Daffy Duck and Friend ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️

Space Cadets: In an effort to recapture the news cycle without having to leave his Mar a Lago residence, Trump participated in an X Spaces interview with X owner Elon Musk.  Things did not go as planned, hardly a surprise since as Trump earlier noted Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s campaign launch on X was a complete failure. As a result of what were probably similar technical difficulties to the ones that turned the DeSantis launch into a laughingstock, problems which Musk initially blamed on outside players, but which he later admitted were due to the instability of the Spaces platform, the start of the interview was delayed for 45 minutes leaving expectant listeners in the lurch.  Once the almost two-hour interview finally got going, it became clear that it wasn’t an interview but instead was a whiney kvetch session between the presidential candidate and one of his most ardent and rich fans, no tough or probing questions but lots of softball ones.  USA Today described Trump as sounding like a disoriented, racist Daffy Duck, a sentiment shared by many.  His speech was slurred and his brain occasionally glitched not that it mattered because he covered little new ground.  Instead, he stuck with his usual rants about illegal immigration and his plans to eliminate regulation while also bemoaning his recent assassination attempt. Clearly aggrieved that Time Magazine has a picture of Kamala Harris on this week’s cover, he described her as beautiful, comparing her to Melania, but of course also calling her a terrible, radical, stupid leader.  Prompted by Musk to say something intelligent about global warming, Trump instead said that rising sea levels which he insisted will rise by only “one eighth of an inch over the next 400 years” were a good thing because “you get more oceanfront property.”  According to a 2022 Federal Report sea levels along US coastlines are expected to rise by between ten and twelve inches over the next thirty years so that’s a lot of new “oceanfront property” at the expense of previously occupied land but why quibble over details?  Trump whose Project 2025 transition plan calls for the firing of as many “deep state” government employees as possible praised Musk for firing so many of his, especially those Tesla workers trying to unionize, calling him the “greatest cutter” for cutting striking workers.  That sentiment didn’t go over well with the United Auto Workers whose leader responded by filing unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board against Trump and Musk alleging that those statements interfered with workers who may “want to exercise their right to join a union.”  The complaint will probably go nowhere but expressing blatant anti-union statements hardly does much to improve or even maintain Trump’s share of union voters.  Trump who has been criticized for his light travel schedule added a North Carolina rally to this week’s schedule which had only included one in Pennsylvania to combat charges that he’s a tired old man but also because both swingy states, especially Pennsylvania, appear to be moving away from him.  Presumably, he won’t be traveling on the Jeffrey Epstein plane that he “accidentally” traveled on last week.  By the way, appearing on X while also declining in the polls is doing nothing good for Trump’s Social Media stock which has been sinking of late.  

Abortion Politics:  Trump insists that abortion access is no longer an issue because the Justices he appointed to the Supreme Court “fixed” the problem.  He’s wrong, it’s still an issue, a bigly one, ask the Texas women who are now suing the state because they were denied abortions for life threatening and fertility killing ectopic pregnancies.  Abortion amendments will be on the ballot in Florida, Arizona, Missouri, Maryland, South Dakota, Colorado, Nevada, and New York. Republican officials have been fighting to keep the abortion referendums off their state ballots, an indication that they know that abortion remains a voter energizing issue, one that is expected to help Democratic candidates up and down the ballot and could keep Nevada blue, turn Arizona from purple to blue and might even give Trump and Florida’s Republican Senator Rick Scott who is up for reelection a run for their money, or at the very least make them spend more money,  in the Sunshine State. 

People, Places and Things:  At least for now RFK Jr is off the ballot in New York State.  A judge ruled that his claims about being a New York State resident are false because he doesn’t reside in NY, doesn’t have a residency in the state, and lives in California. That hobbles RFK’s spoiler plans because though no one sane thinks he stands a chance of influencing the outcome of the New York presidential election, he’s asserted New York residency in many other states where he could be a spoiler.  Some of those states are now expected to try to kick him off their ballots. Trump says that he plans to sue the Department of Justice for $100 million in damages over their “unprecedented raid“ of his Mar a Lago property, alleging that their efforts to retrieve the super-secret documents that he took with him upon leaving the White House was done with “clear intent to engage in political persecution.” Trump threatens to sue frequently, it’s not clear whether he’ll really go forward with this one or whether it’s just part of his effort to grab more attention from Kamala but if he does sue the discovery will be epic. Minneapolis area Congresswoman Ilhan Omar won her primary yesterday, that’s not a surprise, she was expected to win.  Despite all the press attention about AIPAC’s involvement in other “Squad” races, they were not active in hers.  Maryland Congressman, former Democratic Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer, who is 85, is recovering from what he describes as a minor ischemic stroke.  He says that he has no lingering effects and plans to resume a normal schedule next week.  That puts him ahead of New Jersey Democrat Bill Pascrell, who at 87 is the oldest member of the House. Though he recently won his primary he’s been ill with respiratory issues that resulted in a month long stay in a local hospital. He was finally released from the hospital to a rehab facility last week but was readmitted to the hospital over the weekend after spiking a high fever.    

Fog:  The bombs and rockets are still flying over Gaza, Israel, and Lebanon but maybe a new round of ceasefire negotiations is scheduled to begin tomorrow and maybe Iran is sitting on its attack plans, but only for now.  Your guess is as good as mine. Also, Hamas says that one of its terrorists killed a male hostage and that two other female hostages were shot.  Russia is withdrawing some troops from Ukraine to better reposition them in response to Ukraine’s surprisingly effective incursion into Russian territory.  Russia is not giving up, but since wars only end when both sides are willing to negotiate and Russia will only negotiate when it absolutely has to, maybe, just maybe, Ukraine holding on to some Russian land is what it will take to get to the table.  Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking from the peanut gallery. War sucks.

#BringThemAllHomeNow