Republicans in swing districts are running scared:
At least nine Republican congressional candidates have scrubbed or amended references to Trump or abortion from their online profiles in recent months, distancing themselves from divisive subjects that some GOP strategists say are two of the biggest liabilities for the party ahead of the post-Labor Day sprint to Election Day.
“The Dobbs decision has clearly energized Democratic voters to the point where they have closed the enthusiasm gap with Republicans,” said Whit Ayres, a longtime GOP pollster, referencing the Supreme Court ruling that ended the constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy. Asked whether it hurts the GOP to have Trump back in the news, Ayres replied, “The best case for Republican candidates in the midterms is making the upcoming election a referendum on the Biden administration.”
Republicans in purplish districts or states are caught in a vise: they can either piss off Trump or piss off voters. I suspect there will be something of a panicked stampede toward voters over the next couple of months.
They'll be running away from Trump faster, after they've read the DoJ filing in response to Trump motion for special master.
DoJ pointed out *every* error his lawyers made in their filing and even had some special shade for Trump by pointing out Cohen was a better lawyer than his current crew.
But the kicker is Attachment F. No words can describe how much trouble Trump and his lawyers are in.
It's so bad, he'll end up firing his current lawyers and those lawyers will need their own lawyers and, well, more people are going to be squealing to the FBI about Trump.
Yeah I don’t really understand what his lawyers are doing. Like they assume the aura of criminal invincibility that Trump has - IMO, Trump will never see the inside of a jail cell - extends to themselves as well. But, they are relative nobodies who the DOJ will have no problem throwing in jail.
They are terrible, stupid lawyers (which is why they accepted trump at a client at this stage) and they don't know wtf they are doing themselves. And in any case, trump's aura of invincibility is about all they've got. From a strictly legal POV, the case is closed. He and multiple associates are obviously guilty of obstruction and several other crimes, presuming the publicly available information that's been reported is accurate..
I really enjoy Trump's response to the DoJ's photo showing evidence of stolen federal gov't documents in his office, commingled with personal items: "Good thing I declassified!"
He fundamentally doesn't get that it doesn't matter if he declassified anything -- he's still in possession of federal property that wasn't supposed to be in his possession, he lied about it through an attestation through his lawyers and that reflects an attempt to obstruct justice.
Brilliant idiocy.
Great lawyering by the Trump team (not!). The DoJ would have been obligated to remain silent while TFG proceeded to throw all the usual BS at the wall in a desperate hope something would stick, but the request for a special master provided the opportunity for DOJ to issue a public reply that devastates all his claims.
That DoJ response is VERY well done. It's a long read, but I found it worth the time.
https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/doj-response-to-trump-request-for-special-master/1b30feb331082a68/full.pdf
Basically, the judge has to ignore all prec edent to appoint a special master. If she does, DOJ will appeal and win.
Ron Howard Voiceover Narration: The Judge ignored all of that.
Especially the page notes.
Usually, page notes are just informative tidbits, but DoJ's notes are jaw-dropping. In a couple of them, the DoJ is pointing to additional information they're willing to make public if Trump keeps insisting on more transparency.
I think we're all basically begging Trump lawyers to keep pushing.
Do you think Coked Up Werewolf Colombian diaspora Judge Aileen Cannon gives a shit about any of that?
Pendeja is in the tank for Trump, & has no fucking clue she's going down a path that will end up for her how the Iraq War went for the late former Atlantic managing editor Michael Kelley.
No words can describe how much trouble Trump and his lawyers are in. It's so bad, he'll end up firing his current lawyers and those lawyers will need their own lawyers
Trump's lawyers appear to have engaged in misconduct? Like, disbarment misconduct, or go to prison misconduct? What are you suggesting?
Laurence Tribe's Twitter account to the rescue. He's suggesting obstruction of justice. Damn.
https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1564965999413436416
Representative Abigail Spanberger who is the incumbent for the 7th district in Virginia which was in the Richmond suburbs but was moved in the 2000 redistricting to be in the southern suburbs of the DC area has been running ads non-stop about her opponent Yelsi Vega who is in the photo Kevin used for this story. The ads focus on crazy quotes about abortion said by Ms. Vega. There's no way that these candidates can hide, the Democrats have the funds to continually remind voters how radical they really are.
Most polling right now has Spanberger ahead so I'm hopeful she'll pull out a win. Less sure about VA 2nd district but OTOH VA 10th looks to be lean Dem as they nominated a retired Navy guy who is an immigrant from Vietnam and seems to have gone full bore into the crazytown train of conspiracy and whatnot.
"Meet the Vietnamese Burgess Owens" is the new "Meet the Polish Selena".
(H/t theONION, back in the day when it wasn't the house organ of the Sanders Institute.)
Good news for Republican. The further they distance themselves the more the moderate will vote for them.
By the way the trend you describe barely doesn't show up in the polls. https://fivethirtyeight.com/
The further they distance themselves from TFG, the deeper his cult will sink into denial and conspiracy theories, and the more intense the Republican civil war will become. That will hardly be reassuring to moderates. That's the bad news.
Does Shooter have a new username?
Reads like it's a grade or so above shootie's usual drivel on the Flesch-Kincaid scale.
