July 16, 2024

Tuesday, July 16, 2024. Annette’s News Roundup.

Joe is always busy.

Last night, Lester Holt wouldn’t stop talking about the debate. The President went back against Trump.

Yes, it’s still fair to call Trump a threat to democracy.

The attempt on his life shouldn’t cow his critics.

Donald Trump really does present a threat to the norms of liberal democracy and the welfare of millions of US residents. Joe Biden truly supports the legality of medical procedures that some Christian conservatives believe to be murder. Rhetoric that describes in good faith our polity’s disputes will imply that our elections have life-or-death stakes — because they do. Political violence is not wrong because our conflicts aren’t profound. It’s wrong because it undermines democracy.

Biden’s most heated rhetoric about Trump is defensible.

There is no question that Joe Biden has denounced Trump in explosive terms. In late June, the president posted on X, “Donald Trump is a genuine threat to this nation. He’s a threat to our freedom. He’s a threat to our democracy. He’s literally a threat to everything America stands for.”

Biden’s last sentence here was arguably hyperbolic, but the president’s other claims are defensible.

Many Americans reasonably believe that people who are compelled to carry a pregnancy to term are not free. Through his Supreme Court appointments, Trump is personally responsible for the curtailment of reproductive rights in many parts of the United States. Although he has disavowed all intentions of further restricting abortion at the federal level, he is nevertheless closely aligned with a movement that aims to do so.

Trump has also promised to carry out “the largest deportation operation in American history.” This policy would reportedly involve rounding up longtime US residents, confining them to detention camps, and then deporting them. Many undocumented immigrants were brought to the US as children and know no other home. It seems reasonable to say that Trump presents a threat to their freedom.

That Trump poses a threat to democracy should go without saying. As president, he attempted to block the peaceful transfer of power by manipulating vote counts and instigating a riot on Capitol Hill. He has also outlined plans for undermining the independence of federal law enforcement while vowing to enact “retribution” on his movement’s enemies.

It is highly unlikely that a second Trump administration would lead to the death of American democracy, as our nation’s federated system of government makes establishing an authoritarian regime exceptionally difficult. But it’s reasonable to say that putting an insurrectionist back into the Oval Office — after he’s had four years to assemble a cadre of loyalists to staff the executive branch — would pose an intolerably high threat to US democracy, even if that threat is remote. Most of us would not engage in any activity that came with a 1 percent risk of death if we could help it. (Vox).

Trump continues to dominate headlines.

First, Trump seemed to have vanished when demands that Biden resign was the news of the day for the 2 weeks following the debate debacle.

Then on Saturday, the attempted assassination shifted the headlines.

Now, Trump’s anointment of J.D. Vance as his running mate will dominate a news cycle or two.

Though things sometimes look worse and worse, this is encouraging.👇 from 538

Just keep in mind, 4 months is a long time in America.

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Democrats gave Vance his first national platform, turning his memoir into a bestseller.

J.D. Vance, 2016.

“I can’t stomach Trump,” Vance told NPR that August. “I’m a ‘Never Trump’ guy. I never liked him,” Vance told Charlie Rose in October 2016, weeks before Trump was elected president. That same year, he compared Trump’s candidacy to cultural heroin and reportedly told a former roommate that Trump was either a “cynical asshole” or “America’s Hitler.”

“Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office,” he wrote in an op-ed, describing his own families’ adoration and commitment to Trump.

“Trump makes people I care about afraid. Immigrants, Muslims, etc. Because of this I find him reprehensible. God wants better of us.”

In an August 2016 interview with NPR’s Terry Gross, Vance mused that he “might have to hold my nose and vote for Hillary Clinton” if he thought Trump had a really good chance of winning — or, he joked, he might write in his dog on the November ballot.
“But I think that I’m going to vote third party because I can’t stomach Trump,” Vance said. “I think that he’s noxious and is leading the White working class to a very dark place. And ultimately I just don’t share Hillary Clinton’s politics.”

He even considered voting for Hillary Clinton over Trump: “I think there’s a chance, if I feel like Trump has a really good chance of winning, that I might have to hold my nose and vote for Hillary Clinton.”

​“Fellow Christians, everyone is watching us when we apologize for this man.”
In October 2016, after a video from “Access Hollywood” emerged that showed Trump bragging about groping women — and saying that “when you’re a star, they let you do it” — Vance lamented on Twitter, now X, suggesting that to justify Trump’s behavior was un-Christian.
“Fellow Christians, everyone is watching us when we apologize for this man. Lord help us,” Vance wrote in a since-deleted tweet.

But in 2016 Democrats embraced JD Vance, no, not because he denounced Trump, but because they concluded that his book, Hillbilly Elegy, revealed the secret to wins (and losses) in American politics.

