The Supreme Court, you’ll know from TPM, is currently considering a case in which Republican legislators from North Carolina argue that they, and no one else, have absolute authority over that state’s federal elections. The state courts don’t, the state governor doesn’t. Only the legislators do, they claim.
For this reason, the legislators argue, they can go ahead and gerrymander to their hearts’ content.
Donald Trump breaks through so many boundaries and norms it’s easy to get desensitized. Even though there was some press notice of it, we need a lot more attention on the fact that Trump held his campaign kick off in Waco, Texas on the thirtieth anniversary of the Branch Davidian standoff. Not only is it a gruesome and hideous anniversary to commemorate politically, it also became a core anniversary around which violent far-right radicalism congealed and intensified. That happened right off the bat. The fiery end of the standoff provided the inspiration and chosen date for the bombing attack on the Oklahoma City federal building two years later. It is the germination point for all manner of right-wing terrorism since and Trump underlined the point by using his kickoff event to celebrate and honor individuals who followed his orders and stormed Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021, with the intent of overthrowing the lawful government of the United States.
I note this because right-wing radicalism and domestic terrorism will increasingly be a focus of ours in the months and years to come. It has always been a focus, going back to the beginning of the site over 20 years ago. But the unfortunate fact is that these themes have moved more and more to the center of American public life.
Do you hear that? It’s the sound of House Republicans trying to get President Biden to pay attention to their threats to throw the country into default and engage in a new round of debt-ceiling hostage taking.
It’s a dramatically different reality than the one we had the last time there was a Democratic President in the Oval Office.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis may not have announced his intent to run for president, but he’s already got some thoughts about what he’d do in the White House. Among them is a plan to decimate the civil service. And it may look familiar.
For my thoughts on the unfolding crisis in Israel, see my post from earlier today. This is a short post with some pointers on finding good news coverage.
In general, the Israeli protests against the so-called judicial reform package have garnered much less news attention in the U.S. than one might have expected. But these are much more than mass protests of the sort that occur with some regularity across the democratic world. It’s not too much to say that the scale and scope of these protests are without any clear precedent in Israel’s 75-year history. They have gone on for roughly two and half months, and they have continued to gather momentum, expand in scope and grow in intensity. They have increasingly cut into the central institution of Israeli society, the IDF. They have united much of the country’s financial sector in arguing that the reforms threaten the future of the Israeli economy. And today they have spurred a general strike which has brought much of the country to a standstill.
A federal judge for the D.C. district court ruled that former Vice President Mike Pence must comply with a grand jury subpoena and testify in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to multiplenews outlets.
