The Conversation -- March 19, 2024
John Fritze of CNN: "The Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for Texas to immediately begin enforcing a controversial immigration law that allows state officials to arrest and detain people they suspect of entering the country illegally. The court's three liberals dissented. Legal challenges to the law are ongoing at a federal appeals court, but the decision hands a significant -- yet temporary -- win to Texas, which has been in an ongoing battle with the Biden administration over immigration policy. The court had been blocking the law from taking effect, issuing an indefinite stay on Monday, which was wiped away by Tuesday's order.... As is often the case in emergency applications, the court did not explain its reasoning. However, a concurring opinion written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, explained that the appeals court had only handed down a temporary 'administrative' order."
Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: "Congressional leaders said on Tuesday morning that they had reached an agreement on the final package of spending legislation to fund the federal government through the fall, though it was unclear whether they would be able to pass it in time to avert a brief partial shutdown over the weekend.... It will take congressional staff time to draw up text of the bill.... House Republicans, Senate Democrats and the White House had been at loggerheads over funding levels for the Department of Homeland Security. For days, they had been litigating disagreements that threatened to imperil the spending package that also funds the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies. They are facing a midnight deadline on Friday to pass the measure and avert a lapse in funding. A breakthrough on Monday night, in which Democrats and Republicans were able to agree to homeland security funding levels for the rest of the fiscal year, allowed negotiators to finalize their deal."
Sarah Fortinsky of the Hill: "Former President Trump argued Tuesday he would have to take extreme measures in order to pay a $464 million bond due next week in his New York civil fraud case, such as selling some of his properties for cheap 'fire sale' prices. Trump blasted New York Judge Arthur Engoron, who ruled against the former president in the fraud case, in a Truth Social post objecting to having to post the bond.... 'I would be forced to mortgage or sell Great Assets, perhaps at Fire Sale prices, and if and when I win the Appeal, they would be gone. Does that make sense? WITCH HUNT. ELECTION INTERFERENCE!' Trump added."
Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump is preparing to bring back into his campaign fold [Paul Manafort,] a man convicted of multiple crimes and whom a bipartisan Senate report labeled a 'grave counterintelligence threat' because of his ties to a Russian spy.... Trump pardoned Manafort after losing the 2020 election, claiming he had been treated unfairly and sparing him years more in confinement after his convictions for money laundering, obstruction and foreign lobbying violations. And Trump has broadly dismissed the Russia probe that ensnared Manafort as a 'hoax.'" Blake goes into details of the Senate report; Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) chaired the committee that investigated and wrote the report. (MB: Still can't find that Maddow segment!)
Timothy Snyder on Substack on the Bloodbath Candidate: "... right at the beginning, Americans at the [Trump] rally [Saturday] are told to identify themselves with people who tried to overthrow an election by force, who are celebrated as 'unbelievable patriots.' That is perhaps the most essential element of context to Trump's later reference to a bloodbath. He has already made clear, in a the collective performance, that violent insurrection is the best form of politics. Well before he actually used the word, he had instructed his audience that bloodbaths are the right form of politics.... Right at the beginning of his Vandalia speech, Trump referred to the convicts as 'hostages' and promised to pardon them 'the first day we get into office.' That pardon pledge is a second essential context for Trump's later reference to a bloodbath. Trump is saying that, as president, he will have the power to protect violent criminals who help him get into office." Read the whole essay.
Zach Montague & David Adams of the New York Times: "Peter Navarro, a trade adviser to ... Donald J. Trump, reported to federal prison in Miami on Tuesday, becoming the first senior Trump administration official to serve time over his role in the effort to subvert the results of the 2020 election. Mr. Navarro, 74, who helped engineer Mr. Trump's plans to stay in power after his electoral defeat in November 2020, was sentenced to four months in prison in January for contempt of Congress after defying a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot. At a hastily organized news conference shortly before he was set to check into the Federal Correctional Institution in Miami, a low-security prison next to the Miami-Dade zoo, Mr. Navarro reprised familiar denunciations of the Justice Department and the Biden administration." MB: "Hastily organized," I surmise, because Navarro was planning to be elsewhere this morning. Alas, Supreme Court CJ John Roberts did not catch Navarro's late-in-the-4th-quarter Hail-Mary pass; story linked below. (Maybe Balls-and-Strikes Roberts prefers baseball to football.) The Guardian's story is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Luckily for Sneaky Pete, he has a prison consultant, who is advising Navarro how to make his term in the hoosegow shorter and more pleasant. CNN's story is here. Thanks to Akhilleus for the link. And you won't want to miss his commentary below.
