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‘The bell of stupidity’: Conservative’s Christmas video lampoons Trump’s latest speech
President Donald Trump was supposed to prioritize the economy at a MAGA rally last week — but instead rambled about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and other familiar foes.
In a Christmas-themed video, The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson (a Never Trump conservative former GOP strategist) and journalist Molly Jong-Fast brutally mocked the speech for failing to get the desired economic message across.
Jong-Fast told Wilson, "Let's talk about how positively b----- the whole thing is. It was meant to be a rally on affordability. Here's what was not discussed: affordability. Here's what was discussed: Marjorie Taylor Greene. He calls her Marjorie Traitor Brown."
Wilson, sounding amused, interjected, "And I'm also intrigued by how she's somehow a leftist."
Jong-Fast told the Never Trumper, "It has really been a week for Trump."
Wilson laid out a variety of ways in which Trump and the MAGA movement are having a bad Christmas, from the Epstein files to the economy.
"There is no unringing this bell of stupidity," Wilson told Jong-Fast. "They have f----- it up. They have made a giant mistake."
- YouTube www.youtube.com
Trump Supreme Court battle could be dismantled by Congress members’ own history
New evidence is emerging that could deal a major blow to President Donald Trump's case for stripping birthright citizenship to the children of immigrants.
The president has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to restore “the original meaning” of the 14th Amendment, which his lawyers argued in a brief meant that “children of temporary visitors and illegal aliens are not U.S. citizens by birth," but new research raises questions about what lawmakers intended the amendment to do, reported the New York Times.
"One important tool has been overlooked in determining the meaning of this amendment: the actions that were taken — and not taken — to challenge the qualifications of members of Congress, who must be citizens, around the time the amendment was ratified," wrote Times correspondent Adam Liptak.
A new study will be published next month in The Georgetown Law Journal Online examining the backgrounds of the 584 members who served in Congress from 1865 to 1871. That research found more than a dozen of them might not have been citizens under Trump’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment, but no one challenged their qualifications.
"That is, said Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia and an author of the study, the constitutional equivalent of the dog that did not bark, which provided a crucial clue in a Sherlock Holmes story," Liptak wrote.
The 14th Amendment states that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside," while the Constitution requires members of the House of Representatives to have been citizens for at least seven years, and senators for at least nine.
“If there had been an original understanding that tracked the Trump administration’s executive order,” Frost told Liptak, “at least some of these people would have been challenged.”
Only one of the nine challenges filed against a senator's qualifications in the period around the 14th Amendment's ratification involved the citizenship issue related to Trump's interpretation of birthright citizenship, and that case doesn't support his position.
"Several Democratic senators claimed in 1870 that their new colleague from Mississippi, Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first Black man to serve in Congress, had not been a citizen for the required nine years," Liptak wrote. "They reasoned that the 14th Amendment had overturned Dred Scott, the 1857 Supreme Court decision that denied citizenship to the descendants of enslaved African Americans, just two years earlier and that therefore he would not be eligible for another seven."
"That argument failed," the correspondent added. "No one thought to challenge any other members on the ground that they were born to parents who were not citizens and who had not, under the law in place at the time, filed a declaration of intent to be naturalized."
"The consensus on the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause has long been that everyone born in the United States automatically becomes a citizen with exceptions for those not subject to its jurisdiction, like diplomats and enemy troops," Liptak added.
Frost's research found there were many members of Congress around the time of the ratification of the 14th Amendment who wouldn't have met Trump's definition of a citizen, and she said that fact undercuts the president's arguments.
“If the executive order reflected the original public meaning, which is what the originalists say is relevant,” Frost said, “then somebody — a member of Congress, the opposing party, the losing candidate, a member of the public who had just listened to the ratification debates on the 14th Amendment, somebody — would have raised this.”
Legal experts hope latest Cannon ruling means a new Trump docs case with a new judge
Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed Donald Trump's documents case on Monday morning ahead of the Republican convention, declaring that special counsel Jack Smith was not constitutionally appointed.
Legal analysts were quick to explain that no judge had ever done what Cannon had done and that the case had been litigated extensively, with considerable case law from Richard Nixon to, most recently, Hunter Biden's special counsel.
National security lawyer Bradley Moss, for one, fears that the case could go all the way to the Supreme Court, and they could rewrite the decades of precedent.
Former senior Justice Department prosecutor Andrew Weissmann also made note of the Supreme Court connection and lamented that the Cannon decision was "so predictable, after the Justice [Clarence] Thomas concurrence."
Read Also: A criminologist explains why Judge Cannon must step away from Trump trial immediately
Thomas was the lone dissenter who went further in the immunity case than other justices, saying that the documents case should be dismissed because of Smith's appointment.
“If there is no law establishing the office that the special counsel occupies, then he cannot proceed with this prosecution,” Thomas said. “A private citizen cannot criminally prosecute anyone, let alone a former president.”
Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor, suggested, "This argument is unlikely to get five votes in the Supreme Court. But the delay will push any resolution of this case well past this year’s presidential election."
MSNBC legal analyst Adam Klasfeld explained that Cannon "noticed" Thomas' ruling, it appears.
"Justice Thomas all but invited Judge Cannon to find Jack Smith was unconstitutionally appointed as special counsel," he wrote. "Her ruling, doing so, cites that concurrence at least three times."
"To me, the only question is whether the Special Counsel also asks for the case to be reassigned on remand," said law school professor Steve Vladeck.
"Wow. She just (temporarily) immunized Trump from engaging in espionage," explained Andrew C. Laufer, a New York civil rights attorney. "I guess this is the price for a SCOTUS seat. If there's any doubt over what is at stake this November, doubt no more."
Law school professor Anthony Michal Kreis suggested, "If I'm Jack Smith and the DOJ, I might consider handing the Mar-A-Lago case to the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, re-indict, and hope it gets assigned to a more competent judge than Cannon."
"Maybe the DOJ makes Smith an AUSA and says, 'have at it,'" he continued. "Might be quicker and long-term strategically sound. I'm not sure how feasible it is, but I can't see the downsides of trying to work around Judge Cannon than taking up an appeal on an order that is jurisprudential garbage."
‘Really thrilled’ Trump is ‘praising Judge Cannon’: Fox News’ Bret Baier
Former President Donald Trump is gleeful at the ruling that dismissed the classified documents case, Fox News' Bret Baier reported on Monday morning.
The case was dismissed by District Judge Aileen Cannon, a far-right jurist herself appointed by Trump, who has generated controversy for months over a series of decisions that appear calculated to tilt the trial in her favor.
She relied on a Supreme Court concurrence from Justice Clarence Thomas to rule that special counsel Jack Smith was illegally appointed, an unprecedented decision that stands against years of legal understanding of how the special counsel regulations work.
Trump, according to Baier, is "thrilled and really praising Judge Cannon."
ALSO READ: Exclusive: Possible VP pick Marco Rubio nervous Trump will mess up convention
Legal experts have slammed the ruling, saying that it gives Smith grounds to go to the appeals court and have her removed and the case reinstated.
Nevertheless, it appears impossible that the matter can be resolved before the election; the case was already on indefinite hold while Cannon resolved a huge pile of pretrial motions she has been accused of sitting on for months.
‘Eliminate this nonsense’: Trump Jr. revs up angry MAGAs after Cannon tosses docs case
Donald Trump Jr., son of the former president and convicted felon, celebrated the future of American Democracy Monday when a judge his father appointed tossed a case involving classified documents stored in a Florida social club bathroom.
His MAGA followers responded with calls for retribution.
"Documents case dismissed!" Trump Jr. told his X followers. "Another example of weaponized injustice down the tubes."
Trump Jr. made this claim moments after Judge Aileen Cannon ruled special counsel Jack Smith had not been properly appointed to bring Espionage Act violation charges against Trump in Florida's federal court.
