The Conversation -- March 5, 2024

Hannah Knowles & Marianne LeVine of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump is poised to continue his march to the GOP presidential nomination on Tuesday, when 15 states will vote to award more than a third of the party';s delegates and test how quickly Republicans are coalescing behind the former president." ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times is live-updating Super Tuesday developments.

Imagine a second-born son who rises to prominence in the wake of his older brother's death. Considered dashing in his youth, this son is a narcissist who at last has his father's eye. The son spends more lavishly than the father ever imagined, has a series of loveless marriages that are more for show, rises to lead his country and becomes a fat, ill-tempered old man who feels no limit on his power and strikes fear in his subordinates... This is Henry VIII, of course. Who did you think I was describing? -- Anonymous. Thanks to RAS for the link

** Arizona. Alexandra Marquez & Sahil Kapur of NBC News: "Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema announced Tuesday that she will not run for re-election this year, leaving the Senate after one term that saw her paint Arizona blue, leave the Democratic Party and play a key role in numerous legislative negotiations in a tightly divided Senate.... Sinema's decision paves the way for a tough and expensive fight for her seat -- though it will be more straightforward than the messy three-way contest she would have prompted by staying in. The leading Republican, 2022 gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, and the leading Democrat, Rep. Ruben Gallego, are already running hard to replace Sinema. In her video, Sinema said partisan warfare has carried the day."

Arizona. Jack Healy of the New York Times: "Gov. Katie Hobbs of Arizona vetoed a bill on Monday that would have authorized the state police to arrest undocumented immigrants. It was the first veto of the year from Ms. Hobbs, a Democrat who shot down a record number of bills passed by Arizona's Republican-controlled Legislature in 2023 dealing with abortion, elections, L.G.B.T.Q. rights and other hot-button issues."

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Presidential Race

Tom Sullivan of Hullabaloo: :The New Yorker [Monday] morning offers a peek behind ... closed doors. John Harwood tweets that the interview, like his own last fall, 'shows talk of his alleged mental decline as utter bullshit.' Evan Osnos writes: 'If you spend time with [President] Biden these days, the biggest surprise is that he betrays no doubts. The world is riven by the question of whether he is up to a second term, but he projects a defiant belief in himself and his ability to persuade Americans to join him.'... Republicans mean to fuck you over and gut your freedoms. What are you prepared to do about it? At a minimum, get off your ass." MB: If you can access New Yorker articles, this would be a place to do so. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Now, this guy, this guy is reading from a teleprompter: ~~~

Montage of 32 clips from Trump’s two speeches yesterday where he mispronounced words, got confused, mixed up names, forgot names, and babbled insane nonsense. pic.twitter.com/SQeURo2zhd

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) March 3, 2024

     ~~~ Stephen Colbert has some commentary here.

     ~~~ Marie: I'll admit I don't listen to many Trump speeches, but if the clips they play on the teevee are any indication, Trump's ability to speak is deteriorating significantly. This isn't about a little glitch like talking about using the word "oranges" for "origins." Trump had trouble with finding single words back then. Today he loses whole clauses in the middle of a sentence he's reading from the teleprompter. I hate picking on sick people, but for the good of the nation, a Biden PAC should be running these clips in ads.

CBS/AP: "Donald Trump won the North Dakota Republican presidential caucuses on Monday, adding to his string of victories heading into Super Tuesday. The former president finished first in voting conducted at 12 caucus sites, ahead of former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley."

Supreme Court Rules for Trump re: Colorado Ballot. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that states may not bar ... Donald J. Trump from running for another term, rejecting a challenge from Colorado to his eligibility that threatened to upend the presidential race by taking him off ballots around the nation. Though the justices provided different reasons, the decision's bottom line was unanimous. All the opinions focused on legal issues, and none took a position on whether Mr. Trump had engaged in insurrection, as Colorado courts had found.... The five-justice majority, in an unsigned opinion answering questions not directly before the court, ruled that Congress must act to give Section 3 force.... In a series of unusual moves, the court did not announce that it would issue an opinion until Sunday and did not take the bench to do so on Monday, instead simply posting the decision on its website. The decision was the court's most important ruling concerning a presidential election since George W. Bush prevailed in Bush v. Gore in 2000."

The New York Times liveblogged the ruling as it came down. The CNN liveblog of the Supreme Court's decision is here. Politico's report is here. The Washington Post's story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ You can read the decision & concurring opinions here, via the Court. (Also linked yesterday.)

Marie: To see how the Court got to its 9-0 decision, see yesterday's Comments, where -- near the end -- RAS links to a Mark Stern column in Slate. Based on what he calls "Supreme Court metadata," Stern asserts that Justice Sotomayor wrote a dissent, that Justices Kagan & Jackson later signed onto in what the three agreed would be a concurrence.

Robert Chariato, et al., of the New York Times: "... reaction to the ruling showed that the challenges to Mr. Trump's candidacy had hardened political dividing lines and angered Republicans who saw the lawsuits as an antidemocratic attempt to meddle in the election. And the ruling was handed down as voters in more than a dozen states prepared for Super Tuesday primaries.... The former president had remained on the ballot in the three states to disqualify him -- Colorado, Illinois and Maine -- while he appealed those rulings. The Supreme Court's opinion provided a final resolution.... 'I believe Colorado should be able to bar oath-breaking insurrectionists from our presidential ballot, but the U.S. Supreme Court disagrees,' said Jena Griswold, the Colorado secretary of state and a Democrat. 'So in accordance with that, Donald Trump is an eligible candidate and votes for him will be counted in the state of Colorado.' Shenna Bellows, Maine's Democratic secretary of state who ruled in December that Mr. Trump was not eligible to appear on the state's primary ballot, issued an updated ruling on Monday reflecting the Supreme Court decision."

David French of the New York Times: "It's worth noting that ... the court did not exonerate Trump from participating in an insurrection. But instead..., the court went with arguably the broadest reasoning available: that Section 3 [of the Fourteenth Amendment] isn't self-executing, and thus has no force or effect in the absence of congressional action. This argument is rooted in Section 5 of the amendment, which states that 'Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.' But Section 5, on its face, does not give Congress exclusive power to enforce the amendment. As Justices Elena Kagan, [Sonia] Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson pointed out in their own separate concurring opinion, 'All the Reconstruction amendments ... "are self-executing," meaning that they do not depend on legislation.'... It's extremely difficult to square this ruling with the text of Section 3. The language is clearly mandatory.... Section 3 now stands apart not only from the rest of the 14th Amendment, but also from the other constitutional requirements for the presidency."

Ku Klux Kourt. Manisha Sinha in a CNN opinion column: "The framers of the 14th Amendment meant for it to be binding -- if they didn't, they would not have made it a part of the fundamental law of the country. A constitutional mandate is, most importantly, self-enforcing. It does not require a law or a trial to enforce it.... In ruling that Trump should stay on the presidential ballot of 2024, the Supreme Court has delivered a mortal blow to Section 3 that basically eviscerates its power altogether. In doing so, the court is living up to its sorry 19th-century history of emasculating Reconstruction federal civil rights laws and constitutional amendments.... For the conservative majority in the Supreme Court to ignore this historical testimony is tantamount to betraying their own principles of constitutional interpretation, originalism that looks to the original intent of the framers of the Constitution. For them, it's strict construction for thee but not for me.... The interracial democracy of Reconstruction was overthrown not just by domestic terror in the postwar South perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan and similar racist groups, but also by a series of reactionary judicial decisions rendered by the Supreme Court in [the 1870s, '80s & '90s]...."

Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "... to this date -- including this date, in fact -- Trump has in no significant way been held accountable. That includes government institutions that are the product of our democracy proving unwilling or unable to implement any accountability.... One would assume that a democratic system predicated on checks and balances would have some process in place to enforce punitive measures when democracy itself was threatened or undermined, but it does not. It has decisions from motivated actors, enough of whom agree politically or ideologically with Trump that ... anything short of Trump retaining power [illegally and/or by force] doesn't count as a substantive challenge to democracy and, therefore, that his participation in the democratic process should be defended." Thanks to RAS for the link.

