For Tucker Carlson, it has to be the ultimate good-news, bad-news moment: A major publishing house has canceled a prominent political journalist’s upcoming biography of the far-right media figure.
The bad news, though, is that the cancellation stems at least in part from the belief that Carlson, once the biggest name on cable, no longer has the kind of cultural footprint to warrant a pricey, complicated book by a top-shelf writer. According to several sources in the publishing industry who have followed the project, a combination of delays and the changes in Carlson’s once dominant media presence caused a loss of enthusiasm on the part of a publishing house going through its own internal tumult.
The right-wing United Australia Party leader Clive Palmer announced in April that he was going to bring Tucker Carlson into the country for a nationwide tour of speaking engagements. The tour is about to begin this weekend through July 1, and ticket prices have been slashed due to lack of interest.
Apparently, he will be doing an “arena tour” this summer with the likes of Kid Rock, Glenn Beck and Marjorie Taylor Greene. I’m sure it will be all kinds of MAGA magic but as the Politico article suggests, that’s a fever swamp kind of event that has very little effect in the broader world.
There was a time when a lot of people were speculating that Carlson would run for president. Today he’s just another blathering celebrity on the wingnut welfare circuit. Good.
Yet business leaders are falling all over themselves to support him.
Meanwhile the projections from the Big Money Boyz are very rosy and the markets are roaring.
JPM DESK, on retail sales:
".. Americans spent more than $700bn last month; in 2019 that number was closer to $500bn.
"The [compound annual growth rate] for retail sales in the 4 years post-COVID is roughly double what it was in the 4 years into COVID. .. This is occurring in a…
Moody's expects inflation to fall from 3% in 2024 to 2.4% in 2025.
But Trump could supercharge it to 3.6% through "higher tariffs, outflow of foreign immigrants, the resulting tighter labor market and more quickly rising labor costs, and tax-cut-fueled fiscal stimulus." https://t.co/TaoIRT946Mpic.twitter.com/WouW28CxeT
Judges Tried To Persuade Cannon To Recuse but she refused
The NY Times has a big scoop on the Mar-a-lago case (gift link from the reporters)
Shortly after Judge Aileen M. Cannon drew the assignment in June 2023 to oversee former President Donald J. Trump’s classified documents case, two more experienced colleagues on the federal bench in Florida urged her to pass it up and hand it off to another jurist, according to two people briefed on the conversations.
The judges who approached Judge Cannon — including the chief judge in the Southern District of Florida, Cecilia M. Altonaga — each asked her to consider whether it would be better if she were to decline the high-profile case, allowing it to go to another judge, the two people said.
The extraordinary and previously undisclosed effort by Judge Cannon’s colleagues to persuade her to step aside adds another dimension to the increasing criticism of how she has gone on to handle the case.
She has broken, according to lawyers who operate there, with a general practice of federal judges in the Southern District of Florida of delegating some pretrial motions to a magistrate — in this instance, Judge Bruce E. Reinhart. While he is subordinate to her, Judge Reinhart is an older and much more experienced jurist. In 2022, he was the one who signed off on an F.B.I. warrant to search Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s club and residence in Florida, for highly sensitive government files that Mr. Trump kept after leaving office.
But Mr. Trump’s lawyers have also urged her to delay any trial until after the election, and her handling of the case has virtually ensured that they will succeed in that strategy. Should Mr. Trump retake the White House, he could order the Justice Department to drop the case.
As Judge Cannon’s handling of the case has come under intensifying scrutiny, her critics have suggested that she could be in over her head, in the tank for Mr. Trump — or both.
Against that backdrop, word of the early efforts by her colleagues on the bench to persuade her to step aside — and the significance of her decision not to do so — has spread among other federal judges and the people who know them.
Apparently, it’s not uncommon for judges to have such informal conversations with other judges and there’s no requirement that they take the advice.
The two people who discussed the efforts to persuade her to hand off the case spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter. Each had been told about it by different federal judges in the Southern District of Florida, including Judge Altonaga.
Neither of the people identified the second federal judge in Florida who had reached out to Judge Cannon. One of the people confirmed the effort to persuade Judge Cannon to step aside but did not describe the details of the conversations the two judges had with her. The other person offered more details.
This person said each outreach took place by telephone. The first judge to call Judge Cannon, this person said, suggested to her that it would be better for the case to be handled by a jurist based closer to the district’s busiest courthouse in Miami, where the grand jury that indicted Mr. Trump had sat.
At the time, the Miami courthouse also had a secure facility approved to hold the sort of highly classified information that would be discussed in pretrial motions and used as evidence in the case. Judge Cannon is the sole judge in the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, a two-hour drive north of Miami. The courthouse in Fort Pierce did not have a secure facility when she was assigned the case.
