Ain't No Sunshine

Hey Friends,

Good morning to everyone except for Jay Z, who is disappointed the Sun wasn't pointing in his preferred direction.

Mr. Z, while accepting the Grammy Award for global impact, chided the Academy for not giving black people enough awards. For example, he mentioned his wife, Beyoncé, has only received 32 wins out of 79 nominations. And none have been album of the year, so that’s not fair. Also, from what I heard, the free caviar wasn’t that great.

I'm just thankful to have all of you reading and occasionally clicking the 👍 button.

Thanks for being here.

Let's get to The News.

Hot Takes

Week 06 of 2024

Immunity

If you'd like to experience that new crime smell, you may want to be sure you can't be prosecuted for choosing a life of crime. First step, check the job description, and unless it says, "responsibilities include doing literally whatever you want without consequences, and other duties as assigned," there's a chance your role has its limits.

Well, the news is out, and you actually can be held accountable for your actions, even if you were the president, especially if they are criminal actions. A federal court ruled that Donald Trump is not exempt from prosecution for crimes he may have committed while he was president.

Of course, the caveat to this is that nearly everyone in your political party denies your corruption and bends the knee. You may get away with some of those crimes, at least for a period of time.

This ruling pushes the issue to The Supreme Court, where the bench is filled with nine justices, three of whom Trump himself appointed. And I'm not a lawyer, but I suspect Trump's key legal strategy should be to buy an RV for Justice Clarence Thomas to see if it sweetens the deal enough to move in his favor.

If they don't immediately hear the case, it's probably because they are busy with another issue regarding the former president, whether Colorado courts rightfully removed him from the ballot based on the 14th Amendment. (more)

The Supreme Court heard arguments on the yesterday, and Justices seemed dubious about Trump's intelligibility. I'm sure that, much like many of you, their Honor probably read my analysis of the issue several weeks ago and got a chuckle but walked away with a new perspective. I'm not suggesting that this newsletter is your new source for legal analysis, but I'm not gonna not suggest that it is.

Open the Gaetz

As for Trump, he's got someone in his corner with knee pads prêt-à-porter. Just this past week, Matt Gaetz said that he wanted to introduce a resolution to clear Donald Trump of any blame for any insurrection. Then he started singing the Katy Perry song 'I Kissed a Girl and I Liked It.' in front of all his colleagues. <— NOTE: That didn’t happen. I made that up entirely. The initial story is totally serious, though. What we're finding through this story is that Matt Gaetz has a type, and it's no longer teenagers. (more)

Borderline Insane

Republicans have been blaming Biden for bad border policies since the day he entered office. The ketchup on the Oval Office chair had hardly dried, and the room still reeked of French fries before Republicans began blaming the Biden Administration for a crisis at the border. I've personally been critical of the administration, not for a made-up problem that was or was not their fault, but for failing to use the bully pulpit to push for a solution.

This week, the tables have been turned. Congress failed to advance a bill to respond to the border issues because Republicans in the House and Senate had scuttled the deal. Normal Republicans are pissed. Biden called it out resolutely and blamed it directly on Donald Trump publicly, and had no trouble getting at least the first few words off his lips. (more)

The narrative on this topic, at least the critical one, is "This doesn't close the border" because closing the border is somewhat like expecting a vaccine to close your nasal passages. What we need are policies internally and with border countries that limit the incentives of entering illegally, and we need the infrastructure to handle those that do. Please send this message to everyone you know with unrealistic expectations.

Not Mayorkas. In definitely unrelated news, the House decided to impeach Secretary Mayorkas over the border crisis and failed. (more)

Netanyahu vs Hamas

After Hamas provided a counterproposal for a ceasefire, which must have included requirements to withdraw from the river to the sea, NetanYahoo! said no because their terms were, as he said, "bizarre," and that "There is no other solution but a complete and final victory," and "If Hamas will survive in Gaza, it's only a question of time until the next massacre."

As much as I don't want a world war, I suspect he's probably right. As I explain it in Easy Solutions, it would be wonderful to have a ceasefire – probably the best outcome, actually, but it takes two to tango. (more)

Nevada Mind

Haley lost to nobody. Literally, G. W. Nobody won. The Nevada primary is what they call "messed up" because there are two of them. One is run by the state and the other by the Republican Party. Haley was excluded from the party primary but was the presumed leader in the state vote. Unfortunately, the option "None of These Candidates" did much better than her by a vote of 2 to 1. The good news for Haley in this case is that the nature of these duplicate primaries means this one didn't matter. The bad news for Haley is literally everything else about this story.

I wrote an analysis on whether Nikki was a vampire, but now I think maybe no because this wouldn’t have happened to a real vampire. Not in a million years, even if you lived that long.

The King's Cancer

King Charles has been diagnosed with cancer, tempting his son to lick the royal throne, saying it’s his. His Royal Highness had just received treatment for an enlarged prostate and started to leave the royal clinic with a little bounce in his step, only to find out that heavy is the head that wears the crown. The Royal Family hasn't revealed what kind of cancer it is, but Chuck will be stepping away from his public duties as he goes through treatment and recovery. (more)

That's it for this week.

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