The Trump-appointee's timing stunned critics, who note it arrived opening day of the Republican National Convention where Trump is predicted to win his party's nomination.
Two days after a gunman aimed a semi-automatic rifle at the presumed Republican nominee's head, Trump's son celebrated victory against a liberal "henchman" whose work the former president's son said he wanted to "eliminate."
"Merrick Garland, Jack Smith, and their Democrat henchman take another L," Trump Jr. wrote. "If we eliminate this nonsense once and for all this incredible country still stands a chance! Can’t stop winning!!!"
EXCLUSIVE: Trump’s ‘secretary of retribution’ has a ‘target list’ of 350 people he wants arrested
Trump Jr. followers responded with angry messages calling for Smith to face criminal prosecution, declarations of war and the resurfacing of the conspiracy theory that the Justice department had plans to assassinate Trump.
One follower replied with an image of Trump with laser red eyes and the message "THIS IS WAR."
"Trump and we the people are unstoppable!" replied X user Thomas Paine Band. "Jack Smith needs to be prosecuted!"
"Now it's time to lock Jack Smith up," wrote @AmericanRebel.
"Jack Smith was hired as a DOJ hitman to take out Trump," wrote @SaveLibertyUS. "Jack Smith has always been a hitman. He was hired as a hitman before. He was hired as a hitman to destroy Trump.
"When Attorney General Merrick Garland, top DOJ officials, and Joe Biden’s handlers met to plan their next assault on the former president they all agreed on one thing. They needed to destroy President Trump completely and ensure that he never makes it to Election Day."
‘He just smashed her’: Cop video shows ‘flying’ John Fetterman’s car wreck
Video released Thursday by state troopers in Maryland shows the police response to a crash involving Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, with one officer reportedly sharing a witness's shocked statement that, “He was flying, and she wanted to merge, and he just smashed her.”
In the video, obtained by The Washington Post, a Maryland State Trooper is recorded on body camera saying: “The black car is, it’s actually, I think the senator of Pennsylvania — the real big, tall guy. ... He just ran into that red car."
The officer then shared a statement from a witness who said Fetterman was speeding and collided with the sedan as she tried to merge.
A first responder is also recorded on camera telling chuckling officers that he saw Fetterman in his classic shorts and sweatshirt combination, and said, "Good morning, senator."
“In 20 years of doing this, I’ve never had a politician," the first responder can be heard saying.
Fetterman and his wife Gisele were taken to the hospital after the crash, in which the senator was driving a Chevrolet Traverse when he rear-ended a Chevrolet Impala in northern Maryland near the Pennsylvania and West Virginia border. The Fettermans were driving in Hancock, Maryland, when the crash happened around 8 a.m.
"'John was treated for a bruised shoulder and they were discharged that afternoon," said a spokesperson, adding that both of them were "doing well" and "happy" after they returned to their home in Braddock, Pennsylvania.
Fetterman, a former mayor and lieutenant governor who was elected to the Senate in 2022, has struggled with health issues since suffering a stroke during the primaries.
The illness left him with impaired auditory processing capabilities, although he has since improved considerably.
Trump-ally sparks fear as he seeks 75 armed recruits for ‘militia’
A Long Island county leader and ally of former President Donald Trump is reportedly planning to recruit dozens of armed citizens to create an "emergency special deputy" force that can be mobilized whenever he needs it, such as during a blackout, hurricane or riot.
Bruce Blakeman, the Republican executive of Nassau County — once dubbed the safest county in America — put out a call in March for about 75 recruits with gun permits, and separately said he aimed to create "another layer of protection” for Long Islanders.
“I didn’t want to be in a situation where we had a major emergency and we needed help and people were not properly vetted or trained,” he said.
Blakeman's group of armed citizens, the first 25 of whom were said to be possibly ready by late May, raised questions such as: "Is that a militia?"
“Whose command will this militia be under? How much coordinating with the police will they do? How much training will they get? Will they be given other weapons when they are activated?” questioned a spokeswoman for the Nassau County Civil Liberties Union, according to WPIX.
