Wondering on Wednesday 12/28/22

 

Ready... Set... Wonder!

I'm feeling wonderful-ish today... you know, not really wonderful, just kinda wonder-ish, or full-ish, or something like that. 

Like George Santos, the first openly gay non-incumbent Republican to be elected to Congress, or something like that. He's also the first most openly lyingly lying non-incumbent Republican t0 be elected. He made so many lie-ish statements during his campaign I don't know if even he knows what's true, vs. what's true-ish, vs. what's just 'ish.' He went to college-ish; he worked in finance-ish, for Goldman Sachs-ish. He was poor-ish, and then he was an entrepreneur and started a company-ish, but had no income-ish, but managed to loan his campaign $700,000-ish. He had a company in Florida and four of his employees-ish died in the Pulse nightclub shooting, sorta-ish. 

And the best one, of course, is that he was raised Catholic but is Jew-ish, whatever the hell-ish that means. He promised us he had a story to tell, and he told it, and it only made things worse-ish. In a wonder-ish fashion, I await the official response from the GOP in NY, and in DC. I can only think that it'll be about as '-ishy' as anything Santos has said so far. 

Last week, after the Democratic-controlled NYS legislature voted, in a special session, to give themselves an obscene $32,000 raise effective January 1, 2023, and limit their outside income but not until January 1, 2025, I reached out to Gov. Kathy Hochul urging her to veto the bill, even though there are enough Dem votes in both chambers to over-ride the veto. 

At the same time, I reached out to Sen. Rachel May and Assemblymember Pamela Hunter, my representatives, asking for their thoughts or comments on the vote. I haven't heard from any of them, and honestly, I don't expect to. There's nothing really wonder-ish about their lack of response - the gov's been dealing with a once-in-a-lifetime weather event, and it is a holiday-ish week, after all, but since they all know where I stand on the issue, I doubt there'll be a race to try and appease me or change mind. I'll keep you posted on any responses I get. 

Another person I don't expect to hear from? Whoever charged some snooty-ish mountain bike parts using my credit card. Graciously, one of the five or six vendors who got hit with fraudulent charges (nearly $3500 worth all told) texted me to see if I had made the bike parts order with a request to ship it to a different address, which he shared. That's a big no, I told him. 

All of the charges were reversed; fraud investigations ensued. And so did a Christmas card to the address the vendor gave me. I do wonder, a little-ish, if it made whoever read the card feel bad-ish even for a moment. I hope it did.  

I'm seeing lots of stuff on social media citing the January 6th Committee report and transcripts about documents being torn, flushed, eaten, copied and removed, and even set on fire during the waning days of the last administration. 

I'm not surprised, really, by any of that - I mean, given what we've learned about the Trump White House, there's not a lot that will surprise me anymore. One thing I'm wondering, just a little-ish, is whether there was ketchup involved in all of those, or if another condiment was used?

What's on your wondering-ish mind tonight?

Meanwhile, Back in Albany (v46)

Many New Yorkers are struggling right now, trying to come up with money to pay their rent, their utilities, to buy groceries, and to scrape together money to put even a fair-to-middling holiday celebration together for their families. 

Rural families, suburban families, urban families - it's not just one subset of New Yorkers; all of us are feeling a pinch in one way or another. Which is why it's so insulting to learn that our legislators just gave themselves a $32,000 raise. 

Let me say that again: 

Rural families, suburban families, urban families - it's not just one subset of New Yorkers; all of us are feeling a pinch in one way or another. Which is why it's so insulting to learn that our legislators just gave themselves a $32,000 raise. 

I can assure you, if I could get to my rooftop, I'd be shouting about this from up there, even in this weather. Fortunately for me, my neighbors, and for you, I'm not able to get up there now, so you're safe.

Why did they decide to give themselves a $32,000, 29% pay raise, after getting a 38% pay raise in 2019, you ask?  I'll let them explain it to you.

From The National Herald:

Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, a Democrat, said legislators work hard, year-round, and deserved a raise to cover the increased cost of living.  "It’s a full-time job,” she said. “Sooner or later in order to be able to afford to do the job, we have to raise pay.”  

What she means is, she wanted a raise. In the same article, 

Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy, a Democrat, said the raise would help the Legislature retain quality members who could make more in the private sector. “We have had an unhealthy churning and turnover particularly from downstate members,” she said. 

What she means is, she wanted a raise. And, she doesn't want anyone other than an incumbent Democrat to win election, particularly downstate where the Ds have all the power.

From Politico:

Democrats defended the 29 percent pay increase that will serve as a nice holiday present, saying their salaries were stuck at $79,500 for 20 years before jumping to $110,000 in 2019 after a recommendation from a special compensation committee. The deal also includes limiting lawmakers’ outside income to no more than $35,000 a year. 

“It’s a full-time job. People are working throughout the year, and to wait until 20 or 30 years (for a raise) isn’t reasonable either for lawmakers,” Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins told reporters. 

What she means is, she wanted a raise. And her argument of having to wait 20 0r 30 years is ridiculous, since we all know they just got that raise back in 2019. The article graciously reminds us, or informs us, of the challenging legislative calendar our legislators set for themselves.

The Legislature has a roughly 60-day session in Albany that runs three to four days a week from January through June, and then occasionally reconvenes if a pressing issue arises — like in July when lawmakers came back for a day to vote to toughen gun laws after the Supreme Court tossed the state’s century-old concealed carry law. 

The rest of the year is spent dealing with constituent work in their districts, lawmakers said. 

Would it surprise you to learn that Ms. Stewart-Cousins hasn't recorded any items in her website's newsroom since August 26th? No communications to her district, or to the rest of us New Yorkers? No press releases? No nothing, since celebrating Women of Distinction? (By comparison, I've done over 40 posts since then, and I'm kicking myself that it's only that many...)

Would it surprise you that her website calendar shows only eight events in all of 2022? Or that it shows zero events since May?  I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound very much like a full-time anything to me...

From the same article, 

“This is the right thing to do,” said Senate Finance Chair Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan). She said people shouldn’t be discouraged from running for office “because I won’t be able to meet my bills.” 

What she means is, she wanted a raise. I'd suggest, though, that "people shouldn't be discouraged from living in New York because they won't be able to meet their bills" is perhaps a better description of what life is like for many. And that's one contributor to why more people have left NY than any other state, according to this report; I don't know if "legislators aren't paid enough here" is on the list of reasons people leave, but I highly doubt it.

And, this, too, from the same article. 

“Legislators work hard, and we’re about to come into session in January to continue trying to do the best we can for families in the state of New York,” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) told reporters. “This is more of a timing issue.” 

What he means is, he wanted a raise. Honestly, you've gotta love a guy who stands in front of a microphone and suggests that, now that they've given themselves a raise, they're going to try and do their best for the rest of us. I swear, you can't make this stuff up. 

And from Spectrum News:

Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins to reporters on Thursday morning acknowledged the public perception of the pay raise increases, noting lawmakers will address "affordability" issues facing New Yorkers next year when the new legislative session begins.   

"This is a full-time job, I think people understand," she said. "We work hard and it was finally time to resolve the issue of pay." 

What she means is, she wanted a raise. It wasn't "finally time to resolve the issue of pay" - for her and the rest of them, it was finally time to create the issue of pay.

From the same article,

Pay raises have long been a thorny issue in the state Legislature. And if the pay bill is approved, state lawmakers will still be paid less than what New York City Council members earn at $148,000.  

"Legislators work very hard -- even some of the Republicans," Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said. "There's no compensation you can give to be away from your families." 

What he means is, he wanted a raise. Cracking a joke on an issue of this magnitude? Yeah, that's leadership, Carl. And one more thing: if there is no amount of compensation that makes up for you being away from your family, why the hell did you run for office to begin with, and for re-election so many times?  

I'll close with this piece from mychamplainvalley.com, quoting Stewart-Cousins on the issue of outside income:

There is currently no cap on outside income for lawmakers, but this bill would cap it at $35,000. Could we see some turnover with lawmakers who do have outside jobs?

“Well possibly, and that’s why we made that part of it effective two years from now, because people could have run with the old understanding that they would be able to make unlimited outside income and now with this legislation you will not be able to do it,” said the Leader.

What she means is, she wanted a raise. And she didn't want to wait two years to get it, even though "people could have run with the old understanding that they would" make a mere $110,000 annually for serving in the Legislature. 

I've emailed Sen. Rachel May and Assemblymember Pamela Hunter, my representatives, for their thoughts and comments on their votes. It's clear from my comments that I don't support this move, so I'll be interested if I get a "thanks, Constituent" letter or if they'll try and convince me this is a good idea.

I've also reached out to Gov. Kathy Hochul, urging her to veto the legislation and force the two chambers to override her veto, which they can do if they want, and I encourage you to do the same if you don't like being taken advantage of by our legislators. 

More to come on this issue, I promise.

Wondering on Wednesday 12/21/22

Ready... Set... Wonder!

Where to begin tonight's wonder-full meandering? Let's start in DC, where there's been lots of news. 

• The January 6th Committee made a criminal referral to the DOJ for former president Donald Trump, for obstruction of an official proceeding; conspiracy to defraud the USA; conspiracy to make a false statement, and conspiracy to defraud the US by assisting or comforting those involved in an insurrection. Everyone's wondering if anything will come of the referrals, or if Jack Smith, the special counsel, will continue on his merry way without the Committee's help.

• John Eastman, a law professor and attorney, was also named in a criminal referral to the DOJ, for obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the US. Eastman was the guy who pitched Trump on the hare-brained scheme of having former VP Mike Pence refuse to count the electoral votes and, in effect, throw out the election. Will Eastman be disbarred, I wonder? Will he be charged based on the referral? That seems perhaps more likely than Trump being charged, but again, there's Smith, so...

• It also referred four House members - Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Jim Jordan (R-OH), Scott Perry (R-PA) and Andy Biggs (R-AZ) - to the House Ethics Committee for failing to speak to the Committee, and for subsequently refusing to comply with its subpoenas. Does anyone wonder why there weren't more of them? And does anyone think, for a minute, that anything will come of it, now that the Rs are taking over the House?

• Ukrainian President Vlodomyr Zelenskyy is speaking to the Congress, and to the country, from the floor of the House, the first wartime leader since Churchill to do so. The applause has been long, and loud, and I wonder if the doubters, like McCarthy, will be moved by his words? Will they continue the support, or pull back? 

• Marjory Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are catfighting on social media. I don't wonder anything about that, other than Bobo's saying that she doesn't believe in Jewish Space Lasers. Is that supposed to make us think more of her?

• Members of the House still don't appear to be aligned behind McCarthy's bid to be House Speaker and in fact some are trying to ensure they can remove him, before they'll vote for him. I do wonder if anyone's going to put forward the "let's have Trump be Speaker!" rubbish that was floated in the past? 

• The Senate, in a bipartisan move, passed a nearly $1.7 trillion bill that would fund the government through September 30th, the end of the current fiscal year. The bill would also reform the 1887 Electoral Count Act, making it harder for another fiasco like the one which ended with criminal referrals from the January 6th Committee. I'm fine with them doing both of these things, but specifically on the ECA, I used to wonder if we needed to do legislation to prevent "another Trump," but sadly I'm convinced that the cat's out of the bag, and we have no assurances that there won't be another one.

• The House Ways and Means Committee voted to release several years of Donald Trump's taxes, including one year showing he paid less in federal tax than I spend for a month of groceries; given he's a billionaire and I'm a thousandaire, I can't help wondering what I'm doing wrong.

• Also, we learned that the IRS didn't audit Trump's taxes during his first two years as president, even though their guidelines require audits of all presidents and vice presidents during their tenure. Wonder how that happened - was it the Deep State leftists who controlled the government that kept the IRS from doing their jobs, or was it... Mnuchin??? 

Elsewhere?

• Elon Musk polled Twitter users to see if he should stay CEO of the company; over 57% said no. I wonder how many of his followers are Tesla stock owners? Pretty sure they would all have been in the 'hell no' bucket, given how the value of their stock has tanked since Musk's whole Twitter distraction started.

• Neil Schon of the band Journey has filed a cease-and-desist order against Jonathan Cain for playing Don't Stop Believin' when Cain appears at Trump events. Cain's married to televangelist and Trump 'spiritual advisor' Paula White, so he's been in MAGA-land for a while now. If anyone was wondering, the odds of there being a Journey reunion tour are about as good as the odds of Trump being reinstated as winner of the 2020 election.

• Saturday is Christmas Eve; I'll get out our special 'cookies for Santa' plate, pile on a few treats for him and the reindeer, and leave the plate on the mantel, like we always do. And, as sure as I'm sitting here, most of the goodies will be gone when we get up in the morning. I never wonder about that.

What's on your wondering mind tonight?

Wondering on Wednesday 12/14/22

 

Ready... Set... Wonder!

In no particular order, I'm wondering tonight about holiday parties. You know, the kind we host or attend, with family, or coworkers, or friends and neighbors. Or, you know, the kind attended by Associate SCOTUS Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The party in question was hosted by "far-right operative" Matt Schlapp, who runs the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC), the group that's hosted both Donald Trump flag-kissing events and Hungarian right-wing strongman Viktor Orban. 

In a planned leak of party attendees, Kavanaugh's name is at the top of the list; other names below his include some with business before the Court. The linked article provides some details on that, and also notes

If Kavanaugh was a judge in any other federal court, his attendance at Schlapp's party might have violated Cannon 2 of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges. Specifically, Kavanaugh is permitting Schlapp and others to, at a minimum, "convey the impression" that they have special access.  

A judge should neither lend the prestige of the judicial office to advance the private interests of the judge or others nor convey or permit others to convey the impression that they are in a special position to influence the judge.

We know Kavanaugh's not the only one, nor are the conservative justices alone on stuff like this. But with all the focus on Justice Clarence Thomas, his wife Ginni, Justice Samuel Alito and his parties, and the leaks, I can't help wondering why Kavanaugh didn't just find a quiet bar somewhere to share some holiday cheer. 

Speaking of "all the focus on" people, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Brittney Griner, the WNBA star and world's most famous vaper. Griner, you know, was released from her Russian prison camp in an exchange for convicted international arms dealer Viktor Bout who had served more than half his 25-year sentence. Not released along with Griner? Former Marine Paul Whelan, who's been held in Russia on espionage charges. 

I don't know enough to talk intelligently about whether any trade for Bout would have been a good idea, and I certainly don't know diddly about the negotiations that led to the exchange. All I do know is lots of people were arguing about whether we should have brought home the vaping 'woke' black lesbian National Anthem protestor, or if we should have brought home the white former presumably straight presumably non-vaping Marine.

Noticeably missing from any of the arguments? The fact that Whelan was a staff sergeant in the Marines, until he was busted down to private, and was given a bad conduct discharge. I have to wonder this: if people were as aware of his military history as they are of her National Anthem history, would they think he was really all that much better a trade? 

And speaking of history, there's Texas, which has a long history of interjecting into things that the government doesn't really need to get involved in: keeping pregnant women on life support against their wishes, or providing bounties to folks who report women seeking health care, or wanting to investigate parents of trans children for child abuse, for example.  

And, we learned, the Lone Star State is still interested in interjecting where it doesn't need to be. As the WaPo reported, Texas AG Ken Paxton went looking for info on transgender Texans. 

“Need total number of changes from male to female and female to male for the last 24 months, broken down by month,” the chief of the DPS’s driver license division emailed colleagues in the department on June 30, according to a copy of a message obtained by The Washington Post through a public records request. “We won’t need DL/ID numbers at first but may need to have them later if we are required to manually look up documents.”

That's what Department of Public Safety staff were asked to provide, based on a verbal request from Paxton. And they found "more than 16,000 such instances," which led them to tell the AG they couldn't provide the data he asked for.

So, what's the wondering, you're wondering? Simply, this: what the actual hell is going on down there? What compelling government interest is there in having this data? Is it because their plan to charge parents got shot down, so they're going to attack adults instead? Or is it because Paxton's a Texas-sized jerk? 

What's got you wondering these days?

Sunday School 12/4/22

I spent time with George in ABC's This Week classroom for Sunday School lesson. 

First up? Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), who'll be the new House Minority Leader come January. He outlined the D's mission: "to find ways to work with Republicans whenever possible to get things done for the American people."

And I hope that Republicans will look for common ground with us, but we will also oppose them when we must, particularly as it relates to any effort to go down this rabbit hole of unnecessary, unconscionable, unacceptable investigations of the administration.

Asked for some specifics where the Ds and Rs could cooperate, he spoke generically about the "American middle class and those who aspire to be a part of it" having "been under assault for decades" by things like globalization, outsourcing American jobs, and increased automation, which have "made it difficult for folks to pursue the American dream..." You solve for that by building upon what's already been accomplished - the Inflation Reduction Act, infrastructure bills, the CHIPS and Science Act - and "to find common ground to look for other ways to build upon that great work." He hasn't had any conversations with his Republican counterparts yet, but he looks forward to doing that "soon."

