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blackcatsnstrawberries · 6 months

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Fourth Wing/Iron Flame Thoughts (again)

People are posting what they think "recovered correspondence" means, how the start of Fourth Wing begins with "The following text has been faithfully transcribed from Navarrian into the modern language by Jesinia Neilwart...etc." We're going to talk about this and hopefully put an end to doom theories. Break line in case there are spoilers.

Lets start with this:

People are freaking out that this is a clue that Violet and co die at the end of the series. Maybe, but not definitely. The Empyrean series is written in first person, 99% of it from Violet's POV (the remaining 1% is Xaden.) Violet is telling the story post series events, with some input from Xaden, either written down or in an interview (to Jesinia). When Jes transcribes the story into modern language, she is the curator of the Scribe Quadrant, she is the keeper or custodian of the archives, meaning she is probably doing this well into the future (when she is older like Markham). If Violet dies in a final battle, or before, when does her story get written down or told? It doesn't. I think the whole series is Violet's first person retelling of her time at the college and eventually leading a war.

My guess is the whole series is going to be Violet (and Xaden's) way of making sure the true history of Navarre, and the new Rebellion, gets told and Archived properly. And remember, Xaden is getting POVs too, meaning he is telling his story to Jes as well.

Now we're going to talk about "recovered correspondence," and what it could mean, other then everyone is dead. Yes, everyone could be dead, but recovering means finding in a search, death does not have to have happened. For example, the documents RECOVERED at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Tr*ump is (unfortunately) not dead, but the documents were recovered in a search.

So how are these documents being recovered/found? My guess is Basgiath will actually fall and become a pile of rubble (either final Venin battle/dragons revolt/Violet brings it down.) However it happens, people will go searching and will find (RECOVER) correspondence from some of our big players. Remember, our characters are leading a rebellion that is going to change the trajectory of a continent, their letters/belongings/correspondence from when they were in school BEFORE AND DURING their rebellion would be important to history. Does that mean all of them survive? No, but it also doesn't mean they all die.

(I forgot to add this) also when these correspondence was written, Xaden was a Lieutenant, and Violet was a Cadet so that could be why they are still addressed as such in the recovered correspondence. Another possibility is Xaden and Violet never move past Lieutenant and Cadet ranking in the Navarrian Military because they abandoned their posts and joined a rebellion.

So what am I trying to say? Calm down with the doom predictions. Yes, some of our favourite characters are going to die before the end of the series, but for what it's worth I don't think it's going to be Violet or Xaden.

When I am reading this, I am reading it as though someone is giving me a history lesson, we are reading past events from Violet's POV. Honestly the image I get in my head is older Violet and Xaden sitting down with Jes and telling their whole truth/story for the archives.

#iron flame #fourth wing #rebecca yarros #violet sorrengail #xaden riorson #iron flame predictions #iron flame spoilers #fourth wing spoilers #the empyrean #the empyrean series #violet and xaden #reading comprehension

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simply-ivanka · 19 days

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Melania Trump to headline Log Cabin Republicans event at Mar-a-Lago

#trump #trump 2024 #president trump #ivanka #repost #america first #americans first #america #donald trump #democrats

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ridenwithbiden · 1 month

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Just a few months ago, it was hard to see the ingredients of a Joe Biden comeback—even while squinting at the recipe.

The president began the election year with his approval rating at historic lows. He was trailing Donald Trump in almost all of the key battleground states, as well as in national polling averages. Influential liberals were so concerned that the octogenarian incumbent did not have another campaign in him that some were openly calling for him to be replaced as the nominee.

As the general election kicks off this spring, however, those calls have quieted—because Biden’s resurgence is coming into focus. While the president still faces serious obstacles to a second term, several important data points are lining up to demonstrate he is picking up badly needed momentum.

For the first time in a long time, there’s good news for Biden on the polling front. Gradual improvements in the battleground states along with an uptick in his approval rating led one Democratic strategist, Simon Rosenberg, to declare “the Biden bump.”

The boost is at the very least correlated with Biden’s fiery State of the Union address on March 7, when he repeatedly went after his “predecessor” and made sure to mix it up with Republicans in the chamber on a few occasions.

Since then, Biden’s team has continued the punchy, combative tone on display that night, using press releases to cheekily slam their legally challenged opponent as “Broke Don.”

On top of that, the Biden campaign has continued to flex what has always been its core strength: fundraising.

With a $53 million haul in February, the Biden campaign built on their already impressive financial advantage over Trump, who brought in only $20 million over the same period. The Biden campaign has $71 million in cash on hand, compared to just $33.5 million for Trump.

The tide is turning, a Biden adviser argued to The Daily Beast, and although they aren’t putting too much stock into any recent polling upticks, the president’s team is ready to seize upon April and May as a crucial time to ambush a wounded Trump campaign.

“It’s aggressive,” a source within the Biden campaign said, requesting anonymity to speak candidly of the mood inside the re-election team. “There’s a lot of travel, there’s a lot of work. It’s all exciting. We’re heading into this final fundraiser of the month with the former presidents [Obama and Clinton], but it’s aggressive.”

Taking advantage of a substantial fundraising lead, the Biden campaign is focusing on two key areas: travel and organizing.

Since his State of the Union, Biden has visited every major battleground state—typically pairing official White House stops with separate private campaign events—in an effort to demonstrate his ability to keep an energetic schedule.

Trump, on the other hand, has only done a rally in Ohio and another in the battleground state of Georgia since Super Tuesday. Otherwise, he’s mostly been confined to his Mar-a-Lago estate as he prepares to spend the second half of April and most of May stuck in a Manhattan court four days a week for the upcoming Stormy Daniels hush money trial.

Second, the Biden campaign is going full steam ahead on hiring in the battleground states, approaching 100 field offices with more than 130 staffers spread across eight major battleground states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada, as well as North Carolina and New Hampshire.

Such investments mean that Biden can begin the crucial work of mobilizing voters early. The Trump campaign, by comparison, could not tell The Daily Beast whether they have made any additional hires or opened any field offices in the battleground states, beyond shifting over the same team focused on early primary and Super Tuesday states.

