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This week, Donald Trump delivered his version of a sad tiny desk performance, hunched over the defendants table in a New York courtroom, diminished and watching the illusion of power and grandeur he has sold voters thin and run like oil in a hot pan.

He insisted on appearing in person at his civil fraud trial, apparently believing that he would continue to perform his perverse magic of converting that which would have ended other political careers into a political win for himself.

His hubris seemed to consume him, persuading him that in matters of optics, hes not only invincible but unmatched.

He has done it before: In August he scowled in his mug shot a precursor to his Fulton County, Ga., criminal trial summoning the allure of an outlaw, using the photo to raise millions of dollars, according to his campaign.

But I think his attempts at cosplaying some sort of roguish flintiness will wind up being missteps. Courtrooms dont allow for political-rally stagecraft. Theres no place to plant primed supporters behind him to ensure that every camera angle captures excited admirers. Hes not the center of attention, the impresario of the event; no, he must sit silently in lighting not intended to flatter and in chairs not intended to impress.

Courtrooms humble the people in them. They equalize. They democratize. In the courtroom, Trump is just another defendant and in it, he looks small. The phantasm of indomitability, the idea of him being wily and slick, surrenders to the flame like tissues in a campfire.

The image was not of a defiant would-be king but of a man stewing and defeated.

The judge in the case even issued a limited gag order after Trump posted a picture of and a comment about the judges clerk on Truth Social.

Meanwhile, theres the historic ouster of the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, by members of his own party for the unforgivable sin of seeking a bipartisan solution to keep the government open.

In Greek mythology exists the story of the Gigantomachy, a battle between the Olympian gods and giants. According to prophecy, the gods could emerge victorious only if assisted by a mortal. Hercules came to the rescue.

But in Republicans version of this drama, McCarthy could have emerged victorious over his partys anarchists only if Democrats had come to his aid. None did.

He was felled by a revolt led not by a giant but by the smallest of men, not in stature but in principles: the charmless Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida.

Anyone who thought that Democrats were going to save McCarthy should have thought again. Ultimately, he succumbed to the result of his own craven pursuit of power: The rule that Gaetz used to initiate the vote to strip McCarthy of the speakers gavel was the rule McCarthy agreed to in order to get his hands on the gavel in the first place.

Republicans are engaged in an intense session of self-flagellation. Does it also hurt the country? Yes. But in one way it might help: America needs to clearly see who the culprits are in todays political chaos, and the damage they cause, so that voters can correct course.

And the events of this week should give voters pause. The tableau that emerges from the troubles of Trump and McCarthy is one in which the G.O.P.s leaders are chastened and cowed, one in which their power is stripped and their efforts rebuked.

This is just one week among many leading up to the 2024 elections, but it is weeks like this that leave a mark, because the images that emerge from them are indelible.

All the inflamed consternation about Joe Bidens age and Hunter Bidens legal troubles will, in the end, have to be weighed against something far more consequential: Republicans obsessed with blind obeisance, a lust for vengeance and a contempt for accountability who no longer have the desire or capacity to actually lead.

Their impulses to disrupt and destroy keep winning out, foreshadowing even more of a national disaster if their power grows as a result.

How Republican primary voters respond to this Republican maelstrom of incompetence is one thing. How general election voters will respond to it is quite another.

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Opinion | Donald Trump, Kevin McCarthy and the Ripples of ... - The New York Times

"Big news!" a recent Instagram post said. "Trump is commander & chief."

The supposed evidence that former President Donald Trump is still running the nation is offered in a video in the Oct. 3 post.

"This was Dan Scavino posting a clip of President Trump departing Costa Mesa," a narrator in the video said. "You can see President Trump posing there with the police hes got those guards all around him and hes got the Secret Service all around him. Guys, weve seen the vehicles all around him. Many people are posting, look, theres no way that hes got all those vehicles, medical, comms, truck, unless hes running the nation, unless hes the commander in chief."

This post was flagged as part of Metas efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

The post refers to a video shared Sept. 30 on Instagram by Dan Scavino Jr., a Trump adviser.

"45 department beautiful Costa Mesa, California!" Scavino wrote. "#TRUMP2024 #MAGA #USA."

Scavino was in Costa Mesa for a ticketed "special evening event" with the former president.

Scavinos video shows Trump posing for a photo with several armed police officers, leaving a building and waving at supporters. Flashing lights are visible from emergency service vehicles.

The video then cuts to what appears to be a recording shot from inside Scavinos moving car. It shows more supporters bearing flags and waving, while some police and medical vehicles line the road.

Trump is not the commander in chief. President Joe Biden now holds that role.

Its not unusual for a former president to come under protection after leaving office, or for local agencies to help. In June, for example, the Columbus Police Department in Georgia provided a motorcade for Trump.

In 1965, Congress authorized the Secret Service to protect former presidents and their spouses during their lifetime. Major presidential and vice presidential candidates can also receive Secret Service protection.

"In order to maintain a safe environment for the president and other protectees, the Secret Service calls upon other federal, state and local agencies to assist on a daily basis," the Secret Service says.

We rate claims Trump is commander in chief Pants on Fire!

The rest is here:
Former President Donald Trump isnt the commander in chief - PolitiFact

Some Democrats, independents and even never-Trump Republicans here in Minnesota and elsewhere may be overly enthused with the prospect of using the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment to keep former President Donald Trump off the ballot.

They envision achieving that objective by invoking the portion of that post-Civil War measure that bars anyone from holding elective office who has engaged in an insurrection or aiding others in doing so.

They could be flirting with fire.

Following a civil case initiated in Colorado early in September and serving as a forerunner for similar thrusts taken in other Trump-hostile jurisdictions, a legal proceeding was initiated here in the Twin Cities shortly after Labor Day seeking to prevent the 45th president from becoming the 47th. It asks to bar Steve Simon, Minnesotas secretary of state, from placing the former president on the ballot for the upcoming Republican primary in March and the election next November, if he is endorsed by the Republican Party.

The claimants in the Minnesota case are operating under the umbrella of a national group known as Free Speech for People. They include high-profile heavyweights no less than Paul Anderson, a highly respected former state Supreme Court justice and a pre-MAGA moderate Republican; Joan Growe, a former secretary of state and long-time progressive DFLer, and a few other political middleweights.

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Their case has been expedited and scheduled for hearing before the state Supreme Court on Nov. 2, a year and three days before the 2024 presidential election. The jurists in St. Paul are likely to issue a ruling upon the case soon thereafter, probably before the Jan. 5, 2024, cut-off date for primary ballot eligibility. Unless leapfrogged by another state, the Minnesota decision may be the first one in the nation addressing the insurrection issue.

Its ruling would only apply to the ballot here in Minnesota, but it would create a nonbinding precedent to be used as guidance for upcoming judicial decisions in other states.

If successful, the larger effort at candidate suppression would eliminate Trumps aspirations to return to the White House a second time the way another native New Yorker did: Grover Cleveland, the 22nd and 24th president, who split his two terms in the late 19th century around an election defeat.

But the Minnesota case and similar ones sprouting up across portions of the nation are rife with hazards. One is that the litigation plays right into what Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida described in the 2016 presidential primary campaign as the unusually small hands of the ex-president.

It allows Trump and his supporters to point to efforts to keep him off ballots as another example of weaponization of the legal system and an attack on his followers ability to exercise their rights to vote for him. That, in turn, helps his narrative that he is the victim of forces out to punish him and suppress his supporters, an assertion that has substantial appeal to Trump acolytes.

The keep-Trump-off-the-ballot movement is flying blind in uncharted territory. The prospect of the insurrection provision sidelining the former president from returning to the White House, let alone make it onto the ballot to get there, is attractive to some academics and pundits.

While simmering for some time, the insurrection clause concept turned into a realistic possibility spurred by the odd couple authorship of a piece by high-profile legal scholars like retired federal appellate judge Michael Lustig, a conservative icon, in concert with Harvard Law Schools Lawrence Tribe, a celebrated liberal lion, as well as an academic paper by Prof. Michael Paulson of St. Thomas University Law School in the Twin Cities, among other legal luminaries. Even the leader of the arch right-wing Federalist Society, the greenhouse for conservative judges, initially endorsed the idea, before the organization recanted a couple of weeks ago when it saw that the concept it supported was actually proceeding.

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But the effort to disenfranchise Trump-inclined voters may not be as appealing to elected officials and judges who must decide whether to allow him to be on the ballots in the various states where challenges have been lodged.

The most formidable hurdle is that the issue will end up, sooner or later, before the U.S. Supreme Court, a Trump-packed tribunal that is unlikely to ban him from the ballot.

