Daily Archives: February 3, 2022

About thirty minutes into Donald Trumps speech Saturday night at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds in Conroe, north of Houston, the former president stopped playing the familiar rhetorical hits and a curious thing happened: many in the crowd began to leave. For the first half of his speech, Trump had kept the tens of thousands in his audience enraptured. He had been railing against Biden administration border policy and vaccine mandates (while extolling his administrations program to expedite vaccine development), when he suddenly turned to the ostensible purpose of his visit: endorsing a dozen or so Texas GOP candidates ahead of their March 1 primaries. But as he began to talk about the first recipient of his blessing, Governor Greg Abbott, the energy of the audience waned. The bleachers flanking the former president thinned, like the throngs of festivalgoers in 1965 had when Bob Dylan went electric. The crowd had come for something else.

One man wearing a Lets Go Brandon sweat shirt remarked to his friend, whod donned a Lets Go Brandon ball cap, that they knew what Trump was going to say from here on out and should try to beat the traffic out. An elderly woman, who had been sitting in a folding seat about fifty yards from where Trump loomed on the stage, remarked that she had been waiting to use the bathroom for more than six hours in order to save her seat, and now was the time to make her break. Theyd come to celebrate their devotion to Trump, after all. Texas has primaries coming up on March 1, but those were earthly matters; Trump could speak to their souls.

Indeed, the event was a reaffirmation of the hold Trump has on Texas politics. The whole grounds had the feel of a music festival, as Houston Chronicle writer Jeremy Wallace noted. Those attendees who had not, like some, started camping at the festival grounds 36 hours before Trump took the stage shared snacks and chargers with one another, and lit up cigars to pass the time in the two-hour line of vehicles to get in. Merch tables lined the entrance to the grounds, with items bearing messages ranging from the messianic (images of Trump alongside Jesus) to the action-heroic (the forty-fifth president as Sly Stallones Rambo or Arnold Schwarzeneggers Terminator). Parents brought toddlers, and teddy bears with Trumpian haircuts for them to play with; truck decals on countless autos warned of both the Q revolution and baby cowboys on board. One grandparent got up from his seat when Trump took the stage so that his elementary-school-age granddaughter could stand on it and see something shell remember for the rest of her life. Only a few were not there to worship: outside the entrance gates, an evangelical preacher warned that the crowd was forsaking God in its complete devotion to Trumpand received a chorus of heckles and curse words.

As much as the event was a celebration of Trump, it also threatened to be a rejection of the governor. Many right-wingers in the audience felt betrayed by his border policy, which they view as too migrant-friendly; a few opposing campaigns had plans to stir up audience members to heckle him. At the head of the main road to the festival grounds, a Trump 2024 broadside was obscured by a hand-painted canvas reading Abbott Is a Lying RINO. And outside the entrance gates, the audience could pose for photos with a handful of cardboard cutoutsMyPillow CEO and election conspiracist Mike Lindell, Melania Trump, and Florida governor Ron DeSantisbut not Texass leader.

About an hour before Trump arrived, when Abbott warmed the crowd for him, the governor took the stage to a smattering of boos. He had a vaccine against the jeering, however: repeating the name Donald J. Trump without much flair or expounding, ad nauseamsix times in the first 45 seconds of his address, and nearly thirty times in his six minutes, to be exactas if he were Ben Stein calling for Ferris Bueller. Are you ready for Donald J. Trump? Abbott asked. Donald J. Trump is ready for you. Donald J. Trump loves the great state of Texas, and Texas loves President Donald J. Trump. He is getting ready to come out here and he wants to see you show your support for our President Donald J. Trump. Now Donald J. Trump .. . Abbott began, before launching into a speech touting the former presidents support of the oil industry, and taking credit for working to finish the Trump border wall.Fittingly, he ended his remarks by leading a chant of Lets go Trump!

While Abbott faced the most opposition, he wasnt the only Texas politician to find the crowd restless and hard to control. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who took the stage before Abbott, briefly lost his listeners when he said Trump would win in 2024; audience members angrily chanted back that he should fix 2020in other words, reverse the election results. In a short address before Patricks, state attorney general Ken Paxton spoke of Trump in near-spiritual terms. Paxton, of course, had filed a doomed lawsuit to try to overturn other states election results in Trumps favor. He sought to highlight another round of lawsuits, his dozens brought against the Biden administration. Citing the Declaration of Independence, which he promised to protect, Paxton reminded the crowd members their rights dont come from Biden since they are God-given. He quickly added, They dont even come from Trump.

