It's Like Deja Vu All Over Again🌻 🌻 🌻

A League of Their Own:  Trump’s legal problems continue to grow yet the most recent Times/Siena Poll of Republican candidates for president finds that his grip on the Republican party is stronger than ever.  With 54% of the hypothetical vote, Trump is leading Ron DeSantis, the only other Republican polling in the double digits, by 37 points. No other candidate garners over 3%.  Though Trump’s lead over DeSantis is growing, it’s not because his supporters don’t also like DeSantis, it’s just that they just like Trump more.  Think about that, the majority of the members of the not so grand GOP continue to back Trump, the twice impeached, multiply indicted rapist, but also like an anti-woke champion who is battling with The Mouse, has signed one of the country’s most restrictive abortion laws, has floated the idea of appointing anti-vax activist RFK Jr as either his FDA or CDC head, has doubled down on the assertion that slavery was good for slaves and thinks that he can wish LGBTQ people out of existence or at the very least back into the closet. Also, taking a page from Trump’s financial finagling rulebook, DeSantis, whose previous forays into illegal transportation include flying migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard to screw with the libs, has now been caught using state vehicles for out of state campaign events, something we only know about because of the fender bender his campaign cars got into in Tennessee last week.  

Moneyball: Over the weekend we learned a little more about Trump’s legal expenditures and Trump Employee Number 4, the Mar a Lago staffer responsible for overseeing the club’s surveillance cameras. Trump’s Save America political action committee has spent more than $40 million this year, more than twice what it spent during all of 2022.  Naturally, that money came from small-dollar donations from Trump’s base rather than from the pockets of the billionaire former president.  With his legal expenses growing, Trump, who has been known to opine that only criminals need legal defense funds, is in the process of setting up one of his own to raise more funds to combat what his campaign spokesman calls the “heinous” attack of Joe Biden and his “cronies” on Trump and the innocent people in his orbit who are being “unfairly targeted.” Among the “innocents” benefiting from Trump’s legal largesse, or at least his PAC’s largesse, are indicted valet/body man Walt Nauta, Carlos De Oliveira, the Mar a Lago maintenance man due to be formally charged today and Trump Employee Number 4 the surveillance technician, who we now know is Yuscil Taveras. It’s not clear whether Trump’s PAC will be paying Taveras’ legal fees for much longer because upon receiving notice from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team that like Trump, Nauta and De Oliveira he was a target of the purloined document investigation, Taveras saw the light, changed lawyers and started spilling the beans, telling Special Jack’s team about the “boss” requesting the destruction of incriminating surveillance video.  Notably, Taveras has not been indicted and to the extent he keeps truth telling, he won’t be. Expect to see lots of cameras out today at the Miami court room where De Oliveira is due to be indicted but also expect to see a lot of them hanging around Washington DC because that other indictment, the one focused on Trump’s efforts to stage a coup is still expected to be handed down, probably not today but maybe tomorrow when the grand jury overseeing that case is next expected to meet.  Also, let’s not forget Atlanta, where security has been beefed up in anticipation of Fulton County DA Fani Willis’ next move.

The Bad News Bears: The House has gone on vacation and won’t be back for six weeks.  That means no impeachment or weaponization hearings for a while but also means that we are barreling towards a September government shutdown because spending bills remain up in the air and there’s no reason to believe that McCarthy will have any more control over his malevolent 🤡 🤡 🤡 and their too scared to rock the boat colleagues when they return from vacation. Worth mentioning that one former Republican Congressman who had the chance to speak out and vote to impeach Trump but didn’t is Will Hurd so while it’s good that he’s speaking out now and facing boos from Trump fans, let’s not forget that he didn’t when it mattered. Adding further trouble to the mix, Trump who was impeached for holding Ukraine funding hostage is doing it again, pressuring McCarthy to condition further Ukraine funding on the impeachment of Biden and more investigations into the Biden “crime” family.  Note to Susan Collins, Trump has not learned his lesson, or maybe he has, just not the lesson she whined that he learned.  Rather he’s learned that he can get away with anything.  Of course he has, because while Trump continues on his destructive mission,  a leading story in almost every media outlet this weekend was about Joe Biden acknowledging his seventh grandchild for the first time, the child that son Hunter fathered during what he called his alcohol and crack cocaine infused days.  And naturally, lots of stories about Hunter, his legal woes and why they’re the reason that Joe Biden should be impeached.

 

 

Rosemary Woods Redux 🌻 🌻 🌻

🤫 🤫 🤫:  Trump was indicted again yesterday as was another member of his Mar a Lago staff.  The newest indictments are not related to January 6 and Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election, those are still imminent, rather they are about the classified documents that Trump took with him to Mar a Lago when he departed the White House. The newly indicted fellow is Mar a Lago employee Carlos De Oliveira, a club property manager whose responsibilities include conveniently timed pool drainage, the moving of “beautiful” document boxes and forwarding orders to erase incriminating security camera footage. In other words, De Oliveira is the Rosemary Woods of this episode of “Trump and His Crimes.”  The newest indictments include attempting to alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal evidence; inducing someone else to do so, and a new count under the Espionage Act related to a classified national security document, the Iran war plans that Trump showed to visitors at his Bedminster, NJ club. Those are the war plans that Trump earlier claimed he was only kidding about showing.  It turns out that they exist, and that Special Counsel Jack has them.   Naturally, there’s an emoji involved, this time it’s the shush emoji 🤫.  While trying to get a surveillance video of the purloined documents being moved around Mar a Lago erased De Oliveira sent a text message to Yuscil Taveras, another Mar a Lago employee who oversaw the surveillance camera footage at the club. The text said 🤫 don’t tell anyone but the “boss wants the server deleted.”  Taveras who is referred to in the indictment as Trump Employee Number 4,  objected saying that “he did not know how to delete the server and did not think he had the right to do so.”  Although his legal expenses like De Oliveira’s are being paid by one of those Trump legal slush funds filled with money from gullible Trumpsters who delusionally believe they are funding his campaign, Taveras appears to be engaging in truth telling and at least so far hasn’t been indicted. None of this is good for Trump but then again nothing seems to stick to Trump so maybe it doesn’t matter but De Oliveira, like Walt Nauta, should be concerned because Trump’s Teflon goes only so far and though he would clearly pardon them, hopefully he’ll never get the chance.  As to those still imminent January 6^th related indictments, Trump’s legal team met with Special Counsel Jack Smith and his team yesterday, to make the traditional ditch argument against those charges. Reports are that the meeting was civil, but that Jack wasn’t persuaded so those charges will come soon as will those much-expected Fulton County Georgia charges which likely explains why barricades were erected around Fulton County’s court facilities yesterday. One more thing on the Trump front, his lawyers have asked Judge Aileen “Loose” Cannon to allow him to review classified documents related to his purloined documents case at one or more of his homes instead of in a secure facility. Not the best timing for that request.

Brain Freeze:  Count Mitch McConnell and Hunter Biden as two who had to be happy about the diversion provided by the newest Trump indictments. McConnell because though he insists that he’s fine, just suffering from a bout of dehydration, he froze while speaking in front of a group of reporters on Wednesday before being gently escorted away by Wyoming Senator John Barrasso, one of the Senators who is also a physician.  CNN’s resident neurosurgeon, Sanjay Gupta, said that it looked like McConnell may have had a TIA (transient ischemic attack).  Though we don’t know if McConnell followed up with a doctor whatever he experienced he snapped back to his usual cadaverous state, because reports are that he attended a reception later that night where he appeared to be okay although we have since learned that he’s been falling more than usual lately. Falling isn’t unusual for McConnell who has always been a faller, the result of the polio he suffered in his youth.  It’s the frequency of his falls, and his mind freeze that’s new.  Though he didn’t have a mini-stroke, Hunter Biden did hit a wall of his own on Wednesday.  His plea agreement was put on temporary hold after the Delaware Judge overseeing his case asked a few questions about what was included in the deal.  Unfortunately for Hunter, US Attorney David Weiss, the Trump appointee responsible for all things Hunter, disagreed with Hunter’s lawyers about whether Hunter’s plea agreement covered some possible FARA (Foreign Agent Registration Act) violations.  She sent the two teams back to clarify the terms of the deal. Most of cable TV’s legal pundits say that the plea agreement will survive with some minor drafting changes, adding that to the extent that Hunter engaged in any FARA violations his exposure has probably timed out but still the screw-up is optically awful.  Bad for Weiss, who has already been criticized by the right for not hanging Hunter out to dry and bad for Hunter’s doting father Joe because his Hunter problem just won’t and probably will never go away.

Soft Landing:  Some good news on the economic front, well maybe.  UPS has reached agreement with its workers, making it far more likely that our packages will reach their destinations and more importantly that the economy won’t suffer from a decline in commerce.  Also, recent economic reports indicate that the US economy is likely to experience a soft landing rather than that much-feared recession, particularly impressive given what’s going on in most of the rest of the world where high inflation and low economic growth continue to be problems.  However, everything isn’t rosy as Russia’s increasingly freaked out Putin announced last week that he won’t agree to rollover the deal that allows Ukraine’s grain to be shipped abroad.  That’s a problem on several fronts, for Ukraine but also for the rest of the world because Ukraine is, or was before the war, the world’s fourth largest exporter of corn and the fifth largest exporter of wheat.   Shutting down Ukraine’s agricultural exports effects everyone’s pocketbook but hits those developing countries that can least afford to have their food supplies cut or the cost of their food raised, the most.       

 

Watching and Waiting, Again 🌻 🌻 🌻

Indictment, Indictment: Not that it seems to matter much to Teflon Don’s base, but we are on indictment watch, again.  The Washington DC grand jury hearing evidence about Trump’s January 6 related criminal activity is scheduled to meet tomorrow, and it’s widely expected that they’ll vote out some indictments assuming they are ready to do so because there are reports that the jury is still hearing testimony from more witnesses. Though he hasn’t testified before the grand jury, former senior Justice Department official Richard Donoghue revealed that he has been interviewed by Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office, not all that surprising since he previously testified before the January 6^th committee where he said that on the run up to insurrection day, Trump had urged Justice Department officials including then acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen to “just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican Congressman.”  Special Jack’s team has also met with Chris Krebs, the former Head of CISA, the US cybersecurity and defense agency, who Trump fired for saying that the 2020 election had been the most secure one ever conducted in US history.  And because Rudy Giuliani and his cronies are always in the mix, Tim Parlatore, the lawyer representing Guiliani’s former Police Commissioner, convicted felon Bernie Kerik said that he provided thousands of pages of documents detailing Kerik’s investigation into the election that was done at Rudy’s request to Special Jack’s team over the weekend. That investigation found bupkis despite all of Rudy’s claims otherwise though the one-time mayor’s claims did cause Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss to go into hiding. Last night Rudy conceded that he made defamatory statements about the two workers but claims that they were okay because his statements were “constitutionally protected.”

Red Alert:  To date seven Republican candidates including Trump, Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Chris Christie and Doug Burgum have reached both the polling and contribution thresholds to qualify for the first Republican debate which is scheduled to take place on August 23.  To meet the donor requirement the RNC requires that a candidate have at least 40,000 unique donors with at least 200 donors in at least 20 states/and or territories.  Burgum, the North Dakota Governor with little name recognition but lots of money, met the qualification by gifting donors $20 gift cards for their $1 donations.  Though former VP Pence has lots of name recognition, he’s short cash which together with his anemic popularity particularly among those who haven’t forgiven him for failing to deliver the election to Trump explains why he still hasn’t qualified for the debate state.  He’s not alone, neither has former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, former Texas Congressman/CIA agent Will Hurd, Texas Businessman/Pastor Ryan Binkley, Right Wing radio host Larry Elder or entrepreneur Perry Johnson. While Ronny De, who continues to defend his slavery was beneficial for slaves curriculum while denying he had anything to do with it, will be on the stage, he continues to face speed bumps, both literally and figuratively.  Yesterday he was in a car accident when his motorcade was forced to brake suddenly and he also cut one third of his staff, including the “genius” responsible for using swastika like images in his campaign tweets as well as the homoerotic anti-Trump commercial, the one that accused Trump of being an advocate for all things-LGBTQ. Naturally, Trump hasn’t committed to participating in the first debate, maybe because he knows that Christie will eviscerate him.  

Oy:  As previously noted, Israel is a hot mess. As feared and over the objections of a large segment of the population, their parliament passed the first leg of Bibi Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul plan, scraping the “reasonableness” clause that allowed Israel’s Supreme Court to overrule government decisions. Unlike the US, Israel doesn’t have a constitution so eliminating that reasonableness clause severely reduces the power of the country’s Supreme Court to moderate the right’s most extreme actions. Though we have a Constitution that gives our Supreme Court power our democratic principles are teetering too because ignoring SCOTUS rulings is apparently a thing here as well, at least in Alabama where Republicans are ignoring the recent Supreme Court ruling that ordered the redrawing of the state’s congressional map to include another Black majority district.  The state’s Republicans tinkered with the map but failed to do what they were supposed to do. Twenty-six percent of Alabamans are Black however only one of the state’s seven congressional representatives is Black and absent further litigation that results in another revision to the map it will stay that way. Then there’s Ohio where far more than enough pro-choice voters have signed a petition to put an amendment guaranteeing abortion rights on this November’s ballot.  That’s the good news, the not so good news is that Ohio is having a special election in August where voters will be given the option to make the passage of amendments more difficult by raising the threshold to 60% from a simple majority while also requiring that petition organizers would need to meet signature requirements in all of Ohio’s 88 counties as opposed to the 44 now required. The point of the special election is to sabotage the effort to put the right to abortion up to a vote. In Texas, the good news is that multiply indicted Attorney General Ken Paxton is currently sidelined awaiting an impeachment trial.  The bad news for those who believe he should be permanently kicked to the curb is that the judge for his trial will be Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick whose campaign coffers were recently gifted with a $3 million contribution from Paxton.  The other bad news is that Texas Governor Abbott has recently installed a lethal 1000-foot floating barrier in the Rio Grande river to make it more difficult for migrants to cross into the US, that despite the fact that migrant crossings are currently down. A neat idea unless you think that killing and maiming people is a bad thing.  The Department of Justice is now suing Texas which is making the publicity seeking Abbott very happy.  And, then there’s Kevin McCarthy, in an effort to maintain his speakership and make his mango god happy, he’s now promising to open an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden.  He pretty much acknowledged that there’s no evidence that Biden committed any impeachable crimes but says that the whole point of an inquiry is to find one.  Joe’s son, Hunter’s plea bargain is supposed to be finalized today, unless of course it isn’t.

      

Barbenheimer Weekend 🌻 🌻 🌻   

Pink:  Barbie won the weekend because apparently woke, especially when draped in pink, is popular.  Oppenheimer did very well too but teaching that slavery had been a good thing, not so much.  Facing lots of deserved criticism for Florida’s new “slavery had benefits” curriculum a representative of the Florida Department of Education actually sent out some examples of Black blacksmiths, failing to note that all of his examples were freemen who had not been slaves.  For his part, Ron DeSantis defended the new state curriculum which was designed in response to the Stop W.O.K.E Act that he’d championed but distanced himself by attributing the curriculum change to the state’s Department of Education. According to the NY Times, DeSantis, who raised a lot of money early on, is burning through it at a rapid pace in part because he and his wife prefer flying private and staying in and holding events in ritzy hotels like Deer Valley’s Stein Erikson Lodge where they blew almost $100k. DeSantis continues to poll a distant second to Trump in most states though he’s slipped to third in South Carolina where former SC Governor Nikki Haley now holds the second-place position, SC Senator Tim Scott is a few points behind DeSantis in fourth. As evidenced by his gold toilets, Trump is another one who enjoys glitz, however he is fairly cheap when it comes to campaign spending perhaps because he’s saving money for his growing legal bills. Among those legal bills are a few for his former lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen.  On Friday, right before his lawsuit was scheduled to go to trial, Cohen reached an out of court settlement with the Trump Organization.  He had been suing for the reimbursement of the legal expenses he’d incurred defending himself in the hush money case, claiming the Trump Organization had promised to cover them but reneged once he became a cooperating witness. Though we don’t know the size of their settlement it appears that Cohen got what he was seeking somewhere just short of $2 million. While the Cohen litigation, or at least this Cohen litigation is now behind Trump he still has lots to look forward to as all eyes remain on Fulton County’s Fani Willis and the possibility that her indictments which might involve RICO charges are expected shortly as are some more from Special Counsel Jack Smith. Things continue to percolate on the Mar a Lago purloined documents front as well. By setting a trial date in May 2024, Judge “loose” Cannon rejected Trump’s lawyers attempt to push his case until after the 2024 election but didn’t meet the quicker schedule that Special Counsel Jack’s team had requested. Unfortunately, given the complexities of the case, a result of needing to comply with rules surrounding super-secret documents,  even the May date is unlikely, so there’s still a good chance that Trump’s stalling tactics will prevail with the case not going to court until after the election.

