Rich Man, Poor Man, King ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻

Expletive 🤯 Expletive 🤯 Expletive 🤯:  Yesterday started off with the news that Trump who previously asserted that he was sitting on boat loads of liquid assets was finding it difficult to quickly raise the $464 million he needs to post with the NY courts to proceed with his appeal of Judge Engoron’s ruling in the New York State fraud case.  Anil Singh, a judge on New York’s appellate court, quickly rejected Trump’s attempt to satisfy the posting requirement with a mere $100 million but agreed to stay for now Judge Engoron’s three-year prohibition against obtaining loans from New York banks as well as Engoron’s prohibition against Trump, Don Jr or Eric running the company during the same period. Judge Singh’s ruling will hold until a five judge appeals court panel rules otherwise.  In the meantime, Trump remains on the hook for the full $464 million plus interest, about $100,000 every day.  While Judge Singh was noodling over Trump’s request, Republican Senator Mitch McConnell announced that he planned to relinquish his leadership position after the November election. That’s probably not all that surprising given that Republican party leader/dictator Trump hates Mitch and also because he’s suffered a few inexplicable, public freezes this year. No need to mourn McConnell’s impending departure. He’s the one most responsible for Justices Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Barrett’s ascencion to the Supreme Court and the Court’s extreme rightward tilt, a skew that’s likely to be with us for another decade or more.  Moreover, had McConnell acted with any decency he would have put the final nail in Trump’s political coffin following January 6, but he wimped out, perhaps dooming our democracy. Still, it may be too soon to celebrate McConnell’s departure because his likely replacement, probably one of the three John’s (Barrasso, Thune or Cornyn) but maybe even a more right-wing outlier won’t be any better.  As to the Supreme Court that McConnell bequeathed us as a parting gift, late yesterday afternoon, much to the surprise of my go to “law firm”  Katyal, Luttig and Weissmann SCOTUS agreed to hear Trump’s immunity appeal. At the very least this means that some of the Justices, possibly Alito and Thomas who given his wife’s involvement should have recused from the case but hasn’t, believe that presidents have kingly powers.  Even if the majority of the Justices ultimately rule against Trump, he’s effectively won because with November’s elections quickly approaching the Court’s delay in taking up the case, the so-called “expedited” hearing of arguments at the end of April and then the wait for a ruling which could take until the end of June, has by most estimates effectively granted Trump the delay he was seeking, providing him with what Andrew Weissmann aptly called a pocket veto.  Bottom line, we are doomed. One more thing, though it matters little, a judge in Illinois ruled that Trump should not be allowed on the state’s primary ballot, a nice sentiment but probably pointless.   

More Legal Morass:   Not that it matters much but there were some other legal rulings yesterday.  Judge Eileen “loose” Cannon denied Trump’s lawyers request to see more of the classified filings that prosecutors have submitted, reluctantly ruling that the access Trump’s team sought was not typically granted in super-secret document stealing cases. Though Cannon’s ruling was a good thing, it’s likely that she will soon opt to further stall her already stalled case as a result of SCOTUS’s decision to rule on presidential immunity. Elsewhere in the legal universe former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, the man who knows lots of incriminating stuff, lost another bid to move his Fulton County election interference case to federal court.  That’s the case being prosecuted by DA Fani Willis and we’re still waiting to learn whether or not she’ll be disqualified.  My legal pundits mostly agree that she won’t be but they also said that SCOTUS wouldn’t bother hearing the presidential immunity case so count me as concerned, very concerned.

Bumps in the Road: It looks like Congress has avoided a partial government shutdown, again. Speaker for the moment Mike Johnson who with Democratic Congressman Suozzi sworn in yesterday is skating on even thinner ice, isn’t even trying to kick the ball far these days, so this continuing resolution is a mere dribble that like the last extension is bifurcated with part of it extended to March 8 as in next week, and the rest until March 22.  In a joint statement the powers that be said that the newest continuing funding resolution is intended to give legislators “adequate time to draft language for the agreed-upon spending bills, give congress members time to review the text and conduct other technical legislative processes.”  Among the issues still being “discussed” are abortion pill availability, funding more food for hungry children and whether or not mentally ill veterans should be entitled to keep their guns. So basically, let’s have more kids but let them go hungry and don’t do anything that might spare them from dying in a mass shooting.  Keeping with that theme, Mississippi’s Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith once again blocked unanimous consent of a bill protecting the right to IVF, a sentiment shared by enough of her Republican colleagues, the same ones who want us to believe that they are all in on aiding procreation, to doom the passage of any bill and SCOTUS heard arguments for and against the bump stock ban imposed by the gun friendly Trump administration.  Bump stocks are those devious gun add-ons that allow one to amp up killing power by turning guns into automatic weapons.  A number of the right leaning judges said that they understand why bump stocks are a bad thing but seem poised to overrule their ban, because of course.

#BringThemAllHomeNow

GoFundMe ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻

Wolverine State:  Yesterday was presidential primary day in Michigan.  As expected, Biden and Trump both won their respective primaries, Biden with 81.1% of the vote, Trump with 68.2%.  Biden’s biggest competitor wasn’t his remaining challenger Congressman Dean Phillips who received only 2.7% of the vote, rather it was “uncommitted,” the option used by voters protesting his support for Israel in the Gaza war.  The uncommitted category clocked in at 13.3% of the vote.  To put that in perspective, in 2012 when Obama ran for his second term, uncommitted received 10.7% of the vote so the concern is less about the size of the uncommitted faction but more about those levels being much higher in college towns because Biden will need younger voters to come out in force in November. It’s worth pointing out that those areas were Bernie Sanders strongholds in 2020 but when the vote came down to a choice between Trump and Biden the Bernie crowed voted for Biden. Trump’s biggest competitor was Nikki Haley, the real person who received 26.5% of the vote and continues to be a thorn in his side. Though Trump trounced her, she asserts that she’s remaining in the race at least through super Tuesday and as California Governor Gavin Newsom points out, right now she’s a great Biden surrogate because her Trump attack message is on point and getting lots of airtime.

Blastocyst Update:  The Republican party continues to equivocate on IVF.  To bring their lie home, Democratic Senators Tammy Duckworth and Patty Murray are planning to force a unanimous consent vote on protecting IVF as soon as today.  Duckworth, the disabled veteran who has had two IVF assisted pregnancies, presciently tried to force that vote in 2020 in the aftermath of the Roe overturning Dobbs decision but was blocked by Mississippi Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith who at the time didn’t explain the reason for her opposition.  It’s fair to assume that Republicans don’t want this vote to take place so at least one of them will oppose it again, preventing a floor vote but giving Democrats more fodder for their campaign ads.  By the way, the Republican new official position appears to be that IVF is theoretically okay, but following the Dobbs model, they want it regulated by the states.  And we all know how that’s worked out for abortion rights.

Tick Tock Redux: Though Republicans keep telling us that Joe Biden is hiding in a basement somewhere, he’s been rather visibly flying around the country.  He was in New York on Monday where he attended some fundraisers and appeared on Seth Meyers late night show.  He plans to go to the southern border on Thursday, the same day that Trump plans to visit, and yesterday he was in Washington, DC holding an all hands meeting with House and Senate leaders in an effort to avoid the partial government shutdown that will take place on Friday if Congress fails to pass some sort of budget bill, likely another continuing resolution.  Biden, Hakeem Jeffries, Mitch McConnell, and Chuck Schumer are all on board for funding the government, but Speaker for now Mike Johnson is sitting on the very pointy horns of a dilemma. He’s on record saying he won’t allow a House vote on any budget bill that doesn’t cut spending and fund the border even though he recently refused to allow a vote on the bipartisan Senate bill that provided funding for increased border security.  He’s facing huge pushback from the far-right wing of his party, some of whom believe that a shutdown would be a good thing, but is also up against concerns from his moderates, not that any of them are really moderates, who fear that a government shutdown will doom their reelection and those Republicans who still care about world order aren’t happy with his dire Ukraine dawdling.  And of course, because it worked so well for them in the past, a few members of his coalition are threatening to go with another motion to vacate vote if he doesn’t do their and Trump’s bidding. To say that Johnson is on shaky ground would be an understatement.  It’s also looking increasingly likely that Republicans will lose control of the House in November, not just because of their inability to govern but because New York State is fiddling with its electoral map again and seems poised to pass a redistricting plan that will shift a few seats blue.  One more interesting nugget, this week former North Dakota Senator Heidi Heitkamp said on a podcast that she’d heard that the real reason that Montana Congressman Matt Rosendale had suddenly dropped his Senate campaign was because he’d impregnated a staffer and couldn’t afford the added “sunshine” that a Senate campaign would provide on his personal life.  Rosendale who filed papers to run for reelection to the less transparent House is now threatening to sue Heitkamp but if she’s right and his threats are just threats, he could be in bigly, House majority threatening trouble. Also, more facts keep coming out about Alexander Smirnov the Russian agent/FBI informant who the Republican’s and Fox told us had impeachment level proof that Biden had accepted bribes.  He’s now in Federal custody because the only proof he had were lies fabricated by his devious Russian handlers.  Moreover, the reason that the FBI took the unusual step of arresting him at his lawyers’ office rather than at his residence is because he had eight or so guns at his home, so they were concerned about a violent confrontation.  Also, he had access to millions of dollars and holds both US and Israeli passports, which made him a flight risk because of Israel’s limited extradition law, another one of those subjects, like IVF egg thawing that was covered in an old episode of Law & Order.

Legally Yours: The Fani Willis trial, the one where Trump and his co-defendants are seeking to besmirch and disqualify the Fulton County DA over her canoodling, is winding down.  Yesterday her one-time paramour Nathan Wades’ former partner/divorce lawyer said that he couldn’t remember when Wade and Willis’ relationship crossed into lover territory and that earlier statements that he’d made on the subject were just speculation and gossip. Closing arguments on the motion to disqualify Willis are set for Friday.  After that it will be up to presiding Judge McAfee to decide her, and likely the RICO case’s fate. Judge “loose” Cannon has agreed with Special Counsel Jack Smith’s obviously appropriate request that co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oleveira shouldn’t be allowed access to the super-secret documents that Trump absconded with but still hasn’t ruled on whether Trump should be granted access because why rush? In NYC, where the hush money/election interference case trial is due to start soon, District Attorney Alvin Bragg has asked the judge overseeing the case to issue a partial gag order preventing Trump from attacking potential witnesses and identifying jurors because we all know that absent an order, he will. Also in NY, Trump and his co-defendants have announced plans to appeal his fraud case and huge penalty but still haven’t posted the required appeal bond. Lastly, we are all still waiting for the Supreme Court to weigh in on whether or not presidents are kings with regard to immunity.    

Fog:  Biden may have gotten a head of himself or may have been wish casting when he said that he expected a Hamas-Israel ceasefire/hostage release deal to take place imminently.  Both Hamas and Israel are denying that a deal is close to fruition. And because, despite Tuckers adulation, Trump BFF Putin is not a nice guy, one of Alexei Navalny’s lawyers had been taken into custody.  

#BringThemAllHomeNow

 

Pickles ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻

Blastocysts R Us: Last year 4 million or 1% of the babies born in the US resulted from in vitro fertilization.  Their parents cross the political spectrum which explains why a number of Republican politicians, most notably Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson, and Senator Steve Daines, chair of the Republican Senate campaign committee, spent part of the weekend denying that they’re opposed to IVF. Among those asserting that they are supportive of IVF are some of the 125 Republican House members who co-sponsored the “Life at Conception Act,” legislation also supported by Senator Daines.  That Act declares that the “right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human being” at the “moment of fertilization,” the concept that the Alabama Supreme Court relied on to put IVF on life support.  So once again, don’t believe their politically convenient lies, they’ve already told us how they feel about IVF it’s just that the outrage about last week’s Alabama decision has them in a pickle. Their views haven’t changed, they still believe and are prepared to act on their belief that the destruction of a six to eight cell fertilized egg, the likely outcome of any IVF procedure, is murder. And those promises to provide exceptions for pregnant women facing dire health emergencies, forget about that too.  Just last week Kelise Norris-De La Cruz, was turned away from a Texas hospital emergency room where doctors refused to terminate her life-threatening ectopic pregnancy. Less than twenty-four hours after she was turned away, she ended up at another hospital with a ruptured fallopian tube.  She’s lucky to be alive.  According to Politico, the termination of reproductive rights, including the passage of a national abortion ban is just one of the things we should expect should Trump make it back to the White House to impose the Project 2025 Mandate, the mostly Christian Nationalist manifesto being pushed by many members of his team and supported by the same folks who brought us our newest Supreme Court Justices.  By Christian Nationalist, don’t think Christian because the Christian Nationalist agenda is about exclusionary politics and intolerance rather than the Golden Rule. Trump hasn’t hidden his plans to abandon NATO allies or to “round-up” and “mass deport” immigrants, but some of his other plans have been getting less attention. They include eliminating most immigration, disputing the reality of global warming, dismantling environmental protections, launching trade wars, and so on because who needs any of that when you can have Gilead, albeit a hot, smog laden Gilead?    

Primaries:  Trump won Saturday’s South Carolina Republican presidential primary, receiving 60% of the vote to Haley’s 40%, a clear win but one that pales in comparison to Biden’s 96% in the Democratic primary. Haley’s voters included a mix of Republicans, independents and a few Democrats who showed up just to vote against Trump.  She insists that she’s staying in the race through next week’s super Tuesday when 16 states and territories will hold their primaries and she likely will because she has enough funds on hand to do so but the biggest source of her funding is now gone since last night the Koch network which had been supporting her campaign announced that they’re halting their financial support to focus on Senate and House races.  It’s been fun watching Haley attack Trump, but we’ll only know for sure if she really meant any of the things she’s been saying after she pulls out because unlike Chris Christie early on in the campaign, she pledged to support the Republican nominee.  She’s probably also going to be approached by the No Labels folks who still haven’t found themselves a candidate.  During the week, she refused to say whether she’d consider that avenue and Democratic Congressman Dean Phillips who is still challenging Biden said that he'd be interested in teaming up with her on the No Labels ticket, not that she even knows who he is because most of us don’t.  Tomorrow is primary day in Michigan.  Both Biden and Trump are expected to win easily though a number of Democrats, spurred on by Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib and the state’s large pro-Palestinian community are expected to cast their votes for “uncommitted” rather than for Biden. For what it’s worth this morning’s Emerson College poll shows 75% of Democrats polled supporting Biden, 5% Phillips and 9% “uncommitted” with 12% undecided. For Biden, the issue is less about the primary and more about whether the “uncommitted” protest votes abandon him in November, staying home or instead voting for the candidate who wants to ban all Muslims from entering the country. Notably, Biden has issued an order temporarily blocking the deportation of most Palestinians with expired visas.  That order protects around 6000 Palestinians from being sent home now when given the Gaza war going home could put their lives at risk.  On the subject of polls, the NY Post reported this weekend on a poll that said that 53% of New York’s Jewish voters would vote for Trump over Biden if the election was held today.  That struck me as weird since Jews typically vote Democrat, Tom Suozzi did better than expected win in the recent Long Island special election where he ran against an IDF veteran, and because around 70% of Jewish voters cast their votes for Biden in 2020 so I did some internet sleuthing.  It turns out that there were only 80 Jews in the poll cited so though it made for good clickbait, its statistical relevance is questionable.   

Fog:  We’re still waiting to hear what the Supreme Court has to say about Trump’s immunity claims and from Judge “Loose” Cannon who has also been asked to weigh in on the subject. The clock is officially ticking on Trump’s fraud penalty so unless he finds another court, if that is even possible, to put a stay on his payment, he’s going to have to fork up or find a friend with some bigly bucks or a bond soon.  That ceasefire in exchange for kidnap victims deal is still “imminent.” Ukraine is struggling while Republicans in Congress kowtow to Trump and his BFF Putin. And another government funding deadline is soon to be upon us.        

#BringThemAllHomeNow

 

Blastocysts ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻

BELIEVE:  No one thought that the US Supreme Court would really overturn Roe because the Trump appointees all testified that they would respect precedent, but they didn’t.  No one thought that Texas’s abortion ending bounty law would withstand court challenges, because $10,000 bounties to punish abortion “abettors” was beyond crazy but it did. No one thought that a slew of states would pass “heartbeat” abortion bans, but they did.  No one thought that pregnant women in the throes of life-threatening miscarriages would be sent home from emergency rooms because they weren’t close enough to death’s door, but they are being sent home.  No one thought that women would have to travel out of state to end tragic pregnancies, but they have been.  No one thought that women would be arrested for miscarrying at home and failing to properly bury fetuses circling the toilet drain but they have been. No one thought that ten- year-olds would be forced to carry their rapists’ children but are.  No one thought that people trying to help those raped children get abortions would be prosecuted but they have been.  No one believes that the Supreme Court will really ban mifepristone while also banning the distribution of abortion or even birth control medicines across state lines, but they might, soon.  Now we’ve got the Alabama Supreme Court’s IVF ending decision and again, it would be nice to think that it won’t stand and if it does, it’s only Alabama so what’s the big deal?  Think again, it’s a big deal that has already put the kibosh on the plans of women who’ve spent thousands of dollars, injected themselves with multiple hormone shots and were just hours away from having their eggs implanted and maybe seeing their dreams of motherhood come to fruition. And to those who think, nothing to worry about because they’ve got the financial means to finance their or their loved ones’ travel to a “blue” state to take care of problem pregnancies or fertility issues, start thinking internationally because as hard as it is to believe that it will ever happen, the religious right’s goal of banning abortions, assisted pregnancy and maybe even contraceptives NATIONWIDE, and that means blue states too, is closer than ever.  America 2024, where an 8-cell blastocyst is a live baby, but where the infant mortality rate for real live babies is embarrassingly high because health care for disadvantaged mothers and their babies is a low priority.  It’s sadly telling that the gut reaction of Nikki Haley, the supposedly sane Republican candidate for president, to the Alabama ruling was to say that she agrees that blastocysts are children.  Sure, like with slavery, she’s walked back that utterance but when people tell you who they are and what they think, believe them.

Legal Morass:  Trump has remained silent on the Alabama blastocysts equal babies decision likely because he’s trying to figure out what a blastocyst is and how to spin the decision in a manner that doesn’t jeopardize his religious wingnut support or cost him any more soccer mom votes, maybe something that blames the very Catholic Biden as a heathen and/or invokes murdered Russian dissident Alexie Navalny because that’s working so well for him.  Nevertheless, he was relatively busy yesterday, at least his lawyers were.  Last night in an attempt to get his purloined documents case dismissed they filed a series of motions in Florida.  It’s unlikely that those motions in which he’s again claiming both presidential immunity and that Special Counsel Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed will withstand judicial scrutiny even by Judge “loose” Cannon’s perverse standards, but they will further slow the case down which is the point. As to immunity, we’re still waiting for the Supreme Court’s decision on whether or not to hear and stay, or just hear, or neither hear nor stay in Trump’s appeal of the DC appeals court ruling, the one that said he’s not immune because he’s not and never was a king.  It’s Friday so we may hear something by day’s end or not because speed even in the face of the end of democracy doesn’t appear to be SCOTUS’s thing. However, NY Judge Arthur Engoron is into progress, he has had enough with Trump and his shenanigans. Yesterday, he denied a request to delay the imposition of Trump’s rather large penalty and instead started the penalty clock. Trump and his codefendants have thirty days to put up the $400 million +/- that they, mostly Trump owe, appeal or no appeal.  New York Attorney General Tish James says she’s ready to start taking assets and selling off buildings if Trump doesn’t comply. There’s not much to report out of Fulton County where testimony by Nathan Wade, Fani Willis’ special prosecutor/one time beau’s divorce lawyer was rescheduled to next week.  It’s not clear that he will ever testify, but until that’s resolved there will be no ruling on Willis’ status and no progress on the RICO case.

More Fog:  The Republican South Carolina primary takes place tomorrow. Spoiler alert, Trump is going to win, bigly.  Lara Trump who is just days away from assuming a senior role at the RNC is saying the quiet part out loud, admitting that as soon as she’s in a position to authorize it the RNC will start covering some of Trump’s legal fees.  Some because they don’t have the money to cover all of them.  That’s not such bad news, because money spent on Trump’s legal fees means less money to down ballot Republican candidates, a bit of a problem since several state Republican organizations, including those in Arizona, Florida and Michigan are currently in disarray.  Those problems include warring leaders, leaked phone calls, and in the case of Florida, credible rape allegations.  Nothing to report on regarding the funding of the government or the passing of aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan but a little more on the Russian agent front.  That Russian agent, Alexander Smirnov, who was until this week, the Republicans key witness in their faux impeachment case against Joe Biden was rearrested yesterday because the DOJ really wants him locked up as they fear that he will either flee the country or maybe even get poisoned or defenestrated by his Russian handlers if he’s free to move about.  Meantime, references to his “Biden implicating” depositions have been wiped off of the Oversight Committee website though Republican Reps Jim “Gym” Jordan and James Comer insist that their efforts to move forward with Biden’s impeachment will continue because lack of evidence of any criminal activity by Joe isn’t a problem for them.  One more thing about the Smirnov embarrassment, it was Senator Chuck Grassley who brought him to the attention of his House colleagues; naturally even though the Smirnov thing has proven to be a bust Grassley has no regrets. We continue to hear that on the Israel/Gaza front a temporary ceasefire/hostage release is in the works, believe it when we see it and not before.

#BringThemAllHomeNow             

         

Chicken Little Redux✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻

Déjà vu:  We’re back to another Chicken Little moment because unless Congress passes another funding extension, parts of the government will close down on March 1.  We’ve been here so many times before that it hard to take this sky is falling threat seriously, but we probably should because the House which is currently on vacation and not due to return until February 28 doesn’t have much wiggle room.  Neither does Speaker for now Mike Johnson who may have blown through his honeymoon period with those members of his party who’ve already shown that they have no problem pulling their “motion to vacate” card when their Speaker reaches out to Democrats to get the votes necessary to pass funding extensions. It’s not just government funding that’s at issue right now, the Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan aid package remains up in the air. Few doubt that it would pass if it made it to the House floor, but Johnson is caught between a rock and a hard place on that too, and that hard place if further complicated by Trump’s hate for all things Ukraine. By the way, Speaker Johnson spent part of his House break in Florida, not filming a new version of Where the Boys Are, but hanging with Trump at Mar a Lago where he got his marching orders in person.  It’s more than fair to assume that those orders are as follows:  do nothing to help Ukraine, don’t do anything to fund more border security, and, if closing the government is necessary to increase mayhem, go for it. On the subject of the border, last night Trump said the quiet part out loud, admitting to Fox’s Laura Ingraham that he opposes the very conservative border plan passed by the Senate because it’s good for Biden. In the same interview, he also insisted that he was entitled to take government documents, especially the super-secret ones, with him when he left office and that he’s also entitled to keep them, a notion that his one-time aide convicted liar Peter Navarro apparently shares because he too continues to sit on some documents that he took and is still refusing to return them despite a court order to do so.  

Abortion Politics:  Only the most gullible believe that Trump morally opposes abortion, what he cares about is votes and figuring out a way to recapture the Republicans and independents who have strayed to the blue side because of the Roe overturning Dobbs decision as well as their very rational fears that given the opportunity, Republican politicians will impose more restrictions including even a nationwide abortion ban. In an effort to appear a bit more flexible, Trump has been test marketing a 16-week abortion ban that allegedly would have exceptions for rape, incest and to save the life of the mother.  Don’t be fooled., that 16-week number may look good on paper but does nothing for women most in need, including those requiring miscarriage care, experiencing dangerous pregnancies complications, or awaiting the results of genetic testing. As to the exceptions, if we’ve learned anything by now it’s that even when they are in state laws, they aren’t applied rationally.  Do we really need to hear more stories about women facing the loss of their fertility or worse, their lives, as they fly across the country, or overseas, for care they can’t get close to home.  And who is going to grant those rape and incest exceptions for anyone, least of all the most vulnerable. It’s not just abortion rights that are at risk, the Alabama Supreme Court is now going after IVF.  They’ve ruled that the destruction of fertilized eggs is equivalent to infanticide.  As a result, one state IVF clinic has suspended operations and others are expected to follow.  All this, while we’re still waiting for SCOTUS to rule on the “legality” of the FDA’s more than 20-year-old approval of mifepristone and whether it can even be distributed through the US mail.

Political Morass:  Some Senate Republicans are fighting to hold a show trial on Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas’ impeachment.  They know that there’s no chance that he’ll be found guilty largely because they don’t have the votes and he’s done nothing that remotely qualifies as a high crime or any crime, but they want the press they’ll get if they hold a loud rambunctious trial.  They need the Mayorkas trial in part because the House’s impeachment investigation into President Biden is proving to be a bust because it relied on testimony from a former FBI informant named Alexander Smirnov who was indicted last week by the Department of Justice’s Republican appointed US Attorney David Weiss for fabricating his testimony.  That testimony concerned invented bribes that Smirnov had claimed that Joe and son Hunter received from Ukrainian oil company Burisma during Hunter’s visit to Ukraine. It turns out that Hunter has never been to Ukraine. that there were no bribes and that the “bribe story” was fed to Smirnov by Russian intelligence. Don’t expect to hear any apologies from any Republicans, especially committee chairs Jim Jordan and James Comer who have been screaming about these alleged bribes despite all the evidence that they never happened.  

The Race:  Nikki Haley took to the podium yesterday to say that she’s remaining in the race even though she knows that she’s going to go down in flames in South Carolina.  She’s been upping her criticism of Trump, but that criticism will only matter if she withholds her endorsement when she drops out of the race and she will eventually drop out, it’s just a matter of time and money.  Trump, who previously said that he already knows who his VP partner will be,  is now teasing that his finalist list includes  Florida’s Ron DeSantis, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, former candidate/tech guy Vivek Ramaswamy, Florida Congressman Byron Donalds, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem and former Democratic Congressman/one time Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard.  Poor Elise Stefanik, despite all her fangirling she doesn’t appear to have made the list.

#BringThemAllHomeNow

Sneaker Heads ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻

Presidents Day: On Friday Trump, the Republican’s likely candidate, was ordered by NY Judge Arthur Engoron to pay $355 million in penalties plus another $95 million or so in interest, for committing fraud.  Engoron called Trump out as borderline pathological for his complete lack of contrition. As expected, Trump was livid, he attacked the judge, the process, and New York’s Attorney General Tish James.  He then headed to Philadelphia’s Sneaker Con where he sold 1000 pairs of gaudy, overpriced sneakers asserting that his sneaker plan had long been in the works and that the timing of the sale while opportune wasn’t planned. Trump will appeal Engoron’s decision but unfortunately for him, NY law requires him to post the full penalty amount plus a cushion to do so. Trump can choose to cover his obligation by forking over cash or by providing a costly appeals bond, assuming he can find an entity willing to risk lending to him, a risk heightened by the complications that would arise if a bond provider ever had to sue a sitting president for payment. The good news for Trump is that his garish gold sneakers sold out quickly, the bad news is that even together with the $415,111 that 8400 fanatical fools have contributed to a GoFundMe page set up by the wife of a wealthy Florida real estate maven, absent another far more substantial windfall, he’ll have to tap into his own resources to cover the lion’s share of what he owes.  According to Forbes Trump is currently worth $2.6 billion, an amount that includes $870 million from his golf clubs and resorts, $690 million from NY properties, $190 from other properties outside NY, $190 million from his social media and brand businesses, and $640 in personal assets which includes $426 million in cash and liquid assets. To the extent that Forbes is correct, Trump has the resources to pay the NY fraud penalty as well as the additional sums he owes E Jean Carroll, but he might have to sell some real estate to do so because he still needs funds to support his lifestyle.  That said, the possibility that some combination of right-wing billionaires, foreign autocrats, Political Action Committees and the Republican National Committee will help minimize or even eradicate the need for him to fork over more than pocket change shouldn’t be ruled out.  As to foreign autocrats, its notable that Trump has remained silent about last week’s murder of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny at the hands of Putin, who is reportedly worth $200 billion.

Navalny Aftermath:  The Russian party line is that Alexei Navalny died of sudden death syndrome, a malady like defenestration that seems to disproportionately affect Russian dissidents. Everyone knows that Putin and his Russian mouthpieces are lying.  It’s far more likely that Putin who doesn’t need much to justify murdering foes, feels emboldened these days what with the US Congress doing its best to starve Ukraine of needed military resources. It’s hard to ignore that former Fox guy Tucker Carlson “pre-justified” the murder during an interview he gave shortly before Navalny’s death when he said that “every leader kills people.”  A few prominent Republicans like VP wannabee JD Vance and New York’s one-time gubernatorial nominee Lee Zeldin have even gone so far as to compare the murder of Navalny to the “witch hunt” against Trump, an incredibly sickening comparison from two educated veterans who know better.  A few others, like South Carolina’s Lindsay Graham are calling for stronger sanctions against Russia but remain unwilling to fully support any aid for Ukraine that doesn’t include some amendments that aren’t going to happen.  As to Speaker for now Mike Johnson he and his House are conveniently on vacation right now and while he’s probably feeling some pressure to act, he’s so fearful of infuriating Trump and surrogates Margie Q and Matt Gaetz and their threats to vacate him ala Kevin McCarthy that he’s playing ostrich.

Fani-ng the Flames:  Fulton County DA Fani Willis didn’t return to the stand on Friday, but her impressive father did. He testified that he doesn’t get to see his daughter as much as he’d like to anymore because of the many death threats against her.  He also explained the family’s preference for paying with cash by relaying how there have been times when his American Express card, VISA card, and even American Express travelers checks (Venmo before Venmo) have been refused because charging while Black is never a sure thing. Those experiences combined with him telling Fani that she should always have cash reserves on hand and should always be prepared to pay for herself because as she put it “a man is not a plan” have left an impression on Fani and go far to explaining her affinity for cash. Former Georgia Governor Roy Barnes further bolstered Wallis’ hiring decisions by testifying that in 2021 before she offered the position to Nathan Wade, Willis asked him if he would consider serving as special prosecutor but that he turned the opportunity down because he “had mouths to feed” and was concerned about threats of violence. One of Wade’s former law partners also testified for the RICO defendants, but his testimony was turned on its head by his admission that he’d been fired from Wade’s law firm over allegations that he’d engaged in sexual harassment of associates and clients.  Now, it’s up to Judge Scott McAfee to rule, and though the majority of legal pundits don’t believe that Willis will be disqualified, we won’t know for sure until he opines.  

Political Shenanigans: West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin has announced that he’s not running for the presidency, but the No Labels crowd is still looking for a candidate to disrupt things.  Rashida Tlaib, the D’s counterpart to Margie Q and Lauren Boebert, who was the only Congressperson to not support a House resolution to condemn Hama’s sexual crimes is telling Michigan primary voters to vote uncommitted in the Michigan Democratic presidential primary to protest Bidens’ actions vis a vis Israel and Gaza.  Though her “advice” probably won’t affect the outcome of the primary, it could have an impact on the general election because Michigan is a swing state and Biden needs the voters she’s likely to influence to cast ballots for him in November.  It’s probably not a coincidence that Congresswoman AOC has taken to the talk shows to boost Biden because she appreciates the value of winning and also knows how to count. 

#BringThemAllHomeNow

 

Alexei Navalny RIP ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻

Guns, Guns, Guns: Add sports team victory parades to the growing list of events to avoid. On Wednesday more than 20 people, many of them children, were injured and one, a local DJ, was killed after a dispute erupted into another mass shooting.  You’ll be relieved to know that Missouri’s pro-gun Governor Mike Parson who attended the rally but was seen running from the scene surrounded by his security force escaped unharmed.  He hasn’t changed his view on guns and is happier than ever that Missouri is a constitutional carry state where permits are not necessary because the problem is thugs, not thugs with guns.  He also wants everyone who was shot as well as all their parents and all the traumatized people who survived but will have nightmares going forward to know that he’s got them in his “heart and prayers.”  Trump who recently told Iowans to just get over a mass shooting in their state responded to the attack by bragging to rally goers in South Carolina that no gun legislation was passed while he was president.  The NRA may be bleeding cash and Wayne LaPierre is no longer their leader but with guns enshrined in our culture and the Supreme Court’s originalists convinced that the founders wanted everyone to have their own personal arsenal, we’re toast. Speaking of those originalists, you may have noticed that a lot of stores in NYC now have “no guns allowed here” signs.  That’s because SCOTUS shot down much of NY’s previously highly restrictive gun permit law leaving it to stores to make up their own rules.  So, no guns in Whole Foods, but okay in a lot of other places.  