When the former president finally took the stage, at around 7:30, his speech, aided by a teleprompter, hit all the familiar notes, with some news pegs sprinkled in to keep things fresh. Even as Trump stuck to a well-trod script, with few of the meandering jests that characterize many of his speeches, the audience remained engaged and loud. The crowd roared as he called migration into the country an invasion and criticized Joe Biden for considering moving troops to the border of Ukraine but not to the U.S.s southern border. Laughs erupted when he mocked Biden as dementia-riddled and rhapsodized about Hunter Bidens laptop from hell, opining on how it might be influencing Russian diplomatic relations. And he received rapturous applause when he claimed that the 2020 election was fixed (earlier, Donald Trump Jr. had said it was the only thing Biden had fixed), and promised to pardon January 6 rioters if hes elected in 2024.The closest thing to news on this evening was Trumps dire warning that, if prosecutors take action against him, hed unleash a series of protests.

If these radical, vicious, racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal, he said, I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protests we have ever had in Washington, D.C., in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere.

When it came time to endorse candidates, Trump sped through a whos who of Texas politicians in the crowd: Abbott (again to scattered boos), Patrick, Paxton, former governor Rick Perry, agriculture commissioner Sid Miller, seven congressmen, and two members of the state legislature. Other than a paean to Congressman Ronny Jackson, his former White House physician, Trump kept the shout-outs brief and they were met with polite applause. Superstar pitcher Roger Clemens elicited a few cheers, as did Catherine Engelbrecht, head of the right-wing poll-monitoring group True the Vote, which was founded to seek out voter fraud in Houstons majority-minority neighborhoods. No one in the crowd received a warmer welcome than Mike Lindell, who was present in the flesh as well as via cardboard cutout.

It wasnt just the politicians formally receiving Trumps endorsements who made their presence felt. So fully does Trump dominate the GOP in Texas that even campaigns that didnt win his backing showed up to solicit voters. Promoters of Abbott challenger Allen West proselytized outside the gate, citing an internal poll that found that nearly 75 percent of likely GOP primary voters thought Trump should reverse his endorsement of the governor. Former state senator Don Huffines, who is also running for governor, walked the festival grounds before Trump arrived, attracting crowds of anti-Abbott ralliers. (Many candidates who have not received Trumps endorsement coyly intimate palace intrigue; Lets just say that Im not sure the president is real happy with that endorsement, Huffines told me last week. Meanwhile, A.J. Louderback, running for a congressional seat in southeast Texas against Trump-endorsed Michael Cloud, who attended the rally, told Texas Monthly that Trumps endorsement was something I cant talk about. I have access, and I know what happened.)

During his speech, the former president seemed surprised to spot attorney general candidate Louie Gohmert moments after he had affirmed his complete and total endorsement of Gohmerts primary opponent Paxton. Hes very distinctive with the beautiful face, Trump quipped about how he had made Gohmert out in the crowd.

The campaign of a second Paxton challenger, land commissioner George P. Bush, also circled the fringe of the event. On the farm-to-market road where traffic was backed up for hours to get into the festival grounds, hundreds of tiny P. Bush lawn signs lined the shoulder, like progress markers on a marathon trail. Despite Trumps years of berating the Bushes, and P.s father Jeb in particular, the land commissioner had gone to embarrassing lengths to win his endorsement, even touting on campaign beer koozies the former presidents quote that he was the only Bush that got it right. If Trump hadnt given Paxton the nod, the event might have been the perfect place for Bush to appearhis grandfather is widely credited with helping flip Montgomery County from a Democratic stronghold to one of the largest red counties in the nation, and just twenty minutes away an airport bears his familys name. No matter: after the rally, as attendees ambled back to their cars, his flyers were waiting on their windshields like parking tickets.

Link:

Texas Republican Candidates Need Donald Trump More Than He Needs Them - Texas Monthly

Generally speaking, the Washington press corps and, in particular, the political reporters at the New York Times (NYT) are not ones to engage in hyperbole when it comes to Donald Trump. If anything, the paper of record has been downplaying the ongoing saga of Trump's Big Lie and all the evidence that's been piling up about what happened in the lead-up to January 6th recently. But this week's Trump news seems to have shaken even their jaded attitude.

For instance, the Times' Peter Bakertweetedon Tuesday, "Even for Trump it's quite a week -- first dangling pardons for capitol attackers, then admitting his goal was to have 'overturned the election' and now calling on the House to investigate Pence for not throwing out votes of multiple states so a president who lost could keep power." Then the Times' Maggie Haberman, appearing on CNN on Tuesday night, said, "it's been a breathtaking couple of days."This NYT pieceby Shane Goldmacher headlined "Trump's Words, and Deeds, Reveal Depths of His Drive to Retain Power" says it all.

