Secrets and Lies  ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻

Déjà vu: Last week while Supreme Court watchers waited to find out when the Court would weigh in on whether states could keep Trump off their presidential ballots, the Justices further chipped away at the skeleton of abortion rights by allowing Idaho to continue to enforce provisions of a strict new abortion ban that makes it near impossible for doctors to perform abortions in emergency rooms. A federal court had earlier said that the onerous provision of Idaho’s new law conflicted with federal law about emergency care.  SCOTUS will hear oral arguments about the Idaho law and its impact on emergency care in April, with a final ruling expected in June, cold comfort to women enduring lethal pregnancies until then. Either the Justices have no sense of what emergency means or, more likely, at least five of them are okay with denying reproductive care to women facing life threatening crises until they are on their death gurneys.  As to the ballot issue, the Court agreed to hear Trump’s appeal of Colorado’s decision to rule him ineligible to run for president, scheduling oral arguments for February 8.  For now, the Colorado decision is on hold and Trump’s name is on the ballots that due to time constraints were printed last week. Naturally, Trump who views January 6 as the day when his patriotic supporters were oppressed by the Capitol police is now doing what he does, warning of “big trouble” if the Court doesn’t rule in his favor.  Keeping with that theme fresh off her victory lap for helping to dethrone the presidents of U of P and Harvard, Representative Elise Stefanik, fourth in House Republican leadership, refused to commit to certifying the results of the 2024 election while also referring to the January 6^th defendants as hostages during an appearance on Meet The Press because when auditioning for a Trump VP spot, it’s important to stick to his lies.  Keeping with that theme, Trump refused to sign a pledge not to overthrow the government, a traditional, though not mandatory, requirement for candidates running in Illinois and one that he did sign in both 2016 and 2020. It’s no wonder that Biden’s January 6 speech focused on the threat that Trump and his MAGA acolytes present to democracy.

Governing:  Late yesterday, Congressional leaders including Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and Speaker for now Mike Johnson announced that they had agreed to topline spending numbers for 2024.  They still have to work out individual spending bills and address foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, but the hope is that they have averted a government shutdown and are on their way to clearing the remaining funding hurdles.  Both sides conceded a little, but mostly the agreement sticks to the framework previously agreed to between President Biden and Kevin McCarthy and we know what happened to old Kevin after that so count me as one who thinks that Speaker Johnson may find his crowd growing restless with his leadership.  Already a number of his “fiscal” conservatives aren’t happy with him trying to act like a grown-up and then there’s Trump who hates anything orderly happening on Biden’s watch.  It doesn’t help that Johnson’s already shrinking majority, is short another vote as Steve Scalise, second in the Republican House hierarchy is having a stem cell transplant to treat his multiple myeloma this week and won’t be available for any floor votes for at least a month, maybe longer. Earlier this year, Kevin McCarthy ended the COVID era rules that allowed House members to vote from home, so Scalise won’t be able to cast proxy votes during his recovery period.  Though Scalise didn’t mention the possibility that he might be out of pocket for a bit when he was running for the Speaker spot at least he’s being forthcoming now.  The same can’t be said for Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin who spent some time incommunicado while in the Walter Read ICU over the holiday, something that neither he nor his staff told anyone, including Biden.  The Austin story remains murky.  Apparently, he had an undisclosed elective procedure, went home and then was readmitted to the hospital in pain, ending up in the ICU.  He hasn’t yet disclosed what that elective procedure involved, maybe a heart procedure or scope of some kind,  but cover-ups, intentional or not, aren’t a good thing so there could be consequences for him or for his Chief of Staff who appears to be taking heat for failing to keep people informed because of her own overlapping illness. It’s not like there are any wars going on, right?       

No Time for Tee: NY Attorney General Tish James is no longer asking the court to fine Trump $250 million, her new ask is $370 million combined with a lifetime ban on him, CFO Allen Weisselberg, and ex-controller Jeff McConney from real estate in NYS.  The new number includes $168 million of interest saved through his alleged fraud, $152 million from the sale of the Old Post Office/hotel lease in Washington, $60 million from the transfer of the Ferry Point Golf Course contract and $2.5 million for severance agreements for Weisselberg and McConney. Closing argments for the NY civil case are set for Thursday not to be confused with Tuesday when the federal appeals court is scheduled to hear oral arguments as to whether or not Trump is immune from prosecution for election interference or Wednesday when Trump is participating in a Fox townhall as counterprogramming to a CNN debate between DeSAntis and Haley, or a week from today when the Iowa caucuses take place, or next Thursday when damages for E Jean Caroll’s defamation case, not to be confused with her earlier NY case, is scheduled to place.   

Fog:  For some inexplicable reason the NYTimes decided to jump the shark by running an essay questioning Taylor Swift’s sexuality, something about hairpins and whatnot.  Maybe they were trying to distract from criticism over the Hamas appointed Mayor of Gaza City Op-Ed and figured that enraging Swifties was the way to go, who knows?  Or maybe they were trying to push the Claudine Gay firing out of the news, as if that’s even possible given that  Hedge funder Bill Ackman’s wife Neri Oxman plagiarized her MIT dissertation from a few places including Wikipedia 😂.  At least Oxman, an MIT professor, is not a university president but still, Ackman should have checked with her before going all in on Gay because glass houses and stones. Israel’s Bibi Netanyahu is another one with a bigly problem at home, like maybe explaining to his right wing partners that wishcasting outloud about sending Gazans to Africa is a very bad thing. And though he isn’t throwing actual stones, Elon Musk’s habit of getting stoned got the WSJ treatent this weekend, because just maybe the guy in charge of a number of companies, including ones that control 50% of satellites and send US rockets into space shouldn’t be indulging in and sharing hallucinatory recreational drugs?