Voting on the GOP Side

The Supreme Court has given Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) her election win this fall by upholding the GOP redistricting plan that a lower court said “exiled” 30,000 Black Charleston voters to make the boundaries safely Republican. The 6-3 vote complained the lower court did not credit the state GOP legislature with a presumption of good faith. In addition, the high court could not find “direct evidence of a racial gerrymander.” In short, racial gerrymandering is acceptable if the high court calls it by politics, not race. Mace applauded the decision, calling it ”democracy.” The high court waited seven months after arguments to deliver its decision, almost five months past its deadline, overturning a lower court’s order in March to use its ungerrymandered map for 2024. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a separate opinion carrying the opinion even further by questioning whether the Supreme Court should ever hear racial gerrymandering claim.

With the help of a majority, Justice Samuel Alito has turned the law upside down, just as he did with the U.S. flag hanging outside his home during President Joe Biden’s inauguration. His opinion rejected a lower court’s finding of facts without it being clearly erroneous and reversed the burden of proof to be applied—pushing “presumption of good faith” and increasing evidentiary burdens for the plaintiffs. Rick Hasen provides an excellent explanation.

Former presidential candidate Nikki Haley has made her decision: she will cast her 2024 vote for Deposed Donald Trump (DDT), who she called “unstable and unhinged.” And there were many more “critical” statements including DDT’s friendship with the “thug,” Vladimir Putin. Now Haley switched her many negative statements about DDT to he “has not been perfect” while DDT has attacked Haley, calling her “birdbrain, her campaign an “embarrassment,” and her husband “missing” although he’s on a military deployment.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has now succeeded in being banned on all nine Native American reservations in her state, about 20 percent.

Failed presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy now owns 7.7 percent of Buzzfeed, HuffPo’s parent company.  The hard-righter supporting all the ultra-conservative position endorsed white nationalist Steve King, the Iowa congressional member who was removed from all his committee assignments for radically right racist positions now more acceptable in the House.

Senate Democrats have started an investigation into DDT’s “quid pro quo” (aka bribery) with eight big oil executives after he offered to drop climate regulations if they gave him $1 billion for his campaign. Chairs of the Finance and Budget committees have sent letters to nine companies asking for more information about “policy proposals discussed” at DDT’s fundraising event at Mar-a-Lago plus “materials distributed to any attendees.” Democrats on the Oversight Committee also started an investigation although Republicans are trying to block the probe.

The day before the Senate started its probe, DDT promised oil executives in Houston that he would immediately approve their projects and expand drilling in a second term with immediate approvals for energy infrastructure. That’s pipelines, power plants.” The Houston fundraiser cost $250,000 per person. Instead of asking for specific amounts, he said, “Be generous.” One person said the event raised $25 million. The audience cheered as DDT said he would “lift the natural gas export ban [and] open up more federal lands” to drilling, according to one attendee. Once again, DDT complained about wind energy, that turbines kill bald eagles and wind “doesn’t work.” Another DDT promise was opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling. He bashed electric vehicles and ridiculed energy-efficient and water-saving appliances.

With a vote of 43-50, Republicans blocked the progress of the border security bill approved by a bipartisan group over three months ago. Lisa Murkowski (AK) was the only GOP senator to support the bill, and six Democrats opposed it. DDT had ordered Republicans to reject the bill, wanting to use its failure as a campaign issue. Republicans hope that border chaos will elect them.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) has joined the competition with Republicans John Cornyn (TX) and John Thune (SD), both in the Senate leadership, to succeed Mitch McConnell (R-KY)—likely hoping to become Majority Leader if the GOP gains a majority in November. Scott is also running for reelection this November; six years ago he won by only 0.2 percent of the vote. Hoping for support, he was among the first prominent Republicans to appear at the New York courthouse for DDT’s trial. The fact that McConnell “loathes” Scott won’t be a help. Competing with McConnell for leader after the 2022 election, Scott lost by 36-10.

Afraid of having another two Democratic senators, Republicans consistently block Washington, D.C. from its own control. Last week, the House passed a bill by 225-181, 18 Democrats joining Republicans, to permanently ban the city from changing its sentencing laws, even to toughen them. This March, the D.C. Council boosted penalties for gun crimes, expanded pretrial detention for violent criminals, and attacked shoplifting—all improving crime statistics. Republicans ordered D.C. to stop spending money on abortions, giving addicts clean needles, and trying to legalize cannabis.

The city also wants to transfer the old RFK Stadium from federal control so it can be used for more housing and build another stadium to bring the NFL team back to D.C. Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), however, won’t agree until the Commanders bring back the name Redskins, because the family of the long-deceased designer of the old logo lives in Montana. Yet Daines ignores the dental and medical care of his constituents, blocking the expansion of Medicaid.

In another control on D.C., the House passed a bill to prevent the city from permitting noncitizens to vote in local elections. In the vote of 262-143, 52 Democrats joined the Republicans. The Senate won’t be taking the bill, but the GOP uses it for campaign purposes. The capital is one of over a dozen municipalities—primarily in California, Maryland, and Vermont—allowing noncitizen residents to vote in local contests although they usually don’t take advantage of the laws.

House Republicans want a national law blocking noncitizen voting although the law also prevents noncitizens from voting in federal elections. In a hearing, Republicans on the House Administration Committee argued for legislative action and refused to believe how rare it is. DDT and the members are already spreading the word that November elections will be illegal unless Republicans win. The bill demands proof of citizenship, but Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-WA) tried to explain the impact on eligible voters, including tribal members who use their enrollment cards which may not have citizenship information. Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY) said:     

“It appears the lesson Republicans learned from the fiasco that the former president caused in 2020 was not ‘Don’t steal an election’ — it was just ‘Start earlier.’ The coup starts here. This is where it begins.”

Despite the lie that conservatives tell about the large number of undocumented migrants voting, no proof exists, and states block it. Ohio’s GOP Secretary of State Frank LaRose found 137 suspected noncitizens on the state rolls out of about 8 million voters and is working to either confirm or remove them. In 2022, Georgia’s GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger found that 1,634 noncitizens had attempted to register to vote in 25 years, but none was able to register. North Carolina found 41 legal immigrants not yet citizens cast ballots out of 4.8 million.

Republicans found witnesses for the hearing who lied about the prevalence of noncitizens registered to vote. James Agresti reported that “10% to 27% of non‐​citizens are illegally registered to vote” and predicted that “about 5% to 13% of them will illegally vote in the 2024 presidential and congressional elections.” The numbers, however, don’t fit with research indicating between one percent and zero.

Anyone registering must provide a Social Security number, driver’s license, or state ID, meaning that they’ve already shown the government proof of citizenship. More ID requirements can disenfranchise eligible voters who don’t have birth certificates or Social Security cards available.

Republicans will accept election fraud if it’s in their own party.  In at least three states—Michigan, Nevada and New Mexico—fake electors lying about who won their states are trying to become electors for the 2024 election. In 2020, 84 electors for DDT met in seven states that Biden won. In four of those states, 35 of the electors face criminal charges for their votes and have all pled not guilty in Georgia, Nevada, and Michigan. In Arizona, 9 of the 11 electors pled not guilty; the remaining two have not yet entered pleas. DDT continues to claim that he can lose in 2024 only if Democrats cheat as he lied about their doing in 2020.

Researchers have found that microplastics are building up in testicles of humans and dogs, suspected to negatively affect sperm quality and male fertility. Microplastics in human testicles was three times higher than dogs, which act as “sentinel” animals for disease and harmful chemical exposure because their spermatogenesis is more similar to the human process of producing sperm than lab rats. The polyethylene plastic is the most widely used plastic in the world, used in packaging, bags, bottled water, etc. The second most common plastic found was polyvinyl chloride, found in PVC piping, and an association to decreased weight of testicles. Chemical contaminants also affect hormonal control of reproduction in the body including the brain.

War, Politics Plus DDT Trial Day 20

Foreign Events:

First, Israel threw Al Jazeera out of the country; then it seized an Associated Press camera and broadcasting equipment, accusing the news organization of giving images to Al Jazeera. Hours later the government said it will return the equipment after blocking AP’s live video of Gaza and facing increased criticism of interfering with independent journalism. The Biden administration, journalism organizations, and an Israeli opposition leader condemned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and pressured it to reverse the decision. Israel’s communications minister, Shlomo Karhi, said the defense ministry will review news outlets’ positioning of Gaza’s live video. AP had not been formally warned that the camera’s positioning was an issue but had been told to stop transmitting.

One of thousands of AP customers, Al Jazeera receives live video from AP and other news organizations. AP follows Israel’s censorship rules prohibiting broadcasts of security problems such as details of troop movements, but the live video generally shows smoke rising over the territory. During the 2021 Israel-Hamas war, Israel destroyed the building housing AP’s Gaza office, claiming, with no evidence, that Hamas used the building for military purposes.

Since January, members of Israel’s police and military have been telling far-right activists and settlers where they can find aid trucks delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza so that they can block and vandalize the convoys. Trucks are looted and set on fire. Settlers claim they’re keeping supplies from getting to Hamas.

U.S. Ambassador Robert Wood told the UN that Russia likely launched a counter space weapon on May 16 close enough to be capable of attacking and destroying a nearby orbiting U.S. government satellite. The first such launch since 2022 occurred while the U.S. and its allies are highly concerned about Russia’s efforts to develop a nuclear space weapon to destroy commercial and government satellites. Woodward says the launch debunks Russia’s claims that it is seeking outer space security.

DDT Disasters:

The Boeing 757 belonging to Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) clipped the rear elevator of an unoccupied parked corporate jet at Palm Beach International Airport. Whether DDT was on the plane at the time is unknown. His plane was arriving from Atlantic City International Airport; DDT held a campaign rally on May 12 nearby at Wildwood (NJ).

