A staggering amount of Republican hypocrisy is now on full display in Washington. Pretty much ever since Joe Biden took office, Republicans have been screaming: "Border crisis! It's a crisis! This crisis needs immediate action!" This has been reinforced in an enormous way by the rightwing media echo chamber, who features the "Border Crisis!" storyline on a nightly basis for its audience. Scary images of border-crossers are shown, the word "invasion" is tossed about willy-nilly, and the fearmongering of immigrants is paramount.

This week, a deal seemed to be nearing completion on some new border policies, worked out between Senate Democrats and Republicans. This deal may be unveiled next week (but then they've said that before so we'll have to see if one does actually emerge). The deal is part of a package that also contains military aid for both Ukraine and Israel. The Biden administration has been pushing hard to get this done, and is reportedly going to have to accept stipulations in the border deal that will be (to put it mildly) unpalatable to some Democrats. In simplistic political terms, the military aid will be a win for Biden while the border portion of the bill will be a win for Republicans. This is especially true because it would be the first border compromise which will not even address the problem of the "Dreamers." That's another political blow for Democrats.

In reality, however, the fact that a border deal could even be reached would be a big political plus for Biden -- even with the provisions that some Democrats are going to howl about. It would tend to defuse the issue a bit, heading into the general election campaign. Biden could (rightfully) claim that he supported the bipartisan deal in the spirit of "getting something done," which fits into his whole political persona very nicely. The deal would also have to be given some time to see if it is working, which would damp down all the "Border crisis!" hyperventilating from the right.

This is why -- sight unseen -- Donald Trump is coming out strongly against cutting this deal (whatever it might contain). He knows it would be an asset for Biden in the campaign. He knows it would tend to defuse the issue in the public's eye. And -- horror upon horrors! -- it just might be successful in alleviating the problems at the border. That would really take the issue off the table in the campaign, and for Trump (and the Republican Party writ large) the border is their number one issue teed up for 2024. So it's not too surprising to see Trump try to tank the deal before it is even unveiled. Trump is telling the Republicans to just wait until he takes office and then they'll be able to pass legislation to make the border "perfect" (as he puts it).

Republicans, cowed as they are by the fear of Trump siccing his MAGA base on them, are already getting pretty squishy on the whole subject. They are even openly admitting why this is -- to give Trump a big issue to run on. As Mitt Romney admitted to reporters yesterday:

The fact that [Donald Trump] would communicate to Republican senators and congresspeople that he doesn't want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it is really appalling.

Even Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (who doesn't normally knuckle under to Trump as much as other Republicans do) appeared to go all squishy on the border deal, although to be fair he later tried to walk that impression back.

But now the chances for the deal actually making it through both the Senate and the Republican House seem to be shrinking -- which is exactly what Trump wanted.

So let's review:

• President Joe Biden takes office.
• "Crisis! Border crisis! Invasion! Open borders! CRISIS!!! AHHHH! Run for your lives!" (repeat ad nauseam)
• Biden wants something from Congress (Ukraine aid) and so he signals he'd be open to a border deal largely written by Republicans -- even one that doesn't address the Dreamers.
• Democratic and Republican senators huddle, and hammer out a deal -- one which will tie Biden's hands as president in multiple ways and will advance the GOP's priorities on the border.
• Trump (and other Republicans) realize that if a deal is reached, it might take the issue off the table for the upcoming election.
• Trump tries to kill the deal, sight unseen.

What happens next is anyone's guess, but what is crystal-clear is the breathtaking hypocrisy shown by Republicans. They might be on the brink of intentionally ignoring a crisis they've been screaming about, for purely political reasons. If they do so, they will guarantee that the crisis continues for at least another full year (until the next president is inaugurated). One wonders how Fox News is going to spin that.

No matter how they do, what it equates to is blatant, cynical, staggering hypocrisy from the Republican Party.

What is rather amusing in all this is that if Trump does manage to tank the deal, then Biden can run on that fact: "Republicans in the Senate cut a deal with Democrats. It wasn't the deal I would have written -- it contained a lot of Republican priorities on border security -- but in the spirit of compromise I would have supported it. But then they realized that it might be better for them politically if no deal were cut, so they torpedoed their own priorities just so Donald Trump could campaign on it. That is why people hate politics, folks, right there in a nutshell. I am running to create commonsense bipartisan solutions to America's problems, while the Republicans just want to play endless political games with people's lives."

This isn't going to be a smooth segue or anything, but we have to shuffle the order of our weekly wrap-up here because as we were writing this the news broke that the jury in the second E. Jean Carroll defamation case against Donald Trump just returned with a jaw-dropping $83.3 million verdict against Trump. This is on top of the $5 million the jury in the first of these cases awarded to Carroll. The most amusing thing? Trump keeps right on defaming her (he will no doubt be going ballistic on social media soon) and so she can just keep right on filing case after case against him, with (hopefully) ever-increasing jury awards against him. Sooner or later, the amounts of money involved may actually do the impossible: get Trump to shut up. But maybe not -- maybe this will just be an endless cycle that plays out as long as both of them are still alive, who knows?

Trump did actually testify in this case, but (surprisingly) this didn't really generate much news, since he was only on the stand for a total of three minutes. He ignored the judge's instructions on what he could and could not say, the judge struck his remarks from the record, and his lawyer just essentially gave up. Today, he couldn't even bear to listen to Carroll's lawyer making closing arguments (which were interrupted by the judge so he could say: "The record will reflect that Donald Trump just rose and walked out of the courtroom"). Which probably didn't make a real good impression on the jury, one assumes.

Trump also got some bad news on his appeal of the gag order instituted in the January 6th federal case against him, as the appellate court summarily refused to hear his appeal. This leaves only the Supreme Court for Trump to appeal to (which he will, of course). The Supreme Court will also be hearing arguments on whether Trump should be barred from the ballot under the Fourteenth Amendment early next month, although no one has any idea when they'll actually rule on it.

What might happen a lot sooner is that the judge in Trump's business fraud case may issue his ruling at any time. Closing arguments were given in this case earlier this month, and like the Carroll case, Trump has already lost. The decision will mainly be concerned with the penalties Trump and his business will be hit with -- which could include barring Trump from operating any business in the state of New York. So we've all got that to look forward to, although there is no deadline or anything (the judge could rule at any time).

In related legal news, Peter Navarro was sentenced to four months in prison for contempt of Congress, after blatantly ignoring a subpoena from the January 6th Select Committee. So that chicken came home to roost.

In other "Republicans behaving badly" news, the head of the Arizona Republican Party had to resign his position this week after Kari Lake leaked a recording of him trying to offer her lots of money to drop out of the last race she ran:

Arizona GOP Chair Jeff DeWit resigned Wednesday amid controversy over a leaked audio recording in which he appeared to attempt to bribe former gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake to not to run for Senate.

DeWit, who had served in the role since January 2023, said in a statement that Lake's team had issued him an ultimatum: "resign today or face the release of a new, more damaging recording."

"I am truly unsure of its contents, but considering our numerous past open conversations as friends, I have decided not to take the risk," DeWit said.

. . .

In the recording, DeWit appears to ask Lake to name her price to stay out of politics for two years -- but Lake pushed back, saying she would not leave the Senate race and could not be bought.

The recording itself was pretty damning, but even if true it probably wasn't illegal. Nevertheless, DeWit is out -- yet another example of intraparty GOP fratricide heading into an election year (added to similar recent ousters in Michigan and Florida, in other words).

Tying all this back to Republican hypocrisy (call it an attempt at a retro-segue), in the district Lauren Boebert is now running for a House seat in (because she is so toxic in the district she now represents) they just held a candidate debate. The candidates were all asked if they had ever been arrested, and six of them raised their hands -- and then promptly began high-fiving each other. So much for the "party of law and order," eh folks?

In other candidate debate news, the four leading candidates running to fill Dianne Feinstein's old Senate seat -- three Democrats and one Republican -- held their first debate this week. Steve Garvey, the ex-baseball player Republican, pretty much showed he was a complete idiot during this debate, while the three Democrats hammered him for not taking a stand on anything (including whether he was going to vote for Donald Trump or not). Best line of the night came from Katie Porter, who topped everyone else's baseball quips with: "Once a Dodger, always a dodger." Nice one!

Because that jury award announcement has scrambled our regular order into a mish-mash, we're going to end with the biggest campaign news of the week. Donald Trump and Joe Biden are now (whether you want to admit it or not) the two presumptive nominees for president for the two main American political parties. New Hampshire pretty much sealed the deal for both of them.

On the Democratic side, Joe Biden wasn't even on the ballot. In fact, there hasn't been a single official caucus or primary for Democrats to vote in yet. But some Granite State Democrats launched an effort to get voters to write in Biden's name, to avoid an embarrassing loss to Dean Phillips or even Marianne Williamson. It worked -- Biden crushed both of them (Phillips got just shy of 20 percent, while Biden topped him by 45 points). There was also a movement to show displeasure with Biden's Israel policy -- people were urged to write in "ceasefire" on the ballot -- but few did so, in the end (fewer than 1,500 votes out of a total of almost 125,000 votes). In any case, if Biden can do that well in a race where he isn't even on the ballot, then he's got the nomination sewn up -- which is not exactly a big surprise, or even "news."

Over on the Republican side, Ron DeSantis surprised everyone last weekend by ending his campaign. He slunk back to Florida, which gave rise to comparisons to Jeb Bush, another Florida governor with tons of money behind him who failed to beat Trump in the primaries. Amusing footnote: DeSantis included a quote from Winston Churchill in his announcement that he was backing down from the race, but it turns out the quote wasn't from Churchill, but rather from a Budweiser beer ad from the 1930s. Ooops! A fitting end to a disaster of a campaign....

With only two candidates left, the results trickled in on Tuesday and Nikki Haley came in second place to Donald Trump. She did beat expectations -- she had been polling worse than the actual voting results -- but she still lost to Trump by double digits (11 points) in the end. New Hampshire was the one state that Haley actually had a prayer of winning, but that prayer obviously went unanswered. Haley didn't manage to come in second in Iowa and she didn't manage to beat Trump in New Hampshire, so the Republican nomination race is also essentially over.

Haley, true to her "scrappy" (her word) persona, gave a speech on Tuesday night almost immediately after the last polls had closed and Trump was declared the winner by all the media organizations. At the time, she was a lot closer to Trump than the final result, so she gave a very upbeat speech about having almost beat him. She vowed to stay in the race and turned her attention to her home state of South Carolina.

Trump, hearing all of this, went ballistic (because of course he did!). He ripped into Haley for not dropping out, for giving an upbeat speech to her supporters, and for the dress she wore (which Trump proclaimed "wasn't so fancy"). He also threatened that she might have skeletons in the closet that investigations would uncover, without (of course) giving any details. It was the least-gracious victory speech in most reporters' memories, in fact.

The truly ironic thing about it (which many pointed out) was that Trump was ripping into Haley for refusing to admit she had lost an election and for vowing to fight on. Now let's see... hmmm... who does that remind you of?

Also during his victory speech, Trump forced Tim Scott (who was on the stage with him) to either say he "hated" Nikki Haley (who is not only from his home state but actually appointed him to the Senate when she was governor) or to abase himself before Trump. Scott chose to salaam before his new idol ("I just love you!") in a pretty transparent bid to be "the next Mike Pence" -- auditioning for the role of Trump's sycophantic veep. It was pretty cringeworthy to watch.

Haley is already getting lots of pressure to just drop out, but so far she's staying in. Trump then took to threatening her donors on his pet social media network:

Anybody that makes a "Contribution" to Birdbrain, from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp. We don't want them, and will not accept them, because we Put America First, and ALWAYS WILL!

Haley's got a tough choice to make now. Does she stay in and suffer the humiliation of being beaten (probably pretty badly) by Trump in her home state, on the off chance that Trump will somehow self-destruct and leave her the only GOP candidate left standing, or does she gracefully bow out and live to fight another day (in some other upcoming election)? Stay tuned....

We end on an amusing note. New Hampshire ran a contest before the election where kids could submit their own drawings for the "I Voted!" stickers voters earn at the polls, and while the winners of the contest were nice and all, the clear champion was the kid who came up with what can only be called a "mutant spider" of a character for his design. We don't know about you, but we would proudly wear that sticker after voting!

Well, Joe Biden did romp to victory in the (unofficial) New Hampshire primary this week, without even being on the ballot, but we have to say we were more impressed with the performance of Katie Porter in the California Senate candidate debate.

