Friday, July 26, 2024
Wednesday, July 24, 2024
What’s behind Trump’s lashing out at Netanyahu after Hamas’ attack on Israel
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-netanyahu-biden-rcna120078
An adviser to Netanyahu said there had been no outreach by Trump in the wake of the attacks. Instead, Trump has leveled repeated broadsides at the leader of a close U.S. ally in remarks on the campaign trail as he seeks a return to the White House.
“He’s pissed off because Bibi praised Biden and the Biden White House for being supportive,” said a former Trump adviser, referring to Netanyahu by his nickname.
Trump posts letter from Palestinian leader ahead of Netanyahu meeting
https://www.axios.com/2024/07/24/trump-palestinian-leader-letter-netanyahu-meeting-peace
But in April 2021 Trump told me his conclusion from four years of working on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process was that Abbas wanted peace, while Netanyahu didn't.
"I thought he was terrific," Trump told me of Abbas, reflecting on their "great" first meeting. "He was almost like a father. Couldn't have been nicer. I thought he wanted to make a deal more than Netanyahu."
Suddenly Trump Looks Older and More Deranged
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/07/trump-looks-older-and-more-deranged/679186/
Whatever happens next, the frame has altered. Now it is the Republicans who are saddled with the elderly candidate, the one who can’t make a clear argument or finish a sentence without veering off into anecdote. Now the Democrats are instead proposing something new. Now it is the many pundits who were already bored by the race and ready to wrap it up who look foolish.
Elon Musk Backs Away From Reports He’s Donating Huge Sums to Trump
https://www.thedailybeast.com/elon-musk-backs-away-from-reports-hes-donating-huge-sums-to-trump
Elon Musk is backing away from reports that suggest he was set to donate huge sums of money to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, saying in a podcast interview this week that his plan to “commit” tens of millions of dollars to the former president—first reported by The Wall Street Journal—was “simply not true.” He added: “I am not donating $45 million a month to Trump.”
Monday, July 22, 2024
She Sucked Up to Trump but He Dropped Her Anyway
https://www.thedailybeast.com/elise-stefanik-sucked-up-to-trump-but-he-dropped-her-anyway
It’s got to hurt to be Congresswoman Elise Stefanik right now. Lots of women have been there on some level—proven their loyalty time and time again to the company, only to get passed over for the promotion by a less-qualified man. And boy is J.D. Vance ever less qualified. Just for funsies (and like Rep. Stefanik probably does every night before she goes to sleep now) let’s compare resumes.
Sunday, July 21, 2024
Project 2025 shreds American values
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/07/19/larry-hogan-project-2025-trump-abortion/
On the left, the refusal by some to clearly stand up to radicals such as antisemitic and pro-Hamas protesters, advocates of defunding the police, and the open-borders movement has done substantial damage. However, on the right, there is no clearer example of the threat to American values than Project 2025.
Trump makes more than 20 false claims in RNC acceptance speech
Former President Donald Trump repeated his claim that President Joe Biden wants to hike people’s taxes by four times.
This is false, just as it was when Trump made the same claim during the 2020 election campaign and in early 2024.
Biden has not proposed quadrupling Americans’ taxes, and there has never been any indication that he is seeking to do so. The nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center think tank, which analyzed Biden’s never-implemented budget proposals for fiscal 2024, found this: “His plan would raise average after-tax incomes for low-income households in 2024, leave them effectively unchanged for middle-income households, and lower after-tax incomes significantly for the highest-income taxpayers.”
Saturday, July 20, 2024
Biden hits Trump over RNC speech: ‘What the hell was he talking about?’
President Biden took to social media Friday evening to blast former President Trump over the speech he gave while accepting the GOP presidential nomination at the final night of the Republican National Convention (RNC).
“I’m stuck at home with COVID, so I had the distinct misfortune of watching Donald Trump’s speech to the RNC,” Biden posted on social media platform X. “What the hell was he talking about?”
Professor Who Accurately Predicted Past Elections Says 'Biden Can Win'
https://www.newsweek.com/allan-lichtman-accurately-predicted-elections-joe-biden-can-win-1927988
Allan Lichtman, a history professor at American University who has accurately predicted past elections, said in an op-ed on Saturday that President Joe "Biden can win" against former President Donald Trump in this year's presidential election.
Wednesday, July 17, 2024
Fact-checking night 2 of the Republican National Convention
Facts First: Johnson’s claims about dramatic increases in violence and crime are false, as is the convention video’s claim that there is a problem “everywhere” with “rising crime.” Official data published by the FBI shows violent crime dropped significantly in the US in 2023 and in the first quarter of 2024, though there were increases in some communities; violent crime is now lower than it was in 2020, President Donald Trump’s last calendar year in office.
Stefanik’s claim of a “violent crime crisis” under Biden is subjective, but she certainly did not acknowledge that the current numbers under Biden are superior to final Trump-era numbers.
Kamala Harris did not call Joe Biden a racist on the debate stage
https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-9244041620
CLAIM: California Sen. Kamala Harris called former Vice President Joe Biden a racist when they were facing off as potential Democratic candidates for president in 2019.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Harris criticized Biden on certain topics related to race during a debate in June 2019, but she prefaced those remarks with “I do not believe you are a racist.”
Donald Trump's Chances of Winning Election Are Declining
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-polling-data-five-thirty-eight-1926226
Donald Trump's chances of winning the November 2024 presidential election are declining, according to a new aggregation of polls.
FiveThirtyEight's poll tracker, which was originally published on July 8 and updated on July 16, shows Joe Biden with a 53 percent chance of winning the election, while Trump has a 46 percent chance.
According to the tracker, Biden is favored to win in 534 out of 1,000 of FiveThirtyEight's simulations of how the election could go, while Trump wins in 462. The poll also shows that the simulations indicate that Biden is on track for a three-point win.
Historian who predicted 9 of the last 10 election results says Democrats shouldn't drop Joe Biden
Allan Lichtman, the historian who has correctly forecast the results of nine out of the 10 most recent presidential elections argued on Saturday that replacing President Joe Biden could cost Democrats the 2024 election.
Lichtman, a professor at American University, rejected the growing chorus of political pundits and Democratic activists who have called on Biden, 81, to bow out of the presidential race after his disastrous debate performance last week against former President Donald Trump. The pivotal moment brought fresh questions about Biden’s age and ability to serve a second term.
“It’s a huge mistake. They're not doctors. They don't know whether Biden is physically capable of carrying out a second term or not,” Lichtman said during an interview with CNN of calls to replace Biden. “This is all foolhardy nonsense.”
Tuesday, July 16, 2024
Judge Cannon goes another step too far
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/07/15/trump-documents-cannon-dismiss-case/
The courts have blessed the tradition, pointing to the 19th-century statute that authorizes the attorney general to “appoint officials … to detect and prosecute crimes against the United States.” The Supreme Court cited the code in U.S. v. Nixon after Watergate; the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit confirmed the same thinking in a case about the Iran-contra independent counsel; the D.C. Circuit said in 2019, pursuant to the appointment of Robert S. Mueller III, that “binding precedent” settled the debate. Judge Cannon, meanwhile, looked not to precedent at all. Her only reference was Justice Clarence Thomas’s recent concurring opinion in a Trump immunity case — in which no other justice joined.
JD Vance, Trump’s VP pick, once called him a ‘moral disaster,’ and possibly ‘America’s Hitler’
Vance also said that racism and xenophobia played a role in Trump’s rise.
“There is definitely an element of Donald Trump’s support that has its basis in racism, xenophobia, but a lot of these folks are just really hardworking people who are struggling in really important ways,” Vance said in a September 2016 “PBS NewsHour” Interview.
“Definitely some people who voted for Trump were racist and they voted for him for racist reasons,” Vance said in an interview at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics.
