One might have thought that after the political upheaval caused by the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade the conservative justices would feel that it was the better part of valor to play it cool for a while and let the smoke clear before they launch into another radical assault on American jurisprudence. But apparently, taking away established rights for half the population was just a warm up act. Last week, they signaled pretty clearly that they’re prepared to enshrine an imperial presidency into the U.S. Constitution. First , we were all treated to the sickening spectacle of the five conservative men on the Court batting around ideas about how many organs need to be failing before an emergency physician can step in to save a pregnant woman’s life. You see, they value the rights of states, a government entity, far more than they value the rights of individuals. Well, individual women anyway. It was obvious that at least four of the Justices are fully prepared to say that any yahoo in a state can override the federal law against allowing people to bleed to death in their ER.
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This too: So, what’s Lara up to at the RNC these days? The Republican National Committee was poised to open and staff 40 satellite campaign offices across key battlegrounds when former President Donald Trump, now the presumptive GOP nominee, abruptly replaced RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and her deputies with fresh leadership. Trump’s new RNC team, led by Chairman Michael Whatley, Co-Chair (and Trump’s daughter-in-law) Lara Trump, and senior campaign adviser Chris LaCivita, killed McDaniel’s 2024 blueprint. Roughly six weeks later, neither the committee nor the Trump campaign has much infrastructure or personnel in the swing states that will decide the November 5 election, multiple sources in Washington and the crucial battleground states told Dispatch Politics this week. That means few if any regional and local campaign headquarters; little to no deployed field staff; and little to no traditional voter turnout activities, such as door-knocking, phone banking, or volunteer organizing.
Is Taylor Swift a psy-op? .@Donie asks a Trump supporter: "You don't believe Taylor Swift is a government psyop?" Hear his response pic.twitter.com/yQxvmWqmkV — Erin Burnett OutFront (@OutFrontCNN) April 27, 2024 Sigh… I’m sure that these are decent people in many ways. I have people in my family who are good people in their personal lives but their politics are dangerous and frankly, evil. I can’t get through to them, no matter what tack I take and I’ve tried different approaches for many years. In the old days we could all just agree not to talk politics. Today there’s no avoiding it. It’s the media they consume and the bubbles in which they live. And it’s morphed from an ideology into a cult. I have no idea what to do about it except to try to keep them from power while we still have a democracy and hope that somehow if the Trump bubble of invulnerability bursts they get tired or disillusioned and simply retreat as people whose cult leaders are exposed often do. Other than that I’m out of ideas.
Robinson v. Stein offers a stark contrast Joe Biden’s sharpest barb at the White House Correspondents’ dinner was about him running against a six year old. The Guardian this morning uses a few more words for characterizing the “former factory worker” who rose from obscurity to serve as North Carolina’s Republican lieutenant governor. Mark Robinson is his party’s candidate for governor this November. It might be news that Republicans selected a Black candidate to run against state Attorney General Josh Stein. But if Donald Trump is a six year-old, it’s less clear how one might describe Robinson: Born into poverty and working in a furniture factory while attending college, Robinson quit his job and dropped out of school to begin speaking at conservative events. (Robinson, if he wins, would be the first North Carolina governor without a college degree elected since 1937.) Robinson beat a host of competitors for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor in 2020, winning about a third of the primary vote. He faced the state representative Yvonne Holley, an African American Democrat from Raleigh.
Even “nerds” who won’t say it know it After the jokes at D.C.’s “nerd prom” last night, SNL’s Colin Jost got serious. I remember decency. Sort of. ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.
Lol. He knows Jr is talking about his people here: Trump got a bunch of blowback from the faithful for putting down RFK Jr.’s anti vax routine yesterday. He’s worried. He didn’t like this either: Right: Did I mention that he’s worried?
“Our job is to condemn Hamas, a terrorist organization that started this war, condemn in every form antisemitism, islamophobia, and other forms of bigotry. But we do have to pay attention to the unprecedented humanitarian disaster taking place in Gaza right now. Bernie Sanders: "Our job is to condemn Hamas, a terrorist organization that started this war, condemn in every form antisemitism, islamophobia, and other forms of bigotry. But we do have to pay attention to the unprecedented humanitarian disaster taking place in Gaza right now." pic.twitter.com/Rs27n5M2Tt — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 28, 2024 It shouldn’t be necessary to say this but it’s probably a good idea. Certain universal liberal values need to be emphasized when emotions get high.
Adam Serwer on the immunity argument: Trump’s legal argument is a path to dictatorship. That is not an exaggeration: His legal theory is that presidents are entitled to absolute immunity for official acts. Under this theory, a sitting president could violate the law with impunity, whether that is serving unlimited terms or assassinating any potential political opponents, unless the Senate impeaches and convicts the president. Yet a legislature would be strongly disinclined to impeach, much less convict, a president who could murder all of them with total immunity because he did so as an official act. The same scenario applies to the Supreme Court, which would probably not rule against a chief executive who could assassinate them and get away with it. The conservative justices have, over the years, seen harbingers of tyranny in union organizing, environmental regulations, civil-rights laws, and universal-health-care plans. When confronted with a legal theory that establishes actual tyranny, they were simply intrigued.
Simon Rosenberg as some advice for Joe Biden’s campaign which includes ideas on youth outreach, climate change etc. It’s all interesting but I think he makes an excellent point here that I haven’t heard anyone else make: I think Joe Biden should promise to clean up the city he has so long been a part of. Among the things we can tackle are the influence of foreign money, the need to raise ethical standards at the Supreme Court, eliminating the debt ceiling and the ability to shut down the government, and the wild abuse of Senate holds on nominations. Perhaps Biden could set up a commission to make broader recommendations on how to modernize and reform a city desperately in need of it. The utter sleaze of the Trump years has never been properly addressed. These trials in New York have illuminated Trump’s personal corruption and sleaze but we have yet to see anything really penetrate what he’s done to the political culture in Washington. This level of blatant corruption is one of the greatest threats to the system of all and at some point it’s going to have to be dealt with.
Is that something a young, virile alpha male would be whining about every single day? I think not. But then it is less common to hear an old man kvetching about the cold. That’s usually something that old women (like me) complain about. Where are the front page stories about how frail and wan he looks under his makeup these days. How he can’t keep his eyes open in court and how his hair loss is accelerating before our eyes? Since he’s doing very few rallies, even though he’s only in court four days a week, we don’t see his glitching every day but his commentary to the press outside the courtroom is downright weird. I know that Joe Biden’s stiff gait from arthritis is of MAJOR concern to the media. Why not this?