F Word Diplomacy? 😱 ✡️🌻😱 💣🚀

War, War:  Very early yesterday the weapons officer, a member of the two-person US flight crew shot down over Iran, was rescued by the US military with some help from Israeli forces. The pilot, the other member of the downed plane’s crew had been picked up by US forces shortly after the plane had been shot down. The rescue operation was impressive, a show of our commitment to never leave a soldier behind as well an indication of US military might at its best. That said the rescue came at a high cost because it involved the use of a considerable amount of resources, the complete destruction of two of our planes and injuries to several members of the rescue team.  Trump who had laid low during the weekend, igniting social media chatter that he had been transported to Walter Reed for some unspecified health crisis or maybe just one of those suspected monthly infusions, emerged to celebrate the success of the rescue mission.  He then followed up by threatening Iran over Truth Social, screeching: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped in one in Iran.  There will be noting like it!!! Open the Fuckin Strait, you crazy bastards or you’ll be living in Hell.  JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”  While it would be naïve to think that other presidents never expressed their frustration with similar language behind the scenes, it’s totally bonkers that Trump said what he said publicly and also bad that he’s threatening civilian infrastructure but then again, he is, as Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries put it, “disgusting and unhinged.”  Unfortunately, he’s also in charge. Overnight a Pakistani-brokered plan for an immediate ceasefire, to be followed by negotiations on a broader settlement to be concluded within 15 to 20 days, was proposed to Iran and the US.  At least at this point, the proposal doesn’t appear to be going anywhere because Iranian leadership who spent the night responding to Trump’s Easter threat by shooting off drones and missiles at civilian targets is also unhinged and doesn’t believe Trump can be relied upon. A pot calling the kettle black standoff with lives and nukes at stake.

Budget War:  The cost of the rescue operation and the entire Iran “incursion” goes far to explaining why Trump wants Congress to include an additional $1.5 trillion for defense spending in next year’s budget. Trump’s plan is for that money to be offset by extraordinarily steep cuts in funding for health, childcare, education, housing, the environment because we really don’t need those woke things especially since their funding gets in the way of keeping taxes for billionaires low.  As to that whole woke thing, apparently rooting it out of the military is one of reasons that Secretary of War/Beer Hegseth keeps firing generals.  It’s reported that Army Chief of Staff General Randy George, who was summarily kicked to the curb last week was ousted because he’d opposed Hegseth’s decision to remove two Blacks and two women from the one-star general promotion list.  To be clear, our military, whether one supports the Iran war or not, is performing impressively.  It was, until Hegseth stepped in, led by the “woke” generals, men, and women, white, black, and Hispanic that he with the enthusiastic support of Trump has been rooting out. It’s hard to miss the discordance.  Out of one side of their mouths Trump and Hegseth are celebrating the strength of the US military, out of the other side, they’re slamming it for its diversity, working to whitewash and single sex the leadership that got it there. Somewhere around 40% of the military identifies as non-white and women make-up just under 20% of active-duty forces. Alienating them by insulting their capabilities, reducing their promotion opportunities, and deporting their spouses while having INS agents waiting outside of military graduations to scoop up “undocumented” family members is more than discriminatory, it’s stupid and likely to have ramifications sooner rather than later.

Special and Weird: There are four special elections taking place in Georgia tomorrow.  One of the races is for the House seat vacated by Marjorie Taylor Greene where Democrat Shawn Harris, a retired Army General, is running against Republican Clay Fuller.  The other three elections are for state seats.  It’s unlikely that any of these seats will flip so the focus will mostly be on margins of victory.  Margie Q won her ruby red district by 30 points in 2024, so it’s a stretch to think that Harris has a chance.  However, Republicans have spent way more on the race then Democrats, an indication of their concern about the optics of tightening margins in the run-up to the midterms.  The weird race to watch is the June 2 primary to replace termed out California Governor Gavin Newsom.  Democrats are worried about losing the governorship because though there are far more Democrats in blue California, regardless of their party affiliation, only the top two primary finishers will get to progress to the November election. The Democratic field is splintered, with many candidates and no clear leader.  Congressman Eric Swalwell is running neck and neck with former Congresswoman/one time Senate aspirant Katie Porter and one-time presidential candidate/billionaire Tom Steyer with five other Democrats also on the ballot.  The more concentrated Republican field has only two candidates: Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco. There’s a chance that the two Republicans who until yesterday were polling around 17+/- points each finish in the top two spots, advancing to the general election, leaving the Democrats who are mostly polling in the low teens in the dust. The good news for Democrats is that Trump may have just given them an assist.  Last night, he endorsed Republican Steve Hilton, that’s good for Hilton but will likely tank Bianco’s chances of coming in second, making it more likely that one of the Democrats will nab the second place slot and then go on to win in November.

 

Spring Cleaning  😱 ✡️🌻😱 💣🚀 🐣🫓

War and Babies:  As promised, Trump spoke to the nation on Wednesday night, but he didn’t say much.  In a nutshell, the Iran war which he insists is going great is neither going great nor about to end, the Strait of Hormuz which was open before the bombing began is still mostly unpassable, he’s pretty much given up on getting Iran’s nuclear materials and is still threatening to blow Iran’s infrastructure to smithereens.  He’s angry with all of the other countries, especially the members of NATO, who refuse to join in the battle to get the Strait reopened, pointing out that they need safe transit through the critical chokehold more than we do.  He’s not wrong about that, but applying the Pottery Barn rule, they want him to fix what he broke because he owns it.  Before his speech there were concerns that Trump would announce that he was pulling the US from NATO, however he didn’t but he’s doing a depressingly good job at neutering the treaty.  Things don’t appear to be going well for Trump on the birthright citizenship front either. He attended the beginning of Wednesday morning’s Supreme Court hearing, sticking around long enough to throw intimidating glares at “his” Justices. It’s likely that SCOTUS’s decision, not expected until June, will leave birthright citizenship intact.  Though it should be unanimous it probably won’t be because Justices Alito and Thomas appear to believe that they are on the Court to rubberstamp their king. Most pundits believe that at the very least Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Coney Barrett will join the three “liberals” in upholding birthright citizenship with many others believing (hoping) that Gorsuch and maybe even Kavanaugh will join them too.

You’re Fired: Attorney General Pam Bondi is out.  Trump fired her during their joint car ride to the Supreme Court’s birthright hearing but didn’t announce his decision, via a Truth Social post, until yesterday. According to his post, Pam, who “did a wonderful job” will be “transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector.”  Reports are that though she knew her days were numbered, Bondi had hoped to be allowed to make a more graceful exit, sticking it out until the beginning of summer, but Trump wanted her out, pronto. Bondi was fired for failing to successfully prosecute all of Trump’s “enemies” while also bungling the handling of the Epstein files. That she was as obsequious as possible while pretty much dismantling the Department of Justice, ferreting out all the competent career attorneys who had anything to do with prosecuting the January sixers or participating in any of the investigations into Trump’s bad acts wasn’t enough for Trump because former FBI Director Comey, NY AG Letitia James, former CIA Director John Brennan, and Fed Chair Jerome Powell remain free.  For now, Trump’s one-time personal lawyer, the unctuous Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche will serve as the Acting AG while Trump decides who to nominate to the permanent slot.  In addition to Blanche, the list of contenders is thought to include: EPA head Lee Zeldin who despite his lack of substantial legal experience has impressed Trump by dismantling environmental protections;  DC US Attorney/former Fox host Jeanine Pirro who has lots of legal experience but hasn’t had any success indicting Trump’s enemies; and maybe the lesser known Harmeet Dhillon the Assistant AG for Civil Rights who has been chipping away at what she’s supposed to be protecting.  Blanche is probably the most deviously competent of those under consideration but the sweetheart interview he conducted with Epstein partner in pedophilia Ghislaine Maxwell and her subsequent transfer to a cushy jail might make it difficult to pass him through even this Senate.  Not to be outdone by Trump, yesterday Secretary of War/Beer Hegseth fired Army Chief of Staff General Randy George because who doesn’t fire competent, experienced Generals during a war? The firings may be only beginning.  The twitter-verse reports that a few other heads are also thought to be on the spring-cleaning chopping block. Names floating around include: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard who almost every knows opposes Trump’s warmongering but who may hang on because Trump knows she’ll go to the airwaves the second she gets her pink slip;  Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick who has foot in mouth disease and is mired in the Epstein mess;  Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer who is involved in a corruption scandal that should have seen her booted by now; and FBI Director Kash Patel who is more into partying and conspiracy theories than security at a time when competency in his job really matters. RFK, whose CDC has suspended testing for monkey pox and rabies, has got to be happy that all these people are ahead of him because he should go too but probably won’t.

More 💩:  The Department of Homeland Security remains unfunded.  On Wednesday it was reported that with Trump’s backing Speaker Johnson had finally agreed to bring the Senate passed deal to fund all of DHS except for ICE and Border Patrol up for a vote in the House, pushing the funding of ICE and Border Patrol into a subsequent reconciliation bill, however that doesn’t appear to be happening because Johnson doesn’t have the votes to get the Senate plan through his caucus. He’s back to the drawing board, now talking about two reconciliation bills, one that would fund just ICE and Border Patrol to be passed almost simultaneously with the Senate DHS funding bill and a second one that would further slash benefits to fund the Iran war because who needs Medicare, Medicaid, and child services anyway. Late yesterday Trump said that while the House dithers he will sign another executive order to pay the DHS salaries not funded by the executive order that funded TSA workers.  To state the obvious, that’s not the way things are supposed to work.

 

 
Bimbofication 😱 ✡️🌻😱 💣🚀 🐣🫓

Bimbo BINGO: Congratulations if you had Kristi Noem’s cuckolded husband Byron being a cross-dressing bimbofication fetishist on your BINGO card, extra points if you even know what bimbofication is, because if you did and do, you’ve won this episode of WTF is going on in Trump-land.  You also have a far more bizarre and inventive imagination than most and possibly also spend lots of time on NSFW/Fetish subreddits. Joking aside, the real issues aren’t Byron’s hard to unsee balloon boobs and tight pink undies but that his fetish and the accompanying pictures he posted sans mask for all to see provide evidence of how Trump and his crackerjack team failed to undertake serious background checks on his cabinet and top aides, the people whose access to super top secret information, including the president’s daily brief (PDB) could make them targets of foreign espionage agencies because while Trump probably didn’t know about Byron Noem’s predilection, Vlad Putin, Xi, and a number of our sneakier allies and erstwhile friends, probably did. Worth noting, while ICE Barbie Kristi’s alleged boyfriend Corey Lewandowski is probably not into bimbofication, he’s another one who wasn’t vetted but who did have access to the PDB.  

War, War, TACO? On a more serious note than bimbofication, we’re still at war with Iran, at least we will be until tonight when, unless he changes his mind, at 9 PM EDT during a speech to be carried by all the major networks while some of us are otherwise occupied at Passover Seders, TACO man Trump is expected to announce that: he’s won; the war is over or will be in a rolling two weeks; that Iran no longer has any uranium, or if they do and they probably do, who other than Bibi cares; and that it doesn’t matter that the Strait of Hormuz which was open before the war, isn’t open now because that’s the problem of the countries that used to be our allies so they should just deal with it. However, since Trump has been known to TACO his TACOs, there’s also a non-zero chance that he could instead announce that he’s sending in the troops until the equity markets tank again and oil prices shoot upward once more at which time he will TACO, TACO, TACO.     

The Courts:  A number of legal rulings didn’t go Trump’s way yesterday.  Judge Radnolph Moss of the US District Court for DC found that his executive order defunding NPR and PBS violated the First Amendment and is therefore "unlawful and unenforceable." Judge Richard Leon, also of the DC court, ruled that construction be halted on his pet project, the humongous, East Wing replacement ballroom with the stairway to nowhere, until the project receives a go-ahead from Congress. As indicated by his reaction, including a few longer than usual Truth Social posts, the East Wing decision in particular is freaking Trump out in a bigly, multiple ketchup bottle way. The White House plans to appeal both decisions but Trump isn’t happy so to further show his dismay with the courts, he plans to take the unprecedented step of attending today’s Supreme Court arguments on birth right citizenship, another one of those issues that has his tidy whities, not to be confused with Byron Noem’s pink undies, tied into knots.

Voting Rights?  Courts or no courts, Trump hasn’t given up on issuing questionable executive orders. Since, despite his aggressive efforts and accompanying threats, he hasn’t been able to get Senate Leader John Thune to dispense with the 60-vote filibuster rule to get his voter squelching SAVE Act passed, last night he signed the mother of all  executive orders, to eliminate the “legendary cheating” that he insists with zero evidence goes along with mail-in voting. This order would create state lists of US citizens who are eligible to vote, with an instruction to the US Postal Service to send mail ballots only to “verified” voters. He also says that he will cut aid to states that don’t cooperate.  Naturally, the verified voter list will be dominated by those most likely to vote the way Trump wants them to, presumably a mix of white Republican males, with a smattering of trad wives and other similar thinkers.  According to the Constitution, the document that Trump only cares about when it benefits him, elections are run by states not the federal government so Trump’s order will be immediately litigated and probably will be almost immediately put on hold but since we’ve heard that refrain before we should all be very concerned.  As to mail-in ballots, it’s worth noting that lots of people, including Trump, Melania and Barron, and people in red leaning states vote by mail. Eight states, including California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont,  Washington and Washington, DC allow all elections to be conducted entirely by mail.  Two states, Nebraska and North Dakota, permit counties to opt into conducting elections by mail. Nine states, including Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, and Wyoming allow specific small elections to be conducted by mail. Four states including Idaho, Minnesota, New Jersey, and New Mexico permit mostly mail elections for certain small jurisdictions. Also, lots of other states, including New York make it very easy to obtain mail-in ballots. Trump’s executive order is nothing more than an attempt to disrupt the midterms and all the other future elections he can subjugate. Spooked by the results of recent elections, his declining polls, and the millions of marchers taking to the streets, he’s concluded that the only way he can hold on to power is by taking it away from voters who don’t like him and sadly he’s surrounded by people who don’t just support him but who are also egging him on.

Stupid 💩:  Some military helicopter pilots did a couple of flybys past Kid Rock’s house presumably to reward him for his Trump loyalty but also maybe because they like what he passes off as music.  Their bosses suspended them upon further investigation because unscheduled flybys aren’t supposed to be a thing but then, as expected War/Beer Pete suspended the suspension. Don’t be surprised if the pilots in question soon get medals of valor from the orange one.    

 

Eggs and Matza 😱 ✡️🌻😱 💣🚀 🐣🫓

Stalemate: On Friday House Republicans rejected the Senate’s compromise plan to fund all of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) except for ICE and border patrol.  Instead, by a partisan vote, they approved two months of funding for all of DHS despite the fact that the Senate has rejected full DHS funding several times.  House Republicans didn’t act in a vacuum; they had the full support of Trump who followed up by signing an executive order for members of the TSA to be paid ASAP. Members of the House then followed their colleagues in the Senate, running out the doors and to the airports to get out of town where many of them will hide from their angry constituents.  As a result, DHS funding remains up in the air.  As the Punchbowl News, which generally forgives Republicans for a lot, put it, in control of the House, the Senate and the presidency, the DHS mess is now fully a “Republican problem.” Both the Senate and the House are on holiday until April 13. As of now, Senate leader Thune has no plans to call the Senate back early to vote on the House plan and why would he, because absent any compromise he doesn’t have the sixty votes he’d need to pass anything other than what he’s already passed.  It’s not clear that Trump’s TSA funding order is kosher or how long it can last but starting this week, TSA staff will start receiving paychecks which should help shorten airport lines as people head off for the Easter🐣/Passover break🫓.  

 

War:  Trump says that he’s negotiating with the head of Iran’s “new” regime but won’t name who he is negotiating with.  He says that’s because he’s concerned that if he names who he is talking with, that person will be eliminated by Israel but it’s just as likely that he’s not talking with anyone.  The Iranian regime, which isn’t changed but does include new leadership because all if not most of the prior ones have been eliminated, says that they’re not negotiating with Trump. Trump says that Iran has accepted his 20 demands. Iran’s leaders deny that they’ve agreed to anything and are instead demanding that Trump meet their demands.  Trump says that since he has already won, it is time to end the hostilities but continues to send more US troops to the region.  The WSJ reports that Trump is “weighing a military operation” to extract Iran’s uranium, a “complex and risky” mission that would require him putting troops on the ground, likely accurate given his troop buildup.  The Iranians appear to believe that Trump’s invasion plans are set and that he’s only pretending to negotiate right now because the required US troops aren’t yet in place.  The Iranians may be right. In a perfect world, Iran would stop calling for the annihilation of the US and Israel.  Iran would stop hanging protestors, would stop shooting missiles, would turn its swords into plowshares; Israel would believe them and stop attacking, and Trump wouldn’t be Trump.  Unfortunately, the world’s not perfect and none of that is likely to happen so we’ve got Trump, who ran on no more wars, just steps away from sending US troops into a war that prior presidents concluded couldn’t be won and we’ve got Iran now governed by leaders who appear to be even more radicalized than the ones they’ve replaced. Just to emphasize that last point, Iran’s surrogates, the Houthis, are back in the mix. And either because Trump is trying to convince his friend Vlad to stop helping Iran or maybe just because he just likes him, he’s letting Russia deliver oil to Cuba where people really are hurting.  

 

More:  People marched by the millions in more than 3000 places for Saturday’s No More Kings demonstration. Eight million in total showed up if the organizers are to be believed but even if they’re exaggerating, that’s a lot of likely Democratic voters which explains why Republicans are so desperate to get their voter squelching SAVE Act passed.  CPAC, the conservative group still lrun by accused sex offender Matt Schlapp held one of its conferences.  Mostly because Trump didn’t appear, attendance was down though lots of the usual miscreants did attend.  Steve Bannon was there pushing his usual outrage. The diminished crowd still loves Trump and wants him to run again though some are a bit turned off by the Iran war that Israel “forced” him into.  JD Vance won CPAC’s meaningless 2028 straw poll for who should be the next Republican presidential candidate, assuming of course that Trump doesn’t stay put or run again. RFK Jr was in attendance, talking about Trump’s greatness, especially his empathy for the downtrodden, one of those things that one says when one’s losing favor with the king and RFK does appear to have lost some ground.  Last night, on his flight back to Washington, Trump said that he’s heard that Casey Means, RFK’s pick for Surgeon General, was having trouble with her Senate confirmation, then responding to a press question about whether or not he might pull her, he said that anything was possible. Trump still hasn’t made a Texas Senate race endorsement, but appears to be leaning towards Ken Paxton, another “victim” of impeachment but it’s only Monday and he could change his mind or stick with doing nothing.

 

 

Rhinoceros or Elephant 😱 ✡️🌻😱 💣🚀🦏🐘

Good News, Bad News:  First the good, sometime around 3 AM this morning the Senate unanimously agreed to fund the TSA and the rest of the Department of Homeland Security except for ICE and Border Patrol. The Senate proposal now goes to the House for a vote which is expected to take place today because House members want to go home for Easter, and even they have to know that jumping into and sometimes ahead of airport lines without agreeing to the Senate compromise would be a really bad look, well maybe.  The downside of the Senate deal is that since ICE still has boatloads of money from the Big Ugly Bill, it can continue to do all the nasty things it’s been doing, the upside is that there remains a chance that some of the reforms that Democrats are seeking will be included in some future funding legislation, assuming any is ever passed.  If the Senate proposal makes it past the House and is then signed by Trump, the executive order that he said he would issue for DHS to start paying TSA agents by shifting its funds around should become moot, but Trump is who he is and until now he’s opposed the Senate passing legislation without ICE funding so who knows what he’ll do. Anyone who listened to yesterday’s Cabinet meeting where he rambled on and on about his new wonderful East Wing and the need to “temporarily” close the Kennedy Center that’s now named after him because of those wonderful board members who he appointed thought he deserved the honor and anyway he can “improve” it for far less money that that wasteful criminal idiot Fed Chair Jerome Powell who won’t lower interest rates and should be indicted for imaginary crimes, yada, yada, yada, clearly knows he’s rattled and growing increasingly demented.  Maybe he knows too since he once against cited his ability to distinguish elephants 🐘 from rhinoceroses 🦏, a question on the dementia test that for some very obvious reason his doctors keep administering.  Now the bad news, not only is Trump still in charge but we are still at war and Trump whose brief war updates are mostly two minute video clips of our military blowing things up, addressed Iran, asserting we’ve won while also saying that the war will be over when he says it is, a message that provided little comfort to the oil and stock markets which both reacted accordingly. He did sort of clarify what the gift that he previously said the Iranians had given him was, saying that it was safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz for a few Pakistani flagged ships, though it’s not clear that those ships have actually been granted safe passage or whether the Iranians were just punking him.  In any case, Trump has once again pushed off his plans to start attacking Iranian infrastructure which might just be because more time is needed to get the troops who may or may not be about to attack Kharg Island into position. Oh, and Speaker Mike Johnson gave Trump the first ever “American First Award” yesterday, which he will no doubt display next to his FIFA Peace Prize and the Nobel Peace Prize he was ”gifted” by its real winner, the desperate head of Venezuela’s opposition party.  Lastly, send in the sharpies, because going forward instead of only the Treasury Secretary our currency will be signed by Trump which wouldn’t be a bad thing if someone locked him in a room and made him sign each bill. If you aren’t already a user of Apple Pay, now would be a good time to start.

