02/09/24
Good morning! It’s Friday, February 9th.
National Pizza Day!
How good is pizza? Hot. Cold. Fresh. Leftover. I don’t care. It’s all so good!
And now, the news.
Biden Classified Documents
-via ABC News
Alright, let’s start with the Biden classified documents case, which I talked a little bit about yesterday but now the report is actually out, so there are a few things to go over.
First, I said this was a case where he forgot them. The report very clearly notes: “Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified documents after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen.”
It appears what the report is referring to there are documents related to Afghanistan policy and he shared them with his ghostwriter.
A ghost?!
It gets rough from there, because the report notes that no criminal charges are warranted because the jury would see him as "a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory."
Oh I didn’t know we could be BULLIES in our reports!
I thought we could only do that in our podcasts…
The President’s office fired back saying, "We do not believe that the report's treatment of President Biden's memory is accurate or appropriate."
Which, I mean I can’t speak to how accurate it is, but it does seem a little inappropriate to be like “yeah he did this on purpose but he’s an old! What are we supposed to do about that?”
So there we are. No charges warranted but I did misspeak yesterday when I mentioned that it was an accident.
Nevada Primary and Caucus Results
Thursday night was the Nevada Republican Caucus. As of this recoding, there are no results in yet. But remember that they had a primary on Tuesday because of a 2021 state law that scrapped Nevada’s caucus in favor of government-run primaries.
The Nevada Republican Party, following Trump’s demand I’m sure, decided they hated this and in addition to the primary, will also hold a caucus. That’s today.
I’m curious to see turnout more than anything else, but Nikki Haley isn’t even participating in the caucus so it’s Trump versus… Ryan Binkey. A Texas pastor that I can only assume has a Dean Phillips poster on his wall?
As far as results from Tuesday go, Biden got 89% of the vote with “none of these candidates” getting 6%, Marianne Williamson getting 3%, and Dean Phillips skipping the primary but, for some reason, staying in the race still.
It was a much tougher night for Nikki Haley who lost the primary even without Trump on the ballot. She lost to “none of these candidates” by nearly double.
So… that’s probably not gotta feel great.
Colorado and the Supreme Court
-via Washington Post
And of course, let’s talk about the Supreme Court, who heard the curious case of the insurrectionist on Thursday.
As a reminder, Trump’s lawyers asked the justices to consider whether the 14th amendment applies to Trump as a former president; whether he engaged in insurrection; whether state and federal courts can even enforce the 14th without legislation from Congress; and just for funzies – hey what if they literally say they’re an insurrectionist? Can they at least be on the ballot? Just to make the little guy feel better?
A ruling is expected soon but prepare yourself now – because it certainly sounds like they’re going to let him stay on the ballot in Colorado, which is going to give guidance to other states.
I listened to the arguments, which were about two hours and change, and after a very boring conversation about the word “office” versus “officer,” the rest of it was fairly… well still a little boring I guess. But interesting still. Boring and interesting – the sweet spot for me!
Kavanaugh worried that kicking him off the ballot in Colorado would disenfranchise voters, saying: “What about the idea that we should think about democracy, think about the right of the people to elect candidates of their choice, of letting the people decide?”
To which the attorney representing Colorado voters responded: “The reason we’re here is that President Trump tried to disenfranchise 80 million Americans who voted against him, and the Constitution doesn’t require that he be given another chance.”
Sweet dunk.
Justice Kavanaugh also thinks the Voting Rights Act should just got on outta here because racism has been fixed. But I’m so glad, in this moment, he’s really ready to think about the voters.
Listen, this ruling will come soon and it will be a bummer. We watched him do this. We watched him do insurrection.
But we also watched him do a lot of other abhorrent stuff through his presidency too. He is a bad person. Twice impeached with indictments in the 90s for various crimes, does not a good guy make.
So when this ruling comes, it’s okay to have a few minutes where you’re sad. That’s fine. Feel that.
And then let that motivate you to work that much harder to get Biden a second term.
We’ll get through this.
And that’s it. That’s the news.
Hey, you know what? In addition to national pizza day, it is also both my stepdad Jim’s birthday and my aunt lys’ birthday.
And you know the joy of watching the Dominos pizza tracker, and how happy you get when the tracker moves from “inspection” to “on its way”? That very specific feeling is how happy I feel, knowing those two people were born.
And because I’m happy that you were born also… I’m proud of you.