National Review says that Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis “are far and away better on the merits, more likely to win in November, and, if elected, more likely to deliver — free from the wild drama of a second Trump term — conservative results.” I don’t know about Haley and DeSantis but we can certainly agree on the horror of another Trump term. But maybe they could have been consistently critical of the MAGA cult over the past 7 years? I dunno. But they were “Never Trump” in 2016 and they are again, so I guess that’s something. Mediaite reports: The editorial minced no words in prosecuting its case against Trump, bluntly stating that Trump “lost to Joe Biden in 2020″ and “did everything he could to overturn the result, including trying to bully his vice president into violating his oath and preventing and delaying the counting of the electoral vote.” “When a mob, fervently believing Trump’s lies, fought its way into the U.S. Capitol to try to end the count, Trump did little or nothing to try to stop it,” it added.
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Chris Christie dropped out of the race today and gave quite a speech. He didn’t endorse anyone and I think we know why: Christie’s speech was the best one I’ve ever seen him give. He didn’t mince words about Trump and chastised those who are giving him a pass. He talked honestly about the stakes for the country in this election. A couple of highlights:
Sort of Lawyers are right this minute arguing that Donald “91 felony indictments” Trump should be immune from criminal prosecution for acts he took during his White House tenure. “Circuit judge Florence Pan is putting Trump lawyer John Sauer in a tough spot,” writes The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell. Sauer is still arguing that Trump is not an “officer” of the U.S. You can listen along to the arguments here. On the SEAL Team Six scenario above, Brian Beutler takes on the argument that Trump should be held to a special standard. We all know how special he is, don’t we? Beutler’s “We Can’t Afford Weak-Kneed Liberalism In The Trump Era” refers specifically to objections to disqualifying Trump from the ballot based on the 14th Amendment. Just to get you started: Boiled down, the argument is this: Donald Trump should be held to a special standard, not written into the Constitution, because applying the law to him faithfully is unfair to Republicans, and may allow them to engage in tit-for-tat retribution. Both of these objections are easily refuted.
Can you believe it? “I just think it’s just something where, if you want to accomplish something, you know, a lot of people, I hear, complain about what other people do or why it’s hard, or why it’s impossible,” Kushner said in the video. “And again, I say this as somebody who has been so blessed with so many things in life, but when I’ve had challenges or things I’ve wanted to achieve, I just focus and say, ‘What can I do?’” he added. “I’ll read everything I can get my hands on. If I fail at one thing, if the door closes, I’ll try the window. If the window closes, I’ll try the chimney. If the chimney closes, I’ll try to dig a tunnel. It’s just, if you want to accomplish something, you just have to go at it.” In sharing the post online, Ivanka gushed over her husband, observing that she had received “a remarkable number of gracious compliments” regarding Kushner’s comments. “I personally love this clip as it reveals the determined optimist who firmly believes that there’s always a solution if you’re willing to try enough paths.
This should be in every ad, print, digital and TV, for the next 10 months. “When there’s a crash, I hope it’s going to be during this next 12 months because I don’t want to be Herbert Hoover. The one president, I just don’t want to be Herbert Hoover.” Oops: By the way:
“A president has to have immunity. And the other thing was, I did nothing wrong. We did nothing wrong.” The argument before the panel on the DC circuit was held this morning and it doesn’t sound like they were buying it: Former Manhattan prosecutor Karen Agnifilo took to CNN Tuesday to discuss a moment in Trump’s presidential immunity hearing when his trial lawyers were confronted with past statements made in his impeachment hearings in January 2021. “Clearly, Trump’s arguments in other forums are coming back to haunt him,” Agnifilo said. “You cannot be inconsistent and disingenuous when you are speaking to the court.” Agnifilo was responding to a question from host Kaitlan Collins, who noted Trump’s impeachment lawyers said presidents could be criminally prosecuted.Skip Ad The former prosecutor then argued that the three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit would take into account past legal forums before they ruled on the two protections Trump wants to claim.
Paul Krugman makes an important point today that I’ve been dying for someone with a big perch to make about the economy. The constant media refrain that the “American public” is deeply dissatisfied with everything, especially the economy ,does not tell the whole story: The economy is good, but Americans feel bad about it. Or do they? The more I look into it, the more I’m convinced that much of what looks like poor public perception about the economy is actually just Republicans angry that Donald Trump isn’t still president. Last year was a very good one for the U.S. economy. Job growth was strong, unemployment remained near a 50-year low and inflation plunged. Some reports I’ve seen suggest that this favorable combination was somehow paradoxical and contrary to economic theory. In fact, however, it’s exactly what textbook economics says to expect in an economy experiencing an improvement in its productive capacity. […] Furthermore, the source of the positive supply shock is obvious: The economy finally got past the disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Did you think he wouldn’t go there?
Get a load of the latest “policy” proposals on immigration coming from Stephen Miller and the extreme white nationalists: AS HE CAMPAIGNS on a pledge to lead an unprecedented crackdown on legal and illegal immigration, former President Donald Trump has vowed to invoke an 18th-century wartime law to help fuel his massive deportation operations. According to three people familiar with the policy deliberations, Trump, his advisers, and allies have been developing legally dubious justifications and theories to give Trump what he would ostensibly need to wield the archaic law as a weapon against the undocumented if he’s elected president again. If Trump were to try to invoke the Alien Enemies Act for this purpose, it would almost certainly provoke court challenges, since the law is meant to target the actions of foreign governments and regimes during wartime, not alleged criminals, gangs, or non-state actors.
Following up on my post below I wanted to highlight Brian Beutler’s newsletter today about Biden’s speech, with which I agree wholeheartedly: The remarks don’t just live on the page and in the moment they’re spoken. They have the potential to be recirculated endlessly, on television and social media, and now these clips will communicate Biden’s meaning explicitly, without requiring any sort of decoding. And as they circulate, they may also serve as an antidote to the huge glut of viral video content on social media that’s selectively edited to make Biden seem doddering and confused. Making things like January 6—Trump’s totalitarian ambitions, his crimes and corruption, his general untrustworthiness—the central themes of the campaign has these ancillary benefits, because they are visceral. They unite Democrats, and enliven Biden himself. Policy and economics aren’t similarly unifying or morally black and white, and stripped of the emotional valence of insurrection and dictatorship, they evoke a softer register.