She refused and so the taxpayers had to pay to build one in her courthouse for this one case.
Then the Chief judge gave her a call and said:
It would be bad optics for Judge Cannon to oversee the trial because of what had happened during the criminal investigation that led to Mr. Trump’s indictment on charges of illegally retaining national security documents after leaving office and obstructing government efforts to retrieve them.
She was referring to the special master business which ended up being reversed in a scathing opinion by the 11th circuit court of appeals. Apparently, the Chief Judge thought it looked bad for Cannon to continue on the case under those circumstances and she was right.
“It is indeed extraordinary for a warrant to be executed at the home of a former president — but not in a way that affects our legal analysis or otherwise gives the judiciary license to interfere in an ongoing investigation,” the panel wrote.
Limits on when courts can interfere with a criminal investigation “apply no matter who the government is investigating,” it added. “To create a special exception here would defy our nation’s foundational principle that our law applies ‘to all, without regard to numbers, wealth or rank.’”
Considering what we’re hearing today from Trump’s lawyers and the whole right wing mediaverse, that sounds almost quaint although it must be noted that when Trump appealed the Supremes passed on this one.
As we know, Trump went on to be indicted and the case was randomly assigned to one of the handful of judges in the West Palm Beach, Fort Pierce or Fort Lauderdale divisions and she got chosen.
It appears that everyone knew she was too inexperienced or biased who had no business sitting on this case either way. She had a perfect out and refused to take it. That makes it obvious that she’s more biased than inexperienced.
Trump may be hostile to all the judges in his other cases. But he loves Aileen:
The right’s decades-long plot to destroy public education and replace it with right wing Christian indoctrination is coming to fruition
CNN reports on the latest assault on public education by the extreme right. They never quit.
Near the edge of the Phoenix metro’s urban sprawl, surrounded by a wide expanse of saguaro-studded scrubland, Dream City Christian School is in the midst of a major expansion.
The private school, which is affiliated with a local megachurch where former President Donald Trump held a campaign rally this month, recently broke ground on a new wing that will feature modern, airy classrooms and a pickleball court. It’s a sign of growth at a school that has partnered with a Trump-aligned advocacy group, and advertises to parents by vowing to fight “liberal ideology” such as “evolutionism” and “gender identification.”
Just a few miles away, the public Paradise Valley Unified School District is shrinking, not expanding. The district shuttered three of its schools last month amid falling enrollment, a cost-saving measure that has disrupted life for hundreds of families.
One of the factors behind Dream City’s success and Paradise Valley’s struggles: In Arizona, taxpayer dollars that previously went to public schools like the ones that closed are increasingly flowing to private schools – including those that adopt a right-wing philosophy.
Arizona was the first state in the country to enact a universal “education savings account” program – a form of voucher that allows any family to take tax dollars that would have gone to their child’s public education and spend the money instead on private schooling.
ACNN investigation found that the program has cost hundreds of millions of dollars more than anticipated, disproportionately benefited richer areas, and funneled taxpayer funds to unregulated private schools that don’t face the same educational standards and antidiscrimination protections that public schools do. Since Arizona’s expanded program took effect in 2022, according to state data, it has sent nearly $2 million to Dream City and likely sapped millions of dollars from Paradise Valley’s budget.
Louisiana just passed a law requiring the 10 Commandments to be posted in every classroom.
The desire to siphon off tax payer dollars to right wing Christian schools has been part of the conservative plane since at least the 1950s. They struggled for years but just kept at it. And now they are starting to succeed — with a majority on the high court that’s completely bought in on this idea.
"Here's the bad part: When you do testing to that extent, you're gonna find more people, you're gonna find more cases. So I said to my people, 'slow the testing down please!'" — Trump pic.twitter.com/m5MOV9je70
Trends are more important than individual polls. Since Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts (with more cases pending), polling trend lines now favor Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential race. Polling immediately after Trump’s convictions was too soon to pick up the shift. Two-time Trump voters have had enough. Donald Trump is bleeding support.
“My guess is right now, this is gonna be a blip,” pollster Lee Carter told Fox News’ Fox & Friends this morning. “I don’t think this is something that’s long term.
Sure. Just a flesh wound.
Significantly, there has been a large swing since May among independent voters toward Biden. And since they are the largest bloc of registrants in many states, independent turnout could be determinative.
Simon Rosenberg tweets, “We’ve had lots of polling this year suggesting a Trump guilty conviction could weaken his coalition and cost him voters (as it should). We now have 6 national polls showing Biden gaining 2-4 pts since the conviction. Election appears to be changing, getting bluer.”
The Fox poll was among registered voters.
