Donald Trump
December 7, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Scott and I have been writing together for many years, and a consistent theme of our partnership has been that I am an optimist, while Scott–it is fair to say–is not. So not surprisingly, my view of last night’s GOP debate is a little more optimistic than Scott’s. I admit I might be whistling past the graveyard at this point, but I hold out hope that come 2025, we might
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December 3, 2023 — Scott Johnson
I had my say on “My Cousin Dean” (i.e., Rep. Dean Phillips) just before he announced his campaign to challenge President Biden for the Democratic nomination for president. I intend to leave it at that unless events transform the shape of the nomination contest — and the Democrat powers-that-be are doing their best to make sure that doesn’t happen. Jonathan Turley observes Dean’s treatment to democracy, Democrat style, in his
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November 13, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Jonathan Martin is Politico’s senior political columnist and politics bureau chief. He wrote This Will Not Pass with Alexander Burns on the 2020 election. He ardently believes that Joe Biden must be reelected to save the republic from Donald Trump, or vice versa. He is full of advice for how Biden can pull it off. Martin observes that “2024 will be an extraordinary election, and it demands extraordinary measures.” Why
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November 9, 2023 — Scott Johnson
As it turns out, the Minnesota Supreme Court is the first in the nation (I think) to deal with (or avoid) the question raised about President Trump’s possible disqualification from the ballot under section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Yesterday the Court dismissed the petition brought by a gaggle including former Minnesota Secretary of State Joan Growe. The Court held oral argument on the petition last week and posted video
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November 6, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Donald Trump is testifying today in the fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James. The presiding judge has already held Trump liable. Trump’s testimony is going about as you would expect: Donald Trump’s courtroom decorum has began to break down as the former president began yelling and attacking the judge and the attorney general from the witness stand. Trump had been testifying for the past roughly two
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October 24, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Today prosecutors obtained another guilty plea in the Georgia RICO case against Donald Trump and others who challenged the apparent result of the 2020 presidential election in that state. The New York Times reports: Jenna Ellis, a pro-Trump lawyer who amplified former President Donald J. Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud as part of what she called a legal “elite strike force team,” pleaded guilty on Tuesday as part of
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October 2, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Donald Trump appeared this morning for a trial in New York City on the civil fraud charges that were brought against him by Democratic Party activist Letitia James. Politico has an account of this morning’s activities. This is an Alice In Wonderland trial, as judge Arthur Engoron issued an order last week finding Trump and others liable in fraud for providing documents to banks and insurance companies that inflated the
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September 29, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Democrats like to label Donald Trump an authoritarian. This is why he supposedly is a threat to “our democracy.” The charge is generally groundless. Trump was president for four years, so he has a track record as the least authoritarian president of recent years. But Trump, being Trump, can’t get out of his own way. So earlier this week, on Truth Social, he handed the Democrats all the ammunition they
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September 24, 2023 — Scott Johnson
“Biden poll disaster” is how Drudge flags the just-released ABC News/Washington Post poll results reported here by Gary Langer (PDF with full results, charts, and tables posted here). Clicking on the story, I thrilled to the beat of the first few paragraphs. President Joe Biden’s job approval rating is 19 points underwater, his ratings for handling the economy and immigration are at career lows. A record number of Americans say
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September 18, 2023 — Scott Johnson
The Biden administration has deputized Krazee-Eyez Killa Jack Smith to put President Trump away some time before the 2024 presidential election. The train keeps a rollin’, banana republic style. Last week Smith filed a motion in his District of Columbia 2020 election case against Trump. Smith’s motion is supported by a 19-page memorandum that is posted online here. Jonathan Turley criticizes Smith’s motion in “Gagging Donald Trump: Why Smith’s ‘Narrowly
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September 17, 2023 — John Hinderaker
I have praised the Trump administration’s accomplishments many times, but there is one huge blot on Trump’s record: his administration’s response to the covid epidemic. Via InstaPundit, Jeffrey Tucker of the Brownstone Institute comments on Megyn Kelly’s interview of Trump. Kelly, to her credit, began the process of asking Trump the tough questions about covid: We need to know why the churches, schools, and businesses were closed at the urging
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September 12, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Earlier today, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. released this indictment of the Democratic National Committee. Why, he asks, is the Democratic Party opposed to democracy? Why is it rigging the primary process? I am not certain whether what he says about the DNC’s machinations is correct, nor am I sure what he considers to be real democracy. (For example, it has never been true that the candidate who gets the most
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September 10, 2023 — John Hinderaker
On Thursday evening our time, I was on Sky News Australia’s U.S. Report, hosted by James Morrow. We talked about the sentencing of Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio to 22 years in prison, two years longer than the maximum penalty prescribed by law, for participation in an “insurrection” that he missed. We contrasted that with the 10-year sentence, half of the presumptive punishment, for an arsonist/murderer who was engaged in
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September 9, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Mark Meadows is one of the defendants in the Georgia state criminal case brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis against President Trump and a cast of thousands. Meadows is Trump’s former chief of staff and the two crimes with which he is charged arise from his service to Trump. Meadows therefore sought removal of the charges against him from state to federal court under the federal officer removal
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September 6, 2023 — John Hinderaker
The criminal prosecutions that Democrats have brought against Donald Trump are all flimsy to various degrees. But the current effort to bar Trump from the 2024 ballot as an “insurrectionist” is possibly their weakest attempt yet. Nevertheless, it continues to gain traction, as reflected in this news from a few hours ago: BREAKING: A group has filed a lawsuit to bar Donald Trump from the primary ballot in Colorado, arguing
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September 6, 2023 — Scott Johnson
The good Jim Messina is the guitarist, songwriter, producer, and former member of Buffalo Springfield, Poco, and Loggins and Messina. The bad Jim Messina is the smart former operative and campaign manager of Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign. He has prepared a 22-slide presentation to reassure nervous Democrats sweating out Joe Biden’s descent into senescent oblivion. Politico has posted the slides here along with the related Playbook story here. Discounting
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September 5, 2023 — John Hinderaker
The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday on its own extensive poll on Joe Biden and Donald Trump. The article begins: Voters overwhelmingly think President Biden is too old to run for re-election and give him low marks for handling the economy and other issues important to their vote, according to a new Wall Street Journal poll that offers a stark warning to the 80-year-old incumbent ahead of the 2024 contest.
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