Axios: “Republicans are deeply split on their abortion strategy, with top officials pushing restraint, even silence, while activist GOP candidates demand an all-out campaign for a national ban and harsher penalties…”
“The takeaway: One thing is certain about modern politics: Rarely does moderation or restraint prevail — especially on cultural, religious or identity issues. In fact, one truism of modern conservatism is: The more the establishment pushes something, the more the base recoils.”
Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper was interviewed by Brett Baier on Fox News:
BAIER: Do you think Donald Trump was a threat to democracy?
ESPER: I think that given the events of January 6th, given how he has undermined the election results, he incited people to come to D.C., stirred them that morning, and failed to call them off. To me, that threatens our democracy.”
BAIER: So, yes?
ESPER: What else can you conclude, Bret?
“The United States will take steps to increase pressure on Afghanistan’s Taliban government to reverse some of its recent decisions restricting the rights of women and girls if the hardline group shows no sign of rescinding the actions on its own,” Reuters reports.
“To let the administration simply off the hook, given all that they’ve done, all that I think we’re gonna hear that they did — that’s very dangerous for our nation.”
— Former Attorney General Eric Holder, quoted by MSNBC, on the Trump administration.
Documents in the case against former Maine gubernatorial candidate Eliot Cutler (I) were unsealed, revealing a disturbing pattern of child pornography consumption, the Bangor Daily News reports.
“After being forwarded a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, police in January found a video of an adult man sexually assaulting a girl who was between 4 and 6 years old in an online storage account belonging to Cutler… Dropbox, the provider of the storage account, had notified the national organization about the existence of the video in December.”
“In a second-floor bedroom of Cutler’s Brooklin home, police later found flash storage cards with ‘literally thousands of videos of very young children being sexually abused.'”
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) was confronted with a pro-abortion rights message Saturday night when an unknown person or persons wrote in chalk on the sidewalk outside her home, prompting a police response, the Bangor Daily News reports.
Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper says in his new book that “leaks were a chronic problem” in the Trump administration and Donald Trump was the “biggest leaker of all,” Insider reports.
Writes Esper: “The individual motivations for the leaks ranged from advancing a preferred policy outcome to enhancing the leaker’s own role or credentials to currying favor with the president. It was a noxious behavior learned from the top. The president was the biggest leaker of all. It turned colleague against colleague, department against department, and it was generally bad for the administration and the country,”
“The right-wing One America News Network admitted in a Monday legal statement that there was no widespread voter fraud by Georgia election officials in the 2020 presidential election after having extensively pushed the groundless claim,” Insider reports.
“On Friday evening, right-leaning cable network Newsmax beat out CNN in terms of total viewers across prime time, due to former President Donald Trump’s Pennsylvania rally,” Mediaite reports.
President Joe Biden said that Russian President Vladimir Putin has no exit strategy for the Ukraine war – and that is a problem for the West, USA Today reports.
He said Putin is a very calculating man who “doesn’t have a way out right now, and I’m trying to figure out what we do about that.”
“Public school teachers in Florida will soon be required to dedicate at least 45 minutes of instruction on ‘Victims of Communism Day’ to teach students about communist leaders around the world and how people suffered under those regimes,” the Miami Herald reports.
“The bill, which Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed along with two street designations in honor of Cuban exiles, would require the instruction to begin in the 2023-2024 school year. It would require teaching of Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro, as well as ‘poverty, starvation, migration, systemic lethal violence, and suppression of speech’ endured under those regimes.”
“Queen Elizabeth II will miss the state opening of Parliament for only the third time on Tuesday, casting a shadow over Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s attempt to reboot his flagging U.K. premiership,” Bloomberg reports.
“The 96-year-old monarch is suffering ‘episodic mobility problems’ and the Queen’s Speech laying out the government’s agenda for the next parliamentary session will now be delivered for the first time by her son and heir, Prince Charles.”
“The Queen has pulled out of several public events in recent months, and has also been seen walking with the aid of a stick. She’s previously skipped the near-annual parliamentary set-piece just twice in her 70 years on the throne — both because of pregnancy. The announcement that she’ll miss it again provides Britons with a reminder that the reign of the country’s longest-ruling monarch won’t last forever.”
Washington Post: “On the campaign trail, they’re railing against critical race theory and gender identity discussions in schools. In state legislatures and via executive fiat, they are trying to limit medical procedures for transgender children and punishing large companies they view as overly politically correct. They’ve found success by weaponizing the left’s ‘defund the police’ movement, which advocates for reallocating resources to limit police power.”
“And they’re already accusing President Biden of catering to college-educated elites as he considers forgiving student loan debt.”
“In primary races ahead of November’s midterm elections, Republican candidates are embracing contentious battles over gender, sexual orientation and race rather than sticking to tried-and-true attacks on inflation or Biden’s low approval ratings.”
New York Times: “Mr. Frank, a QAnon influencer whose Facebook page in recent months has shown him pictured with such conservative celebrities as Donald J. Trump Jr., Michael Flynn and Sidney Powell, has fashioned his team into a new style of border enforcers, motivated not so much by halting immigration as by guarding the country from other perceived threats — in this case, an unfounded conspiracy theory that migrant children are being funneled into pedophilia rings.”
Out next month: Battling the Big Lie: How Fox, Facebook, and the MAGA Media Are Destroying America by Dan Pfeiffer.
“How the right-wing built a massive, billionaire-funded disinformation machine powerful enough to bend reality and nearly steal the 2020 election.”
Daily Beast: “Few in politics have seen anything like the ever-worsening public relations trainwreck that has consumed the political career of Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC). The unrelenting pile-up of damaging stories, insiders say, is the clear handiwork of political players determined to take out the 26-year old MAGA hero in the May 17 primary election.”
“Kathy Barnette has been outspent 358-to-1 on TV in Pennsylvania’s GOP primary for the Senate. She hasn’t run for statewide office before. She doesn’t have former President Donald Trump’s endorsement,” Politico reports.
“But the ultra-MAGA commentator is surging in the polls anyway in the final weeks of one of the most expensive and closely watched races in the country.”
Earlier for members: A Wildcard in Pennsylvania’s GOP Senate Race
New York Times: “For the 158 million who are employed, prospects haven’t been this bright since men landed on the moon. As many as half of those workers have retirement accounts that were fattened by a prolonged bull market in stocks. There are 83 million owner-occupied homes in the United States. At the rate they have been increasing in value, a lot of them are in effect a giant piggy bank that families live inside.”
“This boom does not get celebrated much. It was a slow-build phenomenon in a country where news is stale within hours. It has happened during a time of fascination with the schemes of the truly wealthy (see: Musk, Elon) and against a backdrop of increased inequality. If you were unable to buy a house because of spiraling prices, the soaring amount of homeowners’ equity is not a comfort.”
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.