Democratic presidential hopeful and known anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Sunday that he would support a national ban on abortion after the first three months of pregnancy if elected, only to walk back the stance hours later alleging he “misunderstood” repeated questions from NBC News on the topic.
“Mr. Kennedy misunderstood a question posed to him by an NBC reporter in a crowded, noisy exhibit hall at the Iowa State Fair,” a spokesperson said, clarifying the candidate’s stance on abortion as “always” being the woman’s right to choose. Kennedy “does not support legislation banning abortion,” the spokesman added.
But Sunday morning, Kennedy was much more specific, telling NBC: “I believe a decision to abort a child should be up to the women during the first three months of life.” Pressed on whether that meant signing a federal ban at 15 or 21 weeks, he said yes.
“Once a child is viable, outside the womb, I think then the state has an interest in protecting the child,” he continued, adding “I’m for medical freedom. Individuals are able to make their own choices.”
The original stance put Kennedy — who’s mounting a controversial, long-shot bid to unseat President Joe Biden as the Democratic standard-bearer in 2024 — out of step with the majority of his party at a time when abortion access has been a sustained motivator for voters.
A leading conservative anti-abortion group, Susan B. Anthony List, praised Kennedy’s position in a statement, calling it “a stark contrast to the Democratic Party’s radical stance of abortion on demand. … Kennedy is one of the few prominent Democrats aligned with the consensus of the people today. Every candidate should be asked, ‘Where do you draw the line?’”
In the interview, Kennedy defended running as a Democrat, despite espousing multiple typically conservative talking points during the 15-minute appearance.
For instance, Kennedy said he would not have voted to support the Inflation Reduction Act, among the biggest Democratic policy wins of Biden’s first term. Asked about the hundreds of billions of dollars in investments to fight climate change in the legislation, Kennedy said: “They say that this is fighting climate change; it’s actually doing the opposite.”
Kennedy steeply trails Biden in the polls and has been dogged by controversy in his few months as a candidate, including his having spread repeated disinformation about the efficacy of vaccinations and deaths during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well antisemitic remarks.
While he agreed that former President Donald Trump had lost the 2020 election, he posited that “elections can get stolen in this country.” Asked whether he thinks Trump tried to overturn the election results after he lost, Kennedy said that based on what he has seen, “it seems like he was trying to overturn it.”
Yah think? He went on to say that he didn’t think all these indictments are disqualifying but a conviction might be.
JACK SMITH’S LATEST indictment of Donald Trump isn’t yet two weeks old, but the alleged “co-conspirators” it identifies are already beginning to turn on each other — and some of them aren’t even being subtle about it.
A number of the ex-president’s chief lieutenants and alleged co-conspirators in the plot to overturn the election, such as conservative attorneyJohn Eastman, have insisted the effort was perfectly legal and based on sound evidence. Others, however, have recently sought to distance themselves from the efforts of others, implicitly heaping the blame for any potential criminal conduct onto fellow participants in Trump’s attempted coup.
“It is the ‘please don’t put me in jail, put that other guy in jail’ strategy that was sure to come up at some point or another,” says one attorney working in Trump’s legal orbit.
Attorneys for veterans of Trump’s post-election activities like Rudy Giuliani and Kenneth Chesebro — both of whom have been identified as among the six unnamed “co-conspirators” in the most recent federal indictment of Trump — are now casting blame towards others on the campaign’s legal team or people close to the then-president. Giuliani and his lawyer are now openly trashing and blaming the “crackpot” alleged activities of Sidney Powell, another lawyer who worked on Trump’s post-election efforts. On top of that, Chesebro, the key architect of Trump’s fake-electors ploy, is now trying to downplay his involvement in the effort, spreading the possible blame and criminal exposure elsewhere.
Prosecutors appear to be only too happy to seize on these divisions. Sources who’ve been in the room with special counsel staff tell Rolling Stone that in the past several weeks, the special counsel’s office has signaled that they intend to put pressure on the half dozen “co-conspirators” listed in the Trump indictment. Representatives of the special counsel’s office also appear unusually well-briefed on the existing fissures between members of the Trump post-election endeavors, according to those who have spoken with the office.
