Trump and the Republicans must be shocked that he didn’t attack the judge (Trump appointed) and the prosecutor (Republican) Doesn’t he understand how this is done?
By the way, Jill and Hallie Biden are in court today. Weird.
"what digby sez..."
Month: June 2024
We are seeing a lot of press lately about Donald Trump’s promises to wreak revenge on his enemies should he get back into power next year. Some of us have been focusing on this for years because Trump made “vengeance is mine” his credo going back decades. He’s never made a secret of it. He even gave a speech at the Christian right’s flagship Liberty University before he ever ran for president and gave them two pieces of advice: always get a pre-nup and:
I always say don’t let people take advantage — this goes for a country, too, by the way — don’t let people take advantage. Get even. And you know, if nothing else, others will see that and they’re going to say, You know, I’m going to let Jim Smith or Sarah Malone, I’m going to let them alone because they’re tough customers.
Years before that he told an audience in Colorado, “If someone screws you, screw them back 10 times harder. At least they’re going to leave you alone, and at least you’ll feel good. I believe in screwing people when they screw you.” In his book “Think Big” he wrote:
I love getting even when I get screwed by someone. … Always get even. When you are in business you need to get even with people who screw you. You need to screw them back 15 times harder. You do it not only to get the person who messed with you but also to show the others who are watching what will happen to them if they mess with you. If someone attacks you, do not hesitate. Go for the jugular.
He famously declared “I am your retribution” at CPAC in March of 2023 and last December, he proudly posted a word cloud with “revenge” as the word most closely associated with him.
It is a defining characteristic which he has never tried to hide until recently. So when he spouts this sanctimonious line (that probably came from a GOP pro like KellyAnne Conway) “my revenge will be success” it’s obvious that he doesn’t mean it. In fact, he can hardly spit it out. On Fox News on Sunday he was squirming with discomfort:
For the record, he said “lock her up” many, many times at his rallies and never once tried to stop his crowds from chanting it.
The Guardian reported that the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington did an exhaustive study of his threats to exact revenge on his political opponents and perceived enemies in law enforcement:
The presumptive Republican nominee has threatened to use the federal government to go after Biden during a second Trump administration 25 times since the start of 2023, the study found. These threats include FBI raids, investigations, indictments and even jail time. He has also threatened or suggested that the FBI and justice department should take action against senators, judges, members of Biden’s family and even non-governmental organisations.
Why would anyone expect anything different from the man who posts, “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”
The new immunity claim that he and his legal team have hatched for the January 6th case adds yet another wrinkle to his threats. In the recent TIME Magazine interview, he said that unless the Supreme Court gives him immunity for his crimes if he wins he is going after Joe Biden. It’s a very cute construct
President Trump, isn’t going after your political opponents what they do in a banana republic?
Trump: That’s what’s happening now. Yeah.
[…]
Well, sir, just to be clear—
Trump: Wait a minute, I haven’t had a chance to do it to them. I would be inclined not to do it. I don’t want to do it to them. But a lot of that’s going to have to do with the Supreme Court. Look, we are going in another two weeks to the Supreme Court. And they’re going to make a ruling on presidential immunity. If they said that a president doesn’t get immunity, then Biden, I am sure, will be prosecuted for all of his crimes, because he’s committed many crimes…
Sir—
Trump: Allowing all of this stuff. If a president doesn’t have immunity. So when you asked me that question, it depends on what the Supreme Court does.
It really would be win-win for him. If he gets immunity and he loses, at least he’s off the hook on all the federal charges. (He and his legal advisers all think he’ll be bailed out on appeal in the state charges in NY and that the Georgia case is dead on arrival.) If he gets immunity and wins he’ll find other ways to get his revenge using his loyal MAGA executive branch. They’ve already shown a willingness to go after family members, for instance. If he doesn’t get immunity and wins, he’ll just direct his flunky Attorney General to dismiss the federal cases and devote himself to destroying his enemies using the full power of the federal government.
The only scenario that guarantees accountability for the federal crimes stemming from January 6th and theft of classified documents, is if the Supreme Court denies his immunity claim and he loses the election. We live in hope but I wouldn’t count on it coming down that way.