Here in NM, the GOP candidate for governor, a local teevie weatherman, was holding his own until the pastor of his megachurch, one Rev. "Smotherman" (I kid you not) confided to his congregation that the candidate's stand on allowing abortion up until 15 weeks was just a smokescreen -- what Candidate actually believes is that ALL abortions must be made illegal, no exceptions, and that's what he has promised to implement as Governor.
Candidate has been denying this, but the bottom has fallen out of his numbers.
Has the Democrat nominee referred to the GQP opposition as the Weather Underwhelming?
Let's see if the late deciding voters nationally in 2022 are as out to lunch as Kentucky voters who broke for Mc Connell in 2014 due to him supporting Kynect (but not Obummercare).
Arrrgh! "Caught in a VISE". Otherwise, your really honing in on that topic! We have nothing to loose!
🙂
Yeah, when the former president of one party appears to have orchestrated the worst intelligence breach in American history since Aldrich Ames, it may rebound to the disadvantage of other candidates in that party...
We're going to find that Trump trumped any other traitor to the US going back to Benedict Arnold.
The kicker is that he's actually claiming it's all good because he declassified everything! In his head or something. Really! Basically just opened up the books on the US government's most sensitive natsec secrets for everyone to see! Are you fucking kidding me?
& legal experts like Johnathan Turdley are saying it checks out.
I haven’t seen an adequate discussion of one particular issue: There is no question that the prescribed procedures for declassifying the recovered documents were not followed, evidenced by the markings and cover sheets still in place. The particular classifications of some of these materials indicate that their release would compromise ‘sources and methods’ - they could help opponents defend against electronic eavesdropping, for example, and/or could expose human informants to arrest, torture and death. The procedures for declassifying are intended to protect those sources and methods - in certain cases, an informant might have to be extracted to a safe country. Failing to follow proper procedures clearly harms national security. Even the claim that the President has absolute power to declassify anything at any time cannot justify an act that compromises security.
We have become way too convinced that "our" side is right and the other side is wrong. We pay attention with rapt fascination about anything Trump and the GOP has done wrong
But we ignore history
Democrats have a unique ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory!!!
In years past this type of news - if applied to a democrat - would have guaranteed an almost total republican take over of Congress, and the White House. Yet the crazies like Herschel Walker still lead Raphael Warnock in some polls.
I don't get this..............
Unlike how it was from around 2010 to 2020 when there was slow but steady recovery and low inflation, the economic situation now is precarious. People still rank economics and inflation as top issues. Abortion as an important issue has gained considerably, but is nowhere near being a dominant issue overall. If inflation doesn't get better it could be a decider this year. The overall state of the economy will probably be the decider in 2024.
But Democrats don't actually control the economy, popular opinion notwithstanding, so they have to concentrate on anything which might count in that favor, and that means abortion right now.
Eh, sorry, but nope. Economy is way down from 2010. Inflation was bogus
I can't see "precarious". I see an unprecedented boom leading to ridiculously low unemployment rates, inflation, and consequent rising interest rates. "Overheated" we've certainly got, but no slightest hint of "precarious".
I wouldn’t even say ‘overheated’; mostly, it’s under-supplied. Besides the disruptions to production and distribution caused by the pandemic, I suspect that the decades-long cheap-labor regime in the US has allowed businesses to under-invest in automation and other productivity improvements. Combined with a long-term decline in the labor-force participation rate, this has brought us to a tight labor market.
The Democrats have to make sure they hang these walk backs around the necks of the Republicans at every opportunity. But keep it simple!
Here in Missouri when the Spawn of Satan Hawley was running against McCaskill, she pointed out that as AG he was trying to get rid of Obamacare and thereby end prohibitions against discriminating based upon preexisting conditions. 100% correct on her part.
His response? "No I'm not, she's lying and she knows she's lying. I have a child with preexisting conditions, why would I do that?" (Because you are a lying sack of shit and the Spawn of Satan.)
The amazing thing is that it worked! Polls consistently showed that voters refused to believe he was really trying to end that coverage, because really, who would try such a stupid thing?
Don't try nuanced arguments with the Republicans. Just keep it simple: "You support laws that 10 year olds raped by their fathers should be forced to give birth. Were you lying about that then, or are you lying about that now?". Rinse, repeat. If they deny, rinse, repeat. Hell, even if that's not what was literally said on their web sits, rinse, repeat.
The Democrats are going to be accused of supporting abortion up until the moment of birth anyway. Voters, I hope, are going to be more afraid of (real) forced births compared to (fictional) forced abortions.
Call me a pessimist, but I'll believe the Democrat resurgence when I see the results in the general election. Why? Because in the past, when the economy was in trouble it trumped (pun not intended) everything else. As a student of history, I can't help but see the similarities in our current situation. So, while I still hope Trump doesn't get back in the WH, I'm not holding my breath.
The economy in trouble???? Not necessarily. The opposite.
I hope that the Democrats in those areas run ads that include the words "but who do they think they're kidding?" and then tell the voters that Glenn Youngkin kept a low profile on his abortion stance and as soon as he was elected governor of Virginia he said it should be banned.