Housewives of Fulton County: I gave up watching any of the “Housewives of” programs a long time ago because the novelty of watching crazy humiliation wore off but I did catch snippets of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s testimony in Judge McAfee’s court yesterday and felt like I had landed back in another housewives’ episode. Who needs Andy Cohen and his fame seeking loons when you’ve got real reality?  To recap, a number of the co-defendants in the Fulton County RICO election interference case are going after Willis, asserting that she should be disqualified because of an “inappropriate” relationship with Nathan Wade, one of her prosecutors who for a while was also her paramour. Their chief “fact” witness is a former friend of Willis’ who was fired from her office.  The former friend/employee claim that Willis’ relationship with Wade started earlier than both have admitted and that it involved financial improprieties. Naturally, they don’t just want her disqualified, they want the whole RICO election interference case dropped.  Willis wasn’t planning on testifying but surprised all, including her own lawyer, by showing up to explain why she regularly reimbursed Wade in cash rather than by check or VENMO for her share of their joint escapades.  Her explanation that her father taught her to always keep lots of cash around because women need to maintain their independence and cash is king was both old school and charming in a father knows best and wants his daughter to stay safe kind of way.  Willis’ impromptu testimony wasn’t rehearsed which is probably why it felt so genuine. Still, it was very disconcerting to watch all the defendants’ lawyers publicly tearing apart a proud, competent and in this case Black woman’s personal life. Her fate, and the fate of the case, will ultimately be decided by Judge McAfee who hopefully will rule that Willis can stay on but if we’ve learned anything in this Trump era, nothing’s a given.  

More Legal Morass:  Queue the ketchup bottles.  NY Judge Engoron is expected to announce the penalty in Trump’s fraud case today. All expectations are that the 💰 💰 number will be huge, providing a buying opportunity for anyone interested in acquiring a tower or two. Then again Trump might not have to go forward with a fire sale because yesterday the SEC approved his Truth Social SPAC transaction which could top up his cash reserves enough to cover some of the fraud penalty.  In other Trump legal news, his lawyers have responded to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s response to their request for SCOTUS to weigh in on his immunity defense in his election interference case. Smith wants SCOTUS to deny Trump a trial stay and also wants the court to act as quickly as possible especially if they decide to review the appeals court’s “no immunity because presidents aren’t kings” ruling. Trump and his lawyers really want that stay and also want the immunity case to first be reviewed “en banc” by the full appeals court before it even goes to the SCOTUS Justices because delaying is their thing.  The Judge overseeing NY District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s NY hush money/election interference case has set a trial date, he intends to start jury selection on March 25 and has allocated six weeks for the trial. Trump who ended up not showing up in Atlanta maybe because he didn’t expect Fani Willis to testify, did show up in NYC because showing up and waving to the cameras while screaming unfair persecution is another one of his things.  And Judge “loose” Cannon kind of did something okay yesterday. She denied Trump’s lawyers efforts to postpone some pretrial deadlines but gave them the opportunity to ask again for a delay at some point in the future.

Fog:  It was announced this morning that Russian opposition leader Alex Navalny, who’d been imprisoned by Putin, has died. Not surprising but incredibly sad. No doubt we’ll learn that his death had nothing to do with the way he was treated but Putin but was due to “natural causes.”  In other Russia related news, during the week House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner called a code red over an “imminent security concern,” scaring the bejesus out of anyone who was paying attention. His warning had to do with Russian plans to launch nukes into space to take out satellites, a bigly problem but not something that is going to happen tomorrow or even this year.   It’s not clear why he went public with this, but it may have been his way of pointing out that Russia, especially Putin, is not our friend and that the foreign military aid funding that Speaker for now Mike Johnson is trying to prevent is needed despite Trump’s protestations otherwise. Some of his Republican cronies are now calling for an investigation into his action because Republicans are fully into the eat their own stage of the destruction of their party.  Also, that pivotal impeachment witness who was supposed to prove that President Biden accepted bribes from a Ukraine company, he was indicted yesterday for fabricating that accusation and lying to the FBI. The US Attorney responsible for that indictment was David Weiss, the special counsel responsible for all things Hunter not to be confused with Robert Hur the US Attorney responsible for the “Joe Biden didn’t do anything illegal with his documents but is old and teetering” special counsel.  As to Hur yesterday we learned that Biden’s folks protested his report even before it was published but that AG Garland, let it go out as is. And of course, House Republicans plan to call Hur in to testify to hammer home that Biden is old.  On the subject of old, the No Labels party is teasing that they’re closing in on nominating their presidential candidate.  Joe Manchin who is 76 says he’s still considering the possibility of being that candidate and would love to run with Mitt Romney who is also 76. Neither man is running for reelection for the Senate because neither can win in their states, so maybe this is just about throwing a wrench into the 2024 election, ensuring a Trump victory?              

#BringThemAllHomeNow

So Not a Nail Biter ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻❤️ ❤️ ❤️ 

Suozzi by a Mile: Yesterday House Republicans held an emergency do over,  finally voting to impeach Homeland Secretary Mayorkas. They were able to pull off the politicized impeachment by a partisan vote of 214 to 213 only because Louisiana Republican Steve Scalise, who had missed last week’s first attempt, returned from his bone marrow transplant leave.  Republicans didn’t even pretend that Mayorkas had committed any high crimes or misdemeanors; he was impeached because at least right now they don’t have the votes to impeach President Biden and they’ve concluded that keeping the border “crisis” front and center in the run up to the 2024 election is the only way they can maintain control of the House. Privy to their own polls, House leadership clearly knew what was coming on Long Island.  Had they waited even one day, their impeachment mulligan would have gone down in flames, because despite the efforts of the ratings seeking media to paint it as a too close to call statistical tie, the special election for the seat vacated by serial liar George Santos was far from a nail biter.  Democrat Tom Suozzi trounced his Republican opponent Mazi Pilip, winning by 8 points, a bigly swing given that volleyball GOAT Santos won by an almost identical margin in 2022. Deploying a strategy that Democrats will try to employ in other swingy districts, the moderate Suozzi boomeranged the migrant “crisis” axe, effectively using Republicans’ failure to support the border compromise negotiated by a bipartisan group in the Senate as a cudgel against Pilip. That combined with her out of sync views on reproductive rights tanked her campaign. To her credit, Pilip who had mostly distanced herself from Trump, did the right thing by conceding her loss once it was clear that she was headed to defeat. Perhaps it was that concession in a district that includes part of his Queens birthplace, that threw Trump over the edge.  Last night he took to Truth Social to slam Pilip as a phony Republican and “foolish woman” who lost because she didn’t endorse him.  He added that if he has anything to do with it, she’ll be replaced by a MAGA candidate of his choice come November.  He probably will get his wish, because assuming his plan pans out, in a few weeks, with his endorsement Eric’s wife Lara is expected to become Vice-Chair of the RNC where she’ll get to influence decisions about candidates as well as more important things, like whose legal expenses should be reimbursed. One more thing on the election front, Democrats had another notable though less covered victory last night. Their candidate won a special election in suburban Bucks County, Pennsylvania meaning that Democrats will retain their slim majority in the important swing state’s House of Representatives.

Legal Morass: Trump’s legal agenda is filled to the brim this week.  Juan Merchan, the judge overseeing NYC DA Alvin Bragg’s “hush money” criminal case is set to rule tomorrow on a series of motions filed by Trump’s lawyers and is also expected to indicate whether the trial will start at the end of March.  Judge Engoron, the judge overseeing the state’s fraud case against Trump and his business, has signaled that he plans to issue his ruling on Friday, that’s the ruling that is likely to impose hundreds of millions 💰 💰 💰 in penalties. Scott McAfee, the judge overseeing Fulton County DA Fani Willis’ election interference/RICO case against Trump and his co-defendants is holding a hearing on Thursday to review allegations that Willis committed disqualifying financial improprieties by allowing Nathan Wade, one of her prosecutors and her sometime paramour, to pick up more than his share of their travel expenses, an accusation that Willis has forcefully denied, providing evidence that they went Dutch when canoodling. Judge McAfee has already said that her decision to hire Wade was kosher, the question is whether or not she should be disqualified for the alleged financial improprieties. Naturally, Trump plans to attend that hearing because embarrassing Willis with details of her personal life will be so much fun. As expected, Trump’s lawyers have appealed the DC Appeals Court ruling, the one that says he is neither a king nor immune from prosecution.  Jack Smith’s team has been given until Monday to respond to the Trump appeal though it’s expected that his team will submit their response sooner. And then there is the purloined documents case where a few closed-door meetings including one attended by Trump himself took place earlier this week. Smith is trying to pressure Judge “loose” Cannon into acting in a professional matter rather than as a Trumpy partisan.      

