Dear Everybody:
The big news today was that the DOJ ONCE AGAIN failed to re-indict NY Attorney General Letitia James. This is the second time they’ve tried after having their case against her collapse because Lindsey Halligan had not been properly appointed as Northern Virginia US Attorney. The judge threw the case out, and the DOJ promptly went to the grand jury last week to return an indictment. That grand jury, in Norfolk, Virginia, refused.
--After the Norfolk grand jury rejected a new indictment, James’s lawyer said, "This should be the end of the case. If they continue, undeterred by a court ruling and a grand jury’s rejection of the charges, it will be a shocking assault on the rule of law and a devastating blow to the integrity of our justice system."
--Nevertheless, they DID try again, going to a grand jury in Alexandria. That grand jury has also refused to return a true bill. Huffington Post called it "a stunning rebuke of the Trump administration’s efforts to prosecute the president’s political opponents."
The other big news was that the US has apparently turned pirate and is taking ships hostage on the high seas. (More on this tomorrow.)
And the OTHER big news was that Trump held his big "affordability rally":
--Trump spoke at a small ballroom at the Mount Airy Casino in Pennsylvania Tuesday night. It holds maybe 200 people. Trump was an hour late.
--The rally was supposed to be about the economy, a "reset" on the whole "affordability" issue, but Trump had trouble staying on topic. He talked for an hour, discussing everything from the Somalis to the guy who shot the National Guard soldiers and of course the election, and saying lots of crazy stuff on every subject. He spoke for an hour.
--Trump: "We won the Electoral College 312 to 226. And by the way, the real vote was much more than this, but we wanted to make it too big to rig."
--Trump on Somalis: "Get them the hell out of here. They hate our country. And she hates our country. And her friends hate our country. And AOC hates our country."
--Trump on the DC shooting suspect: "We’re gonna put him up for the death penalty. Amazing, eh? Only in America. That’s only in America. You know, in one way there’s something beautiful about it."
--Trump: "I would say there’s one country that probably has a stronger border. You know what that is? North Korea."
--Trump: "China has very few wind farms. You know why? Because they’re smart. You know what they do have? A lot of coal...we don’t approve windmills. We have clean, beautiful call. We don’t like things that kill all our birds and that every time you put one up, only the guy that puts it up makes a lot of money. Those guys, what a joke, and they are ugly, you’re right, sir."
And he kept exhibiting signs of his dementia, slurring words and saying bizarre things and calling people by the wrong names:
--Trump on the National Guard soldier who was shot and died: "She was twenty years old. And she was shatnick head, shutting the head. The brain. Shot in the brain. Shot in the head."
--Trump on Karoline Leavitt: "That beautiful face and those lips that don’t stop...pop pop pop... like a little machine gun."
--Trump: "Susie Trump, do you know Susie Trump? (He means Susie Wiles.) She’s the great chief of staff at the--they don’t use the word chief of staff because the Indians got extremely upset because they actually want their name used, they never didn’t want it used..."
--Trump on Dave McCormick: "I know his wife. She’s a beautiful woman. Extremely into the social scene. But respected by everybody. She would have left him if he lost, and I told him that."
--Trump: "Already they are saying better than Lincoln, better than Washington, better than anybody. The best ten months ever in the history of the presidency."
--Trump: "Now we’re gonna do land. Because the land is much easier and it’s even more prevalent."
--Trump: "Bomp...bomp...bomp...bomp bomp bomp."
When he did talk about the economy, he made Susie "Trump" and his other advisers wished he’d kept talking about wind farms:
--He told the audience that the high prices and rising inflation and poor employment numbers were all in their head and kept calling the issue he was supposed to be talking about "a hoax" while at the same time blaming Biden for it:
--Trump: "They gave you the highest inflation in history--and we are giving you--we are bringing those prices down rapidly. Lower prices, bigger paychecks. We’re getting inflation. We’re crushing it.’
--Trump: "Prices are way down. We just had four states. It was just reported that four states had $1.99 a gallon."
Trump: "They said he (Trump) doesn’t realize prices are high. Prices are going down quite substantially. They have a new word. They always have a hoax. The new word is affordability."
--Trump: "Democrats talking about affordability are like Bonnie and Clyde talking about public safety and they are truly the enemy of the working class..."
--Trump: "They just say the election is about affordability. It may very well be...I think it’s about the border."
--Trump: "Now everybody is saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again. Remember the radical left wanted to get rid of Christmas...
--Trump: "Obamacare is a scam."
--Trump: "If you don’t share our values, contribute to our economy, and assimilate into our society, then we don’t want you in our country. We don’t want you."
--A waitress was brought up on stage to support his claims, but she didn’t. She said, "Pretty much everything I make goes toward paying the bills." Trump then told her, "Americans must learn to adjust to a lower standard of living. You can give up certain products. You could give up pencils. Because under the China policy, every child can get 37 pencils. They only need 1 or 2. They don’t need that many. You always need steel. You don’t need 37 dolls for your daughter. 2 or 3 is nice. So we’re doing things right."
--kurious: "There’s nothing more insulting than having billionaire Trump and the many billionaires in his administration tell the common fold how to cut back--when the billionaires are the ones whose self-serving policies are raising the prices of everybody."
The reviews on his speech were terrible:
--Sarah Longwell: "Voters absolutely think this is Trump’s economy. And they think it sucks."
--Salon’s Sophia Tesfaye: "Far from a comeback, his return rally was a flop. While I expected a crowd of a few thousand with the nostalgic sound of MAGA chants echoing off metal bleachers, I turned in to Fox News Tuesday evening to find the President in a conference center ballroom inside a local casino that appeared to hold, generously, 200 people."
--Middle Pillar: "They picked a much smaller venue than usual so he wouldn’t be embarrassed by an empty house."
--Rick Wilson: "Last night at Mount Airy Casino in Pennsylvania, America got a fresh reminder of one of the iron laws of politics...The signs said, ‘Lower Prices Bigger Paychecks,’ but the message was ‘You poors don’t know how good you’ve got it.’ Donald Trump can’t reset the narrative. Donald Trump IS the narrative. And the narrative is a hot mess...the premise was simple enough: that you’re all doing great, and if you don’t feel that way, it’s because the media lies and the Fed is mean to him personally...even among the faithful, he couldn’t convincingly sustain the Big Lie of 2025; standing in front of a lot of people who AREN’T okay, insisting that everything is fine and that if your grocery bill hurts, it’s basically a hoax is not an approach from a rational human."
--Project Lincoln: "This ‘affordability tour’ is nothing but a deep, last ditch effort by Trump to convince Americans into disbelieving their own bank accounts."
--Salon’s Amanda Marcotte: "The polls show that none of this is working. If anything, it’s backfiring. While he was out of office, it was much easier for Trump to sell glittery lies about how rich he could make everyone if only he had the power. Now that he has returned to the White House, people are expecting him to take action. Instead, they are seeing their bills rising, an economic sign that is hard to ignore..."
--Brian Jones: "It was like his nurses let him out for an evening of racism and hatred before checking back into the assisted living facility."
--Larry Sabato said Trump’s speech was "sickening" and "a disgusting display, and proof he’s getting worse by the week."
--Mike Murphy: "A few hours after we discussed...why Trump has cut back rallies so much it was pretty evident at his event today in Pennsylvania just why. Meandering, more confusion and mental weakness than usual. Even a bit, shall we say, low energy. Weaker optics, too. He’s clearly fading."
And they are still talking about his 488-word screed threatening the New York Times that I reported on yesterday:
--Philip Bump: "Every part of this is bonkers. The intro is bonkers. The transition to his health is bonkers. The mention that other Presidents didn’t need cognitive examinations is bonkers. The claim that this screening test is somehow hard is bonkers. The idea that criticism of him is treason is bonkers. All of it."
--figmo: "Can any reasonable, thinking person who is even a little bit politically objective read this and not conclude that Trump is demented? His claims are the exact opposite of reality and clearly demonstrate how far into mental deterioration he’s traveled. THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES IS DERANGED!"
--Richard A.: "A monolithic block of text like this is itself a red flag."
Kristi Noem testified on Capitol Hill today in front of the House Homeland Committee:
--ICE protesters immediately interrupted her opening statement, shouting, "The power of Christ compels you! End deportations! Love thy neighbor!" They had to be forcibly removed from the hearing room.
--Noem: "We have sent a strong message to criminal illegal aliens that we will find you, we will arrest you, and we will deport you."
--Dem Rep Magaziner: "A hardworking man with no criminal record who raised three sons to be Marines--ICE agents tackled him while he was mowing a lawn and imprisoned him. Will you consider him for parole?" Noem: "Everyone in this country illegally has an opportunity to voluntarily go home." Magaziner: "He raised 3 Marines."
--Dem Rep Thanedar: "It is a fact that you ignored federal court orders in March and in May of this year. Do you plan on ignoring federal orders?" Noem: "We always comply with all federal court orders." Thanedar: "I’m sick of your lies."
--Dem Rep Ramirez: "You lied on the record and you lied to members of this committee. You violated court orders by not turning around deportation flights bound for El Salvador where we know that hundreds of people under your leadership reported they were raped, beaten, and nearly died."
--Noem: "We have not deported veterans." At that point the Dems produced a combat veteran by zoom whom the DHS had deported to Korea. (This is not the first time Noem has told a bald-faced lie to Congress, which is AGAINST THE LAW.)
--Ahmed Baba: "This is a truly remarkable moment. Simultaneously debunking Kristi Noem’s lie in real-time and elevating the story of a veteran who was deported under Trump andNoem’s dehumanizing, belligerent deportation policy."
--Lisa Guerrero: "She’s getting absolutely SMOKED. Good."
--Don Moynihan: "In a normal administration this would be a career-ending, weeks-long scandal.
--Dem Rep Magaziner: "You don’t seem to know how to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys. Go after the bad guys. Go after the terrorists. Do not go after veterans, Marines, children, United States citizens."
--Ranking member Bennie Thompson and other Democrats called on her to resign, saying that her tenure had been marked by incompetence, corruption, and other malfeasance.
--She left early, claiming she had a meeting.
--As she left, she was taunted with shouts of "Shame!" and "You are the modern SS and Gestapo!"
--Dem Rep Jared Moskowitz said that the meeting had been canceled and she knew it.
In other ICE/Gestapo news:
--ICE took a six-year old, Yuanxin Zhang, from his father. He has been detained for two weeks.
--ICE illegally broke into a home in Burnsville, Minnesota, without a warrant, searched the entire residence, broke down doors, and detained the entire family, all four of them US citizens.
--When ICE tried to take a guy into custody in Elgin, Illinois, a group of people protested the arrest, so the ICE agents pepper-sprayed them, including small children. There’s video of them spraying it directly in their eyes.
--ICE detained a US citizen and Iraq war veteran and held him in solitary confinement for three days without explanation.
--A Somali woman and US citizen was arrested and detained by ICE for twenty-four hours, when her husband brought her passport card to prove her citizenship. The woman says that during the time she was in detention, the agents mocked her hijab and touched her inappropriately.
--In a ghoulish parody, ICE has taken Christmas photos of themselves in full gear and masks with Santa hats and Christmas lights on their shields and has posted them on the internet.
--In good news, the manager of a Louisiana convenience store locked the Border Patrol out by locking the emergency doors. Among the agents was Bovino, the head of the Border Patrol.
In other news:
--The Financial Times reported that Russia reportedly plotted in 2024 to plant bombs on US-bound flights. (What a great country Trump has chosen to be our ally and best friend!)
--The VA is getting rid of thousands more jobs. Most heavily hit are mental health and suicide prevention.
--The Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to a central Texas’s library removal of 17 books from the public library.
In good news:
--Indiana held out against Trump’s pressure and threats and will NOT redistrict.
--A federal judge threw out a Missouri GOP lawsuit that attempted to stop a referendum on the gerrymandered Congressional map. The group doing the referendum has more than enough signatures to get it on the ballot.
--A federal judge ordered the immediate release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, ruling he was held at El Salvador’s CECOT prison without legal authority.
In Christmas news:
--Former President Obama read to kids at a Chicago library branch while wearing a Santa hat. He asked the kids, "What do you want to be?" One kid said, "I want to be like you." Obama: "Well, you know what? Right now, all I am is old." (I’m with that kid--I want to be like Obama. He is so cool. It kills me every day that he’s not still our president.)
Best comment of the day, from Michael Ian Black: "His (Trump’s) health is bad. His brain is mush. His ego has swollen to the size of a thousand suns. He’s transformed 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue from a dignified seat of American governance to a gold-gilded cuckoo’s nest of his own design. And for some reason, most of the American establishment is still bending over backwards to avoid saying the obvious: The Burger King is cooked."
Keep calm and carry on,
Connie Willis