In an election which will likely be decided by less than tens of thousands of votes in a handful of battlegrounds, the Biden campaign is focusing on gaining as much as they can at the margins now to catch up to Trump.

Ramping up their field organizing, along with getting Biden on the road and in front of cameras to show he still has the energy to campaign at full throttle, is an opportunity they can’t afford to miss while Trump remains mired in legal and financial problems.

“I think the president is beginning to do the very important work that wins elections, which is travel the country, set the tone for what this election will be about, and build a coalition and build an operation that builds a winning coalition,” Kevin Munoz, Biden’s national campaign spokesperson, told The Daily Beast in a phone interview.

“At the same time that Donald Trump has very real infrastructure issues, has no interest in building a winning coalition and is actively attacking the voters that will decide this election, ultimately this will come down to those voters,” Munoz said.

Chris LaCivita—a top Trump campaign adviser who is also the chief operating officer of the Republican National Committee—rejected the idea that the former president’s team should disclose its organizing plans.

“By combining forces and operations, The Trump campaign and RNC are deploying operations that are fueled by passionate volunteers who care about saving America and firing Joe Biden. We do not feel obligated however to discuss the specifics of our strategy, timing and tactics with members of the News Media,” LaCivita told The Daily Beast.

“Democrats want to talk process because they don’t want to talk about Broken Braindead Biden and his absolute failure,” LaCivita argued. “The media should not do Democrats’ bidding and should focus on the issues the American people care about.”

Still, for a Trump operation obsessed with polls, the first cracks in the former president’s so-far dominant lead are beginning to appear.

Biden’s approval rating has seen an uptick in the FiveThirtyEight rolling average—jumping up from under 38 percent on March 12 to over 40 percent approval just two weeks later—and pulling ahead in The Economist’s head-to-head polling average for the first time since September.

To add to the Biden campaign’s morale boost—even though his team tends to reject the value of polls this far out from an election—Biden led Trump in three polls last week alone.

While there remain undecided voters in key states, the Biden campaign will worry more about them later, given the abundant data on how undecided voters are very often late deciding voters as well.

The Biden campaign is eyeing the late spring and early summer to start focusing their messaging on persuading undecided voters, according to the senior aide, with the present focus continuing to be building out their door knocking infrastructure to make sure core voters show up to cast their ballot no matter what.

“That’s what matters at this point in the cycle,” Munoz said. “And I think we have a very good story to tell, not only on the operation we’re building, but also on the issues that we’re fighting for. These are the issues that when Americans go to the ballot box, they care most about, and Donald Trump is running on an agenda that people actively root against when they go to the ballot box.”

The Trump campaign has their own version of such an argument—one they believe will make Biden’s campaign hires irrelevant.

“The Trump campaign will raise the money, deploy the necessary assets, and win because President Trump will secure the border, make American families more prosperous, and make our nation respected on the world stage,” Trump campaign spokesperson Danielle Alvarez said in a statement to The Daily Beast.

Veterans of the presidential campaign trail, however, think these seemingly small moves in isolation can make quite a big difference when put together over the long haul.

Jim Messina, who served as Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign manager, argued that Biden is in a stronger position to win than Trump given the cards they’ve been dealt.

“I like to play poker and I would simply much rather have Biden’s cards than Trump’s,” Messina said.

Biden’s two key advantages, according to Messina, are on the economy and the legal front.

“The economy is improving and people are feeling it, Biden has an affirmative message, and Trump will continue to remind independents why they voted against him in 2020 by campaigning from a courtroom,” he said.

Matt Grossman, a political scientist with Michigan State University, said it very well could be the case that March marks the nadir of Biden’s polling woes, but added a note of caution for the president’s campaign.

“My question has been what kind of message is likely to work this time,” Grossman said. “In 2020 we had strong evidence people had already made up their mind about Donald Trump, but not Joe Biden… Now we have two very well-known candidates, so it would make me expect the efficacy of any persuasion effort would be less.”

With two such well-known candidates and some 70 percent of the public weary of a 2020 rematch, the little things could count even more this time around.

“If it’s close to a 50-50 election, then minor things can still move the outcome. And certainly overall, there’s evidence that more contact is better, to deliver both turnout and persuasion messages more is better,” Grossman said.

“They’re just trying to get any small advantage they can.”

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justinspoliticalcorner · 22 days

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Kerry Eleveld at Daily Kos:

Talking about tax policy is one of the best ways for President Joe Biden to create a contrast with Donald Trump on who will fight for average Americans. As Trump told a group of wealthy campaign donors earlier this month, one of his signature issues if elected president in November will be extending the tax cuts Republicans enacted during his term in 2017—which overwhelmingly benefited wealthy Americans. There's no audio of the statement, but it echoes comments Trump made last year during a private fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago for North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, an extremist Republican who is running for governor. Addressing the audience, Trump called some attendees “rich as hell” before promising, “We’re gonna give you tax cuts!” The Biden campaign spliced that proclamation into an ad where the president is joined by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

[...] Biden also worked Trump's tax plan into a recent press conference in the White House Rose Garden when he was asked whether he was concerned about inflation. “We have dramatically reduced inflation from 9 percent down to close to 3 percent,” Biden responded, noting that inflation was “skyrocketing” when he took office. “And we have a plan to deal with it, whereas the opposition—my opposition talks about two things. They just want to cut taxes for the wealthy and raise taxes on other people.”

President Joe Biden is reminding the voters that Donald Trump is pro-tax cuts for the rich.

#Joe Biden #Donald Trump #2024 Electons #2024 Presidential Election #Taxes #Bernie Sanders

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amoralcrackpot · 1 month

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As pressure from seemingly endless civil and criminal trials grows, former President Donald Trump has proven desperate in his attempts to remain a free man - from making thinly veiled threats towards judges and their families to preemptively soiling his pants.

But his latest stunt may be the most baffling yet.