State of Health:  On Wednesday, NIH head Jay Bhattacharya’s interim role as head of the CDC expired but since Trump still hasn’t nominated a new CDC head, he will continue to “supervise” the CDC while Trump dithers about who to appoint.  Health Secretary RFK wants an anti-vaxxing rubber stamper running the CDC.  The problem for Trump, who has seen polling showing that the majority of voters, including people in key swing areas, actually appreciate vaccines, is that with the midterms coming up he doesn’t want to bring more attention to RFK’s vaccine mishigas.  It’s not just the CDC spot that’s vacant, we still don’t have a Surgeon General. Casey Means, Trump’s RFK chosen nominee, is having a hard time getting the votes needed to make it out of the Health Committee on to the Senate floor. Her problem is that Senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Committee Chair/Doctor Bill Cassidy are all “concerned” about her qualifications and they should be because in addition to refusing to clearly endorse vaccines, she’s more of a health influencer who pushes questionable cures than a real doctor.  The three Senators have not said that they won’t vote for her because they don’t want to enrage Trump, but they clearly are hoping that if they keep stalling her process, Trump will either push her to the curb or get her to decide that she’d rather do something else. That’s a decision that Robert Malone, a vocal critic of COVID vaccines made over the weekend.  He resigned from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) which is currently suspended as the result of a federal judge’s decision that the firing of all of its prior competent members and its watering down of vaccine recommendations wasn’t kosher.  The sign off on what strains should be included in the upcoming year’s flu and COVID vaccines is generally made in March but without an ACIP or other health leadership, there may be no one to signoff. 

More 💩: As a result of a ruling by Trump friendly Florida federal judge Aileen “Loose” Cannon, former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on the secret documents that Trump hid away in various rooms at Mar a Lago at the end of his first term hasn’t been released, well mostly.  Some of it was accidentally shared by the DOJ with the House Oversight Committee as part of its investigation into how “unfairly” Trump was treated during the Biden administration.  Among the nuggets seeing the light is a map of Iran that was so secret that it was supposed to be seen by only six very vetted members of government. Trump showed it to a group of people on one of his campaign flights. Among the viewers was Susie Wiles who was then running his campaign. Another nugget is that Jack Smith concluded that Trump took documents that he thought he could use to enrich his financial position. And what is surprising about that?  As to enrichment, yesterday it was announced that the DOJ has agreed to pay $1.25 million to Michael Flynn who sued claiming he had been wrongfully prosecuted for lying to federal officials during Trump One even though he had admitted and plead guilty to lying. On the subject of wrongful prosecution, with the help of Housing official Bill Pulte, the DOJ appears to be ginning up more charges against NY AG Letitia James because having failed to indict her for imaginary mortgage fraud, the plan is now to get her for imaginary lying to obtain home insurance. That’s not good but even worse, Secretary of War/Beer Hegseth’s favorite Christian pastor has called for Texas Democrat/Senate candidate James Talarico to be crucified or worse because obviously a devout Christian should be punished for being critical of Trump and certainly shouldn’t be running for political office as a Democrat.  Also, Pete and his minister believe that everyone in the military and everywhere else should pray to their god and only their god. Lastly, since Democrats can screw up too, Florida Congresswoman Shelia Cherfilus-McCormick is being investigated by the House ethics committee for misusing $5 million in federal disaster relief funds.  She is probably guilty and may end up being forced out of Congress because her alleged crimes, while less headline grabbing, are along the lines of those committed by George Santos and things didn’t end well for him, at least until he got a Trump pardon something that Cherfilus-McCormick has also been trying to get. Assuming the House votes on DHS funding today, Johnson’s caucus may be down one vote as 78-year-old South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson, best known for yelling “you lie” at President Obama,  is working from home after sustaining a head injury during a bathroom fall.    

No Kings Rally tomorrow!    

 

Sighs of Delusion 😱 ✡️🌻😱 💣🚀 🛩️✈️

Fog of War: Monday morning the oil and stock markets rallied after Trump said that since he was having productive conversations with someone in Iranian leadership he would hold off on the bigly attacks on Iran’s infrastructure that he had threatened over the weekend. Everyone breathed a sigh of delusion, ignoring for the moment that missiles are still flying and hitting targets and killing people across the region; that Trump and War/Beer Pete are still sending in more troops; and that Trump couldn’t identify who in Iran he was “talking” with, or maybe someone like Real Estate buddy Witkoff or son in law Jared may or may not be talking with. That Iranian person may or may not be someone in Iranian leadership who, if he is talking, is probably talking through a Pakistani intermediary, he may or may not be Speaker of Iran’s parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf who may or may not have the authority to negotiate on behalf of Iran’s injured hidden Ayatollah and/or the IRGC, the group that appears to making military decisions. Yesterday, Trump asserted that the Iranians had given him a gift, but no one knows what he is talking about. He also said that he’s presented the Iranians with fifteen demands but couldn’t name them and a few senior Iranians keep posting disparaging, mocking notes on social media. Despite the conflicting messaging, the markets, though still volatile, are still wishfully breathing signs of delusion. Adding to the fog, late yesterday, multiple media outlets reported that the US is deploying roughly 2,000 paratroopers from the elite 82nd Airborne Division's "Immediate Response Force" to the Middle East. This morning the WSJ reports that officials from Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan are pushing for talks between Iran and the US to begin on Thursday while also reporting that Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Israel are pushing for Trump to continue fighting. Bottom line, there is no bottom line.   

