Note to Team Biden: this is what you are in for the rest of the way, a concerted unethical campaign where the other side uses all avenues to smear you. My advice, let everyone know that this is a fight to the finish, a knife fight in a back alley, and the time for playing nice is long past. Each cabinet secretary needs to be paid a visit, Starting with Garland and told to batten down the hatches, and go to battle stations. Yesterday the R’s ruthlessly abducted a DOJ function and used it to unethically make a gratuitous attack on The President. It

I've been tough on Merrick Garland, and DOJ, but let me be a devil's advocate for once and lay out what could be happening (not saying it is but what could be) 1) The apparent slowness in interviewing Trump associates stems from concerns that they will use executive Privilege to litigate the issue, and Garland wanted the issue litigated by Congress as the party not the executive branch. Makes for a stronger case, two branches of Government saying waive EX Privilege with opposing party being a non government former President, asking the 3rd branch for

40 or 50 years ago, a transition took place in political messaging. Television become the new technology that changed political messaging. Before TV, name recognition, billboards, endorsements, political party support was key, TV changed all that. I made a good living being in the second wave of Media consultants who dominated political strategy for decades of the 80's through early 2000's. But the rise of the internet, and especially broad band, and social media changed all that. Now TV only plays a less important role, while social media (less

Start with the premise that Trump is good at one thing: committing crimes and avoiding being prosecuted for it. Now imagine he wanted to win at all costs, stay in power regardless of law and ethics. He would set a two part strategy, 1) Try and cheat to win at ballot box. That took several avenues, encourage your voters to vote in person, condition them not to fear the virus, knowing D's would be afraid of the virus and be fearful of voting in person. He would try to stop vote by mail, with legislation, and by enlisting DeJoy to slow the mail. 2) as

I just finished "I Alone can Fix it" a couple of observations: 1) It is a great read, well written and compelling, if you haven't read it you should. 2) many around Trump were more concerned with telling a story that observed them from responsibility than in really telling all, 3) Everyone cast the blame on Trump for incompetence and bizarre behavior, but were careful not to reveal criminality, 4) you would think that the events on Jan. 6th were totally a Trump/Giuliani shit show (this obscures the financing and planning and of course any contact with

Note on Sidney Powell filing tonight: I have always felt that the focus on the insurrection was obscuring a broader conspiracy. Trump planned to cheat to win, first by taking Russian disinformation, both from Ukraine, and then Giuliani smearing Biden, then he planned to limit voting, curtail mail in voting knowing D voters more virus fearful, and downplaying the virus then encouraging his voters to vote unperson. All the while filling law suits to limit voting before and after the election. All the while plotting to claim fraud if he lost so as to

I'm no immigration law expert, but here is my understanding of the problem. Asylum law allows those who present at border a right to hearing. Most of those presenting at border don't and won't qualify for asylum but they must be housed or released prior to hearing. Problem is there are not enough courts, judges, lawyers to process the cases in an expeditious manner. Here are my solutions, (and I welcome any comment or criticism from those more informed). I would try to rent some land on the Mexican side of border, and build an embassy off shoot to

I know the sedition statute is narrow, and that court cases have made prosecution problematic, but that said I think we are all looking at the trees in the forest regarding Jan 6th and not the forest itself. My theory is that the entire Trump effort has been seditious starting in 2016 when there is ample evidence that he accepted and welcomed Russian help, and much evidence that he conspired with Putin. His inexplicable actions and subservience to Putin through out his administration. The active participation in the 2020 Russian intel op by

As a former Political consultant, I feel people are missing the big picture by focusing only on the insurrection event at the capital. Here is what I think happened, and why I think this is a far larger conspiracy at sedition that should be investigated and legally dealt with. I think Trump set up a dual campaign strategy, First, try and win it in the traditional way, but with the wrinkle that he enlisted DeJoy to try to slow down the mail in vote. He did this knowing that D's would because of covid be more inclined to vote by mail. Then in order to

I'm seeing a lot of debate about who gets the credit for this win, minority voters, or swing and Republican never Trumpers. For months I've been saying that D's can't win with just one group, we cannot win most races is swing states by merely increasing turnout. That said, we could not have won this race without the support of African American voters, LGBQ voters, asians, native Americans Latinos and others in our base. Their contribution was more than instrumental it was fundamental. They are the rock of our party. Job one going forward, is to

I have been having a twitter debate this morning with an old friend who I respect greatly @repckelly, I thought it important to set out my position in more detail. It is an important debate if and only if democracy survives this period, which is still in doubt, First, there should be no political prosecutions, no false charges, no Andy McCabe cases, no Durham investigations. That said, I feel that what has transpired in the last 5 years has been an anomaly in American Democracy which we cannot turn a blind eye to. If we simple turn

Folks, think with me for a moment. Goal #1 is to defeat Trump, that means resources are deployed to those states with the best chance to win 270 electoral votes. It requires discipline. But goal #2 is to defeat not just Trump but Trumpism, so that we do not have to go through this again, in 2024 or at anytime in the future. Drive a stake in the heart of the evil, neo nazi, racist, white supremist, Qanon, nut case fringe that has captured the Republican Party. The smartest R's understand, @ProjectLincoln @RVAT2020 the military leaders, the foreign

We are about to see a massive attack on Joe Biden, from paid advertising, from hidden digital, paid ads and troll bots. There are many theories on how one handles these attacks, and disputes about what is correct strategy. At the root of the dispute, If one allows an attack to go unchallenged, it runs the risk of being believed as true, but if one tries to answer and dispute the attack, one risks "losing the definition", (most political strategists believe like military strategy, that if one can choose the battle field, one has a better chance to win

I've worked with a lot of Politicians over the years, before becoming a media consultant, I managed campaigns. While the US government is far bigger and more complicated than any campaign, I think I have some insight into management style that is creating problems for Trump and his administration. 1) As a manager or Chief of staff or cabinet secretary you only have as much authority as the candidate or President gives you. Without the authority to act you can't do anything, it slows you down, and can grind a campaign or administration to a halt.

I've been around a lot of campaigns in my time, so let me tell you what I think is happening right now in the Coronavirus response. Folks this is not being run as a response to a health crisis, not as a response to world wide pandemic. Trump is running this as a political strategy. Why do I say this? Well because there is no cure, and no vaccine, the only way to slow the disease is to test, then when a victim is identified to contact trace, then quarantine the potential exposed persons. But that has a problem for someone running for president

It is interesting that there are several threads of this Ukraine scandal that the House has chosen not to pull on, it is curious why. It could be that SDNY has it under investigation, and House managers have agreed to lay off in deference to SDNY. They may just think it is outside the scope of their primary mandate, but make no mistake there will be many open questions even after this impeachment trial. 1) There is a large amount of money funneled into American campaigns, including to Trump's super pac. Did that money come from Firtash, the

What to think about in the upcoming Senate trial and the coverup: One way to think about this is to look at it as a PR crisis for Trump and GOP. General rule of crisis management is "get all the bad stuff out quickly" what hurts the most is the slow unraveling of the conspiracy. Trump made a smart move releasing the "transcript" of the call, as damaging as it was, it would have been far worse if he had tried to hide it and then it was forced to be released. But now that he is in a trial, he has to obstruct the investigation as the facts

I spent some time in political messaging, here are some thoughts on what needs to be communicated to the public to move the needle and get to removal. 1) This isn't the first time he has done this, he did it to win last time, Mueller couldn't prove it was a "conspiracy" but he did determine that Trump and his campaign had scores of meetings with Russians, and welcomed and encouraged their help. 2) We gave him a pass last time even though one of the reasons we couldn't prove conspiracy with Russia was that Trump and Giuliani obstructed the

@qjurecic The Presidency fell in 2016, the DOJ fell with Barr's confirmation, the Senate is not yet fallen, but is afraid and impotent. American Democracy has the house for 18 months, and the Supreme court (maybe) as long as RBG is still alive and the Free Press. What is the strategy? @qjurecic Impeachment is a long shot, but we must educate the public through hearings, but Trump and Barr are obstructing (they know how damaging it will be), so how do we enforce the subpoenas? I've looked at the limited legal opinion on Inherent Contempt power of congress..