P.M. Carpenter

Why is government dysfunction accepted as "the new normal"?

As related by novelist and essayist David Foster Wallace, TV news crews covering John McCain's 2000 presidential campaign called them the Twelve Monkeys: "the most elite and least popular pencils in the McCain press corps," the "dozen marquee journalists and political-analysis guys from the really important papers" who "never smoke or drink, and always move in a pack, and always cut to the front of every scrum."

Perhaps the monkiest of them all was The New York Times' Peter Baker, although he's long since been elevated to a kind of sedentary, press-anchor role in which once a week he sits at his word processor and Thinks Big Thoughts. No more day-to-day elbowing to get to the front of every scrum for Mr. Baker, no sir. These days he reclines and soaks up the divergent dispatches from the front, whereupon he pieces together the complex puzzle of American politics — which then reveals the famed Big Picture.       

Baker's latest communiqué: "The country has grown accustomed to chaos in the capital. Dysfunction is the new normal.... Government shutdowns are a modern phenomenon.... The seismic change came in late 1995 and early 1996, when House Republicans set off back-to-back shutdowns during a budget fight with President Bill Clinton.... What made this prospective shutdown different from those that came before was that it was less a fight between Democrats and Republicans than a fight between Republicans and Republicans."

Then, from Baker, comes this observation: "Yet as absorbed as Washington was by the game of political chicken, there has not been much of a popular uprising." This logically follows, since "the country has grown accustomed to chaos in the capital." The larger point, however — or rather the problem I have with Baker's assertion — is that his "yet" should have been "because." Because of the new, fratricidal game of Republicans vs. Republicans there has been no popular uprising. 

Inadvertently, Baker offers the reason why this was the case. A YouGov poll, he writes, "showed that 29 percent of Americans blamed House Republicans for the standoff." That compared with 27 percent who blamed either House Democrats or President Biden, and "nearly a third considered everyone equally at fault." In other words, roughly 60 percent of those surveyed misplaced the blame. 

Why was that so? The "nearly a third" who opted for the lazy "both sides" argument did so because they were too indifferent to political events to seek the right and relevant answer, and the 27 percent who blamed House Democrats or President Biden were, of course, hyperpartisan Republicans. Less than a third of those surveyed grasped reality and blamed the conspicuously blamable party.

Explained more pointedly and from a different angle: Because the imminent shutdown was a game of congressional Republicans vs. congressional Republicans, Republicans at large were happy to remain mum. Nothing to see here, folks. This deliberate ignorance then spilled over into the non-hyperpartisan crowd. Put in yet another and probably the most accurate way, these days only the (usually) chronically irritable, habitually indignant and perpetually enraged — Republicans at large — are capable of fomenting popular uprisings.

Partially reinforcing my hypothesis that only Republicans are able to outrage — to raise up — the country is political scientist David McLennan of Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C.: "There is no demographic group where the majority of people think things are going well in the country. Partisans, Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated voters all think things are going poorly." McLennan has a name for this: "the contagion effect."

Yet McClellan misidentifies the contagion's source. In Baker's words, the analyst sees "the cascade of once-rare eruptions in Washington — shutdown, impeachment, criminal trials, internal revolt" — as having "fed into a broader sense of disenchantment with the direction of the country." But whence the cascade of eruptions now so commonplace in politics? Republicans. It is they causing the disenchantment, not the disenchantment causing the eruptions.  

As another analyst told Baker: "Our expectations have plummeted, and we have become dangerously numb to the failures of our government." That would be failures planned and failures intentionally executed. These partisan misadventures have sclerotically diseased the thinking of the American body politic. The broadly known source, the origin, the genesis of the Great American Morbidity was singled out 11 years ago in a scholarly way by the Brookings Institution's Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein: "Let's Just Say It: The Republicans Are the Problem."

That, Mr. Baker, better explains the root of your column's headline, "To Many Americans, Government Dysfunction Is the New Normal." 

