(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Courts to Trump and friends: You're not as special as you think [1] [] Date: 2023-08-23 Jonathan V. Last/The Bulwark: Republican Elites Only Want the Easy Way Out No pain, no gain. Here is the truth: There is ample evidence—from 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022—to suggest that Trump’s presence on the ballot helps Republicans further down the ticket. Downballot Republicans overperformed in 2016 and 2020 running with Trump and underperformed in 2018 and 2022 without Trump. How could this be? It’s not hard to figure. Trump brings out a lot of “nontraditional” voters when he is on the ticket. And while he also loses the votes of a fair number of traditional Republican voters, those people have voted for Trump’s opponent at the top but then stuck with the rest of the R candidates. We have said this before: If the good thing were always the expedient thing, then everyone would be an angel. The challenge of life is that the good thing is often the hard thing. Here’s a quick summary of the latest legal moves from POLITICO: Meadows, Clark fight to stave off arrest in Georgia Both contend that their roles in Trump’s administration should make them immune from the state-level charges. Mark Meadows is urging a federal judge to step in before Georgia prosecutors arrest him this week on charges that he conspired with Donald Trump to subvert the 2020 election. The former Trump White House chief of staff is racing to move the state criminal case into federal court and ultimately have the charges dismissed. He says the charges against him in Georgia stem from his work as Trump’s chief of staff, a federal role that should make him immune to the local charges. x Every day in this Georgia case in the behaviors of the powerful indicted figures, we're seeing the dangers of the two systems of justice in our country that Gerald Ford & others helped to promote. Thank goodness for D.A. Fani Willis. — David Darmofal (@david_darmofal) August 22, 2023 POLITICO: Trump attorneys guided false electors in Georgia, GOP chair says The false electors were later used by Trump allies to attempt to foment a conflict on Jan. 6, 2021 and derail the transfer of power to President Joe Biden. Former Georgia Republican Party Chair David Shafer said attorneys for former President Donald Trump, his campaign and the local GOP were responsible for urging him to assemble a slate of false presidential electors that are now at the heart of a sprawling racketeering case. Shafer is among the 18 defendants indicted in Fulton County, Georgia, alongside Trump as part of a conspiracy to subvert the 2020 election. “Mr. Shafer and the other Republican Electors in the 2020 election acted at the direction of the incumbent President and other federal officials,” Shafer’s attorney wrote in a petition seeking to move the Fulton County case to federal court. To bolster his proposition, Shafer provided new documents that underscore the Trump campaign’s close involvement in efforts to assemble a group of pro-Trump activists on Dec. 14, 2020 to sign documents claiming to be Georgia’s legitimate presidential electors. Those false electors were later used by Trump allies to attempt to foment a conflict on Jan. 6, 2021 and derail the transfer of power to President Joe Biden. I am not a lawyer, but the idea that claiming the fraudulent electors were official business and worthy of federal court intervention is something akin to killing your parents and then asking for mercy because you’re an orphan. x Meadows’s legal team asked Fani Willis to extend his surrender deadline due to his ongoing efforts to move the case to federal court. Willis said no. “Your client is no different than any other criminal defendant in this jurisdiction,” she wrote. pic.twitter.com/NkJBowCBRi — Anna Bower (@AnnaBower) August 22, 2023 Meanwhile, Jack Smith has answered Judge Aileen Cannon’s demand that he justify using a Washington, D.C., grand jury in “her” documents case down in Florida. First, Adam Unikowsky explains, for Lawfare last week, why that was problematic. Judge Cannon Issues Another Troubling Order in Mar-a-Lago Case Why Judge Cannon’s denial of the prosecutors’ motion to seal and request that co-defendant Nauta file a response brief are so intensely weird But forced to respond, Jack Smith did just that. From POLITICO: Prosecutors: Trump Mar-a-Lago security aide flipped after changing lawyers Special counsel Jack Smith’s team revealed the details of the employee’s about-face in a new filing. A Trump employee who monitored security cameras at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate abruptly retracted his earlier grand jury testimony and implicated Trump and others in obstruction of justice just after switching from an attorney paid for by a Trump political action committee to a lawyer from the federal defender’s office in Washington, prosecutors said in a court filing Tuesday. Why Republican voters believe Trump Former President Donald Trump has solidified his lead in the GOP race by convincing most Republican voters to view his four criminal indictments as a politicized “witch hunt” aimed not only at him, but them. Trump’s success in selling that argument to GOP voters has some immediate causes, key among them the choice by all of his leading competitors in the race, as well as most prominent voices in conservative media, to echo rather than challenge his contention. But the inclination of so many Republican voters to dismiss all of the charges accumulating against Trump also reflects something much more fundamental: the hardening tendency of conservatives to believe that they are the real victims of bias in a society irreversibly growing more racially and culturally diverse. From the outset of Trump’s political career, he has channeled that sentiment into his seemingly unbreakable bond with his core supporters. Now, Trump has transformed his multiple indictments – particularly from Black prosecutors he has repeatedly called “racist” – into just the latest proof point for the widespread belief within the GOP base that the biggest victims of discrimination are the groups most of them belong to: Christians, men and Whites. “Victimhood is embedded in every part of Trump’s campaign, personality, communications, and strategy,” says Tresa Undem, a pollster for progressive causes. “The only