Blue Birthdays 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

Epstein, Epstein, Epstein:  The infamous Jeffrey Epstein birthday book is now in public and as first reported by the Wall Street Journal it includes a graphic note from Trump. Despite Trump’s assertion that he doesn’t doodle, a lie which was quickly followed up by his admission that he does doodle but that his doodles only include buildings, his note to Epstein includes an outline of a naked female torso with some suggestive text.  Trump and his spokesperson, the duplicitous Karoline Leavitt, continue to assert that he didn’t write the note that he wrote. To bolster their claim, they both say that the first name only signature is “obviously” a forgery, insisting that Trump always signs his full name. Unfortunately for Trump, there are many examples of him signing missives with only his first name and most of them, including one he sent to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, include the same ending flourish that is on the Epstein note. Trump hasn’t yet withdrawn his $10 billion lawsuit against WSJ publisher Dow Jones & Co., News Corp., Rupert Murdoch, and the two reporters responsible for first revealing what he calls the forged note but it’s likely he will at some point because discovery would be a disaster for him.  Maybe he’s waiting for a suitable diversion, something like a nuclear attack. Of course, his usual enablers, including Speaker Mike Johnson and a few right-wing press outlets are sticking with him, agreeing that if he said he didn’t write and sign the note, then he didn’t.  Over the weekend Johnson claimed that the only reason Trump was so intertwined in Epstein’s life is because he was working as an undercover agent for the FBI, a claim so absurd that even Leavitt denied it.  Johnson has retracted his ridiculous lie maybe because if Trump is a mole, he’s not working for the US. 

🎂 📕 Details: The contributions to the Epstein birthday book run the gamut from Bill Clinton’s rather benign birthday wish to some seriously icky sexually explicit notes, an indication that most of Epstein’s buddies knew all about his predilection for young girls and that some likely partook of his “offerings.”  One of those icky notes includes a picture of Epstein with two other men at Mar a Lago holding an oversized “novelty” check bearing a Trump signature, along with a note suggesting Epstein had “sold” Trump a “depreciated” woman for $22,500.  Depreciated in this context likely meaning a woman over the age of consent.  Though the check and the signature that accompany it are clearing false, they indicate that the Epstein’s friends were all in on the joke, the “joke” being Epstein and his pedophilia. Some joke.  The Epstein estate, the provider of the Epstein birthday book, plans to release more of its files soon. The Massie/Khanna discharge petition still hasn’t passed through the House but will soon be short only one vote since last night, as expected, Democrat James Walkinshaw won a special election for the seat that opened up following the death of Congressman Gerry Connolly. Another special election for a safe Democratic seat in Arizona takes place on September 23, after that the discharge petition is expected to have all the votes it needs for passage. Trump must be very concerned about what’s in the Epstein files.  Why else would he be lying so much and trying so hard to block them?  Earlier this week Trump told attendees at an event at Washington’s Museum of the Bible that statistics about how much his use of troops were reducing crime in DC would be better if only local officials would stop including domestic violence data because “incidents that take place in the home” such as a man’s “little fight with the wife” shouldn’t count.  During a 1990 divorce deposition Trump’s first wife Ivana, the one buried at his NJ golf club, accused him of rape, just one of those little fights that shouldn’t count? Is it a stretch to believe that Trump knew all about Epstein activities? During her interview with Deputy Attorney General Blanche, Ghislaine Maxwell noted that a few of Trump’s cabinet members were friends of Epstein’s, something that Blanche curiously did not follow-up on.  Moreover, the NY Times wrote this week about how various senior bankers at JP Morgan facilitated Epstein’s curious financial activities with one admitting that he also had sex with at least one of Epstein’s “girls.” To be clear, we haven’t seen any proof of Trump doing that, but his comments about domestic violence combined with all his denials and deception are hardly exonerating.    

Law and the Economy:  Trump notched a few legal victories this week.  By a vote of 6 to 3, the Supreme Court said that at least for now it’s fine for roving federal agents to conduct immigration stops using factors like race or language to identify individuals because if you speak Spanish or have brown skin, you are obviously guilty of something? Justice Kavanaugh seemed particularly unconcerned about the targeting, saying it was reasonable to briefly question people who meet multiple “common sense” criteria for possible illegal presence, including employment in day labor or construction, and limited English proficiency. The very white, privileged Kavanaugh seemed unconcerned that “briefly” sometimes means being tossed into jail here or abroad for a few days or weeks. Today’s NY Times reports that the same team who brought us Project 2025 want Chief Justice Roberts to step aside so that Kavanaugh can replace him as Chief.  Last night Roberts, who at least for now is still the Chief, said that it was okay for Trump to continue to freeze $5 billion that Congress had appropriated for foreign aid, at least for now.  The Court also announced that in response to the Trump administration’s request, they would soon take up his tariff appeal.  Though many pundits believe, and the tariff and appeals court have ruled, that most of Trump’s tariffs are illegal taxes, Trump appears to have SCOTUS in his pocket so who knows what they will decide. Maybe they will buy into Trump and Treasury Secretary Bessent’s arguments that tariffs imposed without Congressional approval are legal and that even if they aren’t, they should be left in place because rescinding them could cost Treasury bigly if they have to pay back what they’ve already collected.  The Justices have job security so they might not be all that concerned that the tariffs appear to be making the economy, which JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon warns is “weakening,” worse.  It doesn’t help that, as revealed by yesterday’s data revisions, the job situation is 911,000 people worse than what was previously reported. In other legal news, last night a federal judge in Washington DC, temporarily blocked Trump from firing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.  Cook is the Governor that Trump wants ousted claiming she lied on her mortgage applications, the crime that’s only a crime when done by Democrats, and okay for Trump’s Cabinet members.  He wants her out so that he can exert control over Federal Reserve decision making, another one of those things that could add to economic uncertainty and translate into more woes.

