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Post by Webster on Aug 3, 2023 17:44:35 GMT -5
(The Guardian) In his response to the indictment on Tuesday, Donald Trump’s statement described it as a “pathetic attempt by the Biden Crime Family and their weaponized Department of Justice to interfere with the 2024 Presidential Election”. “Biden Crime Family” has become the latest epithet that Donald Trump drops into his statements in the hope that it will be picked up and amplified by his followers. The former president has a knack for pithy phrases and nicknames which become shortcuts and memes for his fans – think rallies chanting “Lock her up” about opponent “Crooked Hillary” Clinton in the 2016 election or Trump dubbing his opponent “sleepy Joe” in 2020. It isn’t just those in the Democratic party who have been on the receiving end. He has labelled his Florida governor opponent for the 2024 nomination “Ron DeSanctimonious” and Ted Cruz earned the Trump name “Lyin’ Ted”. “Biden Crime Family” isn’t an original Trump phrase though, but one that has been floating around Republican circles for some time. In fact only a week ago Jill Biden’s first husband was using the phrase in a New York Post interview about his experience of dealing with the president and his wife after the split. The “crime family” name derives from a continued Republican fascination with the legal worries of Biden’s son Hunter, who has pleaded not guilty to tax and gun charges. Overseas dealings involving the Biden family have been subject to a House Oversight Committee investigation, which is yet to report any wrongdoing.
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Post by Webster on Aug 3, 2023 17:54:25 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Biotech entrepeneur and GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy appeared outside the federal courthouse in Washington in an attempt to boost his visibility. In a video posted to Twitter, Ramaswamy questioned why Trump has been indicted in three “supposedly independent prosecutions” in the midst of a presidential election. “The government does not trust the people to select their leaders,” he said.
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Post by Webster on Aug 3, 2023 17:56:13 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Mike Pence has hit back at the “gaggle of crackpot lawyers” that worked with Donald Trump to allegedly attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. The Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt reports: Trump was charged with four felonies this week over his attempts to meddle with the presidential election. The 45-page indictment shows that Pence was a crucial figure in Jack Smith, the special counsel, being able to bring those charges.
“Contemporaneous notes” taken by Pence, and referred to in the indictment, document how Trump and his advisors pressured Pence to reject the certification of the election in January, which could have resulted in the House of Representatives handing Trump a second-term in office.
On Wednesday, as Trump and his legal team attempted to downplay those efforts – one of Trump’s lawyers suggested that they only asked Pence to do “pause the voting” on January 6 – the usually meek Pence reacted angrily.
“Let’s be clear on this point. It wasn’t just that they asked for a pause,” he told Fox News. “The president specifically asked me, and his gaggle of crackpot lawyers asked me, to literally reject votes, which would have resulted in the issue being turned over to the House of Representatives, and literally chaos would have ensued.”
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Post by Webster on Aug 3, 2023 17:59:29 GMT -5
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Post by Webster on Aug 3, 2023 18:01:02 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Nearly 70% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents believe that President Joe Biden’s 2020 election win was not legitimate, according to new polling by CNN. The poll, conducted ahead of Trump’s latest indictment, found that the number of Republicans and Republican-leaners who say Biden’s election win was not legitimate has increased from earlier this year. Overall, 61% of Americans said Biden legitimately won the 2020 presidential election, and 38% believe he did not, according to the poll. There is no evidence of fraud that would have changed the outcome of the election.
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Post by Webster on Aug 3, 2023 18:02:22 GMT -5
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Post by Webster on Aug 4, 2023 14:50:08 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Biden cheers employment data despite signs of labor market weaknessJoe Biden has issued an upbeat statement on the jobs data the labor department released this morning, even though the report brought hints that hiring and employment may be slowing down. The president is counting on a strong economy to propel him to a second term in office in next year’s presidential election, and data has lately broken his way, with inflation dropping and hiring remaining resilient even as the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates to cut into the wave of price increases that began shortly after Biden took office. But today’s jobs report contained signs that hot streak may be ending. As the Guardian’s Lauren Aratani reported, the past two months saw the weakest employment gains in the past two-and-a-half years: US employers added 187,000 jobs in July, less than expected and a sign that the labor market is cooling after a series of interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve have driven rates to their highest level in 22 years.
The jobs market has continued to add at least 200,000 new jobs each month this year, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). But that compares to an average monthly gain of 400,000 in 2022.
July’s gains were just 2,000 more than the jobs added in June. The BLS revised June’s job gain down to 185,000, a cut of 24,000 jobs. It also cut May’s jobs number. Together, June and July represent the two weakest monthly gains in two and a half years.
While the jobs market remains robust, July’s gains represent a considerable dip compared to January of this year, when 472,000 jobs were added. The unemployment rate has remained stable at 3.5%, the same rate seen in June and close to the historically low rates seen before 2020. Healthcare and social assistance accounted for the most new positions in July, adding 87,000 new jobs. The government added 15,000 new jobs.Biden nonetheless struck an upbeat tone in a statement released by the White House: Unemployment near a record low and the share of working age Americans who have jobs at a 20-year high: that’s Bidenomics. Our economy added 187,000 jobs last month, and we’ve added 13.4 million jobs since I took office -- more jobs added in two and a half years than during any president’s four-year term. The unemployment rate is 3.5%, marking a full year and half below 4%. This follows recent news that our economy continues to grow, while inflation has fallen by nearly two thirds and is at its lowest level in more than two years. We’re growing the economy from the middle out and bottom up, lowering costs for hardworking families, and making smart investments in America.
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Post by Webster on Aug 4, 2023 14:53:53 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Trump calls on supreme court to 'intercede' in his criminal casesA day after pleading not guilty to federal charges related to special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the January 6 insurrection, Donald Trump is calling on the US supreme court to intercede in the legal battles he is facing. Trump, in a Truth Social post earlier today, repeated accusations that the legal troubles he brought upon himself amount to “election interference” from President Joe Biden. He said Biden “hit me with a barrage of weak lawsuits” that will “require massive amounts of my time [and] money to adjudicate”, resources that he claimed would have been used for advertising and rallies. Trump added: I am leading in all Polls, including against Crooked Joe, but this is not a level playing field. It is Election Interference, & the Supreme Court must intercede. MAGA!Mounting legal fees have forced Trump to drain his campaign’s financial resources ahead of the GOP primary season. In filings with the Federal Election Commission FEC) on Monday, Trump’s political action committee, Save America, said that at the end of June it had less than $4m cash on hand, having paid tens of millions of dollars in legal fees for the former president and associates.
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Post by Webster on Aug 4, 2023 14:55:23 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Ron DeSantis is having a rough go of his presidential campaign. His solution? “Start slitting throats”, as the Guardian Martin Pengelly reports: Rightwing Florida governor and 2024 presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis was widely condemned after he said that if elected to the White House, he would “start slitting throats” in the federal bureaucracy on his first day in power.
The president of the National Treasury Employees Union, Tony Reardon, called the hardline Republican’s comment “repulsive and unworthy of the presidential campaign trail”.
The president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), Everett Kelly, said: “Governor DeSantis’ threat to ‘start slitting throats’ of federal employees is dangerous, disgusting, disgraceful and disqualifying.”
Among commentators, the columnist Max Boot called DeSantis’s words “deranged” while Bill Kristol, founder of the Bulwark, a conservative site, said the governor was “making a bold play to dominate the maniacal psychopath lane in the Republican primary”.
DeSantis is a clear second in the Republican primary but more than 30 points behind Donald Trump in most averages, notwithstanding the former president’s proliferating legal jeopardy including 78 criminal charges.
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Post by Webster on Aug 4, 2023 22:57:33 GMT -5
(Breitbart) Robert Bigelow, the biggest individual donor supporting the presidential campaign of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), told Reuters he would not be donating any more money unless DeSantis makes a more moderate shift and attracts new major donors. Bigelow is DeSantis’s biggest donor by a longshot. The Bigelow Aerospace founder donated $20 million to the pro-DeSantis Never Back Down PAC in March. The next closest donor is venture capitalist Douglas Leone, who donated $2 million, a tenth of Bigelow’s contribution. “He does need to shift to get to moderates. He’ll lose if he doesn’t … Extremism isn’t going to get you elected,” Bigelow told Reuters on Friday. Bigelow specifically cited Florida’s six-week abortion restriction as a policy he feels is too extreme. Bigelow told Reuters he is pausing any donations to DeSantis at the moment, lamenting that his contribution is “too big a percentage.” “Not until I see that he’s able to generate more on his own. I’m already too big a percentage,” Bigelow told Reuters. Bigelow also said, “a lot of his donors are still on the fence.” Bigelow did not provide an exact fundraising number he was looking for but said, “it’s going to be a lot.” Bigelow’s concern with DeSantis’s campaign comes as he hits a new low in polling. This week’s Morning Consult survey found that DeSantis has just 15 percent support among Republican primary voters. On the other hand, former President Donald Trump has a 43-point advantage over DeSantis, coming in at 58 percent support. Bigelow is not the only donor concerned with DeSantis’s performance in the polls and electability. Republican donor Andy Sabin “soured on DeSantis and threw his support behind Senator Tim Scott in part due to the abortion issue,” Reuters reported. As Breitbart News detailed: Republican megadonor Ken Griffin is also reconsidering his support for DeSantis after previously claiming, “our country would be well-served by him as president,” months before DeSantis launched his campaign.
Griffin is one of several donors who supported DeSantis’s gubernatorial campaigns but are shying away from contributing to his presidential campaign. Former Marvel chairman Ike Perlmutter — who donated, with his wife, over $2 million to DeSantis’s gubernatorial reelection campaign — is planning to support Trump’s third White House bid with a “meaningful” contribution, CNBC reported. Billionaire Ronald Lauder, who donated more than $200,000 to DeSantis’s gubernatorial campaigns, is now considering throwing his financial support to Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), Politico reported.The DeSantis campaign has been shrouded in controversy recently after Florida’s new education standards that purport to teach students about the “personal benefit” enslaved Americans received under slavery. Further, the campaign made an interview video that featured a Nazi symbol. The campaign laid off 38 staffers in recent weeks as part of the “aggressive steps” to “streamline operations.” A confidential campaign memo leaked last month revealed DeSantis’s plans to focus on early primate states like Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. DeSantis campaign spokesperson Bryan Griffin told Reuters they were “grateful” to supporters and donors who gave them “the capacity to compete for the long haul,” but did not directly address Bigelow’s comments. Despite the pause on donations, Bigelow still believes DeSantis is “the best guy for the country.” Bigelow reportedly addressed his concerns with campaign manager Generra Peck, urging her that DeSantis needs to make a more moderate shift to have a chance. “There was a long period of silence where I thought maybe she had passed out,” Bigelow said of Peck’s reaction. “But I think she took it all in,” Bigelow added, calling Peck a “very good campaign manager.”
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Post by Webster on Aug 5, 2023 20:56:19 GMT -5
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Post by Webster on Aug 7, 2023 12:04:09 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Speaking of Republican presidential candidates, NBC News scored a sit-down interview with Florida governor Ron DeSantis, and got him to again say that his chief rival Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. DeSantis, whose campaign for the White House is in troubled waters, had been vague on the issue until last week, when he started saying publicly that he did not believe the former president’s false claims about his election loss. Here he is saying it again, on NBC:
Donald Trump’s team has clearly been paying attention to Ron DeSantis’s NBC News interview, with a spokeswoman attacking the Florida governor for his comments dismissing the ex-president’s false claims about his 2020 election loss:
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Post by Webster on Aug 8, 2023 13:46:15 GMT -5
(The Guardian) DeSantis replaces top manager in effort to shore up flailing campaign - report Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s once-promising campaign for the Republican presidential nomination is not looking so hot, and today, The Messenger reports he will replace a top staffer with a veteran from his administration. From The Messenger’s exclusive: In his third staff shakeup in less than a month, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis replaced his embattled presidential campaign manager with one of his most trusted, and most conservative, advisers: his gubernatorial office’s chief of staff, James Uthmeier.
Outgoing campaign manager Generra Peck will remain as chief strategist on the campaign as part of the restructuring. Peck guided DeSantis’s blowout reelection bid last year, but she quickly became the subject of criticism from DeSantis advisers and donors in mid-July after his presidential campaign stalled and money dried up.
The campaign then twice cut staff and expenses and retooled DeSantis’s press strategy to make him more available to the mainstream media.
But donors and some outside advisers weren’t satisfied, leading DeSantis last week to ask Uthmeier to diagnose problems with the campaign and see if he could fix them. Ultimately, it led the governor to ask Uthmeier to take the job.
Uthmeier shies away from calling the reshuffling a “reboot.” It’s a despised word in the campaign, where advisers prefer to call this the last campaign “reload” — and say they’re going to win, despite the naysayers and early polling.
“People have written Governor DeSantis’s obituary many times,” Uthmeier said in a written statement to The Messenger. “From his race against establishment primary candidate Adam Putnam, to his victory over legacy media-favored candidate Andrew Gillum [in 2018], to his twenty point win over Charlie Crist [in 2022], Governor DeSantis has proven that he knows how to win. He’s breaking records on fundraising and has a supporting super PAC with $100 million in the bank and an incredible ground game. Get ready.”
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Post by Webster on Aug 8, 2023 13:51:27 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Biden moves to protect Grand Canyon from uranium miningJoe Biden is spending today in Arizona, where at 2pm eastern time he will announce that he is designating about one million acres around the Grand Canyon as a national monument, which will also protect it from uranium mining. The Guardian’s Maanvi Singh and Mary Yang have more: Joe Biden will designate a “nearly 1m acres” expanse around the Grand Canyon as a new national monument, protecting the region from future uranium mining.
The designation, which Biden is expected to announce on Tuesday comes after years-long lobbying by tribal leaders and local environmentalists to block mining projects that they say would damage the Colorado River watershed and important cultural sites.
The new Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni Grand Canyon national monument encompasses the headwaters of the Colorado River, as well as the habitat of the endangered California condor. It is also the homeland of several tribes. Baaj Nwaavjo means “where tribes roam” for the Havasupai tribe and I’tah Kukveni means “our footprints” for the Hopi tribe. “Establishing the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument honors our solemn promise to Tribal Nations to respect sovereignty, preserves America’s iconic landscapes for future generations, and advances my commitment to protect and conserve at least 30% of our nation’s land and waters by 2030,” Biden said in a statement.
In 2012, the Obama administration had blocked new mining on federal land in the area – but the protections are due to expire by 2023. The new designation would protect the area in perpetuity. Mining industry officials have said they will attempt to challenge the decision.
Congress has been exploring new laws to boost national uranium production and enrichment, in an effort to reduce the US’s dependence on Russian imports.
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Post by Webster on Aug 10, 2023 14:18:25 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Trump says he won't sign loyalty pledge ahead of first GOP debateDonald Trump said he will not sign the loyalty pledge required by the Republican national committee (RNC) for candidates to participate in the first GOP primary debate this month. Trump, in a Newsmax interview on Wednesday, said: I wouldn’t sign the pledge. Why would I sign a pledge if there are people on there that I wouldn’t have. I wouldn’t have certain people as somebody that I would endorse.He declined to specify which candidates he would not support, but he said he “can name three or four people that I wouldn’t support for president”. Trump specifically criticized Florida governor Ron DeSantis, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson during the course of the interview. Trump said he would announce next week whether he will attend the 23 August debate in Milwaukee. The RNC has said candidates must sign a pledge stating that they will support the eventual party nominee in 2024, in order to participate in the primary debate. The former president has repeatedly indicated that he may skip the debate but on Wednesday said he had not “totally ruled it out”. “I’ve actually gotten very good marks on debating talents,” he said.
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