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Sorry it's late; another one of those kinds of days.

From Deposed to Deposed

For most people, it's "you win some, and you lose some." However, for Donald Trump these days, it seems to be "you lose some, and then you lose some more." Seriously; when was the last time he won in court? Not just an overall case—we'd even consider a win on a substantive motion. He temporarily won one of his "stop the steal" cases in Pennsylvania, on a technicality, but then ultimately lost that one and about 50 more of them. And since then, he's been smacked down by the Supreme Court (multiple times), and by state courts in several different states, and by the D.C. courts, too. Unless we're overlooking something, he may be getting close to 100 straight legal defeats. He's the Washington Generals of the judicial system.

The latest judge to pile on the former president is New York Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron, who ruled yesterday that Trump and two of his kids, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, must sit for a deposition with the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James. So, having experienced one meaning of "deposed" in January 2021, Trump will get to experience the other sometime in the very near future.

On some level, it must be kinda fun to be a Trump lawyer. You shouldn't expect to get paid, of course, and you're probably going to lose in court. However, getting out the Trump file must be a welcome respite from the daily grind, since preparing his legal briefs is more like an exercise in creative fiction than it is legal writing. In this case, for example, Team Trump argued that his constitutional rights were being violated because James is simultaneously considering civil and criminal charges. That would certainly be a novel defense, if it had held up.

The Trump legal team also made the argument that because the former president's (now-former) accountants, MazarsUSA, had publicly decreed that his financial statements from the last 10 years are unreliable, there is no further need to James to investigate any further. In other words, we now know all we need to know, and that's that. Easy-peasy! To say that the judge was unimpressed with that assertion would be an understatement; in his ruling he wrote:

The idea that an accounting firm's announcement that no one should rely on a decade's worth of financial statements it issued based on the numbers submitted by an entity somehow exonerates that entity and renders an investigation into its past practices as moot is reminiscent of Lewis Carroll ("When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said ... it means just what I chose it to mean -- neither more nor less"); George Orwell ("War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength"): and "alternative facts."

Kellyanne Conway must be pleased to have her ideas included with those of two of the leading literary lights of the last 150 years. Although they both had opium habits, so maybe not.

Anyhow, Engoron gave Trump 21 days to show up for his deposition, even if he has to remove all of his clothes to count down that many. The former president also has 14 days to cough up documents that James has demanded. Trump seems unlikely to give in and do 100% of what is demanded of him; he's either going to withhold documents, or answer every question with "I plead the Fifth," or something like that. So, he could well be before Engoron again before long, with a chance to extend his legal losing streak even further. (Z)

McCarthy Turns Traitor

No, not against the United States government, though that might not be far away, given the direction that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is headed. Instead, the victim of McCarthy's betrayal is Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY). Although it is customary for party leadership to stay out of primary election contests, the Minority Leader talked to The Federalist on Thursday, and decreed that he is backing Cheney's main challenger, the Trump-endorsed Harriet Hageman: "After spending time with Harriet, it is readily apparent she will always listen and prioritize the needs of her local communities and is focused on tackling our nation's biggest problems. I look forward to serving with Harriet for years to come."

We very much doubt that a single person in Wyoming will be swayed by this endorsement. If they are inclined to punish Cheney for being anti-Trump, and to support the person most likely to send Cheney packing, they don't need McCarthy's encouragement. So, this story is far more significant in terms of what it says about the Minority Leader, and not what it says about Wyoming's House race. McCarthy wants the Speakership so badly that he can taste it. And that means he's got to keep both the Trumpy and not-so-Trumpy members of his conference behind him. He's clearly decided the not-so-Trumpy faction is smaller and/or more pliant than the Trumpy faction, so he's gone all-in on pandering to the Trumpers. Yesterday, it was his Cheney virtue signaling. Last week, it was his support for the RNC resolution censuring Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL). And so on and so forth.

In contrast to the other minority leader, namely Mitch McConnell (R-KY), we've never been particularly impressed with McCarthy's political skills. And he certainly does not seem to be playing his hand very well right now. On one hand, he's veered too far in the direction of Trumpism. McCarthy has now set himself up in direct opposition to McConnell, who is actively trying to undermine Trump, and is also alienating the not-so-Trumpy faction of his conference. Maybe they are fewer in number and more pliable, but he still needs the support of most of them, and he appears to be losing that support with stunts like the one yesterday. Any of the remaining moderate Republicans who see what McCarthy's done to Cheney will realize that they could easily be next up.

At the same time, paradoxically, McCarthy has not gone far enough in the direction of Trumpism. That is because for many of the Trumpers, a party leader can never go "far enough." Just last night, the very Trumpy Lou Dobbs smeared the minority leader as a RINO who does not deserve to be speaker, while Dobbs' guest—Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL)—nodded in agreement. And McCarthy is perpetually in the situation that part of his anatomy—and it ain't his ears, or his feet, or his fingers—is always in Trump's hands. The former president, who is just lukewarm on McCarthy, need only squeeze and dreams of the speakership go out the window.

Time will tell, of course, but at this point you have to figure that "McCarthy never becomes Speaker" is a much more likely outcome than "McCarthy succeeds Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)." (Z)

Government Shutdown Averted

The federal government was set to run out of money tonight, as the stopgap funding bills passed in December were going to expire. However, just as Congress approached the precipice of disaster, a deal was worked out, another stopgap bill was passed, and the can was kicked down the road. Phew! That was close, right?

Ok, maybe it's hard to get too riled up about this particular situation. Just as we all know that Jason Voorhees isn't really dead, no matter how definitive the end of the movie seemed to be, we also know that Congress is unlikely to actually let the government shut down. And even if they do, it will probably be brief. And even if it isn't brief, the effects won't be disastrous (in contrast to allowing the national debt limit to be reached).

Yesterday's deal was approved 65-27, which is obviously a total that is both bipartisan and filibuster-proof, so it's not like it was close. The big question is whether Congress can actually agree on a budget for the whole fiscal year (well, now it's more like the whole fiscal 6 months) before the can stops rolling again (March 11 is the next potential shutdown). One would think that if a supermajority can get behind a stopgap bill, then it should be possible to find 60 Senators willing to vote for a regular funding bill. But Congress in general, and the Senate in particular, are strange places. (Z)

Oregon's Next Governor's Ain't Nick

Well, that didn't take very long. After Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan (D) found that former (?) New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof (D) was not eligible to run for governor due to falling short of the state's residency requirement, he vowed to fight on until the bitter end. Well, the end came yesterday, and it was definitely bitter for him, as the Oregon state Supreme Court ruled that Fagan was correct and he can't be on the ballot. In this case, it's two strikes and you're out.

What the now-former candidate will do next is anyone's guess. Presumably, the Times would be happy to have him back. Alternatively, he raised millions for his campaign that he could now dump into a super PAC and use to support other candidates and preferred causes. Or, he could do what it takes to fulfill the Oregon residency requirement, and run for office in the future. That said, the governorship obviously won't be up again until 2026, which is also the same time that there will be another U.S. Senate election. Does Kristof want to begin a political career at 67 years of age? That's a little old for most political offices, and at the same time a little young to be running for president. Well, these days, at least.

Meanwhile, Kristof's departure from the gubernatorial election makes things very interesting. Former House Speaker Tina Kotek (D) and state Treasurer Tobias Read (D) haven't exactly caught fire, but one of them will almost certainly be the Democratic nominee, now that the decks are clear. Meanwhile, former state Sen. Betsy Johnson, who is now also a former Democrat, has caught fire a bit, and has landed the support of Oregon's wealthiest man, Phil Knight. Inasmuch as this is a state election, he can spend as much of that sweet, sweet sneaker money as he wants to try to get Johnson elected. If she can cobble together a coalition of moderate Democrats, independents, and Republicans who would prefer her to the more liberal Reed/Kotek, she might just win. Not likely, since Oregon Republicans tend to be pretty fanatical and are likely to back only a MAGA type, but possible. (Z)

Facebook's Feed Frenzy

There is a 1996 sketch from Saturday Night Live called "The Heyward Foundation." It is apparently old enough and/or obscure enough that NBC hasn't digitized it and put it online (though you can read the transcript here). The sketch is framed as a public-service message from the (fictional) "Heyward Foundation," and the actor Bill Pullman comes on screen as "John W. Heyward" to explain:

I'm a very wealthy man. I'm worth billions, and always have been. But I haven't always been a man with a conscience. Time was, I thought my money was all I needed to be happy. But all that changed one day when I came across [holds up Bible] this book. The Bible. And I saw where it said, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." That passage changed my life. It moved me to start putting my riches towards a worthy cause. And that's why I established the Heyward Foundation. The Heyward Foundation For The Development Of A Way To Make It Easy For A Camel To Pass Through a Needle's Eyes. I'm not going to Hell if my billions have anything to say about it! And I think they do. Let me show you..