Early this morning, President Joe Biden received a letter in a Trump-branded envelope with a Trump-branded postage stamp and a return address of Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. Comprised of letters and words cut out from assorted magazines and newspapers, the incoherent message therein was a ransom note from a man claiming to be Goofus Gallant, a ninja mercenary with Kung-Fu grip holding President Biden hostage at a secret fortress on the planet Krypton. In exchange for President Biden's safe return, "Mr. Gallant" demanded a ransom of $1 billion, the legally mandated return of the McDLT, and the password to the official White House Disney+ account. The letter was dated November 4th, 2024, and signed, "Donald J. Trump."

President Biden was reported to have found the letter as humorous as it was deranged. "It even came with an autographed photo of Donald holding a samurai sword and wearing a fake mustache," President Biden said at an early morning press conference.

When asked for comment, Former President Trump replied by posting the lyrics to Childish Gambino's "This is America" on his official Truth Social account.

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qqueenofhades · 2 years

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Looking thru the news about the affidavit and the classified documents scandal…is Trump fucked now?? Because it sure looks that way to me but I don’t want to get my hopes up again….

anonymous asked: thoughts on the affidavit?

Okay, let's read through the 38-goddamn-pages of this sucker together. (Here is the link to download your own copy if you want to enjoy this special bonding moment as we toast marshmallows on the orange dumpster fire together.) My overall impression is: wow, if this was literally anyone else, they would be so fucked that they would never see daylight again and would probably be headed to Florence Supermax Prison for the rest of their life. Everyone of course worries that Trump will find some way to weasel out of it, but with my usual not-a-lawyer caveats, wowzers. I will also note that my analysis on this case has been accurate enough that I correctly predicted that Trump was under formal investigation for criminal espionage, even before that information was made public. So while that doesn't mean I'm again undoubtedly right in terms of saying WOW, SO MUCH TREASON, HE'S FUCKED, it is at least something to consider.

Let's begin with the VERY FIRST SENTENCE of this sucker:

The government is conducting a criminal investigation concerning the improper removal and storage of classified information in unauthorized spaces, as well as the unlawful concealment or removal of government records (page 1)

CONDUCTING A CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION. There you have it, boys, girls, and others. This is hard-copy proof that the Department of Justice is indeed pursuing criminal charges against Trump in terms of his mishandling of classified information and/or disobedience of the Presidential Records Act. And this is entirely separate to all the other treason he did on January 6. Welp.

(Also, it gives you the street address of Mar-a-Lago -- 1100 S Ocean Blvd, Palm Beach, FL 33480 -- if you want to mail Trump a box of flaming poop or something. Not, uh, that I endorse doing this. Likewise, they refer to him as "FPOTUS" or Former President of the United States, which has to drive him absolutely INSANE.)

The FBI's investigation has established that documents bearing classification markings, which appear to contain National Defense Information (NDI), were among the materials contained in the FIFTEEN BOXES and were stored at the PREMISES in an unauthorized location. [redacted] Further, there is probable cause to believe that additional documents that contain classified NDI or that are Presidential records subject to record retention requirements currently remain at the PREMISES. There is also probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found at the PREMISES. (page 2)

I repeat: That is a whole lotta treason. The FBI agent filing this, whose name has obviously been removed to protect them from Trump's insane fans, describes themselves as receiving training

specific to counterintelligence and investigation. Based on my experience and training, I am familiar with efforts used to unlawfully collect, retain, and disseminate sensitive government information, including classified NDI. (page 2-3)

Oh shit son.

The first statute cited under "Statutory Authority and Definitions?" Aka the primary legal justification they're presenting to the judge in order to get them to sign off on the search?

Under 18 U.S.C. § 793(e), "[w]hoever having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any document ... or information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted" or attempts to do or causes the same "to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it" shall be fined or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both. (page 3-4)

OH SHIT SON! What is 18 U.S.C. § 793? That, my friends, is the Espionage Act. They are breaking out the big guns right away and talking about REASON TO BELIEVE THE INFORMATION COULD BE USED TO THE INJURY OF THE UNITED STATES OR THE ADVANTAGE OF ANY FOREIGN NATION, which carries a possible penalty of UP TO TEN YEARS IN JAIL.

Again, this is the FIRST thing they're putting in front of the judge. Where's my white cat. I need to stroke it and eat some popcorn.

They go on to list all the different types of classified information which they expect to find at the Cheeto Palace, including Top Secret, Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI), HUMINT Control System (information about human intelligence assets), FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act), NOFORN (Not Releasable to Foreign Nationals/Governments/Citizens) ORCON (Originator Controlled, likewise stringently subject to regulations about who gets to see it), and so on. Needless to say, that is a Big Time No No.

Next, I repeat, don't fuck around with librarians. The National Archives made the criminal referral to the FBI because:

The NARA Referral stated that according to NARA's White House Liaison Division Director, a preliminary review of the FIFTEEN BOXES indicated that they contained "newspapers, magazines, printed news articles, photos, miscellaneous print-outs, notes, presidential correspondence, personal and post-presidential records, and 'a lot of classified records.' Of most significant concern was that highly classified records were unfoldered, intermixed with other records, and otherwise unproperly [sic] identified. (page 8)

So in other words, he just... fucking threw this uber-classified stuff into random boxes with the rest of his crap and didn't even store or label them properly. Of course he did.

Redacted.... redacted... redacted....

From May 16-18, 2022, FBI agents conducted a preliminary review of the FIFTEEN BOXES provided to NARA and identified documents with classification markings in fourteen of the FIFTEEN BOXES. A preliminary triage of the documents with classification markings revealed the following approximate numbers: 184 unique documents bearing classification markings, including 67 documents marked as CONFIDENTIAL, 92 documents marked as SECRET, and 25 documents marked as TOP SECRET. Further, the FBI agents observed markings reflecting the following compartments/dissemination controls: HCS, FISA, ORCON, NOFORN, and SI. (page 17)

Please note that these were in the boxes that had already been given back to NARA. So Trump kept a further twelve boxes that were AT LEAST this sensitive, or worse.

