Tom of Temecula
Tom of Temecula's Journal'Been yelling this from the rooftop': Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen issues a warning
Ex-President Donald Trump's former "fixer" Michael Cohen knows first-hand what it feels like to suffer serious consequences as a result of being closely connected to the 2024 MAGA hopeful.
Cohen served a three-year prison sentence from 2018 to 2021 "after pleading guilty to campaign finance charges and lying to Congress, among other crimes."
MSNBC's The ReidOut host Joy Reid spoke with the former Trump ally Wednesday, saying, "You're one of the few people who experienced being thrown in jail at the behest of Donald Trump." She then asked, "If you could just remind us of how that went down. You wrote a book. He didn't like it. And then what happened?"
Cohen replied, "Yeah. Then what happened was I was lured down to 500 Pearl Street, where I was asked to sign a document that was designed specifically for me that violated my First Amendment constitutional right. I was not permitted to speak to media. I couldn't write the book. I couldn't publish the book. I couldn't do work on movies. I couldn't speak to the press. It was a complete and total gag order. Well, when myself and my friend, who is a lawyer, Jeffrey K. Levine, turned around and said, 'Hey, this is a little overbroad and unconstitutional, violation' of my First Amendment right,' they had three marshals waiting outside for me, who ultimately remanded me, handcuffed and shackled, and remanded me back for another 16 days of solitary confinement at [Federal Correction Institution] FCI Otisville. So I am the very first political prisoner held by this country because I refused to waive my First Amendment constitutional right. And I've been yelling this from the rooftop now for three years, saying if they could do that to me, imagine what they can and will do to you. And unfortunately we're at this point right now in American history."
https://www.rawstory.com/trumps-lawyer-2666469939/
Trump 'dictator' comment reignites criticism his camp has tried to curb
Donald Trump’s campaign asked allies on Capitol Hill in recent days to publicly counter criticism that the former president would govern like a dictator in a second term, according to people familiar with the matter. Yet on Tuesday, Trump reignited that criticism. Pressed twice on the topic during a televised town hall with Fox News host Sean Hannity, including on whether he “would never abuse power as retribution against anybody,” Trump replied: “Except for Day 1,” before going on to talk about drilling for oil and closing the border.
The conflicting messages underscored what some experts and lawmakers see as Trump’s continued embrace of authoritarian rhetoric and ideas, and his refusal to fully rebuke some dire warnings about how he’d govern in a second term, even as his campaign is anticipating more attacks on this theme. The Washington Post reported last month that Trump’s associates are drafting plans to invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office, which would allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstrations. Trump has repeatedly said he views his prosecutions as a license to turn the Justice Department and the FBI against his opponents and has identified some targets by name. He also continues to falsely claim that the 2020 election was stolen.
But in recent days, the former president and his allies have been pushing back more forcefully on comments from historians, policy experts and political opponents that a second Trump term would be more extreme and autocratic than his first. Two Trump advisers, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk more candidly, said recent stories about his plans for a second term are not viewed as helpful for the general election.
Trump’s recent comments and emerging plans have raised concerns among critics in both parties about the former president, who has built a dominant advantage in polls of the Republican presidential primary and runs ahead of President Biden in some recent polls of the general election.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/trump-dictator-comment-reignites-criticism-his-camp-has-tried-to-curb/ar-AA1l744D
Donald Trump's allies and former officials are really upset about Taylor Swift
Donald Trump's former administration officials and other allies are extremely upset about Taylor Swift and her political opinions. Trump himself has had disputes with Swift. He posted a lot of supportive content about her until she came after him in 2018, prompting him to say he likes her music less than before.
But now, his surrogates seem to be doing the attacking. Far-right commentator Jack Posobiec, whose content has been shared by the former president, responded to Time Magazine posting early Wednesday that Swift had been named the 2023 person of the year. He said the singer's "girlboss psyop has been fully activated."
He then went on to attack her boyfriend. "From her hand-selected vaccine shill boyfriend to her DINK lifestyle to her upcoming 2024 voter operation for Democrats on abortion rights It’s all coming," Posobiec wrote on Wednesday.
Jeff Clark, an attorney in Trump's former administration as well as a co-defendant in the criminal case out of Fulton County, Georgia, reposted Posobiec's comment about Swift's so-called "Girlboss psyop." Clark blamed society and "culture." "This is what happens when we cede culture to the Left. Brainless youth raising themselves on Taylor Swift’s saccharine bland music and that washing over into the serious world of politics," he wrote Wednesday.
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-swift-feud/
The real reason for all the Trumpy whining:
Rudy Giuliani's attorney gets 'lashing' from judge after client doesn't show for court
U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell rebuked an attorney for Rudy Giuliani after his client failed to attend a hearing in his defamation case.
Politico's Kyle Cheney reported that Giuliani declined to attend a Tuesday hearing ahead of a jury trial to determine how much he will have to pay two Georgia election workers — Ruby Freeman and Wandrea "Shaye" Moss — after he was found liable for defaming them.
"Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss were in court in D.C. for what could have been their first pretrial confrontation with Rudy Giuliani as part of their defamation suit," Cheney reported. "But Rudy didn't show, and his attorney got a lashing from Judge Howell for the absence."
"Giuliani's position that the long-standing jury demand in this case was extinguished when he was found liable on plaintiffs' claims by default, is wrong as a matter of law," Howell wrote in a filing this week.
https://www.rawstory.com/rudy-giuliani-s-attorney-gets-lashing-from-judge-after-client-doesn-t-show-for-court/
Federal judge rejects AR Republicans' request to quash lawsuit that state's congressional map is racially gerrymandered
Lawsuit filed on behalf of the Christian Ministerial Alliance and four Black residents of Pulaski County against Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston (R) and Arkansas State Board of Election Commissioners challenging Arkansas’ congressional map drawn with 2020 census data. Specifically, the plaintiffs allege that Arkansas’ 2nd Congressional District is a racial gerrymander and that the plan was passed with discriminatory intent as a motivating factor in violation of the 14th and 15th Amendments.
The plaintiffs allege that the plan “cracks” Pulaski County’s “large and politically effective Black Community” and divides those voters amongst three of the state’s four other congressional districts. The plaintiffs argue that the map “is a textbook case of ‘cracking’ a minority community to suppress its political voice. And this cracking is intentional.”
The plaintiffs argue that “in cracking Black communities in Pulaski County into three separate congressional districts, Arkansas’s Legislature actively disregarded traditional redistricting principles and contradicted its own stated guiding principles.” The plaintiffs request that the court block the plan, order a new constitutionally compliant plan, place Arkansas under Section 3 preclearance and order that elections should not be held under the current congressional map.
https://www.democracydocket.com/cases/arkansas-congressional-redistricting-challenge-christian-ministerial-alliance/
https://twitter.com/DemocracyDocket/status/1732419877980479644
Arkansas blogger mocks Sarah Sanders over $50,000 GOP fundraiser: 'The equivalent of 2.63 lecterns'
One of the Republicans who Democrats have attacked as a big spender is Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. The former Trump White House press secretary has drawn plenty of criticism over a $19,000 lectern — which Arkansas Times blogger Matt Campbell references in a mocking, brutally sarcastic column on a Republican Governors Association (RGA) event featuring Sanders and her husband, Arkansas First Gentleman Bryan Sanders.
"If you're still Christmas shopping, or if you want to do a whole 12 Days of Christmas theme with your decorations next year and need a variety of stuffed birds to pull it off, boy, do I have some great news," Campbell writes in his December 5 column. "For $50,000, you can get two tickets to go blast some buffleheads with Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and hobby-collecting First Gentleman Bryan Sanders, courtesy of the Republican Governors Association!"
"To be fair," Campbell says in his humorous but biting column, "your $50,000 gets you more than just a few hours of putting #2 shot into canvasbacks. You also get one year on the RGA board, which comes with three tickets to a quarterly discussion series in Washington, D.C., three tickets to the annual RGA conference in Las Vegas, three tickets to the RGA winter meeting in D.C. in February, two tickets to the senior staff retreat in California in September, and one ticket to one chiefs-of-staff regional event."
The blogger adds, "So, if you're into those kinds of things, the tickets might help soften the blow of spending the equivalent of 2.63 lecterns from Beckett Events on a hunting trip. Because money can get tight around the holiday season, the RGA has a less expensive option for those trying to save a little cash. For $25,000, you get one ticket to shoot ducks with the governor and one year's membership on the RGA council."
https://www.alternet.org/sarah-sanders-2666459115/
Washington Post journalists plan 24-hour strike amid prolonged contract talks
(Reuters) -Unionized journalists at The Washington Post said they would stage a 24-hour strike on Thursday to protest staff cuts and what they call management's failure to bargain in good faith in contract talks that have stretched on for 18 months.
The planned one-day walkout would mark the first general work stoppage at the Post since the bitter, 20-week pressmen's strike of 1975-76, when Katharine Graham was publisher, according to union officials.
The latest labor clash comes a little more than a month after William Lewis, former publisher of The Wall Street Journal, was named chief executive and publisher of the Post as the venerable Washington daily newspaper was projecting a year-end loss of $100 million. Lewis is due to take charge on Jan. 2, 2024.
