Loser Takes All

A new bill was passed by the Maine legislature designed to award the state’s presidential electoral votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote.

“The Maine House voted by the slimmest of margins Tuesday to join a compact that would replace the Electoral College with the national popular vote.

The House voted 73-72 to enact LD 1578 ‘An Act to Adopt an Interstate Compact to Elect the President of the United States by National Popular Vote’.

Maine lawmakers have considered similar versions of the same bill since 2007 but have failed to join the compact.

Under the compact, all of a state’s electoral votes are awarded to the presidential slate with the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

So far, 16 states and DC have agreed to join the compact, representing 205 electoral votes.

But more states need to join to get to 270 electoral votes so the system can be used in presidential races across the country, Rep. Art Bell (D-Yarmouth) told members of the Legislature’s Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee in January.

Maine has only four electoral votes and supporters argued that switching to a popular vote system would make smaller states like Maine more relevant.

Opponents say Maine is already well positioned because it’s one of only two states to split its electoral votes”. -Susan Cover, Spectrum News

In an effort by the Pine Tree State to push America toward a supposedly more equitable and democratic system, one can’t help but find it a bit ironic that even if every registered Maine constituent casts their vote for a candidate other than the one who wins the national popular vote, the state’s electors will be bound to vote for the candidate whom no one in the state elected.

Sweden Enters Transatlantic Bloc

Sweden has officially joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, becoming the 32nd member of the Cold War-era alliance, which had sixteen members when the Soviet Union dissolved.

“Sweden has officially become the 32nd member of the U.S.-led NATO military bloc after the document formalizing Stockholm’s accession entered into force on Thursday.

The accession ceremony will be held in Washington, where Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson will submit his country’s documents to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

A document published by the U.S. Department of State asserts that all conditions for Sweden’s entry into NATO have been fulfilled and that the protocol signifying Stockholm’s membership entered into force on March 7th, 2024.

In a post on X, Kristersson also declared that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg had informed him that all bloc members have formally accepted Sweden’s accession protocol and had invited Stockholm to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Stockholm is set to make a final formal decision on joining the bloc, which will be followed by a news conference. After that, Kristersson is set to issue an address to the nation, according to Swedish Radio.

Sweden and Finland abandoned their longstanding policies of non-alignment and submitted bids to join the U.S.-led military bloc in 2022, citing security concerns following the launch of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.

The two countries' bids to join had to be ratified by all current bloc members. Hungary and Turkey initially objected, with Ankara accusing Sweden and Finland of harboring members of armed groups designated as terrorists under Turkish law.

Finland and Sweden eventually reformed their anti-terrorism laws and both bids were ultimately ratified. Finland became the 31st member of NATO in April 2023.

Meanwhile, Russia has insisted that NATO’s continued expansion poses a threat to its national security and is destabilizing Europe, making it less safe. Moscow has pointed out that it did not have any issues with the two Scandinavian countries before they decided to join the U.S.-led bloc, but will now be forced to respond by reorganizing and strengthening its armed forces in the region”. -RT

Completing NATO's historic enlargement into the Nordic region, by joining the transatlantic alliance, Sweden has officially abandoned its centuries-old policy of neutrality.

Trump Wins Three State Caucuses

Donald Trump has swept three more Republican presidential nominating contests, winning caucuses in Idaho and Missouri and sweeping the delegate haul at a party convention in Michigan against Nikki Haley, who is still seeking her first election-season win.

“Donald Trump swept three more Republican presidential nominating contests on Saturday, beating rival Nikki Haley in Missouri and Idaho and winning all of Michigan’s remaining delegates.

The Associated Press called all three races for Trump, who has won every nominating contest so far by wide margins. He’s on track to have enough delegates to lock down the Republican presidential nomination by mid-March.

The latest Trump victories portends trouble for Haley, the final candidate challenging Trump. The former president won the first Michigan contest — a primary — on Tuesday by more than 40 percentage points.

Michigan Republicans, whose party rules dictated holding a second contest, held a party convention on Saturday to award the remaining 39 delegates. Trump swept those after receiving 1,575 votes from precinct delegates, compared to 36 for Haley, the AP reported.

The race will soon shift to Super Tuesday on March 5th, when 15 states hold Republican nominating contests. Haley has vowed to stay in the race through then. She has continued to campaign and raise funds over the past week in the wake of a crushing loss to Trump last Saturday in South Carolina, the state where she was governor twice.

Despite the losses, Haley has beat expectations set by polls in several of the early voting states. She won more than 43% of the vote in New Hampshire and nearly 40% in her home state of South Carolina, both states where she spent significant time campaigning.

‘There are huge numbers of voters in our Republican primaries who are saying they want an alternative’, Haley said last week.

Jai Chabria, a Republican strategist, said the latest win made clear that Haley had virtually no chance of clinching the nomination away from Trump.

‘This race has been over for a long time since Donald Trump announced he was going to become president’, Chabria said. ‘There are a few in the donor class that want us to go on, but that’s really it’”. -Stephanie Lai, Bloomberg

While a defiant Nikki Haley has vowed to remain in the race through next week’s 15-state Super Tuesday primaries despite the polls not favoring her to win anywhere in the foreseeable future, perhaps the real question is whether she will suspend her campaign ahead of the first of Trump’s criminal trials on March 25th.

