In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

Last Saturday, I noted that Trump had effectively killed the Langford Republican border compromise. Since then, Langford and others have blamed "intetrnet rumors" for destroying the plan's prospects : Lankford said, “Right now these internet rumors is all the people are running on. It would be absolutely absurd for me to agree to 5,000 people a day. This bill focuses on getting us to zero illegal crossings a day. There’s no amnesty. It increases the number of border patrol agents, increases asylum officers. It increases detention beds so we can quickly detain and then deport individuals. It ends catch and release. It focuses on additional deportation flights out. It changes our asylum process so that people get a fast asylum screening at a higher standard, and then get returned back to their home country. This is not about letting 5,000 people in a day. This is the most misunderstood section of this proposal.” The problem is that Langford won't release any spec...

Yesterday's post on the FBI and ATF investigations of the January 6 pipe bombs was based primarily on testimony before the House Judiciary Committee from last summer. Since then, new allegations about those investigations have emerged. As of yesterday's post, the official story was that notwithstanding the FBI's huge investigative resources, three years of searching for the bomber have come up empty, while it seems as if the person who discovered the bomb the next day was never seriously considered as a suspect, despite this being a basic investigative principle. Via the Daily Wire this past Monday : A former FBI agent said that the Bureau quickly believed that it tied the person who planted pipe bombs at the Democrat National Committee and the Republican National Committee to a particular Metro fare card and license plate, but did not allow him to interview the person of interest and pulled his team off of the lead. . . . Kyle Seraphin, who led FBI surveillanc...

Yessterday I mentioned in passing the curious case, one of several from January 6, of two pipe bombs that were planted outside the Democrat and Republican national headquarters respectively. The FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms haven't been fully forthcoming over this case, and among other things, the perp or perps have never been idenified . "People surmise and suspect that, 'oh, there's all this video all over the country, all over D.C.' It's not true," Steven D'Antuono, the former head of the FBI Washington Field Office, testified before the House Judiciary Committee on June 7, 2023. . . . "We did every check, every lab test, every data. We ran this through systems back and forth, up and down, sideways, all over the place," he testified about the search for the suspect. The bombs did not detonate, however, the FBI noted that the suspect placed them in "residential and commercial areas in Capitol Hill just bloc...

A CNN op-ed from Julian Zelizer , a Princeton history professor, from last Friday asks some productive questions about Trump's so-far highly successful 2024 candidacy: Following Trump’s strong showing in the New Hampshire primary, which has effectively knocked his final opponent — former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley — out of the race, some of his critics continue to search for slivers of good news. They point to the fact that despite “almost” being an incumbent, he didn’t receive a share of the vote on par with what previous incumbents have encountered in primary contests. Incumbents usually bring to the table unequaled name recognition, fund-raising capacity and the benefit of looking presidential as they run for reelection. Trump has most of this, with his supporters holding on to the memory of him in the Oval Office, and with many of his backers believing he literally won the presidency in 2020, yet Haley pulled a decent part of the electorate away from him. The ambiguity of ...

Remember this ? A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard oral arguments Jan. 9 on Trump's broad claim of presidential immunity in the federal election interference case brought by special counsel Jack Smith[.] This in turn happened because Trump's lawers filed an appeal to the DC Circuit on the basis that a US president is immune from prosecution for official acts while in office. Smith filed a plea with the US Supreme Court asking it to rule immediately on the issue, but the court declined to hear the case before the appeals court ruled. This was generally felt to be a threat to Smith's schedule to begin Trump's January 6 trial on March 4 , the day before the Super Tuesday primaries: The ruling is a scheduling win for Trump and his lawyers, who have sought repeatedly to delay the criminal cases against him as he campaigns to reclaim the White House in 2024. It averts a swift ruling from the nation’s highest co...

The results of the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, having effectively decided the Republican nomination, seem to have changed political calculations within days, if not hours. The potential Senate compromise on the border is dead, not just in the House but in the Senate : "The great Republican compromise is: ‘We’re for two-thirds of Joe Biden’s open borders, we’ll let in 6 million instead of 9 million,'” scoffed [Sen] Cruz. “This [legislation] makes utterly no sense,” said Cruz. “There’s a reason Republican leadership is like Charlie Brown with Lucy and the football. Over and over again they run for the football and over and over again, Lucy Schumer pulls it away and Republican leadership lands on their ass.” According to The Hill : While some congressional Republicans had been hoping for a piece of election-year legislation aimed at fixing immigration and border security problems, Republican front-runner former President Trump is opposed, which means Sen...

Via Breitbart News , The donor class began to cut off all future funding of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s campaign after she lost the critical Republican primary in New Hampshire, multiple advisers to political megadonors told the Washington Post Wednesday. The desertions represent the beginning of the end for Haley’s ability to remain in the race. Haley was the donor class’s choice candidate to block former President Donald Trump, but after his historic victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, Haley’s financial backers apparently see the writing on the wall. The writing n the wall was from Trump himself : "When I ran for Office and won, I noticed that the losing Candidate's 'Donors' would immediately come to me, and want to 'help out.'" "This is standard in Politics, but no longer with me. Anybody that makes a 'Contribution' to Birdbrain, from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp," Trump declare...