The Post is one of many news outlets struggling to devise a sustainable business model in the decades since the internet upended the economics of journalism and digital advertising rates plummeted.
https://news.yahoo.com/washington-post-journalists-plan-24-230931370.html
'Dictator' Trump warnings spook America
Could a second Donald Trump presidency slide into dictatorship? A sudden spate of dystopian warnings has got America talking about the possibility less than a year before the US elections. Dark scenarios about what could happen if the twice-impeached Republican former president wins in 2024 have appeared in the space of a few days in major US media outlets that include The Washington Post, The New York Times and the Atlantic.
Grim predictions also came from top Republican Trump critic Liz Cheney, who said that the country is "sleepwalking into dictatorship" and that she is weighing a third-party presidential run of her own to try to stop him.Together, they paint a bleak picture of an angrier yet more disciplined Trump than during his first spell in the White House, one who would wreak vengeance on his perceived enemies and possibly try to stay in power beyond the two-term US limit.
Trump, 77, responded to the warnings in typical style by laughing them off -- with an edge. "He says, you're not going to be a dictator, are you? I said no, no, no -- other than day one," Trump said when asked in a televised Fox News town hall on Tuesday if he would abuse power or seek retribution.
The most eye-opening piece appeared in The Washington Post by conservative commentator Robert Kagan, with the headline: "A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending." Kagan wrote that if Trump survives the trials he faces over trying to upend the 2020 election and cling to power illegally, and wins the next election, he will in effect feel he is above the law and can get away with anything.
https://news.yahoo.com/dictator-trump-warnings-spook-america-013521590.html
U.S. Record-Breaking Oil Output One More Blow to OPEC
Record crude oil production in the United States is serving a fresh blow to oil bulls and OPEC, just as the cartel was trying to push benchmarks higher by adopting deeper production cuts. The EIA reported last week that average daily production in September had remained unchanged from August when it hit the record-high rate of 13.24 million barrels.
This is happening despite cost inflation and lower international oil prices. And U.S. shale drillers have no plans to drill less. The situation is perhaps worryingly similar to 2014-2016 when oil prices took a dive, falling by 70% when the Saudi-led OPEC hit back at U.S. shale by boosting production to tank prices and sink as many U.S. producers as possible.
At the same time, however, the situation is markedly different in several ways. U.S. producers have consolidated and this has made many more resilient to price wars. At the same time, Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies are probably more risk-averse than they were back in 2014. That oil price crisis prompted Gulf governments to adopt austerity measures for probably the first time in their history. They did not like it.
One analyst has already suggested that the Saudis’ only move in the current situation is to open the taps and try to kill U.S. shale all over again. However, this is a sort of a nuclear option that would hurt Saudi Arabia and its OPEC friends as well. But they do have another option: keep cutting.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/US-Record-Breaking-Oil-Output-One-More-Blow-to-OPEC.html
Record U.S. oil production is pushing prices down
https://www.axios.com/2023/12/05/us-oil-production-record
Cornel West is having campaign problems and is very unlikely to be on the ballot in 2024
Joe Biden and Donald Trump probably won't be the only high-profile candidates on presidential ballots in 2024 -- No Labels wants to run a candidate, Robert Kennedy Jr. will probably have the money to get himself on all or most ballots, and there'll be candidates from the Green and Libertarian parties. Pollsters have begun testing the impact of a multi-candidate race on the outcome, and they generally conclude that the minor-party candidates will take more votes away from Biden than from Trump.
One reason is that most of these pollsters are asking respondents about a field that includes Cornel West, who announced his presidential candidacy last June. He'd be unlikely to take votes away from Trump, though he'd surely take quite a few from Biden. But don't worry, because Cornel West probably won't be on your state ballot. He's too much of a fck-up.
West abandoned two political parties in the four months following the announcement of his candidacy -- first the People's Party, which he left after eleven days, then the Green Party. He now needs to get himself onto state ballots, with little money, no party infrastructure, and not much infrastructure of his own. NBC reports:
West has only about 10 staffers (his wife helps handle media requests). He has conducted no internal polling. He has held only one public campaign rally. His bank balance is two digits shorter than those of his rivals — he's raised hundreds of thousands so far while others have brought in tens of millions. And he’s sworn off outside help from a super PAC which could have helped make up the difference. So we're looking at Kanye West 2.0. Ye's 2020 presidential campaign qualified for ballot access in only 12 states, none of them swing states, and he received 67,906 votes, or 0.04% of the vote.
https://crooksandliars.com/2023/12/cornel-west-having-campaign-problems
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