Guns R US 🌻 🌻 🌻

Guns and Uteri: Republicans are in disarray and on the verge of implosion, at least that’s what a good number of political pundits keep telling us. Their evidence, the rejection by suburban mothers and younger voters of the extreme positions that the Republican party has taken on gun control and abortion combined with the GOP’s inability to move away from Trump and Trumpism.  Of course, these pundits, many of whom are never-Trump Republicans or former Republicans who helped elect many of the Republican politicians who stacked the courts with anti-choice and pro-gun judges in the first place, have been saying this for a while now and so far, no implosion.  Sure, Michigan appears to have become solidly blue and Wisconsin now has a liberal leaning Supreme Court but Idaho now has an abortion trafficking law that penalizes those who help women seeking abortions from traveling out of state to get one, Florida is about to have a law that bans abortions after six weeks, Iowa’s Attorney General has stopped funding the morning after pill and abortions for sexual assault victims and Texas, don’t even get me started on Texas.  All of that is just the tip of the anti-abortion nightmarish iceberg. Try explaining to those seeking reproductive care in those states and all the others with similarly draconian laws that the Republican party is on the verge of implosion.  None of them have the luxury of time to wait for that to happen.  The same with gun control, we’ve all heard the statistics, that the majority of American voters want more rational gun policies and some restrictions on gun ownership, particularly on the ownership of automatic weapons, and that it’s just a matter of time before the Republican party comes around.  Again, all that provides no solace to the growing number of victims of gun violence, a group that now includes some more people in Louisville, Kentucky, including some friends of Andy Beshear, the Democratic Governor of very red Kentucky, where recent legislation that makes owning a gun easier was passed into law despite his opposition and also where guns used in murder sprees are auctioned off to interested parties, including future murderers once legal proceedings end.  Sure, its nice to hear that just one week after two Tennessee state legislators, one of whom is already back in his seat, were expelled for violating an ersatz decorum rule when they spoke out about gun violence, that Bill Lee, the state’s Republican Governor, has signed an executive order strengthening background checks and that he’s called for his state’s lawmakers, the same crowd who tried to banish the two Justin’s, to pass a red flag law, but will that really happen?  And will it matter, given that his state’s legislature is unlikely to pass anything not NRA approved.  Florida’s then Governor Rick Scott, who also lost a friend in the recent Louisville shooting, tightened Florida’s laws a smidge in response to the Parkland protests, only to have the state’s next Governor, presidential wannabee Ron DeSantis, sign a law allowing permit-less, concealed carry because even now with mass shootings becoming a daily occurrence that’s what Republicans do when they are seeking their party’s presidential nomination.  That explains why so many of them are headed off to Indianapolis to attend this weekend’s NRA annual meeting where Republican presidential candidates and soon to be candidates Trump, DeSantis, former VP Pence, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Chris Sununu, Kristi Noem, and Asa Hutchinson are among the featured speakers. Just spit balling here, but my guess is that none of them will speak out about the need to impose restrictions on gun ownership, if anything they’ll be pushing the stronger doors and arming teachers’ mantra.  Though his name doesn’t appear on the speakers list, at least so far, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott who was endorsed by the NRA the last time he ran for Senator is expected to announce that he’s setting up his presidential exploratory committee momentarily, so it’s fair to assume that he’d happily join the speaker fold if only someone would ask because guns are so US.

Legally Yours:  By the end of the Trump era, assuming it ever ends, we will all have earned enough continuing education credits to qualify for the bar or will have an extreme need to go to a bar, any bar. Trump is due back in New York this week to sit for a deposition related to his NYS fraud case. The first of the two E Jean Carroll rape related cases are due to begin seating jurors during the week of April 25 and expectations (hopes?) are that Fani Willis will go the indictment route in early May. Plans for Mike Pence to testify in front of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s grand jury, the one looking into the events leading up to the January 6 insurrection and Trump’s efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 election, as opposed to the one looking into his document snatch, are on hold but probably only for a short time. Pence has said that he’s done appealing and will show up to testify, but Trump is still appealing, claiming executive privilege that no one thinks he has. That appeal is expected to go nowhere fast.  By the way, Trump loyalist Stephen Miller spent six hours testifying in front of Smith’s grand jury yesterday. It’s probably not a stretch to believe that following Pence’s testimony, once it takes place, that Smith will be ready to seek an indictment or two.  Not that we should believe that until it happens.  Another one of Trump’s loyalists, House Judiciary Chair Gym Jordan will be holding a hearing on NYC crime in NYC next week for no other reason than to needle Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, part of Jordan’s effort to pander to Trump by painting Bragg as soft on all crimes that don’t involve Trump. Bragg can’t do much to stop Jordan’s hearing, but since tit for tat is a thing, he made it clear yesterday that he won’t tolerate Jordan’s other shenanigans.  To that end, yesterday Bragg sued to block Jordan’s subpoena for testimony from former senior Manhattan prosecutor Mark Pomerantz as well as other demands from Jordan for “confidential documents and testimony” from Bragg related to the recent falsified document/hush money indictment case. And, lastly in Delaware the Dominion Voting Machines case against Fox is really happening.

2024:  Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senator, not Fetterman, the other one, Bob Casey announced that he’s running for reelection.  It’s not clear who he’ll be running against but the usual cast of characters, including failed Gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano and hedge funder Dave McCormick, who lost the 2020 primary to Dr. Oz, are lining up to seek the Republican nod. Pressure is building on California Senator Diane Feinstein, who remains MIA, to step down ASAP as her absence from the Senate where she sits on the Judiciary Committee is making it difficult for Biden to get more judges voted out of committee.  The Arizona senate race appears to have another candidate as Mark Lamb the Trump aligned, election denying sheriff of Pima County is about to announce he’s running for the Republican nomination.   Also expected to join that race are Abe Hamadeh who very narrowly lost his bid to become Arizona’s Attorney General, Kari Lake who still hasn’t acknowledged that she’s not Governor and a few others whose names aren’t as well known outside of the state.  On the Democratic side Congressman Ruben Gallego has already announced his candidacy and no one know for sure if current Senator Kyrsten Sinema is running for reelection but, if she does, she’ll be running as an independent.

War Games: We’re still learning more about just how damaging the leak of the Pentagon documents about Ukraine and Russia are to the US, Ukraine, and to US relations with a number of key allies including Egypt which allegedly was secretly planning to provide rockets to Russia to be used against Ukraine.  One thing that has been credibly reported is that the documents appear to have been initially shared on the video game chat platform Discord by a player as part of his effort to win an argument about the status of the war in Ukraine because that’s what happens in 2023?