Connect with us
https://tickernews.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/AmEx-Thought-Leaders.jpg

Ticker Views

Interrupting coverage of the war | ticker VIEWS

Published

on

… To bring you these under-the-radar political notes from the US

The extraordinarily tragic war in Ukraine has side-lined political news out of Washington and the US. 

Here are a few items worth paying attention to in these very confronting times:

  • Virginia Thomas, wife of US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and a forceful conservative political activist in her own right, was in direct touch with Mark Meadows, White house Chief of Staff, throughout President Trump’s campaign to overturn the 2020 presidential election.  
Virginia Thomas

The text messages were included in Meadows’ provision of his phone records to the House Select Committee on the January 6 insurrection. 

Meadows cooperated for a time with the Select Committee, and then ceased providing materials of record.  Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, who co-wrote PERIL on Trump’s last year in office, broke the story for the Washington Post:

“Virginia Thomas, a conservative activist married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, repeatedly pressed White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to pursue unrelenting efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in a series of urgent text exchanges in the critical weeks after the vote, according to copies of the messages obtained by The Washington Post and CBS News.

The messages — 29 in all — reveal an extraordinary pipeline

Between Virginia Thomas, who goes by Ginni, and President Donald Trump’s top aide during a period when Trump and his allies were vowing to go to the Supreme Court in an effort to negate the election results.

On Nov. 10, after news organizations had projected Joe Biden the winner based on state vote totals, Thomas wrote to Meadows: “Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!…You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.”

Ms Thomas has every right to speak her mind on any issue.  But these texts reveal she was a player in advising Meadows on Trumps strategy to “stop the steal.” 

Those machinations would find their way to the Supreme Court, where her husband would – and did – rule on Trump lawsuits to throw out the election.  Justice Thomas did not recuse himself from those cases.

What to watch for:

Will the House Committee subpoena Ms Thomas to testify on what she did and whether she worked with her husband?  Will Justice Thomas take unilateral steps to recuse himself from any further participation in Trump-related cases before the Supreme Court? Public hearings on all the Select Committee’s work will occur in the next few weeks.  They will be explosive.

  • Trump dumps Brooks.  President Trump has endorsed dozens of Republican candidates for House and Senate races in the upcoming midterm elections.  
Trump dumps Brooks.

If Trump-backed candidates win, and if Republicans take control of the House or Senate or both, Trump will claim credit for the Republican wave and further boost his prospects for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Rep. Mel Brooks of Alabama was a huge Trump backer.  He appeared onstage at the rally January 6 that helped incite the Trump mob to attack the Capitol. Trump endorsed Brooks for his run at the open Senate seat in Alabama.  But Brooks has been polling badly, and Trump pulled his endorsement last week.  Brooks is angry, and went public on what Trump expected him to do in return for the endorsement:

“President Trump asked me to rescind the 2020 elections, immediately remove Joe Biden from the White House, immediately put President Trump back in the White House, and hold a new special election for the presidency. As a lawyer, I’ve repeatedly advised President Trump that January 6 was the final election contest verdict and neither the U.S. Constitution nor the U.S. Code permit what President Trump asks. Period.”

What to watch for:

This is shocking stuff.  First, the only way Biden can be removed as president is by impeachment, and that will not happen. 

Second, there is no way that Brooks or anyone else can put Trump back into the White House – only the American people can do that.  Third, there are no “special elections” in the United States for the presidency.  What this episode shows is how Trump is increasingly fixated on 2020, more than he is in looking beyond the 2024 election – and this obsession of Trump’s is becoming a bigger issue for many rank-and-file Republicans.

  • Republicans look very strong heading into the midterms.  New polling shows growing Republican support in 77 key swing districts across the country.  They need a net gain of only five seats to take control of the House.

Politico is reporting:

Republicans lead the generic ballot by 4 points. Biden won these battleground seats by an average of 5.5 points.  In these districts, 75% of swing voters say Democrats are “out of touch” or “condescending.” About two-thirds say Democrats are spending too much money in Washington.  Biden’s net approval rating in these districts is -15. About 40% of voters in these seats approve of the job Biden is doing as president, while 55% disapprove. Among independent voters, his net approval is -32 — a 34-point swing since February 2021 from a group that often dictates which party holds the House majority. And among Hispanic voters, his net approval is -10, a drop of 31 points in the same time frame. Economic concerns substantially advantage the GOP. Voters who identified jobs/the economy as their No. 1 concern favor Republicans by 20 points on the generic ballot. Among those who put “cost of living” at the top, Republicans are at a 24-point advantage. 

