“the TV ratings Nielsen reports have no correlation to the viewership numbers Twitter is reporting. For starters, as always, Nielsen is reporting the average viewership the debates generated, not the total number of views, which is what online outlets generally report. That’s not a new discrepancy, and at this point everyone in tech and media should know better but either doesn’t or pretends not to.
More important, under Musk, Twitter has moved to an even more fanciful description of “viewership,” where it’s not even pretending to count people who watch the video. Instead, it’s simply measuring the number of times someone has seen the tweet with the video scroll through their feed, as the Washington Post’s Will Oremus reports.”
“Whatever you think of Donald Trump, we know what Carlson thinks, thanks to private communications that Dominion Voting Systems uncovered through discovery in its defamation lawsuit against Carlson’s former employer, which agreed to pay $788 million rather than defend its promotion of Trump’s stolen-election fantasy. “There isn’t really an upside to Trump,” Carlson said in a January 4, 2021, text message to his staff, describing “the last four years” as “a disaster.” Back then, Carlson was eager to be rid of Trump: “We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can’t wait. I hate him passionately.” The day after the January 6, 2021, riot by Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol, Carlson privately called him “a demonic force” and “a destroyer.”
But that was then. Carlson, like the GOP politicians whose phoniness he claims to despise, has adjusted to the reality that Trump remains stubbornly popular among Republicans. He is even willing to reinforce the election conspiracy theory that he publicly called unfounded and privately called a lie. Carlson’s current coziness with Trump was on vivid display Wednesday night, starting with the question of why the “far-and-away front-runner,” whose views are of such keen interest to voters, decided to skip the Republican debate in Milwaukee and any other similar forum in which he might have to defend those views or his record as president against competitors keen to make a dent in his commanding lead.
Trump’s answer was that felt no need to go through that ordeal, precisely because he is so far ahead. Why put up with “all these people screaming at me, shouting questions at me”—which Trump contradictorily claimed he “love[s] answering”—when he could sit down with an interviewer who is desperate to please him, especially in light of the criticism revealed in those embarrassing messages? Anyway, Trump said, he would probably get better ratings “using this crazy forum” than he would on Fox News, which televised the debate that he skipped. “I’m grateful that you did,” Carlson replied.”
…
“Trump said Biden “is worse mentally than he is physically,” as evidenced by the fact that he “can’t put two sentences together.” Trump, by contrast, can put many, many sentences together, but they do not necessarily make sense, bear any logical relationship to each other, or stand up to critical scrutiny. Fortunately for Trump, Carlson was offering none of that.”
“Districts in which one or more minority racial or ethnic groups constitute a majority of the population now make up nearly one-third of all House seats. Correspondingly, the number of representatives who identify as Black, Latino, Asian, Pacific Islander, Native Hawaiian, American Indian and/or Alaska Native has also increased. Around 7 in 10 of these members hail from majority-minority seats, indicative of these seats’ importance in ensuring representation for minority groups. At the same time, people of color are winning more majority-white seats than in the past. Success in those sorts of districts has increased as our politics have grown more partisan, as voters are increasingly likely to back their party regardless of the candidate their party nominates.”
…
“after the 2020 round of redistricting, majority-Black constituencies were roughly halved while seats that were 40 to 50 percent Black nearly tripled. Slow population growth in Northern states led to lost seats in reapportionment, which notably increased each state’s population per district and complicated drawing seats with Black majorities. For instance, New York’s three majority-Black districts in New York City became plurality-Black seats as the state lost a seat and the average number of people per district grew by about 60,000. Lines drawn by partisan mapmakers or independent redistricting commissions also affected the number of majority-Black seats. Florida, for example, drew two fewer majority-Black seats after the 2020 census (although those seats remained solidly majority-minority overall) and controversially unwound one plurality-Black seat; the latter move faces continued litigation.
Black representation, like that of other groups, also intersects with our sharply polarized politics. Because voters of color tend to lean Democratic — Black voters overwhelmingly so — concentrating voters of color in one district can make surrounding seats more Republican. As a result, recent redistricting conflicts have largely centered on GOP attempts to pack more Black voters in majority-Black districts to make nearby seats redder and Democrats’ efforts to unpack heavily Black districts to add Democratic-leaning voters to surrounding districts. Lublin’s research shows that Black candidates (again usually Democrats) can regularly win seats that are 40 to 50 percent Black, depending in part on the share of white voters in the seat and how Republican-leaning they are.”
“this indictment is on more serious charges — an attack on American democracy. Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election amounted to a conspiracy to defraud the United States and led directly to the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol, according to
“the proof beyond a reasonable doubt required for a criminal conviction. Eastman (who is one of Trump’s co-defendants) said Trump had been “made aware” that the claims about ballots cast by dead people, felons, and unregistered voters were “inaccurate.” But even if someone told him the numbers were wrong, and even if Trump was paying attention, it would have been perfectly in character for him to continue believing them.
The federal indictment is filled with examples of information that Trump ignored or rejected because it conflicted with his stolen-election narrative. That stubborn resistance can be interpreted either as evidence of his dishonesty or as evidence of his longstanding tendency to embrace self-flattering delusions and never let them go.”
…
“At a certain point, as George Mason law professor Ilya Somin suggests, willful blindness to reality is hard to distinguish from deliberate deceit, and this example vividly illustrates that point. But in assessing Trump’s state of mind when he made unsubstantiated claims like these, a jury will have to decide whether there is reasonable doubt as to whether he knew they were false.”
“Is it illegal to try to steal a presidential election?
Special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Donald Trump..holds that the answer is yes. Trump’s attempt to flip the results after the 2020 election, well before the events of January 6, Smith argues, amounted to a criminal conspiracy that violated three federal laws.
But throughout the history of this investigation, many other officials seemed to think the answer was no.
For about a year after the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, the Justice Department’s attention was overwhelmingly focused on that attack itself, not on Trump’s two-month attempt to change the election results beforehand.
Many of Trump’s pre-January 6 actions that Smith cites in his indictment — such as his lobbying of swing state legislators, his organizing of “alternate” elector slates in key states, and his pressuring of Vice President Mike Pence — unfolded at least partly in plain sight or were reported by journalists at the time.
Throughout most and perhaps all of 2021, none of that seems to have been the focus of an investigation by the Justice Department, and in fact, proposals to investigate them were reportedly rejected by DOJ or FBI officials. There wasn’t a consensus then that these actions were actually criminal — many believed that though Trump’s known conduct may have been unethical and dangerous to democracy, it didn’t necessarily violate specific laws.
Now, though, Smith argues the president and his allies were engaged in a criminal conspiracy. The January 6 attack itself plays a relatively more limited role in Smith’s indictment — the main crime, he’s effectively arguing, was Trump’s whole lengthy effort to overturn Biden’s win.
The question of how and why the DOJ shifted so thoroughly on this topic is complicated, and still may not be fully understood.
But one way to understand the new indictment is that it’s an effort to draw a bright line around Trump’s actions, to make clear that nothing like this should happen again — from him, or anyone else.”
“Altogether, those statements suggest that Trump’s team appears to be currently pursuing three lines of legal defense: that his speech is protected under the First Amendment, that he didn’t order Pence to participate in an illegal scheme to stop the certification of the election results, and that he couldn’t have criminal intent if he didn’t truly understand he had lost.”
…
“Smith acknowledges in the indictment that Trump had every right under the First Amendment to protest the results of the election, as the former president and his lawyers have claimed. “They don’t want me to speak about a rigged election. They don’t want me to speak about it. I have freedom of speech, the First Amendment,” Trump said Tuesday.
But Smith argues that what Trump wasn’t allowed to do was urge others to form an illegal plan to undermine the results.
The indictment describes that plan as involving a prolonged pressure and influence campaign that targeted state politicians in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, and Arizona. When no politician would help him overturn the election, the indictment says Trump went on to use “Dishonesty, Fraud, and Deceit” to assemble a slate of unlawful Electoral College electors in seven states, and that he and his allies lied to many electors to get them to go along with the plan. Then, Trump tried to use the powers of the executive branch — those given to the Justice Department and the vice president — to stay in power. Finally, the indictment places at Trump’s feet the violence of January 6 and a plan to stop the certification of the vote.
All of those actions go far beyond simply protesting the results.”
…
“The question is whether Smith has the evidence”
…
“Legal experts said that prosecutors may not need to necessarily prove that Trump knew he lost the election, only that he knew he was using possibly unlawful means to reach the end he believed was right: another four years in the White House.
“Even if he believed he had won the election and it had been stolen from him, if he then went out and formulated a plan to prevent the legitimately elected electors of various states from voting and having the results certified, that would probably satisfy the intent standard,” O’Brien said.
Bader said that Smith is likely going to argue that Trump took illegal actions that “transcend what his personal motivation is for engaging in this conduct.” But he’s also likely going to argue that Trump is lying when he says he always believed that the election was stolen from him.”
“this case “will legally define what a politician is able to do to reverse a defeat.” The outcome of this case could have major implications for the 2024 election and every race that follows: If Trump isn’t held accountable for the actions he took on January 6 and leading up to it, he and others could try to pull the same schemes in the future.
Ultimately, this case has a significant bearing on the future of US democracy.
Number of charges: Four felony counts. They include:
Charge of conspiracy to defraud the United States, which includes plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election
Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, including plotting to prevent the 2020 election certification
Obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, which includes actually blocking the certification of the 2020 election results
Conspiracy against rights, which includes a plan to deprive someone of a constitutional right (in this case, that is the ability to vote)”
…
” Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis accused Trump and several of his associates of a sprawling racketeering conspiracy related to their efforts to overturn Biden’s win in the state. In contrast to the federal election indictment, where Trump is the only one charged so far, here 18 others were also charged for participating in this alleged conspiracy. These include famous names like Rudy Giuliani and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, notorious Trump lawyers like John Eastman and Sidney Powell, and lower-level Georgia players.”
…
“This case centers on a president’s ability to endanger the country’s national security by taking and mishandling classified documents after leaving office. Documents that Trump kept addressed everything from US nuclear programs to the country’s defense and weapons capabilities to how America could respond in the face of a possible attack. Additionally, the case looks at how Trump obstructed FBI efforts to take back the documents.”