2024 Primary

[UNI88]

Trump County in Iowa Ousts Conspiracy Theorist, Elects Democrat Instead

Sheets’s victory is an unusual plot twist in Iowa, which has been moving decidedly rightward in recent election cycles. But it reflects a larger trend that was seen during the 2022 midterms. Voters rejected conspiracy theorists across the country, resulting in major local Democratic wins.

I don't think this is a good sign for the Republicans or trump. His whining about 2020 might resonate in the primaries but it will cost votes in a general election.

[kalm]

It’s a constitutional amendment not just written for but because of the civil war. You could make similar “who gets to decide case against many of them.

A jury of citizens already determined the Oath Keepers were guilty of seditious conspiracy. The leap to aiding and abetting isn’t a long one.

Nothing's a big leap, per se, but you still have to make that leap. Fine, a jury of citizens found something. First of all, it was technically seditious conspiracy. The amendment calls out insurrection or rebellion. Are they technically the same? Who makes that determination? And next, you need to find somebody, at least a jury of citizens at a minimum, to technically link Trump to the same activity or something more. But at least you need to have a trial. These guys are making it out like there's already enough legwork done that individual states can just cross him off the ballot. I don't necessarily disagree that he should be off the ballot (remember, I wanted him impeached and removed from office at the moment for his actions and lack of during 1/6), but you need some systematic way of doing it, just not election officials in 50 different states applying their own discretion. Nothing's going to happen until this goes to court, and even then, it might have to go straight up to SCOTUS. It's too big of a constitutional question, with little to no precedent, to be decided otherwise.

“These guys” are constitutional law professors, former judges, and a few Federalist Society members.

You do realize this has already been tested in New Mexico for a politician who was at J6? He appealed it the state Supreme Court and lost there as well.

[UNI88]

[UNI88]

Nikki Haley is most feared candidate by Biden campaign: report

Haley, 51, is the only woman and one of three Indian Americans in the GOP’s pool of presidential hopefuls. What distinguishes her campaign, however, are policy positions that increasingly resonate with more moderate voters, particularly those actively looking for an alternative to Donald Trump.

“If they nominate Nikki Haley, we’re in trouble,” a senior Democratic strategist close to the Biden campaign told Politico earlier this month. Such fears corroborate Haley’s positioning of herself as the biggest threat to Democrats in a general election.

She may be a neocon but she's still better than trump or Biden.

[houndawg]

Nikki Haley is most feared candidate by Biden campaign: report

Haley, 51, is the only woman and one of three Indian Americans in the GOP’s pool of presidential hopefuls. What distinguishes her campaign, however, are policy positions that increasingly resonate with more moderate voters, particularly those actively looking for an alternative to Donald Trump.

“If they nominate Nikki Haley, we’re in trouble,” a senior Democratic strategist close to the Biden campaign told Politico earlier this month. Such fears corroborate Haley’s positioning of herself as the biggest threat to Democrats in a general election.

She may be a neocon but she's still better than trump or Biden.

Two things: The Democrats need to run against Trump or they lose the White House.

Neither the DNC or the RNC are legally bound to nominate the winner of the primary vote

[CID1990]

Nikki Haley is most feared candidate by Biden campaign: report

Haley, 51, is the only woman and one of three Indian Americans in the GOP’s pool of presidential hopefuls. What distinguishes her campaign, however, are policy positions that increasingly resonate with more moderate voters, particularly those actively looking for an alternative to Donald Trump.

“If they nominate Nikki Haley, we’re in trouble,” a senior Democratic strategist close to the Biden campaign told Politico earlier this month. Such fears corroborate Haley’s positioning of herself as the biggest threat to Democrats in a general election.

She may be a neocon but she's still better than trump or Biden.

The Dems are in trouble no matter who the GOP nominates. Biden is that far underwater


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[kalm]

Nikki Haley is most feared candidate by Biden campaign: report



She may be a neocon but she's still better than trump or Biden.

The Dems are in trouble no matter who the GOP nominates. Biden is that far underwater


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Are you still guts teeing a DeSantis victory too?

[UNI88]

Christie says DeSantis put 'politics ahead of his job' by not seeing Biden during hurricane visit

“Your job as governor is to be the tour guide for the president, is to make sure the president sees your people, sees the damage, sees the suffering, what’s going on and what needs to be done to rebuild it,” Christie said about his rival for the 2024 nomination in an interview Tuesday on Fox News Radio's “The Brian Kilmeade Show.”

“You’re doing your job. And unfortunately, he put politics ahead of his job," Christie said. "That was his choice.”

Christie knocks DeSantis for voting against New Jersey relief funds: ‘Now he wants aid’

“Look, we shouldn’t be playing politics with this stuff,” Christie said. “But Gov. DeSantis has always played politics with this. He voted against Sandy aid in 2012 as a member of the House, and now he wants aid. You know, this is the hypocrisy that everybody sees in politics and why they’re looking for someone who will just tell them the truth.”

Is he wrong?

[houndawg]

Christie says DeSantis put 'politics ahead of his job' by not seeing Biden during hurricane visit

“Your job as governor is to be the tour guide for the president, is to make sure the president sees your people, sees the damage, sees the suffering, what’s going on and what needs to be done to rebuild it,” Christie said about his rival for the 2024 nomination in an interview Tuesday on Fox News Radio's “The Brian Kilmeade Show.”

“You’re doing your job. And unfortunately, he put politics ahead of his job," Christie said. "That was his choice.”

Christie knocks DeSantis for voting against New Jersey relief funds: ‘Now he wants aid’

“Look, we shouldn’t be playing politics with this stuff,” Christie said. “But Gov. DeSantis has always played politics with this. He voted against Sandy aid in 2012 as a member of the House, and now he wants aid. You know, this is the hypocrisy that everybody sees in politics and why they’re looking for someone who will just tell them the truth.”

Is he wrong?

It isn't wrong and Christie is the only Republican in the field worth voting for. A Christie/Hurd ticket would mop the floor with the Democrats. I think its stunning how easy it is for an asshole like Christie to look like the adult in the room among that crowd

[GannonFan]

Christie's biggest drawbacks have been his obesity, his fandom of the Dallas Cowboys, and that he got caught doing that bridge-gate thing (which was just really normal New Jersey politics - and the traffic was going to be bad anyway). Other than that, he's been a perfectly reasonable and harmless politician.

[houndawg]

Christie's biggest drawbacks have been his obesity, his fandom of the Dallas Cowboys, and that he got caught doing that bridge-gate thing (which was just really normal New Jersey politics - and the traffic was going to be bad anyway). Other than that, he's been a perfectly reasonable and harmless politician.

I'd be inclined to vote for him just because he got Kushner's daddy

[UNI88]

DeConkis appoints Klanned Karenhood founder Tina Descovich to the Ethics Commission.

[Ibanez]

that's a good analysis, BDK. Pence was shocking, he was aggressive and holier than thou. It won't help him but it was nice chum to his base.

Thanks. Also I was at least partially incorrect to say Ramaswamy was the only one to raise his hand when asked who would stop sending tens of billions to Ukraine. Desantis might not have shot his hand up like Ramaswamy did, but Desantis did call it a regional conflict amd indicated wouldn’t keep pouring US resources in at the current level, instead focusing on the US Border.

Listened to Ramaswamy and Christie interviewed (separately) on Clay and Buck yesterday. Ramaswamy makes a very compelling case for the MAGA vote as in he can do a better job at being Trump….without being Trump. Sort of what people were saying about Desantis 2021-2022.

Ramalama-ding-dong is such a choade. He's trying to be trump w/o. Watching Hannity school him on Israel was wonderful - he's such anempty suit

[UNI88]

[BDKJMU]

[UNI88]

Of course it will have to be tested, especially when you have folks thinking that something like this could be "designed to operate directly and immediately" - there's literally no mechanism for that to happen. Who decides what's an insurrection or rebellion, and who's to say what constitutes aid or comfort? Do I decide? Do you? An internet poll? It was written for a very specific thing (i.e the Civil War) so Congress didn't really pay a lot of attention to the particulars of how it is decided what triggers this provision and how it's enforced. Back then it was easy - did you fight for, hold office for, or operate in a function for supporting the South during the war. There wasn't a lot of gray area (I so intended that pun). But in this case, who decides that Trump supported an insurrection or rebellion? Congress that was in place when it happened has already not held him accountable for it. I wouldn't doubt if this gets kicked up to the SCOTUS and they punt it back to Congress saying to rewrite it and get it reapproved with clearer instructions over how to actually do this. May not even have to get reapproved, but at least write legislation on how something like this gets decided.

It’s a constitutional amendment not just written for but because of the civil war. You could make similar “who gets to decide case against many of them.

A jury of citizens already determined the Oath Keepers were guilty of seditious conspiracy. The leap to aiding and abetting isn’t a long one.

An About-Face on Whether the 14th Amendment Bars Trump From Office

The only category that even arguably applies to Trump is “an officer of the United States,” Mukasey wrote. But that phrase, he asserted, “refers only to appointed officials, not to elected ones.”

That proposition is not self-evident, and the 126-page law review article that had set off the discussion, by William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas, considered the meaning of “officer of the United States” at length.

It concluded that “the ordinary sense of the text” of the Constitution, “the structure and logic of its provisions,” “the evident design to be comprehensive,” “the seeming absurdity of the prospect of exclusion of the offices of president and vice president from triggering the disqualification” and other factors “all convince us that the natural conclusion is the correct one: Section 3 includes in its coverage, or ‘triggering’ language, insurrectionists who once served as president and vice president.”

If trump is elected and he pardons anyone convicted for their actions on January 6 will he be giving aid or comfort to the enemies of the United States?

[GannonFan]

It’s a constitutional amendment not just written for but because of the civil war. You could make similar “who gets to decide case against many of them.

A jury of citizens already determined the Oath Keepers were guilty of seditious conspiracy. The leap to aiding and abetting isn’t a long one.

An About-Face on Whether the 14th Amendment Bars Trump From Office

The only category that even arguably applies to Trump is “an officer of the United States,” Mukasey wrote. But that phrase, he asserted, “refers only to appointed officials, not to elected ones.”

That proposition is not self-evident, and the 126-page law review article that had set off the discussion, by William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas, considered the meaning of “officer of the United States” at length.

It concluded that “the ordinary sense of the text” of the Constitution, “the structure and logic of its provisions,” “the evident design to be comprehensive,” “the seeming absurdity of the prospect of exclusion of the offices of president and vice president from triggering the disqualification” and other factors “all convince us that the natural conclusion is the correct one: Section 3 includes in its coverage, or ‘triggering’ language, insurrectionists who once served as president and vice president.”

If trump is elected and he pardons anyone convicted for their actions on January 6 will he be giving aid or comfort to the enemies of the United States?

I'd say a fairly important point - the writers of the 14th amendment could very easily have put in the President and Vice-President to their somewhat extensive list of impacted office holders, yet they didn't. It was always a pipe-dream by some that the 14th amendment would magically just make Trump vanish from the ballot. Alas, I don't see that happening through the 14th amendment, nor through any court case brought via that avenue. To get Trump to go away, it'll have to be through the primary or through the general election.

[houndawg]

An About-Face on Whether the 14th Amendment Bars Trump From Office



If trump is elected and he pardons anyone convicted for their actions on January 6 will he be giving aid or comfort to the enemies of the United States?

I'd say a fairly important point - the writers of the 14th amendment could very easily have put in the President and Vice-President to their somewhat extensive list of impacted office holders, yet they didn't. It was always a pipe-dream by some that the 14th amendment would magically just make Trump vanish from the ballot. Alas, I don't see that happening through the 14th amendment, nor through any court case brought via that avenue. To get Trump to go away, it'll have to be through the primary or through the general election.

The Ds need him on the ballot if they want to keep the White House

[kalm]

An About-Face on Whether the 14th Amendment Bars Trump From Office



If trump is elected and he pardons anyone convicted for their actions on January 6 will he be giving aid or comfort to the enemies of the United States?

I'd say a fairly important point - the writers of the 14th amendment could very easily have put in the President and Vice-President to their somewhat extensive list of impacted office holders, yet they didn't. It was always a pipe-dream by some that the 14th amendment would magically just make Trump vanish from the ballot. Alas, I don't see that happening through the 14th amendment, nor through any court case brought via that avenue. To get Trump to go away, it'll have to be through the primary or through the general election.

One of several constitutional law experts who may disagree. Judge Luttig replies….



“an officer of the United States” for purposes of the Disqualification Clause of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Such is constitutional non sequitur. Under the Constitution, the president holds the “Office of the President of the United States.”

He is unquestionably an “officer of the United States,” even if he is not an “Officer of the United States” for purposes of the Appointments Clause. The fact that the president is elected, not appointed, and therefore is not an “Officer of the United States”

for purposes of the Appointments Clause, does not ipso facto render him not an “officer of the United States” for purposes of the Disqualification Clause. Not only is there no reason to think that the term in the two different clauses would have the same meaning,

Moreover, there is every reason to believe that the notable, but never noted, differently capitalized terms “Officers of the United States” in the Appointments Clause and “officers of the United States” in the Disqualification Clause would have different meanings.

That the two terms would have different meanings, thus obviating the absurd result that would otherwise obtain were one to read the term in the two different clauses identically, would seem obvious,

given that the two clauses became parts of the Constitution at entirely different times in the Constitution’s history and were included in the Constitution for vastly different and totally unrelated purposes.

……….

It defies belief that the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment intended to exclude from the ambit and reach of Section 3 a former president who engaged in an insurrection or rebellion against the Constitution the first time that he was president”

[houndawg]

Nikki Haley is most feared candidate by Biden campaign: report

Haley, 51, is the only woman and one of three Indian Americans in the GOP’s pool of presidential hopefuls. What distinguishes her campaign, however, are policy positions that increasingly resonate with more moderate voters, particularly those actively looking for an alternative to Donald Trump.

“If they nominate Nikki Haley, we’re in trouble,” a senior Democratic strategist close to the Biden campaign told Politico earlier this month. Such fears corroborate Haley’s positioning of herself as the biggest threat to Democrats in a general election.

She may be a neocon but she's still better than trump or Biden.

She'll be trump's sock puppet from the minute she takes office.

[UNI88]

Evangelical Leader Warns Trump Of The State That Could 'Upend' His Campaign

Vander Plaats has been critical of Trump ― last month, for example, he called the former president out for “F bombs and mocking people with disabilities.”
...
Mike Evans, part of a group of evangelicals who met with Trump at the White House, had blunt words for the former president in an interview with The Washington Post last year.

“He used us to win the White House. We had to close our mouths and eyes when he said things that horrified us,” Evans told the newspaper. “I cannot do that anymore.”

He added: “Donald Trump can’t save America. He can’t even save himself.”

Another onetime faith adviser to Trump, James Robison of Life Outreach International, said last year that Trump’s ego is getting in the way of the agenda.

“If Mr. Trump can’t stop his little petty issues, how does he expect people to stop major issues?” Robison said, according to the Post.

And Washington Times columnist Everett Piper, who had previously endorsed Trump, blamed the former president for the Republican Party’s disappointing midterm election performance last year and said it could only get worse for the GOP next year.

“Donald Trump has to go,” Piper wrote in The Washington Times. “If he‘s our nominee in 2024, we will get destroyed.”

[GannonFan]

Evangelical Leader Warns Trump Of The State That Could 'Upend' His Campaign

Vander Plaats has been critical of Trump ― last month, for example, he called the former president out for “F bombs and mocking people with disabilities.”
...
Mike Evans, part of a group of evangelicals who met with Trump at the White House, had blunt words for the former president in an interview with The Washington Post last year.

“He used us to win the White House. We had to close our mouths and eyes when he said things that horrified us,” Evans told the newspaper. “I cannot do that anymore.”

He added: “Donald Trump can’t save America. He can’t even save himself.”

Another onetime faith adviser to Trump, James Robison of Life Outreach International, said last year that Trump’s ego is getting in the way of the agenda.

“If Mr. Trump can’t stop his little petty issues, how does he expect people to stop major issues?” Robison said, according to the Post.

And Washington Times columnist Everett Piper, who had previously endorsed Trump, blamed the former president for the Republican Party’s disappointing midterm election performance last year and said it could only get worse for the GOP next year.

“Donald Trump has to go,” Piper wrote in The Washington Times. “If he‘s our nominee in 2024, we will get destroyed.”

Amazing it's taken this long for them to see the light. You can't win with Trump, and he's the guy the Democrats want because they can beat him and he has terrible coattails in down-ballot races. Take him out of the race and the GOP has a realistic shot at control of the White House and both chambers in Congress. But the GOP is pretty good at self-inflicted losses.

[UNI88]

Lol if you think Fetterman, who is only capable of muttering gibberish and voting how he is told, with clearly less decorum than anyone in DC (including Trump) was better than his alternative. I would only expect a died in the wool donk to say that.

Wearing a hoody doesn't match the lack of decorum displayed by these two ...



Which made this episode in the House funny.

Speaking of decorum, can we get a hand check?



Don't take no rhythm,
Don't take no style

[UNI88]

Evangelical Leader Warns Trump Of The State That Could 'Upend' His Campaign

Amazing it's taken this long for them to see the light. You can't win with Trump, and he's the guy the Democrats want because they can beat him and he has terrible coattails in down-ballot races. Take him out of the race and the GOP has a realistic shot at control of the White House and both chambers in Congress. But the GOP is pretty good at self-inflicted losses.

I think many saw the light before this but they're finally starting to speak up. They kept their head down in 2020 hoping he would win the election. They started to face the fact that he might be a boat anchor after many of the candidates he endorsed lost winnable elections in 2022.

[houndawg]

Wearing a hoody doesn't match the lack of decorum displayed by these two ...



Which made this episode in the House funny.

Speaking of decorum, can we get a hand check?



Don't take no rhythm,
Don't take no style

Doesn't the guy between the two howler monkeys in the top photo look.............satisfied?