Speaking with CNN in October 2016, Vance criticized Trump for “actively antagonizing” Black voters, claiming this tactic was a long-standing Republican strategy.
“It’s not just that Donald Trump doesn’t speak to issues of special concern of minority voters or Black voters, it’s that he seems to like actively antagonizing a lot of the Black voters,” Vance said during a panel discussion.
THE TRUMP–VANCE TICKET IS A DISASTER FOR AMERICA’S DEMOCRACY AND ISRAEL’S FUTURE
“With Trump and Vance in the White House, the Israeli right would have full US support for their wildest fantasies – a judicial coup, West Bank annexation, settlements in Gaza and military confrontations with both Hezbollah and Iran,” said J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami. “Vance will enthusiastically help bulldoze the democratic foundations of our union, embed antisemitic conspiracy theories deeper into our society, and hand victory to Putin in Ukraine. We cannot afford to have Donald Trump and JD Vance in the White House.”
Where JD Vance stands on Ukraine, Israel and China
https://thehill.com/policy/international/4773538-jd-vance-foreign-policy/
In a speech delivered at the Quincy Institute in May, Vance addressed the contradiction between his conditional support for Ukraine — “ I think we should stop supporting the Ukrainian conflict,” he said — and unconditional support for Israel.
Trump’s Judge Cannon Found Her Legal Tutor: Clarence Thomas
While Judge Cannon’s opinion is weak and might even appear to the cynical as a well-timed audition for an appointment to the Supreme Court should Trump win, there is an aspect of her decision that raises the important question of why DOJ needs any form of special counsel.
We Should Condemn Violence. And Trumpism
https://www.newsweek.com/we-should-condemn-violence-trumpism-opinion-1925422
There is a narrative being sold that this attempted assassination was the result of unfair or misapplied rhetoric against Trump, as if he is just some peaceful character or a Republican of times past, who we simply have differences of opinion with. Don't buy into it.
What Trump said with his ‘very fine people’ comments vs. what he meant
It is true, as the Snopes headline indicates, that Trump said that he was not talking about the white nationalists when offering praise for some of the participants in Unite the Right. But as The Washington Post’s Fact Checker pointed out in a 2020 assessment of the controversy, it’s not clear that there were any participants who weren’t allied with the white nationalist elements that announced the rally in the first place. The Washington Post reported Aug. 10 that there would be a “white nationalist rally” in Charlottesville; does someone who attends a white nationalist rally deserve rhetorical distance from white nationalism?
Donald Trump’s New Mr. Nice Guy Act Doesn’t Even Last a Day
“As we move forward in Uniting our Nation after the horrific events on Saturday, this dismissal of the Lawless Indictment in Florida should be just the first step, followed quickly by the dismissal of ALL the Witch Hunts — The January 6th Hoax in Washington, D.C., the Manhattan D.A.’s Zombie Case, the New York A.G. Scam, Fake Claims about a woman I never met (a decades old photo in a line with her then husband does not count)....
Why Is Snopes.com Helping Trump Clean Up “Very Fine People”?
https://newrepublic.com/article/183082/nopes-trump-very-fine-people
According to Trump, there were “very fine people” in both of the two groups, which included the people who went to the rally organized by neo-Nazis and people who protested the neo-Nazis. Those were your “sides.” Trump, here, said that within the group of people at the neo-Nazi rally, where “the night before” they were marching with tiki torches and chanting “Jews will not replace us,” there were “very fine people.”
What to know about Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/15/politics/jd-vance-trump-vp-what-to-know/index.html
Other tweets liked by Vance said Trump committed “serial sexual assault,” called him “one of USA’s most hated, villainous, douchey celebs,” and, in a since-removed set of tweets, harshly criticized Trump’s response to the deadly 2017 White nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia — something Vance now defends Trump over.
