Donald trrump

Trump isn’t guilty in Georgia either

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).

Trump might be the left’s only hope

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.

trump

The nothingburger investigation into Trump’s finances

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.

Biden: MAGA is more extreme than Antifa, KKK

Being something of a barfly, Cockburn is used to overhearing tall tales, braggadocious orations, and outlandish accusations, also known as “fightin’ words.” So imagine his astonishment in learning that what he heard over his breakfast stout this afternoon was not the consequence of some riled-up Hill staffer who’d had a few too many, but was really and truly uttered by the (presumably sober) president of the United States. “This MAGA crowd is really the most extreme political organization that's existed in American history,” President Biden said. “Recent history,” he clarified. “Recent” is a relative term. Perhaps the explosive hate crimes of the Ku Klux Klan that reached their height in the 1920s are not “recent” enough for Biden.

Dave Rubin’s lazy new book

I didn’t want to review Dave Rubin’s Don’t Burn This Country. One Dave Rubin book seemed like enough — arguably too many — for a lifetime. Yet like a burglar who retires from his life of crime only to pass a mansion with its doors wide open and the glint of jewels beyond the hallway, I was pulled in again. Just one more job. In case anyone has never heard of Mr. Rubin, he is an interviewer and commentator who began as a mildly left-wing contributor to the Young Turks and then drifted towards the “anti-woke” realms of the “Intellectual Dark Web,” where his talk show became a hub of the phenomenon as he interviewed anyone and everyone who didn’t like “safe spaces” and blue-haired transsexuals.

The Real Housecucks of Ohio

After eight months that felt like eighty years, the Ohio Republican Senate primary has at last come to a close. It ended as it began, as a kind of highbrow-cum-low political farce, Aristophanes’ take on post-Trump America. Think a pileup of clown cars on the highway — and then cut to a grinning Donald Trump in a rescue helicopter, swooping down tauntingly only to pull back up again. From the start, the race was an exercise in how far good men would go in order to nab an endorsement from The Donald. And while obscene, the endless attention seeking did have a certain thrill to it. Would JD Vance deny that Vladimir Putin exists? Would Josh Mandel murder an epidemiologist on live TV? Tune in next week to find out, only on The Real Housecucks of Ohio.

The left’s great Twitter evacuation

The smell of Musk is in the air, and it’s causing Twitter’s left-wing users to clear the room — or so they say. Their threats to vacate cyberspace started a few weeks ago as free speech absolutist Elon Musk, in short order, became the largest shareholder of the social media firm, was offered a seat on its board, declined that seat, and made an offer to buy the firm outright. They rose to a fever pitch yesterday, as Musk’s $44 billion offer to take the company private was accepted. Twitter’s liberal users buckled under the fear of unmoderated political discussion and even, perhaps, the return of the famously suspended Donald Trump.

Pelosi fights, McCarthy flails

Recently, money was extracted from the taxpayers at gunpoint to create a PBS puff piece about Nancy Pelosi. Called "Pelosi's Power," the documentary is more or less what you'd expect: Pelosi comes off as a strong if sphinxlike figure surrounded by idiot men who can't seem to stop slipping on banana peels and starting riots. Her infamous 2009 lies about waterboarding, her bizarre slandering of her own hair stylist — all of it gets overlooked in favor of the usual "you go, girl!" narrative reductionism. Yet there is one thing about the piece that holds up well: its title. Whatever else can be said about Nancy Pelosi, she knows how to wield power. And little wonder, given that she grew up in Baltimore's Little Italy neighborhood where her father was a political broker.

Durham springs the trap on Hillary Clinton’s lawyer

The month of May won’t be a merry one for Michael Sussmann, one of Hillary Clinton’s top lawyers at her favorite election law firm Perkins Coie, who is facing a criminal charge of lying to the FBI when he passed information to the Bureau’s general counsel, James Baker. Sussman stated explicitly that he was acting as a “good citizen,” not as a lawyer for Trump’s election opponents. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge. The tip was false. It described a secret, traitorous back-channel connection between candidate Trump and the Kremlin and included some “white papers” as “proof.” But that deceit is not part of this criminal charge.

older

Let presidential candidates get older and older

Will Joe Biden be feeling the Bern in 2024? According to a memo leaked to the Washington Post, private-jet-flying socialist Bernie Sanders has not “ruled out” the possibility of throwing his red beret into the ring for a third time. The memo, written by Sanders’s advisor and 2020 campaign manager Faiz Shakir, read: “In the event of an open 2024 Democratic presidential primary, Senator Sanders has not ruled out another run for president, so we advise that you answer any questions about 2024 with that in mind.” The timing of this memo is interesting. Just days before the leak, the Hill reported that President Joe Biden had told former president Barack Obama that he is “planning to run for reelection in 2024.

Washington’s dirtiest war at last goes silent

Something strange, but miraculous, is happening in Yemen right now: no bombs are falling from the sky. According to the Yemen Data Project, an independent group keeping track of the violence in the Arab world’s poorest country, there hasn’t been a single Saudi coalition airstrike over the last week. This is the first time since Yemen’s civil-turned-proxy war began that an airstrike hasn’t been recorded, an unprecedented and welcome development for the millions of Yemenis who have lost so much as their rich Saudi neighbors seek to drive the Houthi-led rebel movement to the negotiating table.

