Women's NCAA championship had higher viewership than men's. US transferred 5,000 seized Iranian weapons to Ukraine. Weisselberg objects to email monitoring in Trump fraud case. Scrutiny over Kushner's foreign investment firm ties. Polling shows authoritarian tendencies in GOP. EVs facing demand issues among Democrats post-Musk shifts. RFK Jr. campaign official attended Jan 6 rally. Judge Cannon agrees to seal witness names in Trump case. Pew data shows GOP as more ideologically homogeneous. Arizona reinstates 1864 abortion ban. Biden urges Israel for Gaza ceasefire amid hostage crisis. Alabama warns of removing Biden from ballot. Senate GOP wants to delay Mayorkas impeachment. Alarming projections for rapidly rising US federal debt.
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1.) 2024 Men’s NCAA basketball championship had similar viewership to last year (14.8M vs 14.7M) - 4M less than women’s game (SC vs IA).
[TS] Insane chart.
2.) US Central Command says Washington has transferred “5,000 AK-47s, machine guns, sniper rifles, RPG-7s and over 500,000 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition to the Ukrainian armed forces” that it seized from Iran while being transported to Houthi fighters.
These munitions were originally seized by U.S. Central Command and partner naval forces from four separate transiting stateless vessels between 22 May 2021 to 15 Feb 2023. The munitions were being transferred from the IRGC to the Houthis in Yemen in violation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2216. U.S. CENTCOM is committed to working with our allies and partners to counter the flow of Iranian lethal aid in the region by all lawful means including U.S. and U.N. sanctions and through interdictions.
3.) Courthouse news’ Erik Uebelacker: Late-night filing from Allen Weisselberg: He doesn’t want the court monitor snooping around his emails.
He claims it’s “unconstitutional,” among other things. The AG wants the monitor to investigate why certain emails were left out during Trump’s fraud trial.
The NYAG is claiming that Trump “withheld relevant and responsive” info during the civil fraud case. They want the court-appointed monitor to investigate.
They cite Allen Weisselberg’s perjury plea, which referenced an email about Trump’s triplex that the AG never got.
4.) NYT: As Kushner’s Investment Firm Steps Out, the Potential Conflicts Are Growing.
Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners has invested more than $1.2 billion, much of it in firms abroad, drawing new scrutiny as his father-in-law, Donald Trump, again seeks the presidency.
His $3 billion fund is financed almost entirely from overseas investors with whom he worked when he served as a senior adviser in the Trump White House. He has taken money from government wealth funds in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, as well as from Terry Gou, a founder of Foxconn, the Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer, whose role in Mr. Kushner’s firm has not been previously disclosed.
In total, 99 percent of the money placed with him by investors has come from foreign sources, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission in late March.
Mr. Kushner’s firm, Affinity Partners, is collecting approximately $40 million a year in management fees from those investors even before any share of profits earned on investments. He has made 10 investments to date, totaling $1.2 billion, many of them in companies based abroad.
5.) WaPo: The increasingly authoritarian-curious Republican Party.
[TS] Some stats in the article:
57% of Republicans say it would be a good thing if Trump could exercise power "without waiting for Congress and the courts.”
56% say we need a leader willing to break some rules to set things right.
52% want a prez who can "rule without too much interference from courts and Congress."
[TS] Elon’s move to the right could have opened up EVs to a broader market, but his shift was so drastic that it’s souring his largest market. Polling per Gallup:
[TS] Granted, the above is not limited to Elon/Tesla, but that is generally what people think of when they think of EVs (not Chevy Bolt, Rivian, Lucid etc.). Like what Kleenex is to tissues, or Qtips to cotton swabs.
Also, while sales of EVs are up YoY, the market (ie more premium) is much more saturated. EVs are still more expensive than their combustion counterparts. I think that’s why we’re seeing the demand slump.
Also also (is that a thing?) ([EDITOR] - It’s not) the charging network is still not in a place that would make most users comfortable. Too many unknowns.
7.) [TS] In buff hollywood men endorsing presidents news:
The Rock says “no” to endorsements this year (he did endorse Biden last election)
Alan Ritchson (Amazon’s Reacher fame): “Trump is a rapist and a con man, and yet the entire Christian church seems to treat him like he’s their poster child and it’s unreal”
[TS] None of these are actually news.
8.) [UPDATE] CNN / Kacynski: More news on the NY campaign official (Rita Palma - same one from yesterday’s vid) RFK Jr. campaign official attended Jan. 6 ‘Stop the Steal’ rally and wanted ‘favorite President’ Trump to serve three terms
Rita Palma, who has identified herself as the Kennedy campaign’s state director in New York, also repeatedlycalled Trump her “favorite president,” according to tweets along with comments she posted on the conservative social media site Parler that have since been made private.
According to a KFILE examination of those now-private posts, Palma also posed for a photo at the former Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC, alongside Sidney Powell – the pro-Trump attorney who pleaded guilty in Georgia’s election subversion case.
In February 2021, Palma tweeted her support for Trump as a presidential candidate in 2024 and even asked whether he could run for a third term in 2028 – which is not constitutionally allowed as a president can serve only two full terms.
“#Trump2024 Can he run in 2028 too?” she tweeted, posting a meme that said she would vote for Trump in 2024.
In one comment, Palma dismissed suggestions from then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that Trump was to blame for violence at the Capitol.
“Actually the fault lies with the rigged election. Genius,” she wrote the day after the riot.
9.) NBC: Judge Cannon (overseeing former President Trump's classified documents case) has agreed to keep names of government witnesses sealed.
[TS] Moral of the Cannon story: She backs down to avoid an appeal that could result in her removal.
[RELATED] Trump’s attempt to delay hush-money trial is denied by Appeals court judge.
10.) Pew Research: Republicans remain more ideologically homogenous than Democrats, even as they have reached partisan parity.
[TS] Still a lot of moderate dems (it’s no wonder Biden was the nominee):
11.) NBC: Arizona Supreme Court rules a near-total abortion ban from 1864 is enforceable.
[TS] Totally predictable. Per Trump’s announcement, he’s sanguine about this. “Let the states decide.”
The population of the entire Arizona Territory in 1870 was NINETY SIX HUNDRED PEOPLE, 6 years *after* the insane law was passed that has now been put into effect by the Arizona Supreme Court. Arizona didn’t become a state until 1912 and women couldn’t vote until 1920.
[TS] I can see the GOP ads now: “Are you better off than you were 160 years ago?”
[RELATED] Kari Lake (R), who is running for Senator in AZ, praised the abortion law in 2022. Now, she’s claiming to oppose it.
[TS] Now you’ve got republican congressmen backing away and even the former Gov. acting like he didn’t know what would happen. Give me a break.
Republicans reacting to Republican-controlled courts banning abortion and IVF:
12.) Times of Israel: Biden urges Israel ‘to just call for’ 6-8 week ceasefire, slams PM’s handling of Gaza war.
[TS] Some additional info / context from Jacob Magid (the articles writer):
US President Joe Biden has called on Israel to unilaterally agree to a six-to-eight week ceasefire, in an apparent retreat from his administration’s stance that conditioned a truce in Gaza on Hamas releasing some of the hostages it’s holding in the Strip.
“What I’m calling for is for the Israelis to just call for a ceasefire, allow for the next six, eight weeks, total access to all food and medicine going into the country,” Biden tells the Univision, a US Spanish-language TV network.
“I’ve spoken with everyone from the Saudis to the Jordanians to the Egyptians. They’re prepared to move in,” Biden says. “They’re prepared to move this food in & I think there’s no excuse to not provide for the medical & food needs of those people. It should be done now"
Asked whether Netanyahu is more concerned about political survival than Israelis’ national interest, Biden responds, “I think what he’s doing is a mistake… I don’t agree with his approach."
The Univision interview was taped last Wednesday — two days after the IDF’s deadly strike on a WCK convoy and day before he held a call w/ Bibi during which he threatened to cease support unless Israel made major changes to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Hours after the call, the security cabinet approved a series of gestures aimed at significantly boosting aid to Gaza. The past several days have seen the largest number of aid trucks enter the Strip since the war’s outbreak and the US has welcomed the steps in what might explain why Washington has not gone on to make the same call for a unilateral Israeli ceasefire that Biden made last week before these steps were taken by Israel.
Hours before the interview aired, Biden’s top aides went on record presenting a very different approach to how the US wants to see a ceasefire come about, insisting that it was Hamas, not Israel that is holding up deal that would see pause in fighting & hostages released
“There could be a ceasefire in place today... if Hamas would be prepared to release some of those people, so let’s train the attention where it belongs… I believe Israel is ready and Hamas should step up to the table and be prepared to do so as well,” said NSA Sullivan.
Hamas “has an opportunity now to agree to the proposal on a ceasefire and hostages. The ball is in Hamas’s court. The world is watching to see what it does,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.
Also on Tuesday, US Vice President Kamala Harris met with the families of some of the American hostages at the White House and expressed the administration’s continued commitment to securing their release.
[UPDATE]
A senior White House official tells Times of Israel that Biden was referring to the truce being negotiated by his admin that would see some 40 hostages released over a period of six-to-eight weeks.
“There is no change in our position. The President was reiterating our longstanding position: we are calling for an immediate ceasefire that would last for at least six weeks as part of a hostage deal.”
“His quote makes that clear: ‘What I'm calling for is for the Israelis to just call for a cease-fire, allow for the next 6, 8 weeks total access to all food and medicine going into the country.’ This is in line with what he said at the SOTU, and that we’ve repeatedly said.”
13.) AL: Alabama says DNC too late to get Biden on ballot in Nov.
Alabama Secretary of State warns Biden may not be on state ballot if DNC does not submit paperwork on time
[TS] Absurd. Not to mention, won’t the Supreme Court intervene and unanimously restore Biden on the ballot (re- Trump in CO)? It is a Federal election, after all.
14.) Senate Republicans spoke up at lunch yesterday urging House GOP to delay sending the Mayorkas impeachment articles until next week, or even later.
In response, GOP Whip Thune agreed with them that the House should wait, but some R’s want leadership to make the case directly to Johnson.
15.) Per Kobeissi Letter: The US Federal debt is set to DOUBLE in just 8 years, rising from $20 trillion in 2017 to $40 trillion in 2025.
Currently, US Federal debt is rising by a whopping $1 trillion every 100 days. To put this in perspective, if US debt hits $40 trillion in 2025 that would be a $17 TRILLION increase since 2020. That would be a ~570% jump in US Federal debt since 2000, a 25-year period.
This analysis assumes that we are on track for a "soft landing." What happens if a recession hits?
[TS] Definitely troubling.
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