In Florida, a new loophole in the law is hiding Jared Kushner’s family ties to Surfside; billionaire Charles Kushner and other top real estate developers can put “thousands of dollars” into 2024 candidates in the oceanfront village of 5,000. Voters won’t be able to see the source of donations until after the election. While his father-in-law hopes to be in the White House, Jared Kushner plans to build a $500 million hotel with DDT’s former aide Richard Grenell on prime Belgrade real estate on the site of the former Yugoslav defense ministry given to Kushner. The U.S. backed NATO forces in 1999 to bomb the complex during Serbian war with Kosovo. House Democrats including Jamie Raskin (MD) and Robert Garcia (CA) are speaking out against Kushner’s $3 billion European deals with money from Saudi Arabia.

Congressional Conflagrations:

House Democrats want an investigation into the allegation that lawmakers were drinking alcohol and acting “pretty ugly” during a hearing last Thursday to mark up a bill declaring contempt of Congress for AG Merrick Garland. Republicans who attended DDT’s criminal trial as surrogates postponed the hearing until evening about Garland’s refusal to give Republicans the tapes of Robert Hur’s interviews with President Joe Biden regarding his possession of classified documents. The surrogates were in New York for publicity by attacking people, statements which a gag order blocked DDT from making. James Comer (R-KY), chair of the Oversight Committee, was unable to control Republicans insulting Democratic members. Raskin, the committee’s ranking member, wants to initiate the investigation into those accused of behavior “embarrassing to our institution.” Axios reported that a House Republican described the hearing as “embarrassing” and “a four-alarm dumpster fire.”

Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) wants Congress to “shut down” the U.S. economy over the southern border and falsely accuses Biden of Marxist “socialist policies.” She introduced her request in an interview with Fox host Maria Bartimono. According to Spartz, Biden has a “failed policy … with its supply chain … and subsidizing corporations very close to the government in trying to control financial markets.” Spartz continued to ramble on with her unfounded complaints. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) plans to reintroduce the bill rejected earlier this year by Republicans who want to campaign on the premise that Democrats aren’t trying to solve border security.

Despite the International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s arrest for war crimes, Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson (R-LA) plans to invite the PM to speak to Congress. He’s waiting for Schumer to join him in the invitation but will do it himself if Schumer doesn’t go along with the plan. Schumer said he thinks “Netanyahu has lost his way by allowing his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel.” Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) said he would help the ICC serve the warrant if Netanyahu addresses Congress. Because the U.S. did not sign the Rome Statute to empower the ICC to prosecute individuals for war crimes, the country is not obligated to arrest the prime minister.

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) said filibuster reform is possible if Democrats hold the Senate. He pointed out that members possibly not returning next year, Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kirsten Sinema (I-AZ), joined Republicans in supporting the “no-effort obstruction, as opposed to the talking filibuster,” but those who remain want the Senate to work again. Arizona’s moderate Democrat Mark Kelly, a former astronaut, said:

“I’ve been here just over three years, and I’ve never seen an organization with rules like the United States Senate. If NASA had these rules, the rocket ship would never leave the launchpad. So as changes to the rules come up, I’ll evaluate it based on the merits.”

Willis, McAfee Winners:

Republicans hoped that they could get rid of the Fulton County (GA) RICO case by voting out DA Fani Willis who started the case and Judge Scott McAfee who has been hearing it. Voters in the heavily Democratic district thwarted the GOP by electing the two of them in Tuesday’s primary. They run in the November election and keep their offices at least until the end of the year.

DDT Trial Day 20: In a move surprising no one, DDT did not testify in the New York criminal trial, and the defense has rested. Judge Juan Merchan released the jury until Tuesday, May 28 when they will hear the summations. He added that they will “hear my jury charge” and begin “deliberations at some point on Wednesday.”

Merchan spent the afternoon hearing requests and complaints from both sides, including debates of his language in discussing the specific crimes DDT is charged with and describing laws that DDT is accused of violating. The judge rejected requests from DDT’s lawyers to direct the jury that hush-money payments aren’t inherently illegal and others regarding political bias against Trump.

On Tuesday morning, DDT ally Robert Costello continued his testimony, arguing that he was Michael Cohen’s lawyer but finally admitting that Cohen had never signed a retainer. The DDT camp had sent Costello to reign in Cohen; instead, Cohen related the entire story about Stormy Daniels’ payoff and coverup. Under oath, Costello called Cohen a liar for saying he had never signed a retainer or agreed to retain Costello, something for which he has no proof. Prosecution accused Costello of working with DDT’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani when they tried to keep Cohen loyal to DDT, and Costello again became adversarial and sarcastic. Costello had trouble supporting his lies with his email to his law partner put into evidence:

“Our issue is to get Cohen on the right page without giving him the appearance that we are following instructions from Giuliani or the President.”

Not all Congressional Republicans plan to support DDT even if he is convicted of business fraud. Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), whose bipartisan bill was killed by DDT in a campaign scam, would only say, “I want to be able to have people that are role models.” He added that “the policy issues are going to matter significantly.”

With a bachelor’s degree in finance and marketing, Rep. Byron Donalds told Fox host Maria Bartiromo that after “examining Biden, he believes the president is receiving a secret medication making him appear to be sharp-witted and completely “coherent.” Donalds is on DDT’s vice-presidential shortlist. Caught in agreeing to debates with Biden, DDT is now demanding a drug test for Biden before the events, and another VP wannabe, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) predicted that Biden will be “jacked up for those debates,” that “he was high as a kite” at his State of the Union address in March. Rep. Greg Murphy, a urologist, told Bartiromo that Biden was drugged, that Murphy had “a little bit of good knowledge that that had captained—that that had happened.” Bartiromo said, “You’ll show me what?” DDT sycophants repeated DDT’s lies about drugged Biden 2020 and Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Elections, Day Off of Trial

In an amazing decision, the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated Louisiana’s legislative-approved majority-Black district in the congressional map. A 5^th Circuit Court panel of three judges appointed by former Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) had changed the map to only one minority congressional district of six in the state, calling the GOP map “racial gerrymandering.” The decision creates two majority-Black districts in a state with over 40 percent minority race. Last year, the high court blocked Alabama from its dilution of Black voters.

Tuesday’s primaries in three states—Maryland, Nebraska, and West Virginia—showed Nikki Haley, not even in the presidential race, receiving continued support. DDT picked up 88 percent of the vote in deep-red West Virginia, but pockets in other states such as 23 percent in Douglas County (NE), hub of an electoral vote, should concern DDT, who has done nothing to win over Haley voters. Nebraska and Maryland each gave DDT 80 percent, and his weakness in the suburbs was a contrast to President Joe Biden’s waning problem with the Israel/Palestine protest vote.

Taken over by MAGAites, Nebraska’s GOP refused to endorse any of the five Republican congressional incumbents, three House members and two senators. All five incumbents won their primaries over farther-right candidates. Biden won over 90 percent of the primary against Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) who dropped out of the race.

In two Maryland primaries, money didn’t count. Democratic Rep. David Trone used much of his money from Total Wine running for the U.S. Senate but lost to Angela Alsobrooks after outspending her 10-1. State Sen. Sarah Elfred also defeated Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, who outspend her 3-1. Much of her money came from AIPAC’s (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) PAC.

In West Virginia, Derrick Evans became another January 6 insurrectionist to lose an election. He campaigned on his storming the U.S. Capitol, taunting police officers, and writing texts assuring people he thought his actions were illegal. At his trial, he pled guilty to a felony count of obstructing or impeding officers during a civil disorder before he became a Republican congressional candidate. His campaign argued his role in the attack should defeat the incumbent in the primary and send him back to the Capitol. HuffPo described candidates in six other states attacking the Capitol who lost their elections in 2022 although Wisconsin elected Derrick Van Orden.  

A slowing inflation rate for April drove the stock market to a record high as the consumer price index rose only 0.3 percent, 3.4 percent for the past 12 months. Rents and gas prices provided over 70 percent of the increase. The Federal Reserve delayed plans to cut interest rates this month; the first rate cut may be in September. With a record number of jobs under President Joe Biden, unemployment rate stayed under 4 percent and avoided a recession.

After Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson (R-LA) took yesterday off to pontificate outside the New York courthouse his support for DDT’s adultery and criminal behavior, the House passed the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization for five years by 387-26. The Senate passed its version by 88-4 last Friday after the House extended the deadline for a week and left Washington for a four-day weekend. With the budget and the national security package passed—almost eight months late—the next deadline for must-pass bills is October 1 when the next budget is due. This hiatus gives the House a few months to fight the culture war with bills that won’t pass the Senate until its August vacation.

The day after Johnson supported DDT’s crimes, he spoke about making “crimes criminal again” and promoted the Riverside County (CA) sheriff once belonging to the Oath Keepers, an ultra-right extremist antigovernment group called “instrumental” in the January 6 insurrection.

DDT repeatedly begged President Joe Biden for presidential debates, and Biden finally consented to two: the first one at CNN in Atlanta on June 27 and the second one on ABC the day before the 23^rd anniversary of 9/11 on September 10. . Both events forgo the Commission on Presidential Debate’s schedule. Details need to be worked out, but Biden has stipulated that CNN will have no audience. When DDT agreed to the first debate, he posted on Truth Social that Biden is “the WORST debater I have ever faced — He can’t put two sentences together!” Four years ago, DDT promised to “DESTROY” Biden, raising expectations for an addled old man, but after the debate most polling agreed that Biden won. Four years later, DDT is becoming the addled old man, according to the many mistakes in his rallies.  

A vice-presidential debate will probably be scheduled in July.

According to a Bloomberg News editorial, DDT’s plans would endanger the economy if he is elected. The board argued that DDT’s “economic agenda seems to be dedicated to raising prices.” They cited “tariffs of 60 percent on Chinese-made products and 10 percent on other imports” as well as “devaluing” the U.S. dollar and a hands-on policy with the U.S. Federal Reserve. The editorial summarized:

In a meeting of the House Homeland Security Committee, Robert Garcia (D-CA) ridiculed his conservative colleagues for their support of police officers while literally hugging insurrectionists at the D.C. jail who they “treated like heroes.” He gave some statistics about the group of rioters they visited: 17 of the 20 charged were arrested for assaulting police and six of them “already pleaded guilty.” In a report, “some of the most disturbing acts of violence at the US Capitol” were carried out by DC jail inmates. It cited how “one convicted felon helped lead the assault on police guarding the Capitol’s external security perimeter [that] paved the way for thousands of rioters to storm the Capitol grounds.”

