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The Conversation -- August 27, 2024
⭐ Tierney Sneed of CNN: "Special counsel Jack Smith on Tuesday filed a superseding indictment in the election interference case against ... Donald Trump, slimming down the allegations against the 2024 presidential nominee in light of the Supreme Court's immunity ruling. Prosecutors have not dropped any of the four charges that they initially brought against the former president. However, the newly retooled indictment has carved out some of Trump's alleged conduct, including allegations about the attempts to use the Justice Department to promote his false claims of election fraud. It also adjusts how prosecutors describe the allegations they are continuing to bring about Trump's election subversion schemes. 'The superseding indictment, which was presented to a new grand jury that had not previously heard evidence in this case, reflects the Government's efforts to respect and implement the Supreme Court's holdings and remand instructions in Trump v. United States,' the special counsel's office said." ~~~
~~~ The Washington Post's story is here. Politico's report is here. The new indictment, via the court, is here. The original indictment filed about a year ago, also via the court, is here. As Kyle Cheney & Josh Gerstein of Politico write, "The new document also eliminates a long list of top government officials who had informed Trump that his claims about election fraud and anomalies were false, including top intelligence, Justice Department, homeland security officials and White House lawyers. Smith's original 45-page indictment, unveiled last August, included claims that Trump sought to use the Justice Department to advance ... an unlawful and fraudulent effort to overturn Joe Biden's victory. Those details, which the Supreme Court described as largely outside the reach of prosecutors, have been omitted from the new, shorter charging document."
Looneytoons for Trump Join Transition Team. Patrick Svitek of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump announced Tuesday he has added Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard to his transition team, giving key roles to two former Democrats who endorsed his comeback campaign in recent days.... 'We're working on policy issues together,' Kennedy told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. 'I've been asked to come onto the transition team, to help pick the people who will be running the government.'" The Hill's story is here.
Latest from Whiney Baby: I Will Debate. Patrick Svitek of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump said Tuesday he will participate in a debate next month against Vice President Kamala Harris, two days after he suggested he could skip it. 'I have reached an agreement with the Radical Left Democrats for a Debate with Comrade Kamala Harris,' Trump said on his Truth Social platform, confirming the debate will be Sept. 10 in Philadelphia. Trump agreed earlier this month to take part in the ABC News debate, which will be his first debate against Harris since she replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee. But Trump threw the debate into uncertainty Sunday when he criticized ABC as biased in a social media post and suggested people should 'stay tuned' about his participation. The campaigns spent Monday sparring over whether to preserve a rule from Trump's June debate against Biden where the candidates' microphones were muted when it was not their turn to speak.... Trump himself sent mixed messages [about the mic disagreement]...."
Trump Campaign Runs Vanity Ads. Sam Stein in the Bulwark: "Donald Trump's campaign is set to run cable news ads this week so they can be seen at the ex-president's Mar-a-Lago club and surrounding environs. The South Florida expense is likely to have no impact on the course of the election. Palm Beach County is a Democratic stronghold in a Republican state that Trump has little chance of losing. But Trump's staff is at some risk of incurring his wrath if he -- and his Palm Beach pals -- don't see his ads at Mar-a-Lago, a factor that insiders say compelled the purchase." Thanks to Akhilleus for the link. Also see his commentary in today's thread.
Charles Pierce of Esquire: "Well, luckily for the former president*'s campaign, it wasn't raining on Monday, when he grotesquely used Arlington National Cemetery as a campaign prop because, as we know, he gets a little nervous around soldiers' graves in the rain, and he says things that require him to lie his ass off later. Most recently, of course, he devalued the Congressional Medal of Honor in favor of a bauble he draped on Rush Limbaugh and the wife of one of the sleaziest of his sleazy donors.... As a citizen of the United States, and therefore someone with a stake in places like Arlington, I choose to look upon his presence there as obscene."
Arkansas. Annie Gowen of the Washington Post: "In a state that touts itself as 'the most pro-life state in the country,' where abortion is prohibited except to save the life of the mother, timber country in southeast Arkansas is an especially dangerous place to give birth. Arkansas already has one of the nation's worst maternal mortality rates, and mothers in this area die at a rate exceeding the state average. Ninety-two percent of recent maternal deaths were preventable, a state review committee found."
In today's Comments, RAS provides us with a handy rapid response to Trump's complaint that Biden & Harris flubbed the Afghanistan withdrawal. See Michael Gold's NYT story linked below; see also NiskyGuy's commentary in today's thread: ~~~
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Presidential Race
Don't get too excited, by Kamala Harris's poll numbers keep getting better. Domenico Montanaro of NPR reports.
