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      Secret Service extension for Trump’s adult children cost $140,000 in a month

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      Donald Trump’s adult children reportedly cost taxpayers $140,000 in Secret Service security in the month after the clan’s patriarch left the White House in January.Ordinarily, family members of a president lose their security detail when they leave office. But in the case of the four Trump siblings and two of their spouses, the former president issued a directive to extend post-presidency protections by six months.The costs, obtained by the watchdog group Citizens for Ethics, do not include security protections at Trump properties in New Jersey, Palm Beach and Briarcliff, New York. With those factored in, the total would likely be far higher, according to the group.According to the watchdog, records reveal that the Trump children maintained a “breakneck speed of travel, and racked up significant hotel and transportation bills for the Secret Service”. Transport costs alone amounted to $52,296.75, and hotel costs totaled at least $88,678.39.If that schedule is maintained, the group estimates, post-presidency protection costs could nearly $1m. The group has previously calculated that the Trump family made 12 times as many trips in three years as the Obamas made in seven.The arrangements, however, are not unique: former presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and George W Bush also sought protection extensions, though in the case of Clinton and Obama their children were by then at, or close to, college-age.The Washington Post, which reported on Trump’s directive in January, found that extensions to Secret Service protections were also extended to former treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin, former chief of staff Mark Meadows and former national security adviser Robert O’Brien.Under federal law, Trump and his wife Melania are entitled to protection for their lifetime; their teenage son Barron receives his until he turns 16.The watchdog found that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump went from their jobs at the White House to a 10-day vacation in Utah, racking up hotel costs of $62,599. After a month in Miami, they stayed at Trump’s Bedminster golf property for three days in late February.Eric and Lara Trump spent much of February at Trump’s Briarcliff property, interspersed with trips to New York, Miami and Palm Beach, at a cost of $12,742.Donald Trump Jr also spent time in New York City, on Long Island, and in upstate New York, racking up bills of $13,337.But Citizens for Ethics said the Secret Service did not provide records of spending at Trump businesses.“While it may be tempting to put the story of the Trump family’s profiteering in the past, we cannot until they have actually stopped directing taxpayer money into their own bank accounts,” the group said. More

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      Republicans push 'blue-collar comeback' – but is the party a true friend of the worker?

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      Amid the resurrection of “the big lie” about an election stolen from Donald Trump, another deceptive theme has emerged at this weekend’s rightwing gathering of the Conservative Political Action Conference: Republicans as the true party of the blue-collar worker.
      It was a concept promoted variously over CPAC’s first two days by, among others, a multimillionaire former governor who made a fortune in healthcare; the son of Donald Trump, who lives in his own exclusive Florida club; and two firebrand US senators with law degrees from Ivy League universities who oppose a universal hike in the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
      One of them, the Texas senator Ted Cruz, earlier this month flew his family to a sunshine vacation at a five-star resort in Mexico to escape the deadly winter blast back in his home state. At CPAC he asserted his alignment with America’s working men and women.
      “The Republican party is not the party just of the country clubs; the Republican party is the party of steel workers and construction workers, and pipeline workers and taxi cab drivers, and cops and firefighters, and waiters and waitresses, and the men and women with calluses on their hands who are working for this country,” Cruz told the nation’s biggest annual gathering of grassroots conservatives, just days after cutting short his Cancun holiday when the scandal came to light.
      “That is our party, and these deplorables are here to stay.”
      The CPAC positioning to try to represent the Republican party as a champion of the working class comes as Democratic president Joe Biden’s effort to raise the minimum wage faces significant congressional roadblocks, including opposition from many senior Republican figures.
      Cruz, a Harvard-educated lawyer and the beneficiary of substantial corporate campaign donations, at least until many halted contributions in the wake of the 6 January Capitol riots, is a long-time opponent of what he has called the “bad policy” concept of a minimum wage, and has said legislation to enforce it would “kill American jobs”.
      Josh Hawley, the Missouri senator who last month joined his fellow Trump loyalist Cruz in attempting to block the certification of Biden’s victory, was another prominent CPAC speaker espousing working-class roots while opposing the new president’s wage proposals.
      “Where I come from in Missouri, I grew up in rural Missouri, [a] small town right in the middle of Missouri, it’s a working-class town full of good folks, working hard to make it every day,” said Hawley, a Yale law school graduate.
      “And I can just tell you, where I grew up, we believe in citizenship because we’re proud of it. We’re proud to be Americans,” he added in an address condemning “powerful corporations” and “oligarchs” he accused of imposing a “radical left agenda” on the United States.
      Hawley, considered a possible candidate in the race for the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination if Trump does not run again, has also suffered corporate backlash for his support of the former president’s election lies. He proposed legislation this month that would exempt small businesses from paying their employees a “burdensome” minimum wage.
      On Saturday at CPAC, the fealty continued to Trump, who was honored at the conference venue this week by the installation of a large, gaudy statue that sparked the Twitter hashtag #goldencalf.
      “The blue-collar comeback was the theme of our administration,” the Republican Tennessee senator Bill Hagerty said in a panel discussion on industry during which he praised “President Trump’s leadership” for job growth.
      KT McFarland, a conservative commentator who was briefly Trump’s deputy national security adviser at the start of his administration, said she had a telephone call with the former president on Friday night in which he allegedly outlined the theme of his scheduled CPAC speech on Sunday.
      “I think that Donald Trump is not finished with this revolution,” she said, describing how she called his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach and claiming Trump himself picked up the phone.
      “He said: ‘I’m going to talk about the future. I’m going to talk about how we win in 2022, how we take the White House back in 2024.’”
      Trump’s son, Donald Jr, told CPAC attendees earlier in the gathering that Biden’s relaxation of Trump-era immigration measures and reopening of camps for migrant youth would affect the very blue-collar workers Republicans are attempting to covet.
      “Where is the outrage about an asinine immigration policy that is encouraging people to bring children unaccompanied and otherwise into a country?” he said. More

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      Trump is being pelted in the stocks now – but don’t bet against him wriggling free

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      The chances of seeing the outgoing president in an orange jumpsuit are low – even as the potential charges mount up fastLock him up! Echoing Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign chant against Hillary Clinton, many Americans appear keen on jailing their president after his criminally reckless incitement of last week’s mob-driven, amateur-hour insurrection in Washington.His harshest critics would despatch him forthwith to a federal penitentiary or mental institution. Yet despite fears that an unstable Trump poses a security threat in his final 10 days in office, he is unlikely to be forced out. It’s just not that easy, politically or legally. Continue reading… More

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      Trump attempted a coup: he must be removed while those who aided him pay | Robert Reich

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      A swift impeachment is imperative but from Rudy Giuliani and Don Jr to Fox News and Twitter, the president did not act aloneInsurrection: the day terror came to the US CapitolCall me old-fashioned, but when the president of the United States encourages armed insurgents to breach the Capitol and threaten the physical safety of Congress, in order to remain in power, I call it an attempted coup. Related: Saving Justice review: how Trump’s Eye of Sauron burned everything – including James Comey Continue reading… More

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      'I just want 11,780 votes': Trump pressed Georgia to overturn Biden victory

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      In an hour-long phone call on Saturday, Donald Trump pressed Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to overturn Joe Biden’s victory there in the election the president refuses to concede.The Washington Post obtained a tape of the “extraordinary hour-long call”, which Trump acknowledged on Twitter.Amid widespread outrage including calls for a second impeachment, Bob Bauer, a senior Biden adviser, said: “We now have irrefutable proof of a president pressuring and threatening an official of his own party to get him to rescind a state’s lawful, certified vote count and fabricate another in its place.”The Post published the full call.“The people of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry,” Trump said. “And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.”Raffensperger is a Republican who has become a bête noire among Trump supporters for repeatedly saying Biden’s win in his state was fair. In one of a number of parries, he said: “Well, Mr President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong.”Trump said: “So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”He also insisted: “There’s no way I lost Georgia. There’s no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes.”Trump’s contempt for democracy is laid bare. Once again. On tapeTrump did not win Georgia, which went Democratic for the first time since 1992. Its result has been certified. Attempts to pressure Republicans in other battleground states have failed, as have the vast majority of challenges to results in court.Despite promised objections from at least 12 Republican senators and a majority of the House GOP, Biden’s electoral college victory will be ratified by Congress on Wednesday. The Democrat will be inaugurated as the 46th president on 20 January. Trump will then leave the White House – where he remained, tweeting angrily, all weekend.Edward B Foley, an Ohio State law professor, told the Post the call was “‘inappropriate and contemptible’ and should prompt moral outrage”. Trump’s behaviour was “already tripping the emergency meter,” he added. “So we were at 12 on a scale of one to 10, and now we’re at 15.”In an email to the Guardian, University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias said: “The conduct that the press has reported might place Trump in legal jeopardy after Biden is inaugurated.“For example, if the justice department or US attorneys believe that Trump violated federal law or if local prosecutors in states, such as Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin, where Trump may have engaged in similar behaviour with state or local election officials, believe that Trump violated state election laws, the federal or state prosecutors could file suit against Trump.”Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, went further, calling for Trump to be impeached a second time, even though he has little more than two weeks left in office.“The president of the United States has been caught on tape trying to rig a presidential election,” Bookbinder said. “This is a low point in American history and unquestionably impeachable conduct. It is incontrovertible and devastating.“When the Senate acquitted President Trump for abusing his powers to try to get himself re-elected [in February 2020, regarding approaches to Ukraine for dirt on Biden], we worried that he would grow more brazen in his attempts to wrongly and illegally keep himself in power. He has … Congress must act immediately.”From Congress, in a tweet, Adam Schiff, the Democratic chair of the House intelligence committee, said: “Trump’s contempt for democracy is laid bare. Once again. On tape.”The lead prosecutor at Trump’s Senate impeachment trial last year added: “Pressuring an election official to ‘find’ the votes so he can win is potentially criminal, and another flagrant abuse of power by a corrupt man who would be a despot, if we allowed him. We will not.”Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat widely expected to be elected House speaker for a fourth term, set out her strategy for the election certification in a memo to colleagues.“Over the years,” she wrote, “we have experienced many challenges in the House, but no situation matches the Trump presidency and the Trump disrespect for the will of the people.”Adam Kinzinger, a Republican congressman from Illinois, tweeted: “This is absolutely appalling. To every member of Congress considering objecting to the election results, you cannot – in light of this – do so with a clean conscience.”Stacey Abrams is laughing about you. She’s going around saying, ‘These guys are dumber than a rock’White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Cleta Mitchell, a Republican lawyer, were also on the call, during which Trump ran through a laundry list of debunked claims regarding supposed electoral fraud and called Raffensperger a “child”, “either dishonest or incompetent” and a “schmuck”.Characteristically, Trump also threatened legal action.“You know what they did and you’re not reporting it,” he said. “You know, that’s a criminal offence. And you know, you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan [Germany], your lawyer. That’s a big risk.”Referring to runoffs on Tuesday that will decide control of the Senate, Trump said Georgia had “a big election coming up and because of what you’ve done to the president – you know, the people of Georgia know that this was a scam.“Because of what you’ve done to the president, a lot of people aren’t going out to vote, and a lot of Republicans are going to vote negative, because they hate what you did to the president. OK? They hate it. And they’re going to vote. And you would be respected, really respected, if this can be straightened out before the election.”Republican incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, seeking to beat Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, have ranged themselves behind Trump. But Georgia Republicans fear his attacks could suppress his own party’s turnout as Democrats work to boost their own.Early voting has reached unprecedented levels and on Sunday, former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams told ABC’s This Week: “What we’re so excited about is that we haven’t stopped reaching those voters. Millions of contacts have been made, thousands of new registrations have been held. We know that at least 100,000 people who did not vote in the general election are now voting in this election.”Trump told Raffensperger: “Stacey Abrams is laughing about you. She’s going around saying, ‘These guys are dumber than a rock.’”Trump also said he knew the call wasn’t “going anywhere”. Raffensperger ended the conversation.On Twitter on Sunday, Trump said Raffensperger “was unwilling, or unable, to answer questions such as the ‘ballots under table’ scam, ballot destruction, out of state ‘voters’, dead voters, and more. He has no clue!”Twitter duly applied a standard disclaimer: “This claim about election fraud is disputed.”Raffensperger also responded: “Respectfully, President Trump: What you’re saying is not true.” More

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      in Elections

      Donald Trump Jr says he will pass time in Covid isolation by cleaning his guns

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      Donald Trump Jr, the president’s son who has tested positive for the coronavirus, has said he will pass the time in isolation battling with the virus by cleaning his collection of guns.
      Trump Jr is now the fourth member of the Trump family to have become infected with Covid. The president, the first lady and their son, Barron, have recovered from the virus, as has Trump Jr’s girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle.
      In a video posted to his Instagram account, Trump Jr breezily announced: “Apparently I got the rona.” He then went on to say he had no symptoms of the virus but would stay indoors out of an abundance of caution.
      He asked his supporters for their book and Netflix recommendation before adding: “I may have a couple days of solo time and there’s only so many guns I can clean before that gets bored.”
      Trump Jr, like his father as president, has been frequently criticized for downplaying the severity of the pandemic as it killed more than 250,000 Americans. In October Trump Jr told Fox News that critics of the Trump administration’s widely slammed approach to the pandemic are “truly morons” and said Covid-19 deaths in America are “almost nothing”.
      Trump Jr is believed to have political ambitions beyond being just his father’s son and has successfully courted popularity with the Republican party’s conservative base, carefully cultivating an outdoorsy and hunting popular image. More

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      Liberal Privilege review: Donald Trump Jr, Maga porn – and the future of the Republican party

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      Donald Trump Jr will be a fixture in Republican politics in the years to come, regardless of whether his father wins re-election. Already, speculation runs rampant that the president’s oldest son will be on the presidential ballot in 2024.Triggered, Don Jr’s first book, was a better campaign autobiography than most. For all its vitriol, it was personally revealing and laced with humor. By contrast, Liberal Privilege is a nonstop attack on the Bidens, the Democratic party and the media.Think of it as Maga porn. As Steve Bannon told the Senate intelligence committee, Don Jr is “a guy who believes everything on Breitbart is true”. Don Jr is also the fellow who on Thursday proclaimed that Covid-19 deaths were “almost nothing” when, in reality, the US daily death toll had exceeded 1,000.Liberal Privilege offers a cornucopia of delectation for Trumpworld’s denizens. It is graced with endorsements from Laura Ingraham, Senator Rand Paul and Matt Gaetz, a Florida representative and key Trump ally. Inside, Trump Jr drops the word “bullshit” 12 times but also adds 30 pages of footnotes.Ivanka holds Donald Trump’s heart and gaze, but it is her brother who has captured the imagination of the faithfulSubstantively, Trump Jr endeavors to make the case that Biden is addled and his family is corrupt. Regarding Biden’s wellbeing, the author enlists the assistance of Ronny Jackson MD to take down the Democratic nominee.A former presidential physician, Jackson is currently a Republican congressional candidate. In 2018, he withdrew as nominee for secretary of veterans affairs after an array of misconduct allegations. Regarding Biden, Jackson declines to offer a formal diagnosis of dementia. That would be outside the bounds of medical practice. But he claims Biden “can’t form sentences” and “that something is not right”. In light of Biden’s debate wins, Jackson’s take on the Democrat’s mental acuity is best described as suspect – and that is being kind.Liberal Privilege offers no explanation for the president’s unscheduled visit to Walter Reed hospital in November 2019. Even more than the president’s finances, that trip remains shrouded in mystery.Biden can bound staircases and hold an ice cream cone. Trump required military assistance to walk down a ramp, and struggles to drink water without two hands. “Thighland” is a destination in the president’s malapropism-filled lexicon, when he isn’t dreaming of being Superman.When it comes to family members trading on public office, Liberal Privilege is on somewhat firmer ground. Back in 2014, Burisma Holdings, Ukraine’s largest private natural gas producer, announced that Hunter had joined its board. To which the White House could only reply: “Hunter Biden and other members of the Biden family are obviously private citizens, and where they work does not reflect an endorsement by the administration or by the vice-president or president.” Then there are the allegations concerning Hunter and China.Trump and his presidency, however, are in a league of his own. Few norms remain unshattered, be it turning the federal government into a personal revenue stream, refusing to release tax returns, disparaging war dead or holding campaign rallies on the White House lawn.Only recently, the public learned from the New York Times that the president holds a Chinese bank account, paid the PRC more than $188,000 in taxes, but just $750 to the Internal Revenue Service. Meanwhile, Ivanka, the first daughter, holds intellectual property rights in China, and Jared Kushner’s sister pitched Chinese investors on Kushner properties and US visas. And then there was the scramble for foreign funding to refinance the Kushner property at 666 Fifth Avenue.True to form, Liberal Privilege mentions cancel culture more than two dozen times without a peep of the president’s own censorship efforts. The justice department attempted to muzzle John Bolton, a former Trump national security adviser. Trump’s personal lawyers sought to silence Mary Trump, his niece. Both had written unflattering books.The government is taking aim at Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, Melania Trump’s former personal aide. The Trump campaign’s arbitration claim against Omarosa appears to be going nowhere fast. Cancelation is definitely in the eyes of the beholder, and the Trumps do a great job of acting like the very snowflakes they claim to detest.Yet, when it comes to Liberal Privilege’s criticism of the media, the press would do well to pay heed: they are distrusted even as the public sees them as invaluable to democracy. By the numbers, a third of the US has no trust in the fourth estate and more than a quarter possess “not very much”.Trump Jr also looks to tether Biden to Bernie Sanders, the democratic socialist senator from Vermont. Here too, he generates more heat than light. By temperament and record, Biden is no socialist. He beat Sanders in the primaries. The financial industry has donated tens of millions to the Biden campaign.Indeed, out of a lack of confidence in Biden’s embrace of their agenda, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the “Squad” have demanded corporative executives be barred from serving in his cabinet. Good luck with that.While Liberal Privilege will change few votes, it sets the bar for the GOP’s future. Although Democrats and liberals may recoil, and Mike Pence must look over his shoulder, Don Jr has done himself a favor.Ivanka holds Donald Trump’s heart and gaze, but it is her brother who has captured the imagination of the faithful. He is the actual Republican. Their grievances are his armour. More

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      'This will make lib heads explode': Donald Trump Jr posts 2024 picture

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      Donald Trump Jr posed in front of a “Don Jr 2024” sign in Nevada on Saturday, posted the picture online and waited for “the lib heads to explode”.
      “Hahahahaha,” wrote the president’s oldest son, on Instagram. “Oh boy. This was a sign up at the Fallon Nevada Livestock Auction. This will make the lib heads explode.” (“Lib” being short for liberal.)
      “To whomever made that thanks for the compliment … but let’s get through 2020 with a big win first!!!!!”
      Though Nevada went for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden leads Donald Trump Sr there this year, it is considered a swing state. Democratic voters are concentrated in Las Vegas and its suburbs while Republicans can be found in more rural areas.
      Trump Jr, 42, is best known as an internet provocateur who shares both his father’s brashness and his inclination for sharing disinformation.
      Since his father won the White House he has not been involved in policy like his sister, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner, or as active in running the Trump Organization as his brother, Eric. He also has two half-siblings, Tiffany and Barron.
      But Don Jr does seem to be the Trump offspring most inclined to politics and he has turned into a valuable campaign surrogate with a knack for communicating with the president’s base.
      “Don Jr represents the emotional center of the MAGA universe,” Jason Miller, a senior advisor on Trump’s campaign, told the New York Times, using an acronym for “Make America Great Again”, a Trump slogan.
      Trump Jr has only joked about running for office but he – and his sister – have registered strongly in polls regarding notional Republican candidates for 2024, whether to succeed his father or to attempt to deny Joe Biden a second term.
      The president’s oldest son has also published two books with political themes, seeing the first top bestseller lists, if with help from the party, and suffering embarrassment over a mistake on the cover of the second.
      A Vice reporter recently suggested that Pennsylvania Republicans were floating the idea of Trump Jr replacing Pat Toomey, a Republican senator who has announced he will retire. Trump Jr himself has not spoken about the Pennsylvania seat.
      Speaking to the Guardian this week, Rick Wilson, a former Republican consultant and member of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, called Trump Jr “a post-Republican Republican … there only to engage in that performative dickery that is lib-owning in the Trump world. It is a political performance art to show your contempt for norms, institutions and education.”
      Wilson went on to explain why, should Trump Jr actually consider a run for office, that might be an asset.
      “It has become the ideological underpinning of the GOP. There’s no party of ideas any longer. There’s no there there except for sort of the screeching fury of Trumpism.” More