© AFP / Andy JacobsohnDonald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas, Texas, July 11, 2021
Trump took the stage in Dallas, Texas on Sunday night to close out the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), a yearly or twice-yearly gathering of politicians, activists and celebrities from the American right. The CPAC crowd is as friendly to Trump as crowds get, and the former president served them up his signature partisan jokes, rants and one-liners.
He railed against President Joe Biden and the Democrats, whom he accused of "rigging" the 2020 election against him. The audience agreed, breaking into chants of "Trump won!" He thundered against immigration, accusing Biden of turning the US/Mexico border into "the single greatest disaster in American history" and lambasted "big tech's attack on free speech," days after suing the social media platforms that banned him in January.
All of these complaints and grievances are standard Trump fare, but the receptive crowd at CPAC gave him the opportunity to try out some new material. Turning on his former attorney general, Trump claimed that Bill Barr "became a different man" after House Democrats "viciously stated that they wanted to impeach him" last year.
Comment: Its more like Barr turned on Trump. Here's what Trump said at the conference:
Donald Trump dropped quite a bombshell on Sunday afternoon about former Attorney General Bill Barr.
While speaking at CPAC in Dallas, Texas, Trump revealed that he received a letter from the U.S. Attorney in Philadelphia that Barr prevented the investigation of election fraud after the election.
Trump then looked over at Devin Nunes in the audience and said "Devin, you don't even know about this yet."
Donald Trump's anger with former Attorney General Bill Barr may have been even worse than we originally knew.
According to a forthcoming book by ABC News Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl, Barr told reporters at the Associated Press back in December that the Justice Department had uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
Trump confronted Barr in person over the comments.
"How the f — could you do this to me? Why did you say it?" Trump asked Barr.
When Barr responded "because it's true," Trump said: "You must hate Trump. You must hate Trump."
Back in December, Barr told Karl: "To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election."
Barr slammed Trump while speaking with Karl, saying he "expected Trump to lose the election" and claimed he "did look into" claims of fraud in the election.
"If there was evidence of fraud, I had no motive to suppress it," Barr told Karl. "But my suspicion all the way along was that there was nothing there. It was all bullsh*t."
"I didn't become different," Trump quipped. "I got impeached twice. I became worse."
His opponents would likely agree with that statement, but "worse" to his supporters clearly meant "better," as they broke out into applause and cheers.
Trump's headline appearance, and the warm reception he received, served as a reminder that although he is out of power and absent from social media, he still sets the Republican Party's agenda. His former vice president, Mike Pence, who voted to certify Biden's electoral victory, did not appear at the event and was booed and heckled at a conservative conference in Florida several weeks ago.
CPAC is considered an opportunity for potential Republican presidential candidates to audition in front of the conservative base, and Trump - who has dropped several hints recently at another run for the White House in 2024 - seemed to acknowledge this. "The Democrats want me out... and here I am. I could have a nice, beautiful life and here I am on a Sunday in Texas," he said, to which the crowd chanted "Four more years! Four more years!"
Trump easily topped a straw poll of potential 2024 candidates conducted over the weekend and displayed at the conference. The former president took 70% of the vote, with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis coming in second with 21%. In another poll that excluded Trump, DeSantis came in first with 68%. No other prospective candidate - including former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley - scored more than low single digits in either poll.
And with Trump's rhetoric echoing that of his 2016 and 2020 campaign rallies, he showed no signs of bowing out of public life any time soon.
"We will protect and defend our cherished American legacy and freedom for ourselves, for our children, and for every future generation," he concluded. "My fellow Americans, our movement is the greatest in American history, and it has just begun."
go over again the designed, yes designed limits, the coming, or psyched out moment definitely will attract, and gather more trouble, the centre, the very centre of the so called "free world" is totally in the hands of global, maybe universal judgement being the after effects of such an event only resulting in death, or "a glorified death of many", including much un necessary destruction of property regardless of whom it belongs too!!
but yet, it seems, the only ideal positive to blame is yet again, the mighty "ego"! the center of everything,
and now, words fail me..
the weather here now is awesome, rode today, windy, wet and wild, only the skilled, get home at the end of the day, being patient, understanding and being "at one" with that he/she rides..
gnite folks.. stay sane..