Month: August 2023

Probably not

In his newsletter today, Dan Pfeiffer lays out the reasons that Trump might not be as formidable as we think. He looks at the polls in the two early states which show him weaker than he is nationally. (He’s still strong mind you…)

This is more interesting:

Many assumed that Trump’s mounting legal problems would hurt him politically. To date, they have not. The biggest impact of the 78 felony charges may be logistical. Trump will spend most of the campaign in court and dealing with various legal entanglements. This graphic from MSNBC’s Morning Joe lays out how challenging the calendar will be for the former President:

This past week has been instructive for how the rest of the campaign may play out. This week:

Trump engaged in a multi-day fight with the judge in the January 6th case over a possible protective order restricting his ability to talk about the case;

The media reported that Special Counsel Jack Smith was investigating Trump’s Super PAC for potential financial crimes related to raising money off knowingly false election fraud claims;

We learned that Smith used a subpoena to access Trump’s Twitter direct messages as part of his wide ranging probe;

Reports came out that Fulton County DA Fani Willis is expected to indict Trump and a number of other Republicans for trying to overturn the election in Georgia.

It’s a lot! This is just five or so days of news coverage.

Time is the one non-renewable resource on the campaign. You can always raise more money, hire more staff or run more ads, but you can’t get more time. Every minute Trump spends trying to stay out of jail, is a minute not spent campaigning in the early states. If Judge Chutkan were to grant Jack Smith his preferred trial date in the 1/6 case, Trump would be in court starting two weeks before the Iowa Caucus. He would then be there through the New Hampshire primary — at least. As a campaign strategy, being in front of the jurors instead of the voters seems suboptimal.

It’s not just the calendar. Staying out of jail costs money and the various cases are beginning to take their toll on Trump’s political operation. According to the New York Times:

New financial reports show that the former president’s various political committees and the super PAC backing him have used roughly 30 cents of every dollar spent so far this year on legal-related costs. The total amounts to more than $27 million in legal fees and other investigation-related bills in the first six month

These cases will only get more expensive moving closer to trial.

This logistical logjam and cash crunch is not enough to cause Trump’s defeat, but I think we are collectively underestimating how challenging this situation will be for Trump’s campaign.

I dunno. He has his own plane and as much money as he needs to hold his rallies even after a long day in court. I could easily see him flying off the minute court adjourns and regaling his fans with complaints about it. I think this is important enough to him that he will even spend his own money if he has to.

Honestly, all these things keep him at the top of the news which is how he maintains his hold on the cult. It really doesn’t matter what they’re seeing, he’ll spin it to his benefit with them. In a general election, the dynamic may be the opposite. If he’s on trial once the nomination is decided, it could actually help Biden with turnout.

He goes on to suggest that Trump could lose if it suddenly seems that another candidate has the juice to beat Biden. I guess that’s possible but it sure doesn’t seem likely at this point.

He ends with this:

I am not predicting that Trump will lose the primary. The most likely outcome — by far — is a 2024 rematch between President Biden and Donald Trump.

There are two big questions. First, do any of Trump’s opponents have what it takes to seize the opening that may appear? To date, this collection of clowns and cowards are running to either be Trump’s Vice President, a Fox News commentator, or host a podcast on the Bulwark’s network. Second, will the field narrow before Iowa and New Hampshire?

If neither of those things happens, Trump wins will, and he wins easily.

Anything’s possible, including the possibility that he’ll drop dead on the golf course. But it’s pretty far-fetched otherwise. I would have said that even when Ron DeSantis was the next Great Whitebread hope. Since his meltdown it’s even more remote IMO.

But never say never. When it comes to Trump nothing is predictable.

There you have it.

And then there’s this:

The top contenders for the GOP nomination. One nods in agreement with an official who says they need to use force to change Washington and the other says that a military invasion of Mexico is on the table, an idea which has been previously floated by the first one.

I know it’s hard to remember what life was like before the Republicans went fully batshit crazy. It was quite a while ago. But they didn’t used to say things like this. But then their voters didn’t used to believe every crazy thing they were told by lying sociopaths. (Yes, they did believe a lot of looney stuff, but this goes way beyond anything even Nixon said publicly. When what he said privately came out, his approval rating dropped to the low 20s.)

These people believe they can get away with anything and their true natures are on display. I wouldn’t assume they aren’t serious.

