The internecine squabbling within the divided, discredited, demoralized and totally ineffective Republican Party--so vividly displayed in Congress over the row about shutting down the federal government--is alive and well in Georgia.
According to the New York Times, state senator Colton Moore, who has pushed to investigate and potentially impeach Fani T. Willis, the Atlanta-based district attorney who is prosecuting former President Donald J. Trump for election subversion, was suspended indefinitely on September 28 by his GOP caucus. Georgia Senate Republicans said in a statement that they had taken the disciplinary action against Moore, a Trump loyalist from the northwestern part of the state, because of what they described as his incendiary rhetoric toward members of his own party.
We average Americans can only tremble at the fact that Donald Trump, the person totally unfit to be President, is the overwhelming favorite to win the presidential nomination of this train wreck of a party. Every day in every way, the Republican Party proves beyond a shadow of a doubt the truthfulness of President Biden's depiction of the MAGATs as posing a mortal danger to American democracy.
Opinion: The staggering loss of life is too much
-AJC
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Long before Trump decided to run for President, expert analysts were revealing the sham and fraud behind his wildly exaggerated claims of business prowess:
June 2016: "How Donald Trump Bankrupted His Atlantic City Casinos, but Still Earned Millions"
Except:
There is "little doubt that Mr. Trump’s casino business was a protracted failure...he was failing in Atlantic City long before Atlantic City itself was failing."
"But even as his companies did poorly, Mr. Trump did well. He put up little of his own money, shifted personal debts to the casinos and collected millions of dollars in salary, bonuses and other payments. The burden of his failures fell on investors and others who had bet on his business acumen."
September 2023: New York judge rules Trump committed fraud and lied about his net worth for years
Excerpt:
According to the ruling..."Trump lied to banks and insurers by both overvaluing and undervaluing his assets when it was to his benefit while exaggerating his net worth to the tune of billions of dollars."
"Trump continually lied on his financial statements and was able to get favorable loan terms and lower insurance premiums as a result. Trump's legal arguments defending the statements are based in 'a fantasy world, not the real world.' "
September 2023: Hail to the Fraudster in Chief
Excerpts:
"the story of Donald Trump’s New Jersey casino empire, a venture ending in multiple bankruptcies that was a disaster for outside investors but appears to have been quite profitable for Trump."
"What’s remarkable about the judge’s finding that Trump committed large-scale fraud...is what it says about the man who became president and the voters who supported him."
"Trump's supporters will probably brush this ruling off, partly because they’ll view it as the product of a left-wing conspiracy, partly because at this late date, few of those who backed him will be willing to admit that they were taken in by a charlatan. But they were."
Trump issued the call just last Friday, September 22, on his social media network, Truth Social. Trump's words rip to shreds everything America stands for, like the Constitution and the rule of law. Brian Klass, an analyst for The Atlantic, summed it up: "Trump’s rhetoric is dangerous, not just because it is the exact sort that incites violence against public officials but also because it shows just how numb the country has grown toward threats more typical of broken, authoritarian regimes. The United States is not just careening toward a significant risk of political violence around the 2024 presidential election. It’s also mostly oblivious to where it’s headed."
But 5 days later, the Fox panel on the debate considered it too trivial to raise, and the 7 Republican candidates, as usual, turned a blind eye to Trump's incitement to violence--as they have all the other times.
Excerpts:
And perhaps the only shot that any of those seven candidates have to stop him and prevent the irreversible damage he’d do to the United States with four more years is to call a tyrant a tyrant, a liar a liar, an arsonist an arsonist.
None of them did.
Question to Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) and staffers Rob and Ashley Adkerson, Ashleigh Padgett, and Brandon Cockerham:
Donald Trump, the leading Republican Presidential candidate you so admire, has called for the execution of former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Milley. Milley played a role in another incident in which Trump insulted American servicemen. In 2019, Milley had former Army Capt. Luis Avila sing at the ceremony welcoming Milley on board as C/JCOS. Avila had lost one leg when an explosive device went off in Afghanistan, and he also had suffered heart attacks, strokes, and brain damage due to his service. Avila was in a wheelchair, and the physical toll of his injuries were plain to see.
President Donald Trump reportedly said to Milley: “Why do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that.” He told Milley not to invite Avila to any other events. (Milley, God bless him, invited Avila to sing at his recent retirement party.)
These events are part of a broader pattern in which he has referred to Americans who died in war as “suckers” and “losers.” According to a report by Atlantic Magazine in 2020, on a European visit in 2018, Trump canceled a visit to an American Cemetery near Paris. He blamed rain, but he cancelled “because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day.” In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.
Please, Rep. Loudermilk, explain to your constituents how you and your staffers not only support this man for President of the United States, but practically worship him as a demigod. Same Trump who has also effusively praised the dictatorial thugs Putin and Kim Jong-un.
What is wrong with you people? When did you lose your moral conscience? Or, did you just never have one?
Excerpt:
"The ongoing effort to gain equal representation for Black and Brown residents is a never-ending struggle that has become more heated as traditional conservatism has given way to MAGA extremism, especially in the deep-red rural South."
Read the full piece here
-SPLC
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger outlines reform proposals--and their costs
-AJC