Palmetto On Tap ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻

Granite:  Likely because from here on out the 2024 presidential primaries won’t matter, the press rolled out all their pundits, fancy maps, and leader boards, treating New Hampshire’s race as if it was a nail biter. It wasn’t.  As predicted by the polls, Nikki Haley lost to Trump by more than 11 points, hardly the close race she needed. Moreover, many of those who made up the 43% who voted for her were either independents or Democrats who’d shifted their registration for the day to stick it to Trump. The Republican Party, even in somewhat independent New Hampshire, is all in on MAGA and Trump.  Unfortunately for Nikki Haley, absent a political earthquake she’s unlikely to approach 40% again. Despite that, instead of conceding, last night Haley delivered a rousing speech to her supporters, promising to stick it out at least through South Carolina’s February 24 primary. Maybe she will or maybe her financial backers, who like her know that even though South Carolina is her home state she’ll lose bigly there, will cut their financial cords. That’s what Trump, the all powerful MAGA god wants them to do and these days most in his party heed his demands.  Instead of giving an upbeat victory speech, he seethed, targeting Haley, insisting that she should move aside immediately. He called her an imposter, attacking her for her enthusiastic speech, saying he had to be mean because “I find in life you can’t let people get away with bullsh-t.” That from the king of bullsh-tery.  Worth noting that South Carolina Senator Tim Scott who, like Vivek Ramaswamy and Doug Burgum, was with Trump in New Hampshire responded to Trump’s nasty Haley remarks by saying to Trump “I just love you.” If Trump is looking for an obsequious running mate who’ll never second guess him, he need look no further. By the way, North Dakota Governor Burgum announced that he’s not running for reelection, he’s likely angling to be Trump’s Energy Secretary.  President Biden had a pretty good night too. Though he wasn’t on the New Hampshire Democratic ballot, through the magic of write-in ballots, he’s received 51.5% of the votes so far, easily beating the more than twenty candidates that were on the ballot, including Democratic Congressman Dean Phillips (19.8%),  guru Marianne Williamson (4.7%) and some fellow named President Bodie (<.1%). It’s fair to assume that a significant share of the 14.3% of the write-in ballots that still need to be processed will end up in Biden’s column. Not bad for a guy who wasn’t officially in the race.  Phillips insists that he’s remaining in the race to make a point and to increase his name recognition.  It is not clear why Williamson is still in.  It’s not just Democrats and Republicans who matter, the No Labels party is still out there, threatening to put up a candidate, something that despite an earlier suggestion that he might, Phillips clarified he won’t entertain.  Two of No Labels’ early funders, members of the Durst real estate family, are now suing the group, claiming it pulled a bait and switch. The Durst’s say that they only provided funding to promote bipartisanship, that supporting a third-party presidential candidate wasn’t supposed to be part of the group’s mission. Also out there are RFK Jr and former Bernie guy Cornell West both of whom have the potential to be spoilers, ala Jill Stein and Ralph Nader.

Legal Morass: Scott, Burgum and Ramaswamy weren’t the only ones with Trump last night, lawyer Alina Habba was there too.  That’s notable because the maskless Habba managed to get Trump’s E Jean Caroll defamation case postponed over her exposure to her parents’ COVID.  Habba told presiding Judge Kaplan that though she had tested negative she wasn’t feeling well and was running a fever. The case was supposed to resume today, but late last night it was put off until Thursday at which point maybe Kaplan will ask Habba how someone exposed to COVID and running a fever was well enough to travel to New Hampshire when she was too ill to appear in court. In other Trump legal news, yesterday, the Washington DC federal appeals court declined to rehear arguments over Judge Chutkan’s decision to impose a gag order to stop him from talking about witnesses and court staff while he awaits trial in the January 6 election interference case.  Still no news about Trump’s immunity appeal.

Fog:  Nothing but death to report out of the Middle East right now where there may or may not be a ceasefire under discussion.  Israel wants the hostages released, Hamas not so much. On the Congressional front, the Senate is still working out kinks in a potential bipartisan immigration – foreign aid package. If, and it’s a big if, the package makes it out of the Senate it could still die in the House where Speaker for now Mike Johnson fears doing anything without Trump’s blessing. Think about that, everyone agrees that immigration reform is necessary, and Ukraine is running out of weaponry, Biden has made concessions, but Trump and his crowd want the situation to fester because the worse things are the better it is for his candidacy. America first?            

 

#BringThemAllHomeNow