The Politico/Ipsos poll this week found a significant potential weakening of Trump with independents and Republicans post-felony verdict. 2/ pic.twitter.com/EVYnPzetvl
From the Fox poll: "President Joe Biden is the frontrunner in a hypothetical matchup against [Trump] for the first time since October, as positive views of the economy inch up – hitting their highest level in the Biden presidency." Ruh roh Donald!!!!!! 4/ pic.twitter.com/GNolnTE5FC
One of the states where independents don’t register that way is the key state of Wisconsin. After Trump’s “I Hate Milwaukee” declaration, it’s hard to know how that will play out in Trump-country counties where Republicans and R-leaners would like to carve heavily Black and Democrat Milwaukee out of the state.
Still, WisDems state chair Ben Wikler is making the most of his high profile to knock the hot air out of his Republican sparring partners while promoting how Joe Biden’s policies have delivered.
It’s a thing of beauty.
Wikler: I think the more people find out about Trump, the better it is for Biden. The more people find out about Biden has done and plans to do, the better it is for Biden… Those who are paying attention to the news are siding with Biden, pic.twitter.com/Vb6OoqvjX9
So they want the Ten Commandments displayed in classrooms?
The Pelican State is in the news again. No, it’s not for House Speaker Mike “18th-century values” Johnson, or for Rep. Clay “I’d drop any 10 of you where you stand” Higgins, or for Sen. John “Wanna buy my pig?”* Kennedy, all Republicans.
Gov. Jeff Landry on Wednesday signed into law a bill requiring display of the Ten Commandments in every public classroom in Louisiana. This makes Louisiana the only state with such a requirement. A similar bill proposed in Texas last year failed.
Someone recently suggested that if Christian legislators insist that the Ten Commandments be displayed in public schools, make them display The Beatitudes (the words of Jesus) right beside them. It’d likely be a deal-breaker.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the Freedom From Religion Foundation promise to make Landry’s day.
“Our public schools are not Sunday schools,” the groups said in a joint statement, “and students of all faiths, or no faith, should feel welcome in them.”
“If you want to respect the rule of law,” Landry said, “you’ve got to start from the original law giver, which was Moses.” **
Donald Trump is only out for himself. I'm fighting for the American people.
That’s ironic, since 34-times convicted Donald Trump has made disrespecting the rule of law a centerpiece of his reelection campaign and the rest of the GOP seems inclined to fall in line.
The legislation is part of a broader campaign by conservative Christian groups to amplify public expressions of faith, and provoke lawsuits that could reach the Supreme Court, where they expect a friendlier reception than in years past. That presumption is rooted in recent rulings, particularly one in 2022 in which the court sided with a high school football coach who argued that he had a constitutional right to pray at the 50-yard line after his team’s games.
“The climate is certainly better,” said Charles C. Haynes, a senior fellow at the Freedom Forum and a scholar with an expertise in religious liberty and civil discourse, referring to the viewpoint of those who support the legislation.
Still, Mr. Haynes said that he found the enthusiasm behind the Louisiana law and other efforts unwarranted. “I think they are overreaching,” he said, adding that “even this court will have a hard time justifying” what lawmakers have conceived.
But we’ve already been surprised by what SCOTUS can justify. Just wait until the rollback of child labor laws reaches the originalists on the Roberts court.
The measure in Louisiana requires that the commandments be displayed in each classroom of every public elementary, middle and high school, as well as public college classrooms. The posters must be no smaller than 11 by 14 inches and the commandments must be “the central focus of the poster” and “in a large, easily readable font.”
It will also include a three-paragraph statement asserting that the Ten Commandments were a “prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries.”
In March, a graduate of Bob Jones University, no less, condemned the notion promoted by “authoritarian Christians” that the Bible was a major influence on crafting US. law. One citation in particular spells out where they want to take the country:
In The Case for Christian Nationalism, Stephen Wolfe adds: “The issue here centers on whether a Christian minority can establish a political state over the whole without the positive consent of the whole. I affirm they can. … Non-Christians living among us … are not entitled to political equality, nor do they have a right to deny the people of God their right to order civil institutions to God and to their complete good. … The Christian’s posture toward the earth ought to be that it is ours, not theirs, for we are co-heirs in Christ.”
So we’re not sure what parts of Deuteronomy and the Israelite conquest these men plan to promote. They’re apparently debating these ideas amongst themselves. But what is clear is this: Either we vote against authoritarian Christians or we’ll have to trust them to politically order us toward their God and plunder us against our consent in a way that isn’t too dehumanizing.
Would you bet your freedoms on that? Get your butts and your friends’ and families to the polls this November.
* Not a Kennedy quote, but I hear Pat Buttram (Mr. Haney from Green Acres) any time Kennedy opens his mouth.
