Reality Bites ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻

Groundhog Day:  It’s not Groundhog Day yet but it might as well be.  Yesterday, following a 77 to 18 bipartisan vote in the barely Democratically controlled Senate, the House passed another two-tiered continuing resolution to keep some parts of the government funded through March 1 with the rest funded through March 8. Like former Speaker McCarthy before him, Speaker Johnson couldn’t even muster the votes to get the resolution out of the Freedom Caucus controlled Rules Committee, so he instead had to go with the “suspension of the rules” procedure to get the funding resolution to the House floor.  That procedure permits leadership to bring resolutions up for a floor vote without Rules Committee signoff but also requires passage by a two-thirds rather than just a simple majority.  As a result, Speaker Johnson had to turn to Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his caucus to obtain the votes to keep the government open.  The continuing resolution passed the House by a vote of 314 to 108 with all but two Democrats but only half of Republicans voting for it.  To put it mildly the right most wing of Speaker Johnson’s right-wing party is less than happy with him and are unlikely to be all that supportive going forward which explains why Johnson is opposing an immigration deal that a lot of Republican Senators have worked out with their Democratic counterparts and President Biden.  The deal, which uber Trump supporter Senator Lindsey Graham characterized as good as, if not better, than any deal they’d be able to hash out even if Trump is reelected, includes concessions intended to address the “crisis” at the border while also funding Ukraine. With his Freedom caucus whispering threats into one ear, and a certain spiteful Orange god doing the same into his other ear, the desperate Johnson is seriously considering scuttling any immigration reform package for political purposes because who cares if getting things done is good for the country when one’s job is at stake?

Primarily Yours: When not insulting judges or listening to his embarrassingly inept lawyer Alina Habba get schooled by the judge overseeing his E Jean Carol defamation case, the Orange one has been basking in the glow of his Iowa caucus victory.  He’s ramped up his attacks on Nikki Haley, doubling down on his claims that she like Barack Obama is not American born.  Haley was born in the US and is qualified to run but pointing out that she’s not lily-white works with a lot of Trump supporters.  For her part, during last night’s CNN townhall, Haley still couldn’t directly acknowledge the country’s racist past.  It was tortuous to listen to her word salad about how the founders said all men, with the emphasis on men, were created equal. That whole slave as a three-fifths of a person thing never crossed her lips. One of the sad things about Haley is that she knows better but is so fearful that speaking the truth will alienate the right side of her party. There’s a reason that Chris Christie who was heard off mic saying that she’s “going to get smoked” didn’t endorse her when he suspended his campaign.  The New Hampshire primary takes place on Tuesday.  While Haley is still dreaming of a New Hampshire victory, something that she desperately needs, polls, for whatever they’re worth show her 14 points behind Trump.  As to polls, while it’s highly likely that they’re right about Trump leading Haley, in general they’ve grown increasingly unreliable, particularly since Trump’s team has quite effectively managed to flood the zone with polls from right leaning pollsters, part of a successful effort to dismiss concerns that he’s unelectable in a general election, a strategy that appears to have worked.  It’s an approach that was also employed during the midterms and partially explains why so many in media were convinced that a huge red wave was coming when it wasn’t.  That said, polling for the upcoming election between Democrat Tom Suozzi and Republican Mazi Pilip for the Long Island seat vacated by George Santos indicates that they’re running neck and neck with Republican ads painting the moderate Suozzi as a left wing socialist and Democrats going after Pilip, another one with sketchy financials, who, rarely voted and until recently wasn’t a Republican, as an anti-abortion MAGA.  One more thing about Iowa, the turnout was lower than usual, perhaps due to weather but also do to a lack of enthusiasm for the candidates, a bigly problem for Haley which helps explain her third place finish but give Haley credit, taking a page from Trump’s book, she’s dismissed DeSantis’ second place finish and has decided to ignore him, asserting only she and Trump remain in the race which is how she justified pulling out of the scheduled pre-New Hampshire debate with the “irrelevant DeSantis.”  Also, in case anyone cares, Andrew Yang has endorsed Dean Philips, the Minesota Congressman challenging Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination while Philips has eliminated references to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) from his website likely to placate large donor Bill Ackman, the hedgie who helped dethrone Harvard’s Claudine Gay and is now getting skewered about his wife’s plagiarism problem.   

Fog:  Mudslinging is afoot in Fulton Country. The judge overseeing the Fulton County election interference RICO case is now looking into allegations that District Attorney Fani Willis had an inappropriate relationship with one of the outside prosecutors she hired to help her with the case.  The prosecutor in question is involved in an increasingly contentious divorce. The allegations of impropriety were raised by co-defendant Michael Roman because apparently only orange ex-presidents are allowed to have dicey private lives.  Switching gears, the embattled Bibi Netanyahu, who is fighting for his country’s survival and also for his political career, not necessarily in that order, got skewered yesterday for dissing a two-state solution.  That’s not much of new position for Bibi.  Given current events, he’s likely not totally wrong about the reality of negotiating a two-state solution right now because it takes two or maybe in this case three or more to tango and none of the other “dancing partners” appear all that interested in a diplomatic tango still it’s just not what anyone wants to hear. There are around 130 +/- hostages in Hamas captivity and the most recent negotiating accomplishment isn’t progress on their release, but that Hamas is allowing the Red Cross to distribute drugs to each one needing medicine as long as 1000 Gazans also get theirs. Kfir Bibas, the youngest hostage, to the extent he’s still alive, “celebrated” his birthday yesterday.  Reality bites.

#BringThemAllHomeNow