Alligator Alley

Lordy There are Tapes: The political prognosticators expect the Republicans to take over the House after the fall election because the party in power usually loses seats in the midterms, the Democratic majority is too slim to withstand the loss of even a few seats, President Biden‘s favorability rating is in the toilet and inflation. GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy will do anything to make that takeover happen because becoming Speaker of the House is his raison d’etre. That obsession explains why Kevin refuses to condemn Margie Q, or any of the other Nazi canoodlers in his caucus or even Matt Gaetz, his resident pedophile. However, anyone paying attention to the events after January 6^th also knows that Kevin, like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, did condemn the Former Guy for a brief shining moment after the insurrection.  Of course that was before Kevin showed up at Mar a Lago, posed with the FG and released the thumbs up picture that went far towards resuscitating the mango maniac’s political future.  Still it’s not really all that surprising to learn that during that brief interlude when Kevin had a conscience and was shaken by the events of January 6^th he was ready to abandon the FG and that he had a call with his leadership group, which then included Representative Liz Cheney, to let them know that he was planning to tell the FG to step down or be found guilty during what he then expected would be an inevitable impeachment trial.  To be clear Kevin didn’t expect the FG to listen to him but he really did believe he’d be found guilty because at that time Mitch McConnell was planning to let his Senators vote their consciences and thought that 17 of them would find the gumption to vote the FG out.  Of course, that was then and this is now, Mitch changed his tune and most of those Senators didn’t vote the FG guilty.  Having sold his soul to the devil, Kevin would now like to rewrite history so yesterday after the NY Times released details of his January conversation with his leadership contingent, Kevin called their report of the details of that conversation false news. Unfortunately for him, someone, maybe Liz Cheney though she denies it, shared a tape of the conversation with Rachel Maddow and now it’s out there for all to hear and to be clear, Kevin did want to throw the FG under the bus, but now he doesn’t because he wants to be Speaker more and so it goes unless of course the easily pissed off FG, decides he doesn’t want Kevin to become Speaker, then maybe we will end up with Speaker Gym Johnson or worse, if there is such a thing.  As to the FG getting pissed off, listen to his interview with Celebrity Apprentice winner Piers Morgan if you want to see how angry he gets with anyone who has the temerity to say that he really did lose the last election. Margie Q is also angry, or maybe just nervous.  Today she’s due to testify in court about what she did on January 6th in a hearing that may or may not determine whether or not she will be allowed to run for reelection, something about violating a post-Civil War era law that prohibits insurrectionists from serving in Congress.  Also, FG Junior is due to sit down with the January 6^th committee as if he’d ever say anything detrimental to his dad.    

The Sunshine State?  Though Florida’s legislature, two Senators and Governor are all Republicans, about half its residents vote Democrat in its statewide races, as evidenced by the 2008 fight over hanging chads and Governor DeSantis’ historically narrow win in 2018.  Given that, you’d think that Governor DeSantis who is up for reelection this cycle would be reaching out to both sides of the aisle, but instead he’s acting out big time and at least for now the frighteningly effective  president wannabee appears to be getting away with it.  Yesterday, the very gerrymandered Florida legislature voted on legislation which, when it goes into effect next year, assuming it actually ever does, would strip Disney of its special governing status.  That legislation, DeSantis’ retribution to  Disney for speaking out against his “Don’t Say Gay” legislation was written carefully enough to specifically target Disney leaving the status of other corporations with special benefits intact but it ignored the tax hit that the central Florida counties will now incur or the $1 billion to maybe as much as $2 billion of Disney debt that will transfer over to the government. In DeSantis’ Florida race, like sexuality, is also an issue that can’t be discussed.  It turns out that those math textbooks that his minions have cancelled did not teach critical race theory, though at least one of them had a word problem that centered around the incidence of sickle cell anemia, a subject that DeSantis apparently thinks would send his state’s delicate youth and their parents into a spiral of self-hating despair. And because gerrymandering is so effective, yesterday the Florida legislature eliminated the state’s two usually Black seats, passing a new map that would create 20 seats that favor Republicans and just eight that tilt toward Democrats, astonishing for a state that typically splits its statewide election votes almost evenly.  Don’t get me wrong, as evidenced by the fight going on in the NYS courts about NY’s congressional map right now, Democrats gerrymander too but turning a 50/50 state into a 70/30 state is extreme and not how democracies are supposed to work.  Floridians rise up and do something because if you don’t we could end up with DeSantis running amok over all of us.

🌻🌻🌻Speaking of running amok, Vladimir Putin isn’t just killing and hiding the dead bodies of thousands of Ukrainians, he’s also killing his own.  Before taking it down, a Kremlin friendly website posted Russian war dead and MIAs at 13,400 and 7000 respectively.  It’s not clear if those figures include the at least 116 dead sailors and more than 100 MIA from the sinking of the Moskva. Who knows how he’s explaining those losses to his populace, certainly the Ukrainians in Mariupol who are under siege and are likely to be starved to death or worse over the next few days have more critical things to worry about.  As to Putin he seems to be suffering from an affliction of some sort.  He appeared in a video this week, clutching a table with his right hand while his leg shook uncontrollably.  Sadly even an unwell Putin is dangerous. Elsewhere in Russia, two plants, one producing chemicals the other producing missiles went up in flames yesterday.  Accidents, sabotage or coincidence? Well forget about coincidence because as Leroy Jethro Gibbs says, there is no such thing.  In other international news, the French election takes place this weekend. Polls project Emanuel Macron, who’d previously been neck and neck with his opponent the too Putin friendly Marianne Le Pen winning convincingly now, for whatever that’s worth.  The consequences of an upset would be seriously damaging for the US and NATO’s efforts to help Ukraine so no one will breathe easy until the results are in.