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Abbreviated Pundit Roundup is a long-running collection printed each morning that collects important political dialogue and evaluation across the web.
Greg Sargent/The New Republic:
Terrible New Data About Trump and “Reich” Video Exhibits Deep MAGA Illness
Sure, the marketing campaign took down the “Unified Reich” video. In the meantime, Trump and his allies are aggressively seeding the discourse with fascistic language that’s a lot, a lot worse.
The Trump marketing campaign’s preliminary story about this video could or could not show true. However as we debate these specifics, let’s not lose sight of a bigger level. Trump and his highest-profile allies have plainly launched into a broader associated challenge—one which seeks to acclimatize the American citizens to fascistic language and far-reaching authoritarian coverage “options.” They’re slowly edging the discourse deeper into that fraught territory, as if painstakingly testing how far they will take this with out scary an excessive amount of public discomfort over it.
That is the New York Occasions story that broke the information concerning the second flag from Justice Samuel Alito:
One other Provocative Flag Was Flown at One other Alito House
The justice’s seashore home displayed an “Enchantment to Heaven” flag, a logo carried on Jan. 6 and related to a push for a extra Christian-minded authorities
Three images obtained by The New York Occasions, together with accounts from a half-dozen neighbors and passers-by, present that the Enchantment to Heaven flag was aloft on the Alito residence on Lengthy Seaside Island in July and September of 2023. A Google Road View picture from late August additionally exhibits the flag.
The images, every taken independently, are from 4 totally different dates. It isn’t clear whether or not the flag was displayed constantly throughout these months or how lengthy it was flown general…
The disclosure concerning the new flag is troubling, a number of ethics specialists stated in interviews, as a result of it ties Justice Alito extra carefully to symbols related to the tried election subversion on Jan. 6, and since it was displayed because the obstruction case was first coming for consideration by the courtroom.
Chris Geidner/Regulation Dork:
Sam Alito is an issue
Chief Justice John Roberts should take duty for his courtroom. If he doesn’t, what follows will likely be his legacy — and we’ll need to cope with the fallout.
It’s been clear for a while that Justice Sam Alito was the Fox Information (or a fair additional right-wing channel) justice on the U.S. Supreme Courtroom bench.
The previous two weeks have helped to cement that into the general public consciousness for individuals who don’t hear him at oral arguments or learn his opinions — significantly his concurrences and dissents.
He doesn’t have a authorized philosophy past counting to 5, and he doesn’t write opinions for the ages. He writes for now and, virtually all the time, for Republicans.
He really is, to show the phrase on its head, a politician in robes.
His family additionally apparently is, for lack of a greater phrase, actually into flags.
Tim Dickinson/Rolling Stone:
A Christian Nationalist Battle Flag Flew at Justice Alito’s Trip House
A New York Occasions investigation finds the “Enchantment to Heaven” banner — a Revolutionary Warfare flag appropriated by spiritual insurgents on Jan. 6 — flew on the Supreme Courtroom justice’s seashore home final yr
That flag was initially flown throughout the American Revolution. It carries a quote from the Enlightenment thinker John Locke, who argued that when a simply individuals are confronted with injustice within the political realm, and have exhausted all avenues for redress, that they will transfer to violence — and God will decide the righteousness of their motion. “The place there lies no enchantment on Earth,” the thinker wrote, “they’ve simply trigger to make their enchantment to heaven.”
This flag was laregly a relic of historical past till it was revived by a far-right spiritual chief named Dutch Sheets, who has reworked the flag right into a banner for Christian nationalists. The pine tree on the flag was initially a logo of protest for British exploitation of the colonies; the monarchy exported the tallest and truest pine bushes from New England for the masts on British navy ships. However in Sheets’ appropriation, the tree now’s stated to represent God’s covenant with Abraham — and with America as a supposedly divinely chartered nation.
That’s the identical flag Speaker Mike Johnson flies outdoors his workplace.
Harry Litman/Los Angeles Occasions:
Trump’s hush cash trial will go to the jury quickly. What’s the most probably verdict?
The prosecution’s important achievement was to supply a compelling, credible narrative that factors towards just one believable conclusion: that Trump is responsible as charged.
The protection, in contrast, took a scattershot method centered on undermining the credibility of any and all the prosecution’s witnesses, significantly Michael Cohen, Trump’s former legal professional and fixer. However what Trump’s legal professionals didn’t do is present a counternarrative, a narrative compelling sufficient to depart jurors with an affordable doubt as to which clarification of the details is true.
Offering such a competing story isn’t the protection’s authorized obligation, in fact. The decide will instruct the jurors that if they’ve any affordable doubt concerning the prosecution’s case, they need to vote to acquit.
However my expertise as a trial lawyer suggests a distinction between freestanding doubt about a number of witnesses and a broader doubt concerning the rationale behind the fees — another plotline that jurors would possibly discover plausible. That’s the form of protection being introduced on behalf of Sen. Robert Menendez, for instance, who’s arguing that his spouse is the responsible get together.
Radley Balko/”The Watch” on Substack:
Trump’s deportation military
The previous president’s vow to deport 15 million individuals is the cruelest, most intolerant, most brazenly authoritarian marketing campaign promise in fashionable U.S. historical past. Oh, and it might additionally destroy the economic system.
The Atlantic, New York Occasions and Washington Submit have all checked out what Trump and the MAGA coalition have deliberate for immigration coverage ought to he be elected once more. These tales all bought some consideration on the time, however not almost sufficient to mirror the madness of what he’s proposing. Maybe it’s the form of bluster Trump usually spurts out within the second, however by no means bothers to implement.
We must take it extra critically. Trump has made 15 million deportations a central a part of his 2024 marketing campaign. And he’s stepped up the dehumanizing of immigrants he’ll must get a good portion of the nation on board.
Even when Trump will get distracted, it’s doubtless he’ll put Stephen Miller in cost of the plan. Miller is the one non-relative senior staffer who served the whole thing of the primary Trump time period. And Miller gained’t be distracted. Ridding the nation of non-white immigrants has been a core a part of his id for his whole life.
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