If you are following the issue of abortion right now you almost surely have a headache. There is just so much happening all over the country that it’s very hard to wrap your head around what’s going on and how to fight it. This was the predictable outcome of overruling Roe v. Wade to “send it back to the states” because it was always part of the anti-abortion movement strategy. Instead of fighting on one front at the national level, pro-choice advocates would be forced to fight on many different fronts in many different ways while at the same time battling back one attempt after another in the federal courts to degrade the right in the states where it is legal. The final goal remains a national ban even if they have to get it done incrementally. This was always obvious by the fact that while they always piously proclaimed that abortion is murder while at the same time insisting that they merely wanted to return the issue to the states, as if it was fine with them if some states decided to keep it legal. What they really wanted to do was disperse the resources and energy and wear down the opposition. So far, it isn’t working.
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Jamie Raskin is a fighter. You love to see it. Punchbowl reports: A messy confrontation between House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the ranking member, over panel rules dominated coverage last week. But the spat can’t change an uncomfortable reality for Democrats — when it comes to GOP investigations, there’s not much they can do in the minority. So as Comer plugs away at his controversial, high-profile investigation of President Joe Biden’s family members and their business dealings, Raskin is doing his best to try to reorient the narrative. The progressive firebrand is crying foul at Comer’s methods while making sure the biggest committee news comes from the Democratic side, not from the Kentucky Republican. The fight spilled into the open last week, incensing Oversight Republicans who argue Raskin is trying to distract from GOP breakthroughs in reviewing bank records tied to questionable Biden family deals.
That’s his latest “policy” statement. Trump Greene 2024?
Briahna Joy Gray, who is one of my favorite podcasters and interviewers, and I went deep into the Clarence Thomas scandal. I trace his actions back to an obscure speech he delivered to a libertarian outfit in San Francisco in 1987, where he set out his basic agenda and philosophy: “The real culture war between the left and the right is about money.” You can watch it here on YouTube.
There’s been yet another big leak of US secret intelligence. As usual, the main result was embarrassment for the US state, from the (re)confirmation that it routinely spies on its allies, and from the publication of some unflattering comments on those allies. The substantive content was uninteresting, revealing no greater insight (and sometimes) than that […]
Radly Balko’s analysis of the vigilante case down in Texas is a must read in its entirety. He knows his stuff. It’s vitally important to understand what’s really driving these people. It’s not good: Incredibly, Tucker Carlson just had Kyle Rittenhouse on his show to discuss Perry’s conviction. The far right has been eager to draw parallels between Rittenhouse and Perry. And the two cases are similar, just not in the way they’re claiming. As Texas criminal defense attorney Mark Bennett has pointed out, when it comes to self-defense law, if we’re going to compare the two cases, the person in a posture most similar to Rittenhouse’s is Foster, not Perry. Rittenhouse may have been reckless rush to the Kenosha protests with his rifle (and I believe he was), but doing so wasn’t illegal, and under state law, he should not have been charged. According to Rittenhouse — and a good deal of the evidence — the protesters in Kenosha mistook his lawful carrying of a rifle as an immediate threat, attacked him, and, as a result, he was justified in using lethal force in response.
I wonder why this is? They won’t stop. They are living in an alternate universe. Right now they are focusing like a laser on Hunter Biden’s laptop and the Manhattan District Attorney.
Uh huh: Gov. Ron DeSantis’ political operation has started calling Republican members of the Florida congressional delegation to consolidate support after four members publicly backed Donald Trump in his 2024 presidential bid. Sources with four of the six members contacted by DeSantis’ team shared the outreach with NBC News; each requested anonymity to confirm the calls. As Trump continues to lead in the polls for the GOP presidential nomination, DeSantis is trying to stop defections in his own backyard ahead of his expected run. DeSantis has no endorsements from the 20 Republicans in the state congressional delegation. The efforts started after Trump picked up the backing of Rep. Byron Donalds, who has been a DeSantis ally. The three earlier endorsements were from Reps. Anna Paulina Luna, Matt Gaetz and Cory Mills, who are vocal Trump boosters and whose support wasn’t surprising. Since Donalds came out for Trump, DeSantis’ team has called at least six members of Florida’s congressional delegation, asking that they hold off on making any endorsements in the near future. They are: Reps.
The Dominion case implicates Trump bigly Of course they knew. And yet, one month later, Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger and asked him to “find” just one vote more than needed to declare victory. There is no doubt that they were lying. And Fox News was a huge help. I’ll bet District Attorney Fanni Willis is thrilled to see this.
Oh no: Republicans have talked themselves into believing that 2024 is absolutely, positively, the last time they’ll have to deal with Donald Trump. Yesterday Benjy Sarlin brought the room down by arguing that even if Trump loses in 2024, he might run again in 2028, actuarial tables be damned. Is that possible? Absolutely. If Trump loses in 2024, he could easily mount another campaign—though this is as much an indictment of Don Jr. as a plausible heir as anything else. But let me take this a step further. During the Republican primaries, one of the arguments that Good Republicans will deploy against Trump as a way of passively challenging him will be to say something along the lines of, “Trump is great! But if Trump is the nominee, we can only get four years, because he couldn’t run for reelection in 2028. We need a Republican nominee who can give us eight years.” Well I come to you from the future and I’m here to tell you that Donald Trump will respond with the following: In response, his Republican challengers will gape and sputter and twist their toes in the dirt. But they won’t say that a third term is impossible.