Democrats' Hail Mary shot

I don't think Democrats have enough time to replace Let's Go Brandon as their 2024 presidential candidate. They could go all authoritarian and surprise me at the national convention, but it's a long shot that Brandon will step aside voluntarily. But I do see a Hail Mary in their near future that can play out in one of two ways.

If Democrat voters do not trust Let's Go Brandon's ability to serve out a term if he wins there's still a way for Democrats to manage that fear among voters.  At the convention they can have Kamala Harris give an amazing, inspiring speech that energizes Democrat voters.  Probably not going to work, given her abysmal popularity ratings.  But there is one other way the same scenario could play out; replace Harris on the ticket with Newsom or Whitmer and pull the same play.

If Democrat voters see a 'robust' VP, they may still opt for the Let's Go Brandon ticket, knowing that Brandon would be gone shortly after he wins, if he can win.  They could invoke the 25th amendment and try to remove Brandon after a few months.  Even with this approach, they are still highly likely to lose, but if they can bring the margins down far enough to stuff ballot boxes, well...

Paradise Papers and the Democrats' Hail Mary claims

The Paradise Papers recently released to the public reveal tax avoidance among the elite and will be poured over for a while revealing new salacious details about who is doing what.  Here's why you should not trust the media to do that for you.

The Paradise Papers had some link between Wilbur Ross, president Trump's Commerce Secretary and Russia.  The media will be quick to yell collusion.  But it isn't really;

Ross is reportedly a major shareholder in an ocean freight company called Navigator, which has contracted more than $68 million through transactions with Russian energy group Sibur since 2014.

In turn, Sibur's biggest shareholders include Putin-ally Leonid Mikhelson, who controls another energy company sanctioned by the US Treasury for its close ties to the Russian president.

Sibur's two other owners include Gennady Timchenko, who is also sanctioned by the US government for his ties to Putin, and Kirill Shamalov, who is married to Putin's youngest daughter.

In addition to Ross, Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that over a dozen Trump advisers, cabinet members and campaign donors appear in the leaked data.

So Ross is a shareholder in a freight company that deals with a Russian energy company  who has as a major shareholder an ally of Putin and two other owners who are also closely tied to Putin. That's a far cry from collusion.  The two companies have worked together.  Big deal. Companies do business with other companies and I bet far more often than not, they do not do extensive background checks of each others' major shareholders.  Why? Because when an energy company needs something transported, the transport companies are probably only interested in how much money they can make transporting stuff for their potential customer.

Is it a failure of due diligence by Navigator of a possibly sanctioned company?  Possibly. Is that Wilbur Ross' fault? Likely not. He probably didn't know any of the details at all.  

Furthermore, if he is the worst example in the lot being put forward, that doesn't say much for any other Trump team members being worthy of further investigation. 

Democrats nevertheless are arguing that the GOP tax bill should be halted.  That's political opportunism and a straw man argument against the tax reform / tax cuts bill. It's pretty much a Hail Mary argument against tax cuts designed to bringing billions of dollars back into the American economy.  It won't work.

Jeb Bush pulls a Hail Mary on SCOTUS

If Jeb Bush stands any chance of winning over grassroots conservatives he's got to get the Supreme Court nominations talking points exactly right.  I'm not my dad, I'm not my brother.  I'll nominate real conservative justices.  But this is not the 30 seconds left in the 4th quarter Hail Mary.  It's not even a 1st quarter Hail Mary.  This is still the pregame warm ups.  What gives?

Jeb Bush may be panicking already.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has tried to put some distance between himself and his famous family’s history of judicial nominations, saying he would look only at potential picks who have a “proven record” rather than bowing to political considerations.

He said past presidents — whom he didn’t name, but the past two Republicans in the White House were his father and his brother — have picked people “that don’t have a proven record” because they’ve been too worried about facing an increasingly bloody Senate confirmation process.

“They wander, and you go, ‘How could that be?’” Mr. Bush said at a town hall meeting this month in Keene, New Hampshire.

Firstly, he's not wrong. But distancing himself from family this early just seems a little bit desperate. He seems worried. He should be worried. But he should not be showing it this obviously.

What to look for in CNN's GOP debate tonight

CNN is hosting another in a series of seemingly endless GOP primary debates tonight.  The topic: foreign policy and national security.  This will be the second foreign policy debate, and it provides candidates one more opportunity to make an impression on voters for better or worse.  There's two things I'd expect to see in the debate tonight.