Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

'Trumpism has metastasized' and is headed to 'dark, eerie places': former GOP lawmaker



According to a report from the Guardian's David Smith, conservatives are increasingly looking at putting Donald Trump in the past and moving on but Trumpism will remain a "dominant strain" in the Republican Party and voters can expect to see candidates carrying his banner for years.

With the former president reeling after several of the candidates he endorsed went down in flames in Republican primaries, DC insiders are seeing a way for future candidates to champion his causes while turning their backs on the man and all the baggage that comes with him.

With Smith writing, "The hard-right, nativist-populist strain of Republican politics predates Trump and will surely survive him," Bill Galston of the Brookings Institute, told him, "Donald Trump has transformed the Republican party over the past five years and it is now a solid majority Trumpist party with everything that entails in policy and in tone. On the other hand, Republicans, including very conservative ones, are clearly willing to entertain the possibility of Trumpism without Trump.”

Galston elaborated, "It may be that the people who have been in the bull’s eye of Trump’s ‘big lie’ campaign have started resenting it and took their resentment out. More generally, I think an increasing number of people are asking themselves a question that they weren’t asking previously: would we be better off with a Trumpist candidate who’s not named Donald Trump?”

Add to that, Smith wrote, whatever sway the former president has over the GOP may be challenged by future candidates who are willing to go to further extremes to appeal to his rabid base.

"Some on this wing effectively accuse him of not being Trumpy enough, as demonstrated last year when he was booed for urging supporters to get vaccinated against the coronavirus (he now barely mentions vaccines in his speeches)," wrote Smith with former House Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Il) predicting what is coming could be even more dangerous.

“Maga’s dark enough on its own … Trumpism has metastasized beyond Trump and it’ll go in a bunch of different dark, eerie places but it’s all the same thing. Trumpism now is the dominant strain in the party,” Walsh warned.

You can read more here:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/28/trump-georgia-primaries-republican-party

[Rick Plant]

'Party of me': Chris Christie rips Trump's selfishness

Donald Trump's grip on the Republican Party is being increasing challenged by GOP rivals who have less fear of the former president's rage following Georgia's primary election results.

Former Gov. Chris Christie has emerged as a leading critic of Trump's fixation on his delusions about the 2020 presidential election, which was won by Joe Biden.

“We have to be the party of tomorrow, not the party of yesterday,” Christie told Politico. “But more important than that, what we have to decide is: do we want to be the party of me or the party of us? What Donald Trump has advocated is for us to be the ‘party of me,’ that everything has to be about him and about his grievances.’”

During an appearance on Guy Benson's Fox Radio show, Christie again offered his analysis of the former president.

"The mainstream media will overinterpret this as being the end of Donald Trump in the Republican Party, and it is far from it. But what it shows you is if he continues to look backwards, guy, he is not going to be a political force in this party for much longer," he predicted.

Christie also had harsh words for Trump when speaking to students at Harvard University.

“You cannot stand behind the seal of the president of the United States, in the East Room of the White House, and tell the American people that the election is stolen and not present them with any evidence that it’s been stolen,” Christie said. “Because people believe the president, a lot of people do, and they think to themselves, ‘Well, he wouldn’t say that unless he knew something.’ He knows nothing!”

But others in the party are still standing by Trump.

At a rally in Wyoming for Harriet Hageman, who is challenging Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), Mike Lindell claimed that Donald Trump did not lose in Georgia because he claims Gov. Brian Kemp was not the real winner of the primary.

Lindell went on to claim that there was also fraud in Wyoming and that Trump did not win by 120,000 votes.

"He really won by 142,00," Lindell falsely claimed.

Watch: https://twitter.com/i/status/1530594117599776768

[Rick Plant]

Donnie is like one of those has-been music artists who is unable to get a crowd to come watch the show. Donnie is old, tired, feeble, and senile. His supporters are tired of his washed up act and another small crowd in one of the reddest states in the country speaks volumes. His supporters ignore his endorsements as they vote for the other candidate and they don't even show up to see him whine and rage in person anymore. Wonder how Donnie feels to see all those empty seats knowing his base has slipped away?         

Trump fails to fill Wyoming arena at rally against Liz Cheney

Less than one week after Donald Trump's grudgefest in Georgia was rejected by Republican voters, the former president traveled to Casper, Wyoming as he seeks to oust Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) for objecting to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The rally was attended by Reps. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Kat Cammack (R-FL), and Matt Gaetz (R-FL).

Senate GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) did not attend, but sent a video message that was booed by Trump's MAGA base.

Bryan Schott, a reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune, posted a picture from the arena 30 minutes before the program was scheduled to begin.

"We are about 30 minutes from showtime at the Trump rally in Casper and there are A LOT of empty seats in the arena."



Olivia Nuzzi, Washington correspondent for New York Magazine, posted multiple photos showing empty seats after Trump's was to have taken the stage.

"Donald Trump was due onstage in Casper, Wyoming ten minutes ago. Arena is still not at capacity."

[Rick Plant]

The Republican Party is the true party of fraud. Republican candidates in Michigan committed fraud. They are also projectionists too. Whatever they accuse someone else of doing it's always them that's doing it.   

GOP election lawyer accuses Michigan Republicans of 'despicable abuse'



After spending years pushing former President Donald Trump's "Big Lie," the Michigan Republican Party is defending its own candidates who were caught up in a massive fraud scheme.

The Michigan Bureau of Elections released a report on Monday recommending that leading Republican gubernatorial candidates James Craig and Perry Johnson, as well as three others, be disqualified from the ballot after submitting too many fake petition signatures. The bureau said it had identified 36 petition circulators who submitted more than 68,000 fake signatures across 10 sets of nominating contests, including the governor's primary. The state Board of Canvassers on Thursday deadlocked on whether to accept or reject the recommendation, effectively leaving in place the bureau's decision to disqualify all five candidates, although Republicans have vowed to challenge the outcome in court.

Republican election attorney John Pirich told Salon that the fraud scheme uncovered by the election officials is "the largest I've ever seen."

"This is of a magnitude beyond my imagination," he said, describing it as the "most despicable abuse of the circulation process that I've ever witnessed."

Despite the Republican Party's years-long campaign to stoke fears of election fraud, the Michigan GOP intervened on behalf of the disqualified candidates. Paul Cordes, chief of staff of the Michigan Republican Party, told the board that disqualifying the candidates over fraudulent petition signatures would disenfranchise voters.

"Disqualifying two of the highest polling candidates in this primary, as well as three others who have expended significant resources in their campaigns, is disenfranchising to Republican voters who ultimately should be the decision-makers," he argued.

Michigan GOP Chairman Ron Weiser also criticized the decision, arguing in a statement that the party was "fighting against voter disenfranchisement."

Pirich, a former assistant state attorney general, refuted the GOP argument, noting that "no one was on the ballot so you're not disenfranchising anyone."

"Most of the people who signed these petitions of the five candidates that were involved in this process weren't real people," he said. "So there's no real legal harm to anyone, in the sense that these weren't real voters. These were fictitious signatures of fraudulent circulators. So that's a bogus argument."

Other Republicans also took issue with the state party's attempt to intervene.

"The Michigan Republican Party candidates ran garbage operations," tweeted Stu Sandler, political director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and former executive director of the Michigan GOP. "The fact the Michigan Republican Party is defending all this fraud is embarrassing."

Craig called Thursday's outcome a "travesty" and vowed to file an "immediate appeal" to the courts. An attorney for Johnson said that the process that disqualified him had "fatal flaws that didn't follow election laws."

The candidates and their attorneys argued that they were the victims of the circulators' fraud and that it was the Bureau of Elections' responsibility to prove that every individual signature was fraudulent. The bureau said it has no evidence that the candidates were aware of the fraud but said in its report that it did not fully process all the signatures because it had already identified enough fake ones to put the candidates well short of the 15,000 valid signatures needed to qualify for the ballot.

Republicans on the board sided with the candidates, though it would have required three votes to overturn the Bureau of Elections' recommendation. Republican Chairman Norman Shinkle argued that the circulators "should all go to prison" but said he was "not prepared to shift any burden to the candidates."

Tony Daunt, the other Republican on the board, said there was no question "a widespread and disgraceful effort to defraud the voters of the state has occurred," but insisted that Republican candidates were the real victims.

Though the board has frequently broken down party lines, Pirich said he was surprised by the Republican members' votes because of the "amount of evidence and the detail of the evidence."

"I don't know how anyone in good conscience would say these candidates should be on the ballot when they couldn't do something as fundamental as circulate properly registered voter signatures and turn them in," he said. "I mean, to put them on the ballot would be an insult to the whole process."

Pirich argued that the candidates are responsible for the petition signatures they turn in. "If you hire scum-buckets to do your work, you're gonna get some scum-bucket results and you should be associated with those results," he said.

Craig insisted that he expects to prevail in court. Pirich, however, predicted the candidate would lose his bid to get on the ballot.

"The report of the Board of Canvassers staff was incredibly detailed and legally overcomes any presumption of validity associated with each one of those candidates' petition drives," he said.

