But Charles Blow of The New York Times gives reasons that “Trumpism without Trump” is simply absurd.
Yet many Republican commentators and donors, who’ve been desperate to move on from the toxicity of Trump, landed on DeSantis when casting about for alternatives. They inflated his ego, convincing him his big-footing in Florida made him formidable.
He appears to be banking on Trump fatigue, or maybe Trump’s legal problems piling so high that even the former president’s most ardent supporters come to the conclusion that he is too encumbered to prevail. If he can’t outpace Trump, he’ll lie in wait to catch him limping.
He’s not alone in that lane. The candidates (or potential candidates) Mike Pence, Asa Hutchinson and Chris Sununu — all current or former governors — occupy the same lane. They are the in-case-of-emergency-break-glass cohort: If Trump winds up on the path to prison and Republicans must scrounge for a last-minute replacement, they’re hoping that voters see them as solid substitutes.
They’re positioned as candidates who can deliver on Republican policy priorities without Trump’s baggage and Trump’s drama — but Trump’s drama is the thing that many of his supporters are addicted to. The policies are welded to the persona.
Charles Pierce of Esquire just cuts through all of the BS talk from Republicans about the debt ceiling.
Trembling with fear about “blowing up” the debt ceiling ignores the obvious fact that it’s already been blown up as a viable instrument of policy and has been ever since the Republicans realized it could be used as a cudgel against any Democratic president’s ability to perform the duties of the office. The political basis for the debt-ceiling law is as dead as the Treaty of Versailles. All McCarthy and the Insane Crazy Caucus are doing now is making the rubble bounce to what should be a familiar rhythm. What the president needs to do is to disrupt that rhythm, a task for which resorting to the 14th Amendment is uniquely suited.
On Wednesday, a hearing will be held in federal court right here in the Commonweath (God save it!) next Wednesday on whether or not the president can use the provisions of the 14th to deal with the extortionate Republican strategy. The hearing will be held in the context of a lawsuit filed by the National Association of Government Employees, a union made up of federal workers. NAGE wants to make sure its membership will get paid if the federal budget continues to be held hostage…
Nathan Gonzales of Roll Call comes upon a “left-behind” polling book from a GOP resort that shows Republicans continuing to lose ground on the abortion issue.
In the latest chapter of what seems to be a long-running series about Roll Call getting ahold of things people shouldn’t leave behind, a binder from a conference an outside group held for top GOP Senate staffers at a West Virginia resort had some cautionary signs about the 2024 climate.
[…]
“There has been a 6 point swing in the last year on the Generic Senate ballot from R+3 to D+3. This movement is [led] overwhelmingly by Independent and NEW voters that identify abortion as one of their top issues,” according to a “National Issue Study” by co/efficient, which was in the news recently as one of the pollsters for Kentucky Republican gubernatorial nominee Daniel Cameron.
The poll, conducted April 20-24, had similar findings on the House side. “There has been a 10 point swing in the last year on the Generic House Ballot from R+6 to D+4. This movement is [led] overwhelmingly by Independent and NEW voters that identify abortion as one of their top issues,” it said on slide seven. “Reproductive Freedom is the #1 issue among those that DID NOT vote in 2020.”
Zach Despart and James Barragán of the Texas Tribune write about a Texas House Committee meeting where the alleged misconduct and, possibly, crimes of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton were laid out in graphic detail.
In painstaking and methodical detail in a rare public forum, four investigators for the House General Investigating Committee testified that they believe Paxton broke numerous state laws, misspent office funds and misused his power to benefit a friend and political donor.
Their inquiry focused first on a proposed $3.3 million agreement to settle a whistleblower lawsuit filed by four high-ranking deputies who were fired after accusing Paxton of accepting bribes and other misconduct.
Committee Chair Andrew Murr said the payout, which the Legislature would have to authorize, would also prevent a trial at which evidence of Paxton’s alleged misdeeds would be presented publicly. Committee members questioned, in essence, if lawmakers were being asked to participate in a cover-up.
“It is alarming and very serious having this discussion when millions of taxpayer dollars have been asked to remedy what is alleged to be some wrongs,” Murr said. “That’s something we have to grapple with. It’s challenging.”
Beth Hawkins of the education blog The 74 points out that LGBTQ+ children blue states have been dramatically affected by the LGBTQ backlash taking place in red states.
It’s no surprise that queer students in Republican-dominated stateswhere these laws have passed are profoundly impacted. But less visible is the dramatic effect the steady drumbeat of headlines has had on youth in places with even strong anti-discrimination laws. Newly released data from the advocacy groups GLSEN and The Trevor Project show increases in hostility, victimization and discrimination experienced by students in blue states as well as red.
[…]
In California — where the first gay couples married in 2008 and schools began teaching LGBTQ history a decade ago — a statewide survey of students found that the number who reported hearing homophobic remarks from adults in school rose from 12% in 2019 to 49% in 2021. That’s an increase of 408%.
In Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage has been recognized for almost 20 years, the number of youth exposed to anti-LGBT remarks is up 686% over the same time frame.
In Minnesota, where queer youth are protected by strong human rights laws, the number is up 520%. In Connecticut, it’s 482%. In New Hampshire, 545%.
Jill Lawrence of The Bulwark writes about the responses of and to the Black president of George Mason University, Gregory Washington, because of his extension of an invitation to Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin to speak at George Mason’s commencement.
If DeSantis is Trump minus the chaos, Youngkin is DeSantis lite. Youngkin has not engineered a hostile takeover of a liberal college; banned spending on diversity initiatives at state colleges and universities; restricted drag shows and teaching about LGBTQ issues; or rejected an Advanced Placement course in black history. But there’s no mistaking which side Youngkin is on in the conservative culture wars. He banned “divisive concepts” like “critical race theory” in Virginia classrooms and set up a short-lived hotline to tattle on teachers; released guidelines saying transgender students must use bathrooms and compete on teams matching their biological gender, and need parental permission to change their names or pronouns; and would have signed a bill to remove books from schools if it had passed the Virginia legislature.
That was more than enough to make Youngkin a flashpoint when Gregory Washington, president of George Mason University, invited him to speak at last week’s commencement. The governor ended up sitting onstage one seat away from Galilea Sejas-Machado, a student speaker who for much of the ceremony—including while Youngkin spoke—held up a protest placard that said “We will not debate humanity” on one side and “Mason demands action” on the other.
[…]
Washington, George Mason’s first black president, is a first-generation college graduate with a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering and a former engineering dean at Ohio State University and the University of California, Irvine. He accepted the job before the COVID pandemic shut down the country and George Floyd’s murder triggered a racial reckoning, and started work in July 2020. A few months later, in an interview with the university magazine, Washington said he found Mason impressive. “The fact that you can have the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution and the Antonin Scalia Law School [next door] . . . This is the true definition of a ‘big tent,’” he said.
An eight-reporter team from Der Spiegel reports on the normalization of the ultra-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD).
Despite being monitored by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, on suspicions of right-wing extremism, the AfD doesn’t just have representatives in almost all of Germany’s state parliaments and in the Bundestag, the federal parliament in Berlin. It is also polling higher in public opinion surveys than it has in five years. A broad feeling of uneasiness with the current situation could be feeding the rise, as could the fact that the number of refugees arriving in Europe has once again ticked upwards. But are such explanations sufficient?
Nationwide support for the AfD has been rising since last autumn and currently stands at between 16 and 18 percent. In eastern Germany, the party enjoys the support of roughly a quarter of voters, making it frequently the strongest party in the region. And that despite the AfD showing an increasing openness about its antipathy for democracy.
Or might that perhaps be the precise reason for its popularity?
