The Week Ahead

I’m a bit under the weather today, so I’ll make this brief. Here are some of the items in the news I am tracking. Post your comments and questions below! It helps me shape my choices and approach during the week.

A lot of hot air. In case you by some miracle didn’t hear, there was a Chinese balloon floating across America the past few days, which got shot down off the Carolina coast yesterday. The right wing panic over the balloon—or as they like to spell it “baloon” or “ballon”—was both notable and misplaced, and their claim that Trump would have shot it down right away belied by the evidence of Chinese balloons entering American airspace during his presidency.

SOTU. President Biden will deliver his State of the Union address on Tuesday. We’ll see how the Republicans act and how they respond. I’m not holding my breath for much respect or civility. After the SOTU, the Biden Administration is fanning out to dozens of state across America to tout its achievements. Smart move.

Oh, George! As if things couldn’t get any sketchier, a staffer filed a sexual harassment claim against George Santos after just two days working on that office, alleging inappropriate behavior and touching. He really is like a gay Trump who was born poor instead of with a silver spoon up his ass.

The primary directive. The Democrats have voted to change the order of their primaries for the 2024 presidential election, with more diverse, larger states having a greater early say in the election process. Sorry, Iowa and New Hampshire. What does this mean going forward?

The 5th Circuit Strikes Again. The highly extreme Fifth Circuit struck down a law that prevented people with Domestic Violence restraining orders against them from owning a firearm, citing the SCOTUS’s recent ruling in Bruen. Our courts continue to stand directly in the way of common sense gun regulation, which is what the people want, not this radical right agenda.

Koch-ed up. Billionaires Charles Koch, along with his network of donors and activists, is wading back into politics to oppose Donald Trump for president. This is going to have further splintering effects upon the party. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Trump run as a third party candidate if the GOP turns on MAGA fully.

Outrage of the week: The Florida High School Athletic Association is weighing whether to require data and monitoring of female athletes’ menstrual cycles. This is not an Onion headline, it is life in Florida today. (I am working up a longer thought piece for Team Takei about how Orwellian Florida has become under DeSantis.)

One final thought: Someone recently commented that until he sees indictments, he doesn’t give a flying flip about legal developments in the Trump cases. Here was my response to that:

I get that. It’s frustrating. But I want folks here to consider that accountability is a process, not just an end result. Participatory democracy requires us to hold our justice system to account, and we can’t do that if we don’t stay abreast of things and continue to apply pressure. That means reading up and amplifying press accounts of important developments. That motivates the media to continue to inquire and ask about concrete actions. If we all were to simply shrug and say, “Wake me up when it’s over” then it truly might never come to pass.

Thank you all for being part of the watchers of our system and voices for reason and the rule of law. This is how we defend democracy.

Jay