A number of headlines today speak to an array of overlapping dysfunctions within the Republican Party. These are of different types. One of the obvious areas of dysfunction is simply the kinds of things one sees when a grifter is the head of the party. To wit, via Politico: Trump campaign asks for cut of candidates’ fundraising when they use his name and likeness. “Beginning tomorrow, we ask that all candidates and committees who choose to use President Trump’s name, image, and likeness split a minimum of 5% of all fundraising solicitations to Trump National Committee JFC. This includes but ..read more

AP (“Maine joins compact to elect the president by popular vote but it won’t come into play this November“): Maine will become the latest to join a multistate effort to elect the president by popular vote with the Democratic governor’s announcement Monday that she’s letting the proposal become law without her signature. Under the proposed compact, each state would allocate all its electoral votes to whoever wins the national popular vote for president, regardless of how individual states voted in an election. But the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is on hold for now — and won’t pla ..read more

WaPo (“Speaker Johnson moves on foreign aid, possibly triggering vote to oust him”): House Speaker Mike Johnson is plowing ahead on a foreign aid plan that has roiled his conference and prompted two Republicans to push an effort to oust him from the chamber’s top job. But instead of the complex four-part plan he floated this week, Johnson now intends to try to pass five bills — one each for aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Indo-Pacific allies, as well as a GOP wish list of foreign policy priorities and a fifth stand-alone bill to address widespread Republican demands to strengthen ..read more

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CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain photo via Max Pixel POLITICO Europe opinion editor Jamie Dettmer declares, “Ukraine is heading for defeat.” Just ask a Ukrainian soldier if he still believes the West will stand by Kyiv “for as long as it takes.” That pledge rings hollow when it’s been four weeks since your artillery unit last had a shell to fire, as one serviceman complained from the front lines. It’s not just that Ukraine’s forces are running out of ammunition. Western delays over sending aid mean the country is dangerously short of something even harder to supply than shells: the f ..read more

A Man For All Seasons goes to the heart of our current political season Last night, I re-watched A Man For All Seasons, which is an acutely timely movie. This telling of the fall of Thomas More focuses less on Henry VIII, and more on the corruption of institutions and people. Henry’s monomaniacal demand for a divorce from Catherine of Aragon played on people’s ambitions and weaknesses, turning them against people who stuck with their faith in both the wording and the spirit of the political and legal forms. The movie’s two poles of morality are More, whose adherence to principles in a debased ..read more

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Less than a month ago, just before the Easter Recess, Marjorie Taylor Green filed a motion to have Mike Johnson vacate his position as Speaker of the House. At the time, I noted that it didn’t appear that it had the support to go to go anywhere at the time. That was then, this is now. This morning, Jake Sherman of Punchbowl News, who broke the story about MTG’s motion, shared the following on x-tter: MASSIE told Johnson in front of the entire House Republican Conference that he should clean the barn and resign or else he’ll be vacated. https://t.co/hPMthGw9RW — Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) A ..read more

AP (“Supreme Court rejects appeal from Black Lives Matter activist over Louisiana protest lawsuit“): The Supreme Court on Monday allowed a lawsuit to go forward against a Black Lives Matter activist who led a protest in Louisiana in which a police officer was injured. Civil rights groups and free speech advocates have warned that the suit threatens the right to protest. The justices rejected an appeal from DeRay Mckesson in a case that stems from a 2016 protest over the police killing of a Black man in Baton Rouge. At an earlier stage of the case, the high court noted that the issue was “fra ..read more

NYT (“No Jurors Picked on First Day of Trump’s Manhattan Criminal Trial“): The criminal trial of Donald J. Trump, the nation’s 45th president and the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee, started Monday with potential jurors assembling in a drab courtroom in New York City while Mr. Trump looked on. Mr. Trump was charged in Manhattan, a deeply Democratic county and his former home, with falsifying nearly three dozen business records in an attempt to cover up a payment to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, who has said she had a brief sexual encounter with him in 2006. […] The trial, which is expe ..read more