Again in Arizona
Militia types in tactical gear monitoring ballot drop off boxes to make sure nothing seems fraudy to them.
EDITORS’ BLOG
Into the Clown Abyss
A rather amazing column by the Post’s Dana Milbank about the situation in Nevada outside of Las Vegas. All the Big Lie stuff you’d imagine. But just a complete gutting of the officials who’ve administered elections for decades and replacing them with conspiracy theorists who at best simply have no experience administering elections. In other words, chaos by design if not always strictly by intention which further makes elections into a circus and gives GOP officials their opening to simply step in and declare winners because the elections have been too chaotic.
Who’s Footing Elon’s Bill?
It’s quite difficult to see from the business press whether Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter is about to go through or not. But if it does it will be critical to look closely at the identities of the foreign and sovereign wealth fund investors who are behind his purchase.
There are good arguments that Musk is purchasing it at as much as 4 times its actual value. Before he expressed interest in the purchase it was trading at little more than half the agreed purchase price. Put it yet another way, Musk is buying Twitter for almost 50x EBITDA. That happens in the hockey stick world of tech sometimes. But Twitter is not an early stage company.
Yesterday it was reported that Musk plans to cut some 75% of the workforce and radically scale back content moderation. That may be music to some people’s ears for ideological reasons. And it certainly may cut costs. But it won’t be good news at all for any plausible path toward making Twitter profitable or growing its value in a way that makes a successful exit possible.
Read MoreWhat Trump Had Stashed at the Villa
We’ve got a lot going on today. But I want to be sure you see this report from the Post. Many of the documents retrieved from Trump’s personal residence at his villa and in public storage areas contained highly, highly classified documents about Iran’s ballistic missile program as well reports from intelligence programs about China. It’s hard to overstate just how sensitive and highly guarded these documents are.
The Post notes that “many of the more sensitive documents Trump or his aides apparently took to Mar-a-Lago after he left the White House are top-level analysis papers that do not contain sources’ names.” But a foreign intelligence service can often infer based on the nature and findings of an intelligence effort who was talking or which vulnerabilities were being exploited.
Read MoreRe-Boris Plan Sweeping UK
Just after soberly noting that in some ways the UK political fabric appears stronger and more resilient than our own I’m hit with this news: a return of Boris Johnson to Number 10 is rapidly emerging this morning as a real possibility. Johnson along with Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt (somehow not a Bond series name) appear to be the three contenders now.
Are We Doing Worse than the Shambolic UK?
I’ve been dunking wildly on the on-going implosion of the British political system. I am going to continue to do so — both because I enjoy it and because “implosion” is an accurate representation of what has happened. But there’s one uncomfortable reality I need to address. Liz Truss came into power on the votes of a minuscule slice of the population which is traditionalist but marginal to the current UK — 70k or 80k mostly older white conservative men from Southern England. She pledged to defy reality with old school British tenacity. Everything blew up in her face and now after six weeks she’s out on her ass as the shortest tenured British PM in history. (Some say in three hundred years but people before 300 years ago weren’t PMs.)
Here’s my saying “hahahaha.” But let’s be clear that this is a political system working. Yes, shambolically and after years of dysfunction. But this is a political system working and one working in ways ours seems increasingly unable to.
READ MORETrend Not Good
I really, really want to see it change. And it may change. We’re still two and a half weeks before Election Day. But I don’t think there’s much question now that there’s a late GOP surge in the polling data. You see this showing up clearly in the congressional generic ballot numbers. Hopefully, the Dems’ Senate majority can withstand that. There are still many advantages the Dems have in those handful of Senate races that will make a difference. We don’t know this is the last shift. And the polls remain close enough to make the assumptions of the pollsters as critical as last minute trends. But Democrats need to leave absolutely everything on the field.
About Time—US Considers National Security Reviews on Musk’s Deals
Bloomberg reports that administration officials are for the first time considering national security reviews of Elon Musk’s increasingly international-man-of-mystery business deals stretching from Silicon Valley to Crimea. The specifics turn on the effort to buy Twitter, now with what appears to be an opaque group of foreign investors as well as his on-again, off-again hints that he might block access to his StarLink telecommunications system over Ukraine.
Of course all of this is playing out with the backdrop of his increasingly pro-Russian comments about the war in Ukraine.
READ MORELoading…
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What Kind Of Game Is Trump Playing With The Special Master?
President Trump appears to have doubled down on Friday in his bid to delay and muddle the work of the special master who he wanted appointed in the Mar-a-Lago records case.
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FEATURED
Here’s Where Each Conservative Justice Stands On The Theory That Could Upend Democracy
The Supreme Court will hear arguments on the independent state legislature theory this term.
The Josh marshall podcast
Ep. 244: Three Weeks
Josh and Kate discuss polls, debates, and late-breaking stories as the midterms approach.
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Which Senate Democrats Are Blocking The Path To Abortion Rights?
After the Supreme Court issued the Dobbs decision and overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, devestated onlookers shifted their attention to Congress, desperate for a legislative safeguard.
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