Florida Is Now in Play

There was very big news out of Florida yesterday, courtesy of the all-Republican-appointed state Supreme Court. Actually, several pieces of big news, but they all point in the same direction: The Democrats' chances of winning in the Sunshine State just improved by a lot.

The Court handed down three decisions, two of them closely related:

1. By a 6-1 vote, the Court said the new abortion restrictions passed by the state legislature can take effect. The immediate impact is that no abortions will be allowed after 15 weeks, not even in cases of rape or incest. On May 1, that will drop to 6 weeks, and abortion will effectively be illegal throughout the Deep South.
   
   
2. By a 4-3 vote, the Court allowed a ballot initiative that would enshrine abortion rights in the state Constitution.
   
   
3. By a 5-2 vote, the Court allowed another ballot initiative that would legalize recreational marijuana.

Both ballot initiatives will appear on the November ballot, and will require 60% support to pass.

We do not know, and really cannot possibly know until there's some substantial polling, if clearing the 60% bar is a real possibility in a pretty red state. It is not inconceivable, however, particularly if there is some crossover voting from, say, Latinas and/or suburban women who are otherwise Republican.

What we do know is that it would be hard to design a setup more amenable to Democratic turnout. Women will presumably show up to the polls in droves to register their opinion on abortion. Young people will turn out to support marijuana legalization AND abortion access. And because 60% is the bar, it will be an all-hands-on-deck sort of election. Nobody who cares about either issue can tell themselves "Ah, I'll stay home. My vote's not needed."

Meanwhile, even if the pro-choice and/or pro-marijuana forces can't get to 60%, there are lots of important races that are determined by a simple majority, or, in the absence of a majority, a plurality. The state's electoral votes. The U.S. Senate race, featuring the never-won-any-election-by-more-than-2% Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL). The various House races, which could return a Congress that protects abortion access nationwide. The state legislative races, which could seat a legislature that overturns the 6-week ban.

Yes, there are certainly some anti-choice and/or anti-marijuana folks who will get themselves to the polls. But the zealots were already voting, and non-zealots tend to be less motivated when the status quo is already acceptable and/or when their side only needs to get to 40%. It's nearly inconceivable that yesterday's decisions could drive Republican turnout more than they drive Democratic turnout. And, as a reminder, Donald Trump won the state by 3 points in 2020 and by 1 point in 2016, while Scott won election to the Senate by 0.13% in 2018. It won't take all that much of a Democratic surge to produce very different results in 2024.

We are not the only ones to reach this conclusion. Within hours of the Florida Supremes' decisions being announced, Joe Biden's campaign said it is going to try to flip Florida. That is a very bold decision, given that the Sunshine State is very big and very expensive to campaign in. But given the prizes available (i.e., 30 EVs and a U.S. Senate seat), the Biden campaign's large cash advantage, and assists from two of the Democrats' strongest issues in abortion access and legalized pot, it was obviously an easy call for campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez. They are also all-in on North Carolina. If you look at the map above, and imagine Florida and North Carolina flipping, that would put Biden at 268 EVs. So, things are getting very interesting.

And what does Trump think about all of this? Well, as soon as the Court handed down its decisions, reporters contacted the Trump campaign to ask how he plans to vote on the abortion initiative. And the candidate who has a carefully cultivated image as an authentic straight shooter who isn't afraid to say what he thinks responded with a statement: "President Trump supports preserving life but has also made clear that he supports states' rights because he supports the voters' right to make decisions for themselves." Macho, macho man!

The former president is clearly trying to do his best impression of Switzerland when it comes to abortion, because he knows that any firm position he might take is going to hurt him with some of the voters he desperately needs. It is hard to believe that a politician, even one as weaselly as he is, can make it through the next 6 months without laying his abortion cards on the table. And now that his home state is voting, and he will have to cast a ballot? It just got that much harder. Frankly, the voters have every right to know what his position is, and any journalist who speaks to him between now and November and does NOT ask that question is committing journalistic malpractice. (Z)

Brace Yourself for Lots of "Holier Than Thou" Nonsense

Sunday was Easter, which is the last really Jesus-y holiday before the election (sorry, Lee Greenwood, the Fourth of July is not a religious holiday, "God Bless the U.S.A." or not). This meant that it was the last 100%, ironclad, guaranteed opportunity to take some potshots at Joe Biden's alleged wickedness.

