Big Lie becomes Big Loss for Giuliani
Judge orders Pentagon to release report about Trump cemetery visit
Also in today’s edition of ‘Regular Order’ for October 23, 2024:
Voter error - not fraud - strikes again
Harris to take a Texas foray.
Who are the most endangered incumbents in Congress?
RUDY GIULIANI. The downfall of America's Mayor - once he got involved with Donald Trump - is really quite a sad story. The Four Seasons Landscaping news conference was embarrassing enough, as was the scene from Borat. But now, Rudy Giuliani's descent into conspiracy theories about the 2020 election is going to ruin him financially. And that hit home on Tuesday in a federal court ruling.
GIULIANI. With Giuliani refusing to pay a $146 million defamation judgment against him - won by two Georgia women whom he accused of vote fraud, a charge which has repeatedly been debunked - a federal judge has ordered Giuliani to fork over all sorts of personal assets to pay that tab.
LIST. The items include Giuliani’s Manhattan apartment and even a signed jersey from Yankees baseball legend Joe DiMaggio. You can see that famous #5 over the fireplace in the photo below. (Giuliani had his apartment on the market recently for $5.7 million.)
ORDER. Giuliani was ordered to put property like financial holdings, jewelry and valuables, in a receivership. It includes everything from a 1980 Mercedes to a signed photo of baseball slugger Reggie Jackson. (Giuliani for now gets to keep his three World Series rings from the Yankees and his Palm Beach condo.)
EVIDENCE. Even though Giuliani never had any evidence of election fraud, he was one of the leading voices for Trump’s Big Lie after the 2020 election. In one case in Pennsylvania, Giuliani had to admit in federal court that he had no evidence of wrongdoing. The judge quickly tossed out the case.
FEES. One of the more ironic parts of this order is that Giuliani has to give up legal fees that he is still owed by the Trump campaign - an estimated $2 million. Think about that. Giuliani did all of that leg work for Trump to challenge the results of the 2020 election, and the former President's campaign stiffed him.
MOVIN ON UP. Let’s ask this serious question - was it really worth it? Was it really worth defaming those two women from Georgia by falsely accusing them of election fraud? Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss may enjoy the views from Giuliani’s Upper East Side apartment for some time to come.
STATE FARM. Are you still convinced that there was fraud at State Farm Arena in Atlanta? Here's the 10 page report from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The claims of fraud and wrongdoing were found to be 'false and unsubstantiated.'
VOTE FRAUD. Speaking of vote fraud, we keep seeing Republicans claiming that voting machines are changing votes from Trump to Harris. It gets all sorts of attention on social media, but it always turns out to be a nothing burger. That happened last week in Georgia, and this week in Nevada.
SILVER STATE. In Washoe County (Reno), Republicans had claimed that two people said their votes had been flipped away from Trump. It turned out to be what it always turns out to be - voter error. "There have been no irregularities with voting machines," elections officials told KRNV-TV.
SOCIAL MEDIA. You can see conservative accounts tweeting all sorts of claims every day now. "VOTES BEING SWITCHED IN TARRANT COUNTY TEXAS," one proclaimed breathlessly - though it seemed to be yet another case of someone not voting correctly.
GEORGIA. The same thing happened in Georgia, in a case publicized by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). Greene claimed there were machines changing votes, but the local election board said it was voter error. "No machines have been taken out of service," the Whitfield County Board of Elections announced.
REP MTG. Greene was defiant in an interview on Tuesday. "They call us election deniers all the time," Greene said on Newsmax, vowing to chase down any further claims of vote fraud in 2024.
ARLINGTON. A federal judge in Washington on Tuesday ordered the Pentagon to quickly release records - under a Freedom of Information Act request - about the controversial visit of Donald Trump to Arlington National Cemetery on August 26. Judge Paul Friedman said those documents must be released by Friday.
INCIDENT. It means that with less than three weeks until Election Day, we may get new information about the Arlington incident - where the Trump Campaign violated Pentagon policy and used shots of Trump at the cemetery for a campaign video. There was also some kind of physical confrontation between Trump aides and cemetery staff.
PHYSICAL. After the incident, the Army issued a very rare public rebuke of Trump's entourage, saying that a cemetery aide was 'abruptly pushed aside.' That person initially wanted to press charges, but decided not to - because of a fear of retaliation by Trump supporters.
RECORDS. The FOIA lawsuit was undertaken by American Oversight, a liberal-leaning government watchdog group, which specializes in these types of record requests. "We look forward to receiving the incident report and making it available to the public," said the group's leader, Chioma Chukwu.
LONE STAR. The Kamala Harris campaign announced a notable campaign stop for this Friday - in Texas of all places. Harris will hold a rally in Houston which will focus on restrictive abortion laws put into place by state Republicans. Let's just first say - Democrats are not winning Texas on November 5. If they do, then this would be a historic landslide.