To be absolutely clear, we were impressed with all three Democrats on the stage, which isn't all that surprising because both Adam Schiff and Barbara Lee are both impressive Democrats in their own right. Schiff in particular just looks the part -- he has always exhibited a political persona that can most accurately be described as "senatorial." Lee has fought long and hard in the House of Representatives for progressive causes and any one of these three would truly make a fine senator from our home state. They all showed the proper degree of feistiness in taking on the hapless Republican on stage as well. So we truly have no complaints about Schiff and Lee, after watching the debate.

But Katie Porter just seems to have a level of energy the other two don't, at least to us (we do realize this is entirely subjective of us to say). California has been lacking this level of energy in the Senate for a long time now, since Dianne Feinstein only got energetic on a few subjects every so often (and we didn't agree with her on all of them, we should add).

Katie Porter would change all of that if she wins. There haven't been a ton of polls yet, and few voters are even paying attention, but so far Schiff is in the lead with Porter behind him. These polling numbers should be taken with a grain of salt, though, because the race will likely shift before Californians vote in the primary (which is extremely early this year, as we've moved up to Super Tuesday).

Whatever he chances are at the ballot box, after watching all three Democrats on stage together we have to say that Katie Porter emerged as not only the most impressive of the three but also the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week. We would love to see Katie (and her whiteboard!) representing us in the United States Senate next year, and we wish her luck!

[Congratulate Representative Katie Porter on her House contact page, to let her know you appreciate her efforts.]

We are going to nominally award the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week this week to Joe Ganim of Bridgeport, Connecticut -- but we are actually awarding it to all the Democratic politicians and operatives in the town who have apparently been stealing elections for decades.

From a deep-dive article on the town in the New York Times, here is just some of what's been going on in Bridgeport:

"Bridgeport has a very long, tortured history of absentee ballot abuse," said Bill Bloss, a lawyer who persuaded the judge to order the fall primary to be rerun.

"It's not a secret," he added. "It has been going on for years."

Last June, the State Election Enforcement Commission found evidence of criminality in the 2019 Democratic primary for mayor. In 2022, a judge ordered a Democratic primary for state representative to be rerun amid an allegation of ballot fraud.

In 2018, Bridgeport was forced to hold three primaries for City Council. The first was invalidated over a miscounted absentee ballot; the second was voided by the State Supreme Court in part because a police officer had improperly collected absentee ballots.

Similar episodes have been documented back to the 1980s, though political observers say they cannot remember how the tradition of ballot manipulation initially took hold. Such manipulation has led to forgery charges, fines and even bans on participating in campaigns.

"It is just simply part of the electoral strategy political culture in Bridgeport," Mr. Bloss said. "The perception is that you can win elections in Bridgeport by harvesting absentee ballots. And so, they do it."

In both the 2019 and 2023 races for mayor, the beneficiary of questionable acts in the initial Democratic primary vote was Mayor [Joe] Ganim, the incumbent, who once spent seven years in prison on federal corruption charges, then regained the mayor's post in 2015.

In both of the recent primaries, Mayor Ganim came up short among voters who voted in person but overwhelmed his opponent in the absentee ballot count.

"It is routine here," said State Senator Marilyn Moore, whose district includes parts of Bridgeport and who lost to Mayor Ganim in 2019. She added: "People just accept it. Like, 'It's just Bridgeport.'"

On Tuesday, Ganim beat challenger John Gomes in the primary once again. But saying that Bridgeport doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the American electoral system is a vast understatement.

Democrats truly need to clean house here, because this sort of thing (while extremely rare) is precisely what Donald Trump and all his MAGA followers point to when claiming (without any further evidence) that all American elections where Trump or Republicans don't win are "rigged."

So our award really goes not just to Joe Ganim, but to all the rest of the miscreants in Bridgeport who have engaged in such shameful (and, obviously, illegal) behavior. This is a black eye the Democratic Party really doesn't need right now, to state the painfully obvious.

[Contact Mayor Joe Ganim on his official contact page, to let him know what you think of his actions.]

Volume 737 (1/26/24)

We have to say, that's not exactly an auspicious volume number, these days. Well, we're hoping this column doesn't crash and burn or anything (we couldn't resist...).

This week we have two quick talking points of our own (one of which is recycled) but then the rest of them come straight from the Biden campaign. There was a rather extraordinary article this week which documented how Team Biden is (quite effectively) now just taunting Donald Trump. And Trump being Trump, he seems to be taking the bait every single time, which forces him into playing defense and knocks him off his game. Personally, we think this is great news and heartily encourage the Biden campaign to keep it up! Let's all try to get under Trump's skin as much as possible, shall we?

   Records being set under Biden

The fact that the economy is doing well is finally filtering out through the news media, but Democrats also need to make this case as often as possible, in as many ways as possible.

"Taking a look at recent economic news, I see that the stock markets are all hitting record highs, Obamacare signups are through the roof, and the economic growth numbers beat all expectations for all of last year. Taking just one of those -- last year, Obamacare signed up a record number of people during the enrollment period. This year, that record was smashed as five million more people signed up, for a total of 21 million Americans. Donald Trump is still out there calling for Obamacare to be repealed, because some people just cannot accept a Democrat getting credit for improving people's lives. And not just a few people, but 21 million of them and counting."

   Endless political games with people's lives

We were going to rewrite this as a talking point for Joe Biden to use on the border deal, but when we read what we had already written at the start of this article, we found we couldn't improve upon it much. So for the first time (we think) we are actually recycling a different part of our same column as a talking point. Apologies in advance if anyone is offended by our laziness.

"Republicans in the Senate cut a deal with Democrats. It wasn't the deal I would have written -- it contained a lot of Republican priorities on border security -- but in the spirit of compromise I would have supported it. But then they realized that it might be better for them politically if no deal were cut, so they torpedoed their own priorities just so Donald Trump could campaign on it. That is why people hate politics, folks, right there in a nutshell. I am running to create commonsense bipartisan solutions to America's problems, while the Republicans just want to play endless political games with people's lives."

   LOSER!

From here until the end, these were all inspired by Team Biden trolling Trump. Hey, we understand -- it's fun to do! It's a game all Democrats can play, actually....

"Joe Biden beat Trump the last time and he's going to beat Trump this time too. Joe Biden is a winner, while Trump is the sorest loser of all time. In fact, it's the worst thing you can call him because he gets so angry when people point out the truth to him. So join in with me, folks, as we all send a message to Donald Trump: 'You're a LOSER, Mr. Trump!' Whether you admit it or not, that's all you are... just a big whiny LOSER."

   Already Herbert Hoover

This one is already getting under his skin.

"Donald Trump has been wishing for an economic collapse for three years now, because he doesn't care about America all he cares about is making Joe Biden look bad. He's been itching to call Biden 'Herbert Hoover,' but as Biden himself has been pointing out, Donald Trump is already Herbert Hoover. They're the only two presidents who have seen a drop in American jobs while they were president, while Joe Biden is on track to have overseen the creation of a record 15 million new jobs."

   Good one, Donald

Too, too funny.

"The last time Donald Trump ran against Joe Biden, Trump predicted the stock markets would 'collapse' if Biden won. This week, the stock markets hit record highs... again. And Trump is still out there rooting for the economy to collapse. Joe Biden pointed all of this out this week with a hilarious tweet which showed a clip of Trump's boneheaded prediction next to a clip of the record market highs, and then summed it all up in three words: 'Good one, Donald.'"

   We agree on this much

Biden seemed to be having too much fun, all week long.

"Last week, Donald Trump got seriously confused and started talking about Nikki Haley as if she were actually Nancy Pelosi. This isn't the first such mixup he's made, of course -- he thinks he won an election against Barack Obama, even! So Joe Biden tweeted out a clip of Haley ripping Trump for his confusion with the snarky caption: 'I don't agree with Nikki Haley on everything, but we agree on this much: She is not Nancy Pelosi.'"

   Ouch!

We saved the best (!) one for last. Because Biden read that same CNN article we did, about how he's been very successfully getting under Trump's skin. And then he commented on it, so we're just going to end with Biden zinging Trump with just two words, this time. The tweet was in response to the following, tweeted out by his own campaign team: "CNN: A person close to Trump says that he is rattled by President Biden and his campaign's efforts to get under his skin. Biden campaign aides have said the taunting will keep up." To which Joe Biden replied, on his personal account:

Be Best.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Cross-posted at: Democratic Underground