** I thought God was the lawgiver and Moses just the messenger. And neither of them appeared at the Constitutional Convention, no matter what Mike Johnson thinks.
Within weeks, the nation will deploy 9,000 people to begin restoring landscapes, erecting solar panels, and taking other steps to help guide the country toward a cleaner, greener future.
The first of those workers were inducted into the American Climate Corps on Tuesday during a virtual event from the White House. Their swearing-in marks another step forward for the Biden administration’s ambitious climate agenda. The program, which President Joe Biden announced within days of taking office in 2021, is a modern version of the Climate Conservation Corps, the New Deal-era project that put 3 million men to work planting trees and building national parks.
During the ceremony, the inaugural members of the corps promised to work “on behalf of our nation and planet, its people, and all its species, for the better future we hold within our sight.”
The American Climate Corps was among the first things Biden announced as president, but it took a while to secure funding and get started. More than 20,000 young people are expected to join during the program’s first year, according to the White House, with new openings appearing on the American Climate Corps job site in the months ahead. The pay varies depending on the location and experience required, with open positions ranging from around $11 to $28 an hour.
The administration is promoting the corps as a way for young people to jump-start green careers. In April, the White House announced a partnership with TradesFutures, a nonprofit construction company, a sign that the program might help fill the country’s shortage of skilled workers who can help electrify everything. The White House will also place members in so-called “energy communities” like former coal-mining towns to help with environmental remediation and other projects.
“Whether it’s managing forests in the Pacific Northwest, deploying clean energy across the Southwest, or promoting sustainable farming practices throughout the heartland, the president’s American Climate Corps is providing thousands of young Americans with the skills and experience to advance a more sustainable, just tomorrow,” White House climate advisor Ali Zaidi said in a press release on Tuesday.
This seems like something worth celebrating. Unfortunately it seems to be another great policy that nobody knows about.
I didn’t know this but it seems like it should be relevant. I hope the Biden debate prep people are on it. (It’s probably too much to ask that the moderators are.) Jonathan Chait explains:
One of the most underappreciated developments of Donald Trump’s presidency is that his strategy toward China was a total failure on its own terms. While Trump began his presidency as a snarling trade warrior, bent on ending Chinese manufacturing dominance, he ended his presidency as a whimpering apologist for Beijing.
The culmination of Trump’s standoff with China was a trade deal that supposedly committed China to purchasing $200 billion worth of American goods. Robert O’Brien, a former Trump national security adviser, admits that the Chinese never actually carried out their end of the deal. “I don’t think we’re going to see a deal like we saw in the first term,” he told Semafor’s Morgan Chalfant. “I think people were generally happy with phase one, but as it turned out, the Chinese didn’t honor it.”
You don’t say? Huh.
Recall that he demeaned China at every turn until they set of his deal at which time he said, “Terrific working with President Xi, a man who truly loves his country. Much more to come!”
Then COVID hit and Trump did everything he could to keep the deal going even though people were dropping dead and the world economy was shutting down. It led Trump to weeks of playing down the crisis to keep his precious deal on track.
Chait writes:
So O’Brien’s confession that the deal didn’t actually pay off is a pretty damning one. Of course, there are plenty of former Trump advisers who now admit Trump was an ignorant, lying criminal, but O’Brien is not some repentant former lackey. He is very much an ongoing lackey continuing to jostle for influence in a possible second term.
Chait reports that there are some people in Trump’s orbit who think there is another approach to limit China’s involvement in EVs. Even OBrien says they’s have to work with allies to make it happen which seems like a tough lift since Trump is saying he plans to enact at least a 10% tariff on ALL foreign goods, possible even more so that he can replace the income tax and party like it’s 1825. It’s unlikely our (probably former) allies will be working with the US on much of anything under those circumstances.
As he points out, Trump has been slagging American allies for years and he’s not likely to stop:
For nearly as long, Trump has also been drooling over the world’s autocracies. Russia, famously, is the apple of his eye, but he has room in his heart for more than one dictator. Trump praised the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1990. (“Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak.”) After becoming president, he continued to fawn over China’s very strong leadership, congratulating Xi Jinping for making himself president for life and touting his brilliance and toughness.
The known methods for foreign countries to woo Trump involve a combination of payoffs and flattery. Authoritarian states have natural advantages at this game. They have weak or nonexistent laws against corruption, and their leaders can engage in nauseating displays of friendship with a hated figure like Trump without fear of alienating domestic constituencies.
Trump’s instincts tell him that allies are enemies and enemies are allies because the latter can do just that — woo and flatter and tell him how great he is. It’s pathetic but that’s how it is. Anything that requires America to rely on our historic alliances will be blown to smithereens in a second Trump presidency. And our adversaries will be pleased as punch.
