At 25, Anderson Clayton is currently the youngest state party leader. She took over the North Carolina Democratic Party with goals to reconnect with rural voters and engage the younger generation. https://t.co/6RN5jeLapl
Clayton is not shy about painting the challenge North Carolina Democrats face in 2024. One would be the leading Republican contender for governor.
“Mark Robinson would be the most extreme gubernatorial candidate but also governor that we’ve ever seen in our history,” said Anderson Clayton, the chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party. #ncpol 🧵https://t.co/4JqucuDrP7
— Anderson Clayton☀️ (@abreezeclayton) May 6, 2023
“And Mark Robinson is only going to be the person who’s going to make that worse.”
— Anderson Clayton☀️ (@abreezeclayton) May 6, 2023
In case you need reminding, Clayton’s talking about this guy:
“Tell our enemies on the other side of the aisle that would drag this nation down into a socialist hellhole that you will only do it as you run past me laying on the ground choking on my own blood — Christian patriots of this nation will own this nation and rule this nation.”
We cannot overstate the fanatical Christian nationalism preached by North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who told a crowd today that "the Christian patriots of this nation will own this nation and rule this nation." https://t.co/XedNV0LHySpic.twitter.com/2EkibTlro4
AG Josh Stein, Democrats’ leading contender for governor, has a close race on his hands in a political environment that is terra incognita for Democrats.
Unaffiliated voters (what NC calls independents) are the largest bloc of registered voters in NC (36%), making getting to a winning vote margin of 50%+1 a challenge for Democrats. In 2020 and 2022, UNAs voted AGAINST the top Democrat on the ticket by 58% statewide.
But UNAs vote heavily blue in tons of precincts in the state’s largest counties while turning out at 8-10 percent (or more) below Democrats on their streets. NC Dems can leverage that “left behind” vote if, for once, they can think and campaign outside their microtargeting box. I’d cast a net into a school of fish. Democrats traditionally throw a hook.
Ukraine’s air force claimed Saturday to have downed a Russian hypersonic missile over Kyiv using newly acquired American Patriot defense systems, the first known time the country has been able to intercept one of Moscow’s most modern missiles.
Air Force commander Mykola Oleshchuk said in a Telegram post that the Kinzhal-type ballistic missile had been intercepted in an overnight attack on the Ukrainian capital earlier in the week. It was also the first time Ukraine is known to have used the Patriot defense systems.
“Yes, we shot down the ‘unique’ Kinzhal,” Oleshchuk wrote. “It happened during the night time attack on May 4 in the skies of the Kyiv region.”
Oleshchuk said the Kh-47 missile was launched by a MiG-31K aircraft from the Russian territory and was shot down with a Patriot missile.
Then there was the unidentified drone exploding this week over the Kremlin. Kyiv denied involvement, a spokesman claiming two drones were fired at Moscow by “local resistance forces.”
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 6 May 2023.
Moscow has responded by cancelling several Victory Day parades (The Guardian):
Concerns in the Russian leadership about its vulnerability to attacks and the potential for public protests over the Ukraine war have contributed to the decision to cancel many Victory Day parades, citing security concerns, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said.
In its latest intelligence briefing, the ministry said six Russian regions, occupied Crimea and 21 cities had cancelled their parades on Tuesday marking the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany.
The ministry said:
The timing of the UAV [drone] strike on the Kremlin a few days before Victory Day shows Russia’s increasing vulnerability to such attacks and has almost certainly raised the threat perception of the Russian leadership over the Victory Day events.
The potential for protests and discontent over the Ukraine war are also likely to have influenced the calculus of the Russian leadership.
I wonder if they will serve them coronation chicken on the day? It was invented for Queen Elizabeth’s coronation and apparently she liked it very much. It’s quite good. If you haven’t ever had it you should try it. With a crisp G&T or a nice (American style) cold beer:
Step 1Heat oven to 350 degrees. Rub chicken on all sides with olive oil, season generously with salt and pepper and arrange on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake until skin is golden and meat is cooked through, about 45 minutes. Let chicken cool slightly, then remove skin and bones and chop meat into bite-size pieces. Set aside.
Step 2Meanwhile, melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté until translucent, 5 to 7 minutes. Add the red wine, mango chutney, tomato purée, curry powder, lemon juice and bay leaf and bring to a simmer. Continue simmering, stirring occasionally and adjusting heat as necessary, until sauce is quite thick, 8 to 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper; remove and discard bay leaf.
Step 3Transfer sauce to a large bowl and let cool to room temperature, then add the mayonnaise and stir to combine. Add the cooled chicken and the apricots and stir to coat them in the sauce. Season to taste with salt and pepper. For sandwiches, spread the chicken salad on thick slices of English white bread or seven-grain bread. Cut off crusts if making finger sandwiches for tea.
Geraldo Rivera: “Is Donald Trump fit to be president?”
Former Trump AG Bill Barr: “He does not have the ability for strategic thinking and linear thinking … It is a horror show when he’s left to his own devices … He will deliver chaos.” pic.twitter.com/uNUumukl2h
He already did Bill and you helped. For four long years we put up with his antics and he’s trying for another four (or more.) And Bill Barr as much as anyone in the whole GOP establishment helped him do it. The way he handled the Mueller Report and the various cases against Trump associates showed him to be a top henchman and accomplice.
He’s right, of course. But most of us have known that from the beginning. Barr thought he could use him to advance his own pet causes so he was willing to put with it. Then he lost and staged a coup and Barr said to himself, “Huh, maybe I should desert this sinking ship before I go down with it.” He has a whole lot to answer for and just stating the obvious isn’t going to do it.
A portion of the Donald Trump's E. Jean Carroll deposition video that was shown at trial shows the former president mistakenly identifying Carroll as his former wife Marla in an old photo. https://t.co/NKC63D3mO2pic.twitter.com/fGe8ml6ZKD
During the October deposition, Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan showed Trump a late-1980s photo of him with his then-wife Ivana, Carroll and her then-husband John Johnson. Referring to Carroll, Trump said, “It’s Marla,” referring to his second wife, Marla Maples.
“That’s Marla, yeah. That’s my wife,” he said, before being corrected, and told it was Carroll. The writer sued Trump for defamation and battery after he said she “made up” allegations that he raped her in a New York City department store in the mid-1990s. Trump has adamantly denied the allegations and claimed Carroll “is not my type.”
The picture is not blurry:
The court released his deposition today and there will be more excerpts released throughout the day. That one is a doozy.
So are these:
Trump defends his comments from the “Access Hollywood” tape in his taped deposition:
Trump: “Historically, that’s true with stars…If you look over the last million years, I guess that’s been largely true. Not always, but largely true. Unfortunately or fortunately.” pic.twitter.com/FqtTVFF2oE
— Republican Voters Against Trump (@AccountableGOP) May 5, 2023
More newly released video of Donald Trump’s rape trial deposition:
Lawyer: “When you said … that Ms. Leeds would not be your ‘first choice’ — you were referring to her physical looks, correct?”
There is also no reason that the following piece does not explain that Democrats have never held the debt ceiling hostage and voted to extend it without any drama in the Bush and Trump years. This kind of coverage without the context to understand the dynamic means those Independents who blame both parties probably don’t understand what really going on.
The poll finds 39 percent of Americans say they would blame Republicans in Congress if the government goes into default, while 36 percent say they would blame President Biden and 16 percent volunteer that they would blame both equally. (That dynamic is similar to the 2011 debt limit showdown, when 42 percent said they would blame congressional Republicans and 36 percent said they would blame President Obama. Lawmakers averted a default that year.)
Opinionsfall sharply along party lines, with Republicans just as likely to blame Biden (78 percent) as Democrats are to blame congressional Republicans (78 percent). A 37 percent plurality of independents say they would blame Republicans, with the remainder divided between Biden (29 percent) and blaming both equally (24 percent).
In fairness, they do mention this way down in the story:
During the Trump administration, Republicans raised the debt limit several times without calling for spending cuts.
It’s only deeper into the story that we see it’s not nearly as evenly divided as they portray it in the opening paragraphs:
A 58 percent majority of Americans say the debt limit and federal spending should be handled as separate issues, down from 65 percent who said this in February. A much smaller 26 percent of Americans say Congress should only allow the government to pay its debts if Biden agrees to cut spending, the same share as February.
What? How can that be? I thought they blamed both parties equally. It seems to be a little bit more complicated than that. Still they manage to make it sound as if the Democrats are the ones in trouble:
Most Democrats and independents say the debt limit should be handled separately from federal spending, although the share saying this declined by nine percentage points to 74 percent among Democrats, and by 15 points to 58 percent among independents since February.
