Bess Levin: Trump Says Hunter Biden Should’ve Gotten the Death Penalty for Not Paying His Taxes on Time

Last month, Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, reached a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges stemming from paying his taxes late in 2017 and 2018. (As part of the deal, he also agreed to be charged, but not prosecuted, for purchasing a handgun at a time when he was using drugs, which is contingent on him never owning a firearm again and remaining drug-free for two years.) Naturally, this deal enraged conservatives, who have insisted for some time now that president’s son is the most corrupt person to walk the face of the earth, that his dad is just as bad, and that as punishment, both Hunter and Joe should be sent to Guantánamo Bay in a deal that also involves Donald Trump being installed as president for life.

Obviously, that whole Guantánamo Bay/Trump-as-emperor is merely a parody of the things Republicans have said about the Biden Boys; while it’s pretty close, no one has actually called for them to be sent to the notorious detention camp known for housing terrorists. But as of Tuesday, at least one person had suggested that Biden the Younger should have been sentenced to death for his crimes, and you can probably take a guess as to who that person was.

Yes, that’s former a U.S. president and current presidential candidate raging on Truth Social that federal prosecutor David Weiss did not give Hunter Biden “a death sentence” for his aforementioned crimes, which, as a reminder, were paying his taxes late two years in a row and buying a gun when he was using drugs. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/07/donald-trump-says-hunter-biden-shouldve-gotten-the-death-penalty-for-not-paying-his-taxes-on-time
 

Kate Cohen: Meet the Republicans voting no on anti-trans laws

Here in the legislative lull of summer, looking back on the smog cloud of anti-LGBTQ+ bills just passed, I picture Republican legislators across the country engaging in some mass hazing ritual — except instead of chugging a bottle of vodka, they vote to deny health care to children. And instead of risking their own lives to join the fraternity of reelectable Republicans, they risk the lives of transgender teens.

Twenty states now have laws banning gender-affirming care for trans children. In the face of such senseless, lockstep cruelty, it would be easy to despair. In fact, given the Supreme Court’s apparent intention to wink at whatever discrimination right-wing Christianity favors, it would be smart to despair.

But I want to hope. So I’d like to spend a little time thinking about the Republicans who voted against trans health-care bans — proof that common sense and compassion can still trump party loyalty. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/07/10/republicans-vote-no-anti-trans-laws/

Geoffrey Skelley: No Labels Is Chasing a Fantasy

It’s too early to evaluate whether No Labels’s candidate could be a spoiler for the Democratic nominee, but the group’s belief that it could mount a victorious campaign rests on several misconceptions about contemporary politics. First and foremost, the share of the electorate made up by independent moderates isn’t large enough to win a presidential election. Secondly, despite distaste for Biden and Trump, each remains well-liked by his party, reducing the potential draw of a No Labels candidate. Meanwhile, the group’s aim of markedly increasing turnout over 2020’s record-high mark will require the difficult task of getting even more low-propensity voters to turn out.

Lastly, finding a candidate who could maximize No Labels’s appeal won’t be easy because there’s nobody named ‘moderate independent’ who embodies the varied preferences held by voters disenchanted by the idea of another Biden-Trump matchup. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/no-labels-is-chasing-a-fantasy/

David Remnick: The Alternative Facts of RFK Jr.

Kennedy’s habits of mind are MAGA-adjacent, but his manner differs from that of his Republican doppelgänger. Donald Trump is a bully—rude, swaggering, out to flatten his questioner under an avalanche of lies and volume. Kennedy is not rude. Rather, he is serenely convinced of his virtue and his interlocutor’s pitiful susceptibility to conventional wisdom.

The experience of interviewing him and listening to his previous interviews, I found, was like settling in for a long train ride with a seemingly amiable stranger in the next seat. You ask a straightforward question and, an hour later, as you race by Thirtieth Street Station, in Philadelphia, he is still going on about the fraud of COVID vaccines and how he was unfairly ‘deplatformed’ for spouting conspiracy theories.

By the time you’ve pulled into Wilmington, he might be talking about how drugs known as poppers helped cause the AIDS epidemic, or how ‘toxic chemicals’ might contribute to ‘sexual dysphoria’ in children. As you head south, he is talking about being ‘censored’ by Instagram, the F.B.I., and the Biden White House. New technologies like 5G towers and digital currencies are totalitarian instruments that could ‘control our behavior.’ Wi-Fi causes ‘leaky brain.’ After a while, you begin to wonder why you bought a ticket. But it’s too late. You’re pinned into the window seat. https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-alternative-facts-of-robert-f-kennedy-jr

Eugene Robinson: As hard-right House radicals dig in, prepare for a summer of obstruction

We’re about to find out just how crazy and dysfunctional this slim House Republican majority really is. If I were a betting man, I’d take the over. The next couple of months could be an epic dumpster fire.

Members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, outraged at the notion of meeting anyone halfway about anything, are trying to renege on the spending targets set in the debt ceiling deal and instead force much deeper cuts. They don’t have the power to get what they want, since all the other actors (Biden, House Democrats, a bipartisan majority in the Senate) are determined to honor the terms of the agreement. But looney-bin GOP radicals can make McCarthy’s life miserable and perhaps even oust him as speaker. And there is a good chance they can force a government shutdown at the end of September.

Pulling such a stunt would be dumb and self-defeating. The historical record is clear: When Republicans force a shutdown, they end up hurting their own party politically and helping the Democrats. But logic and pragmatism no longer appear to be getting through to the outer-planet far right in the House.

Meanwhile, prominent House Republicans are busy performing such vital legislative tasks as investigating Hunter Biden; investigating the Justice Department investigation of Hunter Biden; threatening to impeach Attorney General Merrick Garland; threatening to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas; threatening to fire FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, who was appointed by Donald Trump; complaining about woke capitalism, as if they think Wall Street has somehow repealed the profit motive; and now, in a weekend flurry of official statements and Fox News appearances, vowing to get to the bottom of who left a small bag of cocaine at the White House.

Amid all this nonsense, however, the House Appropriations Committee is working on spending bills for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 with funding levels about $119 billion less than those set in the Biden-McCarthy compromise. This attempt at changing the rules midgame was blessed by McCarthy after Freedom Caucus members staged a tantrum, blocking the House from getting any work done, to protest the debt ceiling deal.

I do know one thing: It’s going to be a long, hot summer on Capitol Hill. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/07/10/house-republican-radicals-extreme-dysfunction/

Dan Pfeiffer: How DeSantis is Making Trump Look More Electable

The largest drivers of electoral outcomes are beyond anyone’s control — the mood of the country, the state of the economy, world events, etc. There are two factors, however, that a candidate can ostensibly control — their performance on the stump and their campaign strategy. I spend a lot of time in this newsletter and on Pod Save America, gleefully documenting Ron DeSantis’s shortcomings as a candidate. He lacks charisma, presence, humanity, and oratory skills. The Florida governor is the political equivalent of a baseball player who cannot throw, catch, or bat. In other words, what does Ron DeSantis bring to the table?

Sometimes, good candidates run bad campaigns. Other times, candidates are so lacking in talent that even an incredible strategy executed perfectly is insufficient. Ron DeSantis is a bad candidate running a very bad campaign. In fact, his campaign seems designed in a lab to make Donald Trump more electable. https://www.messageboxnews.com/p/does-ron-desantis-want-trump-to-win

Linette Lopez: Welcome to 'Zombie Twitter'

It's been less than a year since he bought it, and Elon Musk's Twitter is already well on its way to suffering a fate worse than death — irrelevance.

The platform, which Musk promised to turn into a free-speech, bot-free haven, is glitchier, bottier, and spammier than ever. In May, when Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida announced his presidential candidacy on Twitter, a parade of malfunctions turned what should have been a historic moment for the company into a mess. Twitter hasn't even been able to hold it together during the news-making events it's known for — such as while Rihanna was performing at the Super Bowl halftime show. And pretty much every new "feature" that Musk rolls out — from an increase in the length of tweets to the now infamous "rate limit" that prevents users from seeing more than a set number of tweets a day — has made the product worse.

And now there is growing competition. On Thursday — a couple of weeks after Musk challenged him to a cage fight — Mark Zuckerberg's Meta launched Threads, a social-note site fused with Instagram. In less than 24 hours, Threads had over 30 million users, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jennifer Lopez, and Steph Curry. For Musk, this should be more embarrassing than getting wrecked in the ring. Clearly in some kind of mood over Threads' overnight success, he wrote on Twitter: "It is infinitely preferable to be attacked by strangers on Twitter, than indulge in the false happiness of hide-the-pain Instagram.” https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-killed-twitter-irrelevant-meta-threads-debt-mark-zuckerberg-2023-7
 

 

Yair Rosenberg: There’s No Such Thing as an RFK Jr. Voter

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a man of many misguided ideas. He thinks that vaccinations are harmful, that Wi-Fi radiation causes cancer, and that chemicals in the water supply are producing gender dysphoria. Most political commentators do not share these ideas, but they have implicitly adopted another of the presidential hopeful’s questionable notions: that Kennedy’s voters care about Kennedy’s ideas and are supporting him because of them.

Some assume that Kennedy is polling in double digits because his personal positions are resonating with the electorate. But this is a mistake. Although some voters do share Kennedy’s skepticism of the COVID-19 vaccines, they are predominantly Republicans; few Americans of either party oppose all childhood vaccinations, as he does. In reality, Kennedy’s popularity comes not from his odd ideas, but from his anti-establishment affect. He has not unearthed a new constituency for banning wireless internet and immunizations; he has tapped into a very old one that fundamentally repudiates the American political system and its official options. Kennedy’s campaign is a protest movement, not an intellectual argument, and seeking to rebut his specific stances misunderstands his appeal and dignifies his fringe fantasies with respect they do not command among voters.

Populist insurgents like Kennedy point to their polling as evidence of the popularity of their ideas.
But in actuality, those numbers reflect the real but limited popularity of their anti-establishment posture. In American politics, there is always a market for someone calling to burn down the entire edifice; the specific kindling is beside the point. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/07/rfk-jr-2024-election-anti-establishment-voters/674588/

Frank Bruni: Ron DeSantis Is Running One Freaky Campaign

The version of most politicians that we need to worry about is the one that they don’t want us to see. That’s why campaign reporters dog them; they’re waiting for the veil to slip.

But the version of Ron DeSantis that we need to worry about is the one that he proudly shows us. He embraces his meanness. He luxuriates in his darkness. Let other politicians peddle the pablum of inspiration. He prefers to ooze the toxin of contempt.

That’s one of the morals of a provocative anti-gay, anti-trans video that the DeSantis campaign shared late last week. The campaign’s promotion of it prompted accusations of homophobia even from some Republicans, and justly so: In an attempt to smear Donald Trump, the video doesn’t just accuse him of coddling L.G.B.T.Q. Americans. It revels in DeSantis’s vilification of them.

Initially distributed by a Twitter account called Proud Elephant, it presents a bizarre montage that’s superficially an anti-woke battle cry, pitting a truculent DeSantis against a scourge of degenerates.

But while his viciousness comes through precisely as planned, so does something unintended: an undercurrent of homoerotic kink. Up pops a shirtless hunk with a ripped chest. Here’s a glowering Brad Pitt in his Troy drag. Are honchos with a Homer fetish some new thing? I need to get out more.

But the perversely purposed beefcake is less striking than the way in which the video exultantly spotlights DeSantis’s biggest critics and celebrates their harshest criticism, treating the words with which they’ve described him and his initiatives as the best measures of his mettle. Most extreme becomes a trophy, horrifying a crown and evil a sash.

The Florida governor is running one freaky and unsettling presidential campaign. He’s more focused on putting certain Americans in their places than on lifting others to new heights. He’s defined by the scores he pledges to settle instead of the victories he promises to achieve. He casts himself as someone to fear rather than revere. That video actually flashes an image of Christian Bale in American Psycho as a flattering DeSantis analogue.

