Just FYI, we plan to have a (fairly) regular post tomorrow, and then to go dark for a couple of days. That will be followed by some fun-type questions on Saturday, a fairly regular mailbag on Sunday, and then... probably a few more days of fun stuff. We don't want to get burned out, and if ever we're going to take a few days off, now is the time. We also need a couple of days at New Year's to convert over to the Senate election cycle.

Biden Commutes (Most) Federal Death Sentences

Joe Biden has never made a secret of the fact that he does not care for the death penalty. And yesterday, he got out his pardon pen yet again, and did something about it, commuting 37 of 40 federal death sentences to life without possibility of parole.

Who are the trio that did not benefit from Biden's munificence? Robert Bowers, the mass shooter who killed 11 people in 2018 at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue shooting; Dylann Roof, the mass shooter who killed nine people in 2015 at a historically Black church in Charleston, SC, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the survivor between the two men who bombed the Boston Marathon in 2013. In his statement announcing the 37 commutations, Biden said he was making an exception for terrorists or people guilty of "hate-motivated mass murder."

There was much squawking yesterday, mostly from progressive types, about the fact that Biden did not wipe the capital punishment ledger clear. The argument is that if the death penalty is wrong, it's always wrong, and not just wrong 92.5% of the time. Fair enough, although we think this probably oversimplifies things. If Biden had pardoned everyone, including those three very bad guys, then that trio would have become a rallying point for pro-death-penalty forces. It is entirely possible that some red-state governors, like Greg Abbott (R-TX), would have sped up their execution schedules so as to show that Republicans are "tough" on crime, unlike those pinko Democrats. In other words, it is not an unreasonable supposition that, by limiting himself to the 37 less-notorious cases, Biden spared more lives than if he'd commuted all 40 sentences.

For those three, well, the end is probably near. Donald Trump was eager to start executing people upon resuming office, and now he's only got three options. We don't know exactly where the appeals of these three men stand, though if they've been imprisoned for 6-11 years, they probably don't have many legal remedies left. It wouldn't be surprising if Trump arranged for all three executions to go forward during his first month in office. Maybe his first week.

Meanwhile, Biden is apparently not done using his pardon pen. After announcing the 37 commutations yesterday, he said that his staff was reviewing other petitions for clemency, and implied that more people would be added to an already long list. Could be dozens more; could be thousands—we'll know sometime in the next 4 weeks.(Z)

How Old Is Too Old?

Let us start by reminding everyone that: (1) The Wall Street Journal has a pronounced rightward lean, and (2) their articles are behind paywalls, so you can't read this without a subscription. With those caveats out of the way, we'll tell you that the linked article is a pretty well-sourced rundown of Joe Biden's mental state. If it's even halfway true, it's... distressing.

According to the newspaper's reporting, White House insiders not only knew that Biden was slipping, but they knew it during his first year in office (i.e., well before he decided to run for reelection). And so, aggressive steps were allegedly taken to protect him, including scripting most public appearances and keeping one-on-one interactions with members of the Cabinet, and of Congress, to a minimum. Still, the paper claims, the problem could not be hidden entirely, and was particularly noticed during his phone calls with donors, and his prep for various high-profile tasks, like the interview with Robert Hur and the presidential debate.

Again, we are inclined to take this with several grains of salt. There's no doubt that Biden had some bad days, and that those bad days appear to have become more frequent in the last year. However, we are skeptical that his decline began years ago, and that everyone around him knew it. That does not square with his many successful public appearances in his first several years in office, including those where scripts/teleprompters were not an option. It also does not square with his people not only standing by while he announced another presidential bid, but also allowing him to take the stage for that disastrous debate. If they really knew what was going to happen, they would have found a way to keep him from debating.

In short, there's almost certainly some truth there, and some fallacy, and it's hard to be sure where one ends and the other begins. This is not just a presidential problem, either. This week, it was reported that 81-year-old Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX) is living with dementia in a memory-care residence in Dallas. She has been there since July and has missed all votes since then. Although Republicans denied that Granger was/is compromised, her son Brandon conceded that she has been "having some dementia issues late in the year." She resigned her position as chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee in March, but it is not known how well she was functioning before she resigned.

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) said: "The incapacitation of an elected official is a material fact that should be disclosed to the public, rather than concealed by staff." Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) called for term limits and tweeted that Granger's absence "reveals the problem with a Congress that rewards seniority & relationships more than merit & ideas." An anonymous House Republican was concerned about the fact that Granger's constituents don't have a voice in Congress. The lawmaker said that Congress needs to deal with the age issue. The Representative could have resigned from Congress in July when she moved into the home, but the special election would probably have been called for Nov. 5, denying her constituents representation for 4 months. Of course, de facto, they didn't have representation for those 4 months anyway.

