For Donald Trump, this really is a Dickensian week: these are the best of times and the worst of times. Even as his second-chance administration falls into place, Trump officially became a convicted felon, and the case of his insurrection-related crimes is now a part of the public record (despite the best efforts of his “crack” legal team).

President Biden echoed the warnings of Dwight Eisenhower in his farewell address, but will it have an impact on the oligarchs who are running the Trump-Musk administration? 

Trump’s clown cabinet nominees have begun the sham hearing process in the Senate with the prospect that Fox News will be seeing a lot of former staffers moving into the most powerful jobs in America.

We are recording on Thursday. Mark is in Detroit for today’s Democratic National Committee forum featuring would-be leaders of the DNC. We’ll do a little time shifting and get his thoughts when the forum wraps up.

The Biden speech isn’t the only politically significant speech on our radar. Governor Whitmer gave the keynote address at the Detroit Auto Show, a speech which may be a preview of the Whitmer for President campaign in 2028.

And Republicans are heaping tragedy on top of catastrophe by politicizing the L.A. fires even as tens of thousands are homeless and the southern California economy is literally reduced to ashes.

Some of the other stories that caught our eye this week:

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