Fog:  The Russians have been bombing the bejesus out of Ukraine and yesterday about 20 or so of the hundreds of drones that they used to attack Ukraine crossed into Poland’s airspace. Calling the invasion of their airspace, a provocation, Poland, with the help of some of our other NATO allies, shot down four of the Russian drones, an escalation of the conflict that Trump was going to end on day one of Trump 2.0. Also, yesterday in retaliation for an attack by Palestinian terrorists in Jerusalem that resulted in the killing of six Israelis and the wounding of dozens more, Israel led by the trigger-happy Bibi launched an attack against Hamas leadership.  That’s not unusual, the unusual part is that the targeted leadership was in Qatar. The Israelis said that they alerted the US in advance, but Trump denied that he knew about their plans. That Qatar is where many members of Hamas’ leadership reside is hardly a secret, but Israel actually attacking Qatar to takeout some of their leaders was a bit of a shocker, even for Trump who probably is now a bit worried that not only won’t he get his coveted Nobel Peace Prize but that the Qataris might ask for their plane back. None of this is good, peace is that much more elusive, and the hostages are still hostages.

#BringThemAllHomeNow  

 

Apocalypse Now🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

War: Last week Trump changed the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War.  Remember when Nobel Prize seeking, draft dodger Trump said that he would end all wars on day one of this administration, forget about that.  In addition to sending the wrong message about solving disputes peacefully, the name change is technically illegal because name changes require Congressional action, but legitimate or not Secretary of “War” Pete Hegseth has already started changing signs and stationery.  Depending on who you ask, the rebranding will cost somewhere north of $100 million, maybe closer to $1 billion, hardly in keeping with that whole DOGE thing but then again, DOGE was never really about cutting costs or efficiency, it was always about exerting control, deregulating, and keeping millionaire tax cuts intact. Costs aside, the renaming also sends a combative and threatening message to allies and “enemies,” but then again so did blowing up an alleged drug smuggling boat and its eleven occupants without first establishing that they really were drug smugglers or even just boarding the boat and arresting its occupants. Trump isn’t only threatening foreign enemies, over the weekend he, or more likely someone in his communications department, posted a message of  a svelte version of Trump along aside a “Chipocalypse” label threatening to go to war against Chicago, saying “I love the smell of deportations in the morning…. Chicago is about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR 🚁 🚁🚁.”  Yesterday, before embarking on his trip to the US Tennis Open, Trump sort of walked back his threat to attack Chicago, but who is he kidding?  It’s hardly a coincidence that his minions felt that they had to warn the USTA that the sensitive 🥭maniac didn’t want any of the booing they knew would accompany his arrival at the NYC tennis center broadcasted. The order was disregarded, there was booing, and it was aired. Unfortunately, the Chicago attack will probably unfold sometime this week.  The Chicago invasion will involve the rounding up of undocumented workers under the guise of ridding the city of crime. The red state Governors with cities with higher crime rates who’ve been sitting on the sidelines applauding Trump’s actions, maybe they should stop because they’re not immune either.  On Thursday, Homeland Security raided a Georgia construction site for what is supposed to become a “sprawling” electric battery plant.  They detained somewhere around 300 mostly South Korean workers. When completed, assuming it is completed, the battery plant which Governor Kemp lobbied hard to have built in his state, is supposed to provide around 8500 jobs.  Trump has now deeply offended South Korea, a staunch ally, who has been doing what he says he wants, moving production into the US. At least the South Korean workers will be luckier than most of the migrants that Homeland has been rounding up as they won’t be sent to a gulag facility, their government has chartered a plane to bring them home.  The plant will probably still be built, but it will take longer, and some hurt egos will now need to be unruffled through diplomacy rather than hostile actions. As to the 8500 jobs it looks like we need them now more than ever because as indicated by Friday’s anemic job figures, Trump’s economy is not humming along because tariffs are taxes and they cause wary corporations to act cautiously.  Moreover, firing boatloads of government employees affects them as well as lots of people and small businesses in their orbit.  There are now fewer job openings and unemployment is up.  But not to worry, because Trump’s economic gurus insist that of all that is Biden’s fault, and that if we wait long enough there will be a major turnaround, or at the very least, they’ll get better at falsifying statistical data in the hopes that no one notices that their grocery bill is increasing while their paychecks are disappearing.

MAHA Not:  In keeping with combat, deception, and discombobulation, Health Secretary RFK testified before the Senate last week.  It did not go well.  He lied about almost everything, called the recently fired CDC Director Susan Monarez a liar, misstated “facts,” and engaged in verbal battles with the Senate panel, a group that included two Republican doctors, Senators Bill Cassidy and John Barasso, who both appeared shocked to learn that that the anti-vaccine RFK lied to them during his confirmation hearing when he promised not to implement anti-vaccine policies. RFK answered yes to Republican Senator/Doctor Bill Cassidy’s disingenuous question as to whether Trump should receive a Nobel prize for getting the COVID vaccine out so quickly during the pandemic but then immediately followed up by trashing the vaccine.  He also said that the COVID vaccine really didn’t save lives because those CDC statistics about more than one million being saved could not be believed. He even denied that the Trump’s beautiful budget bill cut Medicaid, a stunning statement given the bill includes almost $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts.  After the hearing, Trump reaffirmed his support for his pocket Kennedy because of course he did but even he appears confused about Kennedy’s dissing of his vaccine. A few western blue state Governors are now forming a health care alliance to replace some of the information that will no longer be provided by the CDC and they and a few others are taking actions to ensure that the COVID vaccine remains available in their states.  On Friday New York Governor Hochul ordered that providers in NYS provide the vaccine to everyone who previously qualified for it. To that end over the weekend Walgreens (Duane Reade) eliminated its requirement that those seeking COVID vaccines first obtain a doctor’s prescription.

