"The theory largely rests on the fact that former top Justice Department official Matthew Colangelo joined the investigation in 2022."

"But Colangelo had previously worked alongside Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg(D) in the New York attorney general’s office, where he had worked on Trump-related investigations before. It’s about as circumstantial and speculative as you can get. Attorney General Merrick Garland last week firmly denied, under oath, that he had sent Colangelo to Manhattan. He denied any contact with Colangelo since he joined the D.A’s office.... [F]ormer Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina, who worked on Trump’s defense early in the Manhattan prosecution [said]... 'Joe Biden or anyone from his Justice Department has absolutely zero to do with the Manhattan district attorney’s office... People who say that... it’s scary that they really don’t know the law or what they’re talking about.'"

Writes Aaron Blake, in "GOP overwhelmingly supports a Trump conspiracy theory, yet again/There remains no evidence that Biden was behind the Manhattan prosecution of the former president, but 80 percent of Republicans say otherwise" (WaPo).

“The mug shot did good for him. They’re just grasping at straws to try and get him to stop running. And he’s running anyway.”

Said Lydia Lozano of Summerset, S.D., "who wore Mr. Trump’s mug shot on a blue T-shirt with the outline of an American flag," quoted in "‘I’m Being Indicted for You,’ Trump Tells South Dakota Rally/In his first rally since his fourth indictment, the former president focused on his Republican rivals and President Biden, as some in the crowd wore Mr. Trump’s mug shot on their T-shirts" (NYT).

Also, Josh Haeder, South Dakota’s treasurer, proffered a riddle: "How many indictments does it take to steal the presidential election in 2024? Here’s the answer: There’s not enough, because Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States of America."

By the way, how would "the outline of an American flag" look different from the outline of any other flag (I mean, excluding Nepal, etc.)?

Meanwhile, in The Washington Post, there's this modest note from Aaron Blake — "A reminder of how one juror could save Trump."

"Candidates repeatedly disregarded the debate rules, with little in the way of an attempt to keep the proceedings on track."

"When candidates talked over moderators Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum as they tried to move on, the moderators often just relented and gave them the stage. But the problems were most evident in the moderators’ handling of hand-raising questions — a good and helpful entry at any debate. The first time they requested such responses, DeSantis objected to the format, and they let him do it, declining to make the request again. Later, they asked whether the candidates would support Trump in the general election if he is convicted. Only Christie and Hutchinson declined, but both DeSantis and Pence were slow to raise their hands. And for some reason, there was no follow-up with them."

 
In "The winners and losers from the first Republican debate" (WaPo), Aaron Blake counts Fox News among the losers.

In contrast to the loud chaos of the debate, there was the gentle fireside conversation between 2 calm men:

Ep. 19 Debate Night with Donald J Trump pic.twitter.com/ayPfII48CO

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) August 24, 2023

It's obviously always whatever Trump is on the wrong side of.

That's my answer to the question asked in the headline of this WaPo column: "Trump ups the ante on going after judges and witnesses. Where’s the line?"

My answer isn't so much a joke as it is my expression of exasperation. Maybe there's good material in this column, but I won't be reading it. There's so much anti-Trump material. Some people like it.

"But unlike the decision that ended Americans’ right to abortion, these most recent decisions are not as obviously unpopular with the American public."

"And indeed, some of them could even be understood as having popular support."

I'm reading "Recent Supreme Court rulings alienate the left but are hardly unpopular/Polls suggest the new decisions aren’t out of step with the American public, despite Democrats’ attempts to lump them in with last year’s loss of abortion rights" by Aaron Blake (WaPo).

"Don’t hand that government more power under the guise of conservatism.... We shouldn’t look for larger-than-life personalities, but rather we should fight power in the rooms like this one."

"We can’t become the left, following celebrity leaders with their own brand of identity politics — those with fragile egos who refuse to acknowledge reality. … We can’t shift blame to others, but must accept the responsibility that comes to those of us who step forward and lead."

Said Mike Pompeo, at CPAC, quoted in a WaPo column titled "Pompeo’s personal dig at Trump."

If you're going to tell people to stop fixating on the big person, you have to offer some big substance. You can't just invoke generalities like leadership and fighting "power." You're seeking power. And you've already allied yourself with the big celebrity in your rise to power, so I can't even understand your point. You want us to follow you because you're not a celebrity, after you followed the same celebrity we're — some of us — still following?

I'm limited to what the WaPo columnist (Aaron Blake) chose to quote. I searched for the full text of the speech. Couldn't find it. Not even in his Twitter feed. 

"Roe v. Wade... invited no dialogue with legislators. Instead, it seemed entirely to remove the ball from the legislators’ court."

"In 1973, when Roe issued, abortion law was in a state of change across the nation. As the Supreme Court itself noted, there was a marked trend in state legislatures 'toward liberalization of abortion statutes.' That movement for legislative change ran parallel to another law revision effort then underway — the change from fault to no-fault divorce regimes, a reform that swept through the state legislatures and captured all of them by the mid-1980s. No measured motion, the Roe decision left virtually no state with laws fully conforming to the Court’s delineation of abortion regulation still permissible. Around that extraordinary decision, a well-organized and vocal right-to-life movement rallied and succeeded, for a considerable time, in turning the legislative tide in the opposite direction."

Said Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in 1992, shortly before Bill Clinton nominated her to the Supreme Court, quoted yesterday, in Aaron Blake's WaPo column, "What Ruth Bader Ginsburg really said about Roe v. Wade."

Blake is quoting that to correct people who might think Ginsburg thought that Roe was wrong about the existence of a right to abortion. 

"[Ivanka Trump] recalled when [Attorney General] Barr had said publicly on Dec. 1 that there was no evidence of fraud on a scale that would change the outcome of the election."

"When asked how it impacted her, she responded, 'It affected my perspective. I respect Attorney General Barr. So I accepted what he was saying.' The opening statement by Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) presented this as Ivanka Trump effectively saying she agreed with Barr, though Trump’s words in the excerpt — that Barr’s opinion 'affected' her view and that she 'accepted what he was saying' — were not quite so direct. She certainly indicated that she found Barr’s perspective compelling. Donald Trump said in response that his daughter was just 'trying to be respectful to Bill Barr' and didn’t study the election results herself.... The clips the committee played Thursday night seemed geared toward suggesting that even Trump’s own child...  knew better. But so far, the evidence is piecemeal, with Barr’s testimony being the most compelling, and the committee will have to build upon it."

From "How damning was the Ivanka Trump and Mark Meadows testimony? The clips of them being informed that Trump’s claims were bogus are worth parsing — as are others featured by the Jan. 6 committee" by Aaron Blake (WaPo).

They should be scrupulous in how they use evidence or they ruin their own credibility. This seems like a blatant example of stretching — of making the evidence fit the conclusion you want to draw.

"Asked about the decision by a U.S. district judge halting the mandate this week, President Biden was somewhat noncommittal about whether people should keep masking — 'Up to them,' he said — and whether the federal government would appeal the ruling. "

"There’s certainly something to be said for Biden having this difficult political decision taken out of his hands (even as public opposition to this particular policy might be overstated). But the method also matters: a single district judge in Florida effectively ending a policy nationwide. This is something — usually called a 'national,' 'nationwide' or 'universal' injunction, or in this case technically a 'vacatur' — that has happened with increasing frequency in recent years. And the trend has spurred a discussion about whether it’s good for our system of government for individual judges to wield such power so frequently."

Writes Aaron Blake in "The rise of solo judges nixing nationwide policies" (WaPo).

As Blake notes, the opposition to this sort of judicial power shifts from one partisan side to the other and depends on who is in power. It's hard to decide whether to be for or against it across the board. But it's only one judge until there's an appeal, and in the case of the mask mandate, you can read between the lines that Biden is glad a judge ended it for him. 

"On Thursday morning... Manchin pitched his holding out on Democrats’ spending bill not just as a reflection of his conservative state, but of the country as a whole."

"We can’t go too far left,' Manchin said on CNN. 'This is not a center-left or a left country. We are a center — if anything, a little center-right country. That’s being shown, and we ought to be able to recognize that.'... The kind of people who have been bemoaning Manchin’s obstinance immediately cried foul.... As a whole, if everyone voted and the playing field were completely level, it’s evident Democrats would win more. That’s not quite the same as saying we’re a center-left country, though. As Manchin shows, electing Democrats doesn’t inherently mean you support liberal policies.... It’s also been true for a long time that many more Americans tend to view themselves as conservative than liberal.... Whether the United States is a center-right country is a very debatable proposition. And Manchin certainly has an interest in arguing that, given it would validate his position as a swing vote and his decision to hold out on the Democrats’ big spending bill...."

From "Joe Manchin suggests we’re a center-right country. Here’s what the data show" by Aaron Blake (WaPo).

"How Ron DeSantis’s critics are turning him into a hero for the right"

A WaPo column by Aaron Blake. 

Over the past year, DeSantis has repeatedly found himself targeted for his coronavirus response, sometimes in overwrought ways. The culmination came Sunday in a “60 Minutes” piece that cast a spotlight on his decision to run Florida’s coronavirus vaccination program through the grocery store chain Publix, which had donated $100,000 to his campaign in the weeks prior....

Even Florida officials with ties to the Democratic Party have defended the decision to use Publix, which is the state’s most popular grocery chain and has also donated to Democrats and progressive causes. Palm Beach County Mayor Dave Kerner (D), whose city was a focal point of the “60 Minutes” report, said flatly that the reporting was “intentionally false” and that “60 Minutes” had declined his offer to provide a counterpoint. He said it should be “ashamed.”...

Reading the next 4 WaPo articles on Joe Biden's press conference.

Let me continue with the links I found in the top left corner of the front page of The Washington Post this morning (at around 6):

1. 

"Analysis: In news conference, Biden made some incorrect statements and claims lacking context." On the inside the headline is: "Fact-checking President Biden’s first news conference." 

Biden's claim that the U.S. has given far more vaccination shots is a distortion, because some other countries have given shots to a larger percentage of the population. Biden repeated a claim about GOP tax cuts that WaPo has already "often" given 2 Pinocchios. Biden claimed credit for school re-openings that were based on work done before he took office. Biden apparently completely made up the story of children at the border starving to death. Biden claimed that "the vast majority" of families caught trying cross the border are sent back, but only 41% are. Biden was wrong to claim that the surge at the border is the same as what happens every winter. Biden made the completely bizarre claim that the U.S. is 85th in the world in "infrastructure" (but he later corrected it to 13th). Biden misstated how much tax Fortune 500 companies pay.

3. 

"'The art of the possible': Biden lays out pragmatic vision for his presidency." 

"[Pragmatism explains] how he can describe some Republican policies as 'sick' and 'un-American' while not doing everything in his power to immediately stop them. He called the filibuster a racist relic of Jim Crow, while also insisting that he wasn’t ready to remove it entirely in the hopes there would be some compromise."

4. 

"Analysis: Takeaways from Biden’s first presidential news conference." Headline inside: "4 takeaways from Biden’s first news conference." 

"There wasn’t much truly groundbreaking news in the news conference.... Members of the media have been waiting a while to directly question this president.... There was also a distinct lack of deep questioning on the biggest current challenge facing our country and the world: the coronavirus threat. Other critiques of the questions were more overwrought.... These news conferences are difficult. Not every question is going to provide a ton of insight. And everyone thinks they can do better. But that doesn’t mean the media can’t actually do better." That's Aaron Blake.

5. 

"The many languages of Joe Biden: President switches between cryptic and casual conversation." 

This is a Robin Givhan column: "Biden, with an American flag pinned to his lapel, maintained a tone and volume that was both calm and reassuring as he spoke to a nation that remains skittish and uneasy. He only brought up his volume as a form of righteous indignation. He’d periodically move closer to the microphone and his eyes would get wide and his gaze fixed whenever he wanted to convey outrage."

ADDED: Robin Givhan's prose sounds like a description of the lead male character in a romance novel. It's quite humorous if you think about it that way.

