Politics Random, Random

[ti-amie]

TL;dr
She thought he'd never do to her what he's done to everyone else and even though he did she's still licking his boots.


Inside Trump’s ouster of Ronna McDaniel as RNC chair
“Loyalty is a one-way street” for the former president, one party committeeman said
By Josh Dawsey and Ashley Parker
February 16, 2024 at 5:00 a.m. EST

For much of the fall, Donald Trump was annoyed at Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel. She was refusing to cancel the party’s primary debates, insisting to him that they were crucial to the early presidential nominating process, that they were actually helping him and that other candidates and members would complain.

“People are really mad at you,” Trump warned McDaniel in one of their many phone calls, recounting both public and private criticism he said he heard about her. “They’re mad at you.”

At one point, McDaniel said the nominee deserves an RNC chair they trust and said she would resign if Trump became the nominee and wanted her out.

Trump — who personally liked McDaniel — did not immediately accept her offer. But the moment epitomized McDaniel’s long and tumultuous relationship with the former president, which began when she ran Trump’s successful 2016 effort in her home state of Michigan once he became the party’s nominee; solidified when he chose her as RNC chair in late 2016; and is now winding to a fraught conclusion as Trump seeks to retake the White House — this time with someone else at the party’s helm.

“She’s been kissing his butt for years,” said Bill Palatucci, a New Jersey committeeman. “But loyalty is a one-way street with Donald Trump.”

This account of McDaniel’s rise and fall at the RNC is based on interviews with 14 Republicans close to Trump and McDaniel.

McDaniel’s looming departure first emerged following an in-person meeting at Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., earlier this month. Then on Monday, Trump released a statement suggesting his daughter-in-law and two others as leaders of the RNC going forward.

McDaniel, the second woman ever to lead the RNC, prepares to end her tenure — the longest for a GOP leader — with some accomplishments. Advisers say she helped raise more than $1.5 billion for the organization, helped launch WinRed — a small-dollar fundraising platform for Republicans that now rivals the Democratic behemoth, ActBlue — and created a permanent department to fund election-related lawsuits.

Trump often praises her for helping him win Michigan in 2016. And she enjoyed wide support among the committee’s 168 members, winning a record four elections as chair.

But despite spending much of her time working to placate the former president — a tempestuous and nearly implacable personality — she regularly sparked the ire of Trump, a boss who demands loyalty from his subordinates but rarely returns it. Meanwhile, the Republican Party has repeatedly lost or underperformed in national and state elections in recent years, is dealing with turmoil in a number of state parties key to 2024, and has far less money than the Democratic National Committee.

McDaniel also encountered deep skepticism and hostility from the hard-right, grassroots wing of the party, who viewed her — the niece of Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and granddaughter of the late Michigan Gov. George Romney — as establishment royalty to be overthrown. Mitt Romney, for his part, warned McDaniel about continuing to stay in the role after Trump left office, a person familiar with his outreach said. He declined to comment.

People close to Trump described McDaniel’s departure as being driven by a confluence of factors that caught his attention, including the primary debates, a cash crunch, a stretch of negative news media attention, election defeats that he refused to take blame for and complaints from campaign allies and donors.

But the crux of Trump’s frustration with McDaniel, fairly or unfairly, hinged on fights over money and the 2020 election. During that race, the Trump campaign and the RNC regularly clashed, with the campaign believing that the RNC was not sufficiently supporting it financially and the RNC arguing it was doing as much as it could and that Trump’s operation was flawed.

Through a spokeswoman, McDaniel declined to comment for this story. A Trump spokesman also declined to comment.

McDaniel’s problems with Trump grew further after a gathering of Republican donors in Houston last fall. There, donors who had grown frustrated with McDaniel’s leadership of the RNC criticized McDaniel to Trump and said they might not give going forward. The former president, this person added, was taken aback.

More recently, the RNC disclosed it had just about $9 million on hand, its lowest amount since 2015, according to Federal Election Commission reports — roughly half of the $17.7 million the DNC reported. Party officials say they expect that number to soon climb, and that Democrats benefit from holding the White House — but Trump and his advisers were upset about the party’s standing.

And so, by the time McDaniel traveled to South Florida for a meeting with Trump on the first Monday of February, her ouster was essentially a foregone conclusion. The only question was one of timing.

Her departure was unfortunate, said Henry Barbour, an influential committee member from Mississippi who has criticized McDaniel at times. “Trump was listening to the wrong people whistling and whispering in his ear,” Barbour said. “Ronna wasn’t perfect but she has done a lot for the party.”

‘She’s not good on election integrity’
One of Trump’s repeated criticisms of McDaniel was that she did not forcefully back his false claims of election fraud in 2020 — and that, in his words, she did not do more in that cycle to block states from changing election laws during the coronavirus pandemic. (The RNC was subject to a decades-long federal ruling, called a consent decree, that limited its activities challenging votes and election laws until it was lifted in 2018.)

“She’s not good on election integrity,” Trump would grumble repeatedly, people close to him said.

