Democracy gone Astray: Donald Trump

Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.

This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Showing posts with label Donald Trump. Show all posts

Monday, September 16, 2024

With The Supreme Court On Sideline For Now, Trump's Lawyers Press Immunity Claims Before Lower Court

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump was acting within his role as president when he pressed claims about “alleged fraud and irregularity” in the 2020 election, his lawyers told a federal appeals court in arguing that he is immune from prosecution.

The attorneys also asserted in a filing late Saturday night that the “historical fallout is tremendous” from the four-count indictment charging Trump with plotting to overturn the election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

Supreme Court Rejects Special Counsel Request To Rule On Trump Immunity Claim Immediately

WASHINGTON ― The Supreme Court on Friday denied a request from special counsel Jack Smith to step in and immediately rule on Donald Trump’s claim that he is immune from prosecution for his actions leading up to the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol because they were “official” acts and part of his job.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan earlier this month ruled that Trump’s attempt to overturn the election and remain in power was not part of his official duties and he would have to stand trial on the charges listed in Smith’s indictment.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia), a staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump, recently decried a ruling from the Colorado State Supreme Court barring Trump from appearing on the ballot for the 2024 presidential election, calling for President Joe Biden to be prosecuted for treason instead.

Such a demand is an extreme reaction, even for the far right lawmaker, given what it entails — the federal crime of treason is defined as “levying war against the United States, or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort,” and can carry a penalty of death. Greene offered no evidence warranting charging Biden with treason, other than the fact that she wants him to enact more xenophobic immigration policies.

Lara Trump, the daughter-in-law of former president Donald Trump, said on her podcast that she’s open to also being his vice president should he be reelected.

She made the admission on a recent episode of her podcast, “The Right View with Lara Trump,” after a viewer asked her if she would accept the position of being her father-in-law’s running mate, assuming he actually asked her.

It should be noted that she has no political experience outside of working on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, though she did briefly consider running to be Senator of North Carolina in 2022.

Former President Donald Trump was recorded pressing two Wayne County, Michigan, election canvassers to not certify the results of the 2020 presidential election, the Detroit News reported Thursday.

According to four recordings listened to by the Detroit News, which were reportedly made by a person present during the conversation, the then-president and Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chair, spoke with Monica Palmer and William Hartmann — Republican members of the county’s Board of Canvassers — on Nov. 17, 2020. At the time, Trump was falsely claiming the election had been stolen from him, filing dozens of unsuccessful lawsuits based on unfounded claims of voter fraud.

Maine’s secretary of state has delayed a decision to determine whether former President Donald Trump should appear on next year’s presidential primary ballot, following a decision from the Colorado Supreme Court determining he is ineligible there.

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows was expected to make a decision Friday about Trump’s eligibility, but will allow for more time for both sides to make arguments after Colorado’s historic ruling this week, the Portland Press Herald reported. Bellows said she plans to issue a ruling early next week.

WASHINGTON — Responding to Donald Trump’s claim to the Supreme Court that there was no reason to rush the proceedings in the Jan. 6 criminal case against him, special counsel Jack Smith on Thursday told the high court: Oh, yes, there is — the former president’s unprecedented attempt to remain in power despite losing his election.

“The charges here are of the utmost gravity. This case involves ― for the first time in our nation’s history ― criminal charges against a former president based on his actions while in office,” Smith wrote in a 14-page filing. “And not just any actions: alleged acts to perpetuate himself in power by frustrating the constitutionally prescribed process for certifying the lawful winner of an election. The nation has a compelling interest in a decision on respondent’s claim of immunity from these charges ― and if they are to be tried, a resolution by conviction or acquittal, without undue delay.”

The Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that Donald Trump is disqualified by the Constitution from serving as president again because he stoked an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.

The 4-3 ruling, which rests on an interpretation of the 14th Amendment, will almost certainly force the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve whether Trump, the leading candidate for the Republican nomination, is eligible to hold future public office.

Consider the following hypothetical: Suppose Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s husband happened to be a well-known crypto advocate and an early investor in Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto exchange FTX. As you may have heard, the exchange collapsed, and SBF was recently convicted of criminal fraud; he intends to appeal. Now suppose that the case ends up before the Supreme Court.

Under those circumstances, is there any question that Justice Jackson would need to recuse herself from the case? After all, her husband could be either a co-conspirator or a victim. Either way, he — and she, by extension — has an interest in the outcome of the prosecution.

