How Far Will The Unpopular And Desperate Queens-Born Casino Operator Go To Hold Onto His Power?

I'm going to start with some polling from yesterday. Gallup first. They show Trump sinking below 40%-- 4 points down since the end of February. Republicans like him; everyone else hates him. Now a less known poll from Navigator Research, "a project designed to better understand the American public’s views on issues of the day and help advocates, elected officials, and other interested parties understand the language, imagery and messaging needed to make and win key policy arguments." This particular poll is mostly about Climate Change but they also have some Trump findings: "This month, just 38% believe the president generally does what’s best for the country, a new low and a 6-point decline from December. 62% now tend to say the president puts himself first. Perception of Trump as self-interested has grown more rapidly than overall disapproval. As Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia’s possible involvement winds down, support for the probe has reached an all-time high of 58%."

And that leads right to yesterday's House vote on Jerry Nadler's Resolution 24-- "Expressing the sense of Congress that the report of Special Counsel Mueller should be made available to the public and to Congress." Nadler is the chair of the House Judiciary Committee and is cosponsors included the chairs of 5 other top committees: Maxine Waters (Financial Services), Adam Schiff (Intelligence), Elijah Cummings (Oversight), Eliot Engel (Foreign Affairs), Richard Neil (Way and Means). It passed with 420 votes. Florida Republican Matt Gaetz pulled his head out of Trump's ass long enough to vote "present." He was joined by 3 other Republicans refusing to go on-record favoring the public release of the report.

It also leads to yesterday's Senate vote that Trump lost badly when a large bipartisan majority of senators approved HJ 46, the resolution of disapproval for his phony state of emergency declaration. A dozen Republicans voted with every single Democrat (including right-wingers Sinema and Manchin) against Trump. The Republicans include Lamar Alexander (TN), Roy Blunt (MO), Susan Collins (ME), Mike Lee (UT), Jerry Moran (KS), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Randy Paul (KY), Rob Portman (OH), Mitt Romney (UT), Marco Rubio (FL), Pat Toomey (PA) and Roger Wicker (MS). Publicly Trump says he'll veto it; there are reports that privately, he's furious and looking for revenge.

Thursday morning, rejecting Trump's insistence that he can't be sued in state court, a New York appellate court ruled that Summer Zervos, a former Apprentice contestant, who Trump sexually harassed, can move forward with her defamation suit against Trump now, while he's still "president." In their statement, the justices explained that they "reject defendant President Trump's argument that the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution prevents a New York State court-- and every other state court in the country-- from exercising its authority under its state constitution. Instead, we find that the Supremacy Clause was never intended to deprive a state court of its authority to decide cases and controversies under the state's constitution."

Looking bad for what Spy Magazine editor Graydon Carter long, long ago referred to as a "short fingered vulgarian?" He struck back with a veiled threat that it's unimaginable any legitimate president would have ever uttered, "armed pushback," reported Daniel Dale, "against his political opponents." Breitbart News was interviewing Trump when he stopped attacking Paul Ryan long enough to mention "it would be very bad, very bad" if his supporters in the military, police and a motorcycle group were provoked into getting "tough." Trump was arguing that "the left" plays politics in a "tougher" and more "vicious" manner than the pro-Trump right even though "the tough people" are on Trump’s side.

“I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump-- I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough-- until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad,” Trump said.

...The quote prompted criticism and alarm when The Star tweeted it.

“This is how an authoritarian talks. Happening right in front of us,” Brendan Nyhan, a University of Michigan public policy professor who co-founded an initiative monitoring the state of U.S. democracy, said on Twitter.

“We can’t sugar-coat this. The President of the United States is encouraging the military, police, and bikers to violently attack his critics on the left,” liberal journalist Judd Legum tweeted.

“In which the president of the United States threatens street violence against his political opponents,” the liberal advocacy group Public Citizen tweeted. “What happens if Trump loses in 2020? Is that the ‘certain point?’”

Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, who has been convicted of several crimes, testified to Congress in February: “Given my experience working for Mr. Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020, that there will never be a peaceful transition of power.”

Trump made another veiled suggestion of retribution from the military, police and Bikers for Trump at a midterm campaign rally in Georgia in November. After mocking Antifa protesters as weaklings-- “you see these little arms,” he joked-- he said, “And then you see the clubs in their hands. You know, they’re tough guys, right. Where are the Bikers for Trump? Where are the police? Where are the military? Where are the ICE? Where are the Border Patrol? No. No. We’ve taken a lot. We’ve taken a lot, folks.”

Bikers for Trump, which has more than 300,000 followers on Facebook, is not a criminal biker gang.

Bikers for Trump founder Chris Cox, a chainsaw artist described in one 2017 newspaper profile as “exceedingly polite,” offered in advance of Trump’s inauguration in 2017 to form a “wall of meat” between the president and protesters. He said, though, that he expected a peaceful gathering. While group members have had verbal confrontations with anti-Trump protesters, there have not been reports of major violence.

Trump met with some of the Bikers for Trump at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey in August. In November, Cox travelled to Florida and made unfounded allegations of election fraud. In December, Cox and his German shepherd stood outside the courthouse where former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn was to be sentenced for lying to the FBI, with Cox telling Mother Jones Magazine he was “here to make sure [Flynn’s] family is not assaulted or intimidated.”

Trump also endorsed violence against protesters at some of his rallies in 2016. At one rally in Iowa, he urged his supporters to beat up anyone getting ready to “throw a tomato,” saying, “Knock the crap out of them…I promise you I will pay for the legal fees.”