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.