Just over a week ago, the first AfD district administrator was almost installed in the state of Brandenburg, only barely losing out in the run-off election. But beyond the election results and survey successes, the AfD’s greatest success is likely the fact that it has managed to pull the political debate in Germany to the right. Their messages and methods are increasingly being adopted by conservative politicians and conservative media outlets – which also contributes to the normalization of the AfD’s message.
Graig Klein and Scott Boddery write for The Conversation about how the killing of an ISIL leader may have boosted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s reelection campaign.
When Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan claimed credit on April 30, 2023, for killing Islamic State group leader Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurashi in Syria, it may not have been simply a straightforward announcement of victory over the leader of a terrorist group.
History suggests the operation against al-Qurashi could have been an effort to boost Erdoğan’s reelection campaign.
[…]
As political scientists who study foreign policy decision-making, we know that, faced with such scenarios, elected leaders are often motivated to gamble for resurrection by demonstrating strength, resolve and capability. They do this through a kind of aggressive foreign policy known in our field as political use of force, or diversionary use of force.
Leaders who undertake this kind of action hope a successful military endeavor will divert the public’s attention from the administration’s domestic shortcomings.
Marina Daras of BBC News writes about the economic, military, and diplomatic ties that Turkey has cultivated on the African continent.
The seeds for the enhanced co-operation between Africa and Turkey were planted during Mr Erdogan’s stint as prime minister, which began in 2003.
Mr Erdogan saw a potential economic boon.
“In the early 2000s, the Turkish economy witnessed continued growth and was looking for new markets,” says foreign policy expert Mr Demirtas.
“A diverse market with more than 50 countries and more than 1.2 billion people offers lucrative opportunities for Turkish exporters and businessmen.”
Turkey’s annual trade with the continent increased from $5.4bn (£4.4bn) to $34.5bn between 2003 and 2021, according to figures from the Turkish foreign ministry, led by chemicals, steel and cereals.
Finally today, I can’t remember the question that I was asked back in my senior year in high school journalism class but I do remember that my answer to the question was “Tina Turner” to which our newspaper editor-in-chief responded, “Kevin, if Tina Turner farted, you would say that it had great musical quality.”
Well…he wasn’t that far off, probably.
But as much as I loved Tina Turner in the 1980’s, Joy Ann-Reid of MSNBC reminds me of how much I was captivated by the few broadcasts of Tina Turner’s performances in the 1960’s and 70’s (which I mostly saw on the CBC) that I was able to see until the age of YouTube in this millennium.
I love pretty much anything that Tina Turner sings and performs but I admit that I am more captivated by the super-energetic performances of her early career.
“When I was a little girl, I had a rag doll … the only doll I’ve ever owned…”
That line, from the song “River Deep — Mountain High,” is how I came to love Tina Turner. But it was my mom who was obsessed with her. In the 1980s, Tina was a megastar — churning out pop-rock hits that had Miss Philomena (my music-loving single mom) dancing across our kitchen floor and cranking it up in the car. But it was ‘60s Tina Turner that captivated me, in old videos from before I was even born that played on an eclectic local music video show that aired on Saturdays in Denver, where I grew up.
“River Deep” was not a hit in 1966. The music industry didn’t get the Phil Spector-produced song (written by Spector, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich for the Ike and Tina Turner ensemble. Nor did it get her once she separated from Ike, her abusive husband and musical Svengali, and sought to enter the world of “white” rock ‘n’ roll (which of course, was merely a permutation of Black rock and blues.)
Still, I was fascinated by the Tina Turner who existed in black and white video, scampering across the stage in short skirts, with her voluminous hair and long legs dangling, and some wild combination of rock and R&B belting out of her scratchy throat. I thought she was one of the most beautiful women alive. And she stayed that way, right through her 70s and 80s when she appeared in color — with that lineless skin and spiky hair that got bigger and wilder with time. Tina was, in every way, an icon.
“River Deep” wasn’t a hit in the United States, but it was one of Turner’s biggest hits overseas.
Farewell, Queen!
Have the best possible day, everyone!
Chitown Kev
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