Squatty Potty😱 ✡️🌻😱 

Epstein, Epstein, DOJ:  Just about every news outlet except Fox has confirmed NPR’s report that summaries and notes from three interviews with a South Carolina woman who says that she was sexually abused by both Epstein and Trump when she was thirteen exist but have not been released by the DOJ, a violation of the recently passed Epstein Files Transparency Act.  The DOJ’s first reaction to the omission was to deny that they’ve held anything back, now they appear to be hedging, saying that they are looking for the files in question but can’t find them. Pam Bondi and the DOJ have a problem which is just one of the reasons that Democratic Congressman Summer Lee says that she will be introducing articles of impeachment against Bondi.  While Trump continues to trumpet his “full exoneration” several more men, none of whom have been accused of being “involved” with any of Epstein’s young girls but all of whom maintained relationships with Epstein after his Florida conviction for procuring a minor for prostitution, have stepped down from their positions.  That group includes former Treasury Secretary/Harvard University President Lawrence Summers, Nobel Prize winner Richard Axel who had been the co-Director of Columbia University’s Brain Institute, and former Democratic Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey (not to be confused with former Massachusetts Senator John Kerry) who has stepped down from his chairmanship at clean energy company Monolith. In addition, Bill Gates, another one who had a relationship with Epstein, but who has not been cited for involvement with any of Epstein’s young victims, has apologized to staff at the Gates Foundation for his two consensual affairs with Russian women, a bridge player and nuclear physicist. His apology came about as the result of an unsent email that appeared in the Epstein files; that email included an allegation that Gate’s had relations with two “Russian girls” and had gotten a sexually transmitted infection. Former Secretary of State/Senator Hillary Clinton who had no contact with Epstein but acknowledges social contact with Ghislaine Maxwell will be deposed today in a closed-door House Oversight meeting. Former President Bill Clinton who did have contact with Epstein will be deposed tomorrow. Both Clintons requested open hearings, but Committee Chair James Comer refused their requests likely because he knows they’ll make him look stupid which isn’t hard to do and because closed sessions make it easier to selectively leak whatever he wants to leak. Moreover, it’s fairly clear that there is no legitimate reason to depose Hillary except for the fact that she is Hillary and Republicans love torturing her.  In other DOJ/FBI news, ten FBI Agents who worked on the investigation into Trump’s Mar a Lago documents theft have been fired.  Judge Aileen Cannon who is still trying out for a promotion to a higher court, maybe SCOTUS, has put the kibosh on ever releasing Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report about Mar a Lago and the top-secret documents held in the Mar a Lago toilet, her decision will likely be appealed. On the subject of toilets, Robert Edwards the creator of the Squatty Potty, the product that made him a millionaire after appearing on Shark Tank, has been indicted for purchasing child abuse material. WTF, why so many pedophiles?  Lastly, DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro has given up on trying to indict the group of six Senators and Representatives who spoke truth to power, not because she wants to but because she can’t convince any jurors to vote for an indictment.

MAHA Not:  Yesterday, Casey Means, Trump’s nominee to serve as Surgeon General appeared in front of the Senate Health Committee for her confirmation hearing.  Means who graduated from Stanford Medical School dropped out of her residency because she didn’t want to deal with sick people and became a health influencer.  She does not have an active medical license. During the hearing, she refused to endorse vaccines, even for measles, instead answering all vaccine questions with a pat reply saying that individuals should consult with their doctors about getting shots. She also questioned the safety of the birth control pill, saying “hormonal pills” are “disrespectful of life” and have “horrifying side effects” again going with her pat “talk to your doctor” answer. People should talk to their doctors, but Surgeon Generals are supposed to message preventive health so having a Surgeon General cast shade on proven vaccines and birth control methods is, to put it mildly, not a good thing.  It is however very MAHA, which is why RFK promoted a health influencer and health “entrepreneur” rather than an experienced public health doctor to Trump who took the bait. The question now is whether the Chairman of the Health Committee, Senator/Doctor Bill Cassidy, who is largely responsible for RFK making it through his confirmation process will vote for her.  He knows he shouldn’t and he knows he shouldn’t have approved RFK but he’s in the midst of a primary battle against a candidate Trump endorsed likely as retribution for Cassidy voting him guilty during his second impeachment trial so he’s compromised.  Desperate politicians do stupid things.  So do VP Vance and Medicare/Medicaid Administrator Dr Oz.  Yesterday they announced plans to “temporarily” withhold $259 million in Medicaid funds from the State of Minnesota because Minnesotans haven’t been targeted enough this year.  The purported reason for withholding the funds that help the poor including the neediest pregnant women, is to punish Minnesota, Governor Walz, and all of the states’ Somalis over the welfare fraud that was prosecuted by Biden’s DOJ and has already landed a bunch of people in jail. Remember when Trump said that he was sending Vance out to prosecute fraudsters, we knew he didn’t mean prosecuting the types of people that Trump routinely pardons.

Fog:  Something odd happened yesterday on the Cuban front. A Florida registered speedboat with ten Cuban residents of the US, assault rifles, handguns, improvised explosive devices (Molotov cocktails), bulletproof vests, telescopic sights, and camouflage uniforms was interdicted by Cuban authorities while on its way to Cuba.  Cuba says that the boat and its passengers planned to engage in terrorist activities upon arrival in Cuba. Several of the passengers were shot and killed, the rest were taken into custody by Cuban border guards.  Yesterday, Secretary of State Rubio said that the US was looking into the situation.  Gulf of Tonkin or Bay of Pigs, pick your poison.  Are we trying to come up with an excuse to invade Cuba while a substantial amount of our military assets is sailing around the Middle East poised to attack Iran? Heck of a way to win a Nobel Peace Prize or maybe that aspiration is no longer a thing.

Have a good weekend.             

  

 
Time in a Bottle 😱 ✡️🌻😱 ⛸️

SOTU:  One hour and forty-seven minutes of Trump repeating his greatest hits, time that anyone who watched will never get back.  By hits think mostly lies because Trump’s self-congratulatory, campaign style diatribe was chock full of them.  The economy isn’t roaring; tariffs will not be replacing income taxes; affordability isn’t a new word coined by Democrats; inflation wasn’t at an all-time high during Biden’s administration and had come down to current levels before Trump took office; Trump didn’t win the 2020 election; Trump’s health plan is nothing more than a one page concept; he hasn’t resolved eight wars; JD Vance isn’t going to eliminate grift because if he does he’ll have to start with Trump, his family members and his cronies;  he hasn’t secured $17 trillion in investments from overseas, even the White House website says otherwise; and what are our ships, troops, and refueling planes doing in the sea around Iran if we eliminated their nuclear capability last year.  As to that last assertion Trump’s “negotiator” Steve Witkoff says that Iran will be able to make nuclear bombs by next week, likely the rationale that will be used if, or more likely when, Trump starts the next Middle East war. The list of lies goes on and on, but despite Trump’s dropping poll numbers, he’s sticking with the "If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth” strategy because it’s worked for him in the past and as his fascination with tariffs proves he’s long past the point of changing.

The Polls: Trump’s numbers really are bad.  CNN has his approval rating down from 47 percent to 36 percent.  The Washington Post/ABC/Ipsos poll and another from NPR/PBS/Marist have his approval rating down 6 points since taking office and both polls show only 39 percent of Americans approve of his handling of the presidency, that’s down from the 45 percent who approved of it when he took office.  Notably his support from independent voters has dropped a “whopping” 17 percent. Naturally, he’s dropped far less among Republicans, which says a lot about Republicans and partially explains why a room full of them applauded him last night, the other explanation is that most of them live in fear that one nasty Truth Social Post will doom their reelection prospects.  Lastly, we shouldn’t be all that surprised that so many members of the US Men’s Hockey Team took Trump up on his invitation to the Oval Office and then attended last night’s speech.  They are his demographic: white and male. They may be great at hockey and lots of fun to watch and for those like FBI Director Kash Patel, lucky enough to have access to a US taxpayer funded plane, hang with, but we need to stop expecting athletes or any other celebrities to be better than anyone else.  

Epstein, Epstein, Missing Files:  Epstein is the leaky drip that’s keeps leaking no matter how many time the plumber is called in.  This time the plumbers aren’t Nixon’s fixers and CREEPERs but Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche’s Department of Justice.  Their efforts to eliminate references to Trump from the Epstein files appear to have been haphazard.  They redacted and held back lots of incriminating items but missed a few including several interviews with a woman who alleges that she was sexually abused and physically beaten by Trump when she was thirteen years old.  House Oversight ranking member Robert Garcia reports that he can confirm that the DOJ appears to have illegally withheld FBI interviews with this survivor who he said did accuse Trump of  “heinous crimes." There are also additional files that detail more of Ghislaine Maxwell’s crimes, files that her lawyers are trying to keep away from prying eyes likely over her concern that the more known about her the harder it will be for Trump to provide her with the clemency that she expects to get before his term ends. Another heavily redacted file indicates that Epstein was the subject of a previously undisclosed Drug Enforcement Agency investigation, a five-year-plus probe targeting him and 14 other individuals for suspicious money transfers possibly linked to illegal narcotics.  The DEA document also reveals the existence of other previously unknown investigations including ICE investigations in West Palm Beach, Las Vegas, and Paris, with the Paris investigation named Operation Angel Watch.  Is it a stretch to think that Angel Watch had something to do with the trafficking of women and/or girls? Trump owned a modeling agency during the period when these activities took place 🤷‍♀️.   Police in Paris, like those in the UK have now opened new investigations into all things Epstein.  On Monday, former UK Ambassador to the US Lord Peter Mandelson was arrested.  Like former Prince Andrew, his arrest wasn’t for any sex-related crimes but for allegedly sharing market sensitive government information with Epstein while a government minister. The White House’s response to all of this is that Trump has done more for the Epstein victims than anyone else and anyway Trump has been totally exonerated or so he says. 

