The 39 Steps 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🚀🚢 🏀 🏀

Iran TACO:  Yesterday morning Trump threatened to attack “Iran very hard tonight,” broadcasting that the onslaught would begin at nightfall.  He added that his plans included the ultimate seizure of Iran’s main oil export terminal Kharg Island. He then called off his threats, saying that a peace deal was imminent and would be signed over the weekend in Europe though he wouldn’t be able to attend the signing because, assuming the courts don’t force him to cancel and maybe even if they do, he’ll be busy hosting his Ultimate Fighting Championship birthday party.  His 80^th shindig is clearly more important than any peace deal, especially one that Iran’s spokesperson yesterday denied existed and that Israeli officials said was news to them.  According to Politico the genesis of this deal, or more accurately alleged deal, wasn’t yesterday’s early stock market dive or jump in oil prices, it was an urgent phone call from very senior officials from Qatar, the UAE, and Pakistan who “have sway over” Iran’s hidden Supreme Leader.  The trio assured Trump that a memorandum of understanding with Iran was very close. Trump responded to their claims by calling off the planned attacks, announcing “we just made a great settlement of the war in Iran….we should get in done in a few days.”  If that sounds familiar, it’s because it is, according to CNN’s Andersen Cooper that’s the 39^th time he’s said that an agreement is imminent.  If there is an agreement, and this morning AXIOS reports that an MOU is close to completed, it will be very limited, focused on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, ending the US blockade, and freeing up funding for Iran, but nothing on nukes, because that part will come later as in never. Wasn’t the Strait open before this war was started?  How are we better off?    

DNI TACO: Early yesterday, Trump doubled down on his appointment of Housing honcho Bill Pulte as his Director of National Intelligence.  Then he pulled another TACO, announcing that Pulte was no longer his choice, that instead he planned to nominate Jay Clayton, who served as Chair of the SEC during Trump One and is currently serving as the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. It remains unclear whether or not Pulte will serve as Trump’s interim DNI during Clayton’s confirmation process.  Like Pulte, Clayton has no relevant intelligence experience, he’s a better choice for the position only because Pulte was such an awful and inappropriate one. Trump is only moving on from Pulte because of the Congressional pushback that left the already challenging vote on the reauthorization of FISA (spy powers) in limbo.  One “tell” that Clayton’s appointment was in the offing is that he’d been auditioning, publicly casting aspersions on the California primary.  Interfering with the election process is not supposed to be within the DNI’s remit, however with Trump it’s the only thing that matters.  That’s why exiting DNI Tulsi spent time poking around Fulton County, Georgia’s election records and the pugnacious, pliable Pulte were chosen in the first place.  Clayton, legitimate legal credentials or not, is clearly willing to do whatever he’s told, his office has already obtained some questionable indictments.  As one pundit put it, Clayton’s willingness to work for Trump is evidence that he’s willing to cross the line by subverting the midterms and any other elections that may or may not follow. 

Discounting Votes:  Getting his DNI involved in mucking up elections is only one part of Trump’s plan, yesterday the US Postal Service proposed a new rule that would allow it to refuse to deliver mail ballots in states that don’t turn over voter rolls to the federal government.  Trump wants those rolls so he can have his minions toss voters they allege are fraudulent, and quite a few who aren’t, off the rolls. That the US doesn’t have a fraudulent voter problem isn’t the point because in Trump’s view anyone who might not vote for his “team” is by definition fraudulent.   Should those new rules make it pass judicial review, that would mean that states that rely heavily on mail-in voting, not just California but seven other states including Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, and Washington State, would see millions of their votes tossed out as would all the other states who allow anyone to vote by mail.  Though Democrats aren’t the only ones who vote by mail, they outnumber Republicans so clearly the purpose of the proposed rule is to limit Democratic participation in future elections.  Trump who earlier this week delivered Democrats a winning sound bite when he said that he “loves inflation” isn’t worried about appealing to swing voters with popular policies because his strategy involves excluding them from voting altogether. As to that inflation he loves, it’s up to 4.2% and exceeds wage growth. If the “it’s the economy stupid” rule that contributed heavily to Kamala Harris’ loss continues to hold sway Republicans are going to face lots of pain at the polls, assuming that is that all the ballots cast are counted.

More 💩:  Epstein may be dead, but his files and legacy continue to haunt.  The NY Times’ Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s new “Regime Change” book is due out June 23.  As a teaser, the NYT published a selection from the book that reveals how Trump and his White House were beyond panicked about what the files said about his relationship with Epstein. Chief of Staff Susie Wilesa set up a “war room” inside the Situation Room, the space that is typically reserved for things like taking out Osama bin Laden, to strategize on how to hide anything and everything that implicated Trump. In addition to Wiles, some of the other participants in the meetings were then Deputy Attorney General, now AG nominee Blanche, VP Vance, and FBI Director Kash Patel.  Vance actually argued for full disclosure, including the revealing of some “surreal” stuff about Trump’s fascination with nipples, the others were focused on following Trump’s orders to completely eliminate any references to his involvement with Epstein. Vance also thought it would be a good idea to have his friend Tucker Carlson conduct an aired interview of Ghislaine Maxwell, one where she would presumably disavowed any Trump involvement.  That never happened, though Blanche did interview her and probably got a promise from her that she’d stay silent because afterwards she was moved to a Club-Fed prison where she was rewarded with a puppy. Current reports are that Vance who also opposed the Iran “excursion” is now on the outs with Trump.  His falling star could explain why his Chief of Staff announced that he’s exiting.  In other gross news, the New Yorker has a piece on Andrew Tate, one of the truly despicable Tate Brothers (no relation to the cookie people), entitled the Empire of Abuse which details how Tate’s "manosphere" persona is built on a “systemic, multi-year operation of psychological manipulation and sexual exploitation” of women. The American born Tates were recently freed from Romanian custody where they were being investigated for human trafficking, rape, money laundering, and organized crime.  They were sprung with the help of the Trump administration.  One of their fans is Trump son Barron who reportedly has sought dating advice from them.  

Go Knicks !!!   

 

 

Oysters and Caviar 😱 ✡️🌻😱 💣🚀🚢

Iran in a Nutshell:  On Sunday night Iran launched missiles at Israel.  Trump told Netanyahu not to respond because what’s a few missiles targeted at civilians anyway.  Nevertheless, Netanyahu, another one with a shaky political future, responded.  Iran then said that they were done for now, now being the operative word, and Israel went back to focusing on Lebanon where it continues to try to wipe out Iran’s Hezbollah surrogates. After waking up from his Knick game nap, Trump promised a peace deal with Iran in two or three days. Iran laughed, responding by shooting down a US Apache helicopter, pilots included, over the Strait of Hormuz.  Trump who on Monday had told Netanyahu to exercise restraint responded by dropping a few bombs on Iran. Iran hit back with strikes on US targets across the Middle East, including bases in Jordan, Bahrain, and Kuwait.  While all this was going on VP Vance both echoed and contradicted Trump in one pre-taped interview saying that we could strike a peace deal in a few days or by the midterms.        

Primary Update:  Graham Platner, the Maine Senate candidate who “accidentally” got a Nazi tattoo, a Totenkopf death head not to be confused with the Tottenham football (soccer) team emblem that I mistakenly referenced on Friday, easily won his primary last night. However, 25% of those voting cast their votes for one of the other two Democratic candidates.  Platner has got his work cut out for him since to win in November against Susan Collins he will need to convince most of those who voted for Governor Mills and the other Democrat to jump on his oyster boat.  Though the California votes are still trickling in, with 91% of the votes accounted it’s official, the Governor’s race will be between Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton meaning that billionaire Steyer has little to show for the $200 plus million he spent trying to buy his way into office.  It’s also clear that all those fearmongers who were convinced that Democrats were in so much disarray that they would be frozen out of the Governor’s race were very wrong.   In Los Angeles where 98.5% of the votes have been counted, it’s clear that despite all the hoopla surrounding his run, Spencer Pratt is out though a lucrative offer to appear on Dancing With the Stars could be in the offing.  The mayor’s race will be between two Democrats, incumbent Karen Bass and Democratic Socialist Nithya Raman.  South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace might also get one of those DWTS calls. The shapeshifting Mace who depending on the day and the make-up of her House district portrayed herself as either a moderate or a MAGA loyalist, came in fifth in her state’s primary.  Paula Evette who was endorsed by Trump won.  However, since Evette only received 29% of the vote, she faces a runoff primary against second place finisher Alan Wilson. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, another beneficiary of a Trump endorsement, won his primary earning enough votes to avoid a runoff despite a challenge from a more MAGA, less war interested competitor.

