This is serious. From last month in the NY Times: Former President Donald J. Trump has told advisers and allies that he likes the idea of a 16-week national abortion ban with three exceptions, in cases of rape or incest, or to save the life of the mother, according to two people with direct knowledge of Mr. Trump’s deliberations. Mr. Trump has studiously avoided taking a clear position on restrictions to abortion since Roe v. Wade was overturned in the middle of 2022, galvanizing Democrats ahead of the midterm elections that year. He has said in private that he wants to wait until the Republican presidential primary contest is over to publicly discuss his views, because he doesn’t want to risk alienating social conservatives before he has secured the nomination, the two people said. Mr. Trump has approached abortion transactionally since becoming a candidate in 2015, and his current private discussions reflect that same approach. One thing Mr. Trump likes about a 16-week federal ban on abortions is that it’s a round number. “Know what I like about 16?” Mr. Trump told one of these people, who was given anonymity to describe a private conversation.
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In the last months of his presidency he pardoned a bunch of them. Following up on the post below, here’s an example of how Trump dealt with the “waste, fraud and abuse” which he now says is his actual plan to cut Social Security and Medicare: In an attempt to clean up comments he made this week about “cutting” entitlement programs, former president Donald Trump has vowed in recent days that he would reduce spending on Social Security and Medicare by targeting waste and fraud in those programs. However, a review of Trump’s record shows that, in the closing months of his presidency, he used his clemency powers to help several people convicted in major Medicare fraud cases, including commuting the sentence of a man the Justice Department had described as having “orchestrated one of the largest health care fraud schemes in U.S. history.” In his last year in office, Trump commuted the sentences of at least five people who collectively filednearly $1.6 billion in fraudulent claims through Medicare or Medicaid.
The GOPers want to cancel Joe Biden’s Stare of the Union speeches because he’s so divisive. You really can’t make this stuff up: House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) said GOP leadership should reconsider how they invite presidents to give the State of the Union address, citing President Biden‘s “divisive” speech. Emmer argued Biden’s remarks were a “hyper-partisan” campaign speech, telling Axios the president should not be invited to address Congress next year if he’s elected to a second term. The Minnesota Republican said he’s bullish on former President Trump‘s odds of defeating Biden in November, but felt Biden’s speech should have had a more unifying tone. “That was about the most divisive State of the Union — I wouldn’t extend him an invitation next year, if that’s what we’re going to get,” Emmer said during an interview at the House GOP retreat. “He’s not going to be there next year — it’ll be a different president.
“I really feel like 2016 was the year that the mask came off” One can only hope. North Carolina’s MAGAfied GOP is turning off once-faithful Republicans and turning them into once-Republicans (USAToday): Ex-Republican Phebe Roberson, 75, said she “can’t stand” former President Donald Trump and voted against him in North Carolina’s GOP primary earlier this month. She also cast a ballot against Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the incendiary Republican gubernatorial candidate who received Trump’s endorsement ahead of the primary. The right fringe, she says, has “stolen my Republican party.” She cast her primary ballot for Nikki Haley. Justin Bradford, 47, of Pinehurst, once voted a straight Republican ticket, but began moving away from the GOP a dozen years ago when he switched his registration to unaffiliated and voted for Barack Obama.
He just can’t quit January 6th The loss of the 2020 election was such a blow to Trump’s fragile psyche that he perpetuated the Big Lie and tried to overturn the election culminating in his incitement to insurrection on January 6th. He can’t let it go even though it constantly reminds the nation of the worst day of his presidency: The rallies start with a recording of January 6 prisoners singing the national anthem. Campaign staff hand out pre-made “Too Big to Rig” signs to supporters. When the candidate takes the stage, he calls the rioters “people who love our country” and “hostages unfairly imprisoned for long periods of time.” There is nothing subtle about how central Donald Trump has made January 6, 2021, to his campaign. More than just continuing to feed denialism and conspiracies about the 2020 election, he is constantly distorting the reality of what happened that day, preaching vindication to his base of voters. In ways big and small – but often overlooked because they have become so commonplace at his events – the former president glosses over the violence.
