The Return of Trump’s Big Lie
The Return of Trump’s Big Lie
Plus: Trump Supporters’ Weak Case Against Kicking Him Off the Ballot
Recently in The Bulwark:
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KIM WEHLE: The Return of Trump’s Big Lie.
ON TUESDAY, DONALD TRUMP’S LAWYERS filed his final brief in support of his attempt to convince a federal appeals court that he is absolutely immune from prosecution for actions that he took during his term in office, including any criminal actions relating to the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol. The lies packed into this brief should carry sanctions for the attorneys whose names appear on the front page.
Before digging into the heap of falsehoods, let’s get this out of the way: Trump’s “I-was-a-king” immunity argument is utterly unconvincing. The Constitution says nothing about presidential immunity (unlike immunity for members of Congress), but the Supreme Court has reasonably held that presidents cannot be routinely sued or prosecuted for good-faith decisions made in office, so it has erected a balancing test to protect official presidential acts.
WILL SALETAN: Nikki Haley and the Power of Cowardice.
CHRIS SUNUNU, THE GOVERNOR OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, has a message for Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey: Get out of the Republican presidential race.
Sununu wants Christie to step aside so that Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, can face Donald Trump one-on-one in the New Hampshire primary. But Christie has concerns about Haley. Last week, when Haley was asked at a New Hampshire town hall what had caused the Civil War, she didn’t mention slavery. Christie pounced on her non-answer, arguing that it was part of a broader character flaw: She often lacks the courage to tell uncomfortable truths.
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BILL LUEDERS: The End of Extreme Gerrymandering in Wisconsin?
WHATEVER ELSE YOU MIGHT SAY ABOUT IT, the reaction by Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Annette Ziegler to the recent ruling by the court’s new liberal majority, one that could cut deep into the dominance of Republicans in state legislative elections, does not lack passion.
“Today is the latest in a series of power grabs by this new rogue court of four, creating a pattern of illicit power aggregation which disrupts, if not destroys, stability in the law,” she fumed in her dissent to the 4–3 decision issued December 22. “No longer is the judicial branch the least dangerous in Wisconsin.”
KIM WEHLE: Trump Supporters’ Weak Case Against Kicking Him Off the Ballot.
ON TUESDAY, LAWYERS FOR Donald Trump filed a lawsuit in Maine asking that Secretary of State Shenna Bellows’s ruling disqualifying him from the presidential ballot be vacated and that his name be restored to the ballot. Lawyers representing both Trump and Bellows have asked the court to hear the case on an expedited basis.
Bellows’s December 28 ruling booting the former president from the ballot in Maine came nine days after Colorado did the same thing. In both cases, the decision was made on the grounds that Trump engaged in an insurrection after having taken an oath to support the Constitution and is accordingly disqualified under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. The main difference between what each state has done is that in Colorado the decision came from the Colorado Supreme Court while in Maine the decision was issued by the secretary of state, who is appointed by the state legislature.
🚨OVERTIME🚨
In local news… The “TikTok Tunnel Girl” has been forced to stop digging a tunnel under her home. (Seems to me she should have sought the permits before becoming famous?)
It’s a two walled thermos, you guys… I do not understand the Stanley cup craze.
2024 will tell us whether… the power of We the People endures in America, as the great Kim Wehle reflects on her visit to Rome. Sign up for her newsletter if you haven’t!
Paul Ryan’s two word answer… To what the hell is wrong with the GOP. I’d go a little further, of course, but Paul’s not one to turn on his friends who help make Trump and Trumpism continually possible, is he?
Happy anniversary! Elon Musk set fire to Twitter a year ago. Now those fires are threatening his empire, writes Max Burns.
The Mike Fanone takeover… Of Courage for America’s Twitter account, to “raise awareness about MAGA extremism in 2024, January 6th, and the Big Lie Bill.”
Jesse Watters is having a rough week. I guess this is what happens when you bring a literal tarot card reader on your show to talk about the future. Oh, and then there’s this beef with Dan Crenshaw, who is definitely not at all like Jesse Watters.
Haley’s slavery non-answer… Continues to dog her campaign, even on Fox.
Meanwhile, in the “Free State of Florida™…” The Surgeon General has discouraged the use of mRNA vaccines. The FDA has other thoughts. (Flashback: University of Florida turns against Joe Ladapo)
Not a parody… The FL GOP sold a “pervert” quote mug with a sound byte from their embattled chairman.
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