Lost Ways  ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻

Delay, Delay, Delay: With the help of or due to the incompetence of the Southern District of New York, Trump’s legal team scored another victory yesterday, managing to delay his New York election interference/hush money trial by at least thirty days. The unexpected delay is because, for some unfathomable reason, federal prosecutors at the SDNY have just provided New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg with a pile of documents that he has been trying to obtain for some time.  Trump’s lawyers want ninety days to review the new trove.  Bragg has agreed to give them thirty days.  The time delay is now up to presiding Judge Merchan but at best, the trial which had been scheduled to begin the week of March 25^th won’t start until the end of April.  Trump also scored a victory of sorts in the Fulton County case where presiding Judge McAfee dismissed three of the thirteen charges against him while also dismissing some of the charges against his co-defendants. Judge McAfee made it clear that the rest of the indictment still stands and that prosecutors could still present evidence related to the dropped charges as they argue that Trump and the other co-defendants conspired to overturn the 2020 election, a good thing because one of the dropped charges related to Trump’s infamous “find me more votes” phone call.  Judge McAfee also said that he would reconsider his decision to drop the charges if prosecutors provided him with a better justification to do so. McAfee is expected to rule on whether or not to disqualify Fulton County DA Fani Willis later today. If he boots her, the whole case could end up on permanent ice dropped charges or not.  Then there’s Florida where Judge Eileen “loose” Cannon has yet to say when she intends to start her trial.  Yesterday she rejected one of Trump’s legal team’s requests to dismiss the case.  Their request related to “disagreements” over the definition of some terms in the Espionage Act.  On the face of it her decision to dismiss that request seems like a good thing, but according to “my” legal advisor Andrew Weissmann, because she agreed that Trump’s lawyers could raise the issue later in the case it’s not a victory for prosecutors.  Weissmann’s view, shared by a number of other legal pundits in the know, is that all Cannon did was push off her final decision on the matter to a point in the trial process when Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team would have no recourse should she rule against them, even if her ruling was totally off base and to be clear Trump’s lawyers questioning of the applicability of the Espionage Act is totally off base.  If Cannon had ruled against Team Jack now, he would have been able to appeal her decision to a higher court but once the trial begins that option goes away. Cannon is slow walking rulings on some other key decisions, making it likely that the purloined documents trial won’t take place before the election, if ever.  Nothing much to say about the Washington DC January 6^th trial because until the Supreme Court rules on presidential immunity it remains on hold.  Oh, and Trump announced again, that one of his first acts should he return to the Oval will be to pardon everyone who’s been convicted for anything to do with the insurrection.  Great for them, but too late for former advisor Peter Navarro who’s due to report to jail for his contempt of Congress conviction. By the way, as crazy as it sounds, Navarro still refuses to return some documents that he took with him when Trump left office.

Wacko Humans:  Someone’s gotten to Lauren Boebert.  Though she still plans to shift districts to run for the solidly red Colorado seat being vacated by outgoing Republican Ken Buck, she’s decided not to give up her current seat to run in the special election for his open seat. Whoever wins the special election will have a leg up come November so her decision not to run in the special election could end her Congressional career, at least for now.  Panhandle Putz Matt Gaetz resides in a solidly red district, so his reelection is assured, however he is facing a bit of a hiccup. He’s been subpoenaed to provide a deposition in a defamation case filed by his friend Chris Dorworth who is suing a few people including the woman who says that she was sex trafficked when only seventeen years old by Gaetz, Dorworth, and their convicted and imprisoned friend Joel Greenberg who is also one of the people Dorworth is suing. A bit of a dilemma for Gaetz who may decide he has to plead the Fifth, not a good look for a member of Congress who is currently being investigated by the House Ethics committee and who also aspires to become Governor. For some bizarre reason Kristi Noem, who is a governor, not of Florida but of South Dakota, and is supposedly also being considered to become Trump’s running mate, just did an infomercial for a Texas tooth whitening practice. That’s likely a violation of state law but also just weird. Her misstep, combined with Alabama Senator Katie Britt’s Handmaid’s Tale speech, make it more and more likely that Trump will end up picking either Senator JD Vance or Senator Tim Scott to be his partner in autocracy. Proving that Democrats also make bad decisions, Bob Menendez continues to assert that he did nothing wrong despite the gold bars that prove otherwise.  He also has not ruled out an independent run for reelection in New Jersey, the state where political corruption thrives. Though he’s not a politician, Elon Musk remains a force to reckon with. He asserts that he won’t be contributing to any presidential candidate but hasn’t ruled out contributing to a dark money PAC and some have suggested, with no proof, that he may have backstopped Trump’s EJ Carroll Chubb appeal bond or may be considering backstopping Trump’s $400 million plus New York fraud payment.  That payment or bond is due by the end of the month. One thing Musk didn’t do is take up Trump’s offer to buy Truth Social.  Apparently, Trump tried to sell it to him last year. Musk did however cancel X’s much trumpeted deal with former CNN host Don Lemon because though he asserts that he’s all in on free speech, he didn’t like that Lemon asked him tough questions during an interview that was for the launch of Lemon’s X series.  No comment from X CEO Linda Yaccarino who’d been busy selling ads for the Lemon show. We’ll have to wait until the end of the month to find out who anti vax RFK Jr picks as his running mate but Aaron Rodgers, the erstwhile NY Jets quarterback, has been trying to walk back the comments he made to CNN’s Pamela Brown about the gunned down Sandy Hook students and their families being crisis actors.  Rodgers has also expressed skepticism about the events of 9.11, though at least he, unlike Trump knows they took place on 9/11 rather than at a 7 Eleven. He’s not the only one walking back his remarks.  Trump is now trying to walk back his statements about cutting Social Security and Medicare because, someone, maybe the same people who told Bobo not to run because they needed her to keep their House majority, reminded him that old people vote and that many of them vote Republican.

Fog: We’ve gotten to the point in the Gaza War where Bibi, rather than the Hamas terrorists who killed, kidnapped, and raped on October 7 and continue to hide behind children and the sick, is to blame for everything.  Don’t get me wrong I share Senate Leader Schumer’s frustration. I am no fan of Bibi’s and I fear that he’s prioritizing saving himself over his country, a view shared by many but not all Israelis which is why their elections keep on being deadlocked. However, I am not happy with Senator Schumer and believe that his decision to speak out on the floor of the Senate was inappropriate. What’s the point of calling for elections when the last few have all come out the same?  Anyway, I suspect this is all about US politics, Jews don’t live in swing states’ swing districts, but the anti-Israel crowd does. I hate this. End of vent, at least for now.

#BringThemAllHomeNow