Taxpayer-funded defense for Trump? They grow bananas in Floridonia, don’t they? While Donald “91 Counts” Trump is mopping up the remaining 2024 Republican presidential field in New Hampshire this morning, MAGAfied Floridonia officials are hoping to fund Trump’s criminal defense with state tax dollars (Ron Filipkowski at Meidas Touch): Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis announced today that he is supporting State Senator Ileana Garcia’s bill SB 1740 to create a “Florida Freedom Fighter’s Fund” to provide millions of dollars to fund Trump’s criminal defense legal team. One day after Ron Desantis drops out of the presidential race, the push is on to use state resources and funding to finance a private citizen’s legal defense in criminal cases. While tens of thousands of indigent Floridians are represented by Public Defenders with massive caseloads due to limited budgets, Florida’s CFO wants the state to provide millions to Trump, who testified recently that his net worth is in excess of $10 billion and that his Florida home is the most expensive in the world.
Uncategorized
This is the media’s fault for indulging these spoiled brats’ tantrums about being “insulted” by the coastal elites. Nobody is more insulting than they are — and they’ve been that way for years. This isn’t a Trump thing. It’s a “Real America” thing.
Mike Johnson is on thin ice The crazies are restless: Speaker Mike Johnson is beset with political challenges: At least two conservative lawmakers have begun threatening his job. The former acting speaker trashed Johnson’s performance this week. A border-policy showdown with the Senate and White House draws nearer every day. And then there’s the problem of the 2024 campaign. A growing number of House Republicans are increasingly frustrated with Johnson’s leadership and whispering about whether he can hang on to his role after 2024 — if he even makes it that far. Despite serving barely three months as speaker, the Louisianan is already facing an immediate threat from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who is openly disparaging him and suggesting she may try to boot him from the speakership. “I don’t think he’s safe right now,” Greene said, adding: “The only reason he’s speaker is because our conference is so desperate.” Few Republicans are prepared to join Greene, at least at this point.
Biden expands abortion, contraception protections One of the first headlines that popped up this morning was on a Jill Filopic column at Slate: Biden Is Whiffing It on the Most Important Issue for Democrats. Biden says restoring abortion rights will be his No. 1 priority in a second term. Well? The column criticizes the Biden administration for issuing “executive orders to protect abortion and contraception, but those do not invalidate state abortion bans or potential contraception bans.” Filopic adds, “The Department of Health and Human Services issued an important directive on the long-standing Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, confirming that hospitals receiving federal Medicaid dollars have to care for and stabilize any patient who comes through their doors, regardless of that patient’s ability to pay.” But they have limited effect. So “it’s hard to say that restoring abortion rights has been the No.
Ritual humiliation and humiliation humilitation A couple of social media posts about the ongoing fascist follies. The inferiority complex runs deep. Followers will, as Ruth Ben-Ghiat (“Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present“) observes, debase themselves to win the Leader’s approval and bask in any glimmer of reflected glory. Here’s the clip so you don’t have to hunt it. Like Donald Trump has for decades, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders dutifully regurgitates that people “on the other side of the world are laughing at us.” Trump the Insecure has always craved the respect of people he never felt took him seriously (like his father), and not just in New York City. It’s why Trump fawns over Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán and North Korea’s “hereditary communist monarch” Kim Jong-un. They’ll never let you into their club, Donald. You’ll never have their respect. How much more pathetic that MAGA cult members crave Trump’s? Like loyalty with him, respect is a one-way street.
Bye bye Ron. It’s been real. Who would ever have guessed that the latest Republican Great Whitebread Hope would crash and burn even before the New Hampshire primary? It’s not as if they always end up being losers. Well, actually they do. Every cycle some highly touted GOP Governor is built up to be the second coming of Ronald Reagan and they inevitably come to a ignominious end that generally spells the end of their political future. (When’s the last time you heard anything about former heartthrobs Scott Walker of Wisconsin or Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota?) Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who quit the race on Sunday rather than face another primary drubbing, is no exception. The man from Florida turned out to be a dud, just like so many who have come before him. Despite all the hype he never stood any chance of dethroning Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination and it actually had little to do with him. It’s because Donald Trump has had the nomination in the bag since January 21, 2021. Even zombie Reagan wouldn’t be able to beat him.
Depends on which war you mean The race is on to see who burns out on Donald Trump first, Trump Himself or the rest of us. With his shuttling furiously between court apearances and campaign appearances, Trump can no longer tell his Nikkis from his Nancys. “I am your retribution” has turned into “IMMUNITY NOW, IMMUNITY TOMORROW, IMMUNITY FOREVER.” Although neither as smart nor as clever nor as intellectually agile as George Wallace, Jamelle Bouie nonetheless believes Wallace’s “legacy in national politics … is very clearly Trump.” I need a break. Make that “break.” The Russians are still bombing Ukraine. The Israelis are still bombing Gaza. Vladimir Putin is still directing the former and Benjamin Netanyahu, the latter. Al Jazeera provides a rundown of events on Day 697 of the war on Ukraine: “Meat grinder” (Business Insider): Russian marines and paratroopers are refusing to launch certain types of assaults due to concerns over the huge losses other troops are suffering, a Ukrainian official said, the Kyiv Post reported.
A quick refresher People don’t know what they don’t know. That’s tautological, but true. One reason I publish ForThe Win every two years (the 5th edition isn’t quite ready) is to give less-experienced Democratic county chairs in under-resourced counties a “cookbook” for assembling a countywide get-out-the-vote program in support of their candidates. State parties assume chairs have already learned the nuts and bolts by the seat of their pants. They instead provide sometimes overly thick manuals focused mainly on party administration. “Where’s the part about electing Democrats?” is my usual reaction. In presidential years, people unfamiliar with local party operations start calling the headquarters here in West Cackalacky (or your Cackalacky). Some have basic election questions. Others want to discuss policy or something they just saw on the news. Angry others want to chew the ears of retiree volunteers who answer the phone as though local committees are part of the Collective with a subspace connection to decisions made in the West Wing. That’s not how this works.
The Biden campaign is out with a stark new ad featuring a woman talking about traveling out of state to receive an abortion due to Texas’ strict abortion ban. It’s the latest in their push to put reproductive rights front and center in the 2024 race. It will be playing: -during the The Bachelor season premiere -on HGTV, TLC, Bravo, Hallmark, Food Network & Oxygen -during NFL championships – on digital This is very good. But it’s just a start. They need to keep it up.
Trump is not an improvement in any way I hear a lot on my social media these days about how Trump is better than Biden on the Gaza war. That’s utter nonsense. It’s true that Trump isn’t particularly fond of Netanyahu (neither is Biden, actually) but that does not mean that he would ever be an ally of the Palestinians or the Palestinian allies. Donald Trump promised on Monday that if elected president again he will bar immigrants who support Hamas from entering the U.S. and send officers to pro-Hamas protests to arrest and deport immigrants who publicly support the Palestinian militant group. Trump, president from 2017-2021, said that if elected to a second White House term he will ban entry to the U.S. of anybody who does not believe in Israel’s right to exist, and revoke the visas of foreign students who are “antisemitic.” He also vowed to step up travel bans from “terror-plagued countries.” He did not explain how he would enforce his demands, including the one requiring immigrants to support Israel’s right to exist under what he called “strong ideological screening.” … Promising to drastically tighten U.S.