People and Politics:  It turns out that lots of folks, including three of Trump’s cabinet members, have claimed more than one primary residence on their mortgage applications, the so-called crime that Trump is using as his justification for firing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook while also going after California’s Adam Schiff and New York’s Tish James.  According to ProPublica those three cabinet members are the EPA’s Lee Zeldin, Transportation’s Sean Duffy, and Labor’s Lori Chavez-DeRemer.  It’s not just cabinet members, the father and stepmother of Federal Housing Director Bill Pulte, the Trump toady who scoured this housing files to find the “incriminating” information about the prominent Democrats, is also “guilty” of the same offense.  Though no one has suggested that EJ Antoni, Trump’s choice to run the Bureau of Labor Statistics is a multiple mortgage offender, he is a prolific social media poster and many of those posts included lewd comments about Kamala Harris, grotesque comments about other prominent women and gay people, and spread far-right conspiracy theories. Of course, all of that may be why Trump has nominated him because it’s not like he has any relevant credentials. Though the discharge petition has not yet passed, there’s likely to be more news on the Epstein/Maxwell front this week since the Epstein estate is expected to release its trove of documents, including the now infamous Epstein birthday card that Trump denies, but probably did, contribute to.  Last week, O’Keefe Media Group, a far-right organization, caught Joseph Schnitt, the acting Deputy Chief of a Justice Department on hidden camera saying that the government will “redact every Republican” from the Epstein client list. He and his bosses at the DOJ now claim he was just basing that on press reports.  Oopsie. And the government runs out of money at the end of the month.   

#BringThemAllHomeNow

 

Contagion 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

Epstein, Epstein, Maxwell: The controversy that won’t go away continues to haunt Trump.  Yesterday a group of Jeffrey Epstein/Ghislaine Maxwell accusers appeared outside of the Capitol.  While the women took to the microphones to talk about being targeted and abused by the creepy duo, Trump who appears increasingly desperate to prevent the release of the full trove of Epstein files, continued to call the Epstein affair a Democratic hoax while his enabler Speaker Mike Johnson did his best to impede the release of the full set of Epstein files. The two of them have made it clear to House Republicans that they shouldn’t vote for the Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie sponsored discharge petition that would force the release of all the Epstein files rather than the selectively filtered cache of files that the Department of Justice released earlier this summer and again earlier this week.  In addition to Massie, only three other Republicans including Nancy Mace, Marjory Taylor Green and Lauren Boebert have signed on to the discharge petition.  Assuming all 212 Democrats sign on, and it’s expected that they will, two more Republicans are needed for the petition to pass.  The bottom line is that there must be something really, really incriminating in the full set of files that Trump fears because why else would he be working so hard to prevent their release and why else would Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice have had 1000 FBI agents scour the files for all references to Trump? Naturally, Trump being Trump his efforts also include throwing lots of shiny objects, as well as a few missiles, into the air as a diversionary tactic so he also had his Pete Hegseth led Department of Defense shoot a Venezuelan drug smuggling boat out of the Caribbean, killing eleven people, rather than just forcing the boat to stop, the normal, and by normal think legal, way that those boats are typically handled. While the boat incident including the military build-up in the seas outside of Venezuela and the Epstein saga are dominating the news cycles, Trump and his administration have also continued their war against the environment, cancelling and defunding renewable energy projects especially those that include the windmills Trump hates so much, and issuing factually inaccurate reports that deny that climate change is real while also continuing to put the nation’s health at risk by demonizing vaccines. So basically, a normal Trump 2.0 month.  

Legal Morass:  Trump hasn’t been faring well in the courts this week, or at least in the lower courts.  On Tuesday, US District Court Judge Charles Breyer ruled that the administration had violated the Posse Comitatus Act when it used the military to patrol the streets in Los Angeles. The Posse Comitatus Act is the 1878 law that prohibits the use of the US military for domestic law enforcement. It’s okay for the military to protect federal buildings but street patrols are not supposed to be within their remit because in theory the US is not a dictatorship or a banana republic.  Breyer’s ruling only applies to California and will be appealed, so Trump is still planning, or at least loudly threatening to send the military into other cities, most notably Chicago despite the equally loud but much more articulate pushback from Illinois Governor Pritzker.  Also on Tuesday, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reinstated Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, the Democratic appointed Federal Trade Commissioner who Trump had fired from the agency that is responsible for consumer protection and antitrust enforcement. In a split 2-to-1 decision, the court said that the Trump administration’s attempt to block Slaughter, from resuming her role at the FTC. had “no prospect of success” because she’d been fired without cause rather than on the required grounds of “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” When he fired Slaughter, Trump had also fired Alberto Benoya,  another Democratic appointee, but since he subsequently resigned citing personal financial reasons, he was not reinstated as a result of the Court’s ruling.  Keeping with the Tuesday string of Trump losses,  by a vote of 2 to 1, a 5^th District US Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled that Trump can’t use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to speed the deportations of people that he and his abettors Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem accuse of being in Venezuelan gangs like Tren de Aragua, the gang that they claimed based on tattoos rather than real evidence that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was a member of.  Abrego Garcia is the migrant who’d been sent to the El Salvador gulag before being flown back to a US prison after his deportation received so much bad press.  The Alien Acts case is another one “destined for a showdown” at the Supreme Court.  It’s a good thing for Trump that SCOTUS is stacked with his appointees and a few other like-minded justices because he’s going to need them to get all his nefarious plans back on track.

