68 Floors, 30,000 Sq. Ft. 🌻 🌻 🌻 🦆 🦆 🤡 🤡

🦆 🦆 🦆 Debate; The Republican candidates for president, some of whom are just trying to raise their profiles for the VP slot or for a run in 2028, were at it again last night except for Trump who instead went to a non-unionized auto parts supplier outside Detroit where he dumped on Biden and electric vehicles. The most common take away from the debate was that no one had a breakaway moment, that the wannabees squabbled while yelling over each other and that just about everyone was icked out when Mike Pence referred to Mother as the non-union teacher he’s been sleeping with for around 40 years.  Few thought that Chris Christie’s obviously planned new moniker for Trump, Donald Duck 🦆 🦆, would stick. The 🦆 quack was to shade Trump for his refusal to debate, but really why should he?  He’s so far ahead of all of his Republican opponents that there’s no upside in him showing up on the debate stage. To hammer home that point, he’s now on record saying that he won’t show up for the next one, nor will most viewers.   As to Trump’s visit to the non-union auto workers, he was at the parts manufacturer at the invitation of management, an odd place to go to express solidarity with blue collar workers but then again, many of Trump’s voters are white blue collar workers who either don’t get that he cares little about them or who are so upset about other things like the country’s changing demographics that they vote for him anyway. Trump’s Wednesday visit was in stark contrast to President Biden’s Tuesday visit; union guy Joe actually joined the picket line.  Both Biden and Trump are vying for the endorsement of the United Auto Workers, an endorsement that Biden will probably get even as a not-insignificant number of autoworkers vote Trump.   

💰 💵 💰 💵:  NJ Senator Robert Menendez’s assertion is that lots of first-generation Americans of Cuban descent keep huge stashes of cash (“only” $500,000 rather than the $1 million cited on Tuesday) and about $100,000 worth of gold bars hidden away at home.  Though he didn’t explain the ingots, he claims that he’d been stashing the cash away for years, odd since it’s reported that the dates on the bills found at his home and in his wife’s safety deposit box don’t go back very far.  Moreover, the fingerprints on some of the accompanying envelopes are the same as one of his co-defendants. So far about half of Menendez’s fellow Democratic Senators have called for him to step down, including fellow NJ Senator Cory Booker who sugar coated his call by saying that stepping down isn’t the same as acknowledging guilt but is “best for those Senator Menendez has spent his life serving.” Senate Leader Chuck Schumer hasn’t weighed in yet but Michigan Senator Gary Peters who is responsible for running the Democrat’s Senate campaign arm called for Menendez to resign late yesterday.  Menendez will be speaking to his colleagues this morning, don’t be surprised if most, if not all of his so far quiet Democratic colleagues, join the others in calling for him to resign following his address.  

Fantasy Land: Compare the Democratic response to Menendez’s most recent spate of “alleged” crimes to the Republican response to all things Trump.  Sure, the Democrats gave Menedez a pass the first time he was indicted, but at least this time they’re trying to give him the boot.  Trump however remains the Republican’s guy though he may now be substantially poorer, or will be poorer, if New York Judge Arthur Engoron’s ruling sticks. On Tuesday Judge Engoron ruled that Trump, his two oldest sons and one time CFO Allen Weisselberg, committed fraud by wildly inflating the value of his assets in financial documents presented to banks and insurance companies. Engoron acknowledged that while puffery might be business practice in the real estate industry, Trump’s assertions were fantasies, in a different stratosphere than the norm. In a really bigly move, the Judge canceled the NYS business certificates that allow some of Trump’s properties to operate, it’s not clear what properties are on that list, but it’s thought that the group includes 40 Wall Street and maybe even Trump Tower.  Assuming Engoron’s ruling stands, it’s Trump so you never know,  an independent receiver, someone not named Ivanka, will be put in place to “manage the dissolution” of the affected corporate entities. The judge also fined Trump’s lawyers for repeatedly making meritless arguments. A trial is expected to begin next week on the amount of damages owed.  The floor cited by NY Attorney General is $250 million.  Fire sale time? Obviously, neither Trump nor his sons are all that happy about Engoron’s decision. Trump’s exact response “I have a Deranged, Trump Hating Judge, who RAILROADED this FAKE CASE through a NYS Court at a speed never before seen.”  Eric accused the Judge of attempting to “destroy my father and kick him out of New York,” and focusing on Mar a Lago, both sons questioned the Judge’s valuations.  In other legal news, in their argument against any kind of gag order, Trump’s January 6 lawyers assert that Trump’s attacks on judges, witnesses and jurors are really just love taps. While Judge Chutkan hasn’t yet ruled on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s request to shut him up or at the very least quiet him a little, she did say that nothing she’s said and done previously requires her to recuse so she won’t.   

 

House 🤡 🤡:  Largely because Kevin McCarthy prioritizes his speakership role over keeping the government open, a shutdown is imminent.  Kevin has rejected the Senate’s bipartisan attempt to avoid a shutdown, saying that he won’t bring their “kick the ball to November” continuing resolution up for a vote because if he does his right-wing fanatics, led by Panhandle Putz Matt Gaetz will kick him to the curb.  Matt and company are holding out for unrealistic cuts, more funding for the border and elimination of Ukraine money, at least that’s their current demand because for some of them, most specifically Matt, it’s all a game, as in who can make Trump the happiest.  And naturally, Kevin is blaming the whole mess on Biden because of course.  That’s the same Biden who Kevin’s other 🤡 🤡 plan to start impeachment proceedings against today.  Last night they sent out a memo detailing Biden’s “crimes,” the memo says that they’re focusing on how Biden “abused his federal office to enrich his family and conceal his and/or his family’s misconduct.”  In other words, while closing the government the 🤡 🤡 are focusing on Hunter and on things that occurred when President Biden wasn’t even in office because, why not? Got to placate Trump. Retribution much?

RIP 🦆y

Gold Ingots 🌻 🌻 🌻

💰 💵 💰 💵: New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez is proof that you don’t have to be a Republican to be corrupt.  Sure, he’s innocent until proven guilty but the allegations against him aren’t just serious, they’re wild.  Who doesn’t keep $1 million in cash plus some gold bars hidden in their home and who hasn’t secretly aided the Egyptian government for pocket money? Menendez’s defenses, that he’s being unfairly targeted because of his Hispanic heritage and that he learned from his immigrant Cuban mother the importance of keeping emergency cash and gold around the house in case you need to flee a revolution, are creative but also kind of lame.  Given Menendez’s past legal problems you’d think that he would have figured out that the DOJ had him under their microscope and that playing squarely between the lines was the right way to go.  However, having once gotten away with some legally questionable actions, he must have felt invincible, and why not, that strategy has worked for Trump for years. That’s Trump who may have violated the law again yesterday in South Carolina when he either purchased or pretended to purchase a Glock pistol with his face embossed on the handle. Unfortunately, Menendez’s problems affect all of us because he is up for reelection in 2024, in a Senate cycle that is unfavorable for Democrats who are already defending a number of seats in both swing and solidly red states and while NJ currently has two Democratic Senators and a Democratic Governor, the last Governor’s race where Phil Murphy eked through, was too close for comfort. Menendez has stepped away from his chairmanship of the Foreign Relations Committee, but an increasing number of Democrats are calling for him to step down altogether and given that the accusations against him make those against former Senator Al Franken seem even more ridiculous than they were, that’s fair and a sentiment that former Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed with last night so while Menendez says he’s going to stick it out in the Senate, maybe he won’t. Would it surprise you to learn that George of many names DeSantis is one of those who thinks that Menendez should stay put while Trump thinks that every Democratic Senator should step down because they’re all “election stealing THUGS.” Democratic, Congressman Andy Kim who you might remember as the one who helped pick up the detritus left in the Capitol after the January 6 insurrection who represents some of NJ’s eastern and southern suburbs quickly announced plans to primary Menendez.  Former Governor Christie, who’s busy right now challenging Trump and who isn’t all that popular in NJ, says he won’t run for the seat but Congressman Jeff Van Drew, the former Democrat who defected to the Republican party because of his affinity for all things Trump, says he is now considering a run and it’s fair to assume a few more credible candidates will raise their hands soon.  Has anyone checked to see if Mehmet Oz has stopped pretending to be a Pennsylvanian?  Also, in case you were watching football and/or fasting over the weekend Trump called for NBC and MSNBC to be investigated for “country threatening treason,” called for raids of Democratic Senators, presumably for their election stealing thuggery, and both he and Congressman Paul Gosar said that the country’s former top general Mark Milley deserves the death penalty, preferably by hanging.