From DKos:

Wisconsin is so absurdly gerrymandered, a roughly 50-50 split between the state’s Republican and Democratic voters—Donald Trump edged out Hillary Clinton in 2016, President Joe Biden squeaked by Trump in 2020, and Badger Staters narrowly reelected Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in 2022—has somehow produced gaudy Republican supermajorities in both the state Assembly and Senate. The party currently holds a 64-35 advantage in the Assembly and a 21-11 edge in the Senate…

But when liberal Judge Janet Protasiewicz trounced her conservative opponent in the state Supreme Court election in April, it was a big win—not just for those who care about reestablishing their reproductive rights, but for anyone who genuinely cares about representative democracy.

In other words, fair legislative maps looked achievable for the first time in more than a decade. Which meant it was now past time for the GOP to squeal.

On Friday, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos hinted that impeachment could be on the table if Protasiewicz votes to disrupt the GOP’s plans for a permanent white minority rule over our country—or, worse, if Sen. Ron Johnson is ever forced to fill out his ballot next to a Black person. Why? Because she will have “prejudged” the case.

Pure power politics. That’s what they do.

Consider this April story from The Atlantic, published shortly after Protasiewicz’s win flipped the state’s highest court to a 4-3 liberal majority:

After Democrats got wiped out in the 2010 midterms, Republicans gerrymandered Wisconsin with scientific precision—ensuring that in a state more or less evenly divided politically, the GOP would maintain its grip on power regardless of how the voters felt about it. Democrats would have to win by a landslide—at least 12 points, according to one expert—just to get a bare majority of 50 seats in the assembly, whereas Republicans could do so by winning only 44 percent of the vote. The U.S. Supreme Court has fueled a bipartisan race to the bottom on gerrymandering by invalidating every voter protection that comes before it, but even in today’s grim landscape, the Badger State is one of the standouts.

Wisconsin is a famously closely divided state, but thanks to their precise drawing of legislative districts, Republicans have maintained something close to a two-thirds majority whether they won more votes or not. With that kind of job security, Republicans in Wisconsin could enact an agenda far to the right of the state’s actual electorate, attacking unions, abortion rights, and voting rights without having to worry that swing voters would throw the bums out. After all, they couldn’t. And year after year, the right-wing majority on the state supreme court would ensure that gerrymandered maps kept their political allies in power and safely protected from voter backlash. Some mismatch between the popular vote and legislative districts is not inherently nefarious—it just happens to be both deliberate and extreme in Wisconsin’s case.

Nice racket, huh? In other words, Wisconsin’s liberals have been held hostage for years by unscrupulous Republicans who couldn’t care less about representative democracy. And this was years before the party as a whole decided it had no use for such quaint throwbacks. 

But that doesn’t mean Wisconsin Republicans are done being shameless partisans.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

In January, Protasiewicz called the state’s legislative maps “rigged” in a public forum and in March, she told Capital Times reporters in a podcast interview she would “enjoy taking a fresh look at the gerrymandering question.”

“They do not reflect people in this state. I don’t think you could sell any reasonable person that the maps are fair,” Protasiewicz, a former Milwaukee County judge, said in the January forum. “I can’t tell you what I would do on a particular case, but I can tell you my values, and the maps are wrong.”

Vos suggested if Protasiewicz does not recuse from cases involving the maps, she would violate her oath of office, which might push lawmakers to consider impeaching her.

“I want to look and see, does she recuse herself on cases where she has prejudged? That to me is something that is at the oath of office and what she said she was going to do to uphold the Constitution. That to me is a serious offense.”

As The Journal Sentinel points out, Republicans now have the power to hold impeachment trials after having attained a supermajority in the state Senate—largely thanks to gerrymandered maps. And if they do, they could theoretically sideline Protasiewicz in order to protect those same maps.

Isn’t that sweet?

As the above xweet from Brennan Center redistricting and voting counsel Michael Li explains, judges who’ve been impeached can’t even rule on cases until they’ve been acquitted. With Protasiewicz so sidelined if Republicans pull the trigger on impeachment, they could leverage a deadlocked 3-3 court to keep their maps (and minority rule) in place through 2024. 

I have no doubt that even if she had never said any such thing they would have found a reason to impeach her so they could keep her out of the game. That’s the level of bad faith we are dealing with. The sheer scope of their gerrymandering is so egregious that I think it’s fair to say they will do anything to stay in power. Anything.

… but it is

He writes:

This scandal also compelled me to grab my camera and visit the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville, where I live, for a history lesson of my own.

The Capitol stands as a poignant testament to the deeply flawed logic behind Florida’s new standards. This structure was built with the labor of about 15 enslaved men. These men possessed profound expertise, especially in intricate tasks like carving out the Capitol’s limestone cellar. Their craftsmanship was held in such high regard that the enslaver who “owned” them, A.G. Payne, was compensated more than double the rate a free white laborer could demand. But emancipation did not lead to prosperity, from what I could gather from the sparse historical record. Far from it. Despite their significant contribution to one of Tennessee’s most iconic buildings, they, along with their descendants, faced poverty and systemic oppression.

As my colleague Michael Mechanic pointed out recently, many states, including Florida, did all they could to stomp on the social and economic rights of Black people: “After emancipation, the former Confederate states crafted new constitutions—later dubbed ‘Black codes’—that strictly limited the ability of emancipated slaves to apply whatever skills they’d serendipitously acquired while enslaved.” 

Given the undeniable suffering, you have to wonder why anyone would want to find a silver lining in such a dark history.

I don’t wonder, sadly. I know. And it’s horrifying.

The NY Times:

Congressional Republicans have for months repeatedly written to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland demanding he appoint a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden, the president’s son, over his business dealings.

Some even demanded that a specific man be named to lead the inquiry: David C. Weiss, the Trump-appointed Delaware U.S. attorney who has long investigated the case.

But on Friday, after Mr. Garland elevated Mr. Weiss to special counsel status, Republicans in Congress reacted publicly not with triumph, but with outrage. “David Weiss can’t be trusted and this is just a new way to whitewash the Biden family’s corruption,” Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

The reaction was a notable political development, one that underscored both how Mr. Weiss, a Republican, has fallen in conservative circles, and how deeply it has become ingrained in the G.O.P. to oppose the Justice Department at every turn.

“The reality is this appointment is meant to distract from, and slow down, our investigations,” said Representative Jason Smith, Republican of Missouri and chairman of Ways and Means, one of three congressional committees looking into the Biden family’s finances.

But in interviews, away from social media and television appearances, the reaction of many Republicans to Mr. Weiss’s appointment was more nuanced. Privately, some in the G.O.P. were chalking up the development as a victory.

The party had worked for years to elevate the Hunter Biden case — which Democrats have long dismissed as a partisan obsession of the right — to a scandal equivalent to those dogging former President Donald J. Trump, who has faced two impeachment trials, two special counsel investigations and three indictments totaling 78 felony counts against him. Those indictments include charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States and willfully retaining national defense information after he left office.

Lol. Good luck getting an equivalent to that list of crimes. (And really, that’s the tip of the iceberg. It doesn’t even get to the Trump family corruption.) Of course, if you listen to Fox, it’s far, far worse.

In an interview with Newsmax, a top Trump adviser, Jason Miller, appeared to echo both sentiments, and foreshadowed coming attacks.

Mr. Miller said the appointment of Mr. Weiss “stinks” and accused the prosecutor of sitting on his hands for years. But, he added, “I do want to make sure that my Republican brethren” don’t “lose sight of the big prize here.”

He described the appointment of a special counsel as “a direct acknowledgment that Hunter Biden did something wrong,” and he recalled President Biden saying in a 2020 debate with Mr. Trump that he had not done anything wrong.

The Republicans are having it both ways and because their followers are completely addled at this point it doesn’t matter. They have two Biden Special Counsel investigations going now. One is against Joe and the classified documents from when he was VP. The other now, against Hunter which is just weird because you don’t need a special counsel to investigate a relative but we’re now back in 1990s Janet Reno territory where a Democratic AG is compelled to name them every five minutes over nothing in order to preserve their reputation, which makes absolutely no difference,

I’m starting to hear pundits saying that this could be a real problem for Biden, people don’t like corruption etc, etc. They seem to think that Joe Biden will have to throw his son under the bus which is ridiculous. All it’s going to do is cause Biden more searing heartache which is the point. If the Republicans can create so much pressure that Hunter Biden ends up back on drugs, they will be ecstatic. (Don’t think that isn’t something they think about.)

It’s starting to work, as we knew it would. They are relentless with this sort of scandal mongering and since they are also shameless they don’t care that it’s completely ridiculous in the face of what their Dear Leader is accused of. The media will be hard-pressed to resist this, what with fake “whistleblowers” and dribs and drabs of so-called evidence being leaked.

