The Michigan Supreme Court has ruled 5-2 that the proposed abortion rights measure will appear on the state’s ballot in November. This is good news for all Democratic candidates in the state, since it will literally put robust abortion rights protections on the ballot in the state. That will almost certainly mean robust protections in the state going forward. It will likely also bring marginal Democratic candidates to victory with the tide of voters who turn out to vote for the amendment.
But it’s a very important development in a more general way.
A 5-2 majority of the Michigan Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a pro-choice amendment seeking to enshrine abortion rights in the Michigan constitution would appear on this November’s ballot, despite a challenge from anti-abortion activists that focused on the spacing between the printed words of the proposed amendment.
Wonderful news that the DOJ has decided to appeal Judge Cannon’s farcical decision is making clear that it cannot be that case that a former President “can successfully assert executive privilege to prevent the Executive Branch itself from reviewing and using its own records.”
96-year-old Queen Elizabeth II, who ruled Britain for a record 70 years, died at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, the Royal Family announced on Thursday.
“The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon,” the Royal Family’s official Twitter account said. “The King and The Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow.”
Buckingham Palace had reported earlier in the day that the Queen’s doctors were “concerned for Her Majesty’s health” and that she was under medical supervision.
Federal prosecutors will appeal at least part of a Monday order from a Florida federal judge relating to records they obtained from searches at Mar-a-Lago last month.
A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Josh and Kate discuss the CNN purge and the newest developments in the court case over Trump’s documents.
You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.
One of the minor questions with today’s news was whether Charles would become King Charles III. It seems obvious. But in the past it was frequently the case that a monarch would choose a regnal name which was not the one they were known by familiarly before taking the throne. But Liz Truss, who just became Prime Minister two days ago, just made a statement in which she referred to Charles as King Charles III. So that settles it. Seems like a rather dramatic hogging of the mic. But who knows? Not my country, not my circus. But that settles it. Charles III.
A New York grand jury has indicted former Trump advisor Steve Bannon on charges related to the private border wall fundraising scam “We Build The Wall.” Bannon and others faced a federal indictment over the scheme in 2020, but, unlike his codefendants, Bannon received a last-minute pardon from then-President Donald Trump on Trump’s way out the door.
There’s so much news today besides the impending news out of the United Kingdom that I just wanted to hit big points briefly because there’s no way to delve into all of it at once.
In this week’s podcast, Kate Riga and I talked about the on-going talent purge at CNN. We’ve discussed this before. CNN is under new Republican management and the top shareholder has announced his intention to make the network less “liberal” and more “centrist.” There are both ideological and business drivers, which I discussed last week. But I want to dig into the mechanics, which seem to be getting short shrift in the media discussion. Two rungs down the ladder from the top corporate boss is CNN boss Chris Licht. The game plan may come from on high (i.e., Trump donor billionaire John Malone) but Licht is the implementer. So far Brian Stelter and John Harwood have been axed and the rumor mill is now fixated on Brianna Keilar, a CNN host deemed “too liberal” or too critical of Trump for the new “centrist” CNN.