Viral Musings:  Southern California health officials are encouraging residents to don masks to impede the spread of the COVID that is “surging” through their communities. While masking up is depressing, it’s a rational response to the upswing, particularly for those who are vulnerable or just need to go stay healthy enough to work.  The California recommendation which is partially in response to the very high levels of COVID in the sewer system, a tool used to measure COVID spread, stands in stark contrast to the idiocy that’s going on in Florida.  Yesterday with Florida Governor DeSantis’s support, the state’s Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo who first came to attention for his cavalier attitude towards COVID and his total and complete disdain for masks, even in hospital settings, announced that Florida will work to eliminate all vaccine mandates.  He emphasized that by saying he means “All of them. All of them, Every last one of them” because they are all “wrong and drip with disdain and slavery." The polio virus, in concert with the measles, German measles, chicken pox, and all the other viruses that we should be protecting children from are celebrating.  The folks at Disney World should be shaking in their boots because the park will soon be the virus epicenter (Epcot center?).  Maybe it’s time to add a virus exhibit next to the It’s a Small World ride? Sure, most parents in Florida will probably continue to get their little ones vaccinated but herd immunity only works when somewhere around 95% of us are protected and that’s not going to happen as long as the criminally dopey Ladapo eliminates school vaccine mandates. Parents with young children, particularly those too young to have received all their shots, should really think about that when they make their holiday travel plans. And young kids are just part of the problem, it’s more than fair to assume that Ladapo’s disdain and “slavery” claims will impact the uptake of HPV, meningococcal, tetanus vaccines as well. And it won’t be only Florida because idiocy, like viruses, is contagious, and viruses don’t respect state lines.

#BringThemAllHomeNow

 

Sunny With a Chance of Autocracy 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

Welcome to September:  The weather may be changing but the political environment looks a lot like August, only worse. Congress is back in session. The House which fled Washington early to avoid having to deal with the Epstein mess is back and so is the Epstein mess.  While Trump continues to tease a pardon for Epstein’s partner in sex crime Ghislaine Maxwell, the bi-partisan House team of Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie have scheduled a press conference to take place on the Capitol steps on Wednesday with ten Epstein victims, some of whom have never publicly discussed their horrible experiences. There is another government funding deadline at the end of the month, and Trump is trying to push through another rescission package defunding $5 billion in foreign aid,  this time without Congressional approval, an attempt that is expected to end up in the courts. Right before the Labor Day holiday, a Federal Appeals Court ruled that since tariffs are taxes and since taxing power lies with Congress, most of Trump’s are illegal. For now, the tariffs will remain in place while the Trump administration appeals the decision to the Supreme Court but to state the obvious, Trump is not a happy man.  He’s also not a healthy man or at least that’s what was all over social media over the weekend.  Noting that he’d been both unseen and uncharacteristically silent for several days, the Twitter (X) crowd claimed that we were in Weekend at Bernie’s mode. We’re not there, as least not yet, but it is curious that to establish proof of life, Trump’s press machine posted several out-of-date photos of him with some prior golf partners before he finally showed up on camera, from a distance, looking even more bloated and pale than usual. In contrast, a smiling Joe Biden, clearly aware of the Trump health rumors, was seen enjoying one of his favorite ice cream treats.

MAHA Not:  The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) crisis continues.  More long-time professionals have resigned, outraged by RFK Jr’s destructive policies and his war against vaccines.  Over the weekend nine former CDC directors published an op-ed in the New York Times titled "We Ran the C.D.C.: Kennedy Is Endangering Every American's Health." They accuse RFK and his cronies of undermining the nation's public health system.  There have been calls for RFK to resign, but as long as Trump stands behind him, that’s not likely to happen.  If anything, RFK appears to be solidifying his control, the White House has appointed his deputy Jim O’Neill, who like Kennedy is vaccine “skeptical” and particularly hates the COVID vaccine to serve as interim CDC head.  As to the COVID vaccine, the upheaval at the CDC is already having an effect on its availability.  CVS and Walgreens are now requiring a prescription or are not offering COVID vaccines in some states pursuant to their understanding of state guideline that prohibit or limit the administration of the shots without CDC approval a problem because though the FDA has signed off on the shots, the CDC has not yet done so, assuming it ever will.  This isn’t a blue versus red state thing, absent change in state policy, New York is one of the states where a prescription will be required and the shot won’t even be made available in Massachusetts, Nevada, and New Mexico. Trump who once bragged about getting “his” amazing COVID vaccine into arms in record time is now demanding that drug companies prove the shots are effective.  The shots are and have saved lives, but Trump’s base thinks they’re not, believes that mRNA is evil incarnate, and that may be all that matters to him.  The COVID shots and RNA technology are just the tip of the iceberg.  RFK’s faux study examining the link between childhood vaccines and autism is expected to be released this month.  That’s the link that has been debunked but that RFK says exists because he can see it in the “overburdened mitochondria” of children he sees in airports. And one more health note, the Pediatric Brain Cancer Consortium’s NHI funding is being cancelled because why would we want to find a cure for that?

People and Politics:  Rudy Giuliani whose car was rearended over the holiday weekend under unusual circumstances for anyone except the bizarre former Mayor has been released from the hospital. Trump is using the accident as a reason to award him the Congressional Medal of Freedom which he’s really getting because he lied about the election and refuses to say anything bad about Trump.  In keeping with rewarding allies, especially those who pushed his election lies,  but punishing opponents, especially those he has targeted with hate, Trump has cancelled former VP/presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ Secret Service protection which had been extended by President Biden; reports that California will take up the slack. The FEMA employees who collectively questioned the mismanagement of their agency have been put on leave because no one criticizes the Dear Leader or his henchwoman Kristi Noem, except for a federal judge who has ruled that their efforts to deport a group of unaccompanied migrant children back to Guatemala isn’t kosher. This morning New York City Congressman Jerry Nadler announced that he will not be seeking reelection.  Unlike Iowa’s Joni Ernst, Nadler’s decision isn’t about electability but is in response to concerns among the Democratic electorate that the average age of their delegation is too old, especially when compared to Republicans.  It’s not about the views of the elders, many of whom like Nadler are very liberal.  It’s the concern that like Joni Ernst said, everyone dies and they’re probably closer to doing so, while in office.  That would put a Democratic majority at risk assuming there really are midterm elections and that Democrats manage to retake the House despite Trump’s continuing efforts to get more Republican states like Missouri, Ohio, Florida, Indiana and wherever else possible to squeeze out Democratic seats as well as his new likely illegal push for universal voter ID.

Fog:  It turns out that Trump’s disproportionately high tariffs on India aren’t just about pushing India to stop buying Russian oil.  According to the NY Times, the tariffs are also punishment for India’s Prime Minister Modi not supporting Trump’s very public Nobel Prize campaign. Trump who hasn’t managed to end the Ukraine-Russia war or the Gaza 💩 show, believes or wants Modi to say that India and Pakistan are now BFFs.  They’re not, and Modi isn’t prepared to say they are, instead he’s now buddying up with China’s Xi and Russia’s Putin, something that prior administrations have tried hard to prevent. As to Russia and Ukraine, Politico reports that real estate friend Steve Witkoff’s inexperience has been “shining through,” saying that his failure to understand the complexity of negotiating has led to “miscues” rather than actual peace.  And son in law Jared is back, making plans for post war Gaza.  Oy.         

#BringThemAllHomeNow           

 

 

Wednesday Massacres 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

🔫 🔫 🔫:  There are over 500 million civilian owned firearms in the US, not counting the cute water pistols🔫 which were the only icons available for this post.   Since the majority of the country’s 340 million people don’t own guns, that means that the 30% of Americans who do, own more than one.  One of those with multiple guns used them to shoot a bunch of kids at a Minneapolis area Catholic elementary school yesterday, killing two and injuring 17 others.  The pro-🔫 crowd wants you to ignore the guns, instead focusing on the fact that the shooter was a crazed transgender person.  Other countries have deranged people and transpeople, some of whom are both deranged and transgender, but what they don’t have are repeated incidents of mass shootings at schools and malls because they restrict gun ownership.  So, please ignore the hateful anti-trans hysteria coming from the pro-gun crowd and focus on the proliferation of easily obtainable guns, because that’s the source of the problem. It’s also worth noting that upon retaking the presidency, Trump, another one who prefer we focus on the shooter’s sexcuality rather than guns, cut $611 million in funding for gun violence prevention. Rupert Murdoch’s NY Post is all in on that too while also claiing that the godless left hates religion which is why one of his rag’s inflammatory headlines  claims that MSNBC’s Jen Psaki attacked prayer last night.  She didn’t.  However, while tearfully mourning the death of the two dead children and expressing the fear that many parents are feeling right now as they send their children off to begin a new school year, the mother of two young children whose mother-in-law is a retired Catholic school teacher, said that “prayers and thoughts” aren’t enough.  She’s right.

 

Viral Musings:  Early yesterday the FDA announced that it had approved updated COVID shots.  However, that approval is limited to the 65 and over set and to those with underlying medical conditions. The limited approval contradicts the established science, which indicates that across all age groups especially for the very young and those over 50, health outcomes are better for the vaccinated.  To be clear, we’re not talking about COVID shot mandates, just about making shots widely available to those who want them.  Before the shots become available to anyone, the CDC has to signoff.  Ordinarily that’s not a problem but last night CDC head Susan Monarez who was appointed by Trump after he dinged his first nominee, quit or was forced out.  The facts behind her forced exit remain murky though it is clear that her departure from the position that she has only been in for one months (three Scarramucis) is because she forcefully opposed Health Secretary RFK Jr’s decision to limit access to the COVID vaccines. Reports are that she so opposed the brain hole/heroin guy’s decision that she had enlisted Lousiana Senator/doctor Bill Cassidy to help persuade him that limiting access to the COVID vaccine will result in more sickness and death. Cassidy, the Chair of the Senate’s Health Committee, delusionally thought he’d extracted a promise from RFK to maintain sane vaccine policy before he cast his pivotal vote for his confirmation. Monarez, who has now hired Abbe Lowell and Mark Zaid, the lawyers reprsenting a number of Trump’s other victims and misfires, isn’t the only one who has “quit,”  three other highly respected senior CDC officials also resigned last night, including the Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, the CDC’s Chief Medical Officer, and the Director of the National Center for Zoonotic Infectious Diseases.  They said that they could no longer work for a government agency that ignores science and weaponizes health care for political purposes. RFK who earlier replaced the 17 members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel mostly with anti-vaxxers and more reently appointed someone who believes that mRNA shots are lethal and should be banned altogether appears to be unphased by all the quitting. Last night the White House made it clear that despite calls from Ranking Health Care Committee Senator Patty Murray for RFK to be fired, Trump is standing with him because having a Kennedy in his pocket is all he cares about.  That’s particularly ironic since Trump got accolades for bringing us the COVID shots in the first place.  One things for certain, as a result of last night’s CDC massacre, our collective health is in jeopardy.   Back in the Nixon era the mass resignation of respected professionals mattered but not so much anymore because as Trump said during his off the wall multi-hour cabinet meeting this week where he was treated like the Dear Leader and the Secretary of Labor bragged about posting a Kim Jong un worthy oversized portrait of his likeness on the Labor building, people like him even more because of his dictatorial ambitions so he might as well be one.

🐊 🐊 Plus: For the second time this year Democrats flipped an Iowa state senate seat; as a result Republican’s will no longer have a super majority. Though we keep on hearing that Democrats are in disarray, they’re doing well in red state special elections. It looks like Alligator🐊Alcatraz is sinking back into the  Everglades, at least for now.  Currently there are only 300 people imprisoned  there and they’re expected to be transferred out shortly meaning that the much bragged about and costly boondoggle is about to be shuttered.  On the not so good side of the news, Trump is now calling for the prosecution of George Soros and his son targeting them for their support of liberal causes because dictators can’t tolerate liberals.  And in a weirdly distrubing story, the Danish government has summoned the US charge d'affaires in Copenhagen to express  “concern” (fury) about reports of covert US influence operations in Greenland. The operations in question involve at least three Trump connected Americans seeking to undermine the relationship between Denmark and Greenland because the not so stable genius who this week said that Ukraine shouldn’t have started the war that it didn’t start with Russia, is still thinking about or maybe even laying the groundwork to seize Greenland?  Lastly, tariffs on India are now set at 50% to punish the government for obtaining oil from Russia, that’s the oil that Biden said they could obtain and that Trump tacitly signed off on until now to keep US energy prices down.  Fill up your tank now because that illusory sub $2 per gallon gas Trump keeps talking about is about to become even more elusive.   

#BringThemAllHomeNow to end the madness  

Happy Labor Day!

         

 

💩💩💩💩  🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

💩: Maybe it’s because Trump’s trying to deflect from the attention on the growing splotch on one hand that appears to have inherited a growing new partner on his other hand or maybe it’s that his former Labor Secretary Alex Acosta who was the US Attorney from Florida who cut the sweetheart deal with Jeffrey Epstein  has agreed to sit for an interview, albeit a closed door one, with the House Judiciary Committee, or maybe it’s just that he thinks that tossing 💩 at democracy in what should be a quiet holiday week is the way to go but here we are.  Yesterday, Trump started the day by announcing that he was signing an executive order outlawing cashless bail while also making the “violation of the sanctity of the American flag” a federal offense. New York is one of those states that has eliminated cash bail for most misdemeanor and nonviolent felony charges to reduce the financial burden on those who would otherwise end up in pretrial jail simply because they can’t afford bail.  Though the concept of cashless bail is controversial, statistics show that the percentage of alleged offenders who don’t commit another crime and show up for subsequent hearings is about the same regardless of whether bail is imposed or not. In any case, Trump threatening to withhold funds from states with cashless bail laws is just his way of trying to paint states with Democratic governors as pro-crime, an extension of the rationale he’s using for sending the National Guard into cities in those same Democratically controlled states.  We know this is all politically gamesmanship because he pardoned all the January 6 criminals and isn’t sending the National Guard or any other military arm of government into Republican states that have cities with higher crime rates than DC, Chicago, New York, and Baltimore but with the help of those Republican governors is deploying or planning to deploy National Guard’s from those states in the Democratic ones he’s trying to demonize. His next target is Chicago, where Illinois Governor Pritzker, a likely 2028 presidential contender, has made it clear that he’s not interested, won’t cooperate, and views Trump’s interference as the act of an uncontrolled dictator wannabee.  As to the flag sanctity order, the Supreme Court has twice previously ruled that burning or otherwise showing disrespect for the flag, offensive or not, is protected free speech so it’s meaningless at least until this autocratic leaning court overrules their prior decisions something they might do because Trump is their🤴.       

💩 💩:  Keeping on topic, Trump announced last night that he’s firing Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook.  Cook responded, that’s nice but since you don’t have the authority to fire me particularly for a crime that I haven’t committed I am not gong anywhere.  Cook is right, not only doesn’t Trump have the authority but his action is unprecedented. He can’t fire Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell who he wants to fire so he’s instead targeted Cook over an alleged mortgage violation.  Also, as previously mentioned, Cook is a Black woman and Trump seems to really enjoy going after Black women and for some reason, perhaps the same reason that his base is okay with him saying that slavery wasn’t such a bad thing, they’re okay with that.  Putting aside the legality of Trump’s action, the issue here is that countries’ economies do far better when their Federal Reserve Banks remain independent. When that independence is breached, bad things tend to happen, like unfettered inflation.  Combine that with Trump’s attack on the independent statisticians who report on items like inflation and hiring to get the picture of what he’s doing.  His strategy is to hope is that no one will notice that the economy is going down the crapper and they can’t afford food if he manipulates data and appoints a crowd of willing cronies to the Federal Reserve Board.  The economy won’t bow to the whims of a feckless dictator so we should all be concerned, very concerned especially if SCOTUS says that firing Cook is okay because of that 🤴thing.

💩 💩 💩: Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the alleged gang member who isn’t a gang member but who much to his dismay has become the poster child for Trump, Stephen Miller, and Kristi “cosplay” Noem’s rounding up of brown, Spanish speaking people with tattoos, was able to spend the weekend with his family before being arrested again when he showed up for his scheduled INS appointment.  That arrest was expected because having made him their poster child for all things evil, Trump and has abettors are determined to throw scads of our taxpayer dollars into deporting him anywhere they can, pronto instead of going after the real violent criminals that most of us want ousted .  After Abrego Garcia turned down the government’s offer to plead guilty to questionable human smuggling charges and then be deported to Costa Rica the government said it would deport him to Uganda instead, a coercive tactic to force a guilty plea because Uganda?  His lawyers have filed a lawsuit to prevent his deportation without due process. Last night, saying that she needs more time to examine what smells like coercion, federal judge Paula Xinis temporarily blocked the deportation to Uganda, ordering Abrego Garcia to remain detained in the US pending further review. 

💩 💩 💩 💩:  A while ago, we learned that Sergio Gor, the head of the White House Personnel Office had a questionable personal past and that despite being responsible for making sure that all hires had filled out their vetting forms hadn’t filled out his, maybe because of that “unusual” past. Yesterday, it was announced that he’s leaving his personnel post.  He’s been nominated to become the US’s next Ambassador to India maybe because ambassadorships are Trump’s newest way of firing by sending inconvenient people far away, think former IRS head Billy Long, former NSA/Signal guy Mike Waltz, and Don Jr’s former girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle.  Final 💩 for the day, the Daily Beast reported yesterday that there’s a chance that RFK gets rid of COVID 19 shots altogether. The Daily Beast isn’t always right so take that with a grain of salt.  That said,  the report should not be totally discounted because at least so far no one in RFK’s circle has denied its validity.  In any case, in prior years the new COVID shots have been rolled out in September but, so far, the newest shots have not yet received approval and assuming they do, those under 65 will have to jump through more hoops to get them. As to COVID, we are currently experiencing a late summer boomlet, so test if you’re not feeling up to snuff or are sniffing a whole lot more than usual and do what you are supposed to do as in stay away from people for a few days and talk to your doctor about Paxlovid if you are particularly vulnerable or just don’t have the time to be sick.

