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Donald The Drama Queen

Published by digby on January 26, 2024

Do people really want someone who acts like this in a federal court room to be the president of the United States?

I guess he’s the best the Republican party can do…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is outrageous behavior for anyone. Coming from a presidential candidate is just insane. Or, at least, it would be insane if the GOP base wasn’t a cult.

I seriously doubt this will endear him to the jury. But maybe he’s counting on the appeals dragging out as long as possible, perhaps in the hopes that Carroll dies before he has to pay out any money? I don’t know. I’m sure he believes this helps him with his ecstatic followers but I’m not sure they’re even hearing about this. They don’t cover his trials very closely in right wing media.

But normal people are hearing about this. And this petulant, childish behavior may not play as well with those GOP-leaning independents and suburban moms.

Big Pharma Goes MAGA

Published by digby on January 26, 2024

I guess I don’t expect anything better of these people but it makes me ill anyway:

Big Pharma has invested big money in the organizations planning what a MAGA policy agenda will look like in a new Trump administration. Not surprisingly, that policy playbook contains a major gift for the drug industry: a swift end to the Biden administration’s landmark program to allow Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices.

For two decades, Congress barred Medicare from negotiating prescription drug prices, which is a major reason why Americans pay higher prices for drugs than anyone else in the world. In 2022, Democrats finally passed legislation creating a price negotiation pilot program. 

The same year, Washington’s top drug lobby — Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA — donated $530,000 to groups involved with the far-right Project 2025 agenda. The agenda, which is meant to serve as a policy roadmap for the early days of a new Donald Trump presidency, includes a call to repeal the new provisions allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices.

The provisions are one of the most popular achievements of the Joe Biden presidency, with 76 percent of Americans supporting Medicare drug-price negotiations, including two thirds of Republicans. Only 6 percent of Americans outright oppose the policy, according to recent polling by the Associated Press.

So it’s not surprising that Big Pharma would fund front groups willing to wage an unpopular battle to boost drug manufacturers’ bottom lines — PhRMA has long done so with organizations on both sides of the aisle. However, the lobbying group’s donations to the organizations behind Project 2025 implicates the pharmaceutical industry in an extremist conservative plan that calls for eliminating access to the abortion pill, allowing states to ban hospitals from providing emergency abortion care, and ending protections for LGBTQ+ Americans.

The greed is so overwhelming that they would rather help people who want to end abortion and birth control — products they sell — rather than succumb to the kind of price controls every other country in the world already has in place.

Maybe they think they can get in on the big new business in executions that Donald trump is planning. I’m sure it will be lucrative.

Trump Owns The GOP Establishment

Published by digby on January 26, 2024

It’s no longer about Washington. His top enforcers are the red state governors

Donald Trump is having a rolling hissy fit that’s escalating by the day. From court rooms to rallies to incoherent interviews, his behavior is making it clear the pressure is getting to him and he’s coming unglued. Ever since he realized that Nikki Haley is not going to be a good little girl and quit the race on his time table he’s been beside himself.

Trump was so angry on Wednesday that he fired off a post on his Truth Social platform threatening to blackball any Haley donor who continues to give “Birdbrain” any money, declaring “from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp.” (Haley responded with a fundraising pitch and reportedly took in over a million dollars.) I doubt very seriously that Trump will be turning away money from anyone — he’s never left a penny on the sidewalk. But it was a gangster move in keeping with his ritual humiliation of Senator Tim Scott on the stage at his victory speech in New Hampshire, intended to send a message that he’s their daddy and nobody should forget it. He’s not being subtle.

In another attempt to run Haley out of the race as quickly as possible, on Thursday a draft memo from Trump henchman David Bossie, the former president’s eyes and ears in the Republican National Committee, was circulated proposing that the RNC officially declare Trump the “presumptive nominee.” That idea was quickly quashed and despite the fact that he was probably behind it, Trump issued a Truth Social statement saying that he preferred they not do it for the sake of “party unity.” But he did express his gratitude for the “respect” the Committee showed him. He sounds more like a mob boss every day.

Trump knows that Haley isn’t going to win the nomination unless something catastrophic happens to change things so it’s reasonable to ask why he is so agitated and desperate to get her out of the race. Why not just ignore her and carry on with his usual blather about shower heads and windmills and tales of his former glory? I think he’s very, very unnerved by the fact that Haley penetrates the right wing bubble and what she’s saying about him — that he’s a loser and he’s losing it — which are the worst charges he can imagine being leveled at him. (In his mind it’s far worse than being found liable for rape or espionage or sedition.) She’s appearing before Republican voters and some of them may not have heard this before so he really needs for her to shut up and go home. So far, she doesn’t seem inclined to do that so the feud will escalate until she does. He’s not going to let it go. An uppity woman refusing to bend the knee when he tells her to is something he simply cannot abide.

He’s flexing his muscles in Washington with much better results. It was only a matter of time before he openly asserted himself into the arduous negotiations over the funding bill for Ukraine and the border and needless to say he did so in the most destructive and self-serving manner possible. Mitch McConnell reportedly told his caucus this week that “the politics have changed” and Trump doesn’t want any legislative action on the border in order to keep it as an election issue for him and it wouldn’t be prudent to “undermine” him. Some Senators said they didn’t hear it exactly that way but it’s pretty clear that’s exactly what happened.

Trump himself confirmed his wishes on Truth Social last night:

Nobody knows what he means by the country having to “close up” for a while if there is no agreement but you can bet that whatever it is, it will be catastrophic. It’s clear that he wants the congress to refuse to do any deal until he can win and create the “PERFECT” border.

There are reports that this negotiation is not actually dead and there are some Republicans besides Romney on the record saying that they are still in favor of passing something since Biden has made such big concessions that they don’t think they’ll ever get another chance. This news did not seem to persuade the hardcore Trumpers in the US Congress who don’t care about the reality of the border as much as they care about having the issue of the border to express their solidarity with Donald Trump and their racist base. Any real reforms would be counter-productive.

And since they are totally shameless, the utter hypocrisy of standing before the American people and bellowing about the crisis on the border in the same breath that they say they don’t want to give Biden a “win” so they’ll refuse to take action for the next year is not an impediment.

There is a new dynamic in MAGA world that may shake things up in ways we can’t anticipate. This border crisis is no longer just a matter of Washington dysfunction. 25 Republican governors have come together in solidarity behind Governor Greg Abbott of Texas in his defiance of a Supreme Court order to allow the Border Patrol to remove razor wire the state has installed to maim and kill any migrants who try to cross the border. Declaring that they have a right to defend themselves from an “invasion” (based upon a fatuous reading of the constitution) Gov. Greg Abbott is refusing to comply. Essentially, he and the other GOP Governors are calling for “nullification” a concept we thought we had settled with the civil war. Apparently, these states have decided that they might just want another one.

Here’s the Governor of Oklahoma openly discussing a violent confrontation with the federal government.

Dear Leader is right there with them:

You read that right. The putative GOP Nominee for president is exhorting Republican governors to send the national guard to Texas to fight the federal government. It’s unclear how this is going to work out but we know now that these Governors are all on board the Trump train and eager to help him exacerbate the problem for his political gain. The GOP House and Senate could only dream of being this coordinated. The new power center of the MAGA movement is in the states and if you’re getting a feeling of deja vu, you’re not alone. We’ve been here before.

Salon

“Infrastructure Decade”

Published by Tom Sullivan on January 26, 2024

Biden delivers, Trump dithers

Screen cap via WGN.

President Joe Biden was in Superior, Wisconsin on Thursday to tout federal funds released to replace the obsolete Blatnik Bridge between Superior and Duluth, Minnesota. The bridge opened in 1961.

“For decades, people talked about replacing this bridge, but it never got done, until today,” Biden told a crowd. He made sure to take a poke at Donald “91 Counts” Trump who over four years of inaction turned “Infrastructure Week” into a punchline.

“On my watch, instead of Infrastructure Week, America is having an Infrastructure Decade,” Biden quipped.

Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure investments already have poured $6.1 billion into Wisconsin and $5.7 billion into Minnesota:

And I’m proud to announce $1 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will be used to build this new bridge, a new bridge that will increase capacity for large trucks and oversized loads; a new bridge with a modern design, wider shoulders, smother on — smoother on and off ramps; a new bridge with a shared path for pedestrians and cyclists.

Biden continued:

In Wisconsin and Minnesota, we’re investing $2.5 billion — $2.5 billion in high-speed Internet.  And we’re going to save — (applause) — and we’re going to save more than 600,000 families in these two states up to $30 a month on their Internet bills.  The household that I came from, that matters.  Those $30 extra at the end of the month — bills all add up when you’re living on a fixed salary.

We’re also investing $1.1 billion in your state to provide clean water and replace poisonous lead pipes.  (Applause.)  Every lead pipe is going to be taken out so you can turn on your faucet and drink clean water without getting sick. 

At Daily Kos, Just Saying compiled a bullet list of Biden achievements too long to list here.

“Scottholes”

Wisconsin Democrats’ state chair Ben Wikler appeared on MSNBC’s “The Last Word” to drive home that message. Biden has delivered. Under Wisconsin’s former Republican governor, Scott Walker, highway infrastructure neglect led to people renaming crumbling  pavement “Scottholes.”

Even Fox Business had to admit Biden has delivered (The Hill):

Fox Business host Larry Kudlow, who served as director of the National Economic Council (NEC) during the Trump administration, said President Biden is justified in touting the economy’s strong numbers, saying, “I would be bragging about it, too.”

“I’m an honest broker. He got a good 3.3 percent [gross domestic product] number for the fourth quarter, following a good 4.9 percent in the third quarter, OK. If I were he, I would be bragging about it, too. And inflation has come down,” Kudlow said on his Fox Business Network show Thursday.

“All’s fair in love, war and politics. Brag when you can. I get it. I’ve been there,” he continued.

Kudlow, of course, both-sided his praise with concern that all that government infrastructure spending will be inflationary. Well, Larry, inflation is down too. You just said so.

“The economy has continued to grow in recent months” The Hill continues, both-sidesing, “but voters still say they trust former President Trump on the economy more than they do Biden.”  

In 2013, as many as 12 million Americans believed “interstellar lizards in people suits rule our country.” In 2021, fifteen percent of Americans believed “that the government and other entities are controlled by Satan-worshipping pedophiles running a child sex trafficking ring.” And yet news outlets credit such beliefs with column inches.

(h/t BF)

Destroyer Of Worlds

Published by Tom Sullivan on January 26, 2024

Watching the world burn

“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

J. Robert Oppenheimer invoked the line from the Bhagavad Gita in life and in film in reference to the towering pillar of fire he witnessed in exploding the world’s first atomic bomb. Donald “91 Counts” Trump is not literate enough to know the reference, but the 77-year-old toddler means to destroy ours if he does not get his way. With the country. With women. With his political adversaries. With Europe. With the itchy mind-worm of Daddy Fred’s judgment: Loser.

Republicans have ginned up public concern over the southern border into a major 2024 campaign issue. They hold President Joe Biden responsible for a supposedly “open” southern border while actively working — at Donald Trump’s behest — to prevent any congressional action to address border issues.

https://bsky.app/profile/adamserwer.bsky.social/post/3kjtyndevss2b

Military aid to Ukraine for repelling (Trump pal) Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invaders is tied up in a border security deal being negotiated in the Senate (and opposed by House Republicans). Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has “reluctantly agreed to tie” Ukraine and other foreign aid “to border security,” reports The Washington Post:

The border deal, which negotiators say may be released as soon as next week, is focused on making it harder for migrants to seek asylum, changes to the use of parole for migrants, and a mechanism to effectively close down the border on days when crossings were particularly high. The overall aid package requested by President Biden includes $106 billion in military assistance for Israel, Ukraine and Indo-Pacific nations as well as humanitarian aid and U.S. border funds.

