Emissary of Crazy ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻 

The Hawkeye State:   Over the weekend Trump used his Truth Social platform to share a bizarre video that proclaimed he was “God’s emissary on earth sent to delivery America back to prosperity.”  Apparently, a large swath of Iowans, including the state’s significant evangelical population bought in because though they mostly voted for Ted Cruz in 2016, this time they were all in on their orange god.  Multiple marriages and infidelities, sexual assaults, and insurrection, who really cares about that stuff anyway.  Trump won the Iowa caucuses with 51% of the votes.  With 21% of the vote Florida’s Ron DeSantis edged out South Carolina’s Nikki Haley who despite last-minute poll results projecting a second-place finish, instead came in third with 19% of the vote.  With just under 8% of the votes, Vivek Ramaswamy placed a distant fourth.  After the caucus was over Ramaswamy suspended his campaign, throwing his support to Trump.  Deep down, Ron DeSantis, who has got to know that his days on the campaign trail are numbered probably wished he’d come in third because then, with a shove from his dwindling number of financial backers, he would have been able to justify throwing in his towel too, but his second-place finish means he’ll be sticking around to get beaten resoundingly in New Hampshire.  Trump’s victory was totally expected but the press treated it like it was the second coming, breathlessly interviewing every Iowa snowflake and pulling out their crack election teams to analyze every boring detail when all they really needed to say was that the Republican Party is Trump’s MAGA party.  They’ll go all in on New Hampshire too because though it won’t matter long run, there remains a not-insignificant chance that Haley will eek out a victory before she too succumbs to the MAGA wave, and it certainly is a wave.  Yesterday Florida’s “little” Marco Rubio endorsed Trump as did North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, the one-time presidential candidate who had previously said that as a successful businessman he’d know better than to do business with a character like Trump.  No business, but an endorsement to become leader of the free world who’s running on retribution, why not?  Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds who’d previously endorsed DeSantis also said that she’d support Trump because winning is more important than anything else even if that means backing a twice impeached, multiply indicted rapist with a Jesus complex.  For his part, Trump is off to New Hampshire but not before making a pit stop in NYC to attend E Jean Caroll’s second defamation trial where presiding federal Judge Lewis Kaplan has ruled that the facts concerning her sexual assault are not in dispute because it’s already been established that Trump is a sexual predator. 

Tick Tock:  Over the weekend, Speaker for now Mike Johnson surprised and upset his right-wing 🤡 🤡 by standing firm for the funding deal he agreed to with Schumer, McConnell, Jeffries, and President Biden.  He also plans to bring the short-term continuing funding resolution initiated by Schumer up for a vote on the House floor because.  Like Kevin McCarthy before him, he’ll need lots of support from Jeffries’ Democrats to get the resolution passed.  That’s not a problem for Jeffries as virtually all of his team is expected to vote for the resolution.  Johnson’s problem is that he has to deliver at least 75 Republican votes with more being far more preferable for his Speakership longevity because that one vote motion to vacate looms over his head.  Even obtaining the 75 votes Johnson needs to deliver will be challenging, he temporarily lost still another Republican House member over the weekend after 86-year-old Kentucky Representative Hal Rogers was hospitalized following a car accident.

Fog of War:  It’s now over 100 days since October 7.  The Israeli hostages including some Americans, at least those still alive, are hidden somewhere in Gaza with Hamas dangling a few in videos to further torture their loved ones because nothing screams “we want peace” better than sharing videos of tortured, possible dead people?  The war in the Middle East keeps expanding as the Houthis launch more missiles at US and ally ships off the coast of Yemen and the US and its allies respond in kind.  For the record, the Houthis are not nice guys.  They are part of an Iran supported “Axis of Resistance” that serve Iran as anti-US and anti-Israel proxies so naturally many of the same folks who have no problem with Hamas attacking and raping residents of Israel, stealing civilian bound food, medical and building supplies, and hiding behind Gazans are now Team Houthi. Yesterday, there were more pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel demonstrations throughout NYC with the protestors closing roads and targeting NYC hospitals, including Sloan Kettering for their “complicity” in genocide.  Again, nothing builds support like going after healing institutions funded in part by Jewish donors as families try to visit their ailing family members.  The world has gone mad. 

#BringThemAllHomeNow