Written like a ‘D-‘ Jr high school student’s, written-last-minute paper; rambling, run-on sentences, non sensical resolution to remove Speaker Mike Johnson.
I mean so embarrassingly badly written- what a waste of time!
Wow. [Gifted article, NYTimes]: R.F.K. Jr. Says Doctors Found a Dead Worm in His Brain
The presidential candidate has faced previously undisclosed health issues, including a parasite that he said ate part of his brain. By Susanne Craig
[The Washington Post]: Judge indefinitely delays Trump’s classified documents trial in Florida U.S. Judge Aileen M. Cannon said there are too many pre-trial issues to address to set a new trial date now By Perry Stein and Devlin Barrett
[NYTimes]: Susan Necheles, the defense lawyer, has lodged objection after objection. Objections are meant to either cut off testimony or have it stricken from the official record entirely. We can’t tell you exactly what her rate of success has been, but it’s way higher than normal. The judge is accepting her objections and disrupting Stormy Daniels’s testimony. By Jonah Bromwich
[NYTimes]: Stormy Daniels says that during her dinner with Trump, she asked about his wife. He told her, she says, not to worry because the two did not “even sleep in the same room.” Trump and Melania were married in 2005, the year before this encounter. By Jonah Bromwich
[NYTimes]: Stormy Daniels is now talking about meeting Trump for dinner. She says that when he first emerged from his hotel suite, he was wearing “silk or satin” pajamas, which Daniels compared to those often sported by Hugh Hefner. She asked him to change, and he returned in more standard dress clothes. By Jonah Bromwich
[NYTimes]: It was clear this morning before the courtroom opened that today would be different. Many reporters anticipated that Stormy Daniels was likely the next witness, and the lines formed earlier. By Maggie Haberman
[NYTimes]: Live Updates: Stormy Daniels Is Expected to Testify in Trump’s Trial
Ms. Daniels, who received $130,000 in hush money to keep silent about her story of having had sex with Donald J. Trump, is at the center of the case against him.
Very, important read. [Gifted Article, The Atlantic]: Democracy Is Losing the Propaganda War
Autocrats in China, Russia, and elsewhere are now making common cause with MAGA Republicans to discredit liberalism and freedom around the world. By Anne Applebaum.
“Here is a difficult truth: A part of the American political spectrum is not merely a passive recipient of the combined authoritarian narratives that come from Russia, China, and their ilk, but an active participant in creating and spreading them. Like the leaders of those countries, the American MAGA right also wants Americans to believe that their democracy is degenerate, their elections illegitimate, their civilization dying. ..
The MAGA movement’s leaders also have an interest in pumping nihilism and cynicism into the brains of their fellow citizens, and in convincing them that nothing they see is true. Their goals are so similar that it is hard to distinguish between the online American alt-right and its foreign amplifiers, who have multiplied since the days when this was solely a Russian project.
"To state baldly what is happening: The Republican Party’s right wing is actively harassing legitimate, good-faith efforts to track the production and dissemination of autocratic disinformation here in the United States.
"These stories are symptomatic of a larger problem: Because the American extreme right and (more rarely) the extreme left benefit from the spread of antidemocratic narratives, they have an interest in silencing or hobbling any group that wants to stop, or even identify, foreign campaigns. Senator Mark Warner, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told me that “we are actually less prepared today than we were four years ago” for foreign attempts to influence the 2024 election.
"This is not only because authoritarian propaganda campaigns have become more sophisticated as they begin to use AI, or because “you obviously have a political environment here where there’s a lot more Americans who are more distrustful of all institutions.” It’s also because the lawsuits, threats, and smear tactics have chilled government, academic, and tech-company responses.
One could call this a secret authoritarian “plot” to preserve the ability to spread antidemocratic conspiracy theories, except that it’s not a secret. It’s all visible, right on the surface. Russia, China, and sometimes other state actors—Venezuela, Iran, Hungary—work with Americans to discredit democracy, to undermine the credibility of democratic leaders, to mock the rule of law.
"They do so with the goal of electing Trump, whose second presidency would damage the image of democracy around the world, as well as the stability of democracy in America, even further.
