Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small.
Abbreviated Pundit Roundup is a long-running series published every morning that collects essential political discussion and analysis around the internet. Philip Bump/Washington Post: Donald Trump’s casual disparagement of prosecutors as ‘evil’ and ‘crazy’ One of the unusual aspects of the jury selection process for Donald Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan is that he was forced to endure the uncommon experience of being with people who don’t like him. Jurors who were under consideration for service on the trial were shown their past social media posts and comments disparaging Trump while those comments were read out loud in the courtroom. For Trump, a guy who travels with a staffer whose job duties include printing out positive stories on a mobile printer for him to read, this was an unfamiliar experience. Get used to it. There are a lot of weeks left in this trial alone. Trump Org Had Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal's Phone Numbers in Database That's the headline of the prosecution's brief questioning of Rhona Graff. https://t.co/347GcxYJ59— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) April 26, 2024 Who is Rhona Graff? Having trouble keeping up with who the witnesses are? Try this, from Just Security: 41 Star Witnesses and Bit Players in Trump’s NY Criminal Trial Rhona Graff—Graff has been Trump’s executive assistant for many decades. She was once quoted in an interview as saying, “Everybody knows in order to get through to him they have to go through me.” Bookmark it. Helaine Olen/MSNBC: Biden’s FTC just exposed one of the GOP and businesses’ biggest lies to workers Who would want to be against economic freedom, not to mention raises for America’s workers? These contracts were once relatively rare, used mostly for high-ranking executives and others who might possess corporate secrets they could pass on to business rivals. But over the past several decades, as American workers lost power, noncompete usage soared. It’s thought that about 18% of employees are currently working with such a contract while, at some point, 4 in 10 of us have been subject to them. Howard Stern lists off some of President Biden’s accomplishments as they conclude their interview: I want to thank you for your compassion. We're lucky to have you in the Oval Office. I want to thank you for providing a calming influence and an organized administration post-COVID pic.twitter.com/T0Zgw6iS5Z— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) April 26, 2024 Columbia Spectator: Over 1,000 Barnard alums pledge to withhold donations, issue letter to Rosenbury demanding suspended students be reinstated The alums delivered the letter Monday morning. The letter came after Barnard suspended at least 53 students following Thursday’s police sweep of the ongoing “Gaza Solidarity Encampment”—authorized by University President Minouche Shafik—which resulted in 108 arrests. Barnard evicted the suspended students from campus housing and limited their access to campus dining. “We the undersigned Barnard alumni wholeheartedly stand with the anti-war demonstrators both at Columbia’s encampment and at dispersed campus protests,” the alums wrote. The Guardian: Trump VP contender Kristi Noem writes of killing dog – and goat – in new book South Dakota governor includes bloody tale in campaign volume – and admits ‘a better politician … wouldn’t tell the story here In 1952, as a Republican candidate for vice-president, Richard Nixon stirred criticism by admitting receiving a dog, Checkers, as a political gift. In 2012, as the Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney was pilloried for tying a dog, Seamus, to the roof of the family car for a cross-country trip. But in 2024 Kristi Noem, a strong contender to be named running mate to Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has managed to go one further – by admitting killing a dog of her own. “Cricket was a wirehair pointer, about 14 months old,” the South Dakota governor writes in a new book, adding that the dog, a female, had an “aggressive personality” and needed to be trained to be used for hunting pheasant. What unfolds over the next few pages shows how that effort went very wrong indeed – and, remarkably, how Cricket was not the only domestic animal Noem chose to kill one day in hunting season. She remains a strong contender for the VP nod because Trump hates dogs. If Nebraska changes their Electoral College rules to winner take all to help Trump, Maine will try to do the same to counteract that impact, Maine's house majority leader says in a statement pic.twitter.com/cPpQZI9air— Andrew Prokop (@awprokop) April 26, 2024 Michael Tomasky/TNR: Samuel Alito’s Resentment Goes Full Tilt on a Black Day for the Court The associate justice’s logic on display at the Trump immunity hearing was beyond belief. He’s at the center of one of the darkest days in Supreme Court history. On the day Donald Trump took office in January 2017, pondering what he might
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Abbreviated Pundit Roundup is a long-running series published every morning that collects essential political discussion and analysis around the internet.
Philip Bump/Washington Post:
Donald Trump’s casual disparagement of prosecutors as ‘evil’ and ‘crazy’
One of the unusual aspects of the jury selection process for Donald Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan is that he was forced to endure the uncommon experience of being with people who don’t like him. Jurors who were under consideration for service on the trial were shown their past social media posts and comments disparaging Trump while those comments were read out loud in the courtroom. For Trump, a guy who travels with a staffer whose job duties include printing out positive stories on a mobile printer for him to read, this was an unfamiliar experience.
Get used to it. There are a lot of weeks left in this trial alone.
