Trump Derangement Syndrome

The vast business empire upon which Donald Trump made his name is on the line in a civil fraud trial in New York.

The former president, his two adult sons and the wider Trump Organization are accused of massively inflating the value of their properties by over $2bn (£1.65bn) in order to secure favourable loans.

Mr Trump has denied any wrongdoing, calling the case a sham.

Ray Epps, the J6er who was repeatedly caught on tape urging Trump supporters to “go into the Capitol,” was sentenced Tuesday to just a year of probation for his actions during the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.

Last September, Epps, a former Oath Keeper from Arizona, was charged with a single misdemeanor count of disruptive or disorderly conduct in a restricted area in U.S. District Court in Washington, despite his lead role in orchestrating chaos on that day. The charge carries a maximum punishment of a year in prison.

A member of Congress investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, protest at the U.S. Capitol estimates the FBI had 200 undercover assets both inside and outside the building.

“We believe that there were easily 200 FBI undercover assets operating in the crowd, outside the Capitol, embedded into groups that entered the Capitol or provoked entry of the Capitol,” Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., said.

Karine Jean-Pierre (KJP) was recently at it again, claiming police officers were killed on January 6. If “fact checkers” bothered to fact check her, they’d discover no officers died, but USAF veteran Ashli Babbitt was killed, shot by the diverse Capital Police Lt. Michael Byrd. Byrd was never charged, but has been promoted.

Former President Donald Trump has embraced the slogan “they are after you, I am just in the way” as part of his reelection campaign. And we are seeing how they intend to get him out of the way, which is by keeping him out of the White House this election.

The New York attorney general on Friday asked that the judge who had overseen the civil fraud trial of Donald J. Trump to penalize the former president about $370 million, saying the trial had demonstrated that he had gained that amount through unlawful conduct.

The sum was well over the $250 million that the attorney general, Letitia James, had estimated in the fall of 2022, when she sued Mr. Trump, accusing him of inflating his net worth to obtain favorable treatment from banks and insurers.

We are about to embark on what might be one of the wildest years in the history of American politics, and it may end up merely as a prelude.

If 2024 is set to be tumultuous and unpredictable, just wait until 2025 if Donald Trump wins the presidency again later this year.

Donald Trump has been slandered and libeled thousands of times.

Each time a news reporter, media commentator, or judge refers to Trump as an “insurrectionist,” or claims he’s guilty of “insurrection,” it’s another blatant case of defamation. Same with the other January 6 attendees and participants.

The new year has barely even started yet, and the American 2024 election cycle is already absurd. It is unlike any such cycle I have ever seen. Odd things are happening that would have been unthinkable just one or two elections ago.

Among the latest, most absurd ingredients in this increasingly bitter-tasting election soup, is a concerted effort to boot Donald Trump off the ballot in several states.

All these efforts will eventually fail, but the very fact that state officials are trying to ban a presidential candidate they don’t like paints a grim picture of desperation. It lays bare a political establishment whose only reason to get out of bed in the morning is to stop Trump from being elected president again.

The Colorado secretary of state will include former President Donald Trump on the 2024 Colorado primary ballot after Republicans filed an appeal to the Supreme Court.

On Wednesday, the Colorado GOP filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court after the state Supreme Court’s decision to remove Trump from the primary ballot.

Maine Joins Colorado in Finding Trump Ineligible for Primary Ballot

Maine’s top election official on Thursday barred Donald J. Trump from the state’s primary election ballot, the second state to block the former president’s bid for re-election based on claims that his efforts to remain in power after the 2020 election rendered him ineligible.

Hours later, her counterpart in California announced that Mr. Trump would remain on the ballot in the nation’s most populous state, where election officials have limited power to remove candidates.

h/t Mauser

The Michigan supreme court sided with a lower appeals court finding that Donald Trump could remain on state ballots despite accusations the former president violated the 14th Amendment to the Constitution by engaging “in insurrection or rebellion.”

“At the moment, the only event about to occur is the presidential primary election. But as explained, whether Trump is disqualified is irrelevant to his placement on that particular ballot,” the Michigan court of appeals earlier ruled dismissing the case against Trump.

You no doubt saw the news that the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Trump cannot be on the ballot because he attempted insurrection on January 6.

You might have paid little attention to it because you heard that the US Supreme Court would overrule the decision, and the holidays were coming up.

But we should all pay attention, no matter your feelings about Trump, because what is at stake is nothing less than our democracy itself.

It is one minute to midnight for American liberals. For them, the stakes in the 2024 presidential election are no less than the survival of democracy. The Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling last week that Donald Trump is ineligible to run for the presidency because he supported an insurrection is very unlikely to stand, but it reflects the view of millions of Americans that the threat posed by the former president is both monstrous and unprecedented. Are they right?