Latest news with #RepublicanNationalConvention
Observer
11 hours ago
- Politics
- Observer
I'm normally a mild guy. Here's what's pushed me over the edge
When I was a baby pundit, my mentor, Bill Buckley, told me to write about whatever made me angriest that week. I don't often do that, mostly because I don't get angry that much — it's not how I'm wired. But this week, I'm going with Bill's advice. On Monday afternoon, I was communing with my phone when I came across a Memorial Day essay that Notre Dame political scientist Patrick Deneen wrote in 2009. In that essay, Deneen argued that soldiers aren't motivated to risk their lives in combat by their ideals. He wrote, 'They die not for abstractions — ideas, ideals, natural right, the American way of life, rights, or even their fellow citizens — so much as they are willing to brave all for the men and women of their unit.' This may seem like a strange thing to get angry about. After all, fighting for your buddies is a noble thing to do. But Deneen is the Lawrence Welk of postliberalism, the populariser of the closest thing the Trump administration has to a guiding philosophy. He's a central figure in the national conservatism movement, the place where a lot of Donald Trump acolytes cut their teeth. In fact, in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, JD Vance used his precious time to make a point similar to Deneen's. Vance said, 'People will not fight for abstractions, but they will fight for their home.' Elite snobbery has a tendency to set me off, and here are two guys with advanced degrees telling us that regular soldiers never fight partly out of some sense of moral purpose, some commitment to a larger cause — the men who froze at Valley Forge, the men who stormed the beaches at Normandy and Guadalcanal. But that's not what really made me angry. It was that these little statements point to the moral rot at the core of Trumpism, which every day disgraces our country, which we are proud of and love. Trumpism can be seen as a giant attempt to amputate the highest aspirations of the human spirit and to reduce us to our most primitive, atavistic tendencies. Before I explain what I mean, let me first make the obvious point that Deneen's and Vance's assertions that soldiers never fight for ideals is just plain wrong. Of course warriors fight for their comrades. And of course there are some wars such as Vietnam and Iraq, where Vance served, where the moral causes are unclear or discredited. But when the moral stakes are made clear, most soldiers are absolutely motivated in part by ideals — even in the heat of combat. For his book 'For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War,' the great historian James M McPherson read about 25,000 letters and 249 diaries from soldiers who fought in that war. Their missives were filled with griping about conditions, about the horrors of war — they had no need in their private writings to sugarcoat things. But of the 1,076 soldiers whose writings form the basis of his book, McPherson found that 68 per cent of the Union soldiers and 66 per cent of the Confederate soldiers explicitly cited 'patriotic motivations' (as they interpreted them) as one reason they went into combat. Other soldiers were probably also motivated by their ideals, but they found it too obvious to mention. 'Sick as I am of this war and bloodshed as much oh how much I want to be home with my dear wife and children,' a Pennsylvania officer wrote, 'every day I have a more religious feeling, that this war is a crusade for the good of mankind.' An Indiana man wrote, 'This is not a war for dollars and cents, nor is it a war for territory — but it is to decide whether we are to be a free people — and if the Union is dissolved I very much fear that we will not have a republican form of government very long.' People who are more theologically advanced than I have a name for that kind of dehumanisation: spiritual warfare. All of us humans have within us a capacity for selfishness and a capacity for generosity. Spiritual warfare is an attempt to unleash the forces of darkness and to simultaneously extinguish the better angels of our nature. Trump and Vance aren't just promoting policies; they're trying to degrade America's moral character to a level more closely resembling their own. Years ago, I used to slightly know both Deneen and Vance. Vance has been in my home. We've gone out for drinks and coffee. Until Inauguration Day, I harbored him no ill will. Even today, I've found I have no trouble simultaneously opposing Trump policies and maintaining friendship and love for friends and family who are Trump supporters. In my experience, a vast majority of people who support Trump do so for legitimate or at least defensible reasons. But over the past four months, a small cabal at the top of the administration — including Trump, Vance, Miller and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought — have brought a series of moral degradations to the nation those Union soldiers fought and died for: the betrayal of Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Ukraine, the cruel destruction of so many scientists' life projects, the ruination of PEPFAR. According to the HIV Modeling Consortium's PEPFAR Impact Tracker, the cuts to that programme alone have already resulted in nearly 55,000 adult deaths and nearly 6,000 dead children. We're only four months in. Moral contempt is an unattractive emotion, which can slide into arrogance and pride, which I will try to struggle against. In the meantime, it provoked this column from a mild-mannered guy on a beautiful spring day. — The New York Times. David Brooks Brooks is a book author and political and cultural commentator
Yahoo
13 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump's reality TV–style pardon spree has real consequences for the justice system
Welcome back, Deadline: Legal Newsletter readers. There's a new legal process in America. It used to be that a guilty verdict or plea was followed by years of appeals and, perhaps years after that, a prayerful pardon application. This week showcased a new playbook: skirt your tax obligations by millions of dollars to fund a lavish lifestyle, plead guilty and, instead of going to prison or paying restitution, have your mom raise money for the president and then get pardoned. That's the case of Paul Walczak in a nutshell, but he's not the only new clemency recipient. Among this week's winning contestants were the reality television couple Todd and Julie Chrisley, whom President Donald Trump sprung from hefty prison terms for financial fraud. Their daughter spoke last summer at the Republican National Convention, where she likened her parents' purported persecution to Trump's indictments. You could say they're kindred spirits with the president when it comes to reality TV, fraud and, with those first two commonalities in mind, a knack for casting their cases as coming from unscrupulous prosecutors (in the Chrisleys' case that prosecutor being a Trump appointee, by the way). Remember, Trump's pardon spree didn't start this week or even this year. In his first term, he kicked things off by pardoning Joe Arpaio, the Arizona lawman convicted of contempt for disobeying a court order to stop racial profiling people for immigration enforcement. That set the 'law and order' tone that carries through to this day, when shirking court orders in the name of immigration enforcement sums up the Trump administration's legal work. Another former sheriff was among the lucky winners on Trump's clemency show. When Scott Jenkins of Virginia was sentenced to 10 years for bribery in March, the acting U.S. attorney had the temerity to criticize him for having 'violated his oath of office and the faith the citizens of Culpeper County placed in him when he engaged in a cash-for-badges scheme.' The prosecutor's statement from that bygone era continued, 'We hold our elected law enforcement officials to a higher standard of conduct and this case proves that when those officials use their authority for unjust personal enrichment, the Department of Justice will hold them accountable.' That is, until — well, you know. 'No MAGA left behind,' Ed Martin tweeted upon Jenkins' pardon. You may recall Martin as having effectively been deemed too extreme for confirmation by the Republican-controlled Senate for Washington, D.C.'s top prosecutor job. So the administration shifted his duties, and his portfolio now includes being the DOJ's pardon attorney (the last one, Liz Oyer, was fired in March after she refused a speedy request to recommend restoring Mel Gibson's gun rights, which the Trump-supporting actor lost due to his domestic violence conviction). One gets the sense that corruption prosecutions are not a priority in the Trump administration. That's evident not only through the president's clemency but also through his Justice Department's actions in court — perhaps most notably in moving to dismiss New York City Mayor Eric Adams' corruption case for overtly political reasons. Ryan Reilly of NBC News observed a connection between the Adams and Jenkins cases, noting that they're linked by the DOJ's Public Integrity Section, which, he reported, 'has shrunk in both size and influence during the Trump administration.' The Adams connection leads us to another big story this week: Trump announced his intention to nominate Emil Bove to be a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit. Bove came onto the scene as then-candidate Trump's criminal defense lawyer, losing the hush money trial alongside his co-counsel Todd Blanche. Blanche is now the DOJ's deputy attorney general and Bove is principal associate deputy. Putting Bove on the bench would reward a sinister use of his law license with a lifetime judicial appointment. His handling of the Adams case is just one example but it's enough to show that he hardly deserves to be a lawyer, much less a judge. Recall that Bove not only pushed for an overtly political dismissal of the corruption case but caused several ethical prosecutors to resign rather than do his dirty work. And after all that, Bove failed to get the case dismissed in the shady way he wanted to — that is, in a way that would've given Trump's DOJ the option of holding the charges as political leverage over the Democratic mayor. The reason Bove failed in his corrupt mission was that the judge presiding over the case, Biden appointee Dale Ho, saw through the farce and refused to allow it. To be sure, Democrats are at fault for failing to confirm a deserving nominee to the Philadelphia-based circuit when they had the chance last year, leaving a vacant seat for Republicans to fill. The consequences of that failure shouldn't be forgotten, then, if Bove is privileged to be in the position of making decisions like the one Ho had to make, in rising above the base impulses of lawyers like Bove. Have any questions or comments for me? Please submit them on this form for a chance to be featured in the Deadline: Legal blog and newsletter. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
17 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Pardoned reality TV star Todd Chrisley says prison opened his eyes to injustices in the system
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Pardoned reality TV star Todd Chrisley said Friday that the experience of being in prison has changed him, vowing to not forget the men he met and befriended there and to work to make their lives better. 'You can't go through what we've been through and walk away from it,' he said at a news conference in a Nashville, Tennessee, hotel two days after his release. 'As bad as this experience has been, there's also been a lot of blessings to come from it. I have met some wonderful men. I have listened to some horrific stories about things that have gone on in our system.' Convicted on fraud and tax charges, the 'Chrisley Knows Best" star maintained his innocence, saying he and his wife Julie were victims of a corrupt prosecution. He said they will detail the proof of the wrongful conviction in an upcoming television show. 'We're blessed to have our family back, and we're blessed to be coming back to television because we have a much bigger story to tell now than we ever have," he said. Addressing whether his family's fame and connections helped him and his wife get a pardon from President Donald Trump, Chrisley said, 'It's not something you can look at and say that had nothing to do with it. I don't know if it did or it didn't.' His daughter Savannah Chrisley, also speaking at the news conference, was adamant that it was her hard work that won the day. She has been a staunch Trump supporter and endorsed his candidacy while also speaking about her parents in a speech at the Republican National Convention last summer. Todd Chrisley described the experience of watching his daughter's work from a distance as being 'consumed with pride while at the same time knowing that this is a longshot, because so many people are told, 'No.'' He said he recognized that the conditions at the minimum-security prison camp in Pensacola, Florida, where he was held were relatively good, and that even there the privileges were not evenly distributed. "It's important to understand that I was at a camp," he said. He was able to work out every day, walk a track, email his wife and talk to his children. "Being in the prison system, anyone that says that it's a fair shake — it's not. Because I dealt with young African American males in the prison that I was in that were not treated the same. They were denied programing. They were denied access to certain things. I was not denied that. But we know why I was not denied that,' he said. Chrisley said his time in prison deepened his 'walk with Christ' in addition to opening his eyes to many problems in the prison system. 'God has said when you know better you do better," he said. "And it's our job at this point to expose all of that and to try to make those men and women's lives better if we can.' 'Chrisley Knows Best' ran from 2014 to 2023, chronicling the extravagant exploits of the boisterous, tightly knit family of the couple and their five children, from high-end cars to luxury vacations and stunning mansions. It was recorded in the Atlanta area at first and then in Nashville. In 2019, the show spawned the spinoff 'Growing Up Chrisley,' which featured the couple's children Chase and Savannah living in Los Angeles. The Chrisleys were indicted in 2019 under a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney and found guilty by an Atlanta jury in 2022. A panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld their convictions last year. Until this Wednesday, they still had years left on their sentences: Julie Chrisley was expected to be released in 2028, and Todd Chrisley in 2032. In addition to their prison sentences, the couple had been ordered to pay $14 million in restitution that they will no longer owe, attorney Alex Little told reporters Friday. He said the government had seized some money from the Chrisleys but he believes it was less than $100,000 and that it was unclear whether any of that would be returned.
Yahoo
17 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump's Pardons Show an Infuriatingly Corrupt Trend
A good chunk of the white collar criminals pardoned by Donald Trump after his massive 'Day One' pardoning spree either have a political or financial tie to him. The president has issued 60 pardons since he offered political forgiveness to some 1,600 individuals charged in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. But out of those subsequent 60 unrelated to the attack, 12 people—or roughly one in five—were already in Trump's orbit, according to ABC News. They included several politicos, including former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who was convicted on several counts of corruption, including for an attempt to sell Barack Obama's Senate seat after he left the position for the White House; former Republican Representative Michael Grimm, who pleaded guilty to tax fraud; former Nevada gubernatorial candidate Michele Fiore, who allegedly stole public funds intended to commemorate a slain police officer; and former Tennessee state Senator Brian Kelsey, who pleaded guilty to campaign finance fraud in 2022. Trump also pardoned major financiers of his presidential campaigns. Trevor Milton, the founder of the Nikola electric vehicle company, donated nearly $2 million towards Trump's 2024 campaign. Imaad Zuberi, who has donated to both parties, issued 'at least $800,000 to committees associated with Trump and the Republican Party,' ABC reported. Others helped Trump advance his retribution campaign against his political enemies, or helped advance his own image in the broader Republican Party. Devon Archer and Jason Galanis, both former business partners of Hunter Biden, accused the younger Biden of leveraging his father's name and influence in order to conduct business overseas. Archer had defrauded a Native American tribal entity, while Galanis was serving time for multiple offenses. Trump also forgave Todd and Julie Chrisley—reality TV stars known for their show Chrisley Knows Best who were sentenced to a combined 19 years on fraud and tax evasion charges—after their daughter Savannah Chrisley spoke at the 2024 Republican National Convention. Speaking to press Friday after her parents' release, Savannah Chrisley said that the 'biggest misconception right now is I either paid for a pardon or slept for a pardon—,' but she couldn't finish her sentence before Todd interjected: 'That's something I would have done,' he said.
Yahoo
18 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Todd Chrisley speaks out for first time since Trump's pardon
Todd Chrisley addressed reporters on Friday in his first comments since President Donald Trump pardoned the formerly jailed reality TV star and his wife, Julie Chrisley, and released them from federal prison. Speaking at a press conference at the Kimpton Aertson Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee, Todd maintained his innocence. "Whether you believe it or not — because I was you at some point — even though this pardon has happened, I still was convicted of something that I did not do," Todd said. "It could be you. It could be you, it could be any of you. And somewhere in this room, someone has had a family member that has been affected by the system." "I understand the shame that's around it, but I refuse to feed into that because shame is like a cancer that just spreads and I have no shame," he added. Trump issued pardons to Todd and Julie on Wednesday. The pair, known for their roles on the reality TV show 'Chrisley Knows Best,' were convicted in 2022 of tax evasion and defrauding banks to obtain personal loans worth more than $36 million and fund a lavish lifestyle. Prosecutors said that the Chrisleys submitted false bank statements, audit reports and personal financial statements to Georgia community banks to obtain the loans. They were found guilty by an Atlanta jury in 2022 and convicted of fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to defraud the United States. Todd was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison and Julie was sentenced to seven years. Julie was not at the press conference on Friday, but was seen the day before, leaving a butcher shop in Nashville, Tennessee. Todd opened the press conference thanking God, Trump and Trump's 'pardon czar,' Alice Johnson, who was pardoned several years ago during the first Trump administration. He also thanked one of his daughters, Savannah Chrisley, who played a pivotal role in petitioning for the pardons and was at Friday's press conference. Savannah — who spoke at the Republican National Convention — took meetings with members of Trump's staff before and after the president was re-inaugurated to advocate for her parents to be released. Savannah said she was misunderstood when critics claimed they were pardoned because of their celebrity status. "I fought hard, and I was exhausted, and I begged for meetings. There was nothing — I was never too good to ask," she said. "And that's the thing — people think 'oh, you're a celebrity, you're white, you have money' that we got an upper hand and we didn't." When a reporter asked him if he had any remorse and pointed to his wife's apology for her crimes in court last year, Todd pushed back. "You're placed in a position as a defendant to either bow down and kiss the ass of the Department of Justice and accept responsibility for things that you did not do in order to avoid a stronger sentence," he said. Todd said he felt "numb" when he received word that he was being pardoned. "I had a staff member that came to me and said 'you've just been pardoned.' And I just looked at him, and he says, 'No, really, you've been pardoned. It's in the news. And so I walked up to call her, and she said 'It's true. It's true,'" he said referring to Savannah. "All I could think about was the guys that I was leaving behind," he added. He said that as he was leaving federal prison on Wednesday, hundreds of his fellow inmates lined up to say goodbye. "They were saying 'Don't leave. Don't forget us. Don't forget us.' And my commitment is to them that I will never forget them." Todd and Savannah vowed to help reform the criminal justice system and "expose the corruption." Until then, they will be filming more reality television. Todd confirmed that he and his wife started filming "literally the night that we got home, as soon as we got home." "They've already got all the offers rolling in, so it's going to make life so much easier," Savannah said. "You'll see him on quite a few different shows, I have a feeling." This article was originally published on