In the days after the November election, McDaniel and her team tried to help Trump fight his loss in battleground states, even winning a minor court case in Pennsylvania. McDaniel even took part in arranging alternate — false — electors, according to the Jan. 6 congressional committee and federal prosecutors. McDaniel and many of her top advisers were either eventually subpoenaed or questioned as part of the federal probe, which examined the party’s fundraising off election claims during the period, among other things.

But after Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump’s attorneys, held a widely panned news conference at RNC headquarters — hair dye apparently dripping down his face — and after his ragtag gang of lawyers made an escalating series of false claims, McDaniel backed away from defending Trump on TV. RNC lawyers also concluded that claims from Trump’s lawyers were hogwash, leading to clashes between the teams.

In recent days, Trump repeatedly mentioned he thought Michael Whatley, the chair of the North Carolina Republican Party, would do more to fight for what he viewed as election integrity. In North Carolina, he told one adviser, no one brought in boxes of ballots after Election Day to swing the election to Democrats — a reference to false allegations he and some of his allies made about other states.

Many Republicans view McDaniel’s inaction in 2020 as her cardinal sin, said Stephen K. Bannon, the former president’s strategist and host of the “War Room” podcast.

“We saw the RNC not do anything beforehand and afterward,” he said, echoing the false claim that Biden lost. “That’s the burning heart of this issue. This is a MAGA revolt to take over the Republican Party.”

McDaniel repeatedly told Trump that she was going to work harder ahead of 2024 on “election integrity” and tried to defend her actions in 2020. The party has filed 77 lawsuits in the 2024 cycle and created a permanent “Election Integrity Department,” RNC officials said. But in some cases, McDaniel told others that she just couldn’t back Trump’s most outlandish claims.

During the 2020 election, McDaniel also regularly clashed with Trump’s campaign leaders.

Most of the fights were about money, as the campaign struggled financially at times while the RNC was flush with cash. Trump campaign advisers say McDaniel and her staff were secretive and ended the campaign with tens of millions of dollars in their bank account that could have been spent on Trump.

Trump was generally on good terms with McDaniel during the 2020 election, though he would occasionally grow annoyed or make snide remarks to the chairwoman, people familiar with the matter said.

McDaniel’s team says Trump was surrounded by an inept coterie of advisers, leading the RNC to produce their own TV advertisements, and that much of the money that remained was designated for other bills.

Still, Trump’s aides were enraged when the RNC sent money to other committees designed to win House and Senate seats for Republicans in the final weeks of the election, as the party had in past cycles.

By the end of the campaign, McDaniel and Trump’s team were barely on speaking terms even as she continued to speak with Trump — and told him he needed a better team.

‘Why is she doing this?’
On the night of Jan. 6, 2021, McDaniel was ensconced in a suite of the Ritz Carlton on Amelia Island, Fla., for a RNC meeting. She was running for reelection, but McDaniel had broken her foot and was traversing with a motorized wheelchair.

“How bad is this?” she asked one aide about the attack.

She later told people that, with her team stuck in back-to-back meetings, she had not immediately realized how fully out of control the situation in Washington had spiraled.

She put Trump on speakerphone when he called the next day.

“We love you!” chanted RNC members, less than 24 hours after the Capitol had been cleared. He told the members he backed McDaniel.

It was among the first signs Trump was going nowhere, and he and McDaniel were still inextricably bound.

By that spring, McDaniel came under criticism for moving part of the party’s donor retreat to Mar-a-Lago. McDaniel defended herself by saying her members wanted to be there.

Soon, she was enmeshed in Trump-related court cases — and agreed to pay at least some of Trump’s legal bills, angering some members. She began trekking to Trump’s properties to meet regularly. She signed onto a heavily-criticized resolution that defended some of the alternate electors as participating in “legitimate political discourse,” pleasing Trump.

The two had a good relationship and she worked to keep it that way. McDaniel could also be candid with Trump privately.

McDaniel, for example, counseled Trump to wear a mask during the covid pandemic, even as other advisers did not. Before the 2020 debate in Nashville, she stood backstage with Trump and urged him to “flirt with the American people.” His performance was viewed as vastly better than the first debate.

She also convinced Trump to cut a video for a new RNC program called “Bank Your Vote,” which encourages voting early by mail — techniques Trump had long attacked to the detriment of Republicans. Trump has since said voting should all be done on Election Day.

“Honey,” he would say to her. “You’re doing great.”

But he was also constantly asking others about McDaniel and hearing from her critics unprompted. In 2023, McDaniel began to clash with Trump’s team over the primary debates, as the organization struggled to raise money and criticism on the right grew. Trump would repeatedly mock her for saying she was “neutral.” She also stopped paying his legal bills when he became a candidate.

Battles over primary debates began at the Four Seasons in Nashville, hours before Trump spoke to top GOP donors last April. Chris LaCivita, one of Trump’s top aides, argued loudly with David Bossie, who was leading the debate process for the RNC. LaCivita wanted to cut RNC debates. Bossie and McDaniel would not agree.

Over the course of several months, Bossie and LaCivita continued to disagree in phone calls, according to people familiar with the matter, while Trump kept expressing bewilderment to advisers that she was scheduling more. “Why is she doing this?” he asked one.

“People in the non-Trump campaigns claimed she was too pro-Trump, and Trump people claimed she was anti-Trump, undermining him and wasting money,” said Richard Porter, a national committeeman from Illinois, who praised McDaniel.

‘Forced to defend her constantly’
The beginning of the end of McDaniel’s tenure came in November, when tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, then a GOP primary candidate, called for her ouster at a debate in Miami. She was “apoplectic,” one person who spoke with her said, and spent the evening calling allies despondent and asking if she should attack back.

McDaniel had been unhappy for months, complaining to “almost anyone who would listen,” said a person in regular touch with her. At times, she had questioned whether she should have even sought a fourth term, according to a person who talked to her, and that she did not expect things to go this way.

Now, the steady drumbeat of criticism that began in 2022 grew into a cacophony.

Kim Borchers, a national committee member from Kansas, said she was flooded with emails and calls attacking McDaniel after the 2022 midterms. She responded to more than 100 of them, hearing a list of complaints about McDaniel that, she said, originated in the right-wing echo chamber and were unfounded. Borchers said she often could convince critics otherwise.

“Critics have been beating her up since the day she won that last election,” Borchers said. “It is just terrible.”

Bannon and Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, were effectively waging opposition to McDaniel in part because she previously used Romney as her middle name, said Porter, the McDaniel ally. McDaniel dropped Romney from her name in 2017 after Trump suggested she do so, but she has said that is not why she abandoned the name.

“They made Ronna the face of the establishment — they froze her and they polarized her,” Porter said.

McDaniel sought to assuage factions that wanted her ouster. At least once, she went over to see Bannon at his Capitol Hill townhouse a few blocks from the RNC.

“Her presentation was very good,” he said, recounting extensive RNC efforts she said were happening. “It’s just not reality. None of this is happening.”

For their part, RNC officials say they boosted the number of donors to 2.9 million in the midterms, built community centers across the country and grew their email and texting files to record numbers — and that their presentation to Bannon was entirely factual.

Meanwhile in private, LaCivita, told others that RNC staff had too little campaign experience or were insufficiently loyal to Trump — and that he planned to overhaul the building. On Monday, Trump announced he asked LaCivita to serve as the RNC’s chief operating officer, along with Whatley as chair and Lara Trump as co-chair.

“The president was being forced to defend her constantly,” one person said. About three weeks ago, Trump started saying a change was needed, and McDaniel flew to Florida.

Unknown to her, Trump had already taped two interviews saying a new RNC chair was needed before she arrived.

One of her final moves as RNC chair was to publicly say Trump would be the nominee during a Fox News interview on the night of the New Hampshire primary, drawing criticism from challenger Nikki Haley and some fellow RNC members.

McDaniel told others she wanted to begin fundraising with Trump — and he was clearly certain to win.

It did not work.

On Monday, Trump decided to issue a statement about new RNC leadership, weeks before he previously said he would.

While McDaniel knew her days were probably over, Trump’s statement upset her, people who talked to her said. It did not even mention her and implicitly criticized the party.

“The RNC MUST be a good partner in the Presidential election. It must do the work we expect from the national Party and do it flawlessly,” he wrote, adding: “Every penny will be used properly. New Day.”

She said nothing publicly in response. And soon she was on the phone, trying to schedule a March meeting for members to formally approve Trump’s choice of her replacement.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... trump-rnc/

[ti-amie]

What was that about impeaching President Biden?

Mueller, She Wrote
@MuellerSheWrote
THREAD: The indictment of Jim Comer's star witness - Alexander Smirnov - for lying to the FBI is fascinating. Especially the timelines and people associated with it. 1/

I'm very curious as to why Barr's college buddy Scott Brady - the Pittsburgh US Atty he put in charge of coordinating Ukraine stuff with Rudy Giuliani, didn't indict Smirnov back in 2020 when he lied to them. He just quietly closed the case. 2/

I'm also wondering how David Weiss ended up with this case, and why he's charging this informant NOW. The indictment says in July 2023, "the FBI" asked Weiss to assist them in investigating the allegations Smirnov made in that 1023 that Comer jizzed in his pants over. 3/

I guess Weiss is trying to say that the FBI thought he was the right guy to investigate these lies from 2020 that Barr didn't prosecute because he was also investigating Hunter Biden. Seems like a pretty weak association. 4/

But Weiss says in the indictment that since he was made special counsel, he can handle anything arising out of his investigation into Hunter Biden, and that would include Smirnov. But he was made special counsel AFTER the FBI apparently asked him to help them out. 5/

Sounds to me like bc Weiss was about to have to hand over a discovery to Hunter Biden, which would include this stuff, he said "Hey, I'm a special counsel now, so I'll indict this guy who should have been indicted in 2020 to cover my ass, Barr's ass, and Scott Brady's ass." 6/

Seems like Scott Brady was installed to insulate Giuliani and his associates, including Smirnov, from criminal investigation and indictment to hide the fact that Rudy and Trump were conspiring to tarnish Biden and Ukraine. 7/

Here's the entire indictment. END/ https://justice.gov/sco-weiss/media/133 ... ovdelivery

[ti-amie]

Kyle Cheney
@kyledcheney
JUST IN: Feds say in a detention memo that Alexander SMIRNOV — charged with fabricating claims that Joe Biden was bribed by Ukrainians — had high-level contacts with Russian intelligence operatives. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap ... 4.15.0.pdf

[Owendonovan]

I just don't know people like this.

[ti-amie]

And yet Gym Jordan is saying that despite their informant being a foreign agent and that this entire mess was a real psyop by a foreign government doesn't mean the "facts" of the case aren't true.

[ti-amie]

Ex-FBI source accused of lying about Bidens and having Russian contacts is returned to US custody

BY KEN RITTER AND RIO YAMAT
Updated 5:45 PM EST, February 22, 2024

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A former FBI informant accused of lying about multimillion-dollar bribery allegations against President Joe Biden and his son Hunter and purportedly having links to Russian intelligence was again taken into custody Thursday, two days after a judge said he could be freed ahead of trial, his attorneys said in court documents.

The arrest during a meeting Thursday morning with his lawyers came after prosecutors appealed a ruling allowing 43-year-old Alexander Smirnov, who holds dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship, to be released with a GPS monitor ahead of trial on charges alleging he lied to the FBI.

He was taken into custody on a warrant for the same charges issued in California, where the case was originally filed, his lawyers said. Several sealed entries were listed in the court docket, but no additional details about his return to custody were immediately available.

A spokesman for Justice Department special counsel David Weiss confirmed Smirnov had been arrested again, but did not have additional comment. He is in custody of U.S. Marshals in Nevada, said Gary Schofield, the chief marshal in Las Vegas.

Smirnov is charged with making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record. He was arrested last week in Las Vegas, where he now lives, and a judge allowed him to be released with a GPS monitor on Tuesday.

Smirnov was arrested Thursday morning at their law offices in downtown Las Vegas on the same charges, attorneys David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld said. They requested an immediate hearing on his detention.

Prosecutors say Smirnov falsely told his handler that executives from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid President Biden and Hunter Biden $5 million each around 2015. The claim became central to the Republican impeachment inquiry of President Biden in Congress.

Smirnov has not entered a plea to the charges, but his lawyers have said their client is presumed innocent and they look forward to defending him at trial.

As part of their push to keep him in custody, prosecutors said Smirnov told investigators after his arrest last week that “officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story” about Hunter Biden. They said Smirnov’s self-reported contact with Russian officials was recent and extensive, and said he had planned to meet with foreign intelligence contacts during an upcoming trip abroad.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Daniel Albregts on Tuesday had ordered him released ahead of trial, saying he was concerned about Smirnov’s access to money prosecutors estimated at $6 million but noting that federal guidelines required him to fashion “the least restrictive conditions” ahead of trial. Smirnov was also ordered to stay in the area and surrender his passports.

“Do not make a mockery out of me,” Albregts said to Smirnov, warning that he’d be placed back into the federal government’s custody if he violated any of his conditions. His lawyers say he’s been “fully compliant” with his release conditions.

Prosecutors appealed to U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright in California, where the case is based.

“The circumstances of the offenses charged — that Smirnov lied to his FBI handler after a 10-year relationship where the two spoke nearly every day — means that Smirnov cannot be trusted to provide truthful information to pretrial services,” prosecutors wrote in court documents. “The effects of Smirnov’s false statements and fabricated information continue to be felt to this day. Now the personal stakes for Smirnov are even higher. His freedom is on the line.”

Smirnov had been an informant for more than a decade when he made the explosive allegations about the Bidens in June 2020, after “expressing bias” about Joe Biden as a presidential candidate, prosecutors said.

But Smirnov had only routine business dealings with Burisma starting in 2017, according to court documents. No evidence has emerged that Joe Biden acted corruptly or accepted bribes in his current role or previous office as vice president.

While his identity wasn’t publicly known before the charges were filed, Smirnov’s claims have played a major part in the Republican effort in Congress to investigate the president and his family, and helped spark what is now a House impeachment inquiry into Biden. Republicans pursuing investigations of the Bidens demanded the FBI release the unredacted form documenting the unverified allegations, though they acknowledged they couldn’t confirm if they were true.

Democrats called for an end to the probe after the Smirnov indictment came down last week, while Republicans distanced the inquiry from his claims and said they would continue to “follow the facts.”

Smirnov’s lawyers say he has been living in Las Vegas for two years with his longtime girlfriend and requires ongoing treatment and daily medications for “significant medical issues related to his eyes.” He lived in California for 16 years prior to moving to Nevada.

Associated Press writer Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington contributed to this story.

https://apnews.com/article/hunter-biden ... 33d24d7cfd

[ti-amie]

Scott MacFarlane
@MacFarlaneNews

The new Alexander Smirnov arrest warrant:

Feds leaned hard into argument to get former FBI informant back in custody, saying he’s loaded with millions of dollars, a flight risk… and claims to have contact with Russian foreign agents, who peddled false story about Pres. Biden

[ti-amie]

Alabama Lawmakers Move to Protect I.V.F. Treatments
A court ruling declaring frozen embryos to be legally considered children has set off a scramble among leaders in both parties to preserve access to a crucial reproductive treatment.


By Eduardo Medina and Emily Cochrane
Feb. 23, 2024
Updated 3:52 p.m. ET
Alabama lawmakers are considering legislation that would protect in vitro fertilization, after a State Supreme Court ruling last week led some clinics to halt I.V.F. treatments and left many women in limbo.

The ruling, which declared that frozen embryos should be legally considered children, set off a scramble among leaders in both parties to preserve access to a crucial reproductive treatment for families who have struggled with infertility and for L.G.B.T.Q. couples who are seeking to have children.

The court’s ruling, handed down by an 8-to-1 majority, applies only to three couples who were suing a fertility clinic over the accidental destruction of their embryos. But its wording — paired with a fiery opinion from the chief justice encouraging lawmakers to push its scope further — has left many wondering about the possible wider implications for people seeking I.V.F. treatment.

At least three major fertility clinics in Alabama have halted I.V.F. treatments this week as doctors and lawyers assess the possible consequences of the ruling. On Friday, a major embryo shipping company said that it also was “pausing” its business in Alabama.

And while only Republicans sit on the State Supreme Court, many conservatives in Alabama and across the nation sought to quickly distance themselves from the ruling and any perception that they are out of step with the many Americans who support I.V.F. and access to reproductive medicine.

Alabama’s attorney general, Steve Marshall, “has no intention of using the recent Alabama Supreme Court decision as a basis for prosecuting I.V.F. families or providers,” Katherine Robertson, the office’s chief counsel, said in a statement on Friday.

State Senator Tim Melson, a Republican who has worked as an anesthesiologist and clinical researcher, is planning to introduce a measure that would ensure people can continue to pursue I.V.F. treatment.

Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, signaled she would support such a proposal, saying in a statement on Friday that fostering “a culture of life” included helping “couples hoping and praying to be parents who utilize I.V.F.”

Because Republicans hold a supermajority in the State Legislature, their support is essential for any bill to become law. On Friday, former President Donald J. Trump, the overwhelming favorite to become the Republican nominee for president this year, called on the Legislature to “act quickly to find an immediate solution to preserve the availability of I.V.F. in Alabama,” and for the protection of I.V.F. in all 50 states.

Democrats have also put forward their own measure. Anthony Daniels, the House minority leader in Alabama, filed a bill on Thursday that says “any fertilized human egg or human embryo that exists outside of a human uterus is not considered an unborn child or human being for any purpose under state law.”

“There will be an opportunity for lawmakers to come together to really address the issue head on in a bipartisan manner,” Mr. Daniels said in an interview. He added that he planned to speak to Mr. Melson and other Republicans about their proposals.

Nationally, the party has not only condemned the ruling, but also tied it directly to the U.S. Supreme Court decision that ended nationwide protections for abortions, a ruling that has galvanized women and suburban voters to support Democrats across the country. Republicans have struggled to respond to that political backlash.

The issue could also reverberate in hotly contested congressional races. Mr. Daniels, the House Democratic leader, is one of several lawmakers running for a newly drawn congressional district in Alabama widely viewed as a possible pickup for his party.

But by Friday, it became clear that many Republican leaders, in Alabama and across the country, had little interest in leaving open the possibility that the ruling would jeopardize reproductive access.

Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, a Republican, said at the Politico Governors Summit on Thursday that while he was not familiar with the full details of the ruling, he supported I.V.F. treatment because many parents “wouldn’t have children” if it wasn’t for the procedure. U.S. Senator Katie Britt, a Republican, said that the procedure “helps create life and grow families, and it deserves the protection of the law.”

And in Tennessee, State Representative Jeremy Faison, a member of House Republican leadership, told reporters that he believed the procedure to be “very pro-life.” When asked about the Alabama ruling, he said would be “nervous about that.”

The Senate Republican campaign arm circulated a memo, obtained by The New York Times, that made clear that candidates should “clearly and concisely reject efforts by the government to restrict I.V.F.”

“It is imperative that our candidates align with the public’s overwhelming support for I.V.F. and fertility treatments,” Jason Thielman, the executive director, wrote.

Sarah Kliff contributed reporting.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/23/us/p ... t-law.html

[ponchi101]

Democrats have also put forward their own measure. Anthony Daniels, the House minority leader in Alabama, filed a bill on Thursday that says “any fertilized human egg or human embryo that exists outside of a human uterus is not considered an unborn child or human being for any purpose under state law.”

Correct me here.
Is this man aware of what he has done? If you include the word OUTSIDE in this declaration, then you can claim that any human embryo INSIDE a human body IS CONSIDERED an unborn child, and therefore, you grant the Anti-Abortion lobby fodder for their claims that ALL EMBRYOS are indeed BABIES.
What am I missing?

[ti-amie]

Democrats have also put forward their own measure. Anthony Daniels, the House minority leader in Alabama, filed a bill on Thursday that says “any fertilized human egg or human embryo that exists outside of a human uterus is not considered an unborn child or human being for any purpose under state law.”

Correct me here.
Is this man aware of what he has done? If you include the word OUTSIDE in this declaration, then you can claim that any human embryo INSIDE a human body IS CONSIDERED an unborn child, and therefore, you grant the Anti-Abortion lobby fodder for their claims that ALL EMBRYOS are indeed BABIES.
What am I missing?

Sadly you're right.

That said it's interesting that the GQP in Alabama is scrambling to try and neuter this law. Everyone from their governor to the front runner for their presidential nomination is now on the record as saying that IVF is prolife.

[ti-amie]

‘My ultimate and absolute revenge’: Trump gives chilling CPAC speech on presidential agenda
Unbound and unhinged, ex-president vilifies immigrants before devolving into bizarre riffs, including calling himself ‘total genius’

David Smith in Oxon Hill, Maryland

Donald Trump styled himself as a “proud political dissident” and promised “judgment day” for political opponents in an address that offered a chilling vision of a democracy in imminent peril.

In classic carnival barker form, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination accused Joe Biden of weaponising the government against him with “Stalinist show trials”. He pledged to crack down on border security and deliver the biggest deportation in US history if he wins the 5 November election.

“For hard-working Americans, November 5th will be our new liberation day,” Trump told a packed ballroom at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at National Harbor in Maryland. “But for the liars and cheaters and fraudsters and censors and imposters who have commandeered our government, it will be their judgment day!”

He added: “Your victory will be our ultimate vindication, your liberty will be our ultimate reward and the unprecedented success of the United States of America will be my ultimate and absolute revenge.”

The overwhelmingly white crowd, many wearing Make America Great Again regalia, rose to their feet and roared their approval.

The former US president was speaking hours before an expected victory over Republican rival Nikki Haley in the South Carolina primary, making him all but certain to be the party nominee.

Meanwhile, organizers held a straw poll at the convention for Trump’s running mate: South Dakota governor Kristi Noem tied with tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy at 15%, followed by former Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, current New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik and South Carolina senator Tim Scott. In last place was Nikki Haley at 2%. About 1,500 people voted.

Trump’s visit marked his 14th appearance at CPAC, breaking the record previously held by former president Ronald Reagan, according to his campaign. He appeared unbound and at times unhinged. The 77-year-old was bilious and bleak but also energetic and at times even humorous, less commander-in-chief than stand-up comedian. He told self-deprecating jokes about his wife Melania’s reviews of his speeches (“I ask our first lady, I say. So, baby, how good was that? She goes you were OK”).

His puerile parody of the speaking style, finger pointing and gait of 81-year-old Biden earned roars of laughter. And in a nod to his days as host of the reality TV show the Apprentice, Trump delighted the audience by shouting: “Crooked Joe Biden, you are fired! Get out of here. You’re destroying our country. You’re fired. Get the hell out of here!”

But, like demagogues of the past, the comedy and showmanship smuggled in a sinister undertow. Trump’s ability to play the crowd, turning its emotions from euphoria to fury as easily as flicking a switch, carry echoes that are hard to ignore.

The tone was set before he appeared on stage. A series of popular hits – Abba’s Dancing Queen, Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire, Sinéad O’Connor’s Nothing Compares 2 U, Elvis Presley’s Suspicious Minds – was followed by the tinny sound of Justice for All, a rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner sung by defendants jailed over their alleged roles in the January 6, 2021, insurrection. The CPAC audience rose solemnly for the dirge that was recorded over a prison phone line.

As usual, Trump entered to Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA, hugged an American flag and painted an impossibly grim picture of an America overrun by bloodshed, chaos and violent crime. “If Crooked Joe Biden and his thugs win in 2024, the worst is yet to come,” he said. “A country that will go and sink to levels that are unimaginable.

“These are the stakes of this election. Our country is being destroyed, and the only thing standing between you and it’s obliteration is me.”

Facing 91 criminal charges in four cases, Trump projected himself as both martyr and potential saviour of the nation. “A vote for Trump is your ticket back to freedom, it’s your passport out of tyranny and it’s your only escape from Joe Biden and his gang’s fast track to hell,” he continued.

“And in many ways, we’re living in hell right now because the fact is, Joe Biden is a threat to democracy – really is a threat to democracy.”

Speaking days after the death of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Trump hinted at a self-comparison by adding: “I stand before you today not only as your past and hopefully future president but as a proud political dissident. I am a dissident.”

The crowd whooped and applauded. Trump noted that he had been indicted more often than the gangster Al Capone on charges that he described as “(expletive)”. The audience again leaped to their feet, some shaking their fists and chanting: “We love Trump! We love Trump!”

Trump argued without evidence: “The Stalinist show trials being carried out at Joe Biden’s orders set fire not only to our system of government but to hundreds of years of western legal tradition.

“They’ve replaced law, precedent and due process with a rabid mob of radical left Democrat partisans masquerading as judges and juries and prosecutors.”

Trump also spent time on his signature issue: he said his “first and most urgent action” as president would be the “sealing of the border, stopping the invasion ... send Joe Biden’s illegal aliens back home”.

The ex-president, who has spent years demonising immigrants, said: “They’re coming from Asia, they’re coming from the Middle East, coming from all over the world, coming from Africa, and we’re not going to stand for it ... They’re destroying our country.”

He promised to carry out the biggest deportation in American history. “It’s not a nice thing to say and I hate to say it and those clowns in the media will say: ‘Oh, he’s so mean.’ No, they’re killing our people. They’re killing our country. We have no choice.”

He added: “We have languages coming into our country … they have languages that nobody in this country has ever heard of. It’s a horrible thing.”

But Trump broke from the teleprompter into a series of bizarre riffs. One was a convoluted story about flying into Iraq in darkness: “I sat with the pilots ... the best-looking human beings I’ve ever seen. Not my thing ... But they are handsome. Central casting. Better looking than Tom Cruise. And taller.”

Once again he had the faithful eating out of the palm of his hand – a scene that may set off alarm bells for defenders of democracy. “By the way, isn’t this better than reading off a fricking teleprompter?” he asked. The crowd cheered.

“Nobody can ramble like this,” he said, adding: “They’ll say: ‘He rambled, he’s cognitively impaired.’ Well, it’s really the opposite. It’s total genius – you know that.” The crowd cheered some more.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... pac-speech

[ti-amie]

NYT coverage of same speech.

At CPAC, Trump Invokes Clashing Visions of America’s Future
He used his speech to focus on a general-election contest between him and President Biden, not once mentioning his main Republican rival, Nikki Haley.
By Jonathan Swan and Michael C. Bender
Reporting from CPAC in National Harbor, Md.

Feb. 24, 2024, 4:43 p.m. ET
Former President Donald J. Trump laid out what’s in store for America should he or President Biden win the 2024 presidential election, using a Saturday speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference to cast one nearly utopian vision of the country’s future and one reminiscent of a postapocalyptic movie.

If Mr. Biden is re-elected for a second four-year term, Mr. Trump warned in his speech, Medicare will “collapse.” Social Security will “collapse.” Health care in general will “collapse.” So, too, will public education. Millions of manufacturing jobs will be “choked off into extinction.” The U.S. economy will be “starved of energy” and there will be “constant blackouts.” The Islamist militant group Hamas will “terrorize our streets.” There will be a third world war and America will lose it. America itself will face “obliteration.”

On the other hand, Mr. Trump promised on Saturday that if he is elected America will be “richer and safer and stronger and prouder and more beautiful than ever before.” Crime in major cities? A thing of the past.

“Chicago could be solved in one day,” Mr. Trump said. “New York could be solved in a half a day there.”

It’s impossible to fact-check the future. But Mr. Trump’s speech at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Maryland sounded familiar — like 2016 or 2020 all over again.

In his 2020 campaign, Mr. Trump warned that Mr. Biden would “confiscate your guns,” and “destroy your suburbs.” He predicted that the economy would sink into a depression worse than the 1930s Great Depression and that the “stock market will crash.” A Biden presidency, he predicted four years ago, “would mean that America’s seniors have no air conditioning during the summer, no heat during the winter and no electricity during peak hours.” And, he warned in July 2020, “you will have no more energy coming out of the great state of Texas, out of New Mexico, out of anywhere.”

Some of those past predictions are now checkable, and have turned out to be fictions. The stock market has hit record highs under the Biden administration. Guns haven’t been confiscated. Air conditioning is as good or bad as it ever was. And under Mr. Biden, the United States is producing more oil — not only more than it did under Mr. Trump but more than any country ever has.

Mr. Trump also left office with a long list of his own unfulfilled campaign promises, including completing the construction of a wall along the southwestern border. On Saturday, he pinned the blame for that failure on fellow Republicans in Congress — and on his own inexperience.

“Don’t forget, I had never done this stuff before,” he said, describing his border wall negotiations.

Still, Mr. Trump’s vision of the country delivered at CPAC on Saturday has the potential to connect powerfully to the fears and lives of millions of Americans.

When Mr. Trump said on Saturday that Mr. Biden had allowed “hordes of illegal aliens stampeding across our borders,” he was speaking to a voting public that trusts Mr. Trump significantly more to handle immigration. Under Mr. Biden, record numbers of undocumented migrants have crossed the southern border, straining local services and infuriating even Democratic mayors and governors, who have pleaded with the White House to take the problem more seriously. (Mr. Trump did not mention in his speech how he has all but killed a bipartisan effort to help solve the problem because he wanted to deprive Mr. Biden of a legislative victory in an election year.)

And when Mr. Trump rails against what he portrays as a bad economy under Mr. Biden, his message empirically resonates with voters even if the Biden administration can point to any number of economic data points to brag about. Under Mr. Biden, unemployment is low, real wages are rising, the stock market is booming and inflation is finally cooling. But at the same time, many groceries and other living expenses are vastly higher now than they were under Mr. Trump. When Mr. Trump hammers Mr. Biden for inflation, as he often does, he taps into an issue that Democratic strategists fear as one of Mr. Biden’s biggest liabilities this fall.

On Saturday, after delivering a series of dire warnings about a second Biden term, Mr. Trump ditched his prepared remarks to share long, rambling anecdotes about what he portrayed as his brilliant behind-the-scenes negotiating as president. “Nobody can ramble like this,” he said of his own rambling, as he brought up his late uncle.