Peeps:  FBI Director Kash Patel has been getting lots of criticism for partying with the US Men’s Hockey team on the government dime because his trip to Milan, which he insists was for official purposes, cost the taxpayers a lot of money, he had very few “official” meetings, and back in his podcast days he criticized FBI Director Wray’s more mundane plane use. Compounding the criticism, yesterday it was reported that when an FBI team needed an FBI plane to get to Providence during the Brown shooting event, there was no available plane because it was with Patel who was using it for personal reasons.  So far, a few Republicans including Nancy Mace, Anna Paulina Luna, Lauren Boebert, and Thomas Massie are calling for Texas Congressman Tony Gonzales to step down and/or drop out of his reelection race.  Gonzales who is married and the father of six, had an affair with his also married 35-year-old regional director Regina Santos-Aviles who killed herself by self-immolation after Gonzales ended their affair.  Gonzales denies he had a relationship with Santos-Aviles but there are implicating text message including some that show how he pushed her into the relationship that prove otherwise. There also are two other female staff members who say that he harassed them as well. Since he can’t afford to lose another Republican member right now Speaker Johnson, who already has a bigly problem with the female members of his caucus, is trying to ignore the situation. The French government is really pissed at US Ambassador to France Charles Kushner, father of Jared.  The dispute is due to Kushner’s failure to show up for a meeting over some Trump administration remarks that offended France.  It’s a big no-no for an Ambassador to ignore such a request but he’s Jared’s dad, and Trump pardoned him for the crimes that landed him in jail, so those rules don’t apply to him. Tucker Carlson keeps doubling down on his anti-Semitism but that doesn’t seem to concern Trump who had him over for a visit earlier this week. Longevity guru Peter Attia who had icky, chummy emails with Epstein will not be joining CBS despite news director Bari Weiss really wanting him to. And, while the battle for Warner Brothers rages on between Netflix and CBS owner Paramount, Trump is now calling for former Ambassador Susan Rice to be ousted from Netflix’s board because she’s nasty or said something nasty about him and Senator Lindsey Graham had Paramount’s CEO David Ellison as his SOTU guess because crony capitalism is so in vogue.  

Fog:  Last night Trump said that he doesn’t want war with Iran but he’s acting like he does. Wag the Dog time? Trump insists that his generals have told him that he can succeed at whatever he elects to do but reports are that Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dan Caine has advised him that a military campaign against Iran could carry significant risks, in particular the possibility of becoming entangled in a prolonged conflict.   

 

 

Six to Three and Two to One 😱 ✡️🌻😱 ⛸️❄️☃️

Tariffs, Tariffs, the Economy:  On Friday, the Commerce Department estimated that the economy grew at an annualized rate of only 1.4% during the fourth quarter and that prices are now growing at an annual rate of 3%. Combined with last year’s anemic job growth, and the growing US deficit, those two indicators provide further evidence that despite Trump’s claims to the contrary the country’s economic picture is far from rosy.  Naturally, Trump blamed the economic news on Biden, Democrats, and Fed Chair Jerome Powell.  In fact, he started playing the blame game even before the numbers were officially released. Then the proverbial 💩 hit the fan.  The Supreme Court finally weighed in on Trump’s tariffs, essentially ruling 6 to 3 that Trump’s tariffs are taxes and that they exceed the powers given to presidents by Congress under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the Act that Trump used to justify imposing most of them.  IEEPA provides the authority for presidents to regulate commerce during national emergencies created by foreign threats but does not allow presidents to impose tariffs just because they have a pathological fixation on them, believe they are a cure all for everything, and are pissed at leaders who failed to kiss his ring.  The SCOTUS majority included the usual three liberal judges plus Chief Justice John Roberts, Amy Coney Barrett, and Neil Gorsuch.  The naysayers included Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh. Roberts wrote the majority opinion but it was Gorsuch who put it best in his concurring opinion by saying that the decision to impose taxes and tariffs are to be made through the legislative process and while that process can be “hard” and “time consuming,” the “deliberative nature of the legislative process was the whole point of its design.”  Though the make-up of the majority was a bit unexpected, the decision wasn’t, though Justice Kavanaugh’s dissent was.  Not only did he disagree with the majority opinion, but his opinion was more or less a cribbed regurgitation of Trump’s lawyers’ argument, a key feature of which was that because it would be difficult to refund the tariff payments, illegal or not, they shouldn’t be revoked.  Kavanaugh also provided Trump with a list of other laws he could use to act out his tariff fantasy. 

Ketchup on the Wall:  Given the state of the economy, for a brief nanosecond some economic and business pundits and a few wishful, swing state Republican politicians thought that Trump would use SCOTUS’s rebuke of his tariffs to his advantage by giving up on his tariff fantasy and letting the economy soar.  Of course, given Trump’s tariff obsession, that was delusional. Barely missing a beat, the irate orange one reacted to the decision by taking to his podium to issue a nasty screed that included a full-on trashing of SCOTUS as well as a threat to the Coney Barrett and Gorsuch’s families.  He also said that he is allowed to destroy the country because he’s allowed to do anything he wants.  He then said that he would reimpose tariffs under one of the other laws that Kavanaugh had dutifully pointed out allow presidents to impose temporary ones.  He started by imposing a 10% tariff and then upping it to 15% over the weekend leaving the tariff situation a bit murky.  A number of corporations and states, including Illinois, have already started suing to get their tariff payments refunded and several foreign entities, including the EU, have started freezing the trade deals they agreed to under duress. It’s not clear what will happen to the rest of us who on average have already paid more than $1000 for Trump’s tariffs as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pretty much said yesterday that we should just suck it up. It’s also not clear whether Justices Roberts, Coney Barret and maybe even Gorsuch are starting to realize that ruling that Trump is a king with almost total immunity was not such a good idea.

Weirder💩:  Trump who had a large banner of his face added Kim Jung un style to the outside of the Department of Justice last week, retracted his endorsement of Colorado Republican Jeff Hurd who has a primary opponent.  Hurd’s unimaginable crime, voting with Democrats to pass a resolution repealing Trump's tariffs on Canada. Trump is sending a message to other Republicans that they cross him at their own risk, a strategy that will lose its potency once primary season ends. In a truly weird move even for Trump, he took to Truth Social to announce that he’s sending two US hospital ships to Greenland.  It’s thought that his announcement was motivated by reports that Denmark quite graciously airlifted a sick American off of a US submarine that had been submerged in the neighboring seas.  Putting aside that a normal leader would have thanked Denmark for helping out, the citizens of Greenland, like all the citizens of Denmark enjoy universal health care coverage so they do not need our ships.  Moreover, our two hospital ships are currently in dry dock undergoing work and as such are not available to sail anywhere right now.  Saying “no thanks” Denmark’s Prime Minister turned down the ship offer and probably said a few other unreportable things.  Anyone know how to say FU in Danish?

MAHA Not:  Unlike Denmark, we do not have universal health care coverage and as a result of the Big Ugly Bill, $1 billion is being sucked away from our health care system which makes the Washinton Post’s report that officials are struggling to figure out how to increase military spending by $500 billion that much more outrageous. As to our health care guru, Rolling Stone reports that the CDC funded study that was designed to deprive some African babies in Guinea Bissau from receiving Hepatitis B vaccine shots at birth was rushed through the CDC approval process despite its Tuskegee syphilis study like unethical violations because RFK wanted to cite the study to justify the decision he had already made to eliminate Hep B vaccines for infants in the US.  RFK is now also claiming that his trembling voice, which is caused by spasmodic dysphonia, in his case due to a genetic condition that also affects a few other members of his family, is really the result of all the flu shots he got in his youth. Perhaps that’s just another reason that he tried to put the kibosh on Moderna’s mRNA flu shot.  The damage he’s doing by standing in the way of new vaccines and spreading further doubt about existing life-saving ones is immeasurable. Lastly, it turns out promoting cancer causing chemical glyphosate isn’t the only non-MAHA thing that Trump did last week.  Under his direction, the FDA is retreating from its plans to ban artificial food dyes.  The MAHA moms who thought that RFK was their savior but should have known better are not happy with the way things are going. Makes you wonder what they think about snorting coke off toilet seats.

Fog:  There are ominous signs, as in loud war drums, on the Iran front. Parts of Mexico are up in flames, a response by the drug cartels to the assassination of a leading drug lord by Mexican forces with some help from Washington. More keeps coming out of the Epstein files, all of it awful.  The State of the Union address takes place on Tuesday night.  It will likely be off the charts nuts because the guy delivering it is.

Congrats to all the Men and Women US hockey players!        

