Mark Mitchell, a pollster who works for the conservative Rasmussen polling organization, warned Thursday that recent surveys show that American voters are “less likely” to vote for a Republican candidate than they were just a year ago.
During an appearance on former Trump administration adviser Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, Mitchell noted that President Joe Biden’s poll numbers had risen considerably over the summer and Democrats have also made up significant ground in the generic congressional ballot. Once down by as much as 10 points, the two parties are almost even.
Mitchell also told Bannon:
“Look at the question. If the midterm elections were held today, would you vote for the Republican candidate or for the Democrat candidate for Congress? And, you know, when somebody loses a lead like that, it’s a referendum on the party. Right?
“So, people are very concerned about all these topics. They look around and they see a lot of problems with the economy and they’re worried about being able to make their rent payment or whatever.”
The pollster added:
“But they are less likely to vote for Republicans — I think that’s a very clear signal — than they were a year ago. Much less likely than they were a year ago.”
Remember that “red wave” the GOP was promising at the beginning of the year? The wave now seems to be turning blue and could be disastrous for Republicans because Americans know they cannot be trusted.
As the 2022 midterm elections draw closer by the day, President Joe Biden continues to remind voters that while Republicans love to brag about the things they’ve done for them over the past two years, the reality is starkly different than what they’re claiming.
At a campaign even on Thursday, HuffPost reports, Biden pointed to the massive infrastructure bill passed by Congress earlier this year that many in the GOP are now trying to appropriate as their own, even though the vast majority of them voted against it.
The $1.2 trillion bill to improve roads, bridges, ports, water systems, high-speed internet and more passed with the help of 13 Republicans in the House and 19 in the Senate.
“We got a little help from Republicans. Not a lot, but enough to get it passed. But the truth is, there are a lot more Republicans taking credit for that bill than actually voted for it.”
And that’s when Biden used a hilarious impression of those same Republicans who had voted one way and then glommed onto it when it became clear their constituents supported the measure:
“Now we’re gonna build this new bridge here. We’re all for it. And, by the way, this new road,” he said, before reverting to his normal voice: “I love ’em, man. They ain’t got no shame. They don’t have any shame.”
Dark Brandon is back:
Thursday night’s comments, including his voice-switching gimmick, are part of a more recent pattern from Biden, a feisty side that supporters have taken to calling “Dark Brandon.”
That refers to the “Brandon” nickname once used as an insult against the president by conservatives, now coopted by his supporters on the left:
Dark Brandon, man. "They ain't got no shame" is a perfect label for congressional Republicans. I don't know what they started putting in Biden's Wheaties, but I want some. https://t.co/6q0OqDMIne
Biden condemned MAGA Republicans for taking credit for his bills that they all voted against. He mocked them & said “these Republicans have no shame!” Thank you Mr. President for reminding voters that MAGA Republicans are soulless hypocrites. Dark Brandon strikes again. See vid:
The Republican National Committee (RNC) has told failed, one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump that they will no longer pay his mounting legal costs.
But as with most things Trump, there’s a catch, Politico reports.
To be lead counsel in the case of his hoarding classified documents, Trump hired Chris Kise, a former Florida solicitor general. But the Donald will have to pay the bill this time.
For Kise’s services, Trump will have to pay on his own. A person familiar with the matter confirmed that the Republican National Committee is not paying for Trump’s legal fees related to the FBI’s investigation and retrieval of documents at Mar-a-Lago. That’s a departure of sorts from the past. The RNC has, for example, paid for Trump’s legal bills involving New York Attorney General Tish James’ investigation into the former president’s private businesses. The committee would stop paying Trump’s legal fees should he formally declare his candidacy for president in the 2024 election — a step he has hinted at but has yet to take.
However, the RNC will continue to foot the bill for all of Trump’s other legal problems, proving that they’ve only grown a portion of spine and are willing to cave to him on nearly every other demand he makes. One wonders if they’ll be so enamored if and when he’s charged with violating the Espionage Act and obstructing justice, both of which could send him to prison for decades.
A just released document from the FBI shows that Trump and his attorneys are currently arguing in federal court that he has “absolute authority” on all matters of national security, despite the fact that he is not longer president, with the AP reporting:
A May 25 letter from one of his lawyers, attached as an exhibit to the search affidavit, advances a broad view of presidential power, asserting that the commander-in-chief has absolute authority to declassify whatever he wants — and also that the “primary” law governing the handling of U.S. classified information simply doesn’t apply to the president himself.
But as Yale Law School professor Oona Hathaway rightly points out, Trump is no longer in the White House and has no such protection:
“When someone is no longer president, they’re no longer president. That’s the reality of the matter. When you’ve left office, you’ve left office. You can’t proclaim yourself to not be subject to the laws that apply to everyone else.”
Trump, however, has never believed the laws of this country apply to him.
