Andy Borowitz: George Santos Pleads Nonexistent

In what legal scholars are calling a highly unorthodox strategy, Representative George Santos has pleaded nonexistent in federal court.

Though Santos’s claim not to exist was given long odds of succeeding, he forcefully made his case for his own unreality.

“Your honor, I stand before you, a fictitious character,” Santos proclaimed.

The New York congressman argued that, since he does not exist, all charges against him should be dropped, but he promised to submit to the judicial process in his cinematic universe.
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report

Florida teacher investigated by state agency for showing Disney movie in class

A Florida teacher is under investigation by the state Department of Education after what she believes is a targeted attack by a school board member who took issue with Disney's 2022 movie "Strange World," the first Disney movie with an out, gay character, was shown in her classroom https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/state/2023/05/14/florida-teacher-investigated-by-desantis-admin-for-showing-disney-film-strange-world/70211841007/.

DeSantis signs bill to defund DEI programs at Florida’s public colleges

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bill into law Monday barring the state’s colleges and universities from spending money on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and limiting how race can be discussed in many courses.

The law also forbids public colleges from offering general education courses — those that are part of a required curriculum for all college students — that “distort significant historical events,” teach “identity politics,” or are “based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, or privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political, or economic inequities.”

The Florida legislation has been met with backlash at both the state and national level, where higher education experts and First Amendment advocates say the state is trampling on academic freedom. “It’s basically state-mandated censorship, which has no place in a democracy,” Irene Mulvey, president of the American Association of University Professors, said in a recent interview with The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/05/15/desantis-defunds-dei-programs-florida-colleges/
 

Trump puts DeSantis in a bind on 2020: Can he bring himself to say Trump lost?

The Florida governor — who caught a break in Iowa over the weekend when severe weather kept Trump away from counter-programming his trip to the state — is seeking to persuade Republicans he’s their only hope of defeating President Joe Biden. But implicit in DeSantis’ argument that he is a more electable alternative to Trump is the idea that Trump actually lost.

The fundamental problem for DeSantis — underscored even by blunter messaging from the super PAC supporting him — is that he can’t bring himself to say it. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/15/trump-2020-election-desantis-bind-00096852
 

DeSantis signs slew of anti-transgender rights measures into law, affecting bathrooms, healthcare, and pronouns

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed four bills into law Wednesday that will deeply disrupt the lives of transgender people in the state, whether it be over access to healthcare, bathroom use, lessons about LGBTQ+ topics, or pronouns in schools. https://www.businessinsider.com/desantis-authorizes-slew-of-anti-trans-laws-in-florida-2023-5.

What Everyone—Except the U.S.—Has Learned About Immigration

Migration to affluent countries is at record highs, and some nations short of workers are overcoming political opposition to open their borders even wider, hoping to fill jobs and ease inflation.

Government actions to attract foreign nationals for skilled and unskilled jobs have spread from Germany to Japan and include countries with longtime immigration restrictions and some with a populist antipathy to streams of foreign workers.

The U.S. remains an outlier. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-worlds-biggest-economies-cautiously-open-their-doors-to-more-foreign-workers-664c3549-

Democrat Donna Deegan wins election to become Jacksonville’s first female mayor

Former TV anchor Donna Deegan (D) beat JAX Chamber CEO Daniel Davis (R) in a stunning upset for Jacksonville mayor, becoming the first woman ever and only the second Democrat to win a mayor’s race here in three decades despite Davis outraising her four-to-one. https://jaxtrib.org/2023/05/16/donna-deegan-beats-daniel-davis-for-jacksonville-mayor/

After school shooting, Tennessee governor signs bill to shield gun firms further against lawsuits

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has signed off on additional protections for gun and ammunition dealers, manufacturers and sellers against lawsuits within a bill that lawmakers passed after a deadly school shooting in March. https://apnews.com/article/tennessee-gun-lawsuits-shooting-3534e0242e1a2b582b6accddb292d8a6

Texas GOP’s broadest attempt yet to erode blue cities’ power gets one step closer to becoming law

Republican state leaders’ broadest effort to prevent Democratic-run cities and counties from enacting progressive policies — which could drastically limit local government’s ability to make rules on areas like labor rights, drought restrictions and even noise complaints — is one step closer to becoming law.

The sweeping legislation — authored by state Rep. Dustin Burrows, a Lubbock Republican — would bar cities and counties from issuing local ordinances that go further than what’s already allowed under broad sections of state law, including labor, agriculture, natural resources and finance. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/05/15/texas-legislature-local-control/

 

Marjorie Taylor Greene says she will move to impeach US attorney for DC

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said she will move to introduce articles of impeachment against Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, over his focus on prosecuting cases arising from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4006840-marjorie-taylor-greene-says-she-will-move-to-impeach-us-attorney-for-dc/

Biden Leads Trump In New Poll

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll finds President Biden leading possible challenger Donald Trump in a presidential race, 44% to 38%.

Among other findings, 63% of voters said they were less likely to support a presidential candidate who backs severe restrictions on abortion. https://themessenger.com/politics/biden-tops-trump-in-new-poll
 

Three GOP-Led States Set to Vote on New Abortion Bans on Tuesday

Three states, South Carolina, Nebraska and North Carolina, all with Republican supermajorities, are poised to debate and vote on abortion bans Tuesday, potentially further chipping away access to care across the country and creating an abortion desert across the South.

All three bans would take effect upon being signed by their state’s governor. https://19thnews.org/2023/05/abortion-bans-state-legislatures-nebraska-north-south-carolina/

Abortion laws triggered dozens of health complications, new report says

A new report has identified dozens of examples in which medical providers say pregnant patients received care in the past year that deviated from care they would have received before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade — a sign, researchers said, of a pattern of serious health complications triggered by abortion bans. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/05/16/ucsf-abortion-study/

Mayorkas impeachment pressure builds inside the House GOP

Speaker Kevin McCarthy is facing fresh pressure from within his ranks – including from key allies and top lieutenants – to launch impeachment proceedings against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, putting the speaker in a bind as he tries to show they’re taking aggressive action on the border without alienating the party’s moderate, so-called majority makers. https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/16/politics/alejandro-mayorkas-impeachment-pressure-campaign/index.html

AI presents political peril for 2024 with threat to mislead voters

Sophisticated generative AI tools can now create cloned human voices and hyper-realistic images, videos and audio in seconds, at minimal cost. When strapped to powerful social media algorithms, this fake and digitally created content can spread far and fast and target highly specific audiences, potentially taking campaign dirty tricks to a new low.

The implications for the 2024 campaigns and elections are as large as they are troubling: Generative AI can not only rapidly produce targeted campaign emails, texts or videos, it also could be used to mislead voters, impersonate candidates and undermine elections on a scale and at a speed not yet seen.

AI experts can quickly rattle off a number of alarming scenarios in which generative AI is used to create synthetic media for the purposes of confusing voters, slandering a candidate or even inciting violence. https://apnews.com/article/artificial-intelligence-misinformation-deepfakes-2024-election-trump-59fb51002661ac5290089060b3ae39a0

Trump Changed GOP Rules to Make Winning the Nomination Even Easier — for Trump

Republicans seeking to keep Donald Trump from becoming their party’s nominee will have to overcome rules even more favorable to the former president than the ones that helped him clinch the 2016 nomination.

In 2024, more states will award delegates through winner-take-all primaries — a system that helped Trump when opponents divided the vote, allowing him to be awarded all or most of the delegates with less than majority support. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-14/trump-has-easier-path-to-2024-nomination-with-latest-republican-rules

RFK Jr.: Ron DeSantis invited me to breakfast, said "he wanted to burn the NIH to the ground"

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) told vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. that he wanted to burn the National Institutes of Health to the ground, according to a new interview with the Democratic presidential candidate, Semafor reports.

Kennedy said that DeSantis invited him to breakfast during the pandemic, to discuss what Kennedy described as his “science-based response” to the crisis. https://www.semafor.com/article/05/10/2023/rfk-jr-ron-desantis-nih

Polling suggests public still struggles with debt ceiling basics

The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll found that Americans would blame a debt ceiling crisis on congressional Republicans and President Joe Biden in roughly equal measure. That didn’t make a lot of sense — only one side of the political divide is threatening to harm Americans deliberately — but the data served as a timely reminder that much of the country isn’t following the fight closely.

But that’s not the only problem. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday on the results of its latest national survey.

Many voters see few good options for policy makers as President Biden and congressional Republicans work in an effort to avert the first-ever default by the government as soon as next month. 45% of respondents to a recent Wall Street Journal poll said they didn’t favor Congress lifting the debt ceiling, the mechanism used to avoid default in the past. Some 44% favor lifting it. Republicans tend to be more skeptical, with 75% of GOP voters opposed to Congress lifting the debt ceiling, according to the survey. https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/polling-suggests-public-still-struggles-debt-ceiling-basics-rcna84031

Rape, incest exceptions to Louisiana abortion ban rejected by GOP lawmakers

Republican lawmakers in Louisiana rejected legislation Wednesday that would add exceptions in cases of rape and incest to one of the strictest abortion bans in the country. https://apnews.com/article/louisiana-abortion-rape-incest-ban-ed103502c56a48b96e66a3d8a7a0379c

Alabama would prosecute abortion as murder under newly introduced bill

HB454, introduced by Rep. Ernie Yarbrough, R-Trinity, would repeal the standing provision that prohibits prosecution following an abortion.

The bill could lead to prosecutions for anyone who terminates a pregnancy after fertilization, though it retains protections for people who are victims of domestic violence of assault. https://www.al.com/news/2023/05/alabama-would-prosecute-abortion-as-murder-under-newly-introduced-bill.html

House Republicans now want to include border legislation in their list of demands for a debt ceiling deal.

Key GOP lawmakers are signaling they want border policies in the mix as congressional leadership and the White House try to negotiate a debt ceiling deal, the day after Republicans passed a sweeping border and immigration bill.

It was a GOP wishlist that included restarting construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall and placing new restrictions on asylum seekers. https://www.politico.com/minutes/congress/05-12-2023/tying-border-to-debt/
 

What’s Driving Record Levels of Migration to the U.S. Border?

While migration to the U.S. southern border has always fluctuated, the pandemic and the recession that followed hit Latin America harder than almost anywhere else in the world, plunging millions into hunger, destitution and despair.

A generation of progress against extreme poverty was wiped out. Unemployment hit a two-decade high. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine choked off a key pipeline for grain and fertilizer, triggering a spike in food prices.

Economic shocks were worsened by violence, as conflict between armed groups festered in once relatively peaceful countries and raged in places long accustomed to the terror. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/11/world/americas/title-42-migration-us-border.html
 

Trump Deepened His Legal Jeopardy

The most heated exchange that Trump had with CNN interviewer Kaitlan Collins was over the special counsel investigation into his possession of hundreds of presidential records, including more than 300 individual classified documents, at his private club, Mar-a-Lago, after he left office. And it was the area in which he walked himself into the biggest problems.

Said Trump: “I was there and I took what I took and it gets declassified… I had every right to do it, I didn’t make a secret of it. You know, the boxes were stationed outside the White House, people were taking pictures of it.”

In what will be of great interest to the special counsel, Jack Smith, Trump would not definitively rule out whether he showed classified material to people, something investigators have queried witnesses about, in particular in connection with a map with sensitive intelligence. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/05/11/nation/five-takeaways-trumps-unruly-cnn-town-hall/
 

E. Jean Carroll May Sue Trump a Third Time After ‘Vile’ Comments on CNN

E. Jean Carroll is weighing whether to file a new defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump in the wake of his diatribe against her during a CNN town hall Wednesday night, when he said her claim of a decades-old sexual assault was fake and a made-up story, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/11/nyregion/e-jean-carroll-trump-defamation.html
 

Yellen Calls Invoking 14th Amendment to Raise Debt Limit ‘Legally Questionable’

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen downplayed the possibility that President Biden could essentially ignore the debt limit by invoking the 14th Amendment, calling the idea “legally questionable.” https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/11/us/politics/debt-limit-yellen-14th-amendment.html

CNN Loses to Newsmax in Primetime Ratings Two Days After Trump Town Hall

Two days after the network pulled in more than 3.3 million viewers for its widely criticized town hall with former President Donald Trump, CNN found itself in fourth place among cable news networks in primetime.

Worse yet, it finished behind MAGA channel Newsmax, which until recently was barely nabbing a nightly audience of 100,000.  https://www.thedailybeast.com/cnn-loses-to-newsmax-in-primetime-ratings-two-days-after-trump-town-hall
 

Rudy Giuliani said he and Trump were selling pardons for $2m apiece, ex-aide claims

A former aide to former Trump attorney Rudolph Giuliani says he told her the ex-New York City mayor and then-president Donald Trump were offering to sell presidential pardons for $2 million apiece, according to court documents. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/rudy-giuliani-trump-pardons-lawsuit-b2339431.html

Rudy Giuliani sued by former associate alleging sexual assault and harassment

A former associate of Rudy Giuliani sued the former New York mayor, presidential candidate and attorney to Donald Trump for $10m on Monday, alleging “abuses of power, wide-ranging sexual assault and harassment, wage theft and other misconduct” including “alcohol-drenched rants that included sexist, racist and antisemitic remarks”.

Filed in New York state, Noelle Dunphy’s suit includes the allegation that Giuliani “often demanded oral sex while he took phone calls on speaker phone from high-profile friends and clients, including then-President Trump”.

Giuliani is alleged to have told Dunphy “he enjoyed engaging in this conduct while on the telephone because it made him ‘feel like Bill Clinton.’” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/15/rudy-giuliani-lawsuit-noelle-dunphy-sexual-assault.

THE DAILY GRILL

The Turkish government asked Twitter to censor its opponents right before an election and @elonmusk complied — should generate some interesting Twitter Files reporting. — Matthew Yglesias https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1657422401754259461

VERSUS

Did your brain fall out of your head, Yglesias? The choice is have Twitter throttled in its entirety or limit access to some tweets. Which one do you want?— Elon Musk responds https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1657422401754259461