Semafor reported on a new ad campaign to promote support for Ukraine among Republicans. It’s needed: A poll by CNN released on Friday found support for more Ukraine funding hitting new lows, with 55% of respondents opposed to new aid. 71% of Republicans say the U.S. has done enough to assist Ukraine already, underscoring the challenge the group faces. I can’t tell you how mind-boggling this is considering the Republican Party I’ve grown up with. It’s very strange. The only thing that makes sense is that Russia is white, Christian and authoritarian so they consider it an ally. Fighter jets, truck drivers, American flags, a narrator with a twang, and a country-rock soundtrack: That’s how a new group lobbying Congress to pass more aid for Ukraine plans to woo their constituents. The spot for the organization, Freedom at Home and Abroad, will air on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and “Fox News Sunday” this weekend, according to executive director Michael Franklin, who said the organization is spending $400,000 on media in August. Details of the campaign were shared ahead of time with Semafor.
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This should be standard in any Trump indictment. He constantly obtructs justice: Lawyers who practice frequently in Washington, D.C., including MSNBC contributor Glenn Kirschner, say that most of the conditions of release imposed on Trump by the magistrate judge were standard, including the requirement that he not commit a crime while free. However, they say that Judge Moxila Upadhyaya did issue a warning to Trump that is not commonly given to defendants at arraignments: “Finally, sir, I want to remind you that it is a crime to try to influence a juror, or to threaten or attempt to bribe a witness or any other person who may have information about your case, or to retaliate against anyone for providing information about your case to the prosecution, or to otherwise obstruct the administration of justice.” Andrew Weissman had a similar impression: [T]he standard condition that a judge usually emphasizes to a defendant is that they have to show up at each court appearance. That is the most important thing.
I guess he still thinks he can out-Trump Trump: What in the hell is this outfit, by the way? Is he trying to channel Glenn Youngkin in his clothes and Trump in his blood thirsty language? And why does he have his name plastered all over his shirts, vests and jackets? His wife does too. Are they afraid people won’t recognize them? If this is the re-tool it’s hard to see that it will work. Nobody does “blood-thirsty sociopath” like Donald Trump. The cult loves this stuff but they want it delivered with the glamour of the billionaire TV Star not some short guy in a vest with his name on it.
I am unwilling to forgive Mike Pence for his four years of servility to a sociopath and his dereliction in failing to tell the public that Trump was planning a coup as he was doing it. But I guess we do have to acknowledge that he seems to have finally realized that there is no constituency for him anywhere and that he might as well be instrumental in ensuring that Trump doesn’t have the chance to do it again. Josh Marshall writes: Trump’s coup indictment and his own conspicuous role in the indictment narrative and chain of evidence seem finally to have convinced Pence that this is a divide he simply cannot straddle. You’re either on Team Coup or you’re not. Some quotes from the 48 hours after the indictment was handed down. Pence: “The American people deserve to know that President Trump and his advisors . . . asked me . . . essentially to overturn the election. And to keep faith with the oath that I made to the American people and to Almighty God, I rejected that out of hand. And I did my duty that day.” Pence: “Let’s be clear on this point. It wasn’t that they asked for a pause.
Asian elephant twins Yaad and Tukada were recently spotted beating the heat at Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, New York. Born to parents Mali and Doc on October 24, 2022, the twins are coming up on their 1st birthday milestone! The babies’ first bubble bath: More!
Hell hath no fury… ICYMI: Regular readers know very well what I think about this guy. He is as responsible for Trump’s degradation of democracy as anyone. But I am going to enjoy watching him needling Trump in interviews like this. If there are any normie Republicans left who haven’t been totally brainwashed, someone like Barr still probably has some juice.
Trump, Trumpism and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 “It ends with me.” Contemplating generations of family dysfunction that damaged him as a child and haunted his adulthood, a friend once vowed he would not pass “it” on to his children. America has yet to make that commitment and keep it. Donald Trump was formally charged in Washington, D.C. on Thursday with four federal crimes stemming from his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Those efforts did not culminate with the violent insurrection he inspired at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Trump and his co-conspirators worked to subvert democracy that evening, even as police cleared the complex of rioters, and as hospitals treated the hundreds injured and processed the dead. The last of the charges special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment levied against Trump dates from the Reconstruction era. Will Bunch reminds Philadelphia Inquirer readers that President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 in response to a similar post-election riot in South Carolina the year before.
Um, that’s a lot You remember these two? (The Tennessean): Four months after an expulsion vote thrust the pair into the national spotlight, Democratic state Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson formally won reelection Thursday to their seats in the Tennessee General Assembly. Republicans voted to oust Jones and Pearson from the legislature in April after they interrupted House proceedings with a gun-control protest. But the two were quickly reappointed to the seats until this summer’s special elections. In Nashville, Jones defeated Republican opponent Laura Nelson with nearly 80% of the vote for the House District 52 seat. In Memphis, Pearson defeated Republican Jeff Johnston with more than 90% of the vote for the House District 86 seat. I had to read those margins again. Had a good laugh, too. “Today is a landslide victory by the people, for the people, and in community with the people,” Jones said in a statement to The Tennessean. “Republicans tried to expel our democracy and then tried to buy it, but the voters of District 52 sent a message to extremist Republicans: we will not be silenced.” Guess not.
The humanity He actually prefers “your majesty.”
“Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the World.” It was a poet who said that, exercising occupational license. Some sage, it may have been I, declared in similar vein: “I don’t care who writes a nation’s laws—or crafts its advanced treaties—if I can write its economic textbooks.” The first lick is the privileged one, impinging … Continue reading "The Day I Pranked Paul Samuelson"