April 6th, 2023: @Twitter has been randomly shutting down API access for many apps and sadly we were affected today too. Hopefully we will be restored soon! We appreciate your patience until then.
Important point here, but worth adding that the first group (people with experience in NY criminal law who say the indictment is stronger) is functionally being erased from the discussion by pundits who, in their own echo chamber, refuse to engage with these experienced hands:
One more point to add to @qjurecic's tweet: The people who are "rushing to judgment" are those who are proclaiming the indictment a disaster before the tax piece is fully understood. Those who are urging caution and patience are *not* the ones rushing to judgment.
@qjurecic Finally, you don't get to piously pose as an Objective Seeker Of Truth Who Is Bravely Bucking The Mob if you simply refuse to listen to the voices of those with experience in these matters.
Final final thought: We all know how the pundit game works. Incentives are strong to call something early/then be right. But everyone knows there's no penalty for getting it wrong if you initially "bucked your own side" etc. It's not brave! There's no need to call this one early!
I don't understand how anyone can read this good thread and then turn around and state with a straight face that they *now* know enough to pass judgment on the indictment:
The big news in the stunning Wisconsin victory is that the defense of abortion rights *and* democracy is Kryptonite to MAGA. And it will get worse. Liberals won in Wisconsin by 10 points — even as Ron DeSantis is about to sign a six-week abortion ban: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/…
A 10-point margin in a state Trump won by less than 1 point is striking. Janet Protasiewicz made inroads in rural Trump areas and youth turnout was way up — due to abortion. I talked to @PollsAndVotes and obtained internal Dem data showing what happened:
@PollsAndVotes Messaging on abortion *and* democracy is potent here, because extreme gerrymanders help prevent popular majorities from defending abortion rights. This has been overlooked, but Dems ran ads on *both* topics. Abortion + democracy won big in a swing state:
The real scandal in the awful Marjorie Taylor Greene interview is that Lesley Stahl didn't seem to grasp that "pedophile" is a longtime anti-LGBTQ hate trope. She called it "name-calling." This sanitizes an ugly bigoted smear that goes back many years: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/…
In the key exchange, Marjorie Taylor Greene casually conflates trans treatment with "sexualizing children."
Stahl allows this conflation to slide by unrebutted. This squandered a huge opportunity to explain the history of this smear to a large audience:
Let's just say it: The GOP defense of Trump right now is utterly unhinged. If our democracy faces a "test," it's because Republicans are effectively declaring Trump above the law. Media should centralize this debased GOP conduct as the real "test" we face: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/…
It's important to get it right on what Republicans are really saying. They're not merely claiming the case against Trump is weak. They're suggesting the prosecution is *presumptively illegitimate* no matter what the charges and the facts turn out to be:
If our democracy is being "tested," it's largely because Republicans are casting the entire process as inherently illegitimate in advance. Media accounts of the "test" we face that don't centralize this end up erasing GOP agency from the equation:
Unreal: A new bill in Florida would require immediate removal of K-12 materials facing objections on sexual grounds *before any evaluative process vets the complaints.*
You already know that a new bill in Florida would expand "don't say gay."
But there's another awful provision in that bill. It would enable any resident of a county to get certain K-12 materials removed immediately, with no vetting of objections first:
Don't overlook this, it's a big deal: Michigan Dems are passing pro-labor *and* pro-LGBTQ/abortion bills. They're explicitly casting this as a pro-worker agenda, economically *and* culturally. This is the blue state answer to red state culture war madness: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/…
In a huge move, Michigan Dems are set to repeal the state's so-called "right to work" law.
Importantly, this comes after Dems in the state passed major new LGBTQ protections.
Michigan Dems tell me *both* of these are central to a pro-worker agenda:
Michigan State Sen Darrin Camilleri is the son and grandson of autoworkers. He tells me delivering for "working-class people across the board" means defending "civil rights and labor rights at the same time."
A civil rights lecture in Florida got canceled, apparently because a student felt "discomfort," per local reports. Here's a good @alexwagner episode on what happened, noting that "confusion is widespread":
…
@alexwagner Adding to @alexwagner's points about how the vagueness of DeSantis's directives is producing widespread confusion, please note that this is *intentional*: