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🤡 🤡 🤡: 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.