Mon: A Newsweek Hyperbolic Headline

It's the Old New Math. We're Back to Unskewing the Polls.

Former President Donald Trump on Monday reacted with anger to a poll from Quinnipiac that shows him losing the 2024 election to President Joe Biden.

Writing on his Truth Social platform, the former president attacked Fox News for highlighting the poll, which he said was a wildly inaccurate snapshot of the current state of the 2024 race.

"The Quinnipiac Poll FoxNews keeps showing on 'TRUMP' vs. Biden is not just an old Poll, it is a BAD Poll," he charged. "It under samples Republicans by 10 points, which means, instead of being down 4 points, I am up 6 points. Other Polls show me much higher than that, but FoxNews will always attempt, as they did in 2016, to only show negatives on MAGA & TRUMP. We’re winning BIG, they don’t like it, the RINOS don’t like it, the Democrats don’t like it but, most of all, the Marxists & Communists don’t like it!"

His Greatest Hits. Joe McCarthy's Greatest Hits, That Is.

Lashing out after his arraignment on federal charges last week, Donald Trump took aim at President Joe Biden and Democrats with language that seemed to evoke another era: He was being persecuted, he said, by “Marxists” and “communists.”

Trump has used the labels since he first appeared on the political scene, but it lately has become an omnipresent attack line that also has been deployed by other Republicans. The rhetoric is both inaccurate and potentially dangerous because it attempts to demonize an entire party with a description that has long been associated with America’s enemies.

Experts who study political messaging say associating Democrats with Marxism only furthers the country’s polarization — and is simply wrong: Biden has promoted capitalism and Democratic lawmakers are not pushing to reshape American democracy into a communist system.

That hasn’t mattered to Trump and other Republicans, who for years have used hyperbolic references to the associated political ideologies to spark fears about Democrats and the dangers they supposedly pose.

Hours after pleading not guilty in federal court, Trump told a crowd of his supporters at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, that Biden, “together with a band of his closest thugs, misfits and Marxists, tried to destroy American democracy.”

He added, “If the communists get away with this, it won’t stop with me.”

Will He Be Able to Resist Taking All Those Beautiful Papers?

A federal judge issued a protective order Monday barring former President Donald Trump from disclosing on social media — or keeping — evidence set to be turned over to him by the government in the classified documents case.

The order against Trump and Walt Nauta, his co-defendant in the criminal case alleging he mishandled national security information, prohibits them from sharing evidence federal investigators are set to begin turning over to their lawyers as part of the discovery process in the case.

"The Discovery Materials, along with any information derived therefrom, shall not be disclosed to the public or the news media, or disseminated on any news or social media platform, without prior notice to and consent of the United States or approval of the Court,” Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart said in the order.

It bars them from disclosing information about the government's evidence to people not directly involved in the case without explicit permission from a judge, and warns they could face criminal contempt charges if they violate the order.

It also puts limits on Trump's access to the material.

"Defendants shall only have access to Discovery Materials under the direct supervision of Defense Counsel or a member of Defense Counsel’s staff. Defendants shall not retain copies of Discovery Material," the ruling said.

Prevous Guy Talking About His Classified Documents

They Don't Need No Stinkin' Facts

Every day, good news overshadows the Republican presidential candidates’ talking points. The right-wing Cassandras need a new shtick.

There’s one problem with this Republican portrayal of a Democratic president presiding over chaos: None of it is true.

Inflation was at a 40-year high. During 2022, the inflation rate started at 7.5 percent, peaked in June at 9.1 percent, and ended the year at 6.5 percent, a mark that hadn’t been cleared since June 1982.

But 2023 is a different story. The inflation rate for May is down to 4 percent, less than half of the June 2022 peak. But even back in March, when it fell to 5 percent, the “40-year high” talking point was obsolete. In July 2008, during the George W. Bush administration, inflation was 5.6 percent. And in October and November 1990, during the George H. W. Bush administration, it was 6.3 percent.

Has southern border security collapsed? Hardly. Unlawful entries have dropped by 70 percent in the last few weeks, according to the Department of Homeland Security, after Biden implemented a new border management policy.

You Can Win $3.5 Million in a Fishing Tournament?  Who Knew?

Massive marlin disqualified from N.C. fishing tournament, costing crew $3.5M title

A 619-pound blue marlin was disqualified from a fishing tournament in North Carolina over the weekend because of apparent bite marks on its flesh, depriving anglers of more than $3.5 million in prize money.

Fishermen on the boat Sensation believed they had landed the winning fish at the 65th Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament in Morehead City, N.C., hauling in the year's first catch to surpass the 500-pound mark (and earning an additional $739,500 in the process).

However, when tournament officials went to weigh the marlin, they found a chunk missing from its side and disqualified it.

“It’s the final hour, the final day and we fought with him for six hours,” Sensation captain Greg McCoy told The Washington Post. “It’s a tough pill to swallow.”

Tournament officials released a statement on Sunday: "It was deemed that the fish was mutilated before it was landed or boated and therefore it was disqualified."

The International Game Fish Association says a fish is ineligible to win if is suffers damage "prior to landing or boating the catch, caused by sharks, other fish, mammals, or propellers that remove or penetrate the flesh."

As a result, the tournament title and $2.77 million first prize went to the boat Sushi, which reeled in a marlin weighing 484.5 pounds.

Judas Was a Disciple

MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan on Sunday called out Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a 2024 Republican presidential candidate, for his latest “transparent pitch” to win over evangelical Christian voters.

During an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network last week, DeSantis said he’d like to have been among the original disciples of Jesus Christ.

“These guys all went out and they dedicated their life to spreading the gospel,” DeSantis said. “I look back at that and would loved to have been able to be there with them.”

Hasan couldn’t get over the “sheer arrogance” of that statement from a Republican.

“Just imagine for a second if alongside Peter, John, James and co., there had been a Ron,” he said, then envisioned how that might’ve gone:

“A Ron who every time Jesus helped the poor and used loaves of bread and fish to feed the hungry Ron was like, ’You’re too woke, Jesus. You’re too woke. Let them pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.′ Every time Jesus said, I don’t know, we should embrace refugees and migrants Ron was like, ’Stop all the wokeness, Jesus. Send them to Martha’s Vineyard. The Holy Land is where woke goes to die.’”

“The truth is that the Jesus of the gospels and his disciples were way too left-wing for Ronald DeSantis,” Hasan told fellow MSNBC host Ayman Mohyeldin.

Mohyeldin said DeSantis went from worshipping “cult leader” Donald Trump to running against him for the nomination ― and that could have supporters of the former president envisioning him as one very specific disciple.

“He’s probably been more of a Judas than a Peter,” Mohyeldin said. “Even Donald Trump has noticed this betrayal.”

I don't know if bankruptcy would shut it down.