Abbreviated Pundit Roundup is a long-running series published every morning that collects essential political discussion and analysis around the internet.
We begin today with Katie S. Phang of MSNBC and the novel legal theory behind the successful prosecution of the shoe salesman by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
The Manhattan DA’s office has prosecuted a number of falsification of business records cases. These are usually straightforward, run-of-the-mill paper crimes. Bragg has even referenced them as the “bread and butter” of his office’s white-collar work. But it’s the added element of the “another crime” that raised eyebrows. And this is the heart of the novel legal theory that Bragg chose to employ in this trial. The Washington Post reviewed the New York State Law Reporting Bureau as far back as 2000 for any relevant case law regarding this specific statute. The report found “two entries in which a judge issued legal opinions on the statute. Both were from [Judge Juan] Merchan last year in rejecting Trump’s motions to have the case dismissed.” That’s how rarely Section 17-152 is prosecuted in New York. And that fact makes Bragg’s decision to primarily premise the prosecution of a former president of the United States on that statute even more novel. […]
Bragg had the right combination of book smarts and street smarts to bring this indictment against Trump, and the wisdom to see this case for what it truly was. In an interview with WNYC, he declared: “The core is not money for sex. … it’s about conspiring to corrupt a presidential election.”
Honest question: How should I interpret Ms. Phang’s use of “street smarts” in reference to DA Bragg?
Colbert I. King of The Washington Post has a word or two for DA Bragg’s critics.
“Underwhelmed” was the pronouncement of David French of the New York Times, who elaborated: “It’s not because of the facts. It’s because of the law.” John Bolton, the former Trump national security adviser turned ardent Trump critic said “this is even weaker than I feared it would be, and I think it’s easily subject to being dismissed or a quick acquittal for Trump.”
And on and on. Manhattan’s first Black district attorney, Bragg was widely painted as an ambitious Democrat who sought the national stage to take down a former GOP president, but who, legally speaking, was in over his head.
That was essentially the narrative until late afternoon on Thursday, when 12 Manhattan jurors spoke. After watching five weeks of trial, and sorting through mounds of evidence and witness testimony, they found Trump guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to an adult-film actress.
Tom Schuba and Frank Main of the Chicago Sun-Times investigate the probable push of a Russian disinformation campaign during the Democratic National Convention.
Russia’s interference efforts this year is likely to be more wide-ranging, from using social media to stoke dissension over hot-button issues to using “human assets” to infiltrate protest groups, Bergmann says.
“It could be the case where there are perhaps Russian operatives that are then physically embedded with some of these groups,” he says. “And their job is to instigate on the ground, to be the one that throws the first rock that they set off a degree of violence.”
Also, social media has “become way more of a cesspool than it was in 2016,” Bergmann says, pointingto X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that billionaire owner Elon Musk has proclaimed to be a haven for free speech. Bergmann says the platform has “become sort of a safe space for extremists and many who want to do America harm.
“In some ways, it’s become a very permissive environment if you’re a Russian intelligence operative,” he says. “That’s the same with Facebook after getting the lion’s share of the scrutiny, I think, after 2016.”
Hurricane season officially began yesterday, June 1, and Juliette Kayyem of The Atlantic looks at America’s preparedness for what is projected to be a a busy hurricane season.
According to forecasts from a range of sources, the hurricane season that begins today could be the direst in recorded history. Abnormally warm waters in the Atlantic Ocean, coupled with the persistently strong winds formed by an emerging La Niña weather front, create dangerous conditions that could lead to as many as 25 named storms in the North Atlantic, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Amid the continuing threat of climate change, Americans can easily become inured to alarming projections year after year. Both the potential size of this year’s hurricanes and their expected frequency threaten to overwhelm society’s ability to help those in danger and make whole anyone who suffers losses. […]
When faced with problems that require tough choices and concerted action, we sometimes look to technology to save us instead. Technological improvements—both in monitoring the natural world and in communicating real-time information to the public through early alerts—should at least buy people time to prepare for or, better yet, get out of the way of hurricanes and other disasters.