Fog:  The Senate passed their Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan foreign aid bill by a vote of 70 to 29.  Twenty-two Republicans including Mitch McConnell joined most of the Democrats by voting for the $95 billion aid package which includes $60 billion for Ukraine, $14 billion for Israel and $9 billion in humanitarian aid for Gaza. Democrats Peter Welch of Vermont, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Independent Bernie Sanders voted against the bill over their opposition to providing more aid to Israel. The bill is now in the hands of the House and Speaker for now/Trump tool Johnson. It will probably fall to Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and his crowd or at least those members of his caucus not in the Squad to push it forward using all the parliamentary tricks available to them because no one expects Johnson who given Suozzi’s victory can only afford to lose two Republican votes from his shrunken majority to do anything useful.  We’re still hearing that negotiations between Israel and Hamas are making progress. We also keep seeing more evidence of tunnels under schools and UN facilities.  How is it that no one knew about them or the money that went toward their construction?  And one more thing, during his sit down with his puppet Tucker Carlson, Putin continued to rewrite history by pushing the lie that Poland’s “cooperation” with the Nazis caused World War II.  No doubt, Trump will add that to his rationale for kicking NATO to the curb should he retake the White House.  

Happy ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ Day

 

Viva Las Vegas ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻

Overtime:  Now that was a Super Bowl worth watching.  Far more enjoyable than the Sunday news shows which, as expected, hyped the inappropriately lengthy Special Counsel Hur report that exonerated Biden while gratuitously slamming his mental fitness. Meantime back in the real world, during a campaign rally in South Carolina, Trump the Republican’s likely presidential candidate, said he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to those members of NATO who were “delinquent” in their payments. Putting aside the insanity of a once and possibly future president calling for Russia to invade a European country or two, Trump’s delinquency claim, like his continued misunderstanding of how tariffs work, is just plain old stupid. The “numbers” he keeps throwing around refer to the goal that NATO members spend 2% of their GDP on defense rather than any “delinquent” membership dues. In any case, most of those NATO members who he’d gladly hand over to Russia, particularly the European ones, are major providers of aid to Ukraine, not a NATO member, but another one of those countries that Trump would gladly hand over to Putin. As if threatening NATO members wasn’t bad enough, Trump threw in a sweetener, attacking Nikki Haley’s husband for being AWOL from her campaign. Trump knows that Haley’s husband is a member of the South Carolina National Guard, currently on a mission in Africa, but its so much more fun for the twice divorced sexual assailant to cast aspersions on the state of Haley’s marriage than to recognize that her husband is serving the country. Naturally, the only Republicans who spoke out forcefully against Trump’s comments were the usual cadre of never-Trumpers, others like “defense hawks” Senators Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio went with variations of, come on guys, you know Trump, he was only kidding, it’s a campaign and promising to sell out allies and bashing patriotic spouses is just things that the Orange god does during his rallies. For good measure, to the horror of Swifties everywhere, Trump warned Taylor Swift off, saying that there’s no way she should endorse Biden as that would be disloyal to him because he’d signed the Music Modernization Act which updated digital copyright laws when he was president, asserting that she owed her wealth to him. Swift encouraged her substantial fanbase to register to vote and also endorsed Biden in 2020, it’s not clear whether she will again but Trump is obviously concerned that she will which explains all the Swift bashing coming from him and his like-minded supporters and also explains why the NY Post kept a story about Swift “snubbing” the ailing Celine Dion at the Grammies front and center on it’s website for an entire week.

Foreign Aid: While most eyes were focused on Super Bowl news and the flight path of Taylor Swift’s Las Vegas bound entourage, the Senate was in session over the weekend, passing another foreign military aid procedural hurdle.  Though the Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan aid package isn’t there yet, it’s expected to make it out of the Senate on Wednesday at which point it will head to the House where its fate will fall into the hands of Speaker Johnson who will try to squelch it to please Trump.  Assuming he can, Hakeem Jeffries will try to muster enough votes from both sides of the aisle to get the package up for a floor vote.  By the way, the relatively youthful Speaker Johnson had his own senior moment, conflating Iran with Israel during an appearance on Meet the Press this weekend. Also, though he’d earlier asserted that border legislation was necessary, he now says that it’s not, that Biden can do everything he needs to do by executive action.  And following orders from Trump, called out the “misguided” Border Patrol Union for their support of the Senate’s likely dead border legislation.

 

2024: While the presidential race continues to dominate the news, there are a lot more races to focus on.  Over the weekend, former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan who had teased a possible “no labels” presidential run announced instead that he’s running for the open Maryland Senate seat being vacated by the retiring Senate Democrat Ben Cardin.  Although Maryland is a reliably blue state, the anti-choice Hogan was one of those unique Republican governors who was moderate enough to make it in blue state so if any Republican stands a chance of turning one of Maryland’s Senate seats red it’s him. The Democrats have not yet selected their candidate. Hogan is a big get for McConnell who hasn’t been able to get other popular termed out Republican Governors in blue/bluish states like Vermont and New Hampshire to run for the Senate.  Another state to watch is Montana where moderate Democrat Jon Tester is up for reelection in a Trump plus 16-point state.  Over the weekend, in another win for McConnell’s crowd, Trump endorsed the Republican Senate Campaign committee’s preferred candidate Tim Sheehy instead of Congressman Matt Rosendale.  Tomorrow is election day on Long Island with Democrat Tom Suozzi facing off against Mazi Pilip. You can’t turn on a local station or even watch football in the New York area without hearing a political ad right now.  Pilip’s team has been forcefully attacking the very moderate Suozzi over immigration because that’s all they’ve got and to be fair it’s a topic that resonates.  Suozzi has been playing the abortion rights card while also pointing out that in addition to supporting the Republican’s anti-choice agenda Pilip’s got Santos-like financials.  

Legal Update:  Trump’s next step in his immunity appeal to the Supreme Court is due in today. Assuming he’s plans to appeal, and it’s highly likely that he does because stalling is his super-power, he will first request a stay to keep the brakes on Jack Smith’s election interference case.  SCOTUS could deny the appeal altogether or could decide to hear the case with or without granting a stay.  Something is going on in Florida in Judge “loose” Cannon’s purloined documents case where it appears that Special Counsel Jack has just about had it with her intentionally bad or stupidly bad rulings. Smith has submitted a filing asking her to reconsider a decision she made last week to reveal the names of potential witnesses, saying that she made a “clear error” that could expose those witnesses to threats by a certain Orange guy and his abettors. That filing is more or less a veiled threat to start going after her fitness to oversee the case. And we’re still waiting to hear from NY fraud case Judge Arthur Engoron who’s still canoodling over how bigly to make Trump’s penalty.    

Fog:  Yesterday, Israel’s military rescued Fernando Simon Marman, 60, and Louis Har, 70, two hostages who were being held by Hamas in Rafah. Any successful rescue of hostages is notable but the rescue from Rafah which borders Egypt is particularly newsworthy since the Israeli government has been getting lots of pushback for its Rafah targeted airstrikes.  Now we know that, at least for now, those airstrikes were intended to provide cover for the rescue operation.  Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is back in the hospital, something to do with a bladder infection related to his recent prostate cancer surgery. Not at all good that he’s suffering so much but at least this time he’s being transparent.   