Mariana Alfaro & Niha Masih of the Washington Post: "More than 200 Republicans who worked for President George W. Bush, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) or the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) have endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, warning in a letter that a second Trump presidency 'will hurt real, everyday people and weaken our sacred institutions.'... The letter is not only supportive of Harris but critical of Trump. In it, the Republican alumni say Trump presents a threat to the United States and countries around the world, saying that he and his 'acolyte,' running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), 'kowtow to dictators like [Russian President] Vladimir Putin while turning their backs on our allies....'" ~~~
~~~ Selena Wang of ABC News: "General Larry Ellis, a retired four-star general who served in that rank under George W. Bush's administration, is endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris in a letter exclusively obtained by ABC News. This is the first time Ellis, who served as the commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command, has endorsed a presidential candidate, writing that 'this is not a decision I take lightly, but one I believe necessary.... Donald Trump has demonstrated that he is wholly and dangerously unfit for Commander-in-Chief. He praises and emboldens our enemies that seek to weaken our country. He has denigrated our brave men and women in uniform,' Ellis writes."
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 played (11:20 am ET Monday) 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. Daniels' story has been updated to reflect Trump's remarks. (Also linked yesterday.) And here's a print report by Kristen Holmes of CNN and others about Trump's "debate" with his own campaign about the rules of the debate. ~~~
~~~ Say, here's an issue the unfair moderators could ask Trump during the debate: ~~~
~~~ Show Us the Money. Steve Benen of MSNBC is wondering, "Shouldn't Trump release his latest tax returns right about now?... In May 2014 ... Trump promised to release his tax returns if he became a candidate.... In the years that followed, Trump ignored the modern bipartisan tradition, kept his tax returns hidden, broke a variety of promises related to transparency, and fought tooth and nail to keep the information from the public.... To simply not ask Trump about his recent tax returns -- putting him to peddle yet another round of dubious claims about IRS audits that are probably imaginary -- is to go easy on a major-party nominee for no reason. Indeed, the partisan asymmetry matters. On July 21, President Joe Biden announced that he would end his re-election campaign, and one week later, Vice President Kamala Harris released her tax returns from the previous 20 years."
Sahil Kapur of NBC News: "Kamala Harris is endorsing trillions of dollars in new tax revenues to fund her new policy plans, and her campaign is attacking Donald Trump for failing to outline how he'd pay for the multitrillion-dollar agenda he's campaigning on. Harris campaign spokesperson James Singer labeled Trump's agenda 'an inflation and deficit bomb'..., sparking a Trump campaign response blaming her for a 'Biden-Harris inflation tax.' According to nonpartisan estimates, Harris is proposing to spend about $2 trillion and raise $5 trillion in tax revenues over a decade. Trump is calling for about $5 trillion in tax breaks and spending while raising less than $3 trillion in revenue through tariffs. 'Hands down, VP Harris is being much more fiscally disciplined than President Trump,' said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics."~~~
~~~ Marie: When I was in first grade or before, I learned that if -- like Harris -- you had five apples and you ate two of your apples, you'd still have three apples. I don't think it was till I was in junior high that I was confronted with the complexity & curiosity of negative numbers: what if -- like Trump -- you had only three apples; could you eat five apples? Maybe Trump is just a more sophisticated mathematician than Harris, or maybe he's a macroeconomics whiz (his uncle taught engineering at MIT, which Trump has repeatedly cited as proof of his own very good brain), or maybe all those bankruptcies of his have caused him to think negative numbers are just fine.
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." (Also linked yesterday.)
Michael Gold of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump wrapped himself in military imagery on Monday, attacking the Biden administration over its withdrawal from Afghanistan. Observing the third anniversary of a deadly suicide bombing in Kabul, the Afghan capital, he visited Arlington National Cemetery, then later spoke in Detroit to a gathering of National Guard members. During his remarks in Detroit, at a conference for the National Guard Association of the United States, Mr. Trump blamed President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for the bombing and America's chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, which he argued led to the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine.... He repeated his promise to demand the resignations of senior military officials involved in the withdrawal. He also repeated his insistence that he could bring the wars in Ukraine and Gaza to an end immediately after being elected, though he has yet to offer specific plans for doing so."
Amanda Marcotte of Salon: "Despite much of the press carrying Donald Trump's water by accepting his feeble attempts to pretend to be 'moderate' on abortion, he showed his true colors again last week. In an interview with CBS News, the GOP candidate insisted he had 'no regrets' about ending abortion rights by appointing three justices hand-picked by the Federalist Society to overturn Roe v. Wade.... Democrats offer Republicans one chance after another to vote for birth control rights, and every time, Republicans vote against it. Increasingly, major MAGA leaders are admitting out loud that they are coming for birth control.... [JD] Vance's comments about 'cat ladies' must be understood through this anti-contraception lens. One in 4 women will have an abortion at some point in life, but contraception use is near-universal. Over 99% of sexually experienced women have used birth control.... The Harris campaign is going hard on the reproductive rights issue this election, forefronting both the ongoing health crisis caused by abortion bans and warning the public the Republicans are just getting started."
Don't let Kamala Harris fool you. Not only does Harris support taxing service workers' tips, news reports confirm Biden and Harris have weaponized the IRS to confiscate your tip money. Biden and Harris have literally unleashed the IRS to harass workers who receive tips. -- Voiceover in Trump campaign ad released Sunday
... the Trump campaign claims Harris can't be trusted on her no-tax tip plan because the IRS proposed a plan to streamline three programs to help employers calculate tip income. But the proposal has been shelved. So, leaving aside the exaggerations about what the proposal would do, it's simply false to claim Harris 'literally unleashed the IRS to harass workers who receive tips.' -- Glenn Kessler, Washington Post
Rich Lowry, editor of the right-wing National Review, infamous for writing a New York Times op-ed about getting a hard-on (okay, he described "little starbursts" on account of the Gray Lady) when Sarah Palin spoke at the 2008 RNC, has written another hilarious op-ed for the Times, this time arguing that Donald Trump can win the election on character; that is, on which candidate is "qualified, trustworthy and strong, and does he or she care about average Americans[.]... Everything has to be connected to the deeper case that Ms. Harris is weak and a phony and doesn't truly care about the country or the middle class." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Perhaps in our infinite universe, there is a sort-of parallel planet out there where (a) Republicans are the serious people, (b) Donald Trump is indeed a man renowned for his fine character, and (c) Rich Lowry is a beloved stand-up comedian. Clearly, there is no possibility of (a) or (b) here on Earth I, but as for (c) -- Lowry has potential. What a card!
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.'" (Also linked yesterday.)
Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "Members of the newly formed House task force on the attempted assassination of ... Donald J. Trump took one of their first investigative steps on Monday, traveling to the site of the shooting in Butler, Pa., to scrutinize the scene.... But even as the Republicans and Democrats said they were pushing ahead on their bipartisan investigation, authorized last month by a unanimous vote of the House, a small but vocal band of right-wing lawmakers who have circulated conspiracy theories about the shooting said they were conducting their own simultaneous inquiry.... [Rep. Eli] Crane [R-Az.] has made the baseless suggestion that the shooting was part of a coordinated campaign by Democrats or shadowy government actors to stop Mr. Trump from being re-elected. [Rep. Cory] Mills [R-Fla.] has said that he had a hard time believing the security breaches that preceded the assassination attempt were not 'intentional as opposed to fecklessness.'" ~~~
~~~ Marie: This reminds me of my childhood when on the Saturday morning kiddies' movie show at our local theater, cartoons accompanied every feature.
Juliegrace Brufke of Axios: House Republicans, including leadership, are upset that one of their wingier wingnuts, like Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Andy Biggs (Az.), or Anna Luna (Fla.), will force a vote on impeaching President Biden. To spare House members in toss-up districts, Republicans tell Axios the impeachment vote will be a massive fail. ~~~
~~~ Besides, House Republicans are very, very busy with other urgent matters: ~~~
~~~ Rebecca Beitsch & Emily Brooks of the Hill: "House Republicans, who had spent much of the past 3 1/2 years investigating President Biden..., have launched a series of investigations into Vice President Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.... [They] are now re-aiming their congressional firepower at Harris's limited role in migration and border policy and Walz's China ties.... In the weeks since Biden dropped his reelection bid, some GOP committees have made a noticeable stylistic change to their press releases and letters, adding '-Harris' to many products that previously criticized only the 'Biden administration.'"
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. (Also linked yesterday.)
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." (Also linked yesterday.)
Zachary Cohen of CNN: "An Arizona judge has set a trial date of January 5, 2026, for allies of ... Donald Trump charged for a criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.... The Arizona case is now the only criminal case related to the 2020 election -- at either the state or federal level -- to currently have a trial date on the calendar as other separate efforts to similarly prosecute Trump and his allies in other jurisdictions all face uncertain futures. Several defendants, including conservative attorney John Eastman and multiple Arizona Republicans who served as fake electors, were present in the courtroom for a hearing Monday. Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Christina Bobb..., the top lawyer for the RNC on election integrity, joined the hearing virtually."
Miriam Jordan, et al., of the New York Times: "A federal judge in Texas temporarily blocked on Monday a Biden administration program that could offer a path to citizenship for up to half a million undocumented immigrants who are married to U.S. citizens, ruling in favor of 16 Republican-led states that sued the administration. Judge J. Campbell Barker of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas [-- a Trump appointee --] issued an administrative stay that stops the administration from approving applications, which it started accepting last week, while the court considers the merits of the case. In suspending the initiative, Judge Barker said that the 67-page complaint filed on Friday by the coalition of states, led by Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas, raised legitimate questions about the authority of the executive branch to bypass Congress and set immigration policy.... The administration can continue to accept applications for the program, but can no longer approve them, according to the order. The suspension initially remains in place for 14 days while the parties submit arguments in the case; it could be extended." The CBS News story is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: You can bet that if Trump is elected, his administration will use these applications to round up the applicants and deport them, tearing them away from their families.
