Former President Donald Trump
With little more than six months until Election Day, Donald Trump is preparing for an “authoritarian” presidency, and a massive, multi-million dollar operation called Project 2025, organized by The Heritage Foundation and headed by a former top Trump White House official, is proposing what it would like to be his agenda. In its 920-page policy manual the word “abortion” appears nearly 200 times.
Trump appears to hold a more narrow grasp of the issue of abortion, and is holding on to the framing he recently settled on, which he hoped would end debate on the issue after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. One day before the Arizona Supreme Court ruled an 1864 law banning abortion was still legal and enforceable, Trump declared states have total control over abortion and can do whatever they like.
Despite the results of that framing, Trump is sticking with that policy.
In a set of interviews with TIME‘s Eric Cortellessa, published Tuesday, the four-times indicted ex-president said he would not stop states from monitoring all pregnancies within their borders and prosecuting anyone who violates any abortion ban, if he were to again become president. He also refused to weigh in on a nationwide abortion ban or on medication abortion.
Recently, Trump backed away from endorsing a nationwide abortion ban, but in the past he has said there should be “punishment” for women who have abortions. The group effectively creating what could become his polices, The Heritage Foundation and its Project 2025, fully support a ban on abortion.
The scope of the TIME interviews was extensive.
“What emerged in two interviews with Trump, and conversations with more than a dozen of his closest advisers and confidants, were the outlines of an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world,” Cortellessa writes in his article.
“To carry out a deportation operation designed to remove more than 11 million people from the country, Trump told me, he would be willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military, both at the border and inland. He would let red states monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans. He would, at his personal discretion, withhold funds appropriated by Congress, according to top advisers. He would be willing to fire a U.S. Attorney who doesn’t carry out his order to prosecute someone, breaking with a tradition of independent law enforcement that dates from America’s founding.”
TIME’s Cortellessa also notes that Trump “is weighing pardons for every one of his supporters accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, more than 800 of whom have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury. He might not come to the aid of an attacked ally in Europe or Asia if he felt that country wasn’t paying enough for its own defense. He would gut the U.S. civil service, deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit, close the White House pandemic-preparedness office, and staff his Administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen.”
On abortion, Trump has repeatedly bragged he personally ended Roe v. Wade, which was a nearly 50-year old landmark Supreme Court ruling that found women have a constitutional right to abortion, and by extension, bodily autonomy.
But Trump has also “sought to defuse a potent campaign issue for the Democrats by saying he wouldn’t sign a federal ban. In our interview at Mar-a-Lago, he declines to commit to vetoing any additional federal restrictions if they came to his desk. More than 20 states now have full or partial abortion bans, and Trump says those policies should be left to the states to do what they want, including monitoring women’s pregnancies. ‘I think they might do that,’ he says.”
“When I ask whether he would be comfortable with states prosecuting women for having abortions beyond the point the laws permit, he says, ‘It’s irrelevant whether I’m comfortable or not. It’s totally irrelevant, because the states are going to make those decisions.’ President Biden has said he would fight state anti-abortion measures in court and with regulation,” Cortellessa adds.
Trump in his TIME interview continued to hold on to the convenient claim as president he would have absolutely nothing to do with abortion.
But “Trump’s allies don’t plan to be passive on abortion if he returns to power. The Heritage Foundation has called for enforcement of a 19th century statute that would outlaw the mailing of abortion pills. The Republican Study Committee (RSC), which includes more than 80% of the House GOP conference, included in its 2025 budget proposal the Life at Conception Act, which says the right to life extends to ‘the moment of fertilization.’ I ask Trump if he would veto that bill if it came to his desk. ‘I don’t have to do anything about vetoes,’ Trump says, ‘because we now have it back in the states.'”
That’s inaccurate, if a national abortion ban, or any legislation on women’s reproductive rights, comes to his desk. And they will, if there’s a Republican majority in the House and Senate.
Brooke Goren, Deputy Communications Director for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) writes, “In the same interview, Trump:
– Repeatedly refuses to say he wouldn’t sign a national ban
– Left the door open to signing legislation that could ban IVF
– Stood by his allies, who are making plans to unilaterally ban medication abortion nationwide if he’s elected.”
Cortellessa ends his piece with this thought: “Whether or not he was kidding about bringing a tyrannical end to our 248-year experiment in democracy, I ask him, Don’t you see why many Americans see such talk of dictatorship as contrary to our most cherished principles? Trump says no. Quite the opposite, he insists. ‘I think a lot of people like it.'”
The Bulwark’s Bill Kristol, once a hard-core conservative Republican, now a Democrat as of 2020, served up this take on TIME’s Trump interview and overview of a second Trump reign.
“Some of us: A second term really would be far more dangerous than his first, it would be real authoritarianism–with more than a touch of fascism.
Trump apologists: No way, calm down.
Trump: Yup, authoritarianism all the way!”
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
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Former President Donald Trump, evidently asleep during New York court proceedings on April 30, 2024
During part five of former President Donald Trump's ongoing criminal trial, the 45th president of the United States appeared to once again nod off during witness testimony, as he reportedly did multiple times last week.
MSNBC producer Kyle Griffin tweeted that Trump was having trouble staying awake during court proceedings, writing that he "appears to have fallen asleep while listening to testimony — at times appearing to stir and then falling back to sleep."
"Trump's eyes were closed for extended periods and his head has at times jerked in a way consistent with sleeping," he tweeted.
MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin corroborated the network's reporting on Trump "sleeping" in court, confirming that the former president was indeed "sleeping through a lot of" the trial.
"They tried a number of different devices to keep Trump awake, partially in response, or what appears to be in response to collective press corps observations," Rubin said. "When there are sidebars, an attorney doesn't leave his side anymore, because leaving him alone means leaving him to potentially sleep. He has a stack of papers with him at all times now to go through. But neither of those things seem to have protected Trump from his own exhaustion today," she added. "More than not, when I looked up to see how Trump was receiving the testimony, Trump was not receiving it all, because his eyes were closed."
The report of Trump supposedly dozing off drew a flurry of reactions on social media, with users on X (formerly Twitter) ridiculing the ex-president over his apparent inability to remain conscious during the proceedings that will determine his freedom.
Video journalist Aaron Rupar quote-tweeted Griffin's post and inferred that the response from media outlets would likely be an uproar "if Joe Biden did this."
Liberal YouTube commentator Brian Tyler Cohen opined that Mike Lindell — the MyPillow CEO who remains one of the most outspoken 2020 election deniers — "has the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever." Attorney Bradley Moss piled on, asking his followers "can someone please get the old man a pillow or something?" Progressive pundit Mueller She Wrote offered a nickname for the former president fashioned after Marlon Brando's iconic mobster character: "#DonSnorleone."
"Such low energy," tweeted Bloomberg TV contributor Daniel Micovic in response to Griffin's original tweet.
Online Democratic fundraising platform Actblue even joined in on the fun with a campaign finance-related tweet, posting "Wondering if his fundraising numbers are keeping [Trump] up at night."
Progressive social media influencer Chris Mowrey simply responded with quotes from Trump himself. One quote he posted was "We cannot have a low-energy individual as our president." Another read, "He’s always tired, he’s always got the lids heavy."
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
Former President Donald Trump in court
Supporters of Donald Trump who are most likely to reconsider their support if he is convicted in his Manhattan hush money trial have very Joe Biden-friendly profiles, according to a CNN poll on Americans’ views of the criminal proceedings.
While three-quarters of current Trump supporters said a criminal conviction would be immaterial to them, 24 percent said they "might reconsider" their support. In other words, of all the voters supporting Trump in the survey, 76 percent were MAGA diehards, while roughly a quarter were more malleable.
So let's take a look at a profile of these squishier Trump supporters, according to the survey:
- They are younger: 64 percent who said they might reconsider were under 50.
- They are less likely to be white: 49 percent who said a conviction could matter were people of color, while just 17 percent of whites said the same.
- 63 percent said Biden legitimately won 2020.
- 20 percent said they backed Biden in 2020.
- 49 percent are independents.
- 50 percent are ideological moderates.
"These are the exact voters who propelled Trump to his very narrow lead in the polling average. Younger voters, independents, Black and Latino voters are groups Trump struggled with in 2020 but is doing better with now,” points out Dan Pfeiffer, White House communications director for the Obama administration.
The 2024 presidential race is effectively even now, with the 538 aggregate giving Trump just a one-point advantage. Both camps need to persuade more voters into their corners to cement a win, but Biden even more so given Republicans' built-in advantage in the electoral college. And a candidate always wants the pool of voters they need to woo to be predisposed to supporting them in the first place.
For Biden, that means he wants those squishy Trump supporters to generally be younger, voters of color, people who view themselves as moderates, people who believe he won 2020 legitimately, and people who voted for him last time. That includes everyone from the poll who could be persuaded to vote for Biden if Trump is convicted.
Perhaps more importantly, CNN may have located the exact profile of the Trump supporters who have enough doubts about him to admit as much to a pollster. That alone suggests that they could be open to other Democratic arguments against Trump, so the Biden campaign could begin its persuasion efforts even before a verdict comes down.
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.
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Kari Lake
Arizona GOP candidate Kari Lake hopes to secure a US Senate seat this year with the help of her longtime ally — Donald Trump — but the ex-president's support isn't promised, according to The Washington Post.
In January, Arizona Republican Party Chairman Jeff DeWit abruptly resigned after Lake "warned that she would 'leak additional recordings of their private conversations.'
When she later publicly endorsed fellow MAGA supporter Gina Swoboda to replace DeWit during a Republican event, Lake "was met with 'boos and jeers as she took the stage.'"
The Postreports:
Trump’s top advisers were furious after a Lake ally released a recording of then-Arizona GOP Chairman Jeff DeWit encouraging her to stay out of the Senate race, which embarrassed the party chairman and led him to resign.
Trump was more surprised than angry when told about the January incident, according to three people familiar with his reaction. 'She tapes everything?' he asked, sitting in a New Hampshire hotel suite before taking the stage on the night he won that state’s primary. 'That’s good to know.'
Now, the newspaper reports, "Since Lake jumped into the race, Trump has repeatedly expressed skepticism about her political prospects in a state he sees as key to his bid to return to the White House, and has shown annoyance with her frequent presence at his Florida resort, according to five people close to him, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe his comments."
Furthermore, the Post notes the incident "killed any desire by some elected Republicans in the state to communicate with her, fearing they could be secretly recorded."
One top Arizona Republican told the Post, “Whether they end up voting for Kari Lake or not, they don’t trust her. They think they’re being recorded and it’s a running joke.”
The newspaper emphasizes, "So far, there has been no public schism between Trump and Lake, and the Senate candidate was at Mar-a-Lago again this month for a fundraiser. But Trump’s frustration with Lake has only increased over the past year, heightening the tension between the presumptive GOP presidential nominee and one of his most prominent followers — casting doubt on whether Republicans can present a sufficiently united front to win a key U.S. Senate contest and a presidential battleground state."
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
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South Dakota Republican Governor Kristi Noem‘s bragging about dragging her 14-month old puppy into a gravel pit and shooting it to death because she “hated” the dog is likely the end of her political career, right-wing pundits are now saying.
On Friday when The Guardianbroke the news in a preview of Noem’s upcoming book, outrage on the left was immediate, but outrage on the right trickled in, then increased. Even with Noem doubling down, declaring her killing of the puppy (and a goat that same day, same way) happened 20 years ago, people on the right are expressing anger.
A Democratic pollster says 81% of Americans oppose Noem killing her puppy, The Guardian later reported.
“After learning about Gov. Noem’s actions, only 14 percent consider her to be a good choice for vice president on the Republican ticket. By a 2:1 margin, even Republicans say the governor would not be a good choice (42 percent vs. 21 percent),” the pollster, New River Strategies, stated.
Noem’s book, No Going Back, to be released May 7, has a number one ranking at Amazon. Publisher Center Street, a Hachette Book Group imprint, also publishes other right-wing politicians including Ben Carson, Newt Gingrich, and Vivek Ramaswamy. Endorsing the book are other right-wingers, including Donald Trump, Fox News’ Rachel Campos-Duffy, athlete and anti-trans activist Riley Gaines, and anti-LGBTQ extremist group creator Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok.
On Monday, as Mediaite reported, two Fox News pundits had had it.
Jason Chaffetz, a former GOP Congressman, said, “she just destroyed her political career. I don’t think there’s anybody on any side of the aisle, any human being that thinks it’s acceptable to go to a gravel pit and shoot a dog in the face and kill it when it’s 14 months old. That’s. I mean, that’s just hideous. So she’s done politically, and I’m a friend of hers. I served with her, but politically, there’s no recovering from this.”
Fox News media analyst Joe Concha said, “as a dog owner my whole life,” the story of Noem shooting her dog “absolutely makes my blood boil.”
“How utterly heartless do you have to be to shoot a 14-month-old dog in the face? Because look, if it wasn’t doing its job on the farm, or is attacking chicken or people, okay, you’re a public figure, or at least you have a platform in some way, shape, or form. Even if you’re a private citizen, you very easily could have posted somewhere, ‘I’m putting my dog up for adoption because maybe it’s not working out here on the ranch,’ and I can guarantee you many people would have raised their hand to take that dog in,” Concha said, adding, “she just destroyed any chance she had of being Donald Trump’s vice president, if she had any chance at all. There’s no going back from this.”
Right wing talk show host Megyn Kelly said Trump is “too smart” to “pick somebody who’s managed to do the impossible and unite Democrats and Republicans alike in their anger for this woman who shot her puppy in the face.”
At the right wing National Review, Jeffrey Blehar writes: “Let’s Get a Warrant for Kristi Noem’s Backyard.”
“I guess I just don’t like people who boast about shooting puppies,” Blehar adds on social media. “And goats. And horses. And who knows what else, until cops have done an aerial scan of the property and gotten a backhoe out to excavate the suspicious piles of dirt.”
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Just two weeks after Donald Trump urged radical leftists to vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. this November—because “he’s got some nice things about him” and “I happen to like him”—he’s suddenly taking a different tack.
In the wake of new polling suggesting RFK Jr. would siphon more votes away from Trump than President Joe Biden, Trump is stablin’ and geniusin’ up a storm, taking to his perpetual prevarication platform Truth Social to knock the wind out of the independent candidate’s campaign. His latest tirade comes just days after Trump claimed RFK the Lesser could hurt both major party candidates but “he might hurt Biden a little bit more.”
On Friday night, as Trump dithered between wishing his wife a happy birthday or lauding South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem for her new and courageous puppy-murdering stance, he suddenly swung in an entirely different direction: claiming the guy he once praised as “very smart” and a “very good man” is actually a total disaster. And not because RFK Jr. would be forced to attend state dinners in a giant acrylic hamster ball to avoid infecting other world leaders with smallpox. No, it’s because Trump—and Republicans as a whole—are suddenly very nervous that Kennedy will loosen Trump’s once-reliable hold on the demon sperm vote.
As Daily Kos noted Tuesday, new polling from NBC News shows Kennedy support at 13 percent—but notably, he “picks up 15 percent of Trump's support in the head-to-head while attracting only 7 percent of Biden's original voters.” But that’s not all! In the Marist poll, Kennedy gains a point; and “17 percent of Trump voters threw their support behind Kennedy in this poll, compared to 11 percent of Biden voters.”
Which brings us to Friday’s panic.
“RFK Jr. is a Democrat ‘Plant,’ a Radical Left Liberal who’s been put in place in order to help Crooked Joe Biden, the Worst President in the History of the United States, get Re-Elected,” Trump groused, while accidentally acknowledging that Biden won the 2020 election. “A Vote for Junior’ would essentially be a WASTED PROTEST VOTE, that could swing either way, but would only swing against the Democrats if Republicans knew the true story about him. Junior’ is totally Anti-Gun, an Extreme Environmentalist who makes the Green New Scammers look Conservative, a Big Time Taxer and Open Border Advocate, and Anti-Military/Vet…”
Ah, but he wasn’t done. There were more meticulously crafted bons mots to come.
“Page 2: His Radicalized Family will never allow him to be a Republican, and his Chief ‘Funder’ is the V.P. Candidate that nobody ever heard of, except her ex-husband, who’s been stripped of a big chunk of cash. She puts herself down as a businesswoman, or maybe a doctor, and actually, I guess you could say that she’s right. Her business was doing surgery on her husband’s wallet! She’s more Liberal than Junior’ by far, not a serious person, and only a Pot of Cash to help get her No Chance Candidate on the Ballot…”
In other words, “You’re not the bonkers conspiracy candidate—I am!”
Trump wrapped things up by noting a preference for Biden over Kennedy, with the closer “Let the Democrats have RFK Jr. They deserve him!”
Trump’s latest rants represent a stark departure from what he was saying just last year, after it was revealed that former Trump adviser Steve Bannon had spent “months” recruiting RFK Jr. to run against Biden and serve as a “useful chaos agent.” In June of last year, when RFK Jr. was still running as a Democrat, Trump said he was a “very smart guy,” a “good guy,” and a “common sense guy.” He even lauded the Kennedy scion’s allegedly robust poll numbers, saying, “He’s a very good man and his heart is in the right place, and he’s doing really well! I saw a poll, he’s at 22. That’s pretty good.”
But what a difference a year makes.
[R]ecent polling broadly shows Kennedy drawing evenly from both of the major party candidates’ 2020 supporters. And Kennedy’s significantly higher favorable ratings among Republican voters suggests he has more room to eat into Trump’s vote share than Biden’s.
In addition, a POLITICO analysis of campaign finance data shows far more interest in Kennedy from former Trump donors than people who previously contributed to Biden.
“If the Trump campaign doesn’t see this as a concern, then they’re delusional,” Republican consultant Alice Stewart said. “They should be looking at this from the standpoint that they can’t afford to lose any voters — and certainly not to a third-party candidate that shares some of [Trump’s] policy ideas.”
Meanwhile, according to a POLITICO analysis, RFK Jr. has already poached at least $1.6 million from more than 1,700 donors who gave to Trump’s campaign in 2020.
As we all know, Trump will say—or do—literally anything to get elected and stay out of prison. Actually—who are we kidding?—he’d do literally anything for an extra slice of chocolate cake. After all, this is the guy who put the “lip” in “solipsist.” For instance, he’s been whingeing about the temperature in the courtroom where his hush-money “I-fucked-America” trial is being held. So now, in addition to having an incorrigible deadbeat client, his lawyers have to worry about being cut open like tauntauns and worn for the duration of the trial like one of Liberace’s chinchilla capes.
You’d think the media would pick up on this pattern and report on it accurately, but they need to pretend the Republican nominee somehow isn’t the worst sentient being in the history of the mulitverse. For instance, they might want to make it crystal clear to the electorate that this exact absurd lie from 2016 has now been proven false, based on former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker’s testimony in court this week:
Of course, even Trump knows better than to claim RFK Jr.’s dad partied with Lee Harvey Oswald, only because it would be too unbelievable, even for MAGAs—not because it would be so gobsmackingly gauche. But we’d be forgiven for thinking he’d do it if he thought it would help his campaign.
Fortunately, Trump may not be able to gaslight his way to the presidency this year—at least if you believe renowned election oracle Allan Lichtman, the American University professor who put us all off our oats in 2016 when he (correctly, it turned out) predicted Trump would defeat Hillary Clinton. Lichtman, who’s correctly predicted the results of nine of the past 10 presidential elections (and would have predicted Bush vs. Gore correctly if Republicans weren’t such big fans of cheating), now says Biden has the inside track on 2024.
While Lichtman hasn’t made his prediction official yet, he now says that based on his model, “a lot would have to go wrong for Biden to lose.”
So there you go. Sanity—and Biden—might just prevail again. Especially if the not-quite-so-sane vote gets split between those other two dudes.
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.
Lara Trump
Newly anointed RNC co-chair Lara Trump’s recent impassioned plea for folks to donate money, even if they currently don’t have any, would make P.T. Barnum blush.
“If you can’t afford a donation today,” said Lara, looking sleek and sophisticated in a dress that probably cost more than my car, “I ask that you save it for a later date. But if you could donate even as much as five dollars, it will go a long way.”
Here’s Lara Trump, metaphorically unfolding her tiny cardboard sign while standing on a median in the rain. If you don’t have even five bucks to donate, save up! You can do this! The young’uns can eat mayonnaise sandwiches for another month. Meemaw can skip a week of heart pills. For the love of all that’s holy, a BILLIONAIRE needs you to do your part! How can you sit idly by, selfishly keeping your lights on so you can heat some Dollar Tree Manwich on your one-working-burner stove?
Y’all disgust me. You can’t see me right now but I’m making the exact same face Trump would make if he ever heard Lara call him her “father in love.”
Do you seriously expect a (self) important billionaire like Donald Trump to pay his own astronomical legal bills for his many trials for his many-er misdeeds? Have you no compassion for this man who brags nonstop of his immense wealth? How is he supposed to sustain that lavish lifestyle without Other People’s Money?
Oh. You saw the golden toilets and now you expect him to pay his own bills? Well, you’re a monster is all I can figure out.
Unlike those downer ASPCA ads asking for donations, Lara Trump’s tone remains upbeat during the “ask.” Ironically, she’s obviously excited about the Biden economy: Five dollars will go a long way! Apparently, somebody loves growth envied by the rest of the world, eye-popping job gains, cooled inflation, record low unemployment and a booming stock market. (Yes, Fox News viewers, it’s true. Now back to your regularly scheduled “Let’s scare the hell outta anyone wanting to visit NYC.”)
Yes! Feel good about that five dollars but if you take a whack at the kids’ piggybanks you might bump it up to seven or eight dollars. THE CHILDREN SHOULDN’T BE EXEMPT! A billionaire is in need, and they can wait another year for a bicycle. Selfish parents beget selfish children. It’s hammer time!
I haven’t seen this kind of shameless, but utterly predictable, money-grabbing since I attended a tent revival years ago. The shiny-suited TV evangelist had preached a stemwinder for an hour or so, but it was time to shake down the faithful. With the organ music getting louder and louder (take note, Lara) he wiped his brow dramatically and assured us the money collected that sultry Southern evening would “go a long way.”
He told the assembled flock, primed and ready for fleecing, that if they’d sign over their paychecks (it was Friday in a textile town), they’d be “rewarded in heaven.” And people did it. I saw them. With my own eyes.
There’s an old saying, “Charity begins at home” that Lara Trump might want to pay attention to. I’m thinking of the roughly $500,000 donated to Trump’s campaign that was spent on Melania’s hairdresser and a fashion “advisor.” So far, a whopping $50 million donated to Trump’s 2024 campaign has gone directly to his lawyers.
It’s got to stick in the craw of even the most fervent supporter to know their hard-earned cash paid for Melania to find out whether she was a “spring” or “really more of a fall.”
At least with the Bible hawking you (eventually) get something tangible for your donation. Something you can put on display in your home and point to with…your finger. What? You thought I’d say “pride?” C’mon.
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
Former President Donald Trump in New York State Supreme Court on April 22, 2024
Former President Donald Trump and his allies often make their belief that the legal troubles he faces are all politically motivated.
In February, CBS News reported, "Polls show his supporters agree, with 66 percent of Republicans believing the legal cases against him have been handled unfairly. In contrast, 70 percent of Democrats feel Trump is being treated fairly."
In a Sunday, April 28 analysis, CNN senior political data reporter Harry Enten insists that based on current polling, the ex-president's legal issues aren't serving him well at all.
"Trump’s success might make you believe that he has turned the conventional wisdom on its head – that somehow, his legal troubles are helping him politically," Enten writes.
"And while that may have been true in the primary, the general election is a different ballgame," he continues, "There isn’t much of a sign that Trump’s legal woes are helping him among the wider electorate, even if they aren’t hurting him necessarily."
Enten reports President Joe "Biden has, if anything, been the one who has picked up ground over the last few months, as both men have clinched their respective parties’ nominations." The CNN reporter notes the president "was behind by about two points on average during the height of the Republican primary a few months ago."
Enten reports:
Take, for example, the New York hush money case. It’s clear from the data that most Americans don’t think Trump did something illegal. Just 33% of Americans do, according to the latest CNN/SSRS poll. Likewise, most Americans don’t think that if the charges were true that they would be disqualifying for the presidency.
In addition to that 33% who think Trump did something illegal, there’s another 33% who think he did something unethical, but not illegal, as it relates to his actions in the New York case. That’s two-thirds of the public who believe he did something wrong.
He emphasizes, "In fact, the people who are paying closer attention to Trump’s criminal cases are more likely to favor Biden than those who aren’t, according to polling from the Times."
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
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Public parks belong to the public, right? A billionaire can't cordon off an acre of Golden Gate Park for his private party. But can a poor person — or anyone who claims they can't afford a home — take over public spaces where children play and families experience nature?
That is the question now before the Supreme Court case, Grants Pass v. Johnson. Before going into particulars, note that both Republican and Democratic politicians think the answer should be "no." That leaves activists who support the right of "the homeless" to take over public property. They want a "yes."
The case is a challenge to a ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in San Francisco, that cities cannot evict "homeless" campers if there are more of them than the local shelters can accommodate. It stems from an ordinance issued by Grants Pass, Oregon, that strictly limits the opportunity to erect a home on public spaces. It forbids even wrapping oneself in a blanket while sitting or lying in public.
A conservative Ninth Circuit judge, Daniel Bress, issued an angry response to the ruling that, critics say, has actually encouraged the sprawling tent encampments tormenting the nine Western states in the court's jurisdiction. It's been noted that in the four years since the decision, homelessness in the states the Ninth Circuit covers grew by about 25% while falling in the rest of the country.
Bress urged the judges to just look out the windows of their San Francisco courthouse. They will see, he said, "homelessness, drug addiction, barely concealed narcotics dealing, severe mental health impairment, the post-COVID hollowing out of our business districts."
Gavin Newsom, Democratic governor of California, joins in the criticism. The Grants Pass decision, he says, has "impeded not only the ability to enforce basic health and safety measures, but also the ability to move people into available shelter beds and temporary housing."
The debate over the rights of the "homeless" has always stumbled over an agreed definition of the homeless population. Some may be families unable to meet rising rents. Some are mentally ill. Some are addicts, while others are "drug tourists." Some reject the accommodations at shelters, preferring to sleep under the stars.
Is the solution to let any of these groups take over parks where children play? Is it to let them visit squalor on the very business districts cities need to pay for public services, including theirs?
The city of Los Angeles holds that homeless camps deny pedestrians and the disabled use of the streets. Cities in Arizona have argued that the law is simply unworkable. The enormous encampment in Phoenix has reportedly cost Arizona millions of dollars and years of litigation.
Drawing lines isn't always easy. Can a city criminalize public urination by someone who doesn't have access to a toilet? What about lighting a fire to cook on? Addiction is not a crime, though it is constitutional to punish someone for using illegal drugs.
It may be necessary to dust off a term coined by John Kenneth Galbraith in the 1950s, though in a way the economist did not intend. It's the existence in this country of what he called "private affluence, public squalor." While the urban rich may have five acres at their country house for their kids to play on, their housekeepers' children have only public parks as their green playground.
We don't pretend here to have an answer for the homeless problem. Because the population is diverse, the answers must also be diverse. But one answer can't be to strip away the public's right to use the public spaces that ultimately belong to them.
Reprinted with permission from Creators.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
A series of polls released this week show Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s quixotic candidacy might attract more Republican-leaning voters in 2024 than Democrats. That may have been what prompted former President Donald Trump to release a three-post screed attacking him.
On Friday night, the 45th president of the United States set his sights on RFK Jr., insisting to his millions of followers that the independent presidential candidate is actually a "Radical Left Liberal" who was secretly working to help President Joe Biden's reelection campaign. He even attempted to assign Kennedy one of his patented nicknames: "Junior,'" notably with an unexplained apostrophe that he repeated throughout all three posts.
"A Vote for Junior' would essentially be a WASTED PROTEST VOTE, that could swing either way, but would only swing against the Democrats if Republicans knew the true story about him," Trump wrote.
"I lived with RFK Jr. in New York and watched him convince Governor Cuomo to make Environmental moves that were outright NASTY," he continued. "I’d even take Biden over Junior’, because our Country would last a year or two longer prior to collapse - But it would be dead either way."
"His Views on Vaccines are FAKE, as is everything else about his Candidacy," he added. "Let the Democrats have RFK Jr. They deserve him!"
The ex-president's rage toward RFK Jr. may be due to a new Quinnipiac poll that suggests his candidacy is more attractive to prospective Trump voters than Biden voters. That poll shows that while Trump is still slightly ahead of Biden in swing states, the two are in a dead heat nationally. And when RFK Jr. is thrown into the mix, Trump's vote share diminishes.
According to Axios, while Biden and Trump are tied in a head-to-head matchup with Kennedy on the ballot, Trump's share of votes is significantly larger when RFK Jr. isn't an option. This means that the independent's 2024 campaign could siphon off enough votes from Trump to push Biden over the edge in a close contest.
"That dynamic is consistent with two other polls — a Marist survey on Monday and a NBC News one on Sunday — that show Biden's margin increasing when RFK and other third party candidates are included," Axios reporter Hans Nichols wrote.
RFK Jr.'s appeal to Trump's base may be due to the conspiratorial tone of his campaign. Kennedy became well-known in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic as a vaccine skeptic. In the past, Kennedy has said he is personally "pro-vaccine" and that he's had all of his children vaccinated, but he sang a different tune on a 2021 podcast. CNN reported that in an episode of the "Health Freedom for Humanity" podcast, RFK Jr. encouraged parents to tell strangers to not vaccinate their kids.
"For many, many years, I think parents were so gaslighted, and they were scapegoated, and they were vilified and marginalized, so that even parents of kids who were very, very badly injured, knew what happened to their kid, but they were just reluctant to talk about it," he said. "And I think now those days are over."
Kennedy has also repeated Republican talking points about gun violence. In 2023, he told NewsNation that he viewed the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as reason to believe that gun control was a moot point, and added "I'm not going to take people's guns away."
"Anybody who tells you that they’re going to be able to reduce gun violence through gun control at this point I don’t think is being realistic," Kennedy said.
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
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Rupert Murdoch
With a net worth of nearly $20 billion, far-right media mogul Rupert Murdoch has deep enough pockets to settle with virtually any litigant — except one. And a failure to settle in this particular case could result in the 93-year-old being forced to testify under oath.
The Daily Beast recently reported that Prince Harry — also known as the Duke of Sussex — is still proceeding with his lawsuit against Murdoch over his alleged knowledge of a hacking and cover-up scandal involving News Group Newspapers (NGN), which is Murdoch's family of UK-based tabloids. Harry has so far refused to settle with Murdoch, meaning the suit could lead to a potentially humiliating public trial for Murdoch should plaintiffs prove he knew about illegal hacking practices.
"If true, these allegations would establish very serious, deliberate wrongdoing at NGN, conducted on an institutional basis on a large scale," presiding judge Mr. Justice Fancourt (the stylized title of English High Court judge Sir Timothy Fancourt) said. He added that proceedings could "establish a concerted effort to conceal wrongdoing."
Beast correspondent Clive Irving reported last year on the depth of the cover-up at former NGN publication News of the World, which Harry's lawyers uncovered during the discovery process. The Duke of Sussex's attorneys found that "[NGN] executives had wiped a trail of emails, destroyed hard drives and removed many boxes full of documents" relating to the hacking scandal.
The same lawyers representing Prince Harry in the suit also represented actor Hugh Grant, who, unlike Harry, settled out of court for what he referred to as an "enormous sum" with NGN. He emphasized that he "would love to see all the allegations they deny tested in court." However, he added that "the rules around civil litigation mean that if I proceed to trial and the court awards me damages that are even a penny less than the settlement offer I would have to pay the legal costs of both sides."
"Rupert Murdoch’s lawyers are very expensive," Grant said. "So even if every allegation is proven in court, I would still be liable for something approaching £10 million in costs. I’m afraid I am shying at that fence."
Harry's refusal to settle with Murdoch's tabloid empire could be a deliberate attempt to force the media mogul to testify, as the British royal has previously agreed to settle other lawsuits with publications involved in the hacking scandal. The Associated Press (AP) reported in February that Prince Harry settled with Mirror Group Newspapers over its own hacking practices.
"Phone hacking by British newspapers dates back more than two decades to a time when scoop-hungry journalists regularly phoned the numbers of royals, celebrities, politicians and sports stars and, when prompted to leave a message, punched in default passcodes to eavesdrop on voicemails," the AP explained. "The practice erupted into a full-blown scandal in 2011 when Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World was revealed to have intercepted messages of a murdered girl, relatives of dead soldiers and victims of a bombing. Murdoch closed the paper, and a former News of the World editor was jailed."
Prince Harry's lawsuit may not be the only one that results in a public trial with Murdoch on the witness stand. Earlier this year, a judge allowed voting software company Smartmatic's $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News to proceed, which is now in the discovery process. While Fox News was able to settle with Dominion Voting Systems last year for $787 million, Smartmatic attorney Erik Connolly said in 2023 he is "looking to take this case through trial" and that his clients want "the vindication of a jury verdict in their favor."
"We will be ready to defend this case surrounding extremely newsworthy events when it goes to trial, likely in 2025," a Fox News spokesperson said last year.
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
