Category: Trump Administration

CPAC Agenda Shows Trump Still Controls the Republican Party

A key upcoming conservative event features a list of participants – and notable absentees – that displays the former president’s continued grasp over the Republican Party.

They lost the White House, control of the U.S. Senate and failed to gain back control of the House. But conservatives are partying like it’s 2019.

Donald Trump – no longer president, not yet a candidate – will be the headline speaker this weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference meeting in Dallas. Also speaking will be his son Donald Trump Jr. and a slew of Trump loyalists, including former Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and former Trump medical adviser Ronny Jackson of Texas.

Not scheduled to appear? Conservatives like Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah and Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, both of whom voted against Trump during the 45th president’s impeachment and Senate trial. Nor are there announced appearances by those who might be mulling a 2024 run, such as former Vice President Mike Pence or former Trump Cabinet members Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley. Continue reading.

Trump Called Kimberly Guilfoyle After Her Roaring RNC Speech, Compared Her to Eva Perón

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After Kimberly Guilfoyle’s RNC speech became a target of memes and talk-show mockery, sources confirm President Trump called her and said, “That was fantastic…so amazing.”

On Monday night, former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle, a top fundraiser for the Trump reelection effort and girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr., delivered a booming, scenery-chewing speech at the 2020 Republican National Convention that immediately went viral. 

It concluded, her arms outstretched, with Guilfoyle’s bellowed vow, “The. Best. Is. Yet. To. Come!”

CNN personalities were flabbergasted by it, with correspondent Dana Bash remarking, “Oh, my goodness. I just feel like that was so intense, and so dark.” Late Show host Stephen Colbert mocked the pretaped address as a series of “very nuanced screams.” Continue reading.

QAnon has receded from social media — but it’s just hiding

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On the face of it, you might think that the QAnon conspiracy has largely disappeared from big social media sites. But that’s not quite the case. 

True, you’re much less likely to find popular QAnon catchphrases like “great awakening,” “the storm” or “trust the plan” on Facebook these days. Facebook and Twitter have removed tens of thousands of accounts dedicated to the baseless conspiracy theory, which depicts former President Donald Trump as a hero fighting a secret battle against a sect of devil-worshipping pedophiles who dominate Hollywood, big business, the media and government.

Gone are the huge “Stop the Steal” groups that spread falsehoods about the 2020 U.S. presidential elections. Trump is gone as well, banned from Twitter permanently and suspended from posting on Facebook until 2023. Continue reading.

Texas Republicans renew efforts to pass voting restrictions in special session

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Republican lawmakers in Texas on Thursday launched their second effort this year to pass new voting restrictions after Democrats blocked them in May with a dramatic walkout at the state Capitol.

The legislature convened Thursday for a special session called by Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to enact a laundry list of conservative priorities, including a ban of transgender athletes on youth sports teams and beefed-up border security. But Abbott has made clear that “election integrity” is a top priority, and Republicans filed bills in the House and Senate that include many of the same voting provisions they sought to enact earlier in the year.

The new election proposals include a number of restrictions championed by former president Donald Trump. The measures would ban several election programs implemented last year to help people vote during the coronaviruspandemic, including drive-through voting and 24-hour and late-night voting. Voting rights advocates noted that voters of color used these programs disproportionately, meaning they could disproportionately feel the impact of the restrictions. Continue reading.

Critics: Postal Service plans imperil community newspapers

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The U.S. Postal Service’s plan to raise mailing rates could present one more damaging blow to community newspapers already reeling from the coronavirus pandemic and advertising declines, a trade group says. 

Rates on periodicals would increase by more than 8% as of Aug. 29, according to agency filings. The price jump is part of a broad plan pushed by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to overhaul mail operations. 

The impact of the periodical rate increase is expected to be felt most by small daily and weekly newspapers, as well as rural newspapers, which depend on the Postal Service since they have shifted from using independent contractors for deliveries. Continue reading.

Civil rights leaders find meeting with WH ‘encouraging’ amidst voting rights battle

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President Biden met with civil rights leaders for almost two hours on Thursday as part of a broader effort by his administration to focus on voting rights, a key part of his agenda that has struggled to overcome the roadblock that is the evenly split Senate. 

The civil rights leaders emerged from the meeting, which included discussions on voting rights legislation and police reform, describing the U.S. as in a state of emergency. 

They cited restrictive voting laws imposed this year in states such as Georgia and Florida, and a recent Supreme Court ruling that upheld Arizona’s voting restrictions. Continue reading.

Report: 2 Seattle police officers broke law during DC riots

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SEATTLE — Two Seattle police officers who were in Washington, D.C., during the Jan. 6 insurrection were illegally trespassing on Capitol grounds while rioters stormed the building, but they lied about their actions, a police watchdog said in a report released Thursday.

“They were both standing in the immediate vicinity of the Capitol Building in direct view of rioters lining the steps and climbing the walls,” the Office of Police Accountability said in its report, citing video evidence. “OPA finds it unbelievable that they could think that this behavior was not illegal, contrary to their claims at their OPA interviews.”

After the release of the OPA report, Chief Adrian Diaz said he will hold accountable any Seattle Police Department officer involved in the insurrection, including disciplinary action up to and including termination. He said he would make a decision within 30 days. Continue reading.

Why Mike Pence exploded at Trump — and 5 other stunning details from a new report on their finals days

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It’s no secret that former President Donald Trump’s last days in office were a political rollercoaster. Some of the chaos happened in plain sight, especially before he was kicked off Twitter. But despite his Twitter obsession, there were still things that occurred behind closed doors that are just coming to light. 

A new report published by The Wall Street Journal on Thursday sheds light on the unceasing chaos that ensued as the clock ticked down to 0 on Trump’s presidency. The author Michael C. Bender offered a detailed depiction of what went on behind the scenes of the Trump administration.

  1. Most of those around Trump actually believed he would eventually concede and do the right thing: Vice President Mike Pence and Republican National Committee (RNC) chairwoman Ronna McDaniel believed time would eventually give Trump the space he needed to process the devastating loss, Bender reported. Even his daughter Ivanka, who presumably knows her father better than others in his orbit, also thought he would come around and maybe invite Biden to the White House. That never happened, of course, and even now Trump insists he really won the election. Continue reading.

Senator’s Photos From Capitol On Jan. 6 Show Violent Insurrection Wreckage

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The pictures show yet again that the deadly riot at the Capitol was no “normal tourist visit,” as one Republican lawmaker previously put it.

Shattered glass. Overturned chairs. Broken furniture. This was some of the wreckage at the Capitol after the violent riot of Jan. 6, captured in newly released photos from a Democratic senator.

“I took these exactly six months ago – the morning after the insurrection,” Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown tweeted Wednesday, noting it was the first time he was sharing the footage. “This is what I saw in the Capitol.”

On Jan. 6, an armed mob of hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol where lawmakers were set to certify the results of the U.S. presidential election, which President Joe Biden had won. Five people died in the riots, including a Capitol Police officer.  Continue reading.

Kraken Lawyer Tells Judge ‘Any Attempt To String Cite [Caselaw] Would Be Insulting To All Involved’

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Listen, Judge. We’ve got cases backing us up. You wouldn’t believe how many cases we’ve got over here. In fact, it’s so many cases that I’m not even going to waste your time by pointing them out. 

While that sounds like something that a pro se litigant might have written, in this case it was Stefanie Lambert Juntilla, the local counsel for the Michigan Kraken lawsuit. A motion had been filed asking the court to take judicial notice of the Michigan legislature’s report debunking the facially bonkers election fraud claims that gave rise to the Kraken suits. Juntilla responds that the court should ignore the report because the legislature admits that the report is not “exhaustive” and a rogue member of the Michigan House claims that she — and she alone, apparently — is “in receipt of evidence reflecting systematic election fraud in Michigan that occurred in the November 2020 election.”

Italian space lasers? No… but apparently it’s Taiwan and Germany now?

Which brings Juntilla to this gem: Continue reading.