Stilettos, Flats, Loafers, Sneakers 😱 ✡️🌻😱 💣🚀🚢 👠👡👢

Jungle Fever Update: In California where some counties update their results daily and others only bi-weekly the results of Tuesday’s election contribute to trickle in slowly.  With only 60% of the votes counted in the Governor’s race and 64% counted in the LA Mayor’s race the relative positions between the top candidates are the same as they were on Wednesday morning, however with so many votes left to be counted the rankings could change.  In the race for Governor the spread between Republican Steve Hilton, who currently has 27.2% of the votes and Democrat Xavier Becerra, currently at 26% has narrowed from 2.45% to 1.2%.  Though the apparent third place finisher, Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer, has inched up to 20.2% from 19.6%, absent a significant vote dump in his favor he’s likely to remain in third place and out of the money, in his case out of the $201 million he spent on the race.  In the LA mayor’s race, incumbent Democratic Mayor Karen Bass’ lead has grown to 35.1% from 34.8%.  Republican reality TV guy Spencer Pratt remains in second place; however, his share of the vote has shrunk from 30.4% to 29.4% while third place finisher left wing Democrat Nithya Raman’s share has grown from 22.3% to 23.4% leaving open the possibility that after all the votes are counted she could, just maybe, pass Pratt.  Naturally, Trump who has declared Hilton and Pratt victorious together with some members of his echo chamber are already calling the California election fraudulent, it’s not, it’s just frustratingly slow.  

👞👟👠👡👢:  While California is frustratingly slow, Maine is just totally frustrating. A few more shoes crashed to the floor yesterday for Maine Democratic Senatorial candidate Graham Platner.  The NY Times reports that oyster farmer Platner’s “romantic” past includes a boatload of rocky, alcohol infused relationships and messy break-ups, including at least one that, according to one of those former girlfriends, a Republican who has worked on several Republican campaigns, involved violence. The same woman who detailed her violent experience with Platner also says that he knew from the start that his Totenkopf tattoo was a Nazi symbol, in fact, she says that he and his Marine buddies chose the Tattoo for that reason as a statement of their warrior prowess. Appearing on MSNOW’s Chris Hayes show, Platner who admitted that he had a rocky, alcohol infused past which he attributes to PTSD, denied the violent episode, stuck by his assertion that he wasn’t aware of the significance of the Totenkopf symbol when he was inked, and said that since the source of both of those assertions was a Republican operative they shouldn’t be believed.  He also went with the some of my best friends and closest relatives are Jewish defense with regard to the tattoo.  When asked about the NY Times article, Michigan Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin spoke for many when she said that she looked forward to the day where she is “not answering every single week a question about bad behavior by another dude.” Unfortunately, for Platner there could be more 👞👟👠👡👢 because there remains the possibility that after seeing the NY Times article more women will emerge from his closet and maybe, just maybe a member of his Marine unit will confirm that they knew what the tattoo was when they got it. Unfortunately, for anyone hoping for the Democrats to send Republican Senator Susan Collins packing, the damage may already have been done. Platner is still polling ahead of Collins but back in 2020 her Democratic opponent Sara Gideon polled ahead of her by even more before losing by almost 8 points.  Collins is a notorious underperformer in polls, so Maine’s polls are not all that predictive and as the departed John McCain used to say with his centipede analogy, there can be lots of 👞👟👠👡👢. Maine’s Senate primary takes place next week and assuming Platner remains in the race, and he says he will, if things get worse for him and they may, the Democrats have until July to replace him.  

The Worst People:  Keeping with the frustration theme, yesterday Trump announced that the nomination of Todd Blanche, his personal lawyer/Acting Attorney General to be his next Attorney General.  It’s not clear if Blanche can get the votes he needs to be confirmed as a number of Republican Senators aren’t fans, especially due to his handling of Trump’s on again, off again, maybe on at some future point slush fund.  However, Republicans never fail to disappoint when critical votes are taken so there’s a chance that Senate Judiciary committee head, Chuck Grassley was right when he said yesterday that he sees no impediments to Blanche’s confirmation.  At 92 years of age, Grassley is more coherent that Trump who continues to nod off in meetings when he isn’t hiding his very bruised and swollen hand so we shouldn’t discount his prediction.  Besides, Republicans can do what they did last night, give “passes” to vulnerable Republicans allowing a few to vote against Trump, including Maine’s Susan Collins, Alaska’s Dan Sullivan, and Ohio’s Jon Husted, all of whom are facing close elections in November, while still allowing Trump to win measures he cares about.  Last night the three “opposed” the slush fund but since all their colleagues held firm, an amendment to the $70 billion Ice and Border Control funding package that would have banned it failed.  The funding package passed through the Senate early this morning. However, in one piece of good news, that package did not include funding for Trump’s $1 billion ball room project. Not that Trump’s project list has shrunk, having turned the reflecting pool into a non-reflecting swimming pool blue, he now has plans to do something to the Washington Monument.   Back to the frustrating, despite push back Trump is standing with his decision to appoint Housing Finance Head William Pulte as his Director of National Intelligence.  In an attempt to placate some of the naysayers, Trump says that the scarily unqualified Pulte will only serve on an interim basis, and by interim, Trump means long enough to find lots of election fraud and to disrupt the midterms.  At least for now, following the lead of Virginia Senator Mark Warner, Democrats have voted against extending FISA and its surveillance authority to protest Pulte’s appointment, a problem because Democratic votes are needed since some Republicans oppose FISA’s enhanced surveillance provisions.  

