Week 72
By 
This week we heard more of Graham Platner than any normal human being should have to. The Maine primary is Tuesday.
Donald Trump had his third “physical” in this presidential term and then disappeared from public view for six days. Or was it seven? He poasted through it, frequently at times of night when most of us are sleeping. This is what all presidents will do in the future, nothing to see here.
LGM did its annual fundraiser, and we’re all glad that’s over with. Congratulations to the auction winners! We will be hearing more about that as the various post requests eventuate.
Ukraine is doing better in the war Russia has inflicted on it. Their drones have taken out a significant fraction of Russian oil storage and refining. I am not a battlefield analyst, but what I read seems to be that Russia’s poor battlefield management and limited training of recruits combined with Ukraine’s nimbleness and creativity have allowed Ukraine to make some gains recently. One military commentator even thinks a ceasefire is within sight. Putin once again declined to speak directly to Zelinsky.
The House of Representatives approved aid to Ukraine. The Republicans in Congress are beginning to part from Trump’s agenda, although they did approve overfunding of ICE until the end of his presidency. They disapproved of some of his graft, which I’m not clear on. Attorney-General-to-be and personal Trump lawyer Todd Blanche told Congress that the January 6er Slush Fund was dead, but he wouldn’t put that in writing.
Department of Justice lawyers believe that it would be legitimate for Trump to push the Statue of Liberty into the bay. Maybe we should tell him that the poetry includes “I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
Negotiations on ending the war against Iran are going nowhere. The latest scuttlebutt is that Trump won’t sign off on anything that he isn’t assured will be treated by the news media as being better than Obama’s JCPOA. Oil company executives said that reserves will run out in the next few weeks. I filled up my car with electrons yesterday. I like the feeling that I am not spewing combustion gases on the people I drive by. I know that I’m probably running indirectly on natural gas, but I still like my electric car.
California hasn’t finished counting ballots from Tuesday. I get that ranked-choice voting takes longer, but there seem to be other issues as well. This will be a big opening in November for Trump to claim fraud. It isn’t fraud, but it’s one of the things he grabs onto.
Overall, Trump is on a downward trajectory. Now we have to mount a strong Democratic response.
Follow the court-watchers for the details of the lawsuits. Chris Geidner (LawDork, Bluesky), Roger Parloff (Lawfare, Bluesky), and the Just Security tracker.
Let’s stay away from hypotheticals, as usual. Post your pets.
136 more weeks to go. What are you doing?
Previous weeks: Week 10, Week 20, Week 30, Week 40, Week 50, Week 60, Week 70, Week 71