Kagro in the Morning David Waldman

David Waldman and Greg Dworkin are up to their usual Wednesday hijinks. Let’s laugh and learn along.
Yes, MAGA has been feeling like showing their Nazi side recently. LOL! They’re just trolling the Libs! Then... Lib tears multiply their press. Then, all of this increased exposure moves the Overton window. Then, it’s policy. Before you know it, 5/9ths of the Supreme Court start believing that is how the Founding Fathers would have intended it.
You say that Donald Trump’s vow to deport 15 million people is cruel, authoritarian and isn’t possible in any practical sense? Well, that is what you said about Trump’s vow to build The Wall, and that vow got him elected last time, so... Who cares what you say, anyhow?
At least filibuster reform is approaching conventional wisdom status.
Trump jurors got several days of fresh air as both sides rest following Donald bone-spurring out of testifying. Defense superstar Bob Costello almost had a gavel for lunch on his first day of testimony, then returned to deliver the coup de grâce to his own team. Outside, the crowd roars, and Elise Stefanik files another ethics complaint.
Trump said Biden came to Mar-a-Lago to take him out, but should have called first as he was out of town. Marjorie Taylor Greene has confirmed that the FBI has acquired Jewish space lasers. 
Trump’s ‘Shadow Secretary of State‘ Ric Grenell met with Arab American leaders who quickly identified him as sub-Kushner.
Rudy Colludy Giuliani pleads “not guilty” and “broke” in court.
Who would ever know that carrying ammunition would be illegal in some countries? Probably people who don’t want to go to jail for 12 years.
People like Rep. Jennifer Wexton make new technology look really smart, but left on its own, boy is it dumb.

Donald Trump broke his vow to testify at his New York Fraud trial today. It hurts to think that he might have been lying all along to everyone. Yesterday the entire courtroom had to be cleared... incredibly, it wasn’t Donald who dealt it, it was defense witness, MAGA loon lawyer Robert Costello.
The countdown to the verdict now begins. Like at Trump rallies, Gop third string cheerleaders will probably decide to knock off early to beat the traffic home. Probably not the unified Reich that Trump was hoping for.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden is doing a fine job, but who wants to talk about that?
We conclude the story of Courtney Gore, former anti-DEI book-banner who realized that billionaires were targeting Texas public education, and is now facing some cancel-culture, Texas MAGA-style.
Joan McCarter pops in, and she and David Waldman celebrate living long enough to see filibuster reform on the ballot. Now if they can only reach the era of Supreme Court accountability.
If CEOs can’t be counted on to make impulsive, ill-considered, short-sided, self-serving decisions on the fly, what good are they?

David Waldman is surprised as you are that it’s already Monday.
Greg Dworkin remains on “Assignment”… or “Sabbatical”... or maybe “Hiatus” (The names of his fishing boats) in search of the perfect Raft O’Stories™ to haul in on this Wednesday. Meanwhile, Greg tells us of Israel's internal infighting, which doesn’t quite have the bodycount of their external fighting, but it is still quite messy.
Joe Biden gave the commencement speech at Morehouse College, which emphasized the values of faith and democracy. Of course, some people hate those things. Some prefer faith versus democracy.
Iran’s President’s helicopter technically failed to maintain a safe distance from surrounding terrain on Sunday, also subsequently did Iran’s President, Ebrahim Raisi.
The trial of the most stupid-dangerous dotard in history continues, much to the surprise of Fox News viewers.
A Gop Texas school board member heard all about schools indoctrinating kids. Imagine her surprise at finding out it was all false, and how she now had to start watching her back.
Samuel Alito is but a simple country Supreme Court justice, who doesn’t understand your big city “flags” or “stock transactions”. Stocks, flags, emails… that’s the little lady’s business. NYU legal ethicist Stephen Gillers’ not-so-taut tautology explains that Sam Alito could never because Sam Alito would never. 
Rudy Colludy Giuliani got exactly what he had been asking for on his birthday, although Rudy had hoped that the whole jumping out of the cake bit would have been a little less gauche.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams won’t take the city’s AI chatbot down until everybody gets the joke.

Why not start a Friday with weird sports news? But not just any weird sports news. Political sports news!
A guy who is a genuine NFL player, albeit a kicker, has said some things. They were meant to be pretty conservative, especially with regard to gender roles, and he thought his views would be at home at a Catholic college. But nuns actually work for a living.
We may never know who’s right about this dust-up as between the cops and a top pro golfer. But then again, not every story has a right side, you know? What’re you gonna do?
Justice Alito would, for some reason, like you to think he has nothing whatsoever to do with flying the flag outside of his home. Oh, also, flying it upside-down. Anyway, his wife totally did it, he says. And because journalists love to tell you why things matter, here are some other reasons why that matters.
Have you ever wondered what you would see if you could beam into a Trumpified future? Well, how about seeing the present in Israel and the West Bank? Granted, it could take you a long time to take it all in. But what if you could get the critical points in just a few minutes? Why, then you’d really have a distressing lens through which to view the crumbling of Western-style democracy!
Not sure if that’s actually what you’re viewing? Well, what if American proto-fascists just started pardoning pro-fascist murderers?
House Republicans are so eager to come to the NYC courthouse and kiss the ring that they’re leaving their “majority” unguarded. But they managed to cobble one together in time for a futile gesture toward Israel. Meanwhile, their Very Strong Leader is already looking to get out of the debates he bragged about agreeing to yesterday.
Do you know about New Caledonia? You do now.
On the good news side of the ledger: Hooray for the CFPB and active governance! And for scales falling from eyes!

David Waldman and Greg Dworkin make it to the end of (Greg's) week! Unless you’re Greg, or need to get to Barron’s graduation, you still need to show up tomorrow.
Michael Cohen, former fixer for Donald Trump, is fixing him good for his third day of testimony, his second under cross examination by crying little shit Todd Blanche. We are close to the finish line now, so close that Judge Merchan might resist the temptation to jail Trump for his contemptuous gang of surrogates outside the courthouse. If you thought that it was awful when Mike Johnson and his crew took wrecking balls to our justice system Tuesday, just see what they can do in the hands of Lauren Bobert! Nobody can gag Lauren!
The dozen of Americans hesitant to make their decision between the two 2024 presidential candidates before they got to know them better, can rest easy as two debates have been scheduled. 
Pollsters crunch those numbers behind their increasing incompetency polling non-whites.
Election news: Jan. 6 felony rioter Derrick Evans lost his Gop primary.  Bethany “Grandma Killer” Mandel lost in her campaign for school board in Maryland, for which she ran as a Democrat. Gop Courtney Gore won her school board slot, then repented after she had discovered that she campaigned on lies.
Mitt Romney takes the lead in the parade of Republicans demanding that Biden pardon Trump in 2025.
Rudy Giuliani is probably still alive, which would be a major hitch in his plan to escape massive fines and jail time.
21 men have been trapped for weeks on the container ship that crashed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge with virtually no access to porn. Happily, the crew has been supplied with SIM cards and temporary phones for the duration.
The US military has secured its floating pier to Gaza, finally allowing Gazans access to food and supplies and Israeli settlers to push more Palestinians into the sea.
Does Trump hope to be our Orbán, Berlusconi or Netanyahu? One thing is certain: Chaya Raichik is our American Itamar Ben-Gvir.

On today’s KITM, David Waldman and Greg Dworkin announce that we are right. In fact, it turns out that we were correct all along!
The People of the State of New York v. Orange J. Turd takes their Wednesday break today. Yesterday, Trump’s backup singers arrived well rehearsed to all sing the same tune outside the courthouse. Imagine their embarrassment when Tommy Tuberville wanted to join in.
Tag team porn watcher Mike Johnson missed his chance to get Stormy’s autograph, but as second in line to the presidency, felt a responsibility to crap on democracy and the U.S. system of justice.
Inside the courthouse, Trump defense attorney Todd Blanche apparently thought that his job was to start a bar fight so Donald could slip out the back. All Todd did was remind everyone of the precise reason they were all there.  Even Ed Koch showed up to give Trump a kick in the pants. Other former New York Mayor Rudy Colludy Giuliani probably wishes that he could be sitting right next to Mr. Koch at this very moment.
So, Donald Trump is a little ahead in some of the polls. So what!  Why believe those polls, when you can imagine them being better? Why believe polls that you don’t like when there are so many nice polls to look at? For instance, 1 in 5 Republicans voted against Trump in Nebraska and Maryland, instead voting for Nikki Haley, who isn’t even running for anything! Well in November they have to vote for somebody, don’t they? Well maybe not… but it could be for Joe, right? Look at the polls for the Democratic primary in Maryland. David Trone was ahead the entire time, until he wasn’t. That has to tell you something, doesn’t it?
Dahlia Lithwick continues to describe how the Supreme Court decides upon laws, then looks for reasons that they are correct in their decision.