I have limited time this morning, but consider this an open thread to discuss whatever. For example —

The indictments yesterday are either based on a dubious legal theory or quite strong, depending on whom you ask. The MSNBC crew last night said that the indictments list underlying crimes that could be tied to the false entries in business records with intent to defraud but didn’t bring charges on the underlying fraud, although Bragg still could. Andrew Weissmann speculated that some of the charges might be dismissed before trial, but not all of them.

Republicans are whining about the Wisconsin Supreme Court election. Good article, no paywall. Discuss.

I’m expecting an avalanche of commentary on the indictments late this afternoon. I have no doubt that battalions of legal experts are standing by ready to crank out analyses.

In the meantime, one of the best things I’ve read today is by Dahlia Lithwick:

While he has done yeoman’s work raising funds in the days since his indictment was announced ($4 million in the first 24 hours), it’s not clear whether that translates to actual minions in the street, poised to light a match for him yet again. As Aymann Ismail reported Monday, it’s awfully hard to predict the actions of uncoordinated angry extremists, but experts don’t see a lot of the markers of a coordinated insurrection campaign, despite TV threats-slash-demands that they occur. Perhaps that’s why the former president has already decided he’ll return to Mar-a-Lago Tuesday night in order to deliver an address from there—a streamed address doesn’t have to reveal the crowd size, after all. And at Mar-a-Lago, the sets still suggest he’s a king.

It’s almost as if—much like the ex-president himself—even the most emboldened supporters of Donald Trump now exist mostly in the frothy ether between Twitter and Truth Social, between Reddit and Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene’s busted memory chip. Asked to travel through corporeal time, in their actual bodies, to the streets of New York, where they might end up being deemed legally responsible for their actions, most of the zeal falls away. We can thank the January 6 committee and the prosecution of over 1,000 insurrectionists for the possibility that bodily, monetary, and liberty-based accountability may have been enough, this time, to deter another band of Trump enthusiasts from unloosing the violent protest he has repeatedly demanded of them in recent days.

Even so, the New York Times reports a Trump rally in lower Manhattan near the courthouses today (no paywall).

Scores of demonstrators from both sides began amassing hours before Mr. Trump, 76, was due at the Manhattan Criminal Courts Building, with a pro-Trump rally outside the courthouse headlined by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right Republican from Georgia. …

…The appearance by Ms. Greene, who supports conspiracy theories and has falsely suggested that Democrats support pedophilia, had brought a crush of onlookers and counterprotesters.

Police were separating pro- and anti-Trump demonstrators in Collect Pond Park, keeping an aisle — and an array of officers — between the two groups, who were largely peaceful, though at least one small skirmish broke out. Ms. Greene’s arrival was accompanied by heavy security.

“Go back to Georgia!” one person shouted. …

…During a City Hall news conference on Monday, Mayor Eric Adams warned protesters from out of state to “control yourselves.”

“New York City’s our home, not a playground for your misplaced anger,” the mayor said, provoking a furious response from Ms. Greene, who falsely accused the mayor of sending “henchmen” to the pro-Trump event on Tuesday.

It might have been fun to see MTG subjected to the full NYPD crowd control treatment.  Your average henchmen are a mild and forbearing crew compared to New York’s finest. But the day isn’t over yet. Perhaps we can still hope.

Insider reports that only about 100 protesters showed up with Marjorie Taylor Greene. It isn’t clear if that number included just Trump supporters or all protesters. They were in Collect Pond Park, it says. As I recall, Collect Pond Park only occupies a square block or so. It’s basically a small pond and picnic tables surrounded by courthouses. Court employees eat their bag lunches there in nice weather.

Well, more later, I’m sure.

Today’s pun: Alvin Bragg is about to arraign on Trump’s parade.

Let’s talk about Trump’s bargain basement lawyers. Bess Levin writes at Vanity Fair,

One of the funniest subplots in the Donald Trump Indictment Show—which centers on the hush money payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016—involves the multiple reports that, after predicting to his followers that he would be arrested on March 21, the ex-president and his allies came to believe he was in the clear.

