DDT on Third Remembrance of His Insurrection

The news about Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) for the past week has focused on his Truth Social activity, many of them reposts, and court decisions and filings from and about him.

A DDT ad by Dilley 300 Meme Team begins: 

“And on June 14th, 1946, God looked down on his plan Paradise, and said, I need a caretaker. So God gave us Trump.”

For two minutes and 44 seconds, the video continues with his hard work and God’s creation of him to lead the nation. The idea is not original: in 2022, another presidential candidate released a 96-second ad that begins:  

“And on the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said: ‘I need a protector.’ So God made a fighter.”

Another Truth Social post falsely stated he won in Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Michigan in 2020 despite no proof of widespread voter fraud in those states.

By New Year’s Day, DDT’s Truth Social warned that if he didn’t have immunity then neither would President Joe Biden. He neglected the possibility of total immunity allowing a president to kill DDT with impunity. 

DDT also had a meltdown about his continued defamation trial by E. Jean Carroll, reprinting at least 71 anti-Carroll messages, 31 of them in 30 minutes. Another 40 started nine hours later. DDT also repeated his lie that he has no idea who Carroll is.

On Christmas Day, DDT called for his political opponents to “ROT IN HELL.” Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) responded in an op-ed, writing about his cruelty and the importance of fighting back by calling out bullying, “his inexcusable behavior.” Dingell has been the subject of DDT’s bullying. Elected to her position after the death of Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), DDT insinuated that her husband in hell after her vote for DDT’s first impeachment because he was “looking up” at her. DDT called Dingell a “loser” after her op-ed in which she wrote:

“I cannot and will not be bullied or intimidated by anyone. Sometimes tyrants think women will cower. We cannot. We have the strength and courage to do what is right and fight for the betterment of our communities.”

Another DDT target during the past holiday season was former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), a member of the House January 6 investigative committee; he claimed she had “destroyed all of the evidence” used to for its report which DDT called “illegal.” In all caps, he lied about how the destruction blocked his defense. DDT also lied about this disappearance deleted former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) “turning down 10,000 soldiers that I offered to to [sic] guard the Capitol Building.” which he said is now “gone.” Cheney reminded DDT that DDT’s defense lawyers have had the committee materials “for months” and concluded:

“Lying about the evidence in all caps won’t change the facts. A public trial will show it all.”

A Washington Post fact-checker summarized DDT’s lies. All the documents were preserved, no one presented evidence of any illegal activities by the committee, and DDT has never provided any evidence about offering soldiers to protect the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Glenn Kessler described DDT’s strategy:

“First, he repeats a false claim endlessly, no matter how often it is debunked. Then, he elevates it every so often with a dusting of new information, usually a falsehood derived from a modicum of fact.”

Newly released emails tie DDT’s 2020 campaign and the fake electors’ plot in Michigan showing how the ruse was carried out in seven states—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. GOP pretend electors created forged election materials and sent them to VP Mike Pence and federal archivist, claiming they were legitimate, a process orchestrated by DDT’s campaign staff who smoothed the path for the certificates’ official mailings and presented them to the federal agencies.

A new 156-page report from Democrats on the House Oversight Committee estimates that DDT’s businesses received at least $7.8 million from 20 foreign governments during his four years in the White House, violating the Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause. DDT called the clause “phony,” but China alone gave DDT $5.5 million. This accounting may have been just the tip of the iceberg; in April 2023, Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW) approximated DDT’s international business dealings at $160 million. House Republicans have closed any investigation into these allegations.  Details about expenditures.

Trying to defend his father, Eric Trump admitted the Democrats were correct by falsely claiming that “all foreign government profits … were voluntarily [sic] donated to the United States Treasury.” Constitutional authority Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) explained that the Constitution requires payments to be accepted by Congress. DDT gave portions of his salary to different government agencies, but no record exists of any other donations to the government or congressional acceptance of any funds.

The new location for FBI headquarters is again causing scandal. DDT had pushed for the building in downtown Washington, D.C. instead of a Maryland suburb. An AP report from 2017 lists one of the three firms bidding on the contract was connected to DDT’s family and that of his son-in-law Jared Kushner. DDT continues to call for the headquarters to be built in the city.

DDT is now cautious about signing any oath: in Illinois, he failed to sign the state’s loyalty oath, instituted during Joe McCarthy’s Red scare in the 1950s although he did so in 2016 and 2020.  

In Iowa on January 6, DDT repeated his lies about a stolen election throughout a 113-minute, energy-free speech. He also criticized Abraham Lincoln for the Civil War, declaring Lincoln should have negotiated instead of fighting. DDT’s own insiders are upset about DDT’s new false election fraud report authored by campaign staffer Liz Harrington, displaying the conflict between DDT’s legal problems and his campaign. One of his advisers called the report “a bunch of garbage.”

The trial about DDT’s and his company’s defrauding plaintiffs with a multi-level marketing plot begins on March 25. DDT has a pending motion to dismiss the case.

Other Legal Issues:

E. Jean Carroll – Sexual Assault/Defamation:

The 2^nd Circuit Court denied DDT’s request for a 90-day stay and ruled that Carroll’s civil state trial can move forward on January 16, one day after Iowa’s caucusing. His only out now is an appeal to the Supreme Court.

New York – Business Fraud Costs:

New York AG Letitia James’ office has filed for an increase from $250 million to a payment by DDT of $370 million after the civil trial’s evidence. The filing also added the permanent prevention of DDT to participate in the state’s real estate industry and serving as a director or officer at a corporation or legal entity in the state. DDT is still using all caps on Truth Social to claim he has done “nothing wrong.” Judge Arthur Engoron has already ruled that DDT and his family business committed fraud; the trial is to determine punishment. Closing arguments are set for January 11.

New York – Business Fraud:

The criminal trial being prosecuted by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg Jr. is scheduled for March 25.

Washington, D.C. – Overturning the Election:

DDT lawyers’ latest strategy is trying to have special counsel Jack Smith and his team held in contempt of court with the claim that they violated Judge Tanya Chutkan’s order to temporarily put the case on hold. Their “reasoning” is that Smith asked for rulings on evidence and arguments admissible at trial while waiting for the Supreme Court decision.

Sixteen Republicans in the law and government have signed an amicus brief using a conservative perspective to oppose DDT’s plea for immunity, a case now before the Washington, D.C. Circuit Court.  Their four arguments:

The Constitution does not refer to presidential immunity as it does for congressional members; courts would need to invent such a provision. Also absent in the Constitution is DDT’s claim that an impeachment conviction must precede prosecution.

In limited government, the government is not a king but subject to prosecution. Richard Nixon was pardoned because he wasn’t considered immune.

Immunity destroys the separation of powers among three government branches holding different powers with none dominating another. MAGA and DDT have tried to take over other branches’ powers such as ignoring post-election court decisions and congressional power of the purse.

The brief reaffirms the rule of law and elections, blocking a president from overriding the electoral college and states’ election procedures.

Part of DDT lawyers’ filing to the appeals court claiming his immunity repeats his lies about a stolen election. They know the claims are lies, and DDT’s attorneys have been sanctioned in the past for lying in their filings. Arguments about immunity begin on January 9. Chutkah’s criminal trial is scheduled to begin on March 4, but federal court decisions about “presidential immunity” may delay the timing.

Georgia – RICO Conspiracy to Overturn Election:

Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis requested an August 5 start date for the trial against DDT and his co-defendants.  

Florida – DDT’s Taking Classified Documents:

The trial is scheduled to begin on May 20 although. Judge Aileen Cannon continues to push back deadlines.  

The 14th Amendment; DDT’s Name on State Ballots:

The Supreme Court arguments on whether DDT’s name can be on the Colorado ballot begins on February 8.

DDT has also appealed Maine’s ruling, banning him from the state’s primary ballot.

DDT’s solution for school shootings: “get over it.”

News Burgeons on Friday

Once again, President Joe Biden’s jobs report came out above estimates: December 2023 added 216,000 jobs for the month, totaling 2.7 million jobs for the year. Government gained 52,000 jobs, and heathcare-related fields, 38,000. Wages rose 4.1 percent for 2023 before salary increases went into effect on January 1, 2024 for almost ten million workers. Unemployment stayed at 3.7 percent, remaining below 4 percent for the 23^rd consecutive month. Last year’s GDP will increase 2.5 percent.

People complain about the economy but $222 billion shopping online during the holiday season, up 4.9 percent. E-commerce shopping is about 20 percent of holiday expenditures.

Two days before a New York trial against the National Rifle Association (NRA) about officials’ inordinate expenditures, Wayne LaPierre, leader for 32 years, resigned as of January 31 after allegations he took millions of dollars in expensive benefits such as African safaris, yacht trips, and private jet flights. LaPierre cited health reasons. New York AG Letitia James plans to continue the trial, saying that his resignation “validates our claims against him, but it will not insulate him or the NRA from accountability.” Misspending largely led to the $36 million deficit in 2018 when the NRA cut back many long-term programs such as training, education, and law enforcement initiatives.

Filing for bankruptcy in 2021, the organization tried to incorporate in Texas, but a judge refused the request, stating the move obviously tried to dodge James’ lawsuit. James asks that LaPierre and other defendants repay the NRA and be banned from serving in leadership positions of any charitable organizations conducting business in New York. LaPierre’s ex-chief of staff Joshua Powell settled with James’ office on Friday and agreed to testify at the trial, pay the NRA $100,000, and give up future nonprofit involvement.

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the appeal of Colorado’s Supreme Court decision to remove DDT’s name from the state ballot because of the insurrection clause in the 14^th Amendment. The case is to be argued on February 8 after Colorado’s deadline to mail ballots to overseas voters, including the military, on January 20 for the GOP primary on March 5. Early voting, used by almost all the state’s voters, starts on February 12, just four days after the case is argued and probably before the decision is delivered. Before February 8, Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada will have selected their candidates for the general presidential election.