"[P]urely from the vantage point of Trump’s self-interest — particularly as it relates to winning reelection in 2020 — there is a compelling case to be made that a Democratic House might be a good thing..."

Writes Aaron Blake in WaPo.

The first reason is that voters seem to like divided government... The second is that it gives Trump a boogeyman — or, more apt, a boogeywoman... Nancy Pelosi...

Trump could also blame the Democratic House for his continued failures to live up to his many, many promises.... If you are going to have gridlock, you might as well have someone on which to blame it who is not in your own party.

And, finally, even that subpoena power could pose some tough choices for Democrats. There will be pressure from the party’s base to go after Trump heard and even impeach him, but we’ve seen how that can lead to overreach — most notably, when Republicans impeached Bill Clinton in the late 1990s. And Democratic leaders have already telegraphed a wariness about that. What happens when they actually have power and the base wants them to go further than they think is prudent?...

Should Justice Ginsburg at least explain why she does not recuse herself in the travel ban case?

Lawprof Ronald Rotunda — in a WaPo op-ed — says that she should.

We already know what Ginsburg thinks of the president. She told us more than a year ago that she “can’t imagine what the country would be . . . with Donald Trump as our president.” Facing criticism for her apparent endorsement of Hillary Clinton and her attacks on Trump, Ginsburg doubled down, emphasizing in a CNN interview: “He is a faker.” She then went on “point by point, as if presenting a legal brief,” the CNN analyst said.

Her statements are particularly troubling in the context of the travel ban case, in which the crucial issue — at least, according to the lower courts and the plaintiffs — is the personal credibility of Trump and whether he delivered his executive order in good faith — in other words, whether he is faking it....

This reminds me most of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, watching the election results at a party on November 7, 2000, as described (on Christmas Eve, 2000) by Michael Isikoff in Newsweek, :

[S]urrounded for the most part by friends and familiar acquaintances, she let her guard drop for a moment when she heard the first critical returns shortly before 8 p.m. Sitting in her hostess's den, staring at a small black-and-white television set, she visibly started when CBS anchor Dan Rather called Florida for Al Gore. "This is terrible," she exclaimed. She explained to another partygoer that Gore's reported victory in Florida meant that the election was "over," since Gore had already carried two other swing states, Michigan and Illinois

Moments later, with an air of obvious disgust, she rose to get a plate of food, leaving it to her husband to explain her somewhat uncharacteristic outburst. John O'Connor said his wife was upset because they wanted to retire to Arizona, and a Gore win meant they'd have to wait another four years.

Not long after that outburst, O'Connor participated in the Bush v. Gore litigation. Should she have recused herself?

Ah, here's a Washington Post piece by Aaron Blake from the summer before the 2016 election, talking about whether Ginsburg should have to recuse herself:

It's not clear that there is any real precedent for what Ginsburg just did.

Then-Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was criticized by some in 2000 after Newsweek reported her saying, "This is terrible," at an election-night watch party after Florida was prematurely called for Al Gore. Some argued that she should have recused herself from Bush v. Gore.

In some ways, what O'Connor did seems worse, since she revealed a personal interest in seeing Bush elected (though she did not retire until after he was re-elected). But Rotunda identifies a special problem with Ginsburg's indiscretion: The case may turn on whether to trust Trump about whether the purported reason for the ban is the real reason. She's asked to decide if it's real or fake, and she called Trump a faker.

Why did Sean Spicer do the Emmys? Did no one ever tell him they're not laughing with you they're laughing at you?

The yearning for acceptance from the popular kids must claw at poor Spicey.

Via WaPo: "Here's how it went down, with late-night host Stephen Colbert — who happens to be one of Trump's most unapologetic and high-profile critics — setting up the gag:"

COLBERT: What really matters to Donald Trump is ratings. You've got to have the big numbers. And I certainly hope we achieve that tonight. Unfortunately, at this point, we have no way of knowing how big our audience is. I mean, is there anyone who could say how big the audience is. Sean, do you know?

(Spicer glides out with a podium, Melissa McCarthy-style.)

SPICER: This will be the largest audience to witness an Emmys, period — both in person and around the world.