The March to Mayhem:  Trump is pointing to California, it’s mail-in process and the performance of his preferred candidates as proof that all elections where he doesn’t come out on top and even some where he does are fraudulent. His echo chamber, including Speaker for now Mike Johnson and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche who Trump has officially nominated to be the Attorney General are all in on his messaging.  It’s not clear that Blanche has the votes to be confirmed since a number of the Republican Senators who Trump has successfully kicked to the curb have now found their cojones, well maybe, but Trump will delay the process so at least for now Blanche isn’t going anywhere.  It’s even clearer that Trump’s preferred Director of National Intelligence, Bill Pulte, doesn’t have the votes, particularly since Democrats appear to be making good on their threat to hold up the passage of a FISA (espionage) extension until Trump finds himself someone else as in someone who actually has the legislatively required intelligence experience.  Unfortunately, keeping Pulte in place is part of Trump’s kill the midterms strategy, so he insists he’s sticking with him, putting him into his new spot a few days earlier than planned because Trump really doesn’t care all that much about US sources of intelligence and would rather just eliminate the role altogether.  Afterall Trump gets so much of his information from friends like Vlad.   

More 💩:  US District Judge Leo Sorokin has blocked Trump’s $100,000 fee on employers seeking to hire foreign workers through the H-1B visa program, labeling the policy an unauthorized “tax” that requires congressional approval.  That’s good not just for technology companies but also for health care since many of the people eligible for those visas are health care professionals.  Not that health care is such a priority for Republicans, Speaker Johnson was caught on tape saying he has a plan to further cut Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security because given the choice between raising or in many cases just restoring taxes and taking care of those who need care and paid Social Security taxes all their working lives, he’d rather just cut care and retirement funding. And in case you missed it, the growing screwworm infestation, like everything else that’s bad, is Joe Biden’s fault.      

 

 

 

Melt Down Aisle Trump 😱 ✡️🌻😱 💣🚀🚢

Californication: As more votes were counted over the weekend the rankings in both the California Governor and Los Angeles Mayor races shifted.  With 72% of the Governor race vote counted, Democrat Xavier Becerra has moved into first place with 27.2 % of the vote.  He is now ahead of the previous leader Republican Steve Hilton who has 25.9% of the vote. Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer remains in third place with 21.5% of the vote.   In the LA mayor’s race with 83% of the vote counted , Democratic incumbent Karen Bass remains solidly in first place with 34.7% of the vote but the second and third places have flipped.  As a result, Democratic Socialist candidate Nithya Raman now has 27.1% of the vote, putting her ahead of reality TV guy Spencer Pratt with 26.7% of the vote.  Absent anything unexpected, the November Governor’s race will be between Democrat Becerra and Republican Hilton while the Mayor’s race will be between Democrat Bass and Democrat Socialist Raman.  Naturally, following the lead of election denier-in-chief Trump, the conspiracy theorists are out in force claiming that the weekend “flips” are the result of illegal vote dumping and tainted counting.  They’re not, nor are they all that surprising.  First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli, the Trump appointee who leads the Los Angeles-based US attorney’s office, reports that so far as far as his office can see, the election is legit.  Of course, statements like that could get him fired so stay posted. California’s system, which involves the methodical counting of lots of paper ballots, many of which arrive after election day, is slow.  Moreover, there are far more Democrats in the state than Republicans, particularly in Los Angeles where registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by 1.9 million. If anything, the results aren’t all that surprising though Trump will continue to cite them as proof that mail in ballots should be curtailed and that at the very least only ballots received by election day should be counted.  Due to scandal plagued former Representative Eric Swalwell’s late withdrawal from the Governor’s race, many California Democrats sat on their ballots, sending them in a little later than they might otherwise have while voting strategically to make sure that the Democrat with the best chance of winning made it to November, even if that Democrat wasn’t their personal favorite.  As to the LA Mayor’s race, Spencer Pratt’s chances of winning were mostly the fever dream of an over excited press eager to turn the LA race into a circus.  Sure, a lot of people are dissatisfied with Mayor Karen Bass, but Spencer Pratt, an inexperienced, reality TV star far further down that rabbit hole than even Trump, is hardly the solution for the city’s woes.  In the absence of a qualified centrist Republican or Democrat, if there is such a thing these days, without another very unlikely “flip,” LA’s voters will now have to choose between Bass and a Democratic Socialist, albeit one with impressive Harvard and MIT credentials.        