Counting Down:   Kevin McCarthy and his crew of 🤡 🤡 🤡 who appear to be taking Trump’s encouragement to close the country down don’t appear any closer to passing a budget resolution to keep the government open past September 30.  McCarthy’s chief House antagonist right now is Panhandle Putz Matt Gaetz, another one who former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows’ chief of staff Cassidy Hutchinson (yes, chiefs of staff have chiefs of staff) quite credibly revealed stalked her at Camp David of all places.  By the way, Cassidy whose White House tell all is due out today is making the interview rounds.  Last night she was interviewed live on The Rachel Maddow Show. Cassidy was poised beyond her years and convincing and did a great job pushing back against denials and counter accusations from Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows and Matt Gaetz who have all questioned her accounts with Gaetz even claiming that the two once dated, something that Hutchinson denied, saying he fell way below her standards.   She spared no words when it came to the clear and present danger that another Trump presidency would be for the country and democracy. We’ve known for some time that Gaetz and Giuliani are sleazy so her stories about them, while disturbing aren’t shocking.  Her revelations about Mark Meadows, who didn’t hit on her,  are frightening because while serving as the chief of staff to Trump, he was the ultimate yes man, consistently displaying incompetence and fear, leaving it to the then 24-year-old Hutchinson to be the one who had to martial people to push back at Trump and his cronies’ efforts to stage a coup. As to Meadows, who she hasn’t spoken for some time, she appears to hold out hope that like her, he will or maybe is doing the right thing as in cooperating with Special Counsel’s Jack Smith’s prosecutors.  Wouldn’t that be interesting?

Debate Night:  Tomorrow night is Republican debate night again.  Trump won’t be there as he is planning to go to Detroit to hobnob with some striking auto workers, presumably not the same ones that union man President Biden will be marching the picket line with today. Like Trump, former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson won’t be on the Fox stage at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi California because he failed to qualify but Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, Mike Pence, Tim Scott and Doug Burgum will all be there, reprising their roles from the first debate. Maybe if we look very closely, we’ll see Tim Scott’s significant other, the “nice Christian girl” who may or may not exist in the audience. 

And:  Sad news out of Virginia, where 55-year-old Democratic Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton has announced that she won’t be running for reelection for her purple district seat that was previously held by Republican Barbara Comstock.  In April Wexton disclosed that she had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease but was planning to run for reelection since at that time she was confident that she could manage the disease and her job.  Unfortunately, she recently learned that she has a debilitating, untreatable form of Parkinson’s called supranational palsy and though she plans to remain in the House for the rest of her term she won’t be seeking reelection. Arizona’s failed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake who isn’t physically ill but who has the capacity to provoke intense nausea in others is planning to announce her run for the Senate shortly.  That’s the Senate seat currently held by the now Independent Krysten Sinema who also appears to be running as is at least one Democrat, Congressman Rueben Gallego. Another mess in another seat that the Democrats really need to hold.  Lastly, though right-wing media with lots of help from the mainstream outlets loves to bring all of Joe Biden’s gaffes and stumbles to our attention, last night Trump “revealed” that Jeb Bush was the president who started the Iraq war and has expressed his view that Biden will lead us into World War II. Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV? 

Succession 🌻 🌻 🌻

🤡 🤡 🤡: In the words of Mike Lawler, a Republican Congressman from New York, “this is stupidity….it’s a clown show.”  Lawler is referring to his fellow House Republicans’ inability to pass a budget or failing that a short-term continuing resolution to keep the government open past September 30 while they continue try to pass a budget, or really a series of budgets.  Lawler is right, the clowns can’t even pass the required rule necessary to get a floor vote on any funding plan, not even for the defense budget, one of those holy cows that Congress generally prioritizes because, at least until now, funding defense has always been something Congress, particularly Republicans, are all in on. To backtrack, this summer, Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the White House negotiated a deal to avert a debt default.  As part of that deal, a broad budget framework was agreed upon.  The debt ceiling lift, including that budget framework, was passed by both the House and Senate and signed by President Biden with McCarthy receiving lots of praise from the press and the pundit class for getting his unwieldy caucus on board. Unfortunately, that was then, and this is now and a number of members of Kevin’s caucus, with the encouragement of chief clown Trump whose priorities include f-cking things up for “crooked Joe” and defunding Special Counsel Jack Smith’s “political persecutions” of him and those January 6 “patriots,” have no interest in adhering to the framework set out over the summer.  As a result when McCarthy, who has made so many conflicting promises to different members of his caucus that no one knows for sure what he’s has given away, tried, twice if anyone is counting, to bring the procedural rule vote to the floor to even get to a vote on a defense budget, Arizona’s Andy Biggs, North Carolina’s Dan Bishop, Arizona’s Eli Crane, Georgia’s Margia Q, and Montana’s Matt Rosendale all weighed in against it, a bigly problem for McCarthy who can only afford to lose four votes. Notably, Panhandle Putz Matt Gaetz who seems to be calling the shots right now and who threatens at least once a day to call for a “motion to vacate” the speakership which would cost McCarthy his job, his plane and his big office, did vote for the defense rule but only because his district includes the Pensacola Naval station and a boatload of military communities and even he can’t afford to piss off his constituents especially since he’s already signaled plans to run for governor to replace Governor DeSantis’s at the end of his term.  Scary as it sounds, it’s Florida so Gaetz could actually pull that off. After promising to keep everyone around all weekend to work out a solution, McCarthy instead sent his crowd home because he has no solution, at least no solution that doesn’t involve seeking the help of Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries who is really pissed at him for opening the Biden impeachment inquiry and won’t provide help without getting something really significant in return.  That said though crossing the aisle might work, it would also ensure that McCarthy’s days as Speaker are numbered because Putz Gaetz would do the motion to vacate thing.  Bottom line, McCarthy is in a pickle, and he’s got the whole country in the briny barrel with him.  Shutdowns are bad, and the party responsible for them generally suffers at the polls so Senate Republicans, aren’t happy but that’s the way it goes.  The dumbest part of this is that nothing McCarthy’s crowd agrees upon will pass the Democratically controlled Senate so it’s all an exercise in stupidity, but stupidity is what we’ve got to deal with right now.  

Another 🤡: Speaking of stupidity and clowns, Alabama’s Tommy Tuberville is still holding up somewhere around 300 promotions over his opposition to the military reimbursing travel expenses for those having to travel for abortions and raising lots of money doing so because the cash coffers open up wide these days whenever a politician does something divisive.  Despite Tuberville’s opposition, Senate Leader Chuck Schumer did manage to finally get a few really important military leaders confirmed including Air Force General CQ Brown, Jr to replace Mark Milley as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Randy George as Army chief of staff and General Eric Smith as Marine Corps commandant.  For the record, keeping with the clown theme, in addition to Alabama’s Tommy Tuberville, Indiana’s Mike Braun, Missouri’s Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt, Florida’s Marco Rubio, Texas’ Ted Cruz, Kansas’ Roger Marshall, Utah’s Mike Lee, Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson, Wyoming’s Cynthia Lummis and Ohio’s JD Vance all voted against General Brown’s confirmation even though the failure to vote him in would have left the country without a Joint Chief since by law Mark Milley has to leave at the end of the month. If you’re wondering why Schumer doesn’t go through with holding votes for all the other still unconfirmed promoted officers, it’s because it would take upwards of 700 hours of Senate time to go through the hoops necessary to get by Tuberville’s hold, time that would take away from virtually everything else, including the confirmation of judges.  Moreover, it would set a precedent, telling other wayward Senators that they too could gum up the Senate works.  Schumer is still hoping to get Mitch McConnell to force Tuberville to back off but meantime a slew of military families are living in limbo, unable to move to their new assignments or enroll their children in their new schools.  All so Tommy Tuberville can raise his profile and lots of money.  Maybe he, like far too many others, is hoping to become Trump’s running mate?          

Serious People? In other news, yesterday morning 93-year-old Rupert Murdoch announced that he is stepping down as head of the Fox and News Corps boards.  He asserted that his health is fine and that he’ll still be weighing in on business decisions, even if he’ll no longer be officially in charge. Rupert’s health isn’t fine, though he hid it from the public, he’s been hospitalized a few times over the past two years including for a gnarly bout of COVID.  However, as long as he’s still breathing the reins of Fox and News Corp will pass to his even more conservative son Lachlan who, unlike his father, supported Trump in 2020 so don’t count on a philosophical change until Rupert departs this world at which point the company trust will be split among Lachlan and his more liberal brother James and two of his sisters. That said, Lachlan lives in Australia, doesn’t share his father’s insane work ethic and Fox is still facing some more costly lawsuits, in particular the Smartmatic election machine case still needs to be tried or settled.  In addition, Fox, given its reliance on legacy cable as opposed to streaming and its older viewer base is not positioned well for the future so Lachlan might conclude that now is the time to break up and sell off the company’s assets. Don’t celebrate yet, since it could turn out that Fox’s next owners are even worse than Rupert, think Elon Musk or someone of a similar ilk. As to people of ill repute, Rudy Giuliani’s reputation continues to find new lows, as if that is even possible. In her soon to be released book former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson reports that America’s one time mayor groped her aggressively on January 6.  Naturally, he denies it but since most of us have seen Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and/or are aware of the really icky lawsuit against him by his former associate Noelle Dunphy it’s highly likely that Hutchinson is the truth teller here.  By the way, Rudy’s problems extend beyond those sexual allegations, yesterday lawyers for poll workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss told Beryl Howard, the judge overseeing their defamation case, that Rudy has failed to comply with her order that he pay $89k of their legal fees and turn over certain documents and Rudy is due back in court in early December for the trial to determine the way larger damages amount in their defamation case.   

Foreign Intrigue:  Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy visited Washington and made the required rounds yesterday seeking more support.  Though he received a warm welcome from Biden, most Democrats and some Republicans, another group of Republicans weren’t happy to hear from him and while some of them may have genuine concerns most of them are just following Trump and by extension Putin’s orders. Elsewhere, something weirdly awful is going on between Canada and India. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has called out India’s government and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the assassination of a Sikh leader residing in Canada. As a result of the accusation, which Modi denies but is probably true, relations between the two countries have hit a new low. Then again, maybe Modi has little to worry about since it’s not like engaging in gruesome behavior has done much to hurt Saudi’s Mohammed bin Salman’s reputation. And lastly, there really are more migrants crossing the border right now. The Biden administration is now extending Temporary Protected Status to some of those from Venezuela which will allow them to work legally, that will alleviate the financial burden on cities like New York.       

 

Double Trouble 🌻 🌻 🌻

Dumb and Dumber:  We are seriously into the stupid season.  How else to explain that while House Republicans are crapping all over themselves as they race to close down the government and topple Kevin McCarthy’s speakership, unable to reach consensus on any budget resolution, 46 of their Senate colleagues led by Medicare/Medicaid fraudster Rick Scott of Florida are focused on truly important stuff like the Senate dress code.  They have sent a letter to Senate Leader Chuck Schumer expressing horror at his decision to loosen it to accommodate Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman’s preference for shorts and hoodies. Naturally, their dismay is shared by West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, the Democrat who is threatening to become an Independent in part, or maybe entirely because he’s upset about efforts to move away from fossil fuels and hasn’t decided whether to run for reelection to the Senate largely because he's not sure that he can win again in his state but is also considering running for president on a possible No Labels ticket, a move that would likely ensure a Trump victory.  Republican fascination with all things Fetterman doesn’t stop at his attire, a number of them are convinced that Fetterman has been replaced by a body double, a conspiracy fueled by a combination of sheer idiocy and Fetterman’s post-stroke improving speech.  Fetterman, not one to be outdone in the humor department, is all in on the body double conspiracy and has been tweeting about it because why let a fundraising moment slip by. And of course, though they don’t appear able to pass a budget resolution, even one that will immediately be shot down by the Senate, House Republicans are all set to start their Biden impeachment hearings on September 28.

2024: The twice impeached one, who is likely to be the Republican’s 2024 candidate doesn’t plan to participate in the next Republican debate which is scheduled to take place on September 27.  Instead, he plans to make a competing speech to autoworkers in Detroit because though he’s hardly a man of the people, a number of them think he is.  The team managing his campaign is shrewd, confident that he’ll win the nomination, they’ve already started pivoting to the general election.  Last week, they managed to make Trump sound “flexible” on abortion despite his SCOTUS appointments and his 2016 statement that women should be imprisoned for ending pregnancies, so no surprise that now they’re planning to make him sound like an advocate for labor unions.  That’s a position wildly out of step with his Republican competitors, or at the very least opposite that of South Carolina Senator Tim Scott who citing Ronald Reagan treatment of air controllers, said of the autoworkers that as far as he’s concerned “if you strike, you’re fired.” While not all the Republican candidates want to see the striking workers fired, all of them blame Biden and his focus on moving the industry towards electric cars, because when a lot of your campaign money comes from the fossil fuel industry, that’s the position you take, or else.  Circling back to Tim Scott, he’s been the subject of some gossip and rumors too. Though no one is suggesting that he’s got a doppelganger, some on the right are going after his sexuality, pointing out that his “bachelor” status. Scott’s response to those implications is that he has a secret girlfriend, one that’s so secret that not even his staff has ever met her. Maybe she lives in Canada? Whatever, who cares?  The issue should be his very conservative positions, his multiple votes against Obamacare and his willingness to sign a federal abortion ban.   

Legal Morass:  According to ABC, Molly Michaels, one of Trump’s close aides told investigators that Trump repeatedly wrote to-do lists for her on documents from the White House that were marked classified. The good thing is that Trump was engaging in ecological behavior, the not so good thing is that he was doing it with war plans.  Of even more concern, at least for Trump, after he heard that the FBI wanted to interview Michaels as part of the investigation into his efforts to hide all those boxes of purloined documents, he told Michaels “You don’t know anything about the boxes.”  Just a little witness interference and intimidation among friends and subordinates.  Judging by her cooperation with Special Jack’s team, Trump’s message didn’t sit well with Michaels, but his magic appears to still be working with some including Rudy Giuliani who more than anyone should know better. Despite the fundraiser that Trump reluctantly held for him at his Bedminster club, Rudy is still short cash and not paying his lawyers so he’s now being sued for $1.4 million by Robert Costello of Davidoff Hutcher & Citron.  Costello has represented Rudy on a number of cases but so far has only received chump change in compensation.  Maybe he’s positioning himself to get a portion of the proceeds from the sale of Rudy’s upper east side apartment when and if it sells?  Moving on to another conspiracy theory, Trump’s echo chamber including the likes of Tucker Carlson have pointed fingers at one time Oath Keeper Ray Epps, claiming that the January 6^th participant was a government plant, their proof that Epps had not been indicted.  Well, Epps has now been charged and is expected to plead guilty. Otherwise, it’s been somewhat quiet on the legal front this week. Among other things, we’re still waiting to hear back from Judge Chutkan about Special Jack’s request to clamp down on Trump’s witness and jury intimidating speech.        

Not So Sweet Alabama: It’s seemed odd that Alabama officials defied the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Allen vs Milligan that ordered them to create a new state voting map, one that included a second Black majority, presumably Democratic district. We may now know more about that defiance from an article published in the Alabama Political Reporter (“APR”), none of it good.  According to APR, Alabama state officials have been led to believe by the likes of the Federal Society’s Leonard Leo and some other right-wing, dark money, in the know Supreme Court whisperers that Justice Kavanaugh who surprised most by voting with SCOTUS’s liberals and Chief Justice Roberts to mandate a new fairer Alabama map may now be ready to change his mind, allowing a version of the old racially gerrymandered Alabama map to stand. The Leo crowd’s assessment is based on Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion where he stated that there could come a time in the future when what was left of the Voting Rights Act wouldn’t be necessary.  Maybe Leo has had some conversations with SCOTUS insiders that lead him to believe that Kavanaugh believes that now, just a few months since the Allen opinion, that time has come?  Crazy but with this SCOTUS, possible.  The Court’s reputation, already severely tarnished, could be in for another hit at democracy’s expense.   

Best and the Brightest? 🌻 🌻 🌻

 Counting 🐑 🐑:   Never one to miss a holiday, Trump posted a truly offensive message on Truth Social.  This one, directed at “liberal Jews” celebrating Rosh Hashanah, opened with “Wake up Sheep” before going on to say that by voting against him they had “voted to destroy America and Israel,” and that he “hoped” they had learned from their “mistake” and would “make better choices next year.” Nothing like starting a new year by being compared to a farm animal by a once and possibly (ugh) future president.  What’s next, Trump sponsored trips on cattle cars?  That’s the same Trump that NBC’s Meet the Press tried to normalize on Sunday’s broadcast in order to gin up ratings for their new host Kristen Welker’s debut.  He spewed lies, many of which went unchecked during the interview and also, confessed to some of his crimes while admitting that he didn’t listen to his lawyers because they were just RINOS, and he was president which gave him license to do whatever he wanted to do.  He also tried to distance himself from 6-week abortion bans, calling the one signed by his opponent, Florida’s Ron DeSantis, a terrible mistake, although he didn’t seem all that concerned about the one signed by Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds because she’s endorsed him and that’s all that matters. Trump, who appointed the three judges who moved the court into full anti-abortion mode, refused to say whether he’d sign a 15 week or shorter ban were he to be reelected only because he knows that the majority of Americans don’t want a ban, not because he wouldn’t sign one. He’s despicable and untrustworthy but he’s also a shrewd politician and unlike most of his Republican opponents he cares little about the issue, his only concern is figuring out a position that doesn’t lose him the anti-abortion crowd but lures back into his fold some of those general election voters who like those “liberal Jews” voted to destroy America in 2020 and during the midterms. Naturally, Trump who also said he appreciated the nice compliments he’d received from his BFF Putin, the charmer who canoodled with North Korea’s Kim Jong un last week, has also continued to target all those deranged Communist prosecutors going after him.  Special Counsel Jack Smith’s concern that the mango maniac’s words and social media posts are intended to intimidate witnesses and taint the jury pool is why he has asked Judge Tanya Chutkan to impose a limited gag order to prevent Trump from making any statements about the identity of witnesses in the election interference case that “could be considered “disparaging or intimidating.”  An ordinary citizen acting like Trump would have already been told to shut up or put on an orange jumpsuit, but if we’ve learned anything by now Trump doesn’t get ordinary treatment.  What would Judge Chutkan do if he violated a gag order?  Toss him in jail, unlikely. Accelerate the start of the trial? Fine his lawyers?  Your guess is as good as mine. 

 

Only the Best? Last week Senator Mitt Romney pointed out that many of his Republican colleagues didn’t vote for Trump’s impeachment over concerns that doing so would lose them their seats and crater their political careers. Sadly, that concern isn’t unique to those serving in Washington, it extends to Texas.  Over the weekend the state’s obviously guilty Attorney General, Ken Paxton was acquitted of all of the 16 impeachment charges brought against him by the state’s Republican dominated lower chamber.  To be clear, everyone knows Paxton committed the charges that he was accused of by his own Republican appointees, but only two Republicans had the cojones to vote against him. Paxton, who had been temporarily removed from office pending results of the Texas Senate hearing, is now back in office. Paxton wasn’t the only Republican in the news this weekend, so were Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert and South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem. Just days after Politico published an article about how Boebert was working hard to clean up her image among voters in her district, she was thrown out of a showing of Beetlejuice for vaping, dancing, and displaying an excessive amount of PDA.  The 36-year-old grandmother also gave the finger to the security professionals who escorted her off the premises.  Of course, Boebert initially denied doing anything wrong until incriminating footage landed on TV and social media, at which point, she apologized, blaming her actions on the difficulties of navigating a public divorce. Colorado voters might turn on Boebert, she almost lost her seat during the last election, but Kevin McCarthy won’t because he needs her vote and anyway it’s not like anyone didn’t already know about her rather extensive rap sheet.  It turns out that Governor Noem who’s been busy auditioning to be Trump’s VP pick, or failing that, obtaining a cabinet nod, isn’t much of a moral model citizen either.  Reports are that Noem has been having a not very discrete extramarital affair with Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s one time campaign manager.  Lewandowski, who is also married, has previously been credibly accused of sexual harassment.  Of course, sexual harassment and marital affairs even by so called family first politicians are hardly disqualifiers in Trump world.

 

And: Kevin McCarthy and his band of broken toys may be getting closer, or further away depending on who you ask, from passing a short-term resolution to keep the government open. If they manage to pass anything, it will be chock full of drastic cuts to non-defense spending that won’t pass the Senate which means the government could still be headed into shutdown mode at the end of the month. The United Auto Workers “limited” strike remains unresolved.  And, this morning ABC reported that Iran plans to finally free five “detained” Americans today in a prisoner, money swap that involves the release of $6 billion of Iran oil revenues that had been held frozen in South Korea as the result of US sanctions.        

Apples and Honey 🌻 🌻 🌻 🍎 🍎 🍎 🍯 🍯 🍯

Mitt’s Lament:  One-time presidential candidate Utah Senator Mitt Romney announced that he won’t be running for reelection.  He’s 76 years old, has a net worth somewhere around $300 million, likes spending time with his family and, to put it mildly, hasn’t enjoyed his Washington experience so his decision not to seek reelection isn’t all that surprising. Romney still has a year left on his term and given what he said during his announcement and what he’s apparently also told his biographer whose book is due out in October, his remaining days in the Senate may be lonelier than ever because he has little nice to say about his Republican colleagues.  He pointed out that most of them routinely show private disdain for all things Trump but are too chicken to say anything publicly either because they are so invested in staying in Washington or are too afraid of getting some of those death threats that follow Trump critics home at night. He’s been spending thousands of dollars a day on security.  He particularly despises Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, and Ohio Senator JD Vance, three smart guys whose evil is that much worse because they know better.  He also revealed that after receiving a warning from Maine’s Independent Senator, Senate Intelligence Committee member Angus King about the likelihood of violence on January 6, a warning that included reports of “gun smuggling, of bombs and arson, of targeting the traitors in Congress” as in people like Romney who had voted Trump guilty, that he texted what he’d learned to then Senate leader McConnell but got no response from the turtle. Not satisfied to only attack his Senate colleagues and their orange god, Romney also threw some shade at President Biden, saying that it was time for him to move aside for someone younger. Ironically in most respects, Romney’s political positions aren’t all that different than most of his Republican colleagues, he’s just as conservative and like former Representative Liz Cheney consistently voted the party line.  Romney’s problem is with their disdain for the Constitution and with the way they’ve sold their collective souls to Trump. Kudos to Romney for behaving ethically, for his truth telling and for voting for Trump guilty, but not so much for his votes to lower taxes on the richest, against reproductive choice, and against environment and infrastructure spending.  

Ugh:  NBC’s Kristen Welker is replacing Chuck Todd as host of Meet the Press and her first guest will be Trump.  Snippets of the interview which is due to air on Sunday are being shown on NBC and its affiliates because why not give the former guy who oh so much wants to be the next and maybe even the forever guy more airtime?  Naturally, Trump has a lot to say about how he’s being unfairly targeted by all those demented, communist prosecutors for actions that he says were totally legitimate because he had every right to upturn the election, horde top secret documents, lie and cheat on his financials, assault women and so on. Hunter Biden may want to weigh in on unfair treatment by prosecutors.  Yesterday, Joe’s son was indicted for lying on his gun application.  He did lie on that application, but those charges are rarely applied, saved for career criminals like drug kingpins, rather than first time offenders with addiction issues. It’s not a stretch to assume that the seriously flawed Hunter is in this pickle because of his father’s prominence. It’s not clear that his case, that was almost settled earlier in this saga will make it to trial but whether it does or not, it’s got to be painful for his doting father who knows that he’s the real target. On the subject of painful, Congresswoman Mary Peltola, the newbie Democratic Alaska representative who beat out Sarah Palin to win her House seat, lost her husband this week.  Just one week after she and a few other local politicians hosted Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg around the state, showing him the difficulties and dangers of traveling through the Last Frontier, her husband died in a plane crash, something that happens to peripatetic politicians and their friends and family too often in Alaska.

