This afternoon, in response to the arrest of a man who said he planned to kill Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the Republican National Committee sent out an email with the subject heading “The Democrat SCOTUS Assassin.”

I see this as largely comic relief in contrast to the weighty issues currently coming down the pike. But it’s remarkable that these pieces still get written. The Times Peter Baker has a new piece out which makes clear that, according to Jared Kushner, Kushner washed his hands of all of the post-election Big Lie politicking and had nothing to do with any of that bad stuff. “[H]e chose at that pivotal moment to focus instead on his personal project of Middle East diplomacy.” In fact, not only did he have nothing to do with it and not do any bad things, but his lack of presence as a moderating influence meant that the post-election conspiracy leading up to the January 6th insurrection was even crazier and more dangerous than it otherwise would have been. In fact, the whole Trump presidency would have been much worse if not for Kushner’s steadying presence. This may sound like a hyperbolic summary of the article. It’s not. Read it and see for yourself. It’s based on a forthcoming book by Baker and his wife Susan Glasser of The New Yorker. I would be remiss if I didn’t note that in fact Kushner did no bad things, according to the account of Mr. Kushner provided to Mr. Baker.

You learn a lot of things when you hear from TPM Readers talking to the offices of their congressional representatives. One thing is straightforward answers to constituent questions: I oppose the filibuster; I support the filibuster. But just as interesting in some ways is the culture of different offices. Some are very solicitous of constituent feedback and questions — some even perhaps overeager to tell constituents’ what they want to hear. But others take a very different approach. So for instance, when TPM Reader DM contacted Robert Menendez’s office, a staffer simply told her they didn’t want to answer the question. Well, okay. Meanwhile a staffer in Angus King’s office walked TPM Reader PL through King’s conflicted feelings and thoughts about the filibuster.

This seems to be a result that many in Iowa expected but far fewer outside of Iowa. Michael Franken appears to be trouncing Abby Finkenauer in the primary battle to challenge Chuck Grassley. Currently 60% to 37% with an estimated 44% of the vote counted. Grassley is an institution in Iowa. It’s a GOP trending state in a GOP year. But an 88-year-old senator is always vulnerable to the charge that it’s time to retire. So always a chance.

Don’t miss Matt’s article about the “independent state legislature” theory. We’ve discussed it in passing before. It’s a borderline absurd reading of the federal constitution which corrupt judges like the ones who now dominate the Supreme Court want to use to basically rig the electoral process in the United States.

Updated at 8:47 PM eastern

As always, it’s fascinating to hear from you about what you hear from your senators on a Roe protecting bill and the filibuster. I wanted to give you a quick summary of what we’ve heard so far.

So far we have these Senators who have either publicly stated support for a Roe bill and changed filibuster rules or their offices told constituents that they did.

I’ve been leafing through your emails about contacting or not contacting your senators. I love these emails because ordinary citizens are able to find things out in a way that professional journalists often are not. But in many cases I hear from TPM Readers who say something like, Great you’re doing this but no point in contacting my senators in Generic Blue State because they’re definitely pro-choice and they aren’t crazy about the filibuster. I can’t stress this enough: It really doesn’t matter much until it’s a specific statement about this in particular: changing the filibuster rules to pass a Roe-protecting bill in the next Congress.

TPM Reader RP called up her senators in Michigan and putting Roe on the ballot in November doesn’t seem to have registered.

Thanks to Josh for yesterday’s piece, “Have You Called Your Senator?” I called Sen. Peter’s regional office in Marquette, MI to ask whether he’d go on record in favor of changing the filibuster to allow a Roe bill to pass next Congress. The guy on the phone had no idea what I was talking about. I called Senator Stabenow’s local office—ditto.

I checked to see whether the main anti-filibuster group has done a list of which Democratic senators stand where on the issue. It turns out there’s a list. But it’s basically about a filibuster carve-out for voting rights legislation. And it measures just a generic openness to reforming the filibuster. As we know it has 48 Senators pro and 2 against. You can see it here.

But this isn’t really specific enough. It’s not about a Roe law or specifically what kind of reform they support. Have you called your senator? I’m curious how many senators are willing to commit specifically to passing a Roe bill in the next Congress (assuming Democrats hold the majority and they pick up an additional two Senate seats) and are ready to change the filibuster rules to allow that bill to come up to a clean majority vote. If you call your senator’s office let me know what they say.

This morning I dipped into the Times comments about the piece I wrote on abortion politics. They made me even more pessimistic about the Democrats’ electoral fate in November. Obviously comments at some level aren’t a good barometer of a larger population. But the level of self-defeating ignorance on display almost defied comprehension. I closed them up and decided to go about my day. The one critique that stood out to me was the argument that none of the abortion stuff matters because this midterm is really about the economy and especially inflation. So Democrats need to focus their message on that. And if possible, resolve those issues by election time.

It goes without saying that 1) inflation approaching 10% is not popular, 2) it is exceedingly unlikely that Joe Biden can materially reduce inflation in the next five months (in fact you probably need big shifts three months out from the election) and 3) taking stock of #1 and #2 if Democrats allow the midterms to be a referendum on inflation they will get soundly defeated since inflation is not popular.