House Republicans haven’t stopped investigating the insurrection, searching for different answers than the Democratic-dominated House found almost two years ago. The GOP leader, Rep. Barry Loudermilk (GA), had led a tour of the Capitol on January 5, 2021, supposedly not permitted, in which participants photographed hallways, tunnels, door, and other forms of entrance and egress. After a year, the report couldn’t even undermine the former investigative results, but Loudermilk won’t quit. The special committee is now demanding Cassidy Hutchinson to give them communications with key January 6 figures, including former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), and those with her book deal—“potential publication … or related compensation.” The letter also wants communications “on employment after the White House; the 25th Amendment, which covers removing a president from power; and her itinerary for a trip to the Florida’s Gulf Coast in early 2021.” Republicans may not understand that the more she tells, the more problems they have.

DDT Trial: On the Wednesday one-day break, DDT’s first criminal trial has reached the end of its first month with 16 days. The group of DDT’s surrogates marching into the proceedings in the middle of Michael Cohen’s testimony on Tuesday to sit in the front of the courtroom may not have benefited the defendant. CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reported that Judge Juan Merchan “looked visibly annoyed.” She said she had not “seen a large group of people come in and sit at the front of the courtroom while the witness is on the stand testifying” in this trial. They may not succeed in their goal, which Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) described “to overcome this gag order.”

At least four far-right GOP senators who played surrogates and supported DDT’s illegal activities wore red ties in solidarity, perhaps not noticing that DDT sometimes changes his tie color to yellow and blue. Other Republicans senators expressed disgust, and Lisa Murkowski (AK) asked:

“Do we have something to do around here other than watch a stupid porn trial? I mean, this is ridiculous.”

Another annoyance during Tuesday’s trial was Fox’s host Laura Ingraham’s use of binoculars in her attempt to view evidence shown to legal counsel before it was presented to the jury. Several times, she ignored court officers telling her not to use them, and they kept repeating the request:  

“Ma’am! You can’t use binoculars. No binoculars, ma’am. Ma’am. Hello!'”

Daily Beast reported that Ingraham “let out a surprised huff and threw the binoculars down.” Earlier in the trial last month, she told her viewers that Stormy Daniels was trying “to extract some money” from DDT who “was apparently trying to get that episode behind him.” Legal analyst Bradley Moss shared her remarks on X and asked whether she was “admitting that Trump had the affair? Because Trump certainly hasn’t admitted that.”

For the past two days, DDT has tried to look like he doesn’t care what Cohen has to say. Tomorrow, he has another day to face Cohen before he has Friday off, ostensibly to attend the high school graduation ceremony of his son. Will he sit with Barron’s mother, Melania? How long will he stay before he flies off to his fundraiser in Minnesota? And will he whine again to the press about not having time to campaign when he uses all his free days searching for donations—like the one on Wednesday in Lexington (KY)?  

DDT also filed another appeal to have his gag order removed, this one to the New York Court of Appeals after the mid-level appellate court turned him down.

DDT Worse Off after First Week of Criminal Trial

Usually Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) delivers speeches in excess of 50 minutes, but in Pennsylvania he outdid Abraham Lincoln’s two-minute speech at Gettysburg (PA) with a 50-second speech about the Battle of Gettysburg:

“Gettysburg, wow. I go to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to look, and to watch, and, uh, the statement of Robert Lee—who’s no longer in favor, did you ever notice that? No longer in favor—’Never fight uphill, me boys. Never fight uphill.’

“What an unbelievable, I mean it was so much, and so interesting, and so vicious, and so horrible—and so beautiful in so many ways.”

DDT failed to give names of the “great general” who Lee supposedly lost at Gettysburg, perhaps because no “great general” died there. A long way from Lincoln’s speech that begins: 

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

No matter what DDT says, his base remains loyal. New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu called DDT “crazy” and an “a——” who was neither a “real Republican” nor a genuine conservative who “absolutely contributed” to the January 6 insurrection. Yet Sununu supports DDT because he’s doing well in the polls.

DDT’s former AG Bill Barr plans to “vote for the Republican ticket,” after describing DDT: “inexcusable” behavior on January 6 and “a betrayal of his office,” an “incorrigible” and “erratic” narcissist whose post-election lies did “a disservice to the nation,” “dismaying” that DDT would run a third national campaign, “will not endorse Trump,” voting for him is comparable to “playing Russian roulette with the country,” and “a defiant, 9-year-old kid.” Barr said that DDT “cared only about one thing: himself. Country and principle took second place.” It’s the GOP/MAGA values: destroy democracy to stay in power.

The critics omitted “thief” in their evaluations of DDT. According to reporters, DDT is “funneling” campaign money “into his businesses” and raising “ethical concerns.” A report to the Federal Election Commission shows DDT’s joint fundraising committee writing three checks in February and one in March to Mar-a-Lago with another in March to Trump National Doral Miami, totaling almost $500,000. Other GOP candidates have given Mar-a-Lago sizeable sums of money: Ohio U.S Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, $109,000; Nevada U.S. Senate candidate Jim Marchant, $67,000; and Giuliani Defense, $2,400. DDT has endorsed both Moreno and Marchant.

Truth Social shares have increased a bit in price, but DDT warned Nasdaq of “potential market manipulation” by “naked” short selling of shares, betting against a public company, and gave shareholders detailed instructions about how to avoid it. He complained to the SEC which responded that a short sale trade isn’t necessarily improper trading activity. CEO of Citadel Securities and billionaire GOP donor, Ken Griffin, called Truth Social a “proverbial loser” and accused Devin Nunes, CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), of trying to deflect blame for the company’s recent price drops. DDT won’t lose money on his shares because he didn’t pay one cent to get the tens of millions of shares.

Beyond DDT’s corruption, his policies will badly damage the people in the U.S., especially the poor in his MAGA base. He wants a flat 17 percent income tax, reduction of Social Security taxes to destroy the program, and higher inflation by devaluing the dollar and raising the tariffs. 

“I hate wind,” DDT told oil industry leaders at Mar-a-Lago, promising to open up the Gulf of Mexico to drilling leases and reverse regulations to deploy electric vehicles. Then he asked for donations.   He also wants “a minimum of 5%” of all donations received by candidates who use his name and image. In 2021, he sent cease-and-desist letters to his party’s officials to stop using them so that he can get the donations instead. Three GOP members of the FEC passed a ruling that permits DDT to take legal fees from the RNC. That decision takes money from down-ballot candidates and state party organizations.

DDT is also bleeding his Save America PAC dry with legal fees. Last month, the PAC spent almost $3.7 million—almost $3 of every $4 it collected with another $886,000 in outstanding fees. Just the New York criminal trial cost $1.14 million in March. DDT’s opponent, Joe Biden, spent over $29 million for its campaign last month, almost $22 million in producing and placing ads. Fundraising at a Florida billionaire’s home supposedly raised over $50 million, but DDT doesn’t get all this money and the amount has not been verified. The Robert F. Kennedy Jr. campaign received $5 million, $2 million from his new VP candidate, Nicole Shanahan. He spent $4.5 million on consulting, events, advertising, and payroll.

President Joe Biden plans to win in 2024 by campaigning and meeting with people. DDT plans to win the election by sending over 100,000 election workers to monitor poll sites and challenge voters.

DDT’s niece Mary Trump, a psychologist, believes his “psyche” is beginning “to fray at the edges” because he no longer has “control over either the narrative or the proceedings” of the criminal trial.  She added that his “serious psychological trauma … is basically short-circuiting him.”

Publicly DDT said that he is “proud” and “honored” to be the object of the criminal trial, but privately he fumes, especially about Maggie Haberman’s reporting that he slept during the trial during at least three of the four days, resulting in ridicule from late-night TV and sketches of him. (A collection of sketches of DDT in the courtroom.) DDT asked if the sketch-artist is out to get him and whined about the “freezing” temperature in the courtroom, the jury selection process, and the gag order—that he frequently violates. DDT’s former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said that the courtroom doesn’t have “a group of people that cater to his every whim” as he does everywhere else.

DDT’s presence during jury selection forces him to hear how some people don’t worship him. To help his delicate ego, an aide, Natalie Harp, sat two rows behind him with a wireless printer to provide him with good news from the internet until a security official required her to sit with the aides.

Legal Issues:

This coming week:  

Monday: New York criminal trial opening statement; DA presenting witnesses and evidence; hearing in civil trial about New York AG Letitia James’ challenge to DDT’s $175 million bond.

Tuesday: New York hearing about DDT’s contempt of court for violating gag order in criminal trial.

Thursday: Supreme Court arguments about DDT’s claim of absolutely immunity.

DDT may face another criminal investigation for tax evasion regarding a mysterious $50 million loan listed in his disclosures to the court that may not exist. 

DDT lost another appeal, this one to pause civil lawsuits blaming him for the January 6 insurrection. He wants them postponed until special counsel Jack Smith’s criminal case is resolved, after the Supreme Court rules on his appeal for immunity. DDT argues that a trial about presidential immunity would undermine his criminal defense; the judge disagrees.

New York – Civil Business Fraud Costs:

If Judge Arthur Engoron accepts James’ challenge to reject DDT’s $175 million bond, contending the bond company may not have sufficient resources for the bond, DDT would have seven days to find a new bond for $465 million.

New York – Criminal Business Fraud/Hush Money to Stormy Daniels to Interfere with 2016 Election:

Beyond his muttering and sighing, DDT fails to understand court protocol. He won’t stand when the jury enters and leaves the courtroom. Then he tried to leave while Judge Juan Merchan was still talking. Merchan ordered to sit down again. In the trial, DDT has decided to use his wife Melania as an excuse for paying off women to cover up the affairs. He claims he didn’t want to upset her.

Georgia – RICO Conspiracy to Overturn Election:

A special prosecutor will investigate whether Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones should face criminal charges over his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state. Executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia Pete Skandalakis will lead the probe; Fulton County DA Fani Willis cannot prosecute Jones because of her RICO case against DDT and other defendants. Jones declared himself an elector naming DDT for the electoral votes although Joe Biden won the state.

Florida – DDT’s Taking Classified Documents:

Judge Aileen Cannon denied motions from DDT’s co-defendants to dismiss the charges against them. They claimed no clear evidence exists that they obstructed the government in retrieving classified materials from DDT’s property. She has still not set a date for the trial.

Supreme Court Decisions for DDT:

The Supreme Court decision about DDT’s claim of presidential immunity will affect both the federal election interference case and Fulton County (GA) RICO case.

DDT plans to erase all “every diversity, equity, and inclusion program across the entire federal government,” but his company Trump Media & Technology Group has a section called “Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion.” Ethnically diverse organizations outperform less diverse companies by 36 percent.

Are you better off now than four years ago?  Stephen Robinson lists DDT’s mistakes in handling Covid.

DDT’s fixation to debate Joe Biden is reaching a high: he wants ten debates instead of the usual three. Four years ago, DDT, still in the White House, lied, raged, heckled, erupted, and interrupted while saying he had been tested for Covid when he carried the disease. He also encouraged the neo-fascist group Proud boys to “stand back and stand by.” And that was when DDT was more restrained.

 

Eclipse Conspiracies, DDT’s Desperation Plus RFK, Other News Bits

The excitement about a total eclipse crossing the U.S. is over, and younger people may be around for the next ones in 2044, which cuts into a bit of Montana, and in 2045. While much of the interest was scientific, conspiracy theorists spread these fantasies:

• The eclipse signals the End Times.
• President Joe Biden is using it to shut down cell phone service or bring in the National Guard to make beautiful blond children who play sports transgender.
• Food will run out, phone reception will disappear, and electricity will be cut.
• The government will deploy balloons filled with poisonous gas.
• Masonic rituals will usher in the New World Order for evil, negative energy.
• Other Satanic, Esoteric, Gnostic, Brotherhood of the Snake, and occult-like groups will also perform rituals.
• The “elites” are using the event to impose new controls on the population. 
• Three NASA satellites launched are part of its Atmospheric Perturbations around Eclipse Path (APEP) mission; Apep is the name of an ancient Egyptian snake god associated with darkness and destruction. It’s part of a “sex magic ritual” that will cause days of darkness.
• The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) will open demonic portals.

Fox network tied the eclipse to immigrants. Dana Perino said:

“A rare celestial event collides with a policy failure on the ground. The southern border will be directly in the path of totality today when the moon covers the sun for nearly four minutes.”

Perino’s co-anchor Bill Hemmer added that the eclipse represents “a real opportunity for smugglers and cartels and migrants to come right in.” A map of the total eclipse’s path that transitioned into images of supposed New Mexico migrants. Asked on Newsmax if the three-minute darkness would cause a “rush on the border,” Arizona Sheriff Mark Lamb, a GOP U.S. Senate candidate usually highly critical or President Joe Biden, responded, “Look, it gets dark every night.”

Before the eclipse, self-identified “proud Christian Nationalist” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) wrote:

“God is sending America strong signs to tell us to repent. Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come. I pray that our country listens.”

Massive ridicule about her ignorance may have led Greene to clarify the statement that she knows these things happen, but God created them. She might be right about the recent earthquake calling for repentance: it was six miles from the Bedminster (NJ) golf course owned by Deposed Donald Trump (DDT).

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders may be a conspiracist or panderer to them when she declared a state of emergency and $100,000 to help with the state’s response. Because she expects a “backlog of deliveries,” it waives federal restrictions on commercial traffic “so long as the motor carrier or driver is providing direct assistance in response to the declared emergency.” Media reports the “emergency” time varies from two days to two weeks.

A year ago, Eagle Pass (TX) hoped for a financial windfall when the April 4 eclipse passed directly over the area. Gov. Greg Abbott destroyed their plans when he heavily militarized the town’s border crossing from Mexico, intimidating visitors with troops and razor wire. Crowds for the planned 57 South Music Festival, costing $3.5 million, were drastically reduced, and it was moved to a casino 20 minutes away with 30 people on Friday afternoon. (Left: Turnout in Eagle Pass.)

DDT’s hopes for election may also be eclipsing as his poll numbers start to shrink, largely matching those of Biden. Shrinking confidence may also create his increasing desperation as evidenced by his non-statement about abortion on Monday that he has promised for weeks. Summary: states should be in charge, Republicans are obligated to win the election, and he’s proud of nominating three anti-abortion Supreme Court justices to end Roe v. Wade. As usual, DDT lied when he said in his latest video that all legal experts wanted the former decision terminated. He refused to say whether he would veto an abortion ban, treat abortion drugs such as mifepristone, appoint judges to further narrow abortion rights, and vote for the Florida reproductive rights ballot initiative.

In addition, DDT failed to “make both sides happy” as he had promised. Instead, Democrats accused him of obfuscation that hasn’t changed, and conservatives were disappointed. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) still wants a national ban on abortion, causing DDT to lash out at him. DDT posted:

“I blame myself for Lindsey Graham, because the only reason he won in the Great State of South Carolina is because I Endorsed him!”

In another post, DDT wrote that Graham was “doing a great disservice to the Republican Party, and to our country” by opposing his views on abortion policy. He called Graham a RINO, that he was playing into the hands of Democrat. Biden stated that DDT would almost certainly sign a MAGA bill for a national abortion ban. Before DDT’s announcement, a Wall Street Journal poll of swing state voters found 45 percent of voters trust Biden more on the reproductive rights issue compared to only 33 percent for DDT.

In another desperate move, DDT filed to sue Judge Juan Merchan one week before his criminal trial for business fraud begins. Today was also the hearing about DDT’s motion to recuse Merchan as judge because his daughter had worked for a Democratic campaign. Merchan quickly disposed of the motion, saying that its only purpose was to delay the trial and later sent his directions for jury selection to begin on April 15. DA Alvin Bragg said that the filing had “nothing new from a prior attempt to get a new judge.”

Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) has been referring to the GOP Putin wing, describing its support of Russia. She was joined by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) who talked about Republicans promoting Russian propaganda on the House floor. He blamed the media because this message has “infected a good chunk of my party’s base.” On Sunday, Michael Turner (R-OH), chair of the House intelligence committee, repeated the concern about Putin supporters.   

Rep. Greene proved their point when she used false pro-Russia talking points to rant against the U.S. “war in Christianity” while promoting Vladimir Putin, including her threat to oust Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson (R-LA) if he tries to help Ukraine. She falsely claimed that Ukraine is “executing priests [but] Russia is not doing that.” Russian forces have murdered 30 Ukrainian priests, and during the first year of its war against Ukraine, Russia destroyed, damaged, or looted at least 494 religious buildings, theological institutions, and sacred sites. Newly-elected Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) called on Greene to be exposed and “her irresponsible behavior” stopped.

Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hasn’t backed down on any of his wacko conspiracy, anti-vax theories until the recent backlash to his statement that January 6 insurrectionists are “activists stripped of their Constitutional liberties.” Apparently, his change of message drew another backlash because he now tries fence-sitting by saying he would appoint a special counsel to investigate the “harsh treatment” of the defendants and doesn’t believe the incident is an insurrection. His statement about a probe has several falsehoods, including his claim that the rioters “carried no weapons.” Siding with DDT, he complained about the “weaponization” of the government.

D.C. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, a Republican appointed by Ronald Reagan, used his sentencing of a riot participant last week to scold the downplaying of the insurrection and condemn the elevation of convicted criminals to “hostages.” He criticized public figures trying “to rewrite history, claiming rioters behaved ‘in an orderly fashion’ like ordinary tourists, or martyrizing convicted January 6 defendants as ‘political prisoner.’” It was “a coordinated riot,” he asserted, “not a protest that got out of hand.” He concluded, “This was not patriotism; it was the antithesis of patriotism.”

Anyone who believes that RFK isn’t a “spoiler” should listen to his New York campaign director who states that Kennedy’s name on the ballot will help “get rid of Biden,” her “No. 1 priority,” and make it easier for DDT to win the historically Democratic state.

A few other pieces:

Following the announcement of 303,000 new jobs in March, continuing a good run, the RNC issued a statement about the new jobs declaring people are “worse off” under Biden. Under DDT, the U.S. lost 1.4 million jobs and added no new jobs during his four years.

Focusing on borrowers with “runaway interest,” Biden announced his plan helping relieve student loans for over 25 million people who owe more money than when they began their repayment. It proposed to cancel up to $20,000 of the amount the balance grew, regardless of income. As usual, Republicans will likely challenge the plan in court.

Another Biden plan is to restrict presidents from eliminating civil service protections after DDT has promised to fire all non-loyalist employees. Workers could keep their positions if they are converted to an exempt category. In addition, an administration would face hurdles to shift jobs between categories, and federal employees could challenge the move if they are stripped of their protections. In Fall 2020, DDT created Schedule F to make workers easier to hire, fire, or more around, potentially affecting tens of thousands of federal workers who develop or carry out policies.

A Brazilian Supreme Court justice has ordered the investigation of Elon Musk for the dissemination of fake news and alleged obstruction. Musk had refused to comply with court orders to block specific accounts. Justice Alexandre de Moraes has actively pursued people suspected of undermining Brazil’s democracy, including former President Jair Bolsonaro and people spreading conspiracy theories. Forty million Brazilians, 18 percent of the population, access X at least once a month.

Republicans Try to Avoid Paying for Their Offenses

Update/Correction: On the night of the Utah special primary to replace resigning GOP Rep. Chris Stewart, the media announced Becky Edwards the winner of the GOP election. Since that time, Celeste Maloy, a supporter of Deposed Donald Trump (DDT), received enough votes to beat Edwards for the general election against Democratic state Sen. Kathleen Riebe. Maloy was Stewart’s chief legal counsel.

Federal Judge Steve Jones refused former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows’ request to move his Georgia RICO charges from state to federal court and ruled that many of the allegations were political activities outside Meadows’ job, his main argument. Meadows participated in the call with DDT asking Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” more votes for DDT, the exact number he needed to win the 2020 state presidential election. The decision may not bode well for DDT who informed the Fulton County judge that he “may” ask for his RICO election interference indictment to be moved to a federal court as well as for other co-defendants who filed the same request.

A judiciary disciplinary panel in Wisconsin has dismissed several political complaints against Janet Protasiewzicz, the newest state Supreme Court judge. Republicans, upset because this high court is liberal instead of conservative for the first time in 15 years, have argued that her comments about the GOP-drawn gerrymandered district maps should force her to recuse herself from any rulings about it. GOP lawmakers wanted to use negative findings about her from the panel for an impeachment. Conservative members of the court, which has not decided whether to hear any redistricting case, have made highly partisan statements about issues that could come before the court with no threats of impeachment. A federal court in Wisconsin had earlier found a distinction between a candidate’s personal views during a campaign and a pledge, promise, or commitment to specific rulings. The Wisconsin has a large majority in both houses, despite the state’s demographics, because of electoral maps drawn by the GOP-controlled legislature in 2011.

Adviser for former Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) Peter Navarro had a short trial: on the third day, he was convicted of criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena from the House January 6 investigative committee and refusing to testify to House members. Navarro could have taken the subpoena and declined to answer any questions, but instead, he decided to make a big splash in court. He has said that he won’t go to prison because he’s in the right. Sentencing, set for January 12, can give him 30 days to a year in prison with a maximum fine of $100,000.

Navarro’s attorneys moved for a mistrial after the verdict was read, stating that jurors could have been exposed to protesters when they went outside for a break during deliberations. The jury, however, explained, it reached a verdict ten minutes after the break. The judge told Navarro’s attorney, Stanley Woodward, to file a motion, and he would consider it. Woodward’s argument against a guilty plea was prosecutors’ failure to prove that “Navarro’s failure to comply with the subpoena was not the result of accident, mistake or inadvertence.” The attorney added, “This case is about those three words.”

Prosecutor Elizabeth Aloi said about Navarro:

 “The defendant chose allegiance to former President Donald Trump over compliance to the subpoena.”

Navarro has continually pretended to be above the law. Last April the D.C. Circuit Court rejected his request to keep hundreds of government records after a judge ordered him to promptly return them to the National Archives. He contended that at least 200 to 250 records belonged to the government, but said the DOJ had no way to make him return the records. Navarro had done his official government business on a personal ProtonMail account.

Another adviser, Steve Bannon, was also found guilty on two counts of contempt of Congress when he refused to comply with a subpoena from the committee. Sentenced to four months in prison and $6,500 fine, Bannon is still free while appealing the conviction. The committee found former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in contempt in 2021 for refusing to answer questions about the insurrection, but the DOJ did not prosecute him.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, started his investigation of Fulton County (GA) DA Fani Willis’ investigation of election interference that led thus far to indictments of 19 alleged participants by demanding all Willis’ documents. The deadline was September 7. Willis responded, telling Jordan that his August 24 letter included “inaccurate information and misleading statements.” She also accused him of inappropriately interfering with a state criminal case and attempting to punish her for his own personal political gain:

“Its obvious purpose is to obstruct a Georgia criminal proceeding and to advance outrageous misrepresentations. As I make clear below, there is no justification in the Constitution for Congress to interfere with a state criminal matter, as you attempt to do…. Your letter makes clear that you lack a basic understanding of the law, its practice and the ethical obligations of attorneys generally and prosecutors specifically.”

A large portion of Jordan’s seven-page letter attacked Willis’ motives, but Willis’ response pointed out Jordan had refused to comply from a House subpoena regarding the January 6 insurrection in violation of the law when answering his concern that Willis “would set a dangerous precedent for future Congresses…. The America people deserve better.” She also cites a number of cases, including from the Supreme Court, that declare a “fundamental policy against federal interference with state criminal prosecutions.” A special zing told Jordan to “deal with some basic realities”:

“A Special Purpose Grand Jury made up of everyday citizens investigated for 10 months and made recommendations to me.

“A further reality is that a grand jury of completely different Fulton County citizens found probable cause against the defendants named in the indictment for RICO violations and various other felonies. Face this reality, Chairman Jordan: the select group of defendants who you fret over in my jurisdiction are like every other defendant, entitled to no worse or better treatment than any other American citizen ….

“Here is another reality you must face: Those who wish to avoid felony charges in Fulton County, Georgia—including violations of Georgia RICO law—should not commit felonies in Fulton County, Georgia.”

To provide him with “a more thorough understanding of Georgia’s RICO statute,” she recommended the book Rico State-by-State.  More of Willis’ response to Jordan is here.

As usual, Jordan has no evidence for his conspiracy theory that powerful federal officials are the architects of government prosecutions. Yet he followed his demand to Willis with another one to special counsel Jack Smith for all information related to Stanley Woodward, in DDT’s pay while representing several Mar-a-Lago employees as well as Peter Navarro. Woodward is fighting the DOJ which seeks a Garcia hearing, ensuring that a criminal defendant knows about his lawyer’s conflicts of interest. In late August, Jordan also demanded information about meetings between Jay Bratt, a lawyer working with Smith about retention of classified documents, in the White House. Woodward said he was being inappropriately pressured to cooperate with Smith.  

Jordan sent the letter to the DOJ on the day after Yuscil Taveras, a Mar-a-Lago IT worker, dropped Woodward, who also represents DDT’s co-defendant Walt Nauta in the classified records case, as his lawyer and cooperated with the DOJ. Taveras’ testimony led to a succeeding indictment of DDT, Nauta, and another co-defendant, also represented by Woodward, about the three defendants trying to delete the security footage showing them moving boxes with classified documents. In a tacit accusation, Woodward complained that Taveras received the cooperation after he talked to outside counsel.

The report from the Georgia grand jury has been released with the names of 39 people recommended for indictment, one of them Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Two others were losing candidates for U.S. senators in a special 2021 election, David Perdue and Kally Leffler, but they were not among the 19 defendants chosen by Willis. DDT wrote that the report has “ZERO credibility.” The complete report is here.

Although he has not read the report, Graham called his actions “consistent” with his job as U.S. senator and denied Raffensperger’s claim that Graham has asked for ballots to be thrown out, just focusing on matching signatures on mail-in ballots. Raffensperger has repeatedly maintained that Graham’s “implication” was, “Look hard and see how many ballots you could throw out.” Graham’s most recent comment repeats he was fulfilling his constitutional duties, but the Constitution doesn’t require a South Carolina to talk to a Georgia official about election ballot counts.

Graham may see his lack of indictment as a victory, but 13 jury members—a majority—voted to bring charges against him “with respect to the national effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.” Although Republicans advocate states’ rights, Graham claims a federal senator can interfere in a state election. Graham, however, was clever, however: his language didn’t get him indicted–yet.

A Few Updates, Other Non-Presidential Candidate News

Update about Kansas Newspaper: Much to the probable dismay of law officials raiding the Marion County Record, a small newspaper in rural Kansas, with what may have been an illegal warrant, the newspaper’s lawyer alleges that the sheriff’s office involved in the August 11 raid secretly copied data from one of the computers without handing it back with other seized evidence. The Marion County sheriff’s office “confirmed the fact they copied 17 Gigs of data from the newsroom computer system—and they still have it.” The lawyer plans to ask a judge to hold the sheriff in contempt of court with no resolution by Thursday. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation, the lead investigating agency, brought the issue to the “attention of the Marion County Record’s attorney last week.” The Marion County police department carried out the raid, but the sheriff’s office was the custodian of seized items. The USB used to store the seized data in the sheriff’s office is being used in other investigations, and authorities retention of illegal access to the newspaper’s data “is both constitutionally-protected and protected by federal and state law.” The newspaper’s lawyer said he tried to report the issue to the county counselor, but his calls are not returned.

A classic about the popular kid in the lineup of GOP presidential candidates: Not only is Vivek Ramaswamy not a registered Republican but he also didn’t vote in Ohio’s 2022 and 2023 primary elections. In Franklin County, he’s registered as “unaffiliated,” and he described himself as a “libertarian freestyler” in college, not that long ago. He did vote in Ohio’s August special election regarding a change in the state’s constitution to require 60 percent majority for approval of citizens’ measures. Ramaswamy excused himself for being a nonvoter by telling Sean Hannity that he was “a jaded person in my twenties.” But what about his 30s? 

More about the First GOP Debate: The debate started about a question regarding Oliver Anthony’s song “Rich Men North of Richmond,” and Anthony laid into the use of his lyrics. Martha MacCaullum said it spoke “of alienation … with the state of government,” but Anthony said it’s “definitely” about the people on the debate stage. He wants distance from the “aggravating” GOP embrace, “seeing people wrap politics up into this…, seeing people on conservative news try to identify with me like I’m one of them.”

Liars at the debate, according to Glenn Kessler: Sen. Tim Scott (SC), former VP Mike Pence, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. Ramaswamy managed Four Pinocchios. Information here. What a lineup! 

News outside the Debate and the Indictment:

Two Black Tennessee legislators were expelled from the state House last spring because they supported protesters on the floor objecting to the GOP refusal to consider protecting youth from school shootings. They were reelected in special elections soon after. The protesters returned last week to silently hold up signs during a subcommittee hearing asking for gun safety laws. One sign stated, “1 kid > all the guns.” The protesters were removed from the meeting with a new GOP rule prohibiting any signs during official proceedings. Guns are legal during legislative actions; signs are not.

