brought charges against some who had been told by prosecutors they were not under investigation. It ultimately produced a 58-page indictment last month that charged national and state Republicans — including one of Trump’s current top advisers and several former members of his inner circle — with felonies for their alleged roles in the effort to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state. Trump himself was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/10/inside-arizona-grand-jury-trump-indictment-00157447
Louisiana moves to make abortion pills ‘controlled dangerous substances’
Louisiana could become the first state in the country to categorize mifepristone and misoprostol — the drugs used to induce an abortion — as controlled dangerous substances, threatening incarceration and fines if an individual possesses the pills without a valid prescription or outside of professional practice. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/05/13/abortion-pills-louisiana-controlled-substance/Freshman Democrats Work to Turn Biden Impeachment Effort on Its Head
It’s a strategy that Democrats began planning out more than a year ago. Back in January 2023, they selected seven freshmen to sit on the Oversight panel, the most of any committee. The group included lawyers with debate experience and members who had a sense for how to communicate in a way that could catch fire on social media and break through the noise of a highly polarized environment.The result has been that the impeachment proceedings that were designed by Republicans to damage Mr. Biden politically have instead elevated the profiles of a group of battle-ready first-term Democrats who have become fixtures of the partisan scrum that is the House Oversight Committee. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/11/us/politics/jasmine-crockett-democrats-oversight.html
Top Georgia GOP Official Voted Illegally 9 Times
Georgia’s Republican Party has removed one of its officers after an administrative law judge found he voted illegally nine times after moving to the state.The state Republican Committee voted 146-24 on Friday to remove Brian Pritchard, its first vice chairman, state Chairman Josh McKoon said after the closed meeting. https://apnews.com/article/georgia-republicans-brian-pritchard-removed-voted-illegally-7e895e0d3d86e60ccd09ac2eb7dcc2fc
Nevada GOP Picks Indicted Fake Electors Again
Five of the six indicted fake electors in Nevada have been elected by the Nevada Republican party to be delegates to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this summer, the Nevada Independent reports.Two of the six indicted were chosen to be electors again. https://twitter.com/RalstonReports/status/1788605461849329789
There's A GOP Plan For An Execution Spree If Trump Wins The White House
A conservative plan for Donald Trump’s potential transition into the presidency calls for dozens of prisoners to be executed.The plan by Project 2025, led by the Heritage Foundation, says that Trump should make a concerted effort to execute the remaining 40 prisoners on death row. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gop-plan-for-executions-if-trump-wins_n_663b97a7e4b0bcaefbf76812
What Trump promised oil CEOs as he asked them to steer $1 billion to his campaign
As Donald Trump sat with some of the country’s top oil executives at his Mar-a-Lago Club last month, one executive complained about how they continued to face burdensome environmental regulations despite spending $400 million to lobby the Biden administration in the last year.Trump’s response stunned several of the executives in the room overlooking the ocean: You all are wealthy enough, he said, that you should raise $1 billion to return me to the White House. At the dinner, he vowed to immediately reverse dozens of President Biden’s environmental rules and policies and stop new ones from being enacted.
“Giving $1 billion would be a ‘deal,’ Trump said, because of the taxation and regulation they would avoid thanks to him.”
Trump’s remarkably blunt and transactional pitch reveals how the former president is targeting the oil industry to finance his reelection bid. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/09/trump-oil-industry-campaign-money/
Israel shuts down Al Jazeera’s operations, raids Jerusalem office
Israel’s government moved Sunday to shut down the Al Jazeera Media Network’s operations in Israel, clamping down on one of the few international broadcasters providing largely uninterrupted coverage of the Gaza war.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the decision followed a unanimous vote by Israel’s war cabinet, posting on X that “the incitement channel Al Jazeera will be closed in Israel.” In a separate statement, he accused Al Jazeera correspondents of having “harmed the security of Israel” and said “the time has come to eject Hamas’s mouthpiece from our country.”
Israel’s actions placed it in the company of several autocratic countries in the region that have tried to stifle the network — which has attracted praise and controversy since it was founded nearly 30 years ago and helped reshape the media landscape in the Arab world.
“This is a dark day for the media,” the board of Israel’s Foreign Press Association said in a statement. “This is a dark day for democracy.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/05/05/al-jazeera-israel-shut-down-gaza/
OPINION …
Anne Applebaum: THE NEW PROPAGANDA WAR
Here is a difficult truth: A part of the American political spectrum is not merely a passive recipient of the combined authoritarian narratives that come from Russia, China, and their ilk, but an active participant in creating and spreading them. Like the leaders of those countries, the American MAGA right also wants Americans to believe that their democracy is degenerate, their elections illegitimate, their civilization dying. The MAGA movement’s leaders also have an interest in pumping nihilism and cynicism into the brains of their fellow citizens, and in convincing them that nothing they see is true. Their goals are so similar that it is hard to distinguish between the online American alt-right and its foreign amplifiers, who have multiplied since the days when this was solely a Russian project. Tucker Carlson has even promoted the fear of a color revolution in America, lifting the phrase directly from Russian propaganda. The Chinese have joined in too: Earlier this year, a group of Chinese accounts that had previously been posting pro-Chinese material in Mandarin began posting in English, using MAGA symbols and attacking President Joe Biden. They showed fake images of Biden in prison garb, made fun of his age, and called him a satanist pedophile. One Chinese-linked account reposted an RT video repeating the lie that Biden had sent a neo-Nazi criminal to fight in Ukraine. Alex Jones’s reposting of the lie on social media reached some 400,000 people.Given that both Russian and Chinese actors now blend in so easily with the MAGA messaging operation, it is hardly surprising that the American government has difficulty responding to the newly interlinked autocratic propaganda network. American-government-backed foreign broadcasters—Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Farda, Radio Martí—still exist, but neither their mandate nor their funding has changed much in recent years. The intelligence agencies continue to observe what happens—there is a Foreign Malign Influence Center under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence—but they are by definition not part of the public debate. The only relatively new government institution fighting antidemocratic propaganda is the Global Engagement Center, but it is in the State Department, and its mandate is to focus on authoritarian propaganda outside the United States. Established in 2016, it replaced the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications, which sought to foil the Islamic State and other jihadist groups that were recruiting young people online. In 2014–15, as the scale of Russian disinformation campaigns in Europe were becoming better known, Congress designated the GEC to deal with Russian as well as Chinese, Iranian, and other propaganda campaigns around the world—although not, again, inside the United States. Throughout the Trump administration, the organization languished under the direction of a president who himself repeated Russian propaganda lines during the 2016 campaign—“Obama founded ISIS,” for example, and “Hillary will start World War III.”
“Lo and behold, the entity that becomes the most persistent in alleging that American elections are fraudulent, fake, rigged, and everything else turns out to be the president of the United States.”X (formerly Twitter) also used to look for foreign propaganda activity, but under the ownership of Elon Musk, that voluntary effort has been badly weakened. The new blue-check “verification” process allows users—including anonymous, pro-Russian users—to pay to have their posts amplified; the old “safety team” no longer exists. The result: After the collapse of the Kakhovka dam in Ukraine last summer, a major environmental and humanitarian disaster caused by Russian bombing over many weeks, the false narrative that Ukraine had destroyed it appeared hundreds of thousands of times on X. After the ISIS terrorist attack on a concert hall in Moscow in March, David Sacks, the former PayPal entrepreneur and a close associate of Musk’s, posted on X, with no evidence, that “if the Ukrainian government was behind the terrorist attack, as looks increasingly likely, the U.S. must renounce it.” His completely unfounded post was viewed 2.5 million times. This spring, some Republican congressional leaders finally began speaking about the Russian propaganda that had “infected” their base and their colleagues. Most of that “Russian propaganda” is not coming from inside Russia.