DeSantis mistakes spite for spiritedness, bullying for strength. I hope voters don’t do likewise. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/06/opinion/ron-desantis-presidential-campaign.html

Michael Hiltzik: Bidenomics has been a boon for working class voters. Why don’t they give him credit?

No one doubts that the fiscal buzzword of the moment is Bidenomics. The question at hand is whether President Biden will be able to wear it proudly as a badge, or his Republican adversaries will hang it around his neck like an albatross.

President Biden himself plainly sees it as a net positive. During his appearance in Chicago on June 28 to talk up his economic message, the term was emblazoned on the podium and on bunting draped around the hall.

It’s fair to say that the economy hasn’t yet recovered the strength it needs to produce the tide that lifts all boats. Many Americans still feel the pain of higher prices and narrowed employment opportunity; where one stands on the economy depends as much as always on where one sits.

But generally speaking, Biden’s approach to economic policy has been to push it in the direction of favoring ordinary Americans through initiatives such as infrastructure spending, regulatory policies, and the effort to reduce the burden of student debt (blocked by a far-right Supreme Court). That’s a big change from the Trump years, when the GOP’s most significant legislative achievement was an enormous tax cut for corporations and the wealthy.

Accepting the label of Bidenomics for economic policies may be a political risk for Biden. But it may be an encouraging sign that he’s leaning into a label that the GOP has tried to turn into a dirty word, since he does have a lot to brag about. It should be remembered that the Republicans tried to turn public discontent with the Affordable Care Act into a millstone for Democrats by calling it Obamacare. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-07-06/column-bidenomics-has-been-a-boon-for-the-working-class-so-why-isnt-the-working-class-giving-biden-credit
 

Jonathan Chait: GOP’s Bombshell Anti-Biden Witness Has a Wee Credibility Problem. Why does this keep happening?

The Republican party, unable to handle the reality that Joe Biden is a very normal American politician who happens to have one extremely messed-up son, has instead constructed a lurid alternate reality in which the president of the United States has masterminded a long-running global scheme to pocket millions while betraying his country.

The most recent accusation of criminality centers around an allegation that Biden accepted bribes from China in cooperation with his son Hunter. Back in May, James Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, claimed he had a witness who would testify to Joe Biden’s involvement. Then, several days later, Comer said on Fox News that he had lost touch with the witness. “Well, unfortunately we can’t track down the informant. We are hopeful the informant is still there,” he told Maria Bartiromo.

Last week, the New York Post identified Comer’s star witness as Gal Luft, executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security. And as recently as Sunday, Comer was insisting the informant was extremely credible. “He’s very credible and the people on MSNBC who made fun of me when I said we had an informant that was missing, they should feel like fools right now,” he boasted. “And this is their worst nightmare. Again, this is a credible witness that the FBI flew all the way to Brussels to interview.”

Now it turns out Luft is being charged by the Justice Department with working as an unregistered foreign agent on behalf of China, violating the Arms Export Control Act by trying to broker secret arms deals to multiple countries, and conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions by purchasing and selling Iranian oil.

Note that none of these charges involve doing anything illegal with Joe Biden. The first charges involve giving payments to an advisor to Donald Trump.

Republicans have a habit of imputing all of Donald Trump’s crimes to Trump’s opponents, but this is really on the nose. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/07/gal-luft-gop-biden-witness-charged-china-justice-department-comer.html

Edward Luce: The Great Ron DeSantis Train Wreck

It was often said that when Bill Clinton walked into a room, each person thought he noticed them in particular. Clinton was the ultimate retail politician: he liked people and they knew it. When Ron DeSantis shows up, even those who want to support him feel that he harbors a special dislike for them. Being a black hole in terms of charisma is not automatically fatal to a candidate’s prospects. When your target is the diabolically charismatic Donald Trump, however, you are working at a big disadvantage.

The story of how DeSantis went from being the favorite, or near-favorite, Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential race to America’s most rapidly falling meteor in years, tells us a lot about the mindset of US conservatism. https://www.ft.com/content/966af78d-2294-4156-b8b3-fa363b466b13