If he does manage to make it to the White House again, his allies are all onboard:
“We’re going to come after you. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out,” Patel, a National Security Council and Defense Department official during the Trump administration, told Steve Bannon on his podcast.
We will go out and find the conspirators — not just in government, but in the media. Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections,” he said,
Mike Davis is a man often discussed as a potential Attorney General or White House Counsel in a new Trump administration:
We already observed the lackeys trekking to the Manhattan Court House to show fealty to Trump during his trial. Now that he’s been convicted, the MAGA Senate caucus is staging a full blown tantrum and refusing to allow any legislation until well … nobody knows exactly:
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, circulated his own letter in which he suggested it was the White House that “made a mockery” of the rule of law and altered politics in “un-American” ways. He and other senators threatened to stall Senate business until Republicans take action.
“Those who turned our judicial system into a political cudgel must be held accountable,” Lee said.
House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, R-Oh., is demanding that Manhattan DAs Alvin Bragg and Matthew Colangelo appear before his “weaponization of the federal government” committee to explain their “political prosecution.”
The whole GOP establishment has lined up behind Trump to degrade the jury system, the rule of law and any form of accountability for Trump’s crimes.
Jason Stanley, a professor at Yale and the author of “How Fascism Works” told the AP that history is full of examples of people not believing the rhetoric of authoritarians.
“Believe what they say,” he said. “He’s literally telling you he’s going to use the apparatus of the state to target his political opponents.”
Trump says a lot of foolish things and half the time he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. But when it comes to his lifelong thirst for vengeance there is no doubt that he means it. And he is now backed by the vast majority of elected Republicans who are clearly slavering at the prospect of taking down their political enemies. They will do it.
Salon
It’s always about control
A pair of Texas professors figured out that their female students have sex and, boy, they do not like it. So now the philosophy professor and finance professor are suing for the right to punish their students who, outside of class, have abortions.
“Pregnancy is not a disease, and elective abortions are not ‘health care,'” University of Texas at Austin professor Daniel Bonevac sneers in a federal court filing with professor John Hatfield. Instead, Bonevac writes, because pregnancy is the result of “voluntary and consensual sexual intercourse,” students should not be allowed time off to get abortions. If the students disobey and miss class for abortion care, the filing continues, the professors should be allowed to flunk students. Additionally, Bonevac asserts that he has a right to refuse to employ a teaching assistant who has had an abortion, calling such women “criminals.”
Your hang-ups are showing
The sexual hang-ups of abortion opponents are rarely far from the surface, but even by those low standards, the unjustified male grievance on display in this new Texas lawsuit is a doozy. At issue are federal regulations, called Title IX, first signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1972. They currently bar publicly funded schools from discriminating on the basis of sex or gender. This means that schools cannot penalize students for health care based on sex. As a male student would be granted leave if he had to travel for surgery, so must a female student, the federal statute requires. The two men argue that granting students an excused absence in such cases violates their First Amendment rights.
Even though the plaintiffs suing for the right to flunk female students for abortion include boilerplate arguments in which they feign concern that abortion is “killing,” the legal filing makes it clear that what really outrages Bonevac and Hatfield is that Title IX prevents them from controlling the private lives of students. Along with their anger about abortion, they grouse about not being allowed to punish students “for being homosexual or transgender.” They also argue they should be able to penalize teaching assistants for “cross-dressing,” by which they appear to mean allowing trans women to wear skirts.
Oh, and they went judge shopping:
Even though Bonevac and Hatfield work in Austin, Texas, they filed their lawsuit 486 miles away in Amarillo, Texas. The reason for this is not mysterious: Donald Trump-appointed judge Matthew Kacsmaryk. The right-wing judge has a long and frankly unhinged history of screeching at top volume about the evils of “sexual revolutionaries.” (Yes, that does sound like a compliment, but he doesn’t mean it as such.) It takes very little to draw Kacsmaryk’s sexualized condemnation. Premarital sex, for instance, makes one a “sexual revolutionary.” Using contraception within marriage also makes one an irredeemable pervert. In his legal writings, Kacsmaryk is very clear that sex is only for procreation within marriage, and anything outside of that should draw legal sanction. He has not weighed in on whether there should be restrictions on what sexual positions are legally permissible within the procreation-only marital sex, but give him time.