The New York Times' live updates of Tuesday's developments in the Israel/Hamas war are here.
Mississippi. Emma Tucker, et al., of CNN: "Hunter Elward, a former Mississippi sheriff's deputy who faced the most serious of federal charges against him and five other officers in the torture of two Black men last year, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in a highly emotional hearing Tuesday. Elward pleaded guilty in August to federal charges of discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence, conspiracy against rights, deprivation of rights under color of law, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and obstruction of justice related to the January 2023 incident. The former officer was also ordered to pay $79,500 in restitution to the victims. Details from the January 24, 2023, incident in Braxton, just southeast of Jackson, eventually came to light after the victims -- Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker – filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in June. They alleged the officers illegally entered their home and handcuffed, kicked, waterboarded and tased them and attempted to sexually assault them over nearly two hours before one of the deputies put a gun in Jenkins' mouth and shot him.... Some of the officers called themselves 'The Goon Squad' because of their willingness to use excessive force and not report it, federal prosecutors said."
David Kurtz in TPM: "U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has unlocked new achievements in weirdness and incompetence. On Monday, she issued an order directing Special Counsel Jack Smith and Donald Trump to each come up with a set of proposed jury instructions based on two hypothetical interpretations of the Presidential Records Act. Both of her interpretations are wrong as a matter of law and favorable to Trump, putting Smith in an extraordinary bind. If this is confusing, trust me, it's not you. This is a strange and unusual place to be at this stage in a criminal case. Cannon clearly doesn't understand her role or the law at issue. She is casting about for help, but doing so in a way that is not going to be helpful to her or to the case." ~~~
~~~ Matt Naham of Law & Crime: "Lawyers were left scratching their heads over the Mar-a-Lago trial judge's Monday order asking the prosecution and defense to propose jury instructions under the assumption that the Presidential Records Act (PRA) allowed ... Donald Trump to unilaterally decide that classified documents were personal." Includes numerous lawyerly reactions, including a reprise of the Weissmann-Moss dialog mentioned below.
Louisa Loveluck, et al., of the Washington Post: "On Jan. 7, the Israeli military conducted a targeted missile strike on a car carrying four Palestinian journalists outside Khan Younis, in southern Gaza. Two members of an Al Jazeera crew -- Hamza Dahdouh, 27, and drone operator Mustafa Thuraya, 30 -- were killed, along with their driver. Two freelance journalists were seriously wounded. They were returning from the scene of an earlier Israeli strike on a building, where they had used a drone to capture the aftermath. The drone -- a consumer model available at Best Buy -- would be central to the Israeli justification for the strike.... The Washington Post obtained and reviewed the footage from Thuraya's drone, which was stored in a memory card recovered at the scene and sent to a Palestinian production company in Turkey. No Israeli soldiers, aircraft or other military equipment are visible in the footage taken that day -- which The Post is publishing in its entirety -- raising critical questions about why the journalists were targeted. Fellow reporters said they were unaware of troop movements in the area.... The Post found no indications that either man was operating as anything other than a journalist that day."