The feud between Giuliani and Sidney Powell — another attorney and alleged Trump co-conspirators — is among those probed by prosecutors, sources with knowledge of the situation say. Recent witnesses have offered up details on the behind-the-scenes animosity between the two attorneys. They’ve also told investigators their accounts of the former New York mayor’s private antics during the months following Election Day 2020.
Adding to the intra-MAGAland tensions overflowing into public view, Robert Costello, Giuliani’s lawyer, attempted to put as much space as possible between his client and some of Powell’s work to keep Trump in power. emphatically telling CNN: “Rudy Giuliani had nothing to do with this,” and, “you can’t attach Rudy Giuliani to Sidney Powell’s crackpot idea.”
Powell in particular has been a major focus of the special counsel’s office, as recently as within the past several days, as Rolling Stone reported last week, with certain Trump allies already providing the Justice Department with what they view as incriminating evidence against Powell.
“If I were the feds, and I wanted to build cases against the [so far unindicted] ‘co-conspirators’ to apply maximum pressure to them, to see what they’d…have to say about the [former] president, this is exactly how I’d do it,” says one person intimately familiar with recent questioning.
It’s “highly probable that several others will be charged,” the person says. “Jack Smith is not slowing down.”
The possibility that one of Trump’s former advisers could turn state’s witness and testify against either him or his aides or close associates is already apparent to the twice-impeached former president.
This summer, Trump has asked some of his political and legal advisers to name who — especially among those investigated or questioned by the special counsel’s office — they believe to be the most “vulnerable” and likely to crack under pressure from prosecutors, according to two people who’ve heard him ask about this.
Last week, longtime Giulian associate and Trump ally Bernie Kerik sat for a nearly five-hour, voluntary interview with special counsel staffers, and his attorney pointed the finger for over-the-top election fraud claims at Trumpist diehard Powell. Kerik is not among the six unindicted alleged co-conspirators, but was asked by federal investigators to offer his accounts relating to multiple alleged Trump co-conspirators and other topics.
“Sidney Powell’s conduct stands in stark contrast to that of Rudy Giuliani and President Trump, who were looking to only make claims that could be backed up by evidence,” Tim Parlatore, Kerik’s lawyer, argues to Rolling Stone. Parlatore previously served as one of Trump’s top attorneys who were handling the Jack Smith probes.
Kerik’s lawyer continues: “Having Sidney Powell in the same courtroom would also significantly undermine [Jack Smith’s] case against the president, because the president and his lawyers could easily point at Sidney and say: Over there is the evidence of making knowingly false claims, not here. And President Trump rejected Ms. Powell’s efforts.”
This is a sentiment shared by Giuliani, and also by various senior members of Trump’s own team who would be thrilled if Powell ended up as one of the people who take the fall for the Jan. 6 Capitol attack and the efforts leading up to it, sources close to Giuliani and the former president say.
As for Chesebro — the attorney accused of being an architect of the Trump team’s bogus-electors scheme — he too has hinted that he may be trying to distance himself from the campaign’s effort to swap in slates of fake electors. That is, now that the fake-elector plans have become a central focus of the Department of Justice’s sprawing criminal investigation.
In a statement sent last week to Rolling Stone, Chesebro’s attorney drew a distinction between the memos his client authored for the campaign and how the campaign acted on them. “Whether the campaign relied upon that advice as Mr. Chesebro intended,” attorney Scott Grubman wrote, “will have to remain a question to be resolved in court.”
Conspicuously, Chesebro’s lawyer added: “We hope that the Fulton D.A. and the Special Counsel fully recognize these issues before deciding who, if anyone, to charge.”
Unlike other prominent Trump-aligned attorneys, Chesebro lacks an extensive pedigree in the conservative movement. At Harvard Law School, he studied under the liberal constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe and attended a fundraiser for another Tribe law student — Barack Obama — back in 2004.
The statement, first released to Rolling Stone late last week by Chesebro’s lawyer, prompted some more raised eyebrows and speculation among the upper echelons of Trumpland.
According to two people with direct knowledge of the situation, the statement, along with other chatter about Chesebro’s recent moves, has led some of Trump’s lawyers and several members of the ex-president’s inner orbit to wonder if the architect of the fake-electors plot was trying to shovel all blame and potential criminal liability for that very plot on to Trump and his loyalists.
“These concerns have been shared with the [former] president,” one of these sources says.
This clown car of zealots, weirdos and drunks may very well end up being the instrument that convicts Trump. They aren’t exactly the best and the brightest.
Donald Trump slammed the judge presiding over his newest criminal case early Monday, testing her three-day-old warning that he refrain from “inflammatory” attacks against those involved in his case.
In a Truth Social post just before 1 a.m., Trump assailed U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan as “highly partisan” and “very biased and unfair,” citing as evidence a statement she made during the sentencing of a woman who participated in the mob that breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“She obviously wants me behind bars,” Trump wrote.
What followed is in all caps, of course. He’s daring her to do it. The deranged teetotaler is so drunk on himself, he thinks he’s bulletproof.
Trump was alluding to Chutkan’s remark during the October 2022 sentencing of Christine Priola of Ohio. Chutkan admonished Priola, before sentencing her to 15 months in jail, about the Jan. 6 mob’s threat to the peaceful transfer of power.
“I see the videotapes. I see the footage of the flags and the signs that people were carrying and the hats that they were wearing, and the garb,” Chutkan said. “And the people who mobbed that Capitol were there in fealty, in loyalty to one man, not to the Constitution, of which most of the people who come before me seem woefully ignorant; not to the ideals of this county and not to the principles of democracy. It’s blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.”
A speedier trial?
“Your client’s defense is supposed to happen in this courtroom, not on the internet,” Chutkan told Trump’s attorneys.
During a Friday hearing to consider a protective order requested by special prosecutor Jack Smith, Chutkan warned Trump’s attorneys that if Trump disobeyed her order, she might move up his trial date. Her calculation seems to be that Trump might fear that more than pre-trial detention (jail). And/or that jailing the former president might be impractical. Nevertheless, she warned, “I will take whatever measures are necessary to safeguard the integrity of these proceedings.”
Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Photo: U.S. Courts.
It took Trump just three days to test Chutkan’s resolve. He’s trying to make his trial into another screaming, hair-pulling reality TV show. And another fundraising opportunity, naturally. Chutkan’s options?
Judges confronted with violations of pretrial conditions can impose stricter conditions, like limits on social media use, prohibitions on travel and even pretrial detention. Those conditions would be particularly draconian for a defendant who is also leading his party’s primary for the presidential nomination. Chutkan has vowed not to let his candidacy affect her decision making and to treat him like any other defendant.
Wish her luck. She’ll need it. Plus body armor and a larger security detail.
Peter “began to curse and to swear, saying, I know not this man of whom ye speak.” (Mark 14:71; KJV)
Pondering the collapse of the simulacrum of conservative faith in God and country, Hemmingway’s account of how one goes bankrupt comes to mind: “gradually and then suddenly.”
Digby and then Will Bunch remarked on the NPR interview last week with Russell Moore, editor-in-chief of the Christianity Today magazine, about his new book, “Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call For Evangelical America.”
On why he thinks Christianity is in crisis:
It was the result of having multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — “turn the other cheek” — [and] to have someone come up after to say, “Where did you get those liberal talking points?” And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, “I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ,” the response would not be, “I apologize.” The response would be, “Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak.” And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.
The openness with which holy, coal-rolling Christian nationalists rejected both Jesus and the nation’s founding principles is only a surprise to those who have not been keen observers of the political and religious right. Their pas de deux has spun on since the 1970s, their steamy embrace growing closer with the decades.
Christian pastor alarmed after quoting the Sermon on the Mount and being told by Trump supporters, "Where did you get those liberal talking points?" Pastor: I'm literally quoting Jesus Christ. Congregant: That's weak.https://t.co/bgYYGBK3n9
“The increasingly dire, near-death experience of American democracy has felt like the proverbial frog in boiling water,” Bunch begins. But it’s not just democracy at risk. Evangelicals and American conservatives have lost their faith, gradually and then suddenly.
Local police raided the offices of the Marion County Record on Friday and the rural Kansas homes of its publisher and reporters. They seized computers, cell phones and reporters’ notes under cover of a warrant issued in apparent violation of federal law.
“The law requires law enforcement to subpoena materials instead,” the Kansas Reflector reports. Marion County District Court Magistrate Judge Laura Viar who signed the warrant offered no comment.
“An attack on a newspaper office through an illegal search is not just an infringement on the rights of journalists but an assault on the very foundation of democracy and the public’s right to know,” said Emily Bradbury, executive director of the Kansas Press Association. “This cannot be allowed to stand.”
Friday wasn’t exactly Kristallnacht, but in Donald Trump’s America where the press is regularly denounced as the enemy of the people, it rhymes. Thrice-married, thrice-indicted and twice-impeached, MAGA-world’s new savior spent his life flouting the law, cheating business partners, and taking what he wanted from women. Trump Country, evangelicals and police included, see in Trump a role model more manly than Jesus.
Bunch picks up the tale (The Philadelphia Inquirer):
In a few short generations, the U.S. relationship with authoritarianism has devolved from It Can’t Happen Here to “It could happen here” to today’s mantra: Turn on the news, it just happened again. “Hitler tactics” are busting out all over, and the gasping frog of American democracy is beginning to already taste like burnt chicken.
Deep into the 21st century, America is more racially, ethnically and religiously diverse than any moment in its 247-year history. The rising cohort of younger millennials and Gen Z — the nation’s best-educated generations ever, which seems to coincide with their embrace of diversity, tolerance and progressive ideas — is showing up at the voting booth. Sorry Sarah Palin, but this is “the real America” now, and the millions clinging to the older hierarchies around race, gender and Christian hegemony are not handling it well. If democracy means this true majority winning elections, then they hate democracy. If the real America is this young and diverse, then they hate America.
And Jesus.
Truculent Christian nationalism has no more to do with Christianity and the Constitution than logos on outlet mall causal wear. It is all tribal identity now, not faith. The Republican Party rejects any governing ethos. Their electeds pursue culture wars, not a better tomorrow. Trump is about vengeance? The right is about vengeance. Trump is about control? Evangelicals are about control. What’s left of the erstwhile Party of Lincoln is pure power politics.
Walter Sobchak: I mean, say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.”
The nihilism erupted in spasms over decades: after Ruby Ridge, after Waco, after Sept. 11, after the election of the first Black president. Then came the Trump-QAnon alternate reality. The boiling did not subside after Jan. 6. It abides. Only the roiling seems sudden.
A Daily Kos post from 2012 recounts a Bible study from perhaps 2009. The writer and a group of “Fox News watchers and Tea Party sympathizers” were discussing the parable of the Prodigal Son (emphasis mine):
After rereading the story, the pastor asked each of us with which character we identified. Ironically, even though I was the only childless person present, I was alone in identifying with the father. I’ve been in situations where I was so happy to see a person again whom I had missed that I was perfectly willing to forgive and forget whatever had happened in the past.
The old ladies, without an exception, identified with the prodigal son’s brother, who they believed had been wronged by the father. The poor brother had done everything right, yet the other one, the bad one, got the party. How was that fair? Why wasn’t the good brother rewarded and the irresponsible one punished?
I pointed out to them that while the prodigal son had a brief time of debauchery, it was followed by a rather miserable life, during which he had to work as a swineherd — not a pleasant occupation for a Jew. “Yes,” a woman named Elaine replied, “but that was his own fault! He brought it on himself! Besides, the only reason he even came back was that he was broke and miserable. He probably wasn’t even really sorry.”
“So what would you have done if you were the father?” the pastor asked.
“I would have told him off, of course,” Elaine answered. “I would have said, ‘You made your bed, so now lie in it. Go right back to where you came from!’”
“But what if the father loved the son so much that he wanted to forgive him?” the pastor followed up.
“Well, but that’s not love; that’s enabling. Besides, the son did not DESERVE to be forgiven.”
“That’s exactly the point of the story,” I chimed in. “The son didn’t deserve forgiveness but received it anyway. According to Jesus, that’s how the Kingdom of Heaven works.”
“Well,” fumed Elaine, “sometimes Jesus is just plain wrong.”
Jesus, democracy, patriotism — they were all outlet mall fashion. So long as they supported “the older hierarchies around race, gender and Christian hegemony,” they were comfortable outerwear. Then came the testing like that of the apostle. Peter wept in shame. But there’s no crying in MAGAstan. That’s for the weak.
Bunch concludes:
It’s all out in the open now, isn’t it? The U.S. women’s soccer team — young, diverse, not afraid to speak up for equality — are the new, albeit fragile, majority. They are America right now, and the right hates them — because they hate America. And this hatred makes it easier to destroy what America stands for. Even if that requires violence.
“Mr. President, I cannot stand these people that are destroying our country,” Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz told a boisterous crowd at the Iowa State Fair on Saturday, as he introduced Trump amid the usual litany of complaints about the border and the multiple probes into Trump’s corruption. “But we know that only through force do we make any change in a corrupt town like Washington, D.C.”
When all else fails — the canceling of elections, the voter suppression, the rule changing, the growing assault on the free press that makes a shocking raid like Marion County possible — force is their last resort. It was their last resort on Jan. 6, 2021, and they’re telling us now in the bright, deep-fried daylight of an Iowa fairgrounds that they’ll do it again.
It’s the social Darwinists, angry now and descending into nihilism, who find themselves unable to adapt.
Gradually and then suddenly, they make Peter look good. Judas was one of theirs.
“What will happen next WHEN Trump violates the protective order or his pretrial conditions?” I asked Lisa Graves, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General, this question on the Nicole Sandler Show. She explained the steps the judge can take before putting Trump in jail for contempt.
Partial transcript for readers from the August 11, 2023 episode of the Nicole Sandler Show. Link to the full show
Spocko: We know Trump’s going to violate them. Who files the motion? Where does it come from? How does the judge decide on a show cause hearing? Could you explain that part and then the next step showing the difference pieces that are going to happen to get to the judge issuing a stern warning, or a contempt charge.
Lisa Graves: Contempt is a power that judges hold, it’s their power, they can act without a motion on any act that is in contempt of court. So she doesn’t need a motion from the prosecutor to hold Trump in contempt she can make that determination herself based on his actions. She can also entertain a motion I suppose from the prosecutor to hold them in contempt but that’s not necessary.
She could ask for briefing on that I suppose, but in general–again–that’s not necessarily something that’s even briefed typically.
If a party is in contempt the Court handles that as a matter of her or his role as the adjudicator in that courtroom and can devise any number of appropriate steps to respond to that contempt. There could be a requirement, as I mentioned to Nicole, that he be held in contempt and be sent to jail. She could have that. She could issue that order and sort of delay it to until after the trial, so that he’s not, you know staying overnight in jail between dates of trial. She could issue a fine, impose a fine and then another fine for every single instance, and order that that be paid. She could do both she could issue other consequences for contempt.
You know of course she has to ensure that the trial is fair so that any result can be sustained on appeal, so she can’t just basically rule against him and hold him guilty, find him guilty over a decision of a jury she doesn’t have that power. She has to have the trial continue. I do think it’s possible that his behavior could be disruptive, although he’s been quiet in court. But he could certainly, at some point, be so disruptive to try to cause a mistrial. That could be a tactic that I could see him deploying. And then she’d have to weigh how to deal with his contemptuous activities in court if he were to do so, and what that means in terms of the ability to have the trial continue to its conclusion in order to protect a fair trial.