There were two specific lines of complaint about the President when it came to this year's Easter festivities. The first one was that in addition to observing Easter, Biden also declared Sunday to be the annual Transgender Day of Visibility. The second was that, during the White House Easter Egg Roll, there was a prohibition on displays of religious imagery.

To take one example, among many, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) got on Twitter to blast Biden:

The Biden White House has betrayed the central tenet of Easter—which is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Banning sacred truth and tradition—while at the same time proclaiming Easter Sunday as "Transgender Day"—is outrageous and abhorrent. The American people are taking note.

Johnson was not only supported here by his fellow Republicans, but also by the "nonpartisan" Archbishop of Washington, D.C., Wilton Gregory, who opined that the President is a "cafeteria Catholic" who picks and chooses which parts of the Bible he chooses to follow. The White House, of course, pushed back against all of this. A Catholic president isn't going to call out a Catholic archbishop by name, but a Baptist Speaker of the House is fair game, so Biden decreed that Johnson is "thoroughly uninformed."

Who has the right of it here? In many cases, with these sorts of questions, that's not so easy to answer. In this case, on the other hand, it's pretty clear. Starting with the Transgender Day of Visibility, it always falls on March 31, and has ever since it was first observed back in 2009. Ipso facto, if Easter falls on March 31, as it did this year, then the two commemorations are going to be on the same day.

We might also add that, while we are not theologians, the staff historian has studied (and taught about) Jesus' ministry. And he is having a hard time understanding how Jesus' message of radical inclusivity does not include trans people. Remember, this has nothing to do with approval; Jesus also embraced thieves, prostitutes, and others whose behavior he considered problematic. So, it does not matter what one's opinion on trans people is, inclusivity means everyone. Incidentally, the Transgender Day of Visibility is also observed in Ireland, Spain and Brazil, among other nations. But what would people there know about how to be a good Catholic, right?

As to the Easter Egg Roll, the prohibition on religious imagery clearly exists for two reasons. The first is to avoid running afoul of the separation of church and state. The second is to make sure all invitees are comfortable; undoubtedly the crowd will include some Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, etc. Note that the same policy was observed... while Donald Trump was president. And George W. Bush. And George H.W. Bush. And even St. Ronnie of Reagan.

Ultimately, the main point here is not to illustrate (yet again) the (apparent to us) hypocrisy of Republican politicians, particularly when it comes to matters of religion. It's to point out that Republicans know they need to really gin up the base to reverse their three-cycles-long losing streak, and part of their strategy is to really, really lean into the "we're as pure as the driven snow, while the opposition is the spawn of Satan" shtick. So, there's going to be a lot of this kind of rhetoric over the next 6 months. There is much irony, of course, in the fact that the target of the "he's not religious" vitriol is actually a churchgoing Christian, while the beneficiary of the "he's God's candidate" nonsense is in the running with Thomas Jefferson for the title of most irreligious man ever to serve as president. (Z)

Trump Financial: If I Were a Rich Man

There was some good financial news for Donald Trump yesterday and some bad news. We will start with the good; he found a sucker... er, an underwriter willing to issue the $175 million bond he needs to buy himself some time in New York. It's the Knight Insurance Group.

It is not known exactly what collateral Trump used in order to secure the loan, although the lender claims it was "grade-A bonds, investment grade quality securities" and cash. Even with this somewhat vague description, it is possible to infer some things. Knight Insurance has a middling rating of B++, and it is based in Los Angeles. That makes pretty clear that the former president really was left scrambling, since he couldn't find a highly reputable backer OR one based in New York. In turn, that probably also means that Knight is somewhat predatory, and that Trump had to give up more in collateral than would have been required of say, Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos or some other more reputable businessman. In any event, assuming Trump's lawyers get the paperwork in order, their client just bought himself roughly 5 months' worth of breathing room (until early September).

And now, the bad news. Yesterday, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) made a required SEC filing in which it admitted that it lost $58.2 million on revenue of just $4.1 million in 2023. A big chunk of the loss was debt service, but even if we just consider operating costs, those were about four times revenue. While that may be a pretty close approximation of the business model that eX-Twitter is using, it's not a path to financial success.

It is very hard to believe that TMTG investors needed a wake-up call, but apparently they did, because the stock tumbled after the filing was made public yesterday, falling to $48.66 a share. That means it's lost 38.7% from its peak value ($79.38), and 18.7% from its opening price on Monday ($59.83). By virtue of Trump's holdings in the company, he lost just about $1 billion yesterday. Normally, it takes him months to lose that much.

Things don't figure to improve for Trump in upcoming weeks and months. Emily Stewart, at Business Insider, had a piece yesterday running down how the most prominent anti-woke stock offerings (Rumble, Black Rifle Coffee, Public Square) all shot up early on, and then tanked once investors learned they are not profitable. They're all sitting around $10/share right now.

Trump could try to dump stock while the price is high, but he'd have to get permission to ignore the 6-month moratorium. That's doable, since the board of TMTG is made up of cronies, but if he engages in a sell-off, it's going to send the message that even HE doesn't believe in the company, and investors are REALLY going to get spooked. It's already the most shorted stock on Wall Street.

Alternatively, Trump can hold off, and hope that the price is being propped up by MAGA fanatics and/or foreign "friends" who don't care about losing money, and will hold the stock no matter what happens. If that's not the case, though, then the former president could be left holding the bag. (Z)

Trump Legal: Father and Daughter

Donald Trump is very tough, very manly, very macho. And he showed it this weekend on his boutique social media platform, when he decided to go after... Judge Juan Merchan's daughter. She is an adult, and an attorney, but we see no need to repeat her name here and to link her and Trump even more fully in Google's algorithms. In any event, Trump became convinced that she said mean things about him on eX-Twitter, although she says she shut down her account two years ago and the tweets weren't from her. In any event, there's nothing more masculine than going after a much less powerful woman, especially when you know your supporters are known to take matters into their own hands. Clearly, the former president has a very large... pair of hands.

As you can tell, we are not impressed. Nor, as you might imagine, was Merchan. So, he went back and revised his gag order to include members of his family, as well as family members of the DA, and family members of the court's staff. That is in addition to the already-existing requirement that Trump keep it zipped when it comes to court staff and to witnesses in the case. What kind of person needs to be told, at the business end of a court order, that this sort of behavior is not acceptable? It does not say "strong" to us. No, more like "weak," "pathetic" and "low-class."

Perhaps we are being a little less circumspect than usual when it comes to Trump's uncivilized and violent behavior. And, if so, that probably reflects the influence of Chris Quinn, the editor of the Plain Dealer. As several readers brought to our attention, Quinn finally published an editorial this weekend that he says he's been working on (and dreading) for months. The basic point is that there is no "both sides" with Donald Trump, and that his behavior means he's going to be rightly subject to criticism that is not leveled at other political figures.

Quinn writes:

Why don't our opinion platforms treat Donald Trump and other politicians exactly the same way. Some phrase it differently, asking why we demean the former president's supporters in describing his behavior as monstrous, insurrectionist and authoritarian.

I feel for those who write. They believe in Trump and want their local news source to recognize what they see in him.

The angry writers denounce me for ignoring what they call the Biden family crime syndicate and criminality far beyond that of Trump. They quote news sources of no credibility as proof the mainstream media ignores evidence that Biden, not Trump, is the criminal dictator...

The truth is that Donald Trump undermined faith in our elections in his false bid to retain the presidency. He sparked an insurrection intended to overthrow our government and keep himself in power. No president in our history has done worse.

This is not subjective. We all saw it. Plenty of leaders today try to convince the masses we did not see what we saw, but our eyes don't deceive. (If leaders began a yearslong campaign today to convince us that the Baltimore bridge did not collapse Tuesday morning, would you ever believe them?) Trust your eyes. Trump on Jan. 6 launched the most serious threat to our system of government since the Civil War. You know that. You saw it.

The facts involving Trump are crystal clear, and as news people, we cannot pretend otherwise, as unpopular as that might be with a segment of our readers. There aren't two sides to facts. People who say the earth is flat don't get space on our platforms. If that offends them, so be it.

You should really consider clicking on the link above and reading the whole thing; it's less than 1,000 words. In any event, while Quinn is particularly focused on the fact that there aren't "two sides" to 1/6, his broader point is that because Trump behaves differently from any other politician, he will necessarily be covered differently from any other politician.

To put that in the context of this item, there is no other politician in America who could attack a judge's daughter without being absolutely flayed for it. So, if Trump does it, he should be flayed, too. He doesn't get a pass because he's a presidential candidate, or he's the head of the Republican Party, or because of specious claims of "bias." It really is that simple.

In case you need a reminder, in 2006, former Virginia governor George Allen was running for the Senate. At a speech in a microtown of about 400 people, Allen spotted an Indian-American volunteer working for his opponent, Jim Webb, and told the audience: "This fellow here, over here with the yellow shirt. Macaca or whatever his name is. He's with my opponent, he's following us around everywhere." Macaca? That is a genus of fruit-eating old-world monkeys found in Europe and North Africa, commonly known as macaques. It also happens to be a slur francophones use for Black people. It is roughly the "N word" translated into French. Allen's mother is a French-speaking immigrant from Tunisia, so he knew exactly what that word was and meant. That one word was the end of George Allen. But the media let Donald Trump get away with stuff 1000x worse than one poorly chosen word spoken to a tiny audience in rural Virginia almost in Kentucky. (Z)

RFK Jr. Wants to Defeat "Threat to Democracy"

We don't particularly want to write about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. because he's very annoying, and he also appears to be a few bricks shy of a load. But while he's never going to be president, he could be in a position to serve as spoiler. For example, his campaign said yesterday that he has qualified for the ballot in North Carolina. So, write about him we must.

Yesterday, Junior was on CNN, and he uncorked yet another wild "insight," this one unrelated to vaxxing, or AIDS, or Lizard People. The newest wild pitch from the son of Bobby is his view that while Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, you can "make an argument" that Joe Biden is an even bigger threat. Here's the explanation:

President Biden is a much worse threat to democracy. And the reasons for that is President Biden is the first candidate in history, the first president in history that has used the federal agencies to censor political speech.

This is a reference to the Biden administration's request that RFK Jr.'s social media accounts be restricted due to COVID misinformation, in particular a false claim that baseball star Hank Aaron died from complications of the COVID vaccine.

We have several thoughts here, which we will now share:

• Anytime anyone says "an argument could be made..." there is an approximately 99% chance they are about to issue forth with a steaming pile of B.S., and even they know it.
  
  
• It is dubious that Biden's request about social media accounts represents a wholesale assault on the First Amendment.
  
  
• Even if you accept that Biden wants to kill the First Amendment, so does Trump. And not just the parts about free speech, but also the ones about freedom of assembly and freedom of religion. Trump also wants to shred Article I and Article III, along with at least a dozen other Amendments. In short, there is no way Biden is a greater threat to the Constitution or to democracy than Trump is. There is no president, Democratic or Republican, who has even been in Trump's universe when it comes to threats to democracy.
  
  
• Meanwhile, Biden is "the first president in history that has used the federal agencies to censor political speech"? Really? John Adams signed the Alien and Sedition Acts into law. Andrew Jackson pulled federal funding from unfriendly printer-publishers. Abraham Lincoln put critics in prison without benefit of a writ of habeas corpus. Woodrow Wilson literally put a third-party presidential candidate, Eugene V. Debs, in prison for disloyalty to the government. Franklin D. Roosevelt oversaw a massive censorship operation during World War II. Richard Nixon kept an enemies list, and used the IRS to harass unfriendly reporters.
  
  And then there is Trump, who has made abuse of non-fawning media a core element of his approach to politics. To take but one example, a couple of weeks ago, he wrote: "I say up front, openly, and proudly, that when I WIN the Presidency of the United States, they and others of the LameStream Media will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events." He also opined that these media outlets "should pay a big price."
  
  Some of these presidents might have been justified in their approach; we are offering no judgments on that front. What we are saying is that it is laughable that no president prior to Biden has engaged in censorship. Either Kennedy is an ignoramus who knows nothing about U.S. history or he's a liar. Readers can decide for themselves which it is.

All of this said, our goal here is not to mock RFK Jr.'s asininery (OED says that's a word, so we're sticking with it). Our goal is to point out that the candidate is using outlandish rhetoric much more in line with Trump than it is with Biden. Consider what kind of voter would have their ears perk up if they hear: "Biden is a greater threat to democracy than Trump is." It isn't Biden voters; it's the MAGA crowd. And so, if this is the tack that Kennedy takes, it increases the likelihood that he spoils things for Trump instead of Biden. And this is before groups friendly to Biden start running ads saying: "Vote for Kennedy because he wants to ban vaccinations nationwide." (Z)

Biden Administration Is Talking to Saudi Arabia

Yesterday, we had an item about a dispute over yeshiva students in Israel, and how the question of whether or not to draft those students might lead to the collapse of the Netanyahu coalition, and the fall of the current Israeli government.

