Donald trrump

Mike Pence began his political career as "Rush Limbaugh on decaf," a calmer and more collegial kind of conservative radio host based in Indianapolis. He likely ended it as Donald Trump's patsy, running for his life from star-spangled sans culottes who wanted to hang him for refusing to certify his own ticket as the winner of an election. And...I mean...geez. We've all ridden some emotional rollercoasters over these last six years, but Pence's is in a category all its own. I think a letdown that severe would have sent me careening up to some remote corner of New Hampshire to live out my days in a lean-to. And that's not even counting all the White House drama Pence no doubt had to endure while in office.

This article was originally published on Ann Coulter’s Substack, which you can sign up to receive here. As much as I'm enjoying the January 6 Committee's careful assembly of evidence proving former president Trump is a douchebag, I wasn't seeing much in the way of a criminal offense until this week's underreported story about how Trump used his "STOP THE STEAL" fundraising appeals to grift his supporters out of $250 million, none of which was, in fact, used to fight election fraud. It didn't even go to the poor saps who got themselves arrested at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Instead, the $250 million seems to have been funneled exclusively to Trump businesses, family and friends.

Conservative media seems to have missed this story, and the limited liberal press it got took it as a simple win. But the real showdown is coming this fall. Later this year, it is possible — not likely, but possible — that the Supreme Court will take away the right of social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to censor content. This would have the effect of granting some level of First Amendment protection, now unavailable, to conservative users of those platforms. The potential for change hinges on a law struck down by the lower courts, Netchoice v. Paxton, which challenges Texas law HB 20. That law addresses social media companies with more than 50 million active users in the US, like Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.

The best comedies always begin on a note of solemnity. Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid opens with an unwed mother driven to abandon her newborn. Buster Keaton’s The General opens with news arriving in Marietta, Georgia, that the South has fired on Fort Sumner and the Civil War is on. Thus did Congressman Bennie Thompson open Thursday's January 6 Pageant with a solemn story about the "conspiracy to thwart the will of the people," in which an insurrection "put two and a half centuries of constitutional democracy at risk." He was followed by the even more solemn Liz Cheney, who promised a thrilling line-up of testimony that will prove beyond the shadow of a sunspot that Donald Trump planned the whole thing. Well, maybe so.

Democracies cannot survive without public trust. Citizens must be confident that their elected officials represent their interests, at least in broad terms, and are not corrupt, self-dealing con men. They must believe the courts dispense justice fairly and equally, that there’s not one set of rules for insiders and another for everyone else. They understand that complex societies require bureaucracies and that bureaucracies are inherently non-democratic, but they want the bureaucracies’ rules and procedures to be subject to laws, passed by elected officials, overseen by them, and applied evenly. For transparency, they depend on newspapers and television and, in recent years, on websites and social media.

Michael Sussmann, a senior lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, is currently on trial for lying to the FBI. The allegation is straightforward. As the election approached, Sussmann texted his old friend and fellow attorney, James Baker, requesting a brief, urgent meeting. Baker was the FBI’s top lawyer and Sussmann was a partner at Clinton’s election-law firm. They were friends from their days together at the Department of Justice and continued to know each other socially. According to the indictment, Sussmann told Baker he was coming solely to help the Bureau and not on behalf of any client.

At the conservative Christian schools I attended from kindergarten through the end of undergrad, I became familiar with two types of believers: the knuckle-draggers and the nuance-mongers. The knuckle-draggers didn’t swear or drink. They watched dumb faith-based movies like God’s Not Dead. Secular music was suspect. Any engagement with the products of mainstream culture was accompanied by a humorless and formulaic discussion of how said opus fit into a “Christian worldview.” And when election time rolled around, they didn’t have to think twice. Only one issue mattered. Democrats wanted to kill babies, so voting anything other than a straight GOP ticket was out of the question.

One of my kids is studying law, and I've read a bit over her shoulder as she preps for exams. Two critical things stand out. First, unlike in literature, words in the law have very specific meanings (lie, fraud, possess, assault). And second, intent matters quite a bit. That latter part is very important because people say things all the time they do not mean, such as "If Joe in Sales misses that deadline, I'm gonna kill him." No one's life is actually in danger, we all understand. Misunderstanding words when you pull them out of a conversation and try to bring them to court, and determining intent based on what you "believe," are at the root of the ever-growing string of failed legal actions against Donald Trump (there are some 19 still pending).

Conversations about 2024 usually center on whether former President Donald J. Trump is going to run again. But regardless of whether 45 throws his hat into the ring, there is another important question the left should be pondering: can they recreate the Orange Man magic? It isn’t just the “ultra-MAGA” crowd that needs to worry about whether Trump can cast his spell on the country in 2024. Since the 2020 election, Democrats have been trying to rekindle the hatred their base felt for the braggadocious billionaire and direct it at new targets. Unfortunately it is not as easy as it seems. For example, just last week, the legacy media and the Democrats (but I repeat myself) were painting Elon Musk as the Stalin du jour.

If you had "Trump goes to jail" in the office pool, you just lost. The end of any possible criminal prosecution out of New York over Donald Trump's finances has come as the grand jury seated to find them has sunsetted. The possibility of a civil penalty, likely a fine, looks poor, but anything is possible. This is all a long way from predictions that the walls were closing in back when these cases were initiated in the Southern District of New York (SDNY). Dems, dragging all their Biden baggage along, are going to have to beat Trump at the ballot box, assuming anyone can afford the gas to drive out to vote.