Brad Dress of the Hill: "U.S. Army Pvt. Travis King is expected to plead guilty to several charges the military has brought against him, according to his lawyer. King was deployed to South Korea but expected to return home in July 2023, when he ran into North Korea during a tour of a town on the border. King, who is charged with 14 counts for an array of alleged offenses, will plead guilty to five of those charges on Sept. 20 before a military judge in Fort Bliss, Texas, according to his attorney, Franklin Rosenblatt. After pleading guilty at a general court-martial to those counts, which include desertion, the Army will drop the other charges he is accused of, Rosenblatt added."
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Georgia Elections. Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: "Democrats sued the Georgia state election board on Monday, arguing that measures approved by the board this month seeking to alter the election certification process in the state were illegal and could create chaos on Election Day. The lawsuit claims that the board intended to give local election officials a broad license to 'hunt for purported election irregularities of any kind, potentially delaying certification and displacing longstanding (and court-supervised) processes for addressing fraud.' The lawsuit was filed in state court by local election officials, political candidates, the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Party of Georgia with support from Vice President Kamala Harris's presidential campaign.... In a statement announcing the lawsuit, Democrats pointed to praise that members of the state election board received from Mr. Trump, and recalled the Trump effort to overturn the result in Georgia in 2020.... Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state, chastised the state election board this month, stating that the last-minute changes were undermining confidence in elections and risking the integrity of the election." ~~~
~~~ Rachel Maddow said last night that Georgia's governor, Brian Kemp (R), has asked the state's attorney general to determine whether or not he, Kemp, has the power to replace members of the state's board of elections.
Texas Elections. Crystal Hill of Democracy Docket: "Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) announced Monday the state has removed over [more than!] one million people from its voter rolls since Republican legislators passed a sweeping voter suppression law three years ago.... In 2021, Abbott signed Senate Bill 1, a package of anti-voting measures including one that criminalizes ballot harvesting and another that requires the Secretary of State to conduct audits of elections every two years. The laws, passed in the wake of the 2020 election, were met with fierce opposition from pro-voting groups and Democratic Texas legislators. A lawsuit filed against Abbott over the legislation in September of 2021 is ongoing." MB: In February 2024, the Texas Secretary of State reported that Texas had almost 18 million voters on its rolls.
Texas Elections, Ctd. Marie: I linked this New York Times story yesterday, about Ken Paxton's brownshirts "voter integrity unit" raiding the homes of Latino voting activists, most of whom were Democrats. Here's one case worth highlighting: ~~~
~~~ Brad Reed of the Raw Story: "An 87-year-old Texas woman who complained about local seniors not being sent mail-in ballots had her house raided by officers for the state's election integrity unit. The New York Times reported that Lidia Martinez, a retired educator who lives in San Antonio, was shocked last week when officers came to her house at 6 a.m. and informed her that they were searching her residence because she had filed a complaint about residents in her area [not] getting their mail-in ballots. Martinez says she's spent decades volunteering with the League of United Latin American Citizens to help seniors in the Latino community register themselves to vote.... The officers at her house asked to see the voter registration cards that she had collected. After informing them that she didn't have them at her house, they proceeded to search the property and left with her laptop, her phone and some documents."
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Israel/Palestine, et al. The New York Times' live updates of developments Tuesday in the Israel/Hamas war are here.
Ukraine, et al. Marc Santora of the New York Times: "There are many ways to kill and be killed in Russia's war with Ukraine, but Ukrainian soldiers say that glide bombs are perhaps the most terrifying. They are free-fall bombs, many left over from the Soviet era, but now outfitted with pop-out wings that feature satellite navigation, turning them into guided munitions. Referred to alternatively as 'KABs' or 'FABs,' they weigh between 500 and 6,000 pounds and are packed with hundreds of pounds explosives. A single blast can reduce a high-rise apartment building to rubble and obliterate even concrete fortifications.... In recent months, Russia has used the bombs to devastating effect, tilting the balance of fighting in eastern Ukraine in Moscow's favor and allowing Russia to continue to make steady gains in Donetsk region. The bombs have also allowed Russian forces to raze whole towns and villages with ever greater speed."
News Lede
New York Times: "Italian authorities have opened a formal investigation into the actions of James Cutfield, the captain of the superyacht that sank last Monday off the coast of Sicily, killing seven of the 22 people on board, including British tech billionaire Mike Lynch. Mr. Cutfield is under investigation for possible manslaughter and to determine whether his actions negligently caused the shipwreck, said his lawyer, Aldo Mordiglia."
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