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Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Cataclysm [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-05-22

We begin today with Becky Sullivan of National Public Radio and the most recent update that I have about the shooting and death of two staffers of the Israeli embassy at an event in Washington D.C.

Shortly after 9 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, as an event by the pro-Israel advocacy group American Jewish Committee wrapped up at a local Jewish museum in downtown D.C., a man was observed "pacing back and forth" outside of the building, Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith told reporters. The man approached a group of four people then opened fire, Smith said. Two people were killed — a man and woman who were a couple, officials said. Afterward, the shooter entered the museum and was detained by event security, Smith said. "The suspect chanted 'Free, free Palestine' while in custody," Smith added. Police said they had tentatively identified the suspect as Elias Rodriguez, 30, of Chicago. He did not have any prior known encounters with police, Smith said. The victims were "a couple about to be engaged," said Israel's ambassador to the U.S., Yechiel Leiter. "The young man purchased a ring this week with the intention of proposing to his girlfriend next week in Jerusalem. They were a beautiful couple who came to enjoy an evening in Washington's cultural center."

Senseless.

Riley Mellen and Aric Toler of The New York Times fact-checks Trump’s egregious lie about South Africa “white genocide” in the Oval Office yesterday during a meeting with South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Mr. Trump told Mr. Ramaphosa that the footage showed “burial sites” of “over 1,000” white farmers in South Africa. A New York Times analysis found that the footage instead showed a memorial procession on Sept. 5, 2020, near Newcastle, South Africa. The event, according to a local news website, was for a white farming couple in the area who the police said had been murdered in late August of that year. The crosses were planted in the days ahead of the event and were later removed. The misrepresentation of the footage took place during a stunning meeting in which Mr. Trump made false claims about a genocide against white farmers. Mr. Trump dimmed the lights to play the footage, presenting it as evidence of racial persecution against white South Africans.

Lisa Mascaro, Kevin Freking, Leah Askarinam, and Joey Cappelletti of the Associated Press provide the damning assessment of the Congressional Budget Office about the budget bill pending in the House.

A fresh analysis from the Congressional Budget Office said the tax provisions would increase federal deficits by $3.8 trillion over the decade, while the changes to Medicaid, food stamps and other services would tally $1 trillion in reduced spending. The lowest-income households in the U.S. would see their resources drop, while the highest ones would see a boost, the CBO said. At its core, the package is centered on extending the tax breaks approved during Trump’s first term in 2017, while adding new ones he campaigned on during his 2024 campaign. To make up for some of the lost revenue, the Republicans are focused on spending cuts to federal safety net programs and a massive rollback of green energy tax breaks from the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act. Additionally, the package tacks on $350 billion in new spending, with about $150 billion going to the Pentagon, including for the president’s new “ Golden Dome” defense shield, and the rest for Trump’s mass deportation and border security agenda. The package title carries Trump’s own words, the “ One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”

Paul Krugman writes on his self-named Substack that the American economy will be getting the Liz Truss treatment if the Republican budget passes both houses of Congress.

Financial markets normally cut wealthy nations with stable governments a lot of slack, with reason. Rich, well governed countries have immense ability to raise revenues if needed, especially if, like the United States, you collect a smaller percentage of GDP in taxes than almost any other advanced economy… [...] But markets’ patience with American dysfunction isn’t unlimited. Consider how quickly things went wrong for the UK. In 2022 Liz Truss, Britain’s Prime Minister, announced a “mini-budget” that involved cutting taxes and blowing up the budget deficit. Markets freaked out: long-term interest rates soared and the pound plunged. The tabloid The Daily Star famously set up a webcam showing a photo of Truss next to a head of iceberg lettuce wearing a wig, and asked which would last longer. The lettuce won, because Britain’s parliamentary system allowed it to get rid of a disastrous leader. We, unfortunately, can’t. So are we facing a Liz Truss moment in America?

Jamelle Bouie of The New York Times defines “four theaters of conflict” in the war for the soul of America.

This war has four theaters of conflict. In the first, Trump is waging war on constitutional government, with a full-spectrum attack on the idea of the United States as a nation of laws and not men. He hopes to make it a government of one man: himself, unbound by anything other than his singular will. Should the president win his campaign against self-government, future Americans won’t be citizens of a republic as much as subjects of a personalist autocracy. In the second theater of conflict, the MAGA movement is waging war on the nation’s economic future, rejecting two generations of integration and interdependency with the rest of the world in favor of American autarky, of effectively closing our borders to goods and people from around the world so that the United States might make itself into an impenetrable fortress — a garrison state with the power to dictate the terms of the global order, especially in its own hemisphere. In this new world, Americans will abandon service-sector work in favor of manufacturing and heavy industry. [...] Not content to leave Americans without a meaningful democratic future or one of broad economic prosperity, the White House is also fighting a pitched battle against a sustainable climate future. [...] The fourth and final theater of the MAGA movement’s war on the future is adjacent to the third one: an assault on the nation’s capacity to produce scientific, technological and medical breakthroughs.

Remember that an “impenetrable fortress” might be designed to keep others outside of the walls but it also functions to keep inhabitants within the fortress walls.

Trump will grift for the drawbridge tolls.

Sh*t, if Trump has his way, this country will, for all intents and purposes, be Gotham City after its earthquake.

Jordyn Jensen and Ned Jones write for The Hill that the Department of Health and Human Services is planning to expand the involuntary commitment of the mentally ill.

Timothy Snyder writes for his “Thinking About…” Substack about the new “weaponization czar”.



Martin, to use the historical term, is taking an ostentatious part in the ongoing attempt at what the Nazis called a Gleichschaltung of institutions: of dropping the distinction between the law and the leader, and of attempting to force everyone in public life into line with the leader's latest statements. The reference is not accidental. Martin is on the far right, and an advocate of great replacement theory: the spurious idea that a conspiracy seeks to replace white Americans with immigrants. He had a very supportive relationship with a known American Nazi. [...] The title "weaponization czar" is appropriate because Martin's most interesting achievements thus far are, in fact, in the service of Russia. He has done more visible work for the Russian state television than for any other institution. Martin, in other words, has already been part of one weaponized legal system for some time. His American career as "weaponization czar" is a natural second step of his Russian career as apologist for both Russian and American weaponizers and authoritarians. Between 2016 and 2024, Martin was a star of both RT and Sputnik, which are propaganda arms of the Russian state. Putin himself has made this completely clear. One of the central missions of RT and Sputnik is to weaken the standing and power of the United States. Anyone who goes on RT or Sputnik, as Martin did more than a hundred times, knows what he is doing. For eight years, on any issue of the day, Martin was there to spread mendacious propaganda about Americans and to defend Putin and Trump. His Russian work surpassed any media exposure in the United States.

Dave Cantor of Poynter reports that the conservative publication The Dispatch has bought SCOTUSblog.

As the Supreme Court of the United States weighs in on birthright citizenship and deportations, and its chief justice discusses the rule of law being in jeopardy, The Dispatch — a self-described conservative publication — sees a need for deeper judicial coverage. That’s why CEO and editor Steve Hayes said the outlet acquired SCOTUSblog in late April. “Everybody who reads SCOTUSblog, everybody who works in this world, knows Amy, knows her reputation, knows the quality of the work,” Hayes said about Amy Howe, the website’s founder and central voice. “With this acquisition, we think we take a step toward covering a part of the federal government that’s going to be even more important on a daily basis than it has been.” Hayes made clear that Howe would retain independence in her work. But The Dispatch’s framing of its editorial outlook as being “informed by conservative principles” resulted in some bawdy commentary on Blueskywhen SCOTUSblog announced the acquisition.

Finally today, Nicolás de la Cerda, Isabel Laterzo-Tingley, and Ayelén Vanegas write for Lawfare about the hope that may still be in the bottle in the U.S. but has been released in Brazil following the indictment and pending trial of former president Jair Bolsonaro.

..a team of political scientists based at the University of Texas-Austin, Tulane University, and the Universidad Católica del Uruguay—surveyed a diverse range of 2,000 Brazilian citizens nationwide. Our survey included questions regarding support for democracy, partisanship, and other political attitudes. The survey process was underway when the charges against Bolsonaro were announced. This created a natural experiment, the term given to a situation in which a real-word event divides people into randomly assigned affected or unaffected groups, allowing us to compare the democratic attitudes of citizens right before the announcement to those right after. In particular, we were able to examine not only general attitudes but also attitudes among those who voted for Bolsonaro in 2022 (his supporters) and those who did not. Our research shows a brighter-than-expected picture. While we originally expected the coup charges to polarize attitudes and undermine democratic support among Bolsonaro’s backers, our research indicated that the announcement of the charges did little to shake support for democracy among Bolsonaro voters, and bolstered democratic support among those who did not vote for him. This was a surprising finding, given that confidence in democratic institutions—such as elections—has declined in Brazil in recent years. [...] Our findings from Brazil offer a positive message for democracies worldwide: Holding would-be autocrats accountable can strengthen democratic values without generating meaningful backlash. This is particularly relevant since attempts to subvert democracy and processes of democratic erosion are regular occurrences worldwide, making institutional accountability measures particularly relevant today.

As dark as this APR is, everyone try to have the best possible day in spite of it!

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