Good, Bad and Ugly:  The good news for Joe Biden is that the US economy is doing well, so well that the Wall Street Journal tweeted that this weekend.  The not quite as good news is that getting American voters to believe that inflation is down, and that employment gains are at record levels is hard, in part because attitudes are sticky and in part because Republicans continue to push a negative narrative and will continue to do so through the election because politics are politics.  Of more concern right now is the possibility that UPS and UAW workers, like actors and writers, will go on strike. Negotiations with both unions are likely to go down to the wire.  Strikes by either union would negatively impact the economy, perhaps even dragging it into the much-hyped recession that the US economy has been dancing with, but avoiding, for some time.  Also looming is a government shutdown because Republican 🤡 🤡 in House, particularly the Freedom caucus crowd, don’t want to pass any budget bills that don’t include drastic cuts, a nonstarter for the both the Senate and the White House.  If you thought the size of the budget was agreed to when the debt ceiling was lifted, you are right, but the Freedom 🤡 🤡  have decided that the agreement was only an upper limit so they are seeking huge cuts and given the slim size of his majority Speaker McCarthy may not be able to pull another rabbit out of his hat and may instead be pulled down the shutdown 🐇 🐇  hole.  Sure, that’s too many 🐇 analogies but 🐇 🐇 🐇🐇 multiply like 🐇 🐇 🐇🐇, so maybe not.  Other good news that Republicans don’t want you to know is that border crossings are down.  That should be a problem for Republicans who still plan to roast Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas during his upcoming testimony and for all the presidential candidates pushing migrant wave fears but when has reality affected politicking?

Blue Stars and Birds:  Israel is a hot mess with hundreds of thousands of demonstrators marching against the right wing’s efforts to water down the power of the judiciary. In addition, it turns out that Prime Minister Netanyahu, whose hold on leadership is even more tenuous that McCarthy’s hold on his speakership, didn’t just suffer from a minor dehydration episode last week, he has a heart problem, one that he’s been keeping under wraps for some time.  Over the weekend, after his heart monitor gave off an alarming reading, he had an unspecified type of pacemaker implanted and cancelled planned trips to Turkey and Cyprus but as of now the judiciary vote is still on.  Bibi’s heart is still beating, but the Twitter bird and even the Twitter name are off life support.  Over the weekend, Elon Musk announced that he was retiring the bluebird, replacing it with a new X logo that looks a bit like an incomplete swastika, fitting given the make up of the twitter, or should I say X, base these days.  Linda Yaccarino, the former NBC Universal marketing guru who is now pretending to be twitter’s new CEO, tweeted, if that is still the right word, some gobbledygook about X being the “future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities.”  No one, including Linda knows what that even means, and few seem interested in turning over their financial information to Elon but sure whatever.  RIP Bluebird.

  

Slavery Skills  🌻 🌻 🌻   

Gaslighting: More Trump indictments are expected shortly which goes far to explaining the stranger than strange shenanigans carried out by Margie Q, RFK Jr, Gym Jordan, Chuck Grassley, and their crowd over the past few days.  That insanity included Margie Q playing show and tell with blown up pictures of a nude Hunter Biden engaged in sex acts. Weird that Margie is so obsessed with Hunter’s dick but fails to mention that a Federal Judge called Trump a rapist this week.  While denying Trump a new hearing in the E Jean Carroll case, that Judge, Lewis Kaplan, said that while E Jean Carroll failed to prove that she was raped within the narrow meaning of the New York Penal Law, she did prove that she was raped as people commonly understand rape. To be clear Margie Q’s hero Trump, who was president and is running again, is a rapist while Hunter is just a private citizen, albeit an unseemly one with lots of problems.  Gym Jordan who seemed to enjoy Hunter’s dick pics a bit too much featured purported Democrat RFK Jr pushing vaccine disinformation while disingenuously denying those video-taped claims he made that COVID had been engineered to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people under the guise of a hearing on social media censorship.  Worth mentioning, RFK’s vaccine misinformation, like other COVID misinformation, was banned from social media because promoting vaccine lies during a pandemic was costing lives. RFK Jr has been re-platformed because he’s now a presidential candidate which goes far to explaining why he’s running. He knows he won’t win, but he really wants to be able to spread his twisted theories.  Also worth noting, the type of scapegoating he’s promoting feeds hate and has been known to inspire pogroms and other murderous acts not that any of that concerns Gym or RFK Jr or Steve Bannon, one of his supporters.  We also heard from some “whistleblowers” who testified that Hunter had been given preferential treatment by all the Trump, not Biden, appointees responsible for investigating his tax crimes. Then late yesterday over the protests of the FBI, Senator Chuck Grassley released a Trump era confidential FBI informant’s unverified, with the emphasis on unverified, claim that years ago, the Biden family “pushed” a Ukrainian oligarch to pay them $10 million.  If all that sounds familiar, it’s because it is, it was pushed by Guiliani and his cronies in the run up to the last election. 

Expungement: Then there’s Kevin McCarthy, Politico reports that Trump is furious that the man he calls “my Kevin” said that he’s not the Republican’s best presidential candidate and hasn’t endorsed him yet him yet.  To placate him and to get back into his good graces, Kevin has “secretly,” promised to expunge Trump’s two impeachments from the Congressional record by August.  It’s not clear that expunging impeachment votes is even a thing, but that’s a detail that neither Trump nor Kevin care about.  The only thing that matters to Kevin whose continuing Speakership role relies on Trump’s support is whether or not he has the votes to pull off an expungement.  He doesn’t right now, however with Trump taking names, twisting arms, and issuing threats, those reluctant to vote to change the past, even the swing district Republicans and the two still in Congress who voted for the second impeachment, could magically jump on board the expungement train, so don’t count it out.  Of course, Trump isn’t just threatening those who don’t vote his way, he’s also posting threats of violence on Truth Social, hinting at riots if, or more likely, when “deranged” Special Counsel Jack Smith’s new indictments land, something that could happen as early as today Trump clearly expects those indictments to come shortly which explains why he’s added another lawyer to his legal team.  His newest, presumably paid-up front, lawyer is criminal attorney John Lauro who has represented two of his other lawyers Christina Bobb and Alina Habba because in Trump land, everyone even lawyers need lawyers which goes far to explaining why yesterday, another lawyer, the one representing Trump aide and White House advance man William Russell had a scheduling conflict when Russell and a January 6^th defendant both needed to be represented in court proceedings at the same time, Russell, for another sit down with Special Counsel Jack’s Grand Jury and the January 6^th defendant for a sentencing hearing.  It’s thought that Russell was filling in details or clearing up some inconsistencies about Trump’s behavior on January 6.

And:  Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville is still holding up military promotions to protest the military facilitating women traveling for reproductive health care that they can’t get where they’re stationed.  After all who needs generals and the like, and why should anyone care if officers and their families can’t be moved to their new assignments?  And in Florida, the state that floundering presidential candidate Governor Ron DeSantis wants to serve as a model for the rest of the country, the Board of Education just approved new guidelines that require that lessons on the history of slavery point out how Blacks benefited from slavery because it taught them useful skills and those riots that wiped out Black communities, those can’t be mentioned either without a both sides approach.  Somethings you can’t make up.

 

Expect More, Pay Less 🌻 🌻 🌻    

Moving Target:  Trump’s weekend Truth Social posts were more off the rails than usual and now we know why.  Yesterday, in still another deranged Truth posting he revealed that his weekend mail included a target letter from the Department of Justice informing him that he is being investigated, this time for screwing with the 2020 election not to be confused with his other crime of refusing to return stolen secret documents.  The target letter is an indication that Special Counsel Jack is nearing the end of his investigation into the events surrounding January 6 and will probably indict Trump and maybe one or more of his co-conspirators shortly as in next week perhaps if not sooner, though at least two of those co-conspirators, Rudy Guiliani and John Eastman say that they haven’t received a similar letter.  It’s not clear what exactly Trump will be indicted for, possibilities include obstruction of a legal proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the government and/or wire and mail fraud related to deceptive fund raising over lies about the outcome and validity of the 2020 election. It’s fair to assume that Trump’s Republican competitors were inwardly jumping for joy, however, most stuck to the same theme, saying that though Trump should have acted more quickly to calm the January 6^th rioters, the DOJ investigation and the impending indictments are just more evidence that Biden’s DOJ is biased, engaging in unfair persecution of their hero instead of Hunter. Nikki Haley added that all these Trump investigations were just adding too much drama to the primary process but didn’t come out and condemn Trump while Asa Hutchinson called for Trump to suspend his campaign as if he ever would.  Chris Christie was off somewhere smirking. Speaker Kevin responded with some of his usual obsequious prattle, saying that you’d expect this in “Biden’s America” because of all his government weaponization, a sentiment shared by the House’s other MAGAs.  Last night during a Sean Hannity hosted townhall, Trump said he was “bothered” by the letter and then went on to praise China’s Xi as brilliant because he uses an iron fist to keep China’s 1.4 billion population under control.  No doubt Trump who also recently doubled down on his admiration for that other genius Vladimir Putin is hoping that both will do their best to help him retake the presidency and at least with regard to Putin, there’s no doubt that he will try because he knows that a Trump victory would go far to making a Russia victory over Ukraine more likely.  That said, a Ron DeSantis victory might help Vlad too as yesterday during his interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, he said that helping Ukraine wouldn’t be one of his priorities adding that he wouldn’t want to drain our ammunition pile when all those guns, bullets, and drones could be better used defending our immediate border, as in the one with Mexico.  DeSantis did a lot of hedging during his interview, he asserted that no one’s more pro-life than him but wouldn’t say whether he’d impose a six-week abortion ban, not because he wouldn’t but because he knows it doesn’t poll well with those outside of his party’s base.  

 

Legal Landscape:  Elsewhere in legal land Trump’s lawyer were down in Florida for a hearing in front of Judge Eileen Loose Cannon where they were pressing their argument that the purloined document case trial should be pushed off until after the 2024 election in the hopes that Trump or another pardon friendly candidate wins.  Cannon didn’t appear to buy that, but she also seemed skeptical about Special Counsel Jack’s request that the trial start before year end.  Given the complexities of dealing with all those secret documents, it’s likely that the trial won’t start until sometime next year, later than Jack wants, but probably before the election, at least until Trump’s team comes up with more reasons to delay.  Cannon hasn’t ruled yet but is expected to do so shortly. No indictments yet from Fulton County’s Fani Willis but a few out of Michigan where state Attorney General Dana Nessel has pushed to the head of the line, charging sixteen Republicans for falsely portraying themselves as electors in an effort to overturn Trump’s Michigan defeat. Each of the sixteen were charged with eight felony counts including forgery and conspiracy to commit forgery. Trump isn’t named, at least so far, but her case dovetails nicely with the DOJ’s and with one ongoing in Arizona, another state that Trump tried to swing to his side.

 

No Labels:  The so called No Labels party, the group that has a far greater chance of helping Trump retake the White House than winning even one state, held a townhall of its own in New Hampshire on Monday.  Guests of honor were their bipartisan “dream” ticket West Virginia’s Democratic Senator Joe Manchin and Utah’s former Republican Governor Jon Huntsman.  Manchin hasn’t committed to run for president but neither has he committed to run for reelection to the Senate where he’s likely to face a tough opponent, the state’s popular Republican Governor Jim Justice who was once a Democrat. Huntsman briefly served as Trump’s ambassador to Russia before returning to the US, where he launched a failed bid to again become Utah’s Governor. It’s not clear that either candidate could win another election in their own state so naturally they are seeking to muck up the presidential race. Though the two present themselves as a possible unity ticket targeted to moderates, they don’t agree on some key policy issues.  Huntsman is opposed to gun regulation while Manchin is okay with some regulation especially background checks. Coal state Manchin’s main beef with Biden is over energy policy, but Huntsman is okay with carbon reducing policies.  And though he’s personally not in favor of abortion, Manchin has historically towed the Democratic party line on the issue, while Huntsman is in the no abortion camp.  It’s hard to take these two seriously accept that we should because Ralph Nader, Jill Stein, Ross Perot.   

 

And:  Despite his outrageous claims about COVID being designed to spare Jewish and Chinese people, RFK Jr’s is still invited to testify in front of Gym Jordan’s weaponization of government committee on Thursday because of course.   Margie Q, who many still expect to get into a physical fisticuff with “little bitch” Lauren Boebert, delivered a speech in front of the right-wing Turning Point America conference where she attempted to disparage Joe Biden by equating his Build Back America legislation to LBJ’s Great Society throwing some of FDR’s accomplishments into the mix as well. She specifically targeted Medicare and Medicaid and all those other “big” government programs that target rural poverty and hunger, improve transportation and fund education apparently unaware that many Republicans, an aging group, benefit from and couldn’t live without those programs.  The Biden White House tweeted out their thanks for her unintended support.  Worth noting, given how red her district is Margie Q is a shoo in for reelection. Sad but true.

    

 Floral Arrangements 🌻 🌻 🌻   

Cash is King:  Despite or maybe because of all his indictments, the Former Guy who raised $35 million during the second quarter, continues to dominate Republican polls while a number of his opponents appear to be floundering.  Those suffering include Florida’s dictator Ron DeSantis.  Still polling in second place but further behind, Ron D is having cashflow problems largely because though he’s still bringing in a decent amount of cash, his burn rate is high and his large dollar donors are growing skittish while small dollar donors, the ones that keep Trump afloat, don’t find Ron’s shtick inspiring.  Over the weekend it was reported that DeSantis has started shedding staff to conserve funds.  Former VP Mike Pence is another one facing funding difficulties, he raised only $1.5 million. Though they didn’t raise much more, late entrants to the field Chris Christie and Doug Durham, the North Dakota Governor who few, if any, would be able to identify in a line up, raised more than Pence. Not all that surprising that those of us who appreciate that Pence refused to abet Trump’s coup aren’t sending him cash and the donors he needs remain solidly in Trump’s camp or have moved on to someone else.  Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy each raised just north of $7 million during the second quarter while Tim Scott’s cash grab was around $6 million. Despite his less than inspiring poll numbers, President Biden’s cash haul dwarfed all the other candidates. The always underestimated Biden raised $72 million from 394,000 donors. Notably the Democrats most vulnerable Senatorial candidates, including Ohio’s Sherrod Brown and Montana’s Jon Tester also brought in a good amount of cash during the quarter.  Newly independent Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema who may or may not be running for reelection raised only $1.6 million while her likely Democratic opponent, Ruben Gallego brought in twice as much.

They Said What:  This weekend’s biggest gaffe award goes to RFK Jr, the Democratic challenger who mostly pushes Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson’s talking points.  He asserted that COVID was genetically engineered to spare Ashkenazic Jews and Chinese people because hateful tropes are de rigueur among his supporters?  The families of all the Hasidic Rabbis who died in Brooklyn during the early days of the pandemic, all the Chinese Americans who died as well as those who perished in China would like a word.  RFK’s statement was dangerous, ignorant, and based on faux science. Naturally, he first denied he’d made the remarks he was caught on tape making.  Then when he was confronted with the tape, he said he was misunderstood and that he’d made the offensive remarks off the record, and everyone knows that spewing hate off the record doesn’t count. And then he tried to placate all Jews by saying nothing to worry about because he’s always been pro-Israel. Pramila Jayapal, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus also tripped on her own words this weekend, saying that she did not mean to call Israel a racist state.  Saying words do matter she “apologized” and clarified her statement to say that she’s okay with the concept of Israel and only meant to call certain members of the current Israeli governing coalition and their policies racist.  However, she said what she said and only walked it back after she got lots of pushback from Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and quite a few of her colleagues. Nothing like handing talking points to the Republican Party during the run up to what will be a contentious election for control of the House.  Trump, who posted anti-Jack Smith “truths” all weekend, was the keynote speaker at the right-wing Turning Point Action Conference in West Palm Beach where he attacked DeSantis who was out of state campaigning in Iowa, called all his indictments a badge of honor, said he’d impose an even bigger Muslim travel ban and build a bigger wall if reelected, advocated for positions to the right of even DeSantis because the righter the better and of course mocked Biden. He kept with his retribution theme promising to eliminate the entire deep state, the Trump haters in the FBI and to get rid of all those left wingers pushing communism at all the country’s colleges and universities.  We’ve heard him talk about eliminating the deep state before, but the NY Times’ Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan warn that this time he’s got a Federalist Society crafted plan to do so that also includes endowing the presidency with far more powers and should he be reelected he’ll surround himself with people ready to implement those policies so be scared, very scared. Trump also gave a shout out to that wonderful judge, Aileen “loose” Cannon, maybe letting her know that if she stays on Team Trump and keeps postponing his trial, she’ll go places, like maybe even to the Supreme Court. No shout out from him to Fulton County’s Fani Willis, though he is trying to have her grand juries disbanded.  Taking a page from Trump Vivek Ramaswamy says he knows who he’ll appoint to SCOTUS if he makes it to the White House.  His list includes Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee as well as a slew of anti-choice and anti-LGBTQ rights judges. And though he’s not on that list, citing 303 Creative v Elenis, the case that ruled that the First Amendment guarantee of free speech allowed a website designer to refuse to make wedding websites she’s never been asked to make because she’s not in that business for same sex couples, a judge in Texas is thrilled to report that he will now refuse to perform any same sex marriages because the slope really is slippery. How long before he refuses inter-racial couples too?  Tucker Carlson who is still trying to find his post-Fox footing interviewed a bunch of Republican candidates including Pence, Hutchinson, Haley and Scott at a Christian Presidential forum in Iowa.  While they all hoped to push their anti-abortion credentials, he kept pivoting to his and Putin’s favorite position, criticizing them for supporting Ukraine.  How did anyone not know that Putin is Tucker’s god?   

Grifting 101:  In exchange for her vote for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Speaker Kevin has awarded his favorite, Margie Q, a seat on the conference committee that will negotiate the final NDAA with the Senate. Facing the loss of his license to practice law, Rudy Guiliani who always needs to make himself part of the story, still has to make a living so this weekend he showed up at the house of the guy who was arrested for committing at least four of until now long unsolved Long Island Gilgo Beach murders to film a segment for his new livestreaming show.  And let’s not forget Melania Trump, Trump’s mostly unseen third wife. According to Trump’s most recent financial disclosure, she was paid $155,000 by his super PAC for choosing tableware, arranging settings and picking floral arrangements for one of his high dollar fundraising dinners. Can you spell G R I F T.

 

 

Powder Poof  🌻 🌻 🌻

🤡 🤡 🤡: Last night Kevin McCarthy and his clown car once again told us who they are.  They took their culture war to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the must pass legislation that generally moves forward quickly because funding the military is usually a bipartisan effort. The Republicans added amendments that would prevent the Defense Department from paying for reimbursing expenses related to abortion services, including travel for women stationed in places where such services are now prohibited.  Other amendments targeted transgender care and diversity.  During the discussion of the anti-diversity amendment, Republican Congressman Eli Crane who rejected that the Defense Department should do anything to prioritize diversity actually called Black people “colored people” a slip of the tongue or more likely the term that he uses when among like-minded friends and colleagues, that did not go over well with many including Congresswoman Joyce Beatty who immediately demanded that the derogatory term be stricken from the record. Since this debate was a House thing, no Senators were present but it’s fair to assume that Senator Tommy Tuberville who is all in on white supremacists serving in the armed forces and who continues to hold up military promotions over his opposition to funding abortion related services probably was pleased as punch.  It’s now not clear that any Democrats will vote for the NDAA but even if it passes through the house, most, if not all, of the controversial amendments will be rejected by the Democratic led Senate so the fight will continue, providing a preview of the budget battles that are expected to take place for just about every other department. The rejection of abortion funding is likely to haunt a number of those Republicans House members from swing districts especially those from New York where an appeals court judge ordered that the state’s congressional map should be redrawn, siding with Democrats who were burned when a lower court ruling resulting in a Republican leaning redistricting before the midterms.  Assuming that the state’s highest court upholds the appeals court ruling, New York Democrats could regain up to six seats, in and of itself enough to swing the House back to Democratic control in 2024.  By voting against funding abortion services for military personnel, NYS’s vulnerable Republicans just made that more probable.    

Running Red:  So far in addition to Trump and Ron DeSantis, six other Republicans have hit the 1% polling threshold required to participate in the first debate.  That list includes Vivek Ramaswamy (8%), Mike Pence (7%), Nikki Haley (3%), Tim Scott (3%), Chris Christie (3%) and Asa Hutchinson (1%).  The first debate is scheduled to take place in August. Of course, qualification doesn’t guarantee participation, so it’s not clear that Trump will actually show up to face the poison tipped barbs thrown his way mostly by Christie who seems determined to redeem himself for being an early and avid Trump supporter. In case you are wondering the current non-qualifiers are North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez and former Texas Congressman Will Hurd, all polling around 0%.   Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin won’t be there either, because he still says he’s not running, neither will Georgia Governor Brian Kemp.  However, with big Republican donors souring on Ron DeSantis, both of their names, especially Youngkin’s, continue to be bandied about as possible candidates a reflection of the level of concern about DeSantis as well as a dissatisfaction with the rest of the announced field, many of whom are really just running for the VP nod, or trying to position themselves in the hopper for 2028. Even DeSantis knows that he’s flailing, which explains the “confidential” memo that he circulated to his big money donors, the one that at least one of those donors shared with the media.

Legal Morass:  To no one’s surprise son in law Jared Kushner has testified in front of Special Counsel Jack’s grand jury, the one looking into the insurrection and Trump and his team’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.  Reports are that Jared said that his delusional father-in-law really believed he’d won the election, testimony that appears to conflict with what a number of others have said.  So maybe Jared prevaricated, or maybe he was too busy securing that $2 billion from the Saudis to notice?  Keeping with the theme of the election being stolen, yesterday during an as yet unaired interview with CNN, RNC Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel refused to say that Biden had won fair and square.  Could that be because Ronna is desperately trying to keep Trump happy, to get him on the debate stage and in the unlikely case that he doesn’t win the Republican nomination, to convince him not to run as an independent? As to false electors and the like, we’re all still waiting for Georgia’s Fani Willis and/or Special Jack to start indicting.  Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes is doing more than twiddling, reports are that she too is investigating the transmission of an alternative slate of electors by Trump allies. Special Jack has also responded to Trump’s lawyers request to push off his purloined documents trial into the next century with a forceful pushback.  The ball is now in Judge Loose Cannon’s hands. And it’s not just Trump, Fox is also facing some more litigation. In addition to the still looming Smartmatic election machine case, Fox has been sued for defamation by Ray Epps.  Epps is a former Marine turned wedding venue operator who was in Washington on January 6. Former Fox guy Tucker Carlson repeatedly claimed that Epps, a January 6 insurrection participant, was actually an FBI agitator who was there to spur the crowd to violence to make Trump look bad rather than just another one of those “nice tourists.”  Epps, who voted for Trump twice, says that as a result of Fox allowing Carlson to repeatedly air accusations about him, he has been targeted by Tumpitistas and has had to move and close his business. For the record there is no evidence that Epps was working with any federal agency, FBI Director Wray says that Epps was definitely not working for the FBI.  Epps doesn’t have clean hands, he was a January 6 participant, though it appears that he was seen on video trying to calm down some of the craziest rioters, which is the reason that Carlson targeted him.  In any case, most legal pundits think Epps’ case against Fox has merit.  Meantime, Tucker who remains out in the wilderness, posting videos on Twitter is keeping busy defending the likes of accused human trafficker and rapist social influencer Andrew Tate. For his part the Chief Twit, Elon Musk is launching another business, this one focused on Artificial Intelligence, because he’s got lots of money,  time on his hands and whatever could go wrong with his version of ChatGPT producing deep fakes and the like?    

And:  Forget about the cocaine found at the White House.  The Secret Service says they can’t figure out who left it there not that any Republicans or anyone at Fox is ready to forget about it.  They’re all still pointing the finger at Hunter.  

 

ABBA and Friends 🌻 🌻 🌻

The State of Play:  According to a Des Moines Register poll 61% of adults in Iowa believe abortion should be legal in most or all cases while 35% believe it should be illegal so naturally yesterday Iowa’s Republican controlled legislature held a special session where they passed a bill banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.  There were shouts and protests, but since Iowa’s Republican Governor Kim Reynolds plans to sign the restrictive legislation, women seeking abortion for almost any reason will either have to leave the state, continue their pregnancies to term or, in some cases, suffer the consequences of a medical disaster.  A Michigan hair salon owner has posted on Facebook that she will not be providing services to “transgender or queer people,” adding that they should instead seek “grooming service for animals.”  She justified her decision by pointing to the recent ruling by SCOTUS, the same folks who eliminated reproductive rights, that concluded the First Amendment’s free speech protection allowed a Colorado web designer to refuse to make wedding websites for gay couples. On the subject of saying whatever you want and apparently believe, Alabama’s Senator Tommy Tuberville, the Trump endorsed former football coach who unseated civil rights attorney Doug Jones, refused to condemn white supremacists during an interview with CNN’s Kaitlin Collins.  Tuberville is on record saying that he thinks its okay for white supremacists to serve in the military because what’s wrong with racism.  Of course, that’s the same Tuberville who has held up hundreds of military promotions, including the replacement for the retiring head of the US Marine Corps, over his opposition of the military funding travel costs for service members who, because of policies in states like Iowa and Texas, need to travel to obtain abortions.  After a lot of bad press, including statements from some of his Republican colleagues, last night, Tuberville kind of walked back his white supremacist comments, but only a bit and not really.  Speaking of those trying to walk back their statements, according to Rolling Stone,  Rupert Murdoch can “smell a loser” and is growing increasingly concerned about the trajectory of Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign which may explain Fox’s plan to broadcast a Trump townhall hosted by Trump’s good buddy and shadow cabinet member Sean Hannity.  That townhall is scheduled to take place a few days after an Iowa forum to be hosted by former Foxy guy Tucker Carlson, Trump has no plans to participate in Carlson’s event but a number of his opponents including Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Asa Hutchinson and Vivek Ramaswamy do because apparently none of them, even Pence, care one iota about Carlson being dumped by Fox or his election lies, or his misogyny or his white supremacy.  Also, in case you haven’t noticed the weather has been truly weird with things like floods, overflowing dams, and houses falling off the face of the earth becoming the norm not that the affects of climate change will be mentioned at any of these Republican forums because as Lauren Boebert likes to say the only climate change is the four times a year changing of the seasons.  America not at its best.  

Law and Disorder:  Things may or may not be reaching a boiling point for Teflon Don.  E Jean Carroll was handed a significant victory yesterday when the Department of Justice decided to stop arguing that Trump was entitled to immunity for the slimy stuff he said in response to her accusations of sexual assault back when he was president. The DOJ had taken the earlier position, not because they’re all Trump fans, but because they felt that protecting presidential utterances was the thing to do.  They’ve changed course because they’ve now determined that they lack “adequate evidence” to conclude he was acting within the scope of his serving the government when he denied sexually assaulting her, but also because he keeps doubling down on his verbal attacks.  As a result of their new view, her 2019 civil lawsuit where she is seeking bigly damages can now move forward.  That’s not to be confused with her NYS lawsuit, the one she already won, that he’s appealing. With regard to the Mar a Lago purloined documents case, Trump’s lawyers are seeking a lengthy trial delay, asserting that given the complexity of the case and all the documents they have to review, and more significantly that “proceeding to trial during the pendency of a presidential election cycle wherein opposing candidates are directly adverse to one another in this action will create extraordinary challenges” blah, blah, blah.  Basically, they are seeking to push the trial off in the hope that Trump wins reelection whereupon he’ll pardon himself and/or fire and/or imprison Special Counsel Jack Smith and Merrick Garland or if he’s not the candidate but some other Republican is, that other Republican wins and pardons him.  The ball is now in Judge Loose Cannon’s hands and though she might not come out and rule in Trump’s favor, she could just slow things down enough to achieve the results he desires, at least in the Mar a Lago case. She can’t do anything about his problems in Fulton County, Georgia where DA Fani Willis empaneled two ordinary Grand Juries to hear the results of her earlier special grand jury investigation. She’s right on the schedule she talked about a few months ago which would mean indictments in early August which could put her in a foot race with Special Jack who many pundits believe is gearing up to issue a few of his own in the January 6 phony electors/insurrection case.  On the subject of indictments, the DOJ has unsealed some that were issued a few months ago against Gal Luft, a dual US-Israeli citizen who the DOJ says was illegally acting as an agent for China while brokering the illicit sales of Chinese weapons and Iranian oil.  Luft is MIA so he hasn’t been arrested however, those indictments are particularly relevant because he’s the so-called “whistleblower” that Republican Congressman/Oversight Committee chair James Comer says has all the dirt on Hunter Biden and the rest of the Biden “crime family’s’ criming.  The problem for Comer is that it appears that Luft only started spilling his guts, or more likely spinning Hunter lies, after he was indicted.  Moreover, he can’t testify to the Committee because no one knows where he is and if found, he’ll first be put in jail because he really is a flight risk.  Naturally, Comer’s newest position is that the DOJ has targeted Luft to protect the Bidens, at least that’s the story he’s sticking with today.  He also says that we’re learning about the indictment now because the DOJ is part of the anti-Trump deep state.

Swedish Fish: The war with Ukraine keeps feeding the growth of NATO, the entity that Vlad hates and that Trump wanted to leave.  Turkey, probably now about to receive some of the fighter jets they covet, has finally stopped standing in the way of Sweden joining, a big win for NATO and President Biden.  However, the US and a number of the other members of NATO aren’t ready to welcome Ukraine into the group yet, though they are saying that Ukraine is on the path, albeit a long one, to membership.  President Zelensky isn’t happy about that, he wants immediate membership, but welcoming Ukraine into NATO now would mean that NATO and the US, would be obligated to put boots on the ground in Ukraine to directly battle the Russians something we have studiously avoided doing because of all of the consequences of direct warfare with Vlad and his troops.  Right now, despite hysterical claims from some in the peanut gallery, the only US troops in Ukraine are the ones protecting the US Embassy and that’s because wherever we have embassies, we have troops protecting them.   

And:  According to the Wall Street Journal the Tesla Board is investigating Elon Musk for misspending company funds on the glass mansion he’s building for himself.  Was the Glass Onion a documentary?    

If you are somewhere with floods, fires, or locusts, please take care.   

 

Cluster Cucks 🌻 🌻 🌻

Cucks:  Just another summer weekend.  Hot, humid, wet and with Elon Musk, the Twit, who despite his questionable mental state somehow or other still runs Tesla and SpaceX, tweeting “Zuck is a cuck,” his bizarrely juvenile reaction to Zuck’s new Meta Threads platform closing in on 100 million users.  By comparison, with 300 million, down 30 million or so since Musk took over, Twitter is still larger, but that lead is shrinking. Had Musk focused on growing, or at the very least stabilizing the financials of his platform, instead of amplifying bigotry and hate, his usage would be up and he’d have probably grown revenues but instead ad revenues are in the toilet, he’s got Zuck breathing down his neck and now he is facing a landmark legal challenge in Germany for failing to taking down hateful anti-Semitic, Holocaust denying and racist tweets, including one that said “Blacks should be gassed and sent to Mars.”  Those tweets violate local law and theoretically also violate Twitter’s policies but were left up after what was left of Twitter’s content moderation team concluded they were hunky dory.  Musk is also lashing out at lawyers, suing Wachtel Lipton, for unjust enrichment.  Musk’s beef, that Wachtel was paid too much for doing its job well when it forced Musk to make good on his $48 million acquisition of Twitter, the purchase that Musk tried to slither out of because even he knew he was overpaying.  By the way, reporters calling Twitter for comments on any of this receive a poop emoji 💩 in reply.  Back in the world of politics, North Dakota’s Governor Doug Burgum, one of the little known candidates running to be the Republican candidate for president, or VP, said that he wouldn’t do business with Donald Trump given his questionable track record but would do business with Musk and would vote again for Trump were he to become the GOP’s 2024 candidate which is about all you need to know about Burgum and his party.  That’s Trump who spent his weekend dunking on his nearest rival, the floundering mini-me Ron DeSantis for daring to challenge him while calling Joe Biden the most corrupt and incompetent president ever.  There’s something very special about Trump calling anyone else corrupt and incompetent and while it’s fair to disagree with Biden’s policies, many Republican politicians even those who didn’t vote for infrastructure funding are out there bragging about all the bridges, roads and factories now being built in their districts with the funding they disparaged.  Remember all those infrastructure projects that Trump funded with his many infrastructure weeks, me neither.  As to corruption, while Republicans continue to accuse Biden of engaging in millions, probably soon to be billions of corruption, so far, they have no evidence. They might want to think about Rudy Guiliani who is one step closer to losing his license to practice law in D.C. about the consequences of lying, but then again, some of them aren’t lawyers and the ones who are, appear to be limiting their accusations to venues where lying is tolerated, even rewarded. As to legal consequences, Trump is still living in the Teflon zone, but maybe not forever, well just maybe. Reports are that Special Counsel Jack is zeroing in on the insurrection planning that took place in the Oval Office in the run up to January 6 and that one time Chief of Staff John Kelly has testified under oath that Trump called for sexting while working FBI Agent Strzok and lawyer Lisa Page to be investigated by the IRS, not for real crimes but for participating in the Russia investigation.     

Cluster:  War sucks and then gets worse which is probably why there are cluster bombs in the first place.  It looks like the US is about to send some to Ukraine to help in their war against Russia’s deadly lethal land grab because with or without the Prigozhin Wagner mercenaries the Russian army is still a deadly opponent.  The problem with cluster bombs is that besides being weapons of war, they too often fail to explode, leaving deadly duds on the ground for future generations to inadvertently trigger, the reason why many of our allies ban them.  Then again one of the reasons we’re shipping them to Ukraine is that our stocks of other “more acceptable” weaponry is getting low and they’re among the items left in our arsenal.. As I said, war sucks.     

And: So, it turns out that Margie Q may still be in the Freedom Caucus but only due to a technicality.  She’s been dodging calls from the group’s leadership so hasn’t received official notice of her ejection.  That would be funny if these clowns weren’t all members of the party that controls the House and is likely to send the country into the shutdown zone come September.  In other House news, Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin plans to stay in the House.  He has announced that he has no plans to seek the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Senator Ben Cardin.  That’s a loss for the Senate, where Alabama’s Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville continues to singlehandedly hold up many military promotions over abortion policy, but a gain for the House especially if the Democrats ever retake control.      

    

Cool Threads 🌻 🌻 🌻

Shell Game:  In response to an order from the Federal Magistrate overseeing the Trump documents case, the DOJ has “unredacted” more from the affidavit that was included with Trump’s purloined document indictment not to be confused with his NY indictment or the much-awaited Fulton County or January 6 insurrection indictments.  The unredacted text provides a clearer explanation of the probable cause used to justify the FBI search of Mar a Lago.  The additional information reveals that shortly after Trump’s lawyers responded to a DOJ subpoena by returning only 38 classified documents, suspicious prosecutors who’d been expecting to receive many more documents subpoenaed Mar a Lago surveillance footage.  That footage from a camera called “South Tunnel Liquor” because of course Trump was keeping tabs on his liquor inventory, recorded the “gold-painted” door to the storage room where his boxes of White House goodies were being kept and included video of valet-body man, co-conspirator Walt Nauta moving more boxes out than back in.  As a result of that too cute shell game, Trump’s then lawyer Evan Corcoran who had been tasked with sifting through the contents of the boxes in response to the document subpoena had unwittingly been unable to review the contents of all the boxes because a few of the critical ones had already been stashed elsewhere, perhaps in the chandeliered/vinyl shower curtained not so luxurious bathroom?  As to Nauta who is clearly in deep doo doo as in caught in the act of criming, he was finally arraigned yesterday, represented by a Fort Pierce based Florida lawyer Sasha Dadan, whose website reveals her extensive experience in traffic court which is bad news for Nauta who really needs to be represented by someone with national security expertise rather than someone who can get you out of a speeding ticket or a DUI, preferably someone who isn’t being paid by Trump or one of his political action committees. Then again, that might not matter since it’s likely that Dadan, who once ran for a Florida House district seat as a Republican probably knows Judge Aileen “loose” Cannon because Fort Pierce isn’t all that big.  Nauta who should be spilling his guts to prosecutors, trying to cut a deal, instead plead not guilty, either because he’s really stupid, totally enthralled by Trump and/or figures that he’ll be pardoned when Trump returns to office. In other Trump troubles news, we also learned this week that Special Counsel Jack Smith has interviewed several officials from Arizona about Trump and his team’s actions there shortly after Arizona was called for Joe Biden though at least according to former Governor Doug Ducey no one from the DOJ has spoken with him even though he says he was called by VP Mike Pence after the election, as part of Trump’s efforts to get him to overturn the results.  Pence admits he called Ducey but says he was just calling to discuss the weather rather than forwarding any of Trump’s threats because he’s too pure to ever have done that.

Broken Toys: It appears that Margie Q has been kicked out of the Freedom Caucus, purportedly because she called Lauren Boebert a little b-tch on the floor of the House but just as like because they’re upset that she voted to raise the debt ceiling a sign of how close she’s become with Speaker McCarthy and those other RINOs.  Lin Wood, one of the kraken team lawyers who tried to overturn the 2020 election results has relinquished his law license electing to retire from law rather than face disbarment in any of the multiple states that have been weighing discipling him for pushing Trump’s false election claims. Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page and former FBI agent Peter Strzok are suing the Justice Department,  Strzok for wrongful termination and Page for violation of privacy.  Yesterday, Federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson agreed that their lawyers can depose Trump, not because they’ve presented evidence of his direct involvement in their firing but because of all the times he publicly mocked them and called for them to be hung. Hopefully for them, Trump whose court calendar keeps filling up will have time to meet his newest obligation. As Strzok and Page know, when Trump talks or posts bad things frequently happen, so on the same day that the former guy posted former President Obama’s address on Truth Social, Taylor Taranto one of those who participated in the January 6 “riot” was found lurking near the Obama house. Taranto also shared Trump’s post on Telegram adding “we got these losers surrounded! See you in hell.” The charming “tourist” had two firearms and hundreds of rounds of ammunition inside his van. According to Belarus President/Putin BFF Aleksandr Lukashenko, Yevgeny Prigozhin, another charming fellow, albeit not one of ours, is no longer in his country.  According to Lukashenko, Prigozhin is now in Russia which sounds somewhat peculiar and maybe also a bit life shortening. Ron DeSantis who is truly broken but still running second among Republicans only to Trump, is defending the dark anti-LGBTQ video his campaign shared online, the one that attacked Trump for his past support of gay and transgender people because when one thinks of Trump, the first thing one thinks of is social progressive?  In an interview with a conservative commentator, DeSantis defended the video from assertions that it  was homophobic, homophobic enough that a few other Republican candidates actually called it out, by saying it was okay because Trump has been a “pioneer in injecting gender ideology into the mainstream where he was having men compete against women in his beauty pageants,” a reference to Trump once saying he’d be okay with a transexual contestant competing for Miss Universe. And proving that he’s up for competing for most broken toy, Vivek Ramaswamy who is currently in third place in the Republican polls is another one who is against birth right citizenship only he takes things one step forward,  Ramaswamy whose parents were Indian immigrants, says every high school student should be required to pass the same civics test required for immigrants seeking citizenship before being granted the right to vote.  He also wants the voting age raised to 25. Sure, it would be a good thing for all of us, including all the members of Congress to be far more educated about civics but what he is really saying is that he wants to skew the electorate and though he’s right about younger voters tending to vote Democrat, has he met many Trump voters because civics education is hardly their thing.

