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Month: December 2021

The power of a different force

Published by Tom Sullivan on December 21, 2021

Giving Amanda the floor this morning:

https://twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte/status/1473123755765514245?s=20
https://twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte/status/1473125312531771394?s=20
https://twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte/status/1473126202219110410?s=20

As I keep saying, thank you for not voting your best interests.

We need not quote Darth Vader about underestimating the power of the Force. Or in this case, in seeing your tribe retain power. The MAGA base is sacrificing their lives for it.

Digby observed the other day, “As someone remarked to me recently, recall that hundreds of thousands of confederates sacrificed their lives in the 1860s in order to protect their ‘way of life’ by which they meant slavery. Their heirs, having been convinced that their ‘way of life’ is similarly under threat are doing the same thing.”

I dimly recall a friend and I having a chance-encounter beer with a local guy we met decades ago near Fair Play, South Carolina. Probably only high-school-educated, his principle interests were cigarettes, beer and porn on VHS. As we drove away, my friend, formerly with the 82nd Airborne, remarked that whatever we might think of his education, interests, or politics, he was the type who, with the right leadership, would lay down his life in battle if ordered to.

That remark was as unsettling as the local guy was unmemorable. It’s still unsettling today.

Dave Neiwert offers a suggestion to national media accustomed to running stories on Trump voters in rural diners: “Try instead reporting on what it’s become like for non-Trump voters in these rural red areas where the politics of menace and thuggery have taken over—sort of an inverted version of the cliché; the rural Biden voter who can barely show his face at the local café.”

It’s Happy Hollandaise time here at Hullabaloo. If you’d like to drop a little something in the old Christmas stocking you can do so here:


Make her look like a demon

Published by Tom Sullivan on December 21, 2021
VP Harris turns heated after Charlamagne Tha God asks if Joe Manchin or Joe Biden is the “real” president.

Vice President Kamala Harris is facing a suspected, coordinated smear campaign in Florida on Spanish-language radio, Politico reports. The attacks appear to be another Republican twofer:

Democratic veterans in the state are unnerved by the ferocity and speed of the attacks, which have come from callers and guests on local radio programs in recent weeks. They suspect the participants are part of a larger, astroturf effort to diminish Harris’ standing among key Latino constituencies in a region where Republicans have notched sharp gains. Even more worrying for these Democrats has been the lack of pushback from their party.

Suggesting what? That Democrats as a national party have nothing else on their plates at the moment?

‘Oh God, they got a phone bank’

Misogynists gonna misogynize. But Miami-based Democratic pollster Fernand Amandi noticed the calls to Spanish-language radio seemed to have a script. Harris is ill-prepared. Harris is ineffective. Harris being mixed Jamaican-Indian means she will prioritze Blacks over Latinos:

Amandi said he changed the channel to another station and heard another caller “talking about Kamala Harris, and they [said] the same thing. ‘This is the woman who’s done nothing.’ It was a different person than was on the other [station]. And I was like, ‘Oh God, they got a phone bank.’”

Politico assigned someone to the case. A review of webcasts found that while critiques of Biden were more numerous, attacks on Harris shared the same themes and phrases on more than one Miami-based Spanish-language station.

Still, Roberto Rodríguez Tejera, a morning radio host who has been working in Miami media for three decades, said in a phone interview that he too has noticed the trend in calls about Harris on his own morning show. He came to the same conclusion as Amandi that they likely are coordinated. He identified no suspects but speculated that Republicans are behind them.

“It’s not like you get 10 calls every day. It’s not like that. You get a couple of calls here, a couple of calls there,” Rodriguez said. “That’s how the phone banks begin that [have] worked,” he added, pointing to the way political operatives over the years have directed specific messages through callers on the radio programs. “But it’s a trend that you see that is growing by the day; is growing by the week.”

A spokesperson for the Republican Party of Florida did not respond to a request for comment.

Make her look like a demon

If you don’t define yourself first, your enemies will do it for you. These attacks appear to be an early effort to damage Harris should President Joe Biden run for reelection.

“They’re starting early. ‘We must begin to attack her now and make her look like a demon.’ And the problem with that is that the Democratic Party doesn’t realize that this narrative is being born in Miami-Dade County, and it will spread to other Hispanics across the U.S,” said Sasha Tirador, a Democratic operative in Florida.

Tirador said if the party doesn’t start to knock down the narrative as it swells, it’s going to be nearly impossible to “convince all these elderly folks and your typical Hispanics that just listen to AM radio that what they’ve been listening to that ‘Kamala is bad’ is not true in three months, which is what Democrats like to do. They like to swoop in at the last moment and campaign, and that’s why it doesn’t work.”

That this tactic has a history among both major parties is an open secret, says Emiliano Antunez, a Florida-based political operative.

Politico reports that the Democratic National Committee is tracking “misinformation and propaganda targeting Hispanic and Latino communities” and is urging social media platforms to take down misinformation.

But it is also true that Democrats tend to start from behind when they do start to focus their campaign efforts, and often too late to make up lost ground.

Grassroots activists complained in a Zoom presentation I saw last week that as soon as a state tilts red, the national Democratic Party tends to pull back and focus its efforts and funding elsewhere. This has been true historically where Democrats cede rural areas to Republicans who then use strength in those areas to contest control of state legislatures. Gerrymandering and noxious, revanchist legislation follow as the night the day.

And what do Republicans do when they lose ground? Say it with me: They double down.

Everywhere.

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Joe got a puppy for Christmas

Published by digby on December 20, 2021

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden have added to their pet family, the first lady’s spokesperson tells CNN.A new puppy was spotted Monday playing on the South Lawn of the White House. According to two sources familiar with the new pet, the dog looks to be a German Shepherd or similar breed.The puppy is named “Commander” and was a gift to the President from his family, a source familiar tells CNN.

Michael LaRosa, Jill Biden’s press secretary, confirmed the news of a new family puppy. “Yes. There is (a puppy),” LaRosa said.

I guess Major nipped a secret service agent so he’s been rendered to the black site. Well, to Biden’s house in Wilmington which he probably likes better anyway. But Joe needs a dog in the White House so now he has one.

Apparently, the cat is on hold indefinitely which is good because life is hell for cats around rambunctious puppies.

Happy Hollandaise, everyone! If you’d like to put a little something in the old Christmas stocking you can do so below. Cheers — digby


What are the Trump admin’s COVID crimes? How do we start the drum beat to indicting them? @spockosbrain

Published by Spocko on December 20, 2021

I’m a fan of the Sister’s in Law podcast, so I sent them a few questions via tweet. Some are based on the report of the House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. Since I’m a long-winded Vulcan I provided the background to my questions below.

Meadows or others in the Trump campaign obstructed, delayed and possibly falsified COVID test reporting. They started at the Tulsa rally and did it later during Trump’s infection period. (Based on the reporting of Carol Leonnig’ & Jonathan Karl)

1) Could you address how medical privacy laws have been used to hide the Trump admin’s violations of state & federal COVID test reporting laws?

Because of medical privacy laws, the media can’t see or prove how Trump, Meadows and/or campaign staff intimidated public health officials and what their response was.

Your show often drills down and focuses on specific laws broken and what cases a prosecutor will or will not bring.  Jill Wine-Banks discussed how it’s important for the American people to know what is being uncovered so we can fully comprehend it. 

The press can’t get those communications between Meadows Meadows, doctors and the health department.  But the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis can get those communications and show them to the public. But that will not be enough. They public needs to know what laws were broken and if anyone will be charged.

2) What violations of laws should Rep. Clyburn address during the Coronavirus committee hearings? 

On the 1/6 committee Liz Cheney has been using the “language of the law” to talk about what they are looking to charge Trump with. Could the Coronavirus committee use the same method to show the public?

Example: Mark Meadows or someone in the Campaign Leadership told the contract nurses & physician assistants from the White House Medical Unit in Tulsa to STOP THE TESTING.

Is that witness tampering? Is that obstructing a government official from completing their duties?

Allowing people to die of COVID was a policy choice of Donald Trump.
What were the crimes committed within that policy?

Elie Mystal spoke to Mehdi Hasan about how Trump and the GOP have turned allowing people to die into a policy choice. I think that allowing is the wrong word. There will be hard evidence of Trump and his campaign staff intentionally broke laws that led directly to people getting sick and dying. The evidence needs to be uncovered, the public needs to see it, and the law breakers need to be indicted.


Over 806,593 people have died from COVID. But in America the “economy” is “balanced” against the dead.

Are there federal laws about intentionally transporting people with a deadly virus across state lines?
What about a failure to alert the state health authority about a mass gathering where infected people will be attending? (This is relevant during Trump’s Infection Tour.)

The policies of the Trump COVID response, and how Trump & his campaign staff spread COVID across the country impacted interstate commerce.

The bottom line is that in addition to executive privilege, medical privacy laws enabled the Trump team to hide the number of infected –who then infected others, damaging the economy.

3) Is willful infecting 100’s of Secret Service agents a federal crime?
 Is covering it up a crime?

In Carol Leonnig’s book Zero Fail she reported how the Secret Service Agents and campaign staff were told to delay their testing for 3 days and to get tested in another state after the Tulsa Rally.
(This violates both Oklahoma Laws & Federal law on COVID test reporting. Failing to deliver results within 24 hours violates the CARES Act, Oklahoma law says positive tests must be reported immediately to the State Health Dept)

The Secret Service agents asked a Trump Appointed IG to investigate, he refused. 

4) What other major laws were broken by Trump & his admin in their response to the COVID pandemic?
How do we talk about why there should be prosecution for them?

When I wrote about prosecuting Trump in this piece last week, Trump Can Go To Hell. Why Not Jail? I heard, “Trump will never be prosecuted for ANYTHING!”

The public has already seen the crimes in real time and the committees are providing the evidence now. The response I saw is, “We aren’t surprised. We all saw it happening.” and “Nothing will ever happen to them. They will all avoid accountability.” 

5) Could you talk about what evidence and types of public testimony are needed to make it clear the horrific nature of their crimes and their knowledge of their intentions?

This needs to be shown, beyond the horrible things they have already said in public. Show the “receipts”
Hear from the families of the victims! Jill talked about why the public needs to see this, since the DOJ can’t show what they are doing.

I suggest that someone read aloud their callous texts that were not a “differences of opinion” but acts undertaken that were done willful and with malice aforethought that directly lead to sickness and death.

Also could you discuss
6) The fear of prosecuting people in the Trump administration for any crimes related to their COVID response?

We have an AG that is afraid that just following the law makes the DOJ look political.
If the intentional actions that led to people dying is a crime, is it important to prosecute? Or should we do as other Democratic administrations have done and just, “Look forward and not backward?”

7) How do we start the drum beat for prosecutions for the Trump admin’s COVID crimes?
And that leads to my final question for the Sister’s in Law.

8) What are some of the ways that Joyce’s “radical transparency” for the DOJ could apply to the large scale, intentional crimes made by people that have led to mass death from COVID? 

LLAP,
Spocko
@spockosbrian  

Happy Hollandaise!


Manchin had a good old-fashioned cry

Published by digby on December 20, 2021

Following up on tristero’s quip below, I’ve got some reporting by Josh Marshall on what precipitated the “final straw” for Joe Manchin and it’s even dumber than you thought:

We’re getting a bit more sense here of the final blow up that led to the demise of the BBB. Apparently the real blow up was that the White House put out a statement last week in which the President said he believed he was making progress on finalizing a Build Back Better deal with Joe Manchin. The key apparently was that he named Manchin specifically rather than Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema or Manchin and the rest of the caucus or whatever else.

In other words, in what was actually a positive and cordial statement he pointed to Manchin by name. In other words, kinda sorta implicitly saying that Manchin was the hold up but that he was optimistic they’d get to a deal. This apparently set Manchin off and led him to torpedo the negotiations and basically the President’s whole domestic agenda. How do we know this? Steven Clemons goes into the details here and Clemons is very close to Manchin.

As Clemons explains, Manchin saw his being named in the statement as “a breach of process, a breach of spirit, a breach of Joe and Joe working this out.” He seems to believe it was Biden’s staff rather than the President himself who committed the lapse. This is what Manchin was apparently referring to this morning when he told a West Virginia talk radio station: “They drove some things, they put some things out that were absolutely inexcusable.”

The level of pettiness on display here may be difficult to comprehend or believe. But as far as it goes I do believe it.

But the big picture is the important one to understand. For almost a year Manchin has strung his caucus and President Biden along, changing his positions, changing his rationales, being cagey about what he supported or what he would do. He’s strung them along and forced them to play the fool, repeatedly, while being entirely indifferent to the impact of his own actions on the political standing of his colleagues or their deeply held views.

Manchin doesn’t owe any his vote. But someone in his position owes the members of his caucus and a President of his own party a strong good faith effort to get to yes, to be candid, not to embarrass or humiliate his colleagues. He failed to do any of those things. And in his mind it was basically fine to put everyone through the wringer. But the first time the White House gave even the most delicate push back Manchin went berserk and blew everything up. That’s petulant and petty and just pathetic. And yet he has the vote. It’s in his power to do.

None of this changes the reality of the demise of serious climate action or a refundable child tax credit or universal pre-K or a bunch of other things. But it does illuminate the last year and makes clear that ‘getting tough’ on Manchin wasn’t really a tool the White House had in its arsenal. Just putting out a press release that named him and made him feel bad and somehow made him think people would blame him for what was happening made him go postal. The only real argument here is whether the process of coddling Manchin starting in the first weeks of Biden’s presidency helped nurture and fructify the tender sapling of touchiness that has grown into this broad oak tree of clinical think-skinnism we see on display today.

He’s an egomaniac and they read him right. Nothing you can do about that.

I agree with Josh. As I hear everyone screaming at the top of their lung today that this is all Biden’s fault for failing to be more forceful with Manchin and Sinema, I have to shake my head. Ok. Maybe if Biden pulled a Trump and called them a couple of Old Crows or “Cryin’ Joe and Crazy Kyrsten”, that would have made them wilt and come crawling. But when you see that Manchin took offense at being named in a positive press release and abruptly pulled the plug on the Democratic domestic agenda it’s probable that he might not have responded any better to having his arm publicly twisted.

If we know one thing it’s that the razor thin margin in the polarized senate always gave the most conservative Senators veto power and the ones who are showboating morons would be the ones who took advantage of it. Voila — Sinemanchin.

Update: Yep, it was about using his name. But it appears that Manchin and Biden are still talking so …

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and President Joe Biden spoke Sunday night after a major blowup in negotiations around the president’s domestic agenda, three people familiar with the call told POLITICO.

The conversation ended with a sense that negotiations would, in fact, resume around the Build Back Better Act in some form in the new year. The tone of conversation was cordial and it was agreed that they would speak again on legislative priorities.

White House staff had given Manchin a heads-up on Thursday that the president was soon to put out a statement accepting a delay in the Build Back Better Act and that it was going to mention the West Virginia senator by name. Manchin objected, asking that either his name be left out or that he not be alone because his family had already been the target of abuse and he didn’t want to be singled out.

But the statement went out anyway, and contained only Manchin’s name. The senator then snapped at White House aides and told them that he was done negotiating. The West Wing interpreted that as meaning that current talks were done but could pick up again next year.

But Manchin meant that he was totally walking away — which he said publicly a few days later on Fox News Sunday, in a move that blindsided and outraged the White House.

It’s hilarious that he says he didn’t want to be singled out. He has been chasing every microphone he can find for months. If he didn’t want to be “singled out” maybe he should have shut his piehole once in a while. Oy…

Anyway, it’s Happy Hollandaise time here at Hullabaloo. If you’d like to throw a little something into the old Christmas stocking to keep this old blog going for another year, you can hit on of these buttons or use the address on the sidebar. Thanks so much for reading and supporting out work. It means the world to me. — cheers, digby


Don’t Look Away. It’s still important.

Published by digby on December 20, 2021
Gustav Klimt Owls

Eric Boehlert’s great newsletter Press Run made an excellent observation about the mainstream media’s apparent desire to turn Joe Biden into Donald Trump. He quotes some journalists saying that they miss the drama and points out that this has led them to create drama around Biden just to keep the juices flowing. The egregious coverage of the Afghanistan withdrawal is the best example but they’ve done it in a dozen different ways.

I get the impulse. The Trump administration was a daily assault on the senses, a train wreck you couldn’t look away from. Now it’s frustrating sausage making on a good day and depressing news about the pandemic on a bad one. The intense daily drama of the Trump years has given way to the familiar slog of partisan warfare and it’s tempting to look away. And that’s exactly what many people are doing.

Boehlert writes:

Call it the Trump slump, which followed the Trump bump. Between October 2020 and October 2021, according to Nielsen data, CNN ratings were down 73 percent, MSNBC was down 56 percent, and Fox News had fallen 53 percent, according to the Columbia Journalism Review. The same grim statistics can be found for sagging news sites.  

Certainly traffic here is down significantly, as I expected it would be. Election years always bring more readers and there is a drop off afterwards. This one is more precipitous than usual but I also expected that due to the intense interest last year with both the pandemic and the post election lunacy.

I understand. But I hope that people don’t tune out completely. We have a major crisis on our hands whether people want to deal with it or not and it’s going to require that we remain informed and engaged or the consequences could be disastrous. I’m speaking of the assault on democracy that continues apace all over the country, led by Donald Trump and his henchmen. Just because he isn’t active your twitter feed or on TV everyday shouting over Marine One doesn’t mean he’s gone away.

Here’s an example of what he’s sending out to his tens of millions of followers every day:

If you think this propaganda, endorsed and disseminated by the right wing media, isn’t a threat you need to re-think it.

So, I hope that as depressing as it might be that you’ll stop by here from time to time to get a sense of where this is going. We try to synthesize the news in ways that get to the heart of the matter, remind you of the stakes and hopefully, provide some insight about how to deal with it.

We read everything so you don’t have to. Blogs are an old-fashioned medium now, but they still serve a purpose. We are here every day, following the news cycle from an outsider perspective.

If you’d like to support this site in its mission I would be most grateful if you would hit one of the buttons below or use the address on the sidebar to help us keep the lights on.

And Happy Hollandaise everyone!


Bullies and screamers?

Published by digby on December 20, 2021

Ben Sasse had something to say to Democrats:

“President Biden’s mega-spending bill is dead and Joe Manchin put the nail in the coffin. This should be a reality check to wild-eyed progressives that they are not the mainstream: With a divided country, a 50-50 Senate, and blowout inflation, the American people don’t want to upend this country with nakedly-partisan legislation,” Nebraska Republican Senator Ben Sasse said. 

Sasse said that Build Back Better was “wildly out-of-touch” and praised Manchin for “listening to West Virginians, rather than to bullies and screamers who follow those who disagree into bathrooms and who shut down traffic.”

He’s so right. Those bullies and screamers are real assholes:

It’s Happy Hollandaise time! If you’d like to contribute to the fundraiser, please feel free to use the button below or the address on the sidebar. Thank you so much! cheers — digby


Biden’s agenda at a crossroads

Published by digby on December 20, 2021

Which way will they go?

I expect you’re going to be reading an endless number of hand wringing analysis pieces over the next couple of days about the deeply disappointing decision by West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin to go on “Fox News Sunday” after the Senate had recessed for the holiday and announced his decision to destroy the Democratic agenda — making it even more probable that the Republicans will win in 2022. Merry Christmas.

