Dan Pfeiffer (subscription) explains why MAGA’s usual childishness is actually quite savvy in this case: One of the Super Pacs allied with Donald Trump released a video on Friday morning that took the Internet by storm. The ad uses the potentially apocryphal story of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis eating chocolate pudding with his fingers to attack his past support for cutting Social Security and Medicare. Most Trump World shenanigans are stupid, bordering on self-destructive. That is not the case with this ad, which ran on CNN and Fox News on Friday morning. On the day after DeSantis signed a dangerous six-week abortion ban, it seems trite to care about the manner in which he consumes packaged desserts. While impulse control is a valuable attribute in a Commander-in-Chief who can unilaterally launch nuclear warheads, no one should really care that DeSantis was unwilling to wait for a spoon. Frankly, his pudding impatience may be the most relatable thing about the otherwise painfully awkward, malfunctioning Westworld robot authoritarian.
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It’s just a legal license to kill The NY Times had this on the shooting of Ralph Yarl in Kansas City: Chief Graves said that the teenager was expected to give a formal statement to investigators when his injuries allow. She also said that there was a “potential” self-defense or “stand your ground” element that investigators were examining. But the following day, Mayor Lucas said that Missouri’s Stand Your Ground law, which was adopted in 2016, should not apply in this case. “If Stand Your Ground really lets somebody just shoot somebody that rings a doorbell,” he said, “that put the life of every postal worker, every campaigner, every Amazon delivery person at risk in this country.” I’m sure the man believes he was standing his ground because he “felt threatened” when a Black teenager rang his doorbell. Then there’s the man in New York who shot at a car that accidentally turned into the wrong driveway and killed a young woman as the car was turning around. I’m sure he believes he was “standing his ground” too.
Here’s the latest on the debt ceiling from TPM. Sigh. This could easily go sideways. It’s a clown show. And after all, Marge Greene is the shadow speaker of the House. Kevin McCarthy is Speaker in name only: Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has such a tenuous grip on his own conference that the debt-ceiling hostage-taking he is attempting to pull off has all the hallmarks of the bumbling kidnapping capers you see in the movies: -The House GOP can’t agree amongst themselves what to ask for as ransom. -They can’t get the White House to take them seriously enough as a ragtag band of kidnappers to engage in negotiations. -They keep threatening dire consequences for not taking them seriously but are repeatedly hobbled by their own lack of consensus. At this point, McCarthy wants the House to vote by the end of the month on a package that combines the debt ceiling with draconian spending cuts, but he clearly doesn’t have (i) internal agreement on those cuts or on how much to raise the debt ceiling by; or (ii) the votes to push a package through as early as next week.
I’ve got a piece up at Politico this morning, setting out what I think the real Clarence Thomas scandal is, why corruption may not be the best way to think about it, and what the proper approach of the Left should be to the problem of Clarence Thomas: As a description of the problem of Clarence Thomas, however, corruption too has its limits. Morally, corruption rotates on the same axis as sincerity — forever testing the purity or impurity, the tainted genealogy, of someone’s beliefs. But money hasn’t paved the way to Thomas’ positions. On the contrary, Thomas’ positions have paved the way for money. A close look at his jurisprudence makes clear that Thomas is openly, proudly committed to […]
Two thirds of police stations in England have closed since 2010. A new study digs into the dire consequences, Josiah Mortimer reports
♫ Then they let their hair hang down Remember when after Obama’s election, pundits insisted we were living in a “post-racial” society? “America’s struggle is to become not post-racial, but post-racist,” Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote years later. On the far right, “post-racial” was a prime, MAD magazine example of “What They Say and What it Really Means.” What some white people really meant was it was time for Black people to STFU about their treatment in white, by-God America. It was wishful thinking. At best. ‘Cause when they get behind closed doors, Charlie Rich might have sung, they still let their hair hang down. In Oklahoma, for example (The Oklahoman): In southeast Oklahoma, the sheriff of McCurtain County, one of his investigators and a county commissioner are accused by a newspaper of discussing killing a local reporter and lamenting that modern justice no longer includes hanging Black people. The explosive accusations were published this week in the McCurtain Gazette-News.
But you knew that Rep. Jeff Jackson (D-NC) will be lucky to survive the coming next round of gerrymandered congressional maps from the NC GOP. But he has shown himself adept at using social media since long before he got to Congress. Watch. He’s slick. @jeffjacksonnc Rep. Jeff Jackson (NC): Fake anger #fyp #politics #nc #charlotte #raleigh #asheville #durham #greensboro ♬ original sound – Jeff Jackson Maybe too slick. Perhaps another of those pretty boys we’ve seen use his military service to position himself for public office. But watch that space.
Here we go again. It seems as if every other election cycle or so for the past few decades has produced dreams of a centrist third party “unity” ticket that would appeal to all the Americans who say they want the partisan bickering in Washington to stop. The Beltway media gets excited at the idea of “the grown-ups” being in charge and the Big Money Boys lick their chops at the prospect of a party based entirely on their needs and their needs alone. This year it looks like the perennial group that calls itself No Labels has decided to throw a monkey wrench into our closely divided electoral college map and possibly send Donald Trump back to the White House in 2024 — in the name of unity, of course. No Labels is already gathering signatures to get on the ballot and is trying to recruit a Democrat and a Republican to run as a bipartisan ticket. Joe Manchin D-W.V., Kirsten Sinema, D-Az., Susan Collins, R-Me., and former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan are the names mentioned most often.
Some things never change Kevin McCarthy went to Wall Street to unveil his debt ceiling plan: stick it to the poor. How perfect: On Monday, the speaker delivered remarks at the New York Stock Exchange on the pressing issue facing Congress: raising the debt ceiling and ensuring the US can avoid a catastrophic default that could happen as soon as July. After months of stalemate, and Biden remaining adamant that he will not use the debt ceiling as bargaining chip, McCarthy confirmed that the House will vote on a bill “in the coming weeks” that would raise the debt ceiling through next year while keeping federal spending at the 2022 level over the next decade. Part of that deal would include strengthened work requirements on welfare programs, like the food stamps program called SNAP. “Our proposal will also restore work requirements that ensure able-bodied adults without dependents earn a paycheck and learn new skills that will grow our economy and help the supply chain,” McCarthy said. “Right now, there are more job openings than people who are looking for jobs. You know why?
We need this Fox Dominion trial for the sake of democracy Michael Tomasky makes the case: Here’s an instructive and telling little exercise for you, one that I engaged in myself this past Sunday morning. Head over to Google and search for “NBC defamation lawsuits by former employees.” And then, do the same with CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. You’ll find a few interesting incidents. A Native American employee sued NBC over discrimination at the 30 Rock workplace. The CBS affiliate in Dallas settled an age discrimination case brought by an on-air reporter. After you’ve done that, go Google “Fox News defamation lawsuits by former employees”—and watch your computer explode. There’s the record $1 million fine Fox paid in 2021 over various #MeToo allegations from female employees. There’s the staggering $20 million Fox agreed to pay to Gretchen Carlson in 2016.