It's that time

For nearly two decades on this site I have accentuated financial pleas in the month of October. I'm like a squirrel. A big push in fall helps to get through winter. Well, it's almost October, so here I am, asking for your support. Again. I know these aren't your favorite posts. They aren't mine, either. But they're the most important posts. Because without my asking and without your consequent help, this site would not exist for your reading — seven days a week. So please contribute whatever you can, comfortably, today. Just go to the Make A Donation button in the sidebar. Your assistance is greatly appreciated. My very best, —P.M.   

McCarthy finally asked for the obvious help available

Earlier this week I made the dubious prediction that Speaker McCarthy would seek Democrats' help in passing a continuing resolution. "McCarthy will need to make a snap decision before the government's funding expires this weekend," I wrote on Tuesday. "I'm betting he decides to hook up with the Democrats."

By this morning I had given up. Still no movement in the House, not even a rumor of Democratic help. 

So, having believed I erred earlier in my prediction, I erred again this morning, mistakenly conceding that my prediction was wrong. I said I wrote what I wrote earlier this week "clearly while suffering from a psychotic break." I thought "Kevin would indeed take the helm. Just as clearly, he won't." 

But, shockingly, he did, at least according to The Washington Post: "Unable to keep the government open, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Republicans are now asking Democrats to pass their bill to keep the government open."

The NY Times reports the same: "Republicans and Democrats backed a last-ditch proposal hastily put forward by Speaker Kevin McCarthy."

Having acceded to McCarthy's request, Democrats passed the CR in a vote of 335-91. The bill, now headed to the Senate, funds the government for 45 days. A big downside and possible trouble in the Senate, though — no aid for Ukraine.  

Anyway, credit to McCarthy for risking his dream job. I thought he would, then I thought he wouldn't, and then he did. Doing the right thing, even in part, never comes easily to a Republican. 

If at fifth you don't succeed ...

... or sixth, or seventh, just try again.  

Such is the g-g-g-governing philosophy of Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who last night suggested that next time — "next" being the charm — he may try a "clean" continuing resolution.

This one would screw desperate Ukrainians battling Russian hegemony in addition to the GOP's customary go-to: screwing poor children and their desperate young mothers.    

"I think" — McCarthy's first mistake, and for the umpteenth time — "if we had a clean one without Ukraine on it we could probably be able to move that through," said the speaker after a full caucus chitchat last night.

He added: "I think [there he goes again] if the Senate puts Ukraine on there and focuses Ukraine over America, I think that could cause real problems."

Well there we get at the heart of the matter. Things have been working smoothly over in Kevin's department, the House, but we can never rely on that doggone Senate, stuffed as it is with villainous troublemakers. 

But what, exactly, does "focusing" on Ukraine look like? It closely resembles an expense of $6.15 billion, with $4.5 billion going to the Defense Department and $1.65 billion to State for Ukraine's defense. (President Biden had requested nearly $10 billion.)

For fiscal 2023, the entire federal budget entailed an expense of $5.8 trillion. So the tiny sliver marked up for Ukraine is too minuscule for my pocket calculator to comprehend.

Meanwhile, reports The Hill, "other Republicans ... said lawmakers are still exploring GOP-only possibilities." That, despite the looming reality that only with Democratic votes can a CR get through the House.

McCarthy should be leading that particular charge, since sooner or later but probably sooner he's going to lose his job anyway. (Earlier this week, and clearly while suffering from a psychotic break, I predicted that Kevin would indeed take the helm. Just as clearly, he won't.)         

Hence "top Democrats are calling on centrist House Republicans to team up with them to keep the government open," says NBC News. This could be done via a straightforward discharge petition, for which, only six Republicans are needed. But GOP takers are scarce — and for a head-scratching reason.

"That would require breaking with Speaker Kevin McCarthy," observes NBC. Yes? And? This is a problem? That would be like breaking with Benito Mussolini on 27 April 1945.

Said Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle yesterday: "The irony is the Republican members who are the most endangered in November [2024] are the ones who are just MIA right now." 

They're a strange bunch — stranger, even, than their vastly imperiled speaker. 

America's tale of two worlds

Very soon, because of a really stupid, utterly unnecessary government shutdown:

* "The government [will] not be able to provide some poor families with child care, nutrition assistance, housing vouchers or college financial aid."

* "Roughly 10,000 children [will] lose access to child care starting in October as a result of disruptions to Head Start.... Some of these child care centers likely [will] shutter."

