September 7, 2024

Saturday, September 7, 2024. Annette’s News Roundup.

Kamala is always busy.

Kamala raised $361 million in August from nearly 3 million donors, campaign says.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris raised well more than double what former President Donald Trump took in from donors in August, her campaign announced Friday, saying it raised $361 million from nearly 3 million donors in her first full month as a candidate.

Trump’s team had announced Wednesday he brought in $130 million over the same period. Harris’ team says it ended the month with $404 million on hand for the final sprint to Election Day, $109 million more than Trump’s campaign says it had at the end of August.

The massive Harris war chest is being used to fund a $370 million paid media effort for the final two months of the campaign, and to pay for its more than 2,000 field staff spread through more than 310 offices in battleground states. (Associated Press).

[The] campaign called its August “the best grassroots fundraising month in presidential history,” saying that 1.3 million people have given their first donation of the cycle and that three quarters of those made no contributions during the last presidential election. (the Bulwark)

Harris endorsed vs. Trump by Murdoch heir, CEOs of Yelp, Box, Ripple

Eighty-eight corporate leaders signed a new letter Friday endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for president.
Signers include former 21st Century Fox CEO James Murdoch, Snap Chairman Michael Lynton, Yelp boss Jeremy Stoppelman and Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen.

If the Democratic nominee wins the White House, they contend, “the business community can be confident that it will have a president who wants American industries to thrive.”

WASHINGTON — Eighty-eight current and former top executives from across corporate America have endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president in a new letter shared exclusively with CNBC.

Among the signers are several high-profile CEOs of public companies, including Aaron Levie of Box
, Jeremy Stoppelman of Yelp
and Michael Lynton, chairman of Snap
.

Other signers appear to be issuing their first public endorsements of Harris since she became the de facto Democratic nominee in July.

They include James Murdoch, former CEO of 21st Century Fox and an heir to the Murdoch family media empire, and crypto executive Chris Larsen, co-founder of the Ripple blockchain platform.

Other notable signers are philanthropist Lynn Forester de Rothschild, private equity billionaire José Feliciano, Twilio co-founder Jeff Lawson, and D.C. sports magnate Ted Leonsis, owner of the NBA’s Washington Wizards, WNBA’s Mystics and the NHL’s Washington Capitals.

The three-page list also includes a slate of longtime Democratic political donors, like Kleiner Perkins’ John Doerr, Insight partners Deven Parekh, and Jeffrey Katzenberg, founder and managing partner of Wndr and former chairman of Walt Disney Studios.

Another subset of names are people who have supported Harris in particular since her political campaigns in California, like the philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, and NBA Hall of Famer and billionaire businessman Magic Johnson.

More than a dozen of the signers made their fortunes on Wall Street: Tony James, former president and COO of Blackstone
and founder of Jefferson River Capital; Bruce Heyman, former managing director of private wealth at Goldman Sachs; Peter Orszag, CEO of Lazard
; and Steve Westly managing director of the Westly Group and a former Tesla
board member.

Still more are prominent in Silicon Valley, including the venture capitalist Ron Conway, entrepreneur Mark Cuban and former LinkedIn CEO Reid Hoffman.

The lion’s share of the 88 signers who endorsed Harris are former CEOs of major public companies.

They include former PepsiCo
CEO Indra Nooyi, Barry Diller, chairman of IAC and former Paramount
and Fox Inc. CEO, former Merck
CEO Ken Frazier, Logan Green former CEO of Lyft
, former GoDaddy
CEO Blake Irving, former Ford
CEO Alan Mulally, former Starbucks
CEO Laxman Narasimhan and Dan Schulman, former CEO of PayPal
.

A strategic purpose

Considering how long the list of names runs, the endorsement letter itself is relatively short.

“The best way to support the continued strength, security, and reliability of our democracy and economy” is by electing Harris president, the writers say.

They also argue that Harris would “continue to advance fair and predictable policies that support the rule of law, stability, and a sound business environment” if she were president.

The reason for the long list and the short letter is because the letter itself was not written to convince the general public to vote for Harris.

Instead, its purpose is to serve as a well-timed political show of force for Harris, who is locked in a very tight race, with the first presidential debate just four days away.

Both Harris and Trump have spent the past week rolling out their dueling economic visions, ahead of the Sept. 10 debate, hosted by ABC.

Harris outlined proposals to support small businesses that feature a plan to increase a tax deduction for startup expenses by 10 times, up to $50,000.

She also proposed lifting the top capital gains tax rate to 28% for people making more than $1 million a year — up from the current 20% rate, but far lower than the 39.6% level that President Joe Biden has proposed.

Harris said she dialed back Biden’s top rate, in part, because her goal is to encourage more private sector investment.

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The Georgia Shooter’s father was arrested, along with the shooter.

Colin Gray, the father of the suspected Apalachee High School shooter, was charged with involuntary manslaughter, second-degree murder and cruelty to children.

Georgia officials charged the father of the suspected Apalachee High gunman with two counts of second-degree murder Thursday — the most severe charges ever filed against the parent of an alleged school shooter.

The arrest came less than 36 hours after two students and a pair of teachers were gunned down with an AR-15-style rifle that, investigators allege, the man allowed his 14-year-old son to possess.
Along with murder, Colin Gray, 54, was charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter and eight counts of cruelty to children.

His son, Colt Gray, has been charged with four felony counts of murder.
The father “knowingly allowed him to possess the weapon. His charges are directly connected to the actions of his son,” Chris Hosey, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, said at an evening news conference. He provided no other details on what led to the charging decision — or its remarkable speed. (Washington Post).

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Reshma Saujani did the world a favor when she asked Trump about the cost of childcare at the Economic Club of New York.

The world was listening and hearing Trump gibberish.

“Well I would do that. And we’re sitting down. You know I was somebody. We had Senator Marco Rubio, and my daughter Ivanka was so impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, that because—look, child care is child care. It’s—couldn’t, you know, it’s something you have to have it—in this country you have to have it. But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to—but they’ll get used to it very quickly—and it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us, but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country. Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care, that it’s going to take care. We’re going to have—I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time, coupled with the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country, because I have to stay with child care. I want to stay with child care, but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth, but growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just told you about. We’re going to be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in. We’re going to make this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people, and then we’ll worry about the rest of the world. Let’s help other people, but we’re going to take care of our country first. This is about America first. It’s about Make America Great Again, we have to do it because right now we’re a failing nation, so we’ll take care of it.”

There is no specific legislation here, or even a grasp of the specific nature of the problem of paying for child care. What there is, apparently, is an argument that high tariffs will solve all of the nation’s problems. (Source. Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American).

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Judge Merchan did what he thought was right, though many of us disagree.

Judge Delays Trump’s Sentencing Until Nov. 26, After Election Day

The decision by Justice Juan M. Merchan means voters will be left in the dark about whether the former president will face time behind bars.

The judge overseeing Donald J. Trump’s criminal case in Manhattan postponed his sentencing until after Election Day, a significant victory for the former president as he seeks to overturn his conviction and win back the White House.

In a ruling on Friday, the judge, Juan M. Merchan, rescheduled the sentencing for Nov. 26, citing the “unique time frame this matter currently finds itself in.” He had previously planned to hand down Mr. Trump’s punishment on Sept. 18, just seven weeks before Election Day, when Mr. Trump will face off against Vice President Kamala Harris for the presidency.

“This is not a decision this court makes lightly but it is the decision which in this court’s view, best advances the interests of justice,” Justice Merchan wrote in the four-page ruling, which noted that “this matter is one that stands alone, in a unique place in this nation’s history.”

The judge appeared eager to skirt a swirl of partisan second-guessing in the campaign’s final stretch. Asserting that the court is a “fair, impartial and apolitical institution,” he said that “the integrity of our judicial system demands” that the sentencing be “free from distraction or distortion.”

