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Thursday, February 29, 2024

2/29 WAKE-UP CALL: SCOTUS, Shutdown, Senate: Busy Day In D-C


It was a busy day in our nation's capital: Mitch McConnell is hanging up his hat as Republican Senate leader. Congress voted to avert a shutdown. And the Supreme Court ruled on Donald Trump's immunity claims. Here's the rundown:

McConnell's step down: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the longest-serving Senate leader and a colossal figure in Congress, said he is cutting loose from his leadership post in November, telling his colleagues on Wednesday, “One of life’s most underappreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life's next chapter.” McConnell, 82, will finish his current term in the Senate, which is set to end in January 2027.

Supreme Court will hear Trump immunity claims: The high court said it will decide whether former President Donald Trump can be tried for trying to steal the 2020 election, setting an accelerated schedule to hear the case in April while his criminal trial remains delayed.

Shutdown averted – temporarily: Congress has agreed on a short-term spending deal to avert a partial government shutdown, kicking the can down the road once again as lawmakers struggle to reach a consensus on a longer-term deal.


➤TRUMP OFF ILLINOIS BALLOT: An Illinois judge barred former President Donald Trump from the state's Republican presidential primary ballot on Wednesday over his alleged role in the Capitol riot. The decision reignites the battle in Illinois to remove the former president from 2024 ballots. Cook County Circuit Judge Tracie Porter agreed with a group of Illinois voters who argued that Trump should be disqualified for violating a clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Advocates in Illinois – and across the country – have argued that Trump engaged in the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. They say that bars him from serving as president again because a section of the 14th Amendment, enacted after the Civil War, blocks people from office who had engaged in insurrection after previously promising to support the Constitution.

➤JUDGE REJECTS TRUMP REQUEST: A New York appellate judge rejected an emergency request Wednesday from Donald Trump to post a $100 million bond while appealing what he called an “exorbitant and punitive” $454 million fraud judgment against him. State Attorney General Letitia James opposed Trump's request and asked for the former president to have to post the entire judgment, to ensure the state would be paid if he loses his appeal. Judge Anil Singh of the state court’s Appellate Division ruled Trump has to post a bond for the entire judgment and that his three-year prohibition against running a corporation in New York would remain in force. However, he did allow Trump's two adult sons to run the Trump Organization while the appeal is considered, despite the trial imposing a similar prohibition on Eric Trump and Donald Trump, Jr. The business prohibition also bars him from getting loans from financial institutions chartered or registered in the state.

➤HUNTER ADMITS HE WAS  'HIGH OR DRUNK': First son Hunter Biden claimed in congressional testimony Wednesday that he was “high or drunk” when he wrote to a Chinese associate in 2017 that he was “sitting here with my father”  — shortly before the transfer of $5.1 million into Biden family-linked accounts. A readout of the 54-year-old first son’s closed-door impeachment inquiry deposition was provided to numerous news outlets Wednesday evening citing Hunter’s claim that President Biden had nothing to do with the shakedown of Chinese state-linked CEFC China Energy. The readout said “Hunter admitted that he was high or drunk when he sent the ‘sitting here with my father’ WhatsApp message, sent it to the wrong recipient, and is now embarrassed by the message.”


Panhandle On Fire
🔥TEXAS HELL ON EARTH:  The Texas Panhandle is on fire. The second-largest wildfire in state history raged across the region along with several other major blazes Wednesday, prompting evacuations, destroying homes and triggering a temporary shutdown of the nation's primary nuclear weapons facility. Multiple fires burning: The fires started Monday and spread quickly Tuesday as strong winds, dry conditions and unseasonably high temperatures fueled rapid growth. By Wednesday, the largest blaze, the Smokehouse Creek Fire, stretched across 500,000 acres – about 800 square miles – and into neighboring Oklahoma. To the south, the Windy Deuce Fire burned 90,000 acres; 25% of the blaze was contained as of Wednesday afternoon.

➤FROM THE BORDER: FOX News Channel’s Sean Hannity will present an interview with former President Donald Trump on Thursday, February 29th during Hannity (weeknights, 9 PM/ET). Taking place at Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, Texas, the interview will cover the border crisis, the state of the presidential race and news of the day. Additionally, Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) will also join Hannity in Shelby Park to discuss the border.

➤HOPE PREVAILS FOR CEASE-FIRE: The start of Ramadan looms as an informal but urgent deadline to strike an Israel-Hamas cease-fire. The militant group called for mass protests that Israel fears are part of a plan to spread the conflict outside of Gaza during the Islamic holy month, which is set to start around March 10. Israel has said it would launch an offensive against Hamas’s last stronghold in Gaza—the city of Rafah where more than one million Palestinians have taken shelter—if a deal isn’t reached by then.

➤UKRAINE USING SPARE PARTS FOR REPAIRS:  Ukraine is making its own spare parts for Western equipment and cannibalizing other weapons to source vital components. Two years of war mean much of the donated Western gear is destroyed, damaged or in need of new components. Engineers said they haven’t received a steady flow of parts from the West, and if Congress doesn’t approve more aid for Ukraine, the movement of American parts could dry up. At the same time, Russia is using hypersonic missiles against Ukraine, while Washington is years behind Moscow and Beijing in the cutting-edge technology. Silicon Valley venture capitalists are deploying hundreds of millions of dollars, betting they can help the U.S. military catch up.

🍔UPON REVIEW, WENDY'S CAVES: On a mid-February earnings call, the fast-food chain’s new CEO Kirk Tanner had said Wendy’s would “begin testing more enhanced features like dynamic pricing” as early as next year.  To do so, Wendy’s was investing about $20 million to roll out artificial intelligence-enabled digital menu boards in U.S. restaurants, and $10 million to support such efforts globally, he said. The dynamic-pricing detail didn’t catch much attention at the time. But about two weeks later, the headlines started, comparing Wendy’s strategy to Uber. The ride-hailing company is known for its surge-pricing strategy, when prices rise due to heavy demand. 

On social media, people poked fun at the chain and complained about paying sky-high rates at lunchtime for a burger.  Wendy’s, which has been facing sluggish comparable-sales growth in the U.S., scrambled to course-correct. It posted a statement on its website Tuesday saying its dynamic-pricing plan has been misconstrued, and it wouldn’t raise prices at the busiest times. 

🎵UNIVERSAL MUSIC PLAYS HARD BALL WITH TIKTOK:  The world’s largest music company this week required TikTok to take down its songs. TikTok said it started on Monday removing tracks that credit any songwriter from Universal Music Group’s publishing division to ensure they are removed by the end of the month. A top hit can have more than 10 songwriters involved from multiple publishers, and if one of them is signed to Universal, the track must come down. Estimates of the song removals’ impact vary from 20% to 80% of current hits. The companies are fighting over how much TikTok pays Universal to make the label’s song catalog available to one billion-plus social-media users worldwide. TikTokers like to splice music snippets into their dance videos, tutorials and memes; a seconds-long clip of a song on the platform can be as valuable as the entire tune.

🕇COMEDIAN RICHARD LEWIS PASSES: Richard Lewis, the comedian who also starred alongside Larry David in HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm," has died. He was 76. Lewis "passed away peacefully at his home in Los Angeles last night after suffering a heart attack," the actor's publicist, Jeff Abraham, confirmed Wednesday in a statement. Last April, Lewis revealed on social media that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and had also undergone multiple surgeries for other issues over the last three years. "I've had sort of a rocky time," he said, revealing he'd undergone back surgery, shoulder surgery, shoulder replacement surgery and hip replacement surgery.

➤THURSDAY'S WEATHER MAP:






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