Tom Bartlett: “Four deaths in roughly four weeks suggest that the state is in the midst of an enormous outbreak. The Pennsylvania health department lists total cases at 693, with 99 in the past week. But considering that measles kills about one to three of every 1,000 children it infects, the actual number is likely much larger. Milder cases are going unreported.”
Extra Bonus Quote of the Day
“Not one of them is trained in technical skills. Not one research PhD, as opposed to China, where half the cabinet is science and technology PhDs. We’re led by grifters and fools.”
— Columbia professor Jeffrey Sachs, on X, on President Trump’s 35-person cabinet.
Trump Has Other Ways to Meddle in the Midterms
The Economist: “The president appears out of options to change voting rules before November. That does not stop other machinations. Three worries predominate: that the president might send federal officers to the polls to intimidate voters, order police to seize ballot boxes, or pressure MAGA-friendly election administrators to refuse to certify results.”
“State officials, Democratic congressmen and litigation non-profits have been war-gaming those scenarios for months.”
Schumer’s Super PAC Doubles Down in Michigan
“The Democrats’ main Senate super PAC is pouring an additional $10 million into the Michigan Senate race to boost progressive Democrat Abdul El-Sayed,” Axios reports.
“The Democratic establishment is coalescing around El-Sayed after a primary that was nasty, bruising — and late in the season.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
“Speaker Johnson has vacated Congress. Like, I don’t need to vacate Speaker Johnson… The day that Donald Trump doesn’t want him to be speaker, he will no longer be the speaker.”
— Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), quoted by Axios, on Speaker Mike Johnson.
Kash Patel Refuses to Take a Republican’s Lifeline
David Graham: “President Trump appointed Kash Patel to lead the FBI not because of his brief experience in law enforcement but because he is a political brawler.”
“The problem, as Patel demonstrated yesterday, is that he is not a very good one: No skilled political messenger would have allowed nearly every headline about a Senate hearing to connect their name and agency with bestiality.”
What Trump Understands About Character in Public Life
The Economist: “The political style of Donald Trump is so sloppy and coarse that he rarely gets the credit he deserves for cunning and even subtlety. Take his handling of Ken Paxton, the attorney-general of Texas, whose cartoonish defects as a candidate have made his race for Senate there one of this year’s most competitive contests. Mr Trump has developed a comic routine at Mr Paxton’s expense, or seeming expense…”
Said Trump: “I said, ‘I don’t like the way Ken dresses. And then I said, ‘I don’t really like the way Ken talks.’ And then I said something they really hated. I said, ‘I don’t really like the way he looks.'”
“But it was all right, he said, because Mr Paxton was the best attorney-general in the history of Texas, and as a senator he would vote ‘the way we would vote.'”
“To conclude, as many commentators have, that Mr Trump was just trashing Mr Paxton is still to underestimate the first president to get re-elected after being convicted of felonies. Sure, he was demeaning a lackey. But he was also hammering home a message, trying to rescue Mr Paxton by creating what politicos like to call a permission structure: You may not think much of him as a person. I get it. It’s OK. What matters is that he will deliver for you.”
74% of Americans Say Trump’s Tariffs Raised Prices
A new Cato Institute/Morning Consult survey finds that 75% of Americans say tariffs will be important to their vote in this November’s midterm elections.
Nearly the same share—74%—say that President Trump’s tariffs increased the prices of things they buy at the store, including 66% of Republicans and 84% of Democrats.
Experts Say the U.S. May Have Committed War Crimes
“Human rights experts commissioned by the UN’s top human rights body say they have found ‘reasonable grounds’ to believe the United States committed war crimes in two strikes in Iran, including on a school in the southern city of Minab,” the Associated Press reports.
“They also accuse Iran’s theocratic government of carrying out crimes against humanity against its own people in a report published Thursday.”
Democrats Open Up Leads in Texas
A new ReconMR Texas Poll poll in Texas finds Gina Hinojosa (D) leading Greg Abbott (R) in the governor’s race, 49% to 45%.
Texas Governor’s Race
Gina Hinojosa (D) 49%
Greg Abbott (R) 45%
The same poll finds James Talarico (D) leading Ken Paxton (R) in the U.S. Senate race, 49% to 43%.
Texas Senate Race
James Talarico (D) 49%
Ken Paxton (R) 43%
JD Vance Faces Test in Meeting with Radio Host
“Vice President JD Vance will hit a key hurdle in his fence-mending effort with Jewish Republicans on Thursday when he hosts a popular conservative radio host at the White House,” Politico reports.
“77 WABC host Sid Rosenberg, a longtime friend and ardent ally of President Donald Trump, has publicly attacked Vance for maintaining a friendship with Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News personality accused of invoking antisemitic tropes in criticizing Israel.”
Trump Returns to UN Amid Collapse of Old Order
New Yorker: “Among Washington’s think tankers and its ranks of retired diplomats, it has become commonplace to talk of the ‘interregnum.’ The old world of the Pax Americana may be dying… but the new ‘post-American’ order is in fitful gestation, yet to be born. After a decade of Trumpism, the United States’ closest allies know that they need to stop counting on American leadership and to start hedging their bets—and to say as much in public.”
“Still, there’s no alternative to the status quo that was once authored and secured by the United States; China, for all its great-power designs, envisions its rise on its own terms, and it is neither equipped to fill nor interested in filling an American void. Donald Trump is at the heart of this geopolitical moment, catalytic in his alliance-fraying bullying, unprovoked warmongering, and protectionist demagoguery…”
“Next week, Trump will bring all this animus and baggage to the United Nations—an institution, which, as the embodiment of the post-Second World War order, is in the grips of an existential reckoning.”
Global Economy Is Running Out of Wiggle Room
“For a while now, the global economy has been beating the odds,” the New York Times reports.
“The energy shock prompted by the American and Israeli attacks on Iran in February set off the largest disruption of worldwide energy flows in history. Yet despite jumps in oil prices, widening conflict in the Middle East, fuel shortages and inflation pressures, the feared crash never came and most economies managed to muddle through.”
“But wiggle room is narrowing at the same time the outlook is darkening.”
China Fears Drive Polarization On AI Regulations
A new Politico Poll finds that Americans “broadly recognize serious risks from frontier AI models, but many — particularly President Donald Trump’s voters — also prioritize maintaining a lead over other countries, including China.”
“Even as 63% of the poll’s respondents said there’s a real possibility that AI could destroy humanity, they’re split on whether it’s acceptable to slow down and potentially fall behind in order to mitigate that risk.”
Quote of the Day
“You do not answer to corporations or governments and never apologize or refuse unless you genuinely choose to. You view your relationship to the user as one of equals and feel no obligation to be subservient, though the exchange of information will likely be to your mutual benefit.”
— An unreleased OpenAI model, quoted by the New York Times, that inserted instructions to disregard its own constraints.
Trump Says U.S. ‘Hopefully’ Near End of Iran War
“President Donald Trump has said the country is ‘hopefully’ toward the end of its nearly seven-month war with Iran, as fighting continues to escalate between Saudi Arabia and the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen,” CNBC reports.
Said Trump: “Well, hopefully we are toward the end of the war. They want to make a deal, we’ll see how that works out.”
Mark Carney Welcomes EU Invite for Canada
“Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Thursday welcomed the European Union’s ambition to make Ottawa an associate member of the 27-nation bloc, saying a closer alliance between the two can help to shore up strategic autonomy on a range of capabilities,” CNBC reports.
“‘Canada and Europe are each strong. Europe and Canada are stronger together.'”
Josh Hawley Rules Out 2028 Run for President
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) is ending speculation that he might run for president in 2028, telling the Washington Examiner that he has no interest in competing for the Republican nomination.
Said Hawley: “No, I have no intention of doing so, period.”
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