worldofwardcraft
World of Wardcraft
Commentaries on Matters Political
698 posts
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
Last Seen Blogs
thenewtotaldramaseason
howdy
beachofhope
Beach Of Hope
suburban-and-mythical
Index
goobersplat
Stickers, Toys, Plush, And Nostalgia
hometownasphaltpavingglendale
Untitled
Text
The bad example state.
April 25, 2024
In his State of the State Address in January 2022, Governor Ron DeSantis declared that Florida was "the freest state in these United States." He also claimed "the state is well-prepared to withstand future economic turmoil." Turns out this description does not apply at all to his state's insurance industry. That particular segment of Florida's economy is currently verging on catastrophe.
Because of ocean warming, Florida is especially subject to heavy rainfalls, storm surge, and major category hurricanes that can devastate entire cities. For example, 55% of all the properties in Miami are at risk for severe flooding. And Florida's sea level, as much as eight inches higher now than in 1950, is rising by one inch every three years.
Bloomberg Intelligence reports that a 360% rise in Florida's insured losses in the past three decades due to the increased frequency and intensity of natural disasters is causing insurers to “hike premiums and exit high-risk areas.” And with reinsurance — essentially insurance for insurers — becoming unaffordable, major insurance companies are fleeing Florida in droves. AIG ceased insuring new properties along Florida's shoreline, while Farmers Group has stopped writing new policies statewide entirely.
So, since Republicans believe a "free" state means having little to no business regulation, homeowners are left having to depend on companies that are smaller, less diversified, less capitalized and more prone to becoming insolvent. A recent study by researchers at Harvard University, Columbia University and the Federal Reserve found that a majority of homes in Florida are insured by companies whose ratings would not receive an A from Demotech Inc., the industry’s primary ratings agency, and thus not be good enough to secure full backing by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.
Naturally, costs for home insurance have skyrocketed, too. Floridians paid an average annual premium of $10,996 in 2023 — more than anywhere else in the country. And online insurance agent Insurify predicts that number to go up to $11,759 in 2024.
DeSantis likes to hype "free" Florida as a model for the nation. Here's how Latisha Nixon-Jones, law professor at Jackson State University responds to that notion:
Will the state serve as a blueprint for disaster-prone regions, or act as a cautionary tale? After all, states such as California and Louisiana have also seen insurance companies withdrawing from their markets.
Plus, Newsweek reports that Brookfield Asset Management Reinsurance Partnership is pulling out of nine states: Arkansas, California, Colorado, Louisiana, Minnesota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Washington. If Florida is an example for America, that's not very reassuring.
1 note
·
View note
Text
The Pecker plot.
April 22, 2024
Most media news outlets are portraying the New York trial of career criminal Donald Trump as a simple case of “hush money” payments to cover up an affair. The more responsible ones are also correctly framing it as a case of election fraud since the purpose of the cover-up was to hide that affair from the voting public. But only a few are noticing the crime behind all the others, i.e., Trump’s covert collusion with National Enquirer owner David Pecker (pictured above with indicted co-conspirator) to push disinformation at the electorate and sway the 2016 election in Trump's favor.
Pecker, at the time CEO of American Media, Inc., the company that published the tabloid, was a close ally of Trump. According to state prosecutors, Pecker met with him and his then-lawyer Michael Cohen at Trump Tower in August 2015 and agreed to help Trump’s presidential campaign by "looking out for negative stories” about Trump before they were published.
Pecker “also agreed to publish negative stories about [Trump’s] competitors for the election.” One such was a bogus report claiming that Rafael Cruz, the father of Trump’s Republican primary rival Ted Cruz, was somehow involved in the 1963 John F. Kennedy assassination. But the Trump-Pecker operation really shifted into high gear when Hillary Clinton became the Democratic nominee. In the run-up to the election, dozens of stories appeared in the Enquirer with headlines like "Hillary Failed Secret FBI Lie Detector!", "Hillary's Lung Cancer Battle!", "Hillary, Bill & Chelsea Indicted!" and "Hillary: Six Months To Live!"
Prosecutors have also charged that, “because of his agreement” with Trump and Cohen, Pecker directed AMI to pay $30,000 to a former Trump Tower doorman, Dino Sajudin, who was attempting to shop a story about a “love child” Trump had fathered. Even after AMI concluded the story wasn’t true, the agreement with the doorman was kept in place.
With a circulation of less than 300,000, the National Enquirer, though sold in nearly every supermarket, doesn't reach all that many households. But millions of shoppers were subject to its lies. Explains political scientist and author Mark Schmitt,
Even people who don't read the Enquirer were exposed to these headlines which are really political ads. Enquirer's checkout aisle real estate is invaluable for political communication.
The Trump-Pecker conspiracy was more than merely a "catch and kill" scheme to bury negative stories. It also involved a fire hose of falsehoods aimed at getting Trump elected. And, no surprise, an immunized Pecker will be the first witness to testify against Trump in today's trial.
1 note
·
View note
Text
How Republicans plan to win.
April 18, 2024
The Republican plot to steal the 2024 presidential election consists of a two-pronged attack. The first element is to engage in voter suppression. This is currently being pursued in a number of states in a number of ways: draconian voter ID laws, restricting the location and number of voting places, eliminating early voting, curbing mail-in voting, creating obstacles to voter registration, and any other nefarious method they can think up.
In 2013 the political hacks on our Supreme Court showed their eagerness to assist the cause by gutting the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Apparently, the freedom to vote is unconstitutional. Also fundamental to the GOP's voter muzzling efforts is nonstop scaremongering about voter fraud, even though it's extremely rare and usually committed by Republicans.
In fact, Republicans have been convicted of fraudulent voting in states around the country, from Wisconsin to Florida to Alabama. Here's MSNBC with a recent example:
Another person has been sentenced for committing voter fraud during the 2020 election — and once again it was on behalf of a Republican candidate. An Iowa woman named Kim Taylor was sentenced to four months in prison Monday after a federal jury convicted her last year on more than 50 counts of voter fraud as part of a scheme to help her husband in a congressional primary and a county supervisor race.
The second component in the right's election thievery scheme is simply out and out cheating. One way is by intimidating people at the polls. For example, Nevada Republicans are suing to block a state law that prohibits interfering with or harassing election officials. And Republicans in Texas and North Carolina have successfully pushed through changes making it easier for them to place partisan operatives inside polling areas.
Meanwhile, Texas has enacted two new election laws targeting Democratic stronghold Harris County — and only Harris County. One of the laws abolishes the office of county election administrator. The other allows the secretary of state to take over election administration, if the Republican governor doesn’t like how Harris County is running its elections.
Another way of cheating is through purging the voter rolls of people you don't want casting ballots. Already eight Republican-controlled states have left the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) — the interstate compact that shares voter information. Which will make cheating easier and detecting fraud harder. Says Marc Elias of Democracy Docket, "What we're seeing is…a right-wing strategy to file lawsuits to remove voters from the rolls all around the country." In other words, a strategy to win dishonestly.
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
Why is it so useless?
April 15, 2024
The Federal Election Campaign Act was signed into law in 1971 by President Nixon with the purpose of creating limits for campaign spending on communication media, adding additional penalties to the criminal code for election law violations, and imposing disclosure requirements for federal political campaigns. In 1974, the act was amended and established the Federal Election Commission to enforce these goals. It was a good idea while it lasted.
Because over the years, right-wing organizations and individuals have launched lawsuit after lawsuit aimed at eliminating any kind of election regulation whatsoever. And a conservative Supreme Court has been only too happy to help. In fact, almost immediately it ruled that limits on campaign contributions were unconstitutional (Buckley v. Valeo, 1976).
With the passage of the follow-up Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act in 2002, large chunks of this law too were struck down. The Court declared issue ads cannot be banned (FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, 2007), restrictions on wealthy candidates violate their First Amendment rights (Davis v. FEC, 2008) and, worst of all, corporations can spend unlimited amounts on campaigns (Citizens United v. FEC, 2010).
The arrangement of the FEC itself is also problematic. The commission consists of six members, three from each major party. Which almost guarantees gridlock since at least four of the six need to approve investigating any campaign violation. Still, according to the FEC's enabling statute, any non-enforcement is subject to judicial review. So, naturally, in June 2018, two Republican-appointed judges on the DC Circuit — including now-SCOTUS Justice Brett Kavanaugh — gutted that rule. No wonder that, of the 200 matters currently before the commission, only seven are under active investigation.
Of course, whenever the subject is election cheating, Donald Trump's name is always prominent. Most recently, he's been charged with illegally soliciting and directing "soft" (unregulated and undisclosed) money to an outside super PAC called America First Action, an outfit that spent almost $134 million on ads opposing Joe Biden in the 2020 election. Here's FEC Vice Chair Ellen Weintraub last December:
And for those keeping count, the tally is now 59 times the Commission has been presented with allegations that Mr. Trump or his committees violated the FECA, 29 times the Commission’s nonpartisan professional staff recommended that we take some steps to enforce the law, and (checks notes) still zero times a Republican commissioner has voted to approve any recommendation to enforce the law against Mr. Trump.
So if you're counting on the Federal Election Commission to rein in Trump's ongoing election crimes, don't bother. It's simply no use.
0 notes
Text
A fool and his money.
April 11, 2024
While much attention focuses on Donald Trump's apparent inability to satisfy the New York appeals court's inexplicably lowered bond of $175 million in his civil fraud conviction — down from $464 mill (plus interest) — little notice is being paid to the many other civil suits currently pending against the one-time president and full-time criminal. These litigations have the potential to end up bankrupting him for real. Here are some of them.
Doe vs. The Trump Corporation — A group of anonymous plaintiffs have filed a class action against the Trump family and their business, alleging the Trumps used their brand to scam investors into paying for worthless business opportunities.
Rep. Karen Bass et al. Incitement Suit — Ten members of the House of Representatives, aided by the NAACP, are suing Trump, Rudy Giuliani and two right wing militia groups for conspiring to forcibly prevent Congress from counting the Electoral College votes on January 6, 2021.
Eric Swalwell Incitement Suit — In suing Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump Jr. and Rep. Mo Brooks, California congressman Swalwell alleges they violated federal civil rights laws when they conspired to interfere with the Electoral College count on J6.
Three Capitol Police Suits — Bringing separate suits against Trump and his affiliates (like the Proud Boys and Oathkeepers), three groups of officers claim they were physically and emotionally injured by attackers that Trump instigated during the J6 riot.
Metropolitan Police Suit — Also seeking compensatory and punitive damages, the Washington, DC police are alleging the physical and emotional injuries they suffered were caused by Trump's incitement and that he directed, aided and abetted the insurrection.
All these legal actions are in various stages of litigation. And several have already seen judges reject Trump's routine motions to dismiss. But, of course, Trump will no doubt keep appealing any judgments against him until he finally runs out of courts.
Meanwhile, a New York judge has ordered Trump to pay The New York Times and three of its reporters nearly $400,000 to cover their legal costs for a lawsuit he filed that was dismissed. Trump sued them over a 2018 investigation into his finances that was based in part on confidential tax records. Incidentally, their series of articles won those journalists a Pulitzer Prize.
Trump has a long-standing propensity for attracting serious lawsuits as well as initiating frivolous ones. Both with adverse effects on his net worth. In addition to the half billion and more he has already been fined, look for the above litigations to separate the "stable genius" from even more of his (imaginary) wealth.
0 notes
Text
The Trump pump and dump.
April 8, 2024
Back in October 2021, we reported on Donald Trump's scam social media platform, Truth Social ("The Don's latest con"). At the time, we referred to it as a "garden-variety stock swindle" to defraud investors. Now, after years of lawsuits and SEC investigations, Trump Media & Technology Group (the owners of Truth Social) has finally merged with Digital World Acquisition Corp., a publicly traded shell company. Recently listed on the stock exchange as DJT, Trump's social media company is turning out to be exactly the con job we told you it was.
After surging to $78 a share at its market debut on March 26, Trump Media stock (supposedly valued at $8 billion) began dropping rapidly, with its price per share down to $40.55 by the close of last Friday. In other words, the company's stock lost more than 40% of its original value in about a week and a half. The sell-off accelerated when SEC filings revealed that Trump Media lost $58.2 million in 2023, with interest expenses totaling more than $39 million, while generating total revenues of a mere $4.1 million.
That huge interest liability was because, prior to the merger with DWAC, Truth Social was only kept afloat through millions in loans from a shady Russian-American money launderer named Anton Postolnikov. The filing also included a disturbing note from an independent accounting firm, Colorado-based BF Borgers CPA PC, warning that Trump Media's "operating losses raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern."
Meanwhile, two Truth Social co-founders sued Don the Con for diluting the value of their ownership when he increased the number of shares in the company from 120 million to one billion. Naturally, he's countersuing in retaliation. At the same time, two other individuals connected to Trump Media pled guilty to insider trading, admitting they had advance knowledge of the merger from which they personally profited.
Why would anyone invest in such an obvious flimflam? John Rekenthaler, vice president for research at Morningstar, a financial services group, likens the company's stock to a cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin owners are members of a club. So, too, are Trump Media investors, to an even greater degree. For them, DJT shares represent a currency by which they can express their beliefs and commitment.
The idea was for Trump to make a ton o' cash by peddling puffed-up stock to the gullible MAGA rubes. But under the merger agreement, he's restricted from dumping his own shares for six months. And by then, they'll probably be next to worthless.
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
Out you go, rinos.
April 4, 2024
Not since its founding in 1854 has the Republican Party undergone such an abrupt transformation. It took generations for the Party to morph from its radical anti-slavery roots into a conservative opposition to the likewise metamorphosed liberal Democrats.
In its march through the last century from Goldwater to Reagan to the Tea Party, the GOP positioned itself as a political organization staunchly dedicated to orthodox conservative principles. Enter Donald Trump, a political neophyte with a talent for demagoguery. Employing mendacity and intimidation, Trump managed within a few short years to dominate the Party and bend it to his sociopathic will. Now, Republicans have discovered this means exacting retribution upon any individual who crosses, criticizes or contradicts him.
Accordingly, the Party under Trump's reign is ruthlessly rooting out all those deemed insufficiently loyal to the Dear Leader. The first to fall was Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney, who stridently opposed Trump. And, in retaliation for this apostasy, was ousted from her position as chair of the House Republican Conference, censured by the RNC and subsequently defeated in her primary bid for reelection. Pour encourager les autres.
But more Republican heads ended up on pikes, anyway. Including Representatives Adam Kinzinger and Anthony Gonzalez, both of whom voted to impeach Trump. Also facing expulsion were heretical GOP senators Jeff Flake, Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, who chose to escape the fury of the MAGA mob by voluntarily not seeking reelection.
Still others hounded out of the Party included Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan, who refused to support Trump’s claims of election fraud, and North Carolina Senator Richard Burr, who voted to convict Trump in the second impeachment trial. In Wisconsin, Republicans are trying to remove Assembly leader Robin Vos, whose alleged offense is that he didn’t fight hard enough to overturn President Biden’s 2020 election victory in the state.
As for Nikki Haley, who had the temerity to run against him, Trump recently decreed that anyone who contributed to her campaign "from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp.” No wonder Maryland governor Larry Hogan calls his party "a circular firing squad" hellbent on excommunicating any member who dares utter a modicum of criticism against the MAGA Jesus.
It's worth noting as well that, aside from the irrelevant Sarah Palin, no one who appeared on a national Republican ticket in this century — not Pence, Ryan, Romney or Bush — will be supporting Donald Trump in November. That's because, along with Reagan, Eisenhower and Lincoln, they've all been summarily purged from the Trumpublican Party.
0 notes
Text
Ebony and oviney.
April 1, 2024
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (pictured above being confronted by actual facts), the son and nephew of two Democratic heroes, started out his public career (after attending Harvard, of course) by failing his bar exam and being convicted of heroin possession in 1984. After a year's probation, community service and a stint in rehab, he turned himself into a celebrated environmental lawyer and activist, involved in numerous litigations and organizations in support of environmental causes.
But in the early 2000s Kennedy became a little, you know, funny in the head. He started swimming in lies and conspiracy theories, being especially prone to dishing out misinformation about how vaccines cause autism. He was also named chair of Children's Health Defense, a virulent anti-vaccine advocacy group. He also claimed the GOP stole the 2004 election for George W. Bush, 5G networks were being used for government surveillance, and the CIA assassinated his uncle.
But his lunacy really hit its stride with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the creation of preventative vaccines. Naturally, he railed against these vaccines too as dangerous. But he also insisted, “Covid-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people." And it gets worse. According to NPR, his other beliefs include: Wi-Fi causes cancer and "leaky brain," antidepressants are to blame for school shootings, chemicals in the water supply could turn children transgender, and AIDS is not caused by HIV.
But if Kennedy's public pronouncements are bewilderingly deranged, his private life is even more of a mess. After cheating on her and struggling with drug abuse throughout 12 years of marriage, he finally divorced his first wife, Emily. Kennedy then married Mary, his second wife and proceeded to continue his habit of extra-marital affairs. He even kept a record of them in a diary that was leaked to the New York Post in 2013.
In the spring of 2010, Kennedy began divorce proceedings against Mary and went public with his relationship with future third wife, actress Cheryl Hines. Reportedly, he often told Mary she would be "better off dead" and it would be "so much easier" if she killed herself. On May 16, 2012, Mary was found hanging in a barn.
So, it seems RFK Jr. is not only a dangerous crackpot, he's also something of a creep. And one who's running for president. Yet on St. Patrick's Day, more than 30 members of the Kennedy clan visited the Bidens at the White House to show their support for Joe's reelection. Not attending was Bobby Jr. — the family's black sheep.
0 notes
Text
Another of his mental impediments.
March 28, 2024
One of the many drawbacks of Donald Trump's limited intelligence is that he's unable to foresee the consequences of his actions. Living always in the moment, he is focused only on getting through today. Thus, he is simply incapable of either comprehending the effects of current decisions or anticipating future outcomes.
Nowhere was this more in evidence than in the lead-up to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2018, Trump ordered the disbanding of the National Security Council's Global Health Security and Biodefense unit. A year later, the position of CDC epidemiologist embedded in China’s disease control agency was eliminated. And just three months before the coronavirus began infecting people in China, his administration decided to end a $200 million early warning program, called Predict, designed to alert potential pandemics.
Trump shut down these programs only because they originated under the despised President Obama. And without a moment's thought concerning any possible ramifications. Such as COVID-19 becoming the third leading cause of death in the US in 2020, with a death rate of 1,027 per 100,000 population and over a million dead between January 2020 and June 2023.
Then there was the time Trump, abetted by an eager Republican Congress, pushed through the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which significantly lowered the top tax rate for high-income earners and slashed the corporate rate to 21%. Wealthy GOP donors loved it, but little attention was given to the resultant economic inequality. Said the Brookings Institution's Tax Policy Center at the time:
When it is ultimately financed with spending cuts or other tax increases, as it must be in the long run, TCJA will, under the most plausible scenarios, end up making most households worse off than if TCJA had not been enacted.
Trump's tariffs on foreign goods and his rejection of international treaties may have seemed like good America First ideas at the time. But the former resulted in increasing prices for American consumers and destroying markets for American farmers, while the latter isolated us from our allies and endangered our national security. Trump evidently didn't see any of that coming.
Even today, Trump puts forward superficially attractive, but ill-considered policies. Like a 100% tariff on cars manufactured outside the US, which would make them cost twice as much. He also promises to deport eight million immigrants, which would devastate the US economy by depriving it of a sizable portion of its workforce. So, if you hear Trump's proposals and wonder what he could possibly be thinking, the answer is, as usual, he isn't.
0 notes
Text
Everything you want in a president.
March 25, 2024
In a side-by-side comparison of the two national party candidates for president, it's not even close. One of them is an adjudicated rapist, a convicted fraudster, a verified insurrectionist, an avowed racist, an unrepentant grifter and a pathological liar. While the other embodies literally everything the American people say they want to see in a president.
For example, in a USA Today/Suffolk University poll, Americans responded 57% to 34% that they favored having a president who was willing to compromise in order to get things done. As a senator, Joe Biden was famous for being willing to work across the aisle. And as president, his latest achievement at finding the middle ground was the bipartisan border security bill hammered out earlier this year and then scuttled by House Republicans for partisan reasons at Donald Trump's command.
The Pew Research Center reports that nearly all US adults believe it's important to have a president who lives a moral and ethical life, and almost half say the president should have strong religious beliefs. In contrast to the serial philanderer and lifelong crook who hasn't seen the inside of a church in years, Biden is faithful to his wife, Jill, and attends Mass every Sunday. In February, he told the congregation at the African-American Saint John Baptist Church in Columbia, South Carolina, "In my life, I've tried to walk my faith."
Moreover, in nearly 50 years in public life — and despite the best efforts of House Republicans to manufacture dirt about him — there has never been so much as a whiff of scandal or corruption attaching to Biden. While many other senators were using their positions to enrich themselves via the largesse of lobbyists or through insider stock trading, Senator Biden quietly worked to craft bipartisan legislation and then took the train home to Delaware every night to be with his children.
Americans have consistently indicated they prefer a president who honors our service members in both word and deed, is loyal to our allies, supports democracy around the world and cares for the welfare of our nation. Biden has a well-earned reputation for being firmly committed to every one of these ideals. Trump has clearly shown he is not.
Time and again, Joe Biden has proven himself highly empathetic, effective at getting laws passed, skilled at finding bipartisan solutions, firm in dealing with our adversaries and willing to change his mind on issues when situations change. But, as the media constantly remind us, Biden is 81. Which apparently means we're supposed to vote for the 78-year-old fascist.
0 notes
Text
The magic immigrant.
March 21, 2024
Republicans of the MAGA persuasion imagine that immigrants at our southern border are actually miraculous shape-shifters who can somehow take on a variety of identities. In their fevered fantasies, GOPers view these mysterious beings simultaneously as drug smugglers, human traffickers, murderous gang members, rapists, terrorists, invaders, job stealers, looters of government "free stuff," replacements for white Americans and imported Democratic voters. But also people to be excluded, persecuted, even killed. And whose families can routinely be destroyed.
For instance, Republican pols and right-wing media outlets regularly claim that America's in the midst of a violent crime wave being driven by undocumented immigrants. One study found that Faux News ran nearly 400 weekday segments on “migrant crime” in the first 10 weeks of 2024 alone. Host Jesse Watters hyperventilated to viewers in late February, “There is a migrant crime spree killing Americans.” And, of course, pathological prevaricator Donald Trump falsely declared at the southern border that the “United States is being overrun by the Biden migrant crime.”
The truth, however, is very different. From 2012 to 2022, undocumented immigrants were 14% less likely to be convicted of murder and 41% less likely to be convicted of any criminal offense. And two border states saw particularly sharp declines in murder in 2023, with a drop of 15% in Texas and 8.8% in Arizona. In fact, researchers have consistently found that undocumented immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than American citizens.
As far back as 2015, Trump was shrieking, “They’re taking our jobs. They’re taking our manufacturing jobs. They’re taking our money. They’re killing us.” But again the facts are very different, and immigrants may not be stealing as many jobs as Trump insists. In fact, according to a 2020 Pew Research survey, about three-quarters of adults (77%) say undocumented immigrants mostly fill jobs US citizens don't want. As Brookings Senior Fellow Vanda Felbab-Brown explains:
The impact of immigrant labor on the wages of native-born workers is low…However, undocumented workers often work the unpleasant, back-breaking jobs that native-born workers are not willing to do.
Migrants aren't taking away jobs. On the contrary, employers are currently struggling to find workers. And far from being pawns in a vast conspiracy to replace white populations and swell the ranks of Democratic voters, immigrants from Latin America are simply seeking to escape intolerable conditions at home and obtain a better life for their families. Asylum seekers coming here are legal immigrants, not the supernatural all-purpose villains that inhabit the racist preoccupations of the MAGA cult.
0 notes
Text
Autocratophiliac.
March 18, 2024
Someone really should come up with a word for a person with an extreme affinity for dictators. Because mob boss Donald Trump's certainly a prime example. Trump's longtime regard for Russian president and war criminal Vlad Putin is already infamous.
Back in 2013, Trump told Larry King that Putin did “a really great job outsmarting our country.” Campaigning in 2016, Trump asserted during a televised town hall, "I've already said, he is really very much of a leader." And only two years ago, he described Putin’s vicious and illegal invasion of Ukraine as “genius” and “savvy.”
But Putin's not the only brutal tyrant Trump esteems. A year ago on Faux News, Trump babbled on and on about China's tyrannical president Xi Jinping.
Think of President Xi. Central casting, brilliant guy. You know, when I say he’s brilliant, everyone says, "Oh that’s terrible." Well, he runs 1.4 billion people with an iron fist. Smart, brilliant, everything perfect. There’s nobody in Hollywood like this guy.
Then there's North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Following a meeting with Kim in Singapore, Trump gushed, “I learned he’s a very talented man. I also learned that he loves his country very much.” And don't forget the "love letters" Trump exchanged with Kim. "No really. He wrote me beautiful letters,” Trump cooed in 2018. “They were great letters. And then we fell in love.”
Only last week, Trump invited Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán to visit him (the two pictured above as BFF twinsies). During a fete at Mar-a-Lago, Trump burbled, “There’s nobody that’s better, smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orbán.” And added, “He’s the boss and he’s a great leader, fantastic leader. In Europe and around the world, they respect him.”
Plus, unsurprisingly, Trump once told John Kelly, his chief of staff, that Hitler "did some good things." So why does Trump have this strange affection for authoritarian despots? Here's what John Bolton, his former national security advisor, told CNN news anchor Jim Sciutto:
He views himself as a big guy. He likes dealing with other big guys, and big guys like Erdogan in Turkey get to put people in jail and you don’t have to ask anybody’s permission. He kind of likes that.
Trump has already admitted that, if elected president again, he'd like to become "a dictator on day one," put people in concentration camps and "terminate the Constitution." Says Kelly, “My theory on why he likes the dictators so much is that’s who he is.” And that's the word on Donald Trump.
0 notes
Text
The (not so) short list.
March 14, 2024
With the presidential race whittled down (as we all knew it would be) to Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden, and since Biden's running mate is a given, the only question remaining is Trump's VP pick. Naturally, he'll keep the suspense going (and the spotlight on him) for as long as possible. Which will allow the media to speculate on an ever-expanding roster of candidates. Here in no particular order are some of the ones being bandied about as of this morning:
Tim Scott - During a Trump primary-night victory speech, Scott delivered some grade-A groveling, telling him, “I just love you!”
Elise Stefanik - Trump reportedly nodded and said “She’s a killer” when her name came up at a dinner as a potential pick.
Kristi Noem - A devoted culture warrior, she was the top pick for VP (tied with Vivek Ramaswamy) among attendees at the 2024 CPAC.
Vivek Ramaswamy - When asked about him as veep last August, Trump praised his obsequiousness and commented, “I think he’d be very good.”
J.D. Vance - Originally a “Never Trump guy” who wondered if Trump might be “America's Hitler,” Vance underwent a stunning MAGA conversion during his 2022 Senate campaign.
Kari Lake - In January, Trump said Lake would be wonderful — in the Senate. But she spends so much time at Mag-a-Lardo, she might as well be running for VP.
Marjorie Taylor Greene - She’d make Trump look sane and reasonable. But several Trump-world sources told Rolling Stone that he’s not “stupid enough” to make her his running mate. Besides, he'd never pick someone who's as big an attention hog as he is.
Greg Abbott - After Abbott endorsed him, Trump said during a recent visit to the Tex-Mex border that he's “absolutely” on his short list of potential VP candidates.
Additional second-tier contestants include: Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Byron Donalds, Tulsi Gabbard, Doug Burgum, Ben Carson and Ron DeSantis. As well as (get this) fired Faux News host Tucker Carlson. When asked if he would consider Carlson for vice president, Trump responded, “I like Tucker a lot. I guess I would. I think I'd say I would. He’s got great common sense.”
One thing for sure, it won't be Nikki Haley (who Trump calls "Birdbrain"). Nor will he make the mistake — as he did with Mike Pence — of just balancing the ticket. Instead, count on Trump to select a submissive toady who will reliably follow orders. And today's GOP has plenty of those.
0 notes
Text
Media dreams dashed.
March 11, 2024
The national news media can't stop telling us how much Americans don't want this year's presidential election to be between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. And because people keep hearing this, it's what they, in turn, tell political pollsters. The media then report these polls as proof of their narrative. And on and on, rinse and repeat.
Here, for example, is The Guardian: "With the US election a year away, most Americans don't want Biden or Trump." And The Atlantic: "How did the country end up with a choice that most of its voters don't want?" And The Hill: "A historic number of Americans prefer neither President Biden nor former President Trump." And, of course, NBC's Chuck Todd: "It’s the rematch nobody is looking forward to."
But, strangely, large numbers of people keep voting for Trump and Biden to be their party's nominee. Which is why news outlets had to invent substitute candidates they thought voters should want.
One such fanciful alternative was California governor Gavin Newsom. Listen to Kristin Welker on NBC's Meet The Press subtly urge him to enter the race against the disqualifyingly elderly Biden: "Do you think it’s responsible for Democrats to put him at the top of the ticket?" Then there's The Deseret News:
Recent reports suggest the Democratic Party is preparing for a scenario where Biden unexpectedly drops out. Topping the speculative list of candidates is Newsom.
Alas for Welker et al., Newsom has neither the funding nor the inclination to mount a challenge to Biden.
Over on the red side, media yearnings focused on former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley (pictured above about to receive her participation trophy), when their original heartthrob, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, flamed out. Reported a breathless New York Times, "Could Haley really beat Trump? Big donors are daring to dream."
However, since she dropped out last week, we won't see her taking the presidential oath of office next January (or, really, ever). But as Politico observes:
News organizations can’t very well recall their reporters from the hustings and declare a victor seven months before the Republican convention. Upsets can happen! The journalistic show must go on! Because political reporters, like sportswriters, hate blowouts as much as they relish tight contests, they are prepared to spill as much ink on the also-rans as is journalistically defensible.
Now, with the major party nominations sewn up, look for our national newsmongers to abandon their make-believe candidates and carry on hyping a nip and tuck presidential race between the (supposed equally bad) incumbent and insurrectionist.
0 notes
Text
How he plans to wreck the economy.
March 7, 2024
Most of the alarm over a second Donald Trump presidency revolves around his authoritarian fantasies of turning the office into a dictatorship and using it to extinguish the criminal prosecutions against him, sic the justice system on his perceived enemies, jettison the Constitution, and deport or imprison migrant refugees (starting, he says, with "the bad ones").
Meanwhile, little attention is being paid to the potential damage a Trump 2.0 could have on the American economy. The LA Times suggests one possibility:
Trump hasn’t outlined much of an economic program, but he has promised to impose a massive increase in tariffs on imports from almost all foreign countries — everything from bananas and baby formula to computer chips and machine parts.
Trump, of course, still doesn't have any idea how tariffs work. He continues to believe other nations pay the taxes on imported goods and not the buyers of them (like Walmart shoppers and American companies that depend on foreign products). Trump regales gullible GOPers with tales of how his trade wars brought billions of dollars into the US Treasury — money that actually came out of the pockets of American consumers and businesses.
Thus, the clueless economic ignoramus has announced his intention to compound his error (if elected) with a worldwide 10% tariff. And, just like last time, his proposed tariffs will curb investment growth and spur unemployment. As ABC News observed,
In all, the U.S. levied tariffs on thousands of products valued at approximately $380 billion in 2018 and 2019, according to an analysis by the nonprofit Tax Foundation. Trump's tariffs decreased U.S. employment by 166,000 jobs, the group found, citing increased import costs for U.S. employers.
Trump's plans to reverse America's currently robust economic growth (thanks, President Biden) also include reducing the labor supply by cracking down on immigration and deporting workers already here, expanding the budget deficit with more tax cuts, and gutting federal agencies charged with protecting workers and regulating markets.
In addition, the AP reports that he has proposed "a four-year plan to phase out Chinese imports of essential goods, including electronics, steel and pharmaceuticals." And, according to The Washington Post, "Trump has lately signaled plans to strong-arm the Fed if he recaptures the White House and force it to cut rates."
In a televised interview in January, Trump said he hoped an economic crash would come in 2024 because "I don't want to be Herbert Hoover." But if he ever gets to carry out his moronic plans for our economy, he'll make Hoover look good.
0 notes
Text
Dispatches from the combat zone.
March 4, 2024
The Arizona Theater of Operations in the Republican war on free and fair elections has seen the worst fighting mostly confined to courtrooms, with right-wing attackers lobbing lawsuit after lawsuit against democracy's defenses.
There was, for example, the suit filed by the Mohave County GOP before the November 2022 election, which asked a judge to throw out the state's 31-year-old system of mail-in voting. About which KPNX 12News explains:
Up to 90% of all Arizona voters vote with early ballots. Most mail in their ballot, others drop off the ballot at a polling place. Arizonans have been casting early ballots via mail since 1991 when the Legislature allowed absentee voting that didn't require an excuse. The practice took off in the mid-2000s, with the creation of the permanent early voter list, which automatically sent an election ballot to voters who were on the list.
The county's Superior Court fortunately sided with the state:
There is nothing in the Arizona Constitution which expressly prohibits the legislature from authoring new voting laws, including "no-excuse" mail-in ballots.
Undaunted, Republicans have now launched a frontal assault on Arizona's recently approved Elections Procedures Manual, which lays out the rules for the state's elections, such as voter registration, voting methods and certification of results. Within hours of each other, two lawsuits were filed by Republican organizations challenging an array of policies in the EPM, including those relating to proof of citizenship verification, public access to voter signatures, Arizona's early voting list (which they really hate), and more.
One of the lawsuits specifically singles out a provision of the EPM that protects voters from intimidation. This is especially relevant since masked MAGA vigilantes carrying guns launched an aggressively menacing drop box “monitoring” campaign during the 2022 midterms.
Plus, as Democracy Docket reports, Republican legislators filed yet another lawsuit against the EPM at the end of January. And last week, Stephen Miller’s America First Legal Foundation filed a complaint challenging a slew of election policies in Yavapai County.
All these legal onslaughts are in addition to the barrage launched by Arizona's sorehead election losers Kari Lake (for governor), Mark Finchem (for secretary of state) and Abe Hamadeh (for attorney general). So far, none of these lawsuits has come within a country kilometer of being successful. Lake's doomed complaint failed all the way up to the state Supreme Court, and one judge ordered sanctions against Finchem.
But even though Arizona GOPers have lost every single battle, they continue to believe they will ultimately win the war and defeat their enemy — American democracy.
0 notes
Text
Why it's not an even-money matchup.
February 29, 2024
The national news media are doing everything they can to convince us that this year's presidential contest is going to be a down-to-the-wire nail-biter. Here's NBC: "The only conclusive takeaway from all of the recent polling is that a hypothetical Biden vs. Trump race remains super-close." And ABC: "All of the data we currently have points to another close race." And, of course, the ever-reliable New York Times: "Can the Race Really Be That Close? Yes, Biden and Trump Are Tied."
Hyping a neck-and-neck race is how they sell papers, score clicks and keep you tuned in. But there's plenty of evidence that Joe Biden could be the winner not by a nose, but by a furlong. Even months from the polls opening, there are signs of 2024 being a landslide year for the Dems.
For one, Democrats are already winning elections all over the place. Here's Roll Call on last November's off-year results:
Democrats amassed big electoral wins around the country on Tuesday. From winning the marquee race for governor in Kentucky and a key ballot measure in Ohio to securing majorities in Virginia's state legislature, Democrats prevailed, with access to abortion front and center.
One important reason for this success was the Blue Team's overwhelming enthusiasm and high voter turnout. Recent special elections have seen that fervor continue unabated, with Democrats flipping a New York congressional seat as well as a number of state legislative ones in Louisiana, Florida and Ohio.
Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress waste time naming post offices and investigating Hunter Biden. Moreover, with the economy ticking along, crime down and their anti-woman crusade deeply unpopular, the "open" border is the only issue GOPers have left to run on. But they've abandoned it by blocking the bi-partisan border security bill on Donald Trump's orders.
Finally, their increasingly demented and criminally indicted presidential nominee-to-be is an even weaker candidate now than he was when he lost bigly to Biden in 2020. Trump’s woeful performance in recent primaries — he got only 67% of the vote in Michigan, even though the entire GOP establishment was behind him — shows there's a shockingly large number of Republicans unwilling to vote for him.
But Trump's clearly not trying to win over new supporters. Instead, he keeps giving the same tedious, incoherent, whiny speeches. Says Los Angeles Times columnist Jackie Calmes, “These aren’t rallies anymore. They’re pity parties.” So, feel free to pity Trump all you want. But if you're in a wagering mood, place your bet on Joe Biden to win going away.
0 notes