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Nevilledog
Nevilledog's Journal
Nevilledog's Journal
August 1, 2024
It is late afternoon on Inauguration Day 2025. Protesters fill the downtowns of American cities, enraging the newly sworn president. Send in the military, he demands. Invoke the Insurrection Act. Federalize the National Guard in all 50 states. Tell the troops to use all the force they need to clear the streets.
So began one of five tabletop exercises I co-led in May and June, along with former Defense Department official Rosa Brooks and historian Nils Gilman. We based the starting scenarios on the election of former president Donald Trump to a second term, and we asked participants playing the president, all of them Republicans or former Republicans, to base their gameplay on Trump’s publicly stated promises.
As a nonpartisan think tank, my employer, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, takes no position on how Americans should cast their votes. Nor do we predict who will win in November. Some of my colleagues are doing scenario planning for a Democratic victory, too.
The role-playing exercises were designed to test how well checks and balances, broadly understood, might restrain a president from abusing his power. The results were not encouraging: The games demonstrated repeatedly that an authoritarian in control of the executive branch, with little concern for legal limits, holds a structural advantage over any lawful effort to restrain him.
*snip*
How to Harden Our Defenses Against an Authoritarian President
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/how-harden-our-defenses-against-authoritarian-presidentIt is late afternoon on Inauguration Day 2025. Protesters fill the downtowns of American cities, enraging the newly sworn president. Send in the military, he demands. Invoke the Insurrection Act. Federalize the National Guard in all 50 states. Tell the troops to use all the force they need to clear the streets.
So began one of five tabletop exercises I co-led in May and June, along with former Defense Department official Rosa Brooks and historian Nils Gilman. We based the starting scenarios on the election of former president Donald Trump to a second term, and we asked participants playing the president, all of them Republicans or former Republicans, to base their gameplay on Trump’s publicly stated promises.
As a nonpartisan think tank, my employer, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, takes no position on how Americans should cast their votes. Nor do we predict who will win in November. Some of my colleagues are doing scenario planning for a Democratic victory, too.
The role-playing exercises were designed to test how well checks and balances, broadly understood, might restrain a president from abusing his power. The results were not encouraging: The games demonstrated repeatedly that an authoritarian in control of the executive branch, with little concern for legal limits, holds a structural advantage over any lawful effort to restrain him.
*snip*
July 29, 2024
No paywall link
https://archive.li/e5sSw
IT WAS THE summer of 2016 when a manager at the Central Intelligence Agency pulled him into a conference room, sat him down at a table, and asked him to read the intelligence they had brought.
Van Landingham wasn’t naive about what the Kremlin was capable of. His work as an intelligence analyst for the CIA had given him a front row seat to the destruction that Russia’s spy services had wrought in places like Syria and Ukraine.
But this wasn’t about what Russia was doing in some far away country.
Inside a room wrapped in a vault in the bowels of the Central Intelligence Agency’s headquarters, he read the intelligence showing that Moscow was trying to disrupt the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
“I think for the first time in my professional life, I felt physically ill reading something,” he says.
That was only the beginning of a long, strange journey that would place van Landingham right at the center of the 2016 campaign’s biggest story. Months later, the Agency assigned him the job of writing the first draft of the intelligence community’s 2017 assessment about Russian election meddling that concluded what many had suspected: Vladimir Putin did it. And he did it to help Donald Trump.
*snip*
He Confirmed Russia Meddled in 2016 to Help Trump. Now, He's Speaking Out
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/cia-ica-report-author-trump-russia-1235067814/No paywall link
https://archive.li/e5sSw
IT WAS THE summer of 2016 when a manager at the Central Intelligence Agency pulled him into a conference room, sat him down at a table, and asked him to read the intelligence they had brought.
Van Landingham wasn’t naive about what the Kremlin was capable of. His work as an intelligence analyst for the CIA had given him a front row seat to the destruction that Russia’s spy services had wrought in places like Syria and Ukraine.
But this wasn’t about what Russia was doing in some far away country.
Inside a room wrapped in a vault in the bowels of the Central Intelligence Agency’s headquarters, he read the intelligence showing that Moscow was trying to disrupt the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
“I think for the first time in my professional life, I felt physically ill reading something,” he says.
That was only the beginning of a long, strange journey that would place van Landingham right at the center of the 2016 campaign’s biggest story. Months later, the Agency assigned him the job of writing the first draft of the intelligence community’s 2017 assessment about Russian election meddling that concluded what many had suspected: Vladimir Putin did it. And he did it to help Donald Trump.
*snip*
July 23, 2024
Trigger warning for discussion of traumatic medical procedures
I remember the feeling of hands inside me. Pulling, tugging, moving things aside. My emergency c-section wasn’t painful, but that feeling of being invaded was somehow worse than physical hurt. For years, the thought of the surgery would send me into a PTSD panic, my knees literally buckling and vomit coming up the back of my throat. In my memory, my arms are tied down while I’m being cut—but I know that’s not true. It’s just my brain’s way of making the powerlessness of the moment seem tangible.
Because I was so early in my pregnancy, just 28 weeks along, doctors had to cut me both horizontally and vertically, making it life-threatening for me to have a vaginal birth in the future and increasing my risk for uterine rupture. I didn’t know it then, but I would never have another child.
So when I see anti-abortion groups blithely suggesting that women with life-threatening pregnancies should be forced into c-sections rather than easier, safer, and less traumatic abortions—it feels personal. Because I chose my medical nightmare; it was necessary to save both my life and my daughter’s. I can’t imagine the horror of going through such a thing unnecessarily, or at 16 weeks pregnant instead of 28. What if my tied-down arms weren’t a post-traumatic illusion, but a legal reality?
For nearly a year, I’ve been tracking this growing strategy: Some of the most powerful anti-abortion organizations in the country are using carefully-worded legislation and seemingly-credible clinical recommendations to codify medical atrocities—pushing doctors to force pregnant women into unnecessary labor and c-sections, even before fetal viability and sometimes even when a fetus has died.
*snip*
Jessica Valenti - This is How They Kill Us: The rise of post-Roe c-sections
https://jessica.substack.com/p/this-is-how-they-kill-usTrigger warning for discussion of traumatic medical procedures
I remember the feeling of hands inside me. Pulling, tugging, moving things aside. My emergency c-section wasn’t painful, but that feeling of being invaded was somehow worse than physical hurt. For years, the thought of the surgery would send me into a PTSD panic, my knees literally buckling and vomit coming up the back of my throat. In my memory, my arms are tied down while I’m being cut—but I know that’s not true. It’s just my brain’s way of making the powerlessness of the moment seem tangible.
Because I was so early in my pregnancy, just 28 weeks along, doctors had to cut me both horizontally and vertically, making it life-threatening for me to have a vaginal birth in the future and increasing my risk for uterine rupture. I didn’t know it then, but I would never have another child.
So when I see anti-abortion groups blithely suggesting that women with life-threatening pregnancies should be forced into c-sections rather than easier, safer, and less traumatic abortions—it feels personal. Because I chose my medical nightmare; it was necessary to save both my life and my daughter’s. I can’t imagine the horror of going through such a thing unnecessarily, or at 16 weeks pregnant instead of 28. What if my tied-down arms weren’t a post-traumatic illusion, but a legal reality?
For nearly a year, I’ve been tracking this growing strategy: Some of the most powerful anti-abortion organizations in the country are using carefully-worded legislation and seemingly-credible clinical recommendations to codify medical atrocities—pushing doctors to force pregnant women into unnecessary labor and c-sections, even before fetal viability and sometimes even when a fetus has died.
*snip*
July 22, 2024
On Sunday at 1:46 PM Eastern Time, President Joe Biden announced he would end his campaign for reelection. Seconds later, the attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris began.
