“Five Republican candidates for Michigan governor were disqualified by a state canvassing board on Thursday for submitting nominating petitions that officials said had contained thousands of forged signatures,” the New York Times reports.
“The decision sent the race, in a key battleground state, into chaos and dealt a serious blow to the party’s plans to challenge Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic incumbent.”
Jonathan Bernstein: “What I do know is that that Democrats are a normal U.S. political party, which means that they are mainly pragmatic problem-solvers. That is, what US political parties are usually good at is finding out what makes their constituents unhappy and attempting to do something about it. They listen to voters in their districts; to the party coalition that nominates them; to their strongest supporters. Some of their solutions may turn out to be highly ideological. Some are not. They’re generally willing to cut deals to pass something, figuring that something is better than nothing. If it doesn’t have the votes, or it’s implemented and it doesn’t work, they’ll try something else…”
“What’s gone horribly wrong is that one of the two major parties, the Republican Party, has mostly abandoned all of that.”
President Biden will travel to Uvalde, Texas on Sunday to “grieve with the community that lost twenty-one lives in the horrific elementary school shooting,” USA Today reports.
“Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have been processed through a series of Russian ‘filtration camps’ in Eastern Ukraine and sent into Russia as part of a systemized program of forced removal,” CNN reports.
“After being detained in camps operated by Russian intelligence officials, many Ukrainians are then forcibly relocated to economically depressed areas in Russia, in some cases thousands of miles from their homes, and often left with no means of returning.”
Newly disclosed documents reveal secret executive plans for apocalyptic scenarios when the president may activate wartime powers for national security emergencies, including shutting down the internet, the New York Times reports.
None of the plans have been shown to Congress.
Out this summer: The Big Lie: Election Chaos, Political Opportunism, and the State of American Politics After 2020 by Jonathan Lemire.
Publishers Weekly: “Tracing the roots of the January 6 Capitol riot to an August 2016 rally in which Trump first publicly said that he expected the upcoming presidential election to be rigged, Lemire sketches Trump’s long record of distortions about his real estate holdings, wealth, TV ratings, and sex life.”
Florida state Rep. Randy Fine (R) tweeted what appeared to be a threat toward President Biden.
Said Fine: “I have news for the embarrassment that claims to be our President — try to take our guns and you’ll learn why the Second Amendment was written in the first place.”
“Then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows burned papers in his office after meeting with a House Republican who was working to challenge the 2020 election, according to testimony the Jan. 6 select committee has heard from one of his former aides,” Politico reports.
“Cassidy Hutchinson, who worked under Meadows when he was former President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, told the panel investigating the Capitol attack that she saw Meadows incinerate documents after a meeting in his office with Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA).”
“The Meadows-Perry meeting came in the weeks after Election Day 2020, as Trump and his allies searched for ways to reverse the election results.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told CNN he “met earlier in the day with Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and encouraged the senior Republican senator to begin discussions with Democrats, including Sens. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), to see if they can find a middle ground on legislation to respond to the tragic Texas elementary school shooting.”
“Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are facing enormous pressure to take action in the wake of the horrific shooting, but members on both sides acknowledge the uphill battle to find common ground given the highly polarized political climate around gun legislation and widespread GOP opposition to stricter gun control.”
“It is significant, though, that McConnell has decided to weigh in and is giving a greenlight to a bipartisan effort on a potential legislative response to the shooting.”
Ohio Lt. Gov. John Husted (R) has joined the board of Heartland Bank while he’s still in office and running for re-election, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.
A new Trafalgar Group poll in Missouri finds Eric Greitens (R) leading the GOP Senate race with 26%, followed by Vicky Hartzler (R) at 23%, Eric Schmitt (R) at 19%, and Billy Long (R) at 9%.
Georgia U.S. Senate nominee Herschel Walker (R) told Fox News that the government should monitor social media to prevent mass shootings.
Said Walker: “A department that can look at young men that’s looking at women that’s looking at social media. What about doing that, looking into things like that, and we can stop that that way?”
“Big-city population declines deepened across the U.S. last year as the pandemic continued sending Americans in search of more space,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The largest cities lost a greater share of residents than small- and midsize cities during the year that ended July 1, 2021, new estimates show. Collectively, in the nine cities with more than one million people, the population fell 1.7%, a loss of 419,000 residents. Only two cities in that group grew: Phoenix and San Antonio.”
“Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) has stopped short of refusing to comply with a subpoena to appear before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, telling the panel that he would do so only if it met certain conditions, including sharing all the evidence the committee had on him ahead of time,” the Washington Post reports.
“The calculation behind Republicans’ steadfast opposition to any new gun regulations — even in the face of the kind of unthinkable massacre that occurred Tuesday at an elementary school in Texas — is a fairly simple one for Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota,” the New York Times reports.
“Asked Wednesday what the reaction would be from voters back home if he were to support any significant form of gun control, the first-term Republican had a straightforward answer: ‘Most would probably throw me out of office.'”
“Former President Donald Trump must answer questions under oath in New York state’s civil investigation into his business practices, a state appeals court ruled Thursday,” the AP reports.
“Thursday’s ruling could mean a tough decision for Trump about whether to answer questions, or stay silent, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Anything Trump says in a civil deposition could be used against him in the criminal probe being overseen by the Manhattan district attorney’s office.”
“Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) told colleagues Thursday morning that they should be prepared to vote on gun-control legislation when they return to Washington next month after the Memorial Day recess, promising a showdown with Republicans after mass shootings in Buffalo and Texas left 31 people dead,” The Hill reports.
“Schumer said he’s not scheduling a vote this week on two House-passed bills to expand background checks because he wants to give Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and other colleagues more time to negotiate a deal with Republicans on background check or red-flag legislation.”
“The U.S. Supreme Court has not yet released its decision that looks set to dramatically scale back abortion rights, but one of the next legal battles has already begun in a Mississippi court,” Reuters reports.
“That is where the manufacturer of a pill used to carry out medication abortions, Las Vegas-based GenBioPro Inc, has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the conservative state’s restrictions on the pill, used in more than half of all U.S. abortions.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
