January 6 🤡 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🤡  

Fruit or Flowers: It’s January 6, the four-year year anniversary of Trump’s attempt to violently overthrow the results of the 2020 election and unfortunately a lesson to all of us that persistence pays off because while he didn’t succeed in 2020, unless the snow blanketing Washington DC delays the process, Trump’s 2024 win will be certified today easing the way to his January 20 inauguration. That process was further greased on Friday when, with an assist from Trump who interrupted his Mar a Lago golf game to engage in persuasive dialing, Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson was once again elected Speaker of the House.  It took some wrangling and probably a combination of threats and promises to make that happen since initially three House Republicans voted for other candidates.  Ultimately two of them, South Carolina’s Ralph Norman and Texas’ Keith Self flipped their votes back to Johnson before a second round of voting had to take place leaving Kentucky’s Thomas Massie as the only holdout.  Massie’s problem with Johnson, which many in the Republican’s Freedom Caucus share, is that as Speaker he has relied on Democrats to pass spending bills. Massie is right that Johnson has relied on Democrats to pass bills to keep the government open and the debt paid, but it’s not like Johnson had or will have a choice because given the unruliness and nihilism of House Republicans, the large number of them who won’t vote for any funding package that doesn’t also slash spending for almost everything, and the Republican’s microscopic majority, Johnson like John Boehner, Paul Ryan, and Kevin McCarthy before him, has had to turn to Democrats for support and almost definitely will have to again because Trump’s plans include lots of border spending and tax cuts, most of which won’t be offset by corresponding cuts in expenditures despite the best efforts of Trump and his DOGE buddies Elon and Vivek.  Hakeem Jeffries, and his Democratic conference, a crowd that tends to act in lockstep, particularly when in the minority, aren’t going to sign off on entitlement cuts.

Commonalities:  While it looks more likely than not that the New Orleans attacker who had become an ISIS convert and the Las Vegas car bomber who apparently was a Trump fan weren’t in cahoots, they did have a lot in common despite their very different political philosophies. Both were disaffected men, one still in the military and another with military roots, whose mental states and lives were spiraling out of control. That seems to be a persistent and growing problem, one that will likely be exacerbated if Trump moves forward with his oft stated promise to pardon the 1400 who’ve been federally charged including the 900 who’ve already been convicted for their January 6^th related offenses.  Judging by many of Trump and his fans’ social media posts, particularly their really disturbing reactions to President Biden’s end of term medals list, Trump will follow through on those pardons party in retribution for Biden’s list and also because he always said he would.  He will be applauded on the right for doing so.  Over the New Years holiday Biden awarded 18 Medals of Freedom to a group that included former Secretary of State/Senator Hillary Clinton and billionaire liberal cause supporter and the right’s favorite punching bag, George Soros. among others.  Those medals followed his earlier awarding of twenty Presidential Citizens Medals to a group that included Trump nemesis Liz Cheney and her fellow January 6 committee chair Democratic Congressman Bennie Thomspon as well as former Knick/NJ Senator Bill Bradley.  Bradley’s medal wasn’t controversial except maybe to Celtics fans, but I had to throw it in because the Knicks were the best back when he was a member of their then championship teams.  As to some of the reactions to Biden’s medal awardees, a number of people on Xwitter dredged up the old disgusting Pizzagate conspiracy about Hillary being a leader of a child molestation ring while calling for her to be arrested or worse and John Barrasso, the current Republican Senator from Liz Cheney’s home state of Wyoming slammed Cheney saying that she “represents partisanship and divisiveness” and wasn’t deserving of either the medal or a preemptive pardon. That Barrasso, a “mainstream” Republican who is second in Republican Senate leadership is calling out Cheney, whose voting record was among the most conservative and most in line with Trump’s legislative wish list during her stint in the House, says a lot about how far the Republican party has sunk as its morphed into the MAGA party.  On the subject of hypocrisy,  North Dakota’s Republican Senator Kevin Cramer who has been one of the most vocal critics of Hunter Biden, is calling for compassion for his “mentally impaired” son who was recently sentenced to 28 years in prison for killing a police officer during a drug fueled car chase.  Last time I checked Hunter for all his failings never killed anyone but then again at this point in the Republican decline, no one should expect Cramer to get the irony nor for him to show any compassion for Hunter who he still thinks should be incarcerated for a long time or worse.   

Felonious Trump:  Over the holiday Trump posted on Truth Social that “Our Country is a disaster, a Laughingstock all over the world.”  That’s the country that the NY Times reported that by most metrics including falling crime rates, stock market performance and lower migrant crossings, is in better shape than any “bequeathed” to any president since 2001. How long will it take Trump to take credit for the state of the country that he’s inheriting? Or will he instead destroy it with his tariffs, over the top migrant round ups, health policies, and disruption of international alliances?  Most likely he’ll do both, a lot of damage and disruption with a lot of backslapping and hockey sticks in the air for the wonderful things he didn’t do but will take credit for.  And, judging by how so much of the press has normalized his behavior, they’ll go along with him. To that end over the weekend a respected political cartoonist joined with many of her former colleagues, including a number of Pulitzer Prize winners, by resigning from the Jeff Bezos owned Washington Post after the paper squashed her cartoon that depicted Bezos and a number of other tech leaders and Disney’s Mickey Mouse praying at Trump’s feet.  At least one judge doesn’t appear to be all that ready to normalize Trump, NY Judge Juan Merchan plans to move forward with the sentencing hearing for Trump’s hush money/election interference case on January 10.  He’s not going to sentence Trump to serve any time because what’s the point, but instead plans to sentence him to an unconditional discharge as it’s the "most viable solution to ensure finality and allow Defendant to pursue his appellate options."  Not satisfying but not a surprise.  On January 20, the President of the US will be a convicted felon.

Fog:  Over the weekend Saudi Arabian media published a list of the 34 hostages that are supposed to be released in a potential deal between Israel and Hamas, however Hamas said that they need time to determine who among them is alive. #BringThemAllHomeAlive!