New York Times:

Trump Lawsuit Against Judge in Fraud Case Rejected by Appeals Court

Former President Donald J. Trump had accused Justice Arthur F. Engoron of ignoring an earlier decision that could have barred evidence from the case.

The appeals court, in a terse two-page order Thursday, turned aside a lawsuit Mr. Trump filed against the trial judge, Arthur F. Engoron, which had sought to delay the proceeding.

The ruling came two days after Justice Engoron issued an order that struck a major blow to Mr. Trump, finding him liable for having committed fraud by persistently overvaluing his assets and stripping him of control over his New York properties. Justice Engoron sided with the New York attorney general, Letitia James, who last year sued Mr. Trump, accusing him of inflating his net worth by billions of dollars to obtain favorable loan terms from banks.

New York Times:

Trump’s Sprawling Legal Defense Effort Comes Under Strain

Former President Donald Trump’s team has found lawyers for others caught up in his prosecutions and has paid many of their legal bills. That arrangement may not be sustainable.

In an interview, Mr. Rowley said he was simply trying to help witnesses who did not have lawyers or did not know how to find one, and that he never sought to influence anyone’s testimony. And legal experts said the voice mail, while somewhat unusual, did not appear to cross any ethical lines.

But as Mr. Trump’s legal problems have expanded, the ad hoc system has come under intense strain with the PAC doling out financial lifelines to some aides and allies while shutting the door on others. It is now running short of money, possibly forcing Mr. Trump to decide how long to go on helping others as his own legal fees mount.

Prosecutors have also brought conflict-of-interest questions about some of the arrangements before the courts, and witnesses and co-defendants may begin to face decisions about how closely they want to lash their legal strategies to Mr. Trump’s.

David Cay Johnston/DC Report:

Judge Gives Trump Organization the Corporate Death Penalty

Donald Trump is no longer in business.

Worse, the self-proclaimed multibillionaire may soon be personally bankrupt as a result, stripped of just about everything because for years he engaged in calculated bank fraud and insurance fraud by inflating the value of his properties, a judge ruled Tuesday.

His gaudy Trump Tower apartment, his golf courses, his Boeing 757 jet and even Mar-a-Lago could all be disposed of by a court-appointed monitor, leaving Trump with not much more than his pensions as a one term president and a television performer.

Chris Lehmann/The Nation:

The Great Rolling Trump Fraud

A summary judgment in the legal case against the former president rules that he’s exactly as shady as he looks.

Engoron made similarly short work of the two-pronged paper defense Trump and his attorneys mustered for the billions in dodgy valuations they racked up—the magical disclaimer supposedly stipulating that the estimates supplied to bankers, loan officers, and insurers were “worthless”; and the allied contention that any reasonable financial officer would soon override such valuations via standard due-diligence research. “Defendants’ reliance on these ‘worthless’ disclaimers is worthless,” he drily noted. “The clause does not use the word ‘worthless’ or ‘useless” or ‘ignore’ or ‘disregard’ or any similar words. It does not say, ‘the values herein are what I think the properties will be worth in ten or more years.’ Indeed, the quoted language uses ‘current’ no less than five times, and ‘future’ zero times.” And he observes that the due-dilgence dodge is little more than a license to frontload systemic fraud into any company’s business model: “Defendants’ stance is, practically speaking, that they may submit false [suspected fraudulent claims] so long as the recipients know, from their own due diligence, that the information is false.”

Still, there is one limited sense in which Trump’s defense was anchored in reality. In a deposition, Trump contended that he could affix any value he saw fit to any property in question, for the simple reason that he could always “find a buyer from Saudi Arabia” to accept the price.

Philip Bump/Washington Post:

How much would your house be worth if the Trump Organization owned it?

The New York Post, appearing eager to side with the longtime star of its gossip pages, scoffed at the objective appraisal included in the judge’s ruling, insisting that other assessments put the value of Mar-a-Lago at somewhere around $300 million. Those well-versed in mathematics will notice that this would still mean the $612 million Trump valuation was twice the actual worth of the property.

But here is a different approach. Instead of defending the Trump Organization’s inflation efforts, you can put them to work for you. The tool below allows you to choose a property value between $100,000 and $1 billion (for especially lucky readers) and see how those values might have been presented to investors had the Trump Organization’s inflationary metrics been applied. All of the calculations here are taken from the judge’s ruling, in which the presented value and assessed values are offered explicitly — as in the Seven Springs example above.

The tool is set at $400,000 to start, about the median sales price for U.S. homes this year.

Matt Glassman/X via Threadreader:

Why is defeating the Previous Question on a rule so much more powerful/dangerous than defeating the rule?

The answer is that defeating a rule is *negative* agenda setting, while defeating the PQ is *positive* agenda setting. 

When you defeat a rule, the leaders who brought the rule cannot set the agenda. But that's the end; you block them from doing something, but that's it. They go back to the side rooms and try to figure out what to do next. 

When you defeat the PQ on a rule, you block a *vote* on the rule and leave it live on the floor, open to amendment. You can then propose an amendment to it, and if your coalition that defeated the PQ holds together, you can pass your amendment.

In effect, YOU set the agenda.

This is why it terrifies leaders so much more than a rule defeat, and why it's truly a declaration of war against the leadership. You aren't just saying no to their agenda, you are seeking to substitute *your* agenda. 

Mona Charen/The Bulwark:

The Fear Factor in Republican Politics

The MAGA movement has made political violence and intimidation a regular feature of our public life.

This is not new, but that shouldn’t diminish our outrage. On at least 24 occasions, the former president has accused critics of treason. They ranged from Peter Strzok, whose offense was exchanging worried texts with his lover to the then-anonymous administration official who penned a New York Times op-ed saying that many insiders in Trump world were aware of his unfitness to Democrats who declined to applaud at the State of the Union address. Yes, these examples seem like something out of Idiocracy, but millions of Americans, contra Salena Zito, take him literally and seriously.

Now Trump has upped the ante by including a reference to the death penalty, which is in fact a punishment available in cases of treason, not just “in times gone by.” Trump knows full well that some of his more rabid followers may interpret this as an invitation to assassination, just as the January 6th crowd chanted “Hang Mike Pence.” That thuggishness, that play of the finger near the trigger, places Trump in a category all his own in American politics.

That’s why Biden gave that speech on democracy yesterday.

From Matt Robison:

Will Bunch/The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Why GOP doesn’t want Menendez to quit

Even Wyatt Earp says that New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez needs to go. That’s the Ocean County, N.J., Democratic Party chairman (who did you think I was talking about?), who joined a posse of Garden State Democrats this weekend when he declared with a “heavy heart” that the state’s twice-indicted senior U.S. senator should step aside “to make room for a senator who will continue to stand up for Democratic values.”

A majority of Democratic senators join Earp in saying that Menendez should spend more time with his family at home.

Republicans, on the other hand, don’t want to be asked about Donald Trump (or George Santos), so they say nothing.

Detroit Free Press:

Biden walks picket line with striking UAW members at Willow Run parts center

Wearing a UAW hat and speaking through a bullhorn, Biden tells workers they helped save the auto companies with their sacrifices. "Now they’re doing incredibly well and, guess what, you should be doing incredibly well too."

Fain speaks after Biden, saying, "This is a historic moment."

Fain also thanked Biden for coming, a significant gesture, given that the union hasn't yet endorsed the president in his reelection bid, when most other major unions have done so. "Thank you, Mr. President," he said, "for coming... to stand up with us in our generation's defining moment.

David Rothkopf/The Daily Beast:

Ask the GOP Debaters if They Support Trump’s Open Fascism

Trump called for executions and media censorship over the weekend. Make his Republican opponents stand up and choose a side.

Donald Trump lost his damn mind this weekend. Or to be more accurate, he revealed more clearly than usual the madman wannabe dictator that lurks within him. But for all that, he did one thing that seemed impossible. He created the opportunity for this Wednesday’s Republican debate to seem relevant.

Admittedly, a debate among a pack of spineless nonentities (who have no more chance of being president than you or I) probably deserves scrutiny from the Food and Drug Administration as a form of broadcast Klonopin. If you even bother to tune in, it is likely to put you to sleep in minutes.

Charlie Sykes/The Bulwark:

Biden Is Old, But Trump Is Crazy (and Dangerous)

Plus: Why you should be alarmed. But not panicked.

In the last few days, the leading GOP candidate for president — the twice impeached, defeated former president, who is facing four criminal indictments — suggested the execution of General Mark Milley; demanded a federal shutdown unless the prosecutions against him are defunded; called on all Senate Democrats to resign; and threatened to use the powers of the federal government to retaliate against news outlets like NBC that had criticized him.

This is the same former president who has called for terminating provisions of the Constitution; orchestrated a coup to overturn the last presidential election; and absconded with military secrets. Lest you have forgotten, he has also been found liable for rape; and faces more than 90 felony counts for (among other things) paying off a porn star, conspiracy, obstruction, and defrauding the federal government.

And just a few days ago, we got a new report reminding us of the depths of the former president’s contempt for disabled and wounded veterans

Eric Levitz/New York Magazine:

Trump Wants His Enemies to Fear for Their Lives

In this context, a news outlet can cover Trump’s affronts to democracy. But it can’t quite internalize them. For such a publication to fully behave as though it has a working memory — and a capacity to rationally weigh the significance of disparate pieces of information — would be for it to resemble a partisan rag.

The most salient truth about the 2024 election is that the Republican Party is poised to nominate an authoritarian thug who publishes rationalizations for political violence and promises to abuse presidential authority on a near-daily basis. There is no way for a paper or news channel to appropriately emphasize this reality without sounding like a shrill, dull, Democratic propaganda outlet. So, like the nation writ large, the press comports itself as an amnesiac, or an abusive household committed to keeping up appearances, losing itself in the old routines, in an effortful approximation of normality until it almost forgets what it doesn’t want to know.

Carlton Huffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

I helped elect 3 Republicans to Wisconsin Supreme Court. I can't support impeachment.

There is a disease that has afflicted right wing politics since President Obama’s re-election in 2012: The belief that outcomes are rigged.

As a regional director in the WOW counties (Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington) I did my part to help Rebecca Bradley defeat JoAnne Kloppenberg in 2016. In 2017 as grassroots director I was witness to the layup that was Chief Justice Annette Ziegler’s victory. And in 2019, I was part of the team that poured heart and soul to seeing Brian Hagedorn win a seemingly impossible race. It has been the labor of my professional life to see a conservative majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. However it is exactly the principles of small government conservatism that drives me to oppose the impeachment of Protasiewicz.

Richard L. Hasen/The Atlantic:

The Supreme Court Needs to Make a Call on Trump’s Eligibility

The question of the former president’s possible disqualification needs to be resolved sooner or later. Sooner is better than later.

Those are the legal questions. The political questions are, in some ways, even more complicated, and at least as contested. If Trump is disqualified on Fourteenth Amendment grounds, some believe that this would become a regular feature of nasty American politics. Others worry that significant social unrest would result if the leading candidate for one of the country’s major political parties were to be disqualified from running for office rather than giving voters the final say on the issue.

All of these questions, however, are somewhat beside the point. This is not merely an academic exercise. Trump, right now, is already being challenged as constitutionally disqualified, and these issues are going to have to be resolved, sooner or later. My point is that sooner is much better than later.

Roll Call:

Military pay, typically exempted during shutdowns, is at risk

Lawmakers have bills ready that would ensure troops and civilian support employees get paychecks on time

Technically, there’s still time. Former Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., introduced the bill on Sept. 28, 2013; it passed the House at 12:24 a.m. on the 29th. The following day, the last full day of government funding, the Senate took just a few minutes to clear the measure by unanimous consent. President Barack Obama signed it that night, just before the shutdown was set to begin.

Despite that unanimous 2013 House vote, there were plenty of Democrats who took to the floor to blast the GOP for allowing the shutdown to happen and leaving every other agency’s employees in the lurch.

“We are all going to vote for this bill,” then-House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., said during brief debate. “But I will tell my friends on both sides of the aisle, it is time for us to give respect to our non-uniformed federal personnel because they are critical to the success of this country, to the success of our people.”

Bolts Magazine:

Maine Referendum Spotlights Voting Rights for People Under Guardianship

Voters in November will choose whether to scrub a clause in Maine’s constitution disenfranchising people “under guardianship for reasons of mental illness."

Maine is already closer to universal suffrage than most states. It’s one of two states, plus Washington D.C., that is approaching universal suffrage. Maine allows people to vote from prison and state law affirms the voting rights of people with intellectual disabilities, autism, and brain injuries. That makes this clause stand out—it treats mentally ill people under guardianship as second-class citizens, which is precisely why the court ruled it unconstitutional.

“We are creating a subset of mentally ill people under guardians who can’t vote,” Democratic State Senator Craig Hickman, who spearheaded the effort to put the matter to the vote, told Bolts. Hickman, a voting rights advocate, has also been involved in other measures to remove outdated language from Maine’s constitution. “I think it’s important to ratify this amendment. [We need to] make it clear that in this state we have no reason to disenfranchise.”

Cliff Schecter on Taylor Swift:

ProPublica:

Wisconsin’s Republicans Went to Extremes in Gerrymandering. Now They’re Scrambling to Protect That Power.

Heavily redrawn election districts in the battleground state gave Republicans firm control of the legislature — and the leeway to move aggressively against officials and judges they perceive as threats.

The new maps have given Wisconsin Republicans the leeway to move aggressively on perceived threats to their power. The GOP-controlled Senate recently voted to fire the state’s nonpartisan elections chief, Meagan Wolfe, blaming her for pandemic-era voting rules that they claim helped Joe Biden win the state in 2020. A legal battle over Wolfe’s firing now looms.

The future of a newly elected state supreme court justice, Janet Protasiewicz, also is in doubt. Her election in April shifted the balance of the court to the left and put the Wisconsin maps in peril. Republican leaders have threatened to impeach her if she does not recuse herself from a case that seeks to invalidate the maps drawn by the GOP. They argue that she’s biased because during her campaign she told voters the maps are “rigged.”

“They are rigged, period. Coming right out and saying that. I don’t think you could sell to any reasonable person that the maps are fair,” she said at a January candidates forum.

She added: “I can't ever tell you what I’m going to do on a particular case, but I can tell you my values, and common sense tells you that it’s wrong.”

New York Times:

As Trump Prosecutions Move Forward, Threats and Concerns Increase

As criminal cases proceed against the former president, heated rhetoric and anger among his supporters have authorities worried about the risk of political dissent becoming deadly.

At the Federal Bureau of Investigation, agents have reported concerns about harassment and threats being directed at their families amid intensifying anger among Trump supporters about what they consider to be the weaponization of the Justice Department. “Their children didn’t sign up for this,” a senior F.B.I. supervisor recently testified to Congress.

And the top prosecutors on the four criminal cases against Mr. Trump — two brought by the Justice Department and one each in Georgia and New York — now require round-the-clock protection.

New York Times:

The Wrecking-Ball Caucus: How the Far Right Brought Washington to Its Knees

Right-wing Republicans who represent a minority in their party and in Congress have succeeded in sowing mass dysfunction, spoiling for a shutdown, an impeachment and a House coup

Defying the G.O.P.’s longstanding reputation as the party of law and order, they have pledged to handcuff the F.B.I. and throttle the Justice Department. Members of the party of Ronald Reagan refused to meet with a wartime ally, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, this week when he visited the Capitol and want to eliminate assistance to his country, a democratic nation under siege from an autocratic aggressor.

And they are unbowed by guardrails that in past decades forced consensus even in the most extreme of conflicts; this is the same bloc that balked at raising the debt ceiling in the spring to avert a federal debt default.

“There is a group of Republican members who seem to feel there is no limit at all as to how you can wreck the system,” said Ross K. Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University. “There are no boundaries, no forbidden zones. They go where relatively junior members have feared to tread in the past.”

Brian Beutler/”Off Message” on Substack (inaugural post):

Welcome to Off Message

Refuge from a world gone mad

Many of my formative political memories and experiences as a political journalist date back to the late George W. Bush years, which in hindsight feels like a more innocent time. But that’s only by comparison to 2023, when social media is ubiquitous and distorting, Americans are awash in propaganda, and one of the country’s two major political parties has embraced a totalitarian kind of dishonesty, which back then it was only flirting with.

The truth is the old days weren’t so innocent. Two misbegotten wars—one completely lawless—had become quagmires, the United States had become synonymous internationally with torture and warrantless spying, and the world was on the brink of an era-defining economic calamity. But all of that coexisted with a bracing sense that most people had caught on to the malice and failures of the country’s leaders, were eager to rise against them, and confident enough in their righteousness that they were willing to air their internal differences without fear or favor. Or at least with less fear or favor than now.

To put it in more partisan terms, Democrats were tired of losing and ready to fight. Fifteen years ago, it seemed natural rather than heretical that new ideas and leaders should challenge older ones, and Democrats had more confidence to confront Republicans directly across a range of liabilities. They correctly identified a “culture of corruption” that had run rampant in the Bush years, and exposed much of it on their march back to power. They didn’t reflexively close ranks around whichever leaders felt most safe—far from it, one of the big reasons Barack Obama challenged Hillary Clinton for the presidency, and was able to win the nomination, is because Nancy Pelosi (who was then House speaker) and Harry Reid (who was then Senate majority leader) encouraged him to run. Liberals argued in a freewheeling way about the candidates they supported, without panicking that they might undermine the cause of change.

That whole spirit is gone.

NBC:

Poll: Overwhelming majorities express concerns about Biden, Trump ahead of 2024 race

Trump's lead has expanded in the GOP presidential contest, while Biden and Trump are tied in a hypothetical general election matchup.

“Yes, the numbers for Biden aren’t where he needs them to be,” said Horwitt, the Democratic pollster. “But the lens for most voters is still through Donald Trump first.”

The above is what most polling is showing (a close race). Some polling thoughts on an outlier (they themselves say so) Washington Post poll that had a big lead for trump over Biden:

It’s still too early to worry about 2024 polls. Worry about elections.

WTKR:

Early voting kicks off in Virginia with abortion as major issue for voters

Early voting has kicked off in Virginia with every seat of the General Assembly on the ballot this fall.

On Friday morning, it got off to a calm start at the Virginia Beach Registrar's office.

Democrats held a small rally outside to discuss the issues they find important this year.

"Reproductive freedom is on the ballot," said Michael Feggans, the Democratic nominee in the 97th House of Delegates district. "Support of our public schools and education is on the ballot. Making sure we're taking care of our veterans is on the ballot."

On Senator Robert Menendez, D-NJ and indicted on corruption charges:

Matt Robison and Daniel Cox on Trump’s polling status:

Vanity Fair:

The Exquisite Agony of Being Kevin McCarthy

“You talk to pretty much any lawmaker on the Hill, and there’s sort of just an acceptance, reluctant though it might be, but an acceptance that there will be a shutdown,” says [Abigail] Tracy, as a group of “rogue Republicans” keeps “making demands, shifting the goalposts, but nothing is going to placate them.”

Bomb throwers like Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Lauren Boebert are “not serious people,” says [John] Harwood, a Polis Distinguished Fellow at Duke University. “They’re on television, they have podcasts or whatever,” he adds, “but they’re not built to do what politicians have to do to make government work.”

link to podcast

Paul Krugman/The New York Times:

Why Kevin McCarthy Can’t Do His Job

The speaker of the House is the only congressional officer mentioned in the Constitution, other than a temporary Senate officer to preside when the vice president can’t. The speaker’s job isn’t defined, but surely it includes passing legislation that keeps the federal government running.

But Kevin McCarthy, the current speaker, isn’t doing that job. Indeed, at this point it’s hard to see how he can pass any bill maintaining federal funding, let alone one the Senate, controlled by Democrats, will agree to. So we seem to be headed for a federal shutdown at the end of this month, with many important government activities suspended until further notice.

Why? McCarthy is a weak leader, especially compared with Nancy Pelosi, his formidable predecessor. But even a superb leader would probably be unable to transcend the dynamics of a party that has been extremist for a generation but has now gone beyond extremism to nihilism.

And yes, this is a Republican problem. Any talk about dysfunction in “Congress,” or “partisanship,” simply misinforms the public. Crises like the one McCarthy now faces didn’t happen under Pelosi, even though she also had a very narrow majority. I’ll come back to that contrast. First, let me make a different comparison — between the looming shutdown of 2023 and the shutdowns of 1995-96, when Newt Gingrich was speaker.

CNN:

Biden leads Trump in potential New Hampshire rematch, though dissatisfaction with both remains high

An early read of a New Hampshire rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump gives the incumbent president the advantage, amid signs that anger toward Trump could outweigh dampened enthusiasm for another Biden term, according to a new CNN/University of New Hampshire poll.

About 6 in 10 New Hampshire residents, 62%, say they would be dissatisfied or worse if Trump retook the presidency – with most, 56%, expressing outright anger at the prospect. A 56% majority say they’d be dissatisfied or worse if Biden won reelection, but fewer, 38%, say they’d be angry. About one-fifth say they’d be less than satisfied with either scenario

John Burn-Murdoch/Financial Times:

Are we destined for a zero-sum future?

A backdrop of slower economic growth may be shaping attitudes of tomorrow that cut across political divides

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach ofFT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found here. https://www.ft.com/content/980cbbe2-0f5d-4330-872d-c7a9d6a97bf6 You wouldn’t typically think of affirmative action advocates and anti-immigration nativists as being bedfellows. The former group skews young and is composed overwhelmingly of progressives, and the latter skews old and conservative. But according to a fascinating new study out of Harvard University, they have one significant thing in common: a predilection for zero-sum thinking, or the belief that for one group to gain, another must lose.The same way of thinking crops up on all manner of issues that cut across traditional political divides. Roughly equal numbers of US Democrats and Republicans agree that “in trade, if one country makes more money, then another country makes less money”. And while Democrats are more likely to say “if one income group becomes wealthier, this comes at the expense of other groups”, a third of Republicans agree.

NBC News:

New GOP ad campaign for control of Virginia centers on abortion limits

Democrats are campaigning against the GOP's proposed restriction at 15 weeks. Republicans are painting Democrats as the party of "no limits" in an effort to regain ground on abortion.

Republicans have high hopes of flipping Virginia’s state Senate and holding the state House of Delegates in November, which would give them full control of state government under GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin. Youngkin, seeking the governing majority that would allow him to enact parts of his agenda he has struggled to push through a divided legislature, is leading what has become a massive investment in the statehouse races by tapping into a national donor network, attending fundraisers from Nantucket to Dallas.

And abortion has become a flashpoint, with Democrats campaigning on the fact that a GOP majority would threaten Virginia’s status as the last state in the South without significant restrictions on abortion rights.

The Washington Post:

DeSantis is in growing trouble. He’s betting big on Iowa to rescue him.

Abandoned by some donors, bashed by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and polling behind other Trump alternatives, DeSantis and his allies are increasingly focused on the first GOP caucus state

The pastor said she liked DeSantis. Soon she was recruited.

The Florida governor showed up at the door last month with his family for a home-cooked meal complete with Iowa corn. On Saturday, she drove two hours to see him again, huddling around DeSantis for a prayer at a church event. “I’m not that political of a person,” said the pastor, Joyce Schmidt, 70, laughing a bit at her involvement. “But all of a sudden … ”

The courtship illustrates the organizing underway as DeSantis banks heavily on evangelical Christians, far-flung campaigning and intensive fieldwork to revive the long-shot hopes of his struggling bid to best former president Donald Trump, who holds a widening lead over him in national and early-state polls.

Dan Balz/Washington Post:

Kevin McCarthy turns impeachment into political score-settling

The House speaker directed an impeachment inquiry into President Biden based on “allegations,” making the process a debasement of what was intended to be a constitutional vehicle to remove a president for malfeasance

Now that the inquiry is launched, it could take on a life of its own, in which case it might be difficult to stop before articles of impeachment are introduced. Or the inquiry could run for months without any conclusion, never rising to a formal impeachment proceeding but without anyone calling a halt to it.

McCarthy has claimed the impeachment inquiry is a “natural step” after the work that has been done, but there is nothing natural about this one. It is a political step, one taken under the speaker’s duress. The burden of proof remains with McCarthy and his Republican colleagues.

David French/New York Times:

The Most Interesting Element of the Hunter Biden Indictment

And now Hunter Biden, who bought a gun as a nonviolent, unlawful drug user, is charged under the same federal statute at issue in each of the cases above. Arguably, Biden’s best defense to that charge is to join a host of other criminal defendants by challenging that count under Bruen’s text-and-history test. He just might win — and if he does, he will contribute to the dismantling of a key element of federal gun regulations.

Martin Pengelly/The Guardian:

Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis turns on ‘malignant narcissist’ ex-president

Ellis, one of 18 Trump associates charged in Georgia election subversion case, says she ‘simply can’t support him’ again

Deace said: “Before that man [Trump] needs to be president again … [to] escape the quote-unquote, ‘witch-hunts’, that man needs Jesus again because … his ambitions would be fueled by showing some self-awareness. And he won’t do it because he can’t admit, ‘I’m not God.’”

Ellis said Deace had “perfectly articulated exactly how I as a voter feel”. She knew Trump well “as a friend, as a former boss”, she said, adding: “I have great love and respect for him personally.

“But everything that you just said resonates with me as exactly why I simply can’t support him for elected office again. Why I have chosen to distance is because of that, frankly, malignant narcissistic tendency to simply say that he’s never done anything wrong.

“And the total idolatry that I’m seeing from some of the supporters that are unwilling to put the constitution and the country and the conservative principles above their love for a star is really troubling.

“And I think that we do need to, as Americans and as conservatives and particularly as Christians, take this very seriously and understand where are we putting our vote.”

New York Times:

Top Democrats’ Bullishness on Biden 2024 Collides With Voters’ Worries

Party leaders have rallied behind the president’s re-election bid, but as one top Democratic strategist put it, “The voters don’t want this, and that’s in poll after poll after poll.”

From the highest levels of the party on down, Democratic politicians and party officials have long dismissed the idea that Mr. Biden should have any credible primary challenger. Yet despite their efforts — and the president’s lack of a serious opponent within his party — they have been unable to dispel Democratic concerns about him that center largely on his age and vitality.

The discord between the party’s elite and its voters leaves Democrats confronting a level of disunity over a president running for re-election not seen for decades.

Interviews with more than a dozen strategists, elected officials and voters this past week, conversations with Democrats since Mr. Biden’s campaign began in April, and months of public polling data show that this disconnect has emerged as a defining obstacle for his candidacy, worrying Democrats from liberal enclaves to swing states to the halls of power in Washington.

This is a storyline that has to work it’s way through until they’re bored with this one as well as the others.

It’s sarcasm.

Matthew Continetti/Commentary:

The Left of the Right

The first thing to say about the New Right is that it can get weird. Its ranks are composed almost entirely of men. They inhabit a social-media cocoon where they talk a lot about manhood, and strength, and manliness, and push-ups, and masculinity, and virility, and weight-lifting, and testosterone. “Wrestling should be mandated in middle schools,” write Arthur Milikh and Scott Yenor in the collection Up from Conservatism. “Students could learn to build and shoot guns as part of a normal course of action in schools and learn how to grow crops and prepare them for meals. Every male student could learn to skin an animal and every female to milk a cow.”

The second aspect of the New Right that deserves attention is its flirtation with anti-Semitism and racial bigotry. Earlier this year, one of the contributors to Up from Conservatism, the international-relations scholar Richard Hanania, was revealed to have written hateful Internet posts under a pseudonym. The pro-Trump Breitbart reported that Pedro L. Gonzalez, an associate editor at Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture who boosts DeSantis on his social-media account, had a history of anti-Semitism. Around the same time, DeSantis fired speechwriter Nate Hochman, a New Right wunderkind who had promoted an online video that incorporated neo-Nazi imagery.

Matt Robison and Rex Huppke:

Margaret Sullivan/The Guardian:

With democracy on the ballot, the mainstream press must change its ways

US news organizations have turned Biden’s age into a scandal and continue to cover Trump as an entertaining side show

• The evidence-free Biden impeachment efforts in the House of Representatives are presented to news consumers without sufficient context. In the first round of headlines last week, most news outlets simply reported what speaker Kevin McCarthy was doing as if it were completely legitimate – the result of his likely high crimes and misdemeanors. The Washington Post presented it seriously: “Kevin McCarthy directs House committees to open formal Biden impeachment inquiries,” adding in a credulous line: “The inquiry will center on whether President Biden benefited from his son’s business dealings … ” No hint of what is really happening here. In this case, the New York Times was a welcome exception: “McCarthy, Facing an Ouster and a Shutdown, Orders an Impeachment Inquiry.” That’s more like it.

I noted The New York Times’ coverage as well.

Meanwhile in Wisconsin, this (on X, formerly known as Twitter, via Threadreader) from the Democratic Party Executive Director Devin Remiker:

GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos is pressing forward with nullifying Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election through impeachment. But he’s thrown out a giant red herring—a vote on a make-believe redistricting bill. 🧵 

His goal is that we spend the next two weeks talking about it, instead of his unprecedented, unconscionable, and unconstitutional impeachment threat. We’re not going to do that. It is worth, at best, a Twitter thread and not even by the guy who normally does our threads. 

There are very serious problems with the bill— most importantly that Vos created a process designed to fail and lock in the current gerrymander perpetually instead of outright giving Republicans the power to unilaterally redraw the maps. 

Last night they ensured their process can be obstructed by one party, now and in any future redistricting cycle. How? Through a bunch of amendments hastily circulated for the first time on the floor.

Craig Gilbert/The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

Gilbert: Are Wisconsin's election maps 'rigged'? Here are the reasons the answer is yes

The results in these legislative races were already “baked in” by how the districts were drawn.

Based solely on the new redistricting plan, paying zero attention to the actual campaign, I predicted that Republicans would win 63 of 99 Assembly districts, give or take a seat.

They won 64.

Does that sound like a “rigged” system?

That’s the term that was used by the newest state Supreme Court justice, Janet Protasiewicz, in the run-up to her landslide April election victory, which gave liberals a 4-3 majority on the court.  She called the legislative maps “rigged.”

Her comments outraged Republican lawmakers, who recently threatened to impeach her unless she recused herself from the current legal fight over Wisconsin’s gerrymandered districts.

Charlie Sykes/The Bulwark:

Why Wisconsin's GOP Might Blink And why it might not.

This brings us to the even messier story: the GOP’s threat to impeach a newly elected Supreme Court Justice.

Last week, I described the move as “a power play within a putsch inside a political blunder. The collateral damage will be staggering.”

That should be obvious, and Speaker Vos is a smart politician. But it’s not clear that he can resist the temptation to take a dive that will set a dangerous precedent for the independence of the judiciary, destroy his reputation, and set off a chaotic and unpredictable chain reaction that could shift the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.

Indeed, the scheme set off a firestorm, and Democrats quickly announced a $4 million campaign targeting the Republican attack on the court. More national money was on the way, and insiders began talking about the possibility of a $100 million do-over special election.

The flood of money focused GOP minds marvelously.

Lindsay Beyerstein/Editorial Board:

House Republicans poised to launder Russian disinfo again

A skeptic’s guide to “Hunter Biden’s Laptop.”

In a hack and leak, data is stolen and dumped.

A largely genuine trove of stolen data is also the perfect place to hide forged or stolen elements, which enjoy unearned credibility because they’re packaged with real stuff. That’s why the victims of hack and leaks are advised never to confirm the authenticity of anything.

The attackers are counting on the public to draw the erroneous conclusion that, because some things are genuine, the whole package is real, and – most importantly – that it came from where the cover story says it came from, be that an imaginary collective of good-hearted “hacktivists” or a computer repair shop in Delaware. Anywhere but the GRU.  

The GRU is notorious for hacking and leaking.

Susan B. Glasser/The New Yorker:

The Twilight of Mitch McConnell and the Spectre of 2024

On the dangerous reign of the octogenarians.

I suspect this is not yet the moment for an open effort to bring down McConnell, but the signs are there for a seismic power shift in the making. The possible heirs to his post are known around the Capitol as the three Johns—Senators Barrasso of Wyoming, Cornyn of Texas, and Thune of South Dakota. Like McConnell, all three are considered members of the Senate G.O.P.’s establishment wing. But none has the power, clout, or stature of McConnell, never mind the reputation for Machiavellian maneuvering that he so relished in his prime. And, if there were any doubt about the direction in which the Party’s momentum is trending, Trump’s current stampede toward the 2024 Presidential nomination seems to offer a loud answer. It speaks clearly to the moment that it was President Biden and not ex-President Trump who called McConnell with words of consolation. “He was his old self on the telephone,” Biden said, as he called the Republican whom Democrats have loved to hate in recent years “a friend.” “I’m confident he’s going to be back to his old self.”

Biden, quite simply, needs McConnell right now. At a time when many Republicans are increasingly taking their cues from Trump and questioning U.S. support for Ukraine, Biden is counting on McConnell and his Senate Republicans to push through twenty-four billion dollars in urgently needed additional funds. The fall’s marquee crisis is expected to be a showdown between the Biden Administration and McCarthy’s restive House Republicans, who have threatened to shut down the government when federal funding runs out at the end of September. What happens if McConnell is out of action to help make a deal?

From Cliff Schecter:

McKay Coppins/The Atlantic:

WHAT MITT ROMNEY SAW IN THE SENATE

In an exclusive excerpt from my forthcoming biography of the senator, Romney: A Reckoning, he reveals what drove him to retire.

It begins with a text message from Angus King, the junior senator from Maine: “Could you give me a call when you get a chance? Important.”

Romney calls, and King informs him of a conversation he’s just had with a high-ranking Pentagon official. Law enforcement has been tracking online chatter among right-wing extremists who appear to be planning something bad on the day of Donald Trump’s upcoming rally in Washington, D.C. The president has been telling them the election was stolen; now they’re coming to steal it back. There’s talk of gun smuggling, of bombs and arson, of targeting the traitors in Congress who are responsible for this travesty. Romney’s name has been popping up in some frightening corners of the internet, which is why King needed to talk to him. He isn’t sure Romney will be safe.

This excerpt and the bit that follows has been all over Washington. While much of it is known, Mitt told Mitch McConnell what King told Romney. And if Senators knew, what did the FBI and security forces know?

Whatever the answers, it’s a stark reminder of why Donald Trump was impeached a second time.

Charlie Sykes/The Bulwark:

Mitt Romney and the Verdict of History

Thoughts about Death and History and Fragility and Violence.

Mitt Romney will leave the Senate the same way he came in. One of the vanishingly rare statesmen left in politics, Romney tried to be the conscience of the party he once led. That made him a very lonely man.

As he told the Wapo’s Dan Balz yesterday: “It’s pretty clear that the party is inclined to a populist demagogue message.”

Now comes the verdict of history.

Punchbowl News:

Yet in reality, McCarthy’s decision to pivot even harder to the right this week, acquiescing to demands that he open an impeachment inquiry, will have far-reaching implications for the House. It could undo months of effort the two men [Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries] have put into building a more congenial dynamic than the frosty relationship McCarthy had with former Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi was notoriously frigid toward McCarthy, even calling him “a moron” on camera last year. This bothered McCarthy so much that he sat down with Jeffries before the new Congress to set a new tone. No public name calling, they said. Both vowed to treat each other respectfully, even when they disagree, according to multiple sources familiar with the meeting.

So far, they’ve stuck to that handshake deal. The two leaders have even worked closely together on some joint initiatives, including standing up the China select committee and pulling together a bipartisan artificial intelligence briefing. Jeffries’ allies see McCarthy as a speaker who would theoretically like to work with Democrats, but has no political space to do so.

Yet that bonhomie is in jeopardy as McCarthy continues to bend to his right flank.

Politico:

Kevin McCarthy's profanity-laced tirade overshadowed the special GOP impeachment briefing.

“If you think you scare me because you want to file a motion to vacate, move the f—ing motion,” the speaker said at the top of the meeting.

It's a sign of the broader frustration building among the majority of House Republicans, many of whom were receptive to McCarthy's blow up. Some have advocated for increased pressure on conservative members, who have shrugged at the idea of a shutdown and continued pushing spending priorities that would be rejected by the Democratic Senate and White House.

And McCarthy is dialing up the pressure, telling his members during the closed-door meeting that once they return to Washington next week they won’t leave until they’ve funded the government.

“We’re going to come back in next week and we’re not going to leave until we get the job done,” he told reporters after the meeting.

And who believes McCarthy will stand up to pressure from his right flank?

Cliff Schecter on Tim Scott:

Dan Pfeiffer/”The Message Box” on Substack:

Impeachment Scam: What You Need to Know

The GOP is hoping to use impeachment and a broken info environment to damage Biden

This week, the Republicans in the House made the unprecedented and constitutionally dubious decision to launch an impeachment inquiry into President Biden without a single shred of evidence. While the politics of impeachment are likely to blow up in the Republicans’ faces, this unpredictable situation is not without pitfalls for Biden and the Democrats. One of those pitfalls involves the horse-race obsessed political media and dystopic information environment flooded with disinformation and clickbait. The White House is so concerned about how news of the impeachment inquiry will reach the public that on Tuesday they sent a letter to news organizations urging them to not to treat this inquiry as normal. As Ian Sams, Special Assistant the Spokesman for the White House Counsel’s Office wrote:

Reporting that solely focuses on process rather than substance is woefully inadequate when it comes to something as historically grave as impeachment.

It’s time for the media to ramp up its scrutiny of House Republicans for opening an impeachment inquiry based on lies. When even House Republican members are admitting that there is simply no evidence that Joe Biden did anything wrong, much less impeachable, that should set off alarm bells for news organizations.

The White House’s concerns are warranted. Less than 24 hours after McCarthy’s announcement, social media is being flooded with enough disinformation and overly credulous reporting to make people who haven’t been following the story think that Biden is somehow guilty of something. I wanted to provide some information and context to help Message Box readers understand this madness and talk to your friends and family who may encounter the bad info floating out there.

Mark Meadows had two items in federal court pending in the GA case. One was to stay a result that hadn’t happened (as seen here, withdrawn). That would have failed, since GA law allows a trial but would have withheld a verdict pending appeal.

The other item is an appeal to remove his case to federal jurisdiction, already denied by Steve Jones and now on expedited appeal to the 11th Circuit. Meadows’s initial brief for the appeal is due Monday. and the state of GA response a week later.

Emily Bazelon/New York Times:

The Surprising Places Where Abortion Rights Are on the Ballot, and Winning

But something else also happened. In his majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Justice Samuel Alito invited Americans to decide directly how much abortion access to allow. “In some states, voters may believe that the abortion right should be even more extensive,” Alito wrote. “Voters in other states may wish to impose tight restrictions.” Unexpectedly, in red and purple states that have put the question directly to the public — asking people to reject or support abortion rights in a ballot measure — they have voted against new restrictions or in favor of more access every time.

Greg Sargent/Washington Post:

How the ‘MAGA doom loop’ is already threatening Trump’s 2024 chances

The pattern is becoming clear: Even as voters are mobilizing to protect democracy at the ballot box, Republicans are redoubling their commitment to the former president’s anti-majoritarian mode of politics. And this, in turn, is motivating voters even more.

Call it the “MAGA doom loop.” It’s playing out in state after state.