Harris is not yet the nominee. But she has declared her intention to seek the nomination and received an endorsement from Biden. Prominent Democrats including former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, and many others quickly threw their support behind Harris. She is the strong favorite to secure the nomination.
Some of the attacks on Harris were predictable. For example, shortly after Biden's announcement, the Trump campaign blamed Harris for a "migrant crime wave" over the last three years. This was also the centerpiece of Trump's campaign against Biden, but the "migrant crime wave" does not exist. Violent crime has decreased every year since Biden took office — and is down sharply again in 2024. (The last time violent crime increased was 2020, when Trump was president.) Further, a study of the 14 Texas counties along the border with Mexico by crime analyst Jeff Asher found "no evidence of increasing violent crime along the US border with Mexico." In fact, border counties "have seen a relatively steady violent crime rate below that of the rest of their state and the nation as a whole."
Other attacks include those that seem to pop up any time a woman seeks a position of power. The RNC Research X account, which attacks Trump's opponents on behalf of his campaign and the Republican National Committee, posted a video attacking Harris for being "annoying." The post features a video of Harris saying a short phrase — "what can be, unburdened by what has been" — in various settings for four minutes. This is only a slight variation of the common complaint that ambitious women are "shrill."
*snip*
Judd Legum: A guide to the coming attacks on Kamala Harris
https://popular.info/p/a-guide-to-the-coming-attacks-onOn Sunday at 1:46 PM Eastern Time, President Joe Biden announced he would end his campaign for reelection. Seconds later, the attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris began.
Harris is not yet the nominee. But she has declared her intention to seek the nomination and received an endorsement from Biden. Prominent Democrats including former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, and many others quickly threw their support behind Harris. She is the strong favorite to secure the nomination.
Some of the attacks on Harris were predictable. For example, shortly after Biden's announcement, the Trump campaign blamed Harris for a "migrant crime wave" over the last three years. This was also the centerpiece of Trump's campaign against Biden, but the "migrant crime wave" does not exist. Violent crime has decreased every year since Biden took office — and is down sharply again in 2024. (The last time violent crime increased was 2020, when Trump was president.) Further, a study of the 14 Texas counties along the border with Mexico by crime analyst Jeff Asher found "no evidence of increasing violent crime along the US border with Mexico." In fact, border counties "have seen a relatively steady violent crime rate below that of the rest of their state and the nation as a whole."
Other attacks include those that seem to pop up any time a woman seeks a position of power. The RNC Research X account, which attacks Trump's opponents on behalf of his campaign and the Republican National Committee, posted a video attacking Harris for being "annoying." The post features a video of Harris saying a short phrase — "what can be, unburdened by what has been" — in various settings for four minutes. This is only a slight variation of the common complaint that ambitious women are "shrill."
*snip*
July 2, 2024
On Monday, six members of the Supreme Court granted Donald Trump — and every future president — broad criminal immunity. The court found that, as president, Trump was free to use his "official" powers to commit crimes. Considering the President of the United States is the most powerful position in the world, this is a breathtaking pronouncement.
Writing in dissent, Justice Sotomayor details the implications:
The Supreme Court invented this new kind of presidential immunity 235 years after the Constitution was ratified. And it lacks any grounding in the Constitution's text. Instead, Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, cites the need for the president to take "bold and unhesitating action" without "undue caution."
Justice Sotomayor explains that the Constitution contains provisions granting various forms of criminal immunity to federal officials. But the President of the United States was not included:
*snip*
Judd Legum: A five-alarm fire for democracy
https://popular.info/p/a-five-alarm-fire-for-democracyOn Monday, six members of the Supreme Court granted Donald Trump — and every future president — broad criminal immunity. The court found that, as president, Trump was free to use his "official" powers to commit crimes. Considering the President of the United States is the most powerful position in the world, this is a breathtaking pronouncement.
Writing in dissent, Justice Sotomayor details the implications:
When [the President of the United States] 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.
The Supreme Court invented this new kind of presidential immunity 235 years after the Constitution was ratified. And it lacks any grounding in the Constitution's text. Instead, Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, cites the need for the president to take "bold and unhesitating action" without "undue caution."
Justice Sotomayor explains that the Constitution contains provisions granting various forms of criminal immunity to federal officials. But the President of the United States was not included:
The Framers clearly knew how to provide for immunity from prosecution. They did provide a narrow immunity for legislators in the Speech or Debate Clause. See Art. I, §6, cl. 1 (“Senators and Representatives . . . shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place”). They did not extend the same or similar immunity to Presidents.
*snip*
June 28, 2024
No paywall link
https://archive.li/dce1M
In the biggest judicial power grab since 1803, the Supreme Court today overruled Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, a 1984 case that instructed the judiciary to defer to the president and the president’s experts in executive agencies when determining how best to enforce laws passed by Congress. In so doing, the court gave itself nearly unlimited power over the administrative state and its regulatory agencies.
Now, if you’re not a lawyer, that probably sounds bad, but mainly in a technical sense. Regulatory agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Securities and Exchange Commission issue influential but deeply complicated rules, so it makes sense that somebody should have final authority over whether and how to enforce those rules. Since we have already made the disastrous decision to allow the Supreme Court to tell us who gets to be president and what women can be forced to do with their bodies, it might not sound like that big of a leap to also let the court decide how much lead can leak into our drinking water or which predators are allowed to sell mortgages.
The thing is: the US Constitution, flawed though it is, has already answered the question of who gets to decide how to enforce our laws. The Constitution says, quite clearly, that Congress passes laws and the President enforces them. The Supreme Court, constitutionally speaking, has no role in determining whether Congress was right to pass the law, or if the executive branch is right to enforce it, or how presidents should use the authority granted to them by Congress. So, for instance, if Congress passes a Clean Air Act (which it did in in 1963) and the president creates an executive agency to enforce it (which President Richard Nixon did in 1970), then it’s really not up to the Supreme Court to say “well, actually, ‘clean air’ doesn’t mean what the EPA thinks it means.”
For an unelected panel of judges to come in, above the agencies, and tell them how the president is allowed to enforce laws, is a perversion of the constitutional order and separation of powers—and a repudiation of democracy itself.
But repudiating democracy to expand its own power is exactly what the Supreme Court did today in its ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which overturned Chevron. In a 6-3 decision, which split exactly along party lines, Chief Justice John Roberts ruled that the courts—and, more particularly, his court and the people who have bought and paid for the justices on it—are the sole arbiters of which laws can be enforced and what enforcement of those laws must look like. Roberts ruled that courts, and only courts, are allowed to figure out what Congress meant to do and impose those interpretations on the rest of society. He wrote that “agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do.”
*snip*
Elie Mystal: We Just Witnessed the Biggest Supreme Court Power Grab Since 1803
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/chevron-deference-supreme-court-power-grab/No paywall link
https://archive.li/dce1M
In the biggest judicial power grab since 1803, the Supreme Court today overruled Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, a 1984 case that instructed the judiciary to defer to the president and the president’s experts in executive agencies when determining how best to enforce laws passed by Congress. In so doing, the court gave itself nearly unlimited power over the administrative state and its regulatory agencies.
Now, if you’re not a lawyer, that probably sounds bad, but mainly in a technical sense. Regulatory agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Securities and Exchange Commission issue influential but deeply complicated rules, so it makes sense that somebody should have final authority over whether and how to enforce those rules. Since we have already made the disastrous decision to allow the Supreme Court to tell us who gets to be president and what women can be forced to do with their bodies, it might not sound like that big of a leap to also let the court decide how much lead can leak into our drinking water or which predators are allowed to sell mortgages.
The thing is: the US Constitution, flawed though it is, has already answered the question of who gets to decide how to enforce our laws. The Constitution says, quite clearly, that Congress passes laws and the President enforces them. The Supreme Court, constitutionally speaking, has no role in determining whether Congress was right to pass the law, or if the executive branch is right to enforce it, or how presidents should use the authority granted to them by Congress. So, for instance, if Congress passes a Clean Air Act (which it did in in 1963) and the president creates an executive agency to enforce it (which President Richard Nixon did in 1970), then it’s really not up to the Supreme Court to say “well, actually, ‘clean air’ doesn’t mean what the EPA thinks it means.”
For an unelected panel of judges to come in, above the agencies, and tell them how the president is allowed to enforce laws, is a perversion of the constitutional order and separation of powers—and a repudiation of democracy itself.
But repudiating democracy to expand its own power is exactly what the Supreme Court did today in its ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which overturned Chevron. In a 6-3 decision, which split exactly along party lines, Chief Justice John Roberts ruled that the courts—and, more particularly, his court and the people who have bought and paid for the justices on it—are the sole arbiters of which laws can be enforced and what enforcement of those laws must look like. Roberts ruled that courts, and only courts, are allowed to figure out what Congress meant to do and impose those interpretations on the rest of society. He wrote that “agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do.”
*snip*
June 19, 2024
* Doctored videos
* Manipulated photos
* Misleading headlines
* Propaganda masquerading as news content
Right-wing media companies Fox Corporation and Sinclair Broadcast Group are working with the MAGA RNC to flood the country’s airwaves, front pages and social media feeds with disinformation designed to smear President Joe Biden.
Take a second to let that sink in. Major “news” organizations have become part of a political party’s propaganda operation. Forget all those movies about crusading reporters trying to hold the powerful to account. Think instead of TASS and Xinhua News doing all they can to make the public swallow their dictators’s lies. This is not why the founders protected a free press. In fact, it was to fight the Monarch’s monopoly on news that they fought so hard for freedom of speech.
Here’s how it works: The MAGA RNC trolls the internet with anti-Biden memes. Often, this included doctored videos and entirely fictional stories. Then Fox, the very same company that notoriously paid out almost $1 billion dollars for lying about the 2020 election, amplifies those lies. Sinclair uses the same doctored and dishonest content on its 86 local television stations and websites. Rinse, repeat.
Together, these efforts are grossly distorting the facts to help secure convicted felon Donald Trump’s election in November. And it’s getting worse. There’s been a noticeable increase in deceptive content cycling its way to the public from all three of these bad actors in the last few weeks. Each one — including the multiple Murdoch outlets like the New York Post and Wall Street Journal — is busy spreading lies and disinformation in an attempt to cement a false narrative that Joe Biden is mentally unfit for office.
*snip*
Three's Company: Fox, Sinclair and the RNC are working together to meddle in the election
https://heartlandsignal.com/2024/06/18/opinion-threes-company-fox-sinclair-and-the-rnc-are-working-together-to-meddle-in-the-election/* Doctored videos
* Manipulated photos
* Misleading headlines
* Propaganda masquerading as news content
Right-wing media companies Fox Corporation and Sinclair Broadcast Group are working with the MAGA RNC to flood the country’s airwaves, front pages and social media feeds with disinformation designed to smear President Joe Biden.
Take a second to let that sink in. Major “news” organizations have become part of a political party’s propaganda operation. Forget all those movies about crusading reporters trying to hold the powerful to account. Think instead of TASS and Xinhua News doing all they can to make the public swallow their dictators’s lies. This is not why the founders protected a free press. In fact, it was to fight the Monarch’s monopoly on news that they fought so hard for freedom of speech.
Here’s how it works: The MAGA RNC trolls the internet with anti-Biden memes. Often, this included doctored videos and entirely fictional stories. Then Fox, the very same company that notoriously paid out almost $1 billion dollars for lying about the 2020 election, amplifies those lies. Sinclair uses the same doctored and dishonest content on its 86 local television stations and websites. Rinse, repeat.
Together, these efforts are grossly distorting the facts to help secure convicted felon Donald Trump’s election in November. And it’s getting worse. There’s been a noticeable increase in deceptive content cycling its way to the public from all three of these bad actors in the last few weeks. Each one — including the multiple Murdoch outlets like the New York Post and Wall Street Journal — is busy spreading lies and disinformation in an attempt to cement a false narrative that Joe Biden is mentally unfit for office.
*snip*
June 18, 2024
No paywall link
https://archive.li/IfCWl
One of the most underappreciated developments of Donald Trump’s presidency is that his strategy toward China was a total failure on its own terms. While Trump began his presidency as a snarling trade warrior, bent on ending Chinese manufacturing dominance, he ended his presidency as a whimpering apologist for Beijing.
The culmination of Trump’s standoff with China was a trade deal that supposedly committed China to purchasing $200 billion worth of American goods. Robert O’Brien, a former Trump national security adviser, admits that the Chinese never actually carried out their end of the deal. “I don’t think we’re going to see a deal like we saw in the first term,” he told Semafor’s Morgan Chalfant. “I think people were generally happy with phase one, but as it turned out, the Chinese didn’t honor it.”
At the time, Trump was trying to pump up the trade deal with China as the crowning achievement of his first term. His snarling rhetoric toward Beijing was supposed to be the setup to the deal, which he could then tout as ushering in a new period of friendship and prosperity. “One of the many great things about our just signed giant Trade Deal with China is that it will bring both the USA & China closer together in so many other ways,” he tweeted. “Terrific working with President Xi, a man who truly loves his country. Much more to come!”
The deal took shape just as COVID-19 was spreading in China, which is why Trump spent the first weeks of the pandemic insisting the virus was well under control on account of the Chinese Communist Party’s flawless and oh-so-forthright direction. (“China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well.”)
*snip*
Trump Adviser Admits He Lost China Trade War
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-china-tariff-adviser-admits-trade-deal-failed.htmlNo paywall link
https://archive.li/IfCWl
One of the most underappreciated developments of Donald Trump’s presidency is that his strategy toward China was a total failure on its own terms. While Trump began his presidency as a snarling trade warrior, bent on ending Chinese manufacturing dominance, he ended his presidency as a whimpering apologist for Beijing.
The culmination of Trump’s standoff with China was a trade deal that supposedly committed China to purchasing $200 billion worth of American goods. Robert O’Brien, a former Trump national security adviser, admits that the Chinese never actually carried out their end of the deal. “I don’t think we’re going to see a deal like we saw in the first term,” he told Semafor’s Morgan Chalfant. “I think people were generally happy with phase one, but as it turned out, the Chinese didn’t honor it.”
At the time, Trump was trying to pump up the trade deal with China as the crowning achievement of his first term. His snarling rhetoric toward Beijing was supposed to be the setup to the deal, which he could then tout as ushering in a new period of friendship and prosperity. “One of the many great things about our just signed giant Trade Deal with China is that it will bring both the USA & China closer together in so many other ways,” he tweeted. “Terrific working with President Xi, a man who truly loves his country. Much more to come!”
The deal took shape just as COVID-19 was spreading in China, which is why Trump spent the first weeks of the pandemic insisting the virus was well under control on account of the Chinese Communist Party’s flawless and oh-so-forthright direction. (“China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well.”)
*snip*
June 15, 2024
Former President Donald Trump has said he will be a dictator on “day one.” He and his advisors and associates have publicly discussed hundreds of further actions to be taken during a second Trump presidency that directly threaten democracy, the rule of law, as well as U.S. (and global) security. These vary from Trump breaking the law and abusing power in areas like immigration roundups and energy extraction; to summarily firing tens of thousands of civil servants whom he perceives as adversaries; to prosecuting his political opponents for personal gain; to pardoning convicted January 6th rioters he views as “warriors,” “great patriots” and “hostages.” We track all of the specific promises, plans, and pronouncements here and we will continue to update them.