Bye Bye BlueBird?  To borrow from Mark Twain, rumors of Twitter’s death have been greatly exaggerated except that this time it does appear that the bluebird is on life support.  In response to Twitter’s problematic holiday weekend, which was marked by inexplicable technological hiccups, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook’s parent company Meta, rushed out the Twitter clone that his company had been set to launch later this month.  Meta’s Twitter clone is called Threads and though it’s fairly basic and still missing some of Twitter’s sorting and search features, 30 million people signed on during its first 24 hours and as of yesterday’s close that number had risen to 55 million.  Users already include quite a few media outlets, politicians, and me but no one from the EU because the EU is locked in a still unresolved data privacy dispute with Meta,  Threads, in case you are interested, is easily accessible but you do need an Instagram account to join, a dormant one will suffice.  Threads is a work in process but unlike all the other clones it appears to have reached a critical mass so stunning in size that Chief Twit Elon Musk responded by threatening a lawsuit, claiming that Zuckerberg used stolen intellectual property obtained from fired Twitter employees.  For his part Zuck denies that any former Twitter employees worked on Threads’ development, but really, what did Musk think those talented engineers were going to do?  Notably, so far given Meta’s policies, far from perfect but hate speech limiting, Threads appears to be troll free.  As a result, the Threads discourse while overwhelming is far more pleasant than that on the increasingly hate filled Twitter. Who needs a Zuck-Musk cage match, when this is so much more fun.    

And:  There are some reports that back-channel talks are taking place between former US government officials and Russia in an effort to broker an end to the Ukraine war.  The talks are very preliminary and unofficial but apparently that’s how things generally start so better than not.   

 

Shark Week  🌻 🌻 🌻

Shark Week: Just another ordinary Independence Day holiday weekend: fireworks, multiple mass shootings and a once maybe future president posting a F-ck Biden flag.  The founders would be so proud.  To set the tone for the weekend several Republican presidential candidates including Trump, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Asa Hutchinson spoke at the Moms for Liberty conference.  Don’t be fooled by the innocent name, we’re not talking apple pie, Moms for Liberty is anything but, it’s a far-right organization that was founded by two Florida mothers in opposition to COVID related health regulations that has expanded its mission to oppose racially and LGTBQ inclusive school curriculums.  The group also advocates for book bans because teaching the history of slavery and learning about things like the civil rights movement and the Holocaust also pollute children’s minds One of its chapters has a quote from Hitler on its website and continues to defend that it’s there insisting that the quote is a good one so of course they have to attribute it to its source.  The Southern Poverty Law Center considers Moms for Liberty to be an extremist hate group which goes far to explaining why so many Republican presidential candidates, even Asa Hutchinson who is one of those who has positioned himself as an alternative to Trump and Trumpism, felt compelled to speak at their conference.   

The Courts: There was lots of action at Wimbledon but also a few more notable Supreme Court decisions that will have a more lasting impact than Venus crashing out early.  As expected, along ideological lines, SCOTUS ruled 6-3 in favor of Lorie Smith, the Colorado website designer who should she ever start making wedding websites doesn’t want to make any for same sex couples. Ignoring the odd facts surrounding the case, the Court ruled that forcing her to do so would violate her First Amendment rights. We’re all supposed to believe that the Lorie Smith case will only affects things like creative website design and won’t lead to discrimination against other groups or individuals that offend her and other like-minded folks but don’t be surprised when the next cake or website designer refuses another group of what they consider to be morally offensive clients. The Court also killed Biden’s plan to cancel or reduce student loan debt. Biden responded to that ruling with a new plan that will probably also be shot down at some future date.  Carrying on with the First Amendment theme, on Tuesday Louisiana federal district judge Terry Doughty, a Trump appointee, something that shouldn’t matter but unfortunately does, ruled that the Biden administration likely violated it by censoring unfavorable views on social media over the course of the coronavirus pandemic, calling those efforts which involved the administration encouraging social media companies to call out vaccine misinformation and election lies for what they were “Orwellian.”  The judge issued a “sweeping” preliminary injunction barring numerous federal officials and agencies including Surgeon General Murthy, HHS Secretary Becerra, Press Secretary Jean-Pierre and all employees of the Justice Department and FBI from having almost any contact with social media firms.  No doubt the DOJ will be appealing but, in the meantime, expect to see lots more crazy stuff posted on social media. By the way, RFK Jr who’s extreme anti vaxx posts had been banned from most social media cites at least until he declared his run for the presidency at which point, they were allowed back on, celebrated the decision which tells you a lot about why both he and the decision are very problematic.

Social Diss Media:  Elon Musk’s blue bird had a really rough weekend. It’s not clear why, but he restricted use of his Twitter platform this weekend, particularly to those who don’t pay for blue checkmarks, the group that makes up most of Twitters user base while also blocking all those users who don’t have their own accounts.  He insisted that he had to impose usage limitations to stop content “scraping” by artificial intelligence companies who he alleged were using Twitter content, and overwhelming its increasingly fragile infrastructure, to boost their capabilities. Most of the tech universe suspect that Twitter’s real problems have something to do with a bug that his skeleton engineer crew couldn’t quickly fix or maybe even cutbacks in web hosting associated with his failure to pay hosting fees.  Whatever the cause new CEO Linda Yaccarino who was brought on board to boost advertising revenues can’t be happy because cutting post views is hardly something that the mainstream advertisers that she is supposed to lure back to Twitter want to see. Then again, many of those same advertisers probably aren’t all that pleased with the Louisiana judge’s ruling either because having ads posted next to election lies and vaccine misinformation isn’t exactly a good thing. In other social media news, the SPAC that still plans to acquire Trump’s Digital company, including Truth Social, agreed to an $18 million settlement with the SEC. Their offense, prematurely holding merger talks with Trump’s company.  Naturally, at least so far, no penalty for Teflon Trump.      

And: Senator Lindsey Graham who has spent the past of the past six years kowtowing to Trump was booed by a scarily large group at a Trump rally in his home state. Sad for Lindsey and very sad for the rest of us that so many showed up to hear Trump push his lies and hate, not to mention his promises to go after his “opponents” in the FBI and the DOJ not to mention his other promise to end the war in Ukraine on day one and we know how he’d do that.   Also, a wee bit disconcerting for presidential wannabees South Carolina Senator Tim Scott and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley who need those voters to have any chance of winning their state’s primary.  Two other pieces of news that are worth following.  Yesterday, Kremlin spokesmen Dmitri Peskov hinted that some could be up on the Evan Gershkovich front, suggesting that a prisoner swap of some kind could be in the works.  Great if true.  Also, some white powder AKA cocaine was found at the West Wing of the White House.  Hundreds of people pass through that area regularly, but naturally right-wing media immediately pointed the finger at Hunter Biden.  We may never know who left their coke, and it could turn out that it was Hunter but the rush to judgement, especially by press outlets like the NY Post is not surprising but still ugly.