The rank hypocrisy of our Supreme Court has reached peak levels. I thought that Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham refusing to confirm Merrick Garland eight months before an election on the grounds that it was “too close,” and then 4 years later confirming Amy Coney Barrett after early voting had already starte
If the shit your party is doing is so bad that the only way you can win an election is to cheat this much, that might be a sign that you’re on the wrong side of history. While it does seem clear that, on a level playing field, the Democrats would completely destroy the Republicans in the upcoming midterms, it also seems pretty clear that we’re not going to get that level playing field. The story of Hungary (see week 64) still provides a modicum of hope, but let’s remain sober as to the amount that the Republicans are trying to rig the game.
Other things you need to know this week:
- Strict Scrutiny had two breaking-story short videos this week (because that’s the hell we live in now): Leah breaks down Alito’s hissy fit over Ketanji Brown Jackson calling him out, and Leah and Melissa break down the catastrophe that is the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision.
- Speaking of legal stuff, Legal Eagle’s Cristian Farias has even more on the gutting of the Voting Rights Acts, including my favorite quote about this, from Ruth Bader Ginsburg: “throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.” Plus, despite the numerous videos I pointed you at last week, Cristian has the best overall explanation of what actually happened.
- And, for some direct results of that Supreme Court decision, check out Zeteo’s Prem Thakker interviewing Tennessee state rep Justin Pearson.
- Adam Kinzinger has switched from doing the week in review to doing a day in review every day (I think this is another sign of our current hellscape). They can’t all be winners, of course, but there were a couple of good ones this week: his Cinco de Mayo update talks about Trump’s billion-dollar ballroom being voted on while rural hospitals close, and another update covers paying for pardons and more info on rising oil prices.
- Another banger SNL cold open: to Colin Jost’s excellent Pete Hegseth and Aziz Ansari’s spot-on Kash Patel, host Matt Damon brings a damn fine Brett Kavanaugh.
- A good Some More News this week, all about Trump’s attempts to rewrite history.
- Ben McKenzie continues to be everywhere by showing up on We’re Not Kidding with Mehdi Hasan. And he’s still good every single time.
If you’re looking for some hope, there was a very successful set of local elections in the UK this week: very successful for the progressive left, that is. Now, to be fair, it was also a fair bit successful for the Reform party, which is the UK equivalent of our MAGA Republicans, but in the end Reform did not win nearly as much as was predicted: the Greens dominated in England, and Plaid Cymru (pronounced “Plad Cumree”), the Welsh Nationalist Party, did the same in Wales. If you want full details, Owen Jones has a predictably gleeful breakdown of the results. And, again, to be completely fair, these are local elections: sort of the equivalent of our statewide elections. But I think we’re learning in our own country that these local elections end up having an outsized effect on our national elections, so I’m choosing to view this news as a sign that things are changing from the bottom up, at least in the UK. And I continue to believe that gains in the UK can portend gains in the US. Am I right? No clue, yet. Perhaps in November we’ll find out.
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