I saw in a press report earlier that while Republicans are stuck in a Soros, Soros, Soros rage fugue Democrats are a mix of giddy and anxious. I’ll assume some version of that is correct. I certainly see a lot of giddiness and sundry booyahs! and similar comments. Those are totally understandable. Donald Trump has made a lifetime of skating. He’s run roughshod over the whole country for seven-plus years and skated on every bit of wrongdoing. So of course people are excited, satisfied, pumped and relieved that finally he’s hit a bump in the road.

But there’s also that note of anxiety.

Yesterday we noted the interesting and hilarious fact that Disney appears to have outmaneuvered and outwitted Ron DeSantis’s effort to strip the company of its quasi-governmental powers over the huge parcel of land that makes up Disney World as payback for the company’s support of gay rights. When we heard the story yesterday it may have sounded like the company just pulled off some last-minute switcheroo when for a minute the folks in Tallahassee took their eye off the ball. But that’s not quite right. It was an effort that took place in plain sight over almost a year.

I was scheduled to go on Ari Melber’s show yesterday afternoon to talk about the Dominion lawsuit. Had to bone up on the latest developments. Then about fifteen minutes before we were set to go on air the indictment story broke. So obviously the topic changed. I got to speak about a few things. But this is the thing (video after the jump) I was most interested in saying.

Special Breaking edition of the Josh Marshall Podcast coming out this evening. Not sure precisely when but this evening.

About to talk on MSNBC about the indictment. Just after 6pm.

A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Josh and Kate discuss Donald Trump’s Waco speech, Kevin McCarthy’s debt ceiling nonsense and how Democrats should respond in the face of never-ending mass shootings.

You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.

You may remember that as one of Ron DeSantis’s culture war gambits he punished Disney’s position on gay rights in the state by abolishing the special government jurisdiction which essentially allowed Disney to run Disney World as its own town or governmental district. That was the Reedy Creek Improvement District. DeSantis had the state legislature replace Reedy Creek with the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District. Now the political appointees DeSantis put on the Oversight District board to lord it over Disney are crying foul, saying Disney pulled a fast one on them and essentially cut them out of any effective power for decades into the future.

I hope you get a chance to read this article by Josh Kovensky. The same Ukrainian nationals, working for Russian intelligence, who were feeding the anti-Biden “dirt” to Rudy Giuliani in 2019/2020 were later (in 2021/2022) tasked with prepping the ground for Russia’s invasion in February 2022.

In the days after the 2020 election, as Donald Trump refused to concede, his allies began scrambling for evidence that the election was invalid. Some busied themselves challenging local election laws and trying to disqualify ballots in Democratic areas based on technicalities. Others were already rushing toward fringier conspiracy theories.

One particular conspiracy theory took hold early: “Hammer and scorecard.”

We’ve already discussed some of the broader issues involved in the ongoing Israeli political crisis. I wanted to expand on one of the more specific ones: precisely what the judicial “reform” package is about and why there’s such resistance to it.

Decades ago, American Democrats and liberals loved the U.S. Supreme Court. That love affair waned over many years before collapsing during the Trump presidency. So from an American context, it can seem a bit odd to Democrats to see Israelis making a big stand on behalf of the Israeli Supreme Court. What’s more, from an American perspective, how the Israeli Supreme Court functions and how its members are chosen can seem pretty weird.

The Israeli Supreme Court is partly a self-perpetuating creature of the judiciary and the legal profession. A board made up of members of the current Court, members of the current government, members of the Knesset (the parliament) and members of the bar association come up with selections which are then chosen by the largely ceremonial president.