While there remain some Republicans who continue to believe that Donald Trump is the future of their party, a larger percentage wish he’d disappear from the political scene so the GOP can move on and nominate younger candidates for the 2024 presidential race.
According to former Republican National Committee spokesperson Tim Miller, writing in The Bulwark, the GOP seems to be involved in a campaign of “humoring” Trump in the vain hope that he’ll vanish and never come back.
Of course, for a pathological narcissist like the Donald, that’s simply not going to happen, at least not anytime soon.
After Trump lost in 2020 to President Joe Biden (but before the horror of Jan. 6), Miller notes, he spoke with a senior official in the Republican Party who informed him:
“What is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time? No one seriously thinks the results will change. He went golfing this weekend. It’s not like he’s plotting how to prevent Joe Biden from taking power on Jan. 20. He’s tweeting about filing some lawsuits, those lawsuits will fail, then he’ll tweet some more about how the election was stolen, and then he’ll leave.”
Yeah, how bad could it be if we let Hannibal Lecter loose in public? He’ll leave once he gets full.
Then came Jan. 6, and Trump let the world know he wasn’t about to leave without causing bloodshed and mayhem in an effort to remain in office.
So where does that leave the GOP now? Whither Trump?
Miller explains that what’s old is new again:
“You see, back in November 2020, at least the SROs (Senior Republican Officials) thought that there was an expiration date on their cowardice. They figured that, come January 20, 2021, Trump would be gone and they would no longer have to humor him. Today the strategy has been modified only in the removal of an expected end date.”
That reminded Miller of a line from a book by Mark Liebovich, Thank You For Your Servitude:
“A former Republican congressman told me recently that the party’s only real plan for dealing with Trump in 2024 involved a darkly divine intervention. ‘We’re just waiting for him to die,’ he said.”
“Instead they will soldier on. Playing the same big game of pretend with our democracy in the balance. After all, the downside for humoring him for just a little more time is likely to be felt by other people. And the upside of humoring? That accrues directly to the Republicans who want power. But don’t worry. Eventually they’ll be able to tell the truth. Probably. As long as he’s the one who croaks first.”
North Carolina GOP Congressman Madison Cawthorn’s life is in complete shambles, and it’s hard to feel sorry for him considering the bad shit he’s done over the past couple of years.
First and foremost, Cawthorn is broke and cannot pay his campaign debts, which, it just so happened, he incurred for illegal purposes, meaning that in addition to soon being unemployed, he’s also facing indictment and time in prison if found guilty.
Roger Sollenberger of The Daily Beast reports that everything that can go wrong for Cawthorn is doing exactly that
With two weeks to go until a primary election he was fated to lose, Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) was already underwater. His campaign held more than twice as much debt as it had cash on hand, the donor well was dry, and he and his staff were months into a madcap spending streak that one campaign source called “baffling.”
And now, after indeed losing that primary, there’s no money to pay the piper.
Specifically, there’s no money to repay the supporters who donated hundreds of thousands of dollars in advance to Cawthorn’s election efforts beyond the primary—to the general election he now won’t be competing in.
That shuffling of money is illegal, and that complicates matters considerably for the soon-to-be ex-congressman, who is going to be hard-pressed to find an attorney who will represent him without a retainer:
The breach of fiduciary obligations follows a string of personal and professional embarrassments that hounded the one-term congressman across the weeks and months leading up to his primary defeat—accusations of insider trading, multiple alleged ethics violations, unforced public gaffes, and photo and video leaks designed to humiliate him.
But the campaign’s financial washout is more than another embarrassment; it’s against the law.
To borrow a phrase from Homer Simpson, D’oh!
But perhaps most confounding and embarrassing for Cawthorn is the spending reports which show how he managed to burn through so much cash so quickly. The details in federal reports sound like something a college frat boy would have done:
This person pointed to a spree of frivolous charges over the last year that all accelerated into 2022, such as $1,500 in “egregiously” frequent trips to Chick-Fil-A, almost $3,000 at a place called Papa’s Beer, three separate charges at a high-end cigar shop, $21,000 for lodging in Florida and—the biggest drain—hundreds of thousands of dollars in sky-high consulting and fundraising fees, including for Cawthorn’s friend and campaign manager, Blake Harp, who was drawing a salary beyond federal limits.
Jordan Libowitz, communications director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, says Cawthorn is screwed:
“There are few more ironclad rules in campaign finance than you can’t spend general election funds in a primary. There are strict limits on how much may be given and spent in each. If Cawthorn spent funds raised for the general during the primary and made no attempt to refund the general donations, he’ll likely be in a lot of trouble with the FEC.”
Beginning in January of next year, Cawthorn will no longer have his congressional salary, so he’s quite literally going to be jobless, penniless, and facing the prospect of legal action against him.