Earlier this week,I wroteabout Trump's scripted comments at the rally in Texas over the weekend in which he promised pardons for the January 6th insurrectionists who were "treated unfairly" and called for protests against prosecutors who are investigating him. But that was just the beginning. On Monday, Trump put outa truly revealing statement(which some might call an admission of guilt.)

Republican leaders have picked a side and it appears to be Trump's. As usual, there hasn't been much of an outcry about any of this. Oh sure, a few have said it's "inappropriate" to talk about pardoning the January 6th rioters and there has been some tut-tutting about how "the process worked" but that's about it.

Trump followed up his confession that he wanted to overturn the election bysuggestingthat the January 6th Committee should investigate Mike Pence if they believe he could have overturned the election and ask him why he didn't do it. I would guess that's Trump's pathetic attempt at trying to clean up his earlier comment but it's incredibly lame and self-defeating. He shouldn't be pushing Mike Pence toward the committee Pence's closest aide and his lawyer both testified for hours this week.

RELATED:Trump is feeling the heat from investigations and wants his mob to save him

It couldn't have helped his agitated mood to see new details emerge about those crazy meetings in the White House after the election when he and his lawyers were trying to find ways to do exactly what he wanted Mike Pence to do on January 6th: overturn the election. I've been intrigued by the one that took place on December 18th ever since it was reported andI wrote about it just the other day. What we knew was already so nuts that it's hard to believe it could be any loonier --- but it is.

Recall that General Michael Flynn, Trump lawyer Sidney "Kraken" Powell and the former CEO of Overstock.com somehow got into the White House and proposed to Trump that he sign an Executive Order naming Powell as Special Counsel to investigate the alleged election fraud and order the military to seize the voting machines. What we didn't know until theNY TimesandCNNreported it this week is that Trump had earlier tried to get former Attorney General William Barr to have the Justice Department seize machines and Barr told him he could not do it because it would require probable cause and there wasn't any. (Barr resigned not long after.)

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We also learned that when the idea of an Executive Order to the Penatagon was shot down by Rudy Giuliani and others, Trump directed Giuliani to see if the Department of Homeland Security could do it. And there was reportedly yet another draft Executive Order drawn up to that effect. In the end, none of the Executive Orders were signed and no one agreed to seize the voting machines. (Just imagine if they had actually tried to do that ...)

Until now, Trump has been portrayed as sort of passive in all this, simply receiving proposals from his minions and henchmen and not directing any of the action. It was never particularly believable except to the extent that he played the role of the mob boss who only has to quirk an eyebrow and his lieutenants know what to do. Fortunately for the country, as Salon's Amanda Marcottepoints out, Trump was saved by his lackeys and accomplices, either because they were too inept to carry out the coup or because even they had reached the end of the line with his lunacy.

But Trump can no longer hide behind his henchmen. We now know that Bill Barr told him that seizing the voting machines was illegal without a court order which requires probable cause and there was none. Yet he still entertained the proposal that he issue executive orders to the Pentagon and DHS to do it anyway. And according to the Times, Trump also made overtures to state officials in Michigan and Pennsylvania to have law enforcement agencies take control of voting machines, which were rebuffed. He was clearly convinced that if he could get someone to seize those machines it could turn the tide and somehow overturn the election.

Was it that he believed Sidney Powell and Mike Flynn's inane conspiracy theories that said the machines were rigged by the very dead Hugo Chavez or had been surreptitiously sent to Italy to have the votes changed? Or did he just think that making such a dramatic move would change the dynamic and make the state actors take action to change the electoral count? It's hard to know. Trump believes that he can change reality simply be saying things over and over again (and it works on about 35% of the population.) Maybe he just thought he could will it to be true.

These latest revelations do show us just how different these days are than 48 years ago when it was revealed that Richard Nixon had tried to get the CIA to block the FBI's investigation into Watergate. That was known as the"smoking gun"in that case and it made dozens of Republicans and conservative Democrats turn against him. He resigned days later.

What Trump did was worse.

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He tried to use the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security (and for all we know the CIA and the Department of Education too) to overturn a legal election that he lost. And his party shrugs. Worse than that he is the front runner for the nomination in the next presidential election. If, for some reason, he is actually held to account for any of this -- or anything at all -- it won't be because the Republican Party lifted a finger to make it happen.

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Donald Trump's having an awful week and it's only Wednesday - Salon

Theres a great deal of excitement in some quarters about the prospect of criminally prosecuting Donald Trump. Either for his role in the January 6 insurrection, or his efforts to overturn the results of the presidential election, or even for widespread financial fraud at the Trump Organization.

