“The private message suggests the White House wanted to mitigate the risk of potential escalation. But despite the warning, the Iranians launched a string of attacks on U.S. Navy ships, commercial vessels and the United Arab Emirates.”

“Just last fall, the same senior Virginia Democrats who pushed the redistricting gambit were telling Dan the effort was a slam dunk — that they were 90 percent confident the court would quickly allow the new maps to take effect. Yesterday, those same folks told Dan their confidence has cratered to under 50 percent.”

“The source of panic? That the state’s high court failed by Friday afternoon to toss the GOP’s challenge to the new maps.”

Said Scott: “He’s breaking 75 years of precedent. Every time you get a new chairman, the former chairman leaves. That’s good news because what you don’t want are these philosophies in conflict.”

He added: “I think for the country and for the Fed, it would be best if he left.”

“Abortion rights advocates are hoping to capitalize on the legal uncertainty, as they did when scoring a string of Democratic victories in the 2022 midterms shortly after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.”

“In a series of weekend calls while in Florida and conversations at the White House on Monday, Trump sought advice from his advisers about Makary and the importance of flavored vaping to young MAGA voters.”

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The numbers are striking:

• 79% of national respondents say they are at least “somewhat concerned” about the Iran War’s impact on the U.S. economy, with a full 50% saying they are “very concerned.”
• A staggering 79% of Americans nationally report that the cost of daily goods has increased “somewhat” or “a great deal” since the war began.
• Meanwhile, only 7% of national respondents say they are paying lower prices, a figure so small it underscores just how universal the economic pain has become.
• A mere 15% of national respondents said they were “not too concerned” or “not at all concerned” about the war’s economic impact, meaning concern dwarfs indifference by a ratio of more than 5 to 1.

“The demand targets employees of Fulton County elections as well as volunteer poll workers, who likely numbered in the thousands during the 2020 election, according to court records.”

“It’s only in the absence of both forces that Justice Alito can say, as he did in 2023, that ‘no provision of the Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate the Supreme Court—period.’ Alito’s statement was and is literally incorrect, but it captures what has increasingly become the zeitgeist, and underscores why my own view is that restoring a culture of accountability is the best way to split the difference between preserving the Court’s independence and making it more worthy of the diffuse, public support that gives that independence real-world force.”

“And so the gerrymandering wars, already awful, are poised to get even worse. Democrats will respond to the Republican response to Callais; Republicans will respond to the response to the response; voters will lose in the process. In a few years, almost every seat in the House of Representatives could be safely occupied by a hyper-partisan incumbent, beholden only to primary voters.”

“The chamber could become something like the Electoral College: Whoever wins a state gets all of its representatives, and the winners are there just to vote for or against the president.”

Said Trump, in reference to a proposed tax provision: “When I get out of office in, let’s say, eight or nine years from now, I’ll be able to use it. I’ll be able to use it myself.”

“In that moment, Trump could have called for national unity or decried the disturbing rise in political violence. He could have talked about the need for everyone to ratchet down the political rhetoric. I know this is crazy, but he could have even called for changes to our gun laws.”

“He did none of those things.”

“Instead, Trump used the moment when he had the nation’s attention — and the sympathy and concern of many people who disagree with him — to push for the construction of the White House ballroom.”

— Iowa U.S. Senate candidate Zach Wahls (D), quoted by Punchbowl News.

“The advantage of this is how easy it is. Yes, it would require a nuke of sorts in the Senate – as it is now, the bill could be defeated by a filibuster unless Democrats could find 60 votes, and there’s not going to be any Republican help on it. However, that’s true of most of the Democrats’ democracy agenda, from restoring the Voting Rights Act to statutory DC statehood. My guess is that as long as there are, say, at least 53 Democrats in the Senate they’ll have the simple majority needed to carve out a new exception to the filibuster.”

“The downside of court-packing is that it creates an obvious arms race: Republicans would retaliate as soon as they had the chance by doing the exact same thing.”