Happy New Year ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻 🥂🥂🥂 

Bye Bye 2023:  Trump who has been known to complain about how Christmas is being ruined by those who say Happy Holiday rather than Merry Christmas did manage to include the merry part in his annual holiday message but the rest of his totally in character holiday post hardly reflected the holiday spirit, especially the part where he attacked the current leaders of the country as THUGS while wishing that THEY ROT IN HELL. It’s fair to assume that his new year’s message will be no better.  The endgame of 2023 is here, and it looks increasingly likely that despite all, the courts aren’t going to save us from Trump.  SCOTUS has rebuffed Special Counsel Jack Smith’s request to leapfrog consideration of Trump’s presidential immunity and double indemnity claims over the Appeals court.  As a result, there is virtually no chance that the election obstruction case will begin in March as even an expedited appeals process takes time.  Just about everyone expects that Trump’s double indemnity claim will get immediately tossed, with the courts focusing on his immunity defense. Though most legal pundits think that won’t hold water either and that Trump’s argument that he was allowed to interfere in state elections and engage in insurrection because both acts were in the scope of his role as president shouldn’t fly, we will only know for sure once the SCOTUS that he stacked weighs in. As to those hopes that as an insurrectionist, and Trump pretty much keeps admitting that he is one, Trump can be kept off the ballot, that’s a stretch too.  The Colorado Republican Party has asked SCOTUS to overrule Colorado’s decision to disqualify Trump from appearing on the state’s Republican primary ballot and Trump’s lawyers are expected to follow suit shortly. Moreover, Michigan’s top court just ruled that Trump can’t be kept off their state’s primary ballot.  They didn’t weigh in on whether or not Trump is an insurrectionist, but instead concluded that Michigan’s law doesn’t prohibit insurrectionists from running in primaries. The Fulton County case is on the slow track, not expected to come to a trial until late summer and forget about the Mar a Lago case presided over by Judge Eileen “loose” Cannon.  That case is supposed to be a slam dunk for prosecutors but given that Cannon is doing all she can to impede it, it’s probably not going to make it to trial until after the election or never. Despite all the delays, Jack Smith’s team which deserves credit for working through the holidays is still preparing for trial. Yesterday they asked election obstruction case Judge Tanya Chutkan to prohibit Trump’s legal team from introducing “irrelevant disinformation,” like the claims that Trump pushes in his campaign stump speeches including the one about President Biden coordinating with the Justice Department to persecute him into the court. Naturally, Trump’s response is that Smith’s teams filing is illegal and unconstitutional. For good measure he also called Smith out as Biden’s errand boy. Some things never change and Trump who talks like Hitler but claims he knows little about him is one of them. Also not changing is Putin.  He’s moved his chief adversary, opposition leader Alexei Navalny, to a prison in Siberia and has officially pronounced that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

House Politics:  The House is away on holiday break but that’s not stopping Republican leadership from gearing up to advance their impeachment inquiry into all things Biden come January.  Maybe, if we’re really lucky, they’ll do something productive like pass a budget, push the next government closing deadline out a few months and/or pass a funding package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan but given their incompetence, don’t count on it.  Given the Senate map Democrats will have a really hard time holding on to control of the Senate but there’s a good chance that despite Biden’s popularity problems, Hakeem Jeffries and his blue team will take back the House not because the Republican contingent has been so incompetent but because redistricting battles seem to be benefitting Democrats this cycle.  New York is in the midst of a redistricting which is expected to lead to more blue NY seats and now it appears that Wisconsin is following suit.  The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the states’ heavily gerrymandered legislative maps were unconstitutional, ordering new maps be adopted before the 2024 election.  In Wisconsin where statewide elections are typically very close, the Governor is a Democrat as is one of the state’s Senators,  Republicans hold a 64-35 majority in the state Assembly and a 22-11 supermajority in the state Senate.  Currently 6 of the state’s 8 Congressional representatives are Republicans. Republicans are appealing the state court decision but if the decision holds up it’s fair to assume that some of those red seats will turn blue.  Congresswoman Lauren Boebert’s seat may stay in Republican hands but only because she’s shifting districts. Seeing the writing on the wall, Boebert, known mostly for her antics, public PDA and gun affinity is leaving the Trump plus 8 district that she almost lost in 2022 to run for the much safer Trump plus 20 seat being vacated by retiring Republican Ken Buck. Quite a few other Republicans are running for the Buck seat so Boebert’s decision to shift districts to avoid what was looking to be a losing battle against Democrat Adam Frisch in her old district is far from a sure thing for her though it may be a win for Republicans who now stand a greater chance of holding on to her old district with a different candidate.

Presidential Politics:  Vivek Ramaswamy, the billionaire, who has been self-funding his campaign has decided to stop running most of this TV ads purportedly because TV’s not a good medium for him but really because he’s growing tired of burning cash for what is increasingly looking like a losing run, or at least a losing run for the presidency.  Nikki Haley continues to get lots of attention largely because polls indicate that she is only trailing Trump by 4 points in New Hampshire where independents can vote in the Republican primary. Yesterday Haley refused to acknowledge that the Civil War had something to do with slavery which might be because having locked up a lot of those NH independents she’s now trying to get more from the right into her camp and talking about slavery being a bad thing might be a step too far for that crowd?  Ron DeSantis, who is no longer viewed as the one to save the Republican party from Trump largely because the MAGA party doesn’t appear to want to be saved and because he’s just Trump with no personality, remains ahead of Haley in Iowa but even more behind Trump.  Absent anything catastrophic, Trump, who has taken to standing on toe pads during his rally speeches, is likely to sew up the Republican nomination on March 5th Super Tuesday.  As to those toe pads, take a look at some pictures to check them out, they are really odd. It's not clear whether they are to counteract the forward leaning tilt that results from the heel lifts that Trump wears to make him appear taller or whether he has another serious balance problem, but you can only imagine what Fox would say if Biden was using toe pads.  As to Biden, who has his hands full these days running the country and getting the media to acknowledge the improving economy while dealing with wars in Gaza and Ukraine, he’s got his team off in Mexico trying to halt the next bigly wave of migrants expected to arrive at the border shortly. 

Fog of War:  Hamas leadership has rejected participating in an ceasefire proposed by Egypt maybe because though their people are suffering, and they are suffering, Hamas appears to be doing well in the court of public opinion helped by the NY Times who recently published a “guest essay” from the Hamas appointed Mayor of Gaza who lamented in his essay about the destruction of his city but failed to mention the precipitating October 7 attack on Israel, the 1200 Israel residents killed that day, the women raped or the hostages still in Hamas hands. #BringThemAllHomeAliveNow. WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich too.

Wishing a Happy and Healthy New Year to all 🥂 🥂 🥂 

 

 'Twas the Weekend Before Christmas ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻 🎅 🎄 🎅 🎄 

Centennial State Blues:  Congress has gone home and there’s still no funding for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.  In terms of timing that’s more of a problem for Ukraine where the needs are most immediate.  Staffers are expected to keep working over the break in the hope of breaking a stalemate over border funding, the issue that appears to be holding the funding package hostage.  Though expectations are that something will eventually be worked out, concern remains that Trump will try to sabotage anything that the Senate leaders agree to by having his minions in both the House and Senate throw countless monkey wrenches into the works just because he can and because we all know how he feels about migrants and Ukrainians.  Senate staffers aren’t the only ones who’ll be working over the holiday stretch as just about everyone at the Supreme Court will be too.  Not only is the Court dealing with Trump’s immunity and double jeopardy claims but the Justices now also have to deal with issue of whether the State of Colorado can keep him off their ballot.  That’s because by a vote of 4 to 3 Colorado’s Supreme Court ruled that Trump is disqualified from appearing on the ballot under the 14^th Amendment’s insurrection clause which says that those who took oaths to support the Constitution can’t engage in efforts to overthrow the government. The Colorado Supreme Court agreed with a lower Colorado court’s conclusion that Trump did insurrect, but disagreed with the lower court’s assessment that Trump’s insurrection was copacetic because the prohibition against doing so doesn’t apply to presidents.  Colorado is supposed to print ballots for the upcoming state Republican primary by January 5 so the Colorado Supremes stayed their ruling pending what they knew would be an inevitable appeal to SCOTUS.  Depending on who you ask, Colorado’s court did the right thing because Trump is an insurrectionist and the Constitution clearly states that such miscreants can’t hold office or Colorado’s court did the wrong thing because the only way to get rid of someone like Trump, regardless of the Constitution’s intent, is for the public to vote him out.  The split on that issue doesn’t fall cleanly along party lines as some very conservative constitutional experts such as retired Judge Michael Luttig firmly believe the prohibition should apply to presidents while others are afraid of the havoc that tossing Trump to the curb would have.  In any case the decision, which no doubt has a few Justices wishing they’d gone the lucrative law firm route, is now, or will be shortly, taken up by SCOTUS.  It will be interesting to see how those Justices who believe that the Constitution should be taken literally wiggle their way out of this one because in all likelihood they will conclude that he can stay on the ballot even if it requires that they have to twist themselves into contortionist level pretzel positions to get there.  Naturally, despite his wife’s complicity in the insurrection, Justice Clarence Thomas, the favorite holiday guest of right-wing billionaires, won’t recuse because why would he?  Also naturally, the Colorado judges are now getting boatloads of death threats for ruling against Trump though a YouGov online poll, there are always polls, says that 54 percent of us either strongly or somewhat approve of the Colorado decision with only 35% disapproving.  Among the disapproving are all of Trump’s Republican primary opponents who were asked to opine on air rather than online where they could have anonymously said what they really believe.     

💰💰💰: Rudy Giuliani has filed for bankruptcy.  He’s still defaming mother/daughter election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, insisting that he’s right about them passing votes rather than mints because he’s a Trump fanboy creep and that what he does.  Though both his bankruptcy filing and the rules at his NY co-op probably make it likely that Ruby and Shaye will never get to move into his Upper East Side coop, in the event they do visit the Big Apple for a site visit, my book group would like to invite the ladies to join us for a celebratory lunch where we will also be toasting to the fact that Senator Tommy Tuberville has finally thrown in the towel on his remaining military promotion holds.  The Alabama Senator, who by the way resides in Northern Florida when not mucking up the works at the Pentagon, has finally given up disrupting the country’s defenses but has nothing to show for his awful behavior as the Pentagon will continue to fund reproductive health related travel at least until the next Republican moves into the Oval Office.  Like Tuberville, Harvard’s Claudine Gay may be fighting a losing battle.  Though she appeared to have survived her battle of words with Congresswoman Elise Stefanik she may ultimately lose the war to maintain her lofty Harvard position, not over her inability to condemn calls for Jewish genocide as despicable but over her plagiary problem.  Gay’s supporters insist that she didn’t plagiarize intentionally, that she was just a very sloppy person and that her sloppiness is only an issue because of those on the right who’ve been examining her rather short list of published papers and her dissertation.  They have a point but she’s the president of Harvard so maybe sloppiness isn’t much of an excuse.  It’s fair to assume that a few equally sloppy Harvard students are probably all in on her survival because what a defense they’ll have when their professors call them out for similar “mistakes.”  Not supportive of her continuing in her role are a few more billionaire donors and NY Times opinion writer/Columbia professor John McWhorter who like Gay is a Black academician.  He wrote in this morning’s paper that “for Harvard, her own dignity and our national commitment to assessing Black people (and all people) according to the content of their character, she should step down.”  

Fog of War: The calls for a humanitarian ceasefire or at the very lease a long pause in fighting in Gaza are getting louder but those nice Hamas leaders, who live in the lap of luxury in Qatar aren’t all that concerned about sparing Gazans from the horrors of war maybe because they see their polls rising, particularly among the younger set, and who’s to question that assessment because it appears to be true. The current stalemate is because Hamas leadership refuses to agree to the release of more hostages until fighting stops while Israel insists that the promise of a release of more hostages is a condition for a pause or ceasefire whatever it’s called.  Now is as good a time as any to consider that Hamas’ charter calls for the complete destruction of Israel as an essential condition for the liberation of Palestine and the establishment of a theocratic state based on Islamic law (Sharia);  the need for both unrestrained and unceasing holy war (jihad) to attain the above objective; the deliberate disdain for, and dismissal of, any negotiated resolution or political settlement of Jewish and Muslim claims to the Holy Land; and the reinforcement of historical anti-Semitic tropes and calumnies married to sinister conspiracy theories. (Source The Atlantic).  So maybe not the easiest, most trustworthy crowd to negotiate with nor the best people to lionize? And though no one has threatened me with Jihad this week some Hamas supporters did respond to my support of a pro-Israel posting on Threads, the supposedly nicer social media site, by suggesting that I “go back to Europe.”  I am not sure what they mean by Europe since my grandparents fled pogroms in what was then either Russia, Poland, or Ukraine.  Something like Fiddler on the Roof without the humor, a singing Tevye or a Fiddler but with the bad guys on their tails. By the way none of that qualifies me for a Euro zone passport.       

Merry Christmas 🎅 🎄 

Safe Travels

The Great Gatsby ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻 🎅 🎄 🎅 🎄 

Both Sides:  It turns out that Trump wasn’t entirely off base when he called the 2017 Unite the Right hate rally in Charlottesville a both sides thing, he was just ahead of his time because right now, we are seriously into a scenario where both sides are all in on anti-Semitism, the canary in the coal mine of hate that unites extremists and their less extreme friends on the fringes better than tiki torches.  How else to explain swastikas and the calls for the elimination of Jews by so-called progressives at pro-Palestinian rallies or last weekend’s 199, not a typo, separate bomb threats targeting synagogues in cities all over the country or white supremacist/Trump dinner guest Nick Fuentes’ call for the death penalty for all Jews and Trump’s enemies or Trump normalizing Nazi language and snippets of Hitler’s speeches while promising to only allow Christians, presumably just white ones, to immigrate to the US.  The truly scary part is that it isn’t just the fringes pushing, or at the very least comfortable with the hate narrative. With the exception of Chris Christie, none of the Republican presidential candidates are interested in slamming Trump’s Nazi narrative. The most we get is that they wouldn’t have chosen to use similar words with Trump enabler Senator Lindsey Graham actually saying that he could care less about Trump parroting Hitler’s odious “poisoning the blood” comment to describe migrants crossing the southern border because after all aren’t all of those people, children and economic refugees included, terrorists and drug dealers? 

2024 Beckons:  We’re about to enter a new year, the 2024 election is fast approaching, and the Republican’s leading candidate who is currently polling ahead of President Biden, is Trump, a dictator wannabee who cribs his rally speeches from Hitler. He’s endorsed by Putin and keeps on promising to call out the troops on day one of his “next” administration to deal with the “vermin” crossing the southern border while also saying he’ll go after anyone, include those media outlets who speak out against him. In case you think that’s just a threat, he’s got his minions making up naughty or nice lists, like Santa’s 🎅 except on his lists the naughty get far worse things that coal. To the extent you think Nikki Haley is going to save the country by beating Trump for her party’s nomination, think again. While Haley, who last week received the endorsement of New Hampshire’s popular Republican Governor Chris Sununu, has recently risen in the Granite state’s presidential poll she still trails Trump by 15 points in the state that given its independent streak should be the easiest one for someone not named Trump to win.  Worse yet, in Iowa Haley is a distant third, trailing Trump and Ron DeSantis, who keeps losing campaign and PAC staff, by 43 and 9 points, respectively. While it would be nice to believe that Haley’s star will rise when the remaining Republican candidates call it quits, most of their supporters rank Trump, rather than Haley, as their second-choice candidate, a bigly problem for Haley who mostly appeals to the dwindling minority of old school Republicans who have had it with Trump.   

Legalities:  To the extent that it matters, Trump’s legal troubles still, loom and we could get some interesting opinions out of SCOTUS in January.  One of the Justices who shouldn’t but, in all likelihood, will participate in the decisions impacting the fate of the cases being pursued against Trump is Clarence Thomas and because there’s almost always news about Clarence, this week ProPublica published another not so flattering nugget about him. In turns out that back in 2000 the very financially strained Thomas let some of his supporters know that he was considering resigning to pursue a more lucrative career path.  Fearing the loss of his reliably conservative vote, those supporters found a solution to keep him on the court, that solution involved having the wealthiest among them gift Thomas high-end travel, grant him and then forgive low interest rate loans for items like his fancy RV, providing scholarships at fancy schools for his nephew’s education, buying a house for his mother and so on.  Clarence stayed on the Court, and we are all living with the consequences: the diminishment of voters’ rights, the end of reproductive freedom and the neutering of the EPA, to name a few.  Also on the legal front, Rudy Giuliani now owes mother/daughter election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss $148 million for accusing them of manipulating Georgia votes by passing a thumb drove when all they were doing was sharing ginger mints. Following the example of the Orange One who keeps on defaming E Jean Caroll, Giuliani is still defaming Ruby and Shaye who are now suing again. It’s not like it matters to Giuliani who doesn’t have $148 million anyway. Unlike Guiliani and Trump, former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows who may or may not be in possession of some missing supersecret Russia related Crossfire Hurricane documents, has remained largely silent but may have to start talking soon.  Yesterday, a federal appeals court ruled against Meadows, concluding that he wasn’t acting in an official capacity when he helped Trump try to steal the 2020 election and therefore cannot move his Fulton County case to federal court.  Unless he pursues and wins an appeal to SCOTUS, or cuts a deal with DA Fani Willis,  Meadows will be tried in Atlanta along side Trump and the other remaining co-defendants assuming Fani Willis’ case ever makes it to court.   

Fog:  Texas Governor Abbott has signed a law that will allow Texas law enforcement officials to arrest migrants entering Texas illegally.  The new law goes into effect in March. That’s just another one of those things that will make it to SCOTUS, a good thing because though Abbott claims that it will stop crossings into his state, local law enforcement say that won’t be able to enforce it given the manpower and facilities they’d need.  Meantime, the Senate is still trying to come-up with some kind of immigration solution as part of a Ukraine, Israel, Tawan funding package but still haven’t in part over fears over how Trump would implement any new restrictions should he retake the presidency.  Pressure is being put on Israel to modify its war plans and to agree to another ceasefire with Hamas in exchange for the release of hostages.  We keep learning that more of the hostages, not just the three that Israel mistakenly killed, have died so the call for their release and the end of fighting given the impact that it is having on Gaza civilians, is taking on added urgency. Of course, any ceasefire will require cooperation from Hamas and given how many of their weapon stocked tunnels keep getting uncovered, including a few with entrances hidden under babies’ cribs, they have a bit of a credibility problem.  And because all politics is local, Long Island Republicans have chosen Mazi Malesa Filip, an Ethiopian born former Israel Defense Force officer who until now mostly voted Democrat, as their candidate to run for the seat previously held by George Santos, who claimed to be Jew-ish to appeal to the significant number of Jewish voters in his former North Shore Long Island district.  Worth noting that Tom Suozzi, the moderate Democrat who previously held that seat before he left it to seek Governor Kathy Hochul’s perch, the one she first got by succeeding Andrew Cuomo who left over harassment accusations, is running on the Democratic ticket.  Suozzi is also very pro-Israel so while support for Israel may be waning around the country, it’s a vote getter in the part of Long Island made famous by F Scott Fitzgerald.   

 

Ho Ho Ho and a Merry Christmas 🧑‍🎄 🎅 🎄   

 
Populist, Authoritarian, Narcissist ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻

Trump Trials:  On Wednesday, former Speaker Paul Ryan who now serves on the Fox Corp board called Trump a populist authoritarian narcissist. Nice of Ryan to finally acknowledge publicly that the Orange One is deranged and dangerous, but where has he been? Too busy collecting the $334,975 annual compensation he receives for the Fox board gig he assumed after leaving Congress, perhaps?  As to the dangerous narcissist who despite his autocratic tendencies is not only leading in the polls but wielding unprecedented influence over what currently passes as the Republican party, it’s highly likely that his March insurrection trial will no longer take place in March because presiding Judge Chutkan has put the case, with the exception of the gag order,  on hold pending the outcome of decisions from the Appeals Court and/or the Supreme Court.  To backtrack a bit, Special Counsel Jack is following a dual track approach.  He’s asked the Supreme Court to rule on Trump’s immunity and double jeopardy “get out of jail free cards” on an expedited basis but is also pursuing the Appeals Court track in case the Supreme Court opts not to allow him to jump straight onto their docket.  While it appears that both the Appeals Court and SCOTUS get that with the 2024 election looming, Lady Justice is running out of time, their idea of fast tracking is more akin to my running speed (very slow) than Usain Bolt’s.  Trump who more than anyone knows the value of delaying court proceedings, is calling “deranged” Jack, a grinch for stealing Christmas from his legal team by making them write briefs over the holidays. The January 6^th insurrection case isn’t the only one hitting SCOTUS’s docket, the Justices have also agreed to take up a challenge to a law used to charge hundreds of those “nice tourists” who participated in the January 6 Capitol riot.  The question is whether or not the government can prosecute those “tourists” under a federal law that makes it a crime to obstruct or impede an official proceeding, here the disruption of Congress’ certification of the 2020 presidential election. Obstruction is one of the four charges that Special Jack has brought against Trump and though the “immunity and double jeopardy” appeals are on the fastish track, the obstruction appeal isn’t expected to be decided upon until June though a number of TV legal pundits say that if, as expected,  SCOTUS rules against Trump on immunity and double jeopardy, Chutkan could proceed with her case while the obstruction appeal is being heard.  In other legal news, Trump’s NY civil case, the one that could strip him of lots of his real estate assets, is over for the year. In January, both sides will present their ending oral arguments.  Judge Engoron, whose limited gag order was upheld by NY’s highest court this week, expects to render his final opinion by the end of January. 

 

More Legalities: Trump isn’t the only one on trial.  Rudy Giuliani’s Washington DC civil case, where the former mayor ultimately did not testify though he did continue to slander mother-daughter plaintiffs Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss repeatedly even while the trial was ongoing, is now in the hands of the jurors.  The jurors are deliberating over how much Rudy should be required to handover to Ruby and Shaye, not over whether or not he slandered them because that’s already been decided.  Though Rudy didn’t testify, Ruby Freeman did, and her testimony was heartbreaking.  She relayed that she was warned by the FBI not to go back to her home because the death threats against her inspired by Guiliani’s lies, lies that were repeated and amplified by Trump, were credible.  She then increased the security at her home so she could move back in but had to leave again for good after her address was made public. There’s little doubt that jurors will award Ruby and Shaye millions upon millions of dollars, but they’ll be lucky to collect even a small amount given Rudy’s current self-inflicted financial woes.  There’s also been some news on the fake elector plot where ten of Wisconsin’s have “disavowed” their attempt to overturn Trump’s 2020 defeat, recognized the legitimacy of Biden’s victory, and pledged not to serve as real electors in 2024 or any election when Trump is on the ballot, or to act as sham electors in any future election. They’ve also agreed to fully cooperate with any ongoing or future DOJ probes related to the 2020 election.

Impeachment Revenge:  Well, House Republicans have done it.  All of them, even those in “Biden districts” have voted to open an official impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden.  Depending on which one of them you ask the impeachment inquiry has been opened because of Biden’s complicity with his son Hunter’s business doings, even though after years of investigations there’s no credible evidence of Joe doing anything more than loving his troubled son, or it’s been opened because of Biden’s Afghan withdrawal, or his border policy and so on.  At least one Republican, Texas’s Troy Nehls said the silent part out loud, that it’s all about “Trump 2024 baby.” As to Hunter, he didn’t show up for closed door testimony in front of a House committee, instead he appeared outside of the Capitol and repeated that he’ll testify but only in a public hearing because he’s not going to allow Republican’s to selectively cherry pick, leak and weaponize anything he says to them in private.  For those of us still waiting for Gym Jordan to testify about January 6, that sounds fair.           

Gilead Update:  SCOTUS isn’t just dealing with Trump’s legal morass; they’ve also decided to take up the mifepristone case.  Mifepristone is part of the drug cocktail used for medication abortions.  While the legal dispute does not directly address the right to abortion, it is focused on legal issues about the FDA”s process for approving drugs and the decision to make mifepristone available by mail, it really is all about abortion availability because medicated abortions now account for more than half of all pregnancy terminations.  If the court puts any limitations on the mailing of mifepristone, they will further curtail abortions in states with strict abortion limitations.  If they rule that the more than twenty- year- old FDA approval of mifepristone and the subsequent modification of its dosage and when it can be used were inappropriate than they will also end medicated abortions for women in states where abortion is available.  The bottom line, any new limitations on mifepristone will further limit reproductive rights, for everyone. Period.  Oh, and Kellyanne Conway is back, well she never really went away.  She’s advising Republicans that they should shift their focus away from abortion to contraception, reassuring everyone that Republicans won’t take away their pills and devices.  Think about that, the fact that Kellyanne thinks that reassurance is needed, says a lot about what some of those Republicans legislators and judges, would like to do.     

And:  The Senate and House have passed a clean defense spending authorization but still no budgets or aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.  Senate Leader Schumer is delaying the Christmas exodus in the hopes of hammering out an agreement that includes border/immigration concessions, but Punchbowl News is skeptical that he’ll be able to pull that off.  Pressure is building for Israel to limit its Gaza war plan and/or agree to a ceasefire because Hamas always honors ceasefires?  One guy who seems to be really enjoying our Congressional mess, inability to function, and the mess in both Ukraine and Israel and Gaza is Trump BFF Vlad which tells you everything you need to know about both of them.  

#BringThemAllHomeNow

Evan Gershkovich too

Bad is Bad, Really  ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻

Higher Education? It turns out that failing to be able to come out and say that calling for the genocide of Jews constitutes bullying or harassment is a bad thing, at least for Liz Magill, the now ex-president of the University of Pennsylvania. The U of Penn Board Chairman Scott Bok, CEO of Greenhill & Co. is gone too.  The investment banker resigned while expressing his support and gratitude for Magill and her service, attributing her failure to speak out against anti-Semitic acts as the result of over-lawyering and exhaustion rather than anything that Magill had done wrong during her troubled tenure at the university.  So far, Claudine Gay and Sally Kornbluth, the presidents of Harvard and MIT respectively who were prepared for the Congressional hearing that tanked Magill by WilmerHale, the same law firm that “coached” Magill into delivering those legalistic, parsed responses instead of explicit condemnations, still have their jobs. It was painful to watch the testimony that led to Magill’s demise, though far less painful than watching the still ongoing acts of hate erupting at what are supposed to be elite schools of higher education. At the same time, it is also discomforting to watch Elise Stefanik profit from the mess. The Republican NY Congresswoman deserves some kudos for her calm evisceration of Magill, Gay, and Kornbluth but watching her take victory laps for that “accomplishment” is also hard given that Harvard graduate Stefanik is far from a model of civility and good behavior. Once touted as a moderate Republican with great potential, she has since become ultra MAGA.  The ambitious Stefanik appears to be trying to ride her takedown of the three university presidents onto Trump’s presidential ticket, so what if the Orange one aspires to be a dictator, she’d have no problem serving as his VP A/K/A partner-in-crime, tiki torches and all. Should she succeed, she could get some more quality time with former Speaker Kevin McCarthy who says that while he’s not into Trump’s retribution thing, he fully backs him and would be pleased as punch to accept a cabinet appointment should he be lucky enough to be offered one. As to the Orange one who at this moment in time is beating President Biden in the polls, he reupped his promise to be a dictator but only for “one day” this weekend at a NY MAGA gala.  He also cancelled plans to testify as a defense witness in his NY Civil trial.  That frees him up to meet with right wing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban who is due in Washington this week for a Heritage Foundation event.  Orban’s aides and maybe Orban too are set to meet with Congressional Republicans to lend support to their opposition of US funding for Ukraine, a concept near and dear to both Trump and his BFF Putin’s heart.

Legal Morass:  Trump’s legal strategy is to delay, delay and delay some more until he’s president again when he’ll rid himself of all those meddlesome cases so his lawyers are appealing Judge Chutkan’s ruling that found he is not immune from criminal prosecution.  Trump’s lawyers’ position is that his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election were kosher because presidents, or at least those named Trump, get to do things like that.  Trump’s lawyers want all deadlines in the insurrection case to be frozen while the immunity issue makes its way to SCOTUS.  Special Counsel Jack Smith’s position is that former presidents have no immunity and that while Trump is entitled to appeal, the steps that need to be taken to be ready for a March 4 trial date should be allowed to continue pending any SCOTUS decision on his claim of immunity.  As to those meddlesome cases, it’s clear that Trump’s legal bils are huge and growing.  One window into their cost is that the “expert” accountant who testified in the New York Civil case that the financial information that Trump provided his lenders was “perfect” and that the tripling of the size of his Trump Tower apartment was not an “unusual error“ was paid a most generous $900,000 for his testimony.  Though the Trump Org footed some of that bill, Trump’s political PAC, funded by his MAGA base, paid for the rest.  Though it probably won’t do much to quiet Trump, a federal appeals court upheld most of Judge Chutkan’s gag order. And since it’s not just Trump with legal woes, Hunter’s case continues to percolate and the House is expected to vote to formally open an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden this week, no funding for anything important but an impeachment that Senator Mitt Romney says has no merit.

Gilead, Texas:  Leave it to Texas to keep abortion rights front and center just when the Republican party hoped that they could hide it in a Gaza tunnel.  Texas mother of two Kate Cox is currently 20 weeks into her third pregnancy and has recently learned that her fetus has a fatal genetic abnormality that should it even make it to term will lead to a very early death.  Continuing with the pregancy could also cause Cox irreperable harm, limiting her future fertility or worse.  A Texas judged ruled that despite Texas’ extreme anti-abortion law she could obtain the abortion she’s seeking due to her dire circumstances.  Of course the once impeached Texas AG Ken Paxton who has ambitions beyond Texas, perhaps to Trump’s “model” cabinet or even SCOTUS, appealed to the Texas Supreme Court to stop her abortion. He’s also told hospitals and doctors that he’ll punish them bigly if any one of them provid Cox with the abortion care she’s seeking. Over the weekend, the Texas Supreme Court temporarily blocked Cox’s abortion. At this point in her pregnancy any delay puts Cox’s heath and maybe even her life in jeopardy.  She probably should go out of state for care and given the publicity around her case, lots have offered her help.  That would solve her most immediate problem but the politically motivated Paxton who cares nothing about her health has threatened to prosecute her if she does.               

#BringThemHomeNow

 

The Age of Stupid ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻

The Stupid Season:  Congress is facing a lot of deadlines but really who cares about funding the government, dealing with border security, providing aid to allies or reauthorizing the FAA, there are more important, and by important think politically craven, things to do.  So, to counter George Santos’ ejection from the House, Republicans, with the help of a handful of Democrats, censured Westchester/Bronx Congressman Jamaal Bowman on Thursday.  Bowman is the clueless Democrat who “accidently” triggered a fire alarm while rushing to vote on Septembers government funding bill.  Though he still insists that he didn’t realize what he was doing, an excuse that few believe, he has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge related to the incident. While being censured doesn’t affect Bowman’s tenure, it does give Westchester County Executive George Latimer, who announced this week that he’ll be primarying fellow Democrat Bowman, another thing to talk about during the upcoming campaign. Bowman is the most vulnerable member of the “Squad” due to his pro-Palestinian stance, so Latimer’s plans aren’t surprising.  Unlike Bowman former Speaker Kevin McCarthy won’t be in the House come January.  On Wednesday, Trump’s one time “My Kev” announced that he’s resigning, stepping down at the end of the month.  Count McCarthy as just another Trump era victim who should have known better.  He groveled and bowed so low to the Orange One that he ultimately ended up face down in the mud and now doesn’t have the stomach to stick around to watch Trump’s newest favorite, Speaker for the moment Mike Johnson, in his former office.  As to Speaker Johnson, his days in his job could be numbered. Though he’s got Trump’s support, he doesn’t have McCarthy’s fundraising prowess and more significantly, his already slim majority keeps shrinking.  Unlike Senators, Governors don’t get to appoint interim Representatives so while McCarthy’s Bakersfield, California seat will likely stay in very MAGA hands it will remain vacant, probably until March.  Santos’ seat which will likely flip into Democratic hands will remain vacant until February. It’s not just McCarthy and Santos, another Republican seat, the one held by Ohio’s Bill Johnson, will open up early next year once he assumes the presidency of Youngstown State University. Then there’s the reality that House members, like everyone else, don’t live forever.  If any Republicans fall of roofs, as one did last year, Johnson could end up having to hand over his office keys to Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries even before 2025.  That may be unlikely but it’s not out of the realm of possibility and given the unruly nature of his caucus. Johnson who attributes his rise to the speakership to the power of prayer, may find himself wishing he hadn’t prayed so hard.  Unfortunately, in the meantime, Johnson will continue with the stupid.  He’s keyed up that much promised vote to initiate impeachment proceedings against Joe Biden for next week and it’s highly likely that even the so-called Republican swing district “normies,” who really aren’t all that normal, will vote with him because though he’s not the best fundraiser, he’s the only one they’ve got. The stupid is so bad that interim Speaker Patrick McHenry, the more competent than most North Carolina Congressman who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, is fed up and has announced his plans to retire at the end of the term.     

