(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Republicans step on the third rail again [1] [] Date: 2024-03-22 NBC News: The proposals, which are unlikely to become law this year, reflect how many Republicans will seek to govern if they win the 2024 elections. And they play into a fight President Joe Biden is seeking to have with former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party as he runs for re-election. A new budget by a large and influential group of House Republicans calls for raising the Social Security retirement age for future retirees and restructuring Medicare. x 80% of Republicans in Congress in 100% of the leadership are part of this. "Republican Study Committee Budget Includes Social Security Benefit Cuts"https://t.co/KKzU9XD7fr — Jesse Ferguson (@JesseFFerguson) March 21, 2024 The Washington Post: Democrats seize on a GOP budget proposal that would raise Social Security retirement age In a deeply polarized election year, President Biden and fellow Democrats wasted little time lambasting a budget proposal from a large group of House Republicans that would, among other things, raise the retirement age for Social Security and endorse a bill that would codify that life begins at conception. Good luck with this one, Republicans. They’re attacking IVF as well as Social Security and Medicare. Remember how Biden talks about Republicans cutting Social Security in every SOTU he does? There is a reason for that. And speaking of which … x biden approval is ticking up... and he's closing trump's deficit in the horse race polls could be noise, but could be a bounce https://t.co/hBrpbNmo7Qhttps://t.co/JVoQcN8xh7 — G Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) March 21, 2024 The Daily Beast: Trump’s PAC Burned $230,000 a Day on Legal Bills in February Even by the standards of Trump’s legal slush fund, February was a brutal month that underscored the historic financial pressure on his 2024 campaign. In the month of February, Donald Trump finally neared the start of his general election campaign against Joe Biden—while burning through his political operation’s coffers for even more cash to support his legal defenses. On Wednesday night, Trump’s “Save America” leadership PAC—the political committee that now functions primarily as his legal slush fund—reported paying lawyers $5.6 million last month, according to Federal Election Commission filings. That’s well above the $5 million total the PAC raised in the same period. Paying out more than he brings in? But he’s a businessman! Oh, well, I guess he’ll make it up in volume. Bill Scher/Washington Monthly: No More “Bloodbaths” or How to Avoid Stupid Debates Over Trump’s Semantics Forget parsing his words. Democrats should connect Trump’s past rhetoric to the street violence and Capitol insurrection of his last year in office. And what he did, he is still doing. Only now, it’s worse because he is deeming convicted January 6 insurrectionists “hostages” and vowing to pardon them if he returns to the Oval Office, including those like Daniel Rodriguez, serving 12 years for, among other things, driving a stun gun into the neck of a police officer and beating him. If the Biden team deploys this narrative—in presidential speeches, campaign surrogate interviews, TV advertising, and social media memes—then future instances of Trump’s explosive asides tossed in convoluted word salads can be easily prosecuted without a linguistics seminar on what he meant. There he goes again, critics can say, turning Americans against each other with irresponsible rhetoric. We know how this ends. x This is such a solid point, and a textbook instance of the whole right-wing method: falsely allege about your opponent what you know to be true about yourself; use lies about your opposition’s tactics to justify your own rule breaking. https://t.co/U1gI45LO4n — Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) March 21, 2024 David Rothkopf/Haaretz: If Gaza's Children Starve, Israel Will Lose Its Moral Legitimacy Forever 'Children have begun dying of evident starvation': If Israel continues the war in Gaza, while impeding the essential massive delivery of food aid, it will be seen as the primary author of one of the greatest humanitarian crises in modern memory All the experts with whom I spoke stated that so far the response to Gaza's famine has been wholly inadequate – both from Israel and from an international community hindered by the fighting and other Israeli impediments to intervention. It has lacked the needed "large interventions to restore food access at scale," comprehensive malnutrition interventions, adequate supplies of clean water and provision of health care that are essential. David Corn/Mother Jones: Here Are the Only Swing Voters You Need to Care About in 2024 One percent of the US population spread across seven states could decide this election. All told, there were 30.6 million votes in Swinglandia in the previous presidential election. Add them up and here’s the split: 15.4 million for Biden, 15.2 million for Trump. Tight as a tick. Biden collectively won this bloc 50.4 percent to 49.6 percent. That was much closer than the national tally: 51.3 percent to 46.9 percent for Biden. These states will probably be where the election, once again, is decided. If Biden is victorious in any four of them, he will win (absent any major surprise elsewhere). If he places first in three, he will have to do so in a combination that yields him at least 41 electoral votes. (Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin would do the trick for him, with three votes to spare.) If he only bags two of these seven states, he will be out of a job. Trump needs to win an assortment of four of these states that provide 54 electoral votes (not all combos of four will do that). (You can do the math at home. Here are the states’ electoral votes: Arizona, 11; Georgia, 16; Michigan, 15; Nevada, 6; North Carolina, 16, Pennsylvania, 19; and Wisconsin, 10.) 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