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“If we saw this in another country …” Maybe you’ve noticed. The U-S-A chanters bedecked in red, white and blue? The “we’re a republic, not a democracy” crowd? Those Real Americans™ with pocket Constitutions who, like the hypocrites Jesus warned about, make a public show of their political piety? They’re not really into the whole “consent of the governed” thing in the Declaration of Independence. You’re hardly shocked. Neither is David Pepper, the former Ohio Democratic Party chair. Right now in Ohio, Republicans firmly in control of the mechanisms of state governance are racing to hold a special election in August to pass a constitutional amendment that heads off a citizen-led ballot initiative in November. With it they hope to use a low-turnout August election to raise the threshold for passing a constitutional amendment in Ohio from 50% to 60%. The 50% threshold has been in place for 100 years, say critics. The citizen initiative would place an abortion rights guarantee in the state constitution. Revanchists cannot have that, so they want to raise the bar for passage ahead of November.

My, aren’t they delicate flowers? Book banners gonna ban books (NBC News): Amanda Gorman, the nation’s first National Youth Poet Laureate, spoke out Tuesday against what she described as a book ban after access to the poem she recited at President Joe Biden’s inauguration was limited at a Florida school. Miami-Dade County Public Schools moved “The Hill We Climb” to the middle school section of the library after a parent filed a formal objection to the work, according to documents obtained by the Florida Freedom to Read Project and shared with media. The Miami Herald first reported the story. “Unnecessary #bookbans like these are on the rise, and we must fight back,” Gorman said in a post on Facebook that accompanied a one-page statement in which she said her book had been banned from an elementary school. “I’m gutted,” Gorman reacted in a tweet.

You have to love the “cc: Representatives of Congress”. Lol. I hope they got their money up front and it’s a lot because their reputations as lawyers are trashed forever. Letting your client dictate a letter like this to the Attorney General of the United States and then signing it is either desperate act or a very stupid one. Maybe both.

Will Trump show up? Poor Fox News. They just can’t catch a break. First they found themselves on the hook for over three quarters of a billion dollars because they lied about the 2020 election. Then they fired their popular bomb-throwing white nationalist celebrity anchor Tucker Carlson and their ratings went into the toilet. And now, after spending months boosting Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (years, actually) angering their audience’s Dear Leader Donald Trump in the process, DeSantis slapped them in the face by deciding to formally announce his candidacy on Twitter instead of the network. This is a man who actually signed election suppression legislation in a live exclusive on Fox News so you can be sure they expected they would get the long awaited big event. Instead, like their cashiered bomb thrower Carlson, DeSantis raced into the arms of the right’s new “it boy” Twitter owner, Elon Musk. The best he could offer Fox was an appearance with D-List has-been Trey Gowdy later in the day. Rupert Murdoch must be fit to be tied. Don’t any of these people know the meaning of gratitude?

The future of he world economy is in the hands of fools You’d think dealing with people this stupid would mean that the Democrats have the upper hand. But bargaining with neophytes and nihilists isn’t as easy as you might think. They don’t understand the ramifications of what they are doing: Kevin McCarthy is finally a leading player in a huge Washington drama with his gavel on the line. But as his team sits down with President Joe Biden’s, McCarthy is confronting a handicap that even his allies acknowledge is real: Four years in the minority have left him, and the entire GOP conference, with little practice at monumental bipartisan negotiations like the current debt fight. Before John Boehner became speaker, he worked across the aisle on a landmark education overhaul. Paul Ryan took over the House after helming a massive budget deal that even Democrats called a blueprint for future talks. McCarthy brings a far different profile to the table. As minority leader, he was largely sidelined during the type of high-stakes talks with Democrats that he’s now helming.

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Waiting for DeSaster JV Last with some important history of recent primaries: 1. Comebacks I want to take a walk through history to illustrate the fact that presidential primary comebacks happen. And then to explain why I think a DeSantis comeback is not the most likely outcome. Let’s start with a level-set. Here’s where the race stands today: Yes, it’s early. There’s a lot of campaign left. There are known-unknowns lurking in the offices of various prosecutors. These are national polls. There are actuarial tables. But still: Not great for DeSantis. -Trump is over 50 percent. -DeSantis already got his first look. -And his support is waning. Here’s the thing: Usually when a candidate in a divided field is over the 50 percent mark, is growing, and has a 37-point lead, they win. 2004 Democrats Around this time in 2003, Joe Lieberman(!) led the Democratic field. He faded and Howard Dean eventually emerged as the clear frontrunner, with support in the 30s in a large field. We all know what happened: John Kerry surged in Iowa, parlayed that into a win in New Hampshire, and then ran the table. The dynamics of the 2004 race were quite different from 2024.

I’ve been wondering this for ages. Is he cooperating? He doesn’t seem to be a presence at Mar-a-lago. Is Trump unhappy with him? CNN takes a look at what he’s been up to: In January, as Kevin McCarthy fought to win the House speakership through 15 rounds of grinding votes and late-night sessions at the Capitol, a few blocks away a group of right-wing holdouts huddled with a familiar but surprising source – former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. A founding member of the hardline House Freedom Caucus, Meadows spent years in the House agitating against GOP leadership, trying to move his party increasingly to the right. Now, Meadows was counseling a new batch of Republican rebels, advising them on specific demands to make and gaming out how McCarthy would react to their maneuvering, according to multiple GOP lawmakers who were part of the planning sessions. The group was so taken by Meadows, at one point they considered nominating him for speaker. Meadows ultimately rejected the suggestion, telling lawmakers he preferred to operate behind the scenes. “We talked to him about being speaker.

Actually it was a joke… That’s what happened. It glitched and went silent and people lost connections and they left and then they started a new “space” and only a few people stuck around so hardly anyone heard this catastrophe of an announcement speech. You couldn’t make up a better metaphor. Oh, and a wiseacre took a shot too: When they got it back up, this was an example of the discussion: The cover of The Daily Mail: Meanwhile, the front runner had this to say: Hookay… It must be prescription drugs. Josh Marshall has the full take: Okay, here’s my take. Obviously the tech snafu at the beginning is going to be the irresistible headline. A major fail. The announcement he read was a mess. Once they actually got down to talking, DeSantis is fairly good at talking about the issues that matter to him. But the issue is what matters to him. This is a way way WAY online minded campaign. And really lives within the keyboard warrior world of the right. What are the issues a winning GOP presidential campaign is going to run on?

On May 27, Henry Kissinger will celebrate his one-hundredth birthday. His centenary couldn’t come at a more symbolic time: Kissinger’s century was the American century, and they’re both coming to a close. Kissinger is probably America’s most controversial and polarising statesman — reviled as a war criminal by his critics, hailed as a master in …

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