Theprogressivist

You don’t need to be an expert in electoral politics to understand Rule One of any campaign: Candidates should pursue as many votes as possible. In a democracy, it’s common sense: The more votes a campaign has, the greater the chance of success.

With this in mind, Donald Trump appears to have a counterintuitive rhetorical habit. The New Republic noted:

On Fox News Thursday morning, Donald Trump had a weird instruction for his supporters: they don’t have to vote. “My instruction: We don’t need the votes, I have so many votes,” Trump said on Fox & Friends before going on a rant about how much support he has in Florida.

As a clip from the show makes clear, the former president didn’t appear to be kidding: https://x.com/atrupar/status/1816482779581775943

If the phrasing sounded at all familiar, it’s not your imagination. The day after last month’s presidential debate, for example, Trump held a rally in Virginia and told attendees, “We don’t need votes.”

On Wednesday, a key Senate panel approved a bill that would ban lawmakers from trading stocks.

The Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee approved the legislation — known as the Ending Trading and Holdings in Congressional Stocks (ETHICS) Act — by an 8-4 vote.

Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Mitt Romney of Utah, and James Lankford of Oklahoma voted against it.

"The public doesn't think we should profit from having information that they don't have, and we shouldn't" Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, one of the key sponsors of the bill, told reporters in his office on Tuesday.

It's a sweeping bill — but it wouldn't take full effect until 2027 Under this bill, members of Congress — along with the President and Vice President — would be banned from purchasing stocks and cryptocurrencies beginning 90 days after the bill's signed into law.

Then, on March 31, 2027 — two and a half years from now — a more complete ban takes place. Those same politicians, as well as their spouses and any dependent children, would have to sell off all of their stocks within 120 days after that.

A Republican state senator has called for “civil war” if Donald Trump loses the presidential election in November.

George Lang, an Ohio politician, made the comment as he introduced JD Vance at his first solo campaign event since becoming Trump’s running mate.

After taking to the stage fist-raised and shouting Trump’s post-shooting battle cry “Fight! Fight!”, Mr Lang warned of an existential threat facing Americans. He declared in front of a large, heated crowd in Ohio: “We are in the fight for the soul of our nation… for our kids, for our grandkids, it is a fight we can never imagine.

“I believe wholeheartedly, Donald Trump and Butler County’s JD Vance are the last chance to save our country. Politically, I’m afraid if we lose this one, it’s going to take a civil war to save the country.”

Video of the speech

The news that President Joe Biden would not run for re-election caused a stir not only in America, but also in Russia, where pro-Kremlin propagandists are kicking up a fuss about what it would mean for their beloved Donald Trump.

Appearing on Monday’s broadcast of a state TV show 60 Minutes, State Duma member Oleg Matveychev complained that Biden’s move is a disaster for Trump’s election chances. “He is left without any trump cards!” Matveychev said. “Previously, he could easily attack Biden’s health, now he has nothing left to attack. More than that, attacking Biden at this point would be seen as inappropriate and rude.”

“Now they’re switching to [Vice President Kamala Harris] and are trying to attack her, but nothing new will stick to her,” Matveychev added. “Bringing up the fact she is not quite white will only activate her electorate.”

Russian state TV’s coverage of Harris—which is a carbon copy of what is playing on Fox News—was largely limited Monday to attempts at mocking her laughter.

Matveychev said that Biden’s departure from the race rendered the previous agenda obsolete. Discussing the age of the U.S. president or an assassination attempt against Trump is now yesterday’s news, he argued.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has issued a dire warning to her party about the chaos that could ensue if they succeed in pushing President Joe Biden off the ticket. And she criticized Democrats who’ve given off-the-record quotes that suggest the party has resigned itself to a second Trump term.

In an Instagram Live video on Thursday, Ocasio-Cortez warned liberals that a brokered convention could lead to chaos, in part because she says some of the Democratic “elites” who want Biden out also don’t want Vice President Kamala Harris as the nominee in his place. 

“If you think that is going to be an easy transition, I’m here to tell you that a huge amount of the donor class and these elites who are pushing for the president not to be the nominee also do not want to see the VP be the nominee,” she said. 

Ocasio-Cortez claimed none of the people she’s spoken with who are calling on Biden to drop out — including lawmakers and legal experts — have articulated a plan to swap out the nominee without minimizing the serious legal and procedural challenges that are likely to ensue. 

Ocasio-Cortez also highlighted the racial, ethnic and class divisions that appear to have formed between the majority of those pining to blow up the ticket — led mostly by white Democrats and media pundits — and those elected officials who feel they and their constituents have too much at stake to upend the process at this point and so are willing to do the work to re-elect Biden-Harris. She alluded to this cultural divide in her video when she spoke out against anonymous sources expressing a sense of fatalism on behalf of Democrats about what might happen if Biden remains on the ticket: 

What I will say is what upsets me is [Democrats] saying we will lose. For me, to a certain extent, I don’t care what name is on there. We are not losing. I don’t know about you, but my community does not have the option to lose. My community does not have the luxury of accepting loss in July of an election year. My people are the first ones deported. They’re the first ones put in Rikers. They’re the first ones whose families are killed by war.

Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah who spoke before Dans, said that opposition to bureaucracy is key to Trump's success — and the reason that "they" continue to attack him.

"This is the secret to why Trump has been successful," he said. "It's also the secret to why we need Trump so much today, and the secret to why they're doing everything they can, why they tried to imprison him, why somebody tried to kill him."

Dans says the Biden campaign is pushing a "fake attachment" between Trump and Project 2025, which he said launched over two years ago.