COLBERT: Wow. That really soothes my fragile ego. I could understand why you'd want one of these guys around. Melissa McCarthy, everybody, give it up!

The WaPo headline calls the cameo "yucky," and the column-writer, Aaron Blake is not grossed out because Spicey played along despite contempt for him and for the President he once served, but because:

... Spicer yukking it up over one of his most demonstrably false statements from the White House lectern strongly suggests this is just what spokesmen are supposed to do. The president asked him to do it, so it must be okay. Damn the truth.

Blake thinks this comedy "normalize[s]" the lying/bullshit/puffery of press secretaries.

[L]aughing at flouting the truth... serves notice to other spokesmen that they needn't worry about being credible.

Blake belongs to the that's-not-funny school of comedy appreciation. I'm surprised at his reaction. I thought Spicer got conned into participating in political satire that hurts him and the politicians with whom he's allied himself. I think America deserves better political satire and that it was a bad idea to load the Emmys show with political satire — especially partisan political satire (why alienate half your potential audience?). But I think comedy, done well, is powerful, important speech. The Spicer bit was criticism of the dishonesty of the White House press secretary. It didn't slough it off or "normalize" it. If the bullshit is normal, there's no joke in Spicer's line.

Now, I can see that Blake could have said that just allowing Spicer into the Emmys party sends the message that he's not completely toxic. And perhaps that's the sad-sack reason Spicer did the show, like the high school kid who's pleased to get an invitation to popular kid's party...



Well, in that movie the popular kids get it in the end. The bullying and the hate can backfire. And we all know what happened when "Laugh-In" included Nixon:

"People don't ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?"

Asked Donald Trump, implying that he's the sort of President who might have been able to figure out how to avoid the Civil War:

"I mean had Andrew Jackson been a little bit later you wouldn't have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart... He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War, he said, 'There's no reason for this.'... My campaign and win was most like Andrew Jackson, with his campaign. And I said, when was Andrew Jackson? It was 1828. That's a long time ago.... That's Andrew Jackson. And he had a very, very mean and nasty campaign. Because they said this was the meanest and the nastiest. And unfortunately, it continues."

Okay, Trump haters and Trump defenders. Here's your rich feast.

As the linked article (in The Hill) points out, Andrew Jackson died in 1845, 16 years before the Civil War began. Let me help the Trump defenders: It depends on what the meaning of "with regard to the Civil War" is.

ADDED: Here's Aaron Blake in WaPo, "Trump’s totally bizarre claim about avoiding the Civil War":

Historians with more academic experience than Trump have indeed asked this question about the Civil War often... It's generally assumed that a deal to avert the Civil War would have included concessions to Southern states having to do with their right to own slaves — the central dispute of the Civil War. Is Trump saying he would have been okay with a more partial or gradual phasing out of slavery? Was there really a deal to be cut on that front? Or does he think Jackson, a slave owner himself, would have convinced the South to abandon slavery immediately, somehow?

Mmm. So then.... what makes it "totally bizarre"? Blake tries to connect Trump's historical inquiry to Trump's present-day efforts to avoid war and broker peace, but it's not that coherent. Obviously, we want Trump to avoid that "major, major conflict" with North Korea and to help somehow with the endless war in the Middle East. If Trump is thinking about how a U.S. President could have averted the Civil War, why would you just call him "bizarre"? Because historians have gone more deeply into this inquiry?

I guess there's the idea that Trump's rhetoric ignores the historians, since he said "people don't ask," and historians are people. Come on, you know he means most people assume the Civil War had to be fought. Another reason to call the remarks "bizarre" is that he's attributing insights and capacities to Andrew Jackson that might not be quite right, but Trump was just casually throwing out a few lines about how people in Tennessee love their hero Andrew Jackson. What's "bizarre"?

Trump haters may think they've got him this time, but look ahead a few moves for once. Your smug arrogance is blinding.

ALSO: A reader sent me "PRE CIVIL WAR PEACE CONFERENCE/As secession fever spreads through the South, political patriarchs try to avert war—but at what price?" (HistoryNet).