What to watch for

Continuing Republican pressure on what they believe are the killer issues for them in November:  inflation, gasoline prices, crime in the cities, immigration at the southern border, what woke progressives are teaching children in schools, especially on racial issues, transgender sports, new laws to restrict abortion.  Republicans firmly believe these hot button issues will drive their voters to the polls – and President Biden’s approval remains well under 50%.

  • She’s baaack?!  Don Young, Alaska’s solo member of the House of Representatives and the longest-serving member of the current House (elected 1973), died last week at 88.  His seat will be filled in the November election.
Don Young

It looks like Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor who was John McCain’s incendiary vice-presidential running mate in 2008, and who famously said she could see Russia from her backyard, is positioning to run.  Here’s what she told Sean Hannity on Fox last week:

“I’m going to throw my hat in the ring because we need people that have cajones. We need people like Donald Trump who has nothing to lose like me. We got nothing to lose and no more of this vanilla milquetoast namby-pamby wussy pussy stuff”

Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor

What to watch for

Whether her pre-formal-entry stunting is enough to scare off other challengers and whether she still has strong appeal in the state.  The special election is likely to be held well before November.

Which is a good note on which to bring this special edition to a close.

Bruce Wolpe is a Ticker News US political contributor. He’s a Senior Fellow at the US Studies Centre and has worked with Democrats in Congress during President Barack Obama's first term, and on the staff of Prime Minister Julia Gillard. He has also served as the former PM's chief of staff.

Continue Reading

Tech

Ticker News is available on podcast apps and iHeartRadio

Published

on

Ticker is available on podcast apps, allowing you to hear the latest news, plus special programs.

 

Ticker is available as a podcast and a 24/7 radio channel on iHeartRadio.

You can catch up on the latest news, or programs devoted to special topics including U.S. politics and our Original documentaries.

Ticker CEO Ahron Young says:

“Ticker always puts the story first and we aim to make Ticker content available however our audience wants to enjoy it.”

“We are putting significant resources into Ticker content to make sure we get to the heart of the stories we cover.”

Every day, you can catch up on our news programs from Ticker News, as well as our special documentary programs.

Ticker News podcasts are available daily on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts. Just search TICKER NEWS to subscribe.

How to listen

APPLE PODCAST – https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/ticker-news/id1632145760

SPOTIFY – https://open.spotify.com/show/3iidnXUXPDVWG2QMEhN0Kt?si=e2e195a8ee584fa6

Listen here on iHeartRadio:

Continue Reading

News

Trump’s campaign tactic – debase and disgrace the legal process

Published

on

Donald Trump, former president of the United States, hated Arraignment Day I in Manhattan two months ago, the first time a former president had been criminally charged. 

Trump was being forced against his will into a proceeding he had utter contempt for.  He was being arrested and fingerprinted and photographed under an indictment under the jurisdiction of Manhattan in New York City for allegations of hush money payments and fraudulent bookkeeping practices to conceal criminal activity. Trump heard the charges read out against him and he entered a plea of not guilty.

Trump had a terrible day. Trump wore a scowl throughout. His countenance was fearsome.  What Trump hated most about his arraignment in New York is that he had to sit at a table with his counsel side by side with him — equal to him — and with the judge above him looking down on him. Trump could not control the discussion and could not interrupt to make his points.

Trump was subordinate to the judge. He was subordinate to no one as president.

Arraignment Day II

Arraignment Day II in Miami will be worse from Trump, even more stressful.  The charges are substantially more serious:  the alleged violation of federal criminal statutes involving the alleged mishandling and illegal possession of classified documents, lying to legal authorities, and obstruction of justice.  Potential penalties run to years in prison and millions of dollars in fines.

Trump throughout his business life had always crafted his affairs to avoid being a defendant. But in his term in office, he was caught up in it big time. He was a defendant in two impeachment trials – again, unprecedented events – and left office in disgrace.

But Trump does not feel disgraced. He never does.  Trump does not have a reverse gear.  He never retreats.  Never admits. Never concedes. Never yields.  Trump is never embarrassed. Trump never feels ashamed. When something goes wrong, it is always the fault of someone else.

And Trump never repents.