On June 8, 2022, DOJ COUNSEL sent FPOTUS COUNSEL 1 a letter, which reiterated that the PREMISES are not authorized to store classified information and requested the preservation of the STORAGE ROOM and boxes that had been moved from the White House to the PREMISES. (page 22)

This was honestly way, way more polite than the motherfucker deserved. So yep, he straight-up ignored the DOJ and then was all Shocked Pikachu Face when they called his bluff.

Lots more redactions! Hoo boy, I wonder what is in here that is so bad they can't even show large parts of this warrant. Where did Trump store all his classified goodies, you ask? In his fucking bedroom closet. If this man wasn't so stupid, we might really be screwed.

Based upon this investigation, I believe that the STORAGE ROOM, FPOTUS's residential suite, Pine Hall, the "45 Office," and other spaces within the PREMISES are not currently authorized locations for the storage of classified information or NDI. Similarly, based upon this investigation, I do not believe that any spaces within the PREMISES have been authorized for the storage of classified information at least since the end of FPOTUS 's Presidential Administration on January 20, 2021.

Translation: We know you've been breaking the law this entire time, you motherfucker, and we will be happy to backdate your charges!

Premature disclosure of the contents of this affidavit and related documents may have a significant and negative impact on the continuing investigation and may severely jeopardize its effectiveness by allowing criminal parties an opportunity to flee, destroy evidence (stored electronically and otherwise), change patterns of behavior, and notify criminal confederates. (page 32)

OH SHIT SON! PREMATURE DISCLOSURE IS BAD AND MUST BE AVOIDED BECAUSE IT MIGHT TIP OFF "CRIMINAL PARTIES" AND "CRIMINAL CONFEDERATES" AND GIVE THEM TIME TO DESTROY EVIDENCE! THIS IS THE WORDING THEY ARE USING, I REPEAT, AGAINST A FORMER PRESIDENT!

(They then go on to literally just destroy the entire letter from Trump's attorneys with all the BS talking points the Republicans have been using, by INCLUDING IT AS A REASON THEY NEED TO SEARCH THE PREMISES AND NOT LISTEN TO THESE PEOPLE. (page 34).

ATTACHMENT B: Property to be seized: All physical documents and records constituting evidence, contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 793, 2071, or 1519, including the following: (page 38)

CONSTITUTING EVIDENCE, CONTRABAND, FRUITS OF CRIME, OR OTHER ITEMS ILLEGALLY POSSESSED. You love to see it. Excuse me, I need a cigarette.

[REDACTED]

Okay. Back now. As I said, this is absolutely in Fuck Around And Find Out territory by... a lot, destroys all of Trump's talking points, shows that this is a criminal/counterintelligence/espionage investigation with intended criminal penalties including heavy fines AND up to ten years' imprisonment. Other people, i.e. the whistleblower Reality Winner, have been sentenced to five years in jail for stealing ONE classified document from Uncle Sam, and if the estimate of Trump stealing 300 is true, he should, by my calculations, be legally liable for.... 1500 years in the slammer. WELP.

#anonymous #ask #politics for ts #long post #jesus fucking christ that is a whole lotta treason

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 2 months

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 11, 2024 (Monday)

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAR 12, 2024

Authoritarian prime minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary visited former president Trump in Florida on Friday, and on Sunday, Orbán assured Hungarian state media that Trump “will not give a penny in the Ukraine-Russia war. Therefore, the war will end, because it is obvious that Ukraine can not stand on its own feet.” Russian state media gloated at the news, and that Trump’s MAGA allies in Congress are already helping him end support for Ukraine.

President Joe Biden and a strong majority of lawmakers in both chambers of Congress, as well as defense officials, support appropriating more aid to Ukraine, believing its defense is crucial to America’s national security. Today, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin once again called such aid “critical.”

The Senate passed a national security supplemental bill early in the morning on February 13, by a strong bipartisan vote of 70 to 29. The bill would be expected to pass the House, but House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), a Trump loyalist, refuses to bring it up for a vote.

Trump loyalists have been obstructing aid to Ukraine since President Joe Biden asked for it in October 2023. Their insistence that they would not address the national security needs of the U.S. in Ukraine until they were addressed at the border now sure looks like a smokescreen to help Russian president Vladimir Putin take Ukraine, a plan that would explain why Trump urged Republicans to kill the national security supplemental bill even when it included a strong border component that favored Republican positions.

It appears as though Trump is deliberately undermining the national security of the United States.

In excerpts from his forthcoming book that appeared on the CNN website today, journalist Jim Sciutto reported conversations with Trump’s second chief of staff, General John Kelly, and Trump’s third national security advisor, John Bolton, in which the men recounted Trump’s fondness for dictators. “He views himself as a big guy,” Bolton told Sciutto. “He likes dealing with other big guys, and big guys like Erdogan in Turkey get to put people in jail and you don’t have to ask anybody’s permission. He kind of likes that.” “He’s not a tough guy by any means, but in fact quite the opposite,” Kelly said. “But that’s how he envisions himself.”

Kelly noted that Trump praised Hitler and what he thought was the loyalty of Hitler’s generals (some of whom actually tried to assassinate him), but both Kelly and Bolton noted that he “most consistently lavished praise on Russian President Vladimir Putin.” Certainly, Trump prizes loyalty to himself: today Alex Isenstadt of Politico reported a “bloodbath” at the Republican National Committee as the incoming Trump loyalists are pushing out more than 60 RNC officials and staffers to make sure everyone is “aligned” with Trump.

An exclusive interview today by Katelyn Polantz, Kaitlan Collins, and Jeremy Herb of CNN revealed that Brian Butler, who worked at Mar-a-Lago for twenty years, has come forward to give the public the same information he told to investigators looking into Trump’s theft of classified documents. On June 3, 2022, the day Trump and his family were scheduled to fly to New Jersey for the summer, Trump’s aide Walt Nauta asked Butler if he could borrow a car from the Mar-a-Lago car service, although Butler and his valets usually handled getting the Trump family luggage onto the plane. June 3 was the same day Trump and his lawyer were meeting with officials from the Department of Justice at Mar-a-Lago to arrange for Trump to turn over national security documents.