thing that shifts is the topic and the object of blame.” You could just say they’re deplorable. Or racist. Or MAGA. Same thing. And while it’s important to remember that they are a minority even within the GOP (primary GOP voters ≠ all GOP voters ≠ all voters), it’s not a good look. x Looks like an astounding sense of entitlement. Instead there should always be equal justice for all. https://t.co/mcjx4NjGZ5 — Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) August 22, 2023 Aaron Blake/The Washington Post: 7 ways MAGA Republicans differ from other Republicans When Vice President Mike Pence declined to help President Donald Trump overturn the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021, he foreclosed whatever chance Trump had of staying in the White House — and probably any path Pence might have had of becoming president. The reason? Pence split the Republican Party along MAGA lines. In a new CBS News/YouGov poll, non-MAGA Republicans say that Pence did the right thing, 48 percent to 15 percent, but MAGA Republicans disapprove by a 2-to-1 margin. And Monmouth University polling from last month showed that while even non-MAGA Republicans are iffy on Pence, “strong” MAGA Republicans detest him: Just 22 percent had a favorable impression, while 60 percent had an unfavorable one. The MAGA split in the GOP is perhaps best exemplified by Pence’s travails, but that’s hardly the only area showing significant gaps. x Imagine looking at inflation and then deciding that what we need more than anything else is a policy guaranteed to jack it up much higher. Because, yes, that's exactly what tariffs and trade wars do. Zombie Trumpism couldn't possibly be timed worse. https://t.co/1xDNmpxwj2 — Aaron Astor (@AstorAaron) August 22, 2023 x I see some are flipping out about this @washingtonpost article. Terrible but no surprise. I wrote in 2018 that Trump and the GOP were making terrible economic choices on everything, from trade and immigration to taxes, debt and income inequality. 1/2 https://t.co/FyKob3IEqA pic.twitter.com/L5w5whUODb — Jill Lawrence (@JillDLawrence) August 22, 2023 Daniel Nichanian and Quinn Yeargain/Bolts magazine: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About State Supreme Courts Why these courts matter, how they work, and the levers for changing them: Bolts answers your questions on these powerful institutions. Most obviously, these courts have become an urgent route for liberal litigants in light of conservatives’ durable majority on the U.S. Supreme Court. State courts get to interpret state constitutions, which often protect rights and liberties more expansively than the U.S. Constitution, and they’ve proven friendly to arguments that wouldn’t succeed in federal court. The right has also focused on them to expand its control over the judiciary. But these courts have even more clout than you may realize. They can shape virtually any policy area that state and local governments touch. They’re likely to have the final word on all cases filed in state courts, and many play additional roles that extend far beyond deciding cases, from crafting the rules of criminal trials to taking part in redistricting and certifying elections. And yet these courts’ exact powers and procedures often remain well under the radar. What justices do and how they’re selected varies widely from state to state, and it always differs from the federal system. Most states elect justices but have their own twist on electoral rules, while some courts are shaped by commissions largely out of public view—and nearly all serve some idiosyncratic function with little scrutiny. These distinctions all influence how each court acts and what might be levers of change. Today Bolts is publishing a new state-by-state resource that plunges into the weeds of these critical judicial powers. For each of 54 courts—accounting for the highest court in all 50 states, two of which have two separate high courts, plus Puerto Rico and D.C.—we cover every nook and cranny of how they are organized, what functions they serve, and rules for judicial selection. The American Prospect: The United Auto Workers Meet Electrification The Big Three’s transition to electric vehicles will largely be driven by public investment. That doesn’t guarantee there will be good-paying jobs. On September 14, the UAW master agreement with the “Big Three” of Ford, GM, and Stellantis (formerly Fiat Chrysler), representing some 150,000 workers, will expire. In previous contract negotiations, the union’s president would kick things off by shaking hands with auto executives for a photo op. Fain, who was elected in March, is the first president of the union’s 87-year run to win a direct election of the members. He decided to meet with workers instead. It was a break with a history of one-party rule by the prior leadership, which led to official corruption and what Fain’s reform movement, Unite All Workers for Democracy, has condemned as collaboration with management. “From this day forward we’re doing things differently,” Fain told local TV stations in Detroit. “It’s up to the Big Three where we end up.” Tensions have run high. In recent weeks, Fain tore up Stellantis’s proposed contract during a livestream. Automotive analysts anticipate a strike against at least one of the Big Three; Anderson Economic Group estimates that just a ten-day strike would cost the economy $5 billion. Ford is preparing its white-collar workers to drive forklifts in parts warehouses in the event of a work stoppage. Jennifer Rubin/The Washington Post: Who’s leading the fight against MAGA? Women. Meanwhile, in the United States, the political might of women has accelerated, with a Democratic bent, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade. The result might be a redrawn political map and new setbacks for the forced-birth MAGA movement. As Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg explained, “We saw a huge spike in women registering to vote after Dobbs, and we saw Democrats outperform our 2020 numbers by 7 points in 5 House special elections and even more in Kansas. There was an immediate, positive spike in Dem performance for us after Dobbs.” The impact of female voters and reproductive rights more generally is now widely seen as a substantial factor in Democrats’ better-than-expected midterm results. 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