Trump wanted to “shoot Americans in the street” Mike Pence has got righteous down. Just needs the anger. How many GOP allies are waiting for the signal to jump Trump’s ship? And Pence is just slipping out the door? Pence: Donald Trump is pursuing and articulating an agenda that is at odds with the conservative agenda…. I cannot in good conscience endorse Donald Trump. <YAWN> This from the guy targeted for hanging by Trump’s Jan. 6 mob, egged on by Trump himself. How fitting that Pence picked Friday, Marcy Wheeler tweets: If Mike from Pennsylvania is auditioning for Pence’s anger translator, he’s got the idea. He needs to work on his delivery. But it’s a start. Mike from Pennsylvania: Donald Trump cares the hell out of me…. He really scares me to death…. Donald Trump is mentally unfit for the office. For your MAGA relatives: Now with video! In you missed it, Mike, the boss you gave puppy-eyed looks to wanted to deploy troops to “shoot Americans in the street.” Mike? Nothing? ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download.
Blue grass and blood stains The Nation: In March 14, the Kentucky Senate Judiciary Committee voted to approve HB 5, the “Safer Kentucky Act.” The legislation will now head to the Senate floor for a vote, and it will almost certainly pass. The 78-page bill criminalizes homelessness—and decriminalizes the use of deadly force against individuals engaging in “unlawful camping.” Under this law, if a property owner believes an unhoused trespasser is attempting to commit a felony or attempting to “dispossess” them, they can shoot the homeless person. Notably, The Bluegrass State found it necessary to make the language of existing related statutes more inclusive by changing his to his or her, and he to he or she. But shoot to kill. It’s fine. The dispossess language is subsection a. “[W]e are entering a time of vast restratification,” Chip Elliot wrote in Esquire in September 1981. “The United States is becoming more European…but it is a Europe of a different century.
Are you better off? Yes you are better off. That was a historic horror show. How about 5 years ago when the economy under Trump was supposedly the greatest the world has ever known: Yep. So how are people feeling right now? Paul Krugman: So Quinnipiac is doing swing-state polls that among other things ask people both about the state of the economy and their personal finances. Here’s Michigan, but you see the same disconnect elsewhere I keep seeing claims that never mind the macro data, people’s lived experience is of a bad economy. But consumer sentiment isn’t a lived experience; it’s a narrative, and one that is actually at odds with people’s personal lives Why?
Michael Tomasky runs down all the roadblocks, delays, ratfucks and manipulations being used by the Trump team (which is a D-List team at best, which says something) to ensure that Trump does not go to trial on any of his criminal cases before the election. It’s depressing, but it’s true and you should read the whole thing if you haven’t seen it all put together. His conclusion is absolutely correct: When we talk about what’s wrong with our democracy, we talk about our political structures and processes. We talk about the Senate. We talk about the Electoral College. We talk about gerrymandering. And of course all these problems are real. We don’t talk about our legal system. We should. The American legal system doesn’t uphold the values of democratic rule like equality. It far more often corrupts and perverts them. Rich people like Trump twist the system into a pretzel and win delay after delay after delay. Corporations pay fines, usually not that large when considered against their bottom line, and they admit no wrongdoing, even after their practices have killed people. Poor people, meanwhile, get pushed around by the system constantly.
Jamelle Bouie on Kellyanne Conway’s lame attempt to paper over the GOP’s problem on reproductive rights: Republican strategists are well aware that abortion is an albatross around the party’s neck. Their advice? Find new language. “If it took 50 years to overturn Roe v. Wade, it’s going to take more than 50 minutes, 50 hours or 50 weeks to explain to people what that means, and more importantly, what it doesn’t mean, and to move hearts and minds,” said Kellyanne Conway, a former adviser to Donald Trump, at Politico’s Health Care Summit on Wednesday. During the conversation, she advised Republican candidates to focus on “concession” and “consensus” and to turn the conversation toward exceptions. She also urged Republicans to avoid ballot initiatives on abortion, for fear that they could mobilize voters against them. I have no doubt that Republicans will take this advice; they are desperate to neutralize the issue. But the Republican abortion problem isn’t an issue of language, it’s an issue of material reality.