I couldn’t help but think that Kimberly may have just realized that she bet on the wrong horse.
"what digby sez..."
Digby's Hullabaloo Posts
The story in the NY Times takes apart their ridiculous claim, which I’m sure you’ve all heard about by now. Millions of people no doubt believe that the FBI tried to assassinate Donald Trump now. The lies just pile on top of each other. It’s good to see the Times calling it like it is.
There’s a certain hysteria about the GOP’s talking points right now that indicted a lack of confidence in their candidate. That’s understandable since their candidate is a convicted felon who is also a narcissistic pathological liar. But still, lately they’ve been completely out of their minds.
The reaction to he verdict is the best example. They went completely over the top — all of them — complaining that it was a partisan prosecution and a political verdict. It was clearly coordinated to try to intimidate the Democrats into being afraid to use it in the campaign. (That’s not going to work — I hope.)
Just yesterday they all went nuts over a random post by a self-professed “shit-poster” on facebook who had written a post before the verdict saying tat his cousin was on the jury and told him they were going to convict. This was brought to the attention of the judbge who said they will hold a hearing on it. But it was obviously a hoax which the shitposter himself admitted. That didn’t stop Fox News and the entire right wing media from having a complete meltdown over it and demanding a mistrial. Trump himself got in on the action.
They are working their voters up into a paranoid frenzy and I think we all know where that’s going to lead if he loses in November. It’s incredibly irresponsible but that’s the definition of the Republican party in the 2020s.
It’s not the Democrats
Cornel West’s independent presidential campaign is broke. His former campaign manager says he knows nothing about ballot access. And he spent more on graphic design than petition-gathering in his most recent campaign finance report.
But tens of thousands of signatures have been gathered on behalf of the famed left-wing academic in key states thanks to self-organized grassroots volunteers — and some help from outside operatives tied to a Republican consulting firm.
[…]
Emails from elections officials, obtained through a request under North Carolina’s Public Records Law, show the pro-West Justice for All Party authorized three people to pick up and drop off signatures for them statewide — and all three are current or past employees of a Colorado-based Republican political firm called Blitz Canvassing.
Blitz Canvassing has worked for numerous Republican House and Senate candidates and took in more than $14.6 million in payments working for Never Back Down, the main super PAC that supported former GOP presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, according to campaign finance reports.
“In the same way that Republicans have quietly pushed ballot access for the Green Party across the country for years, there’s concrete evidence — not rumors, but evidence — in North Carolina and in other states of an organized Republican effort to get Cornel West on ballots, using Republican consultants and vendors that the West campaign is not paying for,” said Pete Kavanaugh, who founded Clear Choice Action, a new Democratic super PAC working to combat third-party candidates.
West could do something about this, of course. He could withdraw from the race. But they’d just work for one of the other freedom saboteurs so I’m not sure it makes a difference.
This is not a grassroots operation. Someone is paying for it. And those someones are Republicans. I’d really like to see the press in general take a page out of MSNBC’s book here and do some in depth reporting on GOP shenanigans for once. Trump’s relentless accusations that Democrats are rigging the elections is projection as usual.
Update:
You want rigging? I’ll give you rigging. This one concerns a US Senator– Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson. He was up to his neck in the fake electoral scheme and lied about it.
As I’ve been watching the D-Day commemorations the last few days it’s obviously brought up thoughts about the history of our alliances in Europe and why they have been so important. The idea that the United States can withdraw behind its borders and pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist has been proven wrong over and over again. We may not want to participate with the rest of the world but it certainly wants to participate with us, one way or the other.
The first half of the last century was cataclysmic and the relative peace of the second half was largely achieved by recognizing the fact that closing your eyes to everything but your own domestic concerns never works. Being the world’s only superpower certainly makes that impossible.
Allowing ignoramuses like Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene to be in charge of such an awesome responsibility is one of the most reckless acts in human history.
All the greatest hits
Onward radical constitutionalists
In his early years in stand-up comedy, the late George Carlin played more with observational humor, mocking, for example, the internal contradiction in the term “jumbo shrimp.”
What to make now of “radical constitutionalism” (Washington Post):
A battle-tested D.C. bureaucrat and self-described Christian nationalist is drawing up detailed plans for a sweeping expansion of presidential power in a second Trump administration. Russ Vought, who served as the former president’sbudget chief, calls his political strategy for razing long-standing guardrails “radical constitutionalism.”
He has helped craft proposals for Donald Trump to deploy the military to quash civil unrest, seize more control over the Justice Department and assert the power to withhold congressional appropriations — and that’s just on Trump’s first day back in office.
And they called 1960s yippies radicals for having long hair, beards, and for wearing the American flag. Guess they won that culture war. Vought seemingly hasn’t noticed.
