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Category Archives: Dirty side of Politics

Don’t let MAGA theatrics fool you: Donald Trump’s 34 felony convictions are not helping him


(note embedded video may not play-sorry about that, MA)

Story by Amanda Marcotte

 • 3h • 6 min read

Many people mistake cynicism for savviness. So, of course, it took no time at all for some political pundits to rush forward to declare that Donald Trump’s historic 34 felony convictions would somehow “help” him. Republicans rushed to beat their chests and made loud threats that Democrats will rue these convictions, even though it was 12 randomly selected jurors in Manhattan, and not the Democratic Party, that convicted Trump. He falsely claimed that his “poll numbers have gone up substantially” since the verdict. (So far, it hasn’t moved the polls much, though it seems to have made some voters more hesitant to support Trump.) The campaign claimed a $53 million fundraising haul in the aftermath of the verdict, though this should be taken with a grain of salt, as they lie constantly. And, of course, Republicans ran towards every microphone is sight to feign outrage and declare that an upswell of once-skeptical Americans would now vote for Trump. Who knew there was a massive constituency of voters outraged that New York would enforce its laws against criminal conspiracies to defraud the public? 

Alas, the GOP theatrics appear to have scared some folks.

Failed presidential candidate Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., called on Gov. Kathy Hochul, D-N.Y., to “pardon” Trump, claiming failure to do so is “[m]aking him a martyr” and “energizing his base.” Future failed presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — pretending still not to be on the right — insisted this will “backfire” on Democrats. (It cannot be stated enough that the Democratic Party did not convict Trump, a jury did.) But even some well-meaning liberals had a nearly superstitious reaction to the celebrations, worried that somehow Trump would find a way to turn this to his advantage. 

I don’t want to jinx things, but it seems highly unlikely that Trump will benefit from having “convicted felon” replace “former president” as his most recent title. It doesn’t mean Trump’s presidential bid is doomed, as the polls remain alarmingly tight. But the notion that Trump is going to find some fresh wellspring of support because he’s been proved a grubby little criminal by a jury of his peers? I’m not buying it. 

Related video: How Trump’s deny-everything strategy could hurt him at sentencing (The Associated Press)

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Even Jonathan Chait of New York magazine, who tends to be the voice of the Democratic skittishness, had to admit that the MAGA hollering over the Trump conviction has failed to intimidate. He points out that Republicans are always claiming Democrats are forcing them to support an odious policy or candidate. Even 24 years ago, Republicans argued they had no choice but to vote for George W. Bush because Bill Clinton lied about an extramarital affair. Now, of course, they are “forced” to vote for Trump, which they definitely weren’t going to do before, in defense of candidates breaking the law to cover up sexual misdeeds. “Next thing you know, Trump is going to be so angry about his conviction that he will resort to attempting to overturn an election result,” Chait joked. It’s ironic because Chait was one of the loudest quisling voices freaking out over hypothetical backlash when District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted Trump on these charges in April 2023. So that even he’s not scared of Republican threats says a lot.

But ultimately, it comes down to this: If getting convicted of crimes is so goshdarned awesome for Trump, then why are his allies doing everything in their power to delay Trump’s other criminal trials? If a guilty verdict is such a boon to Trump, you’d think the six corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court would be eager for the January 6 trial, instead of dragging their feet on releasing a decision on presidential immunity that will likely push the trial until after the election. If Judge Aileen Cannon believed a conviction would boost the man who appointed her to the federal bench, you can bet the classified documents trial would have happened already. Instead, she’s indefinitely delayed it. If felonies give Trump such an edge in the polls, Republicans in Georgia would be rushing forward with the RICO case there, instead of filing frivolous motions against District Attorney Fani Willis to keep the case from trial. 

Certainly, the post-conviction Reuters poll showed 35% of Republican voters saying the verdict makes them more likely to vote for Trump, but that’s a number roughly no one is taking seriously. Those are quite obviously people whose political motives are defined entirely by resentment of liberals and feelings of entitlement, i.e. folks who were going to vote for Trump anyway. What’s more interesting is the 10% of Republicans who say they are less likely to vote for Trump now. Conservative media has been downplaying these charges for over a year now, so it’s possible many of these voters are only now just realizing these were serious crimes indeed. 

What all this discourse about “the base” is missing is that it’s not just Trump who has a base of supporters to motivate. Trump hasn’t actually risen in the polls. It’s just that President Joe Biden’s support has eroded. It’s not entirely clear why so many people who voted for Biden in 2020 are unhappy. They keep saying “the economy,” even though unemployment is at record lows and inflation has dropped back down to low rates. I agree with Heather “Digby” Parton, however, that the actual reason is the general bad vibes caused by Trump’s continuing presence on the political scene. “For all of Biden’s successes, he couldn’t put an end to the single biggest problem we face,” she writes. Biden, although it’s unfair, is paying the price for our Trump-caused psychological malaise. 

