What do Democrats offer instead? Donald “91 Counts” Trump will appeal the judgment, of course. It’s what he does as surely as “grab them.” He’ll appeal the $83.3 million judgment a Manhattan jury on Friday awarded E. Jean Carroll in her defamation case (The Guardian): Carroll will receive $18.3m in compensatory damages and $65m in punitive retribution. The former president is paying Carroll compensatory damages of $18.3m – $11m to fund a reputational repair campaign. The $7.3m is for the emotional harm caused by Trump’s 2019 public statements. Carroll and her legal team were beaming as they left court in a black SUV. They did not answer questions immediately after court let out. Moments after the decision was announced, Trump decried it as “absolutely ridiculous” on Truth Social, and said he would be filing an appeal. Naturally. Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper she’d never seen someone as contemptuous of the U.S. justice system as Trump.
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Who’s a civilian? The Atlantic: The International Court of Justice in The Hague today made an initial ruling, four weeks after an application from South Africa that accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians. The court ordered Israel to ensure that its military does not commit acts of genocide against Palestinians, to immediately improve humanitarian aid to Palestinians, and to prevent and punish genocidal incitement against Palestinians. However, the court stopped short of ordering Israel to end its military operations against Hamas, a nod to Israel’s right to respond in self-defense after the deadly Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7. South Africa had hoped the court would order such a cessation, in effect ruling in favor of an immediate cease-fire in Gaza. The court did also call for the immediate release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas. Given the dreadful toll of civilian deaths in Gaza, reportedly now topping 25,000, Israel should answer questions about its conduct. Every member of the United Nations’ 1948 Genocide Convention has an obligation to raise concerns if they have evidence that a group of people is at risk of genocide.
The Wall St. Journal breaks from the MAGA GOP which may have some effect on donors and, therefore, Republican politicians: The Wall Street Journal‘s editorial board is warning Republicans that they may pay a political price for letting Donald Trump rip up a deal to beef up border security measures and provide more aid to Ukraine. On Wednesday, Punchbowl News reported that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had told his colleagues that they were in a “quandary” because Trump opposes the deal and the caucus doesn’t want to do anything to “undermine” the likely Republican presidential nominee. The Journal submitted that following Trump’s command “would be a self-inflicted wound.” “President Biden would claim, with cause, that Republicans want border chaos as an election issue rather than solving the problem,” argued its editors. “Voter anger may over time move from Mr. Biden to the GOP, and the public will have a point.
She’s a terrible lawyer and a terrible actress And she’s just as nuts as he is: Following a massive verdict where a New York federal jury ordered Donald Trump to pay over $83 million in damages to E. Jean Carroll for making defamatory statements about her, Trump’s attorney, Alina Habba, exited the courtroom, on the brink of tears, and lambasted the court and the process for holding Donald Trump accountable. Watch the moment below: Following her meltdown, CNN’s Jake Tapper put her speech into perspective by talking about her “effectiveness” as Trump’s attorney. Watch for yourself: This is the woman who said she’d rather be pretty than smart because she can fake being smart. Actually, she can’t. She proved that with her embarrassing performance in federal court. She’s better hope that Trump keeps her on for the rest of his life and actually pays his bills because no one else in their right mind would hire this ridiculous person.
And that’s all that matters to the cult Dahlia Litwick with a fascinating observation about the Trump trials and the effect they are having in the political culture: Tacopina’s mistake in representing Trump’s interests in that first defamation suit lay in trying to win the case in the eyes of the law, which meant keeping Trump far away from the jurors. Trump has corrected for that by retaining Habba, who understands that whether Trump wins or loses matters less than ensuring that he feels like a winner, whatever the verdict. And what is winning if not getting to do the thing you were instructed, under penalty of sanctions, not to do? Habba knows that the outcome of these trials (how much money he has to pay) doesn’t matter nearly as much as establishing that Trump is as immune to law, judges, gag orders, and threats of sanctions as he is immune to reality, fact, science, and election results. She is the stage mother who comes to all his ballet recitals and T-ball games and tells him he’s a star and that everyone else is doping. And if a little lawyering happens on the side, well, that’s a solid day’s work.
It’s always 1987 in Trump’s world A big new economic plan on the way: Former president Donald Trump is weighing options for a major new economic attack on China if reelected, considering plans that are widely viewed as likely to spark a global trade war. Publicly, the GOP front-runner has endorsed downgrading China’s trade status with the United States — a move that would lead tariffs between the world’s two largest economies to skyrocket. Revoking China’s status as a “most favored nation” for trade — which is applied to almost all countries the United States trades with — could lead to federal tariffs on Chinese imports of more than 40 percent, according to one analysis. Trump has floated imposing a 10 percent tariff on nearly all $3 trillion in annual imports from all countries, including China. Privately, Trump has discussed with advisers the possibility of imposing a flat 60 percent tariff on all Chinese imports, according to three people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to relay private conversations. All these options would lead to enormous disruptions to the U.S.
The strapping young man in the photo above is my grandfather Philip Kramer (in his late teens or early twenties, to my best estimation). He immigrated to America from Bialystok circa 1910. While the area is now part of the Republic of Poland, Bialystok “belonged” to the Russian Empire when he lived there (ergo, he was fluent in Russian, Polish, and Yiddish). One of the reasons his family emigrated was to flee the state terror inflicted on Russia’s Jewish population by Czar Nicholas (the Bialystok pogram of 1906 was particularly nasty). I suppose I have Czar Nicholas to thank for my existence. If my grandfather had never left Bialystok, he never would have met New York City born-and-raised Celia Mogerman (the daughter of Jewish German immigrants). Consequently, they never would have fallen in love, got married, and had their daughter Lillian, who never would have met and fallen in love with a young G.I. named Robert Hartley (a W.A.S.P. farm boy from Ohio) at a New York City U.S.O. Club. They, in turn, produced…me (otherwise, you’d just be staring at a blank page here).
Watching the world burn “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” J. Robert Oppenheimer invoked the line from the Bhagavad Gita in life and in film in reference to the towering pillar of fire he witnessed in exploding the world’s first atomic bomb. Donald “91 Counts” Trump is not literate enough to know the reference, but the 77-year-old toddler means to destroy ours if he does not get his way. With the country. With women. With his political adversaries. With Europe. With the itchy mind-worm of Daddy Fred’s judgment: Loser. Republicans have ginned up public concern over the southern border into a major 2024 campaign issue. They hold President Joe Biden responsible for a supposedly “open” southern border while actively working — at Donald Trump’s behest — to prevent any congressional action to address border issues. Military aid to Ukraine for repelling (Trump pal) Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invaders is tied up in a border security deal being negotiated in the Senate (and opposed by House Republicans).
It’s no longer about Washington. His top enforcers are the red state governors Donald Trump is having a rolling hissy fit that’s escalating by the day. From court rooms to rallies to incoherent interviews, his behavior is making it clear the pressure is getting to him and he’s coming unglued. Ever since he realized that Nikki Haley is not going to be a good little girl and quit the race on his time table he’s been beside himself. Trump was so angry on Wednesday that he fired off a post on his Truth Social platform threatening to blackball any Haley donor who continues to give “Birdbrain” any money, declaring “from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp.” (Haley responded with a fundraising pitch and reportedly took in over a million dollars.) I doubt very seriously that Trump will be turning away money from anyone — he’s never left a penny on the sidewalk. But it was a gangster move in keeping with his ritual humiliation of Senator Tim Scott on the stage at his victory speech in New Hampshire, intended to send a message that he’s their daddy and nobody should forget it.