Tag: Donald Trump

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Donald Trump Justice Department

Jack Smith Can Still Do Damage To Donald Trump – Here’s How

According to a report from NBC News, the Department of Justice and Special Counsel Jack Smith are seeking a way to “wind down” the two criminal cases against President-elect Donald Trump, meaning that he will likely face no consequences for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and improper handling of classified documents.

“Now that Trump will become president again, DOJ officials see no room to pursue either criminal case against him — and no point in continuing to litigate them in the weeks before he takes office, the people said.”

However, former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance and national security reporter Marcy Wheeler say that doesn’t mean that Smith can’t do serious damage to Trump as he closes out those cases.

Vance explained her thoughts on Substack, writing:

At the conclusion of a special counsel’s investigation, section 600.9(a)(3) of the Special Counsel Regulations requires the Attorney General to provide Congressional leadership with “a description, and explanation of instances (if any)” where the Attorney General overruled an action the special counsel wanted to take. That requirement would be triggered if Smith proposed moving forward despite DOJ policy against prosecuting a sitting president (there were earlier reports he intended to continue his work through inauguration day), and the Attorney General countermanded him because of existing policy. It’s hard to assess what value a report like that might have, beyond information and evidence Smith’s court filings have already made public. It would at least guarantee there would be a permanent public record that would survive Trump’s certain demand that the Justice Department kill the cases against him.

In other words, the cases might not move forward, but the investigation would still see the light of day, which could be a proverbial albatross around Trump’s neck. And that might weaken him politically as he moves forward with his extreme right-wing agenda. It could also serve as the basis for a new criminal prosecution after Trump leaves office.

National Security reporter Marcy Wheeler also pointed to the report Smith must write and submit to his superiors at the DOJ.

“According to governing regulations, when a Special Counsel finishes his work, he must write a report to the Attorney General.”

She added:

“By telling the press that Smith is already working on shutting down the cases, Smith pre-empts any effort from Trump to offer another solution — and does so before Trump files his response to the immunity brief on November 21.”

“In other words, this may be no more than an effort to get one more bite at the apple, to describe what Smith found, which would be particularly important if there are still undisclosed aspects of the case, as I suggested there might be.”

We’re all familiar with the adage, “He laughs last laughs loudest.” And it appears Jack Smith is on the verge of having one hell of a last laugh right as Trump is raising his hand and taking the oath of office next January.

 

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Donald Trump Editorial Elections

What Do We Tell Our Daughters Now?

I am a proud girl dad, and my daughter, Karina, is the light of my life.

It hasn’t been easy raising a child as a single father, and I still mourn the loss of Karina’s mother in a car accident when my little girl was only 2 years old.

Karina is now 16 and heading to college in less than two years. There, she plans to pursue a degree in veterinary science.

But after Donald Trump’s unexpected win last night in the presidential election, I’m struggling with questions Karina has already begun asking me this morning: What happened? Why didn’t Kamala Harris win? Can women ever hope to achieve the highest office in the United States? Do the majority of Americans consider women to be second-class citizens?

Looking at the returns from last night, including the Senate races in many states, it’s clear that fear and anger are now ascendant in this country. It’s politically beneficial to scapegoat others: People of color, people from other nations who have come to this country to seek a better life for their families, and members of the LGBTQ community.

It’s also clear that the majority of Americans seem to think that if you happen to be female, you can’t be trusted with issues of economics, foreign policy, and national security. For those complex issues, we have to elect a convicted rapist and sexual predator who has openly lusted after his daughter when she was only 13 years old simply because he’s male and good at lying with a straight face.

What the fuck, America?! Do we need to learn the same lesson about the dangers of electing incompetent leaders yet again? The last time we did, it cost us over a million of our fellow citizens while Trump mused about injecting bleach and using light “inside” our bodies to cure a deadly respiratory pandemic.

This is a very dark day in our nation’s history. But it won’t end us. We’re too strong for that. Millions of us have only just begun to resist and prepare for the next election, which is now less than two years away.

Karina and millions of girls just like her can count on one thing if nothing else in these uncertain times: You are more than capable of accomplishing all of your dreams, and one day that will include watching as a woman raises her right hand on Inauguration Day and becomes president of the United States. Tens of millions of girl dads won’t stop fighting until that becomes a reality.

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Donald Trump Elections Trump Supporters

Trump Supporters Threaten ‘10 Times Worse’ Than Jan. 6 If He Loses Again

If indeed Donald Trump becomes a two-time loser when the votes are counted later this evening, this country may not yet be free of his malevolent influence because some of his most devoted supporters are already threatening to stir up trouble.

Mother Jones editor David Corn recently spoke with Trump/MAGA acolytes at a rally the disgraced ex-president held in Reading, Pennsylvania, and many Trumpers said they won’t sit by quietly if their hero goes down in defeat.

“So if he doesn’t win, what do you think the reaction’s going to be?” Corn asked a supporter.

“Civil riot, civil war.”

Corn then asked, “Are you going to be a part of that?”

“Yeah, absolutely,” the supporter replied.

“In what way?” Corn inquired.

“I’m not talking anymore!”

Another Trump devotee revealed that he had done prison time for illegally entering the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and was eager to do so again.

“Will there be another January 6th?” Corn asked.

“It probably would be worse,” the man answered. “It would probably be ten times worse.”

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Donald Trump Editorial Elections Kamala Harris

The Choice 2024: Fascism Or Freedom

Here’s a hypothetical question for us all to consider as we sit and watch election returns later this evening: What would the men who created our form of self-governance think if they could tell us their thoughts on the state of this country in 2024?

They’d probably be shocked by how badly divided we are as a nation, but then again, many in the fledgling United States circa 1776 thought it would be a disaster for us to seek our independence from Great Britain.

But in the end, the logic and reason of men such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison won out, making it clear that we could only go forward, not retreat into the way things were just because such a path was easier to predict and less fraught with uncertainty.

So here we are, 248 years after the Declaration of Independence created this nation, eventually making us “the indispensable” country across the globe, a beacon of freedom and hope while at the same time being a nation rife with hatred, racism, and xenophobia.

The most basic question of the 2024 election is this one: Will we choose fascism or freedom?

Fascism, it should be noted, is defined as “a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition.”

Take a good look at that definition. Does it sound like anything the men who created this republic would in favor of seeing take hold? They had just broken away from England and it’s tyrannical king because he had his foot on the colonies and refused to listen to their pleas for fairness and a modicum of freedom.

Freedom is a word that means many things to many people. It is technically defined this way:

“The power or right to speak, act and change as one wants without hindrance or restraint. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of ‘giving oneself one’s own laws.'”]

Now consider the two candidates seeking the White House in this election cycle, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Which one best represents the ideals of freedom and which one has verbally expressed a desire to set the nation on a course of fascism?

Some suggest that calling 2024 the most important election in American history is a ridiculous exaggeration But is it? After all, one party seeks to impose restrictions on the decisions women make about their own bodies, which in many ways is the most fundamental freedom of all.

Freedom is a wonderful thing, but it is also incredibly fragile, as Benjamin Franklin reminded us when he was asked what form of government the new nation would have.

“A Republic, if you can keep it,” Franklin told a woman who inquired.

We can keep it. We have kept it for nearly 250 years and we stand at yet another inflection point in our history. Harris represents freedom while Trump promises fascism. But at the end of the day, the choice is ours, and we’d be wise to continue on the path of freedom or watch as this nation devolves into chaos, hatred, and dictatorial rule.

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Donald Trump Elections

Trump’s Campaign Is Fading Fast In The Final Days Of The 2024 Race – Here’s Why

We are now less than 48 hours away from the first returns of the 2024 election, and with the clock ticking, it’s clear that the campaign of former president Donald Trump is flailing, falling in the polls, and increasingly self-destructing in public as their candidate alienates more voters with every speech he gives.

But will it be optics that decide who is the 47th president of the United States, or could it come down to something much simpler?

As Bill Scher notes in an article he wrote for Washington Monthly, the way you win elections is with turnout. You get your voters to the polls in larger numbers than your opponent. And that requires a ground game of people making phone calls, knocking on doors, and making sure voters get to the polls or cast an absentee ballot.

For the Trump team, that’s the problem: Their ground game sucks.

“Over the past three months, several media outlets have filed reports on how well Trump’s unorthodox turnout army is performing. Most suggest it’s a five-alarm dumpster fire. “

The Harris team, on the other hand, is running like a well-oiled machine, and getting its voters to the polls in record numbers, as the early vote totals show.

“In mid-October, The New York Times examined the Harris and Trump turnout machines in several battleground areas. In Pennsylvania’s closely divided Erie County, reporters found debilitating infighting among Republican insiders and outside activists. In Kenosha, Wisconsin, Democrats had out-door-knocked Republicans by more than 8-to-1. In Arizona, neither Turning Point, America PAC, nor the Trump campaign would share updated information on how many houses they had contacted.”

Meanwhile, the Trump machine seems to be operating on the principles of grift and lies, which is ironic when you consider Donald has made a career out of those two vices.

“In Michigan, canvassers and paid door knockers for the former president, contracted by a firm associated with America PAC, have been subjected to poor working conditions: A number of them have been driven around in the back of a seatless U-Haul van, according to video obtained by WIRED, and threatened that their lodging at a local motel wouldn’t be paid for if they didn’t meet canvassing quotas. One door knocker alleges that they didn’t even know they were signing up for anything having to do with Musk or Trump.”

So what happened? Scher believes it was Trump’s mistaken belief that all he needed to do was appeal to his fanatical base supporters, ignoring the fact that he also needed crossover voters to win nationally because his core support has never gone beyond 47%, and that won’t put him in the White House.

“Why would Trump gamble the election on these untested rogues? In June, I surmised that a strategy based on juicing the base and ignoring the swing appealed to his innate narcissism because the latter would require rhetorical modulation or message discipline. Doing things the old-fashioned RNC way—with door-knocking efficiently concentrated in more densely populated areas where more swing voters live—meant behaving like a responsible adult. Following Kirk’s strategy of digging up stray MAGA voters in far-flung places allowed Trump to indulge in his darkest impulses.”

All of this suggests that it should come as no surprise to anyone (including the Trump camp) when Kamala Harris wins in a landslide.