The Jewish Daily Forward, the same news outlet that broke the story that Rep. George Santos (R-NY) lied about his heritage, has now seemingly confirmed another suspected Santos fib — that his mother was in the vicinity of World Trade Center on 9/11 and survived the attack.

I say all the following not for a moment discounting the threat Donald Trump continues to be to the American republic. But since the announcement of his reelection bid, immediately after a discrediting electoral defeat more than two months ago, he’s seemed less a swaggering warlord planning his return than a diminishing voice less and less relevant to the political happenings of the day. His claims and attacks become more vitriolic as his volume gets turned lower and lower.

Just this week he launched a broadside against white evangelicals, the most loyal and militant portion of his political base. They were “disloyal,” he said, and he blamed some of the 2022 reverses on them: “I thought they could’ve fought much harder during the election, the ’22 election.” This after an earlier interview where he blamed no-exceptions abortion bans for the 2022 defeats. This is angry desperation, not any ability to read the room.

Bernalillo County (New Mexico) District Attorney Sam Bregman, on the arrest of Solomon Pena in connection with the shootings at the homes and offices of Democratic officials: “We believe we have the evidence to prosecute this individual who really was as the chief said last night, the mastermind of trying to strike fear in the hearts and minds of elected officials because he didn’t like the outcome of an election. And that is just unacceptable. And we’ll do everything we can to bring them to justice and make sure that they are brought to justice.” Bregman appeared with Kristen Welker on Meet the Press Now.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) told Davos attendees yesterday that she and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) had been vindicated in their decision to protect the filibuster last year, even going so far as to share an onstage high five about it.

Sinema also argued that while the January 6 attack was a source of “concern and fear for every patriotic American,” Democrats had overreacted to it and politicized it.

There’s now no shortage of George Santos stories — his various criminal exploits, scams, secret identities, non-existent jobs. But I read a story this evening that made me wonder if I’m living in a simulation and whether any of this can be true. The latest expose reveals that Santos once used his sham pet charity — Friends of Pets United — to set up a GoFundMe for a dog who had a tumor and needed expensive surgery. The dog’s owner, a disabled vet, didn’t have the money for the surgery for his service dog, Sapphire. A veterinarian pointed Osthoff toward Santos’s charity figuring they might be able to help with the costs. So Santos sets up a GoFundMe for Sapphire’s surgery. It raises $3,000 for the charity. Then Santos disappears with the money and the dog dies.

Ever since Kevin McCarthy was narrowly elected speaker in the wee hours of the morning after a historic 15 rounds of voting, there’ve been reports that the new speaker had to more or less sell his soul and offer up his first born to the MAGA hardliners in exchange for the gavel.

Don’t miss this new piece by Josh Kovensky and Hunter Walker on the sidecar political group run by Santos’ sister, Tiffany Devolder. A lot of it is the standard mix of shady spending, unpaid bills, inveterate weasels and various appearances by people George Santos new from the Ponzi scheme job. But most interesting to me is that way the group was used to create the myth of Santos as a major Long Island GOP power player and kingmaker.

We reported earlier this month about a number of shootings at the homes and offices of Democratic lawmakers in the Albuquerque region over the course of December and early January. Now Albuquerque Police Department has arrested Solomon Pena, a unsuccessful state house candidate in 2022, for the shootings.

From the Albuquerque Journal …

Over the last couple days I’ve read a dozen or more articles and newsletter briefs which describe the purported political disaster that is the Biden classified documents issue, then explain how it bears no comparison to the ongoing Mar-a-Lago scandal and then note that the difference and lack of comparison actually don’t matter because that’s how it is. Punchbowl runs through a list of Democratic lawmakers who are barely willing to make the distinction in public, let alone defend the President from the adverse comparisons. The headline of this Dan Balz column perhaps sums it up most nicely: Biden, Trump cases aren’t alike. The political system doesn’t care.

In the past I’ve mentioned a few Twitter lists I’ve compiled to follow different on-going stories – COVID, election night analysis, the Russo-Ukraine War, et al. For the last week I’ve been following one I put together to follow the events surrounding the January 8th insurrection in Brazil.

Let me add a few caveats on this one.