Fox News Hosts All Knew Trump Lost but Lied about It Anyway

To win a defamation lawsuit, public figures have to prove that not only did the defendant defame them, but that the defendant knew that he or she was lying and did it anyway (or was so reckless in their regard for the truth that they should have known). In other words, the plaintiff has to prove actual malice. That is often the hardest part of a case to prove. For a private citizen, the requirements aren't so strong. Dominion Voting Systems has sued Fox for lying about its machines. It is not clear which standard will apply to it, but it is assuming it will have to meet the stricter test and is working on it.

In a 200-page court filing, last week, Dominion appears to have passed the stricter test with flying colors. The filing includes numerous e-mails and messages sent among the top Fox News hosts and management. It is very clear that they knew Trump lost the 2020 election but lied about it over and over on the air intentionally. For example, Tucker Carlson texted his producer 2 days after the election with "He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong." On Nov. 18, he wrote to Laura Ingraham: "Sidney Powell is lying. F**king bitch. Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy." Bret Baier wrote in a memo to management: "The is NO evidence of fraud." Ingraham and Sean Hannity sent numerous other messages to each other and to management saying that they knew Trump lost and his lawyers were crazy liars. Rupert Murdoch was fully on board with the Fox hosts. He said that the idea that the election was stolen was "really crazy stuff."

Despite knowing the truth, all of the hosts interviewed Trump's lawyers at length and let them peddle all the lies they wanted to, without any pushback at all. How come? One short message from Murdoch to Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott explained it: "Everything at stake here." Murdoch, Scott, and other executives all knew the truth. No, not that truth (that Trump lost). They knew the more important truth that if the hosts said: "Trump lost, let's move on to win 2022 now," that they would bleed vast numbers of viewers to Newsmax, whose coverage of the election makes "George Santos" look as honest as George Washington. Murdoch and the others knew that if they told the truth on air, it would destroy their entire business model. They knew that the choice they faced was either: (1) tell the truth and lose a large part of their audience or (2) lie through their teeth and keep their audience happy. That pretty much nails the actual malice part. They knowingly defamed Dominion because it helped them financially. All these internal messages, which Dominion got through the discovery process, are going to be fatal at a jury trial. After hearing a few dozen of these read out loud in court, no juror is going to think: "Carlson really believed Trump won, so he wasn't lying." His own words in multiple messages show he knew Trump lost but on-air said he won. That's pretty much the definition of "intent."

The top executives agonized over what to do (probably with some input from the general counsel). But in the end, they made the decision to take the line that Trump won and they blamed Dominion for stealing the election. It was simply a business decision to avoid bleeding viewers to Newsmax. They kept a close watch on it. When anchor Neil Cavuto cut away from a live briefing by then-press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, warning viewers that she was "making unsubstantiated claims about election fraud," he later got some negative feedback from higher-ups about this. Everyone was expected to toe the party line.

Everyone knew Newsmax was lying. Fox News President Jay Wallace sent a message to Scott saying: "The Newsmax surge is a bit troubling—truly an alternative universe when you watch, but it can't be ignored." Again, the message to the jurors will be that Fox knew the truth and intentionally lied on air to keep from losing viewers to Newsmax. That's not a good defense for defamation. In fact, it's about the worst possible defense.

In another message, Scott wrote: "The audience feels like we crapped on [them] and we have damaged their trust and belief in us." When Fox host Dana Perino warned Scott that a lawsuit from Dominion was likely, she wrote back that the on-air personalities couldn't afford to "give the crazies an inch right now." So she knew exactly what she was ordering and took her chances with the lawsuit. Now the chickens have come home to roost.