They also talked about who'll replace Nancy Pelosi, who will remain in the House but not in the Speaker role. Jeffries said it's up to the Rs to figure out if Kevin McCarty will be their guy. George wondered if it might come down to an agreement between moderate Rs and Ds on someone who could get enough bipartisan votes. Jeffries dodged the question the first time, then closed the door. The Dems, he said

are preparing... as we transition temporarily from the majority into the minority, continuing to work with the Biden administration, with Democrats in the Senate, building upon the great work led by Speaker Pelosi and Steny Hoyer and Jim Clyburn that has been done over the last few Congresses when we've been in majority. And then let’s see what happens on the other side of the aisle.

George pressed again on bipartisanship and compromise, and said if they could get a GOP speaker who's willing to do that, "wouldn't that be good for Democrats? Wouldn't that advance your mission?" 

Jeffries said he's "actually worked together" with his Republican counterparts, as if that were a miracle or something. Heck, he said, "I've even worked with the Trump administration in the past..." But working together to get a moderate elected House Speaker? That seems a bridge too far. 

The question on the other side of the aisle is, what will Republicans do? Are they going to double and triple down on the extremism that we've seen from people like Marjorie Taylor Greene? That would be unfortunate. And if that happens, then there’s not going to be real meaningful opportunities --.

What do you think - is he missing an opportunity here?

Next up, a Republican with whom Jeffries has worked, Rep. Dave Joyce (R-OH); he's chair of the Republican Governance Group, which, Joyce describes as "dealmakers hell-bent on breaking through Washington's dysfunction." I'm thinking it might have to kick Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-Trump) out, but I digress. 

George wondered how much leverage the group has, and how it'll use it. Joyce said they're "basically focused on making government work." They know what the problems are, because they hear them from constituents. 

And we're not the people who you see on TV every week talking about issues that aren’t germane to what the people are feeling at home... you see all this fighting and you see all this kabuki theater taking place in DC, but what is that doing to lower the price of gas? What is that doing to lower the groceries? How do we start fixing the problems that we have with our educational system?

He said if they can deal with those problems, and "show that we can govern, then perhaps we'll be respected and given the majority back." 

George asked about opportunities to work with Jeffries and the Dems. Joyce mentioned setting a budget, reducing spending across all twelve appropriations bills, and getting 218 votes in the House to pass them - none of which seem interesting to many Dems.

And what about the GOP's idea of not extending the debt ceiling unless there are major program spending cuts, with Medicare and Social Security potentially included? Joyce's response was interesting, more for what he didn't say than what he did.

...obviously, the debt limit is an issue, and it’s going to be times where I hope that we don't get in a position like we did with that failed experiment in October 2013 where we shut down the government for a long period of time, because in the words of a great philosopher, Lebowski, that didn't end too well for us.

The October 2013 shutdown, during Barack Obama's second term, lasted 16 days. The longest one ever? That would be Donald Trump's shutdown, lasting 35 days in 2019. Maybe that one's all a blur, compared to the one under Obama?

Joyce thinks there's enough good guys in his group, and enough Dems who want government to work, to keep the government open. He knows they won't agree on everything, but they have to focus on what they can agree on.

...when you focus on those things, like keeping the government open, keeping the budget that’s specifically low so that people understand what the cost and expenses of running their government is. And if you look at what we've done over a ten-year span with discretionary spending, we’ve actually kept the cost of running the government down. It’s the mandatory spending that’s driving us into the $31 trillion -- as well as the excess spending in the last year.

And if the Dems passed a lame-duck extension of the debt limit, something Joyce says makes perfect sense politically for them, would he vote for it? He's a numbers guy, he said, but he also said "I don't deal in hypotheticals, George." He'd look at the numbers, if it comes to that, and vote accordingly.

Also, speaking of numbers, what about Kevin McCarthy as Speaker? He said folks are talking about not voting for him, but

Well, then who then? I mean, Kevin deserves the opportunity. And he has done the hard work that was necessary to bring together the majority... And we were given this opportunity to do that and he deserves the chance to lead us. And he deserves the chance to lead for two years.

He also said he's "not a fan of a motion to vacate," which has been suggested by some in the Freedom Caucus. If that happened, whoever was Speaker would have to step down.

And what these people got to get used to is that if a majority of our conference agree to something, then that's how you move the ball forward. And just because five or six people don’t like it doesn’t mean that we should hold up the whole thing.

Finally, George mentioned the former president's statement about suspending the Constitution so he could be reinstated as president; he asked Joyce, who voted for Trump twice, if he could support a candidate in 2024 that's in favor of suspending the Constitution.