#BringThemAllHomeNow     

So Much Younger Than Today ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻

Help Me if You Can: It pains me to write this, but Trump had a pretty good day yesterday.  The Supreme Court heard the 14^th Amendment case and judging by the questions raised by both the conservative and liberal Justices including Clarence Thomas who given his wife’s involvement in the insurrection should have recused but didn’t, Trump won’t be kicked off the ballot in Colorado or anywhere else.  When issued, the Supremes’ opinion is likely to be based on procedural grounds as the Justices didn’t appear to question whether Trump was all in on the January 6 insurrection.  Trump also won the Nevada caucuses, garnering 99.1% of the vote to some guy named Ryan Binkley’s 0.9%.  That was hardly a surprise as the local Republican party structured the state’s caucuses to ensure a Trump rout, but his performance stands in stark contrast to Nikki Haley’s coming in second to “none of the above” in the state’s earlier pointless primary. To top off the day, the report by Robert Hur the special counsel responsible for investigating Biden’s lax handling of his trove of government papers, was released.  As expected, Hur, a Republican appointed by bend over backwards, but get no credit for doing so, Attorney General Merrick Garland didn’t recommend that charges be brought against Biden.  However, taking a page from the playbook that James Comey employed to effectively destroy Hillary Clinton’s electoral prospects he included a potentially lethal zinger in his report, calling Biden a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory and diminished faculties in advancing age.” Basically, he went after Biden for doing what his lawyers probably told him to do, say you don’t remember unless your memory about an event is sparkling clear.  Given that the period covered was years ago, and the events covered weren’t remarkable it’s not surprising that Biden’s memory was fuzzy, whose wouldn’t be?  Still with Biden, mental acuity is a bigly issue given his age and his stilted, stuttered speech pattern so naturally the story is front and center today. Last night Biden slammed back saying that he was so determined to cooperate with Hur that he sat for his five hours of interviews in the immediate aftermath of the October 7 attack on Israel while he was also handling an international crisis, one of unprecedented magnitude. Rightfully, Biden was further outraged by Hur’s suggestion that he was hazy about the timing of his son Beau’s death, saying that “every Memorial Day we hold a service remembering him attended by friends and family and the people who loved him. I don’t need anyone, I don’t need anyone to remind me when he passed away.”  Sadly, the age and memory thing will have legs and to be fair, who among us doesn’t enjoy pointing out the countless times that the same age cohort Trump says things totally ignorant and weird, like his confusing of Haley with Pelosi, or his thinking that he ran against Obama, or that World War II is on the horizon.  The bottom line, odds are that come election day we’ll be choosing between an anti-democracy, retribution seeking criminal who is rooting for the economy to tank, mayhem at the border to get worse and who cites Xi and Putin as his role models while counting Kim Jong un and Viktor Orban as his besties versus an experienced,  well-meaning old uncle who despite his supposed memory lapses is pro-choice, pro-democracy, cares about the environment and at the end of the day seeks compromise across the aisle. That should be an easy decision unless of course tax cuts are your only concern.

 

I’ve Changed My Mind: After the events of October 7, the focus was passing legislation to fund Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan. Then Speaker for the moment Mike Johnson threw a wrench into the foreign aid plan, tying aid onto what he hoped would be an unattainable “border fix.”  Well forget about the border fix which as it turns out wasn’t so unattainable, not because the migrant “hordes” and all that much feared fentanyl has gone away but because Trump doesn’t want a fix right now so we’re back to the beginning.  Yesterday by 67 to 32 the Senate passed a procedural vote intended to pave the way for $95 billion of aid to make its way to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.  The funding is not a done deal yet, the Senate still needs to pass through a few more hoops and as usual Senator Rand Paul and a few other obstructive, Trumpian types will slow things down, but this is the most progress we’ve seen on the foreign aid front in a long time and not a moment too soon given how immediate Ukraine’s needs are. For the record, the following Republican Senators voted for the aid package:  Capito, Cassidy, Collins, Cornyn, Ernst, Grassley, Kennedy, McConnell, Moran, Murkowski, Romney, Rounds, Sullivan, Thune, Tillis, Wicker and Young. Assuming the aid bill makes it out of the Senate, which in and of itself is not a given, it will next land in Speaker Johnson’s House where nothing good will happen without a considerable lift from Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries. Yesterday, at his weekly news conference Jeffries said that his team has been talking with those House Republicans who still care about supporting our allies about ways to force the aid package to the floor for a vote without Johnson and his leadership team’s support. On the subject of Mike Johnson, he committed another faux pas earlier in the week when he promised Montana Congressman/Senate wannabee Matt Rosendale that he would endorse him for Senator if he’d vote for the standalone Israel aid package.  Rosendale, who like Johnson denies that the two had a backroom deal, did vote for the standalone Israel package despite earlier saying he wouldn’t. The standalone package failed to pass.  Moreover, Johnson reneged on his promised endorsement, not because he doesn’t like the obnoxiously very right-wing Rosendale but because several Republican Senators screamed at Johnson, pointing out that backing Rosendale over the relatively popular, well as popular as a Democrat can be in Montana, Senator Jon Tester was a losing proposition. Johnson’s credibility has taken another hit, one that could prove fatal in the days ahead. Also, Republican Steve Scalise is expected back next week from his bone marrow transplant which means the Secretary Mayorkas impeachment will be back as well because that’s time so well spent?     

 

Vanish in the Haze:  Still no Israel Hamas ceasefire/hostage release deal because at least for now, Israel thinks that the price is still too high.  Netanyahu is another one whose days may be or at the very least should be numbered not because Hamas isn’t asking for too much but for lots of other reasons. Biden and just about everyone else is losing patience with him, questioning whether he’s pulling a Trump, doing what’s best for himself rather than what’s best for Israel. In other internationally depressing news, former Foxy Tucker Carlson interviewed Putin and about all you need to know about it is that Putin showed up several hours late as one does when one’s a former KGB guy making it clear who is in control.  He then treated the sniveling Carlson with disdain, even bringing up what everyone knows, that Carlson was turned down when he applied for a job at the CIA after college. Naturally, Carlson let Putin wax on and on about how he had every right to invade “his” Ukraine.  Carlson did bring up WSJ journalist Evan Gershkovich’s illegal incarceration so let’s given him a half a point for that but nothing more.

#BringThemAllHomeNow

 

Citizen Trump ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻

Not a King: Well, yesterday was a bit of a humdinger.  Starting with Trump’s legal woes, the Washington DC appeals court finally weighed in and it turns out that the vast majority of TV legal pundits were spot on when they said that the appeals court would rule that former presidents are ordinary citizens, not kings, and as such are not above the law.  In a somewhat scathing opinion the three judge panel said that a former president can face charges for actions taken while in office and that the public interest in holding a criminal president accountable outweighs any potential “chilling effect” on the presidency, that last part a reference to Trump’s assertion that by denying him immunity the court would make it impossible for future presidents to do their jobs without fearing being criminally charged after leaving office for actions taken while in office. Trump’s way of saying that should he return to office he’ll go after Biden in retribution.  The judges also made it clear that they didn’t buy that it was okay for a president to engage in illegal activities to extend his stay in office, going so far as to say that “Trump’s alleged efforts to remain in power despite losing the 2020 election were, if proven, an unprecedented assault on the structure of our government.”  They also didn’t buy into his assertion that only a president who’d been impeached and convicted could be criminally charged upon leaving office.  To hammer that home, they noted that the 43 Republican Senators who voted to acquit him relied on a variety of concerns, many of which had nothing to do with whether he’d committed the charged offense. Everyone expects Trump to appeal, taking the case to the Supreme Court, not because there’s much of a chance that a majority of SCOTUS will disagree with the appeals court but to stall for time.  To that end, the appeals court closed off one of his stalling tactics, saying that while he’s free to ask for an en banc review by all of the sitting DC appeals court judges, doing so won’t stop Judge Chutkan from proceeding with her insurrection case which means that Trump can only keep the case on hold by appealing directly to the Supreme Court by Monday.  Everyone expects that Trump will appeal to the Supremes leaving the success of his stalling tactic in their hands.  Some of the TV legal pundits believe that SCOTUS will take the case, others including former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal believe they won’t bother. If SCOTUS takes the case, the question is less about how the majority will rule and more about how long the court will take to issue a decision because even a ruling against Trump if delivered in late June will run out the clock by pushing the Chutkan election interference trial until September, too close to the November election. Switching gears to New York, where Trump stands to lose control of his business as well as huge amounts of money, presiding Judge Arthur Engoron hasn’t issued his ruling yet because he wants to know more about reports that former Trump CFO Allen Weisselberg might be striking a perjury deal with New York DA Alvin Bragg’s office.  If those reports are true, Engoron could conclude that everything Weisselberg said in the fraud trial should be tossed which would cost Trump bigly.  There’s also been some activity in Florida, where Judge “loose” Cannon continues to do everything she can to accommodate Trump’s lawyers even if that means allowing the disclosure of super-secret stuff to everyone. Also, tomorrow the Supreme Court will hear arguments in the 14^th Amendment, keep Trump off the ballot case, live audio available on CSPAN.  And one more legal thing, Robert Kur, the special counsel investigating how, after leaving the vice presidency, Biden was sloppy in his handling of documents, is expected to release his report shortly.  No charges but some snide remarks about Biden’s sloppiness are forthcoming.

Mike’s Mess: Right about now, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy is somewhere sporting a big grin because though he’s no longer third in line to the presidency, he didn’t preside over yesterday’s House debacle.  To recount the day’s sh-tshow, Speaker for now Mike Johnson put the kibosh on the extremely conservative border bill negotiated by a bipartisan group of Senators to meet his demands because Trump told him that mayhem at the border improved his chances of avoiding jail for the crimes he committed when he was president. Johnson then preceded with a vote to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas, not for high crimes and misdemeanors but for being Biden’s Homeland Secretary.  That vote went down in flames after three Republicans, Ken Buck of Colorado, Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin and Tom McClintock of California, the most that Johnson could afford to lose given his slim majority, voted with all the Democrats, including Texas’ Al Green who showed up at the last possible second in a wheelchair, still in his hospital garb, straight from having had emergency surgery, to cast the deciding vote against impeachment. In order to preserve the right to bring the Mayorkas impeachment up for a vote again, Republicans had one their aye voters flip to a nay at the last minute, a procedure that preserves the right for a mulligan. The plan is to get ailing Republican Steve Scalise who isn’t supposed to be exposed to crowds given his recent bone marrow transplant, to the House for another vote, something the Republicans will have to do very soon because their majority will shrink further if Democrat Tom Suozzi prevails over Republican Mazi Pilip in next week’s election for the seat formerly held by George of many names Santos. As if demonstrating his incompetency and complete fealty to Trump with the pointless impeachment vote wasn’t enough, pointless because even if successful the Mayorkas impeachment will go nowhere in the Senate, Johnson then followed up with a vote on Israel aid.  That vote also went down in flames, not because the majority of Democrats in the House doesn’t want to help Israel but because the Democrats, also want to help Ukraine and Taiwan and many, are pissed about the handling of the border bill that many found too conservative but were willing to sign on to in order to do something about the border while also getting the aid package passed. Remember when things like this happened during Nancy Pelosi’s reign?  You don’t because they didn’t happen, because Pelosi can count and didn’t call stupid votes she couldn’t win.

Primarily Yours:  Nevada held its Democratic and Republican presidential primaries yesterday.  Biden won his, garnering 89.3% of the votes counted so far. Second place went to “None of the Above” (5.9%), with third place going to Mariane Williamson (2.9%).  Congressman Dean Phillips was not on the ballot. The Republican primary was another story all together, Trump was not on the ballot though Nikki Haley was. Haley came in second garnering 30.8% of the vote.  “None of the Above” came in first with 62.9%, not a good look for Haley and a fairly obvious indication that had Trump been on the ballot he would have slaughtered her. Though he didn’t run in the primary, Trump is participating in Nevada’s Republican caucuses rather than the primary because with his “guidance” Nevada’s very MAGA Republican party told candidates that if they ran in the primary they couldn’t participate in the caucuses.  The caucuses will determine who gets the state’s Republican delegates, and of course all of the delegates will go to Trump. Last night Haley “celebrated” her performance noting that she did well considering that she did no campaigning in Nevada. In other MAGA news, Ronna Romney McDaniel who dropped the Romney part of her name to please Trump is expected to step down as Chair of the RNC after the South Carolina primary.  She’s done everything Trump has asked her to do but has failed at raising money and as a result the RNC is seriously in the red, not just politically but financially. Her replacement is expected to be North Carolina party chair Michael Whatley, not to be confused with one of my favorite NCIS alums, Michael Weatherly. By the way, though we keep hearing, relentlessly, that Biden is down in the polls, it’s not just the RNC that’s floundering, state Republican parties in Michigan, Arizona and Florida are also facing financial and/or leadership calamities.   

#BringThemAllHomeNow 

Both Sides Now ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻

They’re Acting Strange:  There’s a problem at the southern border because despite our political discord boatloads of people, especially those from economically depressed and violent locales, really want to come here.  House Republicans decided to tie border legislation to aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan as a way of torpedoing any aid package but instead of dismissing what looked like an intentionally impossible task a bipartisan group of Senators including Oklahoma Republican James Lankford, Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy and quirky but strangely effective Arizona Independent Kyrsten Sinema hashed out a plan to deal with the border problem. Sure, it’s not perfect but by increasing border funding, restricting the numbers of migrants who can cross on any given day and by speeding up processing it goes far towards dealing with the situation.  So now that there is a proposed bill, one that President Biden has signed on to and that those on the right should like more than those on the left, Republicans, especially House Republicans are dumping all over it, not because of what it contains but because with the US economy outperforming everyone else’s as well as economists’ expectations Trump has made it clear to them that he needs the “migrant hoard invasion” to worsen rather than improve.  To complicate matters, over the weekend Speaker Mike Johnson who doesn’t sneeze or poop 💩 without Trump’s permission announced that he plans to bring a large standalone aid bill for Israel to the House floor this week.  No Ukraine, no Taiwan, no border funding, and no offsets,  just Israel.  Don’t be fooled, he’s not doing that because he’s suddenly woken up to the urgency of funding Israel; if that was the case, he would have supported a clean Israel aid bill when it first came up.  He's doing that because he knows that funding Israel will be disruptive and he’s right.  Some Democrats won’t vote for the bill because it ignores Ukraine, others, especially the squad contingent won’t vote for the bill because it’s for Israel and others won’t vote for it because they want the border reform that Johnson demanded in the first place.    

Ice Cream Castles in the Air 🍦  🏰:  If you weren’t paying attention, you may have missed that South Carolina held a primary on Saturday, not the Republican one scheduled to take place on February 24 where Trump is likely to squash what’s left of Nikki Haley’s presidential aspirations, but the Democratic one.  Biden who, unlike in New Hampshire, was on the ballot for this one walked away with 96.2% of the votes.  Second place went to Marianne Williamson who I thought had dropped out but apparently hasn’t.  Williamson managed to eke out 2.1% of the vote with third place going to Congressman Dean Phillips who despite his best efforts and $5 million of his own money garnered only 1.7% of the vote which he actually “celebrated” on X by saying how impressive it was that he managed to break into the four digits by finding 2,239 people to vote for him.  The turnout wasn’t high but then again, no one expected it to be given that everyone knew that Biden would win bigly.  Still Biden’s margin of victory was huge and African American turnout was higher than expected.  That said Biden is still struggling in the polls because a lot of Americans, or at the very least those who answer the phone when pollsters call, remain all in on Trump despite his 91 indictments, and the $83 million awarded to E Jean Caroll to penalize him for sexual assault and defamation.  As to those 91 indictments, everything remains up in the air. The way things are going the much-maligned NY DA Alvin Bragg case could make it to trial before any of the others. The Washington DC appeals court still hasn’t weighed in on Trump’s assertion of immunity leaving a number of the usual TV legal pundits a bit panicked as they can’t understand what’s taking so long since in their view the decision could write itself as presidents aren’t supposed to have the power of Medieval kings.  Similarly, nothing’s cooking elsewhere except that Fulton County DA Fani Willis has admitted that she does have a personal relationship with one of her special prosecutors but that there’s been no financial impropriety involved even though the optics kind of suck.  We’re also still waiting for Judge Engoron to announce his verdict in the NY fraud case, the issue there isn’t whether Trump and his business engaged in bad acts, it’s about how much they should be penalized for those bad acts.  Also, arguments on whether Trump can be kicked off the ballot will be made to the Supreme Court this week. Spoiler alert:  he should be kicked off but no one except the most delusional expect that he will be, and many are concerned that when SCOTUS says he can stay on the ballot, Trump will get a boost in the polls. On the subject of bad acts, Roberta Kaplan the attorney who represents E Jean Carroll revealed during an interview with George Conway, Kellyanne’s ex, that after she deposed Trump, he more or less called her the “C” word by saying he’d “See You Next Tuesday” as she left their session, baffling to her since they didn’t have a meeting planned on Tuesday.  She said that she didn’t respond because she didn’t get what he was saying until one of her staff explained it to her.  What a guy.

Tears and Fears:  The US is dropping bombs in multiple Middle Eastern locations to punish Iran’s surrogates for attacking the US and our allies in the Middle East.  War is still raging in Gaza and despite hints of a deal, the hostages are still hostages.  And because Putin really is one of his BFFs and maybe also because he’s about to drop a one-on-one interview with him, former Fox guy Tucker Carlson was seen hanging in Moscow this weekend.  It would be nice to think that he’d bring WSJ journalist Evan Gershkovich and the other American prisoners held in Russia home with him when he returns but then again, that’s probably not going to happen.       

 

#BringThemAllHomeNow