But that’s a reason to hope that Trump’s conviction might actually matter. It’s not a cure-all for the corruption and institutional failure that is wearing people down, to be sure. But it’s energizing to have proof that Trump is not invincible. Especially if Democrats can find the discipline to hammer the words “convicted felon” and “jury of his peers” home through brute repetition. It’s not just about reminding voters what a terrible man Trump is. Those phrases are a promise that the system can work, if people put their minds to it. It might actually help put a little pep in people’s steps, all the way to the polls. 

Certainly, Trump himself is not acting like a man who thinks things are going great for him. His post-conviction appearance at Trump Tower more closely resembled the ravings of an addled person screaming about demons on the subway than a press conference. Over the weekend, he gave an interview to Fox News that appears to have created a lot of headaches for their talented editing staff. 

As many have pointed out, the only way the Trump trial in Manhattan really benefitted him is by keeping him off the campaign trail. Whenever he speaks publicly, the lies and rants are startling, even to people who follow politics closely and are aware that Trump’s already low levels of coherence have fallen through the floor. Beyond just the rabid MAGA base, a lot of Trump’s polling support comes from people who just aren’t paying much attention, and have no idea what Trump is sounding like these days.

The prediction is that once some of these folks hear Trump’s word salad rage dumps, they might rethink their complacent acceptance of a grievance-addicted liar with 34 felony convictions. Certainly, if that theory has any juice, there’s reason to hope they’ll be alarmed, as the guilty verdicts increase the number of truly unhinged statements from Trump. He won’t have the Fox News editing staff around every day to protect him from himself. 

The Dupublicans Have The Numbers Wrong!


The Border Process

We reached out to the Migration Policy Institute to ask what happens to migrants who arrive at the southern border without authorization to enter the U.S. “The short answer is, it depends,” Putzel-Kavanaugh told us.

We’ll start with migrants apprehended while trying to cross between ports of entry.

In the last several years, Putzel-Kavanaugh said, typically migrants will go into U.S. territory and then wait to be apprehended, with the intention of asking for asylum. They are taken to a processing center – “large, tent-like structures” – for 24 to 72 hours to answer questions and provide biometric information.

“While in custody,” she said, “they’re processed, so to speak … the appropriate disposition will be given to them.” Migrants could be released with a notice to appear in immigration court, processed for expedited removal or asked if they want to be returned to Mexico.

For expedited removal, the U.S. would have to have a relationship with the migrant’s country of origin and space on a repatriation flight. ICE would need capacity to hold migrants pending removal.

In fiscal year 2023, 46% of encounters were migrants from Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras, countries that regularly accept repatriation of their citizens. Venezuelans made up 10.7% of encounters. The U.S. announced in October that Venezuela agreed to accept repatriations of its citizens, but in January, the country halted those flights.

For families, “Border Patrol doesn’t want to keep children in custody for very long,” Putzel-Kavanaugh said. Families are “likely to be released quickly with an NTA [notice to appear] to appear in immigration court.”

What happens for border crossers “depends on the day, depends on how many people Border Patrol is processing” and depends on the type of people coming in, such as whether they are traveling as a family. Criminal record checks are conducted, including screenings for prior immigration charges and whether someone is on a terrorist watchlist.

Glossary of Immigration Enforcement Terms

The process at legal ports of entry is different. Most migrants without authorization to enter the U.S. who are processed at ports of entry have appointments through CBP One — an app that in January 2023 began accepting appointments for a limited number of migrants who are in Mexico and want to request asylum or parole. DHS calls this “safer, humane, and more orderly” than processing between ports of entry, where migrants cross the border illegally and wait to be apprehended. Migrants with CBP One appointments get a similar screening and could be subject to expedited removal, but the majority are released into the U.S. with a notice to appear in immigration court, Putzel-Kavanaugh said.

With CBP One, border officers already have a lot of information about the person, including contact information and a photo. But appointments are capped at 1,450 per day. For calendar year 2023, 413,300 people scheduled such appointments, CBP says.

So, those who are released into the U.S. are generally saying they have a fear of returning to their home countries and want to apply for asylum, and releases are especially likely if it involves a family.

The capacity of Border Patrol and ICE facilities is also an issue, with detention reserved “for people who are really presenting a national security threat,” Putzel-Kavanaugh said.

There’s also a humanitarian parole program for people fleeing Haiti, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba, who can potentially stay in the U.S. for two years if they have a sponsor who applies for the program. Through the end of last year, 327,000 people have been granted parole under the program, which launched in October 2022 for Venezuelans and expanded to the other nationalities in January 2023. There are 30,000 slots per month available.

Unaccompanied children are transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services, which is responsible for children who cross the border on their own.

“It’s this giant puzzle of different agencies … that have to work together,” Putzel-Kavanaugh told us.

For a visualization of the process, the American Immigration Council referred us to a New York Times infographic it helped the newspaper create on what happens to those coming to the border.

Those seeking asylum must prove “that they meet the definition of a refugee,” the American Immigration Council explains in a fact sheet updated in January. “In order to be granted asylum, an individual is required to provide evidence demonstrating either that they have suffered persecution on account of a protected ground in the past, and/or that they have a ‘well-founded fear’ of future persecution in their home country.”

Because of a backlog of cases, asylum seekers can spend years waiting for a court date. As we explained in a story last month, less than 15% of those seeking asylum were ultimately granted it in fiscal years 2022 and 2023, according to Justice Department statistics. But it is taking four to five years for asylum cases to get to court.

The immigration court backlog was 3 million cases in November, a record, according to a December report from TRAC, a nonpartisan research center at Syracuse University.

Border Statistics

As we said, there were 6.5 million encounters at the southern border from February 2021 through October, including a little more than 700,000 migrants who arrived without legal documentation at ports of entry. That’s according to DHS’ Office of Homeland Security Statistics.

About 2.5 million people through October have been released into the U.S. That figure includes 2 million released by Border Patrol, with a notice to appear in court or a notice to report to ICE, or released through prosecutorial discretion or granted parole, which allows people into the country for a temporary period. The 2.5 million number also includes nearly 534,000 paroles processed at legal ports of entry.

In addition to those releases, nearly 367,000 migrants have been transferred to HHS, which is responsible for children who cross the border on their own, unaccompanied by adult family members or legal guardians.

Another 771,000 were transferred to ICE, a figure that includes those subsequently booked into ICE custody, enrolled in “alternatives to detention” (which include technological monitoring and other case management options) or released by ICE.

Of those arriving at the southern border during Biden’s presidency, 2.8 million were removed or returned directly from CBP custody through October, the vast majority of them under the Title 42 public health law during the pandemic. Total DHS repatriations were 3.7 million, which includes removals by ICE.

Under Title 42, the U.S. immediately expelled people encountered at the border, except for unaccompanied children, without giving them an opportunity to apply for asylum — and without imposing criminal penalties. Now that Title 42 has ended, there are fewer expulsions overall, but the number removed from CBP custody under Title 8 has increased. Title 8 laws are the longstanding immigration laws that dictate what can happen to migrants entering illegally and who is inadmissible. Title 8 removals are subject to criminal penalties, including a five-year ban on entering the U.S. again.

In addition to fewer expulsions since the end of Title 42, there is evidence of a decline in the rate and number of gotaways, according to David J. Bier, the associate director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. “Since Title 42 was terminated, successful evasions of Border Patrol have declined 79 percent to a daily average of about 500, or 15,500 per month, in January 2024,” Bier wrote, using monthly estimates reported by media outlets.

The gotaway figures can be estimated through observation – such as electronic surveillance of the border – or statistical modeling. “Gotaway data have become more reliable over the past decade because border surveillance has increased dramatically from 2005 to 2023,” Bier wrote.

As we said, some Republicans have claimed that 85% of migrants are being allowed into the country under Biden, citing remarks attributed to DHS Secretary Mayorkas by the Border Patrol Union. (Publicly, Mayorkas said at the time that “the majority of all southwest border migrant encounters throughout this administration have been removed, returned, or expelled.”) But overall under Biden, through October, 35% of those apprehended at the border have been released to await further immigration processing.

Recent Customs and Border Protection figures of those trying to enter the country between ports of entry come close to that 85% number for December, when 77% of the nearly 250,000 apprehensions by Border Patrol were released with a notice to appear in court. But the monthly figures vary. In January, 57% were released with a notice to appear. From June, the first full month after Title 42 ended, through January, 64% of Border Patrol apprehensions were released.

Again, these initial dispositions don’t indicate what ultimately happens.

DHS also publishes lifecycle reports on what happens to migrants over time — since asylum cases and deportation proceedings can take years. The most recent report is for fiscal 2021, which covers less than a year of Biden’s time in office. The latest report shows that cases can be pending for quite some time. It says that 28% of all border encounters from fiscal 2013 to 2021 were still being processed.

Bier calculated release and removal rates for the last two years of former President Donald Trump’s term and the first 26 months of Biden’s, using DHS data, including the lifecycle report, ICE detention statistics and other figures published by the Republican majority on the House Judiciary Committee. Bier wrote in November that his work showed the Biden administration “has removed a higher percentage of arrested border crossers in its first two years than the Trump DHS did over its last two years. Moreover, migrants were more likely to be released after a border arrest under President Trump than under President Biden.”

While the raw numbers are much higher under Biden — 5 million encounters compared with 1.4 million under Trump in those time frames — the percentages for the two administrations were similar: 47% removed under Trump and 51% under Biden. Bier’s estimates are for illegal immigration between ports of entry. (As our bar graph above shows, both administrations had removal rates above 50% when Title 42 was being used to expel people.)

“These numbers highlight how difficult it was even for the most determined administration in US history to expel everyone who enters illegally,” Bier wrote.

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Have We Arrived at The “AHA’ moment?


The past number of months in the Presidential campaign has clearly shown that our Democracy is in trouble. We have legislators bent on revenge rather than fulfilling their duty. Some who have no understanding of what it takes to maintain a democracy. The Far-right side of the GOP is busily following the “former guy.” whose sole objective is to sow dissent and disorder. His Presidency is a wide open testament to his petulance and ineptitude. His followers are no more than pawns and have no clear concept of what Governing is. As we approach the national elections, the ongoing trials of DJT keeps surfacing while the topic needs to be a non-issue! The formation of parties and the sub sects of them has created more confusion over the real collective issues we face daily, while fomenting divisions that should not exist or perhaps should not take high priority in Governing. Nationality, Race, ethnicity are not indicative of a person’s qualities but appear to color our everyday. The election of DJT aka, TOTUS, LOTUS, Orange Guy” or whatever you want to name him is a recipe for disaster. This is not about politics as much as it is about who is capable of running the country. The last thing we need is folks like MTG, AOC raging over nothing rather than being serious about governing. We need people who will address the High court’s integrity by perhaps term limits, a code of ethics (that should also apply to Congress as well). This should be the goal, achieving or approaching those goals will allow for the correction needed to truly make America the country everyone thinks we are!

  The truth about the economy


  The one remaining problem can’t be dealt with through higher interest rates. It needs vigorous antitrust enforcement.

ROBERT REICH FEB 2                     Friends, It’s the economy, stupid. Thus spoke my friend James Carville, one of Bill Clinton’s campaign managers, in 1992. He was correct then and he’s been right ever since. Today, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the U.S. economy added 353,000 jobs in January, and the unemployment rate remains at 3.7 percent. The BLS also revised upward the two prior months, bringing the average monthly job gain in 2023 to 255,000. Even manufacturing, which has been in the doldrums, added 23,000 positions. Average hourly earnings grew 0.6 percent from December. Few economists expected job gains to remain this strong when high interest rates were needed to bring down inflation. But inflation is way down. Larry Summers (with whom I worked in the Clinton administration) predicted that the Fed would have to cause excessive joblessness to tame inflation (Summers also called the 2021 American Rescue Plan the “least responsible” fiscal policy in 40 years). He was wrong. Jobs growth continues to roar. Economic growth is good. Wages are moving in the right direction. Yet despite all the good news, 71 percent of Republicans say the economy is getting worse, and Donald Trump is once again claiming that the unemployment numbers are fake. Trump and Republicans are focusing on the only real remaining economic problem: Although inflation is down, prices haven’t come down. Why not? Because of corporate pricing power. Consider Pepsi. In 2021, PepsiCo, which makes all sorts of drinks and snacks, announced it was forced to raise prices due to “higher costs.” Forced? Really? The company reported $11 billion in profit that year.  In 2023 PepsiCo’s chief financial officer said that even though inflation was dropping, its prices would not. Pepsi hiked its prices by double digits and announced plans to keep them high in 2024. If Pepsi had lots of competitors, consumers would just buy something cheaper. But PepsiCo’s only major soda competitor is Coca-Cola, which – surprise, surprise – announced similar price hikes at about the same time as Pepsi, and also kept its prices high in 2023. With just one or a few competitors, it’s easy for giant corporations to coordinate price increases and prevent price cuts, to keep their profits up while shafting consumers. The CEO of Coca-Cola claimed that the company had “earned the right” to push price hikes because its sodas are popular. Popular? The only thing that’s popular these days seems to be corporate price gouging.  Pepsi and Coca-Cola dominate the soft drink market. They own most of the brands that appear to be competitors. This corporate pricing power isn’t just happening with Coke and Pepsi. Take meat products. At the end of 2023, Americans were paying at least 30% more for beef, pork, and poultry products than they were in 2020.  Why? Just four companies now control processing of 80 percent of beef, nearly 70 percent of pork, and almost 60 percent of poultry. So of course, it’s easy for them to coordinate price increases and prevent price cuts. In 75 percent of U.S. industries, fewer companies now control more of their markets than they did twenty years ago. Which is why the Biden administration is taking on this monopolization with the most aggressive use of antitrust laws in half a century. It’s taken action against alleged price fixing in the meat industry. It’s also suing Amazon for using its dominance to artificially jack up prices — one of the biggest anti-monopoly lawsuits in a generation. It successfully sued to block the merger of JetBlue and Spirit Airlines, which would have made consolidation in the airline industry even worse. But given how concentrated American industry has become, there’s still a long way to go. Inflation is down. But many people don’t feel it because prices are still high, and in some cases are still rising because of continued price gouging. That’s given Trump and his Republican lapdogs an excuse to tell Americans that the economy remains bad. The truth is, the economy is remarkably good, but too many big corporations have too much power over prices. The answer is to break them up — but I don’t expect Trump and the Republicans to say this. Do you?

