The Bridge, The Governor, And The Three Stooges

I mused briefly yesterday on why the Baltimore Key Bridge collapse seems to have captured media attention well beyond similar episodes like the Sunshine Skyway bridge collapse of 1980, in which 35 were killed, amd the 2007 Minneapolis I-35 bridge collapse, in which 13 were killed. In contraast, only 6 are missing and presumed dead in Baltimore, while a potential story of competence by law enforcement, which was able to close the bridge to traffic within minutes' notice of the runaway container ship, is lost in the shuffle.

Instead, the story from Tuesday is still trending today, and not only that,

Even before most Americans woke up Tuesday morning to news of the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, wild conspiracy theories about what supposedly had “really” happened were running rampant online.

The claims ranged from a cyber-attack or a ship captain impaired by side effects from Covid-19 vaccines being responsible for the crash – to claims that Israel, or even the Obamas had something to do with the bridge’s collapse.

All of these claims are entirely baseless. Officials investigating the crash said early on that there was no indication it was a deliberate act.

Rampant conspiracy theories seem to surface only around the most consequential events, like 9/11 or Kennedy's assassination. Why is this happening around the Key Bridge collapse, whose overall social impact appears to be mild? At worst, highway traffic will need to route itself the long way around the Baltimore Beltway, while other East Coast ports may each need to take up about 10% of the overflow from Baltimore's closure.

In fact, my wife and I have insurance backgounds, and the most interesting aspect of the incident for us is the insurance claims, which could bankrupt whichever marine insurer is involved, as well as putting the shipping company out of business. Almost nobody, as far as I'm aware, has mentioned this, which could well be the single greatest impact of the disaster:

The tragedy could lead to up to $4 billion in insurance claims, Morningstar DBRS said.

It was too soon to put a figure on the total insurance loss, Bruce Carnegie-Brown told Reuters, but he said he would be "very surprised" if the event did not result in a multi-billion dollar loss, adding that "the tragedy has the capacity to become the largest single marine insurance loss ever".

So why is the reaction so out of whack? I think this goes to the visuals.

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott appeared on CNN on Tuesday, and while being interviewed, CNN showed dramatic video of the bridge collapsing over and over.

During the interview, Scott said, “I’m going to be the first to ask that CNN and everyone else stop showing the video. No one needs to see … a possibility of their family member being severely injured or otherwise, over and over and over again because it’s just traumatizing our community.”

The problem is that the videos aren't "just traumatizing our community", the problem is that they're reflecting the national mood. Something beyond a bridge collapsed here, and indeed, something beyond the insurance industry. The coverage of the bridge pretty much obscured the Biden fundraiser with Clinton and Obama Thursday night, but the problem with the fundraiser video just reinforced the national discomfort:

Never Trumper Bill Kristol lamented the bad optics for Democrats as President Joe Biden chose to go to a multi-million dollar fundraiser in New York City hosted by Hollywood celebrities while former President Donald Trump attended a wake for a young New York City police officer killed on duty.

“An unfortunate day politically for the Democrats,” Kristol posted on X.

. . . A former Obama adviser, David Axelrod, agreed with Kristol, but added that the money would “probably mean more” than the look.

“Not wrong. But in the big scheme of things, the $25 million will probably mean more than the look,” Axelrod responded to Kristol’s post on X.

New York Gov Hochul, in an incredibly tone-deaf gesture, decided to insert herself into those bad optics in the worst possible way, grandstanding into the officer's wake without anticipating the consequences:

Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) was not a welcome sight at the wake for fallen NYPD officer Jonathan Diller.

Hochul reportedly left Friday’s reception within 10 minutes after she was greeted by a shout of “Get her out of here.” As she walked back to her car, Hochul was confronted by a man who sources said was speaking to her while gesturing with emotion.

. . . In a statement to the Washington Examiner, a spokesperson for the governor’s office would not confirm or deny the claim that Hochul was asked to leave.

The exact circumstances that led to her sudden departure are unclear, but

She was only there for about 10 minutes before she abruptly left after being confronted, sources told the Post.

One man, dressed in a black suit, appeared to yell at the governor as he was seen speaking animatedly and gesturing boldly as she entered her car on the way out, the Post reported.

Several cops were seen applauding the man after he confronted her, the source told the Post.

In contrast,

A spokesperson for Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican who leads the county where Officer Jonathan Diller lived, confirmed he extended the invitation to the former president and spoke with him on Tuesday.

In other words, the constituency of Officer Diller's suburban county welcomed -- indeed, invited -- Trump to the viewing, but representatives of that same community requested the New York governor leave when she imprudently showed up. Biden at least had the sense to stay away, though his antipathy to the actual working class represented in part by police officers is clear in any case -- it's not as if he would have wanted to go even if he were welcome, and it's hard to understand why Hochul wanted to attend at all, either.

In the midst of this visual, we have Trump staffer Steven Cheung coining the phrase "the Three Stooges" to refer to Biden, Obama, and Clinton at the Manhattan fundraiser. And as all this takes place, the nation continues to be fixated on images of the Baltimore bridge collapse.

I'm not sure if I've ever seen anything quite like this constellation of seemingly minor but somehow consequential events.

Trump Still Moving The Needle

A new Fox poll is out, which this analysis sums up:

If the new Fox News poll is accurate, it should be sending off warning bells to Joe Biden because there are multiple elements that indicate big trouble for him.

The first is that former President Donald Trump has extended his lead over Biden in their survey. He's now up by five points in the head-to-head numbers, as well as five points ahead of Biden even when adding in the other party candidates. According to Interactive Polls this is the largest lead ever for Trump in Fox polling.

Nobody seems to have pointed this out, but the answer is in two words: Fani Willis. Trump's slow but steady rise in the polls is continuing, but the big thing that's been driving it since last fall has been the lawfare cases against him, which are continuing to backfire. I've noted here that Alan Dershowitz, one of the people who invented the Chicago Seven strategy for turning trials into street theater, has recognized that this is precisely the strategy Trump is following, and it's working every bit as well as it worked for the Chicago Seven in the 1960s.

This is because, just as Judge Julius Hoffman unintentionally cooperated with the strategy back then, the lawfare judges and prosecutors are helping it now. Even poor Judge McAfee, whose manner is thoughtful and even-handed, has clumsily cooperated with Trump and the rest of the defense by permitting Fani Willis to stay on the case, which has allowed Willis to stay in the public eye with her grandiosity and bizarre self-justification. Had he removed her, he would have done the prosecution a big favor. Instead, the circus continues, all to Trump's benefit.

And Trump is fully aware of how well the Chicago Seven strategy works:

Donald Trump once again went scorched earth against the daughter of the judge overseeing his New York hush-money trial on Thursday, posting a fiery rant to Truth Social that called her out by name.

That woman, Loren Merchan, has become the focal point of Trump’s attacks against her dad, Judge Juan Merchan, in his longshot attempt to have him ousted as the judge presiding over his criminal case in New York.

. . . “Judge Juan Merchan is totally compromised, and should be removed from this TRUMP Non-Case immediately,” he posted Thursday afternoon. “His Daughter, Loren, is a Rabid Trump Hater, who has admitted to having conversations with her father about me, and yet he gagged me.”

. . . “She works for Crooked Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Adam “Shifty” Schiff, and other Radical Leftists who Campaign on ‘Getting Trump,’” he said, adding that her work has created a “TOTAL Conflict.”

The story characterizes this as part of Trump's "longshot attempt" to have Judge Merchan taken off the case. Nothing could be farther from the truth. This is an attempt, which could well succeed, to provoke Merchan into further angry retaliation, which will create headlines the media can't resist covering, while giving Trump more free publicity, which will continue to drive him up in the polls. As was the case in the Chicago Seven trial, rhe best strategy would have been to remove Judge Julius Hoffman, as well as probably just to drop the case. Instead, it made Abbie Hoffman, at best a very troubled figure, into a media hero.