Trump, The Washington Post reported late Thursday, “had grown cautiously optimistic” in recent days, after “advisers had counseled him that a possible indictment by a Manhattan grand jury…would not come for some time—if at all.” The former president, the outlet noted, was apparently so unconcerned about the prospect of being charged that he’d “even begun joking about ‘golden handcuffs,’” which is probably not something one does if one thinks there’s a legitimate possibility they might be indicted, convicted, and sentenced to time in prison. “It was a surprise to everybody,” David Urban, a longtime Trump adviser, told the Post, which noted that “some of his lawyers had been preparing to take a few days off.” Following the indictment, The New York Times similarly reported that “Trump and his aides were caught off guard by the timing, believing that any action by the grand jury was still weeks away and might not occur at all.” The paper of record noted that Trump had recently been “telling nearly anyone that he was in a good mood and that he believed the case against him by Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, had fallen apart.”

These people should be watching MSNBC instead of Fox News. The crew at MSNBC, people like Joyce Vance, Barbara McQuade, Charles F. Coleman, Andrew Weissmann, etc., were all stressing that we can’t know what’s going to happen or when it might happen. An indictment could happen any day. An indictment could happen in a couple of months. Maybe there won’t be an indictment. Nothing is certain. Listen to the smart people, guys, not the nutjob on Fox News who thinks Nancy Pelosi secretly organized the January 6 mob for her daughter’s documentary.

But, really, one would think that any lawyer with any experience with grand juries ought to have known not to be complacent. Maybe the only lawyers willing to work for Trump any more are the ones who really need the work.

The New York Times’s Maggie Haberman was asked about how Team Trump took the news.

They’re still trying to assess what is happening on a few fronts. One is the political front, which I’d say they were most prepared on.

Another is the legal front, which is messy because his team has had a lot of infighting, and there’s finger pointing about why they were so caught off guard. The lawyers also don’t yet know the charges because it’s a sealed indictment.

Finally, there is the emotional front. While Trump is not said to be throwing things, he is extremely angry and his family is, not surprisingly, rattled.

Back to Bess Levin,

Of course, the biggest indication that Trump indeed believed he’d outrun Bragg? His taking to Truth Social on Wednesday to write: “I HAVE GAINED SUCH RESPECT FOR THIS GRAND JURY, & PERHAPS EVEN THE GRAND JURY SYSTEM AS A WHOLE…. THE GRAND JURY IS SAYING, HOLD ON, WE ARE NOT A RUBBER STAMP, WHICH MOST GRAND JURIES ARE BRANDED AS BEING, WE ARE NOT GOING TO VOTE AGAINST A PREPONDERANCE OF EVIDENCE OR AGAINST LARGE NUMBERS OF LEGAL SCHOLARS ALL SAYING THERE IS NO CASE HERE.” Sure, that could have been an unabashed attempt to sway the jurors through flattery—but, in retrospect, those very much sound like the words of a man who was extremely confident he was not going to be indicted. “Such respect”! “The grand jury system as a whole”! “The grand jury is saying, hold on”! Do you think he still stands by these statements? If there were ever a time for the internet-ism “ROTFLMAO,” it would be now.

See also Donald Trump is melting down on Truth Social over his indictment.

In another entry for the How Stupid Are These People? file, Byron York is whining about the indictment “secrecy.” It’s a grand jury, dude. That’s how the system works. We’ll see the charges at the arraignment.

In other news: The Washington Post reports that the DoJ is said to have more evidence of possible Trump obstruction at Mar-a-Lago. Here’s the gist of it:

Responding to the indictment, Republicans are taking the position that no part of the criminal justice system can legitimately involve itself in anything Trump does, no matter what. Yes, they are in effect saying he’s above the law. And then they turn around and say that any legal action against Trump must be crushed and not allowed to go forward, in order to protect the “rule of law.” Seriously, I’ve seen them say that today.

Bill Barr, who is weirdly unable to learn from experience, has already rendered his astute legal judgment on the indictment even though he can’t possible know what’s in it.

‘The legal theory is pathetically weak. The case is held together by chicken wire and paper clips and rubber bands. It’s a lousy case. And it’s a shameful episode in our history where this local prosecutor is trying to effect the political process by bringing this case,’ Barr railed.

Barr is long past the point of caring about his reputation as an expert on law, I take it. He’s still just a shill for Trump. And Lindsey Graham practically melted down in hysteria on Fox News after the indictment. I have yet to see a single Republican of any stature step forward to say “Let’s let this process play out.” If it’s such a weak case, why are they so hysterical about it?

Paul Waldman:

To be clear, the indictment itself might prove to be a weak case. Trump might be charged with falsifying business records, but to make that a felony, that falsification would have to conceal another crime. To fit that bill, prosecutors might try to classify the hush money payment as an improper campaign finance violation.