NOVEMBER. "It is not a play to win Texas," said Dan Pfeiffer, a top official in Barack Obama's campaign for President. "This is a smart way to draw attention to what access to abortion could look like across America if Trump wins."
PRESS. And that was most certainly the focus in the Harris announcement. "More than any other state, the nightmare playing out in Texas for women is emblematic of the harm Donald Trump’s abortion bans have caused across the nation," the Harris press release read.
SENATE. That release did mention Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX), who is running against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) - as Democrats call Cruz a 'key architect of Texas' extreme abortion bans.' That tells me that Harris and Democrats believe that Cruz could be in trouble. You don't waste a big trip late in the campaign unless you think it can help.
LUNA. On Tuesday, I mentioned the reelection bid of Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), and that a local poll had shown her in a dead heat with her Democratic challenger. Luna was not pleased about the poll or the resulting news media attention.
TWEET. "The liberal press is actively obsessing over our race here in Pinellas County yet won't report that their candidate is LOSING," Luna tweeted yesterday. "Apparently I am good for their ratings," as she vowed that her district would stay in GOP hands.
DEBATE. Luna has refused to debate Democrat Whitney Fox, who has tried to make that an issue. "Anna Paulina Luna is too scared and doesn't respect you enough to debate me on the issues," Fox said last week. "Luna doesn't even hold town halls. It seems like she'd rather be on TV."
ABORTION. Luna has still not indicated how she will vote on Amendment 4, which is a state ballot question in Florida on abortion rights. Remember, that's the issue that Donald Trump at first said he would vote for - and then flip-flopped against it.
GOP INCUMBENT. Who is the most endangered GOP incumbent in the Congress in this year's elections? That title probably goes to Rep. Anthony D'Esposito (R-NY). The Long Island Republican - who is already in hot water for putting his mistress on his Congressional office payroll - is down 11 points in a new Siena poll from Long Island.
DEM INCUMBENT. Who would be the most endangered Democrat in Congress? That’s probably Sen. Jon Tester of Montana. If he loses, it becomes very difficult for Democrats to keep control of the Senate.
EMPIRE STATE. As for the House, Democrats expressed confidence yesterday in a press call with reporters about where things are headed in November. The path to the majority for Democrats probably includes them flipping seats in New York and California - and maybe Iowa as well.
NUMBERS. Remember, it doesn’t take much for the GOP to lose control of the House, but it also doesn’t take much for them to stay in charge. That’s what happens when you have just a three seat majority.
GABBARD. Completing her trek from left to right, ex-Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii announced at a Trump rally in North Carolina on Tuesday night that she has switched to the GOP. Originally elected as a Democrat, Gabbard actually ran for the Democratic nomination for President just four years ago. That's a pretty fast move across the political spectrum.
TAX BRACKETS. The Internal Revenue Service has released the new federal income tax brackets for 2025, and announced various miscellaneous individual tax changes which are already scheduled to take effect next year.
BRACKET CREEP. Here are the updated tax brackets for 2025:
37% for incomes over $626,350 / $751,600 for married couples filing jointly.
35% for incomes over $250,525 / $501,050
32% for incomes over $197,300 / $394,600
24% for incomes over $103,350 / $206,700
22% for incomes over $48,475 / $96,950
12% for incomes over $11,925 / $23,850
10% for incomes $11,925 or less / $23,850 or less
TAX LAWS. These figures are also a reminder that all of this will change after 2025, when the Trump tax cuts expire at the end of next year. That wide swath of tax policy should be one of the biggest issues in the 2024 campaign - but it's not really even on the radar of this year’s elections.
RAP SHEET. An Ohio man who brought a giant aluminum Trump sign to the Capitol on Jan. 6 - which was used by rioters as a battering ram against police - has been arrested. Jeffrey Newcomb bragged about it in a tweet, saying that he spent $700 on the sign, which was slammed into police repeatedly outside the Capitol.
MUSE OF HISTORY. October 23, 1939. Called back into special session five weeks earlier by President Roosevelt, lawmakers were still struggling to act on legislation dealing with U.S. neutrality - in the face of the growing war in Europe, amid fears that the U.S. would be pulled into that. "I know that labor does not want war," said Sen. Alexander Wiley of Wisconsin. "The veterans do not want war."
LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM:
The House next has votes on November 12.
The Senate comes back for votes on November 12.
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I don't know who said it first but play stupid games win stupid prizes. I get it in the beginning you want to support your candidate. But after a point you have to look at the evidence and say maybe the guy is full of it cut your losses and go your own way. If Giuliani had done that he would not be losing everything and frankly he deserves this. Never in all my years have I seen anything like this and I hope we the people are able to stop this insanity and send it packing back to Mar Largo. Extreme politics from both sides is not how the majority of we the people really want our country run. But both parties keep giving us no choice. What happened to moderation?
Super excited about this FOIA request.