Alternet: “The Times of London’s David Charter, the newspaper’s U.S. editor, ‘writes that when he asked Mr. DeSantis how he would handle American relations with Ukraine, the governor referred ‘to Biden being ‘weak on the world stage’ and failing at deterrence.’
“Mr. Charter pressed for more detail: ‘How would a President DeSantis handle the conflict in Ukraine?’
“DeSantis, it appears, grew irritated.
“‘Perhaps you should cover some other ground?’ the governor replied. ‘I think I’ve said enough.’
Alternet: Right-wing activist and lobbyist Matt Schlapp, the embattled chairman of the political organization that hosts the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), avoided a reporter’s questions Thursday about a male Republican campaign operative’s sexual assault allegations against him, and ultimately was pulled away by his arm rather than face the questions.
The Independent’s Eric Michael Garcia tried to get Schlapp to respond to the claims by the man who at the time was an aide to the Herschel Walker campaign. He is reportedly suing Schlapp in a $9.4 million battery, defamation, and conspiracy lawsuit after the CPAC leader refused to admit to allegations he was “aggressively fondling” the man’s “genital area in a sustained fashion” while he was driving Schlapp to his hotel.
In the video (above), Garcia can be heard saying to Schlapp, ‘What’s your response to the allegation –’ but then a woman interjects, asking, ‘How’s your wife?’
“‘She’s great,’ Schlapp responds.
[Mercedes Schlapp was Trump’s director of strategic communications.]
“…At that point another man grabs Schlapp’s arm and pulls him away.”
“Will Republicans honor their campaign commitments to secure the border – yes or no? What I am seeing right now from my Republican colleagues does not give me faith that they will stand up in the breach as did those men who stood on the wall at the Alamo. I am tired of words!”
— Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), in a fiery speech on the House floor.
“Whether DeSantis would actually do more damage to American democracy in office than Trump could remains hard to say. Perhaps, perhaps not. But we should recognize that he is not putting himself forward as a critic of Trump’s authoritarianism. He is promising, on the contrary, to exceed it.”
Vice News: “If Ron DeSantis has his way, what his board did at New College will happen at every public university in Florida.
“Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ handpicked board of trustees voted to shutter New College’s diversity, equity, and inclusion office on Tuesday, the latest step in its hostile takeover of the school and a harbinger of what Florida’s entire university system could look like in a few months.
“The board, which has a majority of DeSantis appointees, voted 9 to 3 to abolish the school’s Office of Outreach and Inclusive Excellence.
“Christopher Rufo, a rightwing education activist and one of DeSantis’ appointees to the board and [who singlehandedly made Critical Race Theory into fake issue], argued during the meeting that diversity efforts undermine fairness. ‘DEI goes against those principles because it restricts academic freedom, it degrades the rigor of scholarship, it treats people differently on the basis of skin color or other inborn identities,’ he said during the board meeting.
“DeSantis has sought to make an example of New College, a tiny liberal arts school with a mostly progressive student body that has a large LBGTQ community. Earlier this year he replaced most of the college’s board of trustees with right-wing loyalists who quickly moved to fire the college’s president, replace her with an ally, and push the liberal-leaning school hard to the right.”
Adam Serwer in The Atlantic: “A simple but obvious fact has been lost over the past few years, amid Trump’s direct attacks on the FBI, and liberal defenses of the FBI against those attacks: FBI agents are cops. Law-enforcement officers, including the FBI, have long been disproportionately conservative, but in the past few decades, like the rest of the nation, they have also become far more polarized by party, a reality reflected in the rhetoric and positioning of advocacy groups such as the Fraternal Order of Police. There are liberal and moderate cops, but they are not close to comprising a majority. Simply put, the FBI is full of people who would prefer not to investigate Donald Trump. He remains under federal investigation only because of his own inability to stop criming.”
Soon as the deal was done, the GOPers started to bitch,
Though they closed no loopholes nor upped taxes on the rich.
Sure, right-wingers ain’t happy
About getting an ass-whupping from Pappy,
To which we say, “Shut up and eat your turd sandwich.”
“This year is starting to feel a lot like 2016, a primary field that contains Trump and all the other not-Trump candidates. The only difference between this contest and 2016 is that other candidates then ran (ostensibly, at least) as their own selves and not just lesser versions of the OG.”
A Utah parent filed a challenge to have the Bible removed from public school libraries, citing passages describing sex and violence. The committee appointed to review the complaint said the Bible may remain in high school libraries, but it will be removed from elementary and middle schools for containing “vulgarity or violence.”
“I’m going to leave it up to Kevin McCarthy to see if he wants to help defeat Putin,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told Punchbowl News. “I mean, he’s been pretty good… But is the Republican Party going to be the party that bails out [Russian President Vladimir] Putin? I hope not.”
Southern Poverty Law Center: “In 2022, SPLC documented 1,225 hate and antigovernment extremist groups across the United States. Extremist ideas that mobilize these groups now operate more openly in the political mainstream. But the ascent of the hard right is not inevitable. We can push back against this rising authoritarianism and turn the tide.”
A new Yahoo News-YouGov poll found that 62% of Americans believe that Donald Trump should not be allowed to serve as president again if he is convicted of a “serious” crime. A slightly smaller majority — 52% — said they believe that Trump has committed a serious crime.
Gallup: “Seventy-one percent of Americans think same-sex marriage should be legal, matching the high Gallup recorded in 2022. Public support for legally recognizing gay marriages has been consistently above 50% since the early 2010s.”
Wall Street Journal: “The number of homeless people in California grew about 50% between 2014 and 2022. The state, which accounts for 12% of the U.S. population, has about half of the nation’s unsheltered homeless, an estimated 115,000 people, according to federal and state data last year. It also has among the highest average rent and median home prices in the U.S.”
CNBC: Nonfarm payrolls in May increased by 339,000, better than the 190,000 Dow Jones estimated.
The unemployment rate rose to 3.7% in May against the estimate for 3.5%. May’s jobless rate was the highest since October 2022. Professional and business services led job creation followed by government and health care.
