Sinking of the Maine 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🚀🚢 🧨

Maine Mess: The Washington Reporter reports that Maine’s flawed Democratic Senatorial candidate Graham Platner will officially drop out of his race this morning,  Even if they’re jumping the gun, the odds are that he’ll be out by the end of the day.  Who but anyone not so far down the progressive oyster farmer rabbit hole could have possibly guessed that a multiply accused sex offender who denied that he knew his Nazi tattoo was a Nazi tattoo would have even more disqualifying items in his closet?   Yesterday an hour or so before Politico went public with their very disturbing interview of his newest accuser, another one of his prior girlfriends, Platner announced that he was taking time to “reflect” on his path forward.  In the Politico interview, the former girlfriend Jenny Racicot, who says that they had an on again off again relationship, accused a then very drunk Platner of breaking into her house and raping her while she plead for him to stop.  She discussed the rape with a subsequent boyfriend and her therapist.  Racicot isn’t a closet Republican, she shares Platner’s progressive views. She acknowledges that it would have been better if she’d come forward sooner but says that publicly providing details about her experience wasn’t easy for her to do. Naturally, Platner, who’s all into denial, has denied her claims. Those denials ring hollow, which is why during the day and night, he lost most of his endorsements and financial support, not just those who’d reluctantly signed on to his campaign after he won his primary but also from most of those who’d been his earliest and most ardent supporters, including Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren who should have known better than to discount all of the prior accusations against him.  As of this morning, it doesn’t appear that Vermont’s Bernie Sanders has withdrawn his endorsement, though yesterday he found time to post multiple slams of AIPAC, as if that’s the issue here. Platner can be replaced on the Democratic ticket if he drops out before Monday, July 13 so the fight for his replacement as well as a lot of finger-pointing about how Democrats, especially Maine Democrats, got themselves into this mess, has already begun.  Odds are the replacement will not be one time candidate Governor Janet Mills but someone else.  The same progressive “select then vet” crowd are pushing for another progressive, preferably one with anti-Israel views. For his part Platner, says he’ll only pull out of the race if his replacement shares all of his views, as if he should have a say having quite possibly killed the Democrats chances of retaking the Senate.  One name being mentioned is Former Maine Senator Troy Jackson who threw a bottle at a female colleague during a senate caucus meeting.  Come on Maine, do better!  As to Republican incumbent Susan Collins, she’s probably dancing a jig this morning though a few pundits have pointed out that from her perspective it would have been better for this story to go viral after the July 13^th deadline.

In other news, there are reports that Mitch McConnell is brain dead.

Oy.

    

Just Married 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🚀🚢 🧨 🎇 

Independence Weekend:  Taylor and Travis got married; if you had Adam Sandler officiating at their ceremony on your BINGO card you are one up on me. Hundreds of face masked Patriot Front white supremacists carrying Confederate flags marched towards the Capitol, truly scary but also funny in a twisted way given that they’re the same people who objected so forcefully to mask mandates during COVID.  Trump first went to Mount Rushmore, where he probably had some of his Mar a Lago construction cronies, maybe even his pool guy, taking measurements to figure out the most expensive and damaging way he could carve his face alongside those of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theordore Roosevelt.  He followed up by giving a rain delayed Fourth of July speech in Washington DC in which alongside the usual patriotic themes he once again repeated his demand that Congress pass his voter squelching SAVE Act while also warning the sweating attendees that a vote for Democrats was a vote for Communism, a fear mongering theme likely to dominate midterm campaigns given the number of Democratic Socialists who’ve won primaries and all the attention being given to NYC’s Mayor Mamdani who for some reason that escapes me also delivered a much-covered holiday speech. Then because awarding Trump the “inaugural” FIFA peace prize wasn’t enough kowtowing for FIFA president Gianni Infantino, after Trump intervened he took the highly unusual step of lifting the red card suspension that would have prevented American star Folarin Balogun from playing in today’s match against Belgium. Belgium is not happy and assuming the lift stands if the US wins the results will be tainted. Since my football (soccer) knowledge wouldn’t fill a thimble, I won’t opine on whether Balogun deserved that suspension but removing it at Trump’s request seems a bit sketchy, then again Trump did “win” that peace prize. Adding to the irony, player Balogun is a beneficiary of birthright citizenship, that thing that Trump hates so much. Though he grew up in London, he was born in the US when his seven-month pregnant Nigerian mother was restricted from boarding a plane home.

Politics and Grift:  It’s been one year since Republicans in Congress passed Trump’s big ugly bill.  During that time, the average cost of health care has doubled, 4.2 million have lost their ACA (Obamacare) coverage, 3.8 million have lost Medicaid coverage, and nearly 500 hundred hospitals, clinics and nursing homes have closed.  Dr Oz, who heads up Medicare and Medicaid, attributes a lot of that shrinkage in coverage to the removal of fraudulent participants, citing as proof that many of those who’ve lost their ACA coverage didn’t use their insurance anyway.  Apparently Oz doesn’t understand the purpose of insurance.  RFK Jr is still the Secretary of Health and Human Services which partially explains why the FDA, CDC, and NIH don’t have confirmed heads and the Surgeon General slot is still in limbo but there are rumors that he isn’t long for the job and that he’ll be replaced by Oz when he leaves.  Though $1.4 billion of the estimated $4 to 5 billion increase in Trump’s net worth is attributable to his crypto schemes, $86.5 million of it comes from his lawsuit settlements including $16 million from ABC, $16 million from CBS, $24.5 from META, $22 million from YouTube, and $8 million from Twitter.  Notably while he’s all in on extorting money from others, he still hasn’t paid E Jean Carroll the $5 million plus interest that he owes her. It’s also notable that the investors in Trump’s crypto schemes have lost $3.8 to $4.5 billion dollars.

Mess in Michigan:  Gary Peters one of Michigan’s two Democratic Senators is not running for reelection this year. Since Democrats need a net gain of four seats to flip the Senate, holding on to the Michigan seat is essential. Unfortunately, the Democrats race to replace him has been messy.  Over the weekend Mallory McMorrow who had been polling around 12% suspended her candidacy. She isn’t issuing an endorsement but instead said she’ll back whoever wins the primary. The race to replace Peters as the Democratic candidate is now between mainstream candidate Haley Stevens and “progressive” Abdul El-Sayed. During a recent CNN interview El-Sayed who is endorsed by Bernie Sanders and AOC refused to answer whether or not Israel has a right to exist. To state the obvious, you can oppose Israeli politics and dislike Bibi Netanyahu but being unable to come out and say that Israel has a right to exist is depressingly revealing.  Once again, a Democratic primary is mired in ugly Middle East politics with a taint of anti-Semitism.  That last part isn’t overreach, over the weekend social media was full of comments attacking Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce for having Adam Sandler as their wedding officiant, not because he’s a goofy comedian but because he’s a “Zionist” as in Jewish. The primary takes place on August 4.  Congressman Mike Rogers, the Republican candidate for the Senate seat is relatively mainstream.  He could end up winning what is expected to be a close November race especially if the Democrats continue to be so divisive.    

More 💩:  It’s 2026 but Trump is still trying to prove that he didn’t really lose to President Biden in 2020.  To that end, Kash Patel’s FBI has sent 260 agents to complete a “priority” investigation of Fulton County Georgia, still looking for those 11,780 imaginary votes that Trump wanted Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find for him. Locating those mythical votes isn’t the real goal, the destruction of Democratic stronghold Fulton County’s election apparatus, while injecting more doubt about the integrity of the election process, is. It’s not a coincidence that Trump’s attacking Georgia, because going into this year Republicans believed that Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff would be easy to beat. Now that looks unlikely, unless of course, Fulton County’s results can be upended.            

  

 

Semiquincentennial 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🚀🚢 🧨 🎇 

Happy almost Independence day. 🧨 🎇 

Be cool.

Stay cool.

 

The Supremes 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🚀🚢

Monday, Monday:  It was a mixed week of decisions for Trump and the rest of us.  On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to hear Trump’s appeal of the first EJ Caroll case.  As a result, the verdict finding him liable for sexually abusing and defaming her stands and she gets the $5 million she was awarded.  Trump who still claims he didn’t know “that woman” uttered something about appealing but this isn’t a Hebrew National commercial so there’s no one left to appeal to. Since the $5 million award was previously deposited into an account held by a District court, E Jean will receive it as soon as SCOTUS’s clerk’s office files the paperwork. Trump is still appealing the second separate $83.3 million defamation verdict.  By a vote of 5 to 4 with Justices Roberts and Coney Barrett joining liberal justices Sotomayor, Jackson, and Kagan, the Court handed Trump and the Republican Party a loss in their efforts to curtail mail-in voting by ruling that election officials in Mississippi and by extension in the eighteen other states and territories with similar election laws can count mail-in ballots that are postmarked by election day but not received by a specified grace period; in the case of Mississippi that grace period is five days. That doesn’t mean that Trump won’t try to find other ways to attack mail-in voting, he’s already ordered the Postmaster General to not deliver mail ballots in states that refuse to provide sensitive voter data to the federal government, and if all else fails he’s got that ICE militia at his beck and call.  A federal judge has blocked the order to the Postmaster from moving forward and judges in eleven states have ruled that the DOJ can’t force states to turn over their voter lists but Trump who has given up on winning elections with popular policies remains all-in on limiting access to those voters unlikely to vote for him and his party.  On the who can or cannot be fired by Trump edict front, the Court split the baby.  By a vote of 5 to 4, this time with Justices Roberts and Kavanaugh joining the three liberal judges, the Court held that Federal Reserve Governors can only be fired for cause.  The case in question involves Lisa Cook, one of the Black women that Trump’s Housing official/interim DNI Bill Pulte has accused of mortgage fraud. The Court’s decision means that Cook can’t be fired while she’s challenging the trumped-up case against and can’t be fired at all if the case is resolved in her favor.  Unfortunately, that limitation on Trump’s firing power only pertains to the Federal Reserve.  In another case involving Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter, by a vote of 6 to 3 with all six Conservative Justices lining up against the three liberals, the Court ruled that Trump can fire her and anyone else he wants, no cause needed.  That decision overturns the 91-year precedent established in the Humphrey’s Executor v the US case, giving Trump and presumably any presidents that follow, regardless of their party, “sweeping new authority over two dozen multi-member agencies that Congress intended to be independent.”  While it’s good for the financial markets and the economy that Trump can’t fire Federal Reserve Governors willy nilly, there’s little logic behind the different rulings.  Then again, this SCOTUS isn’t much for logic and precedent but is mostly all in on letting Trump do whatever he wants except when it hurts their personal portfolios.        

Ruby Tuesday:  Yesterday, on the last day of this term, SCOTUS finally released the much-awaited birthright citizen ruling.  By a vote that was kind of 6 to 3 but also kind of 5 to 4, the Justices struck down Trump’s day one executive order ending birthright citizenship. Five Justices, including Roberts, Barrett and the three liberals, ruled that Trump’s executive order violated the 14^th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause.  The sixth Justice, Brett Kavanaugh, said that the executive order didn’t violate the Constitution but did violate Federal law.  Few expected that the decision would be so close and no one expected Kavanaugh to base his decision on Federal law rather than the Constitution. Naturally, the nativist crowd dissed “traitors” Roberts and Barrett, instead hanging their future hopes on Kavanaugh’s twisted easter egg.  They’re now calling for Congress to pass some birthright citizen curbing legislation. The Federalist digital company co-founder Sean Davis, a prominent Trump supporter, actually proposed yesterday that the US "require sterilization of all foreign visitors prior to entry." Presumably, he doesn’t mean any of those White South Africans that Trump has enthusiastically invited into the country.  While Trump lost on birthright citizenship, he did notch a victory on the campaign finance front.  By a vote of 6 to 3 with all the Conservatives hanging together, SCOTUS struck down long term federal limits on how much money political party committees can spend in direct coordination with candidates.  The decision means that parties won’t have to rely on all those mysterious PACS since they can now pay for campaign advertising, consulting, and travel for their nominees. The effect will be immediately felt for the midterms and since the RNC has boatloads of money on hand, far more than the DNC which actually is running a deficit as Democratic donors tend to contribute directly to their preferred candidate, the expectation is that the decision will benefit Republicans. Regardless of who gets the upper hand it’s also likely that there will be more corruption and expectations of quid pro quos as well as far more of those really annoying political ads.  In the last high-profile decision, by the usual partisan split of 6 to 3, the Court upheld Mississippi and Idaho laws barring the participation of transgender female athletes on girls’ and women’s sports teams. Twenty-five other states have similar restrictions on their books.  The decisions that essentially say that only “biological girls” should be allowed on girls’ teams were expected.  It’s fair to assume that no one in the majority has read Jeffrey Eugenides Middlesex (great book) and/or gets that biology isn’t always straightforward.  It’s hard not to believe that some soccer moms (and dads) won’t insist that some of their daughter’s opponents be tested for being better athletes or for just being less feminine looking.