In short there’s a number of things that a judge has the inherent power to do other than in a criminal trial to rule basically to find the defendant guilty if he’s requested a jury trial, which he has a right to request under the Constitution. And so I am confident, that other than judge Cannon who I have no confidence in whatsoever administering her role fairly, but for the other judges involved, I’m confident that they will protect the Integrity of the Court and act appropriately to hold him in contempt, as you say WHEN he acts with contempt of court. Which he will. He will not get away with it.
She referenced Glenn Kirschner because earlier in the week I had asked Glenn about the process of violation of pretrial conditions. He put out an EXCELLENT explainer video titled “Just 24 hours after being told by judge not to threaten witnesses, Trump appears to violate order” I highly recommend it. It’s 13 minutes long so edited it to 2:20, put in subtitles and posted it on Mastodon. I’m @spocko@Mastodon.online
Trump violates his pretrial conditions. What happens next? Glenn Kirschner on show cause orders. YouTube link
In that post she shares the penalties and sanctions for violating the conditions of release: imprisonment, a fine or both. If Trump commits a federal felony offense while on release, the punishment is an ADDITIONAL prison term of not more than ten years. For a federal misdemeanor the punishment is an ADDITIONAL prison term of not more than 1 year. To be served consecutive to any sentence you receive. Fines of $250,000 or $100,000 can be imposed.
I’m posting these three legal experts comments on Trump’s legal situation because I believe it’s important for us to understand how the law can be applied. He maybe losing the legal cases in court but in the “court of public opinion” and his political campaign his message is strong. As an activist and blogger, I look at ways to help us fight the Right Wing in the media and on Social Media.
Trump has a media, social media and political strategy for everything he does. I pointed out the other day I don’t see a coordinated campaign against him in social media. Right now, instead of blocking his messages on Twitter, people are reposting Trump’s exact “Truths” on #X / #Twitter
Marcy Wheeler, @emptywheel@mastodon.social, has explained that doing that turns us into data mules for his messages. She recommends we breaking up his posts from #TruthSocial. Here is an example of of how I blew up his lame excuse.
The MSM has a really hard time wrapping their head around Trump being compelled, by law, to NOT TALK ABOUT CERTAIN THINGS. In Glenn’s video he explained that the judge can determine if what Trump says is a violation of his pretrial condition. In Lisa’s video she explained what the judge can do following a violation of a protective order. In Teri Kanefield’s article she explains why some posts by Trump are in vague “mob speak” so they might not technically be a legal violation. I look forward seeing Trump face consequences for his legal violations.
But we also need to help the people who are threatened, harassed and intimidated online and on social media by Trump and his followers. I’ve been writing about threats to health care workers, election officials and activists for years. I’ve also been working behind the scenes on ways to help those people get justice, and compensation, for the damage they have suffered. Next week I’ll do a piece about the huge success by St. Luke’s Hospital in a civil case against Ammon Bundy and his mob for defamation and threatening their staff. And, how to it’s possible to put a political cult leader in jail for contempt. And without bloodshed.
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 theNew 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.
Gaetz: "I cannot stand these people that are destroying our country … we know that only through force can we make any change in a corrupt town like Washington DC" pic.twitter.com/CMFhulyiEf
Question: "Would you be willing to use drones, whatever military it takes, to take those drug cartels *in* Mexico?"
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) campaigning in Iowa: "Yes … If they are invading our country and killing our people, we have the right to defend this country." pic.twitter.com/QYgln4w4rj
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.
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.
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.
An impeachment would prevent Justice Protasiewicz from hearing cases until & unless she is acquitted by the Wisconsin Senate. If the Senate drags its feet in holding a trial, that might be enough to leave gerrymandered maps in place for 2024. https://t.co/ifDTHoi9j0pic.twitter.com/tknTlKAnJj
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.
Given the undeniable suffering of enslaved Black people, you have to wonder why anyone would want to find a silver lining in such a dark history…@garrison_hayes takes us to school and debunks Florida's slavery argument in 120 seconds. pic.twitter.com/X2zFyZmgas
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.
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.