“We are living in a post-Constitutional time,” Vought wrote in a seminal 2022 essay, which argued that the left has corrupted the nation’s laws and institutions. Last week, after a jury convicted Trump of falsifying business records, Vought tweeted: “Do not tell me that we are living under the Constitution.”
Vought aims to harness what he calls the “woke and weaponized” bureaucracy that stymied the former president by stocking federal agencies with hardcore disciples who would wage culture wars on abortion and immigration. The proposals championed by Vought and other Trump allies to fundamentally reset the balance of power would represent a historic shift — one they see as a needed corrective.
Tell the guy in the Filipkowski tweet above that he’s out of step with the New Trump Order and in need of correction.
From the Trump campaign’s efforts to distance itself from Vought’s remarks and Center for Renewing America correspondence, what seems obvious is that these proud Christian nationalists believe that they can steer Trump’s agenda in his second term. They believe they can control him the way the Weimar boys “persisted in their delusion that they could control” the loudmouth Austrian with the funny moustache and yet “preserve the ‘guardrails’ that would contain him.” You know, they’ll help Trump exact retribution on his growing enemies list and he, in turn, will help them turn the United States into Gilead, a glorious, new Christian reich.
The Post recounts the failure of people like Vought to get what they wanted from the first Trump administration. But this time it will be different, no doubt about it.
Vought’s long careeras a staffer in Congress and at federal agencies has made himan asset to Project 2025, an initiative led by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, to lay the groundwork for a second Trump term. Vought wrote the chapter on the executive office of the president in Project 2025’s 920-page blueprint, and he is developing its playbook for the first 180 days, according to the people involved in the effort.
“We’re going to plant the flags now,” Vought told Trump’s former strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, on his far-right podcast. “It becomes a new governing consensus of the Republican Party.”
Maybe everyone will be ordered to wear two shirts instead of armbands.
As Vought and other Trump allies work on blueprints for a second term,he is pushing a strategy he calls “radical constitutionalism.” The left has discarded the Constitution, Vought argues, so conservatives need to rise up, wrest power from the federal bureaucracy and centralize authority in the Oval Office.
“Our need is not just to win congressional majorities that blame the other side or fill seats on court benches to meddle at the margins,” he wrote in the 2022 essay. “It is to cast ourselves as dissidents of the current regime and to put on our shoulders the full weight of envisioning, articulating, and defending what a Radical Constitutionalism requires in the late hour that our country finds itself in, and then to do it.”
In practice, that could mean reinterpreting parts of the Constitution to achieve policy goals — such as by defining illegal immigration as an “invasion,” which would allow states to use wartime powers to stop it.
“We showed that millions of illegal aliens coming across, and Mexican cartels holding operational control of the border, constitute an invasion,” Vought wrote. “This is where we need to be radical in discarding or rethinking the legal paradigms that have confined our ability to return to the original Constitution.”
As radical as Benedict Arnold, if that’s what it takes. He was an original too.
Vought’s views amount to a kind of Anglo-Protestant cultural supremacism, said Paul D. Miller, a Georgetown University professor who published a book critiquing Christian nationalism.
“The Civil War taught us that America is big and broad and strong enough to include non-Christians and non-Whites,”Miller wrote in an email to The Post. “It also should have taught us that the greatest threat to the American vision are racial and religious supremacists.”
Update: Replaced original image containing copyright watermark.
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.
Revenge is mine
The Republican Party might actually draft a platform in 2024 for the first time in eight years. And a “Stop the Steal” election denier will lead them (The New Republic):
On May 15, Ed Martin, a former chair of the Missouri Republican Party, was hired to serve as the deputy policy director of the platform committee, reported NBC News. Martin is well known for supporting Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, even giving a speech in Washington, D.C., the day before the January 6 Capitol riots in 2021 to rally Trump’s supporters.
“No matter what happens tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after, we still need to be in the fight. There’s no summer soldiers and springtime patriots here. There’s the die-hard true Americans,” Martin said in that speech. “We start today, go through tomorrow and every day till we have a last breath and go home to the Lord because we will stop the steal.”
Well. Echoes of Gone with the Wind.
Of course, “true Americans” is a euphemism in an organization imbued with the spirit of the convicted criminal of the hour, The Man of 30,000 Lies.
The New Republic adds, “Martin’s appointment suggests that 2024’s platform will include challenging the integrity of any election that Republicans lose.”
Yes, but what else might that platform include? What all-American value might lie at the heart of a platform worthy of a man who thinks only of himself?
ABC News offers a clue:
Former President Donald Trump continues to center his third presidential campaign on retribution against his political allies, saying in a recent interview that at times revenge is “justified” — comments that President Joe Biden’s campaign seized on Friday to point to Trump’s focus on personal and political retribution.
