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 🧑‍🎄 🎅 🎄