It is true that the Department of Justice has now charged some defendants with seditious conspiracy, and that, if such a conspiracy is proven, it could subject people who were nowhere near the Capitol, up to and including the president, to criminal liability for what happened on January 6.

It is also true that the New York attorney general is aggressively investigating Trumps financial dealings.

And it is true, too, that a prosecutor in Georgia has convened a grand jury to look into Trumps efforts to pressure the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to find enough votes so that Trump would win.

Thats all very exciting and who knows what might come of it. But in all this drama, we are overlooking a lot of mundane illegal activity that also deserves to be investigated and, very possibly, prosecuted. Because sometimes you get John Gotti for murder. But sometimes you get Al Capone for tax evasion.

So here are three legal layupsinvestigations so straightforward that they probably wouldnt even require a grand jury. These may seem like minor offenses compared to seditious conspiracy, but a felony is a felony and a prison sentence is a prison sentence.

President Trumps efforts to threaten Ukraine into launching an investigation into Joe Biden resulted in Trumps first impeachment trial. But the events that led up to that trial, specifically how the whistleblower complaint was handled, have never been properly investigated.

To refresh your memory: Someone who had knowledge of Trumps call with the Ukrainian president filed a whistleblower complaint. The Office of the Inspector General quickly concluded that it was both credible and a matter of urgent concern. Consequently, the OIG had a legal duty to report it to Congress.

But when the OIG filed what should have been a pro-forma notification of the complaint with the Director of National Intelligence, something happened. Instead of facilitating the passing of the complaint to the congressional intelligence committees as the law requires, the administration began a frantic effort to bottle it up, permanently.

There are real questions here about who knew what, when, and what they did about it. It is not impossible that Trump himself was involved in the effort to suppress the complainteven though, as the subject of the complaint, he should not have been made aware of it, much less allowed to interfere with how it was processed. Theres written evidencefrom Senator Ron Johnson, of all peoplestrongly suggesting that Trump knew about the complaint by August 31, 2019 and was already actively covering his tracks.

But whether it was President Trump or someone close to him, its beyond dispute that someone made a serious effort to suppress the complaint that eventually led to Trumps first impeachment trial. We ought to know what exactly happened and if any laws were broken.

If they were, those people should be prosecuted. And if laws were not broken in this case, then we probably need some new laws.

Its now beyond dispute that President Trump regularly destroyed official records by tearing them into shreds. This was documented as early as 2018, when two federal employees, whose job it was to try and piece documents back together, were fired for discussing their job with the press. Just this week, the National Archive confirmed that Trump had a habit of tearing up documents when it provided several documents to the House Jan. 6 Committee which had been laboriously taped back together.

This wouldnt be quite as dramatic as nailing Donald Trump for the events of January 6 but it would be more than made up for by the bigly load of cosmic irony. If Donald Trump really did tear official documentsdocuments that are required to be preserved by the Presidential Records Actinto little pieces, then he violated 18 U.S.C. 2071, which makes it a felony to mutilate or destroy an official record. Whether or not someone was able to put the record back together later is irrelevant.

You might recognize 18 U.S.C. 2071. Its been in the news before. Its one of the statutes Republicans accused Hillary Clinton of violating when she erased the emails on her server.

When Donald Trump decided that hed hold part of the Republican National Convention on federal property and stage his acceptance speech from the White House, the Office of Special Counsel produced a letter explaining that this was perfectly legal because President Trump was not subject to the Hatch Act, which prevents federal employees from engaging in partisan politics. And even if it were illegal, the Hatch Act itself is fairly toothless and carries no criminal penalties.

But there is another statute, 18 U.S.C. 610, which does. This statute makes it a felonypunishable by up to three years in prisonto intimidate, threaten, command, or coerce any federal employee for the purpose of getting them to engage in political activity. And while its true that President Trump himself wasnt bound by the Hatch Act, all other federal employees, including White House staffers, were.

As many as a thousand Republicans were invited to attend the August 27, 2020 event. There was a stage, large screens and a backdrop of hundreds of flags, all set up on the White House South Lawn. It was a substantial undertaking. Putting aside whether President Trump coerced the federal government to make an in-kind donation to his campaign by making free use of the White House, are we really expected to believe that not a single federal employee was involved in supporting this event?

Who issued the security passes? Who checked those passes and screened the thousand people through security? Who set up all of the equipment? Who took it down? Who repaired the lawn afterwards? Were any of these people federal employees? Because if they were, unless these people spontaneously volunteered to work late on a Thursday night, then somebodylets call him Individual-1ordered people to participate in President Trumps presidential campaign. This is exactly the kind of thing that 18 U.S.C. 610 was designed to prevent. Somebody ought to look into this, if only to ensure that it doesnt happen again.

Perhaps the best thing about all these investigations is that they dont necessarily need to involve the Department of Justice. Since these are all potential crimes that occurred in the executive branch itself, they can all be investigated, at least initially, by the appropriate Inspectors General.

And investigated they should be. In America, laws arent just for little people. Theyre for everyone, including the president. In fact, they apply particularly to the president.

After all, the laws dont faithfully execute themselves.

Link:

Lock Him Up? - The Bulwark

With just weeks to go before the anticipated launch of Donald Trump's social-media substitute, Truth Social, excitement appears to have stalled.

Except for 18-year-old Weston Imer, a politically eager Gen Zer who has already signed up for the app and maintains that whatever Trump brings to the market will blow America away.

"The return of daily content and the 'mean tweets' that everyone has missed, including CNN and MSNBC, will be a great thing," Imer, an alumnus of Trump's 2016 campaign, said of his hopes for the platform. Imer, who touts himself as a "social-media influencer" on Twitter, is running his mother Laurel Imer's bid for the House seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Rep. Ed Perlmutter of Colorado,

Insider reached out to a dozen former Trump administration aides, seasoned GOP strategists, and Trump business associates for an update on the right-leaning communication hub. Most didn't respond to requests for comment about Truth Social, which could go live as soon as February 21.

Those who weighed in said they hadn't paid much attention to the project Trump has pushed for since being cut off from his millions of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram followers because of his role in the deadly January 6 Capitol siege.

One of a handful of online communications tools catering to MAGA devotees at odds with mainstream services like Twitter, Truth Social bills itself as offering "an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating against political ideology."

The biggest difference between Truth Social and existing conservative channels like Gettr and Parler is Trump's involvement. And the promise that he'll resume the stream-of-consciousness brain dumps that infuriated his detractors before the embattled former president lost his posting privileges.

Devin Nunes, the 10-term California Republican who recently resigned from Congress to become CEO of Trump Media and Technology Group, Truth Social developers, and the Trump spokeswoman Liz Harrington did not respond to requests for comment about the projected launch or the app's intended audience. The months-old Trump Media and Technology Group is already under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

While the site is still in development, details are beginning to emerge about the nascent company's initial offering.

The anything-goes dream of Truth Social is just that. The tech firm hired to handle content moderation said its artificial intelligence automatically filters posts featuring "nudity, drugs, violence, hate speech, spam, and bullying," but won't block political talk or misinformation. Nunes said the safeguards are essential to creating "the most family-friendly site."

"We're not going to censor anybody because they have a different opinion about, for example, a COVID vaccine," Nunes told Fox News. "That is what the open internet is all aboutit should be for the free flow of debate and ideas all over the globe, so that people can learn from one another and debate with one another."

And applicants for the service must theoretically make it through the site's "waiting list" a vetting process that doesn't seem to apply to VIP recruits.

The TikTok personality Jeremy Jacobowitz, who called Trump "literally the dumbest fucking person ever" in a video posted in October 2020, reported receiving an invite to claim his preferred username ahead of Truth Social's official rollout.

Whether Jacobowitz appreciates the nod or former aides fully understand what Trump is up to these days matters not to Imer. He told Insider that he, his mother, and many of his friends "in the movement" are pre-registered and ready to tap back into Trump's every passing thought.

Since being booted from social media, Trump's venting has been relegated to the sporadic statements issued by his post-presidential office.

The other person Imer's excited to engage with is Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the controversial Republican from Georgia who's been banned from Twitter for repeatedly spreading disinformation. Imer said Greene, who personally invested at least $15,001 in Trump's media company last fall, would be "another major addition to the platform."

Greene's nearly 325,000 Parler followers haven't heard from her in months. She's much more active on twin Gettr feeds listing a combined audience of more than 860,000 followers.

Greene was one of the four dozen political commentators who have struggled to replicate the audience growth they experienced on Twitter since migrating to the existing echo-chamber-like clones, Washington Post analysts reported.

Political exiles aside, Imer said Truth Social is a natural fit for conservative candidates seeking to "reach their base without shadow banning and censorship." He predicted that others from across the aisle would likely follow.

"I think you will see some moderate Democrats that disagree with all the censorship join the app," Imer said.

And he's thought up a few ways to ensure Truth Social trumps existing social-media sites for good.

The simplest innovation: Scrap the 280-character limit. Imer said allowing people to write longer, rather than relaying their messages in sequential Twitter threads, "would be a great thing."

"I also think adding a livestreaming option would be beneficial to them in the long run," Imer said.

As psyched as he is to participate, sitting on his hands while the Truth Social gatekeepers sort through the waitlist suits Imer just fine.

"I think for now it's just a way to build up hype and generate curiosity," he wrote in an email. "I would say it's working!"

Read more:

Trump's Truth Social is weeks from launching. One GenZer can't wait. - Business Insider

Those close to Sen. Ted Cruz indicate the Texas Republican wants to run for president again. But whether he does, and how he does, will depend on what Donald Trumps aspirations are in 2024.

Allan Smith is a political reporter for NBC News. He told Texas Standard that early polling suggests Texas junior Republican Senator trails former President Donald Trump and other potential 2024 GOP candidates, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.

This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:

Texas Standard: You indicate Senator Cruz would not run for president against Donald Trump again. Could you say a little bit more about the thinking behind that?

Allan Smith: A gentleman close to the Texas senator told me that if Trumps in the race, its highly unlikely that Cruz runs in 2024. But hes extremely interested. He gave an interview in December talking about how hes in the best position to win the next Republican nomination, just based on historical trends, having finished second last time. And when he chatted with me, he said the decision is going to be made after the former president decides on running for president, but he did not expressly rule it out. If Trump does decide to make a second term bid.

I guess thats a big part of the headline here that Ted Cruz still wants to be president. I mean, thats the sense that youre getting from the folks that youre talking with on the campaign trail and out there in the hustings, I suppose.

Absolutely. And hes made it clear that his goal is to make another presidential bid. He would love to be president. He told me he is comfortable in the Senate if it is the last job he ever has. He has accepted that after 2016. But he definitely wants to make another run at the White House, and hes not really keeping it a secret

Well, I guess the follow-on to that is whether Cruz could have a successful presidential campaign if Trump were not to try to run. I mean, hes not polling very well generally among Republicans. He called the Capitol insurrection a terrorist attack, which is not in line with the way a lot of members of his party are referring to that day. And there was that time he went to Cancun during that deadly winter storm, and blackouts here in the Lone Star State about this time last year. So how does he see that adding up to a successful campaign bid?

After 2016, he basically did a full about-face after really locking horns with Trump on the campaign trail and becoming sort of this leading defender of his in Congress. He would almost have to experience some sort of surge over how Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, is being discussed today. Because most folks who are paying close attention to this at this point really see DeSantis as the leading alternative to Trump. And if Trump were not to run, then DeSantis would likely go into 2024 as the frontrunner.

But you mentioned Cancun. You mentioned his walking back of terrorism remarks about January 6. Those were actually two incidents that really kind of blew up on him. The Cancun trip as folks told me was really kind of an unforced error. And it was bad press that he just did not need to have happen to him. And the terrorist remark. He had made that more than a dozen times before the anniversary of January 6, but when he said it one day before, he was just getting reamed and conservative media.

Of course, all this, as you report, hangs on whether or not Donald Trump runs for president again. What are you hearing? Whats the likelihood he will do that?

Most people think it is almost a foregone conclusion at this point that he is going to run. He seems to be hinting at it ever more strongly in his public events, and he is looking to kind of ramp up his rally schedule as the 2022 midterms near. I still think theres definitely a chance that he does not run in 2024. And youve got folks like Cruz who kind of have these campaigns in waiting that are ready to go if something were to happen where the former presidents not running. But at this point, it looks exceedingly likely that hes going to be mounting another campaign in a couple of years.

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Ted Cruz's presidential hopes are at the mercy of Donald Trump again - Texas Standard

Senator Kyrsten Sinema has received so much attention recently that you might have forgotten that shes not the Arizona Democrat up for re-election in 2022.

That would be Senator Mark Kelly. As a freshman Democrat in a state that President Biden won by less than a percentage point in 2020, hes one of four vulnerable incumbents whom Republicans are targeting as they seek to regain the majority in the U.S. Senate.

If Republicans fail to knock off Kelly, a popular former astronaut with piles of campaign cash, itll be for one main reason, party strategists and pollsters tell us: A primary so consumed with winning Donald Trumps blessing that the Republican Party sets itself up to lose the general election.

With the current electoral environment shaping up to be very pro-Republican, the only potential issue is that a hard-right candidate comes out of the primary and ends up losing in what should be a gimme Republican year, said Mike Noble, an Arizona-based pollster.

The obvious choice for a challenger to Kelly might have been Doug Ducey, Arizonas Republican governor. He managed to win re-election in a brutal year for Republicans and is not allowed to run for a third term. But Ducey has steadfastly maintained hes not interested in the Senate.

That leaves a number of lesser-known Republicans to vie for the nomination. The best way to stand out? Obtaining the endorsement of Trump, which means making remarks or taking positions that could haunt them in November.

First, theres Attorney General Mark Brnovich, whos worked in Arizona government for the last decade. But he faces intense pressure from Trump and from the Republican grass-roots to find fraud in his investigation of the 2020 election. At an Arizona rally earlier this month, Trump referred to his baseless claims that he actually won the state and told the crowd that he was anxiously waiting to see whether Brnovich would agree with him, and that theyd soon find out if the attorney general is a good man.

Brnovich, apparently undeterred, posted on Twitter a photo of himself with Trump.

Trump reserved a warmer reception for Blake Masters, calling him a really terrific guy at the rally. Masters a venture capitalist backed by Peter Thiel, a billionaire tech mogul whos close to Trump has said that he believes Trump won in 2020 and that the country is being run by psychopaths.

Then theres Jim Lamon, a businessman whose campaign put $1 million behind a TV ad cheering Lets Go Brandon, a far-right slogan that translates to an expletive directed at Biden. Lamon also helped facilitate Republicans post-mortem review of the 2020 election results in the states most populous county.

All of these efforts to win the former presidents support could backfire in the fall if Democrats are able to anchor the eventual nominee to Trump.

Yes, its a big benefit and help during the primary due to Trumps current influence over the electorate, Noble said. However, it is absolutely a weakness when they move into the all-important general election.

Before we go any further, lets make one thing clear: Given the national environment, Republicans should have a natural advantage in a state that Biden won so narrowly.

Its not just that the party in the White House tends to struggle in the first midterm election of a presidents term, or that the presidents approval ratings are hovering in the low 40s. Its also that Biden inherited a pandemic and all the economic and social fallout that came with it. And that Arizona was ruby red only a few short years ago, suggesting that Kellys three-point margin in 2020 could be easy enough to erase.

Its absolutely the Republicans to lose, Brian Seitchik, an Arizona-based Republican consultant, said of the race.

Republicans are confident that whoever becomes their nominee will enter the race against Kelly in a strong position to win.

Voters and persuadable swing voters will be inclined to want to vote for someone whos going to be a check and a balance on the Biden administration, said Daniel Scarpinato, a former chief of staff to Ducey.

Arizona elected two Democratic senators during Trumps term and ultimately voted to oust him in 2020. And even in a national environment that could lift Republicans to the majority, they could still find ways to lose.

Scarpinato said he hasnt seen candidates engage in behavior that would tear the party apart or put people in a position where theyre perceived as being unelectable.

But he cautioned that Republicans cant become so preoccupied with fighting one another in the primary which is not until August that they delay their attacks against Kelly.

They need to start now, Scarpinato said.

One Republican national strategist involved in Senate races told us that the top concern for many in his party is that the eventual nominee drains all their resources on the primary, leaving them cash-strapped against Kelly, who ended last year with nearly $20 million in his campaign account.

And while others noted that while Republican-aligned outside groups such as the Club for Growth could make up any gaps in spending, money is likely one reason that many Republicans keep hoping Ducey changes his mind and decides to run, Noble said.

Ducey was re-elected in 2018 even as Democrats won a Senate seat in Arizona for the first time in decades. Hes already proven he can put together a top-tier statewide campaign operation. But Ducey has said publicly and privately that hes not running, and its easy to see why: Hed have to get through a Republican primary and general election without the support of Trump, who blames him for losing the state in 2020. Just a few weeks ago, Trump reiterated in a statement that Ducey would never have his endorsement or the support of MAGA Nation!

One of the great unknowns in the 2022 election is the effect of the presidents approval rating. If it stays in the low 40s, Kelly could be ousted no matter how skilled a campaign he runs, or how bumbling an opponent he faces.

He has to carry around Joe Biden like a sack of potatoes wherever he goes, said Stan Barnes, a Republican strategist based in Phoenix.

A lighthearted moment accidentally illuminated some important dynamics on the Supreme Court more consequential, perhaps, than the retirement of Justice Stephen Breyer.

In oral arguments last week in a case about whether Boston can stop a private group from flying a Christian flag in front of its City Hall, a lawyer for the plaintiffs was addressing Clarence Thomas, a deeply conservative associate justice who joined the court in 1991.

Chief the lawyer, Mathew Staver, began, before correcting himself and continuing, Justice Thomas.

The little-noticed hiccup came after a flood of recent commentary and reporting on Thomass growing influence after years on the margins of the court.