Trump’s Legal Quagmire: It’s hard to keep track of what’s going on with all of the Trump and Trump related cases but here’s a quick overview.  Yesterday, Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee ruled against Fulton County DA Fani Willis who was trying to get all of her co-defendants tried at the same time, saying that the defendants who don’t want a speedy trial can’t be forced to have one just because Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell want theirs to happen fast.  That means that Trump will not be tried with Chesebro and Powell in October.  Neither will Mark Meadows who abandoned his request to have his trial paused while he continues to try to get his trial moved to federal court because that pause is no longer necessary.  Judge “loose” Canon has finally spoken, as requested by Special Counsel Jack Smith she’s limiting Trump’s access to the Mar a Lago purloined documents evidence and barring him from discussing sensitive documents. In New York, a state appeals court judge temporarily halted the scheduled October 2 trail in the fraud case against Trump and his business while a five judge panel reviews Trump’s attempt to narrow the scope of AG Letitia James lawsuit. That’s the case that could result in Trump and company coughing up bigly bucks while being banned from business in the state so not all that surprising that Trump is trying to narrow its scope but a real bummer that he may succeed, or at the very least has succeeded in delaying the trial..

And:  Keep an eye on Virginia where control of the state legislature is up for grabs in November.  Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin is pushing really hard to swing control back to Republicans and if he does, abortion rights will suffer.  Youngkin asserts that he’d “only” impose restrictions after 15 weeks but also won’t rule out signing a 6 week ban if the legislature hands him one to sign.  As to the 15 weeks limit, it’s truly problematic.  Most women seeking elective abortions do so as early as possible.  Abortions that take place after 15 weeks are generally done to deal with serious health concerns that develop after the first trimester so banning the procedure then puts the health and future fertility of women in jeopardy. The November election is expected to be close, maybe even closer now as one of the Democratic candidates is having a Santos moment.  While she didn’t kill any puppies and as far as I can tell isn’t pretending to celebrate Rosh HaSsanah, she and her husband previously ran a side hustle, raising money by performing sex acts online. Oy.  Not sexy but still a problem, seeking pay raise increases in line with those of senior management the United Auto Workers went on strike last night, targeting three auto plants.  So far only 13,000 of UAWs 145,000 workers are affected but the strike could grow.  Republicans in the House might as well be on strike, because they’ve mostly been yelling at each other, even Kevin McCarthy is in on the act, reports are that he used the “F” word during a contentious meeting with his loons when he lost it over Panhandle Matt Gaetz. He still has his speakership but has passed no budgets and when and if he gets his crowd to vote on something, it won’t be anything that the Senate will pass.  A shutdown looms, and we’re not talking about just 🚗 🚘 🚙 plants.    

Shana Tovah

Happy and Healthy New Year 

 

Rinse, Repeat, Impeach 🌻 🌻 🌻

Impeachment Politics: Facing threats from his right and urged on by Trump who has been actively pushing him to do so, Kevin McCarthy announced the opening of an impeachment inquiry into President Biden yesterday to placate Trump but also in exchange for some Republican votes for a budget package. The President has a disturbed, legally compromised son but Hunter isn’t a government official, and Joe hasn’t done anything impeachable, however that’s of no concern to McCarthy and his crowd because they’re just looking to create a false equivalency scenario for Trump who is seeking retribution for the various and sundry attempts to hold him accountable for his very real criminal activity.  Despite earlier promising that he wouldn’t open an inquiry without first holding a floor vote, something that is necessary for subpoenas to be valid, or so Republicans claimed during Pelosi’s regime,  McCarthy didn’t hold one, because he doesn’t have enough votes and doesn’t want to put the most vulnerable members of his caucus in the position of having to take a public position on an issue that could put them in jeopardy of losing their seats in 2024.  Panhandle Putz Matt Gaetz who together with Margie Q has been one of those aggressively pushing for Biden’s impeachment wasn’t satisfied with McCarthy’s “anemic” action because he wants that floor vote so he’s now threatening to call for a motion to vacate, House-speak for a vote on tossing the Speaker to the curb.  And because she’s just another one angling to be Trump’s running mate, New York’s Elise Stefanik who is third in Republican House leadership and maybe even second these days since second in command Steve Scalise is undergoing chemotherapy, has been in constant communication with Trump, doing his bidding. To summarize, the Republicans, despite years of trying, don’t have implicating dirt on Biden but are all in on giving him the Benghazi treatment and while it would be nice to be able to dismiss their impeachment shenanigans, the Benghazi hearings uncovered Hillary’s emails, costing her the 2016 election, leaving us with Trump in the first place.

Trump’s Legal Mess: The opening of the Biden impeachment inquiry sucked up lots of yesterday’s media time, which of course is one of the points of pursuing it, but that didn’t stop things from happening in Trump’s various cases, well most of his cases as not much is happening in Florida where Judge Eileen “loose” Cannon appears to be taking her time about almost everything. Former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows hasn’t given up on having his Fulton County case tried in federal court.  He’s appealing Judge Jones’ Friday decision to keep his case in Fulton County and has asked Jones to stay his “stay in Fulton County” decision as his lawyers run an appeal through the 11^th US Circuit Court of Appeals and then up to SCOTUS. Ken Chesebro, who has already been granted a speedy trial has filed a motion to have all the charges against him dropped, arguing that he was just acting within his capacity as a lawyer when he advised the Trump campaign how to interfere with the election via the false elector scheme.  Not to be outdone, Trump’s lawyers have also asked to have some, if not all, of the Fulton County charges against him dropped because he too was just doing his job.  For her part District Attorney Fani Willis is pushing to have all 19 defendants tried at once, a bit of a problem since some want to be tried fast, others not so much and others not at all.  Shifting to Washington, Trump’s lawyers have asked Judge Chutkan who is overseeing the January 6 election interference/insurrection case to recuse, something about her being obviously prejudiced against Trump while also being Black, okay they didn’t put the Black part in writing, but you know it’s on their mind. Let’s not forget New York, where Trump’s lawyers, a different set because he needs and has lots of them, have asked another federal appeals court to pause E Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit, the one that is focused only on determining how much he owes her for calling her a liar when she wasn’t lying, to give him time to invoke an immunity defense. 

States of Play:  Maybe two times will be the charm, at least that’s what officials in Alabama are hoping.  Despite losing at the Supreme Court earlier this year, state officials are pursuing another appeal in an effort to keep a districting map that still limits the state’s Black residents to one winnable House district.  For some reason, they believe that they’ll be able to persuade Justice Kavanaugh to flip his vote their way, doubtful but maybe they know something the rest of us don’t. Things aren’t much better in Wisconsin; there the Republican dominated legislature is threatening to impeach newly elected State Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz who recently trounced her Republican opponent by a previously unheard of 11 points.  Protasiewicz’ crime, she’s liberal and Republican legislators fear that she will throw out the heavily gerrymandered district map that results in swingy Wisconsin, a 50-50 state with a Democratic Governor and one Democratic US Senator having such a Republican dominated legislature. They’re also not happy that she’s pro-choice and is expected to join with the state’s other left leaning judges to overturn Wisconsin’s 1849 law that makes it a felony to perform an abortion.  They’re right to be concerned about both, she was voted in for a reason. And, then there’s Arizona, a pivotal state where a Senate seat will be up in 2024.  Blake Masters, the right-wing Trump endorsed/Peter Thiel funded candidate who lost to Democratic Senator/Astronaut Mark Kelly in 2022 is very publicly squabbling with Kari Lake, the Trump loving election denier who still insists she won the governor race that she didn’t win. Both want to be the Republican candidate in 2024.  Current Senator, Krysten Sinema, the former Democrat who is now an independent caucusing with the Democrats, hasn’t announced her plans. Congressman Ruben Gallego is likely to be the Democratic candidate. Arizona is so much fun to watch, well maybe only for masochists.     

Viral Musings:  Roll up your sleeves, Pfizer and Moderna’s newest COVID vaccinations are approved and available to almost everyone though the CDC says that people recently vaccinated should wait two months before getting the updated shot and that those who have been recently infected can wait three months but can also get it “as soon as they’re feeling better.” The newest Novavax shot hasn’t been approved yet but probably will be soon if that’s your preference. Though Florida’s DeSantis appointed wacko Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, the guy who doesn’t believe in masks, continues to rail against vaccines, the new COVID shot will be made available in Florida, a good thing because infections and hospitalizations are increasing there now, even faster than in other states.  

 

 

September 11 🌻 🌻 😭 😭

Twenty-Two Years: The horror of 9.11 was supposed to bring us together and it did for a minute or so but now in 2023, instead of just respectfully remembering the day, the right-wing press has created a faux controversy about President Biden disrespecting the fallen and their families by commemorating the events of that horrible day in Alaska rather than at the World Trade Center site, the Pentagon or the fields of Somerset, Pennsylvania.  Biden will be in Alaska because he’s on his way home from G 20 meeting in India and from Viet Nam where he solidified important relationships including one with the now ally, former domino, that was, because up is down and down is up, once the enemy.  Then again, the media, all of it needs a story to harp on so they also continue to push the age card, mostly against Biden, ignoring that he’s been acting more like an energizer bunny these days, albeit one with marbles in his mouth.  Note to all of them, we know Biden is old, but we also know that Trump is too and that he, fueled by hatred and desperate to avoid the consequences of his actions, represents an existential threat to democracy. Sure, it might be nice to have younger candidates, but as Ronny D and Vivek show, younger doesn’t equate to good and, Democrats being Democrats the fight to anoint a Biden successor would probably ignite a battle with its own set of consequences so let’s all mine our reserves and spark some enthusiasm for our guy and his partner, the undeservedly maligned because, well everyone knows why, Kamala Harris. I have it on good authority that we little people aren’t doing enough to help out these days so consider going to ActBlue and contributing whenever you hear Trump’s name, every little bit helps.  On the subjects of fundraising and seniors, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, another, eighty-year-old, but one with more energy than most half her age announced that she’s running for reelection and why not, she’s a fundraising dynamo, and shows little signs of slowing down.

BFF Fulton Style:  Mark Meadows doesn’t strike me as someone who is aging particularly well and after last week’s court ruling the 64-year- old probably is feeling less chipper than usual.  On Friday, Judge Steven Jones of the Northern District of Georgia rejected his request to have his Fulton County case heard in Federal court.  Judge Jones didn’t buy that Meadows was just doing his federal job when he helped Trump try to overturn the results of the Georgia presidential election. Basically, the judge concluded that presidents don’t get to interfere in state elections and their chiefs of staff aren’t acting within the scope of their jobs when they them do so. Naturally, Meadows is appealing but should the ruling stand, it’s unlikely that the other Fulton County defendants who are also trying to move their cases to Federal court will achieve a different result.  That means that whenever the Fulton County cases go to trial, we’ll be able to watch them live because Georgia hearings, unlike Federal ones, can be televised.  It also means that the jury will be made up of Fulton County residents.  On Friday, we also learned via the unsealing of the records of the special grand jury that investigated all the Georgia election interference that the jurors recommended indicting quite a few more people than DA Fani Willis ultimately indicted.  The expanded list included such notables as South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, former Georgia Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, convicted but then pardoned former national security advisor/Q-ster Michael Flynn, lawyer/advisors Boris Epshteyn, Lin Wood and Clea MItchell.  Lindsey Graham was a potential indictee because he was another one who made a call or two to push to get “just enough” Biden votes eliminated from the Georgia vote tally.  For a whole bunch of reasons, some likely related to not feeling like she had enough evidence to get convictions and others related to not wanting to further complicate her case and/or open up more cans of worms because we know that indicting Graham would have created a helminth hellscape, inflaming and infuriating many including a number of his already most screechy Senate colleagues, Fani Willis decided not to pursue charges against the expanded list, at least for now. Understandable, but too bad because maybe if she got Lindsey Graham on the witness stand, the rest of us could find out what it is that Trump has been holding over his head for all these years.  

Rebranding: Count me as someone who always found it dastardly brilliant that the anti-abortion movement called itself pro-life. By branding as pro-life and by extension pro-adorably cute little babies, at least until they need health and childcare, they were able to push the mantra that those supportive of allowing women to make their own reproductive choices were just cold-hearted baby killers. Advocating for abortions, rather than just wanting them to be an option, isn’t a thing, nor are abortions at term or later, but by coopting the pro-life moniker, the anti-abortion crowd managed to occupy a twisted moral high ground that left the pro-choice crowd perpetually on the defensive and in search for a better name.  That’s why it’s particularly ironic that reports surfaced last week that faced with the election consequences of the Roe v Wade overturning Dobbs decision, some in the pro-life crowd, or at the very least their pollsters and political advisors, are looking to rebrand their movement since pro-life is no longer resonating with those key suburban voters who they believe could be persuaded back onto the Republican bandwagon if only the anti-abortion movement tinkered with its. I’d like to suggest ODA, the Organization of Delusional Handmaids? Help me out here, there’s got to be a better acronym.

And:  There’s been lots of talk about invoking the 14^th Amendment to prevent insurrectionist Trump from running again and it looks like Colorado will be the first state to start the process of litigating that approach.  If we’ve learned anything by now its that relying on the courts to solve the Trump problem in a timely fashion, if at all, is probably not going to work but good for them if they want to start the ball rolling, just don’t count on it going anywhere anytime soon.  Also, not going anywhere is Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville who is now responsible for holding up the confirmation of 300 or so key military promotions over his opposition to the military aiding women who need to travel to obtain abortions. Even a number of Republicans, including House Foreign Relations Committee Chair Michael McCaul say that Tuberville is paralyzing the Defensive Department but still no concession from Tuberville who is loving the spotlight and has now moved on to calling the military a group of woke poets.  It’s hard to believe that even a weakened Mitch McConnell can’t rein Tuberville in, so the implication is that he just doesn’t care enough to do anything about him.  Lastly, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem is running for VP, we know that because she just endorsed Trump.   

 

 