But while his decision will avert a courtroom spectacle before the election, the delay itself could still affect its results, keeping voters in the dark about whether the Republican presidential nominee will eventually spend time behind bars.

It is unclear whether sentencing Mr. Trump in September would have helped or harmed him politically; his punishment could have been an embarrassing reminder of his criminal record, but could have also propelled his claims of political martyrdom.

Justice Merchan’s decision came at the request of Mr. Trump, who had asked to delay the sentencing, partly to win more time to challenge his conviction on charges that he falsified records to cover up a sex scandal. Prosecutors working for the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, who brought the case, had deferred to the judge, paving the way for at least a brief postponement.

The judge’s ruling Friday took a defensive tone, refusing to address some of Mr. Trump’s supporting arguments for a delay, which he described as a “litany of perceived and unsubstantiated grievances.”

He also vented frustration at Mr. Bragg’s pursuit of a middle ground, noting that despite the district attorney’s “stated neutrality,” his prosecutors’ filing had highlighted logistical challenges to a September sentencing and “seemingly supports” Mr. Trump’s bid to delay.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Bragg said, “A jury of 12 New Yorkers swiftly and unanimously convicted Donald Trump of 34 felony counts,” adding that the district attorney’s office “stands ready for sentencing on the new date set by the court.”

The judge’s decision is likely to infuriate Mr. Bragg’s liberal supporters and fuel accusations that Mr. Trump is above the law, shielded from the consequences of conviction, unlike any other felon.

To avoid that impression, left-leaning legal scholars — and Trump critics seeking catharsis — wanted Justice Merchan to hold the former president accountable promptly after he was convicted in May.

Mr. Trump, the first former American president to become a felon, faces up to four years in prison. Justice Merchan, however, could impose a shorter sentence or only probation.

Mr. Trump, who spent the morning in a federal courtroom appealing a case in which he was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation, was with his lawyers at Trump Tower when he learned of Justice Merchan’s decision.

His campaign did not celebrate the delay. Instead, it issued a statement saying “there should be no sentencing” at all in what it called an “election interference witch hunt.”

Mr. Trump’s request to postpone had posed an unparalleled predicament for the judge, who wrote in the ruling on Friday that he was still striving to treat Mr. Trump as he would any other defendant.

Mr. Trump, of course, was different: Not only was he running for president, but he hurled insults at the judge, sought to oust him from the case and leveled personal attacks on Justice Merchan’s daughter, a Democratic political consultant.

Justice Merchan propelled the case forward for more than a year — even as Mr. Trump sought to thwart it at every turn — and imposed a gag order on the former president that barred him from attacking witnesses, prosecutors and the judge’s own family.

Justice Merchan, a veteran judge who once vowed to apply “the rules of law evenhandedly,” was an unlikely deliverer of relief for the former president. Yet his ruling on Friday marked just Mr. Trump’s latest success in dragging out his varied legal entanglements, a strategy that has paid off in all four criminal cases looming over the former president.

In the Manhattan case, the only one of the indictments that has reached a trial, Mr. Trump’s lawyers spent months building a web of legal challenges that influenced, and at times contradicted, one another. There were pleas for delays. Requests to throw out the case. And long-shot maneuvers to switch the case to federal court.

Justice Merchan had already delayed the sentencing once at Mr. Trump’s request, at the beginning of the convoluted process.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers had asked to postpone the sentencing, originally set for July 11, so that Justice Merchan could consider their request to overturn the conviction based on a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision granting him broad immunity for official actions taken as president. Justice Merchan agreed to consider their request and to move the sentencing to Sept. 18.

But when Justice Merchan said he would rule on the immunity bid on Sept. 16, two days before the sentencing, Mr. Trump’s lawyers demanded yet another delay. The lawyers, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, had argued that the judge’s timetable was too compressed.

Justice Merchan noted Friday that had he sentenced Mr. Trump in July as planned, “there would of course have been no cause for delay.” But Mr. Trump’s effort to apply the “historic and intervening decision” from the Supreme Court in the Manhattan case, he said, had necessitated a change.

Justice Merchan said that he would now rule on the immunity matter, which Mr. Trump argues should reverse his conviction, on Nov. 12, a week after the election. The new schedule will all but guarantee that Mr. Trump remains a felon when voters head to the polls.

The postponement, Justice Merchan wrote, should “dispel any suggestion that the court will have issued any decision or imposed sentence either to give an advantage to, or create a disadvantage for, any political party.”

Still, the delay will spare Mr. Trump a distraction — and humiliation — at a critical moment. Ms. Harris’s entry into the presidential race in July upended the campaign and erased the former president’s lead in the polls.

In a letter filed with the court, Mr. Trump’s lawyers implied that holding his sentencing just weeks before Election Day on Nov. 5 could improperly influence voters.

“By adjourning the sentencing until after that election — which is of paramount importance to the entire nation,” Mr. Trump’s lawyers said, “the court would reduce, even if not eliminate, issues regarding the integrity of any future proceedings.”

Prosecutors, while not opposing a delay, have said that the scheduling problems arose from Mr. Trump’s own “strategic and dilatory litigation tactics.” And they challenged Mr. Trump’s efforts to toss out the conviction based on the Supreme Court’s immunity decision, contending that the high court ruling had “no bearing” on the Manhattan prosecution and noting that Mr. Trump’s cover-up of the sex scandal was unrelated to his presidency.

“The evidence that he claims is affected by the Supreme Court’s ruling constitutes only a sliver of the mountains of testimony and documentary proof that the jury considered in finding him guilty,” the prosecutors wrote.

In May, a jury of 12 New Yorkers convicted Mr. Trump after a seven-week trial of all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal the sex scandal that threatened his 2016 presidential campaign.

The case stemmed from a hush-money payment to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, that Mr. Trump’s fixer, Michael D. Cohen, made shortly before the election. Mr. Trump eventually repaid Mr. Cohen, who became a star witness at the trial. And the former president, the jury found, carried out a scheme to use the false records to hide the nature of the reimbursement.

Soon after his conviction, Mr. Trump intensified his strategy of delay, which is something of a legal forte for the former president.

Mr. Trump had succeeded in postponing his Manhattan trial by three weeks, while managing to indefinitely delay trials in Washington and in Georgia, where he is accused of plotting to subvert democracy by refusing to accept his 2020 election defeat. (The Supreme Court’s immunity ruling stems from the Washington case.) Separately, a federal judge in Florida dismissed the case in which Mr. Trump was charged with mishandling classified documents.

Other stratagems failed. Mr. Trump recently sought to move his Manhattan case to federal court, his second attempt to do so. This time, he cited the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling. But the second attempt, like the first, was unsuccessful, with the judge again rejecting Mr. Trump’s argument that the case involved his official acts as president.

“Nothing in the Supreme Court’s opinion affects my previous conclusion that the hush money payments were private, unofficial acts, outside the bounds of executive authority,” the federal judge, Alvin K. Hellerstein, wrote in his opinion, which Mr. Trump is appealing. (New York Times).

One More Thing.

Your daily reminder.

Trump is a convicted felon.

On May 30th, he was found guilty on 34 felony counts by the unanimous vote of 12 ordinary citizens.

The Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump was scheduled to be sentenced on July 11th and September 18th. He will now be sentenced on November 26th.

This is another disgrace.

Liz Cheney is throwing more than shade.

Who will the 46th Vice President under President George W. Bush, Republican Dick Cheney, be voting for?

Watch! 👇

Cheney put out a statement confirming his endorsement of Harris:

In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He can never be trusted with power again.

As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution. That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.”

Who should Texans pick for the Senate?

Watch!👇

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