A judge temporarily blocked the new rule. As one of the sign-holders stated that her First Amendment rights were violated:

“When we’ve come to a point where you can’t hold up a sign? That’s not OK. That’s not democracy,”

Guns killed a record number of children in 2021, 4,752 children, almost 42 percent more than in 2018. Nearly two-thirds of the deaths in 2021 were homicides. Starting in 2020, firearms killed more children adolescents than car accidents, formerly the leading cause of deaths for that age.

Charlie Gerow, vice chair of the Conservative Political Action Coalition for almost two decades, resigned and is calling for investigations into Chair Matt Schlapp, after he was sued for sexual assault by a former Herschel Walker Senate campaign staffer. In May, the group’s treasurer resigned from concerns about CPAC’s financial reports, and other leaders also left.

In Escambia County (FL), a federal judge ordered that a lawsuit regarding book bans be temporarily stayed while the court considers whether to dismiss the action. County lawyers assert that school boards have full authority over “the content of all instructional materials and any other materials used in a classroom, made available in a school or classroom library, or included on a reading list.” The lawsuit claims that school administrators and board violate the First Amendment and the 14^th Amendment because books removed are “disproportionately books by non-white and/or LGBTQ+ authors” and often address “themes or topics” related to race or LGBTQ+ community. The suit seeks to have the district’s actions declared unconstitutional and to have the banned books returned to library shelves.

The original complaint described how one language arts teacher at a high school initiated “a widespread—and largely successful—campaign to restrict access to books” throughout the Escambia County School District. Allegedly, 197 books were targeted for removal; authors of 42 percent of the books are nonwhite and/or identify as LGBTQ, while approximately 59% address themes relating to race or LGBTQ identity.” An amended brief states, “the restrictions and removals that commenced prior to July 1, 2023 are constitutionally impermissible.”

In Montgomery County Public Schools (MD), parents can’t pull their children out of classes with books about LGBTQ+ characters, according to a federal judge. Parents complain that these books, such as one about a dog that goes to a Pride parade, is “sex education.” The district stated it “remains committed to cultivating an inclusive and welcoming learning environment and creating opportunities where all students see themselves and their families in curriculum materials.”

In Texas, a state district court judge temporarily blocked the law banning transgender youth from accessing puberty blockers and hormone therapy. She acknowledged “parents’ rights” for their children’s medical care, enshrined in the state constitution. The law discriminates against transgender youth and their parents by singling them out in prohibiting healthcare access. It was a brief victory; the state AG office has appealed the decision, putting the law into effect on September 1. The trial for the case isn’t until May 6, 2024. Thus far, similar laws have been blocked in Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, and Tennessee although Kentucky’s and Tennessee’s injunctions against the laws were lifted.

In a return to voting rights, the California Supreme Court ruled that a state appeals court erred in a decision against Latino voters in Santa Monica by removing districts for the city council and making selection of members city wide. The case was returned to the appeals court for review because the at-large system violated voter rights.

The DOJ is suing SpaceX, accusing Elon Musk’s rocket company of practicing “routine, widespread, and longstanding” hiring discrimination against people with asylum or refugee status, a violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act. A video posted to YouTube shows Musk saying that a typical work visa was insufficient for employment at SpaceX, and a social media post states that job applicants must be permanent U.S. residents to be considered for hiring. Musk used an unspecified U.S. law regulating advanced weapons technology. In 2021, a SpaceX recruiter told an applicant with “impressive experience” that the person could not be hired because of asylum status. Although hiring no refugee migrants for four years, the company hired an asylee in late 2020.

Elon Musk can kill his SpaceX workers with impunity, thanks to a new law that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed. The Spaceflight Entity Liability Bill covers private space companies which also includes Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin—no legal responsibility for workers’ injuries or deaths “resulting from spaceflight activities.” Musk’s SpaceX lobbyist came to every committee meeting related to the new law, sometimes speaking to members during the meetings. SpaceX has spent $8 million for lobbying since 2020 and donated another $1 million to members of both parties in 2022; Blue Origin spent $6.3 million in lobbying during the time with over a half million dollars donated to candidates in 2022.

Fossil fuel companies are trying to dismiss a climate accountability lawsuit in Hawaii after deadly fires in Maui. In 2020, officials from the city and council of Honolulu sued eight large companies that allegedly knew for decades about climate dangers of burning coal, oil, and gas while actively hid that information from consumers and investors. Dozens of cases have been filed against fossil fuel companies by states and municipalities over climate deception since 2017, clarifying documentation of the companies spreading doubt about climate science. Climate-related disasters come not only from fires but also flooding, sea level rise, heatwaves, and drought which cost Honolulu billions and put residents and property at risk, according to the lawsuit. Defendants don’t argue against climate change being real or human-caused, but they still want the case dismissed. The court has already dismissed Chevron’s claim that the case violates its First Amendment rights.

Like Fani Willis in Georgia, Arizona prosecutors are “aggressively” investigating the fake electors from their state with indicted Rudy Giuliani as a focus as well as other top DDT associates, according to Rolling Stone’s journalists. Part of the state investigation concerns DDT’s level of personal involvement in” the “Arizona-focused pressure campaign” that was “part of a multi-state fake elector scheme, which along with other aspects of Trump’s crusade to overturn Joe Biden’s legitimate 2020 victory, has figured prominently into multiple federal and state-level criminal probes.”

Hope for the Future – August 21, 2023

Is there a stupidity test for someone to host a Fox show? On The Big Weekend Show Sunday evening, host “Kennedy,” Lisa Kennedy Montgomery, began by talking about Tropical Storm Hilary hitting California. She stated that “the storm which made landfall in Mexico several hours ago.” The reason? “They let it right into the country because it’s Biden’s America.” Hopefully, Kennedy thought she was being funny, but the Qanon followers will suck it up.

Otherwise, the past few days have experienced some positive news for the U.S.:

A federal judge appointed by former Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) has overturned part of a Georgia election law banning the giving out of food and water to voters in line to cast ballots and the requirement that voters put their birth dates on the outside envelopes of their ballots. Judge J.P. Boulee let stand a ban on distributing food and water within 150 feet of the building with the polls but paused the ban in additional areas within 25 feet of a voter in line.  

Lt. Gen. Dan Patrick wants legal help while presiding over the impeachment of former AG Ken Paxton at the beginning of September, but his first choice turned him down. Marc Brown, former GOP justice on the 14^th Court of Appeals from Harris County, said he declined because he and his wife donated $250 to Eva Guzman’s campaign when she ran against Paxton in the GOP primary. (Take note, Supreme Court justices taking bribes millions of dollars!) In June, a month after Paxton was impeached, Patrick took $3 million from Defend Texas Liberty, a group campaigning against Paxton’s impeachment. $1 million donation and $2 million loan. Patrick is up for reelection in 2026.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia overturned federal approval of the Uinta Basin Railway, at least temporarily, that would have connected Utah’s oil fields to the national railway network. The project cuts through tribal land and a national forest. Violations of the National Environmental Policy Act include failures to examine impacts on vegetation and special-status species in the Uinta Basis, increased oil train traffic on the Union Pacific Line, effects of oil refining, wildfire risk, impact on water resources, and accident risk. Another extreme danger of the proposed railway is the possibility of an oil train derailment in the Colorado River headwaters. Forty million people rely on the river for its drinking water and livelihoods. The court ordered the Surface Transportation Board to redo its three-year environmental review in the northeast corner of Utah.

Two-thirds of likely U.S. voters support the current writers’ and actors’ union strikes; even 48 percent of those who don’t like labor unions support the strikes. Only 18 percent of respondents oppose the actions of the two unions. Over 80 percent approves demands of appropriate compensation. After a three months’ strike, unions have been negotiating for the past week.

Walt Disney Company has filed a countersuit against Florida, claiming Gov. Ron DeSantis’ newly-appointed district members for Disney violates the state constitution and accuses the state of Breach of Contract. The new law strips Disney of the ability to operate as its own form of government and makes the state in control, able to completely rework the district’s operation.

The lawsuit comes on top of DeSantis’ assigned Disney chief being forced to resign or risk breaking Florida state law. Glen Gilzean is the state’s ethics commission chair while being paid $400,000 to serve on the district board. State law prevents public employees from serving on the panel. DeSantis has made these and many other moves to retaliate against Disney since Iger tweeted a criticism of DeSantis’ “don’t say gay” law.

DeSantis has been found using perks to obtain donations for his PAC. In 2019, DeSantis’ political team included the state’s top 40 lobbyists and 100 “suggested clients to target” for political contributions. As presidential candidate, DeSantis said about Florida, “We’ve drained the swamp in here” while lambasting DDT for not doing the same. When individuals and groups didn’t meet the amount of donations that DeSantis wanted, he retaliated against them by creating unfriendly policies. In contrast, he rewarded those who complied with his demands. A home builder furnished the governor’s mansion with a golf simulator before getting fast-track treatment for a highway interchange benefiting one of his projects. Florida does not ban asking for exchanges of donations for official favors if the money is not made explicit.

Arkansas won’t give students credit for taking AP African American History, but some teachers are teaching it anyway. Every public high school in the state previously offering the course announced it remains on the schedule for the coming year. A letter to students and parents in the Little Rock School District stated the class “will be weighted the same as all other AP courses” and that the district will cover the cost of taking the exam, also violating the order from the state department of education. Teachers risk dismissal but are committed to educating students. In 1957, Little Rock Central High School was the first in the nation to racially integrate over objections by racist white people. In late July, a federal judge temporarily blocked an Arkansas law criminalizing librarians who distribute materials—even leaving books on the shelves—considered “harmful to minors.”

In Michigan, a federal judge appointed by George W. Bush denied a right-wing attempt to stop President Joe Biden’s student debt relief for 804,000 borrowers. Judge Thomas L. Ludington ruled that two conservative think tanks lacked standing to challenge the move erasing $40 billion of the $1.6 trillion in outstanding federal student loan debt. Mike Pierce, executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center, wrote that “borrowers were cheated by predatory companies.” Biden said:

“Because of errors and administrative failures of the student loan system that started long before I took office, over 804,000 borrowers never got the credit they earned, and never saw the forgiveness they were promised—even after making payments for decades.”