Republicans are more divided, with 46 percent saying the debt limit and spending should be handled separately and 40 percent saying the ceiling should be lifted only if Biden agrees to cut spending. In February, 48 percent of Republicans said the debt limit should be tied to spending cuts.
Blame for a possible default varies by age and education. Americans 65 and older are more likely to blame Republicans in Congress if the government goes into default (47 percent) than adults under 40, 35 percent of whom say the same. Americans with college degrees are also more likely to lay blame on Republicans (47 percent) than those without four-year degrees (35 percent).
The truth is that more Republicans believe the debt limit and spending cuts should be handled separately. Imagine if that was the headline. It should be.
Democrats pay the bills no matter who is in the White House. Republicans only pay the bills when a Republican is in the White House. Under a Democratic president they threaten the world economy to force him to enact their agenda. This has happened over and over again. It’s not as if the media can’t make this clear when they report the story. This is why we can’t have nice things.
For some reason he seems to think this is a great campaign message
cutting off "private parts" and executing pedophiles are the notes DeSantis hit at the end of his legislative session-ending news conference today pic.twitter.com/PJXTqsYscS
I know there is a constituency for this blood-thirsty rhetoric but he doesn’t do it with the cartoon-like, WWE glee that Trump does so I suspect even some of Trump’s people may find it just plain icky to hear him say it. Trump has the ability to make violence sound fun even to people who normally might have a tiny bit of conscience. They think it’s schtick. This guy sounds as serious as a heart attack. I don’t think that plays nearly as well.
Not bloody likely. But it’s probably all we’ve got. The Court has gone rogues and the entire GOP supports it.
It seems as though the press is dropping a new Clarence Thomas corruption scandal every day. Yesterday we got two. First, Pro-Publica published yet another story about Thomas’ wealthy benefactor Harlan Crow passing on a lavish gift to his pal which Thomas once again failed to report. This time, it was private school tuition for the grand-nephew Thomas and his wife Ginni have said they raised like he was their own son since he was 6 years old. By evening, we found out that Federalist Society guru Leonard Leo instructed longtime GOP operative Kellyanne Conway back in 2012 to have her polling firm bill his nonprofit group “another $25,000” but give the money to Ginni Thomas — adding, with “no mention of Ginni, of course.”
What the hell is going on here?
It’s bad enough that Ginni Thomas is a hardcore far-right Republican activist who even participated in the coup attempt of 2020 and spouted QAnon conspiracy theories. This was not a huge surprise since she’s been working in far-right circles for some time, even helming her own Tea Party group and working with the shadowy Groundswell organization. But it’s particularly unnerving since her husband was the lone Justice to dissent from the Supreme Court’s rejection of former President Donald Trump’s bid to block the release of some presidential records to the January 6 committee. She claimed that she never talks to the man she famously calls her “best friend” about any of that — which nobody believes. So we’re left with the fact that while it’s unseemly that she’s so involved in issues that come before the court in the first place, and her husband refuses to recuse himself, they both are completely shameless about their rank partisanship so there doesn’t seem to be anything anyone can do about it.
To be precise, this isn’t exactly news. Back in 2004, the Los Angeles Times published a big expose of Crow’s lavish gifts to Thomas, which he wasn’t disclosing. And in 2011, Ian Millhiser, then at Think Progress, came out with yet another article revealing even more examples of Crow’s largesse to the Thomases. They both made brief splashes at the time but Thomas didn’t care and that was that. We’ll have to see if this time is different.
The story about Leonard Leo in cahoots with Kellyanne Conway to secretly funnel money to Ginni Thomas is a new twist. We knew that Crow had bankrolled Ginni’s activist group Liberty Central back in 2009 with over half a million dollars, $120,000 of which was used to pay her salary. As it happens, Leonard Leo co-founded that group with Ginni Thomas and the non-profit he told Conway to bill for her non-existent services filed a brief in a landmark case, Shelby County v. Holder, which was the first step in gutting the Voting Rights Act. So Crow may not have had immediate business before the court but Leo certainly did. The opinion was 5-4 with Thomas voting in the majority. I doubt the money caused Thomas to vote the way he did — he has always been hostile to the right to vote — but it certainly is nice to have so many good friends with similar ideas making a public servant’s life so comfortable, isn’t it?
In 2010, Ginni left the group so that it would not be encumbered by the distractions her “media celebrity” was causing. This happened shortly after it was revealed that Ginni had left a message with Anita Hill, the woman who had accused Thomas of sexual harassment back in 1992, demanding an apology. Shortly thereafter, Justice Thomas amended 13 years of his financial disclosures after having omitted his wife’s employment. He said he had misunderstood the rules. It seems to be an ongoing problem with Thomas, which is odd for a man who is charged with interpreting the U.S. Constitution.
Then came all the lavish trips and the purchasing of Thomas’ mother’s house, which she lives in rent-free, and various other perks and presents, none of which Thomas disclosed even after having been caught numerous times in the past. He seems so addled about all this that you have to wonder if he might have neglected to claim all these gifts on his taxes which would not just be an ethical violation but an illegal one as well. Maybe nobody told him that either. He’s just an old country Supreme Court justice, after all.
With the revelations about Ginni Thomas combined with the sheer volume of Harlan Crow’s cash and the justice’s ongoing refusal to disclose it, we might finally be reaching a tipping point. But it’s a long shot. The Senate can hold more hearings and give Ted Cruz a platform to say “high tech lynching” again but Chief Justice John Roberts claims there is a separation of powers issue that precludes him, and I assume any other justice, from testifying so that’s not going anywhere. They can bring Harlan Crow up to the Hill but I’m not sure what good that would do as long as the Republicans are protecting Thomas. And Roberts could push through some new ethics requirements but he doesn’t seem inclined to do it and anyway. This looks like rank corruption which some new norms and rules won’t fix. Disclosure requirements are supposed to make judges embarrassed to take big sums of money from “friends” and cause them to recuse themselves when there are conflicts of interest (or the appearance of such conflicts.) Thomas obviously has no such concerns and neither do his defenders.
Obviously, impeachment is off the table with the House in the hands of Marjorie Taylor Greene and her loyal manservant Kevin McCarthy. Even if the Democrats were in control, the Senate doesn’t have even close to the votes to convict. (So much for our vaunted checks and balances.) That leaves the only option being Thomas resigning in disgrace and I am quite sure that will never happen. He won’t even stop taking “gifts” from Harlan Crow.
As long as Clarence Thomas is the patron saint of the right-wing legal establishment, he will not be held liable for his actions. He can do what he wants and he knows it. He could have accepted suitcases full of hundred dollar bills on the courthouse steps and Ginni could have rampaged through the Capitol chanting “hang Mike Pence” and it would have changed nothing. The Supreme Court has a radical majority made up of hard-right extremists and Republican partisans and apparently at least one of them is openly corrupt and they have gone rogue. And they have the full support of the Republican Party.
The country has lost trust in the institution and the members of that institution could not care less. That’s a serious problem for our system of government and unless the political system wakes up and takes some kind of action like passing term limits or expanding the numbers of justices (very difficult to do, of course) we are in for decades of turmoil no matter who sits in the White House or has a majority in Congress.
I know, the Market is not the average American’s lived experience. But damned if Republicans don’t treat it that way when it’s going their way. Except under a Democratic president.
Investor’s Business Daily: Dow Jones Surges 450 Points On Strong Jobs Report. AAPL Stock Jumps On Earnings.
Barron’s: The Jobs Data Were Hotter Than Expected. Why the Stock Market Is Celebrating.
In March 2021, more than 4 million workers were “missing” from the job market as a result of early retirements, a lack of child care, covid illness and death, and slowdowns in immigration. More than 75 percent of that shortfall has been filled, according to a Washington Post analysis, as new and returning workers help boost labor-force participation back to pre-pandemic levels. The share of adults who have a job or are looking for one is back to where it was in March 2020.
Watch for the negative spin from the right’s Eeyores. And from “labor participation truthers,” cautions Carolina Forward.
Not remotely the biggest news in #ncpol, but – another HUGE jobs report out today.
235,000 new jobs in the U.S. last month, massively over-performing expectations. The U.S. unemployment rate drops to 3.4%, the lowest since 1969.
For a long time, the "labor participation truther" crowd has insisted that U.S. unemployment was *secretly* much higher, because the BLS was juking the stats and ignoring the participation rate, or something 🤷♀️
Today's report pretty well puts that to bed. (They won't care.)
