Still Crazy After All These Years 🌻 🌻 🌻

Mom’s Day:  Another national holiday, another unhinged message from the Former Guy who wants very much to be the next guy.  Trump’s message which notably failed to mention the mothers of any of his children went like this : “Happy Mother's Day to ALL, in particular the Mothers, Wives and Lovers of the Radical Left Fascists, Marxists, and Communists who are doing everything within their power to destroy and obliterate our once great Country. Please make these complete Lunatics and Maniacs Kinder, Gentler, Softer and, most importantly, Smarter, so that we can, quickly, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”  Despite all appearances, that’s not a parody post, it’s for real.  Perhaps it’s why Politico and a few other media outlets spent the weekend talking about how much progress their favorite Trump alternative, Ron DeSantis, is making resetting his image, morphing from the sullen anti-social person that he is to a handshaking smoothie.  Spoiler alert, DeSantis is who he is, a Trumpist sans charisma, the politician who has signed a six week abortion ban, who’s had his state legislature alter long standing sunshine laws so that details of his out of state travel can be kept private, who continues to be locked in a war with the Mouse and whose anti-immigrant policies are making it difficult for local businesses to retain agricultural workers who fear deportation.  As to the real Trump, we learned a bit more about that jaw dropping wonderful reception he received from the audience at his CNN Townhall.  It turns out that the audience, already inclined to lean his way, was told that while applause was acceptable, even desirable, negative expressions were not welcome.  As a result. those in the audience who didn’t appreciate his malevolent banter were told to put a cork in it by those nice “both sides” people at CNN.   

Lost and Missing:  Once upon a time there was the Durham investigation, the deep dive that was supposed to prove that the investigation into Trump’s Russian ties was a politically motivated witch hunt orchestrated by Hillary Clinton and her crowd.  Durham, despite his best efforts and the assistance of former Attorney General Barr, never came up with anything explosive.  Still his investigation provided  lot of fodder for Fox and the other right wing media outlets, the same places that went on to push that the 2020 election had been stolen when it wasn’t.  The good news is that US Attorney Durham has receded from public view, the bad news is that he’s been replaced by a bunch of conspiracy pushing Congressional yokels some of whom are now chairing key Congressional committees.  One of those characters is Oversight Committee Chair James Comer who keeps asserting that he has proof that “crime family” kingpin Joe Biden has committed various and sundry crimes.  Thus far he’s uncovered nothing linking the current President to crimes or influence peddling but that didn’t stop him from appearing on Fox this weekend to push his narrative.  Oddy enough he was taken down by Fox’s Maria Bartiroma, who wasn’t even trying to make him look bad.  She merely asked if he had any witnesses ready to testify about Biden’s crimes.  Comer’s response was that he had none at this time because the people who “have very good knowledge with tespect to the Bidens” are either in court, in jail or missing.  Not one to let a “newsworthy” story pass her by Bartiroma rsponded wow, that’s “Absolutely extraordinary…..Just stunning. A stunning breaking news story this morning that some of these people now may be missing.” Bottom line, Comer has bupkis but he does have a platform.

Tick Tock:  The debt ceiling negotiations continued this weekend with some reporting that progress is being made and others, most notably Kevin McCarthy, publicly saying that nothing has been resolved because Joe Biden wants the country to default. Kevin’s deflection aside, it does sound like some progress has been made.  That said, the likely things on the table including the recouping of unspent COVID money, streamling permits and two year’s of budget caps won’t do much to satisfy the don’t raise the debt limit cap unless you slash the budget crowd  that McCarthy will need on board to pass anything without help from Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries so this crisis won’t be over for awhile and when it is McCarthy might be out of a job, replaced by someone even less charming.  In other news, the country wasn’t overtaken by hordes of migrants over the weekend despite all those warning that last weekend’s end of the pandemic  surge would be so bad that we’d wake up as Mexico North.  That’s not to say that there weren’t lots of asylum seekers, just many thousands fewer than were expected.  It’s not clear yet if that’s because of the efforts of the Biden administration or if it’s just that asylum seekers come in unpredictable waves.  Anyway the anti-immigrant crowd doesn’t need a real surge to claim one. 

And:  Over $1 million has been raised for a defense fund for ex marine Daniel Penny who has been charged with manslaughter for using a lethal chokehold to “subdue” and cause the death of homeless man Jordan Neely on the NYC subway.  Everything about this story is so terribly sad, granted no one wants to be or to feel threatened by anyone, mentally ill or not, on the subway or anywhere else, but a chokehold? Post George Floyd, haven’t we all learned enough about the lethality of chokeholds?  There are no heroes here so lionizing Penny, raising millions for his defense and seeing politicians like presidential wannabee Ron DeSantis weigh in on his behalf turning him into this year’s Kyle Rittenhouse and using the opportunity to call Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg a “Soros funded DA” (that dogwhislte intentional of course) is just so disturbing. That’s not to say that Perry isn’t entitled to a defend himself in court, he is but he doesn’t need $1 million to do so. Again, everything about this story is so sad and a man is dead.