Happy Sunday, gang! There’s a lot swirling in the news right now, but here are a few stories I’m keeping my eye on.
Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon
Before last week, we had never heard about Chinese spy balloons, and now it seems we have shot down not one flying thing over North American skies but three. Not much is known yet about the other two except that they were at around 40,000 feet and apparently cylindrical in shape. As the wreckage is recovered, we may learn more.
Documents on a Trump aide laptop
For all the noise around Hunter Biden’s laptop, a discovery of classified documents digitally saved on a thumb-nail drive and a Trump aide’s laptop raises real legal stakes for the ex-president, who now must explain not only why such documents were taken and not turned over but also actually disseminated to third parties. (They’re going to claim innocent mistake, which of course plays to Biden’s favor on his document situation.) Intentional dissemination would be a real problem for the Donald.
Mike Pence is now Trump’s nightmare
It’s fairly Shakespearean that the man Trump wouldn’t have minded seeing hanged on January 6, the one who was loyal to him on every matter except when it mattered the most to everyone on all sides, could yet prove to be his downfall. Trump’s lawyers are expected to contest the subpoena issued to Mike Pence on executive privilege grounds. That will likely delay but ultimately probably not prevent his testimony before the grand jury.
Fights over Earned Benefits
President Biden threw down the gauntlet during his State of the Union over Social Security and Medicare, and now Republicans are on the defensive to show they really don’t want to get rid of these programs, despite ample evidence that many key GOP officials have wanted to do exactly that by arguing for sunsetting legislation so that these programs have to be reauthorized. Biden is feeling confident enough about this being a winning narrative that he is talking up using it in the red bastion of Florida with its many senior citizens.
Perhaps it’s a much needed warning shot to the new likely contender for the White House, Ron DeSantis.
Have a great weekend, and I’ll see you here tomorrow! Leave your questions and comments below, and I’ll try to get to many of them below, in my pieces, and on social media. And thank you again to my supporters! This work isn’t possible without you.
Jay
I remain somewhat trapped in this Dicken’s novel about prosecutions of the most guilty guy! My patience is run out over and over and over and over. But thank you for these bits of hope. If our democracy is to survive, he much be charged. Could Pence be the key. God, how I wish!!!
It feels like too much caution is being used and a “run out the clock” scenario is not only imminent but seems strategic. But, I wish for every citizen accused of a crime to, henceforth, be afforded the same amount of care by prosecutors.