Monday was a good day in court for others in Trump's insurrection gang, too:

~~~ Wisconsin. Sophia Tareen of the AP: "Two attorneys for ... Donald Trump orchestrated a plan for fake electors to file paperwork falsely saying the Republican won Wisconsin in a strategy to overturn Joe Biden's 2020 victory there and in other swing states, according to a lawsuit settlement reached Monday that makes public months of texts and emails. Under their agreements, Kenneth Chesebro and Jim Troupis turned over more than 1,400 pages of documents, emails and text messages, along with photos and video, offering a detailed account of the scheme's origins in Wisconsin. The communications show how they, with coordination from Trump campaign officials, replicated the strategy in six other states including Georgia, where Chesebro has already pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the 2020 election. The agreements settle a civil lawsuit brought by Democrats in 2022 against the two attorneys and 10 Republicans in Wisconsin who posed as fake electors. The Republicans settled in December." (Also linked yesterday.)

AND in Nevada. Ken Ritter of the AP: "Six Republicans accused of submitting certificates to Congress falsely declaring Donald Trump the winner of Nevada's 2020 presidential election won't be standing trial until early next year, a judge determined Monday. Clark County District Court Judge Mary Kay Holthus pushed the trial, initially scheduled for this month, back to Jan. 13, 2025, because of conflicting schedules, and set a hearing for next month to consider a bid by the defendants to throw out the indictment. The defendants are state GOP chairman Michael McDonald, national party committee member Jim DeGraffenreid, Clark County party chair Jesse Law, Storey County clerk Jim Hindle, national and Douglas County committee member Shawn Meehan and Eileen Rice, a party member from the Lake Tahoe area." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: That's great. Now, instead of being convicted felons, they all can be fake electors again! Justice delayed ...

AND in Georgia. Richard Fausset & Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "Defense lawyers in the Georgia election interference case against ... Donald J. Trump say they want to put someone on the stand whose testimony could back up their assertion that Terrence Bradley, a witness in their effort to disqualify the prosecutors running the case, gave misleading testimony. The new information comes from Cindi Lee Yeager, a deputy district attorney in neighboring Cobb County, Ga., whom the defense lawyers said they spoke to on Friday about conversations she has had with Mr. Bradley.... The filing stated that according to Ms. Yeager, Mr. Bradley told her that 'Mr. Wade had definitively begun a romantic relationship with Ms. Willis during the time that Ms. Willis was running for district attorney in 2019 through 2020.'" The NBC News story is here.

BUT in New York.... Ben Protess, et al., of the New York Times: "Allen H. Weisselberg, a longtime lieutenant to ... Donald J. Trump, pleaded guilty to felony perjury charges in a Manhattan courtroom on Monday, the latest twist in his tortured legal odyssey. Mr. Weisselberg, who for years has remained steadfastly loyal to Mr. Trump in the face of intense prosecutorial pressure, is not expected to implicate his former boss. That unbroken streak of loyalty has frustrated prosecutors and already once cost him his freedom. Mr. Weisselberg, who was led into the courtroom in handcuffs wearing a blue surgical mask and a dark suit, conceded that in recent years he had lied under oath to the New York attorney general's office when it was investigating Mr. Trump for fraud." This is an update of a story linked earlier yesterday. The AP's report is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Forbes Magazine outted Weisselberg, who testified in two depositions and on the stand that he "never focused" on the size of Trump's Trump Tower apartment, which the Trump Org claimed to lending institutions was about triple the size it actually is. "Yet soon after [his trial testimony], Forbes magazine, which compiles a list of America's richest people, published an article citing emails and notes showing that Mr. Weisselberg 'played a key role in trying to convince Forbes over the course of several years' of the apartment's value."

Marianna Spring of the BBC: "BBC Panorama discovered dozens of deepfakes portraying black people as supporting [Donald Trump].... But there's no evidence directly linking these images to Mr Trump's campaign. The co-founder of Black Voters Matter, a group which encourages black people to vote, said the manipulated images were pushing a 'strategic narrative' designed to show Mr Trump as popular in the black community.... Unlike in 2016, when there was evidence of foreign influence campaigns, the AI-generated images found by the BBC appear to have been made and shared by US voters themselves." MB: So gratifying to know we're in another post-Sputnik-type era, where U.S. "scientists" catch up with and eventually may surpass Russian technological advances. U.S.A.! U.S.A.! (Also linked yesterday.)

Julie Weil of the Washington Post: "After weeks of testing, the IRS's new government-run website for free tax filing is now open for the rest of this year's tax season to users in 12 states. The Direct File website, the Biden administration's attempt to test a free competitor to commercial software like Intuit's TurboTax, is debuting midway through tax season, at a time when more than two-thirds of all households have yet to file their returns. Taxpayers who live in the participating states and whose taxes are simple enough to qualify can create an account on the site and file their taxes any time, starting Monday, the IRS announced. For this year, Direct File excludes some groups of taxpayers, including the self-employed and those with wages of more than $200,000 a year."

AP: "A civilian U.S. Air Force employee has been charged in federal court in Nebraska with transmitting classified information about Russia's war with Ukraine on a foreign online dating platform, the Justice Department said Monday. David Franklin Slater, 63, who authorities say retired as an Army lieutenant colonel and was assigned to the U.S. Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base, was arrested Saturday on charges of illegally disclosing national defense information and conspiring to do so. Prosecutors say Slater attended briefings between February and April 2022 about Russia's war with Ukraine and, despite having signed paperwork pledging not to disclose classified information, shared details about military targets and Russian capabilities on an online messaging platform with an unindicted co-conspirator who claimed to be a woman living in Ukraine."

Leslie Josephs & Rebecca Picciotto of CNBC: "JetBlue Airways and Spirit Airlines on Monday said they were terminating their merger agreement weeks after losing a federal antitrust lawsuit that challenged the deal." (Also linked yesterday.)

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Florida. Anumita Kaur of the Washington Post: "A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a ruling that blocked Florida from enforcing a law, backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, that restricts how private companies teach diversity and inclusion in the workplace. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled Monday that the 'Stop Woke Act' 'exceeds the bounds' of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment right to freedom of speech and expression in its attempts to regulate workplace trainings on race, color, sex and national origin. The appeals court upheld a federal judge's August 2022 ruling that said the same.... The 'Stop Woke Act' prohibits trainings in workplaces, public schools, colleges and universities that could lead someone to feel guilty or ashamed about the historic actions of their race or sex."

Florida. Mike Schneider of the AP: "Gov. Ron DeSantis has a new job for the man who has led Walt Disney World's government since his allies took it over -- elections supervisor in Orange County, long one of Florida's most reliable sources of Democratic votes. Glen Gilzean was appointed Monday by the Republican governor to oversee voting in Florida's fifth-largest county, where more than 1.4 million residents live among the largest theme park resorts in the U.S. Just last May, Gilzean was chosen to be administrator of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight Committee after DeSantis' allies took over the Disney World governing district.... In a joint statement, a group of federal and state Democratic lawmakers in the Orlando area, including U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, said Gilzean's appointment was just the latest example of DeSantis naming unqualified loyalists to elected positions 'so he can control every part of our state and local governments and warp our democracy to his will.'" MB: As far as I can tell from other reporting, Gilzean is a Republican. Gilzean has not experience running elections; the job pays $400K/year.

Texas. Acacia Coronado & Lindsay Whitehurst of the AP: "Texas' plans to arrest migrants who enter the U.S. illegally and order them to leave the country is headed to the Supreme Court in a legal showdown over the federal government's authority over immigration. An order issued Monday by Justice Samuel Alito puts the new Texas law on hold for at least next week while the high court considers what opponents have called the most dramatic attempt by a state to police immigration since an Arizona law more than a decade ago. The law, known as Senate Bill 4, had been set to take effect Saturday under a decision by the conservative-leaning 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Alito's order pushed that date back until March 13 and came just hours after the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to intervene."

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Israel/Palestine, et al.

The Washington Post's live updates of developments Tuesday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: "U.N. experts said in a report that they have 'reasonable grounds to believe' some victims of Hamas's Oct. 7 attack on Israel were raped and sexually assaulted, and that some of the hostages taken into Gaza have been subjected to sexual violence and torture that 'may be ongoing.' The United States is planning more airdrops of humanitarian aid into Gaza and working on a maritime route for ship deliveries, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.... [Benny] Gantz, a political rival of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, will meet Tuesday with Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Philippe Lazzarini, head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), accused Israel of 'a deliberate and concerted campaign' aimed at undermining the agency’s operations. In a statement to the U.N. General Assembly, he also criticized Netanyahu for 'openly stating that UNRWA will not be part of postwar Gaza.' Israel has alleged that about a dozen UNRWA employees were involved in the Oct. 7 attack and that many are also members of Hamas." ~~~

     ~~~ CNN's live updates for Tuesday are here.

Cleve Wootson, et al., of the Washington Post: "Vice President Harris has begun taking a more public role in the Biden administration's effort to handle the Gaza war, bluntly criticizing Israel on Sunday for limiting humanitarian aid and meeting Monday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's chief political rival. Monday's White House meeting with Benny Gantz -- a centrist member of Israel's war cabinet who traveled to the United States in defiance of Netanyahu -- came after Gantz previously spoke with various American officials who have visited Jerusalem. But a Washington visit, particularly one that included a meeting with Harris, was seen as twisting the knife, given Netanyahu's own strained relations with the president.... Although Harris's calls for a cease-fire echoed President Biden's comments over the past week, she took a notably sharper tone, which comes as a growing number of Democrats are voicing their displeasure over Biden's handling of Gaza in television interviews, protests, sternly worded statements -- and at the ballot box. 'People in Gaza are starving. The conditions are inhumane,' Harris said [Sunday in Selma, Alabama, in a speech delivered to commemorate 'Bloody Sunday.'] 'And our common humanity compels us to act.'"

France. Liberté, Egalité, Sororité. Karla Adam of the Washington Post: "With the endorsement of a specially convened session of lawmakers at the Palace of Versailles, France on Monday became the first country in the world to explicitly enshrine abortion rights in its constitution -- an effort galvanized by the rollback of protections in the United States. The amendment referring to abortion as a 'guaranteed freedom' passed by a vote of 780 in favor and 72 against, far above the required threshold of support from three-fifths of lawmakers, or 512 votes." This is an update of a story linked yesterday.

The Conversation -- March 4, 2024

Tom Sullivan of Hullabaloo: "The New Yorker [Monday] morning offers a peek behind ... closed doors. John Harwood tweets that the interview, like his own last fall, 'shows talk of his alleged mental decline as utter bullshit.' Evan Osnos writes: 'If you spend time with [President] Biden these days, the biggest surprise is that he betrays no doubts. The world is riven by the question of whether he is up to a second term, but he projects a defiant belief in himself and his ability to persuade Americans to join him.'... Republicans mean to fuck you over and gut your freedoms. What are you prepared to do about it? At a minimum, get off your ass." MB: If you can access New Yorker articles, this would be a place to do so.

Supreme Court Rules for Trump re: Colorado Ballot. New York Times liveblog: ~~~

Adam Liptak: "The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that ... Donald J. Trump should remain on Colorado's primary ballot, rejecting a challenge to his eligibility for another term that could have upended the presidential race by taking him off ballots around the nation. Though the justices offered different reasons, the decision was unanimous. The decision was the court's most important ruling concerning a presidential election since Bush v. Gore handed the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000."

Charlie Savage: "The essence of the majority per curium opinion is that in order to invoke Section 3 to disqualify people from holding or seeking federal office, it is 'critical' that Congress first pass legislation to implement how that enforcement works and under what standards."

Savage: "... the three liberal justices -- Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson -- filed their own joint opinion concurring in the judgment."

Abbie VanSickle: "The court's three liberal justices signed on to the decision, agreeing that a state cannot invoke Section 3 to keep a presidential candidate off the ballot because that would 'create a chaotic state-by-state patchwork, at odds with our nation's federalism principles.' But they noted that they disagreed with how far the majority went: 'We cannot join an opinion that decides momentous and difficult issues unnecessarily, and we therefore concur only in the judgment.'"

VanSickle: "In their separate concurring opinion, the three liberal justices ... wrote that although they agreed with the outcome, they thought the majority could have decided the case more narrowly." ~~~

~~~ Savage: "But they criticize the majority for going further and saying that Section 3 can only be enforced at the federal level via a congressional statute, arguing that it was unnecessary to decide that 'other potential means of federal enforcement' are not permissible."

Savage: "Even though she agrees with the three liberals, Justice Barrett has written a (very short) separate opinion rather than joining theirs because she did not like their tone."

     ~~~ The CNN liveblog of the Supreme Court's decision is here. Politico's report is here. The Washington Post's story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ You can read the decision & concurring opinions here, via the Court.

Monday was a good day in court for others in Trump's insurrection gang, too:

~~~ Wisconsin. Sophia Tareen of the AP: "Two attorneys for ... Donald Trump orchestrated a plan for fake electors to file paperwork falsely saying the Republican won Wisconsin in a strategy to overturn Joe Biden's 2020 victory there and in other swing states, according to a lawsuit settlement reached Monday that makes public months of texts and emails. Under their agreements, Kenneth Chesebro and Jim Troupis turned over more than 1,400 pages of documents, emails and text messages, along with photos and video, offering a detailed account of the scheme's origins in Wisconsin. The communications show how they, with coordination from Trump campaign officials, replicated the strategy in six other states including Georgia, where Chesebro has already pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the 2020 election. The agreements settle a civil lawsuit brought by Democrats in 2022 against the two attorneys and 10 Republicans in Wisconsin who posed as fake electors. The Republicans settled in December.

Ben Protess, et al., of the New York Times: "Allen H. Weisselberg, a longtime lieutenant to ... Donald J. Trump, pleaded guilty to felony perjury charges in a Manhattan courtroom on Monday, the latest twist in his tortured legal odyssey. Mr. Weisselberg, who for years has remained steadfastly loyal to Mr. Trump in the face of intense prosecutorial pressure, is not expected to implicate his former boss. That unbroken streak of loyalty has frustrated prosecutors and already once cost him his freedom. Mr. Weisselberg, who was led into the courtroom in handcuffs wearing a blue surgical mask and a dark suit, conceded that in recent years he had lied under oath to the New York attorney general's office when it was investigating Mr. Trump for fraud." This is an update of a story linked earlier today. The AP's report is here.

Marianna Spring of the BBC: "BBC Panorama discovered dozens of deepfakes portraying black people as supporting [Donald Trump].... But there's no evidence directly linking these images to Mr Trump's campaign. The co-founder of Black Voters Matter, a group which encourages black people to vote, said the manipulated images were pushing a 'strategic narrative' designed to show Mr Trump as popular in the black community.... Unlike in 2016, when there was evidence of foreign influence campaigns, the AI-generated images found by the BBC appear to have been made and shared by US voters themselves." MB: So gratifying to know we're in another post-Sputnik-type era, where U.S. "scientists" catch up with and eventually may surpass Russian technological advances. U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

Leslie Josephs & Rebecca Picciotto of CNBC: "JetBlue Airways and Spirit Airlines on Monday said they were terminating their merger agreement weeks after losing a federal antitrust lawsuit that challenged the deal."

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Presidential Race

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court announced on Sunday that it would issue at least one decision on Monday, a strong signal that it would rule then on ... Donald J. Trump's eligibility for Colorado's primary ballot. The announcement said Monday's opinion or opinions would be posted online starting at 10 a.m. 'The court will not take the bench,' it said. The court's usual practice, though one suspended during the pandemic, is to announce decisions in argued cases from the bench." The AP's story is here. MB: IOW, these bastards are so unwilling to face the public that they'll issue the Trump opinion not just behind closed doors but with the doors barricaded against us barbarians & with the justices themselves hiding out in undisclosed locations.

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times has a dream. It's not gonna happen, and it's not gonna happen because no matter how decent a person is, unless he's a saint, once he's tasted power, he just can't relinquish it. And he's damned sure he's better at wielding that power than is anybody else.

Mariana Alfaro of the Washington Post: "Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley won her first contest in the Republican presidential nomination race on Sunday after triumphing in D.C.'s primary. It is not likely to change the contest's trajectory. After three days of voting, polls in the Washington race closed at 7 p.m. Eastern time on Sunday. Though only 19 delegates were at stake, Haley perhaps had her best chance of defeating Trump [in D.C.]... With all the votes counted, Haley got 63 percent of the vote to 33 percent for Trump == and she won all of the delegates." The AP story is here.

Gustaf Kilander of the Independent: "The crowd of Trump supporters gathered in Richmond, Virginia to hear Donald Trump speak on Saturday night went silent as the former president appeared to mix up Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama yet again. 'Shortly after we win the presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled,' Mr Trump said on Saturday. 'I know them both very well and we will restore peace through strength. Get that war settled. It's a bad war. And Putin has so little respect for Obama that he's starting to throw around the nuclear word,' Mr Trump added, seemingly in the false belief that Mr Biden's former boss remains in charge." MB: On the plus side, the repeated slip-ups work toward proving Trump's point that he's "the least racist person in the world"; when even mockery doesn't stop a person from confusing a black President with a white one, that person must be color-blind.

Jonathan Cooper & Summer Ballentine of the AP: "... Donald Trump continued his march toward the GOP nomination on Saturday, winning caucuses in Idaho and Missouri and sweeping the delegate haul at a party convention in Michigan. Trump earned every delegate at stake on Saturday, bringing his count to 244 compared to 24 for former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. A candidate needs to secure 1,215 delegates to clinch the Republican nomination." (Also linked yesterday.)

