Question: Are Protesters Just Regular Anti-Gay Bigots, or Not?
In the ongoing Montgomery County protests about opt-out for storybooks, county residents -- especially county liberals and progressives -- are seeing the Muslim protesters as being the same as our familiar antidemocratic, authoritarian, homegrown anti-gay haters. On the other hand, the Muslim leaders say things like, "This is not an anti-LGBTQ+ movement. We understand this is a pluralistic society. If we become anti-LGBTQ+, we’ve lost the point." On the other other hand, MAGA extremists Moms for Liberty have promoted and planned these protests, and Muslim group Family Rights for Religious Freedom's leader Wael Elkoshairi (quoted above) personally handed the microphone to a Moms for Liberty speaker at one of the protests. On the other other other hand, he then told MoCo360 that "he 'had no idea who she was' at the time and that she wasn’t visibly affiliated with Moms for Liberty, resulting in what he called 'an honest mistake' on his part." There is some skepticism. Like, lots.
Local liberals see the protesters as garden-variety conservative haters, with Muslims making up the great majority of the crowd, and it is admittedly hard to see any gap between the Muslim groups and their rightwing allies. They are collaborating and both groups are covering it up, each is taking advantage of the other, and viewing them as one enemy certainly makes opposing them easier. And, the bottom line, both of them are trying to discriminate against our LGBT+ family members and neighbors -- yes, leaving the room when a kind of person is mentioned is discrimination. The Muslim leaders claim a religious rationale and criticize anyone who complains about them as "Islamophobic," but we have seen Christians do the same thing, also claiming to be victims because of their religion.
Is an alternative hypothesis plausible?
No one agrees with me, but I am hesitant to lump them together. I have listened to a lot of the speakers, interviews, mosque sermons, and so on, and there is an alternative hypothesis. There are nearly two billion Muslims in the world. It is one of the World's Great Religions, and has been going for a millennium and a half. In all that time, they have consistently considered homosexuality to be a terrible sin. Nobody reading this can defend all the stuff some religions believe, that's just the nature of religion. No Muslim country would ever try to call itself "The Land of the Free" -- some of them have morality police, fer cryin' out loud. In recent history many Muslims have migrated to the US, a very different kind of place, and they are learning to balance between maintaining their traditional culture and adapting to the new one they have voluntarily joined. And I think I can safely say that approximately zero non-Muslim Americans want to live under Sharia law, which is what is behind the Muslim opt-out demand. (In one Michigan town that is majority Muslim, it appears they are implementing a social order that conforms to their own norms, which the rest of the townspeople might not like, but that's democracy for ya.)
I don't believe they hate gay and trans people like our homegrown bigots do. They just have a different view of what it is, and that view is built into their way of life, and it puts them in conflict with the liberal Western democracy they have moved to, where "all men are created equal" is an ideal we always strive for. It must be a shock to see gay and trans people walking around unashamed and unpunished -- and remember, our own American culture is still straining to climb to the next rung ourselves. I do not know how they got swept up in this particular issue about English classes, but have some thoughts. Obviously storybooks with LGBT+ characters do not violate the tenets of Islam, they're just stories that kids read. As you will see below, the current local controversy seems to have started with our ordinary haters, and then the Muslims somehow took it up and became the face of it, and now they are in too deep to back down or compromise, which they will have to do, or else separate from the rest of American society. The alternate hypothesis is that our Muslim neighbors are not authoritarian bigots, but have a traditional belief that is discordant with US society; they have been swept up into the MAGA movement but -- the alternative part -- they are reasonable, educated people who would make the right choice, given accurate information.
Rightwing origins
At the first "opt-out" protest, County Council member Kristin Mink mingled with the protesters, listened to them, and then horrified liberals and offended Muslims by saying, to their face, "This issue unfortunately does put some, not all of course, some Muslim families on the same side of an issue as white supremacists and outright bigots." Even so, she said, she "would not put [them] in the same category." For which she was called an Islamophobe and roasted at the stake by the right and the left. Her honesty was punished but she identified a big part of the problem.
Here's something interesting. A statement submitted by an MCPS Assistant Superintendent in the "opt-out" lawsuit mentions that, before MCPS stopped letting schools decide informally, "parents sought to excuse dozens of students in a single elementary school from instruction using the LGBTQ-Inclusive Books." The statement also notes that many of the informal requests were not religious in nature.
You know what that means? It means it was not Muslims that started this. There aren't dozens of Muslim families at any single elementary school. They make up a little more than one percent of the county's population.
Local reporter Em Espy tweeted a meaningful observation: "in the dozens of convos I've had with protesters, when I remember to ask the question, *most* indicate they haven't read the LGB[T]Q+ inclusive storybooks for themselves. This experience has been echoed to me by other reporters as well." This raises the question -- where is the framing coming from? Why do they believe these books are so bad, if they haven't even seen them? The answer is very likely that Moms for Liberty and other MAGA hate groups are deliberately misleading them, trying to motivate the Muslims to act in a way that does not serve themselves at any level.
The Muslim groups say they are fighting for religious values but they are collaborating with groups who represent an entirely different religion altogether. I don't like to think it but it is not unreasonable to conclude that Councilmember Mink was wrong, and they are "in the same category with" our homegrown haters. If there is a difference, now is the time to reveal it.
Parents' rights are not a religious question
It is not clever or new to invoke religion as an excuse for bigotry -- our Christians do it all the time. I am pretty sure there is nothing in Islam -- a religious culture that has led the world for centuries in philosophy, mathematics, science, and the arts -- that says your kid can't read a story about a family with two moms.
When the Muslim group leaders are asked about their religious values, they immediately switch the topic to "parental rights," which is simply a rightwing talking point: "We just want to be the ones who decide when our children should learn about these things." They stand outside Carver chanting "Save our children." From what? That is an entirely different point from religious values. And it is not a point that holds water; it only expresses loathing for LGBT+ people, as if these stories are some kind of danger to their children. It may sound outrageous to say so, but in the real world parents do not dictate what a public school will teach, and the school is not obligated to comply with squeaky wheels. Tell me, in Islamic scripture, what is the right age for a child to read a story about a knight and a prince falling in love? A: it is not mentioned. I would like to hear someone explain exactly what religious requirements these readings violate. Theologically, it does not seem any different from a Christian or Jew steeped in "Thou shalt not kill" reading a murder mystery. It would be sinful to murder somebody; reading about it is nothing.
Is there an honest religious objection, or are these groups simply under the influence of rightwing Christian bigots? It looks like it's just another gay wedding cake. And the follow-up is, having been backed into a corner by bad influences, can these protesting groups still negotiate and reason with the school district to come up with something that actually works? As Councilmember Mink said, "It's complicated."
Liberal backlash
The people who support gay and trans rights, and that is a great majority of this county, consider these protesting Muslims to be ordinary haters. They see them pushing to impose their prejudices on our public schools just like the rest of the radical right is doing. You can call everybody in the whole county Islamophobes, if you want, but that's how it looks to a normal person reading the newspaper. There is no public sympathy from Democrats or progressives, nobody is buying the "religious values" argument, nobody believes the Muslim groups are capable of reasoning with the school district, people just see more gay-bashing. These people want to leave the room when LGBT+ people are even mentioned, which is insulting, and isn't that the point?
I have been trusting that there is a core of sincerity in the Muslim protests, and that they have been misled by cynics along the way. Of course I had to be officially kicked out of the liberal cabal that is advocating for one-sided "inclusiveness" -- I've gone several weeks now without my Soroscheck, and am not even receiving my daily classified documents from Hillary's personal email server. The self-labeled progressives seem to think that the readings are being criticized and need to be defended, yay gay people. No, that is not the problem; nobody is criticizing the readings. In misinterpreting the situation they envision a crisp duality, as usual, in black and white, us against them, and the Muslim protesters are "them." I actually do believe in inclusiveness and do not see any good outcome resulting from othering the Muslim groups, to borrow the liberal-approved lingo. That is, dehumanizing and excluding them, which is the opposite, you notice, of "inclusion." I don't believe these protesters want to destroy our democracy like the other anti-LGBT+ groups do, but they are being intransigent about a position that does not actually make sense and cannot become the norm in our county. They don't like the reaction they are getting, and are doubling down but they're losing friends fast. In my opinion, liberals should be working on ways to bring the Muslim groups into the fold, to educate them and negotiate with them. But the one-dimensional progressives reject that possibility.
The lawsuit is a separate thing from the protests but nobody cares about the details. Everybody likes to say "the issue will be settled" but it won't be settled by the court -- one side or the other will have to accept something they find unacceptable. If "they" (an alliance of conservatives including Muslims) win the judgment and the schools have to implement opt-out, the public will resent the Muslim community for a long, long time, because it's their face on this. If their kids are standing up and walking out of class when rainbow stories are read, it will make a statement every time, and the resentment against that kid and his community will be palpable. They will not be trusted again. I'm just saying. Think it through.
How to resolve it
I obviously support the LGBT+ community. I think these diverse storybooks are good for our county and are good educational policy. Characters in pedagogical fiction have traditionally been whitewashed, pasteurized and homogenized, and it is better in all ways when they reflect the real makeup of our society. As Councilmember Mink said, "we cannot modify our fact-based, science-based curriculum to reflect particular religious beliefs that are not aligned with that science based curriculum." The authoritarian right wants to destroy secular public schooling; allowing families to pick the classes they approve of would be like planting a bomb in our educational system, and it can't happen. I am holding out that the Muslim protesters are not part of that, but are reasonable people who have gotten backed into a corner, and I think our best future follows from helping them out of that corner with their integrity intact.
As Councilmember Mink said, "It's, again, complicated, because they're following the same side of this particular issue." It's more complicated than that, when they meet with rightwing extremists and feature them at their protests: what are we supposed to think? Our Muslim neighbors have been good citizens, good for our county, good people; it is painful to think of them as run-of-the-mill haters, and I hope they are not. But they are going to get nothing but pushback from Montgomery County residents including the school district at this rate; the situation is polarized with no flexibility on either side. If this is resolved by the imposition of authority there will be bad feelings for a long time, no matter which way the court decides.
You can't make them believe God approves of homosexuality. We believe in freedom of religion, and some religions teach that it's a sin -- it's not just Islam. This is simply a fact of life in the free world, people can believe whatever. But MCPS is not trying to make anybody be gay or do anything their faith says they shouldn't do. It would be good if everybody was tolerant and reasonable but you can't demand that. What you can demand is that all students should show overt respect for one another, and you can at least hope that parents support their children in learning to be respectful. We have to educate our children about the diversity they will be discovering in the real world, so they can grow up to be good citizens.
Of course I disagree with the Muslim view of sexual identity, and I hope that the rest of us can help them evolve to a more comfortable place with it. Remember, mainstream America has been trying for a long time, and we still have a long way to go -- we are not in a position to judge somebody else's beliefs. But we cannot permit dehumanizing and disrespectful (never mind rude) behavior in the public schools. Muslim kids can sit through a story, it won't hurt them. They will learn about their friends' families and about people they will meet in their lives. MCPS should have prepared the families for this and they failed, but we can't go back now. I hate to say it but the Muslim groups are blowing it here, they are embarrassing themselves affiliating with bad people, and it is up to them to make a conciliatory gesture. For instance, offer to sit down and look at the books with an open mind, and evaluate the actual threat objectively. MCPS should offer an opening, too, and work with these groups, trusting they are different from the haters we are so familiar with, but are a population trying to adjust, who have hit a rocky place in the road.
Unrequested advice to Muslim protesters: distance yourselves from the haters.
posted by JimK at 7:48 AM
112 Comments:
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A group of parents, faith leaders and a public education nonprofit sued Monday to stop Oklahoma from establishing and funding what would be the nation’s first religious public charter school.
The lawsuit filed in Oklahoma County District Court seeks to stop taxpayer funds from going to the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. The Statewide Virtual Charter School Board voted 3-2 last month to approve the application by the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City to establish the school, and the board and its members are among those listed as defendants.
The vote came despite a warning from Oklahoma’s Republican attorney general that such a school would violate both state law and the Oklahoma Constitution.
The Rev. Lori Walke, senior minister at Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City and one of the plaintiffs in the case, said she joined the lawsuit because she believes strongly in religious freedom.
“Creating a religious public charter school is not religious freedom,” Walke said. “Our churches already have the religious freedom to start our own schools if we choose to do so. And parents already have the freedom to send their children to those religious schools. But when we entangle religious schools to the government … we endanger religious freedom for all of us.”
The approval of a publicly funded religious school is the latest in a series of actions taken by conservative-led states that include efforts to teach the Bible in public schools, and to ban books and lessons about race, sexual orientation and gender identity, said Rachel Laser, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which is among several groups representing the plaintiffs in the case.
“We are witnessing a full-on assault of church-state separation and public education, and religious public charter schools are the next frontier,” Laser said.
“Creating a religious public charter school is not religious freedom,” Walke said. “Our churches already have the religious freedom to start our own schools if we choose to do so. And parents already have the freedom to send their children to those religious schools. But when we entangle religious schools to the government … we endanger religious freedom for all of us.”
The approval of a publicly funded religious school is the latest in a series of actions taken by conservative-led states that include efforts to teach the Bible in public schools, and to ban books and lessons about race, sexual orientation and gender identity, said Rachel Laser, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which is among several groups representing the plaintiffs in the case.
“We are witnessing a full-on assault of church-state separation and public education, and religious public charter schools are the next frontier,” Laser said.
Oklahoma’s Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt earlier this year signed a bill that would give parents in the state a tax incentive to send their children to private schools, including religious schools.
The Archdiocese of Oklahoma said in its application to run the charter school: “The Catholic school participates in the evangelizing mission of the Church and is the privileged environment in which Christian education is carried out.”
Rebecca Wilkinson, the executive director of the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board, said in an email to The Associated Press that the board hadn't been formally notified of the lawsuit Monday afternoon and that the agency would not comment on pending litigation.
A legal challenge to the board's application approval was expected, said Brett Farley, the executive director of the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma.
“News of a suit from these organizations comes as no surprise since they have indicated early in this process their intentions to litigate,” Farley said in a text message to the AP. “We remain confident that the Oklahoma court will ultimately agree with the U.S. Supreme Court's opinion in favor of religious liberty.”
Stitt, who previously praised the board's decision as a “win for religious liberty and education freedom,” reiterated that position on Monday.
“To unlock more school options, I'm supportive of that," Stitt said.
A gay professional dancer was stabbed to death after vogueing with friends at a gas station in Brooklyn, New York, elevating concerns about a rise in violence against LGBTQ+ Americans.
O’Shae Sibley, a professional dancer and choreographer, was heading home with friends after a trip to the New Jersey Shore on Saturday night. The group stopped at the gas station around 11 p.m. and were vogueing to Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” album before a separate group of men approached them.
“These people were like ‘We’re Muslim, I don’t want you dancing,’” an employee of the gas station recalled to Gothamist, adding: “The gay people, they were not trying to fight.”
The group began to call Sibley and his friends — who were shirtless and in bathing suits — names and gay slurs, telling them to stop dancing, according to The New York Times. Sibley began to argue with the men and was stabbed.
Otis Pena, one of his friends, tried to stop the bleeding before Sibley was taken to an area medical center, where he was pronounced dead.
“They killed O’Shae,” Pena said in a video posted to Facebook. “They killed my brother right in front of me. I’m covered in his blood.”
“They murdered him, because he was gay, because he stood up for his friends,” he added.
The NYPD said it is investigating the attack as a hate crime. No arrests have been made. CBS reported Monday that investigators have identified a suspect.
Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a New York state senator who is gay, said on Twitter Monday he was “heartbroken and enraged” to learn of Sibley’s death.
“Despite homophobes’ best efforts, gay joy is not crime,” he wrote. “Hate-fueled attacks are.”
Sibley, 28, was openly gay and had performed as part of an all-queer dance troupe at New York’s Lincoln Center. He studied at the Philadelphia Dance Co. and had moved to New York shortly before the pandemic, according to the Times.
“It was a senseless crime,” his aunt, Tondra Sibley, told the newspaper. “O’Shae has always been a peacemaker. All he wanted to do was dance.”
A report by the Anti-Defamation League and the GLAAD advocacy group documented hundreds of cases of assault, vandalism or harassment against LGBTQ people from June 2022 to April 2023, including mass murder, reflecting widespread bias. Over roughly the same period, hundreds of transphobic bills were introduced or passed in GOP-led states.
Fittingly, Trump's latest Grand Jury Indicment is *45* pages long:
https://www.scribd.com/document/662462402/Trump-Indictment
It covers:
Conspiracy to Defraud the United States
Conspiracy to Obstruct an Officical Proceeding
Obstruction of and Attempt to Obstruct an Official Proceeding
Conspiracy Against Rights
What a wonderful day.
"Fittingly, Trump's latest Grand Jury Indicment is *45* pages long:
https://www.scribd.com/document/662462402/Trump-Indictment
It covers:
Conspiracy to Defraud the United States
Conspiracy to Obstruct an Officical Proceeding
Obstruction of and Attempt to Obstruct an Official Proceeding
Conspiracy Against Rights
What a wonderful day."
beyond whether the indictment was justified, if you think a day when a current President prosecutes the leading announced candidate to replace him is a "wonderful day", it shows what a contemptible gangrene you are on our democracy
the truth is, a former President should only be indicted when charges are clearly defined and evidence is so strong that few on either side would argue against the decision
this indictment strains the interpretation of the already vague laws cited and borders on making speech illegal
there was nothing in the indictment, for example, accusing Trump of conspiring with groups, the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, invade the Capitol
note that, with the way the laws are used here, both Al Gore and George W Bush could have probably been indicted in 2000
"the truth is, a former President should only be indicted when charges are clearly defined and evidence is so strong that few on either side would argue against the decision"
VP Pence's notes are clear strong evidence of the BS Rump and his bogus legal team tried to pull on America, trying to substitute fake electors for real ones.
Fox News legal analyst Andrew McCarthy in a recent article for the National Review had grim predictions about former President Donald Trump's ability to win the 2024 election. "I persist in the conviction that Trump doesn't have a prayer of being elected president again," McCarthy wrote, citing the former president's "unfavorability" that "hovers around 60 percent."
"The problem for Trump is he has no upside," McCarthy wrote. "He is as known a quantity as has ever sought the presidency. In a normal race, the 46 percent of Republicans who do not favor Trump could be expected to 'come home' in droves in the general election if he is the nominee. That is not true of Trump."
McCarthy closed his op-ed by urging GOPers not to remain "mesmerized by today's polling, which reflects understandable voter angst against Biden," but instead focus on "what the chessboard is going to look like a year" from now. "I simply don't see how Trump gets to 42 percent of the electorate," he continued. "The country has already made up its mind about him. From here, there's no up, only down. If we nominate him, he's going to get drubbed."
if Biden wants to go down as a guy who saved America, He should drop the Trump prosecutions and resign.
on the first, the indictments are the only helping Trump right now.
either direct DOJ to drop or pardon
either action would hurt Trump in the polls
as far as the second:
As the Biden corruption probe broadens, and more evidence comes to the fore of possible bribery of the Biden family by foreign powers, a question arises: What do Americans think should be done if the allegations are true? The overwhelming response: Biden should leave or be removed from office and not run again, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows.
We wondered: “If any of these charges are shown to be true, can Biden weather the ensuing political storm? Or will he face a choice of impeachment or resignation, a la Richard Nixon, and thereby force the Democrats to find a new standard bearer in 2024?”
In our online poll of 1,341 adults taken from July 5-7, with a margin of error of +/-2.7 percentage points, we answered that question: Biden is not likely to weather the political storm.
A strong majority of 63% in our poll suggested that President Joe Biden should either be impeached (33%) or resign immediately (30%) if the charges prove true. Just 20% said Biden should “Stay in office and run again in 2024, if he wishes.” Another 17% said they weren’t sure.
Broken down further, the data suggest big political trouble lurking for Biden as more revelations emerge from ongoing congressional and Justice Department investigations.
It’s no surprise that 85% of Republicans think Biden should be impeached (53%) or quit (32%) if the charges prove true.
Any presidential candidate in 2024 must have electoral support from independents to win. However, independents break 64% for Biden’s removal from office through impeachment (33%) or resignation (31%). Another 15% say he should be able to run again, while 21% say they’re “not sure.”
