JV Last at the Bulwark points to a column by Noah Smith, a centrist (ish) economist who just can’t find a good reason to say that the Biden economy is terrible: [H]ere’s economist Noah Smith struggling not to praise Biden—and failing—in a post titled: “If this is a bad economy, please tell me what a good economy would look like.” Here’s Noah again: Smith goes on to give detailed explanations of the employment, inflation, and real income indicators—go read the whole thing—before trying to put Biden’s accomplishment in perspective: While we’re all doing back flips to account for the public’s unrelenting negativity (*cough* the media *cough*) the numbers don’t lie.
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Remember this? The Republicans and Fox News are talking about virtually nothing but this story that Hunter Biden put his father on the phone during some dinner parties with his clients. Of course that was influence peddling and it’s always been as shady as it is ubiquitous among wealthy elites. But please. Nobody on the planet ever did it more blatantly than Trump. He refused to divest himself of his international business while he was president and his sons ran the thing! His White House advisor son-in-law delivered to powerful interests in the middle east in exchange for 2 billion dollars to be paid out upon his departure from government. There has never been a more corrupt president in US history. Not even close. Here’s that India story from 2018 in case you forgot: Donald Trump Jr. arrived in India on Tuesday for a week-long visit, and his trip has already revealed a couple of things. First, it’s clear that the Trump administration is still embroiled in huge conflicts of interest. And second, it’s evident that the Trump brand, though toxic at home, commands surprising power in the world’s second most populous country.
He’s not happy…
An old GOP hand on Ron DeSantis Oh my: Last year, longtime Republican strategist Ed Rollins was leading the Ready for Ron PAC, and announcing his plans to help DeSantis — then an undeclared 2024 candidate — take on Trump in the primary. A longtime Trump supporter, Rollins wanted to turn the page on the twice-impeached former president, and he thought DeSantis was the candidate to do it. But in just a few months, that hope vanished. Today, Rollins says he is “not involved” anymore in the pro-DeSantis efforts. “I don’t think it’s the campaign’s fault at all; it’s his,” Rollins tells Rolling Stone. “I think he’s been a very flawed candidate. I know some of the people around him, and some of them are good, talented people. But every time he opens his mouth, he has a tendency to — shall we say — think out-loud, and he clearly doesn’t understand the game. … When you get into these culture wars the way that he has, the vast majority of people don’t understand what they are.
To all who celebrate
Bankruptcy, fistfights and leather couches Rachel Maddow’s staff noticed a sprawling story that while not exactly headline news ought to be. (I’d missed it until her show Monday night.) Multiple state Republican parties are at or near bankruptcy. The headline for Jim Geraghty’s National Review column last week dubbed it a “quiet collapse” in four key states. Political donations follow power. Especially in the states. Especially in non-general election years. So it is not surprising that in four states with Democratic governors that state Republicans are not seeing their coffers as full as when the GOP holds the governor’s mansion. What Geraghty sees in that less is something more. In Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, and Minnesota Republicans are “going broke and devolving into infighting little fiefdoms.” Arizona Republicans are down to their last $23,000 in their federal account while their failed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake barnstorms the country as “real” governor in exile. She could be raising money to help her fellow Arizona Republicans, but no.
The LA Times’ Jonah Goldberg discusses the idea that Republicans are hooked on victimization, believing that they are under siege by powerful forces that are destroying their way of life: Among his core supporters, about 37% of the party according to a breakdown of the poll by the New York Times’ Nate Cohn, literally nobody thinks he committed any crimes and 94% think the party needs to rally around him against these presumably bogus charges. […] If the Republican establishment forces were as powerful as Trump and his voters think, they’d be able to do something about it. If the Deep State were half as formidable as they think, Trump would never have been president in the first place. But large segments of the GOP suffer from the delusion that they are victims of the ruling classes and that the woke left is running everything — or will — if Trump doesn’t stop them. Even in states with Republican governors and legislative supermajorities, like Tennessee, a certain paranoia that the left could take over at any moment dominates politics.
All things Cold War are new again An old joke from the Cold War comes to mind this morning. At the risk of telling it badly, here goes: American: We have freedom of speech in my country. I’m free to criticize my president as much as I want. Russian: But is true in Soviet Union! I too am free to criticize your president as much as I want. Now let’s back up to another Cold War tale I recalled at the very beginning of the Donald Trump administration (1/26/2017). Programmers and scientists across the country were rushing to back up climatic data in fear that the new administration would delete it and other research that conflicted with the administration’s chosen view of reality. They hoped to head off a MAGA Dark Age. Oh, right. My other Cold War story (see update below): Hedrick Smith in “The Russians” (1984) recounted a visit to Moscow’s Lenin Library. (Memory must serve, as I cannot locate the text online.) Smith, the New York Times’ Moscow Bureau Chief from 1971–74, had gone to one of the world’s great libraries to do some research. He needed a back copy of Time(?) magazine.
If they vote Democrat, stop them! The outrage meter here in The Cesspool of Sin is pegging this morning. Brad Friedman‘s X-post-factoid Sunday was pretty eye-catching. Ohio Republicans really, really don’t want the majority of state voters to cast ballots in the Aug. 8 special election. Their ultimate goal is to prevent a popular constitutional amendment securing abortion rights from passing in November. Ohio Capitol Journal: Early voting is ongoing for the upcoming Aug. 8 special election on Issue 1 that asks voters to make it harder to amend the Ohio Constitution by raising the threshold to 60%. To get to the ballot box, voters need to keep in mind changes made to voter ID laws last year, in a late-night legislative move approved by Gov. Mike DeWine at the beginning of 2023. Those changes, made through House Bill 458, mean different identification allowed at the polls, and limits to the absentee ballot dates. While a driver’s license with a different address is still allowed (as long as it’s not expired), voters must be registered with the Ohio Secretary of State at the correct address before voting.
God knows why… Donald Trump stepped on to the stage in Des Moines Iowa on Friday night to the ubiquitous GOP rally song called “Only in America” just as the lines, “one could end up going to prison, one just might be president” were blaring over the loudspeakers. Everyone in that room has probably heard the song a thousand times, Trump included, but never have the words been more relevant. If they were mad at Gov. Reynolds they shouldn’t have been. The song was played for every candidate who spoke. It’s just that those particular lyrics only apply to one of them. The crowd cheered lustily for the former president and current front runner for the Republican nomination anyway ,as they always do. It’s doubtful any of them even heard those lyrics, and if they did they no doubt saw it as more evidence of the massive conspiracy against Donald Trump. We know this because earlier in the evening one lone Republican candidate tried to tell them the truth: Reporters inside the room said the booing was much louder and more energetic than what appears on the video.