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.