One strategy Fox's lawyers are working on is claiming that Dominion could not possibly have suffered $1.6 billion in damages due to its lying. Maybe they are working on a plan to settle for a few tens of millions rather than going to trial. But a trial is scheduled for April, so if there is to be a negotiated settlement, it has to come soon. And Dominion has indicated, rather believably, that they are not interested in settling. The company really needs a judgment in its favor in order to salvage its reputation. (V)

Republican Losers Want to Run Again

Some people never learn. This includes election-denying Republican candidates who were roundly beaten in 2024. A number of them want to run again in 2024. In an effort to prevent a repeat of having "candidate quality" ruin winnable Senate races, NRSC Chairman Steve Daines (R-MT) has said he will interfere in primaries to block hopeless candidates. Of course, that type of candidate is generally running on a platform of "to hell with the establishment" and might advertise the NRSC's opposition as a reason to vote for them. It can also backfire if some of the crazy candidates win, despite establishment opposition. Then, as senators, they will be a loose cannons and will not be controllable. Threatening these people with loss of committee seats won't work because they didn't run for the purpose of legislating. They ran to burn the place down.

One state that makes Daines nervous is Arizona. Both Blake Masters, who ran for the Senate in 2022, and Kari Lake, who ran for governor in 2022, are eyeing a Senate run in 2024. The last thing Daines wants is a knock-down, drag-out fight between these two and then for one of them to get the nomination and end up splitting the Republican vote with Sen. Kyrsten (I-AZ), thus allowing a Democrat to win. But how can he stop them? Maybe by inducing former governor Doug Ducey (R) to run, but Ducey could have run in 2022 and decided not to, so that is not likely to work. Plus, Donald Trump hates Ducey and would do everything possible to tear the former governor down.

Failed candidates are also talking about running in other states. Tudor Dixon, who was crushed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) in 2022, is thinking about running for the open Senate seat there. Doug Mastriano is thinking about running against Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA). These are just some of the big names. There might also be some small-time losers trying again.

Daines isn't the only one who wants the Party to intervene in primaries. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said: "You can't stop people who want to run. It's a free country. Part of it [winning] is recruiting good candidates, too, and not just leaving yourself with the luck of the draw." But not all Republicans want to intervene in primaries. Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) said: "The quality of candidates matters a great deal, and we should be interested in it as a conference and as a party. However, that the decision should be made locally by the people who are qualified to vote in that particular election." So Daines may get some pushback if he tries to pick winners and losers. And again, if the NRSC backs one candidate in some race and Donald Trump backs a different one, the NRSC's interference may actually hurt Daines' preferred candidate.

The situation in the House is different. There, Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC), chairman of the NRCC, does not want to pick winners and losers, even though "candidate quality" cost the GOP at least half a dozen very winnable House seats. In the House, the Democrats did a fair bit of ratf**king in 2022 and it worked most of the time. If the NRCC does not intervene in Republican primaries, then the DCCC will have a clear field to do it again.

As in the Senate, Trumpy candidates who lost in 2022 are trying again. These include Joe Kent in Washington, Bo Hines in North Carolina, and probably J.R. Majewski in Ohio. There will most likely be more. Will the voters who picked them last time desert them now? The NRCC can't count on that.

Another problem in the House is the power of the Freedom Caucus. If Hudson were to start intervening in primaries to block potential new FC members, Chairman Scott Perry (R-PA) would probably have a little man-to-man chat with Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). In that chat he would strongly suggest that McCarthy call Hudson on the carpet and tell him to cut it out. If McCarthy refused, Perry would say: "Your decision, but tomorrow morning I am introducing a motion to vacate the chair. Have a good day." Daines doesn't have this problem. The Freedom Caucus does not have a chapter in the Senate. (V)

McDaniel Wants GOP Candidates to Pledge to Support their Nominee

Ronna Romney McDaniel's job is helping Republicans win elections. She knows all too well that disunity doesn't help at all. Worse yet, if one party is busy fighting with itself, the other one always says: "They can't even run their own party so how could they run the country?" So not only does she have to worry about nasty primaries with 2022 losers spouting nonsense and running again (see above), but she is already concerned that the losers in a 2024 presidential primary may not support the nominee. She is trying to head that one off at the pass, but it is going to be tough for her.

Her first shot is a plan to require all presidential candidates to sign a statement in advance that they will support the Republican nominee. If they refuse, they won't be allowed on the debate stage. Good luck with that, Ronna. Already there is pushback, more than half a year before the first debate. Donald Trump said that he might or might not support the nominee, depending on who that is. In other words, if it is Donald Trump, he will support the nominee. Otherwise, probably not. And Trump also cares nothing about signing some form, and then backtracking when it suits his needs.

