It’s Political: Rich Lowry of The National Review wrote about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that “It’s never a good sign when political analysts are writing ‘What Went Wrong?’ stories about your presidential campaign before it’s announced.  

  And then things went wrong with DeSantis’s actual announcement. He was delayed by glitches with the Twitter audio feed he was using to make his big entrance into the presidential race. Listeners didn’t hear the governor’s voice until nearly half an hour after the appointed hour of 6 pm.

  When DeSantis finally got his voice online to declare, “I am running for president of the United States to lead our great American comeback,” hundreds of thousands of listeners had gone away, Donald  Trump’s super PAC was mocking him, and even President Biden’s campaign joined in the stomping.

  DeSantis joins a crowd of Republicans offering an alternative to Trump, who is still their party’s favorite candidate by far.   

  But what is often a grand moment in politics, like Donald Trump coming down the stairs in Trump Tower, was reduced to empty air, dry conversations on social media issues, and Twitter hosts including Elon Musk congratulating themselves and their platform.

Debt and Debate: House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is in the odd position of needing to please a lot of Democrats as he cobbles together a government finance deal that can win the votes of a majority of Republicans without alienating the critical mass of Democrats he would need to push it through the House.

  Hard-right Republicans have fueled the debt-limit standoff by demanding deep spending cuts as the price of averting a default, and some are all but certain to oppose any compromise. That means that McCarthy, a California Republican, would need the support of a solid bloc of Democrats to kick a deal through the uprights.

The War Room: Fire briefly broke out at a Russian defense ministry building in the center of Moscow last night. Video aired by state media outlets on social media showed a thin plume of dark smoke rising from the defense ministry’s headquarters near the Kremlin.

  No cause was given, but these days you have to ask whether Ukraine was behind an incident like this. For instance, US officials now say the unsuccessful drone attack on the Kremlin this month was likely orchestrated by one of Ukraine’s special military or intelligence units. 

  The Russian government, meanwhile, has claimed that it has lost only 6,000 solders in the war. Yevgeny Prigozhin, owner of the Wagner Group mercenary army admitted that his force has lost 20,000 fighters just in the battle for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. 

The Obit Page: Tina Turner, the singer whose energy and powerful voice  could actually bring down the house, has died at age 83 at her home in Küsnacht, Switzerland, near Zurich. 

  Turner started singing with her first husband, Ike, in the late 1950s and became one of the premier acts appearing almost entirely in black venues.  It wasn’t until the Rolling Stones invited them to tour that they became popular with white audiences. The Ike and Tina Turner Revue had its first Top 10 hit in 1971 with her version of the Creedence Clearwater Revival song “Proud Mary” in 1971. One reviewer wrote, “She comes on like a hurricane. She dances and twists and shakes and sings and the impact is instant and total.”

  Divorce from Ike stalled her career, but she came back with the hits “Private Dancer,” “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” and a long career all her own.

The Spin Rack: George Washington University is changing its athletic nickname from the “Colonials” to the “Revolutionaries” after students complained that the old name glorified violence toward Native Americans. — Hillary Clinton says the ailing California Sen. Diane Feinstein should not retire because the Republicans might not allow her to be replaced on the judiciary committee, thereby stalling appointments of federal judges. Feinstein, though, seems pretty out of it. — Richard “Bigo” Barnett, the bearded January 6^th rioter who had his picture taken with his boot up on the desk of then Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has been sentenced to more than four years in prison.

Below the Fold: For a man who claims greatness, Donald Trump curiously and frequently claims also to be the victim of hostile forces. His lawyers wrote … or let’s say they sent … the following letter to US Attorney Gen. Merrick Garland: 

  “We represent Donald J. Trump, the 45 President of the United States, in the investigation currently being conducted by the Special Counsel’s Office. Unlike President Biden, his son Hunter, and the Biden family, President Trump is being treated unfairly. No President of the United States has ever, in the history of our country, been baselessly investigated in such an outrageous and unlawful fashion. We request a meeting at your earliest convenience to discuss the ongoing injustice that is being perpetrated by your Special Counsel and his prosecutors.”

  No doubt Garland will drop everything.

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