It is one thing for some random backbencher to be living in a memory-case facility 1,200 miles from D.C. and something entirely different for a senior member of one the most powerful committees in Congress to be doing it and having her staff cover it up. Especially when the funding of the government was front and center for months.

And of course, this is not the first time this has happened. It's not even the first time in recent years that it's happened. Dianne Feinstein was clearly incapacitated for a year or more of her final term, only slowly gave up her various posts, and held on to her Senate seat until she died. The people of California, who are arguably underrepresented in the Senate even when everything is working correctly, effectively had only one senator for most or all of 2023. Maybe 2022 and 2021, too.

Nor is this the last time this little problem is going to come up. We think the evidence is overwhelming that Donald Trump's mental state had already deteriorated substantially (the same thing that happened to his father in his eighties, by the way). Imagine where he will be in 3 or 4 years?

Unfortunately, this problem does not appear to have much of a solution. To disqualify officeholders on the some new basis—maximum age, failure to pass a cognitive screening, etc.—would almost certainly require a constitutional amendment, and would be impossible to design so as to be fair and not subject to partisan chicanery. One possible, very slight, improvement might be to scrap Congress' seniority system entirely, and let each committee elect its own chair without regard to seniority at all. That said, the Senate Republican Conference is about to make 91-year-old Chuck Grassley (R-IA) the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, because to do otherwise would be disrespectful, so maybe that change wouldn't do much after all. (V & Z)

Today in Republican Dysfunction

As we note above, the folks who run The Wall Street Journal are none-too-friendly to Democrats. At the moment, however, they are also unimpressed with the Republicans (or some of them, at least). Reader K.B. in Manhattan, NY, brings to our attention an editorial headlined: "The Woody Johnson Republicans: This week's budget fiasco carries bad omens for governing in 2025."

To fully understand the piece, you have to first appreciate that New York Jets owner Woody Johnson is a big-time Trump supporter and donor, one who served as ambassador to the U.K. during Trump v1.0. He is also one of the foremost examples of "born on third base, thinks he hit a triple." Heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune, he bought the Jets with his inherited money in 2000. And, after 30 years of their having been a dumpster fire, Johnson converted them into a full-blown train wreck. He is absolutely convinced that he knows better than anyone else how to run a football team, despite all evidence to the contrary (the Jets have the longest run of not making the playoffs of any team in the "Big 4" American sports, having last made the postseason in 2010). The team has been particularly soap opera-esque this season, aided in no small part by their meathead QB, Aaron Rodgers. This week, there has been much eye-rolling and much complaining in New York, due to the news that Johnson brings his teenage kids to meetings, and consults them on decision-making. Of course, being kids, they don't know anything about football, so they consult... Madden NFL, a video game.

Mind you, the WSJ eddi board isn't terribly impressed by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), describing him as "probably the best the GOP can get as a Speaker." But Woody is the Johnson in question here, as an example of what the Republican Party has come to. And the worst "Woody Johnson" in the GOP isn't the actual article, as far as the WSJ is concerned, it's his doppelganger, namely Donald Trump. The criticism is unsparing:

One of the weaknesses of President Trump's first term was his preference for bullying over persuasion. He denounces dissenters in social-media posts rather than trying to bring them on board with arguments or an appeal to their political self-interest.

Another weakness is that the President-elect governs by impulse, and often by whoever talked to him last. Someone told him he should demand that Congress include a debt-limit increase this year, which isn't a bad idea. But apparently no one noticed that Democrats still control the Senate and the White House. Democrats aren't likely to raise the debt limit to make life easier for Mr. Trump, and if they do, they will want something for it. The increase was dropped from Mr. Johnson's latest bill.

This is how Congress works, and for all Mr. Musk's brilliance, he hasn't figured that out. He's also supposed to be a math whiz, so he can probably count to 218, the votes needed for a House majority when everyone is present. Memorize it.

The board allows that maybe Trump will pull it together, but they are not optimistic, given his track record (and see below). Presumably, Rupert Murdoch did not sign off on this one. Although it would be even more interesting if he did.

Naturally, Trump does not like this kind of negative coverage. As we have written many times, it's never, ever his fault, no matter what goes wrong. He is currently casting about for someone to blame for last week's fiasco, and he's settled on the obvious target, namely Johnson (Mike, not Woody). The Co-President-Elect does not like the final bill that was passed, he does not like that the Speaker did not fight to raise the debt ceiling, and he does not like that there is now egg on his (Trump's) face.

Again, the whole mess is actually Trump's fault. If he really and truly wanted the debt ceiling raised, he should have made that known long ago. Even Nancy Pelosi could not have pulled that off with 24 hours until shutdown time. Alternatively, Trump could have made clear that he would trade the debt ceiling for [THING X THAT DEMOCRATS WANT]. But The Donald wanted to receive everything and to give nothing, and that was never, ever going to work with Democrats in control of the Senate and the White House.

Anyhow, Trump is apparently deciding right now whether to come out against giving Johnson another term as speaker. Clearly, Trump wants to punish the Speaker for being naughty. On the other hand, another "we can't settle on a speaker" disaster would be embarrassing, and would take away some thunder from the start of Trump's second term. Our guess—and it's 100% a guess—is that the Co-President-elect will deploy J.D. Vance (and maybe others) to figure out if Johnson does, or does not, have the votes to be re-elected, and then will come out in favor of... whatever was already going to happen. In particular, it would be very, very embarrassing if Trump demanded that Johnson be cashiered, and then House Republicans did not do so.

And Johnson is not the only person leaving a sour taste in Trump's mouth right now. Predictably, he hates, hates, hates the fact that everyone thinks Elon Musk is calling the shots. Over the weekend, Trump said: "No, he's not going to be president, that I can tell you. And I'm safe. You know why he can't be? He wasn't born in this country."

This is a curiously poor assessment of the situation. Nobody thinks that Musk literally is, or will be, the president. If the country wanted to scrap that "natural-born citizen" bit of the Constitution, it would have happened when Arnold Schwarzenegger was a popular governor of California. People think that, by virtue of his money and influence, he is imposing himself on the Republican Party and on the incoming Trump administration. The Donald's words do absolutely nothing to dispel the notion that is what is going on, and will continue to go on.

Thanks to all of this, Republicans, both in politics and in the media, are tearing their hair out. They were looking forward to having the trifecta, and hitting the gas pedal on right-wing priorities, and now it looks like another 4 years of mostly dysfunction. Meanwhile, the Democrats love, love, love what they are seeing, as it is the first hopeful news the party has gotten since the election. They are getting a reminder that, on the whole, it is way, way, way easier to be in the minority, with no power and no blame when things (inevitably) go south. (Z)

Donald Trump, Geographer

Donald Trump says he wants to make big changes to the world map—and we're not just talking about doing it with a Sharpie. Everyone knows that he's been talking about making Canada the 51st state. In the last 48 hours or so, he's added three more items to the list:

• Denali: The tallest mountain in the United States is located in Alaska, and is currently known as Denali. It was also known as Denali for hundreds of years, up through 1896. In that year, a gold miner and participant in the Yukon gold rush thought a new name would be nice and, having heard about the results of the presidential election, chose Mt. McKinley. McKinley never visited Alaska, and had nothing to do with the mountain, but that was an era where white made right, and so the new monicker stuck. In the mid-1970s, Alaskans decided to switch it back, and in 2015, Barack Obama made the switch at the federal level.
  
  Over the weekend, Trump told an audience at one of the seemingly infinite TurningPoint USA conventions that he wants to overturn Obama's decision. Describing McKinley as "a very good, maybe a great president" who raised a "vast amount of money" to help pay for the Panama Canal, Trump decreed that "we are going to bring back the name of Mount McKinley, because I think he deserves it. That's not very gracious for somebody who did a great job."
  
  We doubt that Trump can name three things McKinley did as president. Presumably, someone was whispering in the Co-President-elect's ear, and persuaded him there's a twofer here: (1) strike back against "wokeism" and (2) poke Barack Obama in the eye. Of all of Trump's map-re-making plans, this is the most plausible, since it can be done via executive order. On the other hand, the people of Alaska want the name to remain, and all of the members of the Alaska congressional delegation have already pushed back against the plan. Also, a president can force the people who make government maps to use a particular name, but other than that, his decrees are not binding. We suspect most maps would continue to feature the Denali name; does he really want to facilitate these acts of defiance?
  
  
• The Panama Canal: Speaking of the Panama Canal, Trump has apparently decided that the U.S. should take it back. In the same speech that had the Denali/McKinley bit, he declared that Panama is charging "exorbitant rates" and suggested that the real power behind the Canal is now China. José Raúl Mulino, the president of Panama, said that neither of those things is true, and that his country has no interest in giving up the Canal.
  
  For roughly 70 years, of course, the Panama Canal was an American possession, until ownership was transferred during the Jimmy Carter years. There is no such thing as "takesy backsies" in a situation like this and, even if there was, the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty says that the lease granted to the United States had a 99-year-term. In other words, even if the Carter administration had not ceded the Canal early, it would have revered to Panamanian control 20 years ago.
  
  Trump's game here (and with the "Canada as the 51st state" stuff) is to try to gain leverage in trade negotiations with Panama and Canada. However, while the guy who got the Panama Canal built preferred to speak softly and carry a big stick, Trump does the exact opposite. There is no chance he tries to follow through on his implied threats, and even if he does, well, Justin Trudeau and Raúl Mulino read the papers. They know he couldn't even get Congress to lift the debt ceiling, much less lend support and funding for military operations against two of the United States' North American neighbors.
  
  
• Greenland: Remarkably, Trump is going on again about acquiring Greenland. Yesterday, he announced the appointment of Ken Howery as ambassador to Denmark, and added: "For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity." Already, Prime Minister Mute Egede of Greenland has responded: "Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom."
  
  Why is Trump so obsessed with Greenland? Part of it is surely legacy; if he becomes the first president in 120 years to expand the United States' territorial holdings, he presumably thinks that will become an important part of his legacy (he might want to look into how much good the acquisition of Alaska did for Andrew Johnson's legacy). Beyond that, the Co-President-elect sometimes has strange fantasies that he shares out loud. And apparently, he is attached to the notion that maybe the United States can trade "clean" Greenland for "dirty" Puerto Rico.
  
  However, the most important thing—reportedly—is that Trump is convinced that Greenland has vast mineral reserves that can be monetized by the United States. In view of this, the right-wing commentariat has decided that the island CAN be had, for the low, low price of $1.5 trillion. Where that figure came from is anyone's guess, but, for comparison purposes, note that the total value of Saudi Arabia's oil reserves is estimated at $1.8 trillion. Does it seem likely that Greenland is as resource-rich as, very possibly, the most resource-endowed piece of land on the planet (and note, they are almost exactly the same size, at roughly 2.15 million square kilometers)? And even if Greenland really is that resource-rich, why would Denmark sell, as opposed to accepting bids from private contractors and then taking a cut of their profits?

We recognize that Trump might just be talking out his rear, so as to distract from the various embarrassments of the last week. And we are certain that, even if he's serious, he's not going to make any progress on Operation A Man a Plan a Canal—Panama, Operation Danish Thunder, or Operation Moosemeat, Eh. We only write this up to observe that Trump v2.0 continues to unfold much like Trump v1.0 did: a lot of hot air, and very little substantive policy. (Z)

And the Grift Goes On...

As long as we are on the Trump beat, he has just announced yet another "opportunity" to own a Trump-branded product. Everyone knows about the vodka, and the steaks, and the collectable coins, and the crypto and the gold sneakers and the Bibles. You could guess for a very long time, and probably still not come up with the newest grift. It is—wait for it—a Trump-branded guitar.

If you want to see for yourself, the website is here. There are electric guitars that look like a Gibson Les Paul knockoff, and come in red, yellow, or black, or with an overwrought "patriotic" eagle graphic. Those all sell for $1,500. If you prefer acoustic, you can get one with a flag graphic or one with "God Bless the USA" painted on the neck for $1,000, or one with the overwrought eagle graphic for $1,250. If you want your guitar to be autographed by Trump, that adds roughly $10,000 to the price. That would make Trump the second-most-valuable of all presidential autographs, ahead of George Washington ($6,000), Abraham Lincoln ($5,000) or Thomas Jefferson ($4,000). (Are you wondering which president is MOST valuable? Take your best guess and then click here for the answer. It's guessable, but only if you think about the question in the right way.)

We struggle to understand why Trump debases himself by hawking these cheesy products. The amount he makes from selling guitars, even if they are wildly popular, is a pittance compared to what he's made from Truth Social, or what he made from selling phony cryptocurrency to Justin Sun. All we can come up with is that making money is like a disease with Trump, and he simply cannot pass up any opportunity to make a quick buck, even if it's kind of embarrassing.

That said, we do not write this item to mock Trump (that's just a bonus). It's to point out that he did everything possible to monetize the presidency the first time, and clearly he's planning to do so again. Of course, this time around, he doesn't have to worry about being reelected. And he doesn't have to worry too much about being prosecuted, in part because of the Supreme Court, in part because he is apparently bulletproof, and in part because he might not be alive by the time a successful prosecution, with appeals, reaches its conclusion. So, he is going to be on the take in a way that would make Boss Tweed blush. The only thing that might rein him in a little bit is the possibility that the Democrats win the House in 2026 and impeach him again, so he goes into the history books as impeached more often than all the other presidents combined. (Z)

Yep, Gaetz Is a Sleazeball

The House Ethics Committee on Matt Gaetz has finally been released. It is here, if you would like to read it. If you do so, you really should be 18 years of age or older (i.e., too old to date Matt Gaetz).

Pretty much every outlet had a list of "takeaways" from the document. Here is one of those:

1. Gaetz used congressional resources in connection to obtaining drugs and paying women for sex.
   
   
2. Gaetz "accepted gifts... in excess of permissible amounts," specifically related to a 2018 Bahamas trip.
   
   
3. Gaetz "used or possessed illegal drugs, including cocaine and ecstasy, on multiple occasions."
   
   
4. Gaetz "regularly paid women for engaging in sexual activity with him"—totaling nearly $100,000 paid to at least 15 women
   
   
5. "Nearly every woman" who spoke to the committee had been so drunk or high they couldn't fully remember the details of events they attended with Gaetz. At least one woman testified the heavy drug and alcohol use "impaired" her ability to fully consent and that she felt "violated."
   
   
6. Gaetz "engaged in sexual activity with a 17-year-old girl"—and the testimony from the victim and other corroborating witnesses is "credible"
   
   
7. The DOJ failed to pursue justice despite overwhelming evidence and impeded the committee's investigation.

Gaetz filed a last-minute lawsuit trying to get a judge to order the report be withheld. Obviously, that was not successful. Gaetz is threatening to rescind his resignation, and to be sworn in, just to put himself in a position to force the promulgation of embarrassing information about other members of the House. It's not clear whether he'll actually try it and, if he does, if it would be legal. There's a pretty strong argument that once Gaetz notified Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) of his resignation, it became binding, especially once a special election was called.

Gaetz also unspooled a long, and somewhat unhinged, series of tweets yesterday in which he said that the Committee deliberately conspired to release the report the same week as Christmas, and that "evidence" would "exonerate" him. He did not provide any of this evidence, however. It must be hiding in the same place as the evidence that was going to exonerate Bill O'Reilly.

We presume that between this, and the fact that he was probably unelectable anyhow, it will put an end to Gaetz' gubernatorial aspirations. That said, we're not certain. He's shameless, and today's Republican Party has a lot more tolerance for sleazy acts than was the case in generations past. Maybe he'll throw his oversized hat into the ring nonetheless, and maybe Florida voters will adopt a "boys will be boys" attitude, not unlike what happened with "grab 'em by the pu**y."

Incidentally, there is now a pretty good explanation for what changed from "we're not releasing the report" to "we're releasing the report." Or, more precisely, there's a pretty good explanation for WHO changed. Reportedly, there were two Republican members of the Committee who flipped and joined with the five Democrats: Dave Joyce (R-OH) and Andrew Garbarino (R-NY). Since Chair Michael Guest (R-MS) added a one-page objection to the document, we know it certainly wasn't HIM who flipped. Nobody seems to know why Joyce and Garbarino changed their minds, but the fact that Gaetz is a colossal jerk with the morals of a televangelist may be a part of it. (Z)

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, Day 13: Kennedy Christmas Cards

One last round of Christmas cards, this time "from" Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.:

• K.H. In Milford, NH:
  
  
  
  
• A.G. in Scranton, PA:
  
  
  
  
• S.S. in West Hollywood, CA: With the message, "If you connect the measles, it spells out Happy Holidays!"
  
  
  
  
• D.M. in Asheville, NC:
  
  
  
  
• G.B.M. in Laurence Harbor, NJ: The party begins when?
  
  
  
  
• R.B. in Santa Monica, CA: A selection of nuts for the holidays:
  
  

We're still working on the next phase of this. If you care to pick any political figure and suggest your guess for: (1) their favorite holiday movie (and why); their LEAST favorite holiday movie (and why); their favorite holiday song (and why); their LEAST favorite holiday song (and why); we welcome those. (Z)

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The most valuable presidential autograph is... William Henry Harrison. He spent most of his adult life on the frontier, and then, of course, had a very short presidency. Because there are many well-heeled people who want to have a full set of presidents, and because Harrison signatures are in very, very short supply, the starting price for a Harrison autograph is $100,000.

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