More 💩:  NJ Republican Congressman Tom Kean Jr returned to Congress after being mysteriously MIA for four months. He disclosed that he was hospitalized for severe depression, something that he didn’t want to share until now. While it’s sad that he was in so much emotional pain, it’s also sad that he was too embarrassed to share his diagnosis with his constituents who he rarely met with even before his hospitalization. Kean is facing reelection in a very competitive district.  Curiously, while severely depressed and hospitalized he managed to execute portfolio trades during his hospitalization (stock therapy?).  Trump who shares an affinity for stock trading and who measures happiness in dollars may not be well, but he doesn’t appear to be depressed perhaps because he is a whole lot richer.  His net worth has grown from approximately $2.3 billion to more than $6.5 billion since the beginning of his current term.  That may or may not include the going rate for pardons, estimated at $1.5 million a pop. Trump is expected to hand out 250 million more of them on July 4.  On the primary front, Melat Kiros, another young anti-Israel and also likely more than a bit anti-Semitic Democratic Socialist, the latter indicated by her failure to condemn a fatal bombing of a group marching in support of Israeli hostages, won a primary over long-term 68- year-old Democratic Representative Diana DeGette in Colorado yesterday. Also, Senator Michael Bennet who had until recently been seen as the front runner lost his bid for the Democratic Governor nomination to Colorado Attorney General Paul Weiser.  Bennett will remain in the Senate, alongside Colorado’s John Hickenlooper who easily won his primary for reelection and is expected to win the general election.   

 

 

Unfortunate Events 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🚀🚢

Drip, Drip, Drone:  The Iran peace deal is percolating, along the lines of an erratic coffee maker with one remaining broken K-cup. In other words, having a good cup of coffee by breakfast time, like smooth transit through the Strait of Hormuz and an absence of hostilities in the region is unlikely to happen soon, if ever.  Over the weekend, Iran shot projectiles at a few of the ships bold enough to move through the Strait, something about the Mullahs and the IRGC being pissed that those ships were using a route in Oman’s territorial waters rather than one under their control.  The US responded by striking Iran and then Iran responded by shooting a few missiles and drones at Kuwait and Bahrain.  Last night the administration said that what Trump had referred to as “unfortunate” attacks by Iran were over, since the two sides have once again agreed to “stand down,” by temporarily halting hostilities to move back to hammering out the terms of a peace deal, one based on the vague Memorandum of Understanding.  Iran responded by saying not so fast we didn’t agree to do that.  The US insisted that Iran was prepared to keep a scheduled meeting on logistics, Iran again said, not so fast, we’re not attending that meeting. The NY Times reports that officials in Tehran believe that despite their struggling economy and the damage to their infrastructure they have the upper hand for now.  Their assessment is that Trump doesn’t want to resume all out war with the midterms on the horizon, so they see no reason to make concessions or to give up control of their nukes especially since they also believe that once the midterms are in the rearview window, Trump is likely to ramp up hostilities. There will be little time to brew a strong cup of coffee on the Lebanon-Israel border either because while Israel and Lebanon have signed a US brokered framework agreement to end their hostilities, Lebanon doesn’t have much, if any, influence over Hezbollah, the source of those hostilities, who almost immediately declared the agreement “null and void.”  If only someone had told the East Wing, Arch d’ Trump, pond scum obsessed Trump just how complicated the Middle East was and will always be earlier 🤯.   As to that huge pond, the one with the blooming green algae problem, the paint manufacturer says that some peeling was always expected.  Also, it turns out that Trump’s geniuses removed the large filter boxes that were supposed to help keep the algae under control because they were ugly 🤦‍♀️and the orange guy didn’t want ugly things around during all his planned 250-year anniversary celebrations, like the one that took place this weekend that few people attended.        

Pride Celebration?  Last week while the rest of us were going about our lives, someone decided to seriously disrupt former Mayor, Transportation Secretary, and maybe future presidential contender Pete Buttigieg’s.  That disruption involved reporting to authorities that he had confessed to some random person that he had done horrible, twisted things to his now four-year-old adopted twins.  As a result of the anonymous report, Michigan State Police and Child Protective Services showed up at his home and removed his twins from his custody for 24 hours while they investigated what they quickly determined and then publicly acknowledged was most definitely a false and malicious report. It’s probably not a coincidence that the heinous accusation took place during pride month. Moreover, despite the conclusion that was reached by authorities that the accusations against Buttigieg were false and that he had been the victim of a twisted form of swatting, they hurt.  Buttigieg is an effective messenger who has been out on the campaign trail helping candidates around the country, he had to cancel a scheduled appearance in Arizona to deal with this slime. The accusations against him are an indication of how much someone, or some group of people, fear him but that doesn’t make them less damaging, a quick look at the crude, bigoted comments posted on Twitter and other social media sites shows how even false accusations can haunt.      

More 💩:  So, is anyone surprised to learn that Trump’s sons Eric and Donald Jr and a few, if not all, of Commerce Secretary/Peace Guru Howard Witkoff’s sons are now significantly, as in multiple millions of dollars richer as a result of their proximity to power?  Their climb up the billionaire ladder is the result of some lucrative mineral contracts that businesses they are involved with have obtained and how those businesses have received more than one billion dollars of preferential loans from the US government.  The NY Times includes details of one of those deals, with a Kazakh entity. Apparently, Hunter’s real problem wasn’t that he benefited from his father’s name while his father was out of office but that he didn’t go big enough and didn’t go all in while his dad was president.  While they’ve been getting richer, Dad Trump is doing his best to make sure that the midterm elections and any subsequent ones are called into question. His interim Director of National Intelligence Pulte, whose remit is supposed to be the temporary oversight of the intelligence integration function while Trump’s new appointee Jay Clayton goes through his confirmation process, has hired Christina Norton, the former Director of the Republican National Committee and election denier who worked on election-related issues as his chief of staff. Norton’s hire is an indication that Pulte knows that Trump has no plans to get Clayton confirmed anytime soon.  She, like Pulte knows little if anything about intelligence, but that’s the point, her role is to “find” problems with the upcoming elections in order to disrupt them while casting doubt on their integrity.  We are cruising to disaster, in five alarm territory 🔥with few, if any, hoses. Our best hope at this point may be that Trump will prove as incompetent with his election disruption as he has been with his pool.

 

 

Strait Poker 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🚀🚢

Elusive Peace:  According to Trump the Iran deal is moving ahead swimmingly.  Unfortunately, that’s only true in his mind.  Yesterday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard attacked a Singapore flagged ship transiting through the Strait of Hormuz.  As a result, a number of countries have once again halted the movement of their ships through the Strait and the UN's International Maritime Organization has paused its Strait evacuation plan. Secretary of State Rubio keeps whistling into the wind that Iran has no right to charge any Strait transit fees or to dictate transit routes, but Iran appears to have other plans, and those plans include military action. Strikes or no strikes, Trump is keeping with his deception strategy, last night in an effort to rally support among US farmers Trump repeated his claim that Iran has promised to purchase US grown agricultural products including corn and soybeans with the funds that he agreed to unfreeze because unlike Obama when Trump frees funds it’s okay. If the crop purchase claim was true that would be a boon for farmers who’ve suffered from Trump’s tariffs.  The problem is that Iran insists that they have not agreed to use the funds to buy any American agricultural goods.  While Tehran is willing to call Trump out when he lies, it looks like two of the Republican Senators who voted to limit his war powers have caved to his threats. Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy who is on his way out of the Senate because he lost his primary after Trump endorsed his opponent changed his vote and now no longer supports crimping Trump’s war powers.  He asserts he flipped after receiving a convincing private briefing on the Iran deal, but more likely it’s because that briefing involved threats perhaps involving decapitated horses and beds 🤷‍♀️, that Trump would make sure that no one hired him for any lucrative lobbying jobs upon his departure.  Rand Paul, one of the other Republicans who had voted with Democrats shifted his vote to present, muttering something about since the hostilities are over, boat strikes aside, he changed his vote to enhance Trump’s negotiating position. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins stuck with their war powers votes. Murkowski because she frequently walks to her own drummer,  Collins because she’s got a pass to cross Trump on an as needed basis through November’s election.   

Legal Update:  We’re still waiting for the important SCOTUS ruling on birth right citizenship which may or may not come today.  However, a few opinions have been released. Yesterday the Court issued some anti-immigrant decisions.  In one of their 6-3 ideological decisions, written by the extremely conservative Justice Alito, the Court ruled that the government can legally turn away asylum seekers who attempt to reach a port of entry as long as they haven’t physically set foot on US soil. In another ideological decision, also written by Alito, the Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to remove temporary protected status (TPS) protections for citizens of Haiti and Syria under a federal program that allows foreigners to stay in the US when the US government believes that it is not safe for them to return to their homes. The bottom line is that though neither country is much safer than they were when their citizens were granted TPS, their citizens are no longer welcome here because they’re not white South Africans.  The legal news wasn’t all bad.  Yesterday, Boston based District Court judge Indira Talwani blocked Trump’s order for the US Postal Service to impose limits on voting by mail, a real problem because Postmaster General David Steiner has said that if Trump wants him to refuse to process likely blue ballots from states that decline to hand over sensitive data, as in bogus incomplete and inaccurate citizenship files, he would be happy to do so.  Of course, the Trump administration is expected to appeal because squelching votes, alongside political gerrymandering, is a key part of their midterm and future presidential election strategy.  On the Epstein front, in response to a lawsuit by attorney and journalist Katie Phang US District Court judge Emmet Sullivan ordered the DOJ to un-redact and produce more Epstein files by July 2 or show cause why the documents must remain blacked out. 

Other 💩:  The administration is now seeking $1.4 billion to help combat Ebola because it turns out that the DOGE boys’ decision to defund those efforts was incredibly short sighted and ignorant.  In a similar vein, all the branches of the military are once again requiring new recruits to get flu shots. On the personnel front, Gregg Phillips the third ranking FEMA official in charge of disaster response has been ousted, something to do with his repeated claims that he had been teleported to Waffle Houses.  On more serious note, War/Beer Pete has ousted Chris Donahue, another four-star General, General Donahue had been the Army commander in Europe.  Apparently decapitating the military by eliminating its most competent and experienced leadership is his thing. Similarly, Bill Pulte, the housing official with no intelligence experience who is the acting Director of National Intelligence because Trump is holding up the confirmation hearing for his less controversial permanent pick Jay Clayton in an effort to get his voter squelching SAVE Act passed has started firing DNI staff as one does when the concept of coordinating intelligence among the various intelligence agencies to avoid another 9.11 is no longer prioritized. Similarly, Trump cancelled the signing of a bi-partisan passed Housing bill claiming there are parts of it he who is an expert in all things housing suddenly doesn’t like but really because he is holding it hostage to get the SAVE Act passed.  The Senate doesn’t have the votes to pass the SAVE Act but Trump doesn’t like taking no for an answer and though it’s hard to see how he could get the SAVE Act passed, he did just get two Senators to flip their war powers votes so we shouldn’t totally discount the chance that he’ll force something, something bad.   

 

 
Duck, Duck, Goose 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🚀🚢 🦆 

Deflecting Pool:  The Reflecting Pool is still green, the algae is still blooming, at least one duck 🦆 maybe even  🦆 🦆🦆  are dead, and without credible proof Trump, the lamest 🦆 of all, is blaming his $16 million plus folly on Democratic aligned antifa radicals claiming that a horde of them slashed the pool’s lining, a lie that Fox and the other right wing media outlets that are viewed by the MAGA and MAGA curious universe are amplifying. Even Trump admits that since the pool which is now being “protected” by fences, a variation on the way that the Kennedy center’s signage sans Trump’s name is still covered by tarps, needs to be drained again and is unlikely to be repaired in time for his July 4^th 250^th anniversary celebration/MAGA political rally. Things are also going swimmingly on the Iran front with Trump asserting that the Iranians have “fully and completely” agreed to allow nuclear inspections and Veep Vance saying IAEA inspectors could be back in Iran as early as this week while Tehran asserts that they have no plans to allow any of those inspectors to return to its enrichment sites. Similarly, though some ships are now transiting through the Strait of Hormuz and fuel prices are improving, traffic remains way below normal. On the domestic front, with Republicans Susan Collins, Rand Paul, Bill Cassidy, and Lisa Murkowski joining all Democrats except for Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman the Senate finally joined the House in voting for a largely symbolic war powers resolution directing Trump to end the Iran war.  Naturally, Maine Senator Susan Collin’s vote was symbolic too, part of her usual election year dance. Former Senate Leader Mitch McConnell remains MIA.  

 

Primary Results:  It pains me to report that in New York City, Mayor Mamdani’s endorsed House candidates won their Democratic primaries in districts where winning the primary is tantamount to winning the general election, all but ensuring that while Dan Goldman, possibly one of the most competent members of Congress won’t be returning to the House in January, a group of Mamdani’s socialist, anti-Semitic dog whistling favorites will be in the House’s freshman class, proof that Republicans aren’t the only ones who send crazies to Congress.  That’s alarming because should Democrats retake control, this new crowd is likely to make Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ life that much more difficult, especially if his Democratic majority is a small one and given how Republicans have won the gerrymandering war, his majority, assuming he wins one, is likely to be smaller than it would be had all the partisan redistricting not taken place. In one piece of rational news, in the more normal but very expensive NY 12 primary for the seat being vacated by the retiring Jerry Nadler, Micah Lasher won, edging out his closest competitor Alex Bores and trouncing nepo Kennedy Jack Schlossberg while also leaving George Conway, the former Republican/spouse of Kellyanne, in the dust. Of course, Trump celebrated his nemesis Conway’s poor showing. It’s not just that the outcome of most of the New York City primaries that was disappointing, it’s the process itself that leaves a lot to be desired because by their nature closed primaries in one party dominated districts, particularly those held late in June, attract so few voters and by definition exclude independents.  Shifting south, in South Carolina, where Trump endorsed both of the candidates in the Republican gubernatorial runoff, Alan Wilson rather than Pamela Evette, who he endorsed in South Carolina’s first round, won. Naturally, Trump celebrated that his candidate had won.  Don’t try to make it make sense because it doesn’t.  

 

Other 💩:  On the legal front, in Minnesota Federal District Court judge Patrick Schiltz, a George W Bush appointee, quashed subpoenas targeting Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, state Attorney General Keith Ellison and other officials, saying there was “no doubt” that they were issued to harass Trump’s political opponents.  Elsewhere, the DOJ withdrew subpoenas that sought to compel reporters from the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal to testify in front of a grand jury, part of the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on leaks and press freedom.  Clearly, the DOJ didn’t do that because they care about press freedom but because they didn’t think that those subpoenas would get them the results they wanted.  In other legal news, we’re still waiting for some very important Supreme Court decisions to be announced. On the health care front or more accurately the no health care front, the number of reported cases of the flu at Lackland Air Force base is now up from 160 to 200 because eliminating vaccine requirements for young people living in close quarters is both stupid and irresponsible. On the vaccine front, a study on how the COVID vaccine reduced hospitalizations by 55% and trips to emergency rooms and urgent care clinics by 50% that the CDC refused to publish finally saw the light after it was published in JAMA Network Open, the monthly, peer-reviewed, open-access medical journal published by the American Medical Association (AMA).  On the stupid and disturbing front, the Education Department which Trump is working to eliminate has transferred special education management for nearly one million autistic students to RFK’s Health and Human Services. That’s a problem because RFK who has said that autistic children "will never pay taxes, hold a job, play baseball, write a poem, or go on a date" has a limited understanding of what autism is, how the definition of what constitutes autism has expanded over the years, and how valuable special education programs can be for so many of the people he has basically and quite erroneously labeled as worthless. To him autism is merely a term to be tossed around to justify eliminating vaccines.