Trump Dump:  The California election may be one of the things that led Trump to be even more agitated and nasty than usual during his pre-taped interview with Meet The Press’s Kristen Walker.  The interview which took place in a Wisconsin barn, went sideways as the bloated and frustrated Trump grew increasingly angry with Welker for asking legitimate questions, rather than the soft ones he’s grown used to getting from the media outlets who fear that his wrath will lead to threats to their licenses or in the case of CBS, pushback against their mergers.  He kept on citing phony election fraud, calling the 2020 election rigged and dirty, adding that “it’s happening again right now in California.” To her credit Welker effectively challenged him, calling his assertions out as the bull 💩it is.  She also got him on record saying that it would be his preference for his much-disparaged slush fund to remain intact and for the money in that fund to go to all those unfairly treated “tourists” who stormed the Capitol through no fault of their own so what if 70 or more of them have been arrested since for crimes including child sex abuse. Welker’s pushback, combined with the rat-a-tat of rain hitting the roof of the venue that his team had chosen, threw him further over the edge.  After calling Meet the Press, NBC, her, and all press crooked he then said, “let’s call it quits darling” and stormed out, throwing his mic to the floor and then stomping on it with his cankled legs for good measure.  Showing a scintilla of regret for his bad behavior or more likely realizing that his tantrum was about to go viral, at an agricultural roundtable that followed, he said “I just did an interview…but it was raining.  It was with NBC Fake news.  And because it was raining, I got a little bit angry with them….but we had a good time.  Note the problem was the rain and the fake news, not that he’s unhinged and lacks impulse control.  Also, Welker, just another one of those Black women he called stupid, did not appear to be having a good time.  The interview may have been the highpoint of Trump’s weekend because last night Iran launched missiles into northern Israel which despite Trump’s warnings that they should ignore, Israel responded in kind. Is it still a ceasefire if the parties are shooting missiles at each other? 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ It appears that war or no war, Trump will be attending Game 3 of the Knicks – Spurs finals.  Weird how he needs a $1 billion White House ballroom for security purposes but can attend a game full of raucous, likely booing fans at Madison Square Garden. Ticketed attendees have been told to show up two hours without bags early to accommodate his added security while the MSG area watch party has been cancelled.  

More 💩:  RFK is probably somewhat relieved about Trump’s Meet the Press tantrum and those Iran-Israel missiles because they’re providing some cover from the scathing NYTimes article about his management, or lack thereof, of the Department of Health and Human Services.  The article detailed how many critical positions at his department remain unfilled, how he shows up to the few meetings he attends late, that even when physically present he spends most of his time scrolling through his phone, and that he refers all inquiries to his long-term aide-de-camp Stefanie Spear who, despite not being confirmed for anything, is the decision maker who runs everything. The only thing he remains interested in is vaccine cancellation and pushing his diet preferences.  The diet preferences being a bit of a problem given that telling the masses to eat beef when already high prices of steak are about to go higher due to the New World screwworm that is showing up in Texas cattle is just a wee bit tone deaf and problematic.  Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, another one who loves the cameras but has a hard time with truth telling is now scrambling, denying that the screwworm infestation is a significant problem while Texas’ Governor Abbott acknowledges that it is because as much as he loves all things Trump, he also cares about his state’s cattle, and having Canada ban US beef imports over the screwworm is not a good thing.  Turning back to RFK’s anti-vaccine stance, it looks like Secretary of State Rubio has also had it with RFK’s idiocy.  He’s pushing for the US to resume funding for the global humanitarian vaccine alliance Gavi, reversing RFK’s decision to hold up funding over his phony vaccine concerns because with Ebola and Hantavirus out and about and AIDS still a significant and now growing again problem, maybe helping control illness in undeveloped countries makes sense. Left unsaid is the fear of how the lack of health management will impact all of us if, or more likely, when another pandemic hits.

 
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.