Barbenheimer Weekend 🌻 🌻 🌻   

Pink:  Barbie won the weekend because apparently woke, especially when draped in pink, is popular.  Oppenheimer did very well too but teaching that slavery had been a good thing, not so much.  Facing lots of deserved criticism for Florida’s new “slavery had benefits” curriculum a representative of the Florida Department of Education actually sent out some examples of Black blacksmiths, failing to note that all of his examples were freemen who had not been slaves.  For his part, Ron DeSantis defended the new state curriculum which was designed in response to the Stop W.O.K.E Act that he’d championed but distanced himself by attributing the curriculum change to the state’s Department of Education. According to the NY Times, DeSantis, who raised a lot of money early on, is burning through it at a rapid pace in part because he and his wife prefer flying private and staying in and holding events in ritzy hotels like Deer Valley’s Stein Erikson Lodge where they blew almost $100k. DeSantis continues to poll a distant second to Trump in most states though he’s slipped to third in South Carolina where former SC Governor Nikki Haley now holds the second-place position, SC Senator Tim Scott is a few points behind DeSantis in fourth. As evidenced by his gold toilets, Trump is another one who enjoys glitz, however he is fairly cheap when it comes to campaign spending perhaps because he’s saving money for his growing legal bills. Among those legal bills are a few for his former lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen.  On Friday, right before his lawsuit was scheduled to go to trial, Cohen reached an out of court settlement with the Trump Organization.  He had been suing for the reimbursement of the legal expenses he’d incurred defending himself in the hush money case, claiming the Trump Organization had promised to cover them but reneged once he became a cooperating witness. Though we don’t know the size of their settlement it appears that Cohen got what he was seeking somewhere just short of $2 million. While the Cohen litigation, or at least this Cohen litigation is now behind Trump he still has lots to look forward to as all eyes remain on Fulton County’s Fani Willis and the possibility that her indictments which might involve RICO charges are expected shortly as are some more from Special Counsel Jack Smith. Things continue to percolate on the Mar a Lago purloined documents front as well. By setting a trial date in May 2024, Judge “loose” Cannon rejected Trump’s lawyers attempt to push his case until after the 2024 election but didn’t meet the quicker schedule that Special Counsel Jack’s team had requested. Unfortunately, given the complexities of the case, a result of needing to comply with rules surrounding super-secret documents,  even the May date is unlikely, so there’s still a good chance that Trump’s stalling tactics will prevail with the case not going to court until after the election.

Good, Bad and Ugly:  The good news for Joe Biden is that the US economy is doing well, so well that the Wall Street Journal tweeted that this weekend.  The not quite as good news is that getting American voters to believe that inflation is down, and that employment gains are at record levels is hard, in part because attitudes are sticky and in part because Republicans continue to push a negative narrative and will continue to do so through the election because politics are politics.  Of more concern right now is the possibility that UPS and UAW workers, like actors and writers, will go on strike. Negotiations with both unions are likely to go down to the wire.  Strikes by either union would negatively impact the economy, perhaps even dragging it into the much-hyped recession that the US economy has been dancing with, but avoiding, for some time.  Also looming is a government shutdown because Republican 🤡 🤡 in House, particularly the Freedom caucus crowd, don’t want to pass any budget bills that don’t include drastic cuts, a nonstarter for the both the Senate and the White House.  If you thought the size of the budget was agreed to when the debt ceiling was lifted, you are right, but the Freedom 🤡 🤡  have decided that the agreement was only an upper limit so they are seeking huge cuts and given the slim size of his majority Speaker McCarthy may not be able to pull another rabbit out of his hat and may instead be pulled down the shutdown 🐇 🐇  hole.  Sure, that’s too many 🐇 analogies but 🐇 🐇 🐇🐇 multiply like 🐇 🐇 🐇🐇, so maybe not.  Other good news that Republicans don’t want you to know is that border crossings are down.  That should be a problem for Republicans who still plan to roast Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas during his upcoming testimony and for all the presidential candidates pushing migrant wave fears but when has reality affected politicking?

Blue Stars and Birds:  Israel is a hot mess with hundreds of thousands of demonstrators marching against the right wing’s efforts to water down the power of the judiciary. In addition, it turns out that Prime Minister Netanyahu, whose hold on leadership is even more tenuous that McCarthy’s hold on his speakership, didn’t just suffer from a minor dehydration episode last week, he has a heart problem, one that he’s been keeping under wraps for some time.  Over the weekend, after his heart monitor gave off an alarming reading, he had an unspecified type of pacemaker implanted and cancelled planned trips to Turkey and Cyprus but as of now the judiciary vote is still on.  Bibi’s heart is still beating, but the Twitter bird and even the Twitter name are off life support.  Over the weekend, Elon Musk announced that he was retiring the bluebird, replacing it with a new X logo that looks a bit like an incomplete swastika, fitting given the make up of the twitter, or should I say X, base these days.  Linda Yaccarino, the former NBC Universal marketing guru who is now pretending to be twitter’s new CEO, tweeted, if that is still the right word, some gobbledygook about X being the “future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities.”  No one, including Linda knows what that even means, and few seem interested in turning over their financial information to Elon but sure whatever.  RIP Bluebird.