But passage is entangled with Trump’s need for a campaign issue (NBC News):

Tempers flared Thursday as Republicans battled among themselves over whether to accept or reject a deal for tougher immigration laws, with some pushing back on colleagues who want to bow to former President Donald Trump’s wishes and kill it.

“The border is a very important issue for Donald Trump. And the fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and Congress people that he doesn’t want us to solve the border problem — because he wants to blame Biden for it — is really appalling,” Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, told reporters.

“The American people are suffering as a result of what’s happening at the border,” he said. “And someone running for president ought to try and get the problem solved, as opposed to saying, ‘Hey, save that problem! Don’t solve it! Let me take credit for solving it later.’”

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., urged his colleagues not to make it all about politics at the behest of another candidate.

“I didn’t come here to have the president as a boss or a candidate as a boss. I came here to pass good, solid policy,” Tillis said. “It is immoral for me to think you looked the other way because you think this is the linchpin for President Trump to win.”

Morality? This is Donald John Trump’s party we’re talking about. “Qui cum canibus concumbunt cum pulicibus surgent.”

Now, about blowing up things (CNN):

Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged in a private meeting on Wednesday that Trump’s animosity toward the yet-to-be-released border deal puts Republicans in a serious bind as they try to move forward on the already complex issue. For weeks, Republicans have been warning that Trump’s opposition could blow up the bipartisan proposal, but the admission from McConnell was particularly striking, given he has been a chief advocate for a border-Ukraine package.

U.S. failure to resupply Ukraine’s defense against Russia presents a serious threat to NATO (already on Trump’s shit-list) and to broader European security. Not that Trump cares about anything other than his personal fortunes and petty grievances.

“Do Republicans want to sponsor the 2024 equivalent of Saigon 1975?” the Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board asks of Republican dithering on Ukraine aid.

Democrats have an opening here to further drive home Republicans’ fecklessness on national and international security policy and their obsequiousness to Trump. Dan Pfeiffer explains “the way Trump, McConnell, and the Republicans torpedoed this bipartisan deal is so ham-handed and patently cynical as to present Democrats with the chance to turn a weakness into a strength; and hopefully put Trump on the defensive on his top issue. “

Turd Blossom would do it in a skinny minute if he thought there was political advantage in it.

And Trump? If that joker cannot get his win, he’ll watch the world burn.

Sick, sick, sick

Published by digby on January 25, 2024

Daily dispatch from the Death Cult

We are a very primitive people using technology for primitive ends:

The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to stay the execution of an Alabama inmate by nitrogen hypoxia, an untested method that experts have warned could cause him extreme pain and suffering.

Should a separate appeal still pending in federal court not pan out the way advocates and his legal team hope, Kenneth Eugene Smith will be the first person in the United States to be lethally suffocated by nitrogen gas on Thursday evening.

A terse court order noted that both Smith’s application for a stay and his petition for a writ of certiorari—a request for the high court to take up his case—had been denied. No justices publicly dissented from the order.

Smith has been on death row for more than a quarter-century for the 1988 murder-for-hire killing of preacher’s wife Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett. In 2022, he survived an attempt by the state to execute him by lethal injection. After officials spent hours jabbing at him with needles, probing for a vein they could use to put him to death, the execution was called off before the death warrant could expire at midnight.

“They were just sticking me over and over, going in the same hole like a freaking sewing machine,” Smith told NPR recently. “I was absolutely alone in a room full of people, and not one of them tried to help me at all—and I was crying out for help.”

The use of nitrogen gas in Alabama’s death chamber has prompted an outcry from advocates and experts around the world, including the United Nations, which issued a statement earlier this month expressing “alarm” that the method would likely violate its convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment.

“We are concerned that nitrogen hypoxia would result in a painful and humiliating death,” a panel of four U.N. experts wrote.

Others have challenged Alabama’s decision to shroud its preparations in secrecy, redacting key sections of its published protocol. “There’s no precedent for it,” Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told CNN this week. “There’s no testing of this procedure. No one knows how it’s going to occur.”

Smith, who has said in interviews that he is “absolutely terrified” of his upcoming execution date, has argued that the use of nitrogen gas is a violation of his constitutional rights under the 8th Amendment. His lawyers have also said that the previous execution attempt, which left Smith suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, raises questions about its ability to execute him this week.

[…]

Another issue is the question of nitrogen gas escaping the mask that will be fitted over Smith’s face in the chamber, posing a potential threat to the others who will be in the room. NPR reported last month that Smith’s spiritual advisor, the Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood, has been made to sign a waiver acknowledging that he could be exposed to the invisible and odorless gas during the execution.

“It’s so telling that they just have no idea, and that they’re going to try to kill him in a way that could kill other people, too,” Dr. Joel Zivot, an anesthesiologist and associate professor at Emory University School of Medicine, said to NPR. “They’re not being realistic about what exactly is at stake here.”

They are so desperate to kill that they will do anything to achieve their goal. This man could be kept behind bars for the rest of his life. There is no reason to kill him other than primitive vengeance. And they don’t care if other, innocent people get killed in the process. It’s sick.

It Was The Pandemic, Stupid

Published by digby on January 25, 2024

Why did anyone ever think otherwise?

Krugman on the dynamite economic news today:

The U.S. economy is still growing fast, surpassing almost everyone’s expectations. Inflation is right at the Fed’s target. Let me explain why this is bad for President Biden.

OK, actually, no. Biden couldn’t have asked for better numbers.

Politics aside, these numbers help us make sense of the inflation that dogged America for a couple of years but plunged in 2023.

Here’s a wonkish chart, comparing the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation, the core personal consumption expenditures deflator (hey, don’t blame me), with a measure of labor market slack — the difference between the unemployment rate and the Congressional Budget Office estimate of normal, or “noncyclical,” unemployment. As you can see, before Covid there was a weak and noisy but still real relationship between the two: more slack, lower inflation.

Then inflation really took off. Many Biden critics, including some Democrats, blamed the big spending of Biden’s first year. But there was always a puzzle: Deficit spending is supposed to cause inflation by causing economic overheating, yet this should have been reflected in ultra-low unemployment, which didn’t happen. What happened instead was a period in which inflation was much higher than you would have expected, given unemployment.

But here’s the thing: At this point, we’re right back on the historical relationship.

The obvious story here is that we went through an episode of high inflation because of lingering but ultimately transitory supply disruptions caused by Covid, and that we’re back on track because the economy finally adjusted. Indeed, it takes real intellectual gymnastics not to tell that story.

So on inflation, it wasn’t Biden, it was the virus. And it’s over.

Of course it was. When you stop the global economy cold there is going to be a massive reaction. It’s wasn’t structural. I never understood why that wasn’t the default explanation.

Oh, and by the way, the media is finally starting to shift into reality:

Land Doesn’t Vote

Published by digby on January 25, 2024

It’s always worthwhile to circulate this map. Just so people can be reminded that our government is supposed to represent people not dirt.

Dean “Who?” It’s been reported that Phillips is almost certainly flirting with No Labels. Unfortunately for him, they are very unlikely to choose some cipher. But he’s a rich guy and his consultants are making big bank exploiting him which is fine. But really — what an ass.

No Labels Has A New Advocate

Published by digby on January 25, 2024

Has anything in the world ever been more predictable than this?

Former Attorney General Bill Barr is coming to the defense of No Labels and their longshot third party effort.

In a Wednesday op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Barr accused Democrat operatives of potentially breaking the law in response to a complaint filed by No Labels with the Department of Justice describing retaliatory tactics against members and efforts to keep them from making state ballots, an already complicated and costly effort for third parties.

The No Labels complaint describes an alleged “conspiracy to use retaliation, fear, intimidation, and even threats of violence” to keep the group off of ballots.

No Labels provided accounts of threats and phone calls from Democrat operatives as evidence of their claims.

“Although I am a committed Republican and not part of No Labels’ effort, I believe the campaign to disenfranchise the group is profoundly wrong. Poll after poll shows American voters want a choice beyond Joe Biden and Donald Trump,” Barr wrote about the situation.

If the accusations are true, he argued, then they amount to an attack on voter rights, an issue many Democrats have made central to their platforms amidst Trump’s constant talk of supposed voter fraud.

“Imagine what the progressive left would say if there were a campaign under way, with at least tacit support from the White House, to prevent Americans from registering to vote,” he wrote. “The current effort to block No Labels’ ballot access is as outrageous as taking away someone’s right to vote.”

No Labels is a Republican stalking horse effort so of course Barr would be supportive. He hates Democrats way more than he hates Trump and the Republicans, even now.

Here’s what the lawsuit is actually about:

For months, the centrist group No Labels has stockpiled cash and diligently worked to secure ballot access for a potential third-party presidential bid, striking fear among allies of President Joe Biden that the effort could siphon away votes and hand the White House to Donald Trump.

Now, with a rematch between Biden and Trump looking likely, two Democratic-aligned groups this week filed campaign finance complaints, hoping to crimp No Labels’ pipeline of campaign cash and force the group to follow the same rules as formal political parties.

The complaints, filed by the groups End Citizens United and Accountable.US, are part of a broader Democratic effort to ramp up legal scrutiny and elicit public scorn for No Labels as it teases a possible White House run by an as-of-yet unannounced ticket that many Democrats worry will play electoral spoiler.

“We are continuing to work every single avenue with our partners to hold (No Labels) accountable legally, to expose them publicly and to make sure they are playing by the same rules as everyone else,” said Tiffany Muller, the president of End Citizens United. “I don’t think it’s any secret that No Labels is a threat to our democracy if they run a third-party (candidate). That’s going to siphon off votes from President Biden and reelect Donald Trump.”

In a statement, No Labels on Wednesday disputed any suggestion that the group had done anything improper and dismissed the complaints as part of a “coordinated conspiracy to subvert No Labels’ ballot access and limit Americans’ choices.”

No Labels regularly promotes itself as a “common sense” centrist organization. But while the group has established No Labels political parties in numerous states, at the national level it is actually registered as a nonprofit with the IRS. That has enabled No Labels to operate with limited transparency while accepting unlimited sums from an anonymous set of donors — a source of financing often referred to pejoratively as “dark money.”

If the Democrat-aligned groups are successful, No Labels would not only be compelled to register as a formal political party with the Federal Election Commission, but it would also have its tax-exempt status revoked, be forced to abide by the same donation amount limits as other political parties and be required to reveal its big-money donors.

I don’t know about this cause of action. Maybe No Labels has a point on the legal technicalities. But they are anti-democracy saboteurs who’ve decided to do what they are doing at the worst possible time in order to break the Democrats and they don’t care how they do it. They know that Trump will benefit and that he will destroy democracy as we know it. Defending itself on the basis of “democracy” is a terrible joke.

A Message From Our Once And Possible Future Dictator

Published by digby on January 25, 2024

He’s openly threatening anyone who supports Haley — and no doubt any of his other enemies. Come crawling now or never crawl to me again. I doubt he rally means it. He won’t turn away money. But he does want to see who comes running.

Why is he so desperate and angry at Haley? He’s ahead in all the polls, he won the first two contests, he’s certain to be the nominee. Could it possibly be that he just can’t stand a woman who refuses to succumb to his orders?

In any case, this was the response:

She said she’s raised a million dollars since her New Hampshire speech, mostly from small donors. She probably raised even more since Trump’s fatwa against her donors.