TFG or That Florida Guy? Either way, can the GOP win in 2024?

[J.C.MacSwell]

8 hours ago, Phi for All said:

https://uinterview.com/news/trumps-fundraising-agreement-with-rnc-allows-donations-to-cover-his-legal-bills-despite-concern-hes-using-party-as-a-piggy-bank/

Looks like Republicans all down the line will be cash starved due to TFG's legal bills. The argument that the money will be used to fight "the illegal witch hunts" continues to work. The RNC is now funding TFG first, then the Save America PAC, and finally the RNC and the rest of the Republicans running for office.

When the campaign installed its own people, including daughter-in-law Lara TFG, they fired a lot of folks and invited the rest to reapply, and many didn't. The RNC is supposedly dangerously understaffed going into a presidential election. 

And, of course, if TFG is convicted of any of the many charges against him, he may not even be able to vote for himself.  

Hopefully, at least he'll never get in a position to pardon himself.

Are the funds raised a tax right off? If so, unless Trump is a registered charity how is this possible?

[StringJunky]

9 hours ago, Phi for All said:

https://uinterview.com/news/trumps-fundraising-agreement-with-rnc-allows-donations-to-cover-his-legal-bills-despite-concern-hes-using-party-as-a-piggy-bank/

Looks like Republicans all down the line will be cash starved due to TFG's legal bills. The argument that the money will be used to fight "the illegal witch hunts" continues to work. The RNC is now funding TFG first, then the Save America PAC, and finally the RNC and the rest of the Republicans running for office.

When the campaign installed its own people, including daughter-in-law Lara TFG, they fired a lot of folks and invited the rest to reapply, and many didn't. The RNC is supposedly dangerously understaffed going into a presidential election. 

And, of course, if TFG is convicted of any of the many charges against him, he may not even be able to vote for himself.  

Funding TFG's legal needs  and the election will probably finish them off. These issues are a billion dollars each on there own. Unless someone throws a billion their or his way.

 

Edited April 15 by StringJunky

[npts2020]

Not only that, The Donald now wants 5% of any funds raised by candidates using his name or likeness...

 

https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-republican-campaigns-fundraising-name-face-5-percent-2024-4?op=1

[dimreepr]

7 hours ago, npts2020 said:

Not only that, The Donald now wants 5% of any funds raised by candidates using his name or likeness...

 

https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-republican-campaigns-fundraising-name-face-5-percent-2024-4?op=1

He also tried to pawn his mugshot suit, in little squares; it took a lot of shop visits to fence that swag... 

I wonder if/when people will get the possibility that his business model isn't sustainable/much good... 

[TheVat]

I fear the GOP could have some success stoking fear through distorted reporting on campus violence.  Amanda Marcotte made some sharp observations yesterday in Salon, on how TFG et al are doing this to further depict the Left as all lawless hooligans.

https://www.salon.com/2024/05/03/donald-is-using-campus-to-stoke-right-wing-violence-for-the/

Despite all the hysteria in the punditry about campus protests against the war in Gaza, by and large, the student activists have been peaceful. Even at Columbia University, where an ill-advised police crackdown caused an inevitably angry reaction from protesters that led to a building occupation, this has been true. As former Washington Post journalist Paul Waldman explained in his newsletter, "People who have actually reported from the protests (see here or here) have by and large found them to be well-behaved." The vast majority of scary, violent images stem not from the protesters themselves, Waldman argues, but from the police crackdowns. "At the universities where the administrators had the sense to just let the students have their say, there has been almost no violence."

As the cable news has breathlessly covered, there was violence this week at UCLA. But even then, it was not the leftist protesters to blame, but a gang of far-right counter-protesters who rushed in and started to attack students. As ABC 7 reported, violence only broke out "when counter-protesters tried to break down the encampment." Unfortunately, this was framed by much of the media as "clashes" between protesters and the right-wing assailants. Any good faith reading of the situation is clear: The far-right demonstrators stormed the encampment and started the violence. The student protesters were defending themselves. 

[dimreepr]

15 hours ago, TheVat said:

I fear the GOP could have some success stoking fear through distorted reporting on campus violence.  Amanda Marcotte made some sharp observations yesterday in Salon, on how TFG et al are doing this to further depict the Left as all lawless hooligans.

https://www.salon.com/2024/05/03/donald-is-using-campus-to-stoke-right-wing-violence-for-the/

Despite all the hysteria in the punditry about campus protests against the war in Gaza, by and large, the student activists have been peaceful. Even at Columbia University, where an ill-advised police crackdown caused an inevitably angry reaction from protesters that led to a building occupation, this has been true. As former Washington Post journalist Paul Waldman explained in his newsletter, "People who have actually reported from the protests (see here or here) have by and large found them to be well-behaved." The vast majority of scary, violent images stem not from the protesters themselves, Waldman argues, but from the police crackdowns. "At the universities where the administrators had the sense to just let the students have their say, there has been almost no violence."

As the cable news has breathlessly covered, there was violence this week at UCLA. But even then, it was not the leftist protesters to blame, but a gang of far-right counter-protesters who rushed in and started to attack students. As ABC 7 reported, violence only broke out "when counter-protesters tried to break down the encampment." Unfortunately, this was framed by much of the media as "clashes" between protesters and the right-wing assailants. Any good faith reading of the situation is clear: The far-right demonstrators stormed the encampment and started the violence. The student protesters were defending themselves. 

The faster we achieve the political extreme's the faster the pendulum swings the other way, I just hope I don't have to suffer... 🙏

[TheVat]

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

The faster we achieve the political extreme's the faster the pendulum swings the other way, I just hope I don't have to suffer... 🙏

Everyone suffers somewhat, because under extreme regimes the truth is a casualty.   And telling the truth becomes hazardous to your health.   And even if you're an old quiet guy who just putters in his garden and reads pulp novels, you're not an island - you experience the weight that lies on everyone around you, the constant threat to anyone waving their freak flag, books vanishing from library shelves and stores,  and so on.

[StringJunky]

On 4/19/2024 at 1:25 PM, dimreepr said:

He also tried to pawn his mugshot suit, in little squares; it took a lot of shop visits to fence that swag... 

I wonder if/when people will get the possibility that his business model isn't sustainable/much good... 

He is firmly latched onto those that are less able cognitively and materially.

6 hours ago, TheVat said:

Everyone suffers somewhat, because under extreme regimes the truth is a casualty.   And telling the truth becomes hazardous to your health.   And even if you're an old quiet guy who just putters in his garden and reads pulp novels, you're not an island - you experience the weight that lies on everyone around you, the constant threat to anyone waving their freak flag, books vanishing from library shelves and stores,  and so on.

Trump is totally a bottom drawer person... as we all know. 

[LaurieAG]

7 hours ago, StringJunky said:

He is firmly latched onto those that are less able cognitively and materially.

Trump is totally a bottom drawer person... as we all know. 

LOL, I've heard that 50% of any population are below average no matter what you compare them on.

[StringJunky]

1 hour ago, LaurieAG said:

LOL, I've heard that 50% of any population are below average no matter what you compare them on.

Aye, but most politicians don't totally focus on that sector.

[dimreepr]

20 hours ago, TheVat said:

Everyone suffers somewhat, because under extreme regimes the truth is a casualty.   And telling the truth becomes hazardous to your health.   And even if you're an old quiet guy who just putters in his garden and reads pulp novels, you're not an island - you experience the weight that lies on everyone around you, the constant threat to anyone waving their freak flag, books vanishing from library shelves and stores,  and so on.

Indeed, but as much as I'd like politics to always plow the middle furrow, I just hope the suffering is short and sharp, rather than a long and protracted deviation, which is what we could get if Trump was half as clever as he thinks he is.

3 hours ago, StringJunky said:

Aye, but most politicians don't totally focus on that sector.

Most politicians don't get too, bc enough of the population usually get to vote, if the GOP get their way only white women and their rich husband's would get to.

Edited May 5 by dimreepr

[TheVat]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/27/biden-trump-debate-democrats-reaction

I share their concerns after last night's debate.

To folks less acquainted with facts or the issues, Trump manages in a very shallow way to appear forceful, authoritative and verbally agile.  Hoping listeners can peel away that layer and notice the lies, evading of many questions, and underlying lack of coherent policy ideas. 

Biden was painful to watch - he has declined visibly in the past couple years and he was never silver-tongued to start with.  He seemed to struggle, often coming across as a grumpy old man, which obscured many valid points he made about his record v Trump's.  The sense I had of someone desperate to get his words out and sometimes staring off in an odd way as if searching for an answer, and sometimes a suitable facial expression, is something I've seen in relatives and acquaintances on the cusp of dementia.

 Trump has always lived in a narcissistic fantasy world, but can feign normality.   Biden is a long term resident of the real world but now looks slow on his feet, bumbling, and to be feeling his way through fog.  I fear that undecideds who do not prize facts and evidence will be fooled by appearances and Trump's knack for hammering on his narrow selection of American Carnage themes.

For the love of democracy and your country, Joe, please step aside at the convention and direct your delegates to someone like Whitmer, Newsom, Beshear, Harris, Booker, Klobuchar, or any of a dozen strong alternatives who show intelligence, competence, and authority.

Edited June 28 by TheVat
pyto

[dimreepr]

It's painful to watch...

[StringJunky]

I had coffee earlier with a friend. He's not much into US politics, but he did comment that he should step aside after seeing snippets of last night. Age has caught up with him. Another 4 years of Trump is a very real possibility if he doesn't step down. Biden is not competent enough anymore. If he doesn't leave, I think he will ruin his overall legacy because how he is now is what people will remember.

Edited June 28 by StringJunky

[TheVat]

 

26 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

If he doesn't leave, I think he will ruin his overall legacy because how he is now is what people will remember.

It's a risk, for sure.  He has been a statesman for these 3.5 years, firm hand on the tiller, and it would be best if he can leave on that note.

Maybe he has lived long enough and honed his political intelligence which will allow him to be self-aware and confront that he can no longer think on his feet.  I am noticing prominent progressives, like Nick Kristof, who are suggesting he step aside.  Others are speaking with silence, never a good sign.  And Politico mentioned Euro officials and diplomats sharing their dismay.   

We Yanquis are faced with choosing between foggy Joe and a ranting fool who claimed last night that he would settle the war between Russia and Ukraine while still president-elect.  

 

[iNow]

On 6/17/2023 at 1:50 PM, Phi for All said:

Can the GOP win in 2024?

Yes

[TheVat]

Tom Nichols wrote an incisive piece in The Atlantic on where Biden is now.

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2024/06/the-end-of-the-biden-era/678851/

 

Biden, however, was simply not present. Opportunity after opportunity to call out Trump passed him by as he garbled a basket of statistics and talking points. The president’s staff clearly overprepared their candidate, stuffing his head with factoids about Pell Grants and climate targets and tax rates and other things that are completely irrelevant in a debate with a deranged bully...

I now accept that the Biden we saw last night is as good as we’ll get in the election, and that Americans—unfortunately—are likely to decide that an entertaining autocrat is less of a risk than a decent old man. If Biden should step down, how does that happen, and who replaces him?

This is where I freeze. Every option, whether Biden stays or goes, seems to lead to electoral disaster and a Trump victory. But it’s time to think about the unthinkable.

Replacing Biden is going to be almost literally impossible unless he willingly steps down. Biden controls nearly all of the pledged Democratic delegates; to reopen the nomination process, he would have to end his candidacy and then release them. But release them to whom? And here, we run into the Kamala Harris problem....

(I can load this post with pull-quotes, but am running out of time, so if you hit an Atlantic paywall, just tell me and I will put up a "gift" link for you)

Gift link:

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2024/06/the-end-of-the-biden-era/678851/?gift=43H6YzEv1tnFbOn4MRsWYq63Ez881LcDKL8p3Z_YDJE&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

[TheVat]

Quote

The justices sent the case back to a lower court to determine which acts alleged in the indictment are official. That makes it highly unlikely that the 45th president will go to trial on charges of trying to subvert the 2020 election before voters cast ballots in this year’s presidential contest, in which Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee.

Mission accomplished, Injustices!  Immunity for any acts that can be deemed official.  The Jan. 6 prosecution will take months to switch gears and determine if any of TFG's actions under the four charges were private or official.   

 

[iNow]

8 hours ago, TheVat said:

Immunity for any acts that can be deemed official. 

Biden should use old age to his advantage, leverage his newly confirmed immunity re: exec actions as per SCOTUS decision today, and send Seal Team 6 to turn DJT into a wet spot.

By the time they rethink their ruling and sort out whether or not it’s really truly okay for our prez to do this, Biden will be long deceased.

Win/win 

[J.C.MacSwell]

2 minutes ago, iNow said:

Biden should use old age to his advantage, leverage his newly confirmed immunity re: exec actions as per SCOTUS decision today, and send Seal Team 6 to turn DJT into a wet spot.

By the time they rethink their ruling and sort out whether or not it’s really truly okay for our prez to do this, Biden will be long deceased.

Win/win 

As a bonus he can not just claim he was doing it in official capacity…but in the best interests of the country…

[iNow]

10 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

As a bonus he can not just claim he was doing it in official capacity…but in the best interests of the country…

The whole world, really 

[geordief]

32 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

@iNow said   wet spot.

 Elba? Guantanamo?

[J.C.MacSwell]

4 minutes ago, geordief said:

 Elba? Guantanamo?

Didn’t say that but guessing context…why not Ellesmere Island? Trump can remind himself how silly the climate change scientists are while wondering why the days and nights are so long…

Plus Canadian hospitality…

[CharonY]

8 hours ago, TheVat said:

Mission accomplished, Injustices!  Immunity for any acts that can be deemed official.  The Jan. 6 prosecution will take months to switch gears and determine if any of TFG's actions under the four charges were private or official.   

 

The ramifications are pretty bad and not only for the Jan 6 lawsuits.

Quote

Roberts’s opinion in Trump, however, seems to go even further than Trump’s lawyer did. The Constitution, after all, states that the president “shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.” So, if presidential authority is “conclusive and preclusive” when presidents exercise their constitutionally granted powers, the Court appears to have ruled that yes, Trump could order the military to assassinate one of his political opponents. And nothing can be done to him for it.

As Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson writes in dissent, “from this day forward, Presidents of tomorrow will be free to exercise the Commander-in-Chief powers, the foreign-affairs powers, and all the vast law enforcement powers enshrined in Article II however they please — including in ways that Congress has deemed criminal and that have potentially grave consequences for the rights and liberties of Americans.”

Roberts’s second conclusion is that presidents also enjoy “at least a presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for a President’s acts within the outer perimeter of his official responsibility.” Thus, if a president’s action even touches on his official authority (the “outer perimeter” of that authority), then the president enjoys a strong presumption of immunity from prosecution.

This second form of immunity applies when the president uses authority that is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, and it is quite broad — most likely extending even to mere conversations between the president and one of his subordinates.

The Court also says that this second form of immunity is exceptionally strong. As Roberts writes, “the President must therefore be immune from prosecution for an official act unless the Government can show that applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose no ‘dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.’”

Much of Roberts’s opinion, moreover, details just how broad this immunity will be in practice. Roberts claims, for example, that Trump is immune from prosecution for conversations between himself and high-ranking Justice Department officials, where he allegedly urged them to pressure states to “replace their legitimate electors” with fraudulent members of the Electoral College who would vote to install Trump for a second term.

Roberts writes that “the Executive Branch has ‘exclusive authority and absolute discretion’ to decide which crimes to investigate and prosecute,” and thus Trump’s conversations with Justice Department officials fall within his “conclusive and preclusive authority.” Following that logic, Trump could not have been charged with a crime if he had ordered the Justice Department to arrest every Democrat who holds elective office.

Elsewhere in his opinion, moreover, Roberts suggests that any conversation between Trump and one of his advisers or subordinates could not be the basis for a prosecution. In explaining why Trump’s attempts to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to “fraudulently alter the election results” likely cannot be prosecuted, for example, Roberts points to the fact that the vice president frequently serves “as one of the President’s closest advisers.”

Finally, Roberts does concede that the president may be prosecuted for “unofficial” acts. So, for example, if Trump had personally attempted to shoot and kill then-presidential candidate Joe Biden in the lead-up to the 2020 election, rather than ordering a subordinate to do so, then Trump could probably be prosecuted for murder.

But even this caveat to Roberts’s sweeping immunity decision is not very strong. Roberts writes that “in dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives.” And Roberts even limits the ability of prosecutors to pursue a president who accepts a bribe in return for committing an official act, such as pardoning a criminal who pays off the president. In Roberts’s words, a prosecutor may not “admit testimony or private records of the President or his advisers probing the official act itself.”

That means that, while the president can be prosecuted for an “unofficial” act, the prosecutors may not prove that he committed this crime using evidence drawn from the president’s “official” actions.

From Sottomayor's dissent:

Quote

The Court effectively creates a law-free zone around the President, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the Founding. This new official-acts immunity now “lies about like a loaded weapon” for any President that wishes to place his own interests, his own political survival, or his own financial gain, above the interests of the Nation. Korematsu v. United States, 323 U. S. 214, 246 (1944) (Jackson, J., dissenting). The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune. Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority’s message today. Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.

So for all intents and purpose it seems that the US has now executed a critical blow against functioning democracy. As step, no doubt, other countries will look at very carefully (and probably promptly find ways to emulate).

[J.C.MacSwell]

8 minutes ago, CharonY said:

The ramifications are pretty bad and not only for the Jan 6 lawsuits.

From Sottomayor's dissent:

So for all intents and purpose it seems that the US has now executed a critical blow against functioning democracy. As step, no doubt, other countries will look at very carefully (and probably promptly find ways to emulate).

This ruling seems to make Trump’s potential election significantly more dangerous. 

As if it isn’t already dangerous enough…