Knee Jerk (and results of)


Observing and listening to the political news from multiple sources, one could be persuaded to avoid voting. Politics is a dirty business and possibly the most disingenuous. Remembering the spelling of poLItics, the 2 middle letters are ” LI”. While this is not the exact spelling of the word the meaning is clear. We have been historically warned about the “negative or misguided” ideas of politicians and some major news figures. Churchill warned about striking a deal with Hitler prior to WWII, Gen. Patton warned about appeasing or allying with Russia after WWII and Gen. Macarthur warned about China after WWII. This is all historic information, yet many have embraced the extreme left and right of center politics that led up to the Several wars experienced since the turn of the century (1900 till now).

The availability of information through mass media gives several views of information that can confuse and befuddle but if we use our common sense and avoid personal (and sometimes erroneous) conceptions of what we have learned, we can elect better people to represent us and hopefully make laws that advantage all of us. There will never be a “perfect” solution to the many issues that we face daily but with reasonable electees and our knowledge of the facts we can potentially rise above the mire we exist in re now.

Can His Racism Be Any More Transparent?


Trump says Black voters relate to criminal prosecutions, prefer the ‘white guy’ to Obama

David Jackson

USA TODAY

COLUMBIA, S.C. − Former president Donald Trump, campaigning in South Carolina Friday, brought the issue of race into the campaign by comparing his legal battles to the injustices Black Americans face in the legal system and saying Black voters would prefer him over his predecessor, “Black president” Barack Obama.

Speaking to an audience of mostly Black Americans, Trump suggested − inaccurately − that he is popular with African American voters. He said his 91 criminal indictments and mug shot were part of the reason.

“A lot of people said that’s why the Black people like me, because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against, and they actually viewed me as I’m being discriminated against,” he told an event sponsored by the Black Conservative Federation where about two-thirds of the crowd were Black Americans and one third were white people.

“It’s been pretty amazing but possibly, maybe, there’s something there,” he said of his theory that his criminal woes are something that makes him relatable to Black voters.

At another point, Trump squinted at the crowd and said: “The lights are so bright in my eyes I can’t see too many people out there. But I can only see the Black ones. I can’t see any white ones. That’s how far I’ve come.”

Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide

In disparaging President Barack Obama over the costs of a new Air Force One, Trump “Would you rather have the Black president or the white president who got $1.7 billion off the price?”

As the crowd cheered that remark, Trump said: “I think they want the white guy.”

A USA TODAY Suffolk poll published on Jan. 1 showed Trump with the support of only a small sliver of Black voters – 12%.

PollingA fraying coalition: Black, Hispanic, young voters abandon Biden as election year begins

His support among Black Americans has not increased and is identical to what he garnered in the 2020 election.

Trump’s primary opponent, Nikki Haley, blasted him over the comments.

“It’s disgusting,” Haley told reporters Saturday. “But that’s what happens when he goes off the teleprompter.”

Former Congressman Cedric Richmond, co-chair of the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign, blasted Trump’s comments.

“Though I may be disgusted, I am not at all surprised that Donald Trump would equate the suffering and injustice of Black people in America to consequences he now faces because of his own actions,” Richmond said, in a statement. “Donald Trump claiming that Black Americans will support him because of his criminal charges is insulting. It’s moronic. And it’s just plain racist.”

Trump’s remarks were defended by Diante Johnson, president of the Black Conservative Federation.” Our community supports the policies of President Donald J. Trump and knows full well that life was better four years ago under his administration,” Johnson said. He said that Black voters will cast their ballots in November “for safer streets, a better financial well-being, a secure border, and a complete rejection of Joe Biden’s disastrous tenure.”

One Man


DAN RATHER AND TEAM STEADYJAN 23

Here it is January 2024, and we find ourselves reminded anew that we are in a difficult, dangerous, and deepening political reality. As the first primary ballots are being cast in New Hampshire, the country is forced again to face the fact that one man has fundamentally changed us. Simply stated, it’s as sobering and unsettling as that. 

He has changed what was until recently considered unacceptable behavior for our leaders. He has normalized bigotry, misogyny, racism, ageism, ableism, sexism.

He has changed our relationships with facts. Now there are phony “alternative facts.” And, lest we forget, wave after wave of outright lies. Scientific truths are scoffed at if they don’t fit his extremist narrative. Rational discourse is a thing of the past, because how can you argue with someone who, in effect, refuses to accept that two plus two makes four.

He has changed the lives of every woman in America whose bodily autonomy has been severely curtailed by a Supreme Court he stacked with anti-choice jurists.

He has changed how we show our discontent, unleashing long-held furies and granting permission to behave badly. Because he does. Can you imagine any other president heavily encouraging, if not outright creating, the January 6 insurrection — and then praising those who stormed the Capitol? 

He has changed how we socialize in public places. If politics comes up in conversation, we’re more often inclined to speak softly, if at all, and glance around to make sure we aren’t overheard. Not because we are ashamed of our views, but because we are concerned for our safety.

He has changed the lives of millions who lost loved ones to COVID-19 (400,000 American deaths by the time he left office) because he a) didn’t act to stem the rise of the virus and b) actively made things worse.

He has changed how we interact with family members. We now have to remember which uncle or cousin is a MAGA supporter and make sure to stay away from any topics other than weather and sports at Thanksgiving dinner or a 4th of July barbecue.

He has changed our ability to fight climate change by rolling back policies and bowing out of international agreements at a moment when we don’t have time to backtrack. 

He has changed how safe we feel driving in our cars. We hold the steering wheel just a little tighter when a giant pickup truck pulls up alongside us adorned with inflammatory bumper stickers. 

He has changed how we start relationships. We now have to find out where a new acquaintance falls on the political spectrum to make sure we align enough to even bother moving forward with a friendship.

He has changed how we educate our children, giving revisionists carte blanche to sanitize history and remove even dictionaries from school libraries.

He has changed where we feel comfortable living. He has divided us to such an extent that some feel compelled to move to other states because of the extreme politics he has fomented and the state laws passed in the wake of such severity. 

Why are we allowing this one man to remake us — as individuals and as a country? 

As we ponder that question, we remember that Republicans in New Hampshire are widely expected to vote today for this man to return to the White House.

Even if he is upset by Nikki Haley in New Hampshire, he will remain a heavy favorite for the nomination because he and those who support him are enthusiastic, organized, and focused.

For those who oppose Donald Trump? It will take all of their collective efforts to make sure he doesn’t return to the Oval Office. 

I’m sure you have your own thoughts. Feel free to join in the respectful conversation below.

Trump Keeps Suggesting People Who Aren’t White Aren’t Eligible To Be President


Jennifer Bendery

Huffpost

Tue, January 9, 2024 at 7:27 PM CST·2 min read

3.7k

Donald Trump is fueling a lie on social media that Nikki Haley isn’t eligible to be president because she’s not a natural-born U.S. citizen ― the same lie he spread about former President Barack Obama, Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas.).

It’s almost as if there is something ― something! ― about all of these people who happen to be not white and who happen to have immigrant parents that makes Trump wonder if they are real Americans. What could it be!

In Haley’s case, Trump on Monday posted a screenshot to his Truth Social account of a false story claiming that his Republican presidential opponent is disqualified from being president or vice president because “reports indicate that her parents were not U.S. citizens at the time of her birth in 1972.”

That story, published by the far-right website, The Gateway Pundit, and shared by Trump to his 5.5 million Truth Social followers, is as ugly as it is nonsensical. Haley was born in South Carolina. She is a natural-born U.S. citizen. She is eligible to be president.

Donald Trump is fueling a lie on social media that Nikki Haley is not eligible to be president.

But just like he did to Obama, Harris and Cruz when they were his primary political opponents, Trump pushing the racist idea that because Haley has immigrant parents (her parents are from India), she must not be a real American and is therefore disqualified from running for president.

Trump aggressively spread this lie about Obama, for years, fueling wild conspiracy theories about Obama being born in Kenya instead of Hawaii, where he was actually born. Trump routinely demanded that Obama release his full birth certificate to prove where he was born, and when Obama actually did, Trump questioned its authenticity.

After five years of doing this, Trump abruptly reversed course in September 2016, admitting that Obama was born in the United States and moving on as if nothing had happened.

In August 2020, Trump tried the same attacks on Harris. A Trump campaign spokesperson questioned Harris’ citizenship in an interview with ABC News, and later that day, Trump said that Harris possibly “doesn’t meet the requirements” to serve as vice president.

Harris was born in Oakland, California.

Trump also tried to claim that Cruz was disqualified from being president because he was born in Canada. During the 2016 Republican presidential primary, Trump repeatedly raised questions about Cruz’s qualifications. Cruz, whose mother was born in America and whose Cuban father was born in Canada, has long maintained that he qualifies as a natural-born citizen by virtue of being born abroad to a U.S. citizen.

Ironically, Trump may be the one who ends up disqualified from being president because he incited an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.

Crybaby conqueror’: Columnist nails Trump’s appeal to MAGA fanatics


Opinion by Travis Gettys • 21h

Donald Trump has recently revived long-standing comparisons to Adolf Hitler, but a columnist hit him Friday for being more like a “crybaby conqueror” — though his fanatical supporters seem happy to embrace either.

Trumpists tend to call themselves conservative, which has traditionally signaled a belief in limited government and low taxes, but Chicago Sun-Times columnist Gene Lyons noted with horror that MAGA followers had essentially become fundamentalist fanatics.

“This explains what some see as the central paradox of the MAGA movement: that a congenital braggart who embodies what Christianity has traditionally called the seven deadly sins — greed, lust, envy, sloth, gluttony, pride and wrath — has come to seem the totem of faith for millions of Republican evangelicals,” Lyons wrote.

Lyons turned to noted anti-fascist George Orwell, whom he said “captured the essence of the whiny strongman” in his 1940 review of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” — a manifesto Trump insists he has never read.

“Orwell understood fascism’s appeal to an aggrieved population,” Lyons wrote. “While European and North American democracies, he wrote, told people in effect that, ‘I offer you a good time,’ Hitler has said to them, ‘I offer you struggle, danger and death,’ and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet.

“Orwell also understood the personal psychology of the crybaby conqueror: ‘The initial, personal cause of [Hitler’s] grievance against the universe can only be guessed at; but at any rate the grievance is here. He is the martyr, the victim, Prometheus chained to the rock, the self-sacrificing hero who fights single-handed against impossible odds. If he were killing a mouse he would know how to make it seem like a dragon,'” Lyons added.

Lyons said he’s inclined to believe Trump never read “Mein Kampf,” but instead had affected an over-the-top persona based on low-brow entertainers from his own youth.

“Trump never learned anything from a book,” Lyons wrote. “He stole his whole act from 1950s professional wrestlers at Sunnyside Gardens in Queens, specifically from Dr. Jerry Graham, who swaggered around boasting that ‘I have the body men fear and women adore.'”

“The hairstyle, too — a bleached blond pompadour that taught a generation of wrestling fans how a ‘heel’ behaved — that is, basically like a cartoon Nazi,” he added. “Graham was a masterful showman who aroused thousands to frenzy with balsa wood chairs and fake blood capsules. He was as fat as Trump, too, although there was muscle under the lard.”

Recommended Links:

・Trump ‘tripling down on fascist rhetoric’ while denying he’s a Hitler fan: Morning Joe

・‘This is fascism!’ Morning Joe checks off all the ways Trump meets chilling definition

・Trump is following ‘the fascist playbook to the letter’: historian

How The Court Was Bought


Heather Cox Richardson

12/18/2023

Reporters at ProPublica have uncovered yet more news about the right-wing network of wealthy donors who have supported Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas. According to Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan, Alex Mierjeski, and Brett Murphy, in January 2000, on a plane flight home from a conservative conference, Thomas complained to Representative Cliff Stearns (R-FL) about his salary. He warned that if lawmakers didn’t give Supreme Court justices a pay raise, “one or more justices will leave soon.”

After the trip, Stearns wrote to Thomas that he agreed “it is worth a lot to Americans to have the constitution properly interpreted.” Stearns immediately set out to pass legislation separating the salaries of Supreme Court justices from the rest of the judiciary, and then raising pay for the Supreme Court justices alone. But the top administrative official of the judiciary, L. Ralph Mecham, in June 2000 wrote to then–chief justice William Rehnquist to suggest that this was the wrong approach for this “delicate matter.”

“From a tactical point of view,” Mecham wrote, “it will not take the Democrats and liberals in Congress very long to figure out that the prime beneficiaries who might otherwise leave the court presumably are Justices Thomas and Scalia. The Democrats might be perfectly happy to have them leave and would see little incentive to act on separate legislation devoted solely to Supreme Court justices if the apparent purpose is to keep Justices Scalia and Thomas on the Court. Moreover, the fact that Representative Stearns is a conservative Republican may not help dissuade the Democrats and liberals from this view.”