Seizing Frozen Russian Assets

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has called on the United States and its Group of Seven and European Union allies to jointly confiscate funds from frozen Russian assets and redirect them to Ukraine.

“Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday offered her strongest public support yet for the idea of liquidating roughly $300 billion in frozen Russian Central Bank assets and using them for Ukraine's long-term reconstruction.

‘It is necessary and urgent for our coalition to find a way to unlock the value of these immobilized assets to support Ukraine’s continued resistance and long-term reconstruction’, Yellen said in remarks in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where Group of 20 finance ministers and central bank governors are meeting this week.

The United States and its allies froze hundreds of billions of dollars in Russian foreign holdings in retaliation for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Those billions have been sitting untapped as the war grinds on, now in its third year, while officials from multiple countries have debated the legality of sending the money to Ukraine. More than two-thirds of Russia’s immobilized central bank funds are located in the EU.

Using the assets to help Ukraine ‘would make clear that Russia cannot win by prolonging the war and would incentivize it to come to the table to negotiate a just peace with Ukraine’, Yellen said.

The idea of using Russia’s frozen assets has gained traction lately as continued allied funding for Ukraine becomes more uncertain and the U.S. Congress is in a stalemate over providing more support.

Yellen said Tuesday that it is ‘extremely unlikely’ that tapping the frozen funds would harm the dollar's standing in the global economy ‘especially given the uniqueness of the situation where Russia is brazenly violating international norms. Realistically there are not alternatives to the dollar, euro and yen’, Yellen said”. -Fatima Hussein, Associated Press

Although legislation has been introduced in both chambers of the U.S. Congress to give the White House the authority to establish a “Ukraine Support Fund” in order to secure funds for the Ukrainian war effort using Russian profits, only about $67 billion of the frozen money is being held by the United States Federal Reserve, as $61 billion in further U.S. aid to Ukraine has been blocked by the House of Representatives.

South Carolina Called For Trump

Donald Trump has decisively won the South Carolina Republican primary, defeating the state’s former governor, Nikki Haley, his sole opponent.

”Donald Trump won South Carolina’s Republican primary on Saturday, easily beating former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley in her home state and further consolidating his path to a third straight GOP nomination.

Trump has now swept every contest that counted for Republican delegates, adding to previous wins in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The former president’s latest victory will likely increase pressure on Haley, who was Trump’s former representative to the U.N. and South Carolina governor from 2011 to 2017, to leave the race.

South Carolina’s first-in-the-South primary has historically been a reliable bellwether for Republicans. In all but one primary since 1980, the Republican winner in South Carolina has gone on to be the party’s nominee. The lone exception was Newt Gingrich in 2012.

Trump was dominant across the state, even leading in Lexington County, which Haley represented in the state Legislature. Many Trump-backing South Carolinians, even some who previously supported Haley during her time as governor, weren't willing to give her a home-state bump.

Haley has raised copious amounts of campaign money and is scheduled to begin a cross-country campaign swing on Sunday in Michigan ahead of Super Tuesday on March 5th, when many delegate-rich states hold primaries.

But it’s unclear how she can stop Trump from clinching enough delegates to become the party’s presumptive nominee for the third time.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., complimented Haley while speaking to reporters at Trump’s election night party in Columbia but suggested it was time for her to drop out.

‘I think the sooner she does, the better for her, the better for the party’, Graham said”. -Meg Kinnard and Will Weissert, Associated Press

Despite Trump making far fewer appearances in South Carolina leading up to the primary than Haley, the constant publicizing of his trials has bought Trump added media coverage while also allowing him to campaign on the issue of supposedly being a fallen political martyr whose can only be resurrected by securing reelection.

Senate Passes Foreign Aid Bill

The U.S. Senate has passed a long-sought $95.34 billion foreign aid package with assistance for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, sending the bill to the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson has suggested that he may not plan to bring it to the floor for a vote.

“The Senate on Tuesday morning passed the $95 billion foreign military aid bill that includes money for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan after a rare overnight session where Republican opponents of the legislation argued against it.

The bill passed in a vote of 70-29, with 22 Republicans and nearly every Democrat voting to pass the legislation. Only two Democrats — Senator Peter Welch (D-VT) and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) — voted against the massive spending package. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) also voted no.

Packed into the $95 billion legislation is about $60 billion for the proxy war in Ukraine, $14 billion for the Israeli onslaught in Gaza, and $4.8 billion for Taiwan and other spending on the Indo-Pacific region to prepare for a future war with China”. -Dave DeCamp, Antiwar

With Republican opposition in the House threatening to kill the Senate emergency spending package, senior Democratic senators are reportedly considering the use of a discharge petition, which would require support from at least 218 House members, in order to bring the overseas aid bill to the floor for a vote.

Senate Votes Down Spending Bill

The U.S. Senate has to advance the $118.28 billion package that would appropriate funding for foreign aid and border security by a vote of 49-50.

“The Senate on Wednesday voted down the $118 billion military and border bill as Republican leadership came out against the legislation before the vote.

The bill needed 60 votes to pass and failed in a vote of 49/50. Only four Republicans voted in favor of the legislation, and only five Democrats voted against it.

Senate Democrats are furious with Republicans since the legislation took months to negotiate. Republicans now say the bill would not do enough to crack down on the border and are looking for more concessions on migrant policy.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has said the bill would be dead on arrival once it reached his chamber. Democrats are blaming former President Trump for the Republican opposition since he came out strongly against the border deal.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is looking to push through a $95 billion bill that strips out the border provisions and just includes the military aid. The bill includes about $60 billion for the Ukraine proxy war, $14 billion for the Israeli slaughter in Gaza, and $4.8 billion for Taiwan and other spending in the Asia Pacific”. -Dave DeCamp, Antiwar

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer went so far as to issue a warning suggesting that failure to pass the national security supplemental package could bring the United States closer to a direct conflict with Russia in Ukraine, despite the fact that Ukraine is not a NATO member and therefore not under U.S. protection.

“If we don’t aid Ukraine, Putin will be walk all over Ukraine, we will lose the war and we could be fighting in eastern Europe and a NATO ally in a few years. Americans won’t like that”, Schumer stated.

Trump Loses Defamation Case

A New York jury has ordered Donald Trump to pay writer E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million in her defamation trial against him.

“Donald Trump has been ordered by a Manhattan jury to pay $83.3 million to journalist and author E. Jean Carroll.

Carroll has argued that Trump damaged her reputation in 2019 when he publicly claimed that she had lied when she accused him of rape.

Siding with Carroll, the jury ruled on Friday that Trump should pay $18.3 in compensatory damages and $65 million in punitive damages. The jury found that the former president’s statements had caused Carroll emotional and reputational harm.

Carroll accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in a New York luxury department store in the 1990s when she was a columnist for Elle magazine. Trump has denied the allegations, testifying in court that he had never even met Carroll.

During a similar trial in May 2023, a jury in New York awarded Carroll $2 million in damages for sexual abuse and around $3 million for defamation. Trump appealed that ruling as well”. -RT

While Trump’s accuser being awarded $83.3 million for defamation is particularly outrageous, however the way it will be portrayed by Trump as his campaign as further evidence, along with the four indictments over alleged election interference and the mishandling of classified documents, that the U.S. political system has been weaponized against him despite being on his way to securing the Republican presidential nomination for a third consecutive time will be even more of a mockery.

Curiously, an episode of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” from January of 2012 had characters discuss a role-played rape in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room eerily similar to the one E. Jean Carroll described in her public allegations against Trump.

“It tickled me to death”, Carroll said in reference to the supposed “coincidence”.

“It’s a great, huge coincidence, but it is a magnificent one”, she added.

Also, in August of 2012, Carroll posted a question about Donald Trump to her Facebook followers on whether they would be willing to sleep with him for seventeen thousand dollars before going on to suggest that in her fanciful scenario, Trump may not be able to speak.

As is commonly the case nowadays, the synchronization with obscure events from the past, along with all of the transparent references from over a decade ago, are in profusion.

Trump Secures New Hampshire Vote

Donald Trump has been projected to have secured a decisive victory in the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary.

“Minutes after polling closed, The New York Times and Washington Post both projected that Trump will win Tuesday's primary over former Ambassador Nikki Haley. But Haley proclaimed it a ‘great night’ while congratulating Trump on his win.

‘New Hampshire is first in the nation, it is not the last in the nation’, Haley said at an election night rally in Concord, New Hampshire. ‘This race is far from over. There are dozens of states left to go’.

Perhaps as a result of Haley's finish, Trump spent the early night railing over the fact that independent voters could cast a ballot in the race.

Haley's campaign made clear long before the results were released that she's not going anywhere. But New Hampshire offered her favorable ground that will be difficult to come by in the weeks ahead. The pair won't formally face off again until South Carolina's February 24th primary. It's Haley's home turf, but polls show Trump is favored to beat the former governor in what would be an embarrassing result.

Her best hope is to stay afloat until Super Tuesday when the delegate race will begin in earnest. She is also openly using Trump's 2016-era playbook of trying to get independent voters into the GOP primary process.

Top Republicans are already calling for the primary to effectively end. Just before New Hampshire, Trump trotted out a series of South Carolina-related endorsements to further illustrate that he will take it to Haley.

Trump is nowhere near the number of delegates needed to actually be his party's ‘presumptive’ nominee. By design, none of the early states offer incredibly large delegate hauls in straight up a winner-take-all contest. But Trump and his allies are using the early victories to further the narrative that trying to stop him is futile”. -Brent D. Griffiths, Business Insider

It seems Trump’s victory has dealt a critical blow to Nikki Haley’s campaign ambitions when one takes into consideration the likelihood that most of the upcoming primaries will have less favorable demographics for her than the Granite State, where a majority of voters in the New Hampshire Republican primary identified as either Independent or Democrat in exit polls.