[…]
In an interview with television host Dr. Phil McGraw — best known as “Dr. Phil,” Trump was asked about his calls for retribution, and his claims of taking action against some political opponents. Though Trump originally said he would work on forgiving and forgetting, he quickly changed his tune after McGraw, referencing the pope, said forgiveness was necessary in order to avoid revenge.
“Well revenge does take time. I will say that, and sometimes revenge can be justified,” Trump said in the interview that aired Thursday night.
Justified: Donald Trump is Raylan Givens, a tough deputy U.S. Marshal enforcing his own brand of justice. Except deputy is below convict Trump’s station and he’s prohibited from owning a gun. Whateva.
“You know the word ‘revenge’ is a very strong word, but maybe we have revenge for success. But that’s what I’d like to see. I want to see the country survive, because this country is not going to survive like this.”
Revenge For Success could be Trump’s next slapdash, ghost-written volume on screwing your neighbors. (Make sure that gets into the platform, Ed, if it takes your last breath before you go home to the Lord, justified.)
Imagine the acceptance speech Trump might give next month (with a few minor edits):
In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny . . . and I say . . . retribution today . . . retribution tomorrow . . . retribution forever.
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.
Lion Cubs!
London Zoo’s three Asiatic lion cubs have been pictured taking their first steps outside with mother Arya.
The 8-week-old cubs appeared tentative at first, looking to mum for reassurance, but were soon spotted skipping around their Indian-inspired habitat, chasing each other and playing with mum’s tail.
The cubs, born on 13 March 2024, have so far spent their time cosied up in their special indoor cub dens with mum. The trio are yet to be sexed, and this will happen during their first health check later this month. From their first moments of nursing to their playful antics inside the den, every development has been closely monitored by zookeepers and captured on the zoo’s hidden “cubcam”.
The three cubs are an important addition to the conservation breeding programme, which safeguards a healthy population of the Critically Endangered species. Surviving only in the Gir Forest in Gujarat, India, the wild population is particularly vulnerable to disease or natural disaster. Recent population estimates suggest that only 600 to 700 individuals remain in the wild.
Trump vs Biden on D-Day
I actually had this thought myself yesterday as I was watching Trump’s rally following Biden’s speech in Normandy. Dana Milbank:
President Biden went to Normandy and spoke about American greatness. Donald Trump went to Phoenix and called the United States a “failed nation” and a “very sick country.”
In France, Biden rhapsodized about “the story of America” told by the rows of graves at the Normandy America Cemetery: “Nearly 10,000 heroes buried side by side, officers and enlisted, immigrants and native-born, different races, different faiths, but all Americans.”
In Phoenix, Trump, invoked the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, saying Biden had orchestrated an “invasion” at the border as part of “a deliberate demolition of our sovereignty” because “they probably think these people are going to be voting.”
Biden hailed NATO, the “greatest military alliance in the history of the world,” and vowed to defend Ukraine: “To bow down to dictators is simply unthinkable. Were we to do that, it means we’d be forgetting what happened here on these hallowed beaches.”
Trump hailed a modern-day tyrant, Hungary’s Viktor Orban (“strong man, very powerful man”), complained about “endless wars” and “delinquent” Europeans, and vowed to “spend our money in our country” — including by “moving thousands of troops, if necessary, currently stationed overseas to our own borders.”
Biden honored the heroes of Operation Overlord, who launched an invasion to liberate a continent knowing “the probability of dying was real.” Trump promised the “largest domestic deportation operation” in U.S. history.
Biden spoke powerfully about the threat to democracy then, and now: “In their hour of trial, the Allied forces of D-Day did their duty. Now, the question for us is, in our hour of trial, will we do ours? We’re living in a time when democracy is more at risk across the world than at any point since the end of World War II, since these beaches were stormed in 1944. Now, we have to ask ourselves: Will we stand against tyranny? … Will we defend democracy? Will we stand together? My answer is yes, and only can be yes.”
And Trump? Though he posted on social media about the “immortal heroes who landed at Normandy,” his message in Phoenix was full of self-absorbed thoughts on his “rigged trial in New York” and nihilistic commentary: “It’s all fake. Impeachment is a fake. The court cases are a disgrace to our country. Everything is fake.” He went on: “I don’t like using the word ‘bulls—’ in front of these beautiful children, so I will not say it.”
The crowd struck up a chant: “Bulls—! Bulls—! Bulls—!”
Trump laughed.
When I was young, people like those at Trump rallies who talked about America in such derogatory terms would be told “love it or leave it.” Now they all dress up in red, white and blue to watch an America hating sociopath and scream bullshit.
Thank heavens it’s Friday. I need a drink.
You knew that, of course. She’s managed to delay the stolen classified documents trial so long that it’s almost impossible for it to be tried before the election. It’s obvious that she has a bias for the defense, which shouldn’t be too much of a surprise since Trump appointed her and many of the judges he appointed were highly partisan and chosen for that reason. She’s also extremely inexperienced and possibly a little bit weird on top of it.
CNN took an in depth look at her work and it’s very interesting:
Several attorneys who have practiced in front of Cannon – and who spoke to CNN for this story – pointed to her isolation as one explanation for her conduct. Cannon’s solitary post in the Fort Pierce courthouse, one that rarely sees high-profile action, deprives her of the informal, day-to-day interactions with more seasoned judges who sit at the other courthouses and could offer her advice, the lawyers told CNN.
They also said Cannon’s lack of trial experience, both as a lawyer and a judge, is apparent. In her seven years as a Justice Department attorney, Cannon participated on the trial teams of just four criminal cases. And on the bench, she’s only presided over a handful of criminal trials – and Huck took over one of them.
[…]
The attorneys described Cannon as extremely diligent and well prepared, a tough questioner who accepts nothing at face value, and thoughtful in her rulings. But they also said that some of her habits that have raised eyebrows in Trump’s case have plagued her approach from the bench more generally. Those tendencies include a penchant for letting irrelevant legal questions distract from core issues, a zero-tolerance approach to any technical defects in filings, and a struggle with docket management that allows the type of pretrial disputes that other judges would decide in weeks go unresolved for months.
“She is not efficient,” said one attorney who practices in south Florida. “She is very form over substance.” Another attorney described her as “indecisive.” A third attorney who’s had cases before Cannon said, “She just seems overwhelmed by the process.”
Five months after Huck visited Cannon in Fort Pierce, she was thrust into the center of back-to-back legal hurricanes. First, she oversaw the lawsuit Trump brought challenging the FBI’s search of his Mar-a-Lago residence that August, when agents found hundreds of classified documents scattered about the property. (Cannon granted Trump’s request for a third-party review of the search, only to see her rulings reversed by a conservative appeals court.) Then, in a twist of fate last June, Cannon was assigned the criminal case in which Trump is charged with 40 felony counts of allegedly mishandling classified documents and obstructing the government’s attempts to find them.
The high-profile national security case is a dramatic departure from most of the other criminal cases playing out in Cannon’s courtroom, the bulk of which are more mundane prosecutions like gun charges or immigration infractions that are often resolved through guilty pleas, a CNN review of her case log showed.
Cannon’s assignment to the documents case was a game of odds. Though the charges were filed in West Palm Beach, the division that is home to Mar-a-Lago, Cannon was randomly chosen from a broader pool of judges in Florida’s southern district.
Her approach as a jurist – detail-obsessed to the point of tedious – appears uniquely prone to being exploited by a defense team eager to delay the case. And the complicated system Cannon has set up for redacting public filings has only exacerbated a backlog of unresolved issues. She still has not decided foundational questions that will determine whether the Trump case will go to trial. Marginal issues clutter her docket, including a longshot motion to invalidate Jack Smith’s appointment as special counsel that she’s scheduled a hearing on later this month.
Some attorneys who have practiced before Cannon chalked up her struggle handling the practical logistics of being a trial court judge to her background of mostly appellate work for the local US Attorney’s office. They described her as latching onto abstract, academic questions at the expense of the type of on-the-fly decision-making required by trial judges that keeps litigation moving along.
As Cannon slowly plods through the backlog of issues on her plate, special counsel prosecutors are now learning firsthand the wrath that they can incur from the judge for seemingly minor discrepancies in their filings, and they have drawn Cannon’s ire for pushing her to move more quickly to resolve the substantive pretrial issues that have slowed the pace of the case to a crawl. “You can’t really take issue with her, otherwise it’s going to work against you,” a fourth attorney who has practiced before Cannon said.
Trump’s attorneys have also attracted heat from Cannon, though far less often than the special counsel.
Defense attorneys CNN spoke to described Cannon as a judge who gives minimal deference to defendants and as a “notoriously” tough sentencer. To that end, the long leash she’s given the Trump team in the pretrial phase of the case has struck a chord with them.“She’s certainly not sympathetic to most defendants, and she’s certainly playing a different game with the current defendant before her,” another lawyer told CNN, in reference to Trump.
Read the whole thing. Considering the way the right wing has packed the federal courts with extremists and hacks, I think Occam’s Razor suggests she’s just a MAGA shill. How would the results of her decisions be any different?
But it’s also possible that she’s inexperienced and isolated and doesn’t have a clue. After all, that’s how Trump runs the government, why should it be the same for MAGA acolytes? The sad fact is that the only way this will ever get anywhere is if Trump loses in November and the federal judiciary decides they’re through with Trump.