What follows, as you might imagine, are an array of very large needles and very small camels.

We were reminded of that level of "missing the point, probably deliberately" on learning that Facebook has implemented a solution in response to complaints that its news feed has vast amounts of misinformation and propaganda masquerading as news. That's right, they've changed the name from "news feed" to just "feed." Can't gripe that there's non-news in the news feed anymore, right? Problem solved!

This, of course, isn't the first bit of tactical rebranding coming from Mark Zuckerberg—the name of the parent company was changed from Facebook to Meta just last month. And in this case, the change is not just an effort to pass camels through the eyes of needles. No, it arguably gets worse. Facebook... er, Meta apparently wants to get into the business of producing news coverage—it has just launched a site called "Facebook News" in France. So, this week's rebranding is partly meant to separate crappy content produced by users from crappy content produced by the site itself.

In any event, we are disinclined to think that the world becomes a better place when Mark Zuckerberg & Co. get into the business of producing (or even just aggregating/curating) news content. However, for some reason, he does not call us and ask us for our input before making these sorts of decisions. Who knows why. (Z)

This Week in Schadenfreude

We don't believe we've mentioned this story before, but one time about 10 years ago, (Z) traveled to Canada to attend a wedding in Montreal. And driving across the border, he was aggressively questioned by the person working the entry booth at which he stopped. It is not clear, and presumably never will be, whether he looked like a particular wanted person, or he just generally failed some sort of anti-crime/anti-terrorism checklist, but the order was given to leave the line of cars and to park in a designated area for further questioning. However, those instructions were delivered in a vague manner, such that—and again, it's not clear what happened here—he ended up encircled by a dozen Canadian commandos with their assault rifles drawn. Then there were three different interrogations and two searches of the car before (Z) was allowed to go, never having been given an explanation or an apology. True story.

Some might call that "the final piece of the puzzle."

Anyhow, that incident came to mind this week when MyPillow guy Mike Lindell, who always loves an opportunity to perform Trumpism publicly, tried to gain entry to Canada. As you can probably guess, if you didn't already know, he was trying to lend his support to the anti-vaxx Canadian truckers convoy, and he planned to distribute 10,000 free MyPillows, including 1,000 of the model that has Bible verses printed on them. Because how well can a person sleep, really, if their head isn't resting on the fourth Psalm?

It would seem that the 'Nades concluded—hopefully correctly—that Lindell is a bigger threat than (Z), because while (Z) was eventually allowed to enter the country, Lindell was turned away. And in contrast to what happened a decade ago, there's no mystery this time. Canadians don't have a problem with cheaply manufactured bedding aids that tend to fall apart after a few months' usage, but they do have a problem with unvaccinated people who also don't have a negative PCR test in hand. Lindell and his two traveling companions (truck driver, videographer) are all unvaccinated, of course, so it was "Take a hike, eh."

Was Lindell just trying to get turned away, so he'd have something to gripe about? If so, then it seems a rather big waste to take a giant semi truck along for the ride; he could have gotten rejected without it. Alternative, is he really so foolish or arrogant that he believed Canada would just spontaneously waive the rules for him? The people who actually enforce the rules are just low-level grunts who don't have any leeway if they want to keep their jobs. And anyone who does have leeway isn't going to be interested in letting a bag of hot air like Mike Lindell do whatever he wants.

So, one of TrumpWorld's most obnoxious denizens just got poked in the eye by the folks up north. That's certainly cause for some schadenfreude, not to mention a round of congratulations for the Canucks. Oh, and if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau & Co. are reading and have finally finished writing up that apology, they can send it to zenger@electoral-vote.com. (Z)

Looking Forward: The Readers Predict 2022, Part IX: The Economy

As a reminder, we dropped to running two installments a week so as to not overdo it. Here are the previous entries (and by the time this feature runs again, we're going to make this much prettier, somehow):

Now, some reader predictions for the economy, along with our judgment of how many boldness points are available if the prediction proves correct.

The topic for next week is foreign affairs. We suspect Ukraine will make an appearance or two. (Z)


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