Read also: 'Scary as hell': Militia expert says Trump tweet from GOP's Clay Higgins is call for 'civil war'
Blakeman said the force is not, in fact, a militia, and said they need to be armed during an emergency.
“How could you protect infrastructure if you’re not armed?” he said, according to The New York Times, adding, “What should we do? Hide under the covers?”
Blakeman — with recruits by his side — told protesters at a news conference that these people "will have firearms training, as well as the penal law — and "use of deadly force.” They would not, however, wear body cameras, and many would have previous police and military chops.
The members will receive $150 in tax money per day for each day they're activated.
Critics, including Nassau County legislator Delia DeRiggi-Whitton, have questioned the motives behind the force, with some implying it's a political stunt.
“It’s fear-mongering, and it’s very damaging to people,” DeRiggi-Whitton, the county's Democratic minority leader, told the Times.
Critics on social media openly questioned whether this construes a "Trump militia?"
"An 'emergency'. Do you see where this can lead?" asked @ReformedActuary on X.
"Nassau County exec, ex-hubby of Mrs. Paul McCartney, Bruce wacko Blakeman, avowed Republican and Trumpophile is creating a mini-militia," wrote @heyjudenyc. "Is it a precursor to Project 2025, a bit of a head start for the takeover?"
Critics: Where’s Trump’s hour-long press conference with policy questions from reporters?
Following President Joe Biden's 58-minute long unscripted, solo press conference without a teleprompter, fielding questions from reporters and responding with nuance and depth on a range of issues including foreign and domestic policy, some critics are calling on his opponent, ex-president Donald Trump, to do the same.
It's been a long time since Trump has held an actual unscripted, lengthy, solo press conference, with questions from reporters, and well-over a year since he did one that wasn't centered on his legal crises.
"When is last time Trump did an hour long press conference? Anyone know?" asked Bloomberg News' Steven Dennis Thursday night after the President's press conference.
"So now the media will demand that Trump hold an hour-long press conference on complex foreign policy issues — right?" snarked attorney and legal commentator Tristan Snell, who headed the successful New York State civil prosecution of Trump University.
READ MORE: ‘Dead Heat’: Biden Ahead or Tied With Trump in Two New Post-Debate Polls
"Trump is getting a free pass just like he did in 2016. No way he could do a press conference for 40 minutes after 3 long days with world leaders. He is incoherent most of time when he’s not spewing bile," declared CNN Political Commentator Karen Finney Friday morning.
"It's now time for the corporate media to dissect every word Trump says for the next two weeks, have debates on his mental state, amplify the small number of Republicans who want Trump to drop out and demand he hold a press conference where we can dissect him even more," remarked attorney and SiriusXM host Dean Obeidallah Friday morning.
"Per CSPAN last time Trump held a press conference that approached an hour in length at which he took questions from reporters, he was still president," observed Aaron Fritschner, Deputy Chief of Staff for U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) Friday morning.
READ MORE: ‘Betrayal’: Trump Hosts ‘Russian Puppet’ Viktor Orbán as Biden Hosts NATO Leaders
He adds, "Per the CSPAN archive, the last time Donald Trump took questions from reporters in a press conference was on February 8th. National and campaign reporters made an issue of the lack of press conferences with Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. To date, they have not done so with Trump."
Per CSPAN last time Trump held a press conference that approached an hour in length at which he took questions from reporters, he was still president.
It was September 16, 2020. Some headlines from that press conference: https://t.co/3NcVDI0dpy pic.twitter.com/nNAQgGJgL9 — Aaron Fritschner (@Fritschner) July 12, 2024
On November 8, 2022, from Mar-a-Lago, after polls closed, Donald Trump delivered remarks discussing the midterm elections. He spoke for about four minutes to supporters and took no questions from reporters, whom he mocked. (Full C-SPAN video.)
Semafor's David Weigel argues, "A lot of the 'whatabout Trump' stuff is cope, but he really is getting an easy ride with interviewers compared to 2016 or 2020."
"Most of his interviews are softball-fests. When he did All-In the campaign had to clean up his green card/diploma answer."
READ MORE: ‘No Change’: Biden Debate Performance Has Had ‘Almost No Impact’ on 2024 Race Report Finds
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‘The bell of stupidity’: Conservative’s Christmas video lampoons Trump’s latest speech
President Donald Trump was supposed to prioritize the economy at a MAGA rally last week — but instead rambled about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and other familiar foes.
In a Christmas-themed video, The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson (a Never Trump conservative former GOP strategist) and journalist Molly Jong-Fast brutally mocked the speech for failing to get the desired economic message across.
Jong-Fast told Wilson, "Let's talk about how positively b----- the whole thing is. It was meant to be a rally on affordability. Here's what was not discussed: affordability. Here's what was discussed: Marjorie Taylor Greene. He calls her Marjorie Traitor Brown."
Wilson, sounding amused, interjected, "And I'm also intrigued by how she's somehow a leftist."
Jong-Fast told the Never Trumper, "It has really been a week for Trump."
Wilson laid out a variety of ways in which Trump and the MAGA movement are having a bad Christmas, from the Epstein files to the economy.
"There is no unringing this bell of stupidity," Wilson told Jong-Fast. "They have f----- it up. They have made a giant mistake."
- YouTube www.youtube.com
Trump Supreme Court battle could be dismantled by Congress members’ own history
New evidence is emerging that could deal a major blow to President Donald Trump's case for stripping birthright citizenship to the children of immigrants.
The president has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to restore “the original meaning” of the 14th Amendment, which his lawyers argued in a brief meant that “children of temporary visitors and illegal aliens are not U.S. citizens by birth," but new research raises questions about what lawmakers intended the amendment to do, reported the New York Times.
"One important tool has been overlooked in determining the meaning of this amendment: the actions that were taken — and not taken — to challenge the qualifications of members of Congress, who must be citizens, around the time the amendment was ratified," wrote Times correspondent Adam Liptak.
A new study will be published next month in The Georgetown Law Journal Online examining the backgrounds of the 584 members who served in Congress from 1865 to 1871. That research found more than a dozen of them might not have been citizens under Trump’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment, but no one challenged their qualifications.
"That is, said Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia and an author of the study, the constitutional equivalent of the dog that did not bark, which provided a crucial clue in a Sherlock Holmes story," Liptak wrote.
The 14th Amendment states that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside," while the Constitution requires members of the House of Representatives to have been citizens for at least seven years, and senators for at least nine.
“If there had been an original understanding that tracked the Trump administration’s executive order,” Frost told Liptak, “at least some of these people would have been challenged.”
Only one of the nine challenges filed against a senator's qualifications in the period around the 14th Amendment's ratification involved the citizenship issue related to Trump's interpretation of birthright citizenship, and that case doesn't support his position.
"Several Democratic senators claimed in 1870 that their new colleague from Mississippi, Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first Black man to serve in Congress, had not been a citizen for the required nine years," Liptak wrote. "They reasoned that the 14th Amendment had overturned Dred Scott, the 1857 Supreme Court decision that denied citizenship to the descendants of enslaved African Americans, just two years earlier and that therefore he would not be eligible for another seven."
"That argument failed," the correspondent added. "No one thought to challenge any other members on the ground that they were born to parents who were not citizens and who had not, under the law in place at the time, filed a declaration of intent to be naturalized."
"The consensus on the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause has long been that everyone born in the United States automatically becomes a citizen with exceptions for those not subject to its jurisdiction, like diplomats and enemy troops," Liptak added.
Frost's research found there were many members of Congress around the time of the ratification of the 14th Amendment who wouldn't have met Trump's definition of a citizen, and she said that fact undercuts the president's arguments.
“If the executive order reflected the original public meaning, which is what the originalists say is relevant,” Frost said, “then somebody — a member of Congress, the opposing party, the losing candidate, a member of the public who had just listened to the ratification debates on the 14th Amendment, somebody — would have raised this.”