Trump's refusal to embrace the plan was to be expected, but he's not McDaniel's only problem. Former Maryland governor Larry Hogan, also a potential candidate, said that he "won't commit to supporting Trump." Former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson said that he hasn't decided about signing, but has talked to McDaniel and tried to get her to change her mind about the pledges. He noted that historically Republican candidates have not taken loyalty oaths. Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH), who might also run, said: (1) he will support the nominee and (2) he is sure it won't be Trump. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) hasn't reacted to McDaniel's announcement yet.

The only weapon McDaniel has is to refuse to allow nonsigners on the debate stage. Trump may not care. He has skipped debates in the past. He is not a good debater. We're not sure he would want to appear on the same stage as half a dozen other candidates, all of whom would be taking pot shots at him continuously. For the other candidates, the publicity would be worthwhile. Even DeSantis is not that well known outside the South.

What McDaniel is worried about is DeSantis getting the nomination and Trump going off in a huff and getting on the ballot in most states as an independent. That would guarantee a Democratic landslide. Getting Trump to sign any statement in blood would not stop Trump from running anyway, of course, and he wouldn't even be embarrassed about it. He would just say: "I have heard from millions of people and they want me to run as an independent." But what else can she do? She can't stop Trump from running by withholding funds. He knows that the RNC will support the actual nominee and not him. He can do his own fundraising. This is all she can do. We're not sure why she even wanted the job again. It's not going to be a fun ride for her. (V)

Democratic Leaders Think Biden Is Too Old

In public, just about all senior Democrats in Congress praise Joe Biden and say they want him to run for reelection. In private, it is completely different. They think he is too old to run but are scared witless that if he declines to run, Kamala Harris will get the nomination and lose to Donald Trump. Of course, if Biden says he is not running, instantly at least a dozen Democrats will jump in, so Harris' nomination is no sure thing, but it is certainly a possibility. That is a risk no senior Democrat wants to take. But none of them are willing to say this in public for fear of offending both Biden and Harris and showing the voters that Democrats are divided.

The situation on the other side isn't much better. Many Republican senators not only don't want Trump to be their nominee, they actively loathe him. At least with the Democrats, none of the senators hate Biden. They just think he is past his prime. We don't know when that is though. Don Lemon has thoughtfully informed us that for women it is in their 20s, 30, and 40s, but unfortunately hasn't told us when men are in their prime. Our best guess is it is when they are 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, or 97. Biden is none of these now.

Politico reporter Jonathan Martin talked to senior Democrats recently and got an earful. One senator said the Democrats had to get Biden off the "narcotic" of office. A governor said Biden wouldn't be able to do much campaigning. A House member demanded to know who else was out there and said that Harris isn't an option. Another member of Congress said he had spoken with Jill Biden about getting her husband to say that he had succeeded in saving democracy, so he could retire now. When the reporter asked if he could quote the lawmaker, the response was "absolutely not." Jim Hodges, a former governor of South Carolina, said: "Politics has become not about what you want but what you don't want." And no one wants Trump and no one thinks Harris could beat him. If the veep were Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), who was of course Hillary Clinton's 2016 running mate, the conversation would be totally different, but it is what it is.

Martin asked a dozen Democratic governors who their choice would be if Biden hung up his hat. None of them wanted to go there. In fact, if Biden were to do that, some of those governors would jump in themselves almost immediately. Howard Wolfson, a longtime Democratic strategist, said that if Biden called it quits, "The field would be really large and really unruly and really divisive around racial and gender lines." Or: "After Biden, the deluge."

