House Speaker Mike Johnson, however, doesn’t appear to have any interest in his party’s vice-presidential nomination. Rather, the Louisiana Republican made the trip to New York City yesterday to engage in a raw partisan display. As the Associated Press noted, Johnson became “the highest-ranking Republican to show up at court, embrace the former president’s claims of political persecution and attack the U.S. system of justice.”

It was a remarkable moment in modern American politics: The House speaker amplifying Trump’s defense and turning the Republican Party against the federal and state legal systems that are foundational to the U.S. government and a cornerstone of democracy. Johnson, who is second in line for the presidency, called the court system “corrupt.”

The display was, by any fair measure, obscene. The sitting speaker of the House — Congress’ top official and a man two heartbeats from the presidency — decided that it would be fully appropriate to show up at a criminal trial and allow himself to be used as a mouthpiece for a suspected felon......

But perhaps most notable of all was the House speaker’s comments about his plans for the near future — because as it turns out, Johnson intends to use his courthouse appearance as a springboard toward future action. The conservative Washington Times reported:

House Speaker Mike Johnson ... told reporters that all the cases brought against Mr. Trump amount to election interference and Congress has a constitutional responsibility to investigate the prosecutors and “hold them accountable.”

In fact, Johnson accused special counsel Jack Smith of undefined “abuses,” adding that he’s prepared to take measure to “rein in”
prosecutors that Republicans disagree with.

https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1790392518758334802

.....But even the possibility that Johnson intends to interfere in ongoing criminal cases, going after prosecutors for their doing their jobs and following the evidence, is a case study in indefensible Republican radicalism.

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough went on an extended rant on Wednesday morning over a recent questionable — according to analysts— New York Times/Siena poll that showed Donald Trump with unusually huge leads in battleground states, with the "Morning Joe" host accusing the venerable newspaper of publishing "garbage" to create news.

According to the NYT poll, President Joe Biden is struggling with young voters and voters of color. However, as co-host Mika Brzezinski pointed out, polling experts have taken to social media to rip the pollsters' methodology apart saying the final results have been "skewed" in Trump's favor.

According to Scarborough, he truly believes the Times has been pushing sketchy polls showing Trump leading because it allows them to get multiple stories out them to drive the news cycle......

"That keeps happening every month when this comes out and then about two weeks later after the residue of the New York Times/Siena poll leaves, people go, 'Oh, I think Joe Biden is on a winning streak,'" he continued. "And then two weeks later it comes out again and it's garbage it's an outlier. And yes, the New York Times, when they have all of these experts questioning the methodology, when they are calling 20 percent of the people likely voters who had never voted before or didn't vote in the last two primaries or never voted before, when they are even quoting people who say they are switching their vote from Joe Biden who have never voted before? I'm sorry! The New York Times has to know what they are doing!"

PIERRE, SOUTH DAKOTA (The Borowitz Report)—In what some political observers called a desperate attempt to salvage her political career, on Wednesday Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota declared that she also despises cats.

“Over the past few weeks, the mainstream media has worked overtime to distort my disclosure about having shot and killed my dog,” she said. “This has led many to believe, falsely, that I am a cat person.”

“Let me say this, loud and clear: As God is my witness, I hate cats, also,” she said.

Claiming that the number of cats in the U.S. has “skyrocketed” under Joe Biden, she issued a stark warning.

“My message to America’s cats is simple,” she said. “You can run, but you can’t hide. The United States of America is not your litter box.”

Arizona prosecutors have tried for weeks – and so far failed – to serve Rudy Giuliani with notice of his indictment related to an alleged scheme to overturn the 2020 election results in that state.

Giuliani is among a group of former President Donald Trump’s allies indicted last month in Arizona alongside the 11 individuals who acted as fake GOP electors from the state in the last presidential election.

But the former New York City mayor and one-time attorney for Trump is the only defendant prosecutors have been unable to serve with a summons, according to Richie Taylor, a spokesperson for the Arizona attorney general’s office.

The summons is a formal notice that Giuliani has been criminally charged and must appear before a judge on May 21.

When USC canceled the main-stage commencement ceremony, Jewish leaders on campus saw an opportunity.

Before about 19,000 graduates walked across stages on Friday to receive their degrees in smaller school satellite ceremonies, USC’s Hillel hosted a graduation event for Jewish students and their families — a moment to gather in unity amid weeks of campus turmoil over Israel-Hamas war protests.

“A lot of people have been trying to take these joyful moments away from us,” said Mark Rayant, 26, who was earning his master’s degree in green technology. “We get to come together as a community in a safe environment, in a healing environment — something the university wasn’t able to provide.”

At USC’s Hillel center, a post-and-beam building next door to the university’s Catholic student center, more than 50 students attended in their black robes and red sashes along with 200 or so family, friends, professors and classmates......

Dave Cohn, executive director of USC Hillel, acknowledged that the year has ended under a “very, very dark cloud.”

“No matter how you view these issues — as a person of Jewish identity or as a person in general — there’s no denying this depleted and depressed the atmosphere,” Cohn said.