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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.  

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