What Trump needs to understand about criticizing DeSantis

Salon

 American Thinker  "New York City District Attorney Alvin Bragg is rumored to be ready to bring a sham indictment against former president Donald Trump for allegedly paying porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign to be quiet about a former affair.  As of this writing, whether or not this happens remains to be seen.  In the interim, political figures across the spectrum have weighed in on the matter, including Florida governor Ron DeSantis.

"Behaving eerily like leftist thought police, some staunch Trump-supporters had demanded that Governor DeSantis voice his unequivocal and unquestioning support for the former president.  DeSantis did respond to inquiring reporters and spent almost three minutes (start at 22:30) defending Trump and knocking Bragg for using a seven-year-old non-crime to push a political vendetta against a former president.  Of those three minutes, he spent nine seconds subtly digging at the impropriety of Trump's extramarital proclivities.  To the extent that he attacked Trump, he simply restated the allegations against him, stating, "I don't know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair."

"DeSantis responded, but in a way that wasn't an exact carbon copy of how some Trumpists felt he should have.  Brianna Lyman of the Daily Caller thinks DeSantis "tanked" his 2024 chances.  Conservative think-tank cog Alex Bruesewitz accused DeSantis of "refusing to stand" with Trump.

"Refusing to stand with Trump?  Despite having "stood with" Trump for the near entirety of his response?  And this, despite the fact that Trump has launched unprovoked and libelous attacks at DeSantis for months?  I thought demanding unquestioned loyalty to mortal men was a tenet of totalitarian societies, not of self-described American conservatives. ". . .

Comment to this post:  Donald Henderson:  The real conflict here is not between DeSantis and Trump but instead the Republican Party and its grassroots. If Trump is brought up on Stalist charges yet again it is incumbent on the Republican Party to go full bar against the establishment. The Turtle, Mittens, and Bushes need to be openly challenged if they don’t support a very aggressive Republican Party defending trump. It is time for one voice and it is well past time for the Republican Party to step up.

First great nations forget God, then this happens

 First, that this kangaroo clown show indictment is being closely watched internationally, and the message being sent is that U.S. politics is starting to resemble the politics of a third world country... Monica Showalter

Mexico's president calls out Alvin Bragg, saying his indictment is a scheme to keep Trump off the ballot - American Thinker    "Whatever you think of Mexico's leftist president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, there's no disputing he knows every dirty trick in the third world playbook, having been on the receiving end of at least some of it.

"He's watching what's going on in the U.S. now, with Manhattan's "let-'em-all-out" district attorney, Alvin Bragg, seeking to indict President Trump on felony campaign finance charges, and smells the stench of 'banana republic' all over it.

"According to Newsweek:

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Tuesday defended Donald Trump, saying a potential indictment of the former president could be a move to prevent him from seeking reelection.

"Right now, former President Trump is declaring that they are going to arrest him," López Obrador, who is also known by his initials AMLO, said during a press conference. "If that were the case...it would be so that his name doesn't appear on the ballot."

"And it does have the stench of 'banana republic' all over it. A sudden epiphany of concern for rule of law, from a district attorney who let every crook out he could, is obviously about politics, not rule of law. Keeping Trump off the ballot is the obvious aim here and AMLO from abroad could see it from experience. 

"AMLO also pointed out that the U.S., which blew up the Nordstream II pipeline, had no business lecturing others on rule of law.".

Why a Trump Arrest Imperils the American Idea 

It always has been part of the American Oral Law that we do not take into custody or arraign our presidents or former presidents.

"Peril awaits the America I love if the 45th president of the United States is arrested or even “just” arraigned. When a former American president is targeted by the politically despicable woke, we all face disaster.". . .

 . . ."Two things I kept seeing on Monday, the eve of what might or might not be history being made in America (and not in a good way), tell me that we’re not as well-positioned on the right as we should be.". . .

Christian Who Escaped Chinese Persecution Warns US Descending Into 'Communist-Style of Governance'

 Christian Who Escaped Chinese Persecution Warns US Descending Into 'Communist-Style of Governance' (resistthemainstream.com)

“I saw the governor of California basically prescribe and order the church to shut down and say not only when they can worship, but how. The ways that he threatened to punish those churches and pastors sometimes were word-for-word exactly the same as what the CCP is using against the Chinese churches.”

"The leader of a watchdog group that monitors Christian persecution in China said he’s seeing echoes of the Chinese Community Party “playbook” in the U.S., and he’s worried it’ll get worse.

