Still more legal fun in Trumpland

A New York court handed Donald Trump a lifeline as time ran out for Trump to secure a bond covering the $454 million loss for his recent fraud case. A panel of appellate court judges gave Trump 10 days to secure a far smaller $175 million bond just hours before New York’s attorney general could legally begin the long, slow process of seizing his assets. The reduction in the bond amount does not reduce the total $454 million fine Trump will ultimately be expected to pay if an appeals court upholds the judgment. Rather, a bond works as assurance that Trump will pay the fine’s full amount if his appeal is unsuccessful.

Along with the fine, Trump also faces a ban from running any company based in New York and obtaining loans from any banks in the state for the next three years. The appellate judges agreed to halt both bans as the court decides on the appeal. A court-appointed monitor, who has been overseeing the Trump Organization’s financial reporting over the last few years, is expected to continue oversight of the company for another three years as part of the judgment.

[Effectively, almost no major banks can obtain a loan because just about any bank in New York are head quartered there or generally the US primary branch.]

Trump’s lawyers have said it’s impossible for him to do that for the original amount. They said underwriters wanted 120 per cent of the judgment and wouldn’t accept real estate as collateral. That would mean tying up over $557 million in cash, stocks and other liquid assets, and Trump’s company needs some left over to run the business, his attorneys have said.

New York Judge Juan M. Merchan, has scheduled an April 15 trial date for Trump in what will be the first criminal case involving an ex-president, involving allegations that he falsified business records during the 2016 presidential campaign. Merchan made the ruling, but not before scolding Trump’s lawyers as he weighed when to reschedule the trial, after a last-minute document dump caused a postponement of the original date. Merchan had bristled at what he suggested were baseless defence claims of “prosecutorial misconduct.” “Why did you wait until two months before trial? Why didn’t you do it in June or July [2023]?” Merchan asked a Trump lawyer.

Merchan has imposed a gag order on Trump, limiting him from making statements about potential witnesses in the criminal trial relating to hush money payments scheduled to begin next month. Merchan also said that Trump can’t make statements about attorneys, court staff or the family members of prosecutors or lawyers intended to interfere with the case. Trump is also barred from making statements about any potential or actual juror.

Trump attended a pre-trial hearing, where Merchan swiftly rejected the motion seeking sanctions against the district attorney’s office, setting the trial date for April 15. Afterwards, Trump went to his 40 Wall Street building nearby, speaking to reporters to attack the case against him, Merchan and one of the prosecutors on Bragg’s staff who previously worked for the Justice Department, Matthew Colangelo. Then on his social network platform, Trump continued attacking Colangelo, baselessly claiming that the prosecutor was sent to the district attorney’s office to go after Trump as Attorney General Merrick Garland’s “right hand.”

Trump complained that the gag order issued was “illegal, un-American, unConstitutional.” He said that Merchan, a veteran Manhattan jurist, was “wrongfully attempting to deprive me of my First Amendment Right to speak out against the Weaponization of Law Enforcement” by Democratic rivals.

Trump claimed that Merchan’s daughter, Loren Merchan, whose firm has worked on campaigns for President Joe Biden and other Democrats, had recently posted a photo on social media depicting her “obvious goal” of seeing him jailed. In a statement, a spokesperson for New York’s state court system said that claim was false and that the social media account Trump was referencing no longer belongs to Loren Merchan. It appears to have been taken over by someone else after she deleted it about a year ago.

Trump is officially selling a patriotic copy of the Christian Bible for $60 themed to Lee Greenwood’s famous song, “God Bless the USA.” “As we lead into Good Friday and Easter, I encourage you to get a copy of the God Bless The USA Bible,” Trump said. Inside, it has the words to “God Bless the USA” and the text of The Declaration of Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance and other historic American documents. Promotional material for the Bible shows Trump alongside Greenwood. Various clergy didn’t take long to object to the use of the Bible.

It is also quite expensive for a copy of the Bible. The FAQ section of the “God Bless America” Bible website clarifies that no proceeds from the sales of the Bible will go towards Trump’s presidential campaign. The FAQ goes on to say Trump’s name, likeness and image are under “paid license from CIC Ventures LLC which is linked to Trump.” However, there is no mention of whether any proceeds could be put toward his personal legal troubles. However, there has been no word on where the profits are going to.

[Trump is not a religious man. He rarely attended church – except maybe when someone well known died.]

Jeff Yass, the billionaire Wall Street financier and Republican mega donor who is a major investor in the parent company of TikTok, was also the biggest institutional shareholder of the shell company that recently merged with Trump’s social media company.