#BringThemAllHomeNow   

 

Ominous Turns 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

Retribution Report:  In what the Wall Street Journal described as an ominous turn in Trump’s revenge campaign, early Friday morning the FBI raided the home of John Bolton.  For a little over a year during Trump 1.0 Bolton served as National Security Advisor.  Earlier in his career he served as George W Bush’s Ambassador to the UN.  Though Bolton is frequently criticized for his extremely hawkish views, few outside of Trump’s immediate circle even those who intensely dislike him for his views, believe that he was storing any top-secret documents at his home, the alleged reason for the raid. Instead, it’s widely understood that Bolton is being targeted by Trump who has been known to store boxes of purloined documents in his bathroom.  During his first term Trump tried to put the kibosh on Bolton’s memoir “The Room Where it Happened,” largely because that book criticized him.  The Bolton book ultimately was published, and the highly articulate Bolton has continued to criticize Trump.  One indication that the raid was all about revenge and retribution was that in an unprecedented move FBI Director Kash Patel tweeted “NO ONE is above the law…@FBI agents on mission.” Making it clear that he was all in on the raid VP Vance, who is competing with Secretary of State Rubio for Trump’s future presidential endorsement, retweeted Patel’s post.  Trump claimed that he “had intentionally avoided learning about the raid beforehand” before going on to say of Bolton "He is not a smart guy. But he could be a very unpatriotic guy. We're going to find out.”  Spoiler alert, Trump knew, and the raid was all about placating him while diverting attention away from the Epstein mess. In other retribution news, Trump has ramped up his attacks on Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, saying he’ll fire her if she doesn’t resign.  He wants her out so he can appoint a replacement who will vote for the multiple large interest-rate cuts he covets and also because she’s a Black woman.  Keeping with the theme of targeting people who don’t push the MAGA line, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired the head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency, Lieutenant General Jeffery Kruse.  It’s widely believed that Kruse was fired because of the DIA’s preliminary assessment that the US strikes on Iran only set back Tehran's nuclear program by just a few months.  For her part, Director of National Security Tulsi Gabbard who has been accused of getting much of her intelligence from conspiracists and Kremlin related sources, is cutting the US intelligence service by 40% because who needs unbiased intel when you can just go with your gut or your “overseas” friends? To cap off the weekend, Trump went on a Truth Social tirade last night calling for NBC and ABC to have their licenses revoked, something about them being biased against him.  During Trump 1.0 that would have been a laughable statement but given how he’s been extorting and winning concessions from other news networks his threat should be taken seriously.   

Epstein Chronicles:  The DOJ released the tapes of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s two day “interview” of Jeffrey Epstein’s partner in sex crimes Ghislaine Maxwell.  Surprise, surprise, the convicted Maxwell, who was indicted for lying to the FBI, claims that she never saw Trump do or say anything questionable with anyone and most definitely not with any underage girls. Of course,  Maxwell also asserted that she had been wrongfully charged and convicted and that her good friend Epstein never did anything wrong either. She also said that she never saw President Clinton do anything wrong and that despite Trump’s claims that Clinton had been to Epstein’s island hideaway dozens of time he hadn’t.  Maxwell’s comment regarding Clinton and the island are confirmed by flight logs not that you’d know that if you only read or watched Trump friendly news outlets. Commenting on Maxwell’s interview,  former NJ Governor Chris Christie said yesterday on ABC that “she might as well have said the man who can pardon me has never done anything wrong. The man who can pardon me has always been wonderful." Trump who continues to say that he has the authority to pardon Maxwell and likely will pardon her before leaving office, assuming he ever does,  lashed out at Christie, and is now threatening to reopen the investigation into Bridgegate, the scandal that snarled traffic entering the George Washington Bridge back when Christie was Governor.  The irony is that Christie and those reporting to him, were accused of closing entrance lanes to the bridge to punish local Democratic officials, the retribution strategy that Trump is now following on steroids. Christie emerged from that scandal with his reputation tarnished but ultimately wasn’t held accountable though one of his underlings pleaded guilty and two others were convicted and jailed before having their convictions overturned by the Supreme Court.  In other Epstein news, the DOJ released a trove of related files on Friday but, and it’s a big but, little of what they released was new as most of it had already been publicly shared. Lastly, Virginia Giuffre’s family plans to release her posthumous memoir “ Nobody’s Girl:  A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice” in October. Guiffre who worked at Mar a Lago before being recruited by Maxwell to become one of Epstein’s victimized girls committed suicide in April. Maxwell of course claims she did not recruit Guiffre and that Guiffre who received a large settlement from England’s Prince Andrew related to his participation in Epstein’s crimes, was a liar.   

More Militarization: The National Guard soldiers wandering the streets of Washington DC are now carrying arms.  According to the NY Times they are also arresting people for minor offenses and then up-charging them for federal crimes to artificially inflate the value of their presence. It’s reported that Trump plans to send troops to Chicago shortly, is threatening to do the same to New York, and is considering withholding infrastructure funding from Baltimore if Maryland Governor Wes Moore doesn’t welcome them with open arms. None of this is normal, we are not supposed to look and act like a third world dictatorship.   