The chances of success might be greater here in Minnesota. After Secretary of State Simon, who certifies electoral candidates, declined to bar the ex-president from ballot, the matter landed in the lap of the state Supreme Court, which is in transition due to the recent retirement of Chief Justice Lori Gildea and replacement by Justice Natalie Hudson, who now heads a tribunal that consists of six DFL appointees and a single one from the GOP.

But even with Minnesotas liberal-imbued high court, it might be an uphill fight for the challengers.

In 2020, an erstwhile obscure Republican candidate sued to be placed on the primary ballot after the state party denied him access to run against the sole GOP-approved candidate, none other than the-ex president.

The case, de la Fuentes v. Simon, reached the state Supreme Court on the eve of the primary, where it floundered. The court ruled it would not intervene on grounds that the parties decide whom to place before the voters.

Gildea, who retired at the end of last month after 13 years at the helm, was troubled by that challenge, pointing out at the hearing that there is something disturbing about the proposition that courts can effectively control whom voters get to vote for.

The stop-Trump advocates run the risk of the same rationale being invoked against them in a different context, in the new Trump insurrection ineligibility case to be heard next month.

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But whatever lower tribunals, state or federal here or elsewhere adjudicate the issue, it will probably be up to the U.S. Supreme Court to come up with a solution. Its unlikely to be favorable ruling for the anti-Trump challengers in the absence of a prior judicial declaration by a lower court that the ex-president engaged in the prohibited conduct.

In addition to the distinct potential for defeat in court, the anti-Trump ballot brigade may lose in the court of public opinion.

Marshall H. Tanick

Like his quartet of indictments, a legal challenge on insurrection grounds could redound to the benefit of the ex-presidents popularity, at least within his party, not to mention the millions of dollars he will gather from small donor contributors to wage his ballot battles.

So, the insurrection-disqualification advocates ought to be careful because they are sparking a blaze that might burn them badly. If they dont pay attention to this warning, theres another admonition adage they ought to heed: If you try to take out the king, dont miss.

Marshall H. Tanick is a constitutional law attorney in the Twin Cities.

If youre interested in joining the discussion, consider writing a Community Voices commentary or counterpoint. (For more information about Community Voices, see our Submission Guidelines.)

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The risky effort to keep Donald Trump off the 2024 ballot - MinnPost

When former President Trump hysterically called for shoplifters to be shot in a speech last week before California Republicans, we know who he thinks hes talking about: Black and Brown people. We will immediately stop all of the pillaging and theft, Trump said. Very simply: If you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store. Shot!

It continues more than four decades of Trump unapologetically calling for capital punishment or for the accused to be kneecapped way beyond for what crimes usually call for. Those who have a long memory about Trump will recall his full-page ads in New York newspapers 34 years ago calling for the death penalty in after the Central Park rape that wrongfully sent Black and Brown men to prison.

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Now this, as the former president remains the clear front runner for the Republican nomination to return to the White House. Now, the easy thing here is to keep going about his ongoing efforts to place the political mark of the beast on Black and Brown people. But his fascist rant to bring the full weight of lethal federal law enforcement against shoplifters carries a peculiar irony. Trump is so unhinged, he forgot that most shoplifters are White.

Despite the decades of Black people being profiled in stores as possible shoplifters (and being shot and killed, as was John Crawford in 2014 for holding an unboxed pellet gun in the sporting goods section of a Walmart outside Dayton Ohio), much of the loot that leaks out of stores iare in the backpacks and purses of the least profiled.

According to a 2014 study in the American Journal of Psychiatry, 77.5 percent of shoplifters are White, significantly above their 59 percent of the national population. Only 8 percent of shoplifters are Black and only another 8 percent are Latino, well below their shares of the national population. That study said, Shoplifting was significantly more common in individuals with at least some college education, among those with individual incomes over $35,000 and family incomes over $70,000.

Going even farther back, a 1986 Washington Post story on shoplifting in the Washington, D.C. area found that while young Black males were routinely put under heavy surveillance in stores, 71 percent of people arrested for shoplifting were from middle- and upper-income brackets. That story said:

If there was a profile of a shoplifter, it might show a woman from a middle-income group, who has either a high school diploma or college degree. In reality, the statistics show that shoplifting cuts across age, educational and income levels. All available evidence suggests, in fact, that young black males, as a group, between the ages of 18 and 25, pose no greater threat as shoplifters than most groups.

In a 2013 interview on National Public Radio, Rutgers University marketing professor Jerome Williams said, About 70 percent of all the shoplifting in this country is done by whites. And in fact, if you look at store shrinkage or loss, most of the loss is done by employees and not by customers. And in some states where weve looked at the data, what we call the modal group thats most likely to shoplift is white women in their 40s and 50s.

When Trump went off about shooting shoplifters, his audience of California Republicans cheered as if a football team scored a touchdown. That was because in that same speech, he referred to California as a dumping ground. Trump has long used the phrase to refer to Mexico dumping its worst elements into the United States.

The crowd clearly assumed that shoplifters in the crosshairs of another Trump White House would be Brown and Black. The data says otherwise. If Trump really means what he says, hes about to mow down a whole lot of White housewives.

Derrick Z. Jackson is a former Boston Globe columnist and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary.

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Donald Trump Says Shoplifters Should be Shot, but Does He Know Who Most Shoplifters Are? - Yahoo News

Republican presidential candidates seized on the Hamas attack on Israel Saturday to try to lay blame on President Biden, drawing a connection between the surprise assault and a recent hostage release deal between the United States and Iran, a longtime backer of the group.

Former President Donald J. Trump, who has frequently presented himself as a unflinching ally of Israel and who moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv in 2018, blamed Mr. Biden for the conflict.

While campaigning on Saturday in Waterloo, Iowa, he said the attacks had occurred because we are perceived as being weak and ineffective, with a really weak leader.

On several occasions, Mr. Trump went further, saying that the hostage deal was a catalyst of the attacks. The war happened for two reasons, he said. The United States is giving and gave to Iran $6 billion over hostages.

In exchange for the release of five Americans held in Tehran, the Biden administration agreed in August to free up $6 billion in frozen Iranian oil revenue funds for humanitarian purposes. The administration has emphasized that the money could be used only for food, medicine, medical equipment that would not have a dual military use.

A senior Biden administration official responded to the comments by Mr. Trump as well as to criticism by other Republican candidates by calling them total lies and accusing the politicians of having either a complete misunderstanding of the facts or of participating willingly in a complete mischaracterization and disinformation of facts.

Another Biden administration official, Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, said in a statement, These funds have absolutely nothing to do with the horrific attacks today, and this is not the time to spread disinformation.

Mr. Trump, the G.O.P. front-runner, was not alone in assailing Mr. Biden, as the entire Republican field weighed in on the attacks on Saturday.

In a video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida faulted the Biden administration for its foreign policy decisions in the Middle East.

Iran has helped fund this war against Israel, and Joe Bidens policies that have gone easy on Iran has helped to fill their coffers, he said. Israel is now paying the price for those policies.

In a statement issued through the White House, Mr. Biden pledged solidarity with Israel and said that he had spoken with Benjamin Netanyahu, the countrys prime minister.

The United States unequivocally condemns this appalling assault against Israel by Hamas terrorists from Gaza, and I made clear to Prime Minister Netanyahu that we stand ready to offer all appropriate means of support to the Government and people of Israel, Mr. Biden said.

Yet while the G.O.P. candidates rallied around Israel on Saturday, there is a divide in the party between foreign policy hawks and those who favor a more isolationist approach.

In addition to criticizing Mr. Biden on Saturday, former Vice President Mike Pence had harsh words for fellow Republicans who prefer a more hands-off approach to conflicts abroad.

This is what happens when @POTUS projects weakness on the world stage, kowtows to the mullahs in Iran with a $6 Billion ransom, and leaders in the Republican Party signal American retreat as Leader of the Free World, Mr. Pence wrote on X. Weakness arouses evil.

Other Republican candidates, including Nikki Haley, who was an ambassador to the United Nations under Mr. Trump, and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina denounced the attacks as acts of terrorism.

Make no mistake: Hamas is a bloodthirsty terrorist organization backed by Iran and determined to kill as many innocent lives as possible, Ms. Haley said in a statement.

Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey echoed the criticism of his Republican rivals in a social media post, calling the release of $6 billion by the Biden administration to Iran idiotic. Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota and Mr. Hutchinson similarly sought to connect the attack with the release of humanitarian funds for Iran.

Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur, called the attacks barbaric and medieval in a post on X.

Shooting civilians and kidnapping children are war crimes, he wrote. Israels right to exist & defend itself should never be doubted and Iran-backed Hamas & Hezbollah cannot be allowed to prevail.

Michael Gold contributed reporting from Waterloo, Iowa, and Nicholas Nehamas from Keosauqua, Iowa.

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Trump and Other GOP Candidates Use Israel-Gaza to Criticize Biden - The New York Times