Trump Allies Are Working to Rig the Election. Alexandra Berzon & Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: "A network of right-wing activists and allies of Donald J. Trump is quietly challenging thousands of voter registrations in critical presidential battleground states, an all-but-unnoticed effort that could have an impact in a close or contentious election. Calling themselves election investigators, the activists have pressed local officials in Michigan, Nevada and Georgia to drop voters from the rolls en masse. They have at times targeted Democratic areas, relying on new data programs and novel legal theories to justify their push.... The ... activists are part of an expansive web of grass-roots groups that formed after Mr. Trump's attempt to overturn his defeat in 2020. The groups have made mass voter challenges a top priority this election year, spurred on by a former Trump lawyer, Cleta Mitchell, and True the Vote, a vote-monitoring group with a long history of spreading misinformation."

** Ben Protess, et al., of the New York Times: "Allen H. Weisselberg, a longtime lieutenant to ... Donald J. Trump, has reached an agreement with Manhattan prosecutors to plead guilty to perjury charges as soon as Monday, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Ye Mr. Weisselberg, who for years has remained steadfastly loyal to Mr. Trump in the face of intense prosecutorial pressure, is not expected to implicate his former boss. That unbroken streak of loyalty has frustrated prosecutors and already once cost him his freedom. Mr. Weisselberg, 76, is now expected to concede that he lied on the witness stand in Mr. Trump's recent civil fraud trial -- but not cooperate against the former president. He might also admit to misleading investigators from the New York attorney general's office, which brought the fraud case against Mr. Trump." CNN's story is here; @7:45 am ET, this is a breaking story that will be updated.

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North Carolina Governor's Race. There's this: ~~~

     ~~~ Hannah Knowles of the Washington Post: "Even in a Republican Party that, under ... Donald Trump's leadership, has often rewarded crude insults, baseless claims and incendiary language, [North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark] Robinson stands out among candidates this year for the volume of his bigoted attacks and vicious diatribes[:]...: The deluge of offensive comments that made such a declaration necessary. There was the time he called school shooting survivors 'media prosti-tots' for advocating for gun-control policies. The meme mocking a Harvey Weinstein accuser, and the other meme mocking actresses for wearing 'whore dresses to protest sexual harassment.' The prediction that rising acceptance of homosexuality would lead to pedophilia and 'the END of civilization as we know it'; the talk of arresting transgender people for their bathroom choice; the use of antisemitic tropes; the Facebook posts calling Hillary Clinton a 'heifer' and Michelle Obama a man. Robinson is heavily favored to clinch the GOP nomination for governor in next Tuesday's primary and, at a Saturday rally with Trump, got the former president's formal endorsement." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ And there's this:

     ~~~ Phillip Nieto of Mediaite: "... Donald Trump described North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who is Black, as 'Martin Luther King on steroids,' adding that he was 'better than' the civil rights leader." (Also linked yesterday.)

Texas GOP. David Goodman of the New York Times: "Rarely have intraparty battles between Republicans in Texas been as bitter, protracted and consequential as the primary contests culminating in Election Day on Tuesday. The fights have primarily focused on members of the Texas House who angered many conservative voters last year by impeaching the Republican attorney general, Ken Paxton, on charges of corruption and abuse of office. Mr. Paxton, who was acquitted in the Texas Senate, vowed revenge, and number one in his sights has been the house speaker, Dade Phelan. Gov. Greg Abbott has also been going after a number of Republicans in the Texas House, seeking to unseat those who opposed his plan to use public money to help families pay for private and religious schools. Aggressive campaigning by both statewide leaders is amplifying tensions that have simmered for years between the party's old guard and a more socially conservative faction aligned with ... Donald J. Trump...."

Texas. Colbi Edmonds of the New York Times: "A judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Texas attorney general from forcing an L.G.B.T.Q. organization to turn over documents on transgender minors and the gender-affirming care they may be receiving. In Texas, medical care for gender transition is prohibited for minors under a law passed last year. As part of an investigation into violations of the ban, the office of Attorney General Ken Paxton demanded early last month that the nonprofit PFLAG National, which supports families in accessing gender-affirming care for children, provide information on minors in the state who may have received such treatments. But on Friday, Judge Maria Cantú Hexsel of Travis County District Court issued an injunction against Mr. Paxton, just days after PFLAG sued to block the request, saying turning over the documents would cause 'irreparable injury, loss or damage' to the group. The judge added that such an ask would infringe on the group's constitutional rights and that its members would be subject to 'gross invasions' of privacy."

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France. Liberté, Egalité, Sororité. Karla Adam of the Washington Post: "Womens rights groups on Monday were gearing up to celebrate France becoming the first country in the world to explicitly enshrine abortion rights in its constitution -- an effort galvanized by the rollback of protections in the United States. On Monday evening, French lawmakers will vote in a special meeting at Versailles on whether to add abortion to the constitution as a 'guaranteed freedom.' The bill needs the approval of three-fifths of lawmakers. But because the lower and upper houses already overwhelmingly endorsed it in separate votes, there is little suspense about the outcome of the joint session." MB: Adieu, Freedom Fries.

Israel/Palestine, et al.

The Washington Post's live updates of developments Monday in the Israel/Hamas war are here. The New York Times' live updates for Monday are here. CNN's live updates are here.

Daniel Wu of the Washington Post: "In a tonal shift for the Biden administration, Vice President Harris on Sunday demanded that Israel allow more aid into the besieged Gaza Strip and told Hamas to accept a deal for a six-week cease-fire that would allow such aid to reach people who are cut off from food, water and medical care.... Harris also rebuffed Israel over conditions in Gaza, showing signs that Washington's relationship with one of its closest allies has frayed as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza deepens and President Biden faces opposition at home for his support of Israel as it conducts a punishing military campaign. 'The Israeli government must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid,' Harris said. 'No excuses.'" NPR's story is here.

The Conversation -- March 3, 2024

Sorry, forgot this: ~~~

~~~ Jonathan Cooper & Summer Ballentine of the AP: "... Donald Trump continued his march toward the GOP nomination on Saturday, winning caucuses in Idaho and Missouri and sweeping the delegate haul at a party convention in Michigan. Trump earned every delegate at stake on Saturday, bringing his count to 244 compared to 24 for ... Nikki Haley. A candidate needs to secure 1,215 delegates to clinch the Republican nomination."

North Carolina Governor's Race. There's this: ~~~

     ~~~ Hannah Knowles of the Washington Post: "Even in a Republican Party that, under ... Donald Trump's leadership, has often rewarded crude insults, baseless claims and incendiary language, [North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark] Robinson stands out among candidates this year for the volume of his bigoted attacks and vicious diatribes[:]...: The deluge of offensive comments that made such a declaration necessary. There was the time he called school shooting survivors 'media prosti-tots' for advocating for gun-control policies. The meme mocking a Harvey Weinstein accuser, and the other meme mocking actresses for wearing 'whore dresses to protest sexual harassment.' The prediction that rising acceptance of homosexuality would lead to pedophilia and 'the END of civilization as we know it'; the talk of arresting transgender people for their bathroom choice; the use of antisemitic tropes; the Facebook posts calling Hillary Clinton a 'heifer' and Michelle Obama a man. Robinson is heavily favored to clinch the GOP nomination for governor in next Tuesday's primary and, at a Saturday rally with Trump, got the former president's formal endorsement." ~~~

~~~ And there's this:

     ~~~ Phillip Nieto of Mediaite: "... Donald Trump described North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who is Black, as 'Martin Luther King on steroids,' adding that he was 'better than' the civil rights leader."

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Making American Small Again. Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley have spent the first months of this election year fighting losing battles -- separate but related. Their losses highlight the victory of Donald Trump's 'America First' over Ronald Reagan's 'tear down this wall' as the foreign policy doctrine of the Republican Party.... Nowhere ... has [Trump's] influence been more pronounced and potentially consequential than in what has become a full reversal of the internationalism that was central to Republican orthodoxy through most of the post-World War II era."

Presidential Race

The Rantings of a Fascist. Bill Barrow & Jill Colvin of the AP: "... Donald Trump on Saturday further escalated his immigration rhetoric and baselessly accused President Joe Biden of waging a 'conspiracy to overthrow the United States of America' as he campaigned ahead of Super Tuesday's primaries. Trump has a long history of trying to turn attack lines back on his rivals in an attempt to diminish their impact. Biden has cast Trump as a threat to democracy, pointing to the former president's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Those efforts culminated in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as his supporters tried to halt the peaceful transition of power. Trump, who has responded by calling Biden 'the real threat to democracy' and alleged without proof that Biden is responsible for the indictments he faces, turned to Biden's border policies on Saturday, charging that 'every day Joe Biden is giving aid and comfort to foreign enemies of the United States.'"

Michigan GOP Convention(s). Neil Vigdor & Steve Friess of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump capped off a clean sweep of Republican delegates in Michigan on Saturday during a raucous convention, which further exposed a deep fissure in the state party that threatens to fester in one of the most important battleground states. Mr. Trump, the Republican front-runner, amassed at least 90 percent of the vote in all but one of the state's 13 congressional districts against former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina.... A simple majority was needed in each district to win its share of delegates at the caucus-style event, giving Mr. Trump 39, to go along with the 12 that he won in Michigan's primary, which was held on Tuesday. Ms. Haley emerged from that contest with four delegates.... But a protracted fight over the state party's rightful leader spilled over into the proceedings, where an estimated 200 Republican stalwarts from about 20 of Michigan's 83 counties were denied credentials. Two other groups boycotted the event and held breakaway conventions, one more than 100 miles to the north in Houghton Lake, Mich., and another more than 50 miles southeast in Battle Creek, Mich." (Also linked yesterday.) The NBC News story is here.

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Georgia. Fear of Lesbians! Donald Padgett of the Advocate: "Republican state senators in Georgia on Thursday passed a bill that would force state libraries to cut ties with the American Library Association. Senate Bill 390 was passed by a vote of 33-20 vote with no support from Democratic senators. The bill's supporters cited the ALA's progressive policies and Emily Drabinski, the group's lesbian president, as motivation for the legislation. Several states including Missouri, Montana, South Carolina, and Texas have announced or enacted some form of disassociation from the ALA, but the Georgia bill passed by the Senate yesterday would be the first to effectively ban nearly all association with the group.