The only topic the Democrats were less happy to discuss than actuarial tables is his choice of running mate in 2024. Bringing up any criticism of a woman of Jamaican and Indian descent instantly results in attacks on social media of being insufficiently sensitive to racial and gender issues. Woe to anyone foolish enough to point out that Harris was a weak candidate in her 2020 run for the presidency and withdrew in early December, months before the Iowa caucuses, because she was not getting any traction at all. We're sure not going to point that out, that's for sure. But every Democrat in Congress knows that very well but is never going to say it in public. One white Democrat said that if Biden declines to run, the Congressional Black Caucus is going to have to tell Harris to forget about it, because no white Democrat could do that and have their career survive. (V)

Gerrymanderers Are Still at Work

Did you think that redistricting is done until 2030? Think again. The districts are still up in the air in Ohio and North Carolina, and possibly New York, depending on the judge Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) nominates to replace her failed nominee, Hector LaSalle.

The action right now is in Ohio, so let's look at that first. In 2012, Ohio Republicans drew a House map that gave them a 12R, 4D advantage, even though the state is only moderately red. That held for years without a single seat flipping.

Meanwhile, the voters were getting tired of all this gerrymandering and in 2018 passed a constitutional amendment stating that districts could not unduly favor or disfavor any party. What does that actually mean? Only the state Supreme Court knows for sure, but it didn't like the map the legislature passed. Think Potter Stewart, except "I can't define gerrymander, but I know it when I see it." In a scathing ruling, in Jan. 2022, a 4-3 majority struck the map down, accusing the legislature of failing to "heed the clarion call sent by Ohio voters to stop political gerrymandering."

So Republicans sent the map-making process back to the Republican-dominated map-making commission with instructions to try again. The new map was slightly less gerrymandered than the old map, but not by much. Democrats were livid, also because state Supreme Court justice Pat DeWine, the governor's son, refused to recuse himself for matters relating to a map his father had helped draw. In July 2022, the Court struck down the new map by a 4-3 margin again, but too late to affect the Nov. 2022 elections so it was used, even though it was illegal.

Despite a bad map, the Democrats did tolerably well in Ohio in November. Although Tim Ryan lost a Senate race to hillbilly author J.D. Vance, otherwise the Democrats did pretty well with the provisional map. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) won in a Trumpy district in Toledo and the Democrats finally beat Steve Chabot in Cincinnati. They also successfully defended Ryan's open seat. These wins, plus the state's loss of a House seat, changed the delegation from 4D, 12R to 5D, 10R. Since the Republican majority went from 8 seats to 5 seats, that is a net gain of +3 for the Democrats.

Republicans think those seats are rightfully theirs and want them back. They have a chance now because last November, three Republicans were elected to the state Supreme Court. Republicans could draw a map even more biased than any they have drawn before and there is a good chance the newly constituted Supreme Court would approve it. In fact, they need to do something because the current map has been ruled illegal. If nothing happens, the illegal map will be used again in 2024. That might not be so bad for the Democrats because the current illegal map is better than the one the Republicans want to pass but haven't yet.

But it is more complicated than that. The 2018 amendment stated that if the map the commission drew did not have majority support of both parties, it is valid for only two elections. So a new map will be needed in 2026, no matter what.

But there is even more. Although the Ohio Supreme Court has shifted sharply to the right, the state legislature has moved toward the center. Although the Republicans hold a 66-32 majority in the lower chamber, the Republicans' proposed candidate for speaker was so radical that a third of the Republican caucus joined with the Democrats to elect Jason Stephens (R) speaker over the much more conservative Derek Merrin (R). Part of the deal was that Stephens would work with the Democrats on fair maps. So we are now waiting for him to come up with that new map.

Hanging over all of this is the U.S. Supreme Court's case of Moore v. Harper in which the plaintiffs say that state legislatures get to draw the maps and the governor, independent commissions, and the courts have no say in the matter, whatsoever. Hearings have been held on this case, which would completely upend democracy if Samuel Alito & Co. want to go down that road. A decision is expected in June. The leak hasn't been scheduled yet.

Now on to North Carolina. Here too, the state Supreme Court is at the center of a battle over the district maps. As in Ohio, the Republican-controlled state legislature drew a highly gerrymandered map, And as in Ohio, the state Supreme Court, which had a 4-3 Democratic majority, struck it down in February 2022. But there wasn't enough time before the primary to draw a new map, so the illegal map was used in the primary and general election in 2022. After the election, the Court heard the case again in Dec. 2022 and once again ruled the map illegal.