Now it is understandable why podcaster Charlamagne tha God asked Vice President Kamala Harris the other day which Joe — Biden or Manchin — is the real president. Manchin is powerful enough that he has veto power over the entire legislative agenda and he’s apparently decided to use it to kill Biden’s Build Back Better Bill (BBB). As he said:

I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation. I just can’t. I’ve tried everything humanly possible. I can’t get there. This is a no on this legislation. I have tried everything I know to do. 

Manchin went on to say that he believes the Biden administration should direct all of its attention to “the variant,” although he didn’t explain what exactly he thought they should be doing about it that they have been unable to because they were distracted by their legislative agenda. But then he’s offered up dozens of different and conflicting reasons for his reluctance to support the bill during the entire process, stringing the White House along with vague impressions that he could be seduced, so this latest reasoning was no more convincing than any of them.

Manchin’s always been unhappy about the amount of money being spent, fretting over debt even as his partner in sabotage, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., was the one who nixed tax hikes that would have easily paid for everything. This led to Democrats coming up with the idea of allowing program funding to “sunset” in just a few years on the logic that once enacted nobody would have the nerve to kill them. I have to say I think that’s naive. It may have worked for the Bush tax cuts but that’s just because Democrats are fools. It’s true that their failure to end Obamacare is an example that proves such a case, but I think we have to acknowledge just how close they came to doing it. If not for one stubborn, dying, man with a grudge against Donald Trump it would have happened. And the Republican Party as currently constituted would positively revel in reversing Build Back Better if given the chance because they believe that creating chaos gives them power. (They are not wrong, unfortunately.) And it is wildly optimistic to believe that Democrats will hold on to the Congress and the White House long enough to fully entrench these programs in this polarized electorate.

Smart analysts like American Prospect Executive Editor David Dayen, who argued in the New York Times all the way back in October for simplifying the bill, saw this moment coming. Dayen suggested that many of Build Back Better’s programs were impossibly complicated, bureaucratic and poorly funded in any case and some are downright counter-productive, largely thanks to the relentless demands of Manchin and Sinema who had turned the bill into a mess as everyone tried to figure out ways to accommodate their needs. Dayen wrote:

After grinding an expansive agenda into paste, Democrats should not expect voters to re-elect the pastemakers so that they can sculpt the paste into something useful.

He said “to be successful, not only in this legislation but in revitalizing Joe Biden’s presidency and his party, Mr. Biden must enact permanent, simple, meaningful programs, and connect them to his argument about how government can work again.”

The thrust of Dayen’s political argument was that inefficient, kludgy programs do more harm than good since the public doesn’t get it. Much better to do a few things well and restore the people’s faith in government than try to solve everything at once and do it badly, reinforcing the view that government can’t do anything right.

If the Democrats and the White House decide to give that approach a go and pick just a few programs that Manchin and Sinema have both supported in the past it will no doubt result in some very hard feelings among the various constituencies that will be left out of this round of legislation. It’s a bitter pill to swallow. But this negotiation has almost certainly clarified that having such a small majority makes it extremely difficult to pass anything, particularly when dealing with divas like Manchin and Sinema who are perfectly content to walk away.

To those who say that the Democrats should never have decoupled the infrastructure bill from the BBB bill because that would have been leverage over Manchin, I doubt it would have gone that way. Manchin would just as easily walked away from that as well, particularly since it wouldn’t have been bipartisan which is something he actually does care about.

The media reported that the White House was caught off guard when a Manchin staffer informed them of his decision only a half an hour before the interview was broadcast. He apparently failed to answer a call from the president as well which is more than a little disrespectful under the circumstances. Biden was displeased and signed off on a blistering comment from the White House press secretary Jen Psaki, more or less calling out Manchin for failing to act in good faith.

Some Democratic members of Congress reacted angrily to the news as well. Senator Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., wants the bill to come to the floor so that everyone can see who is voting against all the popular items in the bill. I’m not sure that would accomplish anything. Manchin and Sinema would be thrilled to have a “thumbs down” moment to show their independence. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota called Manchin’s excuses “bullshit.” After all the work both Houses put into this, it’s understandable. Millions of Americans who have been following this saga undoubtedly felt exactly the same way. It’s infuriating.