"We are not running for president," Dans said. "President Trump is running for president. We're a group of private citizens advocating for better government."

He claimed the media has "debunked" any connection with Trump.

But CNN found that at least 140 former Trump administration employees have served in Project 2025 roles such as authors or contributors. That includes six of his former Cabinet secretaries.

In total — CNN found "nearly 240 people had ties to both Project 2025 and to Trump."

President Biden is finalizing plans to endorse major changes to the Supreme Court in the coming weeks, including proposals for legislation to establish term limits for the justices and an enforceable ethics code, according to two people briefed on the plans.

He is also weighing whether to call for a constitutional amendment to eliminate broad immunity for presidents and other constitutional officeholders, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

The announcement would mark a major shift for Biden, a former chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who has long resisted calls to reform the high court. The potential changes come in response to growing outrage among his supporters about recent ethics scandals surrounding Justice Clarence Thomas and decisions by the new court majority that have changed legal precedent on issues including abortion and federal regulatory powers.

Donald Trump will meet with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Florida on Thursday, according to people familiar with the matter, less than a week after he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

The visit is likely to fan concerns that the Hungarian leader is working as an intermediary between Putin and Trump.

Trump and Putin professed a fondness for one another during the U.S. president’s first term—often garnering bipartisan criticism. More recently, the Republican leader has said he believed he could convince Putin to end his war in Ukraine and release Americans detained in Russia if he were elected to a second term.

Orbán will travel to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort after the conclusion of the NATO summit in Washington. His visit to Moscow became a central point of discussion at the gathering, where other allies pledged additional air defenses for Ukraine in its continuing campaign against the full-scale Russian invasion that began in 2022.

The idea that Donald Trump is forcing the Republican Party to moderate its extreme positions on abortion and LGBTQ rights would make for an interesting story. So interesting, in fact, that the story was all over the mainstream press. The only problem with this very interesting story is that it didn’t happen.

On Monday, a draft of the GOP platform began circulating ahead of the Republican convention. The coverage of the platform’s position on abortion was remarkable in its uniformity. The New York Times’ headline blared, “Following Trump’s Lead, Republicans Adopt Platform That Softens Stance on Abortion.” NBC News announced, “Trump Pushes New GOP Platform Softening Party’s Positions on Abortion and Same-Sex Marriage.” The Washington Post concurred: “GOP Adopts Platform That Softens Language on Abortion, Same-Sex Marriage.” These headlines could not be more misleading. (One outlet, The 19th, commendably got it right.)

First, although the new platform omits language from the 2016 version opposing marriage equality, it is silent on equal rights for same-sex couples, and certainly does not endorse them. That omission is meaningful, and should not be interpreted as moderation. The Trumpified right-wing majority on the Supreme Court has already taken quiet aim at the decision that granted same-sex couples the right to marry, and some of the sitting justices, such as Samuel Alito, have denounced that decision outright. Once the right-wing bloc on the Court has the numbers and the right case, that decision will likely be overturned.

In other words, the removal of the previous opposition does not amount to a recognition of equal rights for same-sex couples. It is a strategic silence asserted in the belief that the Roberts Court will narrow those rights in its own time without the GOP having to pay a political price for making that happen. Other language in the new platform refers to being able to “act in accordance with those [religious] Beliefs, not just in places of Worship, but in everyday life.” This is about justifying religious exemptions to anti-discrimination laws, which will target LGBTQ Americans and women, among others. This is an agenda that contemplates second-class citizenship for anyone who is not a right-wing Christian, and elevated status for those who are.

“We will institute the powerful death penalty for drug dealers, where each dealer is responsible for the death, during their lives, of 500 people or more,” he said.

"Mothers will never again be forced to watch their children overdosing in hosp … and we will never allow mothers to watch their child hopelessly dying in their arms screaming, ‘What can I do, what can I do? Help me God, what can I do?’ We are a nation whose once revered airports are a dirty, crowded mess,” Trump continued, pivoting suddenly.

“You sit and wait for hours and then are notified that the plane won’t leave, that they have no idea when they will. Where ticket prices have tripled. They don’t have the pilots to fly the planes, they don’t seek qualified air traffic controllers, and they just don’t know what the hell they are doing.”

“We will take over the horribly run capital of our nation in Washington, D.C., and clean it up, renovate it, and rebuild our capital city, so that it is no longer a nightmare of murder and crime. But rather it will become the most beautiful capital anywhere in the world,” Trump said.

“Right now, if you leave Florida, ‘Oh, let’s go, darling, let’s look at the Jefferson Memorial, let’s look at the Washington Monument, let’s go and look at some of the beautiful scenes,’ and you end up getting shot, mugged, raped,” he warned, promising that he’d run the city “tough and smart.”

Watch Here:

https://x.com/atrupar/status/1810853096609694084

https://x.com/atrupar/status/1810842300961956147

It’s been months now since Dominion Voting Systems complained of a massive discovery leak and subsequently demanded the disqualification of an indicted “Kraken” lawyer from representing former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne in a 2020 election-related defamation suit. While a Washington, D.C., federal court has taken no action on Dominion’s pending motion to boot attorney Stefanie Lambert from the case, the voting technology company has identified a new threat to discovery materials: a subpoena issued to Lambert in the criminal case of indicted former Colorado clerk Tina Peters (R).

In a Friday motion to enforce an existing protective order in their lawsuit, Dominion’s lawyers claimed that there appears to be a “highly-orchestrated scheme” by Byrne and Lambert to “improperly release yet more discovery information” through Peters’ case, which was set for trial in late July after months of delays.