Now, in a shocking development, the Court has agreed to rehear the case that it heard only 2 months ago. What happened? Well, in November, there were partisan elections for the state Supreme Court and the Republicans got a 5-2 majority on the Court and they want to undo the previous ruling. Oral arguments are next month. And again, if the plaintiffs win in Harper v. Moore, state legislatures will be free to draw any maps they want, even if they violate state laws and the state Constitution.

And while they were at it, the new NC justices also decided to rehear another December ruling that struck down the state's' voter-ID law. The old Court ruled that it placed an undue burden on minority voters, in violation of the state Constitution. But of course, the state Constitution means whatever the current membership of the Supreme Court says it means, and that can change from election to election. Of course, if the NC Supreme Court overrules itself within 6 months, it was expose the inconvenient truth that justices are just partisan politicians in robes. That will not do wonders for enhancing the reputation of the Judicial Branch for, say, justice. But when there elections to be won and power to be gained, who cares what people think?

In New York, everything is on hold until Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) nominates a new justice to the state's highest court and he or she is confirmed. With the right justice in place, the state legislature might try to gerrymander the state again and hope for a better result than the last time they did this (the courts struck it down).

In case anyone had the idea that the courts are impartial arbiters and just follow the laws and Constitutions, all we can say is get out from the rock you have been hiding under and take a look around you. (V)

Right-Wing Extremist Takes over Michigan State Republican Party

The Democrats did great in Michigan in 2022. Currently the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, and both senators are Democrats. In addition, Democrats control both chambers of the state legislature. The state Republican Party is deeply divided and even more deeply in debt. Under these circumstances, who in their right mind would want to run the state Republican Party? Oddly enough, ten people filed to run for party chair. On Saturday, the delegates to the state convention elected a Black woman, Kristina Karamo, to the job. Who said the Republicans don't like Black women? Of course, she is a right-wing conspiracy theorist and maintains that Donald Trump won the 2020 election. That helps. She also ran for secretary of state in 2022 on a platform of making sure Republicans win all future elections and was crushed by 600,000 votes (14%) but still refuses to concede. In the final round of voting for party chair, Karamo beat Matt DePerno, another election denier, who ran for attorney general in 2022 and was also crushed.

Her job will be to rebuild the state party. She knows that. In her address at the convention she said: "Our party is dying and needs to be rebuilt into a political machine that strikes fear in the hearts of Democrats." Good luck with that.

She's not the only one. Trumpists have taken over the entire state party machinery. This might have something to do with why the Michigan GOP has lost so many elections recently. Who knows? Maybe the big donors know. They have drastically cut back on donations. Tudor Dixon, who ran for governor and was crushed in 2022 by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI), said that her campaign was hurt by the state party not having much money. Unless Karamo can convince the big state donors to pony up, the Republicans will have a tough time picking up the open Senate seat in 2024 unless they can find a multimillionaire who can self-fund.

Former state representative Aaron Miller (R) said of the election: "The Republican Party is now pretty well cemented as the party of election denying, conspiracy theories, tin hats and supporting Capitol riots. I'll pass." (V)

No More Meatball Ron

Donald Trump has denied that he will call Ron DeSantis "Meatball Ron" during his campaign, even though it is short and catchy. He said that would be a slur on DeSantis' heritage. All eight of DeSantis' great grandparents were born in Italy. But since when has Trump tried to avoid slurring anyone? Our guess is that someone on his staff told him that some of his supporters are of Italian heritage and they might not like the nickname.

Actually, "Meatball Ron" is somewhat different from all Trump's other nicknames. It doesn't explicitly point out some imagined characteristic of the recipient. "Low-energy Jeb" says that Jeb doesn't have much energy. "Crooked Hillary" implies that Hillary is dishonest. "Lyin' Ted" says that Ted (Cruz) is a liar. "Sleepy Joe" implies that Biden is not up to the job of being president. "Crazy Bernie" is meant to suggest that Sanders has lost his marbles. There are more and not all imply something about the recipient, but most do.

"Meatball Ron" doesn't directly impute any characteristic to DeSantis like the others. All it does is maybe insult Italians, although meatballs are common to many cuisines (actually, more like most cuisines). Swedish meatballs are at least as famous as Italian meatballs. Here is a link to a page with over 45 meatball recipes, including Greek meatballs, Spanish meatballs, Mexican meatballs, Vietnamese meatballs, Mongolian meatballs, Thai meatballs, Korean meatballs, Moroccan meatballs, Dutch meatballs, and more. Although if you decide to put British meatballs on the bill of fare, you'll want to be careful how you word things. In any event, "meatball" doesn't really imply "Italian."

On the other hand, "Ron DeSanctimonious" does fit the pattern. It suggests that DeSantis has a "holier-than-thou" attitude, which isn't that far off the mark. It's just longer and probably half of Trump's base doesn't even know what "sanctimonious" means. He may have to keep looking. Maybe he needs to go to some elementary school and ask the third graders in the playground at recess how they insult kids they don't like. After all, that's the level he is operating at, so why not go to the source? (V)

Jimmy Carter Gets Hospice Care

Major media outlines prewrite obituaries for famous people who are old. That way, when they die, they can have the obit online in a flash. Actually, that's just a fringe benefit; the main reason is that it's much harder to get quotes and other information for the article at a time when your most likely sources are either bereaved or are deluged with requests for comment or both. One side effect of this practice is that sometimes the byline on an obituary belongs to a reporter who is also dead.

During the weekend, a large number of publications ran Jimmy Carter's de facto obituary, even though he isn't dead. He simply announced that he is terminating all medical treatment and switching to hospice mode (at home). This probably means that whatever medical conditions he has are untreatable and instead of putting him through the wringer needlessly, his doctors will just prescribe painkillers and try to keep him comfortable. You can find his obituaries at The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, the BBC, and pretty much every other media outlet that covers politics. Also, some that don't, like this digital audio Website.

Carter is 98. No other president has made it that long. Here are lists of the five presidents who died the oldest and the five who died the youngest. The ones marked with an asterisk were assassinated in office.

Longest-lived Presidents President Age at death George H.W. Bush 94 Gerald Ford 93 Ronald Reagan 93 John Adams 91 Herbert Hoover 90

Shortest-lived Presidents President Age at death John F. Kennedy* 46 James Garfield* 50 James K. Polk 54 Abraham Lincoln* 56 Chester Arthur 57

In short, if you want to live to be an old ex-president, it helps to: (1) be a Republican, (2) avoid being assassinated. Incidentally, in a couple of months, Joe Biden will surpass John Quincy Adams' lifespan, and in about a year he will surpass Richard Nixon's. At that point, Biden will be among the ten longest-lived presidents, even before he leaves office.

Since Carter isn't dead yet, it seems a bit inappropriate to run obituaries already, so we won't. If you want one, use one of the links above. And in case you are wondering, there are still a small number of high-ranking members of the Carter administration still among us, including Carter himself. They are: W. Michael Blumenthal (Secretary of the Treasury, now 97), Ray Marshall (Secretary of Labor, now 94), Joe Califano (Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, now 91), Neil Goldschmidt (Secretary of Transportation, now 82), Andrew Young (Ambassador to the United Nations, now 90), and Donald McHenry (also Ambassador to the United Nations, now 86). (V)

Marianne Williamson Announces an Announcement

Author and 2020 fringe presidential candidate Marianne Williamson has preannounced that in March she is going to announce something. Most likely it will be that she is going to challenge Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2024.

From her point of view, this will bring lots of free publicity, something she craves. She has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show a number of times. When she was young, she once picked up the book A Course in Miracles and initially rejected it out of hand because she was Jewish and the book is full of Christian terminology. Later she came to accept the book's message more and used it as a base to concoct a new "religion" mixing Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, pop psychology, and 12-step recovery programs. Needless to say, she will need a Category 5 miracle (or maybe a 9.5 on the Richter Miracle Scale) to wrest the Democratic nomination from Biden, if he decides to run, which seems increasingly likely.

Her preannouncement of an announcement in a few weeks wouldn't be worth even writing up here but for one thing. The Democrats want South Carolina to hold the first primary, but New Hampshire has a law requiring it to hold the first primary and that law authorizes the secretary of state to pick whatever date is needed to make sure it goes first. Since the Republicans hold the trifecta in New Hampshire and the RNC wants New Hampshire to hold the first primary, don't count on that law being changed.

Consequently, there is a good chance that New Hampshire will indeed go first and the DNC will order Democrats to boycott it. If Williamson and a couple of even kookier people file, she could easily win it and the headlines the next day could be: "Trump Wins New Hampshire GOP Primary; Williamson Wins Democratic Primary." The media will make a big deal about it since the Republican primary between Trump, DeSantis, and others will be huge news and to be fair and balanced, they will need corresponding stories on the Democratic side. She will do interviews with outlets from CNN down to The East Cupcake Middle School Reporter. The next day there will be endless opinion pieces entitled: "Could Williamson actually beat Biden?" Rather than just have a one-word column saying: "No," (unlikely for columnists paid by the word) pundits will blather on about how old and out-of-touch Biden is and how young and in-touch the 71-year-old college dropout Williamson is. All this won't hurt Biden a lot, but for people who don't pay much attention to politics, it will bring up the usual "Democrats are in disarray" meme again. (V)

It's Presidents' Day!

So, how about a Presidents' Day quiz?

1. Which of these four presidents is the only sitting president to command troops in a battle against a foreign enemy?

1. #1 George Washington
2. #2 John Adams
3. #3 Thomas Jefferson
4. #4 James Madison

2. Which of these four presidents issued zero vetoes during his term in office?

1. #5 James Monroe
2. #6 John Quincy Adams
3. #7 Andrew Jackson
4. #8 Martin Van Buren

3. Which of these four presidents never cast a ballot in an American election, including the one in which he was chosen as president?

1. #9 William Henry Harrison
2. #10 John Tyler
3. #11 James K. Polk
4. #12 Zachary Taylor

4. Which of these four presidents was the first president or ex-president to publish an autobiography while still living?

1. #13 Millard Fillmore
2. #14 Franklin Pierce
3. #15 James Buchanan
4. #16 Abraham Lincoln

5. Which of these four presidents was the first person elected to the White House under something other than his birth name?

1. #17 Andrew Johnson
2. #18 Ulysses S. Grant
3. #19 Rutherford B. Hayes
4. #20 James Garfield

6. Which of these four presidents was the last veteran of the Civil War to serve in the White House?

1. #21 Chester Arthur
2. #22/24 Grover Cleveland
3. #23 Benjamin Harrison
4. #25 William McKinley

7. Which of these four presidents' final words were: "The machinery is broken.. I am ready."?

1. #26 Theodore Roosevelt
2. #27 William Howard Taft
3. #28 Woodrow Wilson
4. #29 Warren Harding

8. Which of these four presidents often spoke to his wife in Chinese so that visitors could not eavesdrop?

1. #30 Calvin Coolidge
2. #31 Herbert Hoover
3. #32 Franklin D. Roosevelt
4. #33 Harry S. Truman

9. Which of these four presidents won an Emmy Award?

1. #34 Dwight D. Eisenhower
2. #35 John F. Kennedy
3. #36 Lyndon B. Johnson
4. #37 Richard Nixon

10. Which of these three presidents had 12 of his vetoes overridden, placing him second all-time behind Andrew Johnson?

1. #38 Gerald Ford
2. #39 Jimmy Carter
3. #40 Ronald Reagan

11. Which of these three presidents is the only president ever to reach 90% approval in a Gallup Poll?

1. #41 George H.W Bush
2. #42 Bill Clinton
3. #43 George W Bush

12. Which of these three presidents was the first president whose official White House portrait was taken with a digital camera?

1. #44 Barack Obama
2. #45 Donald Trump
3. #46 Joe Biden

We'll have the answers tomorrow! (Z)

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