Good Shade 🌻 🌻 🌻

Contempt: Trump’s former Director of Trade Policy Peter Navarro was one of the first people to realize and speak out about the dangers of the coronavirus back when it was just that curious deadly disease affecting China. That may have been the last time he was right about something.  Yesterday, Navarro was found guilty of contempt of Congress for failing to honor a Congressional subpoena, not the biggest crime but still a crime.  Navarro had no problem sharing his White House experiences in a book or telling all about what he called the Green Bay Sweep, as in Trump’s attempted coup, on Ari Melber’s MSNBC show, but he refused to testify before Congress, claiming that he couldn’t because of executive privilege that he didn’t have.  Like Steve Bannon before him, Navarro is likely to appeal so it’s unlikely that he’ll show up in an orange jumpsuit anytime soon which is too bad because it means we are going to hear lots more from him, mostly about his huge legal bills, and to be fair they are growing by the minute as he’s not one of those who Trump is subsidizing. Trump’s also not doing much to subsidize Rudy Giuliani, who’s legal expenses and defamation fines make Navarro’s seem like chump change, but he did host a Bedminster Golf Club $100k a head tete a tete for Rudy last night, the very least he could do given how Rudy’s Ukraine shenanigans led to his first impeachment and how his false claims of election fraud led to the second, not to mention all that January 6 stuff. Though Trump is still financing loyal employee Walt Nauta’s expenses he’s off the hook for those of IT guy Yuscil Taveras who with his new non-Trump financed lawyer’s help has struck a cooperation deal with Special Counsel Jack Smith. One guy who will be wearing orange for a long time is Enrique Tarrio, the former head of the Proud Boys.  He wasn’t at the Capitol on January 6 because he’d been arrested two days prior and banned from DC for burning a Black Lives Matter flag, but nevertheless, since he was the brains behind the January 6 insurrection he was convicted of seditious conspiracy and obstructing the transfer of government and has been sentenced to serve 22 years in prison, even longer than the previous record, the 18 year sentence given to likeminded Oath Keeper Stewart Rhodes.  Both of these guys, as well as quite a few others had been offered plea bargains which would have cut their sentences in half but they didn’t take the offers, instead banking on Trump, or some other Republican like Ron DeSantis who is on record saying that the insurrectionists haven’t been treated fairly because what’s a little seditious conspiracy among friends, pardoning them or commuting their sentences at some date in the future.  One guy who neither Trump nor Ron D will pardon, is Hunter Biden and the way things are going he might need one.  David Weiss, the Special Counsel on his case, has signaled that he’s planning to indict him for lying about his drug use on a gun application. Weiss had previously agreed not to do that but he’s now playing hardball, maybe because of political pressure from the right or because he’s embarrassed that the plea deal he thought he had reached with Hunter has blown up. Though we should all be able to agree that people with drug problems shouldn’t be able to obtain guns, this gun charge is generally saved for dangerous felons, and no one thinks that Hunter, who got rid of his gun shortly after he bought it, is a danger to anyone except maybe himself and his father’s candidacy.  Don’t be surprised if that charge goes away since Hunter is now represented by super-duper white collar lawyer Abbe Lowell who has also represented Jared and Ivanka.  

 

Dance Card 💃 🕺 : Turning to Fulton County, much to co-defendant Kenneth Chesebro’s chagrin Judge Scott McAfee has decided that he will be tried beside kraken lawyer Sidney Powell since both have requested speedy trials.  Chesebro, who knows Powell is a loon, isn’t happy but so be it.  Anyway, though a trial date of October 23 has been set for the two of them, it’s still not clear that anything will really happen then since there’s still a chance that the whole shebang will be moved to a federal court, something that a few of the co-defendants including Mark Meadows and Trump are seeking. House Judiciary Chair Gym Jordan who only cares about subpoenas and the like when he’s not the person being subpoenaed, has been put in his place by DA Fani Willis who rejected his efforts to get anything out of her and basically told him to get stuffed while also throwing lots of serious shade in his direction.  Among other things, she told Jordan who went to law school but never passed the legal bar that as a “non-member of the legal bar” he could learn more about the Georgia RICO law by purchasing a guide called “RICO State by State” for only $249.  She also included copies of some of the really awful heinous threats that she and her team have been receiving due to verbal attacks by people like him. As to Trump, his dance card keeps filling up and though nothing he says ever resembles the truth, he’s told radio show host Hugh Hewitt that of course he’ll testify at one or all of his trials even though we all know that he won’t because of heel spurs or something else equally deadly. Though Trump will have to appear in court for his criminal trials, he doesn’t have to make an appearance for his civil ones.  One of those civil trials, the second case involving his defamation of E Jean Caroll is all but settled, well the facts are settled, all that’s left is determining how much more than the $5 million he’s already been fined that Trump owes E Jean for calling her a liar. That case is scheduled to take place in January.  Despite Trump’s efforts to get his NYS Civil case delayed, the one where NYS AG Letitia James is seeking both to prohibit the Trump Organization from doing business in NY, at least for a while, and a $250 million fine, is still on for early October.    

 

And:  Elon Musk continues to blame the Anti-Defamation League and by extension “the Jews” for X’s loss in advertising revenue because that’s a strategy that’s worked so well in the past?  And now we’ve learned via an about to be published biography of him penned by Walter Isaacson that he really did order his engineers to turn off his company’s Starlink satellite communications network near the Crimean coast last year to disrupt a Ukrainian sneak attack on the Russian naval fleet over his concerns that the attack would lead to a “mini-Pearl Harbor” with nukes. Musk is right not to want nuclear Armageddon, but there’s something weird about a private citizen unilaterally making strategic military decisions, another reason why contracting key functions and relying on the technology of eccentric billionaires is probably not a good thing.  And it turns out that Republican leadership, including NY Congresswoman, third in GOP House leadership, Elise Stefanik knew all about George Santos’ lies when they backed him for Congress but stood by him and in Stefanik’s case campaigned for him, anyway.

 

The Usual Suspects 🌻 🌻 🌻

September Fun:   The multiply indicted, twice impeached candidate for president who is running to stay out of jail on a theme of retribution is currently tied in the polls with the current president, the nice guy whose record includes major legislative accomplishments and making lifesaving insulin affordable.  Polls at this point probably don’t mean much but still that’s about as scary and disturbing as it gets.  The chief complaints about Biden appear to be his age and his handling of the economy.  Biden is only four years older than the guy described as a strawberry blonde by Fulton County prison officials and the economy, despite all those warnings of an impending recession, is doing fine and most economist no longer believe that a recession is coming. As to health and age, first lady Jill Biden who is younger than both of them has what is being described as a “mild” case of COVID, not all that surprising because who doesn’t know a half a dozen people who have or have recently had COVID including dozens of tennis players at the US Open where a “mystery” virus otherwise known as COVID has been making the rounds?  Perhaps a little more surprising is that Mitch McConnell who makes Biden look like a spring chicken didn’t have a stroke and is not suffering from either epilepsy or Parkinson’s disease, at least that’s what the medical report he shared says.  To the extent the report is accurate, his freezing episodes are just part of his concussion recovery.  Among the skeptics are his fellow Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, the non-practicing ophthalmologist who created his own medical society because he couldn’t pass the boards offered by the real one.  Pick your poison, one of these guys, is fudging the facts.  Speaking of facts, George Santos the Congressman who wouldn’t know one if it wore a neon hat and punched him in the nose, may be negotiating a plea deal with Federal prosecutors.  If true, that means that he’ll be gone perhaps as early as October, decreasing Kevin McCarthy’s already slim majority by one. That‘s a bigly problem for McCarthy but also not so good for budget negotiations because McCarthy’s already slim majority is making it very difficult for him to manage his caucus since the likes of Panhandle Putz Matt Gaetz and Margie Q insist that they won’t vote for any budget that doesn’t defund the FBI, investigations into Trump, Ukraine, and COVID vaccines.  They also insist that McCarthy first hold a vote on opening an impeachment inquiry into Biden, a problem because so far McCarthy doesn’t have the votes to do so in part because Biden’s only “crime” appears to be that he loves his screwed-up, sleazy son. On the subject of passing a budget, Senate Republicans are not in line with their House counterparts largely because they know that Republicans will be blamed if budget hijinks throw the government into shut down mode.  Getting through the budget nightmare will test McConnell’s competence. Successfully imposing some rationality on his House colleagues, if that is even possible, would go far to proving that Mitch has still got all his marbles as would getting Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville to stop standing in the way of confirming the growing list of military officers who are currently in limbo as concerns keep building that Tuberville’s antics are weakening our military position, not good when Russia’s Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong un are playing footsie and sharing weaponry.

Racist Much? Tuberville who isn’t really a resident of Alabama but pretends to be one for Senate qualification purposes is sadly representative of his state’s zeitgeist, at least the state’s white one, which goes far to explaining why state officials thought that ignoring a recent Supreme Court ruling that threw out their obviously racially gerrymandering legislative map.  The map that SCOTUS rejected screwed Black Alabamians who make-up more than one quarter of the state’s population out of an additional Congressional seat.  Alabama’s answer to SCOTUS was to present an almost identical map. Yesterday their revised map was rejected by a panel of federal judges who ruled that it needed to be redrawn again because “Republican lawmakers had failed to comply with orders to create a second majority Black district or something close to it.” Noting that state officials didn’t even “nurture the ambition to provide the required remedy” the court has appointed a special master to come up with new fairer districts.  News out of Texas is a bit unusual too. A few months ago, the Republican dominated state house voted to impeach another Republican, State Attorney General Ken Paxton.  Yesterday the state’s Senate, also dominated by Republicans, voted to proceed with his impeachment hearing, despite Paxton’s efforts to get them to vote to drop all of the charges. It’s still not clear that the Texas Senate will find Paxton, who clearly did a lot of things that he shouldn’t have done, guilty but they might and that would be both remarkable and a warning to a certain other guy that eventually the law can catch up with you, well maybe.  As to that other guy, his Truth Social platform escaped a bullet yesterday when its SPAC partner managed to get another extension.  In other social platform news, because blaming Jews is sadly still a thing, Elon Musk is threatening to sue the Anti-Defamation League for defamation, holding them responsible for the 60% decline in X’s (Twitter’s) advertising revenue.  ADL’s “crime,” telling advertisers that having their ads appear alongside Nazi and white supremacist hate messaging is not a good thing. Maybe, the Wall Street Journal is his next target, last night the paper reported on how he used SpaceX to partially fund his Twitter acquisition and last week they reported that he was being investigated by the Department of Justice for using Tesla money to fund his new very large glass house.      

And:  Gabe Amo won Rhode Island’s Democratic Primary for the seat vacated by Democratic Congressman David Cicilline. Given the make-up of the district he is expected to make it to Congress. Amo, the son of Ghanaian and Liberian immigrants, previously served in both the Obama and Biden administrations.  He won in a crowded field that also included a “progressive” candidate endorsed by the trio of Bernie Sanders, AOC, and Jane Fonda.  So maybe Biden’s brand isn’t all that unpopular after all?        

 

 

 

Margaritaville 🌻 🌻 🌻 🍷 🍷 🍷 🍷 

Parrot Heads:  President Biden went to Florida to commiserate with those affected by Hurricane Idalia.  He was snubbed by Governor DeSantis who is afraid that being seen in the same frame as the President would further sink his anemic poll rankings while also highlighting his relatively diminutive physical stature despite his usual high heel cowboy boots. Biden was greeted by former governor, current Senator Rick Scott who said nice things about what a good job he was doing helping Florida deal with the hurricane aftermath. Scott is up for reelection in 2024, he couldn’t disagree more with Biden on just about every issue, but he’s a shrewd politician and no fan of DeSantis. His willingness to greet Biden, made him look good despite his advocacy for phasing out Medicare and Medicaid, not an easy feat, while making DeSantis look petty.  Overall, it wasn’t a good week for DeSantis, a Florida District Court Judge ruled that the redistricting plan that he pushed through the gerrymandered Florida legislature violates the state constitution by intentionally diminishing the ability of Black voters in north Florida to pick a representative of their choice in violation of the Florida Constitution. The judge ordered that the map be redrawn to give the Democrats back the seat he tried to steal.

 

Frozen Margarita: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is another one who had a rough week. He had another one of those disturbing “freezing” episodes on camera for all to see. It’s not clear what’s causing his freeze frames, McConnell’s people deny that he’s experiencing mini-strokes and to be fair a number of TV doctors including CNN’s Sanjay Gupta agree with that assessment.  McConnell’s team attributes his episodes to a challenging recovery from the concussion that he suffered earlier in the year. Nevertheless, it’s clear that the 81- year-old McConnell has grown increasingly fragile. For now, the three Republican Senators most likely to replace him should he retire or end up in the deep freeze have his back, at least they do in public.  What the three, a group that includes Senators Barrasso, Thune and Cornyn, are saying in private is another matter.  However, Presidential candidate Nikki Haley is talking about it, referring to the Senate as a “privileged nursing home,” she’s using McConnell’s infirmity and the sad case of the even more fragile and diminished Dianne Feinstein as a cudgel against the candidacies of both the 77-year-old Trump and the 80-year-old Biden.  As to the nursing home analogy, at least with regard to Feinstein, Haley is right but no surprise that Haley never mentions that Feinstein is still serving because McConnell, diminished or not, is still doing his judge thing and has made it clear that he won’t let Democrats appoint anyone else to replace her on the Senate Judiciary Committee even if she resigns from the Senate. Feinstein stepping down would tie up the committee, making it impossible for the Democrats to vote in any more of Biden’s judicial nominees. Worth noting that if Feinstein exited her Senate replacement would be another Democrat appointed by Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom but if McConnell is frozen out, his replacement would be another Republican because even though Kentucky’s Governor Andy Beshear is a Democrat, a recently passed Kentucky law mandates that the Governor appoint someone from the same party as the Senator being replaced.  Naturally, the press, just about everyone on the right and some on the left, have quickly pivoted to focusing on Biden’s age too and while it’s fair to note that his speech, never one of his strong points, seems more labored than ever, Biden appears to be functioning and legislating (fingers and toes crossed).  Evidence of that is that he just announced the first drugs for Medicare price negotiations, that’s one of those bigly things that Trump said he’d do but never did.

 

Haven’t a Clue: Curiously, many of those who swipe at Biden have no problem with Trump’s age, his increasingly threatening statements, and his social media posts. As to those posts, Trump posted on X (Twitter) following his Fulton County arrest for the first time since he was banned before pivoting back to his Truth Social platform.  Truth Social needs all the help it can get, its SPAC merger with Digital World faces a key September 8 deadline.  If shareholders fail to vote to either move forward with the merger or to extend the merger deadline again, Digital World will be required to liquidate and return $300 million to its shareholding leaving Trump and Truth Social with nothing from the much-hyped transaction.  Who but everyone could have anticipated that another Trump business would implode?  Trump steak anyone?   Trump’s response is that reports of Truth Social’s demise is just more fake news from those Communists on the left and who knows, maybe Truth Social will find a savior someone like Elon Musk, whose weekend antics included holding an X (Twitter) poll on whether or not to kick the Anti-Defamation League off his platform.  The ADL’s crime, pointing out all the neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers, and racist message propagators who have been welcomed to his platform. To be clear, in Musk world hate messages qualify as free speech but pointing out hate, not so much.  Another one of those things that appears to be spinning Trump out of control and feeding his Truth posting, is NY AG Letitia James request that the NYS judge responsible for her civil case against the Trump Organization just go ahead and rule that the Trump Organization grossly overstated the value of its assets even before the trial starts because, as she points out, they obviously did. Trump who continues to insist that he’s richer than rich, says if any “mistakes” were made, he had nothing to do with them as all decisions were made by his son Eric.       

 

 

Wasting Away: Add Rudy Giuliani to the list of people who have hit rock bottom and are still sinking.  Last week Federal Judge Beryl Howell found that he defamed Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss and is liable for damages after he failed to comply with discovery obligations in their lawsuit over his “baseless” claims that they committed election fraud when all they did was share a ginger mint.  A civil trial will now be held to determine the amount of the damages that he will be required to pay them.  Rudy will probably appeal, stall, plead poverty and do whatever else he can to avoid paying up.  Then again, maybe Freeman and Moss’ attorneys can put a lien on that $6.5 million NYC apartment that Rudy is trying to unload? Rudy whose faces a boat load of other charges in Fulton County is still out and about, but a few Proud Boys aren’t as last week some of them were sentenced to serve a whole lot of time as in 18 and 10 years for their January 6^th actions.  As to Fulton County, it’s hard to keep what’s going on there straight given that some of the defendants want speedy trials, some don’t, and some want their cases severed while others haven’t specified what they want yet.  District Attorney Fani Willis has her hands full but one thing she may not have to worry about is being kicked out of office.  Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, one of the few Republicans who has figured out how to win without kowtowing to Trump says that he won’t support efforts to oust her.  That sets him far apart from Mark Meadows who during his unexpected testimony last week said that he did what ever Trump asked him to do, even all that election interference stuff which he argued was part of his job, because he didn’t want to be yelled at by Trump.  Then there’s Margie Q, the Georgia representative who cares little about being yelled at, in fact she appears to like fighting.  Her newest battle, she says she’s going to hold up funding the government until impeachment proceedings against Biden are initiated, Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigations are defunded, Special Counsel David Weiss who is responsible for the Hunter Biden investigation is fired, the FBI is reined in, all vaccine mandates are rescinded, and the US stops funding Ukraine.    

 

RIP Jimmy Buffet, Bill Richardson, and Mark Schneider