Airport Mess:  The skies aren’t much clearer at the airports. For much of yesterday, Republican leadership thought they were close to finalizing a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) including the beleaguered and increasingly short-staffed Transportation Security Administration (TSA) whose agents are currently working without pay. The deal would have funded all of DHS except for ICE whose agents, including the ones mostly lolling around airports chugging coffee, are currently being paid since last year’s Big Ugly Bill funded ICE through 2029. The Republican plan called for future funding for ICE to be provided in a reconciliation bill that would also provide funding for the Iran war and those parts of the voter squelching SAVE Act that they could get past the Senate Parliamentarian. Reconciliation bills require only 51 votes for passage rather than the 60 required for other legislation so they’re easier to pass, however, by Senate rules, they are only supposed to include finance related provisions which in theory should mean that parts of what’s in the SAVE Act wouldn’t or shouldn’t pass muster with the parliamentarian who gets to decide what qualifies.  By funding ICE separately and sticking in some SAVE Act provisions, Senate Leader Thune’s plan was to sidestep the reforms about warrants and agent masking that Democrats are demanding while also satisfying Trump’s demands that the SAVE Act which he believes will improve the Republicans chances of holding on in the midterms and all subsequent elections be passed ASAP. Last night Democratic leadership rejected Thune’s plan, calling it out for what it was, a back door to avoiding ICE reforms with a SAVE kicker.  Notably, it wasn’t clear that Trump would have been satisfied with Thune’s plan. In any case, it’s back to the drawing board for Thune. Airport lines will remain long and Trump who ironically voted by mail in yesterday’s Florida special election even though he was at Mar a Lago during much of the early voting period continues to insist that vote by mail should be mostly outlawed. It turns out that Trump’s vote didn’t matter yesterday. The Republican candidate he endorsed and presumably voted for lost to Democrat Emily Gregory who flipped his hometown red district blue.  She will now represent Palm Beach County, including Mar a Lago, in the Florida State House.  By the way, those ICE agents at airports, according to Steve Bannon they’re presence is a dry run for the upcoming elections.

More 💩:  To avoid complying with the recent court ruling that put the kibosh on War/Beer Pete’s banning of mainstream media from attending Pentagon press conferences and otherwise hanging out at the Pentagon, Petty Pete has moved all of the press, including his rightwing friends like Laura Loomer and Matt Gaetz, into a separate unconnected annex. Makes one wonder whether Pete is just being petty or if he really, really has something to hide.  Probably both.  The Trump administration is paying $1 billion to French company TotalEnergies to get it to walk away from two US offshore wind leases to instead focus on fossil fuel options because, really, who needs alternative energy when relying on oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz is such an attractive option and anyway Trump hates windmills even more than he hates electric cars. Though the war has distracted somewhat from all things Epstein, more Epstein news keeps seeping through anyway including reports that the $170 million that investor Leon Black paid Epstein for tax and estate planning included payoffs to several women. In legal news, NJ finally has a US Attorney and it’s not Alina Habba. The DOJ has agreed to allow Robert Frazer, an experienced career prosecutor who was appointed by the state’s district court judges to remain in place because even AG Bondi recognizes that letting criminals evade prosecution because of lack of leadership was a bad look.  It’s not clear yet, if the DOJ will let district judge appointments stand in other disputed parts of the country.  Lastly, Markwayne Mullin is now confirmed as DHS Secretary. He’s no more qualified than ICE Barbie but that’s the point.                         

       