* "Federal agencies in recent days have signaled that they [will] have to dial back [support for food stamps and other assistance] after October."

* "Food-and-vegetable benefit for women, infants and children known as WIC [will] only be able to sustain its operations for a few days."

What are those who caused the shutdown busy with? 

They're either "plotting an attempt to remove Kevin McCarthy as House speaker as early as next week," or they're holding lengthy hearings at which their own witnesses refute the urgency of the idiotic matter at hand. 

They are the $174,000-per-member Republican Party — members who dine at swanky Washington, D.C. steakhouses. 

So no rush on that food-stamp thing. Plus Waterman's Chophouse in Silver Spring, Maryland has plenty of fresh, nutritious vegetables. So again, not to worry. 

Trump's graciousness

I can think of no nationally prominent politician who would neglect or in any way delay the posting of condolences to the surviving family of a five-term U.S. senator, whether friend or foe ...

except Donald Trump.

On his own site of Truth Social he taken care, however, to leave this post at the top:

"Trump is a phenomenon like nobody I’ve ever seen!" Newt Gingrich on The Ingraham Angle. Thank you Newt, but couldn’t you be just a little bit more praiseworthy???

I can only faintly wait for the day when I rush to post something other than condolences once Trump mercifully croaks.

The spectre of a Brownshirted future

Win It Back, the Club for Growth's super PAC, has spent a couple million dollars in South Carolina and twice that in Iowa on television ads aiming to weaken Trump's primary support. The results have been Nietzschean; what hasn't killed him has only made him stronger.  

The PAC blasted at Republican voters a veritable fusillade of podium-pounding sermonettes against the frontrunner, whom the Club regards as insufficiently conservative. The ads attacked Trump on his "handling of the pandemic, promotion of vaccines, praise of Dr. Fauci, insane government spending, failure to build the wall, recent attacks on pro-life legislation, refusal to fight woke issues, openness to gun control, and many" other issues.

"All attempts to undermine his conservative credentials ... were ineffective," wrote the PAC yesterday in a memo to donors. No matter how "objectionable" most Republicans might find Trump's position on any key topic, "they find a way to rationalize and dismiss it." An ad criticizing Trump on his pandemic-handling, which the PAC considered its best creative effort, actually improved "Trump’s ballot support by four points," wrote the exasperated folks at Win It Back. 

One subject on which the conservative group has aired nothing: Jan. 6. The PAC produced an ad showing "Trump as an instigator of political violence or as a threat to democracy," but the tested focus group was favorable to it. Like the happily received pandemic ad, Win It Back "found that the ... [J6] ad helped Mr. Trump with the Republican voters." 

The PAC's finding aligned with the sentiment of a recent David Frum tweet: "Republican primary voters don't care about policy. What they want is a proven record of violent sedition, sexual assault, and financial fraud." In an online comment, I responded that Frum's tweet "is polemical but perfectly accurate. For years now I — and many others — have referred to Trump's base as neofascist, as Trump is, because he [successfully] peddles 'violent sedition' to the rabble, just as Hitler did."

This assessment, I added, is "not hyperbole" and "it's not hysterical. It's reality." Going Frum one better in the polemics department, I also added that "I once wondered what it would have been like to live in Germany, 1923-1933. I no longer have to wonder." Granted, that assessment does contain some hyperbole and more than a little hysteria. But is it justified as a reasonable polemic?

In 2021 we witnessed an American "putsch" roughly equal in number — about 2,000 seditionists — to Hitler's 1923 misadventure. Jan. 6 was a day once unthinkable, even unimaginable, in its violence. God's chosen, exceptional people just don't do that sort of thing. Since then, physical violence has come at a minimum; the nation has suffered no Brownshirts ghoulishly stalking the streets like the savage tribes they once were.

But with that potential atop the empirical violence of Jan. 6, I offer this bookkeeping of barbarity from The Bulwark's Mona Charen: "In the first year of Trump’ tenure, threats against members of Congress quadrupled from fewer than 900 to 3,930. Threats continued to rise throughout the Trump presidency, more than doubling by 2020. After January 6th, the Capitol Police estimated that there were more than 10,000 threats of violence or death against members."

These are the threats against members of Congress only. Absent is the numerical terror being leveled at state and federal prosecutors, judges, the FBI, political commentators, straight-news journalists, media organs, election workers — virtually anyone actively or merely perceivedly opposed to the great and powerful don, small-d intentional. Tens of thousands more threats, for sure. 

I'm skeptical that they'll materialize into rampant physical violence before November 2024. The mob seems calmly persuaded that the Orange Blight has the election wrapped up. Should "it" lose the election, however — and there's a good chance he will — all skeptical bets are off. Given Trump's inevitable and even louder squalls of rigged election! and voter fraud! the odds are at least as good that we'll see Brownshirted, J6-like violence throughout the republic.     

Living with just that anticipatory thought makes life seem like Germanic life, circa 1930. After years of Trump and Trumpism I already feel much as German author Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen did, in Diary of a Man in Despair, 1936: 

"I suffocate in the knowledge that I am a prisoner of a horde of vicious apes, and I rack my brains over the perpetual riddle of how this same people which so jealously watched over its rights a few years ago can have sunk into this stupor, in which it not only allows itself to be dominated by the street-corner idlers of yesterday, but actually, height of shame, is incapable any longer of perceiving its shame for the shame that it is."  

Emphasis original. Reality, ours.

A night at Republicans' operatic circus, and Trump goes full Mussolini

The GOP presidential debate indeed resembled a Marx Brothers movie, but seemed even more like A Night to Remember, the 1958 British film on the RMS Titanic disaster. Cable's cancelation and providential intervention prevented my viewing it, thus here I rely on press reports foisted on the poor schmucks forced to cover it.  

The debate's most telling summary came from one of its participants, Ron DeSantis, who told Sean Hannity afterward: "If I was at home watching that, I would have changed the channel." The NY Times trio assigned to barf up an article on "that" seemed to agree, calling it a "meandering and at times indecipherable debate" — "120 minutes of cross-talk, unanswered questions, prepackaged comebacks and nary a word mentioning the heavy favorite’s legal jeopardy."

One would think that when the absent-from-stage, leading Republican candidate is facing 91 criminal counts wrapped in two state and two federal indictments, at least one of his competitors might want to mention this. It sounds kinda germane, even important. Yet not only did no "debate" participants bring up the subject, neither did the moderators, Fox Business Network host Stuart Varney and Fox News host Dana Perino. (I'll cut Perino some slack. She may not have known about Trump's indictments, having once confessed she didn't know what the Cuban Missile Crisis was.) 

Silence, however, was perhaps the better part of valor. When the show's contestants did speak, one wished they hadn't. Or so I read. Chris Christie had three years to think of a bone-piercing epithet for Trump, and the best he could come up with was "Donald Duck." Vivek Ramaswamy was last month's Wunderkind for "[drawing] outsize attention by shredding his opponents with personal attacks," while last night he transfigured into a Miss Manners Supermaam "who was chastising his competitors for attacking one another."

Credit, though, to Nikki Haley, who in one exchange with Vacuous Vivek revealed to the nation: "Every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber." For my money, that topped the "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy" dig from Lloyd Bentsen to Dan Quayle. Speaking of that exceedingly rare phenomenon, Republican honesty, the Times also reported that a Mike Pence super PAC (yes, there is one) sent a pre-debate memo to donors that read: "This race needs to be shaken up, and soon." Remarked the Times: "The race seemed barely stirred." Nevertheless, it plunged tumultuously into historical oblivion. 

Yet historically memorable, for sure, was Donald Trump's evening performance — even if most of the viewing electorate, or the press, for that matter, didn't quite grasp  its sinister implications. Speaking in support of unions at a nonunion factory, he unveiled a gauzy Weltanschauung for his second term — something of a clarification of his National Socialist, or Italian Fascist, intentions.

In a word — Corporatism, a governing ideology loosely embraced by Adolf Hitler and, more explicitly, Benito Mussolini. Conceptually, under corporatism a nation's economy is directed by industry, labor and government whose representatives settle conflicts through negotiation. But of course within the larger structure of an autocracy — not all corporatist societies have been autocratic — the reigning authoritarian has the last, enforceable word.

