CNN:
Judge [Tanya] Chutkan says Trump’s right to free speech in January 6 case is ‘not absolute’
The judge closed the hearing with a promise that the case would advance like any normal proceeding in the criminal justice system, but warned that the more “inflammatory” statements were made by a party, the quicker she would need to move toward a trial to preserve a fair jury.
“It is a bedrock principle of the judicial process in this country,” she said, while quoting precedent, “that legal trials are not like elections, to be won through the use of the meeting hall, the radio and the newspaper.”
“This case is no exception,” she said.
The New York Times:
Why Naming Weiss Special Counsel in the Hunter Biden Case Isn’t Likely to Change Much
Special counsel status essentially formalizes a degree of independence the prosecutor already had.
One oddity about Attorney General Merrick B. Garland’s decision to give special counsel status to David Weiss, the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney for Delaware who has been leading the investigation into President Biden’s son Hunter, is that both Mr. Garland and Mr. Weiss have already said the prosecutor was empowered to act independently.
That means making Mr. Weiss a special counsel may be more of a cosmetic gesture — essentially formalizing what has already been the case — than a new reality.
While the Hunter Biden case will garner more headlines because of the appointment of a special counsel (the same one on the case before, David Weiss), there may be less than meets the eye. The Chutkan hearing, in my opinion, matters a lot more.
It sounds like the SCI appointment is a result of the plea deal falling apart, allowing Weiss to pick the venue where he wants to take Hunter to court (not Delaware).
It’s also minimal political cover for Merrick Garland, and creates yet another layer between Hunter and Joe Biden.
In any case, I’m reasonably sure that most of the immediate hot takes will be wrong.
Axios:
Democrats double down on abortion message after Ohio vote
National Democratic operatives are looking to the decisive defeat of Ohio's Issue 1 this week as a green light for abortion-focused message going into the 2024 campaign.
Why it matters: The Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade resulted in a burst of grassroots energy that many Democrats credit for their better-than-expected midterm showing.
Driving the news: On Tuesday, voters in the increasingly Republican-leaning state voted by a decisive margin against raising the threshold for amending the state's Constitution.
- The measure would have made it more difficult for a state constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights to pass.
What we're hearing: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is circulating a memo, first obtained by Axios, noting that the measure was rejected by large majorities in "competitive House districts across the state[.]"
Harold Meyerson/The American Prospect:
In Pro-Choice Ohio, Where Density Is Destiny
Today on TAP: The gulf between urban, suburban, and rural counties in Tuesday’s vote was, well, total.
Tuesday’s referendum in Ohio, which went down to a resounding defeat, told us something that we already know: The vast majority of Americans support a woman’s right to abortion. The measure, which would have raised the bar to pass a ballot measure from a simple majority to 60 percent, was clearly intended to thwart Ohioans from passing a referendum on the upcoming November ballot that would enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution.
(I note in passing that the common sense of Ohioans in their preference for majority rule over a 60 percent threshold that enables minorities to thwart majorities might profitably be applied to the United States Senate.)
But there was one other aspect to Tuesday’s vote that also tells us what we already know, but more graphically and decisively than we’ve known it before. It’s the political difference between cities, suburbs, and rural areas; it’s that in America today, more often than not, population density is political destiny.
Meanwhile, in the Hawkeye State:
Susan B Glasser/The New Yorker:
2024 Preview: Bidenomics Versus the Trump Freak Show
The President’s feel-good tour offers a stark contrast to his predecessor’s summer of conspiracies and criminal indictments. But will it work?
As far as I can tell, the goal of Biden’s campaign will be to repeat this mantra endlessly. And I get it: the argument is that, in our polarized, nearly evenly divided society, Presidents are essentially doomed to unpopularity, regardless of their actual record. Breaking through, and changing minds, in such a situation is nearly impossible. “In the modern Presidency, we all know awareness level of accomplishment is super low, so what Biden is going through is not new or different than any other modern President,” a Democratic pollster told me. “The difference being everything he has done is incredibly popular—like, ridiculously popular.” Democrats hope that, at a minimum, they can point out to their own partisans that Biden has, in fact, delivered. “By the end of the campaign, after spending a billion dollars,” the pollster went on, “people are going to feel differently about the current situation. They are going to feel differently about what Biden has done for them, because, quite frankly, they are going to learn what Biden’s done for them.”
History suggests, however, that time is short to make the case.
POLITICO:
Biden world sees the making of a wider path to victory in 2024
The president’s team is focused on the states that got him the White House. But the issue of abortion has them dreaming of something bigger.
Biden’s aides also are moving to expand the map. Above all else, they believe North Carolina, where a 12-week abortion ban has gone into effect, is a legitimate pick-up opportunity and no longer Democratic fool’s gold. A senior Biden campaign official, who was granted anonymity to speak frankly, said it would be “crazy” to not put North Carolina on the map since the president only lost it by 1 percentage point in 2020.
North Carolina? Sure. Not so much Ohio. They won’t be seduced by Biden unless things change.
Aaron Blake/The Washington Post:
Yes, Ohio’s vote was about abortion, but it was also about majority rule
It’s true that abortion dominated coverage of the ballot measure. Ultimately, its most prominent supporter admitted that abortion was the motivation behind it. But it’s also true that there is a demonstrated recent history of voters rejecting changes to vote thresholds, apparently because they don’t like the idea of direct democracy being watered down.
The Pitchbot is satire … Or is it?
Matt Robison on Clarence Thomas: