“If you tune into the alien drone invasion, it is possible to prognosticate.” John (repeat1968) Buss @johnbuss.bsky.social
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The Felon, Adjudicated Rapist, and Traitor (FARTUS) has secured a Get out of Jail Free Card. This morning, Justice Juan Merchan went through the motions of affirming the 34 Felony criminal counts as affirmed by a Jury, but that was the extent of the punishment. This Politico headline says it all. “Trump receives no punishment for hush money conviction. A New York judge declined to impose a penalty for the president-elect at his long-awaited sentencing hearing.”
Donald Trump was not punished for his criminal conviction in the Manhattan hush-money case, bringing a lackluster end to the legal saga that will make him the country’s first felon-turned-president.
At a sentencing hearing on Friday, a New York judge declined to sentence the president-elect to prison time or impose fines after a jury found him guilty of 34 felony counts of business fraud in connection with a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in the final days of the 2016 presidential election.
“This court has determined that the only lawful sentence that permits entry of judgment of conviction without encroachment on the highest office of the land is a sentence of unconditional discharge,” Justice Juan Merchan told Trump.
While acknowledging the “extraordinary legal protections” Trump is set to enjoy as president, Merchan emphasized that “they do not reduce the seriousness of the crime or justify its commission in any way.”
Friday’s sentencing, however inconsequential in terms of punishment, caps a remarkable chapter in Trump’s tangles with the justice system. At one point battling four simultaneous criminal indictments, he emerged with a single conviction last May that didn’t obstruct his path to reelection and will likely linger as little more than a stigma.
Though Trump’s felony conviction allowed Justice Juan Merchan to send Trump to prison for up to four years or impose other penalties, the judge said in court papers prior to the sentencing that he wouldn’t do so, writing that incarceration was not “practicable” given Trump’s imminent return to the White House.
Instead, Merchan imposed the sentence of “unconditional discharge” on Trump, which carries no punishment. The president-elect appeared virtually from Florida, his image presented via a video feed on large monitors in the Manhattan courtroom as the judge announced his decision. Prosecutors from the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, as well as Bragg himself, attended in person.
Trump displayed his typical scowl throughout the proceedings, defending himself by saying he’s “totally innocent.”
U. S. President Donald Trump is depicted beheading the Statue of Liberty in this illustration on the cover of a 2017 issue of German news magazine Der Spiegel. Spiegel/Handout via REUTERS
Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen were the only ones punished for this. The third would be the U.S. system of Justice. I just hope Stormy is some place safe right now.
In remarks to the court before Merchan delivered the sentence, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said his office endorsed the sentence of unconditional discharge because of the circumstances of the case. But he warned that Trump has been a destructive force toward law enforcement.
“Put simply, this defendant has caused enduring damage to public perception of the criminal justice system and has placed officers of the court in harm’s way,” Steinglass said.
Steinglass also disclosed that Trump’s probation report noted that he “sees himself as above the law and won’t accept responsibility for his actions.”
After the sentencing, Trump posted on social media that he will appeal. “Today’s event was a despicable charade, and now that it is over, we will appeal this Hoax, which has no merit, and restore the trust of Americans in our once great System of Justice,” he wrote on Truth Social.
A sentence of “unconditional discharge,” though not uncommon in low-level cases, is rare in felony cases, according to legal experts.
This still means he’s considered a convicted Felon, so he wants to appeal again. It certainly didn’t hurt his brand during the election, seeing that his cult could care less about any behaviors as long as they are accompanied by a spoonful of vitriol and bigotry that justifies their pitiful existence.
While we heard this week about his plans for Panama, Greenland, and Canada, we’ve not heard much about how he plans to improve the economy. It’s likely because, in the case of his first term, the economy is just fucking fine. It’s his to wreck again. The price of eggs is likely to rise, though, because of the Bird Flu. Fortunately, Trump picked someone who knows his business to head the FDA. There’s also a vaccine for humans for this flu if RFK, Jr. doesn’t tank it somehow, or Elonia and Viv don’t go after the FDA or the CDC.
So, there are a lot of headlines and links in that paragraph. Let’s start at the very beginning. I’ve heard it’s a very fine place to start.
CNBC has this headline on the stellar job market performance at the end of last year. “U.S. payrolls grew by 256,000 in December, much more than expected; unemployment rate falls to 4.1%.” This is reported by Jeff Cox. Any president in the 70s or 80s would’ve been a hero if they found a way to reach these numbers.
Nonfarm payrolls surged by 256,000 for the month, up from 212,000 in November and above the 155,000 forecast.
The unemployment rate edged down to 4.1%, one-tenth of a point below expectations. A broader jobless measure moved down to 7.5%, a decrease of 0.2 percentage point and the lowest since June 2024.
Average hourly earnings increased 0.3% on the month, which was in line with forecasts, but the 12-month gain of 3.9% was slightly below the outlook.
Stock market futures plunged after the report while Treasury yields soared as traders price in a lower probability of Fed rate cuts this year.
Job growth was much stronger than expected in December, likely providing the Federal Reserve less incentive to cut interest rates this year
The current egg shortage is likely to get worse. So, if we’re speaking in terms of getting a guy who everyone thought would lower their egg prices, entire villages of idiots are about to get a surprise. This is from ABC News. “What experts want shoppers to know about egg prices amid new bird flu implications. Shoppers have flocked to social media showing stores in short supply.” Kelly McCarthy has the story.
Rising cases of avian influenza — commonly referred to as bird flu — have continued to impact egg laying flocks in the U.S. forcing egg suppliers to cut production and in turn causing shortages nationwide, skyrocketing prices.
Almost all confirmed cases in humans involve direct contact with infected cattle or infected livestock and the CDC says there is currently no evidence of human-to-human transmission and the risk to the general public is low.
Brooke Jones, who first shared her own experience on TikTok, told “Good Morning America” that she visited three grocery stores in the Dallas area in search of eggs recently.
“We decided to go out and actually check some different egg sections at stores. And so that’s how we came across empty shells, high prices, sign,” she said of the placard on the refrigerated case.
According to the latest USDA market data, egg prices are up nearly 38% in the past year with prices spiking 8% just in November due to the high-demand of holiday baking season.
On average, a dozen eggs will cost people $3.65 right now, compared to $2.14 one year ago. Prices have been the cheapest in the south averaging $3.40 per carton and most expensive on the West Coast at $4.20 per carton.
And at the wholesale side of the equation, retailers are buying eggs in California for nearly $9 per carton, according to the USDA report.
CDC has sequenced the influenza viruses in specimens collected from the patient in Louisiana who was infected with, and became severely ill from HPAI A(H5N1) virus. The genomic sequences were compared to other HPAI A(H5N1) sequences from dairy cows, wild birds and poultry, as well as previous human cases and were identified as the D1.1 genotype. The analysis identified low frequency mutations in the hemagglutinin gene of a sample sequenced from the patient, which were not found in virus sequences from poultry samples collected on the patient’s property, suggesting the changes emerged in the patient after infection.
I’m not sure why, but FARTUS has picked a John Hopkins Doctor to head the FDA that criticized his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and believes in vaccines. Let’s just hope that no one crazy notices him. RFK, jr comes to mind there. This is from HealthCare Dive. He was actually picked around Thanksgiving last year. “Johns Hopkins surgeon Makary is Trump’s pick to lead FDA. A prolific medical researcher and author, Marty Makary criticized the FDA and CDC for their decision-making during the pandemic, although he describes himself as pro-vaccine.” But there’s a bit more to that story.
President-elect Donald Trump on Friday named Johns Hopkins University surgeon Marty Makary to lead the Food and Drug Administration, choosing a prolific medical researcher who bucked consensus on the necessity of frequent vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As FDA commissioner, Makary would oversee an agency of some 18,000 employees who assess new drugs and devices, review the performance of approved medicines and monitor food quality and safety. The agency typically evaluates and makes decisions on more than 50 new drug and biological products each year. The FDA also regulates medication abortion, including mifepristone, which was at the center of a U.S. Supreme Court case earlier this year. In June, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously to preserve access to the medication.
Makary, whose specialty is pancreatic surgery, is something of a more traditional health nominee than Trump’s controversial picks of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services and Mehmet Oz to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Both the FDA and the CMS are overseen by HHS, giving Kennedy, who has alarmed many in the medical community with his views on vaccines, substantial power over the two agencies and Trump’s healthcare agenda. And in naming all three, Trump emphasized their willingness to take on industry and shake up the agencies he’s selected them to lead.
A man who fired a gun inside a restaurant in the nation’s capital after a fake online conspiracy theory called “Pizzagate” motivated him to do so nearly a decade ago was shot and killed by North Carolina police during a weekend traffic stop.
Edgar Maddison Welch was a passenger in a vehicle stopped by officers in Kannapolis on Saturday night, according to a Kannapolis Police Department news release. One of the officers recognized the SUV as one he’d seen Welch drive before, police said. The officer had arrested Welch before and knew he had an outstanding warrant for a felony probation violation at the time, according to authorities.
When the officers approached the vehicle to arrest Welch, police said the man pulled out a handgun and pointed it at one of the officers. After he was instructed to drop the weapon but didn’t, two officers shot Welch, authorities said.
Emergency responders took Welch to the hospital and he died from his injuries two days later, according to the release. None of the officers, nor the driver and another passenger, were injured.
In 2016, authorities said, Welch drove from North Carolina with an assault rifle to Comet Ping Pong restaurant in Washington after believing an unfounded conspiracy theory that prominent Democrats were operating a child sex trafficking ring out of the pizzeria. The fake theory, dubbed “Pizzagate,” began circulating online during the 2016 presidential election.
Suicide by Cops? Who knows. We might find out more, but it seems to be the season of the more domestic terrorists.
One last Felonius Trump item.
As of 12:02 am, DOJ has advised the 11th Cir of its appeal of Judge Cannon's order in the So. District of Florida & restated its intention of releasing the J6 volume of the report & sharing the classified documents volume with Congressional leaders.
It’s going to be a long fucked-up four years. Oh, another one of my candidates for grave dancing has exited the Earthly Door. We will not miss you, Anita Byrant.
In ten days, we get Trumpapocalypse again. Fly your flags at half mast to remember Former President James Earl Carter. Find a good series to binge-watch and spoil yourself!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
One more gift for you. Is it appropriate for a President of the United States to say the Pledge of Allegiance with his hand on his stomach? What’s he protesting?
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Yesterday was the second day of Trump’s Manhattan trial for a plot to interfere with the 2016 election by covering up payoffs to extramarital sexual partners and planting fake stories in the National Enquirer.
It was also the second day of testimony by David Pecker, former CEO of American Media, which owned the Enquirer and many other publications. Pecker, Trump, and his lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen orchestrated the fake news operation.
Before the trial resumed, Judge Juan Merchan held a hearing about whether Trump had already violated the terms of his gag order.
Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign was repeatedly aided by the National Enquirer, which squelched potentially damaging stories about him and pumped out articles pummeling his rivals, the former boss of the supermarket tabloid testified Tuesday during the ex-president’s trial on charges of falsifying business records.
Trump, the first former U.S. president to face a criminal trial, spent his day in the Manhattan courtroom fighting two pitched battles — one against the testimony of former tabloid executive David Pecker, his longtime friend, and another against the increasingly likely prospect that he will be punished by the trial judge for allegedly violating a gag order.
On both fronts, prosecutors seemed to inflict significant damage. At one point, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan warned Trump lawyer Todd Blanche that he was “losing all credibility.” At another, Trump grimaced and shook his head as Pecker described how he helped kill an allegation — ultimately found to be false — that Trump had a child with a maid at his building.
The busy court day was punctuated by prosecutors detailing the full factual and legal foundation of their case against Trump, one built around a misdemeanor state charge of trying to illegally influence an election.
Pecker, the former CEO of American Media Inc., the company that once ran the Enquirer and other celebrity gossip publications, said he met with Trump and Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen in 2015 to discuss how the tabloid, which had a long relationship with the real estate mogul and reality TV star, could help Trump’s bid for president.
“I said what I would do is I would run or publish positive stories about Mr. Trump, and I would publish negative stories about his opponents,” Pecker testified.
That wasn’t all he pledged to do.
Pecker said he told Trump: “I would be your eyes and ears. … If I hear anything negative about yourself, or if I hear anything about women selling stories, I would notify Michael Cohen as I did over the last several years.”
The deal Pecker described was a mutual back-scratching arrangement in which Cohen would feed stories to the tabloid about Republican rivals like Ted Cruz, and the paper would publish glowing stories about Trump. Pecker said he had a “great relationship” with Trump dating to the late 1980s, but that didn’t seem to be his primary motivation. Stories about the brash celebrity businessman helped sell copies of the tabloid.
David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, testified at Donald Trump’s trial Tuesday that the tabloid completely manufactured a negative story in 2016 about the father of Sen. Ted Cruz, of Texas, who was then Trump’s rival for the GOP presidential nomination.
By Anna Billing
The paper had published a photo allegedly showing Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz, with Lee Harvey Oswald handing out pro-Fidel Castro pamphlets in New Orleans in 1963, not long before Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy.
“I mean, what was he doing — what was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the death? Before the shooting?” Trump said in an interview with Fox News in May 2016. “It’s horrible.”
Manhattan prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked Pecker about the story’s origins during the trial Tuesday in Manhattan. Pecker said that then-National Enquirer editor-in-chief Dylan Howard and the tabloid’s research department got involved, and Pecker indicated that they faked the photo that was the foundation for the story.
“We mashed the photos and the different picture with Lee Harvey Oswald. And mashed the two together. And that’s how that story was prepared — created I would say,” Pecker said on the witness stand.
Asked by Steinglass whether Cruz had gained popularity in the presidential race at the time, Pecker said, “I believe so.”
The revelation came up as the prosecution focused on negative articles that were published by the tabloid about Trump’s Republican opponents at the time. Pecker explained that it was Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer, who would orchestrate the planting of these stories.
Pecker said Cohen would call and say they’d like his publication to run an article on a certain candidate, adding that Cohen would then send him a piece about Cruz, for example, and the National Enquirer “would embellish it from there.”
The Enquirer also ran negative stories about other Trump opponents in the 2016 Republican primaries and about Hillary Clinton.
Judge Merchan hasn’t yet made a decision on whether Trump violated his gag order, but his decision could be released today.
Donald Trump’s alleged violations of a gag order restricting him from attacking witnesses, jurors, prosecutors, and court staff during his ongoing criminal hush money trial got their own day in court on Tuesday.
During a tense hearing, Judge Juan Merchan heard arguments from Manhattan prosecutors requesting that Trump be sanctioned for “willful” violations of the gag order — and sparred with Trump’s attorneys over claims of ignorance by the president. No decision was handed down Tuesday, but prosecutors have requested that Trump be fined $1,000 for each violation, and reminded that future violations of the order “can be punished not only with additional fines but also with a term of incarceration of up to 30 days.” [….]
Trump’s attorneys argued that, as a political candidate, the former president needed the freedom to respond to attacks by his critics. Merchan grilled this defense, pressing Trump’s team to back up their argument that witnesses in the case had directly attacked Trump. “I keep asking you over and over again for a specific answer, and I’m not getting an answer,” Merchan said to Trump attorney Todd Blanche.
Merchan also threw out the defense’s argument that Trump’s reposts on Truth Social did not constitute violations of the gag order, as the former president had several people helping run his account. “Your client can wash your hands of it,” Merchan said of reposts, telling Blanche that content doesn’t just “magically” appear on Trump’s account. “It’s not passive […] someone had to do something.”
Blanche at one point insisted to Merchan that Trump was aware of the gag order and trying to comply with it. Merchan wasn’t having it. “You’re losing all credibility,” Merchan responded. “I have to tell you right now, you’re losing all credibility with the court.”
Edvard Munch, Man in the Cabbage Field
It’s highly unlikely that the judge will decide to incarcerate Trump for gag order violations, but the Secret Service prepared, just in case.
The U.S. Secret Service held meetings and started planning for what to do if former President Donald Trump were to be held in contempt in his criminal hush money trial and Judge Juan Merchan opted to send him to short-term confinement, officials familiar with the situation told ABC News.
Merchan on Tuesday reserved decision on the matter after a contentious hearing. Prosecutors said at this point they are seeking a fine.
“We are not yet seeking an incarceratory penalty,” assistant district attorney Chris Conroy said, “But the defendant seems to be angling for that.”
Officials do not necessarily believe Merchan would put Trump in a holding cell in the courthouse but they are planning for contingencies, the officials said.
There have not been discussions yet about what to do if Trump is convicted and sentenced to prison….
“Under federal law, the United States Secret Service must provide protection for current government leaders, former Presidents and First Ladies, visiting heads of state and other individuals designated by the President of the United States,” the agency said in a statement. “For all settings around the world, we study locations and develop comprehensive and layered protective models that incorporate state of the art technology, protective intelligence and advanced security tactics to safeguard our protectees. Beyond that, we do not comment on specific protective operations.”
I doubt if that will ever happen, much as I’d like it to. It’s much more likely Trump would be confined to his home with an ankle bracelet.
Yesterday, Trump claimed that thousands of his supporters who wanted to protest his trial outside the courthouse were turned away by police. That just didn’t happen, and he’s frustrated about it.
Donald Trump can’t decide how he wants his supporters to feel about the scene outside of the Manhattan courtroom where he’s being tried on 34 felony indictments for election interference and business fraud. He repeatedly argues that the city he travels through in a daily motorcade to his trial is a war zone. “Violent criminals that are murdering people, killing people” are free to “do whatever they want,” he’s falsely claimed, blasting District Attorney Alvin Bragg as “lazy on violent crime” because he’s supposedly too focused on prosecuting Trump.
By Gary Kim
It’s all a lie — crime is way down from the pandemic-related spikes — but it’s one Trump repeats ad nauseam. And it’s constantly reinforced by Fox News, which pushes out a series of misleading stories and images meant to scare their elderly suburbanite audiences into believing that going into the nation’s largest city results in instant murder. Nonetheless, Trump keeps pleading with his followers to run through what they’ve been told is a “bloodbath” in order to, you know, persuade Bragg and presiding Judge Juan Merchan to just give up on this whole trial nonsense.
On Monday, Trump begged his followers on Truth Social to “RALLY BEHIND MAGA” at courthouses, unsubtly suggesting that they model themselves after the mostly imaginary leftist rioters who “scream, shout, sit, block traffic, enter buildings, not get permits, and basically do whatever they want.” When the MAGA hats failed to show, Trump tried to inspire them with a post complaining that it’s “SO UNFAIR!!!” that he doesn’t get throngs of people like the kind seen at the antiwar protest a few miles north at Columbia University. Other than a few scattered people with pro-Trump signs, the mob he longed for never showed. So he took his pleas to the cameras outside the courthouse Tuesday morning:
WordPress won’t let me post the video, but you can see it at the Salon link.
What’s especially funny about all this is that Trump can’t quite admit that his people just aren’t showing up, and keeps on blaming the barricades and the cops. His lies got to the level of childish make-believe on Tuesday afternoon, as he falsely claimed on Truth Social that “Thousands of people were turned away from the Courthouse” while denying that he was “disappointed by the crowds.” Of course, by fantasizing about a massive caravan rallied to his defense, he proved he is not satisfied with reality.
As the New York Times reported, “A day after Trump issued a call for more supporters to gather outside the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, the number reached its nadir. The number of identifiable Trump fans across the street in Collect Pond Park on Tuesday sank to the mid-single digits, after hovering at about a dozen for a week”
How can this childish man actually have a chance to be POTUS again?
About a year ago, when Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, indicted former President Donald Trump, I was critical of the case and called it an embarrassment. I thought an array of legal problems would and should lead to long delays in federal courts.
After listening to Monday’s opening statement by prosecutors, I still think the Manhattan D.A. has made a historic mistake. Their vague allegation about “a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election” has me more concerned than ever about their unprecedented use of state law and their persistent avoidance of specifying an election crime or a valid theory of fraud.
To recap: Mr. Trump is accused in the case of falsifying business records. Those are misdemeanor charges. To elevate it to a criminal case, Mr. Bragg and his team have pointed to potential violations of federal election law and state tax fraud. They also cite state election law, but state statutory definitions of “public office” seem to limit those statutes to state and local races.
Both the misdemeanor and felony charges require that the defendant made the false record with “intent to defraud.” A year ago, I wondered how entirely internal business records (the daily ledger, pay stubs and invoices) could be the basis of any fraud if they are not shared with anyone outside the business. I suggested that the real fraud was Mr. Trump’s filing an (allegedly) false report to the Federal Election Commission, and only federal prosecutors had jurisdiction over that filing.
A recent conversation with Jeffrey Cohen, a friend, Boston College law professor and former prosecutor, made me think that the case could turn out to be more legitimate than I had originally thought. The reason has to do with those allegedly falsified business records: Most of them were entered in early 2017, generally before Mr. Trump filed his Federal Election Commission report that summer. Mr. Trump may have foreseen an investigation into his campaign, leading to its financial records. Mr. Trump may have falsely recorded these internal records before the F.E.C. filing as consciously part of the same fraud: to create a consistent paper trail and to hide intent to violate federal election laws, or defraud the F.E.C.
In short: It’s not the crime; it’s the cover-up.
Looking at the case in this way might address concerns about state jurisdiction. In this scenario, Mr. Trump arguably intended to deceive state investigators, too. State investigators could find these inconsistencies and alert federal agencies. Prosecutors could argue that New York State agencies have an interest in detecting conspiracies to defraud federal entities; they might also have a plausible answer to significant questions about whether New York State has jurisdiction or whether this stretch of a state business filing law is pre-empted by federal law.
Shugerman didn’t address the fake news operation with the Enquirer.
Henry Woods, El velo de la primera comunión (1893)
In other news, the Senate passed the bill with aid to Ukraine, and Biden will sign it today.
President Biden was set to sign a $95.3 billion package of aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan on Wednesday, reaffirming U.S. support for Kyiv in the fight against Russia’s military assault after months of congressional gridlock put the centerpiece of the White House’s foreign policy in jeopardy.
The Senate voted overwhelmingly to approve the package on Tuesday night, a sign of bipartisan support after increasingly divisive politics raised questions on Capitol Hill and among U.S. allies over whether the United States would continue to back Kyiv. The 79-to-18 vote provided Mr. Biden another legislative accomplishment to point to, even in the face of an obstructionist House.
“Congress has passed my legislation to strengthen our national security and send a message to the world about the power of American leadership: We stand resolutely for democracy and freedom, and against tyranny and oppression,” Mr. Biden said on Tuesday evening, just minutes after the Senate vote.
He said he would sign the bill into law and address the American people on Wednesday “so we can begin sending weapons and equipment to Ukraine this week.”
The White House first sent a request for the security package in October, and officials have bluntly acknowledged that the six-month delay put Ukraine at a disadvantage in its fight against Russia.
“The Russians have slowly but successfully taken more ground from the Ukrainians and pushed them back against their first, second and, in some places, their third line of defense,” John F. Kirby, a spokesman for Mr. Biden’s National Security Council, said on Tuesday on Air Force One. “The short answer is: Yes, there absolutely has been damage in the last several months.”
The Senate’s vote on Tuesday to approve new aid for Ukraine capped off six months of public pressure and private overtures by the White House to build support, including the not-insignificant task of winning over House Speaker Mike Johnson.
For months, President Joe Biden and his team pressed the case for additional aid both publicly and privately, leaning into courting Johnson – whose young speakership was under pressure from his right flank – behind the scenes through White House meetings, phone calls and detailed briefings on the battlefield impacts, administration officials said.
Grappling with the leadership dynamics in a House GOP conference increasingly resistant to more aid, Biden directed his team to use every opportunity possible to lay out the consequences of inaction directly to Johnson. That included warnings of what it would mean not just for Ukraine, but also Europe and the US, if Russian President Vladimir Putin were to succeed, administration officials said.
The president specifically urged his team to lean into providing a full intelligence picture of Ukraine’s battlefield situation in their conversations with the speaker and his staff as well as discussing the national security implications for the US, officials said. That push played out over the next six months – starting with a Situation Room briefing one day after Johnson became speaker.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan and Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young briefed the speaker and other key lawmakers on how aid for Ukraine was running out, putting the country’s efforts to fight off Russia in jeopardy. Biden stopped by the meeting and met with Johnson on the side to convey a similar message. Sullivan followed up four days later with a call to Johnson to highlight the measures in place to track aid in Ukraine.
But Johnson quickly made clear aid for Ukraine and Israel would need to be separated – an approach the White House opposed and one that would be tested time and time again in the coming months.
The ordeal ended on Tuesday when the Senate passed the $95 billion foreign aid package, with nearly $61 billion for Ukraine, marking a long-sought foreign policy win for Biden, who has spent the past two years rallying Western support for the war-torn country in its fight against Russia. At the same time, the president has been grappling with his own battle back home to get more aid approved amid resistance from some Republicans. The White House has said he will sign that legislation – which also provides over $26 billion for Israel and humanitarian assistance and more than $8 billion for the Indo-Pacific, including Taiwan – as soon as possible.
Read more details at CNN.
While Trump has been dozing off in court in New York, President Biden has been campaigning, most recently in Florida.
President Joe Biden swooped into Florida Tuesday, hoping to parlay the state’s new restrictive abortion law — as well as a ballot initiative that could undo it — into a campaign issue that could give him the state’s trove of electoral votes come November, effectively locking up his reelection.
“There’s one person responsible for this nightmare, and he acknowledges it and he brags about it: Donald Trump,” Biden told a boisterous crowd in a gym at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa.
He attacked Florida’s six-week abortion ban — approved in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade and ending a national right to abortion — and reminded voters that it was the coup-attempting former president’s three appointees to the high court that paved the way.
“It was Donald Trump who ripped away the rights and freedom of women in America,” he said. “We’ll teach Donald Trump and extreme MAGA Republicans a valuable lesson: Don’t mess with the women of America.”
Political consultants from both parties, while skeptical that Biden will actually win Florida, agree that forcing Trump on the defensive in a state he cannot afford to lose and which he only won by three percentage points in 2020 is a smart move.
“I don’t think he’d be in Tampa today if they didn’t see it as good place to make a contrast,” said Steve Schale, who ran former President Barack Obama’s successful Florida campaign operation in both 2008 and 2012. “There’s nothing more valuable, particularly for an incumbent, than a candidate’s time.”
David Hockney, NIchols Canyon, Hollywood HIlls
Just one more story–an op-ed by Melissa Murray and Andrew Weissmann in The New York Times on the Supreme Court’s upcoming hearing on Trump’s claim of “presidential immunity.”
The Supreme Court’s decision to hear oral arguments in Donald Trump’s immunity-appeal case on Thursday may appear to advance the rule of law. After all, few, if anyone, thinks that a majority of the court will conclude that a former president is completely immune from federal criminal liability.
But the court’s decision to review the immunity case actually undermines core democratic values.
The Supreme Court often has an institutional interest in cases of presidential power. But the court’s insistence on putting its own stamp on this case — despite the widespread assumption that it will not change the application of immunity to this case and the sluggish pace chosen to hear it — means that it will have needlessly delayed legal accountability for no justifiable reason. Even if the Supreme Court eventually does affirm that no person, not even a president, is above the law and immune from criminal liability, its actions will not amount to a victory for the rule of law and may be corrosive to the democratic values for which the United States should be known.
That is because the court’s delay may have stripped citizens of the criminal justice system’s most effective mechanism for determining disputed facts: a trial before a judge and a jury, where the law and the facts can be weighed and resolved.
It is this forum — and the resolution it provides — that Mr. Trump seeks, at all costs, to avoid. It is not surprising that he loudly proclaims his innocence in the court of public opinion. What is surprising is that the nation’s highest court has interjected itself in a way that facilitates his efforts to avoid a legal reckoning.
Looking at the experience of other countries is instructive. In Brazil, the former president Jair Bolsonaro, after baselessly claiming fraud before an election, was successfully prosecuted in a court and barred from running for office for years. In France, the former president Jacques Chirac was successfully prosecuted for illegal diversion of public funds during his time as mayor of Paris. Likewise, Argentina, Italy, Japan and South Korea have relied on the courts to hold corrupt leaders to account for their misconduct….
Consider India, Bolivia, Hungary and Venezuela, where the erosion of judicial independence of the courts has been accompanied by a rise in all-consuming power for an individual leader.
Within our constitutional system, the U.S. Supreme Court can still act effectively and quickly to preserve the judiciary’s role in a constitutional democracy. If the court is truly concerned about the rule of law and ensuring that these disputed facts are resolved in a trial, it could issue a ruling quickly after the oral argument.
It would then fall to the special counsel Jack Smith and Judge Chutkan to ensure that this case gets to a jury. Obviously, fidelity to due process and careful attention to the rights of the accused are critical. To get to a trial and avoid any further potential delay, Mr. Smith may decide to limit the government’s case to its bare essentials — what is often called the “slim to win” strategy. And Judge Chutkan has already warned Mr. Trump that his pretrial unruly statements with respect to witnesses and others may result in her moving up the start of the trial to protect the judicial process.
Read the rest at the NYT.
That’s it for me today. What do you think? Are there other stories that interest you?
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
CNBC has this headline on the stellar job market performance at the end of last year. “U.S. payrolls grew by 256,000 in December, much more than expected; unemployment rate falls to 4.1%.” This is reported by Jeff Cox. Any president in the 70s or 80s would’ve been a hero if they found a way to reach these numbers.
The current egg shortage is likely to get worse. So, if we’re speaking in terms of getting a guy who everyone thought would lower their egg prices, entire villages of idiots are about to get a surprise. This is from ABC News. 
This link to the CDC has information on the vaccine and includes one Louisiana family where the flu jumped from animals to people. “
This last story I want to look at takes us back to the loon in the Pizza Gate shooting. I wonder if Hillary can sleep better now. 
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