As The Washington Post described what in effect was Trump's eulogy for a market economy, he "portray[ed] the next election as a choice between certain doom for the auto industry or utopian-sounding industrial growth built on trade restrictions, fossil fuels and even expropriation of foreign assets." It's to be expected that a demagogue who "projects" his opposition as a collection of communists and fascists should sound very much like both.

History's fascistic experiments with corporatism were, shall we say, less than ideal, as is any government experiment based on coercion masquerading as a kind of special-interest pluralism. Germany's "utopia" lasted 12 brutal years; Italy's suffered through more than 20. Their economies certainly cannot be compared to that of contemporary America's, but the conceptual approach would be the same. Last night, Trump characterized it as "a vision for a revival of economic nationalism."  

Addressing a friendly audience nationalistically chanting USA! USA!, Trump swaddled the new, coming economy in his familiar fabrics of racism, xenophobia, expertise-bashing and historical revisionism. "The Wall Street predators [Jewish bankers], the Chinese cheaters [the Yellow Peril] and the corrupt politicians [informed, experienced lawmakers] have hurt you [the noble common man]. I will make you better.

"For years, foreign nations have looted and plundered your hopes [Versaille Treaty], your dreams and your heritage [the honorable Confederacy ], and now they’re going to pay for what they have stolen [retribution for Versailles] and what they have done to you, my friends. We’re going to take their money. We’re going to take their factories [Stalinist fascism]. We’re going to rebuild the industrial bedrock of this country" — as envisioned, via Blut und Boden, blood and soil.

"It will be fueled by American energy. It will be sourced by American suppliers. It will be sculpted from American iron, aluminum and steel, and it will be built by highly skilled American hands and high wage American labor [in happy cooperation with industrial leaders and government trade policymakers]." And naturally with all the swiftness of the Führer principle and every revolutionary fascist movement, "We’ll do it first day in office." (By 2018, nearly 1,800 factories had vanished since Trump's first day in office. Thousands of manufacturing jobs were then erased during his final year because of his gross mismanagement of the covid crisis. Not falsche Nachrichten.)

Subtlety and nuance are scarcely Trump's forte, but his speechwriter excels at both. Imbued in his rhetoric last night were numerous signals of a coming New Order, mere twists on a couple old ones. As his noncompetitors were about to gouge and dig at each other while ignoring the gravely ominous signals he has already sent, he went about the business of outlining an authoritarian approach to the nation's economy in the guise of cordial, subordinate partnerships.

Be happy in your work! ... or else.     

The neglected many

Much weighty commentary is being heaved on a New York judge's staggeringly expected ruling that Trump has been running a fraudulent enterprise. The judge also ruled that snow is white, the pope is Catholic, and Albert Einstein was really smart.

But let's think of the children.

Astonishing, dumbfounding polling results

The Atlantic's Tom Nichols wrote yesterday that "the immediate problem America faces is that it no longer has a center-right party that represents traditional conservatism, or even respects basic constitutional principles such as the rule of law."

Well, yes and no. According to the latest NBC News poll (B+), the immediate problem America faces is that it no longer has an electorate that understands what "traditional conservatism" is, and it sure as hell fails to grasp which party respects basic constitutional principles such as the rule of law.

Hie thee to the 5th and 7th lines of the poll's findings. We'll get to the third in a moment.

Respecting the rule of law is a fundament of "protecting our constitutional rights." Turning the proposition around, all rights are based in law. There is no distinction. And yet the party that has consistently opposed the rule of law — including its majority support of a presidential candidate who believes the Constitution should, from time to time, be set aside — leads the constitutionally respectful party by 8 points, 43%-35%.  

"Protecting democracy" serves our constitutional right of self-governance. Here the party that has acted unfaithfully is tied, 37%-36%, with the party that carries both democracy's name and its principles.   

Ventured one of the pollsters: "[The] thing that is maybe not expected is these phrases: 'protecting our constitutional rights' and 'protecting democracy.' These are things where overall the electorate thinks Republicans are more focused and would do a better job than Democrats." 

"Maybe not expected." Translation: We were flattened with near disbelief when we learned the electorate is insanely, cretinously assbackward in assessing which party is faithful to the U.S. Constitution and American democracy and which is approaching the National Socialist stage of 1933.

