Comment on Midday open thread: Turtles, keg stands and South Park

A year and a half after Mother Jones exposed how Oklahoma courts were imprisoning mothers for longer than their abusers, state lawmakers passed a bill that could allow some of those mothers’ sentences to be shortened. But this week, Gov. Kevin Stitt vetoed the legislation. In an award-winning investigation in 2022, I told the story of Kerry King, a mom in Tulsa who got 30 years in prison under the state’s “failure to protect” law because she couldn’t stop her abusive boyfriend from beating her 4-year-old daughter.

CNN's Dana Bash reacts to Joshua Steinglass' cross-examination of David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, about whether he suppressed stories to help a presidential candidate during the 2016 elections.

The first criminal trial of a former US president is underway, with Donald Trump facing 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to hush-money payments allegedly made in 2016 to cover up an affair he had with adult film star Stormy Daniels. Here’s the latest—the key updates and absurd moments—from the historic trial. Public birthday wishes are a tricky art.

Trump’s political operatives are putting together a plan that would give him input into the Federal Reserve, including making him an “acting” central bank board member, according to the Wall Street Journal. Via CNBC: The plans, which the Journal report described as highly secretive, are part of a 10-page document that suggests Trump — if elected — would be consulted on interest rate decisions.

Jamie Raskin hilariously suggested that the RNC headquarters could host the Supreme Court after wingnut justices appeared open to recognizing some form of presidential immunity yesterday. Via HuffPost: Host Joy Reid, who noted that Trump’s federal election interference case could be remanded back to the D. C. Circuit Court of Appeals and thus further delay the trial past Election Day, called the Supreme Court majority “so clearly politicians” before looping in Raskin. “Well, they’re politicians who are not even subject to popular election unlike me.

"Low information protestors" are a perfect foil for these groups' financing activities.