We’ve been here before. This is Whitewater and “but-her-emails” all over again. That they have the chutzpah to do it while their nominee is literally under indictment in three different cases and was already impeached twice is actually kind of awe-inspiring, They just keep their heads down and do their thing no matter what else is going on around them. They are like sharks, they never stop moving.

Actually, we do.

Trump flew in on “Trump Force One” unexpectedly and a brief tour of the fair to the delight of the crowd.

Meanwhile:

They want a mob boss instead of a creepy weasel. I guess if that’s what’s on offer, it sort of makes sense.

And yet not soon enough

Breaking (CNN):

Atlanta-area prosecutors investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia are in possession of text messages and emails directly connecting members of Donald Trump’s legal team to the early January 2021 voting system breach in Coffee County, sources tell CNN.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is expected to seek charges against more than a dozen individuals when her team presents its case before a grand jury next week. Several individuals involved in the voting systems breach in Coffee County are among those who may face charges in the sprawling criminal probe.

Investigators in the Georgia criminal probe have long suspected the breach was not an organic effort sprung from sympathetic Trump supporters in rural and heavily Republican Coffee County – a county Trump won by nearly 70% of the vote. They have gathered evidence indicating it was a top-down push by Trump’s team to access sensitive voting software, according to people familiar with the situation.

A Jan. 6 Committee witness, a former Trump official, testified under oath that plans to access the voting systems included a December 18, 2020 Oval Office meeting in which Trump was present.

On January 1, 2021 – days ahead of the January 7 voting systems breach – Katherine Friess – an attorney working with Giuliani, Sidney Powell and other Trump allies shared a “written invitation” to examine voting systems in Coffee County with a group of Trump allies.

That group included members of Sullivan Strickler, a firm hired by Trump’s attorneys to examine voting systems in the small, heavily Republican Georgia county, according to text messages obtained by CNN.

That same day, Friess sent a “Letter of invitation to Coffee County, Georgia” to former NYPD Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik, who was working with Giuliani to find evidence that would back up their baseless claims of potential widespread voter fraud, according to court documents filed as part of an ongoing civil case.

Friess then notified operatives who carried out the Coffee County breach and others working directly with Giuliani that Trump’s team had secured written permission, the texts show.

CNN has not reviewed the substance of the invitation letter itself, only communications that confirm it was provided to Friess, Kerik and Sullivan Strickler employees.

There is much more at the link.

Christmas in August?

Mapping the hissy fits

If it wasn’t for bad faith, they wouldn’t have no faith at all (with apologies to Albert King).

For those who missed MSNBC’s “Alex Wagner Tonight” on Friday, guest George Conway, attorney and former Republican, presented a hand-drawn “GOP Hunter Biden Flow Chart” that made a mockery of the prolonged right-wing hissy fit Republicans keep throwing over President Biden’s son Hunter’s legal troubles.

CliffNotes version: Heads, right-wing hissy fit. Tails, right-wing hissy fit.

Obviously, Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee missed the show. Or she didn’t and the joke went over her head (not hard). On Friday evening and Saturday morning, Blackburn responded to Attorney General Merrick Garland’s appointment Friday of U.S. Attorney David Weiss as Special Counsel for the ongoing investigation and prosecutions referenced and described in United States v. Robert Hunter Biden.

Blackburn’s Xitter posts perfectly encapsulated the bad faith running through the veins of today’s Republican Party like the arrows of Conway’s flow chart. The appointment of Weiss, Blackburn charged, was a ploy by Garland to deep-six the Hunter Biden investigation and “an attempt to cover up the Biden family corruption.”

Perhaps Blackburn, 71, is having memory issues and cannot remember her actions from as recently as September. Perhaps she expects the public’s memory is even shorter and we cannot. Or perhaps what she did last year was as much bad faith then is it is bad faith now.

Last September, Blackburn joined 32 other Republicans (by my count) in demanding that Garland appoint a special counsel in the Hunter Biden investigation. They named their preferred candidate: David Weiss.

“The level of brazen, demonstrable gaslighting from this GOP is beyond belief,” MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan responded. It is also Standard Operating Procedure.

As Digby is fond of saying, shamelessness is their superpower.

UPDATE: My apologies for missing Ron. Johnson’s toeing the same line as Blackburn.

If only they would listen…