Hostage Crisis 🌻 🌻 🌻

Tick Tock 💣 💣 💣: Egged on by his band of flamethrowers and their idol Trump, Kevin McCarthy is holding all of us as well as the economy hostage.  Sure, he’s been showing up for the requisite negotiating sessions with President Biden, but it’s hard to believe that he’s all that interested or even capable of reaching a reasonable compromise because he knows that reasonable doesn’t fly with his caucus and that, as a result of the deal he cut to become Speaker, they have him by the cojones. One indication that McCarthy and his loons are more into arson than compromise is that after yesterday morning’s meeting with Biden, he met with his caucus and instead of working on them to make some concessions, he auctioned off his ChapStick.  Anyone surprised to learn that the winning bidder was Margie Q who paid $100,000 for the germ invested tube isn’t paying attention to her power and the support she gets from the MAGA small donor community. The ChapStick charade brings to mind Nero fiddling while Rome burned. Okay, maybe my analogy and fears are over the top, but then again, these aren’t your parent’s Republicans, and judging by what’s going on in the Treasury market, where yields on T bills maturing between early and mid-June pushed past 6% for part of the day, I am not the only one worried. The clock is ticking, the ceiling is closing in.  A solution may be reached at the last minute, or then again not.

2024:  As expected South Carolina’s Tim Scott is running for president or vice president, whatever. Trump responded to Scott’s formal announcement by welcoming him to the race, saying that Scott, unlike some of those other wannabees, particularly that other Floridian, is a nice guy which likely means that Trump doesn’t view him as a threat and is happy to see the red field grow because the larger it gets the greater the odds that he’ll emerge as the Republican’s 2024 candidate as all it takes to win all the delegates in most Republican primaries is a plurality of the votes and his base constitutes that plurality. Tomorrow, that other Floridian, Ron DeSantis is expected to make his run official and naturally given his autocratic tendencies and poor social skills, he’ll be making his announcement on Twitter’s audio only livestreaming platform Twitter Spaces alongside his likeminded supporter, the nefarious conspiracy theorist who has welcomed white supremacists, Nazi’s and those other “both siders” back to Twitter, Chief Twit Elon Musk.  Something happened yesterday that epitomizes all that DeSantis stands for: a Florida school banned National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman’s inaugural poem after a right-wing mother who confused her with Oprah Winfrey because, apparently, to her all Black women look alike, complained that Gorman’s beautiful poem which describes the country as “a nation that isn’t broken but simply unfinished” was an indoctrinating indirect hate message, whatever that means. That’s what DeSantis has wrought upon Florida and what he wants to bring to the rest of us, that and a war against the Mouse, a 6-week abortion ban, a white history only education system, a vaccine skeptical, anti-science Surgeon General, voter suppression, and so on. On the subject of autocrats, Putin who continues to hold a few Americans including WSJ journalist Evan Gershkovich hostage, banned 500 more Americans from visiting Russia, and somehow or other his list includes a whole lot of people, mostly Democrats, never-Trumpers, and Ukraine supporters who’ve spoken out against or ridiculed his bestie Trump but no one in Trump’s orbit. I am guessing that Barack Obama, Seth Meyers, and Steve Colbert weren’t planning on heading to Moscow anytime soon anyway, but Putin isn’t even pretending anymore, he’s all in on Trump and why not, Trump has all but promised to gift him Ukraine on day one should he make it back to the White House.  Moving to the Senate, Delaware Democrat Tom Carper who is 76 years old announced that he won’t be running for reelection.  His seat is expected to stay in Democratic hands but still it’s one more seat that the Democrats now have to work a little harder to defend in a year when Senate Republicans have the edge.   

Trump Morass:  Lots of legal news on the Trump front.  The Wall Street Journal reports that Special Counsel Jack Smith has all but finished obtaining testimony and evidence in his criminal investigation into Trump’s mishandling of the secret documents he took with him to Mar a Lago and then refused to return.  That’s the case that Ty Cobb one of his Trump’s many former lawyers rather than the baseball player, said should result in him going to jail.  Cobb’s assessment of guilt, which is shared by former Attorney General Bill Barr, could explain why Trump’s lawyers sent a letter to current AG Merrick Garland last night demanding a sit down to “discuss” the “unfair treatment” and “ongoing injustice” of the investigation into Trump’s criminal deeds. By unfair treatment, maybe they’re a bit concerned that the voluminous notes taken by Evan Corcoran, one of his lawyers, which detail how the Former Guy obstructed the investigation into his document grab are now in Jack Smith’s hands or maybe they’re sticking with Trump’s assertion that everything he took was his to take because he says so as he insisted again during his CNN town hall/free rally or maybe Trump’s been triggered by Smith subpoenaing records about his business dealings in seven countries, including Saudi Arabia, Turkey, France, China , Kuwait, the UAE and Oman. As to his CNN town hall, during it and in the days that followed, Trump defamed E Jean Carroll again and again so now she’s suing him for $10 million more in damages. And let’s not forget that other New York case, the so-called “hush money” case brought by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg.  Yesterday, Trump was told during a mandatory zoom session by presiding Judge Juan Merchan that his access to discovery material will be restricted, that he can only look at documents in the presence of his lawyers and that he can’t talk or post about anything he sees on social media unless, of course, he wants to be found in contempt. Those restrictions have been put in place to protect people involved in the case from being subjected to the attacks that Trump’s usual provocative hate posting engenders.  Over Trump’s objections Judge Merchan also set a trial date of March 25, 2024.