I don’t know what the headline means, either. I just like it.

Maggie Haberman writes at the NY Times that the indictment caught the Trump camp off guard.

Mr. Trump and his aides were caught off guard by the timing, believing that any action by the grand jury was still weeks away and might not occur at all.

Some advisers had become confident that there would be no movement until the end of April at the earliest and were looking at the political implications for Mr. Trump’s closest potential rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.

How incompetent are these people? Then Haberman goes on to say that Trump has been trying to fake being normal.

On Thursday evening, after the grand jury indicted him, Mr. Trump was angry but mainly focused on the political implications of the charges, not the legal consequences, according to people familiar with his thinking.

He seemed eager to project confidence and calm and was seen having a very public dinner with his wife, Melania, and her parents at the club at Mar-a-Lago. …

… At times Mr. Trump has appeared significantly disconnected from the severity of his potential legal woes, according to people who have spent time with him in recent days.

He was also trying to tamp down his own behavior, after he posted to his social media site a news article with an image of Mr. Bragg on one side and Mr. Trump holding a baseball bat on the other. Mr. Trump’s lawyers were alarmed that he was doing himself damage. He did not repeat the act.

I understand that at his arraignment he might very well be given a gag order. And speaking of gag — Ben Jacobs writes for Vox,

Thursday night was the most cringe moment in American politics since the high times of the #resistance in the early Trump administration. After news broke that Donald Trump had become the first president in US history to be charged with a crime, there were labored, overwrought historical analogies (the number of times Fox News personalities mentioned that the Rubicon had been crossed would have allowed Caesar’s entire legion to go back and forth across the ancient Roman river a dozen times). There was ample partisan wish-casting, as right-wingers shared their fantasies of President Joe Biden condemning the prosecution of Trump in New York in order to bring our country together. And, of course, there were dark anxieties that this would spell the end of American democracy and represented what Donald Trump Jr. simply called “Communist level shit.”

Actually, letting Trump skate just because he used to be POTUS would be “Communist level shit.” And the whole point about following the grand jury process gets lost on these people. Due process of law is being followed scrupulously. And since when did any of these meatballs care about democracy, anyway?

WaPo reports that Tucker Carlson is calling for protests.

“It almost feels they’re pushing the population to react,” said Fox prime-time host Tucker Carlson, referring vaguely to Democrats. “‘We think they’re demoralized and passive, let’s see if they really are.’ At what point do we conclude they’re doing this in order to produce a reaction?”

The only “reaction” I want is justice and restoration of the rule of law. We’ll see if the MAGAts turn out. I’m sure the NYPD is ready for whatever happens. My bigger concern is that some lone actors will commit terrorist acts elsewhere.

We probably won’t know exactly what the charges are until the arraignment, but I’m seeing reports there are more than 30 counts in the indictment. I have no idea how reliable that information is.

I also understand there may not be a trial for months. In the meantime, I hope, we’ll hear something from Jack Smith and Fani Willis, among others.

Elie Mystal is not optimistic about Alvin Bragg’s charges.

The problem, as Alexa is quick to remind me, is that it’s not 2020 or 2021, and this is not in federal court. We are in the year 2023, and a local DA is trying to gather up some bits of the jurisdictional authority federal prosecutors left lying on the ground. It’s not a clean shot: Bragg is trying to bank in a half-court heave off the backboard after the shot clock buzzer has already sounded.

The first issue that Bragg has is time. Trump committed the underlying campaign finance offense in 2016, and the statute of limitations on bookkeeping fraud and campaign finance violations is five years. That brings you to 2021. The statute of limitations for tax evasion is three years. Even if you don’t start the clock on that until the story breaks in the news in 2018, that brings you, once again, to 2021. To get to 2023, Bragg appears to be arguing that the statute of limitations paused while Trump was president and living out of state. That’s… a theory, but not necessarily a good one, and certainly not one that has been tested enough to know how it’s going to hold up in the courts. Remember, the alleged immunity Trump had from prosecutions applied only at the federal level. Local prosecutors, like Bragg’s predecessor Cyrus Vance, who was the Manhattan DA during Trump’s presidency, could have charged him with this crime at any time.

The second issue is that Bragg is doing a lot of legal contortions to make this a felony, instead of a misdemeanor. For Bragg to charge Trump with felony bookkeeping fraud, he needs to show that Trump committed that crime to cover up some other crime (either a campaign finance violation or a tax violation) at the federal level. But that’s harder to do when the feds won’t prosecute Trump for the graver misdeeds that are beyond Bragg’s purview.

I’m not giving up on Jack Smith yet.

If you hear any other juicy tidbits, do post them in the comments.

This just in — Grand Jury Votes to Indict Donald Trump in New York in the New York Times. No paywall.

Can we consider the possibility that Ron DeSantis is not that smart? It appears he’s been pantsed by The Mouse. Michael Hiltzik writes at the Los Angeles Times:

Did you really believe that Florida’s arrogant, petty, childish Gov. Ron DeSantis would get the better of Walt Disney Co. in their fight over Disney’s supposed “wokeness”?

If so, you don’t know your Disney.

DeSantis handpicked a board of cronies to take over control of Reedy Creek Improvement District — the quasi-governmental entity that Disney and Florida established more than 55 years ago to control development and management of the land on which Walt Disney World, EPCOT and the company’s related enterprises are located.

DeSantis’ board has now revealed that, while they were snoozing, Disney executed an agreement with their predecessors that strips the new board of all its powers except the authority to “maintain the roads and maintain basic infrastructure,” according to one of the new board members.

How did the Mouse do tihs?

Days before the takeover, Disney reached a development agreement with the old Reedy Creek board while it was still in power. The agreement prohibits the newly constituted district from using the name “Disney” or its trademarks — specifically including Mickey Mouse — in any way without the company’s written permission. The agreement also leaves the new board without the ability to make design changes to buildings or constructing new ones without Disney’s permission.

The new board members knew nothing about the agreement until they took office.

Josh Marshall:

You may remember that as one of Ron DeSantis’s culture war gambits he punished Disney’s position on gay rights in the state by abolishing the special government jurisdiction which essentially allowed Disney to run Disney World as its own town or governmental district. That was the Reedy Creek Improvement District. DeSantis had the state legislature replace Reedy Creek with the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District. Now the political appointees DeSantis put on the Oversight District board to lord it over Disney are crying foul, saying Disney pulled a fast one on them and essentially cut them out of any effective power for decades into the future.

On the last meeting of the Reedy Creek Improvement District the then-board approved a series of agreements and restrictive covenants (you can see them here) which, according to the Oversight Board folks, locks them out of any effective power for the better part of a century.

DeSantis’s Oversight Board, you might remember, was made up of “Republican and conservative stooges, including a founder of the right-wing censorship-happy organization Moms for Liberty, who happens to be an architect of the “Don’t Say Gay” law and the wife of the chairman of the Florida Republican Party,” Hiltzik writes. No doubt they had a plan to cleanse Disney World of any trace of Woke. As far as I know none of them have any experience, or interest, in road and infrastructure maintenance.

In other news — If you’ve been putting off any cancer or other screening procedures your doctor thinks you should have, you might want to run out and get them done now. This just happened.

A federal judge in Texas on Thursday blocked Obamacare’s mandate that health insurance plans cover preventive care, including screenings for certain cancers and pre-exposure prophylaxis against HIV (PrEP), at no cost to patients.

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth, Texas, previously found that the PrEP mandate violated a federal religious freedom law and that other no-cost preventive care mandates were based on recommendations by an illegally appointed task force.

The judge has now blocked the federal government from enforcing the mandates, a victory for conservative businesses and individuals that sued to challenge them in 2020. The ruling does not apply to preventive services that were recommended before Obamacare was enacted in 2010, such as breast cancer screening. …

…The legal challenge was brought by eight individuals and two businesses, all from Texas. They argued that the free PrEP requirement requires business owners and consumers to pay for services that “encourage homosexual behavior, prostitution, sexual promiscuity and intravenous drug use” despite their religious beliefs.

They also said that the advisory body that recommends what preventive care should be covered without cost, the Preventive Services Task Force, is illegal because its members are not directly appointed by the president, which they argue is required by the U.S. Constitution.

What the bleep? Does this mean that any sort of preventative cancer screening that wasn’t already recommended before 2010, when the ACA went into effect, will no longer be covered? I’m not sure which ones those are. What about changes in recommendations, like starting colon cancer screening at age 45 instead of 50, which is a new thing?