Yet even this minimalist strategy doesn’t work. People don’t listen, and they distrust their government. And the data on Americans’ level of preparedness are not inspiring; only 51 percent of Americans believe that they are ready for a disaster, while the latest government data suggest that fewer people signed up for alerts last year than the year before. One of the major factors that is most likely to compel citizens to get ready is whether they or a family member has been harmed by a weather-related disaster. Still, even a close brush with nature can also breed complacency; people who got lucky and managed to muddle through one storm might not ready themselves enough for the next.
Jaroslav Lukiv of BBC News reports that two far-right Israeli ministers have threatened to quit Israel’s governing coalition if Netanyahu follows through with President BIden’s proposal for a ceasefire in the Israeli-Hamas conflict.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said they were opposed to striking any deal before Hamas was destroyed.
But opposition leader Yair Lapid has pledged to back the government if Mr Netanyahu supported the plan.
The prime minister himself insisted there would be no permanent truce until Hamas’s military and governing capabilities were destroyed and all hostages released.
Mr Biden’s three-part proposal would begin with a six-week ceasefire in which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) would withdraw from populated areas of Gaza. The deal would eventually lead to the release of all hostages, a permanent “cessation of hostilities” and a major reconstruction plan for Gaza.
But in a post on social media on Saturday, Mr Smotrich said he told Mr Netanyahu he would “not be part of a government that agrees to the proposed outline and ends the war without destroying Hamas and bringing back all the hostages”.
Joshua Keating of Vox wonders what happened to the “war on terror.”
Two countries where the war on terror is still ongoing are Iraq and Syria, where detachments of around 2,400 and 800 US troops, respectively, continue to take part in operations targeting ISIS alongside local partners. But even there, ISIS is a shell of the organization that once ruled over a Great Britain-sized “caliphate,” while the US and Iraqi governments have begun talks about winding down the long-term US presence in Iraq. Should Donald Trump win the presidency in November, we would likely see the withdrawal of the remaining US troops in Syria, an unrealized goalfrom his first term.
It’s clear that even if the “war on terror” isn’t quite over, it’s not the central organizing principle for US national security that it was for previous administrations. The Biden White House, unlike all of its post-9/11 predecessors, has yet to release a national counterterrorism strategy. In the National Security Strategy released in 2022, which heavily emphasizes “strategic competition” with autocratic rivals like China and Russia, terrorism receives just a one-page section, coming in after climate change and food insecurity. The White House has also issued new policy guidance to the CIA and Pentagon, placing more stringent limits and protocols that had been loosened by the Trump administration on drone strikes and special forces raids conducted outside of declared war zones. […]
But even as the US has rightly changed its priorities, the terror threat hasn’t fully receded — and may indeed be growing. Recent attacks in Iran and Russia by a dangerous new ISIS affiliate have some experts concerned that we’ve become too complacent to the threat. French authorities already say they’ve foiled a plot to attack this summer’s Olympics. Few want to return to the war on terror footing of years past, but that could happen quickly in the event of a catastrophic security lapse.
Finally today, Shola Lawal of AlJazeera says that having attained only 40% of the votes cast (which is a couple of percentage points less than pre-election polls projected), South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) has entered negotiations with other political parties in order to form a governing coalition.
The ANC, which has led the country since 1994, has started closed-door negotiations with other parties to try and stitch together a governing coalition — something it had never had to do until now. Yet analysts say that the party’s losses and the pressures it will confront from potential alliance partners have also cast a cloud over the future of the man the ANC had hoped would lead it into another term in office: President Cyril Ramaphosa.
With nearly all votes counted, the ANC has won about 40 percent of the mandate, followed by the principal opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, with 21 percent. In third place is the big success story of the election: Former President Jacob Zuma’s uMKhonto we Sizwe (MK) party, which has ravaged the ANC’s core voting base, looks poised to form the government in KwaZulu Natal province, and could prove critical in determining whether the ANC forms the next government under Ramaphosa. The MK party has won almost 15 percent of the national vote, and 45 percent of the vote in KwaZulu Natal, Zuma’s home province.
Already, the MK, whose senior leadership — including Zuma himself — consists of many politicians with ANC roots, has ruled out a deal with the governing party unless it sacks Ramaphosa first. After leading the ANC to its worst-ever electoral performance, Ramaphosa will face intense pressure to stand aside, said analysts.
Have the best possible day everyone!
