Do we want to trust the nuclear codes to his “metrics” again? Come on.
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Would he? (Of course he would.) Trump’s allies are trying to reassure the Supreme Court that if you give Trump total immunity he would never order an enemy to be killed as was posited in the appeals court hearing. And anyway, even if he did, nobody would carry it out. So it’s all good. It is not: As the Supreme Court gets ready to hear oral arguments in Donald Trump’s presidential immunity case, the former president’s allies are working to tamp down any concerns the justices might have about one of the more absurd and disconcerting arguments offered by any Trump lawyer ever: that a president would have to be impeached and convicted before he could be prosecuted if he were to, hypothetically, order the assassination of a political rival. The America First Policy Institute, a think tank led by former top Trump advisers and allies, filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court last month arguing that the justices should not consider this hypothetical in their decision, because the military would never follow such a command.
No Confederate flags When the eclipse reached totality Monday afternoon, we looked around and thought this one was much darker than the total eclipse that passed an hour away in 2017. Seven years ago when the celestial light dimmed it was dusky, but not dark. This time we were on the edge of night. What’s up with that? It turns out that the explanation was out there. The geometry of the Earth, Moon and Sun were slightly different this time, making the path of totality wider (Mashable): Setting aside weather conditions, the wider path of totality is also the reason some solar eclipse observers could be treated to a darker sky, Zeiler said, allowing people to see more stars against the backdrop. If a person stood in the center of the narrower path in 2017, then went to the center of the broader 2024 path this April, the sky could appear darker the second time around. The duration of the eclipse and the level of darkness are related. “If you’re in the center, then you’re a farther distance away from sunlight. That’s what it boils down to — how far you are from the edge of the shadow,” he said. So it was near Bloomington, Indiana.
The Big Liars are organizing Wired has a report on what they have planned: As the most consequential presidential election in a generation looms in the United States, get-out-the-vote efforts across the country are more important than ever. But multiple far-right activist groups with ties to former president Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee are mobilizing their supporters in earnest, drawing on one baseline belief: Elections in the US are rigged, and citizens need to do something about it. All the evidence states otherwise. But in recent weeks, these groups have held training sessions about how to organize on a hyperlocal level to monitor polling places and drop boxes, challenge voter registrations en masse, and intimidate and harass voters and election officials. And some are preparing to roll out new technology to fast-track all of these efforts: One of the groups claims they’re launching a new platform for checking voter rolls that contains billions of “data elements” on every single US citizen. These groups could have a major impact on the 2024 election.
You’re not going to like it Trump only has one economic idea: tariffs. Oh, he’ll give tax cuts for himself and for other rich people in return for donations and favors, of course. But his only “economic” idea is that tariffs force other countries to stop laughing at us and bring in money for the government which is 100% nonsense. His tariffs cost the government when it is forced to compensate American producers for their losses when countries retaliate and the cost of the tariffs are born by consumers who pay higher prices for goods. Duh. Former President Donald J. Trump is planning an aggressive expansion of his first-term efforts to upend America’s trade policies if he returns to power in 2025 — including imposing a new tax on “most imported goods” that would risk alienating allies and igniting a global trade war. […] Essentially, Mr. Trump’s trade agenda aims at backing the United States away from integration with the global economy and steering the country toward becoming more self-contained: producing a larger share of what it consumes and wielding its might through one-on-one dealings with other countries.
So Trump has revealed his secret plan at last: Former president Donald Trump has privately said he could end Russia’s war in Ukraine by pressuring Ukraine to give up some territory, according to people familiar with the plan. Some foreign policy experts said Trump’s idea would reward Russian President Vladimir Putin and condone the violation of internationally recognized borders by force. Trump’s proposal consists of pushing Ukraine to cede Crimea and the Donbas border region to Russia, according to people who discussed it with Trump or his advisers and spoke on the condition of anonymity because those conversations were confidential. That approach, which has not been previously reported, would dramatically reverse President Biden’s policy, which has emphasized curtailing Russian aggression and providing military aid to Ukraine. As he seeks a return to power, the presumptive Republican nominee has frequently boasted that he could negotiate a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine within 24 hours if elected, even before taking office.
Trump gave all of us more reason to vote this fall If it was not clear before that reproductive freedoms will be the central issue of this presidential campaign, Donald Trump made that clear on Monday, as Digby noted. Every time he does, he’ll drown out his own party’s messaging about border security, age, inflation or any other bit of spaghetti they hope sticks to the wall. But then keeeping his mouth shut about “our Great Roe v. Wade Victory” is not one of Trump’s strong suits. This is one Trump message the left should amplify, and Biden-Harris is on it. The GOP wants to leave all our freedoms up to individual states. Where once we were North and South, segregated and less-so, MAGA Republicans want to make what freedoms we Americans enjoy contingent not on the Constitution but on where we live. They want to leave our freedoms up to the states. Not if we leave it up to our votes. ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.
Don’t let him forget it What he said yesterday was that because he needs to get elected and he thinks this issue is hurting him so he’s just saying that he isn’t for a federal ban to get it off the table. But what Healey says above shows why he can’t take it off the table. He’s the reason all those states now have abortion bans and he’s proud of it. Normal people don’t care for the idea of women in neighboring states dying or young incest victims being forced into childbirth because Donald Trump is trying to split the difference. He created this problem when he and Mitch McConnell packed the court with wingnuts and now they have to live with it. I noted yesterday that Lindsey Graham had come out with a big statement against Trump’s decision, pushing for a 15 week national ban, and Trump went on a tirade against him on Truth Social. By the end of the evening I became convinced this was a kabuki dance, at least on Graham’s part, to portray Trump as a “moderate.” “See, he’s not so bad!” I’m not entirely convinced Trump is in on that, however.
Reality: This doesn’t take into account the overwhelming horror of living in a woke country where transgender people exist and racial minorities are forcing the rightful white owners of the country to share power. The nightmare is real.
Teeing up a Trump election in the House You think the skies will go dark for four minutes today? How about for four years or permanently? For your Robert F. KennedyJr.-leaning friends. RFK Jr.’s New York director hates Democrats and Joe Biden so much that she dreams of seeing the 2024 presidential election decided for Trump in a GOP-led House. Whether or not this plan is far-fetched, it reflects nihilism masquerading as progress. Not unlike making America great again by demolishing the republic and replacing it with a Gileadish autocracy. How d’ya like that, libs? Somewhere in my dusty memory is a plot line in which someone plans their own suicide to look like a murder and configures the evidence to implicate a former lover(?). To hate someone that much…. ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.