The Real Steal Is Coming  —  Who will prevent the next attempt to overturn the will of the voters?  —  War is peace.  —  Freedom is slavery.  —  Ignorance is strength.  —George Orwell, 1984  —  Welcome to the funhouse world the Republican party is building.  Up is down.  Black is white.

Trump family members got ‘inappropriately close’ to Secret Service agents, book claims  —  Concerns over bonds involving Trump's then daughter in-law Vanessa and daughter Tiffany revealed in Carol Leonnig's Zero Fail  —  Two Trump family members got “inappropriately - and perhaps dangerously …

A Misleading C.D.C. Number  —  We have a special edition of the newsletter on a misleading C.D.C. statistic.  —  When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new guidelines last month for mask wearing, it announced that “less than 10 percent” of Covid-19 transmission was occurring outdoors.

The latest Israel-Palestine crisis isn't a ‘real estate dispute.’ It's ethnic cleansing.  —  As we're watching what might well turn into a third intifada play out in Jerusalem, images of fires burning among the trees outside the Al-Aqsa mosque and reports of children being injured in a new volley …

Opposition to Newsom recall grows as Caitlyn Jenner, GOP generate little support, poll finds  —  The campaign to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom has failed to gain momentum in recent months as significantly more California voters favor keeping him in office, and only anemic support has surfaced …

Rand Paul clashes with Fauci over coronavirus origins  —  Share to Facebook Share to Twitter  —  Anthony Fauci on Tuesday clashed with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) over the role of the Wuhan, China, virology lab in the origins of COVID-19.  —  During a Senate hearing on the pandemic response …

The ransomware pandemic  —  “We are on the cusp of a global pandemic,” said Christopher Krebs, the first director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told Congress last week.  The virus causing the pandemic isn't biological, however.  It's software.

Students for Trump founder John Lambert sentenced to 13 months for posing as lawyer  —  A judge slammed the founder of Students for Trump as a “cold blooded fraudster” before sentencing him to 13 months in prison for posing as a lawyer.  —  John Lambert, 25, pretended to be as Eric Pope, of the Manhattan-based firm Pope & Dunn.

Senator Ted Cruz Says Making It Easier To Vote Is Actually ‘Jim Crow 2.0’  —  Republicans are trying to block the For the People Act, Democrats' top-priority legislative package.  —  Senate Republicans issued a slew of cataclysmic warnings on Tuesday as they tried to sink voting reform …

Trump's blog isn't lighting up the internet  —  Four months after former President Donald Trump was banished from most mainstream social media platforms, he returned to the web last Tuesday with “From the Desk of Donald J. Trump,” essentially a blog for his musings.

Federal investigators press for cooperation from two key witnesses in Gaetz probe  —  Washington (CNN)Federal investigators scrutinizing Rep. Matt Gaetz are seeking the cooperation of a former Capitol Hill intern who was once a girlfriend of the Florida Republican, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.

Statement from Uber CEO on White House Announcement  —  “Vaccines are our best hope to beat this pandemic and soon everyone in America will be able to take a free Uber to get their shot.  We are honored to deepen our previous global commitments, and partner with the White House and Lyft …

Sally Buzbee of the Associated Press named executive editor of The Washington Post, the first woman to lead the newsroom  —  The Washington Post has named veteran journalist Sally Buzbee of the Associated Press as its executive editor, marking the first time a woman has been appointed to lead the 144-year-old news organization.

Grievance, rebellion and burnt bridges: Tracing Josh Hawley's path to the insurrection … LEXINGTON, Mo. — Joshua Hawley was 13 years old, living comfortably as the son of a bank president, when his parents gave him a book about political conservatism for Christmas.  —  Hawley became enamored with the ideology.

Biden picks Rahm Emanuel as U.S. ambassador to Japan  —  President Biden will nominate Rahm Emanuel, former President Obama's chief of staff, as U.S. ambassador to Japan, the Financial Times first reported and Axios has confirmed.  —  The state of play: Biden will announce the nomination later this month …

Fox News Unveils Plans to Expand Beyond Politics, Hard News at Upfront … After devoting constant chatter to the 2020 election and the coronavirus pandemic, Fox News wants to make sure to talk about other subjects, including sports and weather.  —  During an upfront presentation to ad buyers …

The Lure of H Mart, Where the Shelves Can Seem as Wide as Asia  —  The huge grocery chain and other megastores like it have revolutionized the way many Asian-Americans shop and eat.  —  At the H Mart on Broadway at 110th Street in Manhattan, the lights are bright on the singo pears …

Samantha Power wants to restore U.S. prestige by getting American-made vaccines ‘into arms’ around the world  —  Late last fall, as Joe Biden prepared to take office and act on his promise to restore America's global leadership, Samantha Power had something to say.

POLITICO Playbook: Could McCarthy face a Cheney backlash?  —  DRIVING THE DAY  —  We're T minus one day till LIZ CHENEY gets the boot from GOP leadership.  And as we enter that crazy news cycle, it's important to remember that this is about one man's ambitions.

Ten More Things We Now Know About the 2020 Election  —  More Blows to the Conventional Wisdom  —  The good folks at Catalist, the Democratic-oriented data analytics firm have dropped their 2020 national analysis of demographic voting trends in the 2020 election.

Efforts to Weed Out Extremists in Law Enforcement Meet Resistance  —  Oregon, California, Minnesota, Tennessee and Washington, D.C., are seeking to give law enforcement agencies more power to exclude officers with ties to extremist groups.  —  In the battle to stamp out extremism from the ranks …

Rushing to Judgment on Scott Stringer  —  The facts are too scarce, and the stakes are too high, to jump to conclusions.  —  On April 28, Jean Kim, a political lobbyist, accused Scott Stringer, New York City comptroller and the leading progressive candidate in the upcoming mayoral primary …

3 Explanations for the Vaccine Slowdown  —  For a few weeks this spring, the United States was a world leader in vaccines, administering shots to a larger share of its population than even the United Kingdom or Israel.  But since the middle of April, our vaccine campaign has stalled.

Got the vaccine?  Experts say you can relax about your Covid-19 risk now.  Really.  —  I asked health experts about their post-vaccination lives.  Most no longer worry about their own risk of Covid-19.  —  White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci said he will not go into restaurants …