In J.D. Vance’s image of the world, working class men in Appalachia -used as his stand in for all white working class men in America- saw their manhood on the line in the 2016 election. They saw themselves as ignored and despised by Democrats (with their elitist and female candidate Hillary Clinton). They saw themselves in danger of being replaced by immigrants and blacks in employment.

Too many Democrats, some of whom were themselves wary of a female candidate in the first place, some of whom were seeking simple answers for the rise of Trump, hailed Vance. They were more comfortable blaming Hillary, and championing working class males as “neglected” rather than seeing or offering institutional causes of poverty. To them, catering to unhappy males and answering rural dissatisfaction offered keys to future victories for Democrats.

J.D. Vance 2022.

In 2022, Vance beat Democrat Tim Ryan to be the Junior Senator from Ohio. The Race was structured as a battle for the support of the unemployed and disaffected males of Ohio, who saw themselves as victims of free trade and globalization. The other issues of the Race seem to have been Ryan’s pull away from the national Democratic Party and in turn the Party’s decision not to help fund Ryan’s campaign.

Trump has said that his speech at the Republican National Convention will be a call for Unity.

Below 👇 is what Vance tweeted after the assassination attempt.

Doesn’t sound like a guy who is trying to bring Americans together, does it?

Touch to see how this works out. 👇

Who would agree to be Trump’s Running Mate?

Remember, on January 6, 2020, the Trump crowd put up gallows to hang either Nancy Pelosi (“Where’s Nancy?”) or Trump’s Vice President, Mike Pence (“Hang, Mike Pence.”), who refused to reject the election results.

As Trump’s niece and critic, Mary Trump wrote, “Clearly, Vance thinks he’s immune to the kind of consequences suffered by Donald’s former Vice President—you know, the guy who almost got hanged by Donald’s mob—but I’d still suggest that Vance watch his back.”

One more thing.

Pence is the first Vice President in American history to refuse to endorse the President he once served with.

Vance on women.

Vance supports a national ban on abortion, without exceptions for rape or incest.

Vance recently claimed that leaving “unhappy or even violent” marriages “didn’t work out for the kids,” suggesting that people trapped in violent marriages should stay in them to preserve family stability. (Ms. Mag).

Trump’s announcement that Vance will be his running mate erroneously says he was “Editor of the Yale Law Journal. Vance was not the “editor” or even one of the top editors. He was among a pool of editors whose job primarily involved checking citations. (Source. New York Times).

The Biden campaign said on a call with reporters that Vice President Kamala Harris had accepted a proposal from CBS News to debate J.D. Vance.

The debate would take place in Washington on Aug. 13, according to a Biden campaign official. That official and another campaign official said that Vice President Harris called Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio this afternoon to congratulate him on his selection as Donald Trump’s running mate and expressed her hope that the Trump campaign would accept CBS’s invitation. (Source. New York Times).

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Judge dismisses Trump documents case over special counsel appointment

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on Monday dismissed the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump over the manner in which special counsel Jack Smith was appointed.

“The Superseding Indictment is DISMISSED because Special Counsel Smith’s appointment violates the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution,” wrote Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by the former president. She said the Constitution gives only Congress or the president the authority to appoint a special counsel — not the U.S. Attorney General.

Smith had contested this argument, and other federal courts had upheld the constitutionality of special counsels. But Cannon's ruling, even in the likely event of an appeal, adds months to the case.

“None of the statutes cited as legal authority for the appointment…gives the Attorney General broad inferior-officer appointing power or bestows upon him the right to appoint a federal officer with the kind of prosecutorial power wielded by Special Counsel Smith," Cannon wrote. "Nor do the Special Counsel’s strained statutory arguments, appeals to inconsistent history, or reliance on out-of-circuit authority persuade otherwise.”

Her opinion closely tracked the reasoning outlined by conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in a recent concurrence in a separate case against Trump.

The special counsel's case centered on Trump taking classified documents to his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, keeping them in unsecured rooms like a ballroom and a bathroom, and then refusing to return them to the government.

The Department of Justice gave the special counsel the right to appeal the order, a spokesman for Smith said. An appeal would go to the Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.

"The dismissal of the case deviates from the uniform conclusion of all previous courts to have considered the issue that the Attorney General is statutorily authorized to appoint a Special Counsel," Peter Carr, the spokesman, said. (NPR).

Alan Morrison, a professor at George Washington Law School, said the order to dismiss the case on Monday may end up having a positive outcome for Mr. Smith.

“He can now take an appeal and when he prevails, he can ask the court to reassign the case to another judge,” Mr. Morrison said.

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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 11. He will now be sentenced sometime around September 18th.