Year of the Rabbit 🐇 🐰 🐇 🐰 🌻 🌻 🌻

Mulligan Stew: Over the weekend Trump posted on Truth Social that he’d won the Senior Club Championship at his Palm Beach golf course, calling his victory proof that he has the strength and stamina to WIN and GOVERN. He also left the safety of Florida to travel to North Carolina to serve as the keynote speaker at the funeral of “Diamond” Lynette Hardaway, half of his diehard fan duo, stars of the internet and right-wing media, Diamond and Silk.  Diamond, an outspoken anti-vaxxer is believed to have died from COVID complications, although anti-vaxxers including Margie Q are now suggesting that she died from the “deadly” COVID vaccine largely because when you don’t like the facts, change them. That alternative fact scenario worked for Trump the first time he ran for president and almost worked the second time, so maybe time for another mulligan?  That’s the million-dollar question for 2024.  Though much has been written about how damaged Trump is and how he’s about to be indicted for various and sundry crimes, he is still out there despite the decision by at least one federal judge in Florida to fine him and his lawyers almost $1 million for one of his frivolous, lie filled lawsuits. Pocket change for Trump, but maybe not for his lawyers.  Sure, there are many Republicans likely to run against him, a list headed by Florida’s autocratic Governor Ron DeSantis, but also including former South Carolina Governor/UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, former CIA Head/Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former VP Mike Pence,  Virginia Governor Youngkin, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, South Dakota Governor Kirsti Noem. Unfortunately, that list of wannabees, and no doubt I’ve missed a few, is part of Trump’s superpower, the more challengers, the higher the likelihood that he’ll pull off enough primary victories, albeit by pluralities rather than majorities, to end up the Republican candidate again.

Sloppy Joes: It’s likely that President Biden is running again too.  Ending 2022 with a series of legislative victories and historically good midterm election results, he’d been planning to announce his reelection bid this month, before the February 7 State of the Union address.  His announcement has been delayed by the drip, drip, thud of classified documents that keep popping up around his former office and Delaware home.  Six more of those documents were found this weekend by the FBI who he had invited in to do their thing.  To be clear, Biden has been cooperating fully with federal investigators but the optics stink, inviting comparisons to Trump’s much larger and intentional document grab and though the legal punditry crowd insist that Biden won’t be prosecuted because sloppiness and carelessness aren’t a crime, it’s not clear that the masses, particularly the Republican masses get the difference. To the extent Biden does run, it’s unlikely that he’ll will face much of a challenge, if any, in the Democratic primaries which isn’t to say that there aren’t a group of Democrats who’d be happy to jump in if he bows out.  Document snafus aside, the big news out of the Biden camp this weekend is that his Chief of Staff Ron Klain will be decamping after the State of the Union address.  No controversy there, Klain plans have been known for some time.  Klain is expected to be replaced by Jeffrey Zients, the respected Coronavirus Response Coordinator who in addition to being a successful businessman,  previously served in the Obama White House.  Special kudos to one of my readers, who gave me the heads up on the Zients appointment before the press got the story.  My first official scooplet.

Volcano Cake: Electioneering aside, the biggest story to watch relates to the debt ceiling.  The clock is ticking, and though financial catastrophe is in sight, a solution isn’t as Kevin McCarthy seems determined to hold on to his speakership even if financial Armageddon beckons.  He also seems determined to hold on to Congressman of many names George Santos, even if that means being subjected to countless late night TV comedic routines and SNL skits.  Santos’ legend of lies continues to grow but one indication that he has no plans to decamp until he’s firmly booted out the door is that he’s started tweeting out policy positions as if anyone cares about his policy positions.  Santos isn’t the only one feeling the heat. This weekend the Sundance Film Festival surprised attendees with a surprise addition to the schedule, screening “Justice,” a documentary about the sexual assault allegations against Justice Brett Kavanaugh that looks into how poorly the assault claims were investigated by the FBI and Trump White House. The film focuses on the allegations made by Deborah Ramirez, who’d accused Kavanaugh of accosting her during their undergraduate Yale days. The documentary includes a previously unheard audio recording of Matt Stier, another Yale colleague, that corroborates Ramirez’ accusation while also suggesting that Kavanaugh had accosted at least one other woman in a similarly gross manner.  The filmmaker says that since the screening, he’s received additional tips and to the extent that he and his team can validate them, he might amend his film.  All this has got to be awkward for Kavanaugh who remains hell bent on dismantling reproductive rights and other “unnecessary” rights.  Not that the Supreme Court has been having much of a good week. Last week, Justice Roberts announced the results, or lack thereof, of the internal investigation into the infamous Dobb’s opinion leak. So far bupkis, which leads those on the left to assume that the guilty party was from the right and those on the right to assume the guilty party was from the left.  Curiously, though clerks and other staff members were required to sign affidavits under penalty of perjury, the Justices who were also spoken to were not. Worth remembering, is that there already is an accusation out there that Alito and his wife shared an earlier reproductive rights crushing opinion with an interested party.

Rabbit Redux:  Virginia Senator Tim Kaine announced that he will seek reelection in 2024, good news because that makes it more likely that Democrats will hold his seat.  Arizona Democratic Congressman Ruben Gallego is likely to announce that he’ll be challenging independent Kyrsten Sinema who spent last week in Davos hobnobbing with the financial glitterati and West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin who hasn’t yet announced whether he’ll be seeking reelection.  As annoying as Manchin can be, Democrats need him to run and stay blue because it’s unlikely that any other Democrat could win in reliably red WV.

Happy Chinese New Year.  Off to a rough start but hopefully, it improves from here.