Some college educated former Trump voters have had it I keep hearing anecdotal reports of Republicans who are saying they will not vote for Trump this time. I don’t know if they aren’t being represented in the polls or what, but there’s a lot of it and since it’s coming from the GOP primary reporting it’s worth mentioning. This one from Jonathan Martin at Politico who followed the Haley campaign for a while and had this impression: The most memorable feature of Haley’s otherwise forgettable gathering was not what she said but the nature of her audience — and how it explains why Trump is poised to win overwhelmingly in Iowa on Monday but will face the same general election challenges in 2024 he did in 2020. I would have liked to see more discussion of that but this piece was about the GOP voters who are rejecting Trump. But it’s important that someone mention this general election dynamic, even in passing. Maybe he’ll develop that in a later piece. I struggled to find a single attendee in the suburban strip mall tavern who was not a college graduate.
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What in the world, you wonder? Well… There was a Biden impeachment hearing today at which Hunter himself turned up making himself available to testify publicly again. The Republicans were … upset. Here are the highlights: Then Marge took the mic and Hunter got up and walked out. The hearing is being run by circus clowns so why would anyone expect something other than a circus?
The spoilers are still at it Joe Lieberman and company really are determined to screw up this election: A political group intending to support a presidential candidate run by the group No Labels plans to file paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday, with a handful of Republican and Democratic strategists as advisers. The group, New Leaders ’24 political action committee, expects a No Labels ticket to materialize this year. No Labels has said it would mount a campaign if President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump are their parties’ nominees, in a rematch of the 2020 campaign that is increasingly likely. The group will be advised by Rob Stutzman, a Republican and former deputy chief of staff to Arnold Schwarzenegger during his governorship as well as an adviser for Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign. Kathleen Shanahan, a Republican and former chief of staff to Jeb Bush during his governorship, will be the chief executive, and Andrew Fishman, whom the group identified as a Democrat and who has a business background, will serve as treasurer, Mr. Stutzman said.
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.
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.