Important @smotus on the dangers of over-interpreting the DeSantis trajectory - may just be the normal pattern of surge and decline https://smotus.substack.com/p/you-can-do-everything-right-and-still

Please subscribe to my newsletter "Tusk," which is following the Republican presidential invisible primary for the next year and a half. https://smotus.substack.com

@FisherTX14 Everyone involved may be quite brilliant and well educated, but understanding nuclear physics and climate change does not convey any ability to distinguish between three minutes to Armageddon and 15 seconds to Armageddon. It’s a silly prop that conveys no information other than that things are bad and have been since the 1950s.

@SETIEric No, a perfectly healthy autocrat was in control of the USSR and was installing nuclear missiles 90 miles from Florida and both sides were sending naval fleets to the area.

@coltsfanmommy Sorry to hear about your day but that's an excellent drink.

Um, no, we are not closer to Armageddon today than we were in October of 1962, and this is a stupid hackish thing and always has been.

Occam's Leafblower

This tweet is perfect and may be enough to lure me back to that hellsite.

But while we're at it, can Pence view classified documents alone, or does his wife need to be in the room at the same time?

Okay seriously, does pretty much every federal official just keep classified documents in their home? Because it would be helpful to know that.

New at the CAPtain's Log: When the GOP stopped vetting candidates, by @smotus
https://korbel.du.edu/americanpolitics/news-events/all-articles/when-gop-stopped-vetting-candidates

A bad nominee can embarrass a party and damage its reputation. Here's why the GOP stopped caring. My latest at @latimes. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-01-22/republicans-solomon-pena-george-santos-vetting-candidates-democrats

Biden's first two years have been far more productive and more scandal- and gaffe-free than we had any right to expect from his history. That has a lot to do with having a very good chief of staff, who exerted discipline and control without making himself the story.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/21/us/politics/ron-klain-resigning.html

We're not gonna fall for the old "cooperate fully with investigators" move, see?

"I have proof of election fraud!"
"Meh."
"No really, I made 64 Excel sheets!"
"Oh well in that case!"

Richard Nixon was nowhere near the most popular president in American history. He did win reelection with one of the largest popular vote shares in history, but that’s hardly the same thing. Also being popular should not exempt you from being investigated for crimes.

Alito rn

Speaker McCarthy with radical new vision that Congress should be in charge of federal spending.

Also, just following the analogy, what he’s saying is when your teenager runs up credit card debt, the right thing to do is not pay the credit card company.

Economists: You know, the federal government isn’t really a business, so it doesn’t make sense to liken it to one when talking about budgets and deficits.
McCarthy: Okay, what if I likened the government to children?