Although some experts think that the Supreme Court will permit states to make their own determination regarding names on the ballot, DDT’s lawyer Alina Habba believes Justice Brett Kavanaugh will vote to force DDT’s name on the Colorado ballot because he owes DDT who “went through hell” to get him on the court and “step up” for DDT.  Another likely given for DDT is Justice Clarence Thomas because his wife participated in the illegal attempt to keep DDT in the White House after the 2020 presidential election.

The U.S. Supreme Court is wading into the abortion issue again, bypassing the 9^th Circuit Court to determine whether emergency room doctors can perform medically necessary abortions in states that prohibit them. The full 9^th Circuit Court allows Idaho’s Defense of Life Act to be in effect until it is determined in court, overturning a three-judge panel from the appeals court ruling that federal law preempts state law. The high court will also hear a case about access to the abortion drug mifepristone including in states legalizing the procedure.

The House has lost another GOP vote for the next few weeks until after the appropriations bills’ deadline. Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) is undergoing an autologous stem cell transplant after he had a “positive response” to induction chemotherapy. Last August he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer. Fortunately for him, Democrats and individual states supported research into stem cell treatments after GOP congressional members and George W. Bush opposed it. Another two House Republicans—Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO) and Doug Lamborn (CO)—won’t be running for reelection in 2024. Lamborn’s decision leaves Lauren Boebert (CO) another district in which to run.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is ignoring the executive order of New York City Mayor Eric Adams about when Abbott’s busses can arrive in the city so Adams is suing 17 Texas charter bus companies for $708 million. Adams said the companies are acting in “bad faith” by going along with Abbott’s plan “without any regard for the individuals they were transporting.” The lawsuit is to cover the costs of caring for transported migrants to the city, 33,000 since August 2022. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul supports the lawsuit, accusing Abbott of using “human beings as political pawns.” New York City has paid $4.6 million for 19,000 plane tickets to transfer migrants to other locations they prefer. Abbott sends migrants with little access to food, water, bathrooms, and their preferred destinations.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine briefly looked progressive for vetoing a GOP anti-trans bill, but he immediately signed an executive order banning hospitals from performing gender-affirming surgeries on minors. Ohio doesn’t perform these surgeries. In the meantime, Ohio Republican lawmakers are sacrificing their vacation to convene for a vote to overturn DeWine’s veto. The original bill banned all gender-affirming medial treatments for minors, including medications, and ban transgender females from female school sports. DeWine said he supports parents’ rights to provide healthcare but won’t block the legislature if it passes a bill removing their rights for trans decisions. He also plans a comprehensive plan for the state which includes a mandate for adult patients’ informed consent about the “risks” from gender-affirming care and extensive mental health counseling before treatment consideration.

The New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft for their violation of copyright because ChatGPT is using the newspaper’s articles as training data without permission. The newspaper claims that the two companies are “copying and using millions” of the publication’s articles. The complaint asserts that these AI models “threaten high-quality journalism” by hurting the ability of news outlets to protect and monetize content, “extremely lucrative” for both Microsoft and OpenAI. Attempts at negotiation failed to reach a solution, and the NYT has blocked OpenAI’s web crawler, used to scrape content. BBC, CNN, and Reuters are also blocking the crawler.   

After eight years, the Proud Boys, a far-right street-fighting gang instrumental in the January 6 insurrection, has dropped many public appearances with only 36 uniformed appearances across 17 states in the past year. Once appearing to be DDT’s personal army, the group transitioned to culture wars, helping Moms 4 Liberty, a Florida-based organization that bans books and opposes LGBTQ+ rights under the guise of charity work. Four leaders, including the chair Enrique Tarrio, were convicted of seditious conspiracy charges from their participation in the insurrection and sentenced to decades in prison. Dozens of the tribe received lesser charges.

Saturday is the third anniversary of the January 6 insurrection, and the Congressional Integrity Project has issued a report about the continuing attempted coup. The major figures in DDT’s plot to overturn the 2020 presidential election are the same Republicans leading the false impeachment attempt against Biden. According to Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA):

“They still want to overturn the election. What they couldn’t do on January 6th they’re trying to do with this process.”

House extremists, MAGA loyalists, still promoting DDT’s lies, prepare to go further to move him back into the White House. Three leaders—Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson (LA), Oversight Committee chair James Comer (KY), and Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan (OH)—push DDT’s conspiracy theories in their impeachment campaign. Johnson voted to overturn Arizona’s and Pennsylvania’s election results and block making people accountable for the insurrection’s violence plus against the House January 6 investigative committee and Steve Bannon’s contempt of Congress charge for refusing to comply with a subpoena form the committee. The Speaker also echoed a rightwing conspiracy theory about FBI agents orchestrating the insurrection and refuses to deny that the election was stolen. Jordan maintained that the impeachment inquiry against Biden is “to make sure that [Trump] wins [in the 2024 election].”

Some stories never end: after six months, Claudine Gay is no longer the president of Harvard, but more plagiarism has emerged. Billionaire donor to Harvard Bill Ackman was among the push to destroy Gay with plagiarism allegations and unsuitability to lead the prestigious university. His wife, Neri Oxman, gained the limelight for her own plagiarism, directly copying multiple paragraphs of her 2010 doctoral dissertation at MIT with no quotation marks, many without sources. Once an MIT tenured professor, she is an American-Israeli designer who married and moved to New York. 

Even after Gay stepped down as president, Ackman unrelentingly criticized the board for supporting her, calling it a “grave and continuing reputational disaster to Harvard and to the Board” and demanding her supporters to resign. About his wife, however, Ackman posted, “Part of what makes her human is that she makes mistakes… and apologizes when appropriate.”

In further examination of Oxman’s plagiarism, Business Insider found “28 additional instances of plagiarism in her dissertation and other papers [including] over a dozen Wikipedia articles without attribution.” An earlier article listed four copied passages. She also copied an illustration from Wikipedia without the source. The use of Wikipedia as an authority in academia is considered highly inappropriate because articles are not consistently reliable.

As a response to the continuing revelations of plagiarism in his wife’s work, Ackman pledged to thoroughly search the works of MIT president Sally Kornbluth, faculty, board members, and other officers of the MIT Corporation for plagiarism. Nothing more said about his wife.

Tales from the New Year

Israeli officials have secretly been talking with the Congo to “resettle” Gazan Palestinians in the Central African country, according to The Times of Israel. Israeli’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the plan “voluntary.” Another option is Saudia Arabia. After the U.S. State Department criticized two Israeli officials for its advocating the resettlement of Palestinians, they declared Israel is “not another star on the American flag” before doubling down on Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip.

The possibility of a larger war in the Middle East may be more likely after the U.S. killed an Iran-linked militia commander by an airstrike in Baghdad. U.S. attacks in Iraq’s capital is rare, and the Iraqi army, commanding the militia, declared that agreements between Baghdad and Washington had been violated. The U.S. has posted about 2,500 personnel in Iraq, presumably to block a resurgence of the Islamic State terrorist network, with another 900 in Syria.

The Islamic State is claiming responsibility for two explosions in Iran killing almost 100 people at a memorial for top commander Qassem Soleimani, who former Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) killed almost exactly four years ago.

The fourth school mass shooting in 2024 was at the Perry school in Iowa, killing sixth-grader and injuring four students and a school administrator. The 17-year-old shooter, another student, shot and killed himself; classmates said he was “tired of the bullying.” Officials didn’t intervene, even when students started harassing the gunman’s younger sister. Students had returned for the first day in the new year. Searching the school, police found an “improvised explosive device.” GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said that creating “safe environments … is more of a local and state issue” before he bragged about how “very, very effective” what is done in Florida.

Republicans want to keep lowering taxes for the richest people in the U.S., but billionaires already have $8.5 trillion in untaxed assets. About 64,000 U.S. households each have at least $100 million wealth and control over one in every six dollars of the nation’s “unrealized gains,” nontaxable profits until the underlying assets are sold. Capital gains come from businesses, stocks, and mutual funds. The wealthy then live off low-cost loans secured in their wealth, and inherited gains disappear for tax purposes. Between 2013 and 2018, leading billionaires paid an average federal tax rate of 4.8 percent—before the 2017 GOP tax “reform” lowering the tax rate.

The billionaires’ and centi-millionaires’ $8.5 trillion of unrealized capital gains jumped by $3.2 trillion since 2019 during the Covid pandemic. Sen. Ron Wyden’s (D-OR) Billionaires Income Tax would tax the tradable assets of individuals with more than $100 million in annual income or more than $1 billion in assets for three consecutive years.

A judge has unsealed the names of child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s 200 associates, and the first 40 were released, followed by another set. Long calling LGBTQ+ people and their allies of being “groomers” and pedophiles,” Alex Jones and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) are now afraid that DDT will receive the same descriptors for his friendship with Epstein. Jones has already started to protect DDT, saying that he “gets devoted to one woman at a time, gets totally obsessed with them, totally nice to them.” Yet at least 26 women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct, including extra-marital affairs, and DDT started his relationship with his second wife while married to the first one.

The first release resulted in such a frenzy that the website almost immediately crashed. Many of the names, however, had already become public record. Many men who were named are not accused of any sexual misconduct.

President Joe Biden has removed Uganda from the U.S. list of nations eligible to benefit from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) because of its “Anti-Homosexuality Act” punishing “aggravated homosexuality” with death. The new law imposes a life sentence for “recruitment, promotion and funding” of same-sex “activities” and bans identifying as LGBTQ+. Central African Republic, Gabon, and Niger also do not meet the trade deal’s requirements. The trade agreement allows eligible sub-Saharan African nations to export over 1,800 products to the U.S. duty-free.

If the government shuts down in the next month, extremist Republicans who don’t want to credit Biden for U.S. support are to blame. The Senate stayed an extra few days to negotiate an agreement for a border security bill combined with an emergency package to support allies, among others, those in Ukraine. House Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson sent his chamber home, but the GOP members are still complaining about the southern border. They want to allow Russia to take part of eastern Europe back unless the White House and the Senate majority accept unrelated conservative goals.

In this election year, extremist Republicans are afraid that cooperative Democrats will look good to the public. Even if the far-right House members get everything they want, their object is to cause trouble for the Democrats, keeping party over country. Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) said:

“Let me tell you, I’m not willing to do too damn much right now to help a Democrat and to help Joe Biden’s approval rating. I will not help the Democrats try to improve this man’s dismal approval ratings. I’m not going to do it.”

Nehls is open about GOP motivation. He’s already said that DDT’s reelection bid is connected to Biden’s impeachment investigation, giving DDT “a little bit of ammo.” Nehls said that findings about expelled George Santos (R-NY) were “pretty damaging,” but the party needed to prioritize the size of its majority over propriety.

A disenchanted House Republican, when comparing Johnson to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), said that at least Johnson doesn’t lie. They were wrong, and CNN’s Jake Tapper forced Johnson to back down on one of his lies. In one of his evidence-free pieces, Johnson reported “over 300 known terrorists apprehended at the border trying to come in.” Tapper pointed out that people’s identities have been flagged with no proof of terrorism.

Paula Roberts, the psychic reader on Jesse Waters’ Fox show that replaced Tucker Carlson, pulled a tarot card describing that DDT may have a “sense of loss” in his future. The website for Roberts describes her as a psychic, clairvoyant, and seer. Her reading for Biden indicated he would get “lots and lots and lots and lots of money.”

Dwayne Waden, a North Carolina pastor, attacked a McDonald’s cook and tried to push his head into a deep fryer after punching his face several times. Waden’s wife, who managed the McDonalds, said the employees were “disrespecting” her. The pastor was arrested on charges of assault and battery.

On his 95^th birthday, Mickey Mouse has entered the public domain, and far-right host Michael Knowles of The Daily Wire wants to turn him into a Nazi instead of his playful, kindly tradition. Knowles’ reason?

“Because Disney is a very, very evil corporation that wants to trans your kids and fill their heads with all sorts of crazy ideas, and Disney’s gotta go…. You heard all the Disney executives talking about their not-so-secret LGBTLMNOP agenda. You’ve seen what Disney has done in recent years, so much so that the governor of Florida had to take political action against them to stop Disney from trying to interfere in the democratic process in Florida to stop the libs from transing your kids. OK?”

Knowles continued with his hate speech.

After 95 years, copyright material is no longer protected, and Knowles wants to use Christopher Rufo’s strategy for innocent Mickey, developed when Rufo made the entire world aware of the evil surrounding “woke.” He bragged about “how we have to work the media, how we have to exert pressure and how we have to sequence our campaigns in order to be successful.” In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Rufo bragged about “How We Squeezed Harvard to Push Claudine Gay Out.”

Another abuse of Mickey Mouse are two planned horror films featuring the little creature since Walt Disney’s ”Steamboat Willie” came into the public domain. About the second film, director Steven LaMorte said that “beneath that cheerful exterior [of Steamboat Willie] lies a potential for pure, unhinged terror. I can’t wait to unleash our twisted take on this beloved character to the world.

Only the original version of Mickey Mouse is available for use; the newer images are still under copyright.

 The right-wing’s obsession with “anti-woke” has moved into movies such as Lady Ballers, depicting cisgendered men claiming to be women to dominate women’s sports with female sprinters suspiciously staring at a man in a wig and a huge wrestler with a goatee slamming a woman half his size to the mat. These can be seen on two streaming “entertainment” platforms from right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro and Lady Ballers star Jeremy Boreing, DailyWire+ and Bentkey Ventures. With over 1 million subsribers, DailyWire+ releases other programming such as right-wing commentator Matt Walsh’s anti-trans documentary What Is A Woman? and PragerU’s video shorts promoting conservative pet issues throughout the schools.

Florida forces schools to use PragerU materials, but its co-founder claims that the right-wing product, both animated and live-action short-form videos, is to “bring doctrines to children.” Dennis Prager declared his organization is in the “mind-changing business.” A video about Christopher Columbus tells two time-traveling children that Indigenous people at the time were “far from peaceful” and defended enslaving them, saying it’s “estupido” to judge him by modern standards. Columbus was responsible for the death of 95 percent of the Taino people.  

Congress Returns in Under a Week

A new survey in Israel shows that 85 percent of the want Benjamin Netanyahu, who has served as prime minister three different times since 1996, to hand over control to someone new when the war ends.

GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley seems to be “hoisted on her own petard,” continually blowing herself up with her own explosives. Her problem with slavery isn’t going away, the latest problem on an interview with Fox host Harris Faulkner when she told him, “The South is actually very comfortable with our history [of slavery].” She probably meant the whites in the South are comfortable as she repeats her platitude that the government “was never meant to be all things to all people.”

A political party in the U.S. can support a white man’s coup against the nation, but it forces out a Black woman as Harvard president because of her poor citation. Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) is likely a presidential candidate again while Christopher Rufo, inventor of the “anti-woke” movement, drove Claudine Gay out of her job. If Rufo is sincere about being “anti-plagiarism,” his next subject should be Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. In Gorsuch’s book The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, he copied from a 1984 article in the Indiana Law Journal, according to Yale Review author and editor, James Surowiecki.  

In 2017, a Politico article politely explained that Gorsuch “borrowed from the ideas, quotes, and structures of scholarly and legal works without citing them” and “copied the structure and language used by several authors and failed to cite source material in his book and an academic article.” Experts said Gorsuch hid his sources and called his lack of citation “a violation of academic ethics.” The comparisons are here.

In his year-end report for the Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Robert wrote nothing about his justices’ ethics problems, instead looking back at technological advancements in the nation’s court system, from the quill pens in the 19^th centuries to the 1980s electronic databases and the online trial proceedings created by the Covid pandemic. He also wrote about artificial intelligence but omitted the adoption of a formal code of conduct to promote “integrity and impartiality,” a move largely considered a failure.

In Above the Law, legal expert Joe Patrice critiqued the year-end report:

“While the federal judiciary in 2023 found itself beset by ethical scandals from top to bottom, jurists abandoning any sense of professionalism and decorum, a forum shopping crisis spawned by the lack of reform to the nationwide injunction procedure, and a criminal defendant openly attacking the judicial process and inspiring violent threats against federal judges, John Roberts addressed none of these.”

Five big oil companies are giving over $100 billion in 2023 to shareholders in addition to the $104 billion in 2022 for dividends and share buybacks after huge profits from increased gas prices. 

DDT’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows, indicted with DDT in the Georgia RICO case by Fani Willis, is still begging that his case be moved from a state court to a federal one, this time from the full conservative 11^th Circuit Court. His goal is to get his charges dropped by declaring immunity. Meadows has added Paul Clement, U.S. solicitor general during the George W. Bush administration, to his legal team as well as two other members of Clement’s law firm. Last month, a three-judge panel from the circuit court ruled that only currently serving officials can use the removal statute to move their charges.

With at least two government shutdowns scheduled within the next month, Congress can’t even agree on the top-line funding figure. House Republicans are avoiding the passage of appropriations bills with a second impeachment after that of President Joe Biden. Having only a two-vote margin in eight working days, they plan to also impeach DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas according to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) plan. Congress has not impeached a Cabinet secretary in almost 150 years, and Secretary of War William Worth Belknap wasn’t convicted. The White House has answered the multiple GOP complaints about problems at the southern border:

“House Republicans’ anti-border security record is defined by attempting to cut Customs and Border Protection personnel, opposing President Biden’s record-breaking border security funding, and refusing to take up the President’s supplemental funding request.

“After voting in 2023 to eliminate over 2,000 Border Patrol agents and erode our capacity to seize fentanyl earlier in 2023, House Republicans left Washington in mid-December even as President Biden and Republicans and Democrats in the Senate remained to forge ahead on a bipartisan agreement.”

On social media, White House Communications Director Ben LaBolt posted:

“President Biden has requested $13.6 billion for border enforcement & migration management, increasing the Border Patrol by 1,300, judge teams by 375 and asylum officers by 1600 to expedite the screening process, and critical drug detection technology.”

On Wednesday, Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson ushered about 60 House Republicans to the southern border for a photo-op and called for the passage of their hardline HR2 in the Senate.  American Immigration Council policy director Aaron Reichlin-Melnick described it as “the indefinite detention of toddlers”; “a federal crime to violate a visa, even unknowingly”; abandoning “every single other law on the books to build, maintain, and operate border infrastructure”; and erasing “99.9% of asylum.” Far-right House members told a Fox reporter about their style of governing: “shut the border down, or we’ll shut the government down. We control the money.”

Stories about Congressional Republicans:

A Pennsylvanian activist has filed a lawsuit to disqualfy Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) under the Insurrection Clause, Section Three of the 14^th Amendment because he pushed conspiracy theories about a stolen presidential election in 2020. The filing also states that Perry “advanced efforts to replace the Attorney General with a Trump loyalist” and was a “leading proponent … to disrupt the transfer of presidential administration from Trump to Biden.” 

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) has failed—again. After ordering Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg and Fulton County (GA) DA Fani Willis to send him all the information on their investigations, he issued a demand to D.C. AG Brian Schwalb for information about his investigation. Schwab wrote Jordan and Rep. James Comer (R-KY) that he won’t cooperate with probes into conspiracy theories about far-right judicial activist Leonard Leo, who helped create the Federalist Society and instituted hundreds of radical far-right judges. The investigation concerns Leo’s allegedly using one of his non-profit organizations to help one of his for-profit ventures. Jordan and Comer had given Schwab until November 13 for the scheduling of “a briefing on the status and scope of your investigation.” When Schwab refused, the twosome tried again two weeks ago with the same response. Schwab politely pointed out that Congress doesn’t mess with ongoing investigations.

For LGBTQ+ children, GOP lawmakers believe in “spare the rod, spoil the child” in their opposition to a new rule requiring child welfare agencies to place LGBTQ children in “environments free of hostility, mistreatment, or abuse” based on the child’s sexual orientation, gender identity or expression is drawing opposition from Republicans. Rep. Jim Banks’ (R-IN) bill would stop foster and adoptive families from a requirement to affirm a transgender child’s gender identity although nothing in the proposed policy deals with “changing the sex of a child,” according to the National LGBTQ Task Force. The purpose is to protect children from abuse and mistreatment. Another bill from Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) would allow child welfare service providers to follow their “religious beliefs.”

Republicans are trying to reconcile the assumption that DDT will be the GOP presidential candidate in 2024. The far-right group Club for Growth gave up on its attempt to keep DDT from obtaining the candidacy to no longer attacking him. Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN) also caved in, becoming the sixth and final member of House GOP leadership to endorse DDT’s candidacy. Ten weeks ago, DDT destroyed the possibility for Emmer to be House Speaker after he had all the votes he needed. Those votes disappeared four hours later when DDT publicly condemned Emmer, concluding with the accusation that the representative is a “Globalist RINO.” Emmer’s sin was that he didn’t vote to overturn the 2020 election.  

To circumvent New York Mayor Eric Adams’ new rules about immigrant busses arriving in the city, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is having them unloaded in New Jersey. At least 13 busses with 450 migrants have been sent from Texas and Louisiana; New York has processed over 161,000 asylum seekers in under two years.  

On the other side of the aisle, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) faces more criminal charges after accusations of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes. In the new allegations, Menendez made positive statements about Qatar to help a New Jersey developer get a multimillion-dollar investment from a company tied to the country. Thirty-one senators, including Democrats, have called for his resignation, and Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) has suggested an expulsion from Congress. At this time, Menendez is running for a fourth term, but he has competition.

Israel’s War, U.S Domestic Problems

An Israel drone strike killed a senior Hamas official in the Lebanese capital of Beirut on Tuesday although the Israelis are not admitting to the attack. Hezbollah sides with Hamas, and the Israelis are likely accelerating its war with Gaza into Lebanon.

Israel’s Supreme Court opposed the right-wing and its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by striking down the law, 8-7, limiting the court’s power over government decisions calling for the legislation to be removed. A year ago, Netanyahu came into control for the third time in the last decade, and massive protests objected to the removal of power from the judiciary system. Netanyahu also faces a corruption trial and calls for resignation because of his mishandling the Israel war and hostages.

The day before the ruling, Israel stated it would withdraw troops from Gaza because of problems with the Israeli economy. At least two reservist brigades, approximately 4,000 soldiers each, will be sent home, and three others are returning to Israel for “scheduled” training. The Israeli economy is expected to shrink by 2 percent this quarter after the loss of labor force for reserve duty and abandoned businesses. The public is told to expect a long military campaign, but troop withdrawal could mean “a lower intensity phase in the near future.”

South Africa liberated citizens from apartheid and now calls on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for Israeli accountability beccause Israel breached its obligations under the Genocide Convention. The Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) in South Africa said it is “gravely concerned with the plight of civilians caught in the present Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip due to the indiscriminate use of force and forcible removal of inhabitants” and called on the ICJ to force Israel to “immediately cease” its current attacks on Gaza’s 2.3 million residents. The Gazan death toll is almost 21,000 with 85 percent of the 2.2 million population displaced.

Condemning all attacks on civilians including those by Hamas, South Africa calls Israel’s bombardment of Gaza “genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial, and [ethnic] group.” It has also called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate Israel for war crimes and describes Israel’s actions as a form of apartheid.

“The acts in question include killing Palestinians in Gaza, causing them serious bodily and mental harm, and inflicting on them conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction.”

The ICC prosecutes individuals and governments for committing war crimes; operating under the UN, the ICJ rules on disputes between countries. The ICJ’s orders are binding for Israel, a UN member state. South Africa also voted to suspend diplomatic ties with Israel until Netanyahu’s government agrees to a permanent humanitarian cease-fire.

Genocide can be difficult to prove, but Israel has made several statements about erasing Gaza. The ICJ could issue an injunction requiring the country to halt its bombardment of Gaza.

Supported by Iran, the Yemeni Houthis have blocked shipping in the Red Sea, likely causing increase in oil prices. Last weekend, the U.S. sank three small Houthi boats in its 23^rd attack, this one on a Danish container ship, the Maersk Hangzho under the Singapore flag. A fourth small boat in the altercation fled. In mid-December, military forces of the U.S. and other countries shot down over a dozen drones in the area. If shipping stops on the Suez Canal, oil flow from Middle East countries such as Arabia and Iraq to Europe and elsewhere can be disrupted. The Houthis call the attacks an opposition to Israeli’s attacks on Gaza.

The U.S. State Department lambasted recent statements from two Israeli ministers advocating for resettlements of all Palestinians outside Gaza.

Domestic politics:

GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie is out of the next debate, leaving only Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley. Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) will sit out another one. CNN’s debate, in Iowa, is set for January 10.

The 5^th Circuit Court ruled that Texas can kill pregnant women, declaring that federal regulations do not require emergency rooms to perform life-saving abortions if it doesn’t follow state law. Two of the panel’s judges were originally appointed by George W. Bush, the third by DDT.

Almost nine years ago, a Kentucky county clerk, Kim Davis, made news when she refused a marriage license to a gay couple. Almost nine years later, she’s still making news, this time after a federal judge appointed by George W. Bush ordered her to pay $260,104 in legal fees to the same couple—in addition to the $100,000 award a jury ordered her to pay the couple last September. Calling homosexual “immoral,” Davis is a conservative Christian who has been married four times; she was pregnant by her third husband while married to her first one. She’ll be back in the news because she will probably appeal the decision, possibly to the 6^th Circuit Court, not as conservative as the 5^th or 11^th.

X, formerly Twitter, supposedly lost over half of its value in the first year after Elon Musk purchased the social media platform, but Fidelity announced that X’s stock is valued at 28.5 percent of the purchase price after 14 months following the acquisition. In one month, stock lost 10 percent of its value after Musk told boycotting X advertisers to “go f**k yourself” in a videoed interview with the New York Times. Fidelity’s shares are worth under $5.6 million, a sharp drop of the $19.66 million listed for their value when they were purchased at the time of Musk’s takeover of Twitter.

The New York state appeals court rejected the National Rifle Associations’ (NRA) attempt to close state AG Letitia James’ corruption probe. The trial, scheduled to begin on January 8, includes CEO Wayne LaPierre’s removal. In August 2020, James sued the NRA for diverting millions of dollars to fund luxuries for LaPierre and other officials.  

In an interview with Fox’s Bret Baier, House Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson said the top 2024 GOP priority was “to keep and grow our majority.” Yet he said nothing about the party’s accomplishments and no governing policies. The House has not yet passed the military appropriations bill so the Pentagon’s budget remains at $850 billion and non-defense spending at $739 billion although the amount was settled at $866 billion. The amount was set earlier at the $1.59 trillion total.

The GOP majority in the House shrinks to two after January 21 when Rep. Bill Johnson (R-OH) resigns to become Youngstown State University’s president although he was expected to stay until March. The House will have 219 Republicans, 213 Democrats, and three vacancies, the one for George Santos to be filled with a special election on February 13, considered a “toss-up” between the two parties. Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) resigned on December 31, and, frustrated with the dysfunctional chamber, Rep. Brian Higgins (D-NY) is expected to resign in February,

Last year, House extremists demanded over 700 votes, some of them for $1 salaries for officials they didn’t like, but they passed only 27 bills. With the same slim majority in 2021, Democrats passed 85 bills into law. The 80^th Congress in 1947-1949 was called the “Do Nothing Congress,” but it passed 906 laws.

Congress returns on January 9, leaving them eight working days to pass four appropriations bills by January 19. In another eight working days, the remaining eight appropriations bills must be ready for signing by February 2. The House, however, will likely focus on an evidence-free attempt to impeach President Joe Biden. Due in March is the FAA Reauthorization and the FISA reauthorization in April. Johnson said he doesn’t want another continuing resolution, conservatives oppose omnibus packages to vote on a group of appropriation bills at the same time, and an agreement between the two congressional chambers in 16 days appears highly unlikely—leaving only government shutdowns on two different days.

A compromise for greater southern border “security” also looks close to impossible. Johnson said that he won’t accept anything less than H.R. 2, the hardline House GOP border and immigration bill, and the Senate will never accept it. Another impasse. Meanwhile Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is determined to spend over $1 billion of state money for a fence while the DOJ sues him.

Despite the requirement of New York May Eric Adams’ executive order that buses of migrants arrive between 8:30 a.m. and 12 p.m. from Monday to Friday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sent a bus of 50 asylum seekers to the city that arrived at midnight on Sunday, New Year’s Eve. Another bus left for Denver on the same day and three more waited to be filled. Earlier that day Chicago’s mayor Brandon Johnson said Abbott “determined to continue to sow seeds of chaos” by sending busloads of migrants to the city “without any coordination.” Johnson joined Denver May Mike Johnston in asking for “better coordination” so that migrants don’t come to their cities in the middle of the night, left out in the cold with no one to receive them. Earlier in December Abbott sent about 120 migrants to Chicago by chartered plane to avoid roadblocks and said more will be coming.