My wife and I went back to Jay Cooke State Park for a second day, this time to hike trails south of the Saint Louis River, rather than north of it like we’d done the day before. The trails to the south are not as well maintained or marked as those to the north of it, perhaps in part because the park rangers’ all-terrain vehicles are too wide to get across the rather narrow swing bridge.
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Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:
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Politics:
Trump Can’t Win the New York Fraud Case Against Him
Trump, his son Eric, and others took the Fifth hundreds of times and they can expect James and her team to throw that back in their faces to prove their case. All of the other evidence is just supporting corroboration. The testimony of Trump and his family — or lack thereof — is the centerpiece.
It is never easy to fight the attorney general of your state when she really wants to go after you. But Trump is overextended here because he is fighting a multi-front war. I frequently represent people and companies that are facing criminal and civil liability in different forums. Fighting on multiple fronts is hard and involves trade-offs.
If I were Trump’s lawyer, I would have settled this case in its infancy. He delayed and dragged it out, just as he delayed and dragged on multiple criminal investigations for years. Trump might think it benefits him politically to claim James’ is part of the vast ‘witch hunt’ (he has certainly fundraised well off of the recent investigations) but he will likely pay a legal price if he attempts to drag this out further. James hasn’t accepted a settlement yet. Eventually she will, and the price she extracts will be a doozy.
Trump: I could declassify documents by thinking about it
Stark. Raving. Mad.
Republicans Continue to Double Down
Trump is never, ever playing three-dimensional chess; he’s always just sticking pieces up his nose to see how they’ll taste. So maybe the better question is, why has it taken Trump so long to endorse QAnon?
Perhaps the same could be said for the Republican Party, which has never been able to quit Trump despite an armed insurrection and his continual assault on democracy and democratic norms. Both Trump and the Republican Party appear unable or unwilling to reject radicalization of any kind. Time will tell whether this will hurt their political prospects, but it’s terrible for everyone else.
Threatening Nukes, Moscow Stages Phony Referendums in Occupied Ukraine
Russian Panic Spirals With Arson Attacks, Street Fights, and Manhunts
Russians flee to border after military call-up
The Third Rail Republicans Keep Touching
For two decades, campaign after campaign, Republican politicians have floated the idea of privatizing government entitlement programs including Social Security and Medicare. And campaign after campaign — from Paul Ryan to George W. Bush — it’s been a loser.
But for some reason, they keep trying. The latest is Don Bolduc, New Hampshire’s GOP Senate nominee, who advocated privatizing Medicare during a campaign town hall in early August.
Possibly wishful thinking: It’s a scary time in America — but know this: Donald Trump is finished
Trump’s legal woes mount without protection of presidency
Stark repudiation by federal judges he appointed. Far-reaching fraud allegations by New York’s attorney general. It’s been a week of widening legal troubles for Donald Trump, laying bare the challenges piling up as the former president operates without the protections afforded by the White House.
The bravado that served him well in the political arena is less handy in a legal realm dominated by verifiable evidence, where judges this week have looked askance at his claims and where a fraud investigation that took root when Trump was still president burst into public view in an allegation-filled 222-page state lawsuit.
Even Mainstream Republicans Are Pretty Extreme
The US House of Representatives on Wednesday passed its updated version of the Electoral Count Act, the archaic and loophole-filled law governing how Congress certifies presidential elections. The Senate has yet to act on its own version, which is similar, but with 10 co-sponsors from each party, it appears to be well on its way to passage, and there’s every possibility that a reconciled bill will be signed into law later this year.
So much for the good news. The less good news is what the House passage of the bill — on close to a party-line vote, with only nine Republicans joining all Democrats — says about the state of the Republican Party. As it turns out, when it comes to defending democracy, so-called mainstream Republicans may not be so different from extremist Republicans.
Serendipity:
Further evidence that some people can be remarkably stupid: Please don’t cook chicken in NyQuil, the FDA asks TikTok users