More 💩: Former National Security Advisor/Ambassador John Bolton is a hard guy to feel sorry for; he’s arrogant and most people don’t like him.  That said, it hard to feel good about him pleading guilty to one count of retaining classified information, a charge that the Biden administration chose not to pursue, especially given how many secret documents Trump took, stored in his Mar a Lago ballroom and toilet, and then shared with some of his guests.  The war is still on, though Lebanon and Israel have extended their truce, Hezbollah has not.  The House voted to restrain Trump’s war powers, but their vote was performative because the Senate won’t follow suit. 

 

Bungle in the Jungle 😱 ✡️🌻😱 💣🚀🚢

Jungle Run: Yesterday was primary day in California, Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota.  California is a bit of an odd duck because rather than holding individual party primaries the state uses a “jungle” format meaning that its primaries are nonpartisan with the top two finishers, regardless of their party affiliation, advancing to November’s election day. In addition, the state’s votes take days sometimes weeks to count because every registered voter in the state is sent a mail-in ballot.  Ballots from those electing to vote by mail are valid as long as they’re postmarked by election day and arrive at county elections offices within seven days of the election. The first-place finisher in a California’s primary frequently doesn’t win in November because party affiliated voters who voted for a losing member of their preferred party in the primary tend to cast their vote in the November election for their party’s candidate even if that candidate wasn’t their first choice. As of this 6 AM, with only 57% of the votes counted, the Governor race is still too close to call.  Trump endorsed Republican Steve Hilton is currently leading with 27.8% of the vote ahead of Democrat Xavier Becerra who is in second place with 25.4%. Though their relative positions might change, once all the votes are counted it’s likely that both will make it to the November election. That makes Becerra the favorite to win in November since most of the voters who cast their votes for the other Democrats in the race, including the 19.6% who voted for the likely third place finisher billionaire Tom Steyer will probably cast their votes for Becerra in November. Further bolstering Becerra’s chances is that California has 5 million more Democratic voters than Republican ones. With 63% of the vote counted in the Los Angeles Mayor race, Democratic incumbent Karen Bass is leading with 34.8% of the vote, reality TV guy/Republican Spencer Pratt is in second with 30.4%, and Democratic challenger Nithya Raman is in third with 22.3%. Assuming those rankings hold, Bass and Pratt will proceed to the November election where most of Raman’s voters are likely to cast their ballots for Bass making it likely that she will win a second term. There were lots of other races in California, some impacted by the state’s recent redistricting and many still uncalled because that’s how California rolls.

Some Other Races:  In New Jersey Republican Representative Thomas Kean, who has been MIA for several months won his primary with a lift from Trump who endorsed him citing his tireless work 🤷‍♀️. Kean who keeps promising mostly through his surrogates to reappear soon is still missing despite concerted efforts by the press to track him down.  He’s not at his house, his vacation house, or even at his family’s protected private retreat.  That provides a boon to Democrat Rebecca Bennett who won the Democratic primary and will challenge him for his seat in his very swingy district. Also in NJ, the AOL/Bernie endorsed retired army doctor Adam Hamawy who used to hang with the infamous terrorist Blind Shiekh but also helped save Senator Tammy Duckworth’s life won his House primary.  In Iowa, Trump’s preferred Gubernatorial candidate Randy Feenstra lost to political operative/farmer Zach Lahn who Democrats think they could maybe beat in November with their candidate current State Auditor Rob Sand.  Democrats also think they maybe have a chance of winning the race for the Senate seat being vacated by Joni Ernst with their primary winning candidate Paralympian Josh Turek who will be running against Republican Representative Ashley Hinson. Blue hope springs eternal even in Iowa. In Montana Kurt Alme, Trump’s endorsed candidate easily won the Republican primary to replace retiring Senator Steve Daines who sneakily announced his decision not to run for reelection moments before the filing deadline for the race expired but after he’d given Alme a heads-up leaving Democrats in the lurch scurrying for a good candidate. Democrat Alani Bankhead won her party’s primary, but what makes very red Montana worth watching is that there is a third candidate, independent veteran/former University of Montana president Seth Bodnar running.  Bodnar is endorsed by former Democratic Senator Jon Tester.

More 💩:  The White House has walked back plans for its $1.776 billion slush fund with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who only lies on days of the week ending in “day” saying it’s definitely not going to happen.  Democrats and maybe even a very few Republicans want to add an amendment to the still not passed Homeland funding bill permanently banning the slush fund. Though Blanche says that the slush fund is dead, or at the very least almost dead, he stands by the plan to kill all of Trump’s tax audits, because at the end of the day getting excused from paying the $100 million plus interest he owes plus anything else we don’t even know about is what Trump cares about the most, well that, his East wing ballroom and drone pad, and staying president for the rest of his life.  Pete Hegseth continues to stand in the way of the promotions of those he finds too woke, Black or female but has no problem with convicted January 6 rioters one of whom he has appointedto a highly sensitive counterterrorism role. Trump has chosen Housing Administrator Bill Pulte to replace Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence because though Pulte has none of the relevant intelligence experience Congressionally required for the job he’s shown a willingness to go after Trump’s enemies and will probably be happy to help disrupt the midterms and any other elections that matter. The Supreme Court has signed off on Alabama ridding itself of its one Black district in the upcoming midterms because Jim Crow. Former FBI Director James Comey is still indicted but a federal judge in DC is okay with a progressive group continuing to display a flag including the numbers 86 47, concluding that it is "difficult to fathom ... that a reasonable observer would view the flag as a true threat."  Graham Platner is still likely to be the Democrat’s candidate for Maine Senator but while some of his most ardent supporters including Bernie and Elizabeth Warren remain enthusiastically in his camp, a few Democratic Senators who met with him yesterday are less than enthused with some fearing that another shoe may drop.  And after saying exactly what he thinks about CBS and 60 Minutes’ new management Scott Pelley was fired by that management last night for his “antipathy.”  Pelley’s response was to post a letter saying that new management had instructed him to “inject falsehoods and bias“ into his stories.  He went on to say that the new management’s “incompetence and unprofessionalism” have “wreaked havoc.”  A number of media reporters have reported that Joe Rogan is being asked to join the 60 Minutes team. RIP 60 Minutes as we knew it.   

Iran War:  More bombing last night. 96 Days and counting.

        

Sexting Déjà vu  😱 ✡️🌻😱 💣🚀🚢

Legal Trifecta:  The NY Times reports that 10,000 attorneys have left the federal government since Trump 2.0 began.  One of those lawyers is Brian Morrissey, the Treasury Department's general counsel, who resigned right after the Justice Department announced the creation of Trump’s $1.776 billion "anti-weaponization” slush fund presumably because he knew that the fund was highly questionable. Early Friday, the WSJ reported that in response to pushback mostly from Senate Republicans but also from a few at risk House members, some inside the White House were advising Trump to 💩-can or at the very least pare back the sleazy fund’s size and purpose. Their concern, that providing “restitution” awards to the January 6 “tourists” and others who’d engaged in criminal behavior while giving all the Trumps a free pass on past and future IRS audits was a campaign gift to Democrats. Then two different federal Judges weighed in on the fund.  First, Virginia’s Eastern District Judge Brinkema temporarily blocked any disbursements from the fund while legal motions against the fund were in process, then Florida District Judge Williams put a halt on the fund saying she needed time to investigate allegations that the fund had been created as the result of collusive and coercive actions between the White House and the DOJ, collusive because as president Trump was essentially negotiating with himself.  For his part, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche distanced himself from the discussions that led to the fund saying that the fund had been Trump lawyer Boris Epshteyn’s brainchild and that he’d not been involved in the fund’s creation although he did sign the authorizing paperwork and defend it when asked. The two judges’ actions give the White House an out, a way to walk away from the increasingly unpopular fund but so far there’s no indication that Trump is interested in backing down so it’s likely the DOJ will appeal both judges’ actions, The fund is stalled but unfortunately it may not be gone.  Adding to Trump’s legal woes, on Friday another district court judge, DC’s Cooper ruled that Trump’s name needed to come off the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, adding that he didn’t have the authority to close the center for two years since decisions about the Center reside with Congress.  Trump threw a Truth Social tantrum over that decision, saying that he would immediately transfer all responsibility for the ”rat infested” Center that he has already eviscerated kind of the way he’s torn up the East Wing, gotten rid of the Rose Garden, and screwed around with the Reflecting Pool, back to Congress.  Over the weekend Interior Secretary Burgum said that plans to remove Trump’s name from the Center were “up in the air” pending a possible appeal. As to shifting blame, during her unsworn, untaped, closed door “testimony” to the House Oversight Committee former Attorney General Pam Bondi pointed the finger at Todd Blanche, saying that even though she was in charge of the DOJ, anything improper about the handling of the Epstein files was his fault.

Midterm Madness:  In 2020, North Carolina’s Cal Cunningham was supposed to be the Democrat who could take down Republican Senator Thom Tillis. Cuningham’s glide path to the Senate was derailed when his sexually explicit texts and then his extra marital consensual affair with a woman named Arlene Guzman Todd were revealed. He went on to lose to Tilles. Well, it looks like the Democrats are back in déjà vu territory, this time it’s not about North Carolina where former Democratic Governor Roy Cooper really does look like he’s on the glide path to win the seat being vacated by Tilles who has fallen victim to Trump’s taunts but instead it’s about Maine. This time the candidate in question is oyster farmer Graham Platner who was engaged in some extramarital sexting during the first year of his 2023 marriage. His wife says that they’ve since done some counseling and she’s over the sexts but maybe voters, particularly those key swing women won’t be. Platner, the candidate with the “accidental” Nazi era tattoo, had previously come under scrutiny for that tattoo and also for some now deleted Reddit posts where he downplayed sexual assault saying victims should “just take some responsibility for themselves” to avoid attacks and “act like an adult for f–cks sake” while also downplaying the challenges servicemembers face in reporting sexual assault. While Platner’s transgressions pale in comparison to those of Texas’ Republican Senatorial candidate Ken Paxton, Maine is not Texas where cheater Paxton is likely to get points by attacking his opponent James Talarico for being inadequately manly and maybe even a vegan (he’s not but his cute girl friend is).  Voters in Maine, particularly those who have consistently supported incumbent Senator Susan Collins might care enough to torpedo Platner’s chances. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ At the very least Platner has given Collins a lot of campaign fodder.  Maine is one of the states that Democrats need to win to retake the Senate, Governor Janet Mills the Chuck Schumer endorsed candidate who pulled herself out of contention after Platner’s polling numbers surpassed hers, may be a bit old but she’s looking better and better in comparison. The progressive squad that supported Platner, including Vermont’s Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren now find themselves in the unenviable position of having to defend Platner’s transgressions as nothing burgers while also making hay out of the Epstein files and Trump and Ken Paxton’s sexual proclivities.  Maine’s primary is on June 9, while it’s probably too late for Mills to reenter the race, stranger things have happened.  In any case, Platner is now on the defensive, not a good position for him or his party. Somewhere in Minnesota former Senator Al Franken must be screaming.  Tomorrow is jungle primary day in California, eyes are on the Governor primary race, mostly on who will come in second to likely winner, former Biden Health Secretary Xavier Becerra and also on the weird LA mayor race, where Spencer Pratt, one of the creepiest reality TV guys is in the mix.           

More 💩:  Trump’s net worth has skyrocketed from around $2.5 billion to $6 billion since the beginning of this term helped along by his stock trades which include thousands of purchases that take have conveniently taken place right before he announces government contracts and/or investments in the companies he favors. It’s not just his personal wealth that’s grown; sons Eric and Don Jr are also benefiting. Before Trump 2.0, Eric’s net worth was estimated at $40 million; Don Jr’s at $50 million.  Their net worths are now somewhere north of $500 million each. ProPublica reports that three months before the Pentagon announced plans to lend money to rare mineral firm Vulcan Elements, Don Jr’s venture capital firm took an undisclosed stake in the company and that White House adviser Peter Navarro intervened to get the Pentagon contract, which included a $620 million loan, approved in record time. Remember all the trouble that Hunter Biden got into over his Burisma connection, a pittance in comparison.  Also, you might remember Milli Vanilli, the group that got slammed for lip synching their hit album in 1990, well they or at least the surviving member is scheduled to appear as part of Trump’s 250- year anniversary celebration, the party that also involves cage fighting, because of course Trump loves watching others get all bloody.  However, after learning that the event was being run by a MAGA aligned group rather than a non-political entity most of the rest of the scheduled performers have pulled out of the celebrations.  Trump’s response is that all of those performers were second rate hacks anyway, which, if it was true only makes it more pathetic that they were invited in the first place. He now says he’ll deliver a campaign style speech instead, maybe because his people can’t find any more credible performers, other than Lara Trump and Kid Rock.  The clashes outside of New Jersey’s Newark area INS facility where protestors for and against INS which had been refusing access to the facility to legislators ratcheted up this weekend. In response, newbie Homeland Secretary Markwayne Mullin who has been toying with the idea of imposing policies that limit flights to major “sanctuary cities” airports, is now threatening to withdraw critical TSA workers from Newark airport because why not hurt the already struggling economy even more in the run up to elections.  These people are not just vindictive, they’re stupid. Lastly Ebola is spreading, and a Kenyan court is pushing back at a plan by the US to hold infected US citizens in their country instead of in the special facilities set up by previous administrations in the US.       

Iran War:  Last week Trump teased that a deal, or at least an extension of the current ceasefire was imminent.  After details of that deal started to leak out and it became apparent that it deferred resolving the nuke problem while also involving a huge payment of some sort to Iran, something in the neighborhood of $300 billion, was bigly good for Iran, not so much for the US, and worse than the Obama era JCPOA, Trump held a tête-à-tête with his advisors.  Instead of signing off on the deal, he sent Iran a new term sheet and after releasing another bogus health report from his doctors, one that lied about his height, weight, and just about everything else, he headed to the golf course.  The Iranians don’t seem interested in agreeing to Trump’s newest terms.  Overnight we bombed them again.   

 

