Will Bunch/The Philadelphia Inquirer:
Why GOP doesn’t want Menendez to quit
Even Wyatt Earp says that New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez needs to go. That’s the Ocean County, N.J., Democratic Party chairman (who did you think I was talking about?), who joined a posse of Garden State Democrats this weekend when he declared with a “heavy heart” that the state’s twice-indicted senior U.S. senator should step aside “to make room for a senator who will continue to stand up for Democratic values.”
A majority of Democratic senators join Earp in saying that Menendez should spend more time with his family at home.
Republicans, on the other hand, don’t want to be asked about Donald Trump (or George Santos), so they say nothing.
Detroit Free Press:
Biden walks picket line with striking UAW members at Willow Run parts center
Wearing a UAW hat and speaking through a bullhorn, Biden tells workers they helped save the auto companies with their sacrifices. "Now they’re doing incredibly well and, guess what, you should be doing incredibly well too."
Fain speaks after Biden, saying, "This is a historic moment."
Fain also thanked Biden for coming, a significant gesture, given that the union hasn't yet endorsed the president in his reelection bid, when most other major unions have done so. "Thank you, Mr. President," he said, "for coming... to stand up with us in our generation's defining moment.
David Rothkopf/The Daily Beast:
Ask the GOP Debaters if They Support Trump’s Open Fascism
Trump called for executions and media censorship over the weekend. Make his Republican opponents stand up and choose a side.
Donald Trump lost his damn mind this weekend. Or to be more accurate, he revealed more clearly than usual the madman wannabe dictator that lurks within him. But for all that, he did one thing that seemed impossible. He created the opportunity for this Wednesday’s Republican debate to seem relevant.
Admittedly, a debate among a pack of spineless nonentities (who have no more chance of being president than you or I) probably deserves scrutiny from the Food and Drug Administration as a form of broadcast Klonopin. If you even bother to tune in, it is likely to put you to sleep in minutes.
Charlie Sykes/The Bulwark:
Biden Is Old, But Trump Is Crazy (and Dangerous)
Plus: Why you should be alarmed. But not panicked.
In the last few days, the leading GOP candidate for president — the twice impeached, defeated former president, who is facing four criminal indictments — suggested the execution of General Mark Milley; demanded a federal shutdown unless the prosecutions against him are defunded; called on all Senate Democrats to resign; and threatened to use the powers of the federal government to retaliate against news outlets like NBC that had criticized him.
This is the same former president who has called for terminating provisions of the Constitution; orchestrated a coup to overturn the last presidential election; and absconded with military secrets. Lest you have forgotten, he has also been found liable for rape; and faces more than 90 felony counts for (among other things) paying off a porn star, conspiracy, obstruction, and defrauding the federal government.
And just a few days ago, we got a new report reminding us of the depths of the former president’s contempt for disabled and wounded veterans
Eric Levitz/New York Magazine:
Trump Wants His Enemies to Fear for Their Lives
In this context, a news outlet can cover Trump’s affronts to democracy. But it can’t quite internalize them. For such a publication to fully behave as though it has a working memory — and a capacity to rationally weigh the significance of disparate pieces of information — would be for it to resemble a partisan rag.
The most salient truth about the 2024 election is that the Republican Party is poised to nominate an authoritarian thug who publishes rationalizations for political violence and promises to abuse presidential authority on a near-daily basis. There is no way for a paper or news channel to appropriately emphasize this reality without sounding like a shrill, dull, Democratic propaganda outlet. So, like the nation writ large, the press comports itself as an amnesiac, or an abusive household committed to keeping up appearances, losing itself in the old routines, in an effortful approximation of normality until it almost forgets what it doesn’t want to know.
Carlton Huffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
I helped elect 3 Republicans to Wisconsin Supreme Court. I can't support impeachment.
There is a disease that has afflicted right wing politics since President Obama’s re-election in 2012: The belief that outcomes are rigged.
As a regional director in the WOW counties (Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington) I did my part to help Rebecca Bradley defeat JoAnne Kloppenberg in 2016. In 2017 as grassroots director I was witness to the layup that was Chief Justice Annette Ziegler’s victory. And in 2019, I was part of the team that poured heart and soul to seeing Brian Hagedorn win a seemingly impossible race. It has been the labor of my professional life to see a conservative majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. However it is exactly the principles of small government conservatism that drives me to oppose the impeachment of Protasiewicz.
Richard L. Hasen/The Atlantic:
The Supreme Court Needs to Make a Call on Trump’s Eligibility
The question of the former president’s possible disqualification needs to be resolved sooner or later. Sooner is better than later.
Those are the legal questions. The political questions are, in some ways, even more complicated, and at least as contested. If Trump is disqualified on Fourteenth Amendment grounds, some believe that this would become a regular feature of nasty American politics. Others worry that significant social unrest would result if the leading candidate for one of the country’s major political parties were to be disqualified from running for office rather than giving voters the final say on the issue.
All of these questions, however, are somewhat beside the point. This is not merely an academic exercise. Trump, right now, is already being challenged as constitutionally disqualified, and these issues are going to have to be resolved, sooner or later. My point is that sooner is much better than later.
Roll Call:
Military pay, typically exempted during shutdowns, is at risk
Lawmakers have bills ready that would ensure troops and civilian support employees get paychecks on time
Technically, there’s still time. Former Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., introduced the bill on Sept. 28, 2013; it passed the House at 12:24 a.m. on the 29th. The following day, the last full day of government funding, the Senate took just a few minutes to clear the measure by unanimous consent. President Barack Obama signed it that night, just before the shutdown was set to begin.
Despite that unanimous 2013 House vote, there were plenty of Democrats who took to the floor to blast the GOP for allowing the shutdown to happen and leaving every other agency’s employees in the lurch.
“We are all going to vote for this bill,” then-House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., said during brief debate. “But I will tell my friends on both sides of the aisle, it is time for us to give respect to our non-uniformed federal personnel because they are critical to the success of this country, to the success of our people.”
Bolts Magazine:
Maine Referendum Spotlights Voting Rights for People Under Guardianship
Voters in November will choose whether to scrub a clause in Maine’s constitution disenfranchising people “under guardianship for reasons of mental illness."
Maine is already closer to universal suffrage than most states. It’s one of two states, plus Washington D.C., that is approaching universal suffrage. Maine allows people to vote from prison and state law affirms the voting rights of people with intellectual disabilities, autism, and brain injuries. That makes this clause stand out—it treats mentally ill people under guardianship as second-class citizens, which is precisely why the court ruled it unconstitutional.
“We are creating a subset of mentally ill people under guardians who can’t vote,” Democratic State Senator Craig Hickman, who spearheaded the effort to put the matter to the vote, told Bolts. Hickman, a voting rights advocate, has also been involved in other measures to remove outdated language from Maine’s constitution. “I think it’s important to ratify this amendment. [We need to] make it clear that in this state we have no reason to disenfranchise.”
Cliff Schecter on Taylor Swift: