Stud Muffin 🌻 🌻 🌻

The 🤡 🤡 Car: The CPAC conference went about as expected this weekend.  Trump gave a ninety plus minute grievance speech, mostly made up of his usual lies.  Among those, he claimed that his administration had the best jobs record ever.  It didn’t.  He claimed that he’d finished the wall, he didn’t.  He asserted he’d won the 2020 election. Nope. He said that he stopped NATO from imploding.  Not only didn’t he do that, but withdrawing from NATO was top on his second term agenda.  The list goes on and on, but you get the picture. He also said that he will stay in the presidential race even if indicted, which he likely will be and refused to confirm that he’d support any other Republican candidate if he doesn’t win the party’ nomination.  Naturally, he called out everyone not named Trump as a RINO, globalist or worse.  Not that it means much, but Trump went on to win the CPAC presidential straw poll, trouncing second place candidate Ron DeSantis, who wasn’t there but who did speak in front of the Conservative Club for Growth though he avoided press questions because he doesn’t like free press,  62% to 20%.  Third place went to some businessman named Perry Johnson who attempted to run for governor in Michigan but was blocked from participating in the state’s primary. Notably Johnson’s 5% showing placed him ahead of fourth place finisher Nikki Haley who spoke at the conference to a lukewarm, small audience, she got 3% of the vote.  A long list of others, including Mike Pompeo who also attended and spoke and had the gumption to point out that the national debt ballooned by $6 trillion under Trump proving that he wasn’t a real conservative, received 1% or less.  Maybe because she called Steve Bannon a patriotic stud muffin or maybe because the crowd at CPAC is just who they are, failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake who still hasn’t conceded her loss won the VP poll with 24% of the vote, beating DeSantis with 14% and Haley with 10%.  Naturally, there were lots of culture warriors in attendance with one right wing commentator, Michael Knowles, calling for the eradication of transgender people, because what’s a little genocide among the pro-life crowd?  And although accused harasser Matt Schlapp banned white supremacist Nick Fuentes from attending CPAC due to his hateful rhetoric, anti-Semitism reared its ugly head in Michigan where a heavily armed man was arrested for targeting Jewish government officials including State Attorney General Dana Nessel.  

The Supremes:  At least for now, the Supreme Court might punt on a North Carolina election case.  That’s a good thing because there was a risk that the conservative dominated SCOTUS might rule in favor of the “independent state legislature theory,” which would allow state legislatures to override the result of federal elections in their states.  However, SCOTUS’s reason for punting the case has more to do with what’s going on in North Carolina where Republicans have regained a majority on the state’s Supreme Court than disdain for the idea that in a democracy a state legislature should be allowed to toss out the results of a legitimate election.  The North Carolina court is now planning to revisit the election law case, decided when the Republican judges were in the minority, that was the subject of the appeal to SCOTUS so the outcome could still be bad for North Carolina but at least for now not have a nationwide impact.  SCOTUS is however, expected to rule on the legality of President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan. The Court could rule that the none of the plaintiffs in either of the cases argued last week have standing to sue the administration for forgiving student loans.  Though it’s likely they will reach that conclusion in at least one of the cases, the expectation is that  that they will issue a ruling on the other case, concluding that the HEROES Act passed after 9.11 which gives the Secretary of Education the authority to “waive or modify any statutory or regulatory provision applicable to the student financial assistance programs” wasn’t intended to allow for the broad student loan forgiveness plan that the Biden administration wants implemented.  SCOTUS is expected to base its conclusion on the “major questions doctrine” which holds that “courts should not defer to agency statutory interpretations that concern questions of vast economic or political significance.”  Basically, the doctrine, an invention of the Roberts led court that was used to limit the EPA’s authority to do its job in the West Virginia v EPA case, requires that agencies have clear Congressional authorization on major issues to “promote democratic accountability” and to avoid “entangling the judiciary in political questions.”  The irony being that the doctrine is doing exactly what it claims the courts shouldn’t do, making political decisions something that was made clear by the questions about equity and the like made by some of the Justices during last week’s arguments. Also ironic is that a ruling against Biden’s student loan plan is likely to further polarize the electorate.       

Fox and Friends: The Dominion Voting Machines defamation case against Fox is scheduled to go to court in April and things continue to look bad for Fox.  Over the weekend the NY Times detailed some of the conversations that went on at Fox News and the panic that ensued after they enraged Trump by being the first to call Arizona for Biden in November of 2020, a decision that turned out to be both prescient and bold.  Instead of celebrating the accuracy of their advanced prediction modeling, management and just about all the hosts at Fox, including Brett Baier and Martha MacCallum, the two who are supposed to be Fox’s straight shooters as if there is such a thing,  grew increasingly concerned that being both first and right about the election’s outcome was costing them viewers who only wanted to hear that Trump had trounced Biden even though he clearly hadn’t.  The fear over alienating viewers and losing money won out over presenting facts, leading to Fox’s decision to let its hosts push the lies they all knew were lies about Dominions machines flipping votes from Trump to Biden and the like.  It also led to Fox firing the members of its well-respected Decision Desk and the dumping of its new high quality, accurate election model.  All to chase profits.  It’s not just about Dominion, Smartmatic is also out there waiting its turn to sue as are a lot of stockholders who aren’t going to be all that happy about seeing Fox make large payouts to plaintiffs. So maybe fun times ahead for the Murdochs.  

Reproductive Rights?  In response to threats from Republican Attorneys General Walgreens has said that it will not distribute the abortion pill mifepristone in 21 states. To be clear that is not kosher or medically appropriate and is likely to impact a lot of women trying to make their own reproductive decisions as well as those going through miscarriages but that doesn’t appear to be a concern for any of them.  Notably one of those states is Kansas, where the electorate recently voted to keep abortion legal. By the way New Yorkers, to the extent you are wondering how you can protest the Walgreens decision, our local Duane Reades are owned by Walgreens.  Just saying.  Sadly, the ban on mifepristone may be about to go nationwide, or at least it might if the anticipated ruling from Texas District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryck is handed down soon. It’s feared that Kacsmaryck will rule that the FDA never should have approved mifepristone, even though the drug was approved 20 years ago and is considered both safe and effective.           

And: The Texas Republican Party has voted to censure GOP Representative Tony Gonzales who represent Uvalde, Texas.  Their gripe is that Gonzales voted in favor of gun safety and legislation protecting same sex marriage. Censuring Gonzales opens him up for a primary challenge. Then there’s Don Jr who called Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman a vegetable this weekend, has he considered his own limitations? And of course, there’s always something out of Florida where a local legislator has introduced a bill requiring that bloggers criticizing a politician should have to register first with the government or face suitable penalties. Very Putin/Orban like and so dystopian that even Newt Gingrich called it insane.