But it’s within his own party that Biden will truly have a tough time making a case for a second term. Democrats, by a plurality of 45% (impeach or resign) to 35% (stay in office and run again), believe it would be best for Biden to leave office either by being impeached (19%) or by resigning (26%) if the charges prove true, which seems increasingly likely.
In short, virtually all major demographic groups say Biden should ride off into the sunset if evidence shows he and his family took money from foreign powers while he was in office as vice president and, possibly, as president.
And right now, the evidence of wrongdoing is piling up, at least if recent testimony and Hunter Biden’s own plea deal are to be believed.
Mike Pence
@Mike_Pence
Today's indictment serves as an important reminder: anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President of the United States.
8:08 PM · Aug 1, 2023
·
15.8M Views
Indictment says:
"The Defendant and co-conspirators attempted to enlist the Vice President to use his ceremonial role at the January 6 certification proceeding to fraudulently alter the election results."
Mike Pence said:
Mike Pence
@Mike_Pence
Our country is more important than one man. Our constitution is more important than any one man’s career.
On January 6th, Former President Trump demanded that I choose between him and the Constitution. I chose the Constitution and I always will.
8:08 PM · Aug 1, 2023
·
"the truth is, a former President should only be indicted when charges are clearly defined and evidence is so strong that few on either side would argue against the decision"
That's what the Grand Jury was for. They did their job.
Do try to pay attention. Maybe you wouldn't look so stooooopid then.
And by the way, that is simply not "the truth." It is your OPINION. Stop deluding yourself otherwise.
For your reference:
Nearly 80,000 people were defendants in federal criminal cases in fiscal 2018, but just 2% of them went to trial. The overwhelming majority (90%) pleaded guilty instead, while the remaining 8% had their cases dismissed, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data collected by the federal judiciary.
Most defendants who did go to trial, meanwhile, were found guilty, either by a jury or judge. (Defendants can waive their right to a jury trial if they wish.)
Put another way, only 320 of 79,704 total federal defendants – fewer than 1% – went to trial and won their cases, at least in the form of an acquittal, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.
The statistics aren't in Treasonous Trump's favor.
"beyond whether the indictment was justified, if you think a day when a current President prosecutes the leading announced candidate to replace him is a "wonderful day", it shows what a contemptible gangrene you are on our democracy"
Your inability to recognize Trump's active threat to our democracy and his need to be in prison as soon as possible indicates you are drunk on the spiked Orange Kool-Aid. Maybe when you sober up you can start to see reality again.
"this indictment strains the interpretation of the already vague laws cited and borders on making speech illegal"
No it doesn't. The "free speech" argument simply doesn't apply when someone commits a conspiracy, treason, tries to defraud the government, or numerous other crimes, you malodorous moron. If you talk to someone about paying them to murder your spouse, that's a crime - you go to jail. Try the "free speech" argument and the judge is going to laugh her ass off.
"there was nothing in the indictment, for example, accusing Trump of conspiring with groups, the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, invade the Capitol"
You forgot Rudy, Sidney, and his other lawyers. They're not charged YET, but they have to see the writing on the wall by now. It's in their best interest to spill the beans on the Traitor in Chief and get some immunity. Roger Stone and the Proud Boys can wait. There is plenty of time to catch those seditious accomplices later.
"note that, with the way the laws are used here, both Al Gore and George W Bush could have probably been indicted in 2000"
Riiiight... and I'm Queen Latifah. <- Yes, that was absolutely sarcasm, in case there was any doubt.
You're only gaslighting yourself, and perhaps a few other conservatives who are deluded as you are. It must suck to have reality clash with your beliefs so often.
Lisa Murkowski Is Feeling Pretty Vindicated After Voting To Convict Trump
Former President Donald Trump was indicted for the third time on Tuesday, and this time he’s being accused of the most serious crimes yet: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.
Back in February 2021, the Senate had its chance to weigh in on whether Trump committed crimes in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. The chamber voted 57 to 43 to convict him for inciting an insurrection. That wasn’t enough votes to secure a conviction; the threshold was 60 votes. But it was the most bipartisan presidential impeachment trial in U.S. history, with seven Republicans joining Democrats in favor of conviction.
It took guts from those seven GOP senators to buck their party leaders. They broke from Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). They knew they’d face the wrath of an unhinged former president known for unleashing on his detractors. They knew they could face attacks, verbal and potentially physical, from his following of diehard supporters.
But based on the facts before them, and what is clearly spelled out in the Constitution, those seven senators maintained that they had to pick country over party, and they voted to convict.
Republicans don’t like to talk about that vote very much. It was ugly. It was historic, in a bad way. It was solemn. And it deeply fractured their party.
But since Tuesday’s federal indictment came down, there is one GOP senator — one of those seven who stuck their necks out two-and-a-half years ago — who wants to remind people about that vote. And it’s simply to say that she feels even more strongly that she was right to vote to impeach Trump that day: Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
“In early 2021, I voted to impeach former President Trump based on clear evidence that he attempted to overturn the 2020 election after losing it,” Murkowski said in a series of tweets on Tuesday evening.
“Additional evidence presented since then, including by the January 6 Commission, has only reinforced that the former President played a key role in instigating the riots, resulting in physical violence and desecration of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021,” she continued.
Murkowski said Trump is, of course, innocent until proven guilty and will have his day in court. But she encouraged everyone to read the indictment, in order to understand “the very serious allegations” being made against him.
The other six Republicans who voted to convict Trump in February 2021 were Sens. Richard Burr (N.C.), Bill Cassidy (La.), Susan Collins (Maine), Mitt Romney (Utah), Ben Sasse (Neb.) and Pat Toomey (Pa.).
Just think - if just 3 more Republicans back then had a testicle, or at least a spine, Trump would have been convicted, it there would have been a good chance that the front-runner against Biden right now wouldn't have already roundly lost to him.
Democrats gave the Republicans several opportunities to excise the Trump cancer from their party, but like an alcoholic, they couldn't put the Trump bottle down.
"a former President should only be indicted when charges are clearly defined and evidence is so strong that few on either side would argue against the decision"
That's what the Grand Jury was for. They did their job."
If that was their job, they clearly didn't do it. it's just not strong enough or specific enough to satisfy the very high standard that's required when a president of the United States allows his Justice Department to indict his opponent, and influence the outcome of the election.
That is such a serious matter that it can't be based on vague conspiratorial notions, proof of intent beyond a reasonable doubt. It doesn't satisfy the high standard that should be required when you're going after your political opponent. That's banana republic, when you go after your political opponents by indicting them... and denying everyone's right to vote for him or against them. If someone wants to vote against Donald Trump, a prosecutor shouldn't deny them that right.
Do try to pay attention. Maybe you wouldn't look so stooooopid then.
"Treasonous Trump/;
You seem confused. Trump isn't accused of taking bribes from America's enemies. That's the Biden Crime Family, headed up by the Big Guy.
"Your inability to recognize Trump's active threat to our democracy and his need to be in prison as soon as possible indicates you are drunk on the spiked Orange Kool-Aid. Maybe when you sober up you can start to see reality again."
So odd that you think preventing people from voting for someone promotes democracy.
Do try to pay attention. Maybe you wouldn't look so stooooopid then.
"this indictment strains the interpretation of the already vague laws cited and borders on making speech illegal"
"No it doesn't. The "free speech" argument simply doesn't apply when someone commits a conspiracy,"
it's actually not a crime to say you won an election when you didn't
you have the constitutional right to do that
even if others agree to do it with you
"treason,"
You seem confused. Trump isn't accused of taking bribes from America's enemies. That's the Biden Crime Family, headed up by the Big Guy.
"tries to defraud the government,"
prior to Trump, no one ever thought this applied to political speech
the reason: it doesn't
Do try to pay attention. Maybe you wouldn't look so stooooopid then.
"or numerous other crimes,"
none of which were committed by Trump
"you malodorous moron"
sad
"You forgot Rudy, Sidney, and his other lawyers."
they weren't indicted because the purpose of this prosecution is not justice, it's political
it's to prevent Trump from winning the next election
note that, with the way the laws are used here, both Al Gore and George W Bush could have probably been indicted in 2000
Donald Trump’s post-election behavior in 2020 was deceitful and destructive, and his malfeasance on Jan. 6, 2021, was disgraceful, but was it criminal? That’s the claim in the extraordinary indictment issued Tuesday by a federal grand jury established by special counsel Jack Smith.
Democrats have long sought an indictment related to Jan. 6, but on that score what’s striking is what’s not in the 45-page document. There is no evidence tying Mr. Trump to the Oath Keepers or Proud Boys who planned to, and did, breach the U.S. Capitol that day. That was the worst offense against democracy, and more than 1,000 people have been prosecuted in connection with it.
Yet the indictment offers no new evidence to establish a connection between the riot and Mr. Trump beyond his well-known tweets and public statements. Surely Mr. Smith would have added this to his conspiracy charges if he had found such evidence. Mr. Trump is also not charged with encouraging an “insurrection,” which is the word and charge leveled by the press corps and Democrats.
Instead the indictment charges one obstruction and three conspiracy counts related to what it claims was a broad effort to overturn the 2020 election based on “dishonesty, fraud, and deceit.” The indictment concedes that Mr. Trump “had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won.”
In other words, Mr. Trump can lie about the election all he wants. But the indictment says Mr. Trump broke the law when he acted on those lies. Those actions include lobbying state officials to hunt for voter fraud, working with his conspirators to stand up substitute electors in seven states, and trying to persuade Vice President Mike Pence that he had the power to refuse to count electoral votes on Jan. 6.
This is a remarkably broad theory of “conspiracy to defraud the United States,” and one with troubling implications far beyond the fate of Mr. Trump. Mr. Smith’s theory seems to be that if a President and his “co-conspirators” are lying, and then take action on that lie, they are defrauding the U.S.
This potentially criminalizes many kinds of actions and statements by a President that a prosecutor deems to be false. You don’t have to be a defender of Donald Trump to worry about where this will lead. It makes any future election challenges, however valid, legally vulnerable to a partisan prosecutor. And it might have criminalized the actions by Al Gore and George W. Bush to contest the Florida election result in 2000.
Legal experts also point to Nixon v. Fitzgerald, a 1982 Supreme Court ruling that the President “is entitled to absolute immunity from damages liability predicated on his official acts.” That was a civil, not a criminal, case. But lobbying his own Justice Department to investigate voter fraud, or even lobbying state officials to find fraud, is arguably within a President’s official duties if he believes fraud occurred.
Mr. Smith alleges and offers substantial evidence that Mr. Trump was frequently told that he lost the election and that there was no provable election fraud. But Mr. Trump was also told the opposite, and he typically resides in a performance artist, fact-free world of his own imagining. Assuming Mr. Trump can find competent counsel, you can expect to hear more about this “absolute immunity” ruling as part of his defense.
None of this is an apology for Mr. Trump’s post-election behavior. There is no evidence that the election was stolen, and Mr. Trump should have resigned in disgrace after the events of Jan. 6.
But the good news of that day, and of all four Trump years as President, is that America’s institutions held up under great stress. If there was a conspiracy, it was by a gang of misfits. As Mr. Smith’s indictment makes clear, most GOP officials in the states wanted nothing to do with it. Neither did most Trump officials, and Trump-appointed judges ruled against the President’s claims. Mr. Pence was a hero. The conspiracy had no chance of success.
Yet this indictment, perhaps even more than the others, will by dint of looking back at 2020 roil the 2024 campaign. Democrats want Mr. Trump to be the Republican nominee, and Mr. Smith (whether he intends it or not) is making that outcome more likely.
We will have an election campaign that rotates between courtrooms and rallies. The carnival will make it difficult for other Republicans to be heard. A debate between Joe Biden and Mr. Trump, if they are the nominees, will be over one man’s age and infirmity and another’s attempt to stay out of jail.
A charge against a former President should be based on serious charges with enough evidence to convince most Americans that it is justly brought. We doubt most Republicans will see this one in that light, and that means we are headed for more difficult and dangerous months ahead.
He's going to let his lawyers take the fall because he's incapable of accepting responsibility for what he does.
he didn't do anything
he said some things liberals and the media don't like
unfortunately, liberals, who never prevail in rational discussion, see their only chance is to criminalize free speech
30-year-old Kyle Robinson, a pastor at First Baptist Church of Indialantic, Florida, was arrested July 28th on 2 felony counts of child molestation. He’s currently out on $30,000 bond. Robinson is a graduate of the Christian-based Liberty University with a Bachelor’s of Christian Ministry. According to the arrest affidavit, the molestation had been going on for years with over 100 acts of abuse.
Us Little Mouses were trying to figure out what this human "church" thing is, really. Some of the Little Mouses believe it is mainly a kind of place where grown-up men meet children to have sex with. They do other stuff, sing songs and give talks and pass the collection plate, but it looks like the main order of business is molesting children.
Deja vu. Jurors found former church group leader Michael Baxter guilty of sexually assaulting children. He was convicted on four counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct on June 13, after more than a week on trial. He was on trial on five counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct after being accused of sexually assaulting several children, ages 10 and 15.
Baxter was a youth group leader at Church of Christ. Two victims in the case were not members of his church group but one victim stated she first met him through church functions.
We saw through the crack where a human was talking on TV about drag queens grooming kids and molesting them. If that is a joke, we don't get it. Drag queens? Really?
Special counsel Jack Smith made history on Tuesday.
It wasn't just the federal indictment of a former president. Smith already did that in June with the indictment of Donald Trump on charges that he mishandled classified documents.
No, Smith and his team have made history in the worst way by attempting to fully criminalize disinformation by seeking the incarceration for a politician on false claims made during and after an election.
The hatred for Trump is so all-encompassing that legal experts on the political left have ignored the chilling implications of this indictment. This complaint is based largely on statements that are protected under the First Amendment. It would eviscerate free speech and could allow the government to arrest those who are accused of spreading disinformation in elections.
In the 2012 United States v. Alvarez decision, the Supreme Court held 6-3 that it is unconstitutional to criminalize lies in a case involving a politician who lied about military decorations.
The court warned such criminalization "would give government a broad censorial power unprecedented in this Court’s cases or in our constitutional tradition. The mere potential for the exercise of that power casts a chill, a chill the First Amendment cannot permit if free speech, thought, and discourse are to remain a foundation of our freedom."
That precedent did not deter Smith. This indictment is reminiscent of the case against former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. His conviction on 11 corruption-related counts was unanimously overturned by the Supreme Court in 2016, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing that federal prosecutors relied on a "boundless" definition of actions that could trigger criminal charges against political leaders.
Smith is now showing the same abandon in pursuing Trump, including detailing his speech on Jan. 6, 2021, before the riot while omitting the line where Trump told his supporters to go to the U.S. Capitol to "peacefully" protest the certification.
While the indictment acknowledges that candidates are allowed to make false statements, Smith proceeded to charge Trump for making "knowingly false statements."
On the election claims, Smith declares that Trump "knew that they were false" because he was "notified repeatedly that his claims were untrue."
The problem is that Trump had lawyers and others telling him that the claims were true. Smith is indicting Trump for believing his lawyers over his other advisers.
Trump was wrong about 2020 election, but that doesn't mean he broke the law
I criticized Trump's Jan. 6 speech while he was still giving it and wrote that his theory on the election and the certification challenge was unfounded. However, that does not make it a crime.
If you take a red pen to protected free speech in this indictment, it would be reduced to a virtual haiku. Moreover, if you concede that Trump may have believed that the election was stolen, the complaint collapses.
Smith also noted that Trump made false claims against the accuracy of voting machines in challenging the outcome of the election. In 2021, Democratic lawyers alleged that thousands of votes may have been switched or changed by voting machines in New York elections. Was that also a crime of disinformation?
Smith indicted Trump because the now former president "spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won." The special counsel also says Trump "repeated and widely disseminated (the lies) anyway – to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election."
Let's acknowledge that Trump was wrong. The election wasn't stolen. He lost, and Joe Biden won.
But how do you prove legally that Trump truly didn't believe his false claims? And even if you can prove that Trump lied, how do you legally distinguish his falsehoods from the lies other political leaders have told over the years? When, in politics, does making a false statement cross the line into criminal behavior? Those are questions Smith and his team must answer in court, and ones that Trump's defense team is likely to raise.
Polls previously showed that roughly half of the public viewed previous charges against Trump as politically motivated. That is why many of us hoped that any indictment would be based on unquestioned legal authority and unassailable evidence.
Smith offered neither. This indictment will deepen the view of many in the public that the Justice Department is thoroughly compromised in pursuing political prosecutions.
These concerns were magnified Tuesday by Smith, who announced the charges with comments that made him sound more like a pundit than a prosecutor. The special counsel gave an impassioned account of the Capitol riot that made it sound like Trump was charged with incitement. He wasn't. Nor was he charged with seditious conspiracy, despite his second impeachment on those charges.
Notably, many of the legal experts praising the indictment previously insisted that there was a clear case for incitement against Trump. Indeed, Democratic members made the claim the center of the second impeachment, despite some writing that there was no actionable claim.
Even Smith wouldn't touch the incitement or sedition claims that were endlessly pushed by legal experts and Democratic members.
Instead, Smith will seek to criminalize false political claims. To bag Trump, he will have to bulldoze through the First Amendment and a line of Supreme Court cases. That's why this latest indictment of Trump isn't just wrong. It is reckless.
Jonathan Turley, a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors, is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University.
The thrice-indicted, twice-impeached, once-defeated, politically toxic Republican standard-bearer has a real shot at the presidency again.
By every conventional standard, Donald Trump should long ago have resigned himself to a pleasant retirement playing golf at his clubs, but instead he is marching toward the Republican nomination and could, quite plausibly, return to the White House.
Although the early polling of a potential head-to-head match-up between Trump and Biden is close, and 2016 remains a cautionary tale for anyone dismissive of Trump’s chances, the Republican case against Trump leans heavily on the notion that he’s unelectable, and Democrats clearly prefer to run against him on the assumption that he’ll be beaten.
There is no doubt that Trump is the riskiest electoral choice for Republicans and the odds may be against him in a rematch with Biden. But the “can’t” in the common formulation, “Trump can’t win,” is a strong word.
If nothing else, once you’ve won a major party nomination, you’ve got some significant chance of winning, just by dint of being one of two people in the country who could plausibly be president at that point.
A nominee is the almost-automatic inheritor of a solid electoral block constituting roughly half the country, or about 45 percent of the popular vote and 200 electoral votes. “Each party has now established a virtually impregnable sphere of influence across a large number of states in which they dominate elections up and down the ballot — from the presidential contest through Congress and state races,” Ron Brownstein writes, pointing out that 40 states have voted for the same party in the past four presidential elections.
Regardless, let’s say the odds are heavily stacked against Trump. If, say, Joe Biden has a 70 percent chance of winning and Trump only a 30 percent chance, the fact is that 30 percent things happen all the time. A good major-league hitter has about a 30 percent chance of getting a hit during any given at bat, and fans aren’t shocked when he does it.
No one in a Trump-Biden rematch would be a robust, broadly appealing candidate.
Trump won a narrow victory against Hillary Clinton in 2016 and was portrayed by many Republicans as an electoral juggernaut, thanks, in part, to how relieved they were to be rid of Hillary.
By the same token, Biden won a narrow victory against Trump in 2020 and has been seen by many Democrats as — if not necessarily an electoral juggernaut — uniquely suited to beating Trump, thanks, in part, to how relieved they were to be rid of Trump (at least for a time).
The reality is that it’s less that Biden is the indispensable bulwark against Trump than Biden needs to run against Trump to win.
Biden needs the 77-year-old Trump to mute his age as an issue, Trump to obscure his ethical problems and Trump to match his unpopularity.
Trump is weaker than he was in 2020, but so is Biden. Trump may not be capable of picking up any additional votes over and above 2020, but Biden certainly could lose some.
According to the latest New York Times/Siena poll, Biden has a dismal 39 percent approval rating; 42 percent strongly disapprove of the job Biden is doing, including 41 percent of independents. If the economy settles down into a cushiony soft landing, which is looking likelier, Biden could get a boost. Otherwise, he’s a weak incumbent sitting atop a deeply discontented country.