And "dealing with the economy." By an eye-popping margin of 21 points, 49%-28%, the electorate sides with the party that has bought us economic destruction twice since 2007; the party that still hustles the "traditionally conservative," widely discredited trickle-down slop that does immense injury to the middle class, line #3. 

The electorate isn't merely out to lunch. It's on another planet. 

Biden's age? Another number - 3 - has his campaign more worried.

Although President Biden's age has been the main topic of public discussion about his reelection efforts, the White House has another, more worrying concern:

Whether it's the academic Cornel West [or] a yet-to-be-named standard-bearer for the group "No Labels"..., third-party hopefuls have become the chief internal worry in Biden world, according to more than a half-dozen people who are in regular contact with the White House.

"It’s pretty f---ing concerning," said a person familiar with White House discussions about the matter....

The problem is also twofold for Biden.... On one political flank, he faces a well-funded effort by the No Labels group to attract moderate voters. On the other side, West could cut into his base — with both Black voters and some liberal white voters — even if only a little bit.

The history of Green Party nominees vs. the Democrat is not a happy one. Jill Stein drained critical votes from Hillary Clinton, and the Floridian damage Ralph Nader did to Al Gore still hurts — especially the families who lost loved ones in Iraq, where Gore would have never taken them. Now West is threatening a repeat of the 2016 and 2000 calamities.

Nader, however, is refusing to double down on his folly. He opposes West's Green Party run, since Trump is the only alternative to Biden. (Really, Ralph? You're only 23 years slow on the uptake.)  

On a second front, as of mid-August No Labels had won ballot access in North Carolina, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas,  Colorado, Florida, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota and Utah. Several of these states could go either way.

No Labels has yet to "nominate" a presidential contender, and it says "it would stand down if there’s no clear path to victory next year." But the group has a nasty habit of claiming clear paths where there aren't any. And there's the danger of Sen. Joe Manchin wanting to stay "relevant," given that his senatorial reelection prospects in West Virginia are bleak.  

As for West, he says "We do what we have to do to serve poor and working people!" How electing a George W. or reelecting a Trump serves anyone outside plutocracy's circles is an eternal mystery of ultraprogressivise presidential campaigns.

A prediction about McCarthy

From NBC News (while its still broadcasting):

"Kevin McCarthy faces an unenviable choice this week: keep his job as speaker, or team up with Democrats to keep the government from shutting down.

"Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and other conservative hard-liners are threatening to overthrow McCarthy, R-Calif., if he works with Democrats to pass a short-term, stopgap measure to keep the government open."

(What I'm about to write presupposes that Kevin McCarthy has a rationality gene buried somewhere, and still struggling to survive, in his Bakersfield DNA. If I have misdiagnosed his genome, strike this.)  

Should the speaker refuse to work with the Dems and the government shuts down and remains shut down for some ungodly length of time, which, for sure, would stiffen Matt and make Marge moist, the odds of his losing the speakership would be roughly the same as if he strikes a deal with the loathsome opposition.

Empirically, voters have blamed the GOP for its shutdowns, which if repeated (and there is little reason to believe it would not) would likely cost Kevin his majority in the House and therefore his job. Hence a shutdown is for the speaker as dangerous as the lunatic hard right.

First he'll attempt caving into the loonies with individual votes on appropriation bills for the departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security and Agriculture. Each bill harbors severe budget cuts, which McCarthy hopes will pacify the loonies enough they'll then support a CR, so that the slashing game can go on.  

The prospect for this tactic is gloomy. Thus McCarthy will need to make a snap decision before the government's funding expires this weekend.

I'm betting he decides to hook up with the Democrats. In addition to forestalling a ruinous shutdown, at some point he must also demonstrate that he's not a wholly owned subsidiary of the far right's Nihilism Inc. This time is as good as any. In fact, it's ideal.

But, see: parenthetical caveat.     

***

Here are just some of the cuts with which McCarthy is so far appeasing the hard right:

"Cutting housing subsidies for the poor by 33 percent as soaring rents drive a national affordability crisis. Forcing more than 1 million women and children onto the waitlist of a nutritional assistance program for poor mothers with young children. Reducing federal spending on home heating assistance for low-income families by more than 70 percent with energy prices high heading into the winter months." (WaPo)

A Borowitz satire that turned real

This actually happened — the accidental fact, that is.

Sunday, Fox News' Brian Kilmeade asked, to his regret, former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko about former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin's allegation that then-Vice President Biden had him fired "because I was investigating Burisma."

Is that why Shokin got fired? asked Kilmeade. Said Poroshenko, "This is a completely crazy person. There is something wrong with him."  

Poroshenko went on to essentially ask Fox News to stop using Shokin — who "plays a very dirty game" — as an election-interfering weapon against our sitting president, since it "undermines" America's "bipartisan support" for Ukraine. 

The Kilmeade-Poroshenko comedy clash starts at 03:30.

In N.H., Haley jumps into 2nd place, DeSantis sinks, and Trump has troubles

A Saint Anselm College poll of likely voters in New Hampshire's Republican presidential primary shows Trump, unsurprisingly, in the lead, with 45% of the vote. Perhaps surprising (perhaps not) is that Nikki Haley has overshadowed Ron DeSantis; she rings in with 15%, while the Florida governor stands at only 11% — all of one point ahead of the widely Republican-detested Chris Christie.

DeSantis has dropped nearly 20 points since March. The more he campaigns, the farther behind he becomes — a whole new approach to retail politics.

Furthermore, only 11% or 12% of voters with a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Trump — take your pick — choose DeSantis, "suggesting that he doesn’t appeal to either group strongly enough to have maintained his early status as Trump’s strongest challenger," write the pollsters.

The other significant finding abut Haley is that "she has room to grow her support," since she is generally liked. "She carries a 37-point net positive favorability (65%-28%), second only to South Carolina Senator Tim Scott (+51%)." Scott is liked but dull as hell.

The survey's overall good news for Trump is that the field is fractured, thus preventing any one candidate to reap the total anti-Trump vote. The overall bad news for Trump is also that the field is fractured.  

Observes the executive director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, Neil Levesque: "A fractured field means the eventual Republican nominee will have to work to consolidate their support against President Joe Biden." Only three-fourths of those surveyed said they would vote for Trump against Biden.

Adds Levesque: "This reflects a deep polarization in the primary electorate between supporters and detractors of Trump." And the polarization is likely to exacerbate as Trump perp walks from courtroom to courtroom and continues blathering about wanting to execute a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.   

Even in GOP bizarro world, there are limits.

The debaters will blow it, again

Qualifying for tomorrow night's internecine playdate are Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Chris Christie and, somehow, Doug Burgum. 

Naturally, the sanest of GOP presidential candidates, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, failed to make the cut.

Trump will be rabidly foaming and counterprogramming at a rabid Michigan rally.

Only four candidates have so far qualified for November's debate in Miami, though only three of the losers will appear: DeSantis, Ramaswamy and Haley. Trump has checked out of all future GOP debates.

Producer and author David Rothkopf notes that the most relevant questions will not be asked at tomorrow night's debate: "Do you support a president who threatens his critics with death? Do you support a president who seeks to silence freedom of speech in America? Isn’t it long past time to acknowledge the threat Donald Trump represents?" 

Call them unasked rhetorical questions which, if asked, would go unanswered. The irony is that an honest answer to any of the three questions would likely put the interlocutor in a leading position for the GOP presidential nomination in 2028.

Beginning in 2025, after Trump just as likely blows up the party in'24, an internal scramble will commence to distance the GOP far from Trumpism. Next year will be the third major blow to the Republican Party: the partisan disasters of 2020, 2022 and President Biden's reelection.

The neofascistic fringe will never give up. But Republicans who prefer winning elections to strutting ultra-authoritarian ideology will pull in the reins. And this year's candidate who in 2028 can honestly say that he or she warned against Trumpian excesses back in '24 will be sitting pretty.        

What they'll do instead is disingenuously claim they warned against Trump and his ism. Because they're cowards.

Who doesn't love this stuff?

A few of the winners and runners-up in this year’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition, run by Royal Observatory Greenwich.