"Bob Fu, president of the U.S.-based non-governmental organization ChinaAid, said he’s seeing the same tactics in Western nations that the CCP uses to crack down on churches.

"The similarities are very, very striking between the Chinese Communist way of persecution and the American leftist way of restriction and even discrimination,” Fu told Fox News Digital.

"Fu said he has observed with concern how the left in the U.S. is increasingly exhibiting “dictatorial” attitudes both culturally and politically by censoring speech, enforcing “woke” culture and not tolerating dissent. He pinpointed the alleged political weaponziation of federal law enforcement agencies as a worrisome escalation of such trends.

“It is very shocking and horrible to see American society’s transformation evolving from its constitutional basis,” Fu said.". . .

Dinesh D'Souza: Here's Why I Think Tucker Carlson Stopped Airing Jan 6 Footage

First; Background: Posts from NBC attempt to make a strong case against Tucker's argument. But NBC has given us Joy Reid, Joe Scarborough, Ali Velshi and his report of "mostly peaceful" rioters the previous year. By showing their character with those people, it would take a major effort from me to side with them against Tucker and conservatives. TD

Virtually no one in Washington, Republican or Democrat, wanted to see this tape released tonight. pic.twitter.com/YfpvaIZTbn

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) March 7, 2023

Dinesh D'Souza :   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygg8Ed3kQQg

Juan del Barrio: "Thank you Dinesh. Yours is the best and, really, only explanation for Tucker's "about face" that I've heard to date. I'll never forget Chuck Schumer standing up there like a weasel and demanding that Tucker be silenced. Tucker's the only one on Fox News I actually trust but this damaged him a little. Now I'll never listen to another one of his pieces without wondering "What isn't he telling us?" You, on the other hand, were willing to be incarcerated for your beliefs and that puts you on an even higher rung than Tucker. Thank you for your service to this once great nation."

More questions than answers in the wake of Tucker Carlson's January 6 exposé - American Thinker  "John Dale Dunn's blog piece from March 11 titled "Tucker Carlson pulled his punches" was a little bit harsh.  A little bit.

"While I agree that it appeared that Tucker Carlson shifted from a fairly assertive open (on Monday) to a significantly less assertive set of shows throughout the balance of the week, he did hit a few nerves and caused an apoplectic response from the January 6 committee members, the Democrats, a handful of weak-kneed Republicans, and the plurality media.

"In his Monday open, Carlson expressed that neither the Capitol Hill Police nor Fox News executives or producers set any limits on his content.  After Monday's show, with Chuck Schumer demanding that Tucker's show be censored, it sure looked as though any further video was squelched in the crib.  Tucker Carlson should answer whether his producers demanded that he not air further content.". . .

Joe Biden Lies a Lot Even for a Democrat

  PJ Media

I don’t know about you, but I grab my wallet and check my bank accounts every time an elected Democrat starts caterwauling about “fairness.”

. . .We’re still reeling as a nation from the fact that the man who currently occupies the Oval Office has the mental capacity of a diminished gnat. If we’re being honest with each other — and we always are here — Joe Biden was never the sharpest tool in the shed. A lot of what we’ve been witnessing since Jan. 20, 2021, gets attributed to his age but Biden has always been a no-filter loon whose grip on reality is tenuous on his best days.

"And he’s always been a liar.

"Over the years, many — even conservatives — have called what Biden does “embellishment.” No, he’s a liar. The younger people who were duped into voting for him don’t know that his 1988 presidential run was derailed because it was found that he was a big-time plagiarist in college. That’s a sign of fundamental dishonesty, something that Biden has exhibited throughout his long, overrated career in Washington.

"When you’re the head honcho, that kind of thing rubs off on everyone. Yeah, the Democrats are truth-challenged all of the time, but this group is taking prevarication to new depths.

"Catherine wrote yesterday about Biden and Company’s latest trip down Blatant Falsehood Lane:. . ."

. . ."As Catherine mentioned, the Dems haven’t come to grips with the fact that they can’t lie with impunity on Twitter anymore and get away with it. What happened after Biden’s social media intern released that bit of nonsense into the wild shows why the lefties complain so much about the Elon Musk version of the social media giant:

The tweet now has a label that says, “Readers added context they thought people might want to know.” The fact-check included a link to a TaxFoundation.org 2023 update and the data, “This is incorrect. Avg income tax rate in 2020 was 13.6%. Top 1% of taxpayers paid a 25.99% avg rate, more than eight times higher than the 3.1% avg rate paid by the bottom half of taxpayers. It increased from 20.1%/2019 to 22.2%/2020.”

