You can say that about a lot of things, can’t you? This example is about that impeachment trial yesterday from Steve Benen: More than a month after House Republicans impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, despite the GOP’s inability to find any evidence of him committing high crimes, the articles were finally delivered to the Senate on Tuesday. Republicans in the upper chamber responded by demanding a full impeachment trial. They didn’t get one. As NBC News reported, the Senate Democratic majority dismissed both of the articles against the DHS chief just hours after the proceedings began. The speed of the impeachment trial was an embarrassing blow to Republicans who had threatened to gum up the Senate and delay the proceedings in a bid to highlight what they argue is Mayorkas’ failure to secure the border and stop the flow of thousands of undocumented migrants at the border. However, Democrats, who control the upper chamber, easily dispensed with the pair of impeachment articles — as well as several motions to adjourn the Senate.
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JV Last writes about one of the most profoundly depressing aspects of this election — half the country’s willingness to reward Trump with another term despite his performance as the worst leader in a national crisis in memory. There’s a Churchill quote that goes something like this: The after effect from the extreme prostrations of war—even a successful war—is ennui. He was explaining that in democratic societies, wars begin with drums and parades, but ends with public disaffection.3 There might be a corollary to this rule concerning pandemics because it is pretty clear that COVID broke something deep in the American psyche. It’s why people went crazy for two years, screaming at strangers in the grocery store about masks. It’s why we have a mass economic delusion in which people aren’t able to accurately perceive the state of the economy. It’s why we got the meme-stock phenomenon.
Not only did someone self-immolate outside the court room but this happened again too: There are some other foul rumors as well… They have a full jury with six alternates. On Monday morning, the games will begin.
The real politicization began It was a dry run for January 6th. And he incited it.
Freakin’ Anthony Burgess horrorshow Read that Washington Post headline again. Is there anything you’ve read lately that encapsulates the ultraviolence the MAGA cult is committing against the United States of America (land of the free, and all) than “Red states threaten librarians with prison”? Who knew “A Clockwork Orange” (1962) was to be so prescient? Anthony Burgess published Clockwork during the Cold War, in the year the U.S. and the Soviets came closest to nuking each other. Laced with Nadsat, the Russian-based teen slang Burgess invented and put into the mouth of his thuggish protagonist, the book itself was designed as a subtle form of conditioning. Burgess wrote in 1980, “The novel was to be an exercise in linguistic programming, with the exoticisms gradually clarified by context: I would resist to the limit any publisher’s demand that a glossary be provided.
Republicans deserve everything that’s coming to them Democrats have plenty of experience with snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The Israeli war on Hamas in Gaza is not helping President Biden. There are panicked missives in my in-box this morning about how him signing the TikTok bill if it passes will further erode his support among younger voters. Plus, as Dan Pfeiffer acknowledges, the Donald Trump campaign is much better run than it was in 2016 and 2020. That said, Pfeiffer believes Biden has advantages the increasingly addled Trump wishes he had. For starters, incumbent advantage and non-stop offense: While Trump-the Degenerate degenerates like nobody’s never seen, Biden is flush with cash, “boasts 300 paid staffers across nine states and 100 offices in parts of the country.” (His first staffer moves into our offices by the end of the month.) And Trump? Nothing to see here in N.C. Yes, the country’s mood is a wild card. But if all politics is local (is that still true?), then the sideshow candidates Republicans are fielding in North Carolina may persuade voters to vote and vote D even if they are put off by national politics.
What a turnaround in just a couple of days. I’m following this very closely and I think I’ve finally lost the thread. Josh Marshall feels the same way: I don’t pretend to even understand the moving parts of how this is supposed to work. But almost out of the blue Speaker Mike Johnson has decided to go all-in on an aide package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. As this started to come into view over the last two or three days I had a number of TPM Readers write in to say, why is this happening? What’s the catch? Or why is walking the plank like this. What is he sacrificing his Speakership for? And I don’t have a really good answer. Let’s start by noting the one thing that is at least a catalyst if not the trigger: the thwarted Iranian missile attacks on Israel. That clearly changed the game for many House Republicans. Passing some Israel aid became a necessity for a number of Republicans. I assume that Johnson concluded that without assistance from at least some Democrats that too wouldn’t be possible and that he had no choice but to move ahead with Ukraine aid too.
She’s not funny Philip Bump on Marge’s latest stunt: After Republicans won the House majority in 2022, Greene emerged as an unlikely ally of Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). With the change in leadership, she went from pariah to establishment loyalist, someone who might at times serve as a bridge between the Republican conference’s fringe right and its leadership. She was now someone to be taken seriously. So when a British journalist approached Greene at an event last month and brought up the subject of conspiracy theories, Greene bristled. “Tell us about Jewish space lasers,” Emily Maitlis asked. “Why don’t you go talk about Jewish space lasers,” Greene angrily replied. She then suggested Maitlis do something else that can be left to your imagination. [“Go fuck youself”] Yet, less than a month later, Greene offered an amendment Wednesday to legislation centered on foreign aid. “By the funds made available by this Act,” the proposed amendment reads, “such sums as necessary shall be used for the development of space laser technology on the southwest border.” Ha ha!
Trump’s Juror intimidation tactics are already bearing fruit Did the Trump team signal to Watters to target that juror? Did they even need to? The DA brought this up as yet another example of Trump defying the gag order. We’ll see if he will suffer any consequences for that.
They make mistakes The NY Times reports: Israel was mere moments away from an airstrike on April 1 that killed several senior Iranian commanders at Iran’s embassy complex in Syria when it told the United States what was about to happen. Israel’s closest ally had just been caught off guard. Aides quickly alerted Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser; Jon Finer, the deputy national security adviser; Brett McGurk, Mr. Biden’s Middle East coordinator; and others, who saw that the strike could have serious consequences, a U.S. official said. Publicly, U.S. officials voiced support for Israel, but privately, they expressed anger that it would take such aggressive action against Iran without consulting Washington. The Israelis had badly miscalculated, thinking that Iran would not react strongly, according to multiple American officials who were involved in high-level discussions after the attack, a view shared by a senior Israeli official. On Saturday, Iran launched a retaliatory barrage of more than 300 drones and missiles at Israel, an unexpectedly large-scale response, if one that did minimal damage.