The Conversation -- August 26, 2024
Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "Federal prosecutors began their bid to resurrect the moribund classified documents case against ... Donald J. Trump on Monday, telling an appeals court in Atlanta that the trial judge had improperly thrown out the charges. In a filing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, the prosecutors argued that the judge, Aileen M. Cannon, erred last month when she handed down a bombshell ruling that dismissed the case on the grounds that Jack Smith, the special counsel who brought it, had been appointed to his job illegally. The ruling by Judge Cannon, who was placed on the bench by Mr. Trump, stunned many legal experts for the way that it upended 25 years of Justice Department practice and flew in the face of previous court decisions about the appointments of special prosecutors reaching back to the Watergate era.
"Issued on the first day of the Republican National Convention..., Judge Cannon's ruling also gave him a major legal victory at an auspicious political moment.... 'The district court's contrary view conflicts with an otherwise unbroken course of decisions, including by the Supreme Court, that the attorney general has such authority,' the prosecutors wrote, 'and it is at odds with widespread and longstanding appointment practices in the Department of Justice and across the government.'" Politico's report, by Josh Gerstein & Kyle Cheney, is here.
Holly Bailey of the Washington Post: "Attorneys for Donald Trump pressed a Georgia appellate court to remove Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) from the 2020 election interference case, accusing her of 'repeated public display of racial animus' toward the former president and his co-defendants, which they contend has jeopardized Trump's right to a fair trial.... Trump's attorneys ... accused Willis of using [a January 2024] speech [at a historic Black church in Atlanta,] and other public remarks to falsely depict Trump, his co-defendants and their attorneys as racists."
Amy Wang of the Washington Post: Robert "Kennedy [Jr.]'s latest bizarre story involving a dead animal has prompted a push by one environmental group to look into whether Kennedy committed felonies if he did indeed saw off a whale's head and strap it to the roof of his car. In a letter Monday to government officials, the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund requested that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) open an investigation into whether Kennedy violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act.... According to Town & Country magazine, Kennedy once heard that a dead whale had washed up on Squaw Island in Hyannis Port and 'ran down to the beach with a chainsaw, cut off the whale's head, and then bungee-corded it to the roof of the family minivan for the five-hour haul back to Mount Kisco, New York.' 'Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,' Kick Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy's daughter, told the magazine then. 'We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us.'"
Eugene Daniels of Politico: "With just 15 days left until the scheduled Sept. 10 presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and ... Donald Trump, negotiations between their two campaigns have hit an impasse over whether the candidates' microphones will be muted when it is not their turn to speak, according to four people familiar with the issue." MB: CNN just played (11:20 am ET) some sound of Trump's saying he didn't care whether the mics were on or off during Harris' remarks. IOW: Whatever passes from his very good brain to his motor mouth at any given moment.
Tom Sullivan of Hullabaloo: "Donald Trump has grumbled his entire adult life that 'the world' is laughing at 'us' (meaning the United States). Mr. Bundle of Insecurities harbors deep anxieties about being laughed at himself. He's not very bright. He's undereducated. He's overweight. He's a 'tycoon' who sucks at business and cheats at golf. He got where he is with daddy's money. Underneath the bluster and bullying in recesses of his psyche he dare not explore (self-examination is for the weak), he knows it.... Michael Tomasky at The New Republic [writes]: 'Harris's campaign so far has been a work of genius on several levels, but maybe the most ingenious stroke of all has been the decision to mock Trump -- to present him not only as someone to fear, but also to ridicule....' Trump the Cowardly Bully needs to be respected and feared. Calling him a fascist or an authoritarian empowers him, feeds his ego;. In his mind, it brings him one step closer to admission to the brotherhood of dictators whose acceptance he most desperately desires. 'Sustained ridicule has the potential to reinforce the downward spiral Trump is now in,' Tomasky writes. He fears being laughed at? Pummel him with guffaws."
Presidential Race
If It Talks Like a Chicken... Marianne LeVine of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump suggested Sunday evening that he might skip a Sept. 10 ABC News debate with Vice President Kamala Harris (D), after agreeing to participate ... earlier this month. 'I watched ABC FAKE NEWS this morning, both lightweight reporter Jonathan Carl's (K?) ridiculous and biased interview of Tom Cotton (who was fantastic!), and their so-called Panel of Trump Haters, and I ask, why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?' Trump asked in a social media post Sunday evening. The Sept. 10 debate is the only one that both campaigns have officially committed to with a network."
⭐The Biggest, Lyingest Buffoon in American History. Isaac Arnsdorf, et al., of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump came [to the border near Montezuma Pass, Arizona,] on Thursday to heap praise on the structure standing to his right -- 'the Rolls-Royce of walls,' he called it -- and lament the unused segments lying to his left. Joining him there, Border Patrol union leader Paul A. Perez called the standing fence 'Trump wall' and [the unused pieces] 'Kamala wall.'... Those labels were inaccurate. This section of 20-foot steel slats was actually built during the administration of President Barack Obama. Trump added the unfinished extension up the hillside, an engineering challenge that cost at least $35 million a mile. The unused panels of 30-foot beams were procured during the Trump administration and never erected." (Also linked yesterday.)
Tom Boggioni of the Raw Story: "Moments after Vice President Kamala Harris concluded her acceptance speech..., Trump was on the phone with [Bret Baier] of Fox News taking potshots at [his] November opponent. That phone call was marred by what appeared to be the former president fumbling with his phone and dragged on to the point where the Fox hosts ended the call which, in turn, had other Fox personalities laughing.... [Sunday] on Truth Social, [Trump] wrote: 'Bret Baier of FoxNews called me, I didn't call him, just prior to the Kamala Convention speech, and asked me if I would like to critique her after she is finished. I agreed to do so!...' He then claimed he is much in demand and labeled himself a 'Ratings Machine.'"
Peter Bergen of CNN: "In his blistering, insightful [new book about] his time in the Trump White House, [Lt. Gen. H.R.] McMaster describes meetings in the Oval Office as 'exercises in competitive sycophancy' during which Trump's advisers would flatter the president by saying stuff like, 'Your instincts are always right' or, 'No one has ever been treated so badly by the press.' Meanwhile, Trump would say 'outlandish' things like, 'Why don't we just bomb the drugs?' in Mexico or, 'Why don't we take out the whole North Korean Army during one of their parades?'... McMaster writes that [Secretary of State Rex] Tillerson and [Secretary of Defense James] Mattis viewed Trump as 'dangerous' and seemed to construe their roles as if 'Trump was an emergency and that anyone abetting him was an adversary.' Trump himself also contributed to the dysfunction: 'He enjoyed and contributed to interpersonal drama in the White House and across the administration.'... McMaster does give Trump his due for some sound foreign policy decisions [on Syria and China].:
Trump Angers His Base. Jessica Piper of Politico: "Donald Trump attempted to strike a new tone on the issue of abortion this week, saying he would be 'great for women and their reproductive rights' -- to the frustration of anti-abortion advocates. The former president invoked the phrase in a post on Truth Social on Friday, reflecting his campaig's frenzied attempt to
~~~ Marie: Lila Rose, who founded the anti-abortion group Live Action, called Trump's statement :not principled." Donald Trump has never suffered a principled moment in his life. Only an idiot would -- after all these years -- suddenly complain about his being "not principled."
The Big Grifter. Juleanna Glover, a GOP consultant, in a New York Times op-ed: "Federal Election Commission campaign disclosure reports from 2020 show that much of the money donated to the Trump campaign went into a legal and financial black hole reportedly controlled by Trump family members and close associates. This year's campaign disclosures are shaping up to be the same.... During the 2020 election, almost $516 million of the over $780 million spent by the Trump campaign was directed to American Made Media Consultants, a Delaware-based private company.... How A.M.M.C. spent the money was a mystery even to Mr. Trump's campaign team.... None of the expenses were itemized or otherwise explained aside from anodyne descriptions, including 'placed media.'...: Two of the people involved in setting up & running the scam media consultancy? Jared Kushner & Lara Trump.
Marie: You may recall Gail Collins' concerns about Mitt Romney's putting the family dog in a carrier on the roof of the car for a 12-hour drive to their vacation cottage on Lake Huron. The poor setter was so distraught, it got diarrhea, first detected when the kids noticed, ah, something, dribbling down the vehicle's back window. Collins mentioned the dog-on-the-roof-of-the-car at least 70 times during the 2008 & 2012 election cycles. Well, RAS has found a similar but BETTER! election-season story. Suddenly, you begin to appreciate Romney as the most "normal/not weird" GOP presidential candidate of the century. (Also linked yesterday.)
Ben Blanchet of the Huffington Post: "Kerry Kennedy, sister of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., declared that her father would've 'detested almost everything' Donald Trump represents as she slammed her brother for endorsing the former president on Friday. 'I'm outraged and disgusted by my brother's gaudy and obscene embrace of Donald Trump,' she told MSNBC host Jen Psaki on Sunday.... She told Psaki that a number of Kennedy family members are backing Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz whereas Trump is a 'threat to most basic freedoms that are core to who we are' as Americans." ~~~
~~~ Michael Sainato of the Guardian: "Max Kennedy, the brother of Robert F Kennedy Jr, has implored the public to ignore his sibling’s decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential election and endorse Donald Trump's campaign to return to the White House. In an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, Max Kennedy said 'Trump was exactly the kind of arrogant, entitled bully' that his father, former US senator and attorney general Robert F Kennedy, stood against before he was assassinated in 1968 as he pursued the Democratic presidential nomination. Max Kennedy predicted his father would have admired the Democratic nominee for November's election, Vice-President Kamala Harris, because she was a former prosecutor as well. 'Her career, like his, has been all about decency, dignity, equality, democracy and justice for all,' Max Kennedy wrote."
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I checked with Dante & Virgil, and there is a special place in hell for Ken Paxton. ~~~
~~~ Texas. Edgar Sandoval of the New York Times: "A Latino civil rights group is asking the Department of Justice to open an investigation into a series of raids conducted on Latino voting activists and political operatives as part of sprawling voter fraud inquiry by the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton. The League of United Latin American Citizens, one of the nation's oldest Latino civil rights organizations, said that many of those targeted were Democratic leaders and election volunteers, and that some were older residents. Gabriel Rosales, the director of the group's Texas chapter, said that officers conducting the raids took cellphones, computers and documents. He called the raids 'alarming' and said they were an effort to suppress Latino voters. In a statement last week, Mr. Paxton, a Republican, described the raids, carried out in counties near San Antonio and South Texas, as part of an 'ongoing election integrity investigation' that began two years ago to look into allegations of election fraud and vote harvesting."
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Venezuela. Julie Turkewitz of the New York Times: "One of Venezuela's top election officials, in a declaration sure to jolt the crisis-weary nation, said in an interview that he had no proof that Venezuela's authoritarian president won last month's election. Since the July 28 vote, governments around the world have expressed skepticism, and even outright disbelief, over President Nicolás Maduro's claim to victory. But the statement by Juan Carlos Delpino -- a member of the government body that announced Mr. Maduro's win -- represents the first major criticism from inside the electoral system. Speaking on the record to a reporter for the first time since the vote, Mr. Delpino said he 'had not received any evidence' that Mr. Maduro actually won a majority of the vote."
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Reader Comments (10)
Well we knew this was going to happen…
Brave Sir Donald runs away! He scarpers. As usual.
“Debates that aren’t rigged in my favor are very unfair to Brave Sir Donald.”
I dunno about you kids, but I for one am so happy to hear Fat Donald finally talking about things that matter to all Americans, kitchen table topics, like the fact that he didn’t call Fox…Fox called HIM! That he’s a “ratings machine”! That he had bigger crowds than Martin Luther King! Talking about nuclear war, and John Carl (sic) being mean to that nice Tom Cotton. About how not taxing tips was HIS idea FIRST!
See, I was really worried about that phone call thing. I said to my wife, “Do you really think Trump called Fox, or did they call him?”
Finally, a candidate who talks about important stuff. And who has fun with milk!
"If you donated $100 to the t**** 2020 campaign, $66 of your dollars are unaccounted for."
@NiskyGuy: There's no way to prove or disprove the grift effect, but it would be perfect karma if Trump lost the 2020 election precisely because he was too greedy to spend most of his campaign donations on, well, campaign stuff.
Anyhow, since it's not my money going into the Trump Dark Hole, I do hope he's pulling the same stunt now.
Akhilleus,
And then Newsmax immediately called him up after he did not get bumped off air on Fox News. Very in demand.
@RAS: Your surmise is well-taken (and funny!), but it does require thinking past the original lie ("Fox was begging me to call in because I'm a ratings machine") to his secondary implication ("And of course Newsmax was holding on Line 2").
Luckily for Trump, his supporters are too damned dumb to work out a two-parter.
If one were to look at the Fatty for Dictator campaign empirically, the low expenditures on actual campaigning (as opposed to grifting and chiseling) almost exactly match the low energy and scant appearances as Trump instead is occupied with one of the few things he actually does do well: cheating at golf.
Trump campaign do-bees are hard at work trying to pry that fat fuck off his custom golf cart (with the heavy duty, post factory suspension put in place to cart around all that jiggling blubber) in order to get him back in some kind of campaign shape. Instead, he’s wandering around, golfing, rage tweeting, spending time making up vile nicknames and wondering why life has been so cruel and unfair to him.
Cheating at golf is presidential to TFG.
"Donald Trump has arrived at his Palm Beach, Florida, resort for the 31st golf vacation there of his presidency, raising the taxpayer-funded travel and security total for his hobby to $151.5 million, according to a HuffPost analysis.
Trump has already played golf on his own properties 289 times since taking office in January 2017, "
Hitler never said “Baby”!
Apropos of the article Marie links about ridiculing tyrants, I immediately thought of that scene in Mel Brooks’s masterpiece of despot derision, “The Producers”, in which a wild Dick Shawn has Hitler saying “I lieb ya, baby!” much to the consternation of the helmeted Nazi author who complains “Vas is dis ‘baby’? Der Fuhrer never said ‘baby’!”
As Brooks once pointed out, “Nothing can burst the balloon of pomposity and dictatorial rhetoric better than comedy. Comedy brings religious persecutors, dictators and tyrants to their knees faster than any other weapon.”
In almost the same way we now see the “authors” of Trump screaming that he never said stuff he actually did say.
Ridicule and satire work far better than trying to debate points of democracy and truth with that lying fat fuck, would be dictator.
While Harris lays out some of the basic policy points of her administration, she shouldn’t forget to keep sticking it to Herr Trumpelthinskin.
And his asocial cat lady Sancho Panza, the PoT’s latest Sarah Palin.
Jack Smith
"Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith urged a federal appeals court Monday to reinstate the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump by arguing the prosecution team was appointed correctly."