Poop Scoops ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️

Twisties:  Back in those halcyon days of 2016, during a campaign stop in Iowa, Trump said that he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn’t lose any voters.  With an assist from the Supreme Court, we now know that he was right.  It looks like the 2024 corollary to that is that Joe Biden could do Simon Biles worthy aerial cartwheels with triple twists down Broadway while quoting the Constitution and the NYTimes and the rest of the pundit class would still call for him to step aside.  Yesterday, Biden gave a forceful speech at the Washington DC NATO summit, awarding NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg the Medal of Freedom, while dexterously securing that medal around his neck. Ignoring that, today the NY Times Editorial Board called for him to step aside. All of this while Donald Trump, the real elephant in the room whose days are mostly spent playing golf with an occasional lie filled, incoherent rally and a few radio call-in interviews tossed in, spent his day telling voters that despite all his bragging about being the one who got Roe overturned, he’s not really all that opposed to abortion so he’ll leave it up to the states and the Supreme Court to continue stripping away women’s rights but won’t push for a federal ban.  Like we’re to believe that he wouldn’t sign legislation doing just that?  Also, though Trump remains at the beck and call of the righter than rightwing Federalist Society, those self-righteous folks who pre-selected all the judges and justices he appointed and will appoint, he wants us all to believe he doesn’t endorse their Project 2025 Plan. That’s the transition plan written by former members of his last administration that would consolidate executive power in Trump’s hands, replace a large swath of the civil service with his loyalists, a list that has already been vetted by his former body man/hiring honcho Johnny McIntee, eliminate reproductive rights, withdraw Mifepristone’s FDA approval, and conduct mass deportations, among other equally frightening things. All the attention spent on Biden age’s is taking attention away from the specter of another Trump administration. Trump is loving that, and when he’s happy we’re doomed.  Don’t get caught up in the distraction.  Trump is the problem, what happens with Biden is out of our hands, but voting and supporting down ballot candidates isn’t so stay focused.   

To Beard or Not to Beard:  Trump is teasing that he’ll announce his VP selection shortly.  The current scuttlebutt and it’s just scuttlebutt, is that Florida Senator Marco Rubio is no longer in contention and that the list has been whittled down to North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and Ohio Senator JD Vance.  For what it’s worth, my guess is that Burgum has an edge mostly because he’s less of an attention seeker and doesn’t have a beard and Trump hates when someone else steals his spotlight and isn’t fond of facial hair.  On the legal front, the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that Trump’s lawyers plan to litigate like crazy to make it virtually impossible for Washington Judge Chutkan to hold any hearings on the evidence that Special Counsel Jack Smith wants to include in any future trial about Trump’s responsibility for the January 6^th insurrection.  Lowell’s story was reported as a “scoop,” odd because given their history who among us really thinks that Trump’s lawyers won’t impede Chutkan and Smith and who among thinks that there ever will be a Trump insurrection trial?         

Another Scoop that Wasn’t:  Early this week the NY Times breathlessly 💩 💩 scooped that a Parkinson’s disease expert had visited the White House eight times intentionally leading readers to believe that Biden suffers from Parkinson’s.  It turns out that the doctor in question is Kevin Cannard, a neurologist who provides ongoing care to the more than 1000 people who are serviced by the White House Medical Unit. A significant number of those individuals are military personnel who are being treated for head related injuries suffered during their active military service.  Cannard has seen Biden only three times over three years, and then only because he routinely participates in the presidents’ annual physicals.  His observations about Biden’s health have been included in the reports released to the public at the time of each of Biden’s physicals, the NY Times has those reports but apparently reporting that Biden doesn’t have Parkinsons doesn’t provide the clicks that reporting on all those unrelated visits provides.  Also worth mentioning,  Dr. Cannard has been part of the White House Medical Unit for ten years and also participated in Trump’s annual exams but since the Trump White House stopped the usual practice of reporting out visitor logs, those visits were never reported by the NY Times’ pooper 💩 💩 scooper squad.  And remember Trump’s mysterious visit to Walter Reed, we still don’t know what that was about.  Maybe it’s the “Grey Lady” who’s aging badly?

 #BringThemAllHomeNow