Biden also has considerable downside risks. He could have an ill-timed fall or some other health event. There could yet be a smoking gun in the Hunter Biden scandal. Independent or third-party candidates could steal a small, but crucial increment of votes. The Electoral College gives Republicans an advantage. And the economy could still bounce the wrong way.
One of Biden’s chief vulnerabilities, age, is by definition going to get worse, not better.
Biden has the stiff gait of someone who could take a nasty spill at any time. The White House decision to have him use the shorter, underbelly steps for Air Force One is wise and prudent. We’ve seen him almost nod off in the midst of talking to the president of Israel in the Oval Office and trail off at other times into mumbly incoherence.
Already, his reduced state is hurting him. According to the latest NBC News poll, 68 percent of voters have concerns about Biden’s mental and physical health, and 55 percent have major concerns. The number, naturally, has gone up over time. Back in October 2020, only 51 percent had concerns. What will the figure be 15 months from now? This isn’t a strictly partisan phenomenon, by the way — 43 percent of Democrats share these concerns.
Republicans have said the fact that Joe Biden was on the phone with his son’s work contacts meant he lied the many times he claimed he never talked business with his son. But Archer said business never came up during any of the 20 instances he witnessed Hunter Biden put his dad on speaker.
“Where are you, how’s the weather, how’s the fishing,” Archer said. “It was very, you know, casual conversations about ― you know, not about cap tables or financials or anything like that.”
Archer said he never witnessed Hunter Biden ask his father to do anything that would help his business.
“He did not ask him ― to my knowledge, I never saw him say, do anything for any particular business,” Archer said.
Republicans asked if Archer had heard anything about Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky’s claim that he had paid Joe Biden and his son $5 million each, and Archer had not. Republicans have seized on the unverified allegation because it was relayed to the FBI through a credible confidential human source.
But according to a raw FBI file Republicans published last month, the source himself, in providing the tip, noted that “it is very common for business men in post-Soviet countries to brag or show off,” and that he couldn’t vouch for the allegation.
Archer seized on the source’s explanation of the bribe claim. He likened it to Hunter Biden puffing up his personal brand by bogusly insinuating in an email that he was responsible for his father’s travel to Ukraine.
“People send signals and those signals are basically used as currency,” Archer said. “And that’s kind of how a lot of D.C. operators and foreign tycoons and businessmen work.”
Wow this is a relief! It had seemed like churches are mainly places where grown men can meet children for sex, and here's a case that shows they are more than that. A North Carolina church youth leader has been charged with felony child sexual offenses, sure, sounds like the same old story, but ... Amanda Buchanan Justice, of Kings Mountain, was arrested Thursday after police investigated a report of a sexual assault on a teenager, and she was charged with two felony counts of statutory sex offense with a child over the age of 15.
This time it was a woman molesting kids. So it isn't just men, churches serve both male and female "youth leaders" who want to have sex with children. At least they're not sexist about it.
President Biden’s claim that he had no role in his son’s foreign business dealings is “categorically false,” Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer said in an interview published Friday.
“He was aware of Hunter’s business, he met with Hunter’s business partners, I mean you found a letter that illustrates that he knew me,” Archer said.
Archer said that after he and Hunter Biden joined the board of Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings in the spring of 2014, “There was constant pressure to send signals to leverage all of his — his dad included, but the Biden brand, all of the DC insider relationships to help Burisma survive.”
“That was the idea of Burisma hiring Hunter. It was that ability to help on the geopolitical stage keep them out of trouble, keep them out of investigations, unfreeze assets, unsuccessfully unfreeze visas,” he added.
Archer also called the Biden family’s international consulting business “a diverse portfolio of opportunity.”
Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., said on Friday that the House of Representatives will likely launch an impeachment inquiry following the House Oversight Committee's investigation into President Joe Biden and his family.
Donalds said, "I fully believe that we're going to start an impeachment inquiry in the House of Representatives, and that we're going to present this case, present this information to the members of the House, and I think votes will probably take place at some point in the future. I think that's where we're going."
"I think House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is correct," he added. "I think we are going to open up an impeachment inquiry through the Judiciary Committee chaired by Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan."
"That is such a serious matter that it can't be based on vague conspiratorial notions"
Republicans are experts on "vague conspiratorial notions." They gave us Hillary Clinton's child sex ring in a the basement of Comet Pizza and Obama's "fake" birth certificate.
What the last 2 years have shown though is they have absolutely NO IDEA what a REAL conspiracy looks like, despite all the evidence provided by Republican leaders and witnesses in front of Congress, on video tape, and on audio tape. But Republicans prefer "evidence" from shadowy figures that can't actually be verified. That way they can keep dragging Dem politicians through the mud in perpetuity without actually convicting them on anything.
"... proof of intent beyond a reasonable doubt. It doesn't satisfy the high standard that should be required when you're going after your political opponent."
Nope.
"Proof beyond a reasonable doubt" is what's required for a CONVICTION in a court trial.
Generally speaking, a grand jury may issue an indictment for a crime, also known as a "true bill," only if it verifies that those presenting had probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed by a criminal suspect.
"Beyond That's banana republic, when you go after your political opponents by indicting them... and denying everyone's right to vote for him or against them. If someone wants to vote against Donald Trump, a prosecutor shouldn't deny them that right."
You know you're a banana republic when you let a bunch of thugs raid Congress after they've been whipped into a fever by a lying president, and let him get away with it.
This isn't stopping anyone from voting for Trump. That's what "write-in" candidates are for. They can use his full name, or perhaps by Nov 2024, he'll have a prisoner number they can use.
"it's actually not a crime to say you won an election when you didn't"
Clearly, you didn't pay attention to the indictment. Maybe try reading it. That's not what he's been indicted for.
You can try to deflect all you like, but that only works with the idiots you surround yourself with.
"Clearly, you didn't pay attention to the indictment. Maybe try reading it. That's not what he's been indicted for."
What's clear is that you have a bad case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. All the charges made against him fall apart if it's not illegal to lie about winning the election
He might not win with a jury of DC morons but the Supreme Court will never uphold the conviction
The latest federal indictment of former President Donald Trump was handed down this week with all of the authority of papal infallibility. Pundits lined up to proclaim that case as the greatest prosecution in history.
Former Obama administration acting Solicitor General Neil Katyal even declared that the indictment touched off “the biggest legal case in our lifetimes, perhaps almost ever. It’s up there with cases like Dred Scott, it is up there with Brown v. Board of Education.” What was missing was any serious consideration of the implications of allowing the government to criminalize false statements in a campaign.
Trump was not charged with conspiracy to incite violence or insurrection. Rather, he was charged because he “spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won.”
In order to secure convictions for this, Special Counsel Jack Smith would need to bulldoze through not just the First Amendment but also existing case law holding that even false statements are protected.
The government acknowledges that the Constitution protects false statements made in campaigns, but it insists that Trump must have known that his statements were false and therefore was engaged in fraudulent statements to obstruct or challenge electoral results.
As a threshold matter, one problem is immediately evident. If Trump actually did (or does) believe that he did not lose the election, the indictment collapses. And so in an effort to demonstrate his knowledge, the indictment details how many people told Trump that he was wrong about the election and wrong about the law. I was one of those voices. Trump did not listen to me, most legal analysts or even his White House counsel. Instead, he listened to a small group of lawyers who assured him that a challenge might succeed and that there was evidence of massive election fraud.
But Trump is allowed to seek out enablers who tell him what he wants to hear. All presidents do this. (Joe Biden, for example, ignored virtually unanimous legal opinion and relied upon a single law professor’s say-so to justify an obviously unconstitutional executive action that later had to be reversed.)
This case, which criminally targets the sitting president’s leading opponent, is much more dangerous because it sets up the federal government as the arbiter of truth.
This indictment essentially charges Trump with not accepting the “truth.” There is no limiting principle to this indictment. The government would choose between which politicians are lying and which are lying without cause.
Under our current understanding of free speech, Democrats ranging from Hillary Clinton to Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) were engaged in protected speech when they called Trump illegitimate and challenged the certification of his win, even though they knew that their challenges were completely meritless. Yet this indictment suggests that Trump engaged (and indeed still engages) in criminal conduct by insisting that the 2020 election was stolen. Presumably, it also follows that tens of millions of Americans holding that same view are also involved in spreading the same false claims underlying the indictment.
Smith could still secure the cooperation of insiders to support a claim that Trump knew. Many of us have noted the sudden silence of former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and a couple of former Trump lawyers who do not appear to be among the six referenced criminal co-conspirators. One of those six could also flip and say that Trump said that this was all an undeniable but useful sham.
Yet even assuming Trump knew his claims were false, there would still remain the controversial effort to link his false claims to the actions of others in challenging the election. And even then, there remains the constitutional problem of criminalizing political lies.
In the 2012 decision United States v. Alvarez, the Supreme Court held 6-3 that it is unconstitutional to criminalize lies in a case involving a politician who had knowingly lied about his military decorations.
Some of us in the free speech community heralded that decision as correct long before Trump was even a consideration for the presidency. The court recognized that criminalizing false statements “would give government a broad censorial power unprecedented in this court’s cases or in our constitutional tradition. The mere potential for the exercise of that power casts a chill, a chill the First Amendment cannot permit if free speech, thought, and discourse are to remain a foundation of our freedom.”
What was most striking about the case was that Xavier Alvarez knew he was lying about the medals. A 6-3 majority, including every liberal justice on the court at that time, ruled that Congress had gone too far in attempting to criminalize lies about one’s military service.
Likewise, Trump might have known that his claims of systemic voter fraud were bogus, yet still believed that a recount could flip the close result. This might be what he meant in his call with Georgia officials in which he stated “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state.”
So even assuming that Smith can prove Trump lied, there would still be constitutional barriers to criminalizing his false statements. That is why the threshold constitutional claims in this indictment should be addressed by the courts before it goes forward.
The problem could come down to the judge. Even liberal pundits admit that Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who has used past Jan. 6 cases to vent, is the “worst [judge] Trump could have got.”
Chutkan could effectively certify the deeper constitutional questions and let the parties seek appellate review. Or she could insist that Trump be tried before the constitutional questions are considered. Although the D.C. Circuit is not a friendly court to Trump, the Supreme Court would likely balk at the criminalization of false political speech.
That would mean that Chutkan could force a case to be tried that should not be tried. And even with a conviction, there would remain a serious threshold constitutional question that is not entirely answered by determining what was in the mind of Donald Trump.
We're at a turning point in the parallel investigations into the corrupt behaviors of the Biden family and lawbreaking by some of America’s top law enforcement agencies.
Consider recent events.
Hunter Biden’s sweetheart plea bargain collapsed in Delaware. The Department of Justice sent a weekend letter asking a judge to set a date for sentencing Devon Archer (two days before his congressional testimony and noting that the length of his sentence hadn't yet been decided). Then, Mr. Archer reportedly gave direct, blunt, and revealing testimony (the transcript was made available on Aug. 3). This is all rising above politics and becoming historic.
The same sort of thing happened to President Richard Nixon. First, there was an inquiry into a break-in by low-level operatives. It then morphed into a full-blown investigation into criminal behavior by the Nixon administration. Ultimately, 46 people were convicted of a wide range of crimes. The only cabinet officer ever sent to jail was then-Attorney General John Mitchell for obstruction of justice. This is a precedent that current Attorney General Merrick Garland should take to heart.
It's now clear that presidential candidate Joe Biden lied relentlessly about his son’s business activities—and large parts of the establishment were helping with his lies. In the second 2020 debate with then-President Donald Trump, Mr. Joe Biden proudly cited the 50 intelligence officers who had signed a letter claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation. We now know that the letter—and Mr. Joe Biden’s use of it—was all a lie.
Given recent events, the establishment media is beginning to take the Bidens’ dishonesty seriously. For the first time, The New York Times and The Washington Post are critically viewing Mr. Joe Biden’s statements with appropriate skepticism. They haven't yet committed their reporters to in-depth investigations (we've yet to see this generation’s Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein meet the challenge).
As stories about Mr. Archer’s testimony began to come out, it struck me that we're moving toward the kind of impeachment inquiry that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy alluded to a few days earlier.
Chairman James Comer and his committee have been doing an outstanding job of digging into the Biden and Justice Department scandals. Mr. Archer's testimony is merely the latest breakthrough that they've developed.
We aren't at the end of this story.
We aren't even at the beginning of the end.
I was reminded of then-UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s comment after the British victory at El Alamein in November 1942: “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
The essence of Mr. Archer’s testimony:
"That’s how influence peddling works. The product being peddled was Joe Biden.
That’s why Hunter and his uncle Jim Biden were paid millions of dollars by Ukrainians, Chinese, Russians, Romanians, Kazakhs and so on.”
The New York Post and its brilliant reporter Miranda Devine have covered the Hunter Biden laptop story since 2020. For reporting accurately what was on the laptop, they were blocked by the social media giants—since it would have destroyed Mr. Joe Biden’s candidacy and reelected Mr. Trump.
Suddenly, the establishment newspapers are beginning to be convinced, too.
While The New York Times is still largely towing the establishment line, the paper reported:
“Still, Mr. Archer’s testimony underscored that Mr. Biden had made false or misleading statements regarding his family members’ finances. During the 2020 presidential debate, Mr. Biden claimed that no one in his family had received money from China, when, in fact, Hunter Biden and his business associates took in millions from a Chinese firm.
“In 2019, Mr. Biden also repeatedly said he had ‘never discussed’ and had ‘never spoken to’ Hunter Biden about his business dealings.
“Recently, the White House spokeswoman, Karine Jean-Pierre, has begun speaking in less declarative terms about the matter, saying that Mr. Biden ‘was never in business with his son.’”
Not far behind the NY Times was an op-ed by Jason Willick in the Washington Post:
“Even if none of the ‘Biden family business’ allegations stick, the collapse of Hunter Biden’s plea deal in open court punctures the Biden administration’s sanctimony about an independent Justice Department.”
The remarkable Mark Halperin, in his report The Wide World of News captured the essence of where we are now:
“The Dominant Media now believes for sure that Joe Biden lied knowingly and repeatedly about his connection to Hunter’s deals; that Hunter’s plea deal was as fishy as the contours of the investigation that led up to it; that Hunter’s influence peddling involved his father directly; that it would not be surprising if Joe made money off of Hunter’s deal; and that it would only be a little bit surprising if Joe did ‘stuff’ to help Hunter get and keep deals.
“All of that means that the House investigation in the eyes of the Dominant Media is no longer a purely partisan witch hunt. The press doesn’t see it quite yet as a search for the truth that is in the public interest. But it has veered in that direction.”
We aren't at the beginning of the end for Biden and Justice Department corruption. We may be at the end of the beginning.
"All the charges made against him fall apart if it's not illegal to lie about winning the election"
Is that all you think Mr. Trump and his co-conspirators did, lie, which is standard GQP operating procedure now?
I suggest you read the 45 page indictment which lists many illegal acts other than lying the crooks engaged in while trying to NOT COUNT the votes of actual living citizens.
For example, it is NOT legal to "subvert the legitimate election results and change electoral votes for the Defendant's opponent, Joseph R. Biden, to electoral votes for the Defendant."
That's might be how Putin counts votes, but we don't do that here in America.
"I suggest you read the 45 page indictment which lists many illegal acts"
what do you mean, "many" illegal acts?
he was indicted on 4 counts
all vague and dubious, and which revolve around the notion that he lied about winning the election
you, yourself, don't have much confidence in them since you are clearly avoiding saying what they are
"...So look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have...."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIJU3M-kKhI
"...Trump: Well, with [the Senior Military Official]—uh, let me see that, I’ll show you an example. He said that I wanted to attack [Country A]. Isn’t it amazing? I have a big pile of papers, this thing just came up. Look. This was him. They presented me this—this is off the record, but—they presented me this. This was him. This was the Defense Department and him.
Writer: Wow.
Trump: We looked at some. This was him. This wasn’t done by me, this was him. All sorts of stuff—pages long, look.
Staffer: Mm.
Trump: Wait a minute, let’s see here.
Staffer: [Laughter] Yeah.
Trump: I just found, isn’t that amazing? This totally wins my case, you know.
Staffer: Mm-hm.
Trump: Except it is like, highly confidential.
Staffer: Yeah. [Laughter]
Trump: Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this. You attack, and —
.
.
.
Trump: See as president I could have declassified it.
Staffer: Yeah. [Laughter]
Trump: Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret..."
https://www.factcheck.org/2023/06/trump-iran-and-the-highly-confidential-document/
"So look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have"
so what?
every losing politician tries to find votes that weren't counted
"I just found, isn’t that amazing? This totally wins my case, you know. Except it is like, highly confidential. Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this. You attack, and — See as president I could have declassified it. Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret"
oh brother, what was it? just because he was trying to impress some staffer, it doesn't mean it was actually classified information
you people are so sad....
It is clear after Devon Archer’s detailed July 31 testimony in front of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee that President Biden’s original story simply does not survive the facts.
In fact, his testimony combined with the collapse of the Hunter Biden plea deal in federal court has virtually guaranteed that there will be an expanded impeachment inquiry.
It is important to distinguish between an impeachment inquiry and an actual motion of impeachment. Launching the inquiry allows the House to ask wider-ranging questions and expands the range of investigation powers House Republicans can bring to bear. It may or may not lead to an act of impeachment.
Consider how the testimony has blown holes in the president’s defense that he had nothing to do with Hunter Biden’s business deals and knew nothing about them.
Archer was a close business partner of Hunter Biden’s, and there are several pictures of him with then-Vice President Joe Biden. There is also a generous letter from the then-vice president about how happy he was that Archer and Hunter Biden were working together.
As Archer testified about the details of their working relationship, he proved decisively that candidate and later President Biden has consistently lied to the American people.
As Miranda Devine reported in the New York Post, “No matter how desperately Democrats and their media handmaidens try to spin Archer’s testimony, he has changed the game.”
It is clear that the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma was paying Archer and Hunter Biden $83,000 a month each for access to Hunter’s father.
Then-Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was investigating corruption involving Burisma. In his testimony, Archer said, “I do believe that, at the end of the day, Burisma wouldn’t have stayed in business so long if Hunter was not on the board.”
By the elder Mr. Biden’s own boasting in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, he flew to Ukraine and threatened the Ukrainian government that he would withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid unless Mr. Shokin was fired. As Mr. Biden put it, he warned them that the money would be cut off if they did not fire Mr. Shokin.
Three months later, Mr. Shokin was gone, and as Archer said, Burisma was saved.
Mr. Archer testified that then-Vice President Biden’s activities and influence spread far beyond Ukraine.
He asserted that Hunter called his father at least 20 times in an effort to impress foreign business people. On several occasions, Hunter put his father on the speakerphone so everyone present could see that he offered real access to the second most powerful person in the U.S. government.
As Ari Fleischer, former press secretary to former President George W. Bush, said on “Hannity”:
“If I was pitching clients right now and I said, ‘Hey, before we get going to this meeting, I’ve got George Bush on the line. He just wants to talk to you about the weather. Hey, Mr. President, it’s great to have you here.’ Everybody in that room would go, ‘Oh, he can get the president on the line. Isn’t that something?’
“Everybody knows what that would be. The difference is, no politician I’ve ever worked for would have gotten on that line. It would have been unethical. It was corruption. Joe Biden got on the line more than 20 times. That is corruption.”
It was more than phone calls. The elder Mr. Biden had dinner with Hunter’s foreign business associates on at least two occasions.
He had dinner in Paris with a French energy company and in China with a Chinese investment firm — and of course, he took Hunter with him on Air Force Two.
As House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said on “Just the News, No Noise”:
“It’s just unbelievable. When in American history has a vice president ever taken an active role, and demanded that a prosecutor be fired in a foreign country for simply investigating a business that was domiciled in that foreign country? Never. The evidence continues to mount that the real quid pro quo pertaining to Ukraine in Burisma was Joe Biden. … That’s why we’re investigating Joe Biden. We know his family has sold access to him for years. The problem is we could have a president that’s compromised.”
Given all this information, it is no wonder House Speaker Kevin McCarthy indicated that this investigation could turn into an impeachment inquiry.
As the Biden family corruption becomes clearer — and the defenses become more absurd — the Archer testimony will be seen as one of the major breaking points where reality and facts began to undermine a crumbling defense of dishonesty and dissimulation.
This is an important week for American politics.
The Washington Post has a Donald Trump obsession. Some might call it a vendetta.
Although the flamboyant former president has been out of the White House for more than two and a half years, he gets far more front-page coverage in the Post than the current president, Joe Biden.
And nearly all of the Post’s reporting on Trump is negative.
To be sure, Trump’s endless legal troubles are big news and should be thoroughly covered. But in the pages of the capital city’s venerable daily paper the nation’s economic, social, educational, health, and foreign affairs problems facing the incumbent president take a back seat to Trump’s ongoing indictments of one kind or another.
For June and July – a period of 61 days – Trump’s name appeared 33 times in Washington Post Page-One headlines.
Biden, who is the current president, skated away with just 14 Page-One mentions.
Moreover, 31 of the 33 headlines with Trump’s name in them were negative. For example:
“Justice Dept. reveals damning details in Trump case”
“U.S.: Trump flouted law all along way”
In contrast, eight of the 14 Biden mentions were positive, such as these:
“Biden announces new loan forgiveness”
“Biden’s border authority affirmed”
Something is wrong here. Trump is not the president; Biden is. That is not to say that Trump is not newsworthy. He is. After all, polls show he is the leading Republican contender for the 2024 presidential nomination.
But more than twice as much front-page coverage of Trump as of Biden seems a little over the top.
Is news about Trump more important than news about the man who is currently charged with leading the nation through these perilous times and who is making decisions that affect our lives every day? And isn’t the front page where we expect to find coverage of the day’s most important events?
Editors running the Post apparently think their readers care more about Trump’s legal troubles than Biden’s leadership through these perilous times. Maybe they do. We live in highly partisan, and highly polarized, times.
To be sure, every newspaper is free to place stories anywhere their editors decide to put them. There are no formal rules for what must be played on the front page. Each newsroom is free to make its own choices.
Most newspapers have what is called a daily Page-One meeting. There, the paper’s top editors gather and discuss the stories they think should be placed on Page One. Each editor makes a pitch for their favorites. Clearly, Post editors agree with robot-like regularity that Trump, not Biden, is the top story of the day.
This past week Trump was in the media spotlight for being indicted again by a federal grand jury and appearing in court in Washington to plead “not guilty” to charges stemming from the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Tons of Page-One coverage of that in the Post, as it should be.
But where was Biden when all this was coming down? He was on vacation at his Delaware beach house, riding his bike, and sunning himself on the sand: lots of nice pictures for TV.
Do you think it was by accident that Biden just happened to be on vacation while Trump was in the dock? Or do you think Biden knew the indictments were coming down – after all, it was his own Justice Department that brought them – and decided to get out of town and leave the big news spotlight all to Trump?
My guess is the latter.
In sum, those who study the Post's front pages over time might conclude that the newspaper – in its choice of story placement and the negative tone of the headlines – is out to get Trump. Or, conversely, out to boost Biden.
Either way, they wouldn’t be far from wrong.
The collapse of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team mirrors the descent of its most famous player, Megan Rapinoe.
Early Sunday morning, the USWNT exited the World Cup in the first round of the knockout stage, losing to an overmatched Sweden team on penalty kicks at the conclusion of a 0-0 tie. It marked the worst finish for the American women’s team in World Cup history.
Our national team has been ranked No. 1 in the world since June 2017 and for all but 10 months since March 2008. The squad has never been ranked lower than No. 2. In the Round of 16, Sweden conquered a dynasty.
Close observers were not surprised. The team has been in mental decay since Carli Lloyd retired (2020) and corporate media anointed the purple-haired Rapinoe as the unquestioned face of American women’s soccer.
For the last three years, the 38-year-old winger has used the team’s spotlight to grow the Rapinoe brand. The game, the competition, and representing national honor all took a back seat to self-promotion, virtue-signaling, so-called social activism centered around the BLM-LGBTQ-Alphabet Mafia, and expressing Trump derangement.
Rapinoe’s handlers and major corporations partnered with corporate media to cast her as “The Great Gay Hope,” the alternative-lifestyle Muhammad Ali.
Mia Hamm, Abby Wambach, Carli Lloyd, and Alex Morgan were all better players than Rapinoe. But none of them can match Rapinoe’s knack for drawing attention to herself for sleeping with women — her superpower, the behavior that makes her a legendary icon.
The same forces that have attempted to make Brittney Griner the Nelson Mandela of basketball insisted that “The Great Gay Hope” take a victory lap on the national team long past her expiration date.
To no surprise, the strategy backfired. Rapinoe acted as a locker-room cancer. She diminished the importance of competition. Throughout the World Cup, the U.S. women failed to play with passion and precision. In four games, they scored four goals and won just one match.
Fox Sports broadcaster Alexi Lalas repeatedly warned that the U.S. team would lose. Lloyd, working alongside Lalas, blasted the team after it laughed off and celebrated following a disappointing 0-0 tie with Portugal in its final group match.
The team had the wrong attitude. The team mirrored its star, Rapinoe, who was being crowned with commercials and feature stories promoting the legend of Megan Rapinoe. The World Cup was a coronation of Rapinoe … until it wasn’t.
On Sunday, with a chance to off Sweden with a penalty kick, Rapinoe missed the entire net wide right. She smirked and laughed in embarrassment. Two other U.S. women missed their kicks as well. But those women earned their spots on the roster. Rapinoe was on the team and on the field because of social pressure and a never-ending marketing campaign. She hadn’t earned the right to fail. The opportunity was bestowed on her.
When it was over, when the No. 1-ranked team in the world completed its epic collapse, supporters of “The Great Gay Hope” refused to pivot. ESPN aired a three-minute feature story on Rapinoe narrated by her “fiancee,” WNBA player Sue Bird.
The Worldwide Leader in Sports carried on as if Rapinoe had stuck a Kerri Strug-like landing, scored 61 points like Kobe, or ricocheted into the end zone like John Elway.
“The Great Gay Hope” crashed and burned. She took her teammates with her.
When asked for her greatest memory of her “legendary” career, she pointed to the lawsuit she and her teammates filed against the U.S. Soccer Federation over alleged pay inequality. Gender pay inequality is a myth and a lie, no different from other popular corporate media narratives like climate change and the alleged genocidal homicide of unarmed black men.
But the truth is irrelevant in the making of an Alphabet Mafia icon. Megan Rapinoe is the George Floyd of soccer. Racism and sexism are the only things that prevented them from being president and vice president of the United States.
Or maybe Rapinoe is just another narcissistic, greedy, entitled celebrity.
Could you imagine Joe Montana or Michael Jordan summarizing their careers by referencing a contract dispute?
Rapinoe is a fraud. She’s the Colin Kaepernick of soccer. Her attitude poisoned the women’s national soccer team. Let’s hope her side effects don’t linger.
Here we go again. Another institution, brimming with self-righteous faux outrage, is trying to airbrush JK Rowling’s name out of history. This time it’s the turn of the Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) in Seattle, Washington, which has removed the world-famous author’s name from its Harry Potter exhibition. Last week, the museum announced that while it will continue to display memorabilia from the Harry Potter books and films, it wants no association with their supposedly problematic creator.
Explaining the decision in a 1,400-word blog, the museum’s exhibitions project manager, Chris Moore, brands Rowling a ‘cold, heartless, joy-sucking entity’. Moore, who identifies as trans and uses ‘he / them’ pronouns, takes exception to Rowling’s ongoing interest in preserving women’s hard-won rights over the ‘right of anyone who insists they are who they say they are’. Once again, Rowling’s reasonable and rational defence of women’s sex-based rights is being presented disingenuously as ‘hateful’ or ‘harmful’ towards transgender people, and therefore deserving of cancellation.
Moore even seems to think it would be better if Rowling had never existed. ‘We would love to go with the internet’s theory that these books were actually written without an author’, he writes, ‘but this certain person is a bit too vocal with her super hateful and divisive views to be ignored’.
Strikingly, Moore goes a few steps further than most of Rowling’s critics. He doesn’t just accuse her of transphobia. He also accuses the Harry Potter books of peddling ‘racial stereotypes’, promoting ‘fat shaming’ and, perhaps most heinous of all, lacking ‘LGBTQIA+ representation’. Surely to goodness there must have been a few pansexual / nonbinary students in the imaginary, magical school of Hogwarts? Shame on JKR for not giving them a voice, eh? The headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, might have been gay, but apparently that’s not enough in our world of 764 genders.
The attempts to erase Rowling are deadly serious. Each attempted takedown inevitably leads to her receiving the vilest, cruellest abuse. Abuse which, if you’ve ever taken the time to read it, contains some of the most horrific things one human could say to or about another. Rowling is no doubt a tower of strength and resilience, having been on the receiving end of this bile for years. But it’s probably still having an effect on her, deep down.
Perhaps there is an upside to this stunt by Moore and the MoPOP, however. Removing Rowling’s name from the museum, and condemning her as ‘super hateful’, is so infantile that most right-thinking people will likely see it for the foolishness it really is. Sunlight, on occasions such as these, has a remarkable effect of highlighting the absurd and often cruel behaviour of the gender ideologues. People are getting wise to these smear tactics now that they are so regularly churned out. The problem is it is difficult to get people to speak out against them.
Sadly, most people are still too scared to speak up.
We cannot simply stand by and shrug. We have to stand up to the smears. The truth is that Rowling has never said anything untoward about trans people. She has been critical of the behaviour of some trans fanatics. She has been vocal in her support for single-sex spaces for women and girls. And yes, she has vociferously defended herself against hourly abuse. As she damn well has a right to do. But she is not the bigot she has been made out to be.
It’s time we all speak up for what is right. It’s time to break the cycle of fear. It’s time we called out this public assault on JK Rowling – and on all the other gender-critical feminists who’ve been similarly maligned. We need to put a stop to this authoritarian movement.
Joe Biden’s re-election campaign kicks into high gear this week with the president and Cabinet secretaries blanketing the nation to boast about Bidenomics.
But CNN reports more than half of Americans believe “the economy is still in a downturn and conditions are continuing to worsen.”
The victory tour started Tuesday in Arizona.
But Biden’s slurring, disjointed speech might have reminded viewers of the “authentic frontier gibberish” accolade from the 1974 movie “Blazing Saddles.”
Biden couldn’t decide whether the Grand Canyon was one of the nine wonders of the world or one of the seven wonders of the world.
The prez pretended his decrees prohibiting any development of millions of acres would magically create prosperity.
After finishing his sparsely attended speech, Biden opted to attend a fundraiser that night in Albuquerque in lieu of visiting the chaos his policies unleashed at the Arizona-Mexico border.
Bidenomics is a hard sell because consumer prices have increased almost 17% since the president took office, real wages have fallen 4%, and interest rates are at their highest level in 22 years.
Team Biden has no alternative except to “lie louder” — the same tactic that’s insulated it with the media since 2021.
But how can the White House craft bigger howlers?!?
In his State of the Union address in January, Biden boasted that thanks to his infrastructure law, “last year, we funded 700,000 major construction projects — 700,000 all across America.”
Biden exaggerated by a hundred-fold the number of federally funded projects, and even the White House issued a humiliating correction.
According to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, “Part of our job is storytelling, and we need to make the case about how all of this adds up into a better big picture, too.”
In 2021, CNN bashed him for exaggerating by more than 500% the likely number of jobs Biden’s infrastructure plan would create.
Buttigieg’s latest stories involve heavily hyped ribbon cuttings for projects that were funded before Biden’s landmark legislation was enacted.
Most of Biden’s economic achievements are shams or mirages.
After Friday’s jobs report, Vice President Kamala Harris boasted: “That means, today, 187,000 more Americans are able to go to work, to provide for their family and invest in their future.”
A Babylon Bee headline was closer to the truth: “White House Says Bidenomics So Successful The Average American Has Twice As Many Jobs As They Had Two Years Ago.”
The number of full-time jobs plummeted by more than half a million last month while part-time jobs surged.
Biden portrays the $50 billion in subsidies for semiconductors via the CHIPS Act as another magic wand for the US economy.
But the world semiconductor market is collapsing, with sales down 20% globally this year.
Federal subsidies are accompanied by a tangle of social, economic and environmental mandates that guarantee new US factories will be uncompetitive in world markets.
In his Arizona spiel, Biden claimed last year’s Inflation Reduction Act was the “largest climate bill in the history not only of the United States but literally in the history of the world.”
But a Washington Post poll released Monday reported that 71% of Americans know “little” or “nothing at all” about that act.
Biden is seeking to rebrand the Inflation Reduction Act as a triumph of “environmental justice” after its initial rendition — “Celebrate 87,000 new IRS agents!” — flopped at the box office.
Signs are going up at worksites around the nation: “Project Funded by President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.”
But posting Biden’s name won’t prevent the proliferation of boondoggles across the land.
In 2021, Biden declared that his favorite green-energy company, Proterra, would “end up owning the future.”
Proterra’s future ended this week with a bankruptcy filing — the likely fate of many federally subsidized environmental endeavors.
That was the premise of Biden’s half-trillion-dollar student-debt bailout the Supreme Court struck down in June.
Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) declared that Biden’s “$10 trillion in new spending . . . pushed America’s credit rating off the ledge.”
The White House was shocked at the downgrading of US government debt last week and placed all the blame on Republicans.
The White House’s endless victory proclamations on declining inflation have not prevented surging gasoline prices this year despite Biden practically wiping out the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to create an illusion of prosperity.
“Rising gas prices” are “a communications nightmare for any White House,” The Washington Post reports, because “local newscasts regularly feature them” and the White House can’t stifle those reports.
Could The Washington Post provide a list of all the dismal data the liberal media helped Biden bury?
Bidenomics propaganda is also struggling because the percentage of voters who view Biden as “honest and trustworthy” has plunged since 2021, per CNN.
How can the White House persuade Americans to trust Biden instead of their own “lying eyes” at gas pumps and grocery stores?
Americans want abortion to be legal, even in red states like Kansas and Ohio.
"Americans want abortion to be legal, even in red states like Kansas and Ohio."
actually, in Ohio, voters didn't favor a constitutional amendment to ban it but that doesn't mean they favor it being legal
in both Kansas and Ohio, abortion is banned at 22 weeks
here's a map of each states' status
https://states.guttmacher.org/policies/ohio/abortion-policies
as you can see it, in 22 states, the laws are considered restrictive, very restrictive or most restrictive
fortunately, the Supreme Court has corrected the egregious Roe case and states that value human life can protect unborn children
better yet, efforts to ban it can continue everywhere, unhindered by the courts
although abortion is a matter of local law, polls show Americans as a whole favor banning it at 15 weeks
A year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, most adults still believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and most are in favor of Congress passing a law guaranteeing access to legal abortion. This is similar to the results of an AP-NORC poll conducted July 2022 when Roe v. Wade was first overturned.
Opinions are more divided over the timeframe of when abortion should be allowed. Seventy-three percent of respondents think that it should be allowed within the first 6 weeks, but that drops to 51% for 15 weeks. Most people living in states where abortion is highly restricted say it should be legal at least up to six weeks, even as they generally favor tighter access to abortion than adults overall.
Most adults believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, consistent with a July 2022 poll. And 60% of the public think Congress should pass a law guaranteeing access to legal abortion nationwide. However, a partisan divide persists. Most Democrats say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while most Republicans think it should be illegal in most or all cases. Similarly, 84% of Democrats support a federal law ensuring access to the procedure, compared to just 32% of Republicans.
Democrats are more supportive of legal abortion than Republicans regardless of religion. Among Catholics, 85% of Democrats believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases compared to 39% of Republicans.
People living in states with the most restrictive abortion laws are less likely than those living in states where abortion is broadly available to say abortion should usually be legal, 53% vs 70%. Still, even in those most restrictive states, only 14% say abortion should always be illegal.
And while most people believe that their state should allow legal abortion 6 weeks into pregnancy, opinions are more divided later into pregnancy. About half of adults say states should allow legal abortions at 15 weeks, and just 27% say the same at 24 weeks into a pregnancy.
Fifty-eight percent of those living in states with the most restrictive abortion laws people say abortion should be allowed at six weeks along with more than 7 in 10 people in the rest of the country. At 15 weeks, 59% of those living in the least restrictive states say it should be legal compared with about 4 in 10 people in more restrictive states. Only 31% of people living in states where abortion is broadly available say the procedure should be legal at 24 weeks as well as about one in four residents of states with at least some restrictions.
Majorities of both Democrats and Republicans believe that a pregnant person should be allowed to obtain a legal abortion in certain circumstances, including if the child would be born with a life-threatening illness, the pregnant person’s own health is seriously endangered by the pregnancy, or the person became pregnant as the result of rape or incest.
And majorities of born-again Christians and Catholics agree that a pregnant person should be allowed to obtain a legal abortion if the pregnant person’s own health is seriously endangered by the pregnancy or if the person became pregnant as the result of rape or incest...
"Seventy-three percent of respondents think that it should be allowed within the first 6 weeks, but that drops to 51% for 15 weeks."
basically, half of Americans think it should be banned at 15 weeks
well, sounds like more consciousness raising is necessary to increase that percentage- but the Supreme Court is no longer in the way - legalized abortion is no longer a foregone conclusion
and that's unlikely to ever change
GQPers are such great liars and 30-40% of the pussy-grabber's voters eat them up!
"basically, half of Americans think it should be banned at 15 weeks"
When answering a pollster's question, sure.
Ever since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, bringing a flood of state-level abortion bans, both Republicans and the press have quickly learned Americans do not like to vote in favor of abortion bans. In every state where abortion rights have been put on the ballot, no matter how red, voters have turned out to protect their rights. As many pro-choicers have been saying for years, people may vaguely say they're "against" abortion when the idea is abstract, but they sure as hell want the keep the option open in case they're the ones facing an unwanted pregnancy.
Raise you hand if you remember that HUGE RED WAVE in that 2022 midterms.
A large majority of Americans said abortion as an important issue for them in a new The Economist/YouGov survey.
The poll, published Wednesday, found that 77 percent of respondents say abortion rights are either very or somewhat important, while 23 percent of those surveyed said the issue is not very important or unimportant to them.
Along political party lines, 87 percent of Democrat respondents said abortion rights is an important issue, compared to 73 percent of independent respondents and 72 percent of Republicans.
There was almost no variation by race, with 78 percent of Black respondents saying abortion rights are important, compared to 77 percent of Hispanics and 76 percent of White respondents.
Younger Americans were most likely to see abortion as an important issue, with that view comprising 85 percent of respondents between the ages of 18 and 29 years, 77 percent of respondents between 30 and 44, 72 percent of respondents between 45 and 64 and 78 percent of respondents 65 years or older.
The poll comes over a year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision handed down nearly 50 years ago that protected the constitutional right to abortion.
As a result of the ruling, multiple GOP-led states have either implemented or enacted their own abortion bans and restrictions when Roe was overturned. And GOP candidates for president have been peppered with questions about whether they support a federal ban.
Ohio voters on Tuesday rejected a ballot measure that would have made it harder for to amend the state constitution — which was partly seen as an effort to prevent a statewide vote in November on a ballot measure that would enshrine abortion rights into the state’s constitution.
The Economist/YouGov poll was conducted from August 5 to August 8 with a total of 1,500 respondents participating in the survey. The poll’s margin of error was 2.8 percentage points.
President Joe Biden on Wednesday again mocked Republican lawmakers for taking credit for projects when they voted against the bills that provided the funding.
Biden took aim at Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) as he promoted his administration’s clean energy initiatives at an event in New Mexico.
The president mentioned the expansion of the CS Wind turbine tower manufacturing facility in Pueblo, Colorado.
“Coincidentally, CS Wind is Congresswoman Lauren Boebert — y’know, the very quiet Republican lady? — it’s in her district,” he pointed out as the audience laughed. “Who, along with every other Republican, voted against this bill.”
Biden said she “railed against” the bill but now welcomes it.
“That’s OK,” he said. “When I ran for office, I promised to be president for all Americans. Whether you live in a blue state or a red state, I’m going to keep my promise.
Biden referred to Tuberville ― who is currently blocking U.S. military promotions to protest abortion policy ― as the “distinguished senator from the state of Alabama, who used to be a pretty good football coach.”
Like Boebert, Tuberville was against the bill.
“Then I noticed he had a big announcement: ‘Alabama’s going to get 1 billion, 200 million dollars ...’ and I thought, 'Wait a minute! Didn’t he rail against that for a long, long time?”
Indeed he did, as Tuberville voted against the bill that included the money for the broadband expansion he touted, then celebrated it in a big announcement.
“I was inclined to go down and help him celebrate, but I decided not to,” Biden said to more laughs from his audience.
The fullest accounting yet shows how Thomas has secretly reaped the benefits from a network of wealthy and well-connected patrons that is far more extensive than previously understood.
During his three decades on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas has enjoyed steady access to a lifestyle most Americans can only imagine. A cadre of industry titans and ultrawealthy executives have treated him to far-flung vacations aboard their yachts, ushered him into the premium suites at sporting events and sent their private jets to fetch him — including, on more than one occasion, an entire 737. It’s a stream of luxury that is both more extensive and from a wider circle than has been previously understood.
Like clockwork, Thomas’ leisure activities have been underwritten by benefactors who share the ideology that drives his jurisprudence. Their gifts include:
At least 38 destination vacations, including a previously unreported voyage on a yacht around the Bahamas; 26 private jet flights, plus an additional eight by helicopter; a dozen VIP passes to professional and college sporting events, typically perched in the skybox; two stays at luxury resorts in Florida and Jamaica; and one standing invitation to an uber-exclusive golf club overlooking the Atlantic coast.
This accounting of Thomas’ travel, revealed for the first time here from an array of previously unavailable information, is the fullest to date of the generosity that has regularly afforded Thomas a lifestyle far beyond what his income could provide. And it is almost certainly an undercount.
While some of the hospitality, such as stays in personal homes, may not have required disclosure, Thomas appears to have violated the law by failing to disclose flights, yacht cruises and expensive sports tickets, according to ethics experts.
Perhaps even more significant, the pattern exposes consistent violations of judicial norms, experts, including seven current and former federal judges appointed by both parties, told ProPublica. “In my career I don’t remember ever seeing this degree of largesse given to anybody,” said Jeremy Fogel, a former federal judge who served for years on the judicial committee that reviews judges’ financial disclosures. “I think it’s unprecedented.”
This year, ProPublica revealed Texas real estate billionaire Harlan Crow’s generosity toward Thomas, including vacations, private jet flights, gifts, the purchase of his mother’s house in Georgia and tuition payments. In an April statement, the justice defended his relationship with Crow. The Crows “are among our dearest friends,” Thomas said. “As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips.”
The New York Times recently surfaced VIP treatment from wealthy businessmen he met through the Horatio Alger Association, an exclusive nonprofit. Among them were David Sokol, a former top executive at Berkshire Hathaway, and H. Wayne Huizenga, a billionaire who turned Blockbuster and Waste Management into national goliaths. (The Times noted Thomas gives access to the Supreme Court building for Horatio Alger events; ProPublica confirmed that the access has cost $1,500 or more in donations per person.)
Records and interviews show Thomas had another benefactor, oil baron Paul “Tony” Novelly, whose gifts to the justice have not previously been reported. ProPublica’s totals in this article include trips from Crow.
Each of these men — Novelly, Huizenga, Sokol and Crow — appears to have first met Thomas after he ascended to the Supreme Court. With the exception of Crow, their names are nowhere in Thomas’ financial disclosures, where justices are required by law to publicly report most gifts.
The total value of the undisclosed trips they’ve given Thomas since 1991, the year he was appointed to the Supreme Court, is difficult to measure. But it’s likely in the millions...
"The fullest accounting yet shows how Thomas has secretly reaped the benefits from a network of wealthy and well-connected patrons that is far more extensive than previously understood:
so what?
"During his three decades on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas has enjoyed steady access to a lifestyle most Americans can only imagine."
so what? so has Slidin' Joe Biden, Pompous Obama and Ping-Pong Hillary
it's what happens when you're famous in America
Dems made him more famous than most SCOTUS justices with the fit they had during his confirmation hearings
Dems think all blacks are obligated to support the gay agenda and are highly offended by black conservatives
it's called racism
"more extensive and from a wider circle than has been previously understood"
nobody paid any attention to this non-story until originalists came to dominate the court and Dems realized they can no longer get the court to impose their agenda in ways they couldn't accomplish legislatively by a Democratic process
"Like clockwork, Thomas’ leisure activities have been underwritten by benefactors who share the ideology that drives his jurisprudence"
how is that "like clockwork"
inappropriate cliche alert
the fact that they already shared his views just goes to show their no quid pro quo involved
these people were just trying ti gain insight into a unique individual's perspective
really nothing wrong with that
wealthy individuals often let Presidents, like Obama and Clinton, vacation in their homes in Hawaii and Martha's Vineyard
"While some of the hospitality, such as stays in personal homes, may not have required disclosure, Thomas appears to have violated the law by failing to disclose flights, yacht cruises and expensive sports tickets, according to ethics experts"
if they actually said that, they are wrong
but you are probably taking them out of contaxt, since you didn't supply a quote
"Perhaps even more significant, the pattern exposes consistent violations of judicial norms, experts, including seven current and former federal judges appointed by both parties"
the Supreme Court is not subject to the same norms as lower courts
"“In my career I don’t remember ever seeing this degree of largesse given to anybody,” said Jeremy Fogel, a former federal judge who served for years on the judicial committee that reviews judges’ financial disclosures. “I think it’s unprecedented.”"
so, it's not unusual except for the extent of it? is that your point, Jeremy?
"their names are nowhere in Thomas’ financial disclosures, where justices are required by law to publicly report most gifts"
so far, when the media has made this charge, it's been debunked
Thomas has always followed the rules in place
Never mind the latest indictments. Or any that preceded them. Even though it came out before Donald Trump's latest plunge into the judicial process, the most recent Siena College/New York Times poll suggests two things likely outcomes: that the former president will be the 2024 Republican presidential nominee and that he's just as likely to win the general election as lose. As to the nomination, Trump is campaigning like an incumbent. His 2020 loss to Joe Biden may have looked decisive. But a shift of fewer than 50,000 votes in states like Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin would have put him back in the White House for a second term.
That should help put his lead in perspective. The race for the nomination is not, as it was in 2016, wide open. The field is likewise crowded but works to Trump's advantage once again. The Republicans who gather later this month for the first debate in Milwaukee will be talking about him even if he's not on the stage with them.
For those challenging Trump for the nomination, that's a tactical mistake. They should be talking about their vision for the future and what they would do in office—not what Trump did or might do.
Every time they mention him, even negatively, they take the attention off themselves, putting it on him where he likes it.
Beating Biden is also in the cards. This is why his approval rating is upside down badly in every credible survey. In 2020 he ran as the candidate of the sensible center, the one who would be a moderating force on extremists on both sides of the aisle. As president, his administration is going after gas stoves.
Trump was upside down, too, when he was president, but for different reasons. Lots of people did not like his braggadocious swagger and tendency to punch down instead of up. They enjoyed the gains they saw in the stock market, their retirement portfolios, and stable interest rates and prices.
Trump governed as he said he would. Biden has not. In 2024, Trump and Biden will be running on their records. Trump is proud of his. Biden, despite his recent embrace of the word "Bidenomics," is not. He routinely tries to deflect attention from what his policies have done to the economy while exaggerating his accomplishments in critical areas like job creation.
With COVID in the rearview mirror, past performance gives Trump the edge on most questions regarding whether people are better off now than they were four years ago and which candidate for president they expect to help make them better off four years from now. Trump's first-term deficiencies can be glossed over by a commitment to do better.
If that doesn't work out well, like "read my lips, no new taxes" and "if you like your health care, you can keep it," most people will excuse a broken campaign promise if given a good enough reason.
On the other hand, Biden is locked into four more years of running the country as people feared Bernie Sanders would. The polls say Americans care about climate change and want to keep the oceans from rising. They're just not willing to incur the costs Team Biden intends to impose in the name of doing so.
People vote on the economy. Trump's record on these issues outshines Biden's in meaningful ways. Under Trump, the price of consumer goods was relatively stable. During Biden's first 29 months in office, the Consumer Price Index rose 15.7 percent. When Trump left office, the average rate for a 30-year mortgage was 2.7 percent. Under Biden, they've grown to just under 7 percent. The price of gasoline, an economic benchmark for most Americans, is up by more than $1 precisely because of Biden's energy policies. Once again, in less than four years, America has gone from being a net energy producer to a net consumer of resources imported from parts of the world prone to political instability.
Trump did better with the economy. That matters. It is a primary reason why he is leading the pack in the race for the 2024 GOP nomination and why he's a good bet to win a second term. There's always the possibility a black swan could come along to ruin things, but it's unlikely. He's survived crises that would have destroyed anyone else's candidacy.
That's not an endorsement. It's a statement of fact. Trump voters want relief from Washington's taxes, regulations, and interference in many aspects of our lives. For the second or maybe third time in a century, we are being taxed, spent, and regulated into oblivion. Enough is enough—and tough times sometimes call for tough measures.
Anti-abortion forces suffered a staggering loss in Ohio's special election this week. Now, in the aftermath of that defeat and others over the last year, the movement is grappling with how to forge ahead.
State and national conservatives offer a litany of competing explanations for why they were massively outspent and out-organized, and are butting heads on how to turn things around before November, when abortion will be on Ohio’s ballot directly. With no consensus on the real reason for the loss in a state dominated by Republicans, some are pleading with the GOP to move away from backing near-total bans with no exemptions to stave off further electoral disaster.
“We’re going to have to live with messier compromises going forward or risk this happening again and again,” said Patrick Brown, a fellow at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center who called Tuesday’s result a “five-alarm fire for the pro-life movement.”
“Some think that only a total ban is acceptable. But we see, over and over again, that such an uncompromising position doesn’t have support. There’s no political appetite for that,” he said.
This soul-searching on the right shows how fractured the anti-abortion movement remains on both tactics and messaging more than a year after they achieved their decades-long goal of toppling Roe v. Wade. Whether and how anti-abortion groups recalibrate over the next year could have massive implications — not only for the outcomes of future abortion-rights ballot initiatives around the country but also for Republicans up and down the ballot who back restrictions on the procedure.
“So long as the Republicans and their supporters take the ostrich strategy and bury their heads in the sand, they will lose again and again,” warned Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a top funder of the August referendum.
The word “abortion” did not appear on Tuesday’s ballot, which asked voters whether it should be more difficult to amend the state constitution. But abortion rights activists effectively messaged the race as a proxy war over November’s ballot initiative that would codify protections for the procedure into the state constitution.
Now, high off Tuesday’s win, abortion rights activists in Arizona, Florida and Missouri are working to get similar measures before voters next year — races anti-abortion groups are warning they will lose without more resources...
The pro-abortion rights side is confident following their blowout victory, telling reporters on a Wednesday call that they will stick to the same message heading into the fall vote: that the ballot initiative is about protecting Ohioans’ freedom from government interference in their personal medical decisions.
“People understand what’s at stake,” said Dr. Sri Thakkilapati, a leader of Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights. “This shows we have the momentum and the will of the people to pass this amendment in November.”
Anti-abortion advocates have clashed over the past year as their side lost in six other states abortion referendums last year and was blamed for a disappointing showing in the 2022 midterms. Far from turning the corner this year, they suffered defeat in a pivotal Wisconsin supreme court race and came up short again in Ohio...
For months leading up to August, conservatives working to raise the ballot measure threshold to 60 percent focused their ads on perceived areas of Democratic vulnerability, including drag, gender-affirming care, and whether minors should be able to seek abortions without a parent’s consent.
Brown noted that anti-abortion groups used similar messaging last year in Michigan, Kansas and other states with abortion referendums, and at least some of it “does not seem to be working.”...
it varies from place to place but, overall, Americans think abortion should only be allowed up to 15 weeks
we'll see who can connect better with voters but constitutional amendments are unwise as they prevent a democratic process from creating a consensus - the shape of which may differ in different areas
haven't Dems learned anything over the last 50 years?
Lie: "Trump governed as he said he would."
Warning, facts ahead:
Rump said he was going to balance the budget in 4 years.
Rump added $6 Trillion to the national debt in 4 years.
Rump added more national debt in 4 years than any president in this country's history.
A better message will not change the fact that a majority of Americans, as evidenced by every state referendum on abortion since Alito chose to force women to give birth to unintended and unwanted children took away a right from women, American voters want the option of abortion to remain legal.
Every popular vote tells the same tale.
Clearly, those who still wish to interfere in some very personal matters in women's lives are the ones who haven't learned anything in the last 50 years.
"Rump said he was going to balance the budget in 4 years.
Rump added $6 Trillion to the national debt in 4 years.
Rump added more national debt in 4 years than any president in this country's history."
as you may recall, during the last year of Trump's term, the Chinese government released a virus that caused a pandemic, necessitating massive government spending
were you not in favor of that?
Rump added more national debt in 4 years than any president in this country's history.
"Americans think abortion should be allowed"
a deceptive statement
a more correct version would be "Americans think abortion should be allowed until the 15th week of pregnancy"
Americans oppose abortion after that point
America's bill for electing Slidin' Joe Biden: 709 a month
I don't think we're getting our money's worth
US inflation has had a snowballing effect on family budgets.
The typical American household spent $709 more in July than they did two years ago to buy the same goods and services, according to Moody’s Analytics.
That figure underscores the cumulative impact high inflation has had on consumer finances — even as price growth has cooled considerably in recent months.
so let's get this straight: David Weiss screwed up the prosecution by offering him a deal that the court rejected
and Merrick Garland appoints him special prosecutor
Garland needs to be impeached and we need a special prosecutor to investigate the special prosecutor
He’s just not manly enough for the MAGA cult
"An evangelical leader is warning that conservative Christians are now rejecting the teachings of Jesus as “liberal talking points.”
Russell Moore, former top official for the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) who is now the editor-in-chief of Christianity Today, said during an interview aired on NPR’s All Things Considered this week that Christianity is in a “crisis” due to the current state of right-wing politics.
Moore has found himself at odds with other evangelical leaders due to his frequent criticism of former President Donald Trump. He resigned his position with the SBC in 2021 following friction over his views on Trump and a sex abuse crisis among Southern Baptist clergy.
In his NPR interview, Moore suggested that Trump had transformed the political landscape in the U.S. to the point where some Christian conservatives are openly denouncing a central doctrine of their religion as being too “weak” and “liberal” for their liking.
“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?'” Moore said.
“When the pastor would say, ‘I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ’ … The response would be, ‘Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak,” he added. “When we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.”
Moore went to to say that he did not think it would be possible to “fix” Christianity by “fighting a war for the soul of evangelicalism,” urging his concerned brethren to instead fight “small and local” battles like refusing to go along with the current “church culture.”"
Good luck with that.
Is it just possible that these people never really believed in Jesus’ teachings in the first place? Just asking …
Two prominent conservative law professors have concluded that Donald J. Trump is ineligible to be president under a provision of the Constitution that bars people who have engaged in an insurrection from holding government office. The professors are active members of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group, and proponents of originalism, the method of interpretation that seeks to determine the Constitution’s original meaning.
The professors — William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas — studied the question for more than a year and detailed their findings in a long article to be published next year in The University of Pennsylvania Law Review.
“When we started out, neither of us was sure what the answer was,” Professor Baude said. “People were talking about this provision of the Constitution. We thought: ‘We’re constitutional scholars, and this is an important constitutional question. We ought to figure out what’s really going on here.’ And the more we dug into it, the more we realized that we had something to add.”
He summarized the article’s conclusion: “Donald Trump cannot be president — cannot run for president, cannot become president, cannot hold office — unless two-thirds of Congress decides to grant him amnesty for his conduct on Jan. 6.”
A law review article will not, of course, change the reality that Mr. Trump is the Republican front-runner and that voters remain free to assess whether his conduct was blameworthy. But the scope and depth of the article may encourage and undergird lawsuits from other candidates and ordinary voters arguing that the Constitution makes him ineligible for office.
“There are many ways that this could become a lawsuit presenting a vital constitutional issue that potentially the Supreme Court would want to hear and decide,” Professor Paulsen said.
Mr. Trump has already been indicted twice in federal court, in connection with his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his retention of classified documents. He is also facing charges relating to hush money payments in New York and may soon be indicted in Georgia in a second election case.
Those cases could give rise to prison time or other criminal punishment. The provision examined in the new article concerns a different question: whether Mr. Trump is eligible to hold office.
There is, the article said, “abundant evidence” that Mr. Trump engaged in an insurrection, including by setting out to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election, trying to alter vote counts by fraud and intimidation, encouraging bogus slates of competing electors, pressuring the vice president to violate the Constitution, calling for the march on the Capitol and remaining silent for hours during the attack itself.
“It is unquestionably fair to say that Trump ‘engaged in’ the Jan. 6 insurrection through both his actions and his inaction,” the article said.
Steven G. Calabresi, a law professor at Northwestern and Yale and a founder of the Federalist Society, called the article “a tour de force.”
The provision in question is Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Adopted after the Civil War, it bars those who had taken an oath “to support the Constitution of the United States” from holding office if they then “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
Congress can remove the prohibition, the provision says, but only by a two-thirds vote in each chamber.
The new article examined the historical evidence illuminating the meaning of the provision at great length, using the methods of originalism. It drew on, among other things, contemporaneous dictionary definitions, other provisions of the Constitution using similar language, “the especially strong evidence from 1860s Civil War era political and legal usage of nearly the precise same terms” and the early enforcement of the provision.
The article concluded that essentially all of that evidence pointed in the same direction: “toward a broad understanding of what constitutes insurrection and rebellion and a remarkably, almost extraordinarily, broad understanding of what types of conduct constitute engaging in, assisting, or giving aid or comfort to such movements.”
It added, “The bottom line is that Donald Trump both ‘engaged in’ ‘insurrection or rebellion’ and gave ‘aid or comfort’ to others engaging in such conduct, within the original meaning of those terms as employed in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.”
Though the provision was devised to address the aftermath of the Civil War, it was written in general terms and continues to have force, the article said.
Congress granted broad amnesties in 1872 and 1898. But those acts were retrospective, the article said, and did not limit Section 3’s prospective force. (A federal appeals court agreed last year in the case involving Mr. Cawthorn.)
The provision’s language is automatic, the article said, establishing a qualification for holding office no different in principle from the Constitution’s requirement that only people who are at least 35 years old are eligible to be president.
“Section 3’s disqualification rule may and must be followed — applied, honored, obeyed, enforced, carried out — by anyone whose job it is to figure out whether someone is legally qualified to office,” the authors wrote. That includes election administrators, the article said.
Professor Calabresi said those administrators must act. “Trump is ineligible to be on the ballot, and each of the 50 state secretaries of state has an obligation to print ballots without his name on them,” he said, adding that they may be sued for refusing to do so.
(Professor Calabresi has occasionally strayed from conservative orthodoxy, leading to an unusual request from the group he helped found. “I have been asked not to talk to any journalist who identifies me as a co-founder of the Federalist Society, even though it is a historical fact,” he said. I noted the request and ignored it.)
Some of the evidence the article considered overlapped with what was described in the recent indictment of Mr. Trump accusing him of conspiring to subvert the 2020 election. But that case and Section 3 address “completely separate questions,” Professor Baude said.
“The question of should Donald Trump go to jail is entrusted to the criminal process,” he said. “The question of should he be allowed to take the constitutional oath again and be given constitutional power again is not a question given to any jury.”
A youth pastor at a Fowler, Colorado church is headed to jail after pleading guilty to charges connected to the sexual assault of a child. An investigation into 46-year-old Gabe Geringer began in 2018 when a victim came forward. According to the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office, Geringer was originally charged with felony sexual assault on a child and a pattern of sexual assaults on a child that began in 2010. Investigators said Geringer was the girls’ youth pastor at Fowler Christian Church.
We listen through the walls of our church, and know that the church-humans like to say that Jesus loves the little children. For the longest time we thought those people loved the innocence of children. But it turns out Jesus sends his ministers out to rape and molest the little children. Us Little Mouses don't have anything like that, we are trying to understand why adults bring their children to these places. It looks like the pedophile humans have set up a system that works well for them.
"Is it just possible that these people never really believed in Jesus’ teachings in the first place? Just asking …"
if they are rejecting the Sermon on the Mount, it's not just possible, it's probable.
"Two prominent conservative law professors have concluded that Donald J. Trump is ineligible to be president under a provision of the Constitution that bars people who have engaged in an insurrection from holding government office"
except that it's a stretch to say Trump did that
DALLAS (AP) — The state of Texas is questioning the legal rights of an “unborn child” in arguing against a lawsuit brought by a prison guard who says she had a stillborn baby because prison officials refused to let her leave work for more than two hours after she began feeling intense pains similar to contractions.
The argument from the Texas attorney general’s office appears to be in tension with positions it has previously taken in defending abortion restrictions, contending all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court that “unborn children” should be recognized as people with legal rights.
It also contrasts with statements by Texas’ Republican leaders, including Gov. Greg Abbott, who has touted the state’s abortion ban as protecting “every unborn child with a heartbeat.”
The state attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to questions about its argument in a court filing that an “unborn child” may not have rights under the U.S. Constitution. In March, lawyers for the state argued that the guard’s suit “conflates” how a fetus is treated under state law and the Constitution.
“Just because several statutes define an individual to include an unborn child does not mean that the Fourteenth Amendment does the same,” they wrote in legal filing that noted that the guard lost her baby before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the federal right to an abortion established under its landmark Roe v. Wade decision.
That claim came in response to a federal lawsuit brought last year by Salia Issa, who alleges that hospital staff told her they could have saved her baby had she arrived sooner. Issa was seven months’ pregnant in 2021, when she reported for work at a state prison in the West Texas city of Abilene and began having a pregnancy emergency.
Her attorney, Ross Brennan, did not immediately offer any comment. He wrote in a court filing that the state’s argument is “nothing more than an attempt to say — without explicitly saying — that an unborn child at seven months gestation is not a person.”
While working at the prison, Issa began feeling pains “similar to a contraction” but when she asked to be relived from her post to go to the hospital her supervisors refused and accused her of lying, according to the complaint she filed along with her husband. It says the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s policy states that a corrections officer can be fired for leaving their post before being relived by another guard.
Issa was eventually relieved and drove herself to the hospital, where she underwent emergency surgery, the suit says.
Issa, whose suit was first reported by The Texas Tribune, is seeking monetary damages to cover her medical bills, pain and suffering, and other things, including the funeral expenses of the unborn child. The state attorney general’s office and prison system have asked a judge to dismiss the case.
Laura Hermer, a professor at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, described Texas’ legal posture as “seeking to have their cake and eat it too.”
“This would not be the first time that the state has sought to claim to support the right to life of all fetuses, yet to act quite differently when it comes to protecting the health and safety of such fetuses other than in the very narrow area of prohibiting abortions,” Hermer said.
Last week, U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Hightower recommended that the case be allowed to proceed, in part, without addressing the arguments over the rights of the fetus.
"except that it's a stretch to say Trump did that"
Only by the willfully blind with the moral compass of a sewer rat; which includes most Republicans these days.
well, he hasn't been indicted for engaging in a insurrection
and there is no evidence he did
so, there's that
Trump was charged with four felony counts: conspiracy to defraud the U.S. (18 U.S. Code § 371), conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding (18 U.S. Code § 1512), obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding (18 U.S. Code § 1512) and conspiracy against rights (18 U.S. Code § 241).
Conspiracy to Defraud the United States:
18 U.S. Code § 371 makes it a crime for two or more people to “conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States” or any federal agency, and for one of them to perform some action that would affect the object of the conspiracy, which carries a fine or maximum prison sentence of five years if convicted.
The DOJ charged Trump with conspiracy to defraud based on his broad plan to overturn the election results, alleging the former president “[used] dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified by the federal government.”
Obstruction of an Official Proceeding:
18 U.S. Code § 1512 criminalizes “obstruct[ing], influenc[ing], or imped[ing] any official proceeding” or attempting to do so, which is punishable by a fine or up to 20 years in prison, and conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding under § 1512 carries the same potential punishment.
Those charges were brought against Trump based on his alleged attempts to block Congress from certifying the electoral count, and him successfully “obstruct[ing] and imped[ing] an official proceeding” when the vote count was postponed by the January 6 attack on the Capitol building.
Conspiracy Against Rights:
18 U.S. Code § 241 criminalizes when two or more people “conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate” any Americans “in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege” they’re afforded under the Constitution or federal law, or conspire to oppress them because they exercised that right, and is punishable by a fine or up to five years in prison, assuming the crime doesn’t result in death or bodily injury.
The law, though initially enacted in the 19th century to punish members of the Ku Klux Klan, has more recently been used to prosecute election crimes, and the indictment alleges that by trying to overturn the election results, Trump conspired “to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate” Americans in exercising their right to vote.
"Trump was charged with four felony counts: conspiracy to defraud the U.S. (18 U.S. Code § 371), conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding (18 U.S. Code § 1512), obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding (18 U.S. Code § 1512) and conspiracy against rights (18 U.S. Code § 241)"
the charges are preposterous but even if valid, they aren't insurrection
the continual lying by Dems to keep Trump off of the ballots amounts conspiring to obstruct the right of Americans to vote
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.
And in recent weeks, Trump and his own lawyers have made abundantly clear that part of their legal defense will lean heavily on “advice of counsel” arguments — in other words, it will involve scapegoating attorneys who were only doing what Trump instructed them to do, or wanted them to do.
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.
"Dems to keep Trump off of the ballots amounts conspiring to obstruct the right of Americans to vote"
No it doesn't.
Write-in candidates for federal and state elections
"You (anyone) may decide to write in the name of a candidate who is not listed on your ballot. Learn where to get information on how to write in votes and if they count.
Besides the names on your ballot, you may be able to write in names of other candidates. Most states let you write in votes for president, U.S. senator, and U.S. representative. They may also allow write-in votes for governor and other state offices.
But writing in a name does not mean that vote will count. Many states require that write-in candidates file paperwork before the election. Otherwise, the state will not count the person's votes.
Check with your state election office to find out the rules for your state. If you check using your state's election website, enter "write-in candidates" in the search bar."
Should be a piece of cake in all those Rump-obedient red state legislatures.
Someone summoned the Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department to the Somers, Wisconsin Walmart early Thursday morning, August 10th. 57-year-old Thomas Bartmer, pastor at Lighthouse Church in Antioch, Illinois, was fully naked, standing next to a black truck in the parking lot masturbating. According to a Kenosha County Sheriff spokesman, the minister was seen by responding deputies quickly getting into the truck, while still naked. Bartmer admitted to the act. He posted bond and is expected to be charged with disorderly conduct and lewd/lascivious actions.
Naturally, us Little Mouses can't do this. For one thing, we can't get nakeder than we are already. For other thing, look at these hands. Can you imagine? Ouch, it hurts just thinking about it. But I'm wondering, Jesus speaks to these people, right? Does he tell them to do this? Maybe they learn it as children from their pastors and "youth leaders," like a tradition that is passed down through the generations. Maybe they get some kind of lessons when they learn to be preachers, or some kind of handbook, no pun intended.
And also, how come you never hear about drag queens doing this kind of stuff?
Hunter Biden, who was never in govt, got roughly $10 million from foreign entities 2014-2017.
Jared Kushner got a $3.1 B portfolio from foreign entities in 2021 that he had just been directly involved in directing US policy from inside the govt.
"Hunter Biden, who was never in govt, got roughly $10 million from foreign entities 2014-2017.
Jared Kushner got a $3.1 B portfolio from foreign entities in 2021 that he had just been directly involved in directing US policy from inside the govt."
why do you think that is?
is the deep state and media protesting Trump and his family?
give it some thought, use your best thinking skills
LOL!
the Georgia indictments are the stupidest yet
here's just one of them:
Act 32 of the criminal indictment charged Trump for calling on Georgia state leaders to ensure “signature verification & call a Special Session.”
According to Willis, the Dec. 6, 2020, tweet “was an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy.”
remember when TTF was pushing signature verification for a referendum?
good thing they aren't in Georgia, where such action is considered a conspiracy!
Let’s admit what every reporter in DC knows but most won’t say for fear of falling out of favor with the bothsides rules of official DC: there is a two-tiered Justice System. One for Democrats, in which the most exacting focus on conflicts of interest are followed, often going well beyond not only what the law or established norms require but sometimes even basic logic. Meanwhile for Republicans most of these rules simply don’t apply. Ever. Does anyone think that a newly installed President Trump in 2025 would leave in place US Attorneys investigating matters tied to Trump or the Trump family for years into his administration? The very idea is absurd. In fact the Trump campaign is openly running on plans to thoroughly politicize federal law enforcement and target his enemies. Openly. When actual GOP crimes are uncovered or in some cases not even uncovered but simply done in public and widely known we’re treated to lengthy debates about whether open and shut criminal cases should even be charged, then whether Republicans should immediately be pardoned.
The entire high profile political system operates in an open & essentially bottomless world of Republican grievance in which allowing the law to function in its normal manner with respect to high profile Republicans is treated as inherently questionable and sensible people agree to pretend that GOP claims of “weaponization” and a “two tiered Justice system” stacked against them isn’t comical and preposterous on its face. None of this is new. Everybody knows this. Every byline in essentially any publication knows this. I was tempted to say unless it’s the daily caller or the free beacon or whatever other publication. But the truth is that they know it too. It’s simply worth saying this in the open because the basically endless lying about it starts to seep in after a while, even for sensible people.
Several of the attorneys who spearheaded President Donald Trump’s frenzied effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election tried, and failed, to collect payment for the work they did for Trump’s political operation, according to testimony to congressional investigators and Federal Election Commission records. This is despite the fact that their lawsuits and false claims of election interference helped the Trump campaign and allied committees raise $250 million in the weeks following the November vote, the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot said in its final report.
Among them was Trump’s closest ally, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Trump and Giuliani had a handshake agreement that Giuliani and his team would get paid by the Trump political operation for their post-election work, according to Timothy Parlatore, an attorney for longtime Giuliani ally Bernard Kerik.
But the Trump campaign and its affiliated committees ultimately did not honor that pledge, according to campaign finance records. The records show that Giuliani’s companies were only reimbursed for travel and not the $20,000 a day he requested to be paid.
Parlatore also told CNBC that the Giuliani operation was never compensated for its work. According to Parlatore, the failure to pay Giuliani and his team came up last week in a private interview between prosecutors on special counsel Jack Smith’s team and Kerik, a member of Giuliani’s team in late 2020.
“Lawyers and law firms that didn’t do s--- were paid lots of money and the people that worked their ass off, got nothing,” Kerik complained in a 2021 tweet.
Bob Costello, Giuliani’s attorney, declined to comment further about the agreement, citing privileged conversations between his client and then-President Trump.
Trump has a long history of not paying his bills. But the revelation that he likely stiffed Giuliani, a longtime friend, is all the more striking given that much of the work Giuliani did for the Trump operation is detailed in a sprawling RICO indictment in Georgia released Monday, in which Giuliani is a co-defendant alongside Trump and 17 other people.
The indictment details trips Giuliani made, phone calls he placed and meetings he attended, all in service of what prosecutors say was a criminal conspiracy to overturn the election.
Criminal or not, what is indisputable is that Giuliani and his team did a lot of legal and PR work for Trump. Over more than two months, Giuliani served as the public face of Trump’s election challenges, which ultimately failed.
Nonetheless, these challenges helped Trump and his allies raise an unprecedented $250 million from small-dollar donors in the weeks following the November election, according to the final congressional report by the House select committee on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The money came in response to countless fundraising appeals that claimed it was needed to fund Trump’s election challenges in court.
Yet instead of paying the lawyers who tried unsuccessfully to overturn his loss, the money went into Trump’s leadership PAC, Save America.
Oh she knows -- WE ALL KNOW -- Mr. Rump was unanimously found liable for sexual abuse and battery against writer E. Jean Carroll in the mid-1990s and for defaming her in 2022 while denying the assault. He was ordered to pay her about $5 million in damages
Trump tried to get the ruling thrown out, arguing that the damages were “excessive” because he only sexually abused Carroll. He also sued Carroll for defamation, after she said he raped her.
But the judge presiding over the case threw out both of Trump’s motions. Judge Lewis Kaplan said that Carroll’s comments that Trump raped her were “substantially true.”
In a separate ruling dismissing Trump’s request for a new trial, Kaplan called Trump’s argument “entirely unpersuasive” and noted that the New York penal law definition of rape is “far narrower” than in common understanding. As a result, not only would Trump not get a new trial, but he is definitely a rapist.
Grand jurors who voted to indict former President Trump in Georgia earlier this week are facing threats and a profusion of racist comments online.
The jurors’ names were listed publicly within the indictment, as required under Georgia law. A review of social media platforms and far-right forums found users posting numerous racial slurs and even the jurors’ addresses.
“Everyone on that jury should be hung,” one user wrote on a right-wing online forum.
On a different far-right site, the purported addresses of all 23 grand jurors tapped to serve in Trump’s case were posted in full.
“MAGAs posting the grand jurors addresses online,” a Truth Social user wrote. “I see a swift bullet to the head if, and when, somebody shows up at their homes.”
The existence of the threats was first reported by NBC News.
The threats were not only made on far-right platforms but also surfaced on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
“Awful nice car you have there…hate to see something happen to it,” one user wrote on X early Wednesday morning, referencing the grand jury foreperson by name.
Others on X posted grand jurors’ social media profiles and their professional websites.
Ever since the grand jurors’ names were made public late Monday night, when the charges were filed, they have been repeatedly attacked online.
On one platform, a user made a post urging others to not post names of the grand jurors, warning it was a set up.
“Maybe something unfortunate NEEDS TO FN HAPPEN,” one user responded.
Another user said “if you do,” make sure to wear Antifa clothing and load the Democratic National Committee on speed-dial.
Trump himself has not posted the names of the grand jurors, but he has repeatedly attacked Willis and the charges in recent days.
The former president has also taken aim at the judges and prosecutors presiding over his other three criminal cases, including special counsel Jack Smith, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) and U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan.
A Texas woman was charged with threatening Chutkan, who is overseeing Trump’s federal case stemming from his efforts to remain in power, in a voicemail just after Trump’s indictment. The charge was first reported by Bloomberg.
Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, told The Hill that the potential for online threats to escalate to real-world violence is significant.
FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. (7News) — When Fairfax County Public Schools return to school on August 21, Superintendent Dr. Michelle Reid wants them to be clear on where the school system stands on its LGBTQ+ policy.
In a letter dated August 15th Dr. Reid writes,
"Our existing policies still stand and our gender expansive and transgender students will continue to be addressed by their chosen names and pronouns.”
Robert Rigby, Jr. represents the LGBTQIA advocacy organization FCPS Pride.
He also works as a part-time teacher at South Lakes High School in Reston.
“Trans and non-binary staff, students, and parents have said we breathed a little sigh of relief,” he said in response to the FCPS decision.
The decision comes after the Virginia Department of Education released its finalized 2023 model polices for Virginia schools.
In July, 7News reported the policies state students should be referred to by pronouns matching the sex appearing in the student's official record and should use the bathroom matching the sex in their official record.
7News called Governor Glenn Youngkin's office for a response to the FCPS decision to reject his administration's model policies.
A representative from Youngkin's office issued a statement that reads,
"The Fairfax County Public Schools policies diverge from VDOE model policy guidance and perpetuate a false notion that FCPS knows what's better for a child than a child's parent. The Fairfax County school board is expected to follow the law."
“Queer children should be welcome in our schools,” Rigby said.
Northern Virginia school systems rejecting the Department of Education's Model Policies include FCPS, Alexandria City, and Arlington Public Schools.
Spotsylvania County Public Schools just announced its support of the model policies.
Loudoun County and Prince William County Public Schools have not made a decision.
A representative at Stafford County Public Schools failed to send us the school system's policy after 7News made multiple requests.
Washington — Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who served as an outside lawyer to former President Donald Trump, acknowledged Wednesday that he made false statements when he claimed two Georgia election workers engaged in voter fraud during the 2020 election. Giuliani, who's being sued by the now former election workers for defamation, still argued he was engaging in constitutionally protected speech when he made the allegations.
Giuliani's concession came in a two-page stipulation he submitted to the federal District Court in Washington, D.C., as part of the lawsuit brought by Ruby Freeman and Wandrea "Shaye" Moss, who are mother and daughter. In the filing, the former mayor admitted that for the purposes of the litigation, "to the extent the statements were statements of fact and otherwise actionable, such actionable factual statements were false."
Giuliani also admitted that "he does not dispute for purposes of this litigation, that the statements carry meaning that is defamatory per se," and no longer contests the "factual elements of liability" raised by Freeman and Moss. But he noted that the declaration has no effect on his argument that he made constitutionally protected statements or opinions, or that his conduct caused the pair any damage.
Giuliani's concessions come as he faces the prospect of sanctions from the court regarding his discovery obligations in the dispute. Freeman and Moss asked U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, who is presiding over the case, earlier this month to impose the sanctions, including awarding certain attorneys' fees and costs, on Giuliani for failing to preserve electronic evidence from his email, messaging and social media accounts and electronic devices.
"Indeed, sanctions exist to remedy the precise situation here — a sophisticated party's abuse of judicial process designed to avoid accountability, at enormous expense to the parties and this Court," the pair's lawyers wrote. "Defendant Giuliani should know better. His conduct warrants severe sanctions."
Michael Gottlieb, a lawyer for Freeman and Moss, said Giuliani's acknowledgements are a "major milestone in this fight for justice," though certain issues, including damages, still must be decided by the court.
"Giuliani's stipulation concedes what we have always known to be true — Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss honorably performed their civic duties in the 2020 presidential election in full compliance with the law; and the allegations of election fraud he and former-President Trump made against them have been false since day one," Gottlieb said in a statement.
Freeman and Moss worked as election workers in Fulton County, Georgia, during the 2020 election. Freeman was a temporary employee tasked with verifying signatures on absentee ballots and preparing them for counting and processing, while Moss, who had worked for the Fulton County elections department since 2012, worked on the county's absentee ballot operation.
The two were thrust into the public eye after they were shown in security camera footage from the State Farm Arena in Atlanta processing ballots. The Trump campaign and Giuliani shared an excerpt from the footage, and falsely claimed it showed Freeman and Moss engaging in a fake ballot scheme.
Though Georgia election officials refuted the inaccurate claims peddled by Trump's allies, Moss and Freeman were subjected to violent and racist threats and harassment. The two women appeared before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol about how their lives were upended by the baseless theories spread about them.
Giuliani sought to dismiss the lawsuit, but Howell denied his request, writing that Giuliani "propagated and pushed" a false narrative that the electron was stolen.
Representative Matt Gaetz has finally said the quiet part out loud: Republicans don’t have enough evidence to impeach and convict Joe Biden. They just want to make him look bad enough that he loses the 2024 election.
Republicans have insisted for months that Biden is guilty of corruption and influence peddling overseas, despite producing no actual evidence. Many in the GOP, including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, are starting to suggest opening an impeachment inquiry into Biden so that they can access more information and witnesses that will supposedly lead them to the truth.
But Gaetz said that Republicans should go straight to impeachment proceedings, not just an inquiry. “The purpose of that impeachment, from my standpoint, is not to force a vote that loses,” he said during a Twitter Space on Monday night. “It’s to put on a trial in the Senate, and by the way, not for the sake of conviction.”
“There’s no conviction and removal of Joe Biden coming on impeachment. I know that. You know that,” Gaetz said, although he blamed that on the Senate being controlled by Democrats, not the utter lack of proof.
Gaetz argued that Republicans should impeach Biden in order to put him on trial. But “the jury is the American people.”
“If we had the Senate as the stage and the platform for James Comer to put on his evidence and advance this impeachment, it will not result in a conviction,” Gaetz said, referring to the chair of the House Oversight Committee, who has been leading the charge against Biden.
“But the true verdict can still be rendered by the American people.”
