Wed: These Missiles are a Hit

For Jumping Jack Smith, It Just Got Personal

Donald Trump on Tuesday ramped up his attack on the federal prosecutor whose charges against him could put him behind bars, this time including in his tirade special counsel Jack Smith’s family, as well ― potentially increasing his exposure to federal prison.

“COULD SOMEBODY PLEASE EXPLAIN TO THE DERANGED, TRUMP HATING JACK SMITH, HIS FAMILY, AND HIS FRIENDS, THAT AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, I COME UNDER THE PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS ACT, AS AFFIRMED BY THE CLINTON SOCKS CASE, NOT BY THIS PSYCHOS’ FANTASY OF THE NEVER USED BEFORE ESPIONAGE ACT OF 1917,” Trump wrote on his personal social media site early Tuesday in the all-capitals style he favors when he is particularly agitated.

“Smells of desperation,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a New York University history professor and an expert on authoritarianism. “Once again, Trump is acting like a Mafia boss and also stringing as many propaganda slogans together as possible.”

Trump’s call echoes the one attributed to England’s King Henry II centuries ago when he asked: “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest,” which led to the murder of the archbishop of Canterbury ― although it is unclear whether Trump is aware of the historical reference.

“Trump is encouraging his followers, who we know have included the violent insurrectionists responsible for Jan. 6, to target the family and friends of Jack Smith,” said Norm Eisen, a lawyer who served in Barack Obama’s White House. “It is profoundly concerning.”

Shocking News:  Big Business Lost a Case in SCOTUS

Opponents of unmitigated corporate power celebrated Tuesday when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Norfolk Southern's attempt to limit where companies can be sued.

In a 5-4 opinion written by Justice Neil Gorsuch and joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Sonja Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, the high court ruled that Pennsylvania's "consent-by-registration" law "requiring an out-of-state firm to answer in the commonwealth any suits against it in exchange for status as a registered foreign corporation and the benefits that entails" does not violate the due process clause of the 14th Amendment.

The decision vacates an earlier judgment by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and remands the case.

"This is really big," Slate's Mark Joseph Stern tweeted. Big business lawyers are "going to be furious with this decision."

"This is big—and, in my view, good—because it allows states to exercise personal jurisdiction over corporations that do business within the state but are incorporated elsewhere, often in a jurisdiction that they deem more favorable to their interests," Stern continued.

"Pennsylvania requires out-of-state corporations to file paperwork consenting to appear in Pennsylvania courts as a condition of doing business within the state," Stern added. "Gorsuch says: Nothing about that scheme violates due process."

It's 1945 All Over Again.

On March 25, 1945, the United States Army issued “Fact Sheet #64: Fascism!” to promote discussions amongst American troops about fascism as the war in Europe wound down to a close. Discussion leaders were alerted “Fascism is not the easiest thing to identify and analyze; nor, once in power, is it easy to destroy. It is important for our future and that of the world that as many of us as possible understand the causes and practices of fascism, in order to combat it.”

It is worth revisiting the Army’s warnings as Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans denounce legal due process and threaten civil war.

Four key points were addressed in the Army fact sheet to be included in discussions.

(1) Fascism is more apt to come to power at a time of economic crisis;

(2) Fascism inevitably leads to war;

(3) It can come to any country;

(4) We can best combat it by making our democracy work.



Or Maybe 1945 Never Ended

The Cost of Walking in a Circle is Going Up.

Some 1.8 million Muslims from across the world made it to Mount Arafat in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to mark the most important day of the Hajj. But due to global price rises, the pilgrimage is becoming increasingly unaffordable.

"The number of bookings has significantly dropped this year. It's too costly for many people," says an employee at a private Egyptian tour operator in charge of organising Hajj trips, who wanted to remain anonymous out of fear of a backlash over their criticism of their country's economic situation.

In Egypt, the most populous Arab country, the cheapest government-sponsored pilgrimage currently costs around $6,000 (£4,720) - double what it was last year.

The price hike has been fuelled by the sharp devaluation of the Egyptian pound, which has lost more than 50% of its value against the US dollar since March 2022. As a result, the cost of living has also skyrocketed, with annual core inflation hitting 40% in May.

About 30% of the population was living below the government's poverty line before the Covid-19 pandemic, and the World Bank says the figure is likely to have risen since then.

A Swing and a Miss.  Who Will Miss Out with Swing Voters?

DOUG SOSNIK, whose deep dive political memos have achieved a cult following among Washington insiders for many years, has a new look today at the 2024 presidential election that we are happy to share first with Playbook readers.

Sosnik makes an astute point about handicapping next year’s race: Several of the traditional indicators — including presidential job approval, national polls and right track/wrong track numbers — no longer have the predictive power that they once did.

In 2016, he writes, “national polls demonstrated their limitations when they predicted HILLARY CLINTON would win the presidential election due to her strong lead in the popular vote,” Sosnik notes,” while last year’s midterms, where Democrats held off a GOP wave, “showed the shortcomings of relying on proxies for voter sentiment like the mood of the country and the President’s job approval” — both of which were dismal.

So as much as possible, he argues, we need to focus on data from the eight key swing states in 2024: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Sosnik points out that one common feature of these states is that their populations skew in the middle — “neither extremely high nor extremely low”— on educational attainment, perhaps the most important demographic characteristic when it comes to predicting partisan affiliation.

So who are the swing voters in these eight swing states who will decide the election? Sosnik breaks them down into four categories:

-The “double doubters”: “People who have a negative view of both [JOE] BIDEN and [DONALD] TRUMP are perhaps the most important group of swing voters in the upcoming election. This is not an insignificant voting bloc. In an ABC/Ipsos poll taken after Trump’s most recent indictment, a majority of the country had a negative view of both Biden and Trump, with only 31% having a favorable view of both candidates.”

-Abortion rights voters: Sosnik points to a stream of polling data on this issue, but this fact stuck out: “In a mid-June Gallup poll, 69% of respondents (74% of Independents) said that abortion should be legal in the first three months of pregnancy, the highest level in the history of their polls.”

-Republicans: “The results from the 2022 midterms, as well as recent polling, suggest that a group of Republican voters will be up for grabs in 2024, particularly if Trump is on the ballot. Democrats racked up double-digit percentages from Republicans in the 2022 governors’ races in Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania. They also made significant inroads with these voters in Senate races in Arizona (13%), Pennsylvania (8%), Nevada (7%), and Georgia (6%).” Recent polls Sosnik cites indicate that roughly a quarter of GOP voters have serious qualms about another Trump nomination.

-Independents: “The winning party in the last four election cycles carried political independents. The 2022 exit polls showed that over 30 percent of voters were independents, the highest percentage since 1980.”

Playbook: 2024’s ‘double doubters’ and third-party spoilers

Scammers Love Other Scammers

Trump touted Lordstown Motors bigtime in 2020. Lordstown declared bankruptcy yesterday.

In “Lordstown Motors files bankruptcy, sues Foxconn”, Reuters correspondents Mike Spector, Joseph White and Dietrich Knauth report that this morning electric vehicle startup Lordstown Motors, founded in 2018 and named for the former GM plant in Lordstown, Ohio, filed for bankruptcy and put itself up for sale. At the same time, Lordstown accused the Taiwanese company Foxconn of breaking promises to invest up to $170 million more into the EV maker. Foxconn in turn has said Lordstown breached their agreement when its stock fell below $1 per share.

Lordstown Motors was founded in 2018 by executive Steve Burns. After GM closed its Lordstown, Ohio manufacturing plant in 2019, Trump put pressure on GM CEO Mary Barra, saying “I asked her to sell it or do something quickly.” Barra complied, lending Lordstown Motors $40 million to buy and retrofit the plant. When the deal was announced, Trump tweeted “I have been working nicely with GM to get this done…. With all the car companies coming back, and much more, THE USA IS BOOMING.”

Trump then used Lordstown as a prop during his 2020 presidential campaign. In September 2020, he even helped market Lordstown’s Endurance pickup on the South Lawn of the White House, saying things like “The area was devastated when General Motors moved out, and then we worked together, and we made the deal on the plant” and “This is a great technology” and “I heard the sales are great”. Lordstown had not yet sold any vehicles.

In January 2021, the Endurance prototype burned during testing. Lordstown Motors gobbled up its cash, sold the plant and hired Foxconn to try to make the pickup, and made a deal with Foxconn to invest. Lordstown executives made this deal with Foxconn even though they surely knew Foxconn’s reputation — see, for example, my diaries “Foxconn behind on its $100 million pledge to U. of Wisconsin, while luring UW students to Taiwan” and “Foxconn and Republicans bait-and-switch in Wisconsin”.

Unfortunately for its workers, Lordstown could not actually build the pickup that Trump had promoted. By this year Lordstown had made only 31 pickups, recalling most of them and selling only six. Its CEO Steve Burns resigned in 2021 and gradually cashed out his stock, making $66 million. As Burns has completely sold his stake, he will not lose money due to Lordstown shares becoming essentially worthless during bankruptcy.