Well, again, it’s early. I think there’s going to be a lot of people in the primary. I think, at the end of the day, you will -- whoever the Republicans end up pick, I'll fall in behind because that’s –

Even if it's Trump? George asked. Joyce he'd support whoever the Rs nominate - but it won't likely be Trump. Besides, he has more to worry about than what Trump says.

I have to worry about making sure this Republican Governance Group and the Republican majority, that we make things work for the American people... We're moving forward and we're going to continue to move forward as a Republican majority and as a Republican conference.

Whether they were really out of time or not, that was the end of the interview.

See you around campus.

TGIF 12/2/22

It's time for some good week/bad week accounting again. 

Let's start in Arizona, where the Board of Supervisors of Cochise County has finally certified November's election results. It wasn't out of the goodness of their hearts - it was because a court ordered them to.

Two of the three members - one Democrat, one Republican, voted to do the right thing. The third member - another R - didn't bother showing up.  The judge, Casey McGinley, noted

it is "clear" that the board was "duty bound" to certify the results and submit them to the secretary of state by Monday given that no results were missing from the county's totals.

McGinley said the board "exceeded its lawful authority in delaying the canvass for a reason that was not permitted by the statute."

The Dem supervisor who asked the court to issue a quick decision, had a good week; so did the judge, for requiring the board to do their job. And the supervisor who couldn't be bothered? Yeah, you know what list he's on. 

Let's shift to Texas, and the heartbroken city of Uvalde, where another lawsuit related to the school shooting there in May was filed this week. 

Survivors of the fatal mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, have filed a $27 billion class action lawsuit against multiple law enforcement agencies in Texas, according to court documents.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court in Austin, names the city, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, the school district’s police department, the Uvalde Police Department, the Texas Department of Public Safety and a number of persons who are members or former members of the agencies listed as defendants. 

The lawsuit says

Instead of swiftly implementing an organized and concerted response to an active school shooter who had breached the otherwise ‘secured’ school buildings at Robb Elementary school, the conduct of the three hundred and seventy-six (376) law enforcement officials who were on hand for the exhaustively torturous seventy-seven minutes of law enforcement indecision, dysfunction, and harm, fell exceedingly short of their duty-bound standards.

This suit just the most recent one to be filed. 

One federal lawsuit filed earlier this week alleges nearly two dozen people and entities, including the gun manufacturer and store that provided the rifle used in the attack, were negligent and failed to protect a student who was killed. Other families filed a similar lawsuit in September.

No amount of money can ever make up for what happened in May, but there needs to be accountability somewhere in all of this. I'd say the folks had a good week for at least bringing the suits and trying to keep the accountability ball rolling.

And, to Florida, where a former president Donald Trump lost another court case. 

A unanimous federal appeals court on Thursday ended an independent review of documents seized from former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate, removing a hurdle the Justice Department said had delayed its criminal investigation into the retention of top-secret government information.

The three-judge panel, which included two Trump-selected Republicans, said

It is indeed extraordinary for a warrant to be executed at the home of a former president — but not in a way that affects our legal analysis or otherwise gives the judiciary license to interfere in an ongoing investigation...

The law is clear. We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant. Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so. 

The judges from the 11th Circuit who looked beyond who picked them, and did the right thing had a good week. And, of course, put another bad week in the books for the Florida Man.

Continuing our swing through the states, let's look at the Democrats and their plans to realign the early primaries. 

The Democratic National Committee voted on Friday to radically alter its presidential nominating calendar, following President Joe Biden’s recommendations to elevate South Carolina as the first primary state and to eliminate Iowa, breaking with a half-century of historical precedent. But there are still several logistical hurdles for the party to clear to make the new vision a reality.

Under the plan, South Carolina will go first on February 3rd, with New Hampshire and Nevada following three days later. Georgia would vote on February 13th, and Michigan on February 27th. Iowa's completely out of the early states. 

The full DNC still has to approve the plan, and the states that are moving up have until early January to certify they'll be able to meet the schedule. And, New Hampshire's required to go a week before any other state primary, so there's that.

Some people will suggest this was solely a move by the Biden camp to help ensure the octogenarian's chances in '24, but there are legitimate reasons to make some changes to crazy rules that give precedence to Iowa (31st in population, 90% white) and New Hampshire (41st/92% white).

Biden and the Ds had a good week on this; we'll see if it turns into a good week for voters if everything works out.

TGIF, everyone.