* Elon Musk says he would “reverse the permanent ban” of Donald Trump from Twitter if he concludes his deal to acquire the social media company for $44 billion. (Twitter had banned Trump’s account in Jan. 2021 for “incitement of violence” regarding the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.)
* “Mr. Trump has a hold on about a third of the party: You win or lose with that third. The Republican Party as an entity, and a solid portion of its voters, is utterly divided.”–Peggy Noonan, WSJ.
* Those looking for further signs of a Trump-Pence split, need look no further than the gubernatorial race in Georgia. Trump is backing former Sen. David Perdue against incumbent Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, a top target of Trump’s for 2022 defeat. Plus, a number of high-profile Republicans, some former Trump supporters, are jumping in to help Kemp, the Republican Governors Association has made the unusual move of running ads backing Kemp and former President George W. Bush is headlining an upcoming Kemp fundraiser. The bottom line: Neither Donald Trump nor Mike Pence, for different reasons, ever got over Jan. 6.
* Regardless of what Sam Alito & SCOTUS accomplices think about undoing Roe v. Wade, it’s sobering to consider that the U.S. already has the highest rates of maternal mortality in the industrialized world.
* Of the 22 states with abortion bans that will instantly take effect if Roe is overturned, 10 have passed laws that make no exceptions for rape or incest. The terminating 10: Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas.