I don’t generally have much time for scene-setter pieces — not a criticism exactly, just not a form that I have much use for. But this piece from Iowa by Lisa Lerer does manage to capture a sense of foreboding that is very much part of this election cycle. And it fits particularly for Iowa Republicans, the particular flavor of darkness and pessimism. Iowa is a very old state and obviously a very rural one. But what’s interesting in this piece is that there are very few voices that are just straight up for Trump, despite the fact that Trump is completely dominating the race. That’s key.

This hot mic story-lette with Chris Christie perfectly captures the current GOP: anguished maneuvering and contretemps all amounting to more or less nothing, Trump eagerly feasting on his rivals’ clumsy mistakes, all of it hilarious and yet leading to a very dark place.

If you didn’t see this yet, just before announcing the end of his campaign — kinda/sorta to clear the way for Nikki Haley — this happened …

Mr. Christie caused a stir before his remarks when he was caught on a hot microphone candidly discussing two rivals, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, before making the announcement.

“She’s going to get smoked, and you and I both know it,” Mr. Christie could be heard saying of Ms. Haley. “She’s not up to this.” He added of Mr. DeSantis: “DeSantis called me, petrified.”

This is all 110% true.

There’s no shortage of stories these days about conflicts, suspensions or resignations of journalists or editors over the Israel-Hamas war. But this one has a twist that made it interesting to me. The topline story is that Kevin Merida, executive editor of the LA Times, is stepping down from his post after only three years. His departure is reportedly based on a dispute with the family of Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong over his decision to restrict the coverage of several reporters who signed an open letter condemning Israel’s response to the October 7th massacres and calling on publications to use terms like “apartheid,” “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” to describe it.

A friend in Michigan sends me this opinion column that ran last week in a Michigan paper. In it, Mark Plawecki, a long-serving judge in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, claims that the Jews torpedoed his efforts to get the Democratic nomination for the state Supreme Court back in 2016. And yes, I use the phrase advisedly. The point man for the alleged effort, he claims, was Mark J. Bernstein, who Plawecki identifies as “a significant Benjamin Netanyahu waterboy vis-a-vis the Michigan Democratic Party.”

“The last thing the right-wing Israeli government wants,” writes Plawecki, “is a statewide elected official (in any state) who has a not only more than cursory understanding (sic) of its terrorist origins, but is willing to state publicly the truth about Israel’s more than 75 years of political and economic chicanery.”

Axios sent out an email yesterday headlined “Biden’s Stubborn Loyalty.” I went back to it this afternoon and realized I’d remembered it having a more negative spin than it really did. That headline above is followed by “1 Big Thing: Biden’s Teflon Cabinet.” The gist is that Biden sticks by his people. Got a criticism of one of his people? Who cares? Biden doesn’t want to hear it. What spurred this write-up is the controversy about Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Will Biden fire Austin? Will he resign? No, says the White House. Indeed, Biden won’t let him resign. Done and done.

Axios writes this: “Politico reports Biden would not accept a resignation from Austin even if he offered, and chatter from the pundit class is likely to reflexively harden the president’s view.”

I like this attitude.

Nicole Lafond has stolen a bit of my thunder here. But I feel obliged to let you know that Christian Ziegler, threesomer and erstwhile chairman of the Florida Republican Party, was finally given the boot today by the state party. The state party executive committee named Evan Power as his successor. No word was available as we went to press on whether Power and his wife will be inviting anyone else to play. I had explained in one of my earlier posts that the state party was in a jam because the state party bylaws provided no mechanism for firing a state party chairman. What happened? As near as I can tell the state party committee decided that that didn’t matter. They all wanted him to go. So they fired him. Bada bing bada boom.

Let me flag this piece to your attention. I’m not sure what to make of it yet. The gist is that one of Donald Trump’s codefendants in the state coup prosecution in Georgia has filed a motion to remove Fani Willis as prosecutor. Michael Roman claims that Willis hired a romantic partner (he alleges), Nathan Wade, to serve as special prosecutor in the case. In essence, she hired him as an outside lawyer since it’s a big case and something bigger than the office might normally handle. Roman then goes on to claim that since Willis and Wade vacationed together (he alleges) and since Wade paid for some of those vacations (he alleges), Willis illegally profited from Wade’s work for the DA’s office. He further argues that Willis had no authority to hire Wade in the first place; so basically the whole prosecution falls apart.