The Michigan Democratic Party criticized Republicans on the Board of Canvassers for voting to ignore the evidence of fraud and called on the disqualified Republicans to drop out rather than fight the decision in court.

"Fraud is fraud, and under Michigan law, candidates are required to submit a minimum of 15,000 lawfully collected signatures. They did not meet that requirement," LaVora Barnes, chairwoman of the Michigan Democratic Party, said in a statement. "To keep the integrity of Michigan's democratic process intact, all Republican gubernatorial candidates whose petitions were under consideration at today's meeting should swiftly withdraw from the race. Michiganders deserve accountable leaders, and these candidates have shown they are not capable of that."

https://www.rawstory.com/gop-election-lawyer-accuses-candidates-of-despicable-abuse/

[Rick Plant]

Georgia prosecutor has the goods on Trump to prove election 'criminal intent': former US Attorney



Appearing on MSNBC's "The Katie Phang Show," former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance explained that Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis has a leg up on other investigations into Donald Trump's attempts to steal the 2020 presidential election when it comes to proving the former president knew he was breaking the law.

Asked by MSNBC host Phang what happens now that over 50 witnesses have been subpoenaed, Vance made the point that Willis has a key piece of evidence that could lead to criminal charges.

"She [Willis] is looking into several possible crimes, including fraud and racketeering. What does she need to present to the special grand jury in order to get the indictment returned against Donald Trump?" the MSNBC host asked.

"She'll need what everyone else who is investigating the former president's involvement in election fraud or outright election criminality, and that is proof of the former president's state of mind," Vance replied. "Fani Willis has got a good case walking in the door to that grand jury because she has the tape that you just played where he [Trump] is asking not for an investigation into potential voting fraud, not for a look to see if something went wrong, but asking the [Georgia] secretary of state [Brad Raffensperger] to find the specific number of votes that he needs."

"That is pretty good evidence of criminal intent walking into it," she added. "Now, she will lock down the witnesses and see what else they can do, put some flesh on the bones."

Watch below:

[Rick Plant]

'The most incompetent president in modern history': CNN national security analyst scorches Trump's four years of 'chaos'



In a Memorial Day weekend column for CNN, national security analyst Peter Bergen made a compelling case that, after Donald Trump's four years of "chaos," it can be safely concluded that he was not in any way up to the job of fulfilling the primary duty of a president, which is to protect the safety of all Americans.

According to Bergen, the author of "The Cost of Chaos: The Trump Administration and the World," hints by the former president that he might run again in 2024, combined with polling that shows Republican voters might be willing to give him one more shot, should be of grave concern to Americans still reeling from the Trump years.

Recalling that as Trump left office he proclaimed, "We will be back in some form," Bergen suggested that promise should be considered a threat by critics of the former president, before conceding, "Either way, Trump is, indeed, back."

With that in mind, he made his case that "Trump was the most incompetent President in modern American history."

Calling Trump's tenures a series of "spectacular failures," Bergen said Trump is, in the long run, responsible for the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban due to his negotiations, paved the way for Russia to invade Ukraine after four years of Trump "undermining" NATO, ignored the military build-up in North Korea while trying to use his "personal charm" on Kim Jong Un, and "...the Iranian nuclear program took a large step forward as a result of Trump's ham-handed approach to the Iranians."

That was just internationally, with Bergen then pointing at how the Trump administration botched the response to COVID-19 in the U.S .

"It was, above all, in his mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic that Trump revealed his many weaknesses as a leader. First, he never did any homework, meaning his understanding of complex issues, such as how best to mitigate a pandemic, was always cartoonish. Related to Trump's first failing was his second: He always believed he knew more than the experts about any given subject. Third, Trump always trusted his own gut. This was not likely to produce relevant knowledge or coherent policy. And it didn't," he wrote.

Writing, "His weak leadership produced grave results: More than 400,000 Americans died from Covid-19 during Trump's final year in office, which was more than the death toll of all the Americans who had died in wars going back to World War II," Bergen then added, "Many of those deaths could have been avoided with better leadership; Covid mortality in the US was 40% higher than the average of other advanced nations such as Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom, according to a report from the medical journal The Lancet."

"The first duty of the commander in chief is the protection of US citizens, and Trump clearly was derelict in this duty," he wrote before concluding, "In short, Trump was the most incompetent President in modern American history."

You can read his whole piece here: https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/28/opinions/donald-trump-chaos-bergen

[Rick Plant]

Marjorie Taylor Greene mocked for ‘peach tree dish’ flub
https://www.rawstory.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-mocked-for-peach-tree-dish-flub-but-the-anti-lgbtq-in-her-podcast-are-harmful/