[Now we know why Trump wasn’t to keep TikTok around.]

The Trump campaign said they will have their own super event in Florida on April 6th where they claim they will raise $33 million. This is to out-do the star studded even on March 28th for President Biden that also included Presidents Obama and Clinton which raised an estimated $26 million.

[The campaign already know how much? Sounds like a Russian election where you know that the true leader has won before the election day.]

Trump’s presidential campaign has established titles for the various levels of donations his new joint fundraising operation with national and state Republican Party committees is seeking – as Trump races to find campaign cash for the general election. The levels are:

• “Ultra MAGA” and is designated for individuals who donate $814,600.
• “Team Trump 2024” for those who donate $250,000.
• “Team America First” for $100,000 contributions.
• “Club 47” at $50,000.
• “MAGA 24” at the $24,000 level.

It seems, Trump also has to pay money in the UK. A London appellate justice refused Trump’s request to appeal the dismissal of his case against retired British spy Christopher Steele’s company over his controversial 2016 dossier. Trump had sought permission to appeal Judge Karen Steyn’s February judgment that Trump’s data privacy case — which argued that Steele harmed his reputation by peddling “egregiously inaccurate” claims about his Russian ties — lacked merit and should be thrown out. Steyn also ordered Trump to pay £300,000 [about $513,000] in legal fees to Steele’s company, Orbis Business Intelligence, which Trump requested to be stayed.

Former Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel called the January 6, 2021 [a.k.a. The Trump Insurrection], attack on the US Capitol “unacceptable” after years of deflecting on the issue. She said that the Capitol riot “doesn’t represent our country. It certainly does not represent my party…. We should not be attacking the Capitol; we should not be having violence,”. Asked why she didn’t offer such condemnation as RNC chairwoman, McDaniel responded, “When you’re the RNC chair, you kind of take one for the whole team. Right now, I get to be a little bit more myself.”

[A coincidence that she said something after been tossed to the curbed from a coup headed by Trump?]

McDaniel, right after her ouster at the RNC, got a $300,000 a year job at NBC News but other [real] journalists and anchors started a revolt and McDaniel has lost her job.

[Part of the backlash stemmed from her supporting Trump’s 2020 denial and then taking a $300,000 a year contract when staff is being cut across various NBC divisions. As well, even though she was the head of the RNC, she wasn’t friendly with the more moderate Republicans like Mitt Romney and Nikki Haley.]

Sen. Lisa Murkowski won’t rule out bolting from the GOP. She was one of seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial amid the aftermath of January 6, 2021, is done with the former president and said she “absolutely” would not vote for him. “I wish that as Republicans, we had … a nominee that I could get behind… I certainly can’t get behind Donald Trump.” Asked if she would become an independent, Murkowski said: “Oh, I think I’m very independent minded… I just regret that our party is seemingly becoming a party of Donald Trump.”

A California judge recommended that conservative attorney John Eastman be disbarred in the state over his role in developing a legal strategy to help Trump stay in power after his 2020 election loss.

Melania Trump sponsored her mother to immigrate to the United States through a family-based process that Trump aggressively sought to end, according to federal immigration records. The records detail for the first time the full path that the former first lady’s mother, Amalija Knavs, followed from Slovenia to the United States — and how the Trump administration’s policies would have made that far more difficult for others.

Melania Trump used a legal pathway that her husband and his top advisers had repeatedly disparaged as “chain migration,” the right of US citizens to bring their parents to the United States. During his presidency, Trump endorsed a bill called the Raise Act that would have limited priority sponsorship to the spouses and minor children of US citizens, taking parents off the fast-track list.

Did you know that Melania Trump arrived in the United States from Slovenia in 1996 for modelling work and obtained a green card around 2001 based on her “extraordinary ability” as a model.

[Ability?]

GOP blame the Democrats for the bridge collapse

Not long after the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore collapsed when a barge went into it….

When Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg visited the bridge collapse area Rep. Jeff Van Drew [R-N.J.] suggested without evidence that the visit was politically motivated and that Buttigieg was preoccupied with diversity policies.

Utah state Rep. Phil Lyman [R] shared another account’s post online that attacked Port of Baltimore Commissioner Karenthia Barber, a Black woman whose biography says she owns a consulting practice that takes on work related to DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] saying “this is what happens when you have Governors who prioritize diversity over the well-being and security of citizens.” Hung Cao, a Republican candidate in Virginia, said similar comments.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene [R-Ga.], a far-right member of Congress who has promoted baseless and debunked claims, took to Twitter to question whether the collision was “an intentional [terrorism] attack.”

