A new UC Berkeley IGS/Los Angeles Times poll finds Rep. Karen Bass (D) leading Rick Caruso (D), in the Los Angeles mayoral primary, 38% to 32%, with Kevin de Leon (D) back at 6%.
The top two finishers head to a November runoff.
Elon Musk Threatens to End Deal With Twitter
“Elon Musk threatened to terminate his deal to buy Twitter in a letter accusing the company of not complying with his request for data on the number of spam and fake accounts on the social-media platform,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Dan Pfeiffer: Why Elon Musk is making me get back on Facebook.
Bonus Quote of the Day
“He’s a one-man crime wave.”
— Rep. Jaime Raskin (D-MD), in an interview with Vanity Fair about Donald Trump.
Are We Suffering from Cruelty Sickness?
John Pavlovitz: “I sense a corporate emotional weariness in kind people these days, the accumulated scar tissue created when you’ve absorbed more bad news, predatory behavior, and attacks on decency than your reserves can manage. Sustained cruelty will do that to the human soul.”
“There’s only so much contempt for humanity our minds are able to process, until one day something snaps and we lose the ability to respond with the same urgency and resilience we once had. A low-grade hopelessness sets in, slowly replacing our activism with apathy and one day rendering us immobile: cruelty sickness.”
How Democrats Can Win This Fall
Josh Marshall: “To make the 2022 elections a referendum on Roe, Democrats have to put protecting Roe and abortion rights on the table.”
“Here’s one way to do that: get clear public commitments from every Senate Democrat (and candidate for Senate) not only to vote for the Roe bill in January 2023 but also to change the filibuster rules to ensure that a majority vote would actually pass the bill and send it to the White House for the president’s signature.”
“At present, there are likely 48 Senate Democrats who can make that pledge.”
Biden to Boost Production of Domestic Solar Panels
President Joe Biden will announce new executive actions to spur more domestic production of solar panels and clean energy technology on Monday, CNN reports.
Trump on Trial
The Brookings Institution has released a comprehensive guide to this week’s hearings by the January 6 Committee.
“The issue of criminality is central to the congressional hearings commencing on June 9, 2022… The report covers key players in the attempt to overturn the election, the known facts regarding their conduct, and the criminal law applicable to their actions.”
Trump Mobilizes Allies Ahead of Hearings
“Former President Donald Trump has made it clear he is looking for cover from his closest allies around the upcoming public hearings by the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection — and some prominent names in Congress and the Republican Party are answering the call,” CNN reports.
“Trump’s team has communicated to some of his most loyal acolytes on Capitol Hill that the former President wants people vigorously defending him and pushing back on the select committee while the public hearings play out.”
Liz Cheney Warns U.S. Democracy Could Unravel
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) told CBS News that there was an “extremely broad” and “extremely well-organized” conspiracy by then-President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election — and that the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol was just one instance in “an ongoing threat” to democracy.
Said Cheney: “We are not in a situation where former president Trump has expressed any sense of remorse about what happened. We are, in fact, in a situation where he continues to use even more extreme language, frankly, than the language that caused the attack.”
She added: “And so, people must pay attention. People must watch, and they must understand how easily our democratic system can unravel if we don’t defend it.”
January 6 Committee Hires TV News Executive
“The House’s Jan. 6 committee has turned to a renowned former network news executive to hone a mountain of explosive material into a captivating multimedia presentation for a prime-time hearing Thursday,” Axios reports.
“James Goldston — former president of ABC News, and a master documentary storyteller who ran ‘Good Morning America’ and ‘Nightline’ — has joined the committee as an unannounced adviser.”
Quote of the Day
“I used to say in Barack’s administration: ‘Everything landed on his desk but locusts.’ Well, they landed on my desk.”
— President Biden, quoted by The Guardian.
Google Ordered to Pay Australian Politician
An Australian court ordered Google to pay a former lawmaker $515,000, saying its refusal to remove a YouTuber’s “relentless, racist, vilificatory, abusive and defamatory” videos drove him out of politics, Reuters reports.
Lawmaker’s Wife Plagiarized $2.45 Million Report
The wife of a former California state senator extensively plagiarized a manuscript that she had been paid at least $2.45 million to write, the San Jose Mercury News reports.
The 580-page manuscript, which reportedly fell two years behind schedule before finally being delivered in January, contained paragraphs that appeared to have been lifted wholesale from “Wikipedia, the History Channel, the Mercury News, the Washington Post, county web pages and other sources, about half of them without footnotes.”
Climate Groups Mobilize for Midterms
“In an attempt to mobilize voters around the climate crisis, six climate advocacy groups are readying for the midterms with an arsenal of $100 million — the first coordinated spending of its kind,” CNN reports.
Prosecutors Say Michael Cohen Not a Reliable Witness
“Donald Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen has made misleading statements overstating his role in the Manhattan DA’s case against the Trump Organization and its top financial executive, Allen Weisselberg,” the New York Daily News reports.
“And Cohen’s credibility problem may also have played a role in Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s highly controversial decision to back off the prosecution of Trump himself.”
Not All There
A New York Magazine profile of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) concludes: “It seems clear that Feinstein is mentally compromised, even if she’s not all gone.”
Boris Johnson Faces No Confidence Vote
“Conservative lawmakers dealt Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain a potentially lethal blow to his leadership on Monday when they triggered a no-confidence vote that could force him from power a little more than two years after his landslide election victory,” the New York Times reports.
Associated Press: “If Johnson loses the vote among the 359 Conservative lawmakers, the party will choose a new leader, who will also become prime minister. If he wins, as seems more likely, he can’t face another challenge for a year under current party rules — though a narrow victory would leave him a hobbled leader whose days are likely numbered.”
The BBC explains the process.
Trump Could Announce 2024 Bid Soon
“Former President Donald Trump is bored at Mar-a-Lago and anxious to get back in the political arena — as a candidate, not a kingmaker — according to his advisers, who are divided over whether he should launch a third bid for the presidency as early as this summer,” NBC News reports.
“While many Trump confidants believe he should wait until after November’s midterm elections — and caution that he has not yet made a final decision about running — some say he could move more quickly to harness supporters and deny fuel to the busload of GOP hopefuls in his rearview mirror.”
“Two people in Trump’s orbit told NBC News they had been asked informally to hold July 4 as a date for a possible announcement.”
