Featured Stories:
‘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.”
‘Maggot Hagerman!’ Trump rages at NYT reporter who says supporters are skipping his trial
Former President Donald Trump has a new demeaning nickname for Maggie Haberman, the New York Times reporter who revealed unflattering details about his criminal trial behavior and challenged his excuses for a lack of protesters outside.
The former president laid out his new insults Tuesday in a lengthy Truth Social rant in which he also argued his supporters had been blocked by police from gathering outside the Manhattan court house where his hush money trial is unfolding.
"Thousands of people were turned away from the Courthouse in Lower Manhattan by steel stanchions and police, literally blocks from the tiny side door from where I enter and leave," Trump wrote. "It is an armed camp to keep people away."
This is a repeat of an earlier claim debunked by reporters at the scene who say it is blatantly false.
ALSO READ: ‘Fraudulent’: Trump tormentor Lincoln Project loses big money in cybertheft scheme
"Maggot Hagerman of The Failing New York Times, falsely reported that I was disappointed with the crowds," Trump declared. "No, I’m disappointed with Maggot, and her lack of writing skill, and that some of these many police aren’t being sent to Columbia and NYU to keep the schools open and the students safe. The Legal Scholars call the case a Scam that should never have been brought. I call it Election Interference and a personal hit job by a conflicted and corrupt Judge who shouldn’t be allowed to preside over this Political Hoax. New York Justice is being reduced to ashes, and the World is breathlessly watching. Hopefully, Appellate Courts can save it, and all of the companies that are fleeing to other jurisdictions. They can no longer take a chance on New York Justice!"
Haberman, who has been covering Trump for years, long enjoyed close access to him while he was in the White House, even posing with him for a smiling photo. But Trump's attitude toward Haberman has soured as she has covered his behavior in the courtroom, including his embarrassing inability to stay awake.
Trump's other claim in the post, that huge crowds of his supporters turned up to rally for him in Manhattan and were turned away by police, also appears not to be true, as NBC News' Vaughn Hillyard posted video footage of the streets around the courthouse open to traffic, and barely anyone demonstrating in support of the former president.
Haberman herself has also debunked the idea that local streets were closed off during the trial, a point that has further enraged Trump.
‘Can’t look weak’: Expert says Trump lawyer stuck between a ‘crazy’ rock and a hard place
Former president Donald Trump's attorney Todd Blanche is stuck between a rock and a hard place in the form of a "crazy, unreasonable client," according to former federal prosecutor Harry Litman.
Litman's analysis Tuesday came on the heels of proceedings in the criminal hush money trial that saw Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Trump's lawyers debating whether the former president had violated his gag order.
Trump's lawyer, Blanche, was ridiculed by legal experts who said he failed to craft an argument without case law to back it up.
"I don't have any cases," Blanche said in court. "It's just common sense."
ALSO READ: A neuroscientist explains how Trump is using existential fear to win the election
"You're losing all credibility," Judge Juan Merchan replied.
"Hard to maintain with a straight face," former prosecutor Joyce Vance said of the battle between Blanche and the judge.
CNN's legal analyst called it an outright "disaster," because it went so poorly for Trump.
According to Litman, this exchange put Trump's lawyer in difficult position.
"Blanche needs badly to work hard to regain Merchan's trust, but he's between a rock and a hard place," Litman said. "He can't look weak in front of his crazy, unreasonable client."
Trump's former impeachment attorney, Robert Ray, tried to downplay the exchange, saying he's had judges say things like that to him before.
Speaking to MSNBC Tuesday, Ray explained that Blanche likely conveyed "he wouldn't be so easily intimidated."
Former Brooklyn prosecutor Charles Coleman disagreed, saying that running afoul of the judge this early in the trial was a problem.
"That was the most explosive," he told Nicolle Wallace on Tuesday afternoon. "That is — for as accomplished an attorney as Todd Blanche is, I don't understand the argument he made. To have a judge tell you that you are losing credibility this early in a trial is really, really dangerous ground to operate on."
Even teenagers were ridiculing Blanche. Two students came to court to observe the trial, including one 14-year-old who thought the exchange between Merchan and Blanche was "funny."
"When the defense attorney was basically annihilated by the judge," said Hope Harrington outside the courthouse. "It was — it really made my day. It was really funny. He had no evidence whatsoever."
Prosecutors stop short of seeking jail time for Trump — but say he’s ‘angling’ for it
Prosecutors in Donald Trump's hush money trial said the former president violated a gag order 10 times, but they did not seek jail time as a sanction.
During a Tuesday morning hearing, Assistant District Attorney Chris Conroy explained how Trump had attacked jurors, prospective jurors, and potential witnesses.
“What happened here is precisely what this order was designed to prevent, and the defendant doesn't care,” Conroy explained. “We are not yet seeking an incarceratory penalty, yet the defendant seems to be angling for that."
ALSO READ: A neuroscientist reveals how Trump and Biden's cognitive impairments are different
Trump's attorney, Todd Blanche, appeared to be defiant.
"Just to set the record very straight and clear: Pres. Trump does, in fact, know what the gag order allows him to do and not allow him to do," Blanche told New York Justice Juan Merchan.
It was not clear when Merchan would rule on the violations.
‘You’re not giving me an answer’: Judge loses his patience with Trump lawyer
From inside the courtroom on Tuesday, MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin revealed that Judge Juan Merchan was "losing his patience" with Donald Trump's lawyer Todd Blanche.
In a testy morning hearing into whether Trump has violated a gag order put in place to stop him attacking members of the jury and witnesses, the judge reamed off examples of attacks — with likely witnesses in his targets including Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels, among others.
Blanche, meanwhile, tried to explain away Trump's actions.
Rubin explained from the courtroom that the judge asked Blanche to give him an example of Trump's intentions in one of his posts, and he consistently failed to do so, leading Merchan to react.
"Judge Merchan is losing his patience," MSNBC's Vaughn Hillyard said, reading text messages from Rubin. Merchan is "accusing Blanche of not answering his questions. So we're just three social media posts through the ten, and Judge Merchan is clearly frustrated with the attorney for Donald Trump's lack of ability to articulate on behalf of his own client his intention with those social media statements."
ALSO READ: A neuroscientist explains how Trump is using existential fear to win the election
"I am asking a question," Merchan said, according to Rubin. "I keep asking you over and over to give me an example, and I'm not getting an answer."
Merchan went on to say that it was 10:30 a.m., and they'd been debating "for an hour now, and he's looking for an answer."
See the report below or at the link here.
'You’re not giving me an answer': Judge loses his patience with Trump lawyer youtu.be
Text messages reveal previously unknown details in Trump trial: report
Details never before made public are expected to be admissible in Donald Trump's latest New York trial — and onlookers are expecting them to be revealing.
New York Times investigative reporter Sue Craig said she was "struck" by the "new information" revealed in Monday's opening statements, which includes a series of text messages from National Enquirer reporters involved in investigating the stories of adult movie actress Stormy Daniels and ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal, who claimed to have had affairs with Trump.
One of the text messages, Craig said, read: "What have we done?"
Trump's latest trial kicked off in earnest Monday as each side delivered their opening speeches over Trump's 34-count felony indictment over the hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
"We've heard about text messages that went back and forth with the National Enquirer when they went out to see Karen McDougal, one of the women who had a relationship with Donald Trump," Craig said.
"They were trying to confirm if the story was true."
Craig noted that one of the lawyers representing McDougal was involved in election night texting with somebody at the tabloid, which was previously unknown.
Read Also: A criminologist explains why Trump’s Manhattan trial is the biggest threat to his freedom
"We'll see a lot of that come through. And David Pecker was not on the stand for very long, but just hearing the details that we got, the idea that ... reporters were given about $10,000 to get that story," recalled Craig.
"And I wasn't clear if that included payment to somebody or expenses and payment, but anything above that, he would have to sign off on it. What that told me was the payments that went to Karen McDougal, that went to Stormy Daniels, were unusual. They were high."
She referenced a Trump doorman who was paid $30,000 to stay quiet about a possible Trump love child. McDougal was given $150,000, while Daniels was given $130,000.
During the second half of the show, Lawfare's Anna Bower agreed with the assessment that there was new information that dropped and there will likely be even more. There is some conversation about what will ultimately be admissible out of that information that is new.
"We heard a lot about phone records the prosecution intends to introduce," Bower said. "So, I think that we certainly will see new evidence. But the question is — there were these questions about whether it would be admissible for hearsay reasons."
See the video below or at the link here.
Hearing prosecutors read the 'Access Hollywood' words was 'cringier' than Trump's voice youtu.be
MAGA lawmaker accuses Mike Johnson of ‘brainwashing’ him with intelligence briefing
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), endorsed by Donald Trump, explained that he was supporting Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-LA) ouster because the lawmaker had betrayed Republicans' principles on a foreign surveillance law.
On Monday, Massie told podcast host Charlie Kirk that Johnson had orchestrated a "brainwashing session" in the form of a classified briefing to push through the reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
"It was like a brainwashing session," Massie asserted. "And here's the thing, Charlie, when you go into a [sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF)], remember most congressmen are used to having two things with them that allow them to verify something if they're being told a lie.
"Number one, they usually have their smartphone with them. And their staff," he continued. "Those two things you are deprived of.
ALSO READ: Revealed: What government officials privately shared about Trump not disclosing finances
"So if you are deprived of those two things and any connection to anybody for three or four hours, you kind of start believing what they're saying, and you think, well, maybe they'll let me out of this SCIF if I just nod my head and succumb to the pressure."
However, the "brainwashing session" did not convince Massie to support the bill.
"I slept on it three nights, and then I came to the GOP conference at the beginning of this past week, and I stood up in front of everybody, and I told Mike Johnson he needed to resign and that I was co-sponsoring Marjorie Taylor Greene's motion to vacate," he recalled.
The House passed the FISA reauthorization bill earlier this month after an initial failure. The 273-147 bipartisan vote came with 59 Republicans and 88 Democrats opposing it. Trump had urged Republicans to kill the legislation.
President Joe Biden signed the bill into law on Saturday.
Popular articles
‘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.”