Republicans are reportedly planning to open an impeachment inquiry into Biden in the fall. McCarthy insisted that such an inquiry would not be for political purposes, a pointed dig at the president, whom Republicans accuse of weaponizing the government to go after Donald Trump.
But all of the investigations into Biden are absolutely for political purposes. House Republicans have mobilized multiple committees to go after the Biden family. There has yet to be any proof of wrongdoing, but Republicans have used the investigations as excuses to trash Biden, attack policies they don’t like such as immigration, and share his son’s nude photos.
An impeachment inquiry, and certainly a full-on impeachment, would take that governmental weaponization to the next level.
Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Friday said former President Trump “should serve time” if he is convicted on federal charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
“If in fact he’s convicted of the crimes charged by Jack Smith and the Department of Justice …yeah, I think he should serve time, quite frankly,” Gonzales, who served in former President George W. Bush’s administration, said in an interview with former White House press secretary and MSBNC host Jen Psaki.
California Woman Fatally Shot For Displaying Pride Flag Outside Her Store
By
Sanjana Karanth
Aug 20, 2023, 03:36 PM EDT
A 66-year-old woman in Southern California was shot dead on Friday for displaying a Pride flag outside her store, according to law enforcement.
Deputies responded on Friday evening to a report of a shooting at Mag Pi, a clothing store in Lake Arrowhead owned by Laura Ann Carleton. Authorities found Carleton at the store with a gunshot wound and pronounced her dead at the scene, according to a press release from the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department.
The male suspect, who has not yet been identified, fled the scene on foot before authorities arrived. Law enforcement said the man was armed when confronted by deputies, and was killed in what the sheriff’s department said was a “lethal force encounter.” The investigation is ongoing.
“Through further investigation, detectives learned the suspect made several disparaging remarks about a rainbow flag that stood outside the store before shooting Carleton,” police said.
Lake Arrowhead LGBTQ, an organization that helps create inclusive spaces for the queer community, posted on Instagram over the weekend honoring Carleton. While she did not identify as LGBTQ+, according to the organization, she did spend “her time helping & advocating for everyone in the community.”
On the store’s website, Carleton said that Mag Pi “is all about tackling everyday life with grace and ease and continuing to dream.” The business owner had a long career in fashion, at one point serving as an executive at Kenneth Cole for 15 years.
“With a penchant for longevity, she has been married to the same man for 28 years and is the mother of a blended family of nine children, the youngest being identical twin girls,” the website said.
Local grocery Mountain Provisions Cooperative posted to Facebook on Saturday honoring Carleton, whom it called “friend, mom to many, ally, organizer, entrepreneur and soul of our co-op.”
“Lauri was a pillar in our community, an immovable force in her values for equality, love, and justice. If you knew Lauri you know she loved hard, laughed often, and nurtured and protected those she cared about. She was a force, she loved to crack jokes and wanted to live as joyful of a life as possible,” the post read.
“We will continue to stand for the values she so selflessly stood for. Her death will not be in vain.”
The co-op encouraged people to “fly your flags in honor of Lauri.”
“Bridesmaids” director Paul Feig posted a tribute on social media to Carleton, whom he called a “wonderful friend” and a “true ally” of the queer community.
“Lauri Carleton was my friend. She was a wonderful person who did so much for the LGTBQ+ community as well as the community at large,” Feig tweeted. “What happened to her is an absolute tragedy. If people don’t think anti-gay & trans rhetoric isn’t dangerous, think again.”
View more on Instagram
paulfeig
Our wonderful friend Laura Carlton (seen in this picture) was murdered yesterday in her store @magpi_shop in Arrowhead by a 27 year old man who didn’t like that she had a large pride flag hanging outside of her shop. He ripped it down and when she confronted him about it he shot and killed her. We are all devastated for her husband Bart and her family and the LGBTQ+ community, for whom Lauri was such a true ally. Her alleged murderer was later shot and killed by the San Bernardino police and so no longer poses a threat to the community. But this intolerance has to end. Anyone using hateful language against the LBGTQ+ community has to realize their words matter, that their words can inspire violence against innocent loving people. Let’s all keep moving forward with tolerance and love. Let’s not let Lauri’s tragic death be in vain.
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She has nine children.
We don’t know much about the man who killed her yet other than the fact that he was 27 years old. Apparently, people had pulled down the rainbow flag before. It seems it offends them. So someone decided the person who flew it had to die.
Now let’s talk about how MAGAs are losing his freedom of speech some more.
"Our wonderful friend Laura Carlton (seen in this picture) was murdered yesterday in her store by a 27 year old man who didn’t like that she had a large pride flag hanging outside of her shop. He ripped it down and when she confronted him about it he shot and killed her."
she should have called the police instead of confronting an armed vandal
if she had, she'd still be alive
since we have no details about the interaction, we don't know what other mistakes she made
but confronting an armed criminal in the act of committing a crime is never a good idea
"this intolerance has to end. Anyone using hateful language against the LBGTQ+ community has to realize their words matter, that their words can inspire violence against innocent loving people."
virtually any speech could inspire violence against innocent loving people
"Apparently, people had pulled down the rainbow flag before. It seems it offends them. So someone decided the person who flew it had to die."
there is no evidence the guy came with the intention of killing her
sounds like he came to rip up her political flag and she came out and started a confrontation
"Now let’s talk about how MAGAs are losing his freedom of speech some more."
let's talk about everyone losing their freedom of speech when we have to avoid any language that could theoretically inspire some emotionally instable person to commit violence
That's what happens when an emotionally unstable person who inspired people (who made plea deals saying "Trump called me to come to Washington") to sack the capital, with his Proud Boys standing back and standing by, is elected President and then refuses to leave when he loses.
The popularity of urban legends is a testament to the will to believe. The desire of people to keep Elvis alive or prove that a Sasquatch could exist furtively in our backyards shows the resilience of fables.
Constitutional urban legends often have an even more immediate appeal and tend to arise out of the desperation of divided times. One of the most popular today is that former President Donald Trump can be barred from office, even if he is not convicted in any of the four indictments he faces, under a long-dormant clause of the 14th Amendment.
This 14th Amendment theory is something that good liberals will read to their children at night. It goes something like this: Donald Trump can never be president again, because the 14th Amendment bars those who previously took federal oaths from assuming office if they engaged in insurrection or rebellion. With that, and a kiss on the forehead, a progressive’s child can sleep peacefully through the night.
But don’t look under the bed. For as scary as it might sound to some, Trump can indeed take office if he is elected…even if he is convicted. Indeed, he can serve as president even in the unlikely scenario that he is sentenced to jail.
Democrats have long pushed this theory about the 14th Amendment as a way of disqualifying not only Trump but also dozens of Republican members of Congress. From some, it is the ultimate Hail Mary pass if four indictments, roughly 100 criminal charges and more than a dozen opposing candidates fail to get the job done.
Some serious and smart people take an equally strong position in support of the theory. Indeed, conservative scholars William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen have argued for the interpretation and insist in a recent law review article that “the case is not even close. All who are committed to the Constitution should take note and say so.”
But some of us like to believe that we are committed to the Constitution and, for that same reason, we say no.
Despite my respect for these academics, I simply fail to see how the text, history or purpose of the 14th Amendment even remotely favors this view. Despite the extensive research of Baude and Paulsen, their analysis ends where it began: Was January 6 an insurrection or rebellion?
There is no constitutional basis for this claim. It is wildly out of sync with the purpose of the amendment, which followed an actual rebellion, the Civil War.
Democrats have previously sought to block certification of Republican presidents and Democratic lawyers have challenged elections, including on totally unsupported claims of machines flipping the results. If we are to suddenly convert the 14th Amendment into a running barrier to those who seek to challenge election results, then we have to establish a bright line to distinguish such cases.
The 14th Amendment bars those who took the oath and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same.” It then adds that that disqualification can extend to those who have “given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” According to these experts, Jan. 6 was an “insurrection” and Trump gave “aid and comfort” to those who engaged in it by spreading election fraud claims and not immediately denouncing the violence.
But even the view that it was an “insurrection” is by no means a consensus. Polls have shown that most of the public view Jan. 6 for what it was: a protest that became a riot. One year after the riot, CBS News mostly downplayed and ignored the result of its own poll showing that 76 percent viewed it for what it was, as a “protest gone too far.” The view that it was an actual “insurrection” was far less settled, with almost half rejecting the claim, a division breaking along partisan lines.
The theory that this was a rebellion or insurrection has always been highly contested. On Jan. 6, I was contributing to the coverage and denounced Trump’s speech while he was still giving it. But as the protest increased in size, some of us noted that we had never seen such a comparatively light level of security precautions, given the weeks of coverage anticipating the protest. We then watched as thinly deployed police barriers were overrun and a riot ensued. It was appalling, and most of us denounced it as it was unfolding.
Trump waited to speak, despite criticism from many of us. We now know that many aides called for him to call upon his supporters to pull back, but he waited for a couple hours.
Sulking in the Oval Office does not make Trump a seditionist. Indeed, despite formal articles of the second impeachment and years of experts insisting that Trump was guilty of incitement and insurrection, Special Counsel Jack Smith notably did not charge him with any such crime.
The reason is obvious. The evidence and constitutional standards would not have supported a charge of incitement or insurrection.
Yet these experts still believe that Trump can be barred from office without any such charge even being brought, let alone a conviction.
Putting aside the lack of evidence, there is a lack of logic to these claims. A relatively small number of individuals have been charged with seditious conspiracy, a widely misrepresented charge that can amount to as little as preventing the execution of any law.
If Trump supported a rebellion or insurrection, what was the plan? Not only did Smith not charge him with any such crime, but there was little evidence that even the most radical defendants charged were planning to overthrow the nation’s government or were part of a broader conspiracy. There were no troops standing by, no plan for a post-democratic takeover by Trump or his alleged minions. At worst, according to witnesses against Trump, there was a despondent and defiant president who may have gotten satisfaction from the chaos in Congress.
That leaves us with the argument that any effort to stop a constitutional process is akin to an insurrection or rebellion under the 14th Amendment. If that were the standard, any protests — including the anti-Trump protests and the certification challenges to electoral votes in 2016 — could also be cited as disqualifying. If that were the case, figures such as Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md) could be summarily purged from office for having sought to overturn an election.
We would be left on a slippery slope, as partisan judges and members would seek to block opposing candidates from ballots, all supposedly in the name of protecting democracy.
There is a simpler and more obvious explanation for what occurred on Jan. 6, 2021: A political protest became a political riot, and a constitutional theory became constitutional legend.
A powerful House committee wants previously shielded information from the National Archives regarding Joe Biden’s communication with family business associates when he was vice president.
In a letter Thursday to the head of the National Archives and Records Administration, the committee’s chairman asked for Biden’s vice-presidential records that included pseudonyms and communications with his son Hunter Biden and with Biden family business associates.
“Many of these records have been redacted for publication” under federal law, House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., wrote to Archivist of the United States Colleen Shogan.
“To further our investigation, it is essential that the committee review these documents in their original format,” Comer wrote to Shogan.
In his letter, Comer specifies redactions of some information allowed by the Presidential Records Act and the Freedom of Information Act.
“The committee seeks unrestricted special access under the PRA to Case Number 2023-0022-F, entitled ‘Email Messages To and/or From Vice President Biden and Hunter Biden related to Burisma and Ukraine,’ which has been published on website,” the Kentucky Republican’s letter to Shogan continues.
Comer’s letter refers to a documented 9 a.m. phone call on May 27, 2016, between then-Vice President Biden and then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. However, the document was sent to “Robert L. Peters”—identified by the committee as a pseudonym for Biden—and the vice president’s son, Hunter Biden, was copied on the documentation of the phone call.
Among documents requested by the committee are any in which a “pseudonym for Vice President Joe Biden was included either as a sender, recipient, copied or was included in the contents of the document or communication, including but not limited to Robert Peters, Robin Ware, and JRB Ware,” the letter to the National Archives chief says.
Comer wrote that his House committee also seeks any document or communication “in which Hunter Biden, Eric Schwerin, or Devon Archer was included either as a sender, recipient, copied, or was included in the contents of the document or communication.”
Comer’s letter deepens the House investigation of what Republicans say is evidence of influence peddling by Biden and his family in countries such as China, Ukraine, and Romania.
“Joe Biden has stated there was ‘an absolute wall’ between his family’s foreign business schemes and his duties as vice president, but evidence reveals that access was wide open for his family’s influence peddling,” Comer said in a written statement, adding:
We already have evidence of then-Vice President Biden speaking, dining, and having coffee with his son’s foreign business associates. We also know that Hunter Biden and his associates were informed of then-Vice President Biden’s official government duties in countries where they had a financial interest. The National Archives must provide these unredacted records to further our investigation into the Biden family’s corruption.
The White House did not reply to requests for comment.
Trump cult members, AKA voters claim they trust Trump more than anyone.
A whopping 71% of Trump voters claim "what he says is true."
Only 63% of them say that about family and friends, 56% about conservative media figures and 42% about religious leaders.
Cult leaders must be dynamic, charismatic, and convincing because their goal is to control their members to acquire money or power-related advantages.
Even Trump's primary GOP opponent, Florida's Gov. Ron DeSantis, got involved, telling an interviewer, "A movement can't be about the personality of one individual," and that it's not a "durable movement" if it's just "listless vessels."
MAGA is a cult, but it's a mistake to view Trump followers like DeSantis does, as "listless vessels" for Trump. Take this poll with a strong grain of salt, as it's unlikely that so many people are so delusional as to truly see an honest broker in the chronic liar and criminal that is Trump. Instead, the poll is a reminder that Trump backers are both deplorable and bitter clingers.
When a MAGA-American picks up the phone and hears a pollster from the hated "liberal media" ask them questions about Trump's indictments and general trustworthiness, they aren't answering the question asked. What they're really hearing, over and over: "Are you ready to admit that you were wrong and liberals were right all along about Trump?" And the answer is a big, fat "hell no," because the first rule of MAGA is to never, ever, under any circumstances, admit that liberals might be right about something.
That poll doesn't measure a sincere belief in Trump's trustworthiness. It measures people who, consumed with bitterness towards the more liberal majority, are clinging to Trump even harder in a pathetic bid to save face. Which, as anyone who has studied cults can tell you, is a surprisingly strong factor in why people squelch their doubts to stay in the cult. They were warned so many times that this was a mistake that they stick around, hoping to prove the skeptics wrong.
The rally-round-Trump effect is fundamentally an eff-you-liberals response. This is demonstrated by the way this sentiment surges around every embarrassing reminder that the man is a criminal, and an idiotic one at that. There's a pattern emerging to the MAGA reaction to Trump indictments. The first swell of emotions is a tantrum, full of "how dare you" screaming, as they metaphorically (or literally in some cases) follow their leader's ketchup-throwing ways. Once that crybaby reaction fades, however, you can see concerns about betting it all on a profligate criminal start to seep in. As a Washington Post analysis of the polls before the Georgia indictments show, the overall trend shows Republicans more willing than ever to admit Trump is a bad person and a criminal. But that willingness dries up temporarily in the face of new indictments, as their ascendent emotion is defensiveness. Plus, when pollsters word questions more carefully to avoid provoking Republican spite, Trump's indictment bump disappears.
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES:
In 2020, firearm injuries became the leading cause of death among US children and adolescents. This study aimed to evaluate new 2021 data on US pediatric firearm deaths and disparities to understand trends compared with previous years.
METHODS:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research was queried for firearm mortalities in children/adolescents from 2018 to 2021. Absolute mortality, death rates, and characteristics were reported. Death rates were defined per 100 000 persons in that population per year. Death rates across states were illustrated via geographic heat maps, and correlations with state poverty levels were calculated.
RESULTS:
In 2021, firearms continued to be the leading cause of death among US children. From 2018 to 2021, there was a 41.6% increase in the firearm death rate. In 2021, among children who died by firearms, 84.8% were male, 49.9% were Black, 82.6% were aged 15 to 19 years, and 64.3% died by homicide. Black children accounted for 67.3% of firearm homicides, with a death rate increase of 1.8 from 2020 to 2021. White children accounted for 78.4% of firearm suicides. From 2020 to 2021, the suicide rate increased among Black and white children, yet decreased among American Indian or Alaskan Native children. Geographically, there were worsening clusters of firearm death rates in Southern states and increasing rates in Midwestern states from 2018 to 2021. Across the United States, higher poverty levels correlated with higher firearm death rates (R = 0.76, P < .001).
CONCLUSIONS:
US pediatric firearm deaths increased in 2021, above the spike in 2020, with worsening disparities. Implementation of prevention strategies and policies among communities at highest risk is critical.
https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/doi/10.1542/peds.2023-061296/193711/Trends-and-Disparities-in-Firearm-Deaths-Among
Burt Neuborne, one of America’s top civil liberties lawyers, says Trump is copying Hitler's early rhetoric
"...A younger Trump, according to his first wife's divorce filings, kept and studied a book translating and annotating Adolf Hitler's pre-World War II speeches in a locked bedside cabinet. The English edition of My New Order, published in 1941, also had analyses of the speeches' impact on his era's press and politics.
Donald Trump is the only president in recent American history to openly despise the twin ideals—individual dignity and fundamental equality—upon which the contemporary United States is built. When you confront the reality of a president like Trump, the state of both sets of brakes—internal [constitutional] and external [public resistance]—become hugely important because Donald Trump's political train runs on the most potent and dangerous fuel of all: a steady diet of fear, greed, loathing, lies, and envy. It's a toxic mixture that has destroyed democracies before, and can do so again.
20 Common Themes, Rhetorical Tactics and Dangerous Policies
Here are 20 serious points of comparison between the early Hitler and Trump:
1. Neither was elected by a majority...
2. Both found direct communication channels to their base...
3. Both blame others and divide on racial lines...
4. Both relentlessly demonize opponents...
5. They unceasingly attack objective truth...
6. They relentlessly attack mainstream media...
7. Their attacks on truth include science...
8. Their lies blur reality—and supporters spread them...
9. Both orchestrated mass rallies to show status...
10. They embrace extreme nationalism...
11. Both made closing borders a centerpiece...
12. They embraced mass detention and deportations...
13. Both used borders to protect selected industries...
14. They cemented their rule by enriching elites...
15. Both rejected international norms...
16. They attack domestic democratic processes...
17. Both attack the judiciary and rule of law...
18. Both glorify the military and demand loyalty oaths...
19. They proclaim unchecked power...
20. Both relegate women to subordinate roles...
Ultimately, Neuborne doesn't expect there will be a "constitutional mechanic in the sky ready to swoop down and save American democracy from Donald Trump at the head of a populist mob." Whatever Trump thinks he is or isn't doing, his rhetorical and strategic role model—the early Hitler—is what makes Trump and today's GOP so dangerous.
"Even if all that Trump is doing is marching to that populist drum, he is unleashing forces that imperil the fragile fabric of a multicultural democracy," Neuborne writes. "But I think there's more. The parallels—especially the links between Lugenpresse and 'fake news,' and promises to restore German greatness and 'Make America Great Again'—are just too close to be coincidental. I'm pretty sure that Trump's bedside study of Hitler's speeches—especially the use of personal invective, white racism, and xenophobia—has shaped the way Trump seeks to gain political power in our time. I don't for a moment believe that Trump admires what Hitler eventually did with his power [genocide], but he damn well admires—and is successfully copying—the way that Hitler got it.""
A majority of voters likely to attend the Iowa Republican caucuses believe that former President Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election over President Joe Biden, a new Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows.
Asked whether “you believe or not believe Donald Trump’s claims he won the 2020 presidential election,” 51% of likely Republican caucusgoers say they believe them, 41% do not and 8% are unsure.
Among self-identified Republicans, factoring out the independents, Democrats and members of other parties who say they plan to caucus with the GOP, the portion who believe Trump’s claims is even higher, 60%, while 33% do not.
Slidin' Joe Biden‘s quips while touring the wildfires in Maui hit a sour note with residents who say the president appeared unsympathetic in the aftermath of the devastation that left over 110 people dead.
Slidin' arrived in Maui on Monday to give remarks on his administration’s efforts to assist the survivors and talk with residents and officials.
Ahead of the speech, Mr. Slidin' stopped to pet a cadaver dog and made a joke about the boots the rescue canine wore.
“You guys catch the boots out here? That’s some hot ground, man,” Slidin' asked reporters while smiling.