Vladimir Putin has had Donald Trump’s “number for some time … knows how to manipulate him” and still sees him “as an asset”, the former White House Russia expert Fiona Hill said, discussing the Russian leader and the Republican presidential frontrunner.

“That’s literally [Putin’s] trump card,” Hill told the One Decision Podcast, hosted by Jane Ferguson, a reporter, and Sir Richard Dearlove, a former head of MI6, when asked if she thought the Russian president, bogged down in war in Ukraine, was betting on Trump beating Joe Biden next year and returning to power.

Former President Donald Trump is calling for a primary challenge against Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) because Roy backs Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, for president.

Roy appeared alongside DeSantis in Iowa for a Fox News interview that caught Trump’s attention on Monday evening.

“Has any smart and energetic Republican in the Great State of Texas decided to run in the Primary against RINO Congressman Chip Roy,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, using an acronym for “Republican in name only.” “For the right person, he is very beatable. If interested, let me know!!!”

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that Donald Trump is disqualified from being president under the 14th Amendment and may not appear on the state’s 2024 presidential primary ballot.

In a 4-3 vote, the court made the shocking and unprecedented ruling that Trump is ineligible to be president again because of a clause in the 14th Amendment barring from state or federal office anyone who took an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution but then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against it, or gave “aid or comfort to [its] enemies.”

Trump’s ‘dehumanising and fascist rhetoric’ denounced by top progressive

A leading American progressive said Donald Trump was using “horrific … dehumanising and fascist rhetoric”, after the former president told supporters immigrants were invading the US and “poisoning the blood of our country”.

“This is horrific,” said Pramila Jayapal, a Washington state Democrat and chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, on Monday.

“Donald Trump’s description of immigrants who are coming to the southern border is dehumanising and fascist rhetoric. These are dangerous lies, designed to villainise immigrants and make horrific policy seem somehow acceptable.

Donald Trump, just weeks after using the fascist terminology “vermin” to describe sections of American society he dislikes, again declared at a New Hampshire rally that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country”.

Condemned for his previous remarks at the last rally he held in New Hampshire – where he threatened to “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections” – Trump appeared to double down in Durham on Saturday.

NEW YORK — The chairman of an Austrian political party founded by ex-Nazis, the conservative Twitter star behind the anti-trans Bud Light backlash and former President Donald Trump all walked into a bar.

Seriously.

On Saturday night in Manhattan, amid butler-delivered bellinis, sequined ball gowns and a five-course French service meal, characters from all corners of the Republican Party’s MAGA faction gathered for “a night of dinner, drinking, and love of country.”

Make America Fascist Again (MAFA!)

On February 19, 1942, two months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066. It initiated a Department of Defense program that resulted in the rounding up and incarceration of about 122,000 individuals of Japanese descent. They were to be placed in federal “relocation centers” that would popularly become known as “internment camps.” As it happened, they were neither. They were prisons set up to house and so violate the civil and human rights of a despised and racially different group defined as “the enemy.”

Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump administration official who is now a co-host on ABC’s “The View,” said on Tuesday that it would be dangerous for former President Donald Trump to serve another term in the White House.

“I will not vote for Donald Trump. And I think that should be a pretty easy thing to say,” Griffin said in a discussion on the show about Trump. “If you thought the first term of Trump was bad, buckle up.”

Trump: I won’t be a dictator ‘except for day one’

Donald Trump said Tuesday he will not be a dictator “except for day one” if he returns to office in 2025.

In a town hall with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, the former president was pressed on whether he would disavow taking retributive action against all his enemies if he reentered the Oval Office. He initially shied away from responding, but when asked a second time said he would only be a dictator on the first day of his second term. He emphasized that it would be for two specific issues.

New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman predicted Monday what a second Donald Trump presidency would be like, emphasizing that her grim take was “not hypothetical.” (Watch the video below.)

Asked about possible staffing and policy scenarios, the Pulitzer-winning journalist told CNN host Kaitlan Collins that the former president, according to what he has said or what Haberman and fellow Times reporters have found, Trump:

Congressional Republicans are steeling themselves for a return to daily life with Donald Trump — which means constant, uncomfortable questions about his erratic policy whims and political attacks.

With Trump far ahead of the GOP primary pack and leading President Joe Biden in some polls, Republicans are getting a preview of future shellshock akin to their experiences in 2016 and his presidency. It’s likely to continue for the next 11 months. And perhaps four more years after that.

Democracy gone Astray