Despite Biden’s efforts, student loan payments recommence in October after the pandemic hiatus, but 62 percent of those with loans say they will not make the payments. Despite a shoddy lawsuit with falsehoods from plaintiffs who had no standing, the Supreme Court struck down Biden’s plan to cancel up to $20,000 in federal students loan debt for tens of millions of borrowers.

James O’Keefe, founder of Project Veritas, is being investigated for spending “an excessive amount of donor funds” on personal luxuries. Also allegedly mistreating workers, he was suspended in February and then fired as chairman and CEO. O’Keefe’s name hit the media when his doctored videos first destroyed Acorn, a community-based organization advocating for low and moderate income families, and later smeared Planned Parenthood.

O’Keefe tried to blame the group’s CFO Tom O’Hara for the expenditures, and O’Hara is providing the Westchester County DA with O’Keefe’s misdeeds for the officials’ probe. Last week, the new CEO, Hannah Giles, fired the entire Veritas staff leaving “only a skeleton crew of HR and a few fundraisers,” according to right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. O’Keefe participated in spreading the falsehood of commonplace and easy-to-commit voter fraud.

Another red state is fighting for abortion rights with a citizens’ measure. A Nebraska coalition called Protect Our Rights filed organizational papers on August 4 and updated their ballot initiative registration the next day. The target is the 2024 general election. Arizona reproductive rights advocates have also announced an initiative to be placed on 2024 ballots for a constitutional amendment affirming the right to abortion care.

GOP legislators want to impeach the new progressive on the state Supreme court, Justice Janet Protasiewicz, but conservative justice, Rebecca Bradley, would be a better subject for impeachment. Bradley, who has attacked Protasiewica for opposing gerrymandering, clearly shows how she will rule on cases, GOP grounds for impeachment:

• Attacked all the recent court decisions as partisan and biased;
• Called other justices “political hacks” and “politicians wearing robes,” not “jurists”;
• Wrote during the height of AIDS that “lives of degenerate drug addicts and queers are valued more than the innocent victims of more prevalent ailments” such as cancer;
• Referred to abortion as a “holocaust of our children”’
• Compared the governor’s lockdown orders at the height of the pandemic to World War II’s Japanese-American internment;
• Dissented in a routine appeal of a criminal conviction for homicide by criticizing the trial judge for mentioning the defendant’s gun ownership’
• Linked the use of drop boxes for ballots to democracy manipulation by Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong-un, Raul Castro, and Bashar al-Assad.
• Told conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn he should resign if he wasn’t willing “to fulfill” the judicial oath after he ruled that a parent’s anti-transgender lawsuit against the Madison School District’s policies should follow the state’s normal appeals process;
• Used Ben Shapiro’s 2014 book, How to Debate Leftists and Destroy Them in a ruling to oppose “woke corporate nonsense;
• Tried to conceal personal edits of her Wikipedia page, violating its guidelines.

 In a preliminary injunction, a federal judge temporarily blocked Georgia from enforcing a new law banning doctors from starting hormone therapy for transgender people under the age of 18. The ban lasts until a further court order or trial.

A Ukrainian drone strike destroyed a flagship Russian long-range bomber which can fly at twice the speed of sound and attacks Ukrainian cities. In January, a similar plane launched a missile killing 30 people in Dnipro apartments.

Outside Politics on the Fourth of July

To celebrate the Fourth of July, a few bits of news unrelated to happenings in legislature and courts:

In good news about the economy, the U.S. GDP grew at a two percent annualized rate in the first quarter, well above the 1.3 percent estimate and the Dow Jones 1.4 percent consensus forecast—another indicator that a recession is not eminent. Layoffs running well below expectations show the labor market strength is holding up. Consumer spending rose 4.2 percent, the highest quarterly pace since 2021’s second quarter, and exports rose 7.8 percent after falling 3.7 percent in the previous quarter.  

Republicans always campaign against Democrats on the economy, and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), a presidential candidate, claims that after a “thriving” economy three years ago, “we’re all worse off under the Biden administration.” Three years ago, the unemployment rate was 11 percent; now it’s 3.7 percent. Three years ago, the U.S. economy was shrinking; now it’s growing. On June 29, 2020, exactly three years before Scott’s statement, the S&P 500 index closed at 3,053.24.  Three years later, the S&P 500 index closed at 4,396.44. Manufacturing and construction are growing. Although inflation is still not satisfactory, it’s shrinking with the lowest inflation and strongest economic growth in the G7 countries.

Elon Musk seems determined to kill Twitter, this time by limiting the number of tweets users can read. Verified users are restricted to looking at 10,000 posts daily and unverified users only 1,000. Newly unverified users only 500, and not a user? None. Complaints from users that Twitter was not putting newer tweets on their feeds resulted in an endless loop of “rate limit exceeded” error.”  Musk complained about unverified “extreme levels of data scraping” and “system manipulation” and threatened “lawsuit time” with a claim that Microsoft was “illegally” using Twitter’s data.

Meta’s launch of a Twitter rival called “Threads” set for release this week is looking better and better. A top Meta executive called Threads a “sanely run” competitor. Connected to Instagram, it has access to 2 billion monthly users compared to Twitter’s 264 million. Instagram historically copies key features from competitors.

For eight months, Musk permitted the fake account from a non-existent “liberal” who delivered offensive tweets providing grist for conservatives’ mill about how horrible the progressives are. Erica Marsh had 130,000 followers on a verified account when the viral account of a “proud Democrat” from Washington disappeared. The tweeter’s blue “verified” check mark means only that someone paid for it. Although Marsh said she worked as a field organizer, no record of her supposed volunteer work for either Biden or former President Barack Obama exists. Her Twitter-posted selfies appear to be digitally manipulated.

Musk’s desire for online engagement at any cost to Democrats overran his claim to eradicate scammers and spam. Marsh’s tactic of “rage baiting” was extensively used by Russian government trolls to create chaos during the 2016 presidential campaign. Troll farms in North Macedonia customarily run sensationalist websites and take over Facebook pages to obtain funding from angry U.S. readers. For months, the Marsh account included a Venmo account link where readers can send money.

The struggling financial partner of Deposed Donald Trump’s (DDT) media company running his Truth Social, Digital World Acquisition, has offered $18 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle an investigation into its merger with Media and Technology Group. After charges of fraud, Digital received a year’s extension which expires on September 8 before it would have to liquidate and return $300 million to investors without a merger. As part of the agreement, Digital promised to amend its registration filing to remove former falsehoods but would also have to satisfy the discrepancy between Digital’s valuation of up to $1.7 billion given to DDT in October 2021 and DDT’s value of $5 million to $25 million in his campaign finance filings in April 2023. 

The British media regulator Ofcom is investigating broadcast standards in Rupert Murdoch’s UK television network, TalkTV. The question is whether the former Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) leader Alex Salmond violated “rules requiring news and current affairs to be presented with due impartiality.” Ofcom has another investigation into TalkTV’s rival, GB News, after Conservative lawmaker Jacob Rees-Mogg covered a breaking news story about DDT’s civil sexual assault verdict on May 9. Rules “prevent politicians from acting as newsreaders in any news programs, unless exceptionally, it is editorially justified.”

After the Tucker Carlson fiasco on Fox, also charged almost $787.5 million, the network continues to purge people, laying off eight of his show’s staffers after the departures of senior producers Alexander McCaskill and Thomas Fox. The producers were named in a harassment lawsuit by former producer Abby Grossberg, who settled for $12 million to dismiss her suit. In shuffling its stars, Fox dropped Geraldo Rivera as a host for 22 years on The Five; Rivera, 80, quit the network. In his last appearance on Fox, Rivera praised the effects that affirmative action had on his career after the Supreme Court decision eliminated it in higher education.

Fox’s programming reassignments to replace Tucker Carlson, set for July 17, keeps its pro-DDT lineup. Jesse Watters offensiveness and calls for violence paid off: he moves from 7:00 pm to Carlson’s old slot at 8:00 pm. Sean Hannity stays at 9:00 pm, but once popular Laura Ingraham was switched from the tails of Hannity at 10:00 to Watters’ old 7:00 pm slot. She is replaced by conservative comedian, Greg Gutfeld. The network hopes to regain its audience after its average of 2.6 million viewers dropped to 1.6 million, a 38 percent decrease. For the week of June 5, MSNBC’s prime time scored more viewers than on Fox.

In the 2019 film Bombshell about former Fox News chief Roger Ailes’ own sexual harassment scandal, a jaded producer at the network explains to a new hire the network’s required themes:

“The world is a bad place, people are lazy morons, minorities are criminals, sex is sick but interesting. Ask yourself, ‘What would scare my grandmother, or piss off my grandfather?’ And that’s a Fox story.”

Pro-choice advocates are using religious freedom in legal battles challenging state bans on abortion. Members of various religions have filed 15 lawsuits in eight states stating abortion bans and restrictions infringe on their faiths. Some of them want abortion in at least some prohibited circumstances and assert the bans violate religious liberty guarantees and the separation of church and state. Elizabeth Sepper, law professor at University of Texas at Austin, said that “religious liberty doesn’t operate in one direction.”

A few of the lawsuits are experiencing some success. In Indiana, a judge issued a preliminary injunction blocked the state’s abortion law because it violated Indiana’s 2015 Religious Freedom Restoration Act enacted under then-Gov. Mike Pence, a strong anti-abortion activist. Oklahoma and West Virginia amended their religion freedom restoration acts in preparation for similar lawsuits. Some faiths support women making their own decisions and support abortion in certain cases. Others don’t define life as beginning with contraception.

Florida lawsuits filed by Episcopal, Buddhist, Unitarian Universalist, Jewish, and United Church of Christ clergy state abortion restrictions violate “clerical obligations and faith” and impose “severe barriers” on religious belief, speech, and conduct. Many plaintiffs declare abortion bans embed conservative Christian ideology into state law. Sarah Baron, a 38-year-old mother of two and a board member of a conservative Louisville synagogue, said:

“The Torah teaches us that the fetus does not have the same personhood status as the mother until its first breath.”

Kentucky’s law violates her religious beliefs by not allowing her to make a decision about an abortion if she suffers severe physical or psychological harm or the fetus is nonviable.

The Satanic Temple, which the IRS recognizes as a religion, filed its first pro-choice lawsuits after the Supreme Court’s 2014 Hobby Lobby decision exempting family-owned corporations from the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that insurance cover contraceptives. The group, with lawsuits pending in Idaho, Texas, and Indiana, recently started the first telemedicine abortion service operated by a religion. A critic of the lawsuits used the argument that plaintiffs aren’t actually pregnant, but the DDT-appointed federal judge in Texas ruling against the use of mifepristone throughout the entire country didn’t require plaintiffs to exhibit any injury.  

NRA’s “good guy with a gun,” the guard at Parkland High School in Florida too afraid to get involved, Scot Peterson, was acquitted on all charges of child neglect. He stayed 75 feet from the building where the murderer killed 17 people and injured another 17 until the massacre was over. Hiring school “security guards” seems a useless expenditure.

Mass shootings with the most deaths thus far in July 2023:

• July 3: Using an AR-15 and a handgun, a man wearing a bullet-proof vest killed five people and wounded two children on the streets of Philadelphia. 
• July 3: Just before midnight, gunfire killed three and wounded eight in Fort Worth (TX). In another mass shooting on the same day, four people were injured.
• July 1: Multiple suspects killed two people and injured another 28 at a block party in Baltimore.

Other mass shootings commemorating the Fourth of July in 2023:   

• July 4 (thus far): Charlotte (NC), four injured; Lansing (MI), five injured; Akron (OH), 4 injured.
• July 3: Indianapolis, three injured and one killed; Saint Ann (MO), three killed and one injured; Truman (MN), four injured.
• July 2: Bronx, four injured; Wichita (KS), nine injured.
• July 1: Tulsa (OK), four injured.

That’s 14 dead in 13 different shootings with another 80 injured. In one shooting, the suspect was killed; two suspects were arrested in two other shootings. Just another weekend in free America.

June 6, 2023 – Political News

A federal judge will allow the names of people cosigning Rep. George Santos’ (R-NY) $500,000 bond to be made public. Facing 13 criminal charges, Santos was released from jail before the trial because of the bond. The media asked to unseal the identities and relevant information which can now also be shared with the House Ethics Committee. Santos said he would go to jail rather than disclose his “confidential arrangements” for a bond. His next scheduled court appearance is June 30.

A Reagan-appointed judge rejected a request to block Washington state’s new law banning the sale of over 50 types of guns, including AR- and AK-style rifles. People who have them can continue to possess them. The ruling determined that the ban fits the long tradition in the U.S. of regulating dangerous weapons, including colonial-era bans on “trap guns,” long-bladed Bowie knives, and the Thompson submachine (aka Tommy) gun popular with gangsters after World War I.

Florida officials stay silent after a second plane of 20 migrants from Texas since last Friday landed in Sacramento, but California Gov. Gavin Newsom continues to investigate the source of the flights with the possibility of Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis responsible. The arrivals on both flights had documents indicating Florida’s involvement. The GOP legislators gave DeSantis $12 million to fly migrants never in Florida to blue states.

Selective in prosecuting people for what officials call voter fraud, DeSantis arrested 20 former felons who had been told they could vote for casting improper votes, turning their rehabilitated lives upside down. Yet last month, a GOP state attorney refused to prosecute six voter fraud cases in five GOP counties, including sex offenders, who voted in the 2020 general election while DeSantis assured the public that the other 20 former felons would be prosecuted by his special election crimes office.

GOP presidential candidates have been vigorously debating the RNC debates’ rules. Beyond opposition to the requirement that participation requires support of the primary winner, they are fighting about which network will host the debates. Unhappy with the Fox network not being 100 percent on his side, Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) refuses to debate on that network. DeSantis, however, wants Fox and won’t debate on either CNN or MSNBC because he thinks they are hostile to Republicans.

DeSantis has a reputation for being hostile to the press. Stories have circulated that his wife, former TV host Casey DeSantis, is working on a positive image for him, but he’s a slow learner. On the campaign trail in New Hampshire, a reporter asked DeSanti why he wasn’t taking questions from his voters, he said he was talking to “people” and snapped, “Are you blind?” In the past, he confined himself to Fox and conservative talk radio, but that tactic doesn’t work outside Florida in a presidential campaign.

Casey DeSantis may not be much more successful than her husband. Several articles pointed out how she’s appears to copy Jackie Kennedy’s fashions from the 60s, and she wore a leather jacket in the Iowa heat with the slogan “where woke goes to die” over a Florida map and alligator, reminiscent of Melania Trump’s jacket sporting “I don’t really care. Do you?” while her husband separated immigrant families at the border. DeSantis garb earned her the moniker “Walmart Melania.” The account Tea Pain tweeted:  

“Behind every Republican man, there’s a Republican woman selling out her sisterhood.”

Florida taxpayers are also paying millions of dollars for DeSantis’ culture (aka religious) wars. The GOP legislature gave him a blank check to attack anyone he wishes in retaliation for anything and anyone he doesn’t like—minorities, students, teachers, authors, Disney, etc. Six months ago, legal costs were at least $16.7 million and growing. DeSantis is paying almost $1,300 an hour in legal fees just searching into how Disney found a loophole blocking his plan to govern Disney World. A Washington, D.C. law firm charges $725 hourly to defend him against his “anti-woke” laws. The state authorized almost $2.8 million for legal services from just that one firm. Medicaid iBudget Florida, a waiver providing disabled Floridians with access to certain services, has a waitlist of more than 22,000 residents because the state underfunds the program at $2 million for the year, compared to the almost $20 million, or more, spent for DeSantis’ “anti-woke” needs.

Bob Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University, said DeSantis litigious behavior matches that of DDT, that they are cut “from the same cloth.” In talking about who is benefiting, Jarvis said, “DeSantis has been God’s gift to lawyers.”

Recognizing its current lack of leverage, the House Freedom Caucus has given up deposing Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)—for now—but 11 conservatives are sabotaging GOP leadership, much to their surprise, by voting against the advancement of two bills blocking prevention of gas stoves.  The 206-220 vote was the first time the House rejected a rule in 21 years. Scheduled for five minutes, the rule vote lasted almost an hour. Andrew Clyde (R-GA), one of the dissidents, also got into an argument with House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) when he accused him of blocking his pistol stabilizing brace bill after Clyde opposed the rule on the debt ceiling bill.  

MAGAs have turned on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) for her devotion to McCarthy and her vote for his debt ceiling bill: they’re calling for her to be primaried by a real MAGA. Another of her offenses was opposition to releasing insurrection footage to the conspiracy-ridden media. DDT ally Laura Loomer, loonier than Greene, is threatening a move to Georgia to primary Greene from Florida where she repeatedly lost congressional primaries. In Greene’s comparing Steve Bannon turning on her with a divorce, she said:

“Steve and I aren’t getting back together. And if he keeps it up, I’ll take the house and kids. I hope you send it to Steve. Because I’m done.”

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is trying to intimidate academics studying misinformation by accusing them of colluding with the government to suppress right-wing speech. The House Judiciary Committee Chair is demanding records from Stanford University and threatens subpoenas because they withheld some disinformation complaints filed by students. Research includes falsehoods by DDT and other GOP politicians. Jordan claims that the government has suppressed legitimate vaccine risk theories and Covid origins.

Jordan also demands that AG Merrick Garland give him documents from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation of DDT—the unredacted memo of authorization and all supporting documentation.  

In his determination to prove unsubstantiated rumors about President Joe Biden’s “bribery,” House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer still wants to pillory FBI Director Christopher Wray for not giving him a document, instead requiring Comer to read it in a confidential setting. Committee top Democrat Jamie Raskin (D-MD) asserted the secondhand information didn’t need further assessment after a team assigned by former DDT-appointed AG Bill Barr stated the accusation didn’t warrant followup. The paid “source” was reporting a conversation with someone else. The investigation, finding no criminal activity, was led by DDT-appointed former AG Scott Brady for Pennsylvania.  In a first against an FBI director, Comer plans to hold Wray in contempt if he won’t give him the document.

Comer’s next project is a probe into a supposed coverup of UFOs, aka Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. He claims to have a “whistleblower,” an intelligence officer claiming to have classified information about “retrieved intact and intact and partially intact craft of non-human origin.”

Joseph Cuffari, responsible for the Secret Service’s mass deletion of texts including those surrounding the insurrection, declared he regularly deletes texts because he doesn’t consider them federal records. He added that he uses his government phone to “to conduct business” but “not federal business.” Intentional deletions of federal records violate the law.

According to Nikki Haley’s little-publicized CNN town hall on June 5, transgender issues form the centerpiece of her campaign. Asked to define “woke,” a Black term for social justice, the presidential candidate focused on “biological boys playing in girl sports” and linked it to one-third of teenage girls contemplating suicide last year—with no evidence. The report she cited didn’t list fear of transgenders as a factor but gave these reasons: more sleep deprivation, less face-to-face social interaction, societal polarization, pessimism about the future connected to global warming, and increasing availability of firearms. Of 73 million youth, only 46,000 may be transgender, 0.06 percent. Haley waffled by saying “we wonder,” but Glenn Kessler gave her four Pinocchios for her lie. 

Haley bewailed that “the national media” made the shooting at Mother Emanuel church, when a white supremacist killed nine Black people at a Bible study, “about race.” She did promise, however that she would not execute women who have abortions. Her home state of South Carolina puts women who have in prison, and attempts are being made to charge them with murder.

Rep. Ralph Norman (R-NC) is the only current congressional member backing Haley for president, but he’s a devoted ally of DDT. Every time he stumps for Haley he praises DDT.

CNN’s town hall for Mike Pence is June 7.