Going After E Jean 😱 ✡️🌻😱 💣🚀🚢

Texas Two Step:  With 63.8% of the vote, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton easily won his state’s Republican Senate runoff primary. He will face off against Democratic candidate State Representative James Talarico in November. Trump is doing another victory lap.  While his endorsement helped turn Paxton’s victory over Senator John Cornyn into a rout, Paxton likely would have won without it which is why Trump went with his last-minute endorsement in the first place. Paxton is seriously flawed, his list of crimes as well as his ongoing very messy ongoing public divorce rivals Trump’s offenses but it’s Texas where the unctuous Paxton has won three statewide elections so despite his negatives and a lot of enthusiasm among Democrats for Talarico, Paxton stands a decent chance of winning the Senate race though it is notable that only 1.4 million Republican voters showed up for the Paxton-Cornyn runoff, far fewer than the 2.3 million that showed up for March’s Talarico-Crockett primary race. Republicans have already spent around $130 million on this race, much of which was spent on ads that disparaged Paxton. Those ads as well as the anti-Paxton pages on the National Republican Senatorial Committees website are now gone.  The new ones, and there will be lots of them because this election is going to be very expensive, are likely to follow the playbook that Paxton has already started implementing. They’ll attack Talarico, or as Paxton is now calling him Talafreako, as an unmanly vegan who loves illegal immigrants and who is all in on trans surgeries for kids.  Talarico isn’t a vegan, not that there’s anything wrong with that, his quotes about “open” borders and sex change operations have been taken out of context but Paxton is a smooth operator and a scarily effective communicator who shouldn’t be discounted though Talarico is no slouch.  Last night, turning Paxton’s slime into a revenue producer Talarico announced that “I am a Talafreako” t-shirts are now available on his campaign website for $36.  Texas is littered with onetime Democratic Senatorial hopefuls; it would be great if Talarico goes the distance but again it’s Texas.  One of those earlier hopefuls was Colin Allred, who beat out his Democratic opponent, sitting House member Julie Johnson on Tuesday.  He is expected to win in November in the heavily Democratic Dallas area district. Johnson unfortunately is a victim of the Republican gerrymandering that pitted Democrats against each other in the few remaining blue districts.  She’s not alone in losing out, long time Representative Al Green lost his election to Representative Christian Menefee.  The Democratic “castrate the Zionists” candidate who had received funding from a dark money right wing group deceptively and disingenuously called the Lead left PAC, lost to her opponent Sheriff Johnny Garcia.  Sadly, she did win 40% of the votes cast because her hate the Jews comments while deplorable weren’t as offensive as they should have been for lots of voters, a sad sign of the times.  In other election news, South Carolina’s Republican State Senators decided against redistricting away the seat currently held by long-time Democratic Representative and civil rights leader Jim Clyburn mostly because some of them thought that it was unethical to toss out early voting ballots that had already been cast, especially since some of those ballots were from members of the military.  Also, in a decision that is already being appealed to the Supreme Court, a federal appeals court ruled against Alabama’s attempt to eliminate one of its majority Black districts saying that the state’s redistricting plan was discriminatory to Black voters. Unfortunately, SCOTUS is kind of discriminatory to Black voters too so there’s a good chance that they will overturn the appeals court ruling.    

Iran War:  Though the official line is that the ceasefire is holding and that Trump and his Cracker Jack negotiators are close to inking a deal of some sort with Iran, last night the US carried out “defensive strikes” against Iran again.  That’s the second time this week for anyone who is counting.  Also, yesterday during a Kim Jong Un style cabinet meeting that was supposed to take place at Camp David but was moved at the last minute back to the White House, Trump threatened Oman saying that the country “will behave just like everybody else, or we'll have to blow them up" after Iran proposed that the Omanis might partner with them as part of Tehran’s bid to keep control of transit through the Strait of Hormuz.  As to the shift of the cabinet meeting venue, the decision was made around the same time as Trump’s third “annual” physical leading some wish-casters to suggest that the orange one’s doctors requested that he remain near Walter Reed Medical Center and/or the White House’s medical facilities. 🤷‍♀️ Though Trump’s doctors don’t appear to have issued an official statement about his exam, in between nodding off during his cabinet meeting Trump assured us that he’s perfect, healthier than everyone else in the universe.       

More 💩:  The Department of Justice has opened an investigation into 83-year old adjudicated sexual assault victim E Jean Caroll, asserting that she may have committed perjury during at least one of the depositions she gave in her civil case against Trump when she said that she’d received no outside financial help because she later told the judge overseeing the case that she did receive some help from Linked-in cofounder Reid Hoffman’s non-profit for her legal expenses.  The investigation is a stretch but then again E Jean was subsequently awarded $63 million, money that she still hasn’t received because Trump is appealing to the Supreme Court. Apparently weaponizing the DOJ is only a problem when committed or allegedly committed by Democrats. Acting AG Todd Blanche says he has recused himself from the case because he represented Trump 🤷‍♀️ 🤷‍♀️.  As to the weaponization slush fund that Blanche set up for Trump to compensate those who were victimized” for “touring” the Capitol grounds and/or causing election disruption, California and New York are threatening to impose a 100% tax on proceeds received from the fund by any of those nice tourists who reside in their states and a bipartisan group of more than 30 ex-judges have filed a request in federal court to investigate the settlement that led to the creation of the slush fund, arguing the DOJ "deceived" the presiding judge.  In other legal news Federal prosecutors in Chicago dropped all charges against a group that have become known as the "Broadview Six" activists. The group which included some Democratic politicians had surrounded, pushed, and allegedly damaged a federal agent's vehicle during an anti-INS protest. The charges against them were dropped after a federal judge discovered major grand jury abuses by local US prosecutors.  The misconduct included prosecutors improperly coaching jurors on the strength of the evidence, communicating with jurors outside the grand jury room, and actively dismissing jurors who disagreed with the government’s case. Pam Bondi who was the Attorney General when the Broadview prosecutorial misconduct took place, is back in the news. Shortly after she was terminated by Trump she was treated for thyroid cancer, her prognosis is good. Unrelated to her diagnosis, Trump who understands the value of keeping potential tattle talers within his tent has appointed her to serve on his advisory committee on AI policy.  It’s only a matter of time before he comes up with an appointment for Tulsi Gabbard too, maybe she can become his chief ET emissary.  

 
Now You See It, Now You Don't 😱 ✡️🌻😱 💣🚀🚢

Weekend Warriors:  It was just another one of those Trump era holidays.  The wannabee king’s Memorial Day message called Democrats, dumocrats while attacked them for disrespecting the military, particularly ironic given the faux heel spurs that kept him out of Viet Nam, his hate for all things related to the late war hero/Senator John McCain, and his history of calling soldiers who die while serving the country losers and suckers. Over the weekend Trump also announced that he was close to signing a deal with Iran that involved a 60-day ceasefire extension during which the Strait of Hormuz would be reopened, Iran would be able to freely sell oil, and negotiations would be held on curbing Iran's nuclear program.  The promised deal supposedly involves Iran giving up what Trump calls nuclear “dust” in exchange for a $20 billion release of some of Iran’s frozen assets.  Trump’s not so artful deal was slammed by the left for being worse than the Obama JCPOA deal he walked away from and by many on the right for leaving the issue of missiles and nukes unresolved.  Just about everyone agreed that the “imminent” deal left Iran with more control over the critical Strait of Hormuz than it had before the war. In response to all the criticism, Trump tacked on a poison pill like demand that the countries involved in the negotiations with Iran agree to the Abraham Accords, a problem for Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, and Qatar because normalizing relations with Israel is not on their immediate, maybe even ever, bucket list.  For its part Iran said that while some progress had been made, no deal was imminent, a rather prescient comment since last night US forces launched what they called “self-defense strikes” against Iranian missile launch sites and boats around the Strait as one does during the middle of critical peace negotiations.  The bottom line is that Trump really wants to make his Iran problem go away because he sees the polling and knows that the war and its inflation effect are hurting him bigly but not even a Harry Potter invisibility cloak or lots of deceptive Truth Social posts can make Iran disappear.  In other weekend news, without his dad in attendance, Don Jr married his fiancée Bettina Anderson, whose late father, a prominent Palm Beach banker, had written letters of recommendation for Jeffrey Epstein because in Trump world there are far fewer than six degrees of separation.  Trump is scheduled to have another annual physical today, after which his doctors will announce that he’s the healthiest man alive. And because unscheduled dental visits are now a thing, Israel’s Netanyahu was admitted into Hadassah hospital last night for an undisclosed “dental procedure.”

Texas Two Step:  Its primary runoff day in Texas.  In all likelihood Senator John Cornyn will lose to Trump endorsed impeached but still in office Attorney General Ken Paxton.  The winner will go up against Democrat James Talarico, another one of those Democrats who Democratic optimists desperately hope can win in Texas, a state that almost always disappoints. On the Democratic side, as the result of redistricting a number of Democrats are going up against each other in the districts that remain.  In the Houston area long term 78-year-old Representative Al Green, best known to most of us for being outspoken and for being the first to call for Trump to be impeached is being challenged by 38-year-old Representative Christian Menefee, in a changing of the guard election forced by the redistricting. In Central Texas’ 35^th district, the sex-therapist anti-Semitic Democratic “progressive” Maureen Galindo who called for Zionists (as in Jews) to be castrated and who is being supported by a shadowy Republican aligned PAC because she is seen as more beatable in November is facing a runoff against the more mainstream Democrat, Sheriff Johnny Garcia.   

More 💩:  Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard submitted her resignation saying she wants to spend more time with her husband who sadly has bone cancer but really because she was forced out because of her failure to support Trump’s wars. Even her desperate efforts to “prove” that Fulton County Georgia’s 2020 ballots were “compromised” couldn’t save her. We probably haven’t seen the last of Gabbard, she could end up running for president again or as Veep, probably as a Republican, since her anti-war stance and Russia friendliness are appealing to some, especially on the right.  The White House has start erasing references to the January 6 insurrection from all official websites because if they say it didn’t happen, it didn’t happen and anyway, should Trump’s slush fund survive legal and/or legislative pushback the “nice tourists” who attacked the Capitol that day will soon be richer, rewarded for their actions. On the election front,  Trump’s election security czar, election denier Kurt Olsen whose real objective is to eliminate fair elections is trying to but so far hasn’t succeeded in outlawing voting machines for future elections because nothing says modernity and security like a bunch of people wading through 160 million paper ballots on election night. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told travel executives that he is serious about cutting back on international flights to “sanctuary” cities to force airlines to re-route their flights in order to inflict economic pain on those cities, a list that includes Portland, NYC area’s JFK and Newark and Washington Dulles because with international travel already suppressed by Trump’s policies what’s a little more economic pain among friends? Keeping with the “all immigrants except those white guys from South Africa” are bad theme, before the weekend the Trump administration announced that qualified foreigners in the US who want green cards will be required to leave the US and apply in their home country.  That’s a change in longstanding policy and also an effective way of making sure that many green card seekers lose their US jobs, never get their cards, and that those who do end up waiting for years outside the US, many in the country that they were legitimately fleeing. Green card or not, those with them who’ve been in countries effected by the growing Ebola outbreak, now ranked as the third worst in history, are being banned from reentering the US. Not much of a surprise that eliminating US AID, withdrawing from WHO, and cutting virus experts has worldwide consequences.        

 

 

Memories 😱 ✡️🌻😱 💣🚀🚢

Slush, Sludge and Trumpery:  Kentucky’s frail but not gone yet Mitch McConnell called Trump’s $1.776 billion slush fund “to pay people who assault cops utterly stupid and morally wrong.”  Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski referred to it as “bomb” dropped in the middle of what was supposed to be a relatively smooth reconciliation bill process.  North Carolina’s soon to retire Thom Tillis called it “stupid on stilts.” Those are just three of the many crushing criticisms levied by Republican Senators about Trump’s $1.776 billion anti-weaponization slush fund. While none of those Senators are Trump fans and have often been among the few Republicans willing to openly criticize Trump, they represent just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to pushback against Trump’s outrageous plan to pay off the January sixers and the others who engaged in illegal activity on his behalf.  A growing number of Republicans in both the Senate and House are upset with Trump’s fund, some because the idea of compensating those who beat up the Capitol officers and threatened the life of Mike Pence is a step to far, many more because the optics of supporting the fund puts their political futures in jeopardy.  Even though the so called “anti-weaponization” fund was structured by the sinister Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to sidestep legislative approval, Senate Democrats have figured out how to make their Republican colleagues go on the record.  Their plan is to tack a slush fund amendment onto the Republican ICE and Border Patrol reconciliation bill which is supposed to fund the two parts of the Department of Homeland Security that still haven’t been funded. Doing that would force Republicans to vote up or down on the slush fund, a particular problem for the few with a moral compass and a bigger problem for those up for reelection in swing states. While supporting the slush fund would keep Trump off their case, it would alienate swingy voters, especially those already upset about inflation and the Iran war. Faced with that quandary, Senate leader John Thune, who as a result of Senator Cassidy’s Trump caused primary loss, no longer has a controllable majority punted for now, said that “because things have gotten a little more complicated this week” he’s postponing the vote on the reconciliation bill, opting instead to send the Senate home early for what will now be a ten-day Memorial Holiday.  Speaker Mike Johnson also sent the House crowd home early, not just because of the slush fund problem but because he wants to avoid holding a war powers act vote, one that he expects to lose since a few more members of the House are prepared to vote for it, including Jared Golden who had been the only Democratic hold out. The slush fund problem, like the war, won’t go away, it will still be there when they come back from holiday.  It’s not just the slush fund and the war; there’s also East Wing/Ballroom funding.  Obsessed with his pet project, Trump is beyond furious that the Senate Parliamentarian has rejected allowing inclusion of its $1 billion and growing price tag in the ICE/Border Patrol reconciliation bill.  He wants the parliamentarian fired ASAP; Thune isn’t on board with that. Memorial Day won’t be all that fun this year, the incoming threatening phone calls from Trump who says he’ll be too busy doing president stuff to attend son Don Jr’s weekend wedding are likely to upstage quite a few BBQs.

MAHA:  Ebola is on the rise, and the lack of US AID support is getting blamed for some of the difficulty in responding to the crisis. RFK’s crowd is pushing for another drastic cut in NIH funding because who really needs cancer and infectious disease research anyway?  He’s also quietly terminated the appointments of the leaders of the Preventive Services Task Force; the independent panel determines which determines the preventive care services private insurers must cover without cost-sharing under the Affordable Care Act.  Not so coincidentally just days after tobacco company RJ Reynolds contributed $5 million to Trump, Trump invited the company’s representatives to Mar a Lago and then endorsed the approval of flavored vapes. In case you’ve missed it Trump is now airing a political commercial bragging about how wonderful it is that those flavored vapes will be available to those trying to quit smoking. Spoiler alert, flavored vapes are for the younger set, not to “help” them quit but to encourage them to embrace a new habit. And because it’s so not MAHA, the Trump administration is rolling back limits on forever chemicals in drinking water.

More 💩:  Last week, the Pentagon cancelled an already in-process deployment of 4000 troops to Poland. Yesterday, by Truth Social post Trump reinstated their deployment, upping the number to 5000.  Neither announcement was expected though many defense experts not named Pete Hegseth are expressing relief about yesterday’s TACO.  Trump may be sparing Poland but the same can’t be said for Taiwan.  Yesterday, the Pentagon announced that military sales to the country are on pause, probably something that Trump promised Xi during one of their private chats on his China trip. ActBlue, the Democratic funding website has cancelled the account of Maureen Galindo, the Democratic candidate in Texas whose platform includes incarcerating and castrating Zionists, and by Zionists we all know she means Jews. She’s still receiving funding from a right wing Republican affiliated PAC that would love to see her win her primary runoff because they view her as more beatable than her Democratic rival Sheriff Johnny Garcia. NJ’s Josh Gottheimer and Florida’s Jared Moskowitz say that in the event she makes it to Congress they will immediately call for a vote to expel her. Democrats have finally released their 2024 autopsy report.  Lots of angst about its late release and now even more about its vagueness. I am guessing that this is an inside politics thing and that most voters care more about inflation and war.  Bruce Morissey, the top lawyer at the Treasury Department resigned this week over his concerns about Trump’s slush fund.  He’s gone but he’s not alone in being concerned about the legitimacy of the fund.  A team of professionals at the IRS are also upset, first because they believed that Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit, the rationale used to justify the creation of the fund, was without merit and now because they can’t believe that they can no longer audit Trump, his families, and their affiliated companies, as if they even know what will count as an affiliated company.

Enjoy your Memorial Day holiday.  

 

 
Slush, Grift, Hate 😱 ✡️🌻😱 💣🚀🚢

WTF on Steroids:  Trump pulled his absurd 10 billion dollar lawsuit against the IRS. In exchange, the Department of Justice announced that it had set up a $1.776 billion anti-weaponization fund to compensate “victims” who claim to have been the target of politically motivated prosecutions by Democratic administrations. The DOJ then revealed that Trump’s “deal” also precludes the federal government from seeking any sort of audit or payment from him, his family members, and companies on pending tax claims.  Because Trump’s anti-weaponization slush fund will be financed by tapping into the DOJ’s Judgment Fund which is an uncapped pool of money created and permanently funded by Congress specifically to allow the federal government to pay out lawsuit settlements, no appropriation vote will be necessary. Trump now has a mechanism to compensate the people who were prosecuted for engaging in his insurrection, including the thugs who beat the crap out of the Capitol police, and he no longer has to worry about making good on the $100 million plus interest that he reportedly owed the IRS which means more money for him to allocate for insider trading, which judging by the 3000 plus conveniently well timed stock trades he made in the first quarter is something else that he seems to be really into these days. Apparently, when you are king you get to make the rules especially when your personal lawyer, Todd Blanche, is the acting Attorney General. Mark Caputo, a long-term Trump ally who was a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services during Trump’s first term has filed the first claim seeking $2.7 million in restitution asserting that he is deserving because he was “targeted” by the investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. Our tax dollars at work and in case you are thinking about withholding your tax dollars in protest, forget about it because only members of the Trump family get to do that. As bad as all this is, it’s even worse that the message to those interested in helping Trump upend the midterms and the 2028 presidential election is that if Republicans win they can do so with impunity, in fact they could even get paid for their efforts, the bloodier the better.  You know who else once created an illicit slush fund, Nazi leader Martin Bormann who created it in 1933 in Hitler’s name and then used it to compensate stormtroopers who committed street violence and to enrich Nazi party leadership. 😱 😱      

Primarily Yours: Yesterday, Trump endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over incumbent Senator John Cornyn,  more or less ensuring that Paxton wins next week’s Texas run-off primary to become Texas’ Republican Senate candidate. Paxton who is currently engaged in a very public “biblical” divorce from his wife, was impeached by the Texas House of Representatives in 2023 for committing bribery, abusing public trust, and obstructing justice, primarily linked to him using his office to benefit a friend and campaign donor who was under federal investigation but he was able to stay in office because he was acquitted by the state’s Republican controlled Senate. So basically, he’s Trump’s kind of guy. Republican leadership, who preferred the more mainstream Cornyn largely because they believe that he would be the better candidate against Democrat James Talarico, thought they had convinced Trump to stay out of the race.  However, fresh off his success ridding himself of the Indiana legislators who’d blocked his gerrymandering push and Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy Trump felt emboldened, so he went with the Paxton endorsement. Texas being Texas, Paxton could win in November, but Republicans will now have to spend much more money defending the seat. Moreover, assuming Cornyn loses next week’s primary there’s a chance that he spends his remaining term being a thorn in Trump’s side ala North Carolina’s Thom Tillis and now Bill Cassidy who yesterday joined Republican Senators Rand Paul, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski and all Democrats except for Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman, voting to force the war powers act vote that Trump’s been trying hard to avoid. Gaining control of the Senate will still be a stretch for Democrats especially since they still have to make it through a gnarly Michigan primary and may or may not have given Maine’s Susan Collins a lifeline by selecting Graham Platner, the untested Oyster farmer with the Nazi tattoo, as their candidate, but at the very least Trump has made it harder for Senate Republican leader John Thune to get things passed through year end with the majority he now has. One of those things that appears to be suffering is Trump’s ballroom, the one that was supposed to be donor funded but now isn’t.

Adios, Adieu:  In other primary news, Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie lost his primary to Trump endorsed candidate Ed Gallrein. While it’s depressing to see how much weight Trump’s endorsement carries in closed MAGA dominated Republican primaries, Massie wasn’t the nicest of guys. While he deserves credit for standing up for the Epstein victims and it’s been fun to watch him make Speaker Johnson’s life more challenging by voting against Trump’s funding plans, he was anti-immigrant, and opposed birthright citizenship. He also spent a lot of his time blaming his election problems on “nefarious” Jewish interests. As to that target the Jews thing, he’s not alone.  Texas Democrat Maureen Gallindo whose runoff election to become the Democrat’s candidate in one of Texas’ new gerrymandered seats takes place next week posted on Instagram that should she make it to Congress she intends to write legislation to turn an ICE Detention Center into a “prison for American Zionists and former ICE officers for human trafficking.” Because that wasn’t ugly enough, she added “It will also be a castration processing center for pedophiles which will probably be most of the Zionists.” She’s accused her Democratic opponent Bexar Sheriff Johny Garcia of being “paid by Zionist terrorism and trafficking.” She’s also said that that Jews run Hollywood and worship the “synagogue of Satan.” The not so charming Gallindo has been condemned by lots of Democrats including leader Hakeem Jeffries and AOC but she’s being supported by a Republican “pop-up PAC” because that’s how politics roll these days.

More 💩:  Keeping up with the hate theme, two teenage gunmen who, judging by the Nazi messages on their weapons, hated just about everyone but especially Muslims shot up a San Diego mosque this week killing three people in another one of those terribly awful events that happens when hate is celebrated and haters have easy access to guns.  And keeping up with the death theme, the Ebola epidemic is growing.  There are 600 known cases and 130 known deaths.  When asked to comment on both the Ebola and hantavirus situations, RFK who with the help of Elon Musk eviscerated our infectious fighting squads, said “Yeah, we’re working on it” but that he’s “not worried” maybe because there’s always raw milk, ivermectin, and coke to be sniffed off toilet seats?   And, lastly for this morning, Trump pulled a TACO 🌮again on Monday, something about several Middle Eastern allies requesting that he put his planned imminent attack on Iran on hold because serious negotiations are taking place…..or not.