Seb Starcevic of Politico: "Prince Harry could be deported from the U.S. if he lied about taking drugs on his American visa application, according to ... Donald Trump. In a preview of an interview with GB News that's set to air Tuesday evening, Trump weighed in on the visa drama enveloping Prince Harry, saying the royal, who now lives in California, shouldn't receive special treatment. 'We'll have to see if they know something about the drugs, and if he lied they'll have to take appropriate action,' Trump said.... Prince Harry's visa status has been at the center of a legal row since an American conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, last year sued the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for access to his immigration records. Applicants for certain American visas typically must disclose whether they have ever taken drugs, and doing so can result in their application being denied. Other public figures have run into issues entering the U.S. over their reported drug use. In his memoir 'Spare,' Harry admitted to using various drugs and psychedelics including cocaine, marijuana and magic mushrooms, but it's unclear whether he declared this on his visa application." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Wait! Doesn't Harry have, like, royal immunity? Like Trump's Article II "I can do whatever I want" immunity? Only better because it's a birthright.
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Today is primary election day in several states. The Washington Post highlights some key down-ballot races in Ohio, California & Illinois.
Oh Noes! Shayna Jacobs & Jonathan O'Connell of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump has been unable to finance an appeal bond for at least $450 million to cover a judgment in the New York attorney general's business fraud case against him and is seeking a reprieve from an appellate court to keep the state from seizing assets, according to a court filing Monday. The former president's lawyers said in the filing that Trump and the Trump Organization, the real estate hospitality and golf resort company he solely owns, have been unable to get a surety company to accept property as collateral -- stalling any efforts to obtain a bond that is due to be posted in a week." The story is breaking & will be updated. Thanks to Ken W. for the link. The New York Times also has a developing story. CNN's story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: I'm so confused. Trump has said he was a multi-billionaire with loads of cash on hand. Could that be all a lie? I hope Tish James likes faux-gilded decor because she's about to get her some of it. ~~~
~~~ Kate Christobek & Ben Protess of the New York Times: "If he cannot produce the bond by March 25, Mr. Trump faces the possibility of financial disaster and humiliation. New York's attorney general, who brought the fraud case, would be entitled to collect the $454 million and could seek to seize Mr. Trump's New York properties or freeze his bank accounts.... [Also] as the presumptive Republican nominee for president, he is facing increased pressure to raise money to fund his campaign, lagging behind his opponent, President Biden, in fund-raising.... Here's what we know about Mr. Trump's financial problems[.]" MB: "Disaster and humiliation"? Let's all have a sad. While it lasts. Because you know Trump will weasel out of this predicament, as he usually does. ~~~
~~~ U.S.A. for Sale. Paul Campos in LG&$: "Note that there are thousands of individuals in this wide world of ours for who $454 million is a genuinely trivial sum of money. Now apply that logic to governments (the back of my envelope says Saudi Arabia's Sovereign Wealth Fund throws off something like that sum in additional investment income about once every three days). Basically, electing Trump would as practical matter mean putting the US government up for sale at a price that a random plutocrat, let alone a hostile government, would consider the Sale of the Century." Thanks to RAS for the link. MB: Rachel Maddow elaborated on Campos' themes at the top of her show Monday, and I'll get up a video of the segment if MSNBC makes it available. In the meantime, think Friend-of-Russian-oligarchs Paul Manafort's likely return to the Trump campaign. Maddow makes the connection. Update: Still can't find that clip.