Butler loaded a vehicle with the luggage, then met Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira—at the time a close friend of Butler—driving a vehicle loaded with bankers boxes, at the West Palm Beach airport. Butler says he didn’t know the bankers boxes contained anything unusual, and he helped Nauta load the plane with the boxes as well as the luggage. “They were the boxes that were in the indictment, the white bankers boxes. That’s what I remember loading,” Butler added.

Butler was also present during conversations about hiding evidence from federal authorities.

While Trump opposes aid to Ukraine, President Joe Biden pushed for it once again when he released his fiscal year 2025 budget today. (There is overlap this year between funding fiscal year 2024 and fiscal year 2025 because House Republicans have been unable to agree to last year’s appropriations bills. Those are supposed to be done before October 1, when the new fiscal year starts.)

In addition to funding for Ukraine, the president’s $7.3 trillion budget covers Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and veterans’ benefits, all of which are mandatory, and expands investment in health care, child care, and housing. Biden would pay for all this—and reduce the deficit by $3 trillion over the next ten years—with higher taxes on those making more than $400,000 a year and on corporations.

In his defense of the middle class as the engine of economic growth and his declaration that the days of trickle-down economics are over, Biden sounds much like Democratic president Franklin Delano Roosevelt did when he ushered in the New Deal in the 1930s. In that era, Roosevelt and his Democratic allies replaced a government that worked for men of property with one that worked for ordinary Americans.

There were other echoes of the FDR administration today as Trump’s undermining of aid to Ukraine has become clear. Ukraine stands between an aggressive Russian dictator and a democratic Europe.

In the 1930s and 1940s, the U.S. had to decide whether to turn away from those standing against dictators like Hitler, or to stand behind them. There was a strong isolationist impulse in the United States. Some people resented that war industries had made fortunes supplying the devastating weaponry of World War I. Others believed that Hitler’s advance in Europe was a distraction from Asia, where their business interests were entwined. Congress passed laws to keep the U.S. from entanglement in Europe until Germany invaded Poland in 1939. Then Congress allowed other nations to buy munitions from the U.S. so long as they carried them away in their own ships.

The following year, FDR promised the American people he would not send troops into “any foreign wars.” But in July 1940, newly-appointed British prime minister Winston Churchill asked the U.S. for direct help after Britain lost eleven destroyers in ten days to the German Navy. Roosevelt exchanged 50 destroyers for 99-year leases on certain British bases, but that would not be enough. He asked Congress to provide military aid.

On this date in 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law “An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States.” The new law gave the president wide-ranging authority to sell, give, lease, or lend war supplies to “any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States.”

The law defined “war supplies” generously: they ranged from aircraft and boats to guns and tools, to information and technical designs, to food and supplies. The law also gave the president authority to authorize U.S. companies to manufacture such war supplies for other countries whose defense was important to the United States.

This law is the one we know as the Lend-Lease Act, and it was central to the ability of the Allied Powers—those standing against Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito—to fight off the Axis Powers who were trying to take over the globe in the 1940s. By the time the law ended on September 20, 1945, supplies worth more than $50 billion in 1940 dollars—equivalent to more than $770 billion today—had gone to the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, France, China, and other allies.

Four days after he signed the Lend-Lease Act into law, on March 15, 1941, FDR told journalists at the White House Correspondents’ Association, “The big news story of this week is this: The world has been told that we, as a united Nation, realize the danger that confronts us—and that to meet that danger, our democracy has gone into action.”

FDR noted the “superb morale” of the British, who he said were “completely clear in their minds about the one essential fact—that they would rather die…free…than live as slaves.” He continued: “The British people and their Grecian allies need ships. From America, they will get ships. They need planes. From America, they will get planes. From America they need food. From America, they will get food. They need tanks and guns and ammunition and supplies of all kinds. From America, they will get tanks and guns and ammunition and supplies of all kinds….

“And so our country is going to be what our people have proclaimed it must be—the arsenal of democracy…. Never, in all our history, have Americans faced a job so well worth while.��

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #Orban #Steve Brodner #War in Ukraine #TFG #fascism #history #authoritarianism #election 2024

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egnaroo · 2 years

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Studies show more than 50% of Americans request that Trump be investigated thoroughly.

After the FBI Mar-a-Lago raid, NBC news has done research about what Americans think about Former President Donald Trump and his alleged wrongdoings. Plus, the FBI claims they recovered “top secret” documents from the raid and the Former president taking the Fifth Amendment right made Americans more suspicious. With the upcoming midterm, and President Joe Biden’s approval rate of 40% the…

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 1 year

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A key figure in the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” campaign has apologized after being accused of asking teenage boys for sexual pictures.

Ali Alexander has become one of the most ubiquitous figures in the MAGA movement. Trump himself reportedly requested that Alexander speak at his rally before the riot, with his appearance only quashed by a last-minute intervention from Trump’s aides. But this week, Alexander stands at the center of a scandal that raises questions about how powerful men in the far-right treat their younger acolytes.

“This is so gay,” Alexander said in a statement issued Friday night that addressed the allegations in broad terms.

Alexander, who has described himself as bisexual in the past, added that he was “battling with same-sex attraction.”

The budding online scandal has also roiled the pro-Trump and white supremacist “America First” movement, just months after it reached new levels of notoriety after its leader, Nick Fuentes, dined with Donald Trump and rapper Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago. Now Fuentes is facing backlash from his own supporters over whether he ignored warnings that Alexander, his friend and ally, was allegedly soliciting nude pictures from young men within Fuentes’s movement.

On Friday night, Alexander—who was questioned by the House January 6th Committee about his role organizing a canceled rally dubbed the “Wild Protest” outside the Capitol, which drew crowds to the building right before the riot began—issued a statement Friday offering a general apology.

“I apologize for any inappropriate messages sent over the years,” Alexander wrote, adding later, “When I’ve flirted or others have flirted with me, I’ve flexed my credentials or dropped corny pick up lines. Other times, I’ve been careless and should’ve qualified those coming up to me’s (sic) identities during flirtatious banter at the start.”