 
Ground Hold 😱 ✡️🌻😱 💣🚀 🛩️✈️

War, War, War:  Well in turns out that despite their assertions to the contrary Iran does have long range ballistic missiles.  That became apparent this weekend after Iran launched two two-stage ballistic missiles 2500 miles at Diego Garcia, the Indian Ocean location of a joint US- UK military base. Although the attack failed, in response the UK is now allowing the US more expanded use of its bases and Europe is now on notice that it is well within Iran’s missile range.  It’s not clear how many more of those longer-range missiles Iran has in stock, however, it is clear that they still have significant lethal missile capability and that some of those missiles are making it through Israel’s defense system since over the weekend two struck the southern cities of Dimona and Arad near Israel’s main nuclear research facilities injuring somewhere between 180 to 200. It remains unclear who exactly is running things in Iran but whoever it is, clearly isn’t ready to call it quits despite Trump’s Truth Social Posts that he’s either about to declare victory and end the war, or ramp it up, bombing the smithereens out of everything bombable and quite a few things that aren’t while also preparing to attack the critically located Kharg island.  Given that he’s got 2500 more Marines enroute to the Middle East, the Kharg attack option appears to be growing more likely especially given Iran’s missile “reveal.” It certainly doesn’t help that Iran is goading Trump on, back to hanging dissidents after sham trials, including a decorated teenage wrestler. It’s particularly ironic that while Trump may be about to deploy US Marines to assault Kharg, he’s lifting sanctions on some Iranian oil to bring gas prices down, or prevent them from going up even more than they already have, while also celebrating the death of his first term “nemesis” Robert Mueller, the former head of the FBI and Special Counsel who was awarded a Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation Medals, the Purple Heart, and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry for his service in the Marines during the Viet Nam war, the war that Trump managed to skip by feigning heel spurs.  Remember how the right got all bent out of shape when some people didn’t show sufficient outrage after Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk was assassinated, weird how many of them, are okay with Trump immediately and predictably responding to Mueller’s death by posting on Truth Social “Good, I’m glad he’s dead.” To be clear, assassinations are bad, but celebrating death, especially the death of a decorated war hero and government servant is too.

WTF 🤷‍♀️ 🤷‍♀️:  As to assassination attempts, over the weekend the Washington Post reported that Russia’s foreign intelligence service had proposed staging one, an attempt on Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, to boost his declining public support ahead of Hungary’s April parliamentary election. Whoa, could there be a grain of truth in the conspiracy theory that Trump wasn’t really shot in the ear in Pennsylvania during the run up to the 2024? 🤷‍♀️ Given the sanitizing daylight shone on their plans, Russia has probably shelved them but no worry for Orban, because instead Trump is sending VP Vance to Hungary to campaign on his behalf.  Autocrats have to stick together though it’s not clear that JD is much of a gift but then again Trump sent Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent out as designated Sunday news show idiot this weekend, and he’s not all that persuasive or coherent either.  Nor is the bombastic War/Beer Pete Hegseth, who may be about to learn what it’s like to have real reporters, rather than just Laura Loomer and Matt Gaetz types at his Pentagon news conferences.  On Friday, DC District Court Judge Paul Friedman ruled that Hegseth’s limitations on who can enter the Pentagon and participate in his press briefings were a step too far because they violate the Constitution while restricting the ability of the real press to cover news, something that’s more important than ever during war.  Naturally, an appeal is likely.    

More💩:  In November, Bruna Ferreira, the mother of Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s nephew was detained by ICE.  Though Ferreira had overstayed her visa, she wasn’t a violent criminal but was involved in a custody dispute with Leavitt’s brother Michael. As a result of all the press attention on her detainment and shipping off to a Louisiana “facility,” Ferreira, who is still facing possible deportation, was released.  It turns out that Michael Leavitt may not have been the only one in Trump’s orbit to benefit from some ICE largesse in a custody battle.  The NY Times reports that Paolo Zampolli, the former modeling agent who represented Melania, introduced her to Trump, and who remains a longtime friend of Trump and Melania reached out to a top official at ICE, saying that his ex, the mother of his teenage son, was in the country illegally, asking that ICE agents detain her, in order to help him get his son back. His strategy worked. Though Trump is currently focused on Iran and maybe Cuba too, not too long ago, the news was all about his sights being set on Greenland.  Apparently, the Danes, our one-time great ally and fellow member of NATO, took his threats so seriously that supported by some other European allies, they were prepared to destroy key infrastructure in Greenland, targeting runways in Nuuk and Kangerlussuaq, to prevent an invasion and seizure by US forces. On the subject of runways, there’s a ground hold at least through 2 pm at NYC’s LaGuardia airport this morning, not because of those long TSA lines but because a plane collided with an emergency truck last night resulting in two pilot deaths and lots of injuries. As to TSA lines, with funding for the Department of Homeland Security still on hold, Trump is sending INS agents to help TSA agents at several big airports.  The INS guys won’t be checking ounces in liquid bottles or monitoring scanners but are supposedly being deployed to takeover other TSA responsibilities assuming they can be shown how or shown how without creating more of a ruckus than they typically do.  An easier solution would be to just fund everything at the DHS other than the INS but that would be too easy and it’s so much more fun for Trump and the Republicans to shift blame for airport lines to the Democrats, the same “radical left incompetents” Trump called enemy number one this weekend while also posting that he’d won the war against Iran.