Maggie Astor of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump on Monday sought to defend his declaration over the weekend that the country would face a 'blood bath' if he lost in November, saying -- as his campaign had previously -- that he had been referring only to the auto industry. 'The Fake News Media, and their Democrat Partners in the destruction of our Nation, pretended to be shocked at my use of the word BLOODBATH, even though they fully understood that I was simply referring to imports allowed by Crooked Joe Biden, which are killing the automobile industry,' he wrote on his social media platform. He made the remarks in a speech in Ohio on Saturday, delivered on behalf of Bernie Moreno, whom he has endorsed in Tuesday's Republican Senate primary. After vowing to impose tariffs on cars manufactured outside the United States, he then said: 'Now, if I don't get elected, it's going to be a blood bath for the whole -- that's going to be the least of it. It's going to be a blood bath for the country.'... In the same speech, Mr. Trump called migrants 'animals' and 'not people, in my opinion'; described people convicted in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol as 'hostages'; and suggested that American democracy would end if he lost. 'I don't think you're going to have another election, or certainly not an election that's meaningful,' he said." This is part of a liveblog, so you'll have to scroll down to the item. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: Trump can dance backwards in high heels as far as I'm concerned; he can't explain what a bloodbath has to do with tariffs, unless perhaps he's thinking of a Boston Tea Party-type revolution in which gangs of folks in MAGA hats raid U.S. ports and attempt to destroy foreign-made vehicles. IMO, his threat of a bloodbath is another iteration of his well-worn bullying tactic. I can see low-information voters thinking, "I guess I'll vote for Trump in the hopes that if he wins, we won't have his violent supporters taking to the streets & rioting everywhere in the country." BTW, his plan to impost a 100% tariff on foreign-made vehicles will double the cost of those vehicles, and capitalism being what it is, will also raise the price of U.S.-made autos. It's. Just. Stupid. ~~~
~~~ Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "... is it really ridiculous to suggest that the guy who warned of 'riots,' 'violence in the streets' and 'death & destruction' if he were wronged might be gesturing in that direction again? Of course not. More than that, history gives weight to comments like these. And that history includes Trump's supporters turning violent after the 2020 election -- and after they appeared to interpret his comments as encouragement.... You can argue that one comment is being blown out of proportion. But the track record here is clear." Blake provides a kind of greatest-hits reel of Trump's violent remarks.
~~~ Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump says that his recent warning of a 'blood bath' if he is not elected president in November was made in the context of electric vehicles and that he was not talking about political violence generally. But if discussing a type of automotive technology in bloody terms seems odd to some, it fits in the increasingly brutal language Mr. Trump has been applying to electric vehicles, one of his favorite foils. He has long claimed electric cars will 'kill' America's auto industry. He has called them an 'assassination' of jobs. He has declared that the Biden administration 'ordered a hit job on Michigan manufacturing' by encouraging the sales of electric cars.... Jennifer Mercieca, author of 'Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump,' noted that in his weekend speech, Mr. Trump jumped from complaining about the failure of the United Auto Workers to endorse him to making claims about the auto manufacturing industry leaving the United States for Mexico to the blood bath comment and then back to car sales." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Maybe we should ask if Trump's favorite mode of transportation -- golf carts -- are powered by electricity or gas. Maybe a local government that controls one of his golf clubs has outlawed gas-powered golf carts and that's what has engendered his ridiculous outrage. We have to assume that, what it is, his hatred of electric vehicles is personal because -- as with everything Trump -- it's unlikely to have anything to do with the "good of the country."
Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion.... They hate everything about Israel, and they should be ashamed of themselves because Israel will be destroyed. -- Donald Trump, while talking to a Neo-Nazi ~~~
~~~ Chris Cameron of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump accused Jews who vote for Democrats of hating their religion and Israel, reviving and escalating a claim he made as president that Jewish Democrats were disloyal. A few hours later, facing mounting criticism from Jewish groups, Mr. Trump's campaign repeated his incendiary charge, declaring that 'Trump is right,' and that the Democratic Party 'has turned into a full-blown anti-Israel, antisemitic, pro-terrorist cabal.' Mr. Trump made his remarks in an interview published online on Monday with Sebastian Gorka, a former White House aide.... " Cameron cites pushback from the White House, Chuck Schumer and Jewish organization. An NBC News story is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Cameron doesn't bother to say so, but Gorka "swore lifelong allegiance to a Hungarian Neo-Nazi group known as the Vitézi Rend before he came to the U.S.," according to an investigation by the Forward. So, maybe Gorka's radio show is not the very best forum to falsely criticize Jews for "hating" Israel & Judaism.