Change is hard, boys. Are you manly enough to handle it?
White privilege? Meet white male entitlement. You’re MFEO.
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.
When in Babylon….
“Jesus Is The Answer To All Your Problems,” read the billboard I passed on westbound I-40 on Sunday somewhere between Greensboro and Statesville, North Carolina. Southern Christians especially have a thing for — what is it Donald Trump calls lying? — thruthful hyperbole. Their extravagant promises, their religious puffery, may be well-intended but oversell the product, don’t you think? The larger and louder the claims, even billboard-sized, the more there is a hint that it’s not just you they are trying to convince, but themselves.
A lot of places across the South claim the title “Buckle of the Bible Belt.” Back when Southern Baptists were the political equivalent of Boss Hogg in those towns, a Bible verse that tripped off many tongues came from the book Donald Trump famously referenced like a “walked into a bar” joke: Two Corinthians.
2 Corinthians 6:17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.
Be in the world but not of the world. That was then. This is now (Washington Post):
Billions in taxpayer dollars are being used to pay tuition at religious schools throughout the country, as state voucher programs expand dramatically and the line separating public education and religion fades.
School vouchers can be used at almost any private school, but the vast majority of the money is being directed to religious schools, according to a Washington Post examination of the nation’s largest voucher programs.
Vouchers, government money that covers education costs for families outside the public schools, vary by state but offer up to $16,000 per student per year, and in many casesfully cover the cost of tuition at private schools. In some schools, a large share of the student body is benefiting from a voucher, meaning a significant portion of the school’s funding is coming directly from the government.
There was a time when church entanglement with government was a bad thing. It was a threat evangelicals avoided. Tax exemption was their legal separation between church and state. (Enter “Bob Jones University” in the search bar at the left.) Now government is just another of the world’s Seven Mountains to be coopted, and “come out from among them, and be ye separate” another biblical principle to elide. (Enter Seven Mountains mandate” in the search bar at the left.) The relativism charge “principled” conservatives flung at the left for decades was just a leading example of projection. When in Babylon, eh?
In just five states with expansive programs, more than 700,000 students benefited from vouchers this school year.(Those same states had a total of about 935,000 private school students in 2021, the most recent year for which data are available.) An additional 200,000 were subsidized in the rest of the country, according to tracking by EdChoice, a voucher advocacy group. That suggests a substantial share of about 4.7 million students attending private school nationwide are benefiting from vouchers — a number that is expected to grow.
The programs, popular with conservatives, are rapidly growing in GOP-run states, with a total of 28 states plus D.C. operating some sort of voucher system.Eight states created or expanded voucher programs last year, and this year, Alabama, Georgia and Missouri have approved or expanded voucher-type programs. Some recently enacted plans are just starting to take effect or will be phased in over the next few years.
“There are really two Americas,” Matt Taibbi wrote in Griftopia (2011), For the grifter class, government is “a tool for making money,” while “in everybody-else land, the government is something to be avoided.” America’s churches once inhabited everybody-else land. Now they’ve relocated to Griftopia. (Enter “the Big Enchilada” in the search bar at the left.) Where there’s money to be made, principles, biblical and others, are relative.
And while you’re thinking about how school vouchers are defunding our public schools, don’t forget about tax credit scholarships. Not technically vouchers, they are an even stealthier way for churches and private schools to, conservatives once self-righteously condemned, “suck off the governmnent teat.”
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.
He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. The story was taken down for one day on twitter and put back up the next day. He’s full of shit like all Trump sycophants. Not to mention the fact that Hunter Biden was not running for president in 2020 or now.
It is interesting that he couldn’t really answer the question, though. Why is this case ok (whether you buy the silly election interference argument or not) while the Trump case is totally unjustified? MAGA voters don’t require logic or consistency or it’s meaningless for them. But if there are any independents out there who really are on the fence about the Trump charges, the hypocrisy among the Trump henchment might make them wonder just a little bit.