Mecham distinguished between Republicans he thought of as “liberals,” and those, presumably like himself, Rehnquist, Thomas, and Scalia, who were pushing “to have the constitution properly interpreted.” By this, he meant those who wanted the concept of “originalism” to undermine the federal government’s regulation of business, provision of a basic social safety net, promotion of infrastructure, and protection of civil rights, principles on which “liberal” Republicans and Democrats agreed.

Although the extremist faction has now captured the Republican Party, as late as 2000 there were enough “liberals” in the Republican Party that members of the extremist faction worried they could not enact their chosen program. So they must have the Supreme Court. Stearns told the ProPublica reporters that Thomas’s “importance as a conservative [as they called themselves] was paramount…. We wanted to make sure he felt comfortable in his job and was being paid properly.” 

About this time, wealthy Republican donors began to provide Thomas and his wife Ginni with expensive vacations and gifts. Ginni went to work for the Heritage Foundation, making a salary in the low six figures. Yale law school professor George Priest, who has joined Thomas and billionaire donor Harlan Crow on vacation, says that Crow “views Thomas as a Supreme Court justice as having a limited salary. So he provides benefits for him.”

That is, a Republican billionaire donor “provides benefits” for a Supreme Court justice who voted in favor of—among other things—the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision that reversed campaign finance restrictions in place for over 100 years, permitting corporations and outside groups to spend unlimited funds on elections, and the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision that gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act protecting minority voting rights in the United States. 

The determination of wealthy Republicans to control our political system for their own economic benefit is now matched on the other side of the political equation by religious voters hellbent on overthrowing democracy to impose their religious will on the American majority.  

After voters in Republican-dominated states have tried to protect the right to abortion in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized the constitutional right to abortion, antiabortion forces are trying to stop voters from having the right to decide the matter. They are trying to prevent voters from signing petitions to put such measures on ballots. 

Steven Aden, the chief legal officer of the antiabortion group Americans United for Life, told Alice Miranda Ollstein and Megan Messerly of Politico: “Because we believe that abortion is truly about the right to life of human individuals in the womb, we don’t believe those rights should be subjected to majority vote.”

Breaking faith in democracy has led us to a place where the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination is openly praising dictators, trying to join the United States into a rising global authoritarian movement based in the idea that democracy, with its focus on equal rights, is destroying traditional society by getting rid of patriarchy, racial hierarchies, and heteronormative society.  A Fox News poll released over the weekend showed that 3 in 10 Republicans agreed that “things in the U.S. are so far off track that we need a president willing to break some rules and laws to set things right.”

Today, Pope Francis undermined that argument when he said in a landmark ruling that Roman Catholic priests can bless same-sex couples. While this is not the same as the sacrament of heterosexual marriage, the Vatican’s doctrinal office said this is a sign that God welcomes everyone. 

Pope Francis has tended to ignore the rise of right-wing extremism in the U.S. church but now appears to be defending his message that the church should be tolerant and welcoming in the face of the growing intersection of religion and authoritarianism. Last month, he relieved from duty Bishop Joseph H. Strickland of Tyler, Texas, who has vocally supported right-wing politics and openly revolted against the Pope’s positions. 

There is a strong economic reason to reinforce the idea of democracy, as well. After forty years in which a minority worked to push tax cuts and deregulation with the argument that they would promote investment in the economy, the Biden administration quite deliberately has used the government not to prop up the “supply side,” but rather to bolster the “demand side.” Despite the history that showed such a system worked, economists and pundits warned that Biden’s policies would dump the U.S. into a terrible recession. 

The 2023 numbers are in, and they show exactly what the U.S. Treasury under Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen predicted: inflation has dropped significantly, unemployment is at a low 3.7%, the economy grew at an astonishing 4.9% in the last quarter, and the stock and financial markets are at or near all-time highs. 

The economic news is tangible proof that a government that serves the majority, rather than a wealthy few, works.

—

Notes:

https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-money-complaints-sparked-resignation-fears-scotus

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24190168-stearns-note-to-thomas-2000

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24214202-2000-memo-to-rehnquist

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/citizens-united-explained

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/voting-rights-america-six-years-after-shelby-v-holder

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/12/pope-francis-critics-catholic-church-strickland-burke.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/12/18/3-10-trump-voters-want-president-willing-break-rules-laws/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/10/26/gdp-third-quarter-economy-growth/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/12/18/recession-economy-inflation/

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/18/first-rule-of-the-anti-abortion-playbook-dont-let-the-public-vote-on-abortion-00132049