Tucker Carlson Breaks Down the Lawfare Constructed, Banana Republic, Persecution of Donald Trump, indictment Wednesday

The Last Refuge (theconservativetreehouse.com)  "For his opening monologue tonight, Fox News host Tucker Carlson breaks down the Manhattan case against President Trump as constructed by District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

"Carlson notes and contrasts recent -almost identical situations- involving former Democrat presidential candidate John Edwards, and later Hillary Clinton.  The legal merits of the campaign finance case are farcical on their face as admitted by the Federal Election Commission (FEC), previously litigated via legal precedent (John Edwards), and even Supreme Court interpretation (VA Gov Bob McDonnell).

"Additionally, even if there was a legal issue, there isn’t, the statute of limitations on the claimed infraction has expired.  Furthermore, and seemingly overlooked by most pundits opining on the issue, the legal issue Bragg is attempting to weaponize is a federal campaign finance issue, out of the jurisdiction of the Manhattan district attorney. So, what gives?

"Why would George Soros funded District Attorney Alvin Bragg proceed with a case that was structurally designed to fail on every aspect of the case?  The answer, ‘politics’, pure banana republic politics.  Tucker Carlson, explains…. WATCH:"

. . .

BREAKING: Trump Indictment Set for Wednesday, Will be Told to Surrender (trendingpoliticsnews.com)

NYPD is the largest police department in the country, with roughly 36,000 current officers and 19,000 civilian employees. This week’s memo suggests that all 36,000 officers are expected to be in uniform and on standby for deployment on Tuesday.

Bragg Accused of Withholding Exculpatory Trump Evidence from Grand Jury - Headline USA  "Taking a page from the erstwhile House Jan. 6 committee and Attorney General Merrick Garland’s politicized Department of Justice, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was accused Tuesday of withholding hundreds of pages of exculpatory evidence from the grand jury considering whether to indict former President Donald Trump.

"Robert Costello, the former legal adviser of key Bragg witness Michael Cohen, first levied the allegations Tuesday night on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show.

"He said Bragg was hiding “all of the files he had previously turned over to the D.A. that corroborated Cohen’s original story.”. . .

 Wait just a minute here....Hollywood Producer: Oversight of Bragg's Prosecutorial Misconduct is RACIST - Headline USA  Fighting "racism" with racism are we, sir?

(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) Hollywood producer and screenwriter John Ridley lectured the American people in a “Morning Joe” appearance on Tuesday, insisting that white GOP congressmen should not question the actions of black Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

 

Former U.S. Attorney Argues Trump Could Be Indicted for Same Thing Clinton Was Fined For

 Tolman: Trump Could Be Indicted for Same Thing Clinton Was Fined For (breitbart.com)

"Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is essentially using the same legal theory to potentially indict former President Donald Trump that Hillary Clinton’s campaign was fined for, argued former United States Attorney Brett Tolman.

"Tolman asserted Saturday that Bragg’s legal theory that Trump tried to hide a campaign expenditure by using his then-lawyer to pay porn actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 in alleged hush money before the 2016 presidential elections would have applied to Clinton when her campaign hid a payment for the phony Russian pee dossier against Trump as “legal fees.”

"Former New York City police officer and conservative pundit John Cardillo tweeted, “Bill Clinton paid Paula Jones $850,000 and no one cared.” Tolman tweeted in response, “And the Hillary Campaign was actually fined for hiding the Steele Dossier payment under ‘legal fees’ — essentially the same legal theory on the Stormy Daniels payment the DA is running criminal investigation of Trump.”

In many ways, the Bidens took a page from Bill and Hillary Clinton, who used the Clinton Foundation as a slush fund to underwrite their personal lifestyles. But where the exorbitant payments to Bill Clinton for making speeches was more open, the pattern set by the Bidens is to deliberately seek to obscure the role of Joe Biden in the family business. One of the arrangements revealed from email exchanges recovered from the laptop, for example, discusses Hunter getting an extra stake of a business proposal from the Chinese energy company CEFC reserved as “10% for the big guy.”

Democrats Let Violent Criminals Roam Free But Want to Put Donald Trump in Jail | Opinion (newsweek.com)

Dems will infiltrate Trump street protests to turn them violent[?]

 The Aspen beat

"Donald Trump has characterized his impending arrest this week as a political vendetta, and has urged his supporters to take to the streets in protest.

"I agree with him that it’s a political vendetta, but disagree about taking to the streets.

"It is indeed a nakedly political act by the Manhattan District Attorney. Numerous other prosecutors including sophisticated federal prosecutors have reviewed this same evidence, and have declined to pursue this case.