Sen. Rick Scott [R-Fla.] attempted to connect the incident to broader questions about “the potential for wrongdoing or the potential for foul play given the wide-open border.”

Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union blamed it on the coronavirus lockdown.

I am surprised a Republican didn’t outright blame the Democrats for the bridge collapse citing bad construction – even though the bridge was built in the 1970s – even though president Nixon was president when they first started to build the bridge.

Can Trump pay his big bill?

Donald Trump doesn’t have the cash he needs to stop the state of New York from potentially seizing his assets. He’s asking the court — an institution he’s shown little but contempt for — for a bit of mercy. In a court filing, Trump’s lawyers laid out the stark economic reality facing the leading Republican candidate for president. His team spent “countless hours” negotiating with some 30 entities that could finance the roughly half-a-billion-dollar bond he’s on the hook for. But none would take the deal.

If Trump doesn’t pony up the $500 million or so he needs to set aside, pending his appeal of last month’s order against him for ill-gotten gains on his properties, Judge Arthur Engoron says the judgment may be enforced, and New York Attorney General Letitia James can start seizing Trump’s properties and selling them to pay down what he owes.

The New York attorney general’s office has filed judgments in Westchester County, the first indication that the state is preparing to try to seize Trump’s golf course and private estate north of Manhattan, known as Seven Springs. State lawyers entered the judgments with the clerk’s office in Westchester County on March 6, just one week after Judge Arthur Engoron made official his $464 million decision against Trump, his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization.

The judgment is already entered in New York city where Trump’s properties including Trump Tower, his penthouse at Trump Tower, 40 Wall Street, his hotel abutting Central Park, and numerous apartment buildings are located.

Trump invoked a dual loyalty trope by claiming Jews who vote for Democrats hate Israel. “Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion,” Trump said in an interview with Sebastian Gorka, a former Trump administration official, on Gorka’s web show. “They hate everything about Israel, and they should be ashamed of themselves, because Israel will be destroyed,” Trump continued, going on to discuss Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The remarks echoed a trope that American Jews have split loyalties to the U.S. and Israel.

[He is aiming at the Jewish population because 70% of voters in the 2020 elections voted for President Biden. Notice that he hasn’t gone after other minorities like this – although he hasn’t gone after Muslims in a little while.]

[And to add to the craziness….]

“President Trump is right — the Democrat Party has turned into a full-blown anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist cabal,” Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.

[She really has been drinking the Kool-Aid after losing her election in the House elections in 2022 and before that working as an intern for Fox.]

Trump warned hat if he were to lose the 2024 election, it would be a “bloodbath” for the US auto industry and the country. “We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those guys if I get elected,” Trump said during a rally in Ohio. “Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole – that’s gonna be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That’ll be the least of it.”

[So Trump is getting desperate? Threatening an industry? Where would he threaten next? Does he think other countries won’t do the same on American made goods?]

On the morning of January 6, 2021, in a last-ditch bid to overturn his election loss, Trump told then-Vice President Mike Pence that his decision to uphold his constitutional duty and certify the results later that day would be “a political career killer,” according to an unnamed witness who overheard part of the call.

Trump came a step closer to reaping a major windfall from his social media firm after investors in a blank-check acquisition company approved a tie-up currently worth about $5.7 billion. The deal values Trump’s majority stake in the company that holds his app Truth Social at about $3.3 billion. The windfall could prove vital as Trump grapples with the financial fallout of a string of legal cases against him.

[However, while Trump will have that stake, it will be quite a while before he actually has it all.]

It is a bit bad when Nikki Haley, who is not a candidate for the Republican party anymore, garnered 108,000 votes [18%] in the Arizona primary. No response from the Trump campaign.

Trump is expected to enlist Paul Manafort, the former campaign manager he pardoned, as a campaign adviser later this year.

[No one will be shocked if he hires others who have been convicted and I’m sure some who never were in politics.]

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. refused to delay prison time for Peter Navarro, a former senior aide to Trump, as he appeals his conviction for refusing to testify before Congress about his involvement in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Roberts, who oversees emergency requests from the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, said he saw no basis to disagree with an appeals court ruling that Navarro must serve time while his appeal is underway. Navarro was sentenced in January to four months after a jury convicted him on two counts of contempt of Congress.

Trump suffered arguably his worst loss[es] in any criminal matter recently when, in his New York trial for alleged falsification of business records, Judge Juan M. Merchan ruled against him in virtually all of his motions to exclude evidence.

US District Judge Aileen M. Cannon ordered the defense lawyers and the prosecutors in the case to file submissions outlining proposed jury instructions based on two scenarios, each of which badly misstates the law and facts of the case, according to legal experts. She has given the sides two weeks to craft jury instructions around competing interpretations of the Presidential Records Act, often referred to as the PRA. While the law says presidential records belong to the public and are to be turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration at the end of a presidency, Trump’s lawyers have argued the PRA gave Trump the right to keep classified materials as his personal property.

Trump filed yet another lawsuit against the news media, accusing ABC News and George Stephanopoulos of defamation over assertions the anchor made in a combative interview. In an interview on “This Week,” Stephanopoulos pressed Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, a rape survivor, over her continued support of Trump after a jury found he sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll in 1996, awarding her $88 million for battery and defamation. Stephanopoulos asserted multiple times in the interview with Mace that Trump had “raped” Carroll. “You endorsed Donald Trump for president. Judges and two separate juries have found him liable for rape and for defaming the victim of that rape. How do you square your endorsement of Donald Trump with the testimony that we just saw?” Stephanopoulos asked Mace. The South Carolina Republican defended her support of the former president, arguing that the jury decision was merely in a civil case.

According to February 2024 statistics, Truth Social has so far had 8.9 million sign-ups, of which Trump has 6.7 million followers. X, by comparison, has more than half a billion monthly users, according to Elon Musk.

A pro-Trump lawyer, Stefanie Lambert, who tried to overturn the 2020 election was arrested after a court hearing about her recent leak of internal emails belonging to Dominion Voting Systems. There was an existing arrest warrant for Lambert stemming from her failure to appear at recent court hearings in her separate criminal case in Michigan, where she was charged with conspiring to seize voting machines after the 2020 election.

The Wealthiness of Trump

Remember when Donald Trump said he was worth $10 billion net, then other high amounts?

As expected, all lies.

At one point, he was estimated to have $400 million in liquid assets. I guess not.

According to one expert, if he sold seven New York City area properties at “fire sale values”, he would have enough to pay his $464 million bill and have a bit left to pay his lawyers. 🙂

Over the years he has pissed off so many potential loaners with lawsuits and bad deals that they don’t want to touch him. [I wonder what his credit rating is.]

The Trump Organization’s payment history shows it pays an average of 26 days beyond terms (DBT), compared to the national average of 12 DBT.

There is even talk he could even declare bankruptcy. Not new to him as he has been bankrupt 4 times previously. As a presidential candidate, going bankrupt wouldn’t look good.

Finally, where are the MAGA donors? They don’t mind supposedly voting for him but won’t support him. Maybe because their donations may end up being used to pay his legal bills and not to get him elected.

Pence doesn’t endorse Trump

Former Vice President Mike Pence said he “cannot in good conscience” endorse presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump, a stunning repudiation of his former running mate and the president he served with. “Donald Trump is pursuing and articulating an agenda that is at odds with the conservative agenda that we governed on during our four years. That’s why I cannot in good conscience endorse Donald Trump in this campaign,” Pence said.

[“…at odds with the conservative agenda that we governed on during our four years.” Huh? There is little to no difference between Trump’s first reign and what he is proposing. At “press time”, no response from Trump but if Trump follows his usual response, he will mention disloyalty as well as something like he did a bad job as Vice-President.]

The judge, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, overseeing the Georgia 2020 election interference case dismissed some of the charges against Trump and others, but the rest of the sweeping racketeering indictment remains intact. The judge wrote in an order that six of the counts in the indictment must be quashed, including three against Trump. But he left in place other counts — including 10 facing Trump — and said prosecutors could seek a new indictment on the charges he dismissed.

Trump suggested he was open to making cuts to Social Security and Medicare after opposing touching the entitlement programs. These two programs for senior citizens are generally consider untouchable by almost all politicians. Trump campaign spokeswoman later said that Trump was “clearly talking about cutting waste, not entitlements.” That same spokeswoman says it is Biden who won’t protect entitlement programs when Biden has already said prior “Not on my watch” about cutting them.

[Trump seems to have quite a few spokespeople. I wonder if some need time off after all the running around to clarify statements Trump have said in a day.]

When Trump was president, his administration’s budget proposals included spending cuts to Social Security, primarily by targeting disability benefits, and Medicare, largely by reducing provider payments. Trump also signalled in an interview with CNBC in 2020 that he was open to cutting federal entitlements to reduce the federal deficit.

Without any changes, Social Security’s combined trust funds are set to run dry in 2034, at which time the program’s continuing income from taxes will only be able to cover 80% of benefits owed. Medicare’s hospital insurance trust fund, known as Medicare Part A, will only be able to pay scheduled benefits in full until 2031.

Attorneys for Trump want to delay the start of his upcoming New York criminal trial until the US Supreme Court weighs in on presidential immunity, according to a new motion – a ruling that may not come until late June. The criminal trial related to hush money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to adult film star Stormy Daniels is scheduled to begin with jury selection on March 25.

[Unsure what has got to do with the other. Trump was never the president at any time during the trial or now. So immunity isn’t related.]

Recently, Trump met with the parents of a nursing student whose alleged killer was an undocumented immigrant. Trump has suggested hard-line immigration proposals, including a mass deportation of undocumented immigrants.

[Unsure, but would of Trump visited the parents if they were Republicans? Current statistics said that undocumented immigrant are not a large factor in the number of murders in the US. Between that and pushing Republicans in Congress to vote against the border deal, Trump and his cronies will still put the blame on the Democrats. Remember that Trump said no deal is better that the deal the Democrats put forward. Do you think Republican voters will remember this in November?]

“He [Trump] thought [Vladimir] Putin was an OK guy and Kim [Jong Un] was an OK guy — that we had pushed North Korea into a corner,” retired Gen. John Kelly, who served as Trump’s chief of staff, said. “To him, it was like we were goading these guys. ‘If we didn’t have NATO, then Putin wouldn’t be doing these things.’”

Trump said, “Well, but Hitler did some good things.” Kelly said, “Well, what?” And Trump said, “Well, [Hitler] rebuilt the economy.” But what did he do with that rebuilt economy? He turned it against his own people and against the world. Kelly said, “Sir, you can never say anything good about the guy. Nothing.”

“There’s nobody that’s better, smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orbán,” Trump said of the Hungarian president who visited Mar-A-Lago recently, adding, “He’s the boss and he’s a great leader, fantastic leader. In Europe and around the world, they respect him.”

[I don’t think many respect him. He’s another authoritarian leader like Trump.]

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, overseeing the Georgia election interference case against Trump and his allies ruled that Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis may continue with the prosecution but only if Nathan Wade, the lead prosecutor she appointed and had a romantic relationship with, exits the case. The judge wrote that the defendants “failed to meet their burden” in proving that Willis’s relationship with Wade — along with allegations that she was financially enriched through trips the two took together — was enough of a “conflict of interest” to merit her removal from the case. Wade resigned later on.

Trump asked Elon Musk last summer whether the billionaire industrialist would be interested in buying Trump’s failed social network Truth Social.

Trump, who is only a few years younger than President Biden, has said several times that he doesn’t think Biden is “too old” to be president but he did recently release a digital only add poking fun at Biden with comments Biden has said about his age.

[As you know Trump is the one to talk. Saying Mercedes instead of his wife’s name Melania. How could he mix that up? He’s also said the wrong name (maybe on purpose) for others including Nancy Pelosi. Also note that Trump doesn’t have a lot of campaign cash on hand. Some going to his legal defence. Maybe he will use his own money…. Hah!]

Trump mocked Biden’s stutter at a campaign rally in Rome, Ga., the latest in a series of insults he has hurled at his rival but one that disability advocates regard as a demeaning form of bullying.

[Do you ever see Biden knock any physical characteristics of Trump like being orange or overweight or his little hands? His mental capacity is a different story. And just what group hasn’t Trump demeaned except Christian whites?]

The Republican National Committee began laying off dozens of staffers, days after Trump’s handpicked team took the reins of the organization. The layoffs affect staffers across multiple departments. The cuts also go beyond senior staff to vendors and mid-level employees. Vendor contracts will likely be cut as well. Some staff who were asked to resign could reapply for jobs at the organization.

“If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business,” Trump said in a post on his platform, Truth Social, racistly referring to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. He called Facebook “a true enemy of the people” but didn’t explain his reasoning. While in office, Trump wanted to expel TikTok from the US [because they are owned by ByteDance of China]. Now that Biden is pushing to expel them, Trump is having second thoughts.

“The thing I don’t like is that without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people, along with a lot of the media,” Trump told CNBC before US markets opened. Meta [owner of Facebook] stock dropped 5% at one point. “I think Facebook has been very dishonest. I think Facebook has been very bad for our country, especially when it comes to elections.”

[I’m on Facebook. I really didn’t see anything on the platform that was directed more at Trump or the Republicans than the Democrats. It’s not like you will see something like huge banner saying “Vote for Biden” or “Down with Trump” on every page. Another lie.]

TikTok is one of the world’s most popular social media apps and is used by roughly 170 million Americans.

Kellyanne Conway [remember her?] is a lobbyist for TikTok. Trump also supposedly has a major donor who owns a small chunk of TikTok.