For his part, Mr. Biden has delivered his own warning, telling supporters that Mr. Trump would undo America’s democratic principles and be an agent of chaos if he returns to the White House. Last month, on the eve of the third anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by Mr. Trump’s supporters, Mr. Biden said in a speech, “There’s no confusion about who Trump is or what he intends to do,” adding, “We all know who Donald Trump is. The question is: Who are we?”

Mr. Trump’s CPAC speech came on the day of the G.O.P. primary election in South Carolina, the home state of his main Republican rival, Nikki Haley. He has dominated the primary race so much, and was leading Ms. Haley in polling averages by so many points, that Mr. Trump adopted the rhetoric and posture of a front-runner ignoring the primary and focusing on the general election in November. Not once in his entire speech did he say Ms. Haley’s name.

What made Saturday’s speech different for Mr. Trump from the 2016 and 2020 versions was how he has turned his unprecedented legal situation, as the first former president charged with crimes, into a core part of his campaign message. Even as Mr. Trump now insists that his only “revenge” will be success for the American people — a departure from his previous promises to direct the prosecutions of his political opponents — the theme of retribution coursed through CPAC.

“I stand before you today not only as your past and future president, but as a proud political dissident,” Mr. Trump said.

“For hard-working Americans,” he added, “Nov. 5 will be our new liberation day — but for the liars and cheaters and fraudsters and censors and impostors who have commandeered our government, it will be their judgment day.”

At that, the crowd whistled and roared.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/24/us/p ... -cpac.html

[ponchi101]

Bob Geldof, during the last 15 minutes of The Wall.
And he will get 70MM votes. Mark it. Scary.

[ti-amie]

Bob Geldof, during the last 15 minutes of The Wall.
And he will get 70MM votes. Mark it. Scary.

[ti-amie]

Boston Smalls
@smalls2672
This Alabama decision to call embryos children is wild to watch. Never mind how terrible it is. The precedent. All that stuff.

Just watching Republicans realize what they did is cracking me up.

Now, Republicans obviously don't give two (expletive) about pro life. They just want children produced because they want workers. It just happens to help with their evangelical base.

But the one thing Republicans care about most is money.

Now they're trying to figure out how to spin this as they piss everyone off, including rich ppl. Because now they're preventing ppl who want to have children from having one. But what they're also doing is messing up an 8 billion dollar industry because it's big money to have these procedures. I believe it's anywhere from like 8-14k dollars.

They've created this religious right monster, and now they don't know how to turn it off. Pretty soon Republicans are going to realize what the rest of us already know.

You can't negotiate with the Christian right, and they won't stop until they achieve their goals of a complete theocracy.

Contraception is coming next.

Goldwater Lashes Religious Pressure
'Sick and Tired of Political Preachers'
By David S. Broder
September 15, 1981 at 8:00 p.m. EDT

Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.), long the symbol of the conservative movement, said yesterday he will fight "every step of the way" against religious groups that seek to pressure public officials.

In a breakfast interview with a group of reporters and in a speech on the Senate floor, the 1964 Republican presidential nominee said, "I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that, if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C or D....I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate."

Goldwater clashed sharply a few weeks ago with anti-abortion groups and the Moral Majority, when they criticized President Reagan's choice of Arizona Circuit Judge Sandra Day O'Connor for the Supreme Court. He told reporters yesterday morning he had been looking for a public forum in which to broaden his attack. After rehearsing the speech at breakfast, he decided to deliver it on the Senate floor.

"I don't like the New Right," Goldwater said. "What they're talking about is not conservatism."

In the formal speech, the Arizonan asked Americans to "look at the carnage in Iran, the bloodshed in Northern Ireland, or the bombs bursting in Lebanon," all of which he said stemmed from "injecting religious issues into the affairs of state."

"By maintaining the separation of church and state," Goldwater said, "the United States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the rest of the world with religious wars."

Citing such groups as the Moral Majority and "pro-life" organizations, Goldwater called "the religious factions that are growing throughout our land...a divisive element that could tear apart the very spirit of our representative system, if they gain sufficient strength."

He said, "Far too much of the time of members of Congress and officials of the Executive Branch is used up dealing with special-interest groups on issues like abortion, school busing, ERA, prayer in the schools and pornography."

Goldwater said he shared "many of the values emphasized by these organizations," but would "fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of 'conservatism.' "

Asked about the bill to encourage chastity among teen-agers that was sponsored by one of the "New Right" senators, Jeremiah Denton (R-Ala.), Goldwater asked, "How the hell are you going to regulate that? They've been trying ever since the apple. It's just like abortion. You can make them unconstitutional but they're still going to go out and have one."

In the press breakfast, Goldwater also poked a bit of fun at President Reagan, even while saying his political protege "is doing all right." After saying he had been converted to support of the draft by the need for trained manpower in the military, Goldwater was asked what he thought it would take to persuade Reagan that the volunteer army was not working. The senator replied:

"It would take a recognizable national calamity--if they woke him up in time and told him about it."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/ ... da6f5e7f9/