But maybe they’ll all take a break, come back next year and pick up the pieces. Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wyden came out with a proposal already:

The New York Times reported that the White House is thinking along similar lines. So, perhaps all is not lost. The huge comprehensive deal that Democrats wanted may be dead but that doesn’t mean they can’t pass something substantial and meaningful that will tackle urgent priorities like climate change and drug prices.

If they can get that done, perhaps the American people will regain faith that the government can accomplish some big things — even if they can’t do it all at once.  

It’s Happy Hollandaise time here at at Hullabaloo. If you would like to support the work we do here to keep the lights on for another tumultuous year, I would be most appreciative.Thanks you so much for your generosity. It means the world to me. — digby


Trump’s Christmas lumps

Published by Tom Sullivan on December 20, 2021
Donald Trump as Ebenezer Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol” (deepfake)

Sen. Joe Manchin left a steaming lump of West Virginia coal in Democrats’ Christmas stockings this year. Perhaps the universe will be as generous with the mob-boss-in-residence down in Mar-a-Lago.

The Guardian suggests that lately he’s not having many silent nights:

Donald Trump is increasingly agitated by the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack, according to sources familiar with the matter, and appears anxious he might be implicated in the sprawling inquiry into the insurrection even as he protests his innocence.

The House Jan. 6 investigation has the poor lad unnerved. Mark Meadows betrayed him by releasing documents. Other Trump associates invoked the Fifth Amendment against testifying, and that makes them and him look guilty. Trump previously declared to an Iowa rally, “You see the mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?”

They should have followed Steve Bannon’s lead and ignored congressional subpoenas, Trump tells associates. If Bannon took his lead from Trump, that could in itself be a crime for Trump, couldn’t it?

When Trump sees new developments in the Capitol attack investigation on television, he has started swearing about the negative coverage and bemoaned that the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, was too incompetent to put Republicans on the committee to defend him.

One would say he’s getting sloppy if he were ever not sloppy.

The portrait that emerges from interviews with multiple sources close to Trump, including current and former aides, suggest a former president unmoored and backed into a corner by the rapid escalation in intensity of the committee’s investigation.

A spokesperson for Trump did not respond to requests for comment.

But as Trump struggles to shield himself from the select committee, with public hearings next year and the justice department said to be tracking the investigation, the path ahead is only likely to be more treacherous.

Plus, he is under investigation in New York City, and that one is much further along. When current District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. retires in ten days, his replacement, Alvin Bragg Jr., “plans to personally focus on the high-profile probe into former President Donald Trump’s business practices and may expand the investigative team while keeping at least one senior prosecutor on the case.” So that one is not going away.

For the moment, Trump’s allies are not leaping from the taffrails. The committee has yet to secure documents covered by executive privilege that could directly implicate Trump.

But an unnamed member of the House committee concludes that Team MAGA mounted a multi-pronged effort to overturn the 2020 election: “There was a DoJ strategy, a state legislative strategy, a state election official strategy, the vice-president strategy. And there was the insurrection strategy.”

Trump is not having a merry, little Christmas.

The trouble for Trump – and part of the source of his frustration, the sources said – is his inability, out of office, to wield the far-reaching power of the executive branch to affect the course of the inquiry.

The limited success of strategies he hoped would stymie the committee – ordering aides to defy subpoenas or launching legal challenges to slow-walk the release White House records – has been jarring for Trump.

“I think what he’s finding is that as the ex-president, he has a lot less authority than he did as president. But his playbook doesn’t work if he’s not president,” said Daniel Goldman, former lead counsel in the first House impeachment inquiry into Trump.

If this was a race to file indictments, the safe bet is something coming first from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.

It’s not too late to update your list to Santa.

It’s Happy Hollandaise time here at Hullabaloo. If you’d like to drop a little something in the old Christmas stocking you can do so here: