He plans to cut taxes and regulations to make life easier for his vastly wealthy friends to raze the government to the ground:
Donald Trump plans to outline a suite of economic proposals in a speech here Thursday, including introducing a government efficiency commission recommended by Elon Musk, taking an even more aggressive swipe at regulations than during his first White House term and pledging to rescind certain unspent funds appropriated during the Biden administration.
The commission would conduct “a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government” and make “recommendations for drastic reform,” the Republican former president plans to say in an appearance before the Economic Club of New York. The goal would be to identify ways to eliminate fraud and improper payments, according to portions of the speech viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
An “audit” and “performance review” by the guy who just destroyed twitter for his personal entertainment.
Whatever. It’s a joke designed to appeal to tech bros and Wall St greedheads to give him more money. But it’s right up there with the “immigration task force” he convened in 2017 to prove that he actually won the popular vote in a landslide for embarrassing wastes of time.
Eight states will vote to amend their state constitutions in November to ban noncitizens from voting in elections. If these amendments pass in Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wisconsin, it will bring the total number of states with constitutions specifying only citizens are allowed to vote to 20.
The little known dark money group Americans for Citizens Voting (ACV) is backing and tracking the effort. Since 2018, voters in six states have added the amendment to their state constitutions.
ACV has its eyes locked on another 11 states in 2025: Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia, according to its website.
ACV has enlisted the help of the pay-to-play American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to move a model state constitution amendment in these states and others to ban noncitizens from voting in elections.
It is already illegal for green card holders or undocumented immigrants to vote in federal and state elections in all states, but ALEC’s “Citizen Only Voting Amendment” would extend the voting prohibition to elections at all levels of government.
This is despite the fact that evidence of noncitizen voting is scarce. “Every legitimate study ever done on the question shows that voting by noncitizens in state and federal elections is vanishingly rare,” the Brennan Center reported. As the nonpartisan law and policy institute points out, even the Charles Koch-founded and funded Cato Institute determined that “noncitizens don’t illegally vote in detectable numbers.”
Progressive advocacy groups place abortion rights amendments on state ballots to both restore women’s bodily autonomy and incentivize turnout. So I supposed it’s not surprising that conservative dark money groups goose their xenophobic base with amendments to outlaw non-citizen voting that’s already outlawed.
Axios reported on North Carolina’s proposed amendment in July:
Between the lines: Already, only citizens are allowed to vote in North Carolina, and whether or not a majority of voters approve the amendment in November won’t change that.
Still, the GOP framing of the border crisis has hit home with Republicans and Democrats alike and could give them a leg up at the ballot box this year.
Only a fool would predict a new Donald Trump scandal will finally collapse his support. The Trump shock troops who cover their lawns and trucks and boats and bodies in loud professions of their MAGA faith are too far gone.
Trump has spent his life flouting the law using his daddy’s money, his own notoriety, and a bevy of attorneys to keep himself out of the hoosegow. It’s the habit of a lifetime of crime. Laws that apply to ordinary people are but annoying flies Trump swats away. He believes his shit doesn’t stink (contrary to reports) despite attracting swarms of prosecutorial flies.
If anything does end Trump, it won’t be a bullet or another criminal indictment or an investigation into his illegally accepting $10 million in 2016 from an account tied to the Egyptian General Intelligence Service. It might be a personal insult to ordinary Americans. Like the families of fallen soldiers he’s already described as losers and suckers. Only this time, he did not issue the insult on foreign soil but at Arlington National Cemetery.
Perhaps Trump’s exploitation of the nation’s war dead last month to film a campaign commercial was the last straw. And he may still evade accountability for that. A sane candidate would let the matter drop. Not Trump. He’s too entitled for that.
On Wednesday at Duke University, former Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, already a prominent Trump opponent, endorsed Trump’s Democratic opponent for president, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Former Congresswoman Liz Cheney revealed she will vote for Vice President Kamala Harris at a Wednesday Duke event titled “Defending Democracy.”
Peter Feaver, professor of political science and director of the Duke Program in American Grand Strategy, who moderated the event, asked Cheney if she wanted to “make news” by endorsing a presidential candidate.
“Because we are here in North Carolina, I think it is crucially important for people to recognize … that Trump poses something that should prevent people from voting for him, but I don’t believe we have the luxury of writing in candidates’ names — particularly in swing states,” she said. “And as a conservative, and someone who believes in and cares about the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this and because of the danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris.”
Her comments elicited a standing ovation from the audience.
The daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney has been perhaps Trump’s highest-profile Republican critic. She joins other Republicans like her former Jan. 6 committee member, former Rep. Adam Kinzinger and former Rep. Denver Riggleman, as backers of Harris. More than 200 alumni of the Bush administration and former Republican presidential campaigns of the late Sen. John McCain and Sen. Mitt Romney also announced their endorsement of Harris last week.
Asked for comment, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung responded: “Who is Liz Cheney and what does she do?”
Dripping with contempt, that comment from Cheung, Dear Readers, is Trumpism in a nutshell. With all the attendant misogyny.
“The Vice President is proud to have earned Congresswoman Cheney’s vote. She is a patriot who loves this country and puts our democracy and our Constitution first,” Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon wrote. “As she noted in her powerful remarks, this election is a choice between the fundamental threat Donald Trump poses to our democracy and a leader who will stand up for our freedoms and the rule of law in Vice President Harris.”
Jimmy McCain, son of the late Republican Senator John McCain, also endorsed Harris following Trump’s Arlington commercial shoot. The BBC reports that three generations of McCain family members are buried at Arlington:
He added: “The point of Arlington Cemetery is to go and show respect for the men and women who have given their lives to this country. When you make it political, you take away the respect of the people who are there.”
Mr McCain, who was previously an independent, said he has changed his voter registration to Democrat and plans to vote for Ms Harris for president in November.
Trump’s Arlington Cemetery incident may not have finally tipped the scale for Cheney, but surely played a role. Let it not be said that there are no principled conservatives left. Precious few, but not none.
You know it’s the first day of school in America when…
Prior to today's horror in Georgia, there were 133 incidents of gunfire, 38 deaths, and 81 injuries on school grounds in 2024 (source: Everytown for School Safety).
I’ve run out of words on this subject, so I am reposting this (again).
(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on February 14, 2023)
Tell me why: A therapeutic mixtape
In a 2016 piece about the mass shooting at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, I wrote:
But there is something about [Orlando] that screams “Last call for sane discourse and positive action!” on multiple fronts. This incident is akin to a perfect Hollywood pitch, writ large by fate and circumstance; incorporating nearly every sociopolitical causality that has been quantified and/or debated over by criminologists, psychologists, legal analysts, legislators, anti-gun activists, pro-gun activists, left-wingers, right-wingers, centrists, clerics, journalists and pundits in the wake of every such incident since Charles Whitman perched atop the clock tower at the University of Texas and picked off nearly 50 victims (14 dead and 32 wounded) over a 90-minute period. That incident occurred in 1966; 50 years ago this August. Not an auspicious golden anniversary for our country. 50 years of this madness. And it’s still not the appropriate time to discuss? What…too soon?
All I can say is, if this “worst mass shooting in U.S. history” (which is saying a lot) isn’t the perfect catalyst for prompting meaningful public dialogue and positive action steps once and for all regarding homophobia, Islamophobia, domestic violence, the proliferation of hate crimes, legal assault weapons, universal background checks, mental health care (did I leave anything out?), then WTF will it take?
Morning dawned Tuesday on East Lansing to a rattled Michigan State University campus hours after a mass shooting left three dead and five others critically injured.
An alert was sent at 8:31 p.m. Monday, telling students to “run, hide, fight” with a report of shots fired at Berkey Hall and at the MSU Union.
Two people were killed at Berkey Hall, said university Interim Deputy Police Chief Chris Rozman. The gunman then moved to the MSU Union, where another was killed.
Students were told to shelter in place as authorities searched for the gunman. The 43-year-old suspect was Anthony McRae, Rozman said at a news conference Tuesday. McRae was found off campus early Tuesday before he could be arrested; he had died from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. […]
McRae was not affiliated with the university, and authorities didn’t know early Tuesday why he came to MSU.
“We have absolutely no idea what the motive was,” Rozman said.
“Absolutely no idea” indeed. As in, I have absolutely no idea why our legislators cannot seem to take even one tiny infinitesimal step forward on enacting sensible gun reform.
OK…I have some idea:
Every single shooting could be one of the last. Instead we continue the endless debate that drives the inaction which brought us here. Until we start making our response to these shootings finding common ground and acting like we did after Parkland- this won’t end. https://t.co/IbNHEqA11g
And today, Michigan’s governor (as any decent and compassionate leader reflexively does) has donned the mantle of Consoler-in-Chief:
Too many of us scan rooms for exits when we enter. Many have gone through the grim exercise of figuring out who would be our last call. Last night, kids at MSU made those calls. They worried for their lives, their friends, their fellow Spartans
Saddest of all, the MSU shootings occurred on the eve of a grim anniversary:
As I sit here crying for my family & our loss of Jaime 5 years ago in Parkland, I'm watching the press conference in Michigan where treating physician is crying. Gun violence breaks families & breaks communities. BEFORE IT IS YOUR LOVED ONE, DEMAND WE FIX THIS ONCE & FOR ALL.
You remember Parkland, right? In my review of the 2020 documentary After Parkland, I wrote:
So where are we at today, in the two years since a gunman opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle at Stoneman Douglas High, killing 17 people and wounding 17 others in just 6 minutes? According to a 2019 AP story, a report issued in February of last year by a student journalism project “…concluded that 1,149 children and teenagers died from a shooting in the year since the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School,” citing that the stats cover “school shootings, domestic violence cases, drug homicides and by stray bullets”. Mind you, nearly another year has passed since that report was released. […]
The most powerful moments [in After Parkland] are in the beginning, which contains a collage of real-time cell phone audio of the Parkland incident. The chilling sounds of automatic gunfire and students screaming in pain and terror brought to mind Martin Luther King’s quote ”Wait has always meant never ”. If every lawmaker was locked in chambers and forced to listen to that audio on a continuous loop until they passed sensible gun reform, perhaps they would all finally reach their breaking point.
You know what “they” say-we all have a breaking point. When it comes to this particular topic, I have to say, I think that I may have finally reached mine. I’ve written about this so many times, in the wake of so many horrible mass shootings, that I’ve lost count. I’m out of words. There are no Scrabble tiles left in the bag, and I’m stuck with a “Q” and a “Z”. Game over. Oh waiter-check, please. The end. Finis. I have no mouth, and I must scream.
Something else “they” say…music soothes the savage beast. Not that this 10-song playlist that I have assembled will necessarily assuage the grief, provide the answers that we seek, or shed any new light on the subject-but sometimes, when words fail, music speaks.
As the late great Harry Chapin tells his audience in the clip I’ve included below: “Here’s a song that I could probably talk about for two weeks. But I’m not going to burden you, and hopefully the story and the words will tell it the way it should be.” What Harry said.
“Family Snapshot” – Peter Gabriel
“Friend of Mine” – Jonathan & Stephen Cohen (Columbine survivors)
Trump, who has done nothing but complain since he lost the 2020 election: “Kamala Harris does nothing but complain. Always complaining about this or that…She does nothing but talk. Nothing but gripe. Nothing but complain about the terrible border or the economy and inflation.” pic.twitter.com/v2XnREg5o5
— Republican Voters Against Trump (@AccountableGOP) September 4, 2024
Has there ever been anyone with less self-awareness on this planet?
Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, privately heaped praise on a major religious-rights group for fighting efforts to reform the nation’s highest court — efforts sparked, in large part, by her husband’s ethical lapses.
Thomas expressed her appreciation in an email sent to Kelly Shackelford, an influential litigator whose clients have won cases at the Supreme Court. Shackelford runs the First Liberty Institute, a $25 million-a-year organization that describes itself as “the largest legal organization in the nation dedicated exclusively to defending religious liberty for all Americans.”
Shackelford read Thomas’ email aloud on a July 31 private call with his group’s top donors.
Thomas wrote that First Liberty’s opposition to court-reform proposals gave a boost to certain judges. According to Shackelford, Thomas wrote in all caps: “YOU GUYS HAVE FILLED THE SAILS OF MANY JUDGES. CAN I JUST TELL YOU, THANK YOU SO, SO, SO MUCH.”
Shackelford said he saw Thomas’ support as evidence that judges, who “can’t go out into the political sphere and fight,” were thankful for First Liberty’s work to block Supreme Court reform. “It’s neat that, you know, those of you on the call are a part of protecting the future of our court, and they really appreciate it,” he said.
These many “judges” she speaks of must be the corrupt wingnuts on the Supreme Court since all other judges already have to adhere to an ethics code. Only her husband and his cronies aren’t subject to one.
It’s interesting that a religious liberty organization is weighing in on this. I guess Jesus was in favor of judicial corruption.
You’d think that Ginni would keep a low profile since she’s been exposed as a right wing provocateur and coup plotter. Then again, why? Nothing will ever come of it. She’s teflon and so is her husband. They do what they want. It’s yet another sad illustration of the fact that our system requires people of integrity to run it and if they fail, it requires people of integrity to police it. It’s not working out.
This Frontline feature on Clarence and Ginni is worth watching if you haven’t seen it:
Just hours after the assassination attempt against Donald Trump on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, high-profile allies of the ex-president began promoting unfounded conspiracy theories and blaming President Joe Biden and Democrats, without evidence, for causing the horrific attack. Trump and his surrogates have continued nonstopever since with this coordinated messaging, which security experts have told me could provoke retaliatory violence from pro-Trump extremists. In late August, backers of Project 2025 joined the effort pushing this dangerous propaganda.