The Hunter trial begins this week and it’s a little bit heartbreaking. He’s a screwed up guy who had a drug problem. Who among us doesn’t know someone or have a family member who’s been through something like this?
And unlike Trump he really is being treated differently than anyone else would be treated having been accused of the same crime. This first trial concerns lying on a form to buy a gun in which he said he was not using drugs. Usually such things are only used to try criminals who have used the gun in the course of a crime which, of course, he did not. He’s also facing charges in California for failing to pay taxes which also wouldn’t usually have been tried since he has long since paid them with interest and penalties. Be that as it may, the trials are going forward and I have little doubt that the right wing media is going to give them all the attention they failed to pay to the Trump hush money case, the point being to make Joe Biden break down and start crying on camera.
As for the Mainstream media, here’s how the NY Times headline writers see it:
FFS. I don’t know about you, but I won’t vote for either Donald Trump or Hunter Biden for president.
Not many, but a few
The New York Times went out into the wild to see if voters care about the fact that the Republicans are voting for a wealthy, white, hugely powerful convicted felon for president. They found that the Maga cult still loves him and the normal people still hate him but there are a few undecided/independent voters who might be swayed:
[O]n the margins, with the remaining undecided voters, having a felon as the Republican Party’s standard-bearer could make the decision to pick Mr. Trump harder, maybe a lot harder.
Oscar Cisneros, 50, who described himself as an independent voter, said that while he supported Mr. Biden in 2020, he had been put off more recently by the president’s age and apparent slip-ups, and that he was undecided about whom to vote for in the fall. But now, he said, Mr. Trump had added to his baggage.
“It gives you a different point of view: How can you be a president if you’re being found guilty of hush money?” asked Mr. Cisneros, who works for the City of Phoenix. “OK, dude, you’re guilty. I don’t know if I want you up there.”
The conviction could only help shore up Mr. Biden’s left flank, which had been wavering amid criticism over his handling of Israel’s war in Gaza, launched after the deadly Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, and other progressive priorities.
[…]
But undecided voters are out there. In New York Times/Siena College battleground polls in October, about 7 percent of Mr. Trump’s supporters said they would vote for Mr. Biden if Mr. Trump were found guilty in an unspecified criminal trial.
More recently, a Marquette Law School poll taken during the hush-money trial found that a modest lead for Mr. Trump among registered voters nationwide became a four-point lead for Mr. Biden if Mr. Trump were found guilty.
This is especially interesting:
A number of young Trump supporters who were interviewed scoffed at the conviction, calling the entire trial a charade. They then admitted that they probably would not vote in November.
Black voters, especially Black men, have slipped away from Mr. Biden over the last four years, but 27 percent of Black voters who backed Mr. Trump told pollsters from The New York Times and Siena College before the verdict that a conviction would flip them to Mr. Biden, compared with just 5 percent of white respondents who said that.
Daryl Jones, 49, who is Black, made it clear that he remained a fan of Mr. Trump’s as he cut hair at the busy Universal Barber Shop in Des Moines on Thursday evening. Yet when it came to the former president’s convictions, Mr. Jones was resolute.
“Well, you do the crime, you’ve got to do the time,” he said. “So, at the same time, if he’s wrong, he’s wrong. And he was wrong.”
This is just anecdotal, of course. Who knows if it will add up to anything? And time may very well make this seem like the proverbial old news and nobody will care anymore. If Democrats are smart they will find a way to fold this into the broader message about abuse of power, hostility to democracy, the Big Lie, fraud, sexual assault etc. The list is long and they should not shrink from laying it out.
There must be some Republicans left out there who think this is going too far. (Right? ) I can’t imagine my father (who I’m sure would have loved Trump) not wincing at this. It’s just not how right wingers of a certain age and experience saw the world. (Not that they didn’t think the hippies and the “minorities” weren’t a huge problem but they never thought that Russia and China weren’t worse.)
On the other hand, maybe they’ve been so indoctrinated and brainwashed that they no longer have any patriotism left at all.
I assume that most of you don’t watch Fox and probably don’t want to watch a whole interview with Dear Leader in any case. (If you do, you can see it on Youtube here and here.) The torrent of lies is unbelievable.
There are a few other highlights worth watching. He seems very stressed to me and looks drawn. I guess that’s understandable. He’s under a lot of stress. But he’s no Ironman, that’s for sure.
And you may notice that for some reason there are a lot of jump cuts and edits. Hmmm.
Maybe he shouldn’t have fucked a porn star and a playmate.
A sports talk guy offers some doubters a way out by making it safe to say that the world isn’t coming to an end under Biden:
Trump supporters have echoed [Trump’s] grievances about the trial being unfair, causing Colin Cowherd to push back on the Republican nominee continuously attempting to sell the public on the world being out to get him.
“He’s trying to sell me an America that doesn’t exist,” Cowherd said on his latest podcast episode for The Volume. “I don’t see crime, I’m not stumbling over homeless people. I see happy people. Dodger Stadium is full, leads Major League Baseball in attendance. Laker games are full. NFL games are full. People have money in their pocket. LAX is packed, I just saw record airline revenue over the weekend. I’m constantly being sold an America by Donald Trump of ‘crime rates are skyrocketing.’ No, they’re actually not. Starting in 2023 they have plummeted coast to coast…you can’t keep selling me on how bad the country I live in is, because it’s not bad for me and my friends.”Cowherd proceeded to label Trump a “con-artist,” noting it’s never a good look when a person who surrounds themselves with convicted felons is found guilty of a crime.
“Donald Trump is now a felon,” Cowherd said. “His campaign chairman was a felon. So is his deputy campaign manager, his personal lawyer, his chief strategist, his National Security Adviser, his Trade Advisor, his Foreign Policy Adviser, his campaign fixer and his company CFO. They’re all felons. Judged by the company you keep. It’s a cabal of convicts.”
“If everybody in your social circle is a felon, I don’t think it’s rigged,” Cowherd continued. “I don’t think the world’s against you. And to get people to agree on anything, 34 counts? 0 for 34? That’s a batting slump even the New York Mets could be impressed with. O for 34. When you’re constantly trying to sell me on an America that I don’t see…Trump’s entire gameplan is ‘The country is in a free fall.’ Maybe in the Trump-centric neighborhoods it is.”
That’s a significant flip for Cowherd, who less than two years ago predicted a “red wave” before the 2022 midterm elections, writing, “Don’t mess with people’s kids.” But in the ensuing months and years after the red wave that wasn’t, Cowherd appears to like what he’s seeing from America, particularly in the blue cities where he spends most of his time, Los Angeles and Chicago.
Cowherd pushed back on the notion that he’s out of touch as a national sports host and business owner of a $100 million company by declaring he has friends and family in diverse financial situations, living in various parts of Los Angeles.
“Stop trying to sell me on ‘everything’s rigged, the country’s falling into the sea, the economy’s terrible,’
Cowherd added. “The America I live in is imperfect. But compared to the rest of the world, I think we’re doing okay.”
This is meaningful. Nobody likes inflation. But compared to the rest of the world we’re doing pretty well. The obvious examples of a country generally doing well economically are all around us. If people like this start noticing and saying so, it may make a few other people notice as well — and realize they are getting tired of all the pessimism and negativity.
He mostly just stood there nodding and smugly smiling when they chanted (as they did at Every Single Rally since 2016) but he slipped from time to time because he couldn’t help it.
I always wondered if that would ever blow back on him. He should be confronted with it in every single interview. Even the MAGAs might be a little embarrassed.
How about the future?
Glenn Beck: “Do you regret not ‘locking her up.’ And if you’re president again, will you lock people up?”
Donald Trump: “The answer is you have no choice, because they’re doing it to us.” — Aug. 29, 2023
Context: Trump appeared on Beck’s show amid his mounting legal troubles, with Beck harkening back to the informal slogan of the 2016 Trump campaign, “Lock Her Up!,” referring to then-rival Hillary Clinton. Trump claimed he was being victimized and said of his political and legal antagonists “these are sick people; these are evil people.”
Enjoy your day…