Alexander didn’t respond to requests for comment from The Daily Beast. In his statement, he claimed he had also been targeted by false accusations and edited screenshots of his messages, but declined opportunities to point out which accusers or screenshots aren’t legitimate.

Rumors about Alexander’s alleged sexual behavior towards younger men have circulated in conservative online circles since at least 2015. But they reached a new level late last month after Milo Yiannopoulos —the controversial British provocateur and one-time Alexander ally—turned on Alexander after Alexander and Fuentes pushed him out of a potentially lucrative position in West’s nascent presidential campaign.

Yiannopoulos started releasing video interviews and other evidence meant to prove that Alexander sexually propositioned both adult men in their 20’s and at least two teenagers. Yiannopoulos, whose own career as a far-right pundit imploded in 2017 after remarks he had made downplaying the seriousness of pedophilia surfaced, claims he has more damaging videos to release about Alexander and Fuentes.

Yiannopoulos claims he’s releasing the video against Alexander because Alexander dropped Yiannopoulos’s name to entice young men. One screenshot purports to show Alexander dangling the prospect of a meeting with Yiannopoulos to a teenage boy.

“The reason I’m doing this is because he used my name,” Yiannopoulos told The Daily Beast.

In 2017, Aidan Duncan—a 15-year-old boy in Colorado interested in right-wing politics—sent Alexander nude pictures after Alexander asked him for them, according to an account Duncan gave in a March 2023 podcast appearance.

While Duncan was a high-school sophomore just starting out in politics, Alexander was a 32-year-old with a decade of political work for the Republican Party behind him. And now he was willing to share the connections he had gained through that work with Duncan, as long as the teenager met certain preconditions, including secrecy.

“You’ll have [me] sharing my entire network with you,” Alexander told Duncan, according to Snapchat screenshots reviewed by The Daily Beast.

Originally from Dallas, Alexander pleaded guilty to felony property theft in 2007 and felony credit card abuse in 2008. But despite his criminal background, Alexander—who was then using his legal name, Ali Akbar—managed to rise in the GOP during the online conservative backlash to the Obama administration. Leveraging his position writing for blogs with names like “Hip Hop Republican,” Alexander received funding from billionaire conservative mega-donor Robert Mercer, organized a national club for bloggers that later faced questions about how Alexander spent the money he raised, and hosted an annual party at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

By 2017, Alexander had become an ardent Trump supporter with a passion for social media trash talk. He became a protege of MAGA figures like Roger Stone and InfoWars chief Alex Jones, and ran with a group of other young MAGA internet provocateurs, including anti-Muslim activist Laura Loomer and blundering smear artist Jacob Wohl.

But in his messages to Duncan, according to the screenshots, there was one name Alexander dangled as a perk for the teenager if he kept up contact with Alexander: Milo Yiannopoulos. In a Sept. 4, 2017 exchange about an upcoming trip Alexander was planning, Alexander purportedly told Duncan he would introduce the teenager to Yiannopoulos and speculated about whether the boy would be Alexander’s “arm candy” and suggested the boy would have to be “entertaining.”

“Rolling with me?” Alexander wrote, according to the message. “Mostly. I’ll have an Entourage. Depends. Ha. I mean, depends—if it’s me babysitting you during the day, then no. I don’t have kids. If it’s something more entertaining, then maybe. All depends on what we’re up to. No matter what, I’ll let you meet Milo. There’s probably five ppl I’ll introduce to him. But who will be my arm candy—the one with me always in VIP and in/out? Well that is to be determined by the boy who plays his cards the most correct.”

“Arm candy > baby sitting,” Alexander added, according to the screenshot.

Other screenshots show Duncan sending Alexander a picture, which was redacted in the version of the screenshot reviewed by The Daily Beast. Alexander responded with the “face with heart eyes” emoji and asking the teenager which app Alexander should use to send him money.

An undated series of screenshots purport to show Alexander laying out rules for his contact with the teenager, many of them stressing secrecy and a sort of quid pro quo relationship between sexual availability and career opportunities.

“Everything is secret and private,” one rule read. “We’re family.”

Another said that Duncan was “allowed to say no,” but that Alexander might “deprive” him of something unspecified in return.

“Boundaries are cool,” the message reads. “Allowed to say no. However, the less you deprive me of, the less I deprive you of. I’m a big sharing person unless it’s not even.”

Finally, according to the messages, Alexander asked Duncan to “be mindful of each other’s reputation.”

In an appearance last month on a podcast hosted by white supremacist Richard Spencer, Duncan claimed that Alexander wanted Duncan to fly to Texas and “be his intern,” assuring the teenager that the boy could just lie to his parents and say that he was going to a swim meet.

But Alexander had grown frustrated by May 2019, claiming that the still-underage Duncan wouldn’t send him “good jack off material,” according to the screenshots.

“You don’t even send me videos anymore,” Alexander wrote, according to the message. “No good jack off material. Don’t even wanna be my side piece.”

A day later, according to the screenshots, he asked Duncan to come to Texas for a week for an “internship.”

Duncan, now 21, has since become a relatively high-profile member of Fuentes’s racist “America First” movement, going by the name “Smiley.” On Spencer’s podcast, Duncan said he believed Fuentes knew about the rumors about Alexander’s alleged solicitation of nude photos.

“I think Nick is 100% aware,” Duncan said on the podcast.

Last Thursday, Duncan posted a statement on Twitter about his communications with Alexander.

“When I was 15 I was naive and desperate,” Duncan wrote. “I thought I had no choice but to cooperate with inappropriate and humiliating requests if I wanted to make it in politics. I figured that was just the nature of the game.”

Alexander started messaging 17-year-old Lance Johnston in the summer of 2019, according to Johnston. The floppy-haired teen was a rising star on conservative TikTok communities, amassing more than 140,000 followers under the screenname “Lancevideos.”

Johnston and Alexander started exchanging messages about politics. Johnston claims that a friend warned him early into their communications that Alexander has a history of asking for sexually explicit pictures.

“My friend at the time had told me that he had heard some weird rumors about him,” Johnston told The Daily Beast. “At first I was kind of like ‘I don’t know.’ I was 17, I had just gotten into politics.”

Alexander moved “oddly quickly” towards discussing sex with the teenager, according to Johnston. In July 2019, in what Johnston claims was the night of the White House “Social Media Summit” where Trump feted Alexander and other conservatives as victims of online censorship, the 34-year-old Alexander used the eggplant emoji to ask the teenager for a picture of his penis, according to a screenshot.

“Show me ur 🍆” Alexander wrote, according to the messages.

“What’s that?” Johnston said.

“Omg dick,” Alexander wrote back, according to the picture.

Johnston says he refused and quickly blocked Alexander. Johnston took a screenshot of the exchange, but he was fearful of raising the issue more broadly on the far-right.

“I thought in my mind that he would try his best to try to discredit me and ruin me politically and influentially with my time in politics,” Johnston said.

Still, a friend of Johnston’s publicized the screenshot, which began circulating in conservative circles. Alexander took to a video livestreaming app to defend himself.

“You can have any conversation you want with someone who’s 17,” Alexander said.

The eggplant-emoji screenshot gained new circulation in far-right circles in 2022, as Alexander and Fuentes achieved prominence as members of West’s entourage. That’s when, Johnston claims, Fuentes asked him to say in a text message to Alexander that the screenshot had been doctored and apologize. Presumably, that text message could then itself be screenshotted and used to discredit Johnston.

“Nick personally asked me to apologize to Ali for supposedly faking the messages,” Johnston said.

But Johnston insists the eggplant screenshot is legitimate. In exchange for disowning the eggplant exchange, according to Johnston, Fuentes and Alexander offered to get him a job in politics.

“Basically they wanted me to lie, apologize to Ali, and then they said they would try to get me a job,” Johnston said.

Fuentes denied Johnston’s claims about him in an email to The Daily Beast.

“I never offered Lance Johnston a job nor did I urge him to disavow that screenshot,” Fuentes wrote.

In a post on the social media app Telegram, Fuentes claimed Johnston was using the screenshot to “extort” Alexander into giving him a job on West’s campaign.

Four years later, Johnston thinks Alexander used his prominence in the MAGA movement for “very creepy” ends.

“No person like Ali should be even near politics,” he said.

Alexander, who has described his ethnicity as half-Black and half-Arab and says he’s bisexual, might seem like an unusual ally for the avowedly racist and homophobic “America First” movement led by Fuentes.

But Fuentes, a 24-year-old who marched at the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville with a long history of racist, antisemitic, and sexist remarks, has appeared frequently with Alexander at events like a “Stop the Steal” rally in Georgia in 2020.

The pair would later become arguably the most prominent far-right figures in West’s short-lived, virulently antisemitic presidential campaign after Yiannopoulos’s ouster.

In text messages reviewed by The Daily Beast, Yiannopoulos warned Fuentes in broad terms about his ally’s reputation. “Alexander wants to come to your events to have sex with underage boys,” Yiannopoulos wrote in a January 2022 text to Fuentes. “Snap out of it.”

As the allegations mounted against Alexander over the weekend, Fuentes said he “disavowed” Alexander’s actions and called them “gross,” but accused Yiannopoulos of sitting on the claims until he could use them to get revenge on his rivals from the West campaign. In a Telegram post, Fuentes also blamed Duncan and Johnston for “flirting” with Alexander to advance their careers.

“[Duncan] and Lance were willing to go along flirting with Ali (to varying degrees) without any protest because they thought it would advance their political careers,” Fuentes wrote. “If you are flirting with adult gay men because you think it’s going to land you a job, you know full well what you’re doing and it’s gross. Sorry but even at 15, I would have never sent nudes to an adult gay man. There’s something wrong there.”

Fuentes added that “the real victim in this entire saga is me.” In a self-pitying post, he referred to himself as an “incel”—internet slang for “involuntarily celibate.”

“Sounds like everybody involved got what they wanted,” Fuentes wrote. “Except me, the incel, who is now somehow being blamed for things I had nothing to do with.”

This isn’t the first time Fuentes’s racist group has been dogged by accusations of inappropriate sexual behavior regarding children. In August, Fuentes associate Alejandro Richard Velasquez Gomez was arrested and charged with possessing child pornography. Velasquez, who went by “LatinoZoomer” online and has been photographed with Fuentes, also faces charges over allegedly threatening a conference held by a rival conservative group.

The accusations against Alexander and his apology have already alienated several far-right figures. Anthime Gionet, the far-right provocateur known as “Baked Alaska” who was recently released from a prison term for his role in the Capitol riot, posted a statement Sunday saying he would not “working with Ali in any capacity moving forward.”

“So Ali admitted to sending inappropriate messages and flirting with young boys?” pro-Trump rapper Bryson Gray tweeted. “Disgusting.”

Despite his Friday night apology, Alexander struck a more defiant tone hours later in a bizarre, late-night Telegram audio livestream from what appeared to be a karaoke bar. As an amateur performance of Billy Joel’s “You May Be Right” played in the background, Alexander told an acquaintance that his life had become a “reality show” revolving around one question: “Implode or not implode.”

Asked by someone on the stream whether he wanted to perform karaoke, Alexander demurred.

“I’m in the middle of a scandal,” Alexander said at one point. “I can’t do karaoke. I’m in the middle of a scandal that I’m going to survive.”

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feminismisstillahatemovement · 1 year

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youtube

Donald Trump addresses the United States from Mar-a-Lago home

#Youtube

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ridenwithbiden · 14 days

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"Folks, the choice is clear: Donald Trump's vision of America is one of revenge and retribution, a defeated former president who sees the world from Mar-a-Lago and bows down to billionaires, who looks down on American union workers," Biden said.

Trump repeatedly promised to focus on so-called infrastructure week when he was president but in four years "he never built a damn thing," compared with the Biden White House's successful push for new infrastructure investment.

"Donald Trump still thinks windmills cause cancer," Biden said to laughter as he made the sign of the cross. "That's what he said. And by the way, remember when he was trying to deal with COVID, he suggested just inject a little bleach in your veins? He missed it -- it all went to his hair. Look, I shouldn't have said that."

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warningsine · 11 months

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Former President Donald Trump has entered a plea of not guilty to 37 charges related to the alleged mishandling of classified documents. The plea was made during Trump's arraignment at a federal courthouse in Miami on Tuesday, where his lawyers requested a jury trial.

According to CNN, Trump's attorney, Todd Blanche, informed the judge of their plea, stating, "We most certainly enter a plea of not guilty." The former president and his co-defendant, Walt Nauta, were then booked by deputy marshals, with electronic copies of their fingerprints taken. No mugshot was captured as Trump is easily recognizable. The entire booking process lasted approximately 10 minutes.

The charges brought forth by the Justice Department in the classified documents case have intensified the legal jeopardy surrounding Trump, who is currently the frontrunner for the 2024 GOP nomination. The arraignment hearing on Tuesday primarily involved procedural matters, including Trump's plea and discussions regarding the conditions of his pretrial release. Potential restrictions on Trump's conduct throughout the case may also be addressed.

Special counsel Jack Smith was present at the arraignment, emphasizing the significance of the case. Trump is facing 37 felony counts, accusing him of unlawfully retaining national defense information and concealing documents in violation of witness-tampering laws during the Justice Department's investigation into the materials. Nauta, Trump's close aide, was also charged in the indictment, alleging a conspiracy to obstruct the federal investigation.

Departing from his Doral resort in a motorcade, Trump traveled to the courthouse along with Nauta in a separate vehicle. Responding to a bystander's inquiry about his well-being, Trump replied, "great" and waved. Prior to the court appearance, Trump took to social media, lamenting that it was "ONE OF THE SADDEST DAYS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. WE ARE A NATION IN DECLINE!!!"

High-stakes legal battle begins as former President Trump's case assigned to District Judge Cannon

The hearing on Tuesday marks the beginning of a lengthy and potentially dramatic judicial process, including criminal and appeal proceedings that could span several years. The case has been assigned to US District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was nominated by Trump. Notably, Cannon's previous decision to order a third-party review of an FBI search at Mar-a-Lago was overturned by a conservative appeals court. Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman is expected to oversee the proceedings in Miami.

Following the conclusion of Tuesday's hearing, the case will enter a phase of pretrial proceedings, likely involving disputes over evidence and potential motions to dismiss the case before it reaches trial. The Trump defense team will have ample opportunity to prolong the process, potentially extending it beyond the 2024 election.

One crucial aspect that may impact the prosecution is the assignment of Judge Cannon, who resides in Ft. Pierce, Florida, but is part of the pool of judges randomly assigned cases in West Palm Beach, where the new indictment was filed. Legal experts across the spectrum have expressed interest in Cannon's approach, given her controversial handling of the previous Trump lawsuit. Her decisions could potentially cause complications for the prosecution, although the extent of such challenges remains uncertain.

"It is rare to have such influential power as a district judge in a federal case," stated Alan Rozenshtein, a former attorney in the DOJ National Security Division and current law professor at the University of Minnesota. "She could, if she wanted to, cause huge problems for the prosecution. Would they be existential problems? Probably not."

As the legal proceedings continue, the nation will closely watch how this high-profile case unfolds and its potential implications for the former president.

#donald trump #politics #us #news

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 1 month

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Adam Zyglis :: @adamzyglis :: Four years of darkness…

* * *

President Biden visited Maryland on Friday afternoon and spoke about the tragedy, recovery, and future promise of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore Harbor. He began by acknowledging that six of those killed in the tragedy were immigrants working to repair the road surface on the bridge:

The damage is devastating, and our hearts are still breaking. Eight construction workers went into the water when the bridge fell. Six lost their lives. Most were immigrants, but all were Marylanders — hard-working, strong, and selfless.

See White House.gov, Remarks by President Biden on Rebuilding the Francis Scott Key Bridge and Reopening the Port of Baltimore.

President Biden also spoke about the historical significance of the bridge and its promise for the future:

Let me close with this. This port is over 300 years old. . . . This port is older than our Republic. And it’s been through tough, tough times before. During the war of 1812, a young Marylander named Francis Scott Key, for whom the bridge is named after, sat in a boat in this very harbor, and he watched — he watched the British troops launch attack after attack on American forces. But as the dawn broke, we saw the American flag still flying, Baltimore was still standing, and our nation, as he wrote in the “Star-Spangled Banner,” had made it through a perilous fight. Folks, this is going to take time, but Governor Moore [and] others are going to rebuild this bridge as rapidly as possible. And, folks, we’re determined to come back even stronger.

As President Biden was delivering sober, hopeful remarks after a tragedy, Trump was making wild allegations on a conservative talk radio show—claiming that President Biden was high on cocaine during the State of the Union address.

No major media outlet covered Trump's unhinged comments, but the “news” segment of Saturday Night Live did cover Trump's accusations—noting that Trump frequently accuses others of engaging in the conduct that he engages in himself. See YouTube, Weekend Update: Trump Claims Biden Is on Cocaine, Earthquake Rattles Northeast - SNL. (Reference to Trump accusation begins at 1:00 minute mark.)

This is no laughing matter. As Dan Pfeiffer notes,

I’m guessing that . . . most of you are learning this information for the first time. And it's not because you aren’t avid consumers of news. It’s because the traditional political media decided to ignore this outlandish accusation from a clearly deranged and dishonest man.

See Dan Pfeiffer on Substack, Why is the Press Making Trump Seem More Normal? (messageboxnews.com). Pfeifer continued his critique, noting that the major media outlets find a few coherent passages scattered in Trump's most recent unhinged campaign speech and use those snippets to make Trump seem normal:

He does a rally or interview filled with insane, incoherent ramblings and then the [news media] clips the most coherent 30-45 seconds to air as part of the package.

The good news is that Trump can’t hide forever at Mar-a-Lago. Several reasons are forcing Trump to come out of hiding and address issues of substance or legal jeopardy. Those reasons include:

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

#political cartoons #totalitarianism #Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter #Robert B Hubbell #media #election 2024 #eclipse #incoherent ramblings #media coverage #TFG

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