Last Call For Shutdown Countdown, Legal Eagles Edition

Trump's minions are planning to try to put bills defunding the conducting of all of his trials until after the November 2024 election.

Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) is proposing two amendments to an appropriations bill that would defund the various prosecutions of former President Trump.

He is adding to the defense of the former president mounted by Trump allies in the House as they circle the wagons in the face of four indictments.

Clyde, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, on Monday announced plans for two amendments to the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS) fiscal 2024 appropriations bill that would “prohibit the use of federal funding for the prosecution of any major presidential candidate prior to the upcoming presidential election on November 5th, 2024,” according to a press release.

One amendment would pertain to federal prosecutions and the other addresses federal funding for state prosecutions.

That bill, one of 12 regular appropriations bills, is expected to be marked up in the House Appropriations Committee after the House returns in mid-September.

Clyde said he is taking aim at special counsel Jack Smith, who has led charges against Trump relating to attempts to overturn the 2020 election results and retention of classified documents; Manhattan, N.Y., District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D), who charged Trump in relation to 2016 hush-money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels; and Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis (D), who charged Trump again in relation to the 2020 election.

“Due to my serious concerns about these witch hunt indictments against President Trump, I intend to offer two amendments to prohibit any federal funds from being used in federal or state courts to prosecute major presidential candidates prior to the 2024 election,” Clyde said in a statement. “The American people get to decide who wins the White House — not Deep State actors who have shamelessly attacked Donald Trump since he announced his first bid in 2015. It is imperative that Congress use its power of the purse to protect the integrity of our elections, restore Americans’ faith in our government, and dismantle our nation’s two-tiered system of justice. I’m fully committed to helping lead this effort, and I call on my House Appropriations colleagues to join me in this righteous fight.”

Other staunch allies of Trump in the House have also pledged to use the funding process to defund the prosecutions against Trump.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has said she would introduce an amendment to defund Smith’s office, and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) in July introduced a bill to do so. Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) earlier this month introduced a bill to defund Smith’s federal salary.

 

So yes, House Republicans have a medicine chest full of poison pills to try to shut down the federal government next month, and this is but a few of the efforts to do so. We'll see how strongly Democrats are willing to stand against this idiocy. 

You have to admire these clowns designing legislation to block "all" prosecutions of "any" presidential candidates until after the election, as Trump may not be the only one this applies to by the time next year rolls around (looking at you, Vivek.)

No Country For Old Men, Con't

Heading into the tail end of the summer, Americans still overwhelmingly believe that Joe Biden is too old to effectively serve a second term, and while a bare majority believe the same of Trump across all US adults, Republicans are somewhat delusional still about Trump's age and health.

Americans actually agree on something in this time of raw discord: Joe Biden is too old to be an effective president in a second term. Only a few years his junior, Donald Trump raises strikingly less concern about his age.

But they have plenty of other problems with Trump, who at least for now far outdistances his rivals for the Republican nomination despite his multiple criminal indictments. Never mind his advanced years — if anything, some say, the 77-year-old ought to grow up.

A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds much of the public oddly united in sizing up the one trait Biden cannot change.

The president has taken to raising the age issue himself, with wisecracks, as if trying to relax his audiences about his 80 trips around the sun.

Age discrimination may be banned in the workplace but the president’s employers — the people — aren’t shy about their bias.

In the poll, fully 77% said Biden is too old to be effective for four more years. Not only do 89% of Republicans say that, so do 69% of Democrats. That view is held across age groups, not just by young people, though older Democrats specifically are more supportive of his 2024 bid.

In contrast, about half of U.S. adults say Trump is too old for the office, and here the familiar partisan divide emerges — Democrats are far more likely to disqualify Trump by age than are Republicans. 

 

Independent voters match the overall totals by a bit less. The perception of Biden as just too old for the job is across the board, even 69% of Democrats think so.

 

Only 28% of Republicans think Trump is too old, the rest believe that Fulton County booking record where Trump lied and said he was 6'3" and 215, literally NFL player stuff. 

 

Needless to say, Biden's already in the job, he bet Trump once already, and now Trump is weighed down by dozens of criminal counts. Even here in KY, I'm voting for Joe and I expect tens of millions will do so as well.

 

Orange Meltdown, Con't

Half of Americans want Trump to suspend his campaign...

 

Early this month, 49% of adults said in the ABC News/Ipsos poll that Trump should suspend his campaign -- and 50% say the same in the most recent survey. Only about a third of Americans in these polls don’t think Trump should suspend his campaign, with the rest undecided.

That figure portends some struggles for Trump should he make it to the general election.

Republican critics of Trump have for months lamented his primacy in the primary, insisting that he would be a liability in a general election given his baggage -- even as his campaign has decried the charges as "un-American."


"All this is gonna continue to weigh him down," Mike DuHaime, an adviser to former New Jersey governor and current GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie, told ABC News before the latest ABC News/Ipsos poll's release.

"He's been pretty skillful to this point, but I do think the weight will eventually get to him," DuHaime said of Trump. 

 

...and the other half gave him millions to continue.

 

Donald Trump has turned his Georgia mugshot into a record-breaking fundraising haul.

The former president has raised $7.1 million since he was booked at an Atlanta jail Thursday evening, according to figures provided first to POLITICO by his campaign. On Friday alone, Trump raised $4.18 million, making it the single-highest 24-hour period of his campaign to date, according to a person familiar with the totals.

The campaign’s fundraising has been powered by merchandise it has been selling through his online store. After Trump was taken into custody, the campaign began selling shirts, posters, bumper stickers and beverage coolers bearing Trump’s scowling mugshot. The items bear the tagline “NEVER SURRENDER!” and range in price from $12 to $34.

The campaign has also been prodding online donors with emails and text messages. And on Thursday night, while flying back from Atlanta to Bedminster, N.J. Trump sent out his first tweet in more than two years directing supporters to his website. The site’s landing page includes the mugshot and asks supporters to “make a contribution to evict Crooked Joe Biden from the White House and SAVE AMERICA during this dark chapter in our nation’s history.”

The fundraising blitz illustrates how Trump has parlayed his four indictments into campaign cash, rallying his hardcore supporters.

Trump’s campaign says it has raised nearly $20 million in the last three weeks, during which time Trump was indicted on charges related to his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and for trying to overturn the Georgia vote count in the 2020 election. That figure is more than half of what Trump raised during his first seven months in the 2024 race.

 

Deprogramming your family, neighbors, co-workers and other folks you know (I'm assuming that alfter all this time, nobody left in the MAGA camp is still a friend for most of you) will be the work of the rest of our lifetimes, and that's just to get back those who can be saved.

 

The rest are okay with the whole white supremacist domestic terrorism thing.