'Rightly so. It’s a lousy case. The legal theory is a stretch. Moreover, the prosecution’s fact witnesses are not credible. One is a former porn star who has been caught numerous times lying and the other is Trump’s former lawyer who is willing to say anything he’s told to say in order to save his own hide.

"Layer on top of that a prosecutor who is not exactly a top-notch trial lawyer and is known to get money from George Soros, and you have, as I said, a lousy case, even in New York where Trump has gone from loved to reviled. The prosecution will lose.

"The result of that loss will be to boost Trump’s election chances because it will cast him as a wrongly persecuted martyr. Elon Musk – no dummy – declared that the case would guarantee Trump’s election. I wouldn’t go that far, but I do think it will help Trump.

"Unless….

"Unless there are violent protests. If that happens, the Dems will portray it as a Jan. 6 redo. It’s certainly true that the Dems overplayed the mostly peaceful (as they would describe it if they were the instigators) Jan. 6 incident, but the point is that they overplayed it with some success. The midterms, for example, went surprisingly well for them.

"The Dems and their media allies will do the same with another protest, and they will do it even better this time because it will start to look like a pattern with Trump and his supporters.

"You think the protests won’t turn violent? Consider this. The Dems want that violence in order to paint Trump and his supporters as violent people. They are sure to infiltrate the protests in the guise of being on Trump’s side, just as the FBI apparently did on Jan. 6, for the express purpose of inciting violence in otherwise peaceful crowds of Trump supporters. Trump, his supporters, and Republicans in general will get the blame.

"It will be a case of Antifa thugs costumed in MAGA hats.

"My advice to Trump supporters is don’t take the bait. If you stay home, Trump can and will win his case and very possibly his campaign. On the other hand, if you take to the streets, it might feel good, but the price you pay for that evening of feel-goodery will be another four years of a presidency led by the stupid, corrupt Biden crime family that is destroying America."  (Emphasis mine, TD)

“A Trump indictment would be a disgusting abuse of power. The DA should be put in jail,” Rand Paul

Twitter CEO and Tesla founder Elon Musk said that if Trump were to be arrested, he would win re-election in 2024.

Dershowitz: Bragg's Trump probe 'worse than Al Capone,' Soros trying to 'corrupt' justice system | Just The News    "Harvard professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz says Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's reported efforts to criminally charge former President Trump over the paying of hush money to an adult film actress is "worse than Al Capone" – referring to how law enforcement finally got the Chicago businessman and alleged gangster behind bars for tax evasion.

" 'This is worse than Al Capone, because in Al Capone's case, at least they got him on legitimate income tax violations," Dershowitz said about the prosecution of the mobster who was sentenced in 1931 to 11 years in prison for not paying taxes.

"The adult film actress, Stormy Daniels, was paid $130,000 during Trump's 2016 presidential campaign for an alleged affair years earlier that Trump has denied.

"Dershowitz said the Trump probe is also worse because the prosecutor "had to make up a crime" by pursuing a misdemeanor and a felony, both of which were beyond the statute of limitations and were not prosecuted by the previous district attorney nor the Justice Department.". . .

Politicians and pundits react to possible Trump arrest and indictment | Just The News  . . ."Now illegal leaks from a corrupt & highly political Manhattan district attorneys office, which has allowed new records to be set in violent crime & whose leader is funded by George Soros, indicate that, with no crime being able to be proven, & based on an old & fully debunked (by numerous other prosecutors!) fairytale, the far & away leading Republican candidate & former president of the United States of America, will be arrested on Tuesday of next week," Trump wrote.

"House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced via social media that he was going to direct committees to look into whether federal funds were used for this impending indictment.

" 'Here we go again — an outrageous abuse of power by a radical DA who lets violent criminals walk as he pursues political vengeance against President Trump," McCarthy wrote. ". . . 

House Judiciary Committee Demands Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg Hand Over Documents and Testify Regarding Possible Donald Trump Indictment | The Gateway Pundit . . ."There is still one more witness that must testify before any indictment and arrest of Trump can happen, however. Trump expects that this witness, former Rudy Giuliani lawyer Robert Costello, will ultimately clear him of wrongdoing.

"Fox News has more on the Jordan letter to Bragg:

Jordan warned Bragg that if news reports of a possible Trump indictment are accurate, Bragg’s actions “will erode confidence in the evenhanded application of justice and unalterably interfere in the court of the 2024 presidential election.”

“In light of the serious consequences of your actions, we expect that you will testify about what plainly appears to be a politically motivated prosecutorial decision,” Jordan wrote.

“The legal theory underlying your reported prosecution appears to be tenuous and untested,” Jordan wrote.

Peter Schweizer’s ‘Drill Down’ Follows the Money on Latest Biden Family Corruption Revelations (breitbart.com)  . . ."In many ways, the Bidens took a page from Bill and Hillary Clinton, who used the Clinton Foundation as a slush fund to underwrite their personal lifestyles. But where the exorbitant payments to Bill Clinton for making speeches was more open, the pattern set by the Bidens is to deliberately seek to obscure the role of Joe Biden in the family business. One of the arrangements revealed from email exchanges recovered from the laptop, for example, discusses Hunter getting an extra stake of a business proposal from the Chinese energy company CEFC reserved as “10% for the big guy.' ” . . .

When Leaders Get Scared -The US Retreat Has Huge Implications

 Stephen Bryen (substack.com)  "While it may look like the United States is being tough and forceful in Ukraine, the reverse is true.  The US is showing incredible weakness, and it is wearing it on its sleeve.

"Let's start with Ukraine.  The US has gone all out to try and help Ukraine win a victory over the Russians.  The Biden administration wants this to happen for two reasons: to show that Biden is not a wimp and won't cut and run like he did in Afghanistan (and on this the 20th anniversary of the War in Iraq, like his predecessor Obama did by pulling US forces out of Iraq) and that he wants to "strengthen" NATO by eventually putting a NATO army in Ukraine.  

"The reason for not wanting to look like a wimp is self-evident and does not need any further explanation, other than to say that Washington elites have bought into the false narrative that Ukraine is a glowing democracy and we should defend it.  Of course, the US disrupted Ukraine's free politics and pushed the rebellion against a properly elected government.  Likewise the US also has kept its mouth shut about the political repression in Ukraine, the jailing of political opponents, and the complete takeover of all the media in the country.  Ukraine also has mistreated the Russian speaking population, essentially putting pressure on Russian speakers to leave the country. The latest twist on this highway of suppression is Zelensky-led attacks on the Russian Orthodox Church, with the most recent manifestation closing a centuries-old monastery and forcing out the Orthodox Monks from the property.  Zelensky, to make Washington happy, is pretending to go after corrupt officials in a country famous for corruption (both under the old Soviet leadership and the post-Soviet Ukrainian regimes).". . .

Are any Democrats repulsed by their politicians?

 Democrats transform America into a third-world country. TD

Most underreported story: Evidence of the Biden family’s $ millions from China now documented with bank records - American Thinker   . . ."But the media silence won’t stop the flow of records, and won’t stop the depositions and testimony to come. I take Comer at his word that the Biden camp assumed the bank records would never come to light. They know what kind of money is involved, and they must realize how toxic this could become.

"Whether or not the case of Alvin Bragg against Trump is an attempted distraction – a very successful one so far – doesn’t really matter. An enemy funding a president with millions of dollars is a story that can’t be contained.

"Here is the full interview: 

"If anyone thinks conditions will improve soon, just wait until this same Justice Department indicts Trump for “inciting” the events of January 6"...Julie Kelly

. . .Before January 6, 2021, an American political leader who called for mass protests would not be heard as calling for violence. Trump, in fact, did not encourage his followers to behave violently.. . .

The Death of Dissent; American Greatness, Julie Kelly  "The lead prosecutor in charge of the January 6 investigation, the largest probe in Justice Department history, just confirmed what American Greatness has reported for months: the number of criminal cases related to the Capitol protest is expected to at least double before it’s all over.

"U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves, an advisor to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign who took over the powerful office in late 2021, sent a letter to the chief judge of the D.C. District court warning up to 1,200 more individuals could face charges. 

"“We expect the pace of bringing new cases will increase, in an orderly fashion, over the course of the next few months,” Graves told Beryl Howell, who ended her term as chief judge last week. Graves’ office just surpassed 1,000 total defendants in what he renamed the “Capitol Siege” investigation—which means the final caseload might well exceed 2,000.

"Graves also indicated his team would ramp up the number of felony indictments; the overwhelming majority of charges so far are low-level offenses, including the laughable “parading in the Capitol” misdemeanor. The Biden regime clearly wants to juice the numbers before the 2024 election season.". . .

. . ."Regardless of the disparate responses from both political sides, the clear winner here is the Biden regime, and the Justice Department in particular. The ongoing manhunt for Trump supporters is yielding victories of all sizes, not the least of which is the elimination of once-cherished rights to petition the government and redress grievances without being considered a domestic terrorist.". . .