Last year, Jill Abramson, the former executive editor of The New York Times, observed in an opinion essay that what is remarkable is the extent to which the Supreme Court, with the addition of three Donald Trump nominees who create a 6-to-3 conservative majority, seems to be reshaping itself in Justice Thomass image.

This is the one thing that pundits of opposite political leanings seem to agree on: Liberals have lamented Thomass role as the new chief justice, while conservatives, including the influential Wall Street Journal editorial page, have hailed the Thomas court.

Its not the first time someone has made the same error. In March of last year, when a lawyer in another case mistakenly called Thomas Mr. Chief Justice, the actual chief justice John Roberts joked, Theres no opening.

Is there anything you think were missing? Anything you want to see more of? Wed love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.

Continued here:

The Man at the Center of Arizonas Primary Is Donald Trump - The New York Times

(Photo by Evan Vucci-Pool/Getty Images)

Donald Trumps LOLsuits against Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube took a hit earlier this week in the courtroom of US District Judge John S. Tigar. Not because any of his claims are in Tigars court theyre not. But because Tigar issued a ruling on the very fact pattern at the center of Trumps cases against the social media giants. And the ruling wascase dismissed.

Back in July, Trump sued the companies in Florida for tortiously deplatforming him after the January 6 Riot. His theory of the case is that this amounts to censorship and a violation his First Amendment rights. Sure, the First Amendment only applies to the government, and private companies have no obligation to let anyone use their megaphone. But what if Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are actually the government?

Yes, that is literally what Trump is arguing, with a pinch of Section 230 thrown in to sex it up.

Twitter has increasingly engaged in impermissible censorship resulting from threatened legislative action, a misguided reliance upon Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, 47 U.S.C. 230, and willful participation in joint activity with federal actors. Defendant Twitters status thus rises beyond that of a private company to that of a state actor, and as such, Defendant is constrained by the First Amendment right to free speech in the censorship decisions it makes.

See, Democrats are threatening to take away Section 230 protections for social media platforms, which is coercion, and that turns the companies into state actors. If you think about it makes no goddamn sense! And, not for nothing, but Trump himself once vetoed the entire defense spending bill because congress refused to repeal Section 230.

Nevertheless, he argues that, In censoring the specific speech at issue in this lawsuit and deplatforming Plaintiff, Defendants were acting in concert with federal officials, including officials at the CDC and the (Biden) White House. On January 7, 2020.

But linear time isnt the only problem with this argument. Because, while Trump was wasting three months getting summarily launched off the Florida docket to the Northern District of California turns out venue clauses in the terms of service are enforceable, who knew! someone else was making virtually the same argument in Judge Tigars courtroom.

And that someone was a group of anti-vax weirdos calling themselves the Informed Consent Action Network, AKA ICAN. After getting booted off Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube for peddling COVID-19 misinformation extolling the virtues of hydroxychloroquine, ICAN sued the companies alleging that their First Amendment rights had been violated. By their logic, Rep. Adam Schiff sent nasty letters to Zuck, Jack, and Susan Wojcicki suggesting that allowing their sites to be overrun by horse paste fan clubs was wildly irresponsible, and then the platforms finally lurched into action to mop up some of the worst players. Ipso facto propter hoc, the sites are now the government stifling ICANs free speech rights.

Which sounds extremely familiar. And alsobatshit crazy.

Which is what Judge Tigar said, more or less.

Simply put, [t]he publicly expressed views of individual members of Congress regardless of how influential do not constitute action on the part of the federal government, he wrote, citing yet another Northern District of California decision finding that Twitter, Google, and YouTube could refuse to host COVID misinformation without becoming Nancy Pelosis agents.

In sum, the Court concludes that ICAN has failed to plausibly allege that Defendants were acting as state actors in the removal of ICAN accounts from their platforms, the court concluded. Accordingly, ICAN fails to state a claim against Defendants for violation of its First Amendment rights.

Which isnot great, Bob, for Donald Trump and his attempt to get back to doing the thing he loves the most, i.e. tapping out incendiary twaddle that dominates the news cycle every single day.

Twitter immediately docketed a statement of recent decision, just giving Judge James Donato a little heads up that his colleague had recently issued an order dismissing First Amendment claims against YouTube, LLC and Facebook, Inc. for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.

In case the court needs yet another precedent to cite while considering the companys motion to flush this stinker of a case.

Trump v. Twitter [Docket via Court Listener]ICAN v. YouTube [Docket via Court Listener]

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

Original post:

Trump's LOLsuits To Get Back On Social Media Take Yet Another Hit - Above the Law