Dem
47
GOP
53
It is hardly a secret that Donald Trump lives by the credo that there's one set of rules for him, and a different set for everyone else. That is an attitude also shared by more than a few members of his political party, particularly in the MAGA wing. This week has seen some particularly notable reminders of that, and we thought we'd run them down:
Foreign Workers: Donald Trump's rise to the apex of American politics was fueled, first and foremost, by xenophobia—his claim that immigrants, at least the brown-skinned ones, are ruining America, and that he planned to do something about it.
His actions—in particular, the hiring practices at his businesses—never aligned with the rhetoric, making clear that he was just bloviating for the benefit of the base. This week, there was another very clear reminder of that. The Department of Labor released its H-2A and H-2B visa figures for the last year (these are permits for temporary workers), and the Trump Organization filed for and received 184 of them. That's the highest number ever for the business, and those 184 people serve alongside nearly 400 more workers who have permanent-resident visas. These figures are up about 40% from when Trump first became president back in 2017, so he's really doing his part to combat the immigrant scourge.
Pardon Me?: The United States—at the federal, state and municipal levels—arrests a LOT of people. It also convicts a LOT of people. In fact, there are more people incarcerated in the United States than in any other country—about 1.8 million, which outpaces China by about 100,000 people. Of course, the United States also has one of the largest populations in the world, but even if you rank nations by number of people incarcerated per 100,000 residents, the U.S. is fifth, behind only El Salvador, Cuba, Rwanda and Turkmenistan. "Hey, we're doing better than El Salvador, Cuba, Rwanda and Turkmenistan!" is not exactly something to write home about.
In view of the nation's unbelievably high arrest and incarceration rates, it is somewhat impractical to keep everyone who is arrested in prison, and to keep everyone who is convicted for the full duration of their sentences. The humanitarian reason is that subjecting arrestees to prison, at least if they are not a risk to society, is not right, if they have not yet been convicted of a crime. And for convicts, the longer you keep them behind bars, the harder it will be for them to rejoin society and become productive citizens. The pragmatic reason, meanwhile, is that keeping people behind bars is expensive, and budgets can't handle the strain of locking EVERYONE up.
The cost in letting people out of jail/prison, whether permanently, or for some sort of temporary arrangement, is that some of them will return to committing crimes. Generally speaking, the people who make these decisions are very careful, and are very good at identifying which people can be safely released. And generally speaking, the people who are released really, really don't want to go back to the hoosegow, and so tend to keep their noses clean. But there are exceptions, occasionally violent exceptions.
For many decades, Republicans been making political hay out of it when a criminal is released under Democratic leadership and then goes on to commit a violent crime. The most famous example is surely William Horton, who was called "Willie" (a name he never actually used) because it was "Blacker" for the sleazy commercial cooked up by Lee Atwater and the George H.W. Bush campaign. A more recent example is José Antonio Ibarra, who entered the U.S. illegally, was picked up during the Biden administration, and then released pending a hearing. During his release period, he killed Laken Riley, and that became a cause célèbre on the right, as it allowed Donald Trump and other MAGA types to rail against both immigrants AND Biden.
Well, allow us to introduce you to Jonathan Braun. He was convicted in 2019 of a long list of crimes including money laundering and drug trafficking. He was pardoned by Donald Trump, due to questions about the legitimacy of the evidence against him, and also for compassionate reasons. Oh, wait. No, that's not the reason at all. Actually, the case was rock solid, and his sentence was quite light relative to his crimes. In fact, he was pardoned because his attorneys pored through their law textbooks and discovered that Braun's family is friends with Jared Kushner's family. After all, the Kushners know a thing or two about going to prison. Anyhow, strings were pulled and Braun was freed.
If you think someone like that sounds like they have a high probability of recidivism, then give yourself a gold star, because you are right on the mark. Since getting out of the pokey, Braun has assaulted his wife, assaulted his 75-year-old father-in-law, assaulted a 3-year-old boy, attacked his nurse in the hospital with an IV pole while also threatening to kill her, threatened bodily harm against one of the members of his synagogue, molested his kids' nanny, and operated a predatory lending scheme (which, let's be clear, is just a nice way of saying "loansharking.") Braun is headed back to prison for several years, and then will undergo mental health treatment for several years after his release. Hopefully, the mental health treatment will commence while he's still locked down, because he clearly needs the help.
Anyhow, don't expect to see this story getting Ibarra-level coverage on Fox, OANN, Newsmax, etc. In fact, don't expect to see it getting any coverage at all.
Voter Fraud: If you're in politics, losing elections sometimes is part of the game. Except for MAGA Republicans, that is. When they win, it was because they won legitimately. When they lose, it was because of voter fraud. This despite the fact that voter fraud barely exists (and certainly not enough to change the outcomes of major elections), and that MAGA can never offer any meaningful proof of their claims.
In a desperate attempt to prove that voter fraud is real, Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett (R) sent a referral to the FBI, asking the Bureau to look into 42 people who are not citizens, and who may have "illegally voted" in recent elections.
One would think the Bureau would have better things to do than try to track down an inconsequential number of alleged fraudulent voters. However, under Director Kash Patel, we have no doubt that this will be placed at either #1 or #2 on the to-do list, depending on the status of the oh-so-urgent investigation into the fate of Jimmy Hoffa. Meanwhile, the reader who brought this story to our attention, M.S. in Knoxville, TN, points out: "Far from documenting the systemic registration of massive numbers of 'non-citizen' voters that Republicans allege is distorting our electoral system, the SOS's work does the opposite. Using a not fully reliable system to locate 'possible' voter fraud of 0.0001% of the voting population documents how infinitesimally small the possible problem is."
Halligan: Of the various criminal prosecutions in which Donald Trump was enmeshed, the one that posed the most danger to him was probably the classified documents case. It was pretty simple, he was caught redhanded, and the only real issue to be addressed was the proper handling of evidence, since some of the evidence is classified.
Trump does not always manage to hire the best lawyers, but he did OK for himself in this case. They put together an argument that the whole case was illegal because it was brought by special counsel Jack Smith, whose appointment was illegal. Dubious, but the case ended up before Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who certainly appears to be in the bag for him, perhaps with an eye toward a promotion or two. She bought the argument, or at least claimed she did, and dismissed the case.
Now fast-forward to today, when the shoe is somewhat on the other foot. The Trump administration very badly wants to stick it to Trump enemies James Comey and Letitia James, but they could only find one toady willing to give it a try, and that toady—Lindsey Halligan—has not been confirmed by the Senate, and presumably will not be confirmed by the Senate (even the Republican members are leery of folks like her, and if the White House thought she was confirm-able, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-SD, would already have rammed it through). Comey and James are both trying to get their cases dismissed, based on the (pretty sound) argument that Halligan did not have the legal authority to bring them. In Comey's case, if he is successful, that would be game over, since the statute of limitations on his alleged crimes has run.
The matter was the subject of a hearing yesterday before U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie. As the administration tries to salvage its
persecutionprosecution, it made three arguments. The first was that it was just a "paperwork error," and that while Halligan may have been the only one to actually sign the indictments, they were reviewed by AG Pam Bondi. Currie was unimpressed by these claims, observing that you don't get to retroactively add signatures to indictments. She also pointed out that there were some serious errors in the filings, most obviously missing pages of grand jury testimony. From this, the Judge concluded that even if Bondi reviewed the filing, she did not do it with enough care and attention.The administration's second argument was that the 120-day limit for utilizing acting U.S. Attorneys isn't really a rule, it's just a guideline—an advisory as to when the AG should check back in and see how things are going. Currie did not appear to buy this, either, noting that if it was so, there would never be any need for Senate confirmation.
The third argument is the hypocritical one. The government's attorneys advised the Judge that while they are convinced Halligan's appointment is legal, Bondi has also taken the "backup" step of appointing Halligan as a special prosecutor, assigned to the cases of Comey and James. Remember, when the roles were reversed, attorneys working for Trump said that special prosecutors are not legal. True, those were private attorneys making that argument, but hypocrisy is hypocrisy.
Currie noted the incongruity, and asked DoJ attorney Henry Whitaker to explain the difference between Jack Smith and Lindsey Halligan. Remarkably, Whitaker said that Smith—with decades of prosecutorial experience under his belt—could not be a special prosecutor because he does not meet the qualifications for the job, while Halligan—who, until a few weeks ago had only handled insurance cases—does meet the qualifications. We cannot find anyone who has offered a description of how the judge responded to this argument, but several outlets noted their were audible gasps in the courtroom in response to Whitaker's chutzpah.
Fore!: We already pointed out the hypocrisy when we wrote this story up originally, so we won't belabor it here. But for a movement that is so virulently anti-DEI, and that so loudly declares that people should be judge solely on their merits, MAGA is certainly willing to accept someone getting an unfair advantage if they are white, and in particular if they get that advantage because they are somehow connected to Donald Trump.
Kai Trump is definitely connected to Donald, since she is his granddaughter. Yesterday, she made her pro debut at the Annika tournament, an opportunity that she did not earn based on her skill as an athlete, but instead based on her last name and her large social media following. It went exactly as expected: She shot a 13-over 83. Out of 108 players, that places her... 108th. The next-worst score was 7-over, while the leader finished at 6-under, which means Trump is already 19 shots out of the lead. She figures to get much further behind today, before she officially misses the cut and gets sent home.
Speaking to reporters afterward, young Trump said "I hit a lot of good shots just to the wrong spots." To paraphrase Inigo Montoya: "You keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means."
Incidentally, the headline in GolfWeek was "Kai Trump shoots 83 in LPGA debut, a resounding success." Um, what? If that's a "success," what would "failure" have looked like? Is GolfWeek MAGA? Is the editor angling for an appointment as ambassador to, say, The Bahamas? Do they somehow have a research grant they are worried about getting yanked? Does the reporter have an IRS audit coming up? Is the reporter worried she might find herself with an IRS audit coming up?
Again, there was so much of this stuff this week, it seemed appropriate to note it. We know it's really just par for the course for this administration. Well, except the last item, where par was the furthest thing from anyone's mind. (Z)