Today Kevin McCarthy and the House GOP made much noise over the White House’s failure to “negotiate” over the debt ceiling. Josh Marshall writes,

This morning, Speaker Kevin McCarthy went on Twitter to castigate the President for his “extreme position” on the debt ceiling, which is that he won’t negotiate over the debt ceiling. It’s a remarkable turnabout. Republicans took the hostage and now they’re waiting for the SWAT team and negotiators to show up. But they’re nowhere to be seen. And now they’re saying to themselves, what do we do now? It’s the equivalent of the hostage takers ringing up the cops and telling them to please hurry up.

The House GOP has yet to propose an official budget. I understand there are multiple groups of Republicans working separately on budgets, to be released in April, maybe. And the House Freedom Caucus released something they seem to think is a budget, discussed below. But they’ve all been so busy investigating why Twitter refused to published Hunter Biden’s dick pics, you know.

Lindsey McPherson reports for Roll Call,

Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday wrote to President Joe Biden asking him to set a date for their next negotiating meeting on the debt limit by the end of the week.

The California Republican reiterated that his conference is set on pairing any debt limit increase with policies that would cut spending, save taxpayers money and spur economic growth, while offering four examples of the types of proposals he and Biden could discuss.

McCarthy’s examples, which he stressed were not exhaustive, included cutting nondefense discretionary spending to “pre-inflationary” levels and limiting out-year growth; rescinding unspent pandemic aid; strengthening certain benefit programs’ work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents; and other legislation, such as an energy policy overhaul to spur more domestic production and border security measures that would stop the flow of fentanyl. 

I don’t want to hear anything from Republicans until the Congressional Budget Office crunches the numbers to let us know the real impact. That hasn’t happened, of course.

Biden has repeatedly said he will not negotiate conditions for raising the debt ceiling. The president has said he is willing to have separate negotiations with Republicans on spending, but that he wouldn’t sit down with McCarthy again until the GOP released a budget proposal.

“It’s time for Republicans to stop playing games, agree to pass a clean debt ceiling bill, and quit threatening our economic recovery,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement. “The president welcomes a separate conversation about our nation’s fiscal future. Earlier this month, he released a budget that cuts the deficit by nearly $3 trillion while lowering costs for families and investing in America.”

McCarthy has said Republicans should not need a budget to negotiate on the debt limit, especially when they’ve put forward ideas and the president has not yet engaged.

It sounds to me as if the President has “engaged” a lot more than the Republicans have. He’s put out something concrete, and the CBO has scored it. 

Citing the “rapidly approaching deadline” — experts predict the debt limit “x” date will hit sometime between June and September — McCarthy warned Biden that he is “on the clock.”

“It’s time to drop the partisanship, roll up our sleeves, and find common ground on this urgent challenge,” he wrote. “Please have your team reach out to mine by the end of this week to set a date for our next meeting.”

I agree with the President that there’s no point in meeting with anybody until there are real proposals with real numbers. Oh, wait, there’s the House Freedom Caucus. Back to Josh Marshall:

 The House Freedom Caucus is telling everyone who will listen that Kevin McCarthy is a chump who doesn’t control anything. If you want to resolve the crisis you need to talk to the people in charge — not the butler or the assistant — which is them, the House Freedom Cacuus.

Last week the House Freedom Caucus held a press conference along with Senate fellow travelers Mike Lee and Rick Scott in which they demanded that President Biden come to the next meeting of the House Freedom Caucus, last Wednesday night, and start negotiating. Rep. Lauren Boebert, who spoke for the group, said the Freedom Caucus was “the only caucus who has released a plan to address this situation.” True enough. They’re making the same argument as the White House, albeit with a different aim. How are you going to negotiate with McCarthy when he hasn’t even decided on his negotiating position?

Yes, the House Freedom Caucus has a Plan, and the White House already has responded to it. And the response is, basically, you’re kidding, right? The House Freedom Caucus  plan is so extreme it even defunds the police. Josh Marshall:

So what’s going on here? The Freedom Caucus budget blueprint is toxic. They don’t care because they’re almost all from safe districts. (Ironically, Boebert is one of the very few who is not.) But McCarthy needs to think about the whole caucus, the next election and the presidential election. McCarthy’s aim is to pressure Biden into negotiations without saying what it is he, McCarthy, actually wants. If McCarthy can get Biden into a negotiation, they’re probably going to come out of it with a bunch of cuts most voters don’t like. But it’s okay because Biden owns them just as much as McCarthy.

That’s the gambit. So far it’s not working.

In other news, Mike Pence has been ordered to testify to Jack Smith’s grand jury. “Executive privilege” claims by Trump’s legal “team” have been swept aside. Also,

The judge affirmed the idea that Mr. Pence had some protection under “speech or debate” based on his role in overseeing the certification of the election inside the Capitol on Jan. 6. But Judge Boasberg also said that Mr. Pence would have to testify to the grand jury about any potentially illegal acts committed by Mr. Trump, the person familiar with the matter said.

Just hurry it up, people.

Today the former head of the company that publishes the National Enquirer, David Pecker, met with the Manhattan grand jury. So no indictment today, I assume.

Today a 28-year-old woman shot and killed three students and three staff members at a private Christian school in Nashville. The children were all 9-year-olds. The shooter was killed also. Early reports say she used to be a student at the school.

At WaPo, Philip Bump writes Why guns are America’s number one killer of children.

There’s no excuse for this, of course. Most of these deaths were homicides, followed by suicides, followed by accidents. We’re murdering our children.

BTW, this guy represents the private Christian school’s district in the Tennessee legislature.

This is the fraud @AndyOgles that represents the district where 3 Elementary school children and 3 staffers were just slaughtered by a shooter wielding the same weapons as his…Christmas photo. pic.twitter.com/9TY7KHR0d4

— Fred Wellman (@FPWellman) March 27, 2023

Trump is threatening death and destruction if he is indicted. He posted on “Truth”:

Former president Donald Trump warned early Friday of “potential death & destruction” if he is charged in Manhattan in a criminal case related to alleged hush-money payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels to conceal an affair. …

… Trump wrote: “What kind of person can charge another person, in this case a former President of the United States, who got more votes than any sitting President in history, and leading candidate (by far!) for the Republican Party nomination, with a Crime, when it is known by all that NO Crime has been committed, & also known that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country?”

Sounds to me that he’s bleeping scared. I wonder what set him off? Hmmm … maybe this …

Corcoran is testifying to Jack Smith’s grand jury, not Alvin Bragg’s, but maybe in Trump’s tiny mind it’s all running together.

I’m not too worried about the “death and destruction,” since Trump’s groupies seem reluctant to put their bodies on the line for him again. However, there could always be the one guy who goes it alone. Like the poor schmuck in Ohio who wanted to shoot FBI agents for Trump and got himself killed instead.

This next item comes under the heading of “when they show you who they are, believe them.” The Oklahoma Supreme Court recently ruled that a woman has the right under the state Constitution to receive an abortion to preserve her life. Note that the vote was 5-4. This means four bleeping judges don’t think a woman should be allowed to have an abortion even if the pregnancy is killing her.

Some news stories are saying the ruling is a “win” for women. I don’t. Even Ruth Marcus was appalled.

You’ll appreciate this one, too — you might remember that 81-year-old Mitch McConnell was injured in a fall a few days ago and is now recovering at a rehabilitation center. I notice news stories leave out where this rehab center is. Anyway, Sherrilyn Ifill (president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund) writes at Slate that back in 2020, when Mitch was having another health issue, he lobbied the Kentucky legislature to change the law to make sure his seat remained in Republican hands if he checks out, so to speak.

… the Kentucky Republican began a campaign to pressure the GOP-controlled Kentucky Legislature to change that state’s law to remove from the governor—who is a Democrat—the authority to select a candidate to fill the unexpired term of a departing U.S. senator. The ability of the governor to appoint a nominee to fill the unexpired term of a senator without restrictions is the law in 35 states. …

… But McConnell urged, and the Kentucky Legislature took the step of changing that state’s law—overriding the veto of the governor to do so—in a way that assured that Republicans would maintain control of McConnell’s seat should it become vacant.

The new law says that the governor still appoints the person who will serve the remainder of the term, but he can only choose from a list of names “submitted by the state executive committee of the same political party as the Senator who held the vacant seat to be filled.” Mitch will still be looming over us after he dies.

Tom Sullivan writes at Hullabaloo that this is just part of a trend of Republican legislatures taking powers away from elected Democrats.

Examples in the news recently are Republicans stripping elected reform-minded prosecutors of their powers, if not their jobs. “Prosecutors who prosecute or investigate the wrong kind of criminal suspects in the eyes of Republican legislators have also received this treatment,” Ifill notes. She references recent cases in Florida and Missouri. 

And, of course, the Georgia state legislature recently voted itself the power to remove Fulton County DA Fani Willis from office if she dates indict Donald Trump. And this is all another way to make voting irrelevant.