Who is Rhona Graff? Having trouble keeping up with who the witnesses are? Try this, from Just Security:
41 Star Witnesses and Bit Players in Trump’s NY Criminal Trial
Rhona Graff—Graff has been Trump’s executive assistant for many decades. She was once quoted in an interview as saying, “Everybody knows in order to get through to him they have to go through me.”
Bookmark it.
Helaine Olen/MSNBC:
Biden’s FTC just exposed one of the GOP and businesses’ biggest lies to workers
Who would want to be against economic freedom, not to mention raises for America’s workers?These contracts were once relatively rare, used mostly for high-ranking executives and others who might possess corporate secrets they could pass on to business rivals. But over the past several decades, as American workers lost power, noncompete usage soared. It’s thought that about 18% of employees are currently working with such a contract while, at some point, 4 in 10 of us have been subject to them.
Over 1,000 Barnard alums pledge to withhold donations, issue letter to Rosenbury demanding suspended students be reinstated
The alums delivered the letter Monday morning.
The letter came after Barnard suspended at least 53 students following Thursday’s police sweep of the ongoing “Gaza Solidarity Encampment”—authorized by University President Minouche Shafik—which resulted in 108 arrests. Barnard evicted the suspended students from campus housing and limited their access to campus dining.“We the undersigned Barnard alumni wholeheartedly stand with the anti-war demonstrators both at Columbia’s encampment and at dispersed campus protests,” the alums wrote.
Trump VP contender Kristi Noem writes of killing dog – and goat – in new book
South Dakota governor includes bloody tale in campaign volume – and admits ‘a better politician … wouldn’t tell the story here
In 1952, as a Republican candidate for vice-president, Richard Nixon stirred criticism by admitting receiving a dog, Checkers, as a political gift.
In 2012, as the Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney was pilloried for tying a dog, Seamus, to the roof of the family car for a cross-country trip.
But in 2024 Kristi Noem, a strong contender to be named running mate to Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has managed to go one further – by admitting killing a dog of her own.
“Cricket was a wirehair pointer, about 14 months old,” the South Dakota governor writes in a new book, adding that the dog, a female, had an “aggressive personality” and needed to be trained to be used for hunting pheasant.
What unfolds over the next few pages shows how that effort went very wrong indeed – and, remarkably, how Cricket was not the only domestic animal Noem chose to kill one day in hunting season.
She remains a strong contender for the VP nod because Trump hates dogs.
Michael Tomasky/TNR:
Samuel Alito’s Resentment Goes Full Tilt on a Black Day for the Court
The associate justice’s logic on display at the Trump immunity hearing was beyond belief. He’s at the center of one of the darkest days in Supreme Court history.
On the day Donald Trump took office in January 2017, pondering what he might do to the country’s democratic norms and institutions, I wrote these words: “Trump will destroy them, if keeping Trump on top requires it. Or try to. He might not succeed. And that is where we rest our hope—on conservative judges who will choose our institutions over Trump. Mark my words: It will come to this.”
That hope seemed not misplaced back in 2020 and 2021, when a number of liberal and conservative judges, some of the latter appointed by Trump himself, handed Trump 60 or so legal defeats as he attempted to unlawfully overturn the election results. But after Thursday at the Supreme Court? That hope is dead. The conservative judges, or at least most of them, on the highest court in the land are very clearly choosing Trump over our institutions. And none more belligerently than Samuel Alito.
Conservative Legal Philosophy Was All a Lie, TooThe textualists and originalists have taken off the mask.
A few years ago my buddy Stuart Stevens wrote a book called It Was All a Lie.
His thesis was that the dogma conservatives had professed for 60 years—the love of small government and free trade; the desire for robust foreign policy; the belief that character and accountability mattered—turned out not to be values but rationalizations.
In Stuart’s view, conservatives had a bunch of groups they disfavored and then worked backwards to concoct an ideological framework to support these prejudices. No, not all conservatives. And maybe not on every single issue. But enough so that the generalization was generally fair.
When Stuart first published his book I thought it was an interesting idea. The preponderance of evidence that has emerged since 2020 has buttressed his case.
Yesterday the Supreme Court hinted that maybe conservative legal theory was always a lie, too.
Donald Trump, as always, is the great revealer.
Trump promised big plans to flip Black and Latino voters. Many Republicans are waiting to see themDonald Trump says he wants to hold a major campaign event at New York’s Madison Square Garden featuring Black hip-hop artists and athletes. His aides speak of making appearances in Chicago, Detroit and Atlanta with leaders of color and realigning American politics by flipping Democratic constituencies.
But five months before the first general election votes are cast, the former president’s campaign has little apparent organization to show for its ambitious plans.
The Trump campaign removed its point person for coalitions and hasn’t announced a replacement. The Republican Party’s minority outreach offices across the country have been shuttered and replaced by businesses that include a check-cashing store, an ice cream shop and a sex-toy store. And campaign officials concede they are weeks away from rolling out any targeted programs.
