parsing the pieces

It’s 4:20 p.m.-ish here in B.C. as I semi-eagerly await Trump to announce or not announce that he’s running for President again. He’s such a tease. The only way we could be assured that he will announce is if Ron DeSantis tells him not to. Trump would show him, I can tell you. There are myriad reasons Aging Orange will re-run, but my favourite is that he might actually believe it will shield him from the many criminal charges slouching his way.

If so, expect a major crime wave in the U.S. as countless ne’er-do-wells defend their choices with:”Yes, officer, I did indeed commit a string of liquor store robberies and burned down that orphanage, but I’m running for President, so I’ll take my leave now, thank you.”

My last check of Politico’s House tote board has the Repubs at 217 and the Dems 205, with four uncalled races predicted to go GOP and six to the Good Guys. Three races are rated as toss-ups. However, I’m giving two of them to the Dems because it’s my blog. Based on that, the Repubs will win the House 225 – 213. That’s more wiggle room for them than the Dems just lost, but not enough to get too reckless. Kevin McCarthy was just nominated to be House Speaker by a vote of 188 – 31, but he’ll have to contend with the Freedom Caucus to be elected when all of the House convenes January 3rd next year. That means that Jim Jordan, Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Andy Biggs and many more will be able to do the Joe Manchin thing. Stand by. With popcorn.

We can expect multiple investigations in the House. The Repub-controlled House held six of them about the 2012 Benghazi attack, yet failed to find enough to derail Hillary Clinton. The new crop wants to investigate the Afghanistan withdrawal, which Trump ordered, and Hunter Biden. Good luck trying to prove Hunter’s a threat to national security. But how can the GOPers resist? A crack pipe was somehow involved.

The guaranteed overreach from all that, plus a Dem-controlled Senate and President Biden’s veto power pretty much guarantees not much will be done in Congress for two years. Fortunately, Joe got a lot done already. Regrettably, it hasn’t translated into encouraging approval ratings. This could be the ideal time for him, Nancy Pelosi and some other graybeards to consider passing the torch to the impressive fresh faces, like Gretchen Whitmer and Josh Shapiro.

AFTERTHOUGHT: Of all the terrible candidates the Repubs subjected us to, I most enjoyed Kari Lake losing her bid to be governour of Arizona. She never passed up an opportunity to belittle her opponent Katie Hobbs, who had heroically fought the Forces of Evil in the 2020 state recount debacle. Lake never passed up any opportunity to be snarky, point of fact. She’s a big a phony as Trump, just not as good at it.