Trump can feel this way because Trump is waging war on behalf of his armies in “the final battle” for the future of the county. In his first, fiery post-indictment speech in Georgia, Trump said, “They’ve launched one witch hunt after another to try and stop our movement, to thwart the will of the American people.  In the end, they’re not coming after me. They’re coming after you … “Either we have a Deep State, or we have a Democracy…Either the Deep State destroys America, or WE destroy the Deep State.”

It is a powerful formulation, and his true believers love it.

Hours later, In North Carolina, Trump mainlined his distilled message for the Republican crowd:

“We are a failing nation. We are a nation in decline. And now these radical left lunatics want to interfere with our elections by using law enforcement.

It’s totally corrupt and we cannot let it happen.

This is the final battle.

With you at my side we will demolish the Deep State.

We will expel the warmongers from our government.

We will drive out the globalists.

We will cast out the communists.

We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country.

We will roll out the fake news media.

We will defeat Joe Bide and we will liberate America from those villains once and for all.”

Any lesser mortal would be staggered by these events.  Any other presidential candidate would be driven from the race.  But not Trump.

Debase and disgrace

Trump is using the same playbook today as he successfully triggered after being charged in New York:  debase and disgrace the legal process by terming it completely political.  Trump said the federal indictment is “election interference at the highest level.”

Almost every other Republican running for president has adopted this line, insulating Trump from pressure to leave the field.

Trump’s chief opponent, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said after these indictments: “The weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society. We have for years witnessed an uneven application of the law depending upon political affiliation.”

Republican congressperson Nancy Mace: “This is a banana republic. I can’t believe this is happening.” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene: “Democrats are arresting their political enemies. and they work together in their corrupt ways to get it done.”

Trump is using his affliction to raise millions of dollars from his base.

Trump will likely face Arraignment Day III in Georgia in August.  A state prosecutor is expected to charge Trump with criminal interference in the certification of Georgia’s vote for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

As of now, there is no sign of cracks in Trump’s support among Republican voters.  There is no surge to another candidate.  What remains to be seen is whether Republican voters, as they see Trump spend his days in courtrooms and his evenings at rallies around the country, reach a conclusion that this is a spectacle too far, too much to bear, and that they want to turn to another conservative populist who stands for them in the political trials— and not the criminal trials – of 2024.

Continue Reading

News

Donald Trump’s legal woes will serve him well

Published

on

It’s not often that a U.S. President faces federal indictment, but if it’s going to happen to anyone, it might as well be Donald Trump first.

The news that Donald Trump is facing a federal investigation over the removal of secret documents from the White House in 2021 came as no surprise.

Keen watches of the Washington soap opera have seen this playbook before, albeit in a different form.

There is no doubt that Donald Trump is a Washington outsider. But as seriously damaged as he may be (thanks to the events of January 6), his support base has only grown whenever he faces scrutiny.

For his supporters, his legal woes mirror their own relationship with the government – a giant, unfair beast that picks and chooses its fights.

Trump is accused of storing sensitive documents—including those concerning matters of national security—in boxes, some even in a shower.

The documents were seized last August when investigators from the FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago.

The Department of Justice has historically avoided charging people who are running for public office. Whether they should do that is a debate for another day. But it’s happening now. And it’s making it all too easy for Trump to claim there is a concerted campaign to get him away from the White House.

Trump exposed the deep state. IF they exist, they probably don’t want him back in power. Whether they exist doesn’t matter really, because plenty of Trump’s supporters agree with him, and believe the secret state is working against them. Call it QAnon, call it a conspiracy – it doesn’t matter in a democracy.

The DoJ now has to go all in. Failing to secure a conviction would be a serious embarrassment for the department.

This is the second time Trump has been indicted in recent months, yet the opinion polls show he only increases his popularity among MAGA and Republican voters. It leaves the Republican party in a difficult position. Support their leading candidate or support the law?

As other Republicans rallied around the embattled candidate, Trump held on to his loyal base of supporters.

For the Democrats, and for Biden, another reality will soon sink in – if Trump becomes President, and they lose office next year, how will a Trump-run DoJ deal with them?

Broadly, the tit-for-tat one-up-manship of U.S. politics is breaking tradition and potentially breaking the country.

 

Continue Reading
Live Watch Ticker News Live
Advertisement

Trending Now

Copyright © 2024 The Ticker Company