Kagro in the Morning - November 17, 2023

Noted vaudevillian/podcaster David Waldman takes your policy questions and song requests today.

Hur der hur! Temporarily underemployed shill Robert Hur doesn’t seem to have the mind or memory for details that he had led us to believe. (The terrorist enclave previously known as “Twitter” keeps distracting me with this latest Gop Democratic PR bonanza.)

That’s all just a tiny break from the Donald Trump legal news. You might ask, how will TFFG pay for all of this? Well, God has written Donald some big checks lately, mostly with parishioner money, and yet He does have some mysterious sources of capital, too. The RNC will need to cut to the bone if they hope to afford their pending Trump bills.

New transcripts show Trump setting Jan 6 insurrectionists on foot and loading his lazy ass into an armored SUV to lead them. Trump lawyers hope he’ll shut his dotard mouth for just one second at his NYC criminal trial. Speaking of long sentences, Seth Meyers sums Donald up in one, while Trump just refers to himself as “Honest Don”.

At least Peter Navarro goes to prison this month.

The “Society for American Civic Renewal” is what they call the “fraternal organization” behind the Claremont Institute warlord think tank. The Supreme Court botched the legal reasoning and relied heavily on dubious policy arguments, so sue them, why don’t you?

David Waldman missed President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech live last night. That’s ok, somebody probably recorded it, and he can watch their copy. 

David missed Joe giving them hell. This might have been Biden’s long-awaited pivot point! It is definitely his Republican talking point’s pivot from “Sleepy!” to “He’s so mean to us!”, which is a good thing. Now the talk can move from vibes, to issues, from rhetoric to solutions, for you know, “kitchen table issues”…

Which brings us to the Gop SOTU Rebuttal, which used a “kitchen”, sort of, with a couple of added props, including one that talked and said very kitchen-y things. Of course, their viewership doesn’t usually require that much in production value, as long as they can hear their secret catch-phrases. Like when they heard that a migrant finally killed a pretty white girl, they probably popped champagne over at RNC headquarters.

Another pretty white girl, Sydney Sweeney, confused MAGA by being “funny”, and they just don’t get jokes. Sweeney recently appeared on Saturday Night Live, and on that very show they said the word “boobs” at least twice, so all is forgiven. Sydney can keep supporting Hollywood’s vast freelance under caste.

Are you better off now than four years ago? Donald Trump definitely was.  Trump will finally pay his legal fees and bail bonds, at least once the RNC’s checks clear. Unfortunately for Steve KG Bannon, he’s not on Laura Trump’s gift list.

Lastly, let’s look in on the Michigan Republican Party and their evil twin, still locked in a death grip, yet not quite off the edge of the cliff.

Against all odds, David Waldman made it to airtime at KITM World Headquarters this morning. We were all rooting for him. No worries, Greg Dworkin had the opening monologue down and was waiting in the wings.

The state of Joe Biden is strong, and making that clear to America is just one of the president’s goals in tonight’s SOTU. The challenge is making those points to 21st century voters from a 19th century venue when his audience has the memory of goldfish.

Republicans are supplying last-minute material to add to Biden’s script. Mike Johnson is defunding the police. Donald Trump is warmongering in Gaza. Plenty of lines to draw between parties to start off election season.

What lines need to be drawn to capture voters from Trump? Nikkki Haley has a few Trump-hesitants she might send Biden’s way. Most won’t, but some may, and at least Joe’s asking them. (You got to hope someone on Dem’s payroll speaks Spanish.) Then there’s Dean Phillips golden touch…

Every voter counts, but you can also be certain that the voters you don’t want wouldn’t be coming over anyhow. Those people are making America great again by eliminating Black people, Jewish people, LGBTQ people, and female people and will be voting for people like North Carolina’s Mark Robinson and Michele Morrow.

Katie Porter lost her primary because of the rich and their money rigging. 

Arizona issues subpoenas on their 2020 Trump election probe, and we can thank Covid deniers for that. Meanwhile, Trump’s Supreme Court helps Trump delay as much as they can.

Bibi Netanyahu is in trouble for killing more people, again.

It’s… Wednesday. That’s the day David Waldman and Greg Dworkin usually reserve for discussing Tuesdays, and even “super” ones aren’t able to escape their scrutiny.

Donald Trump won again. So did Joe Biden, soundly beating Barack Obama. Joe was no match however for Jason Palmer, who came from behind to… stay behind. Trump no longer has Nikkki Haley to kick around anymore... Who are we kidding? Donald Trump has just begun to kick around Nikkki Haley. Hey, but what about Haley’s supporters? Where will they go? Uhm… To Donald Trump, of course. We aren’t kidding anybody about that either. (Anyone who wants to vote for Joe is welcome just the same.)

It’s on! The primaries that never were are finally over, and people might finally act like there’s an election happening and become informed. The paper of record, the New York Times, might not be the place to go, as they have tended to omit some important stuff lately.

After thoughtful consultation with his China-loving wife, Coco Chow, Mitch McConnel is giving Trump his full support. Biden, nevertheless has Dean Phillips clout, maybe. It’s hard to tell.  Trump-allied election groups burned through millions for Donald during the primaries, but there’s plenty of suckers where they came from.

Kyrsten Sinema “retires”. Some despised Sinema, and yet others detested her. Most could agree still that as a Democratic Senator, Kyrsten Sinema was worse than nothing. Kyrsten Sinema thought Kyrsten Sinema was the bee’s knees nonetheless. And, some say that no one could reach across the aisle better than she. 

Meanwhile, David gets back into the nuts and bolts of the Supreme Court, and unfortunately finds more nuts than bolts.

It’s supposed to be some big important day today, special at least as Tuesdays go, kind of like the “Superbowl of Tuesdays”... It doesn’t feel too special though. It feels like a day to get out of the way so that we can get serious, pay attention, and move forward. So, let’s.

For a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court decision on TFFG ballot disqualification sure did not seem so harmonious. Liberal judges’ concurrence now seems more like forced acquiescence. David Waldman joins control-F sleuths in spotting the dissent literally between the lines.

It’s Tuesday, so Republicans are shutting down government, or about to, and Joan McCarter is here to tell us how that’s going. If Gops were half as incompetent they’d be twice as dangerous. Republicans would do anything to protect IVF for instance, but haven’t yet figured out how to vote “yes”, as just voting “no” and taking the credit has worked so well for them in the past.

March fourth! David Waldman leads us into a new, hopefully better, month.

Yep, the polls aren’t “great”. Greg Dworkin reminds us that it is still primary season, sort of, and there is good news if you look hard enough, and the felonious dotard still has it worse, and you know more than those people anyhow.

You knew that the courts wouldn’t save us from Donald Trump, and the Trump Supreme Court confirmed that, 9-0. Again, if you look at it hard enough, there’s some nuance.

Allen Weisselberg pleads guilty to perjury for lying at Trump’s fraud trial, meaning that more people could get in trouble, or maybe fewer will lie for Trump.

Not fewer Russians, however. That number will explode this year, even without Mitch McConnell’s help, but there’s millions ready to make America Русский.

Vice President Kamala Harris is getting things done in Israel, even if she has to go around Bibi Netanyahu to do it.

David Waldman ends the week, begins the month, concludes business and gets this party started.

The Senate passed a spending bill, pushing the shutdown down one week. After all, when Joan McCarter comes to KITM each week, it only makes sense.

The Boebert crime family is perhaps outscoring the Palin crime family… the math part would be tough on either set...  but Tyler Boebert might soon have MVP locked up in felony convictions. Tyler’s stealing from a woman saving up for brain tumor surgery might not go over well with the jury. He might get sympathy still as a new father, but not with his co-defendant who he made the sex tape with.  

Hunter Biden went into a closed-door résumé-measuring contest yesterday and came out the clear winner, though he’s certainly no Jared Kushner.

Donald Trump tried to art-of-the-deal Judge Arthur Engoron from $400 million down to $100 million. Judge Engoron passed on the chance to be the loser-chump punchline for the next several Trump rallies and turned him down. Always a man of subtle nuance, Donald explains that he’s too rich to pay $88 million, yet too poor for anything over a hundred.

The founders of Truth Social actually thought they’d be the first ones to enter a relationship with Donald Trump and not be cheated.

When Trump isn’t cheating, he is evading or delaying, that’s it. His entire life experience demonstrates that the system was built to accommodate his parasitical nature. TFFG is now appealing/evading/delaying an Illinois judge’s ruling removing him from the primary ballot.

Constitutional lawyers are being chilled and having their socks knocked off. Are today’s constitutional scofflaws making it impossible to teach, or should their professors have taught them to better behave back when they were students?

Should Joe Biden tell the public what the government knows about Trump's collusion, or should Russian hackers?

Happy Bissextile Day! Wave your Bissextile Day flags! Had David Waldman just ran KITM a little overtime for perhaps fewer than only 9 minutes each day we wouldn’t have had to do today’s show, yet here we are.

And a good thing, too, we need a whole new show, with Greg Dworkin and Armando on hand just to describe and dissect the Supreme Court’s worst dick move since... well, it probably is their worst dick move ever.

“Hey, what about Donald Trump’s other immunity claim?”, you might ask, and so has the other judge in Trump’s pocket, Aileen Cannon. And, “What about Anwar Nasser Abdulla al-Awlaki?”, David asks, but you know that question will be coming up more often. It appears that broke-ass dotard will remain our problem through the election. 

In the meantime, MAGA is setting up to make America more Alabaman. Mitch McConnell is leaving now that he’s certain that he couldn’t make anything worse.

David Waldman and Greg Dworkin’s Wednesday Raft O’ Stories™ must have had some kind of boiler explosion. Bits of news are raining down everywhere:

A chemistry teacher in New Mexico passed out swords to students (who no doubt still pronounce the “w” in swords) and had them fight. Probably for the first time in her class, lessons were learned. 

Donald Trump coughed up almost $400 thousand to the New York Times. Donald is too just rich/poor, and that cough isn’t getting better.

For most anyone, the choice of trolley track between blastocysts and babies is an easy one. Gops worry about running over their paychecks. Of course, they have other concerns, too.

Dollar store Sarah Palin, Lauren Boebert has a son who has rolled up 22 criminal charges between teen knock-ups. 

Kenneth Chesebro can’t help that people followed the advice of BadgerPundit, which he authored, then emailed to them.

A Lubbock Texas judge decided that a 2022 federal spending bill was unconstitutional because of its COVID proxy vote. The Federal Supreme Court does not care. The loonies who commandeered the Michigan Ottawa County government won’t be allowed to throw their county health officer overboard after trying for 13 months.

Schrödinger's Gop chair Kristina Karamo is no longer chair of the Michigan Republican Party, and yet still is there.

The sham around the Fani Willis persecution is fading, and just in time, as Fani's eyes couldn’t have kept rolling for much longer. 

Another climatic, cliff-hanging, nail-biter of a primary is in the history books, and… Marianne Williamson is back, baby! Maybe not. Definitely not for Dean Phillips. Donald Trump is where he always is, underperforming. Joe Biden is where he always is, overperforming. “Uncommitted” overperformed as well, make that what you will, and plenty are already making that what they will, which is more than it really is, actually.