GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski will not go to Manhattan for Trump-Stormy and is weirded out by how many Republicans are going. “Don’t we have something to do around here other than watch stupid porn trials?” she says.

'Ben Carson, who is often named as a potential running mate for Donald Trump, is out with a new book in which he calls for an end to no-fault divorce laws in the United States.' nbcnews.com/politics/2024-…

Biden's allies have been sounding the alarm on his base problem since December and saying the key is to communicate a vision for 4 more years. Campaign's argument was largely the same then: there's still time, many haven't tuned in yet. Story from 12/2023: nbcnews.com/politics/2024-…

View from Bidenworld on the recent polls. His pollster doesn’t deny Biden is currently weak with young & black & Latino voters core to Democrats’ base. He argues the campaign has time and money to reach the skeptics and that some will naturally return when the binary choice hits.

“But advocates don’t need to rely on cataclysmic economic predictions to make the case for better and more humane family policy, and continually warning of a disaster that never comes undermines their case and credibility.”

'Using Facebook in the lead-up to the US 2020 presidential election might have increased the chances of someone voting for Donald Trump, university researchers said in a study ... in the academic journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.' bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Houston woman pleads guilty in Henry Cuellar bribery case expressnews.com/news/article/c…

My thoughts on the NYT/Siena poll w/Trump up double digits in Nevada:

This is a very bad poll for Biden. But I think it's also terrible for Jacky Rosen and Dem House incumbents.

Not a huge fan of most NV polls, and this one has anomalies, but Biden is losing here.

Details:

This is the key point. There's a cottage industry on here that will parse every poll to death (and some crosstabs are indeed pretty strange!) but the averages tell the larger story. The averages at this time in 2020 showed Biden with a clear lead; today it's Trump with the edge.

.Vice President Kamala Harris Harris at Asian American event today: “Don’t ever carry, as a personal burden, your capacity to do whatever you dream and aspire to do based on other people's limited ability to see who can do what… We have to know that sometimes people will open the door for you and leave

Samuel Alito, who rules against criminal defendants more often than any other Supreme Court justice, has been expressing empathy lately for certain criminal defendants: Jan. 6 rioters, gun owners and Donald Trump. Lawrence Hurley reports: nbcnews.com/politics/supre…

New NYT/Siena poll shows Biden trailing Trump in most battleground states. Notably, the same poll finds that Senate Democratic candidates are significantly overperforming Biden and holding their own. nytimes.com/2024/05/13/us/…

Because there wasn’t enough news happening in Manhattan courts already

Isolated and Defiant, Israel Vows to ‘Stand Alone’ in War on Hamas

“As the death toll in Gaza has risen, countries have turned their backs on Israel. The consequences of those desertions, from security to economics, risk turning Israel into a pariah.” nytimes.com/2024/05/11/wor…

Reality check: Mike Johnson cannot single-handedly defund Jack Smith. Republicans have introduced amendments to do this but they’ve gone nowhere in committee and don’t have the votes in the House, let alone the Senate. Also, government funding is done and settled through Sept 30.

“Europe must become capable of defending its interests, with its allies by our side whenever they are willing, and alone if necessary,” Macron said. While he welcomed [Biden’s commitment to] Ukraine, he said “the days of Europe…relying on the U.S. for security are over.”