** Lisa Mascaro, et al., of the AP: "... Donald Trump has launched his general election campaign not merely rewriting the history of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, but positioning the violent siege and its failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election as a cornerstone of his bid to return to the White House. At a weekend rally in Ohio, his first as the presumed Republican Party presidential nominee, Trump stood onstage, his hand raised in salute to the brim of his red MAGA hat, as a recorded chorus of prisoners in jail for their roles in the Jan. 6 attack sang the national anthem. An announcer asked the crowd to please rise 'for the horribly and unfairly treated January 6th hostages.' And people did, and sang along. 'They were unbelievable patriots,' Trump said as the recording ended. Having previously vowed to pardon the rioters, he promised to help them 'the first day we get into office.'...
"In heaping praise on the rioters, Trump is shifting blame for his own role in the run-up to the bloody mob siege and asking voters to absolve hundreds of them -- and himself -- over the deadliest attack on a seat of American power in 200 years. At the same time, Trump-s allies are installing 2020 election-deniers to the Republican National Committee, further institutionalizing the lies that spurred the violence. That raises red flags about next year, when Congress will again be called upon to certify the vote.... Republicans in Congress are embarking on a re-investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack that seeks to shield Trump of wrongdoing while lawmakers are showcasing side theories about why thousands of his supporters descended on Capitol Hill in what became a brutal scene of hand-to-hand combat with police.... Taken together, it's what those who study authoritarian regimes warn is a classic case of what's called consolidation -- where the state apparatus is being transformed around a singular figure, in this case Trump." Emphasis added.
Devlin Barrett of the Washington Post: "The judge overseeing Donald Trump's classified-documents case issued an unusual order late Monday regarding jury instructions at the end of the trial -- even though she has not yet ruled on when the trial will be held, or a host of other issues. U.S. District Court Judge Aileen M. Cannon instructed lawyers to file proposed jury instructions by April 2 on two topics that are related to defense motions to have the indictment dismissed outright.... Cannon asked the prosecutors and defense attorneys to consider two different hypothetical situations.... [The] second hypothetical would appear to be one in which Trump seemingly could not be convicted under almost any set of facts of improperly possessing classified documents. It was not immediately clear how Cannon envisions a trial potentially based on that premise." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Barrett does his best to explain Cannon's odd order, but it seems to boil down to instructing the jury to interpret a law that Cannon doesn't want to understand -- the Presidential Records Act -- OR instructing the jury that the Presidential Records Act gives Trump the right "to do whatever he wants" and they CANNOT convict him of anything. It was all a witch hunt! The peculiar instruction left attorneys Andrew Weissmann & Bradley Moss arguing on MSNBC about whether the government should go running to the appeals court right now or try some lesser prophylactic measure. ~~~
~~~ Hannah Rabinowitz & Katelyn Polantz of CNN also make a stab at explaining what Cannon is up to here.
Luc Cohen of Reuters: "Donald Trump on Monday lost a bid to block testimony from Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels at his upcoming trial on charges stemming from hush money that Cohen, his former lawyer and fixer, paid Daniels, a porn star, before the 2016 election. Trump last month asked Justice Juan Merchan to block their testimony, arguing Cohen had a history of lying and would likely lie again, and that Daniels ... would seek to use the trial to monetize her story.... Merchan on Monday also denied Trump's request to exclude testimony from or any evidence about the three people who received hush money payments. These included Daniels, a doorman and Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who says she had an affair with Trump, which he also denies.... In a modest victory for Trump, Merchan said prosecutors could ask witnesses about the 'Access Hollywood' tape, but agreed with Trump that playing the clip itself for the jury could cause him 'undue prejudice.' The judge said he may reconsider that ruling 'should the Defense open the door.'"
Zach Schonfeld of the Hill: "Former President Trump sued ABC News and George Stephanopoulos on Monday, alleging defamation over the anchor's questioning of Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) about her endorsement of Trump. The March 10 interview on 'This Week' made headlines after Mace, a rape survivor, accused Stephanopoulos of trying to 'shame' her by probing why she endorsed the former president despite juries’ recent verdicts against him in advice columnist E. Jean Carroll's sexual battery and defamation lawsuits. Trump's lawsuit takes aim at how Stephanopoulos at multiple points in his questioning said Trump had been found 'liable for rape.' The jury had found Trump liable for sexual abuse under New York law, but not rape." MB: Yeah But. The judge in the case later specified that the attack for which the jury found Trump liable constituted rape under New York state law. (WashPo link.)
~~~ Adam Liptak of the New York Times:"Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. ruled on Monday that Peter Navarro, a trade adviser to Donald J. Trump during his presidency, must start serving a four-month sentence for contempt of Congress while he pursues an appeal. The order will make Mr. Navarro, who refused to comply with a subpoena seeking information about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, the first senior aide to Mr. Trump to serve time in connection with the plot to overturn the 2020 election. Mr. Navarro must report to a federal prison in Miami on Tuesday. Chief Justice Roberts, acting on his own without referring the matter to the full Supreme Court, said he saw no reason to disagree with an appeals court's determination that Mr. Navarro had not 'met his burden to establish his entitlement to relief.'" The ABC News report is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: When I was a child in the Miami area, prisoners in black-and-white striped prison uniforms were sent out to work on literal chain gangs. Both the prisoners and their rifle-armed guards frightened me as we drove past. I suppose Navarro will get a nice orange jump suit to wear in his air-conditioned -- if cramped -- new quarters.
Marshall Cohen of CNN: "A pro-Trump lawyer who tried to overturn the 2020 election was arrested Monday after a court hearing about her recent leak of internal emails belonging to Dominion Voting Systems. There was an existing arrest warrant for the attorney, Stefanie Lambert, stemming from her failure to appear at recent court hearings in her separate criminal case in Michigan, where she was charged with conspiring to seize voting machines after the 2020 election. Lambert and a cadre of election deniers have disrupted one of Dominion's many ongoing defamation lawsuits by publicly leaking thousands of the company's internal emails in recent days, using the disclosures to resurrect false claims about voter fraud." US Marshals arrested Lambert behind closed doors after a hearing in another case, causing others in the courtroom to wonder why Lambert never emerged.
Supremes Find Another Group with Special First Amendment Rights: the NRA. Abbie VanSickle of the New York Times: "A majority of the Supreme Court appeared on Monday to embrace arguments by the National Rifle Association that a New York State official violated the First Amendment by trying to dissuade companies from doing business with it after a deadly school shooting.... After the shooting ... in 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla..., which killed 17 students and staff members, Maria Vullo, then a superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services, said banks and other insurance companies regulated by her agency should assess whether they wanted to continue providing services to the N.R.A. The gun rights group sued, accusing Ms. Vullo of unlawfully leveraging her authority as a government official." MB: Having bent the Second Amendment to their will, the NRA now seems to have taken over the First Amendment, too. On to the Third, I guess; soon, we'll be quartering NRA "soldiers" in our homes. ~~~
(~~~ Marie: This is the case in which the ACLU is representing the NRA and the reason the ACLU didn't get my $$$ last year.)
Morgan Lee, et al., of the AP: "The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from a former New Mexico county commissioner who was kicked out of office over his participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Former Otero County commissioner Couy Griffin, a cowboy pastor who rode to national political fame by embracing ... Donald Trump with a series of horseback caravans, is the only elected official thus far to be banned from office in connection with the Capitol attack, which disrupted Congress as it was trying to certify Joe Biden's 2020 electoral victory over Trump. At a 2022 trial in state district court, Griffin received the first disqualification from office in over a century under a provision of the 14th Amendment written to prevent former Confederates from serving in government after the Civil War. Though the Supreme Court ruled this month that states don&'t have the ability to bar Trump or other candidates for federal offices from the ballot, the justices said different rules apply to state and local candidates." (Also linked yesterday.)
More on the Presidential Race
Reid Epstein of the New York Times: "A new $120 million pledge to lift President Biden and his allies will push the total expected spending from outside groups working to re-elect Mr. Biden to $1 billion this year. The League of Conservation Voters, a leading climate organization that is among the biggest spenders on progressive causes, announced its plans for backing Mr. Biden on Tuesday, at a moment when his Republican challenger..., Donald J. Trump, is struggling to raise funds. Mr. Biden's campaign, independent of the outside groups, expects to raise and spend $2 billion as part of his re-election bid.... The pro-Biden outside money originates from nearly a dozen organizations that include climate groups, labor unions and traditional super PACs. There are left-wing groups like MoveOn and moderate Republicans like Republican Voters Against Trump."