In other words, the lawfare strategy, which is often attributed to Biden himself, is continuing to backfire badly. It focuses attention on Trump, and it unavoidably forces a contrast between Trump, who comes off as a strong figure and even a bit of a bad boy, with Biden, who appears stiff and ineffectual, having to rely on figures like Merrick Garland, Fani Willis, Jack Smith, and Judges Engoron and Merchan, to do his fighting for him -- except that those figures appear to be ineffectual and even comical as well.

Meanwhile,

Donald Trump attended Thursday's wake of a New York City police officer gunned down in the line of duty and called for "law and order" as part of his attempt to show a contrast with President Joe Biden and focus on crime as part of his third White House campaign.

. . . The visit by Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, came as Biden was also in New York for a previously scheduled fundraiser with former Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Trump has accused Biden of lacking toughness, and his campaign sought to contrast his visit with Biden's fundraiser.

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung, in a post on X, noted Trump's visit and said, "Meanwhile, the Three Stooges — Biden, Obama, and Clinton — will be at a glitzy fundraiser in the city with their elitist, out-of-touch celebrity benefactors."

Trump and his campaign staff are on their game, now coming up with new labels for their opponents, in contrast with lame attempts by Biden to do the same with "broke Don". Earlier in the month, Biden had suggested he'd turn things around starting with the State of the Union. Visuals like the New York police officer's wake and even the collapse of the Baltimore Key Bridge (which would normally have nothing to do with the White House) are in fact beginning a whole new series of setbacks for Biden.

As Trump's New York Trial Gets Closer, Things Get Juicy

One feature of all the Trump criminal trials so far has been that as the date for each approaches, new and often lurid details surface that throw their credibility into doubt. This certainly happened in Fulton County, and it looks like something similar may occur in New York as well. I think this is an inevitable result of the slapdash nature of all the cases, thrown together for indictments in the middle of 2023 in hopes of securing convictions in one or more of them, first by the 2024 primary season, and then by the November election. So far, this isn't working out as planned.

We probably have some vague recollection of Michael Avenatti, pictured with his onetime client, the porn actress Stormy Daniels, above:

Michael John Avenatti (born February 16, 1971) is an American former attorney and convicted felon, currently incarcerated in federal prison at FCI Terminal Island. He is best known for his legal representation of adult film actress Stormy Daniels in lawsuits against then U.S. President Donald Trump, and his multiple convictions for attempting to extort sports apparel company Nike and defrauding and embezzling settlement money from a series of other clients. Avenatti has appeared extensively on television and in print as a legal and political commentator, and as a representative for prominent clients.

Tony Seruga is an extremely colorful character who describes himself as

a serial entrepreneur and professional marketer. While Tony states publicly that he has lost count of how many companies he has started, those that are responsible for his day to day operations know that number to be somewhere above 240, much more astounding is the fact that over 70% of Tony’s start ups have been successful. Along the way, Tony developed and refined a number of proven marketing solutions into a system that works for every industry.

He also claims elsewhere to have been an intelligence operative and a philanthropist, although most importantly, he claims to have been an acquaintance of Michael Avenatti, which frankly seems about right. He posted yesterday on X:

I spoke with Michael Avenatti who at one time had an office in the same building as one of my businesses in Newport Beach, CA (in November 2018, a few days after his arrest on suspicion of domestic violence, Avenatti's law firm was evicted from those same offices in Newport Beach… pic.twitter.com/MFnmH4NsER

— Tony Seruga (@TonySeruga) March 27, 2024

At the bottom of the post, he adds oh-by-the-way,

In any case, Avenatti shared details of his client Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, case and the fact that her and Michael Cohen were actually having an affair since 2006.

The whole hush money scheme was cooked up by Michael Cohen to extort the Trump Organization before the 2016 election. Avenatti seemed pleased at how deviant Michael Cohen was.

Since Michael Cohen's name has come up, let's revisit how he relates to Trump and the upcoming trial:

Michael Dean Cohen (born August 25, 1966) is an American former lawyer who served as an attorney for former United States president Donald Trump from 2006 to 2018.

. . . Trump employed Cohen until May 2018, a year after the special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections began. In August 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight counts including campaign-finance violations, tax fraud, and bank fraud. Cohen said he violated campaign-finance laws at Trump's direction "for the principal purpose of influencing" the 2016 presidential election. In November 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to U.S. congressional committees about efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

. . . In late 2016, adult-film actress Stormy Daniels (legal name Stephanie Clifford) was speaking to some reporters and said that she had had a sexual affair with Trump in 2006. In October, Cohen and Daniels' attorney Keith M. Davidson negotiated a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) under which she was to be paid $130,000 hush money. Cohen created a Delaware LLC called Essential Consultants and used it to pay the $130,000. The arrangement was reported by The Wall Street Journal in January 2018.

Cohen told The New York Times in February 2018 that he paid the $130,000 to Daniels from his own pocket; he also said that the payment was not a campaign contribution and he was not reimbursed by either the Trump Organization or the Trump campaign. The Washington Post later noted that, by stating that he used his own money to "facilitate" the payment, Cohen was not ruling out the possibility that Trump, as an individual, reimbursed Cohen for the payment. In April 2018, Trump acknowledged for the first time that Cohen had represented him in the Daniels case, after previously having denied knowledge of the $130,000 payment.

On March 5, The Wall Street Journal cited anonymous sources recounting Cohen as saying he missed two deadlines to pay Daniels because Cohen "couldn't reach Mr. Trump in the hectic final days of the presidential campaign", and that after Trump's election, Cohen had complained that he had not been reimbursed for the payment. Cohen described this report as "fake news".

More recently, according to the UK Daily Mail, a letter emerged from Cohen in which

Michael Cohen claimed he was not reimbursed by Donald Trump or his organization for hush money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels in a 2018 letter to federal authorities, contradicting his recent grand jury testimony,

The bombshell document, exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com, could throw a wrench in the works of prosecutors pursuing criminal charges against Trump over the payments.

"Bombshell" or not, the claim in the letter seems entirely consistent with public claims Cohen made in 2018. The additional detail purportedly from Avenatti via Seruga suggests that there was some kind of plan behind the whole hush money scheme cooked up by Daniels and Cohen to extort a payment from Trump over something that may in fact never have taken place, and Trump seems to have been able to evade the extortion attempt. Cohen in turn may have been looking for revenge on Trump in giving false testmony about this to the grand jury.

Avenatti, Cohen, and Daniels could presumably be subpoenaed for depositions or testimony in this matter. This in turn suggests to me that we could see a very similar replay of the testimony Terrence Bradley gave in front of Judge McAfee on when he did, or maybe didn't, become aware of the affair between Fani Willis and Nathan Wade. Whatever was or wasn't established in that judicial process nevertheless destroyed the credibility of the whole Fulton County case. We'll have to stay tuned.

From Dershowitz's Lips To Biden's Ears -- Well, Maybe Not

I've made a couple of recent posts on Alan Dershowitz's red line from a YouTube broadcast last week:

If you stop supplying ammunition and arms to Israel and deny them the right to defend themselves, you have crossed my red line. I hope that doesn't happen. I now have a more open mind than I ever thought I would have about whom I will vote for in this election. The Democratic Party cannot take me, the people who listen to me, the people who vote the way I do, they can't take us for granted, sorry.

As of yesterday, there was a sorta-kinda answer from a "senior defense official" via Breitbart:

Regarding the question about security assistance, you know, security assistance, which is a longstanding feature of the U.S. Israel relationship and the U.S. Commitment Israel security, it has flowed more rapidly than ever since the attacks of October 7th. And the secretary ensures — said very clearly that we will continue to stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself in accordance with the law of armed conflict and international humanitarian law, and to ensure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself.

Since Dershowitz's YouTube remarks last week, he's been in Israel, and in a second YouTube posted from Israel yesterday, he made it clear why he's there:

At 0:20, he says,

Today I'm meeting some Israeli leaders and speaking to a group of young people, but I'm also reconsidering something that I've been doing for the last 60-something, 60 almost 65, years. I've never voted for a Republican candidate for president since I voted for John Kennedy in 1960. I've always voted Democrat. I've only regretted one of those votes, my second vote for Barack Obama, who I think was the worst second-term president in modern American history, certainly in foreign policy. I wish I had voted for Mitt Romney.

This is an astonishing admission for Dershowitz to make, but as I re-watched the video to prepare this post, I caught his body language and his tone -- he's quiet, he's outwardly relaxed, but he's seething with anger. The Breitbart story at the link above refers as well to Prime Minister Netanyahu, who must certainly be among the "Israeli leaders" with whom Dershowitz met yesterday:

The abstention [from the UN Security Council vote] infuriated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who canceled an Israeli delegation visit to the White House. The trip to the Pentagon by the Israeli defense minister, however, proceeded.

Where, I assume, some version of Dershowitz's red line statement was transmitted. I was skeptical of the reference in the story to Netanyahu being "infuriated" until I took my more careful look at Dershowitz in yesterday's YouTube. I've got to figure they're both angry, but it's a quiet, seething sort of anger, not the sort where anyone blows up in public. But apparently this isn't new. Last November,

Expressing outrage over former President Barack Obama’s call for an end to Israeli "occupation," Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz expanded on why he’s never talking to the Democratic president again.

"I think he always had a deep hatred of Israel in his heart. He hid it very well. He called me to the Oval Office and he said to me, 'Alan, you've known me for a long time. You know I have Israel's back.' I didn't realize he meant to paint a target on it," Dershowitz said Friday on "Mornings with Maria."

. . . Dershowitz’s commentary comes after he claimed Thursday that any relationship with Obama is "over" following the 44th president’s onstage statements about the Israel-Hamas war.

. . . The Harvard professor on Friday accused Obama of lying "through his teeth" about what the former president called an "unbearable" occupation of Gaza.

But as I said yesterday, Deshowitz is arguably the most prominent and influential US Jew, and that Obama would have called him into the Oval Office to reassure him in the past is simply a reflection of that. But Dershowitz isn't just a successful appellate attorney and a Harvard prof, he's a strategist. He was involved in developing the Chicago Seven defense; he was invovlved in the OJ Simpson acquittal; he secured a reversal of Claus von Bülow's muirder conviction on appeal, and amazingly, he extricated himself from the Epstein scandals.

He and Netanyahu are talking strategy, I've got to assume. Neither one is going to be satisfied with reassurances on background from "senior defense officials". The problem is bigger than that, it's bigger than Biden, Netnyahu in particular is playing a longer game than the 2024 election, but the game most definitely involves 2024 and US Jews' ongoing poliical alignment.

As If We Needed More Evidence That Joe's Judgment Is Shaky

There's a consensus that the Biden administration is shfting its policy away from supporting Israel. Via Politico on Kamala's threats of "consequences" over the weekend:

[I]n the interview this weekend, she didn’t dismiss a possible backlash as the administration continues to warn Israel against a major invasion of Rafah.

The West Wing has supported Harris’ willingness to nudge out slightly ahead of Biden, who spent decades as one of the Senate’s foremost supporters of Israel and has been loath to appear like he is turning his back on the country even amid his growing disdain for its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Indeed, two administration officials not authorized to speak publicly about internal discussions said Harris’ remarks have created more space for Biden to slowly — and privately — offer his own rebukes of Netanyahu and his conduct of the war.

But the prevailing stance inside the administration is that Biden and Harris are reading from the same script even if it’s with different emphasis.

“In our view, there’s no daylight and she’s completely in line with the president’s approach,” said a third senior administration official who was granted anonymity to provide the administration’s response and internal thinking.

Via the Washington Examiner:

The Biden administration declined to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution on Monday that aims to limit Israel’s ability to win its war against Hamas. Washington’s action is short-sighted and counterproductive.

. . . For months, the U.S. has worked to prevent the passage of Security Council resolutions that condemned Israel or limited its ability to defend itself. That policy is now at an end. And it’s worth asking why.

