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🇺🇸 DJT on the Docket

🇺🇸 DJT on the Docket

Plus, a call for all Americans to help stop veteran suicides.

April 06, 2023

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Good morning, and happy Thursday! A marketing professor gave his students a challenge: If they made a video that got a million views, the final exam would be canceled.

Plus, a call for all Americans to help stop veteran suicides.

Also, whether you rent or own your home, Arcadia can help you power it with 100% clean energy for just $5/month. Click here to learn more.

Last thing, some readers have asked we point out instances where both sides “agree.” And while many continue to have very different opinions about former President Trump himself, we think you’ll find some common ground in today’s collected commentary.

FLAG POLLS

🐘 Tuesday, April 4, New Hampshire Republican Presidential Primary 2024: Trump 42, DeSantis 29, Sununu 14, Haley 4, Ramaswamy 3, Cheney 2, Pence 1, Pompeo 1, T. Scott 1, Christie 1, Noem 0 (St. Anselm)

🐎 Tuesday, April 4, New Hampshire Republican Presidential Primary 2024: Biden 34, Buttigieg 18, Obama 14, Sanders 11, Harris 4, Newsom 4, Whitmer 4, Williamson 2, Yang 2, Warren, Klobuchar 0 (St. Anselm)

🐘 Tuesday, April 4, Republican Presidential Nomination 2024: Trump 48, DeSantis 19, Pence 5, Haley 6, Cheney 3, Christie 2, Noem, Pompeo 1, Ramaswamy, Sununu 1, T. Scott, Youngkin 0 (Reuters/Ipsos)

📉 Wednesday, April 5, President Biden Job Approval: Approve 46, Disapprove 52 (Rasmussen Reports)

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QUICK CLICKS

Sticky Inflation, Black Hawk Black Boxes, SWAT Team at Trump Tower

Business: Walmart sees high inflation sticking around this year (Fox Business)

US: North Carolina Democrat switches parties giving Republicans veto-proof supermajority in state House (CNN)

US: Kansas bans transgender athletes from women’s, girls’ school sports (PBS) + Debates About Defining Women Between Matt Walsh And Trans-Identifying New Mexico University Audience Members Go Viral (Daily Wire)

US: SWAT Team Responds to Domestic Incident at Chicago's Trump Tower (NBC Chicago)

US: Missouri tornado kills at least 5 people, causes widespread damage (CBS News)

World: Axe attack at Brazilian pre-school leaves four children dead and five injured (The Guardian)

US: Slain Cash App founder Bob Lee had just moved to Miami because San Francisco was 'deteriorating': pal (NY Post)

CRIME

DJT on the Docket

On Tuesday former President Donald Trump appeared in Manhattan Criminal Court and plead not guilty to a 32-count indictment connected to alleged hush money payments. The charges were elevated to felonies because DA Alvin Bragg says they were illegal 2016 campaign contributions.

Reporting from the Right: Trump slams Bragg after pleading not guilty: 'I never thought anything like this could happen in America' (Fox News)

Reporting from the Left: Donald Trump pleads not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records (CNN)

From The Flag: This marks the first time a former president has been charged with a crime. The NYPD deployed a massive security response and worked with the Secret Service to handle Trump’s arrival and processing. Dueling protests both opposed and supported the former president, but they were peaceful with few arrests. Here’s more from both sides.

LEFT-LEANING SENTIMENT

A Trial Will Determine if Trump’s Poor Conduct Was Criminal

Trump certainly acted unethically as a candidate, but after seeing the indictment, it’s not clear if he committed a crime here.
It’s true that “no one is above the law” – but you also can’t just say that and turn misdemeanors into felonies.
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg is enacting real change by declining to prosecute low-level crimes, but in this instance, he rightly made an exception.

“The Trump indictment is a dangerous leap on the highest of wires” Ruth Marcus, Washington Post Opinion: “As a presidential candidate in 2016, frantic to keep evidence of his extramarital affairs secret, Donald Trump made extensive efforts to buy the silence of the women involved. There’s never been much doubt about that. The behavior of the candidate and his allies was a corrupt effort to keep voters from learning the truth about Trump. The hard question is whether those efforts also violated the criminal law — specifically, now that a New York grand jury has indicted him on 34 felony counts, whether they violated the laws of the state of New York. On that front, the indictment unsealed on Tuesday is disturbingly unilluminating, and the theory on which it rests is debatable at best, unnervingly flimsy at worst. That is a scary situation when it comes to the first criminal charges ever lodged against a former president.”

“Trump Isn’t Above the Law, But He Shouldn’t Be Below It This is like getting Al Capone for paying off his mistress.” Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine: “The political value of this slogan is that it accurately captures Trump’s maddening ability to defy the law for decades on end while suggesting that his immunity is coming to a just and proper end. But as a defense of the indictment, ‘no one is above the law’ is not remotely adequate. It implicitly places the law itself beyond questioning. The uncomfortable reality is that, while Trump may be a career criminal, he does not deserve to be prosecuted for this particular charge. The legal deficiencies of Alvin Bragg’s indictment have been thoroughly litigated in the media. The case converts what would normally be misdemeanor charges of falsifying business records into 34 felony counts by arguing that $130,000 in hush money paid to Stormy Daniels was an illegal campaign expenditure and each record created for it was criminal.”

One more opinion piece from the Left: Alvin Bragg, Donald Trump, and the Pursuit of Low-Level Crimes Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker

RIGHT-LEANING SENTIMENT

DA Bragg: Liberator of Violent Felons, Prosecutor of Political Opponents

Federal prosecutors and election officials declined to prosecute this case, yet it resurfaces years later, just in time for a new election.
Despite his willingness to look the other way with actual criminals, in this case, Bragg rammed a shoddy case through the grand jury.
Bragg elevated alleged crimes to felonies because another mystery crime was committed – only he can’t say what it was.

“What’s Missing in the Trump Indictment” Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal: “Where is the second crime? Recall that falsifying business records is a misdemeanor in New York. It’s a felony only if the books were cooked with ‘an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.’ … Mr. Bragg owes the public a better explanation of his theory of the case… and the country shouldn’t have to wait for months to find out the answer. Some news reports say Mr. Trump’s next court appearance is probably on the docket for December. That’s only about a month or two before the Iowa caucus is supposed to take place. What timing. … Federal prosecutors already examined this activity and apparently decided to let it drop. Seven years later… an elected Democratic DA has indicted Mr. Trump, in a case that could finally come to a resolution right in the middle of the 2024 primaries.”

“Bragg’s case is a legal mess — what is he even charging Trump with?” Jonathan Turley, New York Post Opinion: “The first indictment of a former American president was a historical moment and Bragg failed to rise to that moment. (It) was so vague on key elements that it is unclear what the grand jury thought it was voting on. He vaguely referenced state and federal election laws and later refused to add any details on how they relate to the prosecution. … Bragg solved the problem over his uncertain authority by avoiding any specificity on that authority. He could have put ‘details to follow’ in the caption of the indictment. Legal experts went immediately into a frenzy over what this could mean and what was the crime that Trump was allegedly covering up… If these experts were left scratching their heads on such key elements, how did laypersons on a grand jury understand the basis for this indictment?”

One more opinion piece from the Right: Bragg’s Trump Indictment Folly The Editors, National Review

FLAG THIS

No Shock: Democrats Approve of the Charges, Republicans Don’t

A recent poll found the majority of Americans “strongly or somewhat approve” (56%) of the charges against Trump, compared with those who “strongly or somewhat disapprove” (31%).

Along party lines, Democrats overwhelmingly support the charges (84% approve, 9% disapprove) while Republicans tend not to support them (32% approve, 61% disapprove).

Asked about a potential conviction, 58% of Democrats say its “very or somewhat likely,” while just 26% of Republicans agree (YouGov).

A separate poll found 76% believe politics played a role in the decision to indict Trump, with 52% saying it played a “major” role (CNN/SSRS).

Do you approve of the Manhattan DA’s decision to pursue this case?

FLAG FINDS

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America Enters WWI, Building a Better Brain, America Doesn’t Know Tofu

President Wilson asking Congress to declare war on Germany, 2 April 1917

On This Day in 1917: Two days after the U.S. Senate voted 82 to 6 to declare war against Germany, the U.S. House of Representatives endorses the declaration by a vote of 373 to 50, and America formally enters World War I.

Pocket: 5 Tech Habits to Quit for a Happier Life

NPR: Building a better brain through music, dance and poetry

Asterisk: America Doesn’t Know Tofu

Today I Learned the board game "Settlers of Catan" was created by a dental technician, Klaus Teuber. It was so popular he retired to become a game designer. He went on to win Germany's Game of the Year four times.

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