Tim Miller hit the road in Iowa and has some interesting observations: Convention Madness As I was crisscrossing Iowa following the third indictment of Donald Trump, I caught wind of a fresh perspective regarding the right time to winnow the field. The conventional wisdom has always been that Trump’s opponents need to consolidate around the strongest challenger as quickly as possible to avoid dividing the opposition votes. Mitt Romney argued that the drop-dead date should be February 26, in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed. (My view: Even that might be too late.) But now at least one of Trump’s opponents is wondering if the frontrunner’s legal troubles could change the calculus and require candidates to stay in for the long haul in order to try and amass delegates in case there is a convention battle because the former president is . . . otherwise indisposed.
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Trump’s going to say whatever the hell he wants about his case(s): Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday vowed that he “will talk” about the criminal charges he faces over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and accused federal prosecutors of “taking away my First Amendment rights.” Last week, special counsel Jack Smith asked U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to impose a so-called protective order that would prevent Trump from disclosing evidence the government turns over to his lawyers as part of the discovery process. Trump’s own lawyers chose not to object to a protective order and instead requested that the judge put in place a version that is “less restrictive” than the one proposed by the government. Trump’s lawyers asked Chutkan to shield only “genuinely sensitive materials” in order to protect his rights. But Trump is fighting on multiple fronts as he tries to beat three indictments and win back the presidency. On Tuesday, when he chided prosecutors and President Joe Biden, Trump was battling in the political arena at a rally here.
Hugh Hewitt says that voters in Ohio yesterday were confused: Abortion was not on the ballot – not at all! The measure was the only thing on the ballot and the measure was about the ballot measure process. While it is true that a ballot measure concerning abortion is pending that is not what this election was about. And so, voters were (mis)lead to vote about something that has much broader implications based on something very immediate. And so, in pursuit of abortion rights in Ohio much mischief entirely unrelated to abortion will unquestionably ensue. They weren’t confused. They knew that the ballot measure was immediately about abortion but that the Republicans were trying to make it harder to amend the state constitution so they could continue their increasingly unpopular minority rule. Abortion is the issue that symbolizes what these throwbacks are trying to do generally: deprive Americans of their freedom and their rights in service of their base voters’ grievance and anger at democratic norms that force them to share power with people they don’t like.
A republic for Republicans “High-minded claims that we are not a democracy surreptitiously fuse republic with minority rule rather than popular government,” wrote George Thomas in 2020. The Wohlford Professor of American Political Institutions at Claremont McKenna College was discussing how “we’re a republic, not a democracy” has morphed from campus conservative pedantry to a Republican ruling philosophy. “Enabling sustained minority rule at the national level is not a feature of our constitutional design, but a perversion of it,” Thomas argued. “Routine minority rule is neither desirable nor sustainable, and makes it difficult to characterize the country as either a democracy or a republic.” When it comes to perverting constitutional design, Republicans in this century have demonstrated a serious knack for it. Consider Ohio’s special election today drafted to change how Ohio has amended its constitution for over a century. It’s not just sustained minority rule at the national level that should concern Americans.
The sooner he’s consigned to the dustbin, the better Not a fan of Joe Scarborough, but he’s right about this. History, if it isn’t written by MAGAstan scholars, will come to revile Donald Trump and his authoritarian movement.
Yes it is… Fox News anchor Julie Banderas on Monday curiously defended Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election by insisting that “hatching schemes to stay in office” while “claiming you won an election you know you lost” are not crimes. While serving as guest anchor on Monday’s broadcast of The Faulkner Focus, Banderas interviewed former deputy assistant attorney general Tom Dupree about Trump’s attempt to move the Jan. 6 trial to West Virginia and force the judge to recuse herself. After Dupree said Trump’s legal team faced an “uphill battle” on both fronts, Banderas then raged about how it was “impossible” for the thrice-indicted ex-president to be “impartially” tried in that case. She also noted that Trump is expected to soon be indicted for a fourth time, this time in Georgia over his election meddling efforts in that state. “Politics written all over it,” she exclaimed. “Attorneys are supposed to represent the law, not politics, OK? Judges, same! Judges are the only ones able to recuse themselves, OK?
TNR: The last Congress, the 117th, which sat from January 2021 through January 2023, was controlled by Democrats on both sides of the Capitol. These lawmakers worked in concert with a new Democratic president, so naturally, we witnessed an unusual amount of legislative activity. Wanna guess how much? The 117th Congress passed, and Joe Biden signed, 362 laws. The 118th Congress—the current one; the one that opened with the clown show where Kevin McCarthy needed 15 ballots to be elected speaker by his own party—has not been quite the hive of productivity that its predecessor was. So far, seven months into its term, it has passed, and the president has signed, 12 bills. They’re on track, if they can possibly keep up this scorching pace for the next 17 months, to pass maybe 44, even 45 or 46 bills! They are not in the business of legislating. They have no agenda. They are in the business of helping Donald Trump enact revenge. After all, that busy Democratic congress also managed to impeach him twice. That will not stand…
You heard it here first kids. I wrote back in 2021, not long after J6 that they would impeach Biden. Trump would demand it. If there was time he would have them impeach him three times so that Biden would be the most impeached president in history rather than him. Look at the excuse their telling themselves: Republicans say if they don’t move forward with an impeachment inquiry now, it will create the impression that House Republicans have essentially cleared Biden of any wrongdoing over his ties to his son Hunter Biden’s business entanglements, allegations they say show a pay-to-play scheme when the elder Biden was vice president, even as they have yet to corroborate that provocative allegation. The real reason, as I said, is that Trump is demanding it. That’s all they need because they’re all sycophantic twats. But this is a good one too. They are telling themselves that if they don’t impeach it will somehow make people think that they were unable to prove he is corrupt. Which he isn’t. So they will impeach him instead? What?
It really is the big mystery. We know that Mike Pence testified before the Grand Jury. He’s now speaking out much more straight forwardly than he did before. But Mark Meadows is still missing in action and he doesn’t appear in the indictment.( He almost certainly should be an unindicted co-conspirator since he was on the horn to numerous people on the other end of the plot(s).) Is he cooperating? As much as we know from Jack Smith’s two criminal indictments of Trump and the forthcoming indictment in Georgia, we still know relatively little about the facts behind these indictments. That includes the vast amount of information and evidence gathered from the House select committee that investigated Jan. 6 (but had no subpoena power) as well as that gathered by Smith and Atlanta District Attorney Fani Willis that almost certainly will not be shared with the American public until Trump faces a courtroom trial. For example, to this point we do not know how many individuals and groups were involved in the coordinated efforts across seven states and the District of Columbia to steal the 2020 election from the American people.
A true leader: Former President Donald Trump mocked Chris Christie, one of his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, over eating habits and weight Tuesday. “Don’t call him a fat pig,” Trump playfully admonished an audience member who shouted out during a speech at a high school gym in Windham, N.H. “You can’t do that.” Trump was apprising the audience of recent polls that show him leading when he first mentioned the former New Jersey governor, who was once one a close adviser. “Christie, he’s eating right now,” Trump said. “He can’t be bothered.” That’s when a man in the crowd shouted out to prod Trump. “Sir, please do not call him a fat pig. I’m trying to be nice. Don’t call him a fat pig,” Trump said. “You can’t do that.” Isn’t he cute? There’s more: He seems to think that he will be “proving” that the Big Lie was actually the truth in his trial. I doubt the court will allow that but in the event it does, he will regret it. Cheap, amateur propaganda like that is very easily rebutted.