[That major donor would be a good reason why Trump did an about face and now supports TikTok.]

In the House of Representatives, Trump “lost” the vote as 352 voted for a TikTok ban and just 65 were against [50 Democrats, 15 Republicans]. It may be harder in the Senate.

Trump said last month he would consider imposing a tariff upward of 60% on all Chinese imports if he regains the presidency. As president, Trump imposed tariffs of 25% on $50 billion of Chinese goods in June 2018.

[Trump’s buddy, President Xi won’t be too happy.]

US Supreme Court allows Trump on the ballots, too bad

The US Supreme Court ruled that Donald Trump should appear on the ballot in Colorado in a decision that follows months of debate over whether his GOP nomination violated the insurrectionist clause included in the 14^th Amendment.

[I wasn’t really surprised with the one. It didn’t really matter much after Super Tuesday.]

Trump compared Republican North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who is running for the state house in 2024 as Martin Luther King, Jr. “on steroids”. Lets just say black leaders weren’t happy.

Now former GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley suggested she’s no longer bound by a Republican National Committee pledge to support the eventual nominee, saying that she’ll “make the decision I want to make” when asked whether she would endorse Trump if he secures the nomination.

[It’s not like he agreed to be bound by a pledge to support the eventual nominee if it wasn’t him. See farther down for more about her.]

Trump has already said that once elected, he will do some major changes in many department including dumping government workers who may be disloyal and hire people who would be loyal to him. He would also weaponize the Department of Justice and the FBI and other departments.

[The big question will be how many new employees actually are qualified to do their new job. There were stories (for example) of judges who had little experienced in court becoming judges. Just like in 2016, there will be a mass exodus of government employees (including judges) and it took a long while before replacements were hired.]

Reacting to his big wins during Super Tuesday and Haley conceding, Trump said, “It was announced that 325,000 people were flown in from parts unknown. Migrants were flown in — airplane — not going through borders, not going through that great Texas barrier.” He claims that they were secretive but is known. The US Customs and Border Protection vetted all the people who came in and they all had sponsors from US citizens. Trump received this information from the anti-immigrant think tank Center for Immigration Studies. [Very unbiased. Right?]

[I’m sure he would also suggest that all of these people will be required to vote for Biden in the next election. Maybe even send them to swing states. Only US citizens (not in prison) can vote.]

“Look, I hate seeing what’s happening. Again, it would have never happened. This attack on Israel and likewise Israel’s counterattack, which is what it is, would’ve never have happened if I was president,” Trump said recently, avoiding a direct answer.

[And exactly how would he tell Hamas not to attack last October 7? It was a surprise attack. US and Israeli intelligence didn’t expect it and/or failed to notice something was building up. I’m sure if he was president he’d also stop the wicked weather that is happening in the US and send it all to a country he dislikes. Plenty. Take your pick.]

The firm friendship between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while Trump was in office has since soured, largely driven by animosity Trump held for Netanyahu ever since the prime minister publicly acknowledged that Biden won the 2020 election.

[What would a leader of another country do other than acknowledge a new leader’s win in an election unless it is a country with a history of troubling elections.]

Trump accused Netanyahu of disloyalty and said “F*** him.” Very classy.

[What else would Trump do? If you aren’t loyal to Trump, you are an enemy of his.]

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell endorsed Trump for president after years of acrimony between them, cementing Trump’s continued hold on the Republican Party.

Trump secured a bond for more than $91 million to cover the judgment in writer E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case while he appeals. A document was posted in federal court memorializing Trump’s agreement with Chubb, the insurance giant that underwrote the bond to cover the $83.3 million in damages that a jury awarded to Carroll in January for defaming her in 2019, when Trump was in office. The bond still has to be approved by the judge overseeing the case, US District Court Judge Lewis A. Kaplan – which is just a formality. Trump also faces a March 25 deadline to put up another $454 million in the New York attorney general’s civil fraud case.

The Republican National Committee formally elected Trump’s choices of Michael Whatley and Lara Trump, the Trump’s daughter-in-law who was accompanied at the meeting by her husband, Eric, as its two highest-ranking officers at a meeting. They are co-chairs of the party. The RNC’s operations will be run by a top adviser to Trump’s campaign, Chris LaCivita. After being elected by a unanimous voice vote, Whatley pledged to expand efforts to deploy poll watchers, workers and judges as real-time monitors wherever ballots are cast and counted. The outgoing RNC chair, Ronna McDaniel, resigned on the same day.

Before McDaniel spoke, Arizona RNC member Tyler Bowyer — a frequent critic — asked to add business to the agenda but was rejected by a voice vote. Bowyer said he wanted to discuss holding Haley accountable for her pledge to support the nominee, including a possible censure if she doesn’t endorse Trump.

[It seems Bowyer is trying to use Trump’s playbook.]

The Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, first won power through a democratic election, then proceeded to weaken the institutions of that democracy by eroding the legal system, firing civil servants, politicizing business, attacking the press and intimidating opposition parties and demagoguing migration. Trump has left no doubt that he’d try something similar in the United States if he wins a second term.

Ronny Jackson, the former White House physician turned GOP congressman, regularly touts his successful military career. “As a retired US Navy Rear Admiral with nearly three decades of military service I understand the commitment and sacrifices made by servicemen and servicewomen to serve our country,” the two-term Texas representative writes on his congressional website, posted to a page listing his work on veterans issues. But Jackson is no longer a retired admiral. The Navy demoted him in July 2022 following a damaging Pentagon inspector general’s report that substantiated allegations about his inappropriate behavior as a White House physician. He’s now a retired captain.

The service took unspecified action against Jackson in the wake of the 2021 inspector general’s report, which found that Jackson berated subordinates in the White House medical unit, “made sexual and denigrating statements” about a female subordinate, consumed alcohol inappropriately with subordinates and consumed the sleep drug Ambien while on duty as the president’s physician.

According to AP VoteCast surveys of the first three head-to-head Republican contests, two in 10 Iowa voters, one-third of New Hampshire voters, and one-quarter of South Carolina voters would be so disappointed by Trump’s renomination that they would refuse to vote for him in the fall.

Recent polling from Quinnipiac University found that about half of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters who supported Haley would vote for Trump, while 37 percent would vote for Biden. Twelve percent said they would abstain, vote for someone else or hadn’t yet decided what to do.

[Of course this is polling. Good luck on Biden getting anywhere near that percentage.]

Haley bows out, doesn’t kiss Trump’s ring

As you are probably aware, Nikki Haley has “suspended” her campaign today.

Of course, in most cases, suspending really means shutting down the campaign completely – Democratic candidate, Marianne Williamson, suspended her campaign and then strangely renewed it.

Haley has still not endorsed Donald Trump. During the campaign, she was harshly criticizing Trump – possibly more than President Biden.

But if Haley doesn’t endorse Trump, chances of trying another presidential run in 2028 will be slim. She will not get much support from the Trump base and that is a big chunk of the party.

If she does kiss his ring while bowing [or on one knee] and endorse Trump, it still may not help her political career. She could hope for a cabinet position which could repair her political career.

Or maybe she can go back to state politics unless she tries for the House of Representatives or Senate. At least with those, it will be the voters who pick you.

Or maybe just retire and go back to what she did prior to politics.

Where will he get the money?

Donald Trump, his adult sons, and two former Trump Organization officials have appealed the $464 million judgment entered against them in the New York attorney general’s civil fraud case. The Trumps filed a notice of appeal with the court, the first business day after Judge Arthur Engoron made the judgment official. Donald Trump is personally on the hook for $454 million, including interest payments. If he does not provide all those dollars then that interest is going to keep ticking throughout the entirety of the case.

Trump must come up with the full amount to cover the $454 million verdict in the civil fraud trial, an appeals court Associate Justice Anil Singh ruled. Singh lifted a ban on Trump’s ability to obtain loans from New York regulated financial institutions, which could allow him to access the equity in his assets to back the full bond amount. Singh denied Trump’s request to delay his obligation to post $454 million until a full appellate panel hears his motion to stay enforcement of that judgment until his appeals of the civil fraud ruling are over.

Trump could post the cash amount to cover the judgment. But if he decides to secure a loan, his lawyers told the judge, he would need to raise more than $550 million. Bond underwriters charge about 120% of the judgment and often require cash and other easy-to-sell assets like stocks or bonds as collateral.

Trump has asked the judge overseeing the defamation case with writer E. Jean Carroll to postpone enforcement of that judgment or allow him to post a smaller amount until all post-trial arguments are over. The judge has not yet ruled.

Trump sought to appeal to Black voters night in South Carolina by repeatedly citing the 91 felony charges he faces and comparing them to unfair treatment from the criminal justice system toward minorities in America. Funny.

[This is the same joker who claims that New Yorkers will leave the state after that recent $355 million judgment.]