On Aug. 29, podcast host Monica Crowley interviewed Trump and proposed without evidence that he may have been targeted for murder from within the Biden administration.
“The more we see what happened that day, the more suspicious it all looks,” said Crowley, a former Trump administration spokesperson and a credited contributor on the Project 2025 policy tome detailing a hard-right agenda for a second Trump presidency. “Does it look increasingly to you like this was a suspicious—maybe even inside job?”
“Well, it’s strange,” Trump replied. Then he speculated about the deceased gunman’s father hiring “the most expensive lawyer” and suggested a partisan conspiracy involving former Justice Department prosecutor Andrew Weissmann and Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias. Weissmann quickly denounced Trump’s comments as false on social media. A spokesperson for Elias Law Group told me that no one from the firm has had any involvement in any aspect of the case.
Trump further claimed in the podcast interview, first reported by Media Matters for America, that the FBI had failed to gather evidence from the gunman’s cellphone. That’s untrue: FBI Director Christopher Wray and other FBI officials have spoken publicly about the bureau’s extensive investigation into the gunman’s background and activity, including his various digital communications.
Trump and Crowley then riffed about the JFK assassination, with Crowley reiterating the baseless conspiracy theory about the attack on Trump: “You were shot five or six weeks ago, and the imperial media, the regime, they’ve all buried it. They don’t want anybody talking about it, which also lends credence to this idea that this is very suspicious and could have been an inside job.”
“Yeah, true,” Trump interjected. “They don’t wanna talk about it.”
“Of course not,” she said.
“Tells you bad things,” Trump said, starting to draw a connection with the broader conspiracy theory at the core of his campaign.
This will be an article of faith before the election. There’s no way Trump can accept that it was just some young would-be mass shooter Republican kid. It has to be a conspiracy.
We all know old guys like him and the women who love them. There are a lot of them. And plenty of young ones too. His condescending appeal that he’s “done more for the Blacks” than any other president makes my head explode. What is he, Lady Bountiful distributing some leftovers from the castle kitchen to the peasants?
He’s a racist and a misogynist and a raging xenophobe. We know tht, of course, but it’s good to be reminded.
Donald Trump is pressuring Republicans to shut down the government at the end of this month if Congress doesn’t pass a GOP-backed proposal to establish new election rules nationwide.
Trump has called on Republicans in Congress to link funding the government with the SAVE Act, which would require proof of citizenship to vote — in a bid to target non-citizen voting, which is already illegal. And House Republican leaders are considering adopting the strategy and picking a fight with Democrats.
The deadline to fund the government is Sept. 30. The GOP-led House and Democratic-led Senate have to agree on how to move forward in order to prevent a shutdown, and Democrats have decried the SAVE Act as a poison pill.
“I would shut down the government in a heartbeat if they don’t get it,” Trump said on the “Monica Crowley Show” last week.
“It should be in the bill. And if it’s not in the bill, you want to close it up,” he said. “So I’m not there but, you know, I have influence.”
He oversaw the longest shutdown in history when he was president and learned absolutely nothing.
This is being pushed from the inside by Freedom Caucus types led by Chip Roy of Texas who thinks this is some kind of magic bullet that will help them keep the House. Apparently, they think that the country will turn on the Democrats once they learn that they are refusing to pass a bill making it illegal for undocumented migrants to vote — even though it’s already illegal. Trump, of course, thinks this will strengthen his case that the election was stolen which is all he cares about.
I don’t think they’re going to shut down in the middle of an election. It’s risky and they don’t have time to play games down in Washington when control of the House is so precarious. But you never know. They’re just that nuts.
Trump kitsch is the worst American politics has ever produced, by far. From golden statues to t-shirts to murals and beyond it is the most gawdawful dreck ever made. Books will be written about it, graduate theses will be based on it. In fact there should be a museum dedicated to it someday, just so we don’t ever forget it.
This latest painting may be the worst:
MAGA artist says he just won the election for Trump with his new painting: “500 years from now, that is going to be the new Mona Lisa. The painting that the world speaks of. Because this painting is going to change the course of this election.” pic.twitter.com/QnGFaSf8h2
Here it is. It’s called “We Did It Joe” depicting Biden in a dunce cap in the corner, a nuclear explosion and Kamala Harris wearing a hammer and sickle grinning maniacally while eating the innards of a bald eagle:
I’m just going to leave that there because the NY Times Nicholas Kristof tells me that I need to stop demeaning the Trump followers. It’s not nice.