KFile also previously reported that Vance deleted past anti-Trump tweets ahead of his announcement in July 2021 that he would run for the open Ohio Senate seat. Vance in February 2016 privately wondered whether Trump was “America’s Hitler,” and a few months later wrote in The Atlantic that Trump was “cultural heroin.”
Vance also said he even contemplated voting for Clinton in 2016, but ultimately said he would vote for independent candidate Evan McMullin.
Monday, July 15, 2024
Aileen Cannon’s nuking of the Trump documents case continues her trend of embracing long-shot legal theories
After a year of court hearings examining far-fetched theories about presidential classification power, flimsy accusations of prosecutorial misconduct and heated debates about redacting court filings, Judge Aileen Cannon ended Jack Smith’s classified documents prosecution of former President Donald Trump on Monday for a more foundational – but nonetheless astonishing – reason.
She said Smith was unconstitutionally appointed as special counsel and that the funding of his office also violated the law. Her dismissal of the case on that rationale is at odds with several other court rulings from judges across the country that have upheld the Justice Department’s use of special counsels to spearhead politically sensitive investigations.
J.D. Vance’s journey from a ‘Never Trump’ guy to Trump’s VP pick
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/15/jd-vance-vp-pick-trump/
“I can’t stomach Trump,” Vance told NPR that August. “I’m a ‘Never Trump’ guy. I never liked him,” Vance told Charlie Rose in October 2016, weeks before Trump was elected president. That same year, he compared Trump’s candidacy to cultural heroin and reportedly told a former roommate that Trump was either a “cynical asshole” or “America’s Hitler.”
Unity’ Doesn’t Mean Covering Up the Truth About Donald Trump
About his speech, Trump, showing his new softer side said, “I had all prepared an extremely tough speech, really good, all about the corrupt, horrible administration.” Then he added, “But I threw it away.” He then said, “I want to unite our country.” Which is an idea that held up during his conversation with with New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin all the way until when asked about how he would change his tone that policy differences were, in Goodwin’s words, “the stumbling block.”
But has he changed? As soon as the dismissal of the classified documents case was announced Monday, Trump took to Truth Social to call for the dismissal of all the other charges and cases he faces, overseen by a “Democrat Justice Department.”
Thomas uses Trump immunity ruling to question Jack Smith appointment
Thomas was weighing in on what is generally considered a far-fetched legal theory pushed by Trump’s attorneys in lower courts and by some conservative legal groups. They argue that Smith was illegally appointed and funded and say the criminal cases against Trump should be dismissed.
Schumer: ‘Misguided’ dismissal of Trump classified docs case ‘must be appealed’
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4772736-schumer-trump-classified-documents-dismissed/
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called Florida Judge Aileen Cannon’s dismissal of the felony charges accusing former President Trump of mishandling classified documents “breathtakingly misguided” and called for her ruling to be “appealed immediately.”
“This breathtakingly misguided ruling flies in the face of long-accepted practice and repetitive judicial precedence,” Schumer said in a statement issued shortly after the ruling.
Judge Cannon Dismisses Trump Classified Docs Prosecution: ‘Unconstitutional’
Cannon based her decision largely around Justice Clarence Thomas’ recent concurrence that cast doubt on the legality of special counsel appointments. In his presidential immunity opinion, Thomas questioned whether the Attorney General Merrick Garland violated the U.S. Constitution’s Appointments Clause by appointing a special counsel to an office not created by law, writing that the Executive Branch “cannot create offices at his pleasure.”
Trump’s classified documents case dismissed over Jack Smith appointment
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4772516-trump-classified-document-case-dismissed/mlite/
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on Monday tossed former President Trump’s criminal charges accusing him of mishandling classified information, ruling that special counsel Jack Smith was not lawfully appointed.
Candace Owens Weighs In on Donald Trump Shooting 'Conspiracy'
"So you're telling me that guy walked up and was trying to get the attention, the Secret Service saw him, and he's pointing and he's saying, 'This guy's got a gun,' and they're pretending they don't know what's going on? I mean, am I crazy?"