A bipartisan ethics panel in Wisconsin has recommended felony charges against one of Trump’s fundraising arms in relation to an alleged scheme that it says was meant to circumvent campaign finance laws to take out a powerful GOP lawmaker who has turned against Trump. The Wisconsin Ethics Commission found probable cause that Trump’s Save America committee, a state lawmaker and multiple local Republican officials committed felonies and recommended six district attorneys investigate and prosecute them. The commission’s investigation centers on the 2022 primary race between Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, one of the most influential Republicans in Wisconsin, and Adam Steen, a political newcomer who embraced Trump.

The conservative Koch group has decided to pull funding for Nikki Haley after her showing in South Carolina. They originally decided to back Haley late last fall because they didn’t like what they see in Trump. They are now backing Republicans in tight races.

The co-founders of Trump’s media company, Andy Litinsky and Wes Moss, filed a lawsuit, claiming that Trump and other leaders had schemed to deprive them of a stake in the company that could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The case could complicate a long-delayed bid by Trump Media & Technology Group, owner of the social network Truth Social, to merge with a special purpose acquisition company called Digital World Acquisition and become a publicly traded company. That merger deal, which could value Trump’s stake in the company at more than $3 billion.

The two’s attorneys allege in the motion that Trump has recently attempted to “drastically dilute” the partnership’s stake as part of what they called an “11th hour, pre-merger corporate manoeuvring” tactic designed to increase the amount of authorized stock, from 120 million shares to 1 billion shares. They would get a watered down of under one percent instead of 8.6 percent.

From a speech at the Texas-Mexico border Trump repeated his familiar story about how migrants are supposedly arriving in the US after having been deliberately freed by foreign leaders from prisons and mental health facilities.

[Has he been watching the movie Scarface with Al Pacino too many times? That was 40+ years ago!]

From a CPAC speech:

• Trump claimed, as he has on numerous previous occasions, that although he was told it would take “four years” to defeat the ISIS terror group, “I knocked it out in four weeks.” The ISIS “caliphate” was declared fully liberated more than two years into Trump’s presidency, in 2019 after two additional years when President Obama made major progress. Even if Trump was starting the clock at the time of his visit to Iraq in late December 2018, as he suggested later in a speech, the liberation was proclaimed more than two and a half months later.

[Trump, of course, ignored the Kurdish forces who did much of the ground fighting. Do anyone really believe he did it in four weeks?]

• “Remember I used to say a long time ago, ‘Don’t go into Iraq. Don’t do it!’” claims Trump. In his 2000 book, “The America We Deserve,” Trump argued a military strike on Iraq might be necessary. In a September 2002 interview whether he is “for invading Iraq,” Trump responded, “Yeah, I guess so. I wish the first time it was done correctly.” Trump began criticizing the war in 2003, after the invasion.

• Trump said, “And then you wonder why we have a $2 trillion deficit. If you look at it now, it’s gotten to a level that nobody can even believe; it’s so bad under Biden.” The US has never had a $2 trillion annual trade deficit. The overall deficit, which includes trade in both goods and services, was about $773 billion in 2023, down from a record high of about $951 billion in 2022.

• Trump said, “We built 571 miles of border wall.” An official report by US Customs and Border Protection, written two days after Trump left office said the total number built under Trump was 458 miles [including both wall built where no barriers had existed before and wall built to replace previous barriers].

[And if you remember, some of the walls were made so bad that supposedly the wind tipped over a section of the wall that was made.]

• Trump also claimed “I ended Nord Stream” [actually Nord Stream 2 pipeline] and that “I stopped it, it was over.” While he did approve sanctions on companies working on the project, that move came nearly three years into his presidency, when the pipeline was already around 90% complete – and the state-owned Russian gas company behind the project said shortly after the sanctions that it would complete the pipeline itself.

• Trump claimed that, as president, he had threatened that he would cut off all US business with China if China bought even “one barrel of oil from Iran.” China’s oil imports from Iran did briefly plummet under Trump in 2019, the year the Trump administration made a concerted effort to deter such purchases, but they never stopped – and then they rose sharply again while Trump was still president.

• Then Trump said, “I’ve been indicted more than Alphonse Capone,” even though Capone was a notoriously vicious gangster. Trump has been indicted four times. Capone was indicted at least six times.

[Maybe he just watched the movie The Untouchables and thought that was it.]

In the Republican South Carolina exit polls:

• 54% preferred Haley over Trump. This is typical as more educated people prefer anyone but Trump.
• Two thirds of independent voters prefer Haley. Same for moderate/liberal voters.
• 55% of non-White evangelical Christians voted for Haley.
• With 61% of voters believed that Biden didn’t win the election, 87% were Trump voters
• 60% of votes would still vote for Trump if convicted – almost all are Trump voters.
• 31% are unsure if they’d vote for Trump if he is the Republican nominee with most are independent and moderate/liberal voters.