The Biden administration has faced growing criticism from the anti-Israel Left, including members of Congress such as Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and other factions of its progressive base. By some accounts, the administration is concerned about turnout in Michigan, a battleground state in an election year, and hopes to appease anti-Israel members of its coalition.

Unfortunately, domestic political concerns seem to have trumped sound strategy.

As of yesterday, Alan Dershowitz posted a YouTube broadcast from Israel, and if he's over there, it must be for a reason. This story calls him "Netanyahu’s 'attack dog' in the international arena" and "a long-time friend and advisor", but Dershowitz is arguably the most prominent and influential US Jew. I don't think it's a coincidence that Netanyahu responded to the administration's change in policy with Dershowitz apparently nearby:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said he will not send a delegation as planned to Washington after the United States refrained from vetoing a U.N. Security Council proposal calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Netanyahu, according to a statement from his office, said that Washington's failure to block the proposal was a "clear retreat" from its previous position, and would hurt war efforts against Hamas, as well as efforts to release over 130 hostages in Gaza captivity.

"In light of the change in the American position, Prime Minister Netanyahu decided the delegation would not leave," his office said.

I've already posted on Dershowitz's warning via YouTube last week that he has a red line over his November vote in the general election, specifically any refusal to supply Israel with the arms needed to defend itself. Vice President Harris's veiled threat of "consequences" over the weekend is likely being taken seriously by Netanyahu and, by extension, Dershowitz.

What's beginning to emerge is a counterthreat from Netanyahu and Dershowitz that a reversal of US support for Israel -- a bipartisan element of US policy since Truman -- would likely trigger a departure of Jews fom the New Deal Democrat coalition, equivalent to the departures of labor and Catholics that have already taken place. About all that will be left will be, as James Carville puts it, "preachy females":

“A suspicion of mine is that there are too many preachy females … ‘Don’t drink beer, don’t watch football, don’t eat hamburgers, this is not good for you,'” he said. “The message is too feminine: ‘Everything you’re doing is destroying the planet. You’ve got to eat your peas.'”

Preachy females joined the Democrat coalition in the 1960s and 1970s and ever since have been driving the traditional elements like labor, legal immigrants, Catholics, and Jews out. I can only think Joe Biden's judgment has been badly clouded if he enables this.

Joe's Schedule Update

I posted last week on what seemed to be an unaccustomed flurry of activity on The President's Public Schedule following the State of the Union address. But this past weekend he seems to have reverted to his normal pattern of leaving for Delaware on Friday and returning Sunday night or Monday morning. I've expressed my doubts that he could keep the earlier schedule up for long.

Beyond that, he seems to have begun to rely on Vice President Harris as a surrogate. As of this morning in The Washington Post,

As the campaign for the White House intensifies, Harris has been thrust to the forefront of President Biden’s efforts to hang on to young and minority voters — groups that are vital to his reelection but that may be losing enthusiasm for his candidacy. This month, Harris has championed a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants in Nevada, discussed marijuana legalization in the White House with rapper Fat Joe, and called for a cease-fire in Gaza at a commemoration of Bloody Sunday in Alabama. On Friday, she was in Puerto Rico to highlight the administration’s support for the territory.

.. . In interviews, many of these voters expressed frustration with Biden’s handling of a variety of issues, including the Israel-Gaza war, inflation, voting rights and immigration. Some have raised questions about what exactly Biden has done for them in his first term, often fretting about the rising cost of living.

Increasingly, Biden’s team hopes Harris can provide an answer to these concerns.

Over the weekend,

In a wide-ranging new interview with ABC News, Vice President Kamala Harris suggested there could be "consequences" for Israel if it moves ahead with a planned invasion of Rafah in its pursuit of Hamas fighters.

. . . "We have been clear in multiple conversations and in every way that any major military operation in Rafah would be a huge mistake," Harris told ABC News' Senior Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott in part of the interview that aired Sunday on "This Week."

This didn't play well with pro-Israel commentators, who represent a Jewish constituency that, like Alan Dershowitz, is losing enthusiasm for Biden and Harris. The theory seems to be, though, that if Harris says these things, Joe has deniability, or something like that, but the Michgan pro-Hamas voters will still be satisfied.

With no public political events on Joe's schedule today, Kamala will fill in:

Vice President Kamala Harris plans to meet on Monday with President Bernardo Arévalo of Guatemala as the U.S. grapples with an influx of migrants to its southern border, thousands from that Central American nation.

. . . As the 2024 election heats up, immigration has become a rising bipartisan concern. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress say the system is broken, but efforts by lawmakers to address the problems have failed. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden has tasked Harris with working to address the reasons people choose to leave their homelands to migrate to the U.S.

But as with Joe, if you ask for Kamala, you get the whole package:

Kamala Harris is being roasted on social media after she was seen clapping along to a protest song – before awkwardly realising that they were protesting against her.

The vice president visited Puerto Rico on Friday to highlight the Biden administration’s actions in supporting the island nation’s recovery and renewal efforts.

. . . In video footage from her visit to the community centre, Ms Harris is seen gleefully clapping and smiling as Puerto Rican protesters banged on drums and sang in Spanish.

However, Ms Harris’ cheerful mood came to an abrupt end when her aide appeared to inform her what they were singing about.

Here's my answer to people who think the deep state still has a plan, for instance to get Trump off the ballot by flipping the House. If that were the case, you'd see much more smug confidence. Instead, we're seeing increasing panic. Again, just over the weekend,

[James Carville] told Maureen Dowd that Biden's low approval ratings are like “walking in on your grandma naked. You can’t get the image out of your mind.” He said that Democrats don't want him to talk about the poll numbers but he can't not talk about that subject. He's acutely tuned into things like poll numbers as a career political strategist and adviser. He can't unsee them.

The Democrat establishment, whose talking points so far have failed, is currently trying to throw Trump's characterizations back at him, without much success:

Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who has amassed a fortune of over $100 million over her political career, has suggested that Donald Trump is a grifter.

In an interview with former White House Press Secretary turned MSNBC host Jen Psaki, Pelosi said it was “very clear” that Trump swindling his donors.

. . . “Well, I think it’s very clear that Trump is a grifter,” Pelosi responded. “That is the way it is. Integrity which is something we all want to always deepen in politics and government has just flown the coop with him.

As of late January,

The Biden-Kamala Harris campaign, enabled by Haley's line of attack against Trump, this week for the first time went after Trump's cognitive health in an ad. The spot, however, is almost all Trump, a highlight reel of his misstatements, with Haley spliced in, questioning Trump's mental fitness. Biden appears only at the end, with his photo and the voice-over, "I'm Joe Biden and I approved this message."

So far, the claim that Trump is the one who's senile -- which Biden echoed in his Gridiron Club address -- isn't working. Trump continues to project an image of someone who's struggling against stereotypical, almost comic book supervilains like Judge Engoron, Fani Willis, Alvin Bragg, and Letitia James, and winning. Trump is a winner, Biden is a nebbish who, at this point, now seems to need Kamala Harris of all people to fight on his behalf.

Strategies developed at the last minute in panic when earlier plans don't work out probably aren't formulas for success.

Threat To Trump In November If Democrats Flip House?

Over the past couple of days, I've seen two references to a potential problem for Trump, even if he continues to do well in the polls, if enough Republicans resign from the House to give the majority to the Democrats.

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) will retire from the House months before his term ends next year, setting up a scenario where House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) could have a one-seat majority.

. . . Gallagher's departure will bring a math problem for Johnson as the chamber seeks to fill a slew of other vacancies announced over the last few months. As of next week, there are four empty seats vacated by Reps. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Bill Johnson (R-OH), Brian Higgins (D-NY), and Ken Buck (R-CO), whose last day in office was Friday.

With Gallagher's absence, that brings the Republicans' majority to 217-213 as of April 19. That will be further narrowed for Republicans after the special election for Higgins, which is expected to favor Democrats, bringing their majority to just 217-214, meaning Republicans can only afford to lose one vote on any given measure to pass the lower chamber.

The biggest worry from a worst-case scenario, as articulated by YouTuber Robert Gouveia above and Emerald Robinson below, is that a Democrat majority in both houses could block Trump, either from the ballot or, as Robinson suggests below, via the electoral count.

The early retirements of Ken Buck and Mike Gallagher are part of a scheme by the uniparty cabal to stop Trump from winning the 2024 election.

How? They want to flip the House blue in time to nullify the electoral vote via the 14th Amendment.

— Emerald Robinson ✝️ (@EmeraldRobinson) March 23, 2024

Robinson doesn't go into detail, and she's a reporter, not a constitutional lawyer. Gouveia, while he's a criminal defense attorney who has specialized in DUI cases, is also not a constitutional lawyer, and so far, I haven't seen any takes from the usual constitutional law commentators like Glenn Reynolds or William Jacobson (I, of course, am no attorney at all). But here is Gouveia's take in the YouTube link above:

[I]f the Democrats retake the House, . . . they may have what it takes to get Trump off the 2024 ballot, and they're going to be able to hang their hat on the SCOTUS decision in Anderson, which of course was the Colorado ballot removal case, which came back out 9 to 0. . . . Why are [Republican Congressmen Ken Buck and Mike Gallagher] leaving right now? . . . If the House flips to the Democrats, . . . we're gong to talk about how this might implicate a ballot removal strategy in five steps.

The steps he outlines are:

1. Dems retake House
2. House Dems pass legislation declaring Trump insurrectionist
3. Senate passes
4. Biden signs
5. Trump removed supported by 9-0 Supreme Court

He explains further, relating to Anderson,

Here is what this opinion says. For its part, the Colorado Supreme Court, which was wrong, they overturned it, they concluded there must be a determination before you remove someone and disqualify them under the 14th Amendment. That's the Insurrection Clause. "What is the deermination?" you're asking. "Who gets to decide?" This was the whole point of the ballot removal case. Jenna Griswold and the Colorado courts, they thought they could make the determination. The Supreme Court said no, you don't get to make that determination. You know who does? Congress.

He doesn't go into any detail on exactly how Congress could make this determination, and at least in Anderson, neither does the court. However, I think he leaves out several key steps. One is that the Democrats have just as slim a majority in the Senate as the Republicans do in the House, and it's questionable whether certain Democrats like Manchin and Sinema, who have announced their retirements, would support this putative "determination" that Trump is an insurrectionist.

Second, the Republicans could invoke the filibuster, requring a 60-vote majority, which would be another obstacle, even if some Republicans like Mitt Romney supported it. In the 2021 Trump impeachment, even though some Republicans voted for removal, only 57% of the Senate voted for it. Although removal requires a two-thirds majority, the "yes" votes didn't even reach the 60% that would be needed to invoke cloture.

Third, any "determination" that Trump is an "insurrectionist" short of a trial and conviction for violation of a specific insurrection law would almost certainly be a bill of attainder, which is prohibited under Article 1 Sections 9 and 10 of the US Constitution. This legal dictionary defines a bill of attainder as

A law that sentences a person, or group of people, to suffer punishment for a crime without being able to exercise their judicial rights in defending themselves.

One of Trump's arguments already before the Supreme Court is that he was already tried for "insurrection" by the Senate in the 2021 impeachment and acquitted, and there has been no other conviction for such a charge; the Washington January 6 case is currently on hold and unlikely to reach a verdict before the election, much less survive inevitable appeals. Thus any congressional action declaring Trump an "insurrectionist" for the purpose of keeping him off the ballot without a trial and guilty verdict would be a bill of attainder. Trump would likely appeal such a "determination" directly to the Supreme Court.

So far, I think linking the resignations of RINO Republicans frustrated with the Freedom Caucus and others is multiplying entities without necessity. The congressmen like McCarthy, Buck, and Gallagher have simpler motives; the're unhappy that the Republican balance is shifting away from Bush-era moderates. I'm sure they have no good wishes for either Trump or Speaker (for now) Johnson, but I don't think there's a deep state plot behind them.

On the other hand, I think Robert Gouveia is normally a better commentator. In this case, he's not thinking things through.