The Mouse That Roared 🌻 🌻 🌻

Cue the Confetti: For a while it looked like Trump’s 🤡 🤡 indictment was never going to happen but it turns out that those scoops about the NY Grand Jury slinking away on vacation were way off the mark and that Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg is better at keeping things under wraps than he’d been given credit for because, finally, Trump has been indicted for something, though we’re still not sure of the details, and if we’re lucky, it’s the beginning of a trend.  Apparently, the NY indictment isn’t because silencing a porn star and a playmate in the run up to an election and screwing around with financial statements to hide those payments is illegal but rather it’s the furtherance of a witch hunt led by George Soros and implemented by his black puppet Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg.  Of course, Soros is not responsible, and Bragg is no one’s puppet but that’s the go to anti-Semitic, racist trope that Trump and his large, pathetic echo chamber are using to explain away the “un-American” persecution of “your favorite president.”  That echo chamber includes presidential wannabee Ron DeSantis who behind closed doors has been telling the donor class that he should be their candidate because hush money Trump is both damaged goods and a loser but out in the open is so desperate to keep in the good graces of Trump’s base that immediately after the indictment went public he tweeted “Florida will not assist in any extradition request given the questionable circumstances at issue with the Soros backed Manhattan prosecutor.”  To drive that anti-Semitic part home, DeSantis repeated the reference to Soros twice in his tweet.  Mike Pence, the obsequious VP Trump wanted lynched, called the indictment an “outrage.”  Nikki Haley called it more about revenge than justice. Trump/Margie Q pawn Kevin McCarthy warned that the House would hold Bragg to account and NY Congresswoman Elise Stefanik who’s been known to call Bragg “a Soros backed woke prosecutor” this time called him a socialist while directing supporters to Trump’s fundraising website because grifters have got to grift and anyway, she’s hoping for a VP nod. Not to be outdone, Lindsey Graham took to Fox to also beg viewers to send Trump their hard-earned cash. The current expectation is that Trump won’t avail himself of DeSantis’s offer, maybe because that would strand him in Florida, and he never spends summers in Florida, and will instead turn himself in on Tuesday afternoon in Manhattan.  Even before the indictment went public NY police started prepping for the occasion but this is New York so maybe they should also get the Sanitation Department on board because there might be more confetti tossers than demonstrators.   By the way if your BINGO card had Trump’s indictment being revealed at the same time that the Gwyneth verdict came in buy a lottery ticket because you may be on a streak.  In case you missed it Gwyn was found 100% blameless.  If you have no idea what I am talking about, your news feed is classier than mine.    

Mouse Wars 🐭 🐭: Alvin Bragg isn’t the only one who knows how to keep a secret, it turns out that the Mouse is stealthy too.  Mickey and his friends at Disney have skilled lawyers and a good sense of humor.  Right before being dethroned by DeSantis, the Disney controlled former members of the Reedy Creek Development Board signed the Board’s power over to Disney and did that right in public pursuant to the state’s Sunshine law.   As a result, the five new members of the board appointed by DeSantis to punish Disney for speaking out against the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law have been rendered powerless.  Because Disney is all about princes and princesses, and also because of the common law rule against perpetuities, the power transfer agreement that ceded control to the clever Disney mice squad won’t expire until twenty-one years after the death of the last heir of King Charles, and by King Charles, we’re talking Will and Harry’s dad and George, Charlotte, Louis, Archie and Lilibet’s grandfather and so on and so on. I know nothing about how the rule against perpetuities works so I am probably missing some of the legal nuance here but who doesn’t love the Magic Kingdom citing a real King to screw a Governor who sees himself as all-powerful and whose wife is so obsessed by Disney that her sartorial taste includes princess dresses.  Did I mention that Ron and his wife Casey were married at Disney World?  Anyway, DeSanctimonious isn’t happy about Disney’s legal maneuvers and is now looking into legal remedies.  #TeamMickey! 

Health and Media Matters: Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s still hasn’t issued that anticipated ruling against the legality of the abortion drug mifepristone but another like-minded Texas federal District Court Judge, Reed O’Connor, took a chunk out of the Affordable Care Act this week by striking down the provision that requires most insurers to cover preventative services like screenings for cancer, diabetes, and mental health issues. O’Connor’s decision could affect as many as 168 million people since it blocks the enforcement of the preventative coverage requirement nationwide. This wasn’t O’Connor’s first attempt to kill the ACA, four years ago in a decision that was overruled by the Supreme Court, he ruled that the entire ACA was unconstitutional because really why does anyone need health insurance and if they have any, why mandate life/cost saving preventative care? The Biden administration is expected to appeal ASAP.  Nothing much has changed at Fox so far, but things might soon. The judge overseeing the Dominion Voting Machines defamation lawsuit allowed Dominion to release some more implicating texts and emails and they, like previously released internal communications, reveal that Fox management knew that the assertions that Dominion’s machines were responsible for Trump’s loss were boldfaced lies but aired them because they didn’t want to lose viewers and revenues. Fox’s lawyers continue to say that the released texts have been curated to make the company look bad.  Legal pundits say that Fox is in a pickle, that the company has probably tried to settle with Dominion, but that Dominion is so sure of victory that they have refused all offers. We should know soon enough who is right since the case is scheduled to go to trial in early April, as in very soon.  Lastly, under the category of things leaders do when they’re both desperate and evil, Evan Gershkovich, a respected journalist for the Wall Street Journal, was arrested in Russia yesterday on trumped up espionage charges. The 32-year-old Gershkovich is an American citizen who emigrated to the US from Russia as a child.  A Russian speaker he’d been doing what journalists do, using his reporting and language skills to speak with Russians about life and the war.