 

You're Fired? 😱 ✡️🌻😱 👿 ⛸️

 Cabinetry:  During Trump’s first term, Rachel Maddow regularly displayed a graphic detailing all the high-level departures from his administration.  Overtime, as the Trump One cabinet went through unprecedented levels of churn that graphic took over all the walls in her studio.  We even got a new measure – the Scaramucci. Even though the Trump Two cabinet is now filled largely with D-listers, many of whom, especially puppy 🐶 killer Kristi Noem, couldn’t even qualify to serve as a local dog catcher, and that’s probably unfair to dog catchers, high level turnover has been almost non-existent. Theories are that Trump doesn’t want to admit how awful his cabinet is, likes being surrounded by incompetent sycophants, and most certainly doesn’t want to feed Maddow’s wall of shame.  While all that might be true, it’s also possible that no one’s been fired because he can’t figure out who to axe first.  Ice Barbie Noem’s Department of Homeland Security’s propensity for shooting and killing people, while consistent with Stephen Miller’s and therefore Trump’s twisted preferences, is thought to be responsible for polls indicating that approval of Trump’s handling of the border, once among his high spots, keeps dropping.  It certainly doesn’t help that the married Noem’s $200 million government leased jet has a luxury “mile high” bedroom suite that she is reported to share with the also married Corey Lewandowski who isn’t her chief of staff but acts the part. The bedroom is super cringy and the jet is hardly in line with the Musk ran government efficiency program that dominated the first few months of this Trump administration but she’s still around.  Commerce Secretary Howard Lutwick who took his wife, children, and nannies to visit with Jeffrey Epstein on his island obviously lied to Congress about his personal and business relationship with the pedophile.  He keeps sticking his foot in his mouth during press appearances and no one, least of all him really knows what the Commerce Secretary is supposed to do, yet he’s still in the cabinet. Last week RFK Jr riffed about snorting coke off of toilet bowl seats while his FDA cancelled and then uncancelled what could turn out to be a really effective flu vaccine all while posting weird exercise routines and ignoring all the measles cases that are out and about and he’s still around maybe because falling in line on the promotion of cancer-causing glyphosate is providing him a lifeline. RFK’s staying power is particularly remarkable given how many in Trump’s orbit keep bringing up the cocaine that was found lying around during “Sleepy” Joe’s term. Sleepy being a term that only applies to Biden and not to Trump who nodded off again during yesterday Board of Peace 💩 show.  Attorney General Bondi screwed up bigly when she bragged that she had a list of Epstein’s pedophile pals on her desk and was about to release it, an unfulfilled promise that helped feed the still growing Epstein monster. She keeps bleeding DOJ attorneys, the ones she has left can’t even indict ham sandwiches, and many in Trump’s MAGA base have grown to despise her, yet she still has a job.  Labor Secretary Lori Chavez DeRemer is being investigated by her department’s Inspector General over allegations that she’s been having  an improper relationship with a security staffer, misusing travel funds and drinking on the job (Pentagon Pete wants a word) and as if that’s not enough, her husband is now banned from visiting her DOL office building something to do with him accosting at least two of her female staffers.  One of those “incidents” was picked up by security cameras. Though one time FBI deputy director Dan Bongino has self-deported himself back to Trump friendly podcasting, his former boss and good buddy, FBI Director Kash Patel, is still running the FBI, well running it when not posing for photo-ops and commandeering planes for his country western singing girlfriend and her BFFs, and spending $75,000 to fly to the Milan Olympics because he likes hockey. The list goes on and on and none of this touches on Trump and his cabinet’s awful policies, like EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s efforts to pollute rather than improve the environment or Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s pushing for more polluting coal because as horrible as all that is, it’s what Trump promised to do, though he may have left out the part about soliciting and accepting payments from industry titans in exchanges. Anyway, for what it worth, prediction market such as Polymarket and Kalshi predict the order of the first forced departures will be Noem, Bondi, and then Lutwick. Thoughts?

Board of ✌️:  With Trump’s favorite disco tunes serving as his soundtrack, Trump held the inaugural meeting of his Board of Peace yesterday. It was embarrassing but in character. The Board was supposedly created to lead the rebuilding of Gaza but anyone believing that might be interested in purchasing a bridge in Brooklyn. Trump who has appointed himself as the Board’s chairman for life is positioning the Board to be his UN replacement.  He announced that the US will be contributing $10 billion to his board. That money hasn’t been approved or allocated by Congress but then again, Trump doesn’t appear to believe that he needs Congressional approval for anything, an assumption that might not be far off the mark. Also, the US owes $4 billion to the UN so maybe that’s the pool Trump plans to hit up first?  Nothing to worry about though because son in law Kushner who together with Trump’s golf buddy and real estate friend Steve Witkoff heads up Trump’s “peace” negotiating team said no one will be making money off the board, a sure tell that at least one family will be. On the subject of not peace, Trump keeps sending more and more military resources to the Middle East and yesterday said that he’ll decide whether to attack Iran in ten days. That part about needing Congressional approval, forget about it.

More:  There’s a chance that the Supreme Court will release its tariff ruling today. Lastly, there was some great news on the Olympics front. The Women’s ice hockey team won gold as did Alysa Liu who ⛸️skates with joy and happiness and a whole lot of technical proficiency. It’s been 24 years since Sarah Hughes, who also skated with lots of joy, did that. 😊

                     

Purple Rain 😱 ✡️🌻😱 👿 

Hail Britannia: Whoa. The man formerly known as Prince but now known simply as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested this morning on suspicion of misconduct in public office, a very British way of saying Epstein 💩.  Meantime, the Orange guy who appeared around one million times in the Epstein files still hasn’t faced any consequences and appears to be prepping to attack Iran while also cooking up ways to disrupt the midterm elections. Overnight freelance journalist Roger Sollenberger who broke the story about footballer/Senate candidate Herschel Walker paying for an abortion posted on his Substack additional details about the allegations provided by the woman who asserts that as a tween she was trafficked by Epstein who then introduced her to Trump who she says raped her. She says that she was interviewed by the FBI four times though curiously only one of those interviews appears, albeit heavily redacted, in the released Epstein files.  In other Epstein news, as expected during his deposition former Victoria’s Secret head Les Wexner denied knowing anything about Epstein’s sex trafficking of girls and young women, while also claiming that he’d been duped and conned by him.  He added that he’d cut off communication with Epstein in 2007 although there are a few emails that contradict that assertion.  The Wexner deposition was held at his Ohio estate.  No Republican members of Congress attended though a few members of their staff did.  It’s probably not a stretch to surmise that the Republicans were all “advised” that attendance would make a certain someone very unhappy, subjecting them to Truth Social attacks or worse.  With no Republicans in attendance the five Democratic members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee conducted the closed-door questioning.  The five were Representatives Robert Garcia (ranking member), Jasmine Crockett, Dave Min, Yassamin Ansari, and Stephen Lynch.    

MAHA 🤷‍♀️:  Yesterday morning the FDA announced that despite its previous refusal it will review Moderna’s mRNA application. Politico reports that the reversal was the result of pressure from the White House, likely a response to polling that indicates that most Americans, even those who don’t bother to get their flu shots support vaccines as well as an acknowledgement that hurting a US manufacturer might not be pro-business. Moderna has agreed to tweak its application, but the change seems mostly a way to allow the FDA to save face about their earlier refusal. In other MAHA news, yesterday Trump issued an executive order intended to spur the domestic production of glyphosate, the weedkiller that is the active ingredient in Roundup. Glyphosate is widely believed to cause cancer including non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.  In 2018, RFK helped win a landmark $289 million jury verdict against Monsanto, the maker of Roundup by arguing that the company knew that. However, now that it’s in his interest to support Trump’s actions, which are likely the result of lobbying (contributions?) by the Chemical industry, RFK says he’s cool with glyphosate because, really what’s a little lymphoma among friends. Chalk that up as one of the things that happens when an unprincipled toilet seat sniffing coke guy who attributes his academic success to heroin becomes the Health Secretary.  One more piece of health news,  NIH head Jay Bhattacharya is now also the head of the CDC.  Bhattacharya was one of those who thought that the best way to handle COVID was to just let it spread so maybe just maybe putting him in charge of disease control is not the best idea. 🤷‍♀️ 🤷‍♀️

More 💩:  In December, noting that he was a terrific Congressman, Trump endorsed the reelection bid of Texas Republican Tony Gonzales. Apparently, the affair that the married Gonzales had with a member of his staff who committed suicide by self-immolation in September 2025 was not a disqualifier.  Only the best.              .        

 

  

 

Victorias' Secrets 😱 ✡️🌻😱 👿 

Midterm Madness: Primary day in Texas is March 3, but early voting has already begun. Republican Senator John Cornyn, who is up for reelection, is being primaried from the right by two MAGA types: state Attorney General Ken Paxton and Congressman Wesley Hunt. Republican Senate leadership would prefer to see Cornyn win the primary, but Trump who has not weighed in yet, is likely leaning towards Paxton whose record mirrors his. Paxton is involved in a public, messy divorce and was impeached by the Texas House for bribery, abuse of power, and corruption but was able to remain as Attorney General because he was acquitted by the state’s Senate. Current polls show Paxton polling in the high 30s, about eight points ahead of Cornyn with Hunt who is polling in the high teens serving as the spoiler who could force a runoff since Texas law requires that the winning candidate receive more than 50% of the vote. On the Democratic side the race is between Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett who has made a name for herself by being one of Trump’s loudest most fiery critics and the more moderate State Representative James Talarico who has been running on how his Christian beliefs are consistent with Democratic and democratic principles.  The most recent poll shows Crockett, who was previously running neck and neck with Talarico, now leading him 47% to 39% with 12% undecided and 2% going to a third candidate. Odds are that once the undecided votes are cast, the Democratic race won’t go to a runoff, but anything is possible.  You don’t have to be registered in a party to vote in a Texas primary, but you can only vote in one of them.

CBS WTF: Though he’s lagging in the polls Talarico did get a bit of a lift this week after the powers that be at CBS told nighttime host Stephen Colbert that Talarico was persona non grata. CBS is looking more and more like Fox lite, its Paramount owners are working very hard to get Trump to weigh in on their behalf in their battle to buy Warner Brothers. CBS management “blamed” their decision to ban Talarico on their legal department’s advice that an appearance by Talarico would violate an old equal time rule that for years has not applied to nighttime and news shows. Trump’s FCC Chair, the very MAGA Brendan Carr who appears to be modeling his policies on those of Hungary’s Viktor Orban who has clamped down on the press in his country, has said that he wants to reimpose the antiquated rule. CBS’s acquiescence in advance is alarming, especially given the upcoming elections. Colbert, who is on his way out, is far past caring what CBS management has to say.  He posted his Talarico interview on YouTube where it was seen by a wide audience and discussed the fracas on last night’s show. To her credit Crockett who has appeared on Colbert’s show a few times said that she had no problem with Talarico’s appearance even if it gives him a boost with voters.  In other CBS news, long time 60 Minutes contributor Anderson Cooper is not renewing his contract.  His decision is being attributed to the way that new news head Bari Weiss has been MAGA-fying editorial decisions.

Still Closed:  Though it’s mostly hard to tell, the Department of Homeland Security is still “closed” since the administration and Democrats still haven’t worked out a deal on its funding.  Democrats want restrictions on how Noem’s militia behaves including a ban on agents masking their faces, mandatory body cameras, a requirement for judicial warrants for immigration arrests and an end to “roving patrols,” among other priorities. The White House and Republicans are pushing back on the mask ban and warrant requirements. Stories about how Noem’s INS and Border goons have been behaving continue to leak out, it turns out that the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti are only the tip, albeit a very deadly tip, of the Homeland iceberg.  That pattern goes far to explaining why the FBI will not be sharing any information with Minnesota law enforcement about the Good and Pretti murders.  Who could have guessed that inadequate training, the hiring of former January Sixers, hate messaging and the demonizing of “others’ would result in the brutal treatment of immigrants and US citizens and deaths?  Unfortunately, by virtue of the Big Ugly Bill , Homeland already has far too much money at their disposal, $38 billion of which is being spent on detention facilities like the ones already holding far too many children and some pregnant woman, among others.  Monday night Rachel Maddow included a segment on how quite a few municipalities and states, red and blue, are pushing back against the INS’s purchase of land and warehouses for the “storing” of tens of thousands of immigrants. Some of that pushback is over concerns about how those facilities will overtax the already stretched water, sewer, and electrical infrastructure of the communities involved but some of it is because having a concentration camp-like facility as a neighbor, even in a red state, isn’t what a lot of Trump voters imagined when they voted for him. As to voters and messaging, yesterday Kristi Noem’s communications director Trisha McLaughln who called Good and Pretti radicals and worse announced her departure. We shouldn’t get too excited about that because there are probably lots of Trisha types waiting around for an opportunity to takeover her spot, however her departure could be an indication that Noem’s power really is sputtering. Also, there has been a shuffling of chairs, demotions, and some departures in RFK’s orbit. There are some suggestions that Trump wants more messaging about RFK’s efforts to get red dye out of foods rather than his promotion of toilet seat cocaine, measles, and the flu.  As to the flu, Trump also said that Moderna should act with more humility the next time they seek vaccine approval. By humility does he mean a CAVA bag with cash delivered to Mar a Lago?

More 💩:  Kushner, Witkoff and Trump’s other “negotiators” have reportedly been making “progress” in discussion with Iran and Russia, 🤷‍♀️ 🤷‍♀️. More and more people not named Trump or in his administration have stepped aside over their association with Jeffrey Epstein.  Not that it matters much to Trump, but the list of Epstein associates in his orbit keeps growing.  Among other bonding moments, Steve Bannon advised Epstein on how to deal with his “bad press” and current Ambassador to Turkey and long-time Trump buddy Thomas Barrack was another Epstein friend. Today, some members of Congress are in Ohio meeting with Victoria’s Secret Les Wexner. The 88- year-old Wexner will likely plead the fifth and/or have no memory of anything memorable.  

 

 

Presidents Day 😱 ✡️🌻😱 👿 🧤⛸️ 

 🧤,⛸️and DNA:  The quad god ⛸️is human, Susan Guthrie is still missing, and the Orange One keeps broadcasting his plans to steal the midterms and any that follow. Hopefully, Ilia Malinin will find his footing because while mortal, he is an awesome skater and, while the Susan Guthrie situation remains sad, maybe (well maybe) those gloves 🧤 will reveal some useful DNA. We can’t do anything about the skaters or the gloves, but we can and should pushback hard against Trump and his very devious election plans which include pressuring Republicans in the Senate to dispense with the filibuster to pass the SAVE Act already passed by their House colleagues and, if that doesn’t work, his plans to issue an executive order mandating voter ID and other voter suppressions. On the face of it, ID requirements, like naming election security legislation The SAVE Act doesn’t sound ominous but don’t be fooled, the whole point of the legislation is to controls who gets to vote. Most notably, the Act limits what type of ID can be used, requiring passports or birth certificates, rather than student IDS, driver’s licenses, or cards like the ones New Yorker’s are sent before each election.  Only 48% of Americans have a passport, the fee for getting one for the first time is $165, and assuming you have a copy of your birth certificate, it would only count as an acceptable ID if it’s in your birth name, an impediment for married women who’ve changed theirs. While supporters of the SAVE Act argue that IDs are necessary to keep non-citizens from voting, the reality is that non-citizens don’t vote and no one can cite legitimate statistics that they do.  Study after study by conservative think tanks like the Cato Institute have found few non-citizen voters because “People largely aren’t willing to risk their status in the United States for the ability to cast one more vote out of hundreds of thousands or millions in a state and hundreds of millions in the country.”  The SAVE Act would however impose a hefty poll tax on those who can least afford it, making voting expensive and inaccessible to those segments of the population who traditionally tilt independent or blue. It’s no coincidence that Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski who relies on a coalition of voters that includes her state’s indigenous population is against the Save Act while Maine’s Susan Collins whose voters are composed of more traditional whiter and older Republican voters came out in support of it this weekend.  As to Trump, he says that he will impose the SAVE Act requirements, and other voting impediments like banning or severely limiting vote by mail and the counting of postmarked votes that arrive after election day, by edict.  That’s probably not Constitutional but then again, the current Supreme Court doesn’t seem to mind that lots of what he does isn’t. Trump is pushing hard for these election changes because of how poorly he and Republicans are doing in the polls across a wide range of issues and voter groups. Polls indicating how fed up the majority of Americans are over how the INS and Border Patrol behaved in Minnesota, rather than the “successfully completion of the mission,” are why most immigration agents have been pulled from the state.  Likewise, polls are probably the reason that Republicans for the first time won’t field a candidate for Senator in the upcoming New Mexico Senate race. As to ICE Barbie Kristi Noem, the DHS Secretary who according to the WSJ fired her pilot for failing to transfer her blanket from her expensive love nest government jet to another one, her statement that “when it comes to election day, we’ve been proactive to make sure we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country” should be taken very seriously because though she’s saying the quiet part out loud to impress Trump and keep her job that doesn’t make it any less frightening especially since the INS and Border Control militias are under her control. Democrats have a lot on their plate, they’re being wildly out paced by Republicans on the fundraising front, and as usual they’re having a hard time acting in lock step when it comes to messaging because that’s who they are but if they can get it together and pushback against Trump’s threats to the election the midterms should be theirs to lose, well hopefully. On that note, Virginia has gotten the go ahead to vote on a redistricting plan that could result in giving Democrats another leg up in the House race because it increasingly looks like the gerrymandering war that was started by Republicans in Texas is backfiring on them.   

Epstein, Epstein 😱:  During last week’s House hearing AG Pam Bondi who never met with any of the Epstein victims couldn’t even find it within herself to acknowledge their presence at the hearing.  That says about all you need to know about how she’s been handling the release of the Epstein files. Every time we learn something horrible about someone in Trump’s orbit, we learn more about someone who isn’t or whose appearance in the files is incidental and has nothing to do with Epstein’s crimes. The bottom line remains that lots of people did really horrifying things or turned their eyes away from people who they knew were doing those things for business reasons or just to remain part of Epstein’s elite crowd, a crowd that included Steve Bannon. One item that continues to rear its head relates to an accusation from an underage girl about being raped by Trump.  It’s not proven but then again it doesn’t seem to have been investigated but one thing is clear, Bondi and her team redacted as many references to Trump as they could. Another group of files reveal mundane by comparison things such as how Epstein who lured lots of his prey by promising modeling gigs also promised acceptances into institutions of higher education, making generous contributions to get at least one of his girlfriends, Belarusian Karyna Shuliak, into Columbia University’s School of Dentistry.  Shuliak, who had overstayed her visa later secured citizenship by entering into a short-term sham marriage with another one of Epstein’s girlfriends, a woman named Jennifer, after receiving advice from Epstein’s lawyers that the marriage would solve her immigration woes.  The woman may be the same Jennifer that Epstein set up with Elon Musk’s brother Kimball.  The Columbia University officials involved with accepting Epstein’s girls has been removed and Kimball has now resigned from the Burning Man Project Board over these disclosures. Does make you wonder how another famous woman got her Einstein visa?