One could call this a secret authoritarian “plot” to preserve the ability to spread antidemocratic conspiracy theories, except that it’s not a secret. It’s all visible, right on the surface. Russia, China, and sometimes other state actors—Venezuela, Iran, Hungary—work with Americans to discredit democracy, to undermine the credibility of democratic leaders, to mock the rule of law. They do so with the goal of electing Trump, whose second presidency would damage the image of democracy around the world, as well as the stability of democracy in America, even further. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/06/china-russia-republican-party-relations/678271/
George T. Conway III: The New York Trump Case Is Kind of Perfect
Strictly speaking, Daniels’s testimony wasn’t necessary—particularly the details about the sex. The case is about whether Trump caused the falsification of business records at his business, and whether that falsification was intended to cover up another crime (among other offenses, violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act). Daniels has absolutely nothing to say about the Trump Organization’s business records, and the fact that she was ultimately paid the hush money isn’t in dispute. The sex strictly doesn’t matter: If Daniels and Trump didn’t have sex—as Trump maintains—but the facts alleged by the New York County District Attorney’s Office were otherwise the same and proved, Trump could still be found guilty of a Class E felony under the New York penal law.But as we have so often seen over the past nine years, Trump’s instinctive, narcissistic mendacity came into self-defeating play once again—this time by making Daniels’s testimony more significant than it had to be. It’s hard to imagine that many sentient, honest human beings could believe Trump’s denials of having congressed with Daniels. Yet Trump continues to insist on denying it—not only in public, but in court. And not only is sex not an element of the crime, but his strongest defense—the one he could actually skate on—will be to argue that there is insufficient evidence that he knew his people were falsifying business records. This defense faces many problems—including that Trump personally signed (on the Resolute desk!) some checks (made out to Cohen) in packets with false backup attached. Still, Trump would have been best off having his lawyers focus their efforts on the question of his knowledge and intent regarding the payments.
As usual, though, this defendant just couldn’t help himself. The prosecution was entitled to put on evidence of the sex to establish Trump’s motive for the payoff and cover-up. The defendant could have had his lawyers not dispute the point, even stipulate to it. What’s the harm? His political supporters stand by him even though he’s already a civilly adjudicated sex offender, so why would they care one whit about what he did consensually for a couple of minutes with an adult-film actor once upon a time in Stateline, Nevada? Had he not insisted on contesting the point, Daniels might not have had to testify, or at least she might have been on and off the stand in a flash. Because, again, what ultimately matters in the case happened mostly in New York City in 2016.. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/05/stormy-daniels-on-stand-trump-trials/678373/
Jackie Calmes: Trump promises to subvert the law — first by freeing the Jan. 6 criminals
Of all the promises that Donald Trump has made for a second term as president, he’s all but certain to fulfill one if he’s reelected: pardoning most, if not all, of the rioters who’ve been arrested, pleaded guilty or been convicted by judges or juries for their roles in besieging the nation’s Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and injuring roughly 140 police defenders.That’s nearly 1,400 people — “unbelievable patriots” all, in Trump’s noxious telling — who tried to overturn a free and fair election.
Most of the former president’s other campaign vows — deporting millions who’ve long lived in this country, deploying federal troops against protesters, spending government funds at whim and gutting the civil service, for example — can be stopped by Congress or the federal courts. Many likely would be.
A president’s pardon power, however, is virtually unlimited, as the Supreme Court held in 1886. And Trump, though not alone among presidents in this, has abused that power before.
What could be more abusive or obscene than unilaterally absolving the would-be insurrectionists, nearly 900 currently, who have been fairly prosecuted and sentenced according to the rule of law that a president is sworn to uphold?
Yet, like so many of his outrageous statements, Trump’s pledge to wipe the criminals’ records clean and spring jailed “hostages” on “the first day we get into office” doesn’t shock as it should. It’s just Trump being Trump, shooting off his mouth.
But this vow isn’t like the implausible claims that he’d build a 2,000-mile border wall and Mexico would pay for it, or that he’d ban all Muslims from the country. A reelected Trump could and likely will make good on the vow that would erase accountability en masse for the fatal, antidemocratic violence on Jan. 6. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-05-09/donald-trump-pardon-jan-6-insurrectionist
Eugene Robinson: MAGA Republicans are already doubting the 2024 election results
Don’t say they didn’t warn us. If Donald Trump loses again to Joe Biden in November, the attempt by MAGA Republicans to overturn the result — in essence, to negate the will of the voters — could be even worse than last time.Trump’s denial of his 2020 defeat has had a deeply corrosive effect on our democracy, with a majority of Republicans still deluded into believing the election was stolen. The damage might be ameliorated if prominent GOP officials, who do know better, at least expressed confidence in the democratic process and pledged to accept the outcome of this year’s vote, no matter who wins.
Surely, that’s not too much to ask of men and women who owe their jobs to the same electoral system that Trump claims is hopelessly corrupt. Right?
Wrong. Witness the pathetic performance by Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. Host Kristen Welker tried six times to get Scott to say, yes or no, whether he would accept the result of the November election. Scott refused to give an answer. Instead, he served up a heaping bowl of word salad, tossed with a vinaigrette of oil and ambition.
“This is an issue that is not an issue so I’m not going to make it an issue. ... At the end of the day, the 47th president of the United States will be President Donald Trump. And I’m excited to get back to low inflation, low unemployment. ... I’m not going to answer your hypothetical question when, in fact, I believe the American people are speaking today on the results of the election.”
Scott’s evasiveness is understandable because he is auditioning to be Trump’s running mate, but it is not excusable. He knows that cases of proven voter fraud — or even formally alleged voter fraud — are vanishingly rare. He knows that recounts and audits consistently show that votes are tallied accurately. He knows that all the conspiracy theories about the 2020 election spun by MAGA fabulists such as Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell have been proved utterly false and, in some cases, expensively defamatory. Still, with his nonanswers, the senator undermines the legitimacy of U.S. democracy.
Other Republicans hoping to be Trump’s vice-presidential choice have been equally shameless. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum was shifty on CNN’s “State of the Union” when asked about the possibility of violence if Trump loses, declining to answer and instead saying he is “looking forward to next January when Vice President Harris certifies the election for Donald Trump.” Rep. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) said she would have to “see if this is a legal and valid election” before voting to certify the November result.
And Rep. Byron Donalds (Fla.) went even further — all the way to 2028. He said that if he were the sitting vice president at the time of that year’s election, he would decline to certify the results “if you have state officials who are violating the election law in their states.” In other words, he would do what Vice President Mike Pence quite properly refused to do: impose Trump’s will over that of the American people.
All of this could be written off as nothing more than politicians being craven — hardly a new phenomenon — if not for the damage it does. A sobering study released last month by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University found that 62 percent of Republicans and 22 percent of independents believe Trump was the “legitimate” winner in 2020.
Hardly any Democrats share that view.
Those “deniers” add up to about one-third of voters overall. If that much of the electorate believes a presidential election was stolen — despite multiple recounts and dozens of court cases proving it was not — we have a serious problem.
The Johns Hopkins study concludes: “A political party that has undermined its own voters’ faith in elections is a destabilizing force in a democracy — especially one in which only two parties are realistically competing. The strong viewpoints that deniers hold, and the distinctive identity that they have formed, demonstrate that reviving our democracy will require more than any given result at the ballot box, or providing accurate information to voters on how the election process works. It will require a functioning, responsible conservative party that still believes in democracy.”
No such party now exists in U.S. politics. And for that failing, Trump is only partly responsible.
No one is forcing Republicans such as Scott, Burgum, Stefanik and Donalds to pretend to believe Trump’s lies. No one is forcing them to weaken faith in our elections. Whatever happens in the days and weeks after Election Day, many leading Republicans deserve to share the blame. https://s2.washingtonpost.com/camp-rw/
Bess Levin: Trump Demands Rupert Murdoch Fire Paul Ryan for Unforgivable Act (Saying He Won’t Vote for Him)
Donald Trump demanded on Thursday that Rupert Murdoch boot former House Speaker Paul Ryan from the Fox Corp. board. The reason? Ryan committed the apparently fireable offense of telling people he will not be voting for Trump come November.“Rupert Murdoch should fire pathetic RINO Paul Ryan from the Board of Fox,” Trump scream-wrote on Truth Social. “Ryan is a loser, always has been, and always will be. He was the WEAKEST & MOST INCOMPETENT Speaker of the House in its History. Fox will sink to the absolute bottom of the pack if Paul Ryan has anything to do with it!”
Trump’s commentary about Ryan came two days after the former GOP leader spoke about the ex-president at the Milken Institute Global Conference, saying: “Character is too important to me. And it’s a job that requires the kind of character that he just doesn’t have.” Ryan added that, “having said that, I really disagree with [Joe Biden] on policy. I wrote in a Republican the last time, I’m gonna write in a Republican this time.” (Note: This is not the way to prevent Trump from becoming president.)
While serving as House Speaker, Ryan defended all kinds of character-lacking behavior from Trump in exchange for tax cuts. When Trump demanded loyalty from the head of the FBI—whom he later fired—Ryan defended him by saying, “He’s just new to this.” When Trump gave the Charlottesville neo-Nazis a free pass, Ryan told people “he’s learning.” Since leaving office, however, the former Wisconsin representative has become a major critic of Trump, labeling him an “authoritarian narcissist” and calling BS on the stolen-election claims. “It was not rigged. It was not stolen,” Ryan said in 2021. “Donald Trump lost the election. Joe Biden won the election. It’s really clear.” https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/trump-demands-rupert-murdoch-fire-paul-ryan-for-unforgivable-act-saying-he-wont-vote-for-him
Eric Lutz: Why Big Oil Executives Are Already Salivating Over a Second Trump Term
President Joe Biden has framed his rematch against Donald Trump as a referendum on democracy and abortion rights. But November is not just about “freedom.” It is also a “climate” election, as a number of Biden environmental initiatives hinge on the outcome at an absolutely critical juncture for the planet.As the Washington Post reported Thursday, Trump has promised oil executives that he'll immediately tear down Biden’s green policies if elected again, prevent others from being enacted, and rip up regulations on drilling—all in exchange for a billion dollars of campaign contributions. “You’ve been waiting on a permit for five years,” the former president told the CEOS at a Mar-a-Lago event last month, as an attendee recounted to the Post. “You’ll get it on Day One.”
In addition to his promise to ramp up drilling, Trump also said he would undo the Biden administration’s “ridiculous” electric vehicles initiatives, among other clean energy policies. While some oil executives seem to question Trump’s ability to effectively do their bidding—especially with much of his attention focused on beating the felony charges he’s facing in his Manhattan hush money trial—the industry has already been drafting executive orders to lower drilling costs and boost offshore leases that Trump would be able to approve immediately after retaking office, as Politico reported this week. “We’re going to have to write exactly what we want, actually spoon feeding the administration,” as one energy company lawyer involved in an executive order on gas exports told the outlet. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/donald-trump-promises-to-big-oil
Jonathan
Chait: How Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Brain Worm
Could Save America
It is distinctly possible that when the
history of the 2024 election is written, its outcome, and
therefore possibly the fate of the Republic, will have been
determined by a tiny worm inside Robert F. Kennedy’s brain.I believe the worm is, more likely than not, a force for good. My reasoning is as follows:
Kennedy, by his own admission, has endured serious mental trauma on account of a brain worm. As the New York Times reported this week, Kennedy began to confess his mental difficulties in a 2012 deposition pertaining to a divorce, in which he argued that “his earning power had been diminished by his cognitive struggles.” Kennedy blamed the problem on a 2010 episode that he and his doctor attribute to a brain worm, now deceased but possibly still lodged inside his skull, that he believes ate a portion of his brain.
Normally, a victim of a horrible medical condition like this deserves sympathy. But you forfeit that sympathy when you run for president. If it is your belief that a worm has devoured part of your brain, you should not run for the world’s most powerful job. (In Kennedy’s defense, it is possible the portion of his brain responsible for moral reasoning is missing.)
It is impossible to know for sure why Kennedy has turned into such a crank. His kookery certainly precedes the brain-worm incident. After the 2004 election, Kennedy was volubly insisting the result had been fixed by an implausible conspiracy to rig voting machines. But both the breadth and the depth of his paranoia appear to have grown in recent decades.
To the extent his descent can be traced to his self-confessed cognitive limitations, they are pushing him in an objectively prosocial direction. And to the extent Kennedy has correctly diagnosed the source of his mental problems — obviously a less than solid assumption but one doctors deem plausible — the worm is playing a potentially decisive role.
It would be the ultimate butterfly-flaps-its-wings dynamic. A tiny worm, perhaps one-third of an inch long, crawled into the brain of the descendant of a famous political family and munched its way into making him a right-wing populist kook who pulled enough votes to prevent the other, more popular right-wing populist kook from winning the presidency. The worm would merit a small statue — or, if that is too grotesque, perhaps an exhibit in the future Biden Presidential Library. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/how-robert-f-kennedy-jr-s-brain-worm-could-save-america.html
Michelle Goldberg: Killing Dogs. Taunting the Homeless. Praising Al Capone. This Is Trump’s Party
John McEntee — who started out carrying Donald Trump’s bags and rose to become, in the chaotic final days of Trump’s presidency, his most important enforcer — has a TikTok account. In a video he published last week, he explains how he likes to keep “fake Hollywood money” in his car to give to homeless people. “Then when they go to use it, they get arrested, so I’m actually like helping clean up the community,” he said.With his boyish face and slicked-back hair, McEntee, the former director of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel and a man likely to be central to staffing a future Trump administration, comes off a lot like Patrick Bateman, the homicidal investment banker played by Christian Bale in the 2000 film “American Psycho.” The clip’s smug villainy, I think, offers a clue to why South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, thirsty for a bigger role in MAGA world, might have thought she could ingratiate herself by bragging about killing a puppy.
Right wingers often rain contempt on what they call virtue signaling, a performative kind of sanctimony epitomized by the “In This House” yard signs that once dotted progressive neighborhoods. Partly in response, they’ve developed what’s sometimes called vice signaling, the defiant embrace of cruelty and disdain for social norms. Think of “rolling coal,” the practice of modifying diesel engines to make them belch dark exhaust in an effort to trigger environmentalists, or the way George Santos’s promiscuous falsehoods endeared him to hard-core MAGA acolytes.
A cult of Bateman has developed on the very online right, which is why images from “American Psycho” appeared multiple times in a bizarre ad for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis during his abortive presidential campaign. And no one, of course, does vice signaling like Trump, who keeps comparing himself to the gangster Al Capone. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/13/opinion/kristi-noem-vice-signaling-maga.html
Eugene Robinson: How is any of this making Israel more secure?
War without coherent aims is lunacy. The way Israel is waging its war in Gaza looks increasingly shortsighted and senseless — just as Israel’s staunchest allies, including the United States, have warned all along.Israeli forces are massing for what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vows will be an all-out assault on Rafah, the refugee-filled metropolis in southern Gaza, where the last intact Hamas battalions are said to be dug in. Meanwhile, however, fierce combat broke out this past weekend between Israeli troops and Hamas fighters in several places across northern Gaza — which Israel already pummeled, depopulated and theoretically pacified months ago.
Caught in the crossfire, as always, are Palestinian civilians. An estimated 300,000 men, women and children have been evacuated from Rafah in advance of the planned Israeli invasion, while another 150,000 are being told to leave the area of renewed fighting in the north. Where are all these people supposed to find food and shelter? How is any of this making Israel more secure? Or bringing the Hamas-held hostages home?
I believe Israel absolutely had the right to respond with force to the unspeakable Oct. 7 terrorist attack by Hamas, in which more than 1,200 Israelis were killed, some after being tortured, and more than 240 hostages were seized and taken into Gaza. But I agree with President Biden — for decades, a fierce supporter of Israel — that the way Israel is waging this war is ultimately counterproductive.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken pretty much summed up my view on Sunday during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He warned that Israel is “on the trajectory, potentially, to inherit an insurgency with many armed Hamas [fighters] left or, if it leaves, a vacuum filled by chaos, filled by anarchy and probably refilled by Hamas.”
It is true that a duly constituted Palestinian state in Gaza would pose a security problem for Israel. But what Netanyahu is creating instead — a state of total anarchy — is guaranteed to be much, much worse. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/05/13/israel-gaza-rafah-lunacy-war/
Jonathan Bernstein: Trump Was Incredibly Bad At Presidenting
Damn he was bad at the job.I was one of the political scientists who participated in a “rank the presidents” survey and it was easy to place Trump dead last, given everything.1 But the truth is that even if Trump had followed and accepted the law, including the Constitutional “emoluments” provision, and even if he didn’t provoke an insurrection in support of his bid to overturn an election he lost, and even if he didn’t have a history of sexual assault, and even if he didn’t regularly make bigoted remarks and encourage bigotry…he was still quite a bit worse at the regular parts of presidenting than any of the modern presidents, at least.2
It’s hard to know where to begin, and I’m obviously not going to convince anyone in a few short paragraphs or even a full item, but even given how important all that other stuff is his gross incompetency at the job is worth remembering. Trump had terrible personnel judgement. He was easily manipulated by everyone - bureaucrats, foreign leaders, members of Congress, pretty much anyone who figured him out, which apparently wasn’t difficult. He didn’t even attempt to talk to the half (or really a bit more than half) of the nation who hadn’t supported him.
But if you had to focus on just one thing, it’s that by all accounts he utterly failed at the thing that Richard Neustadt thought was the most important thing for presidents to do in order to succeed: Collecting information. Trump didn’t read. He didn’t pay attention during briefings. He didn’t care about policy. He didn’t even bother, as far as anyone can tell, to learn the basic rules of the constitutional system. He did apparently watch a lot of cable news networks, which is…let’s just say not a great way of learning much. https://goodpoliticsbadpolitics.substack.com/p/trump-was-incredibly-bad-at-presidenting
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