Brian Schwartz of CNBC: "Donald Trump's reelection campaign has begun to see warning signs that the small-dollar donors who fueled his last run for the White House have slowed their support to the former president this year, according to people familiar with the matter.... The drop in Trump's small-dollar donations is magnified by a second problem: Many wealthy Republican donors have yet to commit to giving millions of dollars toward a pro-Trump political action committee, or to using their extensive networks to raise money for the campaign, according to people familiar with the matter."
Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post: "While virtually all House and Senate Republicans have fallen into line to endorse Donald Trump..., the high-level advisers who served alongside him day in and day out have overwhelmingly refused to do so.... Even more stunning, these former advisers have shared hair-raising observations of Trump's outbursts, mind-set and personal depravity.... Some former advisers have gone so far as to warn that Trump is mentally unfit to serve. [Bill] Barr explained that 'he is a consummate narcissist. And he constantly engages in reckless conduct.... He's a very petty individual who will always put his interests ahead of the country.'... Beyond revealing Trump's praise for Hitler, [John] Kelly has described Trump in shockingly candid terms: 'A person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about.... A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators.'... A 'duty to warn' group of former Trump advisers with eyewitness accounts of his rhetoric, conduct, intellectual limitations and emotional state during his presidency should band together, travel the country, submit op-eds, make media appearances and cut ads that argue against his election."
Minho Kim of the New York Times: "The organizer behind an honor named for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a lifelong champion of women's rights and liberal causes, is canceling the award ceremony scheduled for April after facing blistering criticism from her family and friends over several of this year's planned recipients. Justice Ginsburg helped establish the award in 2019 ... for 'women who exemplify human qualities of empathy and humility,' but four of the five intended recipients this year are men. Among them are Elon Musk..., Rupert Murdoch..., and [junk-bond criminal] Michael R. Milken.... A spokesman for the Opperman Foundation confirmed on Monday night that the ceremony had been canceled, but said no decision had been made on whether those selected would still receive the award. In its statement, the foundation said it would 'reconsider its mission' and assess 'how or whether to proceed in the future.'" ~~~
~~~ Marie: Still no mention in the Times of what we learned from Mother Jones: that both the chair of the awards and the chair of the foundation behind them are big-time Republicans. P.S. I suppose it's not accurate for me to call Milken a criminal, because Trump pardoned him. So clean slate. ~~~
~~~ Maura Judkis of the Washington Post writes that the awards themselves have been "abruptly cancelled." Judkis does go into why the awards were named for Ginsburg & the currently strained family dynamic behind the foundation. And, to help ground the whole debacle is reality, she writes, "Galas built around impressively named awards are a stalwart of the Washington elite social scene -- and a way to entice celebrity honorees to rub elbows with politicians and business leaders over $1,000-a-head plates of prime rib. Even as many of these awards dinners succeed at raising funds or awareness for worthy causes, the see-and-be-seen spectacle is often what fuels the entire endeavor."
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Israel/Palestine, et al. The Washington Post's live updates of developments Tuesday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accepted President Biden's invitation to send a senior delegation to Washington, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said, to 'hear U.S. concerns about Israel's current Rafah planning and to lay out an alternative approach' to targeting Hamas in the crowded city in southern Gaza. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Saudi Arabia and Egypt this week amid ongoing negotiations for a cease-fire deal.... In his first call with Netanyahu in more than a month, Biden repeated his objections to any Israeli effort to 'smash' into Rafah. Biden is deeply concerned that a military offensive in Rafah would worsen the humanitarian disaster in Gaza and be detrimental to Israel's long-term security, Sullivan said. Marwan Issa, the deputy commander of Hamas's military wing, was killed in an Israeli strike this month in central Gaza, Sullivan confirmed Monday."
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