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.    

 

 

 

Bye-Bye Bill 😱 ✡️🌻😱 💣🚀🚢

Weekend Update:  Iran or their surrogates attacked the UAE’s nuclear power facility with drones over the weekend, sparking a fire at the perimeter of the plant that is responsible for providing 25% of the UAE’s power. The UAE called the drone attack “an unacceptable act of aggression,” Saudi Arabia is furious. and Trump is again threatening to start bombing Iranian targets while his id, otherwise known as Senator Lindsey Graham, is encouraging him to act on his threats to demolish Iran’s infrastructure. Either another TACO is in the offing, or Trump will start doing damage, again.  Here at home Trump notched another victory in his war against those few Republican politicians who voted for his impeachment and as a result Louisiana Senator/Doctor Bill Cassidy will no longer be a member of the Senate come January.  Cassidy who voted for Trump’s second impeachment delusionally thought that he could crawl back into Trump’s good graces by supporting RFK Jr’s confirmation as Health Secretary. Cassidy pretended to believe that the assurances RFK gave him to leave the established childhood immunization schedule alone were real.  His self-serving gambit didn’t work. Children are going to get sick, some will die, and he will no longer be a Senator. With only 24.8 % of the vote, he came in third in this weekend’s Republican primary.  With 44.8% of the vote, Congresswoman Julia Letlow who was endorsed by Trump came in first and John Fleming, Louisiana’s current Treasurer, who obtained 28.3% of the vote came in second. Since neither of the top two finishers obtained the required 50% of the vote, a runoff for the Republican slot will take place on June 27. In all likelihood Letlow will win the runoff, going on to win in November to become Louisiana’s next Senator.  Letlow whose husband died of COVID before the COVID jab became available supports vaccines including the COVID one but believes in personal choice rather than mandates. If Republicans retain control of the Senate, Cassidy’s replacement as chair of the Health Committee is likely to be Kansas Senator/Doctor Roger Marshall, a staunch supporter of all things RFK Jr.  Having dispensed with Cassidy, Trump’s next target is Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie.  Though he never voted for Trump’s impeachment, the very, very right-wing Massie has long been a thorn in Trump’s side.  He reliably votes against all funding legislation, he voted against Trump’s Big Beautiful (Ugly) Bill, he opposes Trump’ Iran “incursion” and even worse from Trump’s point of view, together with Democrat Ro Khanna, he led the bipartisan effort to force the release of the unredacted Epstein files. He’s also not much for civil rights but in that he’s in Trump’s camp.   The Kentucky primary takes place on Tuesday.  Trump’s endorsed candidate retired Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein is breathing down Massie’s neck. Adding to the “fun,” Trump is now calling for someone to primary Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, the gun toting high school dropout who crossed the aisle to support the discharge petition that led to the release of the Epstein files, because she campaigned for Massie this weekend. Boebert was joined by Trump’s other Republican foe, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, whose son who probably didn’t fall far from the family tree is now best known for his anti-Semitic, anti-gay rants. All of these characters are awful; it’s just a matter of who is least awful. Though we keep hearing that Trump’s popularity ratings are in the toilet, his Republican fanbase remains strong, or at least strong enough to deliver him primary wins and the way things are going with gerrymandering maybe even help him retain the House because the same SCOTUS that signed off on Republican gerrymandering has rejected an emergency appeal from Democrats to reinstate Virginia’s voter-approved congressional map, leaving the existing lines in place for the midterms.   

More 💩:  Over the weekend the White House endorsed conservative Christian “Rededicate 250” rally took place in Washington DC. Trump didn’t appear because golf beckoned, but he did send a video message.  The group’s position is that the US needs to return to the Christian roots of the country because that whole separation of church and state thing is a sin pushed by Democratic heathens. Also, Eric Metaxas, one of the participating ministers took to the podium to claim that god himself put Donald Trump in power to ensure the White House gets a new ballroom. Somehow I doubt that but then again what do I know about the New Testament?  Apparently the Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough doubts the god-ballroom connection too.  Over the weekend she ruled that because the budget bill that Republicans are trying to pass includes $1 billion for ballroom funding alongside funding for ICE and Border Patrol it doesn’t comply with reconciliation rules. That’s a problem because funding bills that don’t meet reconciliation rules require 60 votes rather than a simple majority to pass and most Democrats oppose the funding package. Trump who is not god but thinks that he is, really wants that ballroom so Republicans will now have to try to rewrite their bill in a manner that meets reconciliation if that is even possible.  On the health front, hantavirus is now only one lurking problem. A particularly noxious strain of Ebola is out and about in the Republic of the Congo and Uganda.  The World Health Organization that we are no longer part of is calling this Ebola epidemic a public health emergency of international concern, but we have nothing to worry about because our Assistant Secretary for Health responsible for handling outbreaks like this is a penile implant specialist with little public health experience who hosts a podcast called Erection Connection.  You can’t make stuff like that up. Also, we aren’t just drawing troops down from Germany but without consulting the generals that matter, we are also pulling some from Poland.  2028 can’t come soon enough.

 

Cuba Libre? 😱 ✡️🌻😱 💣🚀🚢

International Tripping:  Trump is on his way home from China where he was feted by a Chinese military band’s rendition of the Village People’s YMCA but accomplished next to nothing other than getting a few promises that China’s Xi will likely “forget” as well as a few photo ops.  While most attention was on China, CIA head John Ratcliffe was in Havana meeting with Cuban officials “offering” assistance to Cuba in exchange for “fundamental changes” to its communist political regime.  Cuba is in desperate straits.  It’s economy, never robust, is in shambles, a victim of Trump’s takeover of Venezuela’s oil sales and a US blockade. The island nation is now experiencing daily daylong blackouts.  Trump who, at different times during this term, has called for Greenland, Canada, and/or Venezuela to become the US’s 51^st state may have finally found a starving nation whose desperate citizens are suffering enough to take up him up on his offer, an offer that probably won’t include citizenship, the right to vote, access to social benefits, and if Stephen Miller has any say, the right to move to the mainland.     

Peeps Plus:  The Wall Street Journal reports that Natalie Harp, otherwise known as Trump’s human printer, is the source of the content of many of his unhinged late-night Truth Social Posts. The 35-year-old Trumpette provides him with stacks of right-wing articles and racist political cartoons for his nighttime perusal. Harp, who provided him with the racist cartoon that depicted Michelle and Barack Obama as apes, also writes a few of his posts. The WSJ implied that Harp’s works nights, but let’s not go there.  Efforts by the White House staff, presumably Susie Wiles, to curtail Harp’s efforts have failed because as Harp puts it, she reports to Trump and only Trump. While Harp appears to have job security, others not so much. Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks was forced out yesterday.  Banks had been a favorite of Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowki.  His ouster comes weeks after the right leaning Washington Examiner reported that six current and former border patrol employees had credibly accused him of regularly paying for sex with prostitutes during official trips to Colombia and Thailand while bragging about it to colleagues.  There are no reports that Ka$h Patel hung with prostitutes but videos of him bragging about his affinity for beer keep popping up. Lots of people like and drink lots of beer but none of them are the director of the FBI, a position that requires round the clock sobriety.  Additionally, yesterday the AP reported that he went on a VIP snorkel around the USS Arizona during an official government trip to Pearl Harbor even though snorkeling around the sunken battleship is forbidden. These disclosures probably explain why he announced yesterday that he’d established a new specialized FBI unit being referred to as the “payback squad.” The squad will be tasked with investigating political cases, presumably involving those on Trump’s enemy list, especially those involved in the “grand conspiracy” against Trump, whatever that is.  Along similar lines,  ABC reports that Trump plans to drop his extremely bogus $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS in exchange for the creation of a $1.7 billion fund to compensate allies who claim they were wrongfully targeted by the Biden administration’s alleged weaponization of the legal system including the 1600 individuals charged in connection with the January 6 attack on the Capitol.  The basis for Trump’s lawsuit was the leaking by a since fired and punished IRS contractor of some of his tax returns. Other people whose returns were included in the same leak received a formal public apology from the IRS but did not receive any form of financial compensation. Had Trump followed precedent and released his returns, the leak, had there been one, would have been moot. Notably, Trump is still not releasing his returns.  In other questionable financial news, the cost of Trump’s ball room, the renovation of the DC reflecting pond and all of his other vanity projects, all of which have been awarded without abiding to normal government contracting procedures, continue to climb.  It’s our money, why should he care?       

Jim Crow Update:  Despite a decision by Republicans in South Carolina’s state senate to hold off on redistricting away the states one Democratic House seat, held by Jim Clyburn, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster has other plans.  He’s called for a special session where he plans to force a public vote that will likely result in the elimination of Clyburn’s seat. However, in a bit of good news but only for the midterms, the Governors of Georgia and Mississippi plan to defer their redistricting until after the November elections and Louisiana has opted to “only” eliminate one of its two Black majority districts, for now.   

More 💩:  The DOJ is planning to drop Biden era charges against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani who’d been indicted for conducting an elaborate bribery, fraud and corruption scheme that hurt boatloads of US investors. Not so coincidentally Adani is now promising to invest $10 billion in the US economy, a lot of money to most of us but pocket change to Adani, and that’s assuming he ever really makes the investment. DOJ’s reversal came after Adani hired a new legal team led by Robert J. Giuffra Jr, one of President Trump’s personal lawyers and the co-chairman of Sullivan & Cromwell. In other legal news, the Supreme Court agreed to let Mifepristone remain fully available by remote prescription while Louisiana’s legal case against it goes forward.  Naturally, Justices Alito and Thomas dissented from the majority’s ruling, with Thomas saying that the drug’s manufacturers are engaging in a “criminal enterprise” and Alito saying that the case was about a “scheme to undermine” Dobbs, the ruling that overturned the right to abortion.  On the hate front, Senator Rand Paul’s adult son William “hurled” a slew of anti-Semitic slurs at Hudson Valley, New York Congressman Mike Lawler at Washington DC’s Tune in Restaurant and Bar.  William Paul displayed his hate, which also included a tirade against gay people, in public for all including a team from the NOTUS media outlet to see.  The stunned Lawler who is Catholic not Jewish, pushed back at William Paul, a good thing that will also help him retain votes given that his swing district is the home to around 90,000 Jews.  That’s important for him because his district tops the Democratic flip list. William, whose work history includes stints with several Republican Congressman, was inebriated at the time.  He says that he plans to seek help for his drinking problem. Does anyone know if Alcoholics Anonymous or any other detox plans have treatments for anti-Semitism and LGBTQ hate?  

 

 

Road Tripping 😱 ✡️🌻😱 💣🚀🚢

State of Play:  Trump is in China where he will be meeting with Xi. The focus of his trip is supposed to be trade, tariffs, and Ai, and to that end he’s brought 17 CEOs, including on again BFF Tesla’s Elon Musk, Apple’s outgoing CEO Tim Cook, and as a last minute add on Nvidia’s Jensen Huang.  There are concerns that while he’s with Xi he will either intentionally or accidentally do or say something that puts Taiwan at risk of a Chinese invasion.  Anyone who doubts that is a possibility should consider that over the past few day’s he’s spent a significant amount of what should be his nighttime sleep time posting even more of his increasingly unhinged messages on Truth Social.  If she really had any influence over him, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles would lock his phone away and/or delete its apps but instead she’s been lecturing and sending memos to White House staff warning them to stop leaking to the press.  We know about the memo because immediately after she shared it with staff, someone or multiple someone’s leaked it to the press. As to those leaks, they are still coming as evidenced by today’s NY Times report that despite assurances from Trump that Iran’s military is in the crapper it isn’t, it’s stronger than we’ve been told and its missile capability, especially around the critical Strait of Hormuz, is almost completely intact.  Naturally, the Trump administration’s response to the reports is that those reporting on Iran’s capabilities are treasonous cheerleaders for the enemy. The White House announced that Trump’s annual physical, or his second or third annual physical this year will take place upon his return as will his annual dental check-up, not to be confused with the recent emergency visit that was characterized as “just a check-up.” They’ll probably quiz Trump on squirrels and rhinos again, or at least they should.

Peeps:  Ka$h Patel testified before the Senate yesterday.  He was combative and lied a lot, and why not because though lying to Congress is supposed to be a crime reports are that Trump has promised everyone who works within 100 miles of the White House that they will receive pardons.  Patel alleged that despite his public partying and branded bourbon he doesn’t drink or at least doesn’t drink much, that despite credible reports to the contrary he isn’t subjecting bunches of FBI Agents to lie detector/loyalty tests, and that all the Iran experts he fired right before the beginning of the Iran “skirmish” weren’t fired but if they were they weren’t really Iran experts. So far Patel is still the Director of the FBI which puts him one step ahead of the now former FDA head Marty Makary who was formally disposed of yesterday. Kari Lake who managed to dismember the Voice of America is now Trump’s nominee to become the US Ambassador to Jamaica and Doug Mastriano who may or may not have been launching another Pennsylvania gubernatorial run because the last one was such a disaster is now Trump’s nominee to become the US Ambassador to Slovakia.  RFK who remains the head of Health and Human Services has been quiet of late mostly because Trump doesn’t want to scare off any more voters than he and increasing inflation already have going into the midterms has been quietly conducting a “wide-ranging, behind-the-scenes inquiry into vaccine safety, prioritizing investigations into potential links between vaccines and chronic, neurological, or autoimmune disorders.”  Naturally, he already knows what he’ll conclude, and it won’t be good, for anyone who believes that polio, measles, whooping cough, shingles, COVID, and the flu are bad and who would rather not drink raw milk, snort coke off a toilet seat or rely on peptides to stay healthy.  Though the Department of Transportation has been having a hard time with funding freezes, plane crashes, a failing airline, and fuel inflation, apparently running the DOT hasn’t been enough to keep Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy busy which must be the reason that he, his wife and their nine children have been filming a cross country reality TV show like trip scheduled to air during Trump’s 250^th birthday celebration.  Duffy’s junket has been financed by some of the company’s that he regulates because, of course.                 

Jim Crow Update: As expected given its other decisions, SCOTUS has ruled that Alabama can get rid of one of its two majority Black congressional districts.  In response, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey announced that she will bifurcate the state’s primaries, holding some as scheduled and others for the newly created now majority white districts in August even though some absentee ballots have already been cast for what were supposed to be May 19^th elections.  That’s not normal but is in keeping with what Louisiana’s Governor Jeff Landry is doing now that he’s gotten the go ahead from the Supreme Court to whitewash his state. Landry is tossing out 45,000 already cast absentee ballots saying it’s not a big deal and certainly not his fault that the Supreme Court ruled so late in the primary season.  Unlike Alabama and Louisiana some of South Carolina’s Republican state senators have voted against redistricting away Democrat Jim Clyburn’s seat, at least for now.  Apparently, they think it’s a bad look to redistrict this late in the primary season. For its part, Virginia, the state where voters actually approved their redistricting in advance of primaries,  is appealing its State Supreme Court’s decision to invalidate its redistricting election to SCOTUS. It will be interesting to see how the six conservative Justices justify upholding the Virginia court’s invalidation decision because odds are they will.        

More 💩: Something hateful is in the water at the NY Times.  On Monday, the paper published an op-ed by Nicholas Kristof in which he claimed with suspect evidence that Israel used sexual violence against prisoners as “organized state policy.” The piece, an op-ed rather than a researched article, makes several grave claims about conditions in Israeli prisons, including about the alleged use of trained dogs to rape prisoners. Kristof based his op-ed on reports from Hamas and Hamas affiliated sources that have long spread lies about Israel. Israel has issues, there are out of control settlers but the tell here that the op-ed is worse than fishy and more like a blood libel is the dog assertion because that’s not a thing.  To quote one of the members of the founding members of the NYC Police Department’s Canine Unit “It’s absurd for many reasons: the sexual instincts of dogs, their anatomy, the actual physical concept of it.”  It’s probably not a coincidence that a fully researched 300-page report by the independent Israel Civil Commission on October 7^th Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children that builds on prior investigations including by the UN that documented how Hamas used sexual violence and torture including rape to further terrorize the victims of October 7 was also released this week.  Unlike the Kristof op-ed the commission report relied on extensive testimony including lie detector tests of witnesses.  And keeping with the NY Times “something is in the water” problem, the paper also has a rather lengthy feature article about how Israel is using the Eurovision contest as a “soft power tool.”  Americans don’t focus much on the Eurovision song contest but it’s a big deal in Europe.  The winner is chosen by a popular vote.  It is usual for countries with smaller populations to lobby heavily among ex-pats and friends to boost their singers.  Apparently that’s okay when Sweden does it but not so much when Israel does.  And by the way, the Israeli competitors are quite good.  The NY Times needs to get a grip before they trigger a pogrom.

 

ET, Phone Home 😱 ✡️🌻😱 💣🚀🚢 

Oy Virginia: Citing a procedural violation, on Friday Virginia’s Supreme Court struck down the congressional map recently approved by Virginia’s electorate.  The state court’s 4 to 3 decision is potentially devastating for Democrats. Together with the US Supreme Court’s recent Louisiana v Callais decision which effectively dismantled what was left of the Voting Right Act it means that Republicans have won the redistricting war.  Safe Democratic seats, many with Black representatives, are likely to go red in November meaning that while there’s still a chance that Democrats win the House, gerrymandering has netted Republicans twelve more seats than Democrats and as a result could help them keep control of the House.  Democrats haven’t thrown in the towel yet on Virginia.  Some state lawmakers are considering imposing new age limitations that would force the retirement of some of the state’s justices in order to reverse Friday’s ruling.  That sounds kind of nuts but then again ruling against the outcome of an election while a bunch of other states impose new Republican friendly Jim Crow style maps without voter approval sounds nuts too.  

Wars, Etcetera: The Iran war/skirmish that Trump said would be over soon is not over.  Iran rejected Trump’s one page term sheet, providing an alternative of their own that Trump then said was totally inadequate.  Trump is threatening Tehran again and at least for now Iran’s leadership is not budging, not that we know who that leadership really is.  Also, the three-day ceasefire that Trump claimed to have worked out between Russia and Ukraine, it also went up in smoke rather quickly. Despite reports that Putin knows that he’s losing and that Russians have lost 350,000 on the battlefield, not to mention the inconvenience of losing access to the internet, he’s still fighting and sending supplies to Iran. So much for world peace, so much for fair elections.  Also, maybe not such a good time for RFK, whose mandate includes keeping us safe from things like hantavirus, to move forward with banning anti-depressants like Prozac, Zoloft, and Lexapro. His officials say that hantavirus probably won’t get us but then again, who believes RFK, the rudderless CDC or Trump, who once assured us that the coronavirus was under control while at the same time silencing the CDC’s Nancy Messonnier for saying otherwise.  

More 💩:  North Carolina Republican Congressman Chuck Edwards is being investigated by the House Ethics Committee for having an improper relationship with a subordinate and for sexual harassment.  Another Republican, Trump endorsed Ohio Congressman Max Miller is accused of beating and burning his ex-wife.  Making things really interesting, his ex-wife is the daughter of Ohio’s sitting Republican Senator Bernie Moreno who Miller has accused of fueling the “rumors” against him to help his daughter with her custody battle. By the way, Florida Republican Cory Mills who allegedly beat up at least one ex-girlfriend, is still a sitting Congressman mostly because Speaker Johnson and Trump need his vote.  On the health care front, Trump’s fourth Surgeon General radiologist Nicole Saphier nominee has deleted a bunch of tweets in which she criticized Trump and RFK’s health care policies.  She’s still the nominee but others have been removed lesser tweets. Reports are that Trump has signed off on firing FDA chief Mark Makary.  Makary’s tenure has been controversial but ironically if he’s removed it may be because he opposed the approval of flavored vapes and has stood in the way of restricting abortion drug mifepristone.  And because a weekend wouldn’t be a weekend without Secretary of War/Beer Pete Hegseth picking another fight with Senator/Astronaut Mark Kelly, Hegseth is now asserting that Kelly should be investigated for expressing concern over the US’s diminishing stockpiles of weapons.  Hegseth’s claim is that Kelly violated his oath by “blabbing on TV” about what he learned in a classified briefing. Kelly pointed out that the state of the stockpiles was discussed by Hegseth in the same “public hearing“ where he said “it would take years to replenish” the weapons. It’s no wonder the administration is releasing UFO files; they need the distraction and those videos of Trump and his motorcade driving through the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool to show off his new costly taxpayer funded paint job while bizarre are not distracting enough.                

 

 
Love Tap 😱 ✡️🌻😱 💣🚀🚢 

Iran, Iran, Iran:  On Wednesday, the White House said that it was pausing Project Freedom, the escorting of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, because Trump’s team was very close to working out the terms of a war ending deal with Iran.  Like a lot of things coming out of this White House, that was a lie.  Project Freedom was paused because even after a last minute plea by Trump to Mohammed bin Salman the Saudis refused to allow the US to use its bases and airspace to provide the military escorts, the Saudis way of putting pressure on the US work to work out a permanent deal with Iran, regardless of what that deal entails.  Yesterday, the US launched “self-defensive” attacks on two Iranian targets after Iran targeted several US ships with drones and missiles. Despite all that Trump said the ceasefire was still on, a peace deal is imminent, and anyway those US attacks were just “love taps,” something that the multiply accused sex assaulter and adjudicated rapist knows lots about.  Love taps or not, Trump also said that if a deal isn’t made quickly and Iran continues to attack ships in the Strait he’ll turn Iran into “one big glow.”  Also yesterday, the Washington Post reported that the CIA has advised the Trump administration that Iran can withstand the US naval blockade for three or four more months before facing severe economic hardship, a bigly problem for Trump because Americans appear far less willing endure the “hardship” of  higher gas prices and more inflation especially during the summer holiday months in the run up to the midterms.  It’s not just Iran’s hardship tolerance that’s a problem; the CIA has also determined that Tehran retains about 70% of its missile capabilities. The thing about wars is that more often than not, they don’t go according to plan.  There’s a reason that the acronym SNAFU (situation normal all f-cked up) was originated by the military.

KA$H and Karry:  Kash Patel is also at war, his targets are anyone and everyone related to the Atlantic’s story about his drinking, partying, and other extravagances. Several news outlets report that the FBI has launched a criminal leak investigation focusing on Sarah Fitzpatrick, the Atlantic magazine journalist who wrote April’s unflattering account of Director Kash Patel’s work habits. That investigation involves subjecting FBI agents who worked or previously worked close to Patel to lie detector tests, a sure way to inspire loyalty and trust among his increasingly miserable troops. Journalist Fitzpatrick and her bosses at the Atlantic remain undeterred.  On the same day that the reports about the FBI going after her came out, the Atlantic published another one of her articles, this one detailing Patel’s practice of gifting personalized bottles of bourbon engraved with the phrase “Kash Patel FBI Director”  The bottles, pictures of which are all over Twitter, come from Kentucky’s Woodland Brewery.  They include an FBI shield with an eagle clutching the number 9 (Patel is the ninth FBI Director) as well as his name written as KA$H. So much for Patel’s assertion that he’s not all that into drinking. Fitzpatrick reports that she keeps getting contacted by people with more stories about Kash’s behavior so it’s highly likely that articles about him will continue. Yesterday, Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic editor who was accidentally included on the now infamous Houthi bombing operation SIGNAL chat, wrote an editorial in which he repeated that the Atlantic stands by Fitzpatrick and has the legal resources to pushback against any and all legal actions by Patel and his abettors. It would be nice to think that Patel has better things to do than to lash out at journalists but then again he was appointed by Trump, the king of retribution, who sues everyone, wants all his “enemies” jailed, and who yesterday called ABC reporter Rachel Scott a bitch and even worse called for Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries to be charged for inciting violence. It’s probably not a coincidence that both Scott and Jeffries are Black. 

MAHA Not:  We’re probably going to survive the hantavirus scare but then again, most of us shrugged off COVID before it turned into a pandemic and unlike COVID, hantavirus has a 40% mortality rate and it appears that the strain that infected some passenger on the MV Hondius cruise ship is particularly gnarly and also possibly can be transmitted through person to person contact. The World Health Organization (WHO) is on the case; the bad news is that Trump pulled us from WHO.  Also, reports are that our CDC is putting together a hantavirus working group; the bad news is that Trump, RFK, and our malevolent Uncle Elon slashed funding for infectious disease research and has far fewer employees, including disease detectives, to respond to outbreaks because those fired included the health officials responsible for investigating outbreaks on cruise ships.  The other good news is that we’ve got lots of ivermectin; the bad news is that despite the claims of the twitter-verse and the MAGA idiots ivermectin is not an effective treatment for hantavirus.  In other health news, the Trump administration which earlier blocked the publication of research documenting the safety of COVID vaccines is now also blocking the publication of research documenting the safety of the shingles vaccine. However, under pressure from Trump the FDA has approved the sale of flavored vapes, but only for adults as if that’s possible.  In keeping with the theme of okaying products that hurt people versus endorsing shots that save, tanning bed aficionado RFK plans to make it easier for teens to use tanning beds because what’s a little melanoma among friends and anyway, both the leather faced RFK and the orange guy will probably be long gone before any of the foolish teens they aren’t protecting die prematurely from vaping and tanning.

More 💩: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick appeared for a closed-door interview, transcribed as opposed to taped, with the House Oversight Committee.  Republicans emerged from the meeting to say that he did a spectacular job, Democrats agreed to the spectacular part, saying that he was a spectacular liar. Former AG Pam Bondi is due to appear soon. The current plan is for her session to also be just an untaped interview.  Democrats aren’t happy about that, but so far haven’t managed to get the plan changed. Trump can’t be happy that the US Court of International Trade concluded that the global 10% tariffs that Trump imposed when his originally set of tariffs were overturned by the Supreme Court are unlawful.  And most depressing for today and maybe for years maybe decades to come Jim Crow is back as more southern states have moved forward with new maps that eliminate Democratic seats mostly held by Black members of Congress. Despite that Chief Justice John Roberts is lamenting public perception of the Justice as political actors. Justice Neil Gorsuch who appeared on Fox and Friends and on Megan Kelly’s YouTube this week, just doesn’t care.