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The DeSantis Endorsement-ghazi Blame Game
The DeSantis Endorsement-ghazi Blame Game, Tara Palmeri, Puck
Poor Ryan Tyson. That’s the name I keep hearing from Tallahassee insiders as DeSantis-world reels from the tidal wave of Florida congressmen endorsing Trump over their own governor. Tyson, a top pollster and advisor to DeSantis (who allegedly “never conducts polls”) was deputized to try to shore up support among the Florida delegation for DeSantis ahead of his high-profile visit to Washington this week, following the traumatic defection of Rep. Byron Donalds to Trump. (He and his wife Erika are good friends with Casey and Ron, who offered their support if he wanted to be chairman of the party’s state G.O.P.)

Alas, Tyson wasn’t very successful, because seven more members of the Florida delegation chose to endorse Trump instead—including Reps. Matt Gaetz, Anna Paulina Luna, Brian Mast, Greg Steube, Cory Mills, Vern Buchanan and John Rutherford. The main gripe was that DeSantis didn’t personally make the calls, but left it to Tyson. “Part of the problem with Tyson is that nobody knew who the fuck he was,” said one G.O.P. advisor to a member of Congress who was called. Tyson declined to comment.

But this has always been DeSantis’s problem. He lacks the personal touch, whereas Trump always calls, often for no reason at all. Steube, who recently suffered serious injuries falling off a ladder, told Politico that he made his decision in part because DeSantis, unlike Trump, never called to check in. (This frosty behavior hasn’t been helping DeSantis with donors, either.)
Banned in the USA: State Laws Supercharge Book Suppression in Schools
Banned in the USA: State Laws Supercharge Book Suppression in Schools, Kasey Meehan and Jonathan Friedman, Ph.D, Pen America
These efforts to chill speech are part of the ongoing nationwide “Ed Scare” — a campaign to foment anxiety and anger with the goal of suppressing free expression in public education. As book bans escalate, coupled with the proliferation of legislative efforts to restrict teaching about topics such as race, gender, American history, and LGBTQ+ identities, the freedom to read, learn, and think continues to be undermined for students.

Below, PEN America updates its tally and analysis of book bans during the first half of the 2022-2023 school year, from July to December 2022. This research builds on PEN America’s 2022 report, Banned in the USA: The Growing Movement to Censor Books in Schools, which covered book bans from July 2021 to June 2022.
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U.S. Jewish Leader Joins Mass Protest Against Netanyahu’s Judicial Overhaul
U.S. Jewish Leader Joins Mass Protest Against Netanyahu’s Judicial Overhaul, Yael Freidson, Haaretz
Former Education Minister Limor Livnat, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party and an outspoken right-wing critic of the government's judicial overhaul plan, accused the government of promising "security, peace and governance" while solely focusing on the "coup to crush the legal system."

Speaking in front of a crowd of demonstrators in Jerusalem, Livnat, who worked alongside Netanyahu for much of his tenure as prime minister, said that she "was born and raised on the right, I have remained in the right-wing camp all my life, and I will never have another ideology, but Likud is no longer my home," arguing that the party's founded, former Prime Minister Menachem Begin, believed in a strong, independent judiciary.
The Supreme Court Stopped Short of a Radical Act
The Supreme Court Stopped Short of a Radical Act, Aziz Huq, Politico Magazine
Both the mifepristone ruling and the Wisconsin judicial election suggest the politics of court reform are shifting.

But Wisconsin’s judicial election earlier this month suggests that the White House’s assessment of how judicial politics plays among Democratic voters no longer holds water. That election may signal a broader shift in the tectonics of voter mobilization in respect to courts and judges more generally.

The most obvious reason for thinking something has changed is that it was Democrats, and not Republicans, who were galvanized by the judicial election. These voters, moreover, were moved by the issue of judicial power but were not motivated as much by the goal of electing Democrats. In a state Senate race held that same day, the Republican candidate eked out a win. That too was a highly consequential election, giving Republicans a Senate supermajority and the votes to oust officials through impeachment.
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Don’t Daydream of a Third Party President
Don’t Daydream of a Third Party President, Tim Miller, The xxxxxx
Plus: The rubber band theory of politics.

Miller: And I get it. Really, I do. But in a counterintuitive way, the candidate-quality issues and the extent of our polarization actually make it less likely for third-party success.

Bernadette Rostenkowski (Melissa Ivy Rauch on The Big Bang Theory): Yeah, you’re gonna have to walk me through that.

Miller: There are two main reasons why. One, we’re living in a time of extreme negative partisanship. Negative partisanship is a concept where voters are committed to one side, not so much because they love their candidate, but because they despise the other candidate.

Homer Simpson (from The Simpsons): I hate them so much!

Miller: So if you are the type to (correctly) think that Donald Trump might literally end our democracy, you are less likely to risk “wasting” your vote on a third party, even if you don’t love Joe Biden because you don’t want to take a chance that it could help Trump.
The Hottest Political Reform of the Moment Gains Ground
The Hottest Political Reform of the Moment Gains Ground, James Traub, Politico Magazine
Inside Jeanne Massey’s relentless campaign to fix democracy, starting in Minnesota.

At issue was ranked choice voting, a wonky reform that advocates are convinced will help drain the toxins from our national politics. Ranked choice voting allows voters to list their top three or more candidates, eliminates the last-place finisher and then redistributes votes to the remaining candidates until one emerges with a majority. The approach has been quietly making gains across the country, but it burst into the public consciousness last year after it helped a centrist Democrat thwart Sarah Palin’s bid for Congress in Alaska.

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