Reader J.K. in Short Hills, NJ wrote in to add to that item. We thought we would pass this along while the item is still fresh in the memory:

In your what-if exercise that leads to a possible peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, your logic falls down thanks to one small omission. You imply that Netanyahu—whose coalition government with the far right and ultra-Orthodox is admittedly a major thorn in the peace process—is the primary obstacle to a two-state solution. As I wrote in October, Hamas has only two goals: killing Jews and maintaining power over the Palestinian Authority. They achieved the former on October 7 and currently are wildly popular among the Palestinians thanks to their punching the supposed bully in the mouth. Their removal from power is the first prerequisite for any lasting peace deal. Whether Netanyahu is ousted is irrelevant to that part of the calculus.

Moreover, more moderate Palestinians have shown no inclination to compromise when a deal has been on the table at various times from 1948-2008. In 2000, President Clinton, according to his memoirs, wrote that the offer from Israel to Arafat at Camp David was "so good, I couldn't believe anyone would be foolish enough to let it go." Finally, one convenient fact that is often omitted when discussing Palestinian statehood is that Jordan controlled the West Bank, which included all of East Jerusalem, and Egypt ruled Gaza from 1948-1967, yet there was no world outcry for the Palestinians to reclaim the territory. In theory, it should have been far easier to do so than today. Only when Israel captured the land in a defensive war in 1967 did seemingly everyone cry foul.

Thanks for your additions, J.K.

Perhaps in response to the developments in Israel, or perhaps in response to the concerns laid out by J.K., or perhaps due to both, the Biden administration is working feverishly on the diplomatic front right now, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken visiting Saudi Arabia to talk to the leadership there about a potential peace process.

The Biden administration is reportedly trying to achieve two things, both of which would be pretty big deals if they came to pass. The first is normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. The second is to make clear to all players involved (e.g., Israel, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority) that all must accede to, and honor, a two-state solution as part of a permanent peace.

As we have pointed out many times, we are not at all expert in this particular area. And needless to say, there has been much talk about various diplomatic initiatives in the Middle East since the 1960s, with relatively little of that talk coming to fruition. So, maybe Blinken is wasting his time in Saudi Arabia right now. However, it strikes us as also possible that the U.S./NATO/Israel vs. Russia/China/the Arab states might have been something of a stalemate situation, and that weakening international and American support for the Israelis could shake up the status quo and lead to, well, a new status quo. If so, it would hardly be the first time in history that happened. Also, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, MBS, is a young guy (38), and certainly open to new approaches that his 88-year-old father, King Salman, might have rejected out of hand. (Z)

Sunak Shouldn't Get Too Comfortable at 10 Downing Street

Our U.K. correspondents have done an excellent job of keeping us apprised of the woeful position of the Conservative Party and its leader, P.M. Rishi Sunak. As they have noted, under the rules that govern British elections, Sunak must call a general election sometime between now and January 28 of next year, and he will try to pick the time most favorable to the Tories.

Unfortunately for Sunak, and his fellow partisans, it's not looking like a favorable time will present itself. There was a new, major poll from the Sunday Times this weekend, and it predicts a bloodbath for the Conservative Party. According to the results, if the election were held today, Labour would win a stunning 468 seats, while the Conservatives would win just 98. The Scottish National Party would win 41, the Liberal Democrats 22 and Plaid Cymru two.

If those numbers were to hold, Labour would have the second-most seats any party has ever had in Parliament, just behind the 470 seats that the Conservatives won in 1931. Usually, you want to be careful of polls that predict outlier results, but an arse-whipping is consistent with what's been happening in by-elections in the last year or so. Also, nationwide, Labour holds a 19-point edge over the Tories (45% to 26%), and that's with 15% of respondents saying they are undecided.

It is possible Sunak could turn things around for his party, in the sense that anything's possible. But the fact is that the U.K. economy is struggling, and because of the way the U.K. electoral system works, the Conservative Party has been able to hand off the premiership to a series of leaders of sometimes dubious merit, often based on the votes of a tiny, tiny minority of the voting public. We're not experts in British elections, but all of this screams "throw the bums out" to us, and it looks like that is what the British people are getting ready to do as soon as they have the chance.

One last thing. In the United States, we are accustomed to politicians holding on to power until the last possible moment. Indeed sometimes, as you may have heard, they try to hold on to power beyond that, even after they've moved back home to Mar-a-Lago. Since the Conservatives know they are in deep trouble, and since they get to choose (within a range) of when to hold the election, they may well pull the trigger very soon. The thinking is that it's better to stick Labour and PM-to-be Keir Starmer with the nation's problems, rather than allow the Conservative brand to be further sullied. So, don't be surprised if the U.K. votes for a new PM before the U.S. votes for a new president. (Z)

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