Weirdly Stupid: Last night Special Counsel David Weiss, the Republican holdover tasked with torturing Hunter Biden, filed nine additional charges against him all related to his failure to pay his taxes.  Hunter, hardly an altar boy, has since paid those taxes so those charges are unusual and probably wouldn’t be leveled against him if his last name wasn’t Biden, but then again, he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to make all that money if his last name wasn’t Biden so there’s that.  It’s hard to know what’s really happening here, whether this is political gamesmanship or just a hard-nosed prosecutor squeezing a defendant but whatever, it’s ugly for all and not particularly helpful for Joe who said he learned about the indictments the same way the rest of us did.  Anyway, who’s to say that squeezing doesn’t work.  It appears to be helping turn Kenneth Chesebro.  This morning CNN reported that Chesebro one of the main architects of the fake elector scheme, is now cooperating with prosecutors in four states, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and maybe Nevada, in an effort to avoid additional criminal charges.  

Truly Stupid:  If you’re like me, you missed the fourth and final official RNC sanctioned debate but in case you also missed the overviews here’s a short one.  Ramaswamy went all in on the stolen election conspiracy because he’s really angling for a spot in Trump’s next administration or a lucrative podcasting gig. Chris Christie who was the only candidate to lambast Trump, called Ramaswamy out for being the most obnoxious blowhard in America.  Christie also defended Nikki Haley, saying that though he disagreed with her on some things, blowhard Ramaswamy’s assertion that she was stupid was stupid. Ron DeSantis wasn’t awful but didn’t make up any ground and while Nikki Haley wasn’t great, she wasn’t bad and likely improved her standing. Did the debate matter, probably not because Trump is so far ahead of the crowd that absent a ladder catastrophe or worse, he will be the Republican nominee.  And because we all need to gag a bit in the morning, the NY Post reports that Melania wants her Donald to select Tucker Carlson as his running mate but in the event that the Donald is concerned that Carlson will outshine him, Senator JD Vance, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Governor Kristi Noem, Florida Representative Byron Donalds or Margie Q will also suffice.  Though the Orange one wouldn’t pick her for anything, the president of his alma mater may have some free time soon.  Fresh off that dismal House testimony where she couldn’t come out and say that calling for genocide against Jews was unacceptable, University of Pennsylvania President Liz McGill is going through some things. She issued a statement clarifying her testimony, but it looked more like a hostage video.  She’s still got her job but may not have it much longer.      

Happy Hanukkah

🕎

 

 #BringThemAllHomeSoon

WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich too!

   

Listen and Believe ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻

Trump Truthing: The thing about Trump is that he tells us what he plans to do.  The thing is that Trump’s plans sound so impossibly ridiculous and implausible that too many of us have spent years dismissing them as just political speech from a highly unusual politician pandering to his base. So, way before the January 6 insurrection when Trump questioned the legitimacy of election outcomes, even responding to a question from Chris Wallace during one of the 2016 debates by saying that he couldn’t commit to honor the election outcome if he didn’t win, few took him seriously because who doesn’t honor election outcomes?  Well, as Maya Angelou said, when someone tells you who they are, believe them. Special Counsel Jack Smith is now seeking to include Trump’s early election denial statements as evidence of intent in his prosecution for one of the cases that may never get heard.  It’s not just election denial, Trump is also telling us his future governing plans. Last night during a town hall when Trump was asked by Fox’s Sean Hannity who was trying to give him an opportunity to pushback against rising concerns that he would act as a dictator should he get back into the White House, Trump repeatedly said he would act as a dictator “but only on day one,” when he would use his powers to close the southern border and to drill, drill, drill. Nothing to worry about though because he added after that “I’m not a dictator.”  Hannity repeated the question several times, his way of suggesting to Trump that he should just come out and day that he’d never act in a manner that was dictatorial or violated the constitution, but despite all the nudging, Trump couldn’t get there.  He couldn’t utter a straight denial because as much as he lies, even he couldn’t lie about his plans. Those plans are fairly dire, they include things like reclassifying “undesirable” civil employees so that they can be fired and replaced with loyalists, stocking the Justice Department with pre-screened lawyers who’d be willing to sign off on his plans regardless of their legality, people like Jeffrey Clark and all those Kraken lawyers from his last presidency, and installing Kash Patel and more like him into senior national defense positions. Patel is another one who says what he’s thinking so this week he doubled down on Trump’s threats to go after MSNBC and other media outlets he doesn’t like by saying on Steve Bannon’s podcast that when he’s back in government he’ll implement Trumps plans to go after the media.  If you think that the Senate confirmation process will spare us the worst of Trump’s future nominees, forget about that too.  First of all, given the election map, it’s likely that the Senate will be back in Republican hands in 2025 and we’ve know that there will be few, if any, remaining Republicans who will vote against Trump’s wishes and second, Patel and Trump’s other aide de camp Stephen Miller aren’t all that worried about confirmation votes.  Their plans include elevating like-minded government employees making them ”acting” secretaries if necessary and unfortunately a decent number of those likeminded folks remain in places like the Justice and Defense Departments.  Listen to Liz Cheney, who warns that should he win reelection Trump will never leave. Vote, influence, and contribute because we’re on a slippery slope to autocracy and holding out for a perfect alternative just greases that slide. 

Mistletoe: If you are looking for a holiday present for that hard to please person in your life and are willing to spend $200, you can gift a Cameo video message from George of many name Santos.  Order soon because the price for some Georgie time has already gone up from its $150 starting point.  Alternatively, if you’d rather not help George pay his for his legal bills and Botox, you could instead read the story of the newest outed Florida throuple out loud over eggnog.  That threesome includes Moms for Liberty co-founder/Sarasota School Board member Bridget Ziegler and her husband Florida Republican Party Chair Christian.  Nothing says Christian values better than a man named Christian being accused of sexually assaulting the woman who was previously the third in his throuple. How ironic that Moms for Liberty is the group that endeavors to ban books with “inappropriate” sexual content and “subversive” social messaging from libraries and school curricula and that Bridget Ziegler is one of the people that Governor Ron DeSantis appointed to the Central Florida Tourism Board to oversee Disney following their battle over his “don’t say gay” stuff.  On the subject of Ronnie D, in addition to bleeding polling points, he’s losing senior staff.  Two senior members of his PAC, including his long- term friend, college roommate and losing Nevada Senatorial candidate Adam Laxalt have jumped ship.  Despite the downward trajectory of his campaign and polling numbers, together with Chris Christie, Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley,  Ronnie D will be on the stage for tonight’s fourth(!) Republican debate but Doug Burgum who most forgot was still running won’t be.  He’s dropped out of the race. Mike Pence is also out of the race, but his schedule is filling up anyway, this morning Georgia prosecutors revealed that he’s on their Fulton County Witness list. 

Political Mayhem:  Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville has finally given up his blockade on military promotion, or at least most of them, he’s still holding up some for four-star general. Those were the holds he’d imposed in retaliation for the administration’s decision to fund out of state travel for members of the military seeking abortion services, not the abortions, just the travel. Immediately after Tuberville threw in the towel, the Senate approved more than 400 promotions meaning that members of the military can finally assume their new positions, move their families, and enroll their children into new schools.  It’s thought that Tuberville finally gave up because he was being pressured by his Republican colleagues, many of whom were concerned about how he was damaging US security at a time when military leadership is needed more than ever due to Ukraine, the Middle East, ship targeting, nuclear threats, etc.  Of course, as concerned as those Republicans were many didn’t want to say anything publicly because they feared stressing their anti-abortion supporters. House Republicans who can’t pass needed legislation are continuing to sling mud at Joe Biden as part of their tee him up for impeachment strategy.  To that end, you may have seen the story that alleged Joe had received a series of payments from his son Hunter’s business beginning in 2018 when he wasn’t in office. Daddy Joe did receive a few thousand from his son, Hunter but it turns out those were repayments for a truck that Joe had helped his son purchase so not a smoking gun, just a father being fatherly at a time when his troubled, problematic son was financially stressed.

 

Fog of War: Nothing good to report on the Gaza front, the war goes on, people are dying, and the hostages are still hostages.  On Monday State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said: “it seems Hamas has refused to release all of the Israeli women it is holding because the terror group doesn’t want them to tell what they have gone through in captivity.”  It’s believed that 18 women are still being held by Hamas, most of them are women who attended the border area music festival. Releasing those women and allowing the International Red Cross to visit the other remaining 120+/- hostages had been a condition of continuing the “pause” in fighting, but Hamas violated both conditions even though they had previously agreed to comply.  Things aren’t going well in Ukraine either where there’s a real possibility that President Zelenskyy and his country will run out of military funding soon if the US fails to act. Speaker Johnson has no intention of acting though there may be some movement out of the Senate where Leader Schumer seems open to allowing a vote on border security funding on to the Senate floor. 

And:  College presidents from Harvard, U of Pennsylvania and MIT testified in front of Congress yesterday about now they were handling anti-Semitism on their campuses.  To put it mildly, there was lots of equivocating. To summarize, sure anti-Semitism is bad but calling for Jewish genocide not so much.

 
Dictatorship Beckons ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻

Gone But Not Forgotten:  George Santos was voted out of Congress on Friday by a vote of 311 to 214, not because he lied about his heritage, education. or credentials but because of the financial crimes detailed in the bipartisan House ethics report. The final nail in Santos’ coffin came from Max Miller a fellow Republican from Ohio who sent an email to his colleagues telling them that Santos had charged his and his mother’s personal credit cards for campaign contributions that weren’t authorized and that also exceeded federal election law limits.  Though that little nugget convinced a few more Republicans, some of whom were probably also victims of Santos’ scheme, to join almost all Democrats in voting for Santos’ ouster, it wasn’t enough for Republican leadership.  Speaker Johnson and his team, including New York State’s Elise Stefanik, all stood with Santos asserting it was wrong to expel a member of Congress who hadn’t yet been found guilty in a court of law but really because they didn’t want to lose his reliable vote.  Stefanik’s support was notable because the rest of New York’s Republican delegation were among those who’d spoken out most vociferously against Santos, mostly because a number of them, particularly those in districts Biden won in 2020, were and are still concerned that Santos’s is dragging them down, making it more likely than not that they’ll lose their seats in 2024. Santos may be gone from the House but he’s still acting out.  He’s now calling for the ouster of Democrat Jamaal Bowman, saying that because the Democratic Congressman pleaded guilty to breaking the law by pulling a fire alarm, that he’s the one who should be ousted.  In addition, over the weekend Santos said that he plans to file ethics complaints against fellow NY Republicans Nicole Malliotakis, Mike Lawler and Nick Lalota as well as NJ Democrat Rob Menendez this morning.  His claims are that Malliotakis has been engaging in insider trading, that Lawler funneled money from a company he owned to his personal campaign and that LaLota previously held a “no show” job.  His assertion against Rob Menendez is that he is too close to his father, the embattled and likely guilty NJ Senator Bob Menendez who remains in the Senate even though he too should be gone. As to Santos’s replacement, Democrats are expected to name former Congressman Tom Suozzi whose departure from Congress to challenge Governor Kathy Hochel in 2022 helped pave the way for Santos in the first place. Republicans are currently vetting around twenty or so possible contenders, including Mazi Melesa Pilip, an Israeli-Ethiopian immigrant who is also an Israel Army veteran.  By Santos’s standards Pilip would be perfect, as she actually checks most of those boxes he tried to squeeze into without even having to lie about her credentials.  While Pilip would make for an interesting candidate, odds are that the better-known Democrat Suozzi will win the special election scheduled for early next year, setting him up for the main event in 2024.  And it should surprise no one to learn that HBO is working on a Santos movie.  Santos, who is probably already auditioning for Dancing With Stars, and who is likely writing, or more likely plagiarizing a book, is due in federal court next week.         

🤡🤡🤡: Speaker Mike Johnson who should really be focusing all of his attention on passing a budget because both of his bifurcated government funding deadlines are still looming with one group of agencies running out of money on January 19 and the rest running out on February 2, is instead focusing on impeachments.  To placate his 🤡 contingent he’s throwing his support behind a House vote on the opening of an impeachment inquiry into President Biden.  There is no evidence that either Biden or House Homeland Security head Alejandro Mayorkas who is also on the chopping block have committed any impeachable crimes but that’s not the point.  Johnson says he has the votes to proceed with a formal inquiry and he might since the same NY Republicans who pushed to oust Santos and who should be wary of voting to impeach Biden need money for their campaigns and Johnson controls the purse strings.  To further muddy the waters, House Oversight Chair James Comer has subpoenaed Hunter Biden, who is not and has never been a government employee but is Joe’s son, to testify before a closed-door hearing of his committee.  Hunter’s position is that he’d be happy to appear, but he wants to be interviewed in public because though he maybe troubled, when sober he’s no fool and knows that testifying in private would give Comer and his co-conspirators friends ample opportunity to engage in what Hunter’s lawyers say will be selective leaking, the release of manipulated transcripts, doctored exhibits, and one-sided press statements.  Comer wants a private hearing because he wants to do all those things and because his prior public hearings haven’t turned out well, exposing him to a lot of ridicule.  In other pressing legislative news, the Senate is still fighting over Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan aid with Republicans seeking to tie military aid to more border funding and Democrats saying that’s not acceptable even though some of them agree with Republicans on border issues so odds are a compromise will be worked out soon.

Fog of War:  The Hamas-Israel war is no longer on pause.  The usual players are pushing for a ceasefire because war sucks, too many are being killed and those nice Hamas guys will stop their terrorizing when a ceasefire is in place.  Israel wants more time to eradicate, or at the very least, further damage, Hamas.  Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, the head of the Progressive caucus who way before October 7 told us her views on Israel by calling the country a racist state, something that she retracted though she didn’t want to, unsurprisingly is one of those calling for a ceasefire.  Jayapal didn’t help herself or her argument by hedging and hawing when asked by CNN’s Dana Bash why she and the other “progressive” members of Congress have been silent on the issue of Hamas’ sexual violence against Israeli women during the October 7 massacre.  Jayapal’s response was full of “buts” and “howevers,” not a good look and one that, together with the UN’s silence, explains why the hashtag #MeTooUnlessYouAreAJew is trending on X (Twitter).           

Flashing Lights Ahead:  Liz Cheney says that Republicans holding the House after the 2024 election would be a threat to democracy.  In the Washington Post Robert Kagan, a contributing opinion editor says it’s time to “stop the wishful thinking and face the stark reality” because Trump who will be the Republican candidate represents a “clear path to dictatorship in the US.” If that sounds alarmist, listen to Trump who admitted last week “We've been waging an all-out war on American democracy.” Though it would be nice to think that the US justice system will save us, forget about it. Last Friday’s ruling that Trump is not immune from civil and criminal cases provides little comfort because it will be appealed and even if upheld by the Supreme Court could be too little too late because by the time he’s tried and convicted, to the extent he ever is, Trump could be back in power. 

Banality of Crazy ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻

WTF: NY Judge Arthur Engoron’s gag order against Trump has been reinstated by a New York State appeals court, who after seeing transcripts of Trump’s vitriol and details of the resulting threats levied against his targets concluded that the order is warranted. Right about now Linda Yaccorino, the mostly pretend CEO of X (formerly Twitter) whose job it is to increase X’s advertising revenues wishes that she could get a gag order imposed on her boss. On Wednesday, fresh off his Israel apology tour, Musk appeared at a DealBook summit where, during an interview by CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin, he responded to a question regarding the advertisers who’d fled X in response to his anti-Semitic messaging, by ranting “Don’t advertise.  If somebody is going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go f-ck yourself. Go f-ck yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is.”  Telling the advertisers whose revenue your company relies upon to pay debtholders and remain solvent to go f-ck themselves is a curious strategy, especially since a number of those advertisers, including Disney’s CEO Bob Iger were at the conference.  To state the obvious none of them found his remarks all that reassuring. For her part, Yaccarino who may or may not be dipping into Musk’s ketamine supply took to X on Thursday to defend him with some drivel about X “enabling information independence” and standing at a unique and amazing intersection of free speech and main street.” Others were less charitable, predicting that Musk’s f-ck you comment was another nail in X’s coffin as well as an indication that Musk needs an intervention, one he won’t get because when you are the richest man in the world who controls a company like SpaceX and the banking industry is competing to lead your next lucrative IPO, no one including X’s lenders who are among those competitors, will do anything.  Why shouldn’t Musk believe that he can say and get away with outrageous behavior given what that even more dangerous charmer, Trump, gets away with? As Political Scientist Brian Klass says in reference to the one who is hailed by some of his dedicated supporters as their Orange Jesus, due to the “banality of crazy” Trump gets away with his continued “deranged authoritarian outbursts” that “garner virtually no mainstream coverage” even though Americans “deserve to know” that his “authoritarianism is the most important political story in America—and nothing else is close.” Musk’s personal implosion is disturbing and given his satellite control dangerous, but Trump’s is far worse as he has the capacity to both destroy our democracy and take down the world order.   

Fog of War: The ceasefire or “pause” between Hamas and Israel is, at least for now. Technically, it was broken when Hamas lobbed a few more missiles into Israel, but its end was inevitable given that Israel’s stated mission is to eliminate Hamas and though that may ultimately prove impossible, Israel isn’t done trying.  So far 110 hostages have been released by Hamas in exchange for 240 Palestinians.  At this point, it is believed that 137 hostages mostly the much harder to negotiate for men remain though the precise number is unclear since Hamas, which has issued incorrect information in the past, claims that some, including the youngest, the “red” haired child whose picture has been prominently displayed in the news, are no longer alive. Adding to the fog, last night the NY Times reported that Israeli officials knew something about the battle plan that Hamas implemented on October 7 more than a year ago but dismissed it as aspirational, considering it too difficult to carry out. Hindsight is 20-20, but according to the Times unnamed officials concede that had the warnings been taken seriously Israel could have blunted the attacks or possibly even prevented them.  Again hindsight, that said, regardless of what he knew, it’s fair to assume that Bibi’s days are numbered.  Lastly, “progressives” are upset that MSNBC has cancelled Mehdi Hasan’s Sunday show.  Hasan, a skilled debater, has always been a pro-Palestinian Israel critic but recently his comments on air and in his constant stream of anti-Israel tweets have grown increasingly biased. MSNBC says that his show was cancelled due to its ratings rather than his opinions, that he will still fill in for others, but it’s fair to assume that the two are related. It may be that attempting to justify Hamas’ action during an October 7 broadcast while the horror of the day, dismemberments, rapes, murders, and kidnappings, were being uncovered didn’t fly with viewers?    

Numbered Days:  On the subject of numbered days, today is the day that George Santos of many names, may be booted out of Congress.  A number of House Republicans report that the votes are there to kick him to the curb during today’s expulsion vote, but Speaker Mike Johnson says that though Republicans should vote their consciences, he has reservations, likely those reservations concern his ability to lead with an even smaller majority.  Complicating things further,  Axios reports that former Speaker Kevin McCarthy who reportedly told the Orange Jesus to go f-ck himself for not using his influence to help him retain his speakership is considering resigning by end of the month.  For his part, the Orange One told his Kev that he didn’t help him because he couldn’t forgive him for failing to expunge those two impeachments even though expunging impeachments isn’t a legitimate thing.  As to actions that aren’t or at least shouldn’t be legitimate, more information about how Pennsylvania Republican Rep Scott Perry tried to help Trump overturn the 2020 election results was revealed this week after some court transcripts were accidentally released. Among other things those transcripts reveal how supportive Perry was of Attorney General wannabee/Fulton County co-defendant Jeff Clark.  And lastly, remember all those discussions about Iowa Senator Grassley possibly standing in for VP Pence for the counting of the Electoral College votes.  It turns out that he almost did.  ABC News reports that on Christmas Eve 2020, Pence “momentarily” decided against presiding over the vote counting as he thought it would be “too hurtful” to his Orange friend who wanted him to recuse himself.  Pence ultimately decided to fulfil his duty to preside after a conversation with his son, a marine, who reminded him that he’d taken an oath to support and defend the constitution.  A close call in 2020 that serves as a warning as to what could end up happening if the next election ends up in the hands of a Congress controlled by Mike Johnson.

And:  No comment about Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis’ debate mostly because it’s hard to get why a non-candidate was debating a failing one in a debate emceed by Sean Hannity.