Georgia. Fear of Immigrants! Lauren Irwin of the Hill: "The Georgia state House passed a bill that allows for anyone suspected of being in the United States illegally to be arrested. The state House voted 97-74 to approve House Bill 1105, which would allow police to arrest anyone with probable cause who is suspected of being in the U.S. unlawfully and detain them for deportation.... The bill, passed Thursday, would require jailers and sheriffs to report to federal authorities when someone in their custody has been found to not have legal documentation. Local governments could lose state funding or state-administered federal funding if they don't report it, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, which first reported the legislation passing."

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Israel/Palestine, et al.

The New York Times' live updates of developments Sunday in the Israel/Hamas war are here.

Wafaa Shurafa & Samy Magdy of the AP: "Israel has essentially endorsed a framework of a proposed Gaza cease-fire and hostage release deal, and it is now up to Hamas to agree to it, a senior U.S. administration official said Saturday, a day before talks to reach an agreement were to resume in Egypt. International mediators have been working for weeks to broker a deal to pause the fighting before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins around March 10. A deal would likely allow aid to reach hundreds of thousands of desperate Palestinians in northern Gaza who aid officials worry are under threat of famine. The Israelis 'have more or less accepted' the proposal, which includes the six-week cease-fire as well as the release by Hamas of hostages considered vulnerable, which includes the sick, the wounded, the elderly and women, said the official."

Aaron Boxerman, et al., of the New York Times: "The Gaza aid convoy that ended in bloodshed this week was organized by Israel itself as part of a newly hatched partnership with local Palestinian businessmen, according to Israeli officials, Palestinian businessmen and Western diplomats.Israel has been involved in at least four such aid convoys to northern Gaza over the past week. It undertook the effort, Israeli officials told two Western diplomats, to fill a void in assistance to northern Gaza, where famine looms as international aid groups have suspended most operations, citing Israeli refusals to greenlight aid trucks and rising lawlessness.... Israeli officials reached out to multiple Gazan businessmen and asked them to help organize private aid convoys to the north, two of the businessmen said, while Israel would provide security."

Tara Copp & Seung Min Kim of the AP: "U.S. military C-130 cargo planes dropped food in pallets over Gaza on Saturday in the opening stage of an emergency humanitarian assistance authorized by President Joe Biden after more than 100 Palestinians who had surged to pull goods off an aid convoy were killed during a chaotic encounter with Israeli troops. Three planes from Air Forces Central dropped 66 bundles containing about 38,000 meals into Gaza at 8:30 a.m. EST (3:30 p.m. local). The bundles were dropped in southwest Gaza, on the beach along the territory's Mediterranean coast. The airdrop was coordinated with the Royal Jordanian Air Force, which said it had two food airdrops Saturday in northern Gaza and has conducted several rounds in recent months." (Also linked yesterday.)

Patrick Kingsley of the New York Times: "Israel's reluctance to fill the current leadership vacuum in northern Gaza formed the backdrop to the chaos that led to the deaths on Thursday of dozens of Palestinians on the Gazan coast, analysts and aid workers have said. More than 100 were killed and 700 injured, Gazan health officials said.... The immediate causes of the chaos were extreme hunger and desperation: The United Nations has warned of a looming famine in northern Gaza, where the incident occurred. Civilian attempts to ambush aid trucks, Israeli restrictions on convoys and the poor condition of roads damaged in the war have made it extremely difficult for food to reach the roughly 300,000 civilians still stranded in that region.... But analysts say this dynamic has been exacerbated by Israel's failure to set in motion a plan for how the north will be governed." In areas in North Gaza, where the fighting is essentially over, Hamas has fled and Israel has not taken over governance, so there is no governing group to "keep the peace," remove trash, etc. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Could scenarios like this happen in the U.S.? You betcha. Trump's plan to shrink the federal government will "catch on" in state and local governments, and basic services will stop functioning or will function under the fists of self-appointed thugs. I'm seeing a U.S. that looks like one Rand Paul would run: every person for himself. Unlike Mussolini, Trump will not make the trains run on time. There will be no trains. As for the food aid, maybe it will come from Canada. Or Russia.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Thousands of residents were left without power, and life came to a standstill for many in the Sierra Nevada region on Saturday after a winter storm dumped as much as two feet of snow overnight and created treacherous conditions. About 49,000 customers in Nevada and California were without electricity on Saturday, according to PowerOutage.us. With whiteout conditions in the mountains, ski resorts in the Lake Tahoe area paused operations. And highway officials shut down Interstate 80, the main artery that traverses the Sierra Nevada over Donner Summit, a key trucking route from the San Francisco Bay Area." CNN's story is here.

New York Times: "Fires burning across the plains of Texas, Kansas and Nebraska have hit ranchers hard. Dry, windy weather threatens to make the fires worse.... Scores of cattle ranchers across the Great Plains looking at an uncertain future. Thousands of animals have been killed, and outbuildings and homes have been destroyed.... The Smokehouse Creek fire, near Mr. Homen's ranch outside the town of Pampa, has expanded to more than one million acres and threatens to grow further this weekend with windy, dry conditions expected."