It Hasn't Even Been a Year 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡 

Hangman: Yesterday Trump posted calls for the arrest, imprisonment, trial, and execution by hanging of six Democratic members of Congress who he called traitors for their “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR OF THE HIGHEST LEVEL!” saying an “example MUST BE SET.”  The treasonous behavior in question is their video pointing out to members of the military that they should obey only “legal orders.” Reasonable advice since their oaths prohibit them from carrying out illegal commands.  Unlike Trump, the Democrats involved are all distinguished veterans of the military or national security agencies.  They include two Senators - Arizona’s Astronaut Mark Kelly and Michigan’s Elissa Slotkin and four Representatives - Colorado’s Jason Crow, Pennsylvania’s Chrissy Houlahan, New Hampshire’s Maggie Goodlander, and Pennsylvania’s Chris Deluzio.  None of the Democrats involved are anti-military, socialists or even snowflakes. The actions that convinced the six to post their cautionary video involve Trump’s military campaign targeting suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean Sea.  Those actions, which may violate both US and international law have resulted in the deaths of 83 people even though no evidence has been presented tying the boats or the victims to crimes. The Trump crowd claims that government lawyers have provided a legal opinion approving the legality of their “blow the boats out of the water” campaign but they haven’t publicly shared the secret opinion, and given its source who’d believe it anyway?  It’s likely that one of the reasons that the few survivors of the boat blow-ups have been returned to their countries of origin rather than taken into US custody is because trying them here would require the administration to defend their actions in court.  Our “special relationship” ally, the UK is so disturbed by the Caribbean campaign that they’ve stopped sharing relevant intelligence so as not to be implicated in what are likely extrajudicial murders.  Naturally, Speaker Johnson defended Trump’s statements though he said he would have used different words.  Senate Leader Thune said he disagreed with how Trump suggested the situation should be handled, although he also found the Democrats' video to be "ill-advised, unnecessary and clearly provocative."  Is it a stretch to believe that Secretary of War and Beer Pete Hegseth has a few of his minions deleting all references to the Viet Nam My Lai massacre and Lt. William Calley from all military academy textbooks and syllabi?  In other military news, Homeland Security’s ICE Barbie Kristi Noem got a little more attention than she intended for her decision to no longer classify swastikas and nooses as hate symbols, downgrading them to the merely divisive list.  Last night it was reported that their reclassification has been unwound possibly because they actually are hate symbols.

Legal Mumbo Jumbo:  We may never see the opinion justifying the boat bombings, but we are watching the DOJ screw up in plain sight.  On Wednesday, when questioned by District Judge Michael Nachmanoff who is overseeing the James Comey case, Acting US Attorney/Beauty Queen/Insurance lawyer Lindsey Halligan said that only the chairperson and one other member of the grand jury had signed off on the final indictment of Comey.  If accurate, that’s a screw-up that could result in Comey’s indictment being tossed which might be why the DOJ unwound her testimony on Thursday, asserting that the indictment had actually been signed off on by the full grand jury. Legal pundits say there are quite a few other things wrong about the Comey indictment, including Halligan’s misrepresentations and the inappropriate testimony of an FBI Agent not to mention Trump’s very public call for retribution so while the indictment kerfuffle may not be the thing that causes the case to be tossed it could be icing on Comey’s get out of jail free cake. In Halligan’s defense, reportedly she is a good insurance lawyer and was third runner-up in the Miss Colorado contest. DOJ’s plans to prosecute California’s Senator Adam Schiff may have hit a speed bump too.  Oddly enough a federal grand jury in Maryland is looking into whether people involved in the investigation into Schiff’s mortgage were legit government employees or whether they were just pretending to be government employees who may or may not have been working for William Pulte, the senior housing official who added the weaponization of mortgages to Trump’s retribution quiver and for Ed Martin, Trump’s weaponization chief. The exact details of what’s going on aren’t clear since their source is conservative activist Christine Bush who reports being twice called to testify. Last night Ken Dilanian from MSNOW (the new name for MSNBC) suggested that AG Pam Bondi and Deputy AG Todd Blanche may be letting the Maryland US Attorney pursue this investigation because they’ve grown frustrated with being put into the position of prosecuting Trump’s enemies for crimes that aren’t crimes. Then again, they seem to enjoy their roles so maybe there is something else going on.  Also bigly frustrated is Jerry Smith, the one judge who dissented from the majority decision that concluded that Texas’ redistricting was an illegal racially motivated gerrymandering.  He released his dissenting opinion yesterday and it was an unprecedented partisan doozy.  He repeatedly blamed George and Alex Soros (dog whistle alert).  He also went off on California Governor Gavin Newsom who had nothing to do with Texas’ redistricting except that he managed to one-up it with a statewide referendum.  The case is likely to end up at the Supreme Court.  It’s not clear if Smith’s diatribe will provide fodder for SCOTUS’ ultimate decision or whether it will turn off a few in the usual conservative majority.        

More 💩: The Senate snuck a provision into the government funding bill that allows those Senators whose call records were obtained by Jack Smith as part of his investigation into January 6 to sue for upto $500,000.  Yesterday the House unanimously voted to repeal that provision.  There probably are enough votes in the Senate to do the same but Majority Leader Thune isn’t expected to bring the House bill up for a vote in part because one of its loudest supporters in Trump buddy Lindsey Graham.  Lastly, after saying that SNAP recipients would have to reapply to get their benefits, an impediment to many who are qualified but are also working and taking care of their families, Agriculture Secretary Rollins walked back her statement saying that recipients wouldn’t have to reapply. Maybe someone pointed out to her that depriving people of food isn’t a good look particularly in the run up to the holidays. It’s also not a good way to improve in the polls which currently show House Democrats with a 14 point lead over Republicans with a lot of the lead attributable to “affordability” concerns.