This autocratic lean has also been pronounced in statements made by Trump and his allies during and after his New York election interference trial and conviction. Those kinds of attacks on the administration of justice are a hallmark of would-be dictators. As we detail below, Trump has persistently attacked the rule of law when it gets in his way, with the Manhattan case being the most recent example. He committed 10 violations of a gag order protecting witnesses and the jury, falsely accused Justice Juan Merchan, who presided over the trial, of being “corrupt” and doing “everything within his power” to help President Biden win the election, vilified prosecutors and otherwise spread grotesque disinformation about the proceedings and racist tropes about the judge. Despite acknowledging it is “very dangerous” for him to say so, speaking at Trump Tower the day after his conviction, Trump said that the “crooked” judge presiding over the case “was a tyrant” who “looks like an angel but he’s really a devil.” Trump allies have taken a similarly pointed anti-rule of law stance, including in daily appearances outside the trial and a cacophony of unfair and false criticism following its conclusion.
Trump has long threatened to prosecute his adversaries, but during and after his Manhattan trial both he and his allies have been explicit about doing so in retaliation for that proceeding — despite the lack of any evidence of criminal wrongdoing by those targeted. According to a New York Times’ report, the “open desire for using the criminal justice system against Democrats after the verdict surpasses anything seen before in Mr. Trump’s tumultuous years in national politics.” This week, Trump pointed to his prosecution and said, “it’s very possible that it’s going to have to happen to them,” namely his political adversaries. After the verdict, his former aide and current advisor Steven Miller asked, “Is every Republican D.A. starting every investigation they need to right now?” Steve Bannon said Alvin Bragg “should be — and will be — jailed,” according to Axios. According to Axios’s report, another Trump insider pointed to using a federal statute criminalizing civil rights conspiracies. Retaliation has also been embraced by senior GOP leaders in Congress such as Senator Marco Rubio who sounded a call to “fight fire with fire.” Former DOJ official and author of the infamous torture memos, John Yoo has composed a justification of retaliation prosecutions. (The Times aptly describes it as seeking “to dress up the need for such retribution as a matter of constitutional principle.”) Far-right activist Laura Loomer, who Trump has embraced, has gone so far as to say “Not just jail, they should get the death penalty.”
In the wake of statements about seeking a revenge-and-retribution presidency, Trump made a return to the Capitol on June 13, the first time since the January 6th attack, where he was this time hailed by Republican establishment figures. “There was a distinct impression of subordinates paying homage to a strongman leader,” wrote CNN’s Stephen Collinson.
*snip*
Eisen & Ben-Ghiat: American Autocracy Threat Tracker (Just Security)
https://www.justsecurity.org/92714/american-autocracy-threat-tracker/Former President Donald Trump has said he will be a dictator on “day one.” He and his advisors and associates have publicly discussed hundreds of further actions to be taken during a second Trump presidency that directly threaten democracy, the rule of law, as well as U.S. (and global) security. These vary from Trump breaking the law and abusing power in areas like immigration roundups and energy extraction; to summarily firing tens of thousands of civil servants whom he perceives as adversaries; to prosecuting his political opponents for personal gain; to pardoning convicted January 6th rioters he views as “warriors,” “great patriots” and “hostages.” We track all of the specific promises, plans, and pronouncements here and we will continue to update them.
