Scott Gurvey's Public Offerings

Donald Trump had already been processed on three criminal indictments. But in each of those he was treated with unusual care, avoiding the mug shot usually taken for anyone arrested on criminal charges. That distinction ended with the fourth indictment. Fulton County, Georgia did not give Trump an exemption from its normal process. Trump now has a mug shot, and a number, P01135809. America now has its own Jean Valjean.

The mug shot on the left above speaks for itself. I don’t understand what message Trump is trying to convey with that scowl. Perhaps you do. The photo has been distributed widely by Trump’s campaign and it is being used on coffee mugs, shirts, and hats sold to raise funds. In just a few days, more than seven million dollars has reportedly been raised. There are many reports that a large amount of these “campaign contributions” are being used to pay Trump’s legal expenses. The quote often associated with P.T. Barnum was right. There is a sucker born every minute.

 In his booking record, Trump states that he is 6-foot-3 and weighs 215 pounds, almost 30 pounds lighter than his White House physical in June 2020. This has prompted a lengthy list of joking comparisons on the Internet showing various sports figures with similar measurements. We are easily amused these days.

Trump’s latest arrest came the day after eight of his so-called challengers for the Republican nomination for president in 2024 met for a so-called debate in Milwaukee. The Fox channel entertainment, which Trump skipped, had little of substance beyond the moment when six of the eight raised their hands and promised to support Trump if he was the nominee of the part even if he was a convicted felon at the time of the election. You had to be there. See the other picture above.

It is amazing that the party of Lincoln has reached this point. It is really the party of Trump now, and little else. Republicans defended Trump when he paid hush money to a porn star. They defended him when he withheld weapons for Ukraine for political reasons. They defended him after he led a coup attempt against our democracy. They defended him after he removed top secret classified documents, stored them in the bathroom, and repeatedly lied to the authorities about it. They defended him after he pressured Georgia officials to overturn the election results in the state.

The Republican party I grew up with is long gone, dissenters Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson notwithstanding. According to a survey conducted Aug. 24, 58% of potential Republican primary voters back Trump for the GOP’s 2024 nomination.

With that statistic it seems a waste of time to talk much about this TV event. Hosts Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, who play journalists on various Fox channels, rarely mentioned Trump during the session. They opened with a question about a song on the Billboard Hot 100 list.

Eventually, prior to November 2024, I’ll get around to explaining inflation, the issue of most concern to American voters. This is where incumbent President Joe Biden is most vulnerable. Yet it was of little concern to the eight would-be challengers or the hosts.

Addressing a soft-ball question on inflation Ron DeSantis rambled something about fighting inflation by firing Anthony Fauci. Fauci, who was director of the National Insitute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leading advisor to the president on Covid, retired from public service in 2022. He also had nothing to do with inflation. This answer was par for the course for DeSantis, who refused to answer questions directly, always offering some canned talking point without substance.

Vivek Ramaswamy introduced himself by stealing a line from Barack Obama’s first presidential debate in April 2007. The thirty-eight-year-old Ramaswamy made a fortune in finance, pharmaceuticals, and biotech. He calls climate change a hoax and promotes fossil fuel as the secret to economic success. Ramaswamy wants to raise the voting age to twenty-five. He’s also called for voters to pass a civics test. “The U.S. Constitution,” Ramaswamy says, “is the strongest guarantor of freedom in human history. That is what won us the American Revolution.”

The Revolution ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris on September 3, 1783. The Constitution was signed in 1787. It went into effect after the nineth state ratified it on March 4, 1789. Ramaswamy would flunk his own test.

Mike Pence declared himself to be his own man, defending his decision to not commit treason by illegally invalidating the election of Joe Biden to be President on January 6, 2021. Pence repeatedly says Trump is not fit to be president. But he raised his hand and promised to support Trump if he is the Republican nominee in 2024. Go figure. Pence also pushes a national ban on abortion as a divinely inspired mission affirming the sanctity of life. Pence is also a staunch supporter of the death penalty. Go figure.

Men wouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton. Will Republicans vote for Nikki Haley? Can any woman be elected president? Seems like an uphill battle for 2024. Haley surprised me by blaming Republicans in Congress for spending too much. She also was the best at exposing Ramaswamy’s uninformed positions on Ukraine and foreign affairs. She was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations under Trump, a president who hated the United Nations.

Was Tim Scott really there? I got that he grew up in a single-parent household. And that’s all I got.

Doug Burgum is the current governor of North Dakota. North Dakota is a state that never should have been created in the first place. If you add the populations of North Dakota and South Dakota together you will still have a state where nobody lives. Burgum thinks small-town values can solve everything from crime to foreign affairs. He doesn’t appear to have enough to do at home.

The former governor of Arkansas Asa Hutchinson seems like a nice guy. He’s an anti-Trumper but beyond that there’s no there there. He does want to cut the number of government workers. At least he didn’t endorse the DeSantis plan to “start slitting their throats on day one.”

And finally, there’s Chris Christie. He’s fun and entertaining. He attacked Trump like no one else dared and withstood the anger of the pro Trump crowd. He doesn’t have a chance.

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