Users on X found the comments to be insensitive, given the tragedy.
“Nothing says leadership like yukking it up with the human-remains-sniffing dog,” wrote Micheal Dearing.
“Imagine your loved one burned to death less than a month ago, and when Biden finally visits after his TWO vacations, he jokes about how hot the ground is. Sick,” wrote Robby Starbuck, a political commentator.
Mr. Slidin' later faced more criticism for telling Lahaina residents that he and first lady Jill Biden “have a little sense” of the grief because their Wilmington home had a kitchen fire.
“I almost lost... my ‘67 Corvette and my cat,” he told the audience.
According to an Associated Press report at the time of the incident, the fire was under control in 20 minutes.
Lahaina, a historic enclave, was demolished by the wildfires.
When Mr. Slidin' arrived in Maui earlier in the day, his motorcade was met with chants of “Go home, Joe!” and signs that said, “No Comment” in response to his repeated refusals to comment on the fires, which began Aug. 8.
The White House called the backlash “classless and stupid.”
“He’s petting one of the dogs that are working hard searching for remains,” White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates posted on X in response to the criticism.
"Asked whether “you believe or not believe Donald Trump’s claims he won the 2020 presidential election,” 51% of likely Republican caucusgoers say they believe them"
Every court that has examined the 2020 election results has confirmed Biden won by 7 million votes.
Sorry Trumpettes, but the earth isn't flat, there were no Jewish space lasers, and Trump didn't win in 2020.
Trump Defends Throwing Paper Towels to Hurricane Survivors in Puerto Rico
"Every court that has examined the 2020 election results has confirmed Biden won by 7 million votes.
Sorry Trumpettes, but the earth isn't flat, there were no Jewish space lasers, and Trump didn't win in 2020."
oh, technically, Biden probably won, but there are caveats galore
the Dems used the pandemic as an excuse to dispense with most voter integrity measures and there was a massive shift in mail-in voting, which will always taint the election
it's history
it's reasonable for people to wonder
further, the media manipulation of the information, aided by the collusion of deep state elements means that, in a sense, the election was stolen
the media falsely portrayed the Hunter Biden laptop revelations and polls showed it would have changed enough votes to flip the election to Trump
especially egregious are the the dozens on intelligence officals who lied and said Hunter's laptop was planted by Russians
hopefully, there will be another reasonable than Trump
but Biden is not a reasonable choice
Always huh?
RNC launches ad encouraging absentee, early voting
The Republican National Committee (RNC) is launching an ad encouraging GOP voters to cast their ballots early in 2024, with the video set to air during the first Republican presidential primary debate Wednesday night.
“When Republicans vote early, we win,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel says in the 30-second video, which comes as part of the RNC’s “Bank Your Vote” campaign to raise awareness about absentee ballots and other early voting methods nationwide.
GOP presidential candidates including former President Trump, former Vice President Mike Pence and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez are also featured in the ad, encouraging Republicans to cast their ballots before election day, both in-person and by mail.
“That’s how we’re going to beat the Democrats at their own game,” says Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), who along with Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) is a Bank Your Vote co-chairman.
The new ad will air as Republican presidential hopefuls take the stage in Milwaukee for the party’s first presidential primary debate Wednesday night. Trump, though featured in the new RNC video, announced over the weekend that he will not get on the debate stage.
Trump previously put forth claims of election fraud related to early and absentee voting as he argued that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, but he has shifted to encourage early voting as he vies for another presidential term in 2024.
The RNC said it also plans to host a booth in Milwaukee with fact sheets on early and absentee voting, as well as absentee ballot request forms from across the country. Republicans will also be urged to vote early at over 400 debate watch parties the RNC is hosting nationwide, according to a release.
Voters who pledge to bank their vote at the “Bank Your Vote” website are entered to win a chance to attend a future GOP presidential primary debate.
“To ensure that Biden is a one-term President, Republican voters from across the country need to bank their vote ahead of Election Day in 2024,” McDaniel said in the release.
1. Register to vote and request your ballot in one easy step.
Fill out the Federal Post Card Application (FPCA) and send it to your election office.
Check your voter registration deadline for the next election based on your state. For the General Election, it's best to send in the FPCA by August 1.
Your voting residence (the U.S. state or territory where you are registering to vote) is likely your legal residence. Here's how to determine your voting residence.
Using the FPCA ensures that your state will send your ballot to you at least 45 days before the election — a protection not guaranteed when using other forms. It's a good idea to send in a new FPCA every January and each time you move.
2. Fill out and send in your ballot when it arrives.
For the General Election, you should receive your ballot by early October.
Vote and send back your ballot as soon as you receive it. Check the deadline for your ballot based on your state. MPS also has recommended mailing dates.
If you requested your ballot but haven't received it, contact your election office to ask about the status of your ballot request.
If there isn't enough time to receive and send back your ballot before the election, use the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (FWAB).
It works like a backup ballot. If your official absentee ballot arrives after sending in the FWAB, fill out and send in the official ballot too. Only one will be counted.
After you send in your ballot, you can check if it was received by your election office.
Don't miss a deadline!
"Always huh?"
yep
always
The Democrats have an ace in the hole in their relentless war on the Constitution – conservative America’s reverence for the concept of the rule of the law.
Only their steadfast commitment to this traditional ideal explains why conservatives are allowing Democrats to flagrantly corrupt our judicial system to destroy their opponents and protect themselves. For all their huffing and puffing, conservatives have effectively taken a let the system play itself out attitude while Democrats nakedly politicize that system through their partisan indictments of former President Trump and their Potemkin Village probes of the Bidens. These are not statements of opinion. These are facts.
Part of me is glad that so many legal analysts have spilled so much ink exposing these charades. But we degrade our country and ourselves when we treat this unspeakable behavior with anything other than horrified contempt. Every good-faith critique normalizes and legitimizes this profoundly un-American conspiracy.
Viewing the obvious forest rather than the tangled trees, the cases against Trump are a continuation of the deceitful effort by Democrats and their deep state allies, especially in the DOJ, to annihilate their chief political opponent. That effort began even before his election when Hillary Clinton’s campaign manufactured false claims that Trump had conspired with Vladimir Putin to steal the 2016 election. When that sham was exposed, they almost immediately made Trump only the third president in the country to be impeached for asking Ukraine’s leader to look into the Biden family’s influence-peddling schemes. They set aside almost every rule and order of business by rushing to impeach him once again after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. While that was going on, Democrats insistently rained down other bogus concerns – that he was violating the Emoluments Clause because wealthy foreigners continued to stay at his hotels, that his alleged mental instability made him unfit – to remove him from office.
The hypocrisy is beyond belief: The party that assails Republicans for questioning the integrity of the highly irregular 2020 election spent years and vast government resources to undo the results of 2016.
The charges Trump now faces are part of the ongoing campaign by Democrats to subvert the rule of law to delegitimize what they see as the greatest threat to their power.
In the meantime, Democrats are blatantly using the criminal justice system to protect President Biden. It is now beyond dispute that Biden lied to the American people when he said he never discussed foreign business with his son Hunter and when he claimed during his final 2020 debate with Trump that Hunter’s laptop, which contained evidence of those corrupt dealings, was a “Russian plant.” Has a candidate ever peddled more consequential falsehoods?
In fact, the president was not only aware of his son’s influence-peddling schemes, whose sole selling point was the connection to his vast power. He was an active participant through phone calls and meetings with clients. Irony does not capture the deviousness of the Democrats’ decision to impeach Trump for asking Ukraine to look into this corruption.
The cover-up of the Bidens’ conduct is equally disturbing. The U.S. attorney in Delaware assigned to the case, David C. Weiss, is a former colleague of Biden’s late son Beau. Although the tax avoidance charges involved are straightforward, Weiss spent more than five years allegedly looking into them – allowing the statute of limitations to run out on millions of unreported earnings Hunter generated in 2014 and 2015. Note that even as the president calls on Americans to pay their fair share, neither he nor his allies have demanded that Hunter pay his.
Indeed, we only know about Weiss’ corruption because of two courageous IRS whistleblowers. In response, Weiss quickly struck a deal with Hunter to settle the matter, crafting a sweetheart deal that would have let him off the hook with a slap on the wrist. All might have been forgiven but for the presiding judge, who rejected the deal last month as “not standard” and potentially unconstitutional.
In response to this scandal, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Weiss as special counsel to look into the mess. This move is beyond brazen – Weiss is now apparently in charge of probing his own misconduct. The goal is obvious: Protect the president, and let the statute of limitations run out on other alleged crimes while shutting down any questions about the “ongoing investigation.”
The arrogance is jaw-dropping; the lawlessness is in plain sight. Democrats are not even trying to hide their malfeasance – which is part of their method. If they can make us accept their authority to twist the system so that it is no longer a means of justice but a tool of their political power, then their possibilities are unlimited.
Imagine if the roles were reversed: What if Republican prosecutors had indicted a former Democratic president, who was also the party’s leading candidate in the next election, in four separate cases on 91 questionable charges while a GOP-controlled Department of Justice simultaneously protected its sitting-president boss, who was seeking reelection, by slow-walking a probe of his family’s alleged crimes?
The corporate media would be in high dudgeon about this assault on the Constitution and the streets would be filled with left-wing protestors who would make the BLM riots, the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, and the harassment of Supreme Court justices in response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade seem mild.
Here’s the conundrum. While no one wants conservatives to start engaging in direct action, their passivity is allowing Democrats to weaponize the government. On the one hand, I admire their faith in our system. Even Trump, for all his barking, has largely submitted to his gross mistreatment.
But our system is shattered. The rule of law is now more concept than fact. Where’s the outrage?
OMG rules apply to us???
Yep, sure do!
"Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., raged on Wednesday after Fox News prevented her from taking part in a post-GOP debate event on behalf of former President Donald Trump. The right-winger told Right Side Broadcast host Brian Glenn, who is also her boyfriend, that the network denied her entry to the spin room as a surrogate for Trump because he had decided to skip the debate, accusing the network of "censorship." Fox News "just blocked us out," she complained in a clip flagged by Raw Story. "They would not allow myself, Matt Gaetz, any other Trump surrogates to go into the spin room... So this is censorship from Fox News. This is censorship, not allowing surrogates for President Trump to go into the spin room... I'm still so mad that we just were blocked out. I literally am furious."
Donald Trump Jr. also told reporters he was banned from the room after initially being told he could enter. The former president's eldest son later echoed Greene's complaint in an early Thursday social media post, accusing Fox of "trying to censor and silence Trump supporters to protect their hand-picked establishment candidates," calling it a "big reason why their ratings are dying."
Fox News had previously informed campaigns that only surrogates of candidates attending the debate would be allowed entry, according to a copy of the memo obtained earlier this week by The Hill. It also noted that surrogates of non-participating candidates were able to attend as a guest of one of the cleared media organizations, using their credentials. Several other Trump surrogates, including Gaetz, were able to gain access to the spin room, according to on-the-ground reports from Semafor."
Republicans are moving to impeach Joe Biden, after months of accusing the president and his son Hunter Biden of corruption. But they have yet to produce any actual evidence of their claims, and the latest attempt to make their case is no better. Instead, it simply shows their desperation to discredit the president.
The House Oversight Committee has spearheaded the probe into the Bidens. Last month, the committee published a timeline going back as far as 2013 that supposedly shows the extent of the Bidens’ influence peddling overseas. But if you look closely, the timeline is riddled with errors. An analysis by The New Republic found at least 19 mistakes or misleading details—from mixed-up dates to messages and meetings that never happened. And nowhere does the timeline show actual wrongdoing by the president.
When the Oversight Committee released the timeline, it said it contained “important dates as to when Joe Biden knew and lied to the American people about his family’s business schemes.” It has updated the timeline as the investigation continues.
Out of the 106 dates listed in the timeline, only four are instances when Biden met someone related to Hunter’s business dealings. The timeline says that on December 4, 2013, Biden traveled to China with his son and met with Jonathan Li, the CEO of Chinese company Bohai Harvest, or BHR. Hunter later joined the BHR board.
While the timeline makes it sound like Biden went to China specifically to meet his son’s potential colleague, in reality, the then vice president went to Beijing on an official trip on behalf of the White House. He brought his son and one of his grandchildren along, as well as several reporters who noted it was common for Biden to bring family members in tow. While Hunter had business meetings with Li, Biden only met Li once. Hunter arranged for them to shake hands, but the two men did not interact further on the trip.
The timeline also says that Biden met Vadym Pozharskyi, an executive at the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, at a dinner Hunter hosted in Washington, D.C., on March 20, 2015. The dinner actually took place nearly a month later, on April 16, 2015. Pozharskyi emailed Hunter after the meal to thank him for “giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent some time together.”
But Biden only spoke to one person, a recently retired leader of the Greek Orthodox Church, the whole evening. One dinner attendee, then-president of the World Food Program USA Rich Leach, told The Washington Post that Biden “didn’t even sit down,” but only spoke to Father Alex Karloutsos. Karloutsos confirmed Leach’s account.
Republicans also allege Biden attended a meeting for Chinese energy company CEFC in Washington on May 1, 2017. This information comes from Republicans’ star whistleblower, Gal Luft, who has been charged with acting as a foreign agent for China and of arms trafficking. It is unclear if Biden attended the meeting—texts from Hunter never confirm whether his father put in an appearance, and Biden himself has denied being there—that actually took place on May 3, 2017, in Los Angeles.
Finally, the timeline states that on July 30, 2017, Hunter sent a WhatsApp message to an unspecified Chinese company that he was “sitting here with my father.” Hunter’s lawyer Abbe Lowell, however, has slammed the message and others as “complete fakes.”
Biden’s utter lack of involvement matches testimony from multiple supposed whistleblowers. Republicans have heard testimony from IRS agents, Hunter’s former business partner Devon Archer, and former Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas. None of them was able to provide concrete evidence that Biden was involved in his son’s business. In fact, both Archer and Parnas said nothing could be further from the truth...
Beyond the tenuous evidence connecting Biden to his son’s work, the rest of the timeline contains sloppy mistakes, including on details mentioned in previous Republican reports about the Bidens’ wrongdoing.
In one instance, the timeline says BHR joined with a Chinese Communist Party–affiliated company on September 1, 2015, to buy the U.S.-based automotive producer Henniges Automotive. The deal actually took place on September 15, 2015, according to a 2019 report by the Senate Finance Committee.
The timeline says Hunter met with the U.S. ambassador to Romania in that country on November 13, 2015. Hunter actually met the ambassador in Washington, D.C. He didn’t travel to Romania until the following year.
Republicans have repeatedly accused Hunter of receiving illicit payments. According to the timeline, he received a payment from his associate Rob Walker on November 11, 2015. It says that Robinson Walker, a company associated with Walker, also made payments to Hunter’s company Owasco P.C. on February 12, 2016, and May 23, 2016.
The reasons for the payments are unspecified, and all three dates are wrong. As the House Oversight Committee already stated in a report from May this year, the payments actually took place on November 9, 2015, February 24, 2016, and August 15, 2016.
Hunter Biden is currently under investigation for tax evasion, and he will likely go to trial. But proof of his guilt or innocence will not be found in the Oversight Committee’s timeline.
The timeline is sloppy work done by a party on a political vendetta. Republicans have already admitted multiple times that they have no proof of wrongdoing by the president. They have said they don’t know whether the information on which their accusations are based is even legitimate. They have also admitted they don’t really care.
"The timeline is sloppy work done by a party on a political vendetta"
you must have gotten this mixed-up with the Dems' accusations of Trump colluding with Russia
evidence tying Slidin' Joe Biden to Creepy Hunter Biden's professional influence peddling is much stronger than the lies about Trump's alleged collusion, which was disseminated by Hillary
They won't forgive you for this either, Haley.
After all,. climate change effects all sorts of things like trees falling.
Prof Michael E. Mann
@MichaelEMann
The @GOP---as I've said before--is not just a threat to the nation. It's a threat to the planet.
Quote
Aaron Rupar
@atrupar
Replying to @atrupar
holy shit. Moderators ask for a show of hands of how many candidates believe in human-caused climate change. Not a single candidate raises their hand.
9:54 PM · Aug 23, 2023
So far, the fact that former President Donald Trump has been criminally indicted four times this year has done little to dent his support among Republican voters.
But what if he’s eventually convicted?
A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll has found that in that scenario, even some current Trump supporters could start to have second thoughts about casting their ballots for him in 2024.
The survey of 1,665 U.S. adults was conducted from Aug. 17 to 21 — after the news of Trump’s most recent indictment, for allegedly orchestrating a racketeering ring to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, had some time to sink in, but before he surrendered Thursday at the Fulton County Jail.
The results are striking.
A Trump conviction could upend the GOP primary
Asked about their current preference for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, a full 52% of potential Republican primary voters — that is, voters who identify as Republicans or Republican-leaning independents — selected Trump. That makes him the party’s undisputed frontrunner, with the next closest candidate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, trailing by 40 percentage points.
But when the same voters are asked a new follow-up question — “If Trump is convicted of a serious crime in the coming months, who would you vote for in your state’s 2024 Republican primary?” — support for the former president suddenly plummets by 17 points (to just 35%). Support for DeSantis, on the other hand, rises by 8 points (to 20%). Another 17% say they’re not sure (up from 14%). No other candidate gains more than a point or two.
Biden also stands to benefit
Asking registered voters who they would vote for in next year’s general election “if Trump is convicted of a serious crime” produces a similar (though smaller) shift. In that case, support for President Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, holds steady at 47%. But support for Trump falls by 3 points, from 41% to 38%, while the overall number of voters who say they're not sure (9%) or that they would not vote (6%) increases by 3 points.
That gives Biden a 9-point lead.
In 2020, Biden defeated Trump by 4.5 percentage points nationwide — enough for a 306-232 Electoral College victory.
To be sure, these Trump conviction scenarios are all very hypothetical. The former president's trials haven’t started yet, and they might not conclude before voters go to the polls, either in key primary states or in the general election. He may be acquitted in the end. Unless the rest of the GOP can coalesce around a single alternative, 35% of the primary vote could still be enough to secure Trump the nomination.
And even if the former president is found guilty of serious crimes in the coming months, supporters who currently express hesitation about backing a convicted felon — or say they’d skip voting altogether — might find a way to rationalize returning to the fold when primary day or Election Day actually arrives.
Yet for Trump — and for the party poised to nominate him again — real signs of danger remain.
Majorities of Americans say the charges are 'serious'
For one thing, large majorities of Americans say the crimes he’s been accused of are, in fact, “serious”:
Falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments to a porn star: 54% serious crime, 34% not a serious crime
Taking highly classified documents from the White House and obstructing efforts to retrieve them: 66% serious crime, 20% not a serious crime
Conspiring to overturn the results of a presidential election: 70% serious crime, 17% not a serious crime
Attempting to obstruct the certification of a presidential election: 70% serious crime, 17% not a serious crime
For the last two offenses — Trump’s alleged election crimes — even Republicans are more likely to consider them serious (47%) than not (32-33%).
Second, just 27% of Americans believe there “should be no criminal cases against Trump” at all. A combined 56% say either that “there should be more criminal cases against Trump” (28%); that “the number of cases is appropriate” (18%); or that “there should be some charges against Trump” even if “four cases is too many” (10%). Indictment fatigue is not a big issue, at least not yet.
Most Americans want Trump found guilty
Finally, most Americans already think Trump should be “found guilty” on some or all charges in the election cases, both at the federal level (54%) and in Georgia (52%). Less than a third (32% and 31%, respectively) say he should not be convicted.
As usual, the new Yahoo News/YouGov poll found a clear and consistent pattern of partisan polarization around the Trump indictments. Across the board, slightly less than half of Americans (48% on average) approved of “the decision to indict” him in each separate case, while slightly more than a third (35% on average) disapproved.
The problem for the former president is that 35% — or even 38%, his head-to-head number against Biden “if convicted” — is not enough to win.
In 2020, Trump received nearly 47% of the national popular vote; he still lost by 7 million ballots. To mount a successful comeback in 2024, he will need to expand his support, not shed it. Getting convicted of a serious crime between now and then is likely to be a step in the wrong direction.
The judge has ruled against opt-out for storybooks.
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