This autocratic lean has also been pronounced in statements made by Trump and his allies during and after his New York election interference trial and conviction. Those kinds of attacks on the administration of justice are a hallmark of would-be dictators. As we detail below, Trump has persistently attacked the rule of law when it gets in his way, with the Manhattan case being the most recent example. He committed 10 violations of a gag order protecting witnesses and the jury, falsely accused Justice Juan Merchan, who presided over the trial, of being “corrupt” and doing “everything within his power” to help President Biden win the election, vilified prosecutors and otherwise spread grotesque disinformation about the proceedings and racist tropes about the judge. Despite acknowledging it is “very dangerous” for him to say so, speaking at Trump Tower the day after his conviction, Trump said that the “crooked” judge presiding over the case “was a tyrant” who “looks like an angel but he’s really a devil.” Trump allies have taken a similarly pointed anti-rule of law stance, including in daily appearances outside the trial and a cacophony of unfair and false criticism following its conclusion.
Trump has long threatened to prosecute his adversaries, but during and after his Manhattan trial both he and his allies have been explicit about doing so in retaliation for that proceeding — despite the lack of any evidence of criminal wrongdoing by those targeted. According to a New York Times’ report, the “open desire for using the criminal justice system against Democrats after the verdict surpasses anything seen before in Mr. Trump’s tumultuous years in national politics.” This week, Trump pointed to his prosecution and said, “it’s very possible that it’s going to have to happen to them,” namely his political adversaries. After the verdict, his former aide and current advisor Steven Miller asked, “Is every Republican D.A. starting every investigation they need to right now?” Steve Bannon said Alvin Bragg “should be — and will be — jailed,” according to Axios. According to Axios’s report, another Trump insider pointed to using a federal statute criminalizing civil rights conspiracies. Retaliation has also been embraced by senior GOP leaders in Congress such as Senator Marco Rubio who sounded a call to “fight fire with fire.” Former DOJ official and author of the infamous torture memos, John Yoo has composed a justification of retaliation prosecutions. (The Times aptly describes it as seeking “to dress up the need for such retribution as a matter of constitutional principle.”) Far-right activist Laura Loomer, who Trump has embraced, has gone so far as to say “Not just jail, they should get the death penalty.”
In the wake of statements about seeking a revenge-and-retribution presidency, Trump made a return to the Capitol on June 13, the first time since the January 6th attack, where he was this time hailed by Republican establishment figures. “There was a distinct impression of subordinates paying homage to a strongman leader,” wrote CNN’s Stephen Collinson.
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June 13, 2024
Donald Trump is no stranger to a quid pro quo — he was impeached for one, after all. But while campaigning for a second term in the White House, he has gone further than perhaps any other candidate in recent history to shape his policies in return for cash.
Trump is not making these bargains behind closed doors or in smoky back rooms, but at fundraisers and events attended by dozens of influential and extremely wealthy people.
On several occasions he has made explicit offers to reward donors by enacting or dismantling policy on their behalf should he win in November, often reversing his own previously held positions.
Democrat Jamie Raskin, ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, accused Trump of treating the presidency “as a for-profit business enterprise and money-making venture.”
He told The Independent that Trump was “brazenly offering to sell out U.S. policy to any corporate and billionaire campaign donors ready to make a deal, including telling Big Oil he will sign their executive orders in exchange for a cool one billion dollars.”
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'Brazen corruption': Donald Trump is selling policies for a second term to the highest bidders
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-campaign-donors-corruption-tiktok-b2562195.htmlDonald Trump is no stranger to a quid pro quo — he was impeached for one, after all. But while campaigning for a second term in the White House, he has gone further than perhaps any other candidate in recent history to shape his policies in return for cash.
Trump is not making these bargains behind closed doors or in smoky back rooms, but at fundraisers and events attended by dozens of influential and extremely wealthy people.
On several occasions he has made explicit offers to reward donors by enacting or dismantling policy on their behalf should he win in November, often reversing his own previously held positions.
Democrat Jamie Raskin, ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, accused Trump of treating the presidency “as a for-profit business enterprise and money-making venture.”
He told The Independent that Trump was “brazenly offering to sell out U.S. policy to any corporate and billionaire campaign donors ready to make a deal, including telling Big Oil he will sign their executive orders in exchange for a cool one billion dollars.”
*snip*
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