Trump endorses his clone, MAGAland freaks out

Cockburn started his day yesterday afternoon scratching his head, and the confusion wasn’t due to a hangover (this time). “Trumpworld Goes Into Meltdown After Trump Endorses Dr. Oz” was one headline Cockburn found puzzling. “Ex-president faces fierce GOP backlash after endorsing TV’s Dr Oz in Senate race” was another. Things were equally befuddling on Twitter. “This endorsement could divide MAGA in the only way that matters: he could lose America First conservatives over it,” tweeted Breitbart’s editor-at-large Joel Pollak. “It’s like Donald Trump’s staff is sabotaging Trump by convincing him to make the worst possible endorsements,” echoed right-wing radio host Erick Erickson.

Stop hating on celebrity politicians

I recently had the chance to peek behind Dr. Mehmet Oz’s curtain, and what I saw made me view the TV doctor-turned candidate for Pennsylvania’s US Senate seat in a new light. As I waited for Oz to appear, I decided to take the pulse of the patient crowd. The first woman d’un certain âge (I’d estimate the average age in the room was 62 and majority female) said she was absolutely decided in her support for Oz. She enjoyed watching his show for years and came to the political rally more as a fan than a voter. But then she revised her unequivocal vote to say, “Well, if Trump endorses him. I’ll vote for whoever Trump picks. There’s no question.” The next person I talked to was of an identical demographic and also a big fan of The Dr. Oz Show.

How Hillary Clinton colluded with US intelligence

Part I of this article demonstrated that a conspiracy to smear Donald Trump with false allegations of collusion with Russia took place, with Hillary Clinton at its head. This second part will show the FBI was an active participant in the conspiracy. The FBI smoking gun has been hiding in plain sight. In June 2018 Inspector General for the Department of Justice Michael Horowitz released his report on the FBI’s Clinton email investigation, including FBI director James Comey’s drafting of a surprise press release announcing no prosecution for Clinton, written before the full investigation was even complete.

hillary clinton laws

What is conservatism for?

Rick Scott recently managed to elbow his way into a jam-packed news cycle with an eleven-point plan to “rescue America.” The Florida senator did not, however, get the headlines he wanted. Senator Scott’s proposals ranged from the trivial, such as a suggestion to name the border wall after Donald Trump, to the obvious: growing the economy was one especially helpful idea. But it was a tax plan that landed him in hot water with colleagues. “All Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game, even if a small amount,” suggested Mr. Scott. “Currently over half of Americans pay no income tax.

conservatism

Hollywood, fist-fights and getting canceled

Introductions Scene: a drawing room in London. When the recording starts, Taki is already mid-anecdote... Taki: I was sent out to Monte Carlo to speak to Roger Moore. The Spectator offered to pay all my expenses. I said thank you, I’ll pay my own. I went and had a terrific drunken dinner with Roger who really spilled the beans, cos we were buddies. I came back. The tape was empty because I’d never turned the recorder on. Joan: I’d known Roger since I was fifteen, because my father was a big agent in London and I came back from school — oh, fourteen actually, because I left school at fifteen — and there’s the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen standing there. He came over and said, “How do you do? You must be Joan, my name is Roger Moore.

Joan Collins

Why David Mamet went right

How did David Mamet spend the pandemic? The answer, as anyone familiar with the prolific, brilliant playwright and screenwriter would probably have guessed, is that he wrote. “I’ve been writing a lot of essays lately,” Mamet, seventy-four, says when we meet at his Santa Monica home on a cool January evening. “Because, you know, I don’t want to go and sit on a park bench. I’m a writer.” A collection of essays written during the tumultuous plague years is published this month by Broadside, an imprint of HarperCollins. Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch is combative, challenging, witty, and, as the title suggests, its prevailing mood is as dark as the “terrible” period in which it was written.

Mamet

The real Russiagate smoking gun

Hard as the programmers try and tell us there is only one story at a time — Ukraine for now — or that a trite phrase like “but her emails” dismisses one of the most important political events of our time, something sinister happened in the United States which demands our attention. If we remain distracted, it will happen again in 2024. We are looking for two smoking guns now in connection with Russiagate. Today's Part I will show that Hillary Clinton herself sat atop a large-scale conspiracy to use the tools of modern espionage to create and disseminate false information about Donald Trump. Part II to follow will show that the FBI was an active participant in that conspiracy. In the mainstream media vernacular, we are bearing witness.

barack obama national emergency

The Trump stalwart taking on Dr. Oz

It’s hard to imagine wanting to be a politician. Listening to people’s problems, being on your best behavior all the time (or at least working hard not to get caught), being in charge of stuff. It’s like the worst parts of adulthood on steroids. Not to mention all the campaigning — exhausted from traveling from one indistinguishable town to the next, feigning good humor, interest and delight in every person you meet and in every small diner’s Local Slop Special you’re forced to sample while telling everyone how great you are. It’s not for the faint of heart. Yet David McCormick, candidate for Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate seat, seems to be made for it. Aspiring officeholders are a type. “Admirable” isn’t the right word, but remarkable, certainly.

Pennsylvania governor’s race makes strange bedfellows

A dozen Republican candidates are running in Pennsylvania's gubernatorial election to replace Democrat Tom Wolf, who is termed out. The crowded primary naturally means that candidates are trying to separate themselves from the pack. Dave White, the owner of an HVAC business and a former county councilman, hopes he can do so by earning former president Donald Trump's endorsement. White's relationship with a certain state senator, however, could complicate his ability to earn Trump's favor. White revealed that he had a private sit-down with Trump at last month's CPAC in Orlando, Florida. "I'm looking forward to meeting the president. He has done great things for the United States.

dave white dan laughlin