#BringThemAllHomeNow

 

 
Weaponizing Alligators 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

Teflon Don: Yesterday, a NY Appeals Court threw out the $500 million judgement imposed against Trump after he had been found to have committed financial fraud.  A majority of the court agreed that Trump had done harm but not “cataclysmic” enough harm to warrant such a large penalty. Naturally, Trump hailed the decision as a vindication and proof that he’d done nothing wrong when he lied about his finances and overstated the value and size of his assets but had been politically targeted by that evil Black woman NY Attorney General Tish James.  Trump’s assertion of being targeted is particularly ironic given that his goons are currently going after James, California Senator Adam Schiff, and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, another Black woman, for “mortgage” fraud.  None of them have massively overstated the value or size of their homes to obtain lower interest loans though Governor Cook has supported Federal Reserve Chair Powell’s interest rate decisions, the “crime” that has put her in Trump’s crosshairs.  Trump is being gleefully abetted in his retribution by Bill Pulte, his head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, who has referred all three Democrats to the Justice Department for criminal investigations where Ed Martin,  the DOJ official responsible for both pardons and the weaponization working group, because what president doesn’t have a group responsible for targeting his opponents, is willingly cooperating in the carrying out of Trump’s vendettas.  At least for now Trump’s Teflon coat isn’t doing its thing for ersatz NJ US Attorney Alina Habba, Trump’s former lawyer whose legal experience before Trump involved representing parking garages, not that there is anything wrong with parking garages.  Yesterday, a US District Court judge rejected Trump’s use of a loophole to keep her in place as NJ’s top federal prosecutor saying she “is not lawfully holding the office of United States Attorney” while noting that she has been in the position without legal authority since July 1. That’s a bigly problem for Habba and possibly also a problem for other US attorneys in Los Angeles, Nevada, New Mexico, and upstate New York where Trump and AG Bondi have also “sidestepped or overridden both the Senate confirmation and judicial appointment processes for selecting US attorneys” but good news for the accused criminals whose cases have been put on hold or who have been just handed grounds for appeal.  Also, some good news for those concerned about the Everglades and for some of the undocumented who were about to be locked up at Alligator🐊 Alcatraz.  A Miami District Court judge ruled yesterday that both Florida and the Feds have violated a federal law that requires an environmental review before any major federal construction projects. She ordered that no more immigrant detainees be sent there and that much of the facility be dismantled. Of course, that decision will be appealed because Homeland Security’s Kristi Noem who has a pile of unsigned expense requests for things that impact hurricane response and even passport scanning, is all in on her Alcatraz’s.     

Midterm Madness: Forget about waiting until 2026, the race for the control of the House is already on.  No, you haven’t forgotten to show up at the polls or slept through election day, the race is taking place in state legislatures, and it involves partisan gerrymandering and redistricting, something that the John Roberts led Supreme Court made easier to do by saying that states can pretty do whatever they want with regard to drawing district lines regardless of their motivations.   Yesterday, after Democratic legislators returned to the state and a quorum was achieved, Texas Republicans voted to approve a new electoral map, one crafted to result in five more Republicans winning House seats.  To counter that power grab, California Governor Gavin Newsom has started the process that will result in a Democratic pick up of five California seats. Given California’s more restrictive law, a statewide vote is required before a new map can be put in place but not so much for Texas where Governor Abbott just has to sign the law when it crosses his desk. A few more states on both sides of the aisle are expected to follow suit, however since more of those states are under Republican control, it’s likely that this battle will result in a net pick-up for Republicans.  This isn’t supposed to be the way things work in a democracy, but who are we kidding, that democracy idea is so old school, at least that’s what Trump hopes and while it may be fun to joke about his cankles and assert that he’s verging on dementia, the damage he and his abettors, are inflicting is substantial and could result in MAGA Republicans holding on to power for a long time to come. And just to further keep you up at night, this week it was reported that Democratic registrations have decreased by 2.1 million while Republican registration has increased by 2.4 million, a wake-up call to Democrats to more aggressively get people registered to counter Republican voter drives and suppression efforts. Moreover, Trump is pushing for an unprecedented mid cycle census, one that doesn’t count the people he doesn’t want counted.

Fog:  There's lots of it, but at least for today, I am taking a break from the international scene.

#BringThemAllHomeNow

Earworms 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

Ukraine 🌻🌻:  A number of pundits reported that though Trump’s staff and advisors tried to spin Trump’s cockamamie summit with Putin as a diplomatic triumph, most of them emerged “ashen and “wide eyed” from the meeting which goes a long way to explaining why the who’s who of European leaders dropped everything to attend Trump’s follow-on meeting with Ukraine’s Zelenskyy who wore a more polished than usual get up to placate people who care about such things.  The Europeans’ collective appearance combined with a whole lot of cajoling and golf bonding appears to have righted the Ukraine ship, at least for now, mostly moving Trump, cankles and all,  back to pushing for a ceasefire as well as some security assurances for Ukraine.  However, as indicated Trump’s bizarre caught on a hot mic comment to France’s Macron that Putin “wants to make a deal. I think he wants to make a deal for me, you understand that…. As crazy as it sounds," it probably won’t take much more than a midnight call from Vlad to get Trump to alter his position because as he noted, the idea of Putin wanting to keep him happy is crazy especially when you consider that Putin is still dropping lethal bombs and taking out residential buildings and shows little interest in moving off his demands for even more of Ukraine than he’s managed to occupy.  As to Zelenskyy, he’s right to question Trump’s support and Putin’s intentions because back in 1994, in what’s referred to as the Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine gave its nuclear arsenal to Russia in exchange for security guarantees from Russia, the US, UK, France, and China and we know how that turned out. 

Midterm Madness: During their weekend meet-up, perhaps during their unprecedented one-on-one in Trump’s armored “beast,” Putin whispered some sweet nothings into Trump’s ear, maybe even implanting an earworm, telling him that he too believed that the 2020 election really was rigged and that voting machines and mail-in voting were to blame.  Then on Monday Newsmax revealed that it had agreed to pay $67 million to Dominion Voting Systems, the company that received a $787 million settlement from the much larger Fox, to settle its defamation lawsuit over Newsmax’ airing of false claims that the 2020 election was rigged by its voting machines. So, naturally with Putin’s remarks looping through his brain, and Newsmax coughing up cash Trump, took to his Truth Social bully pulpit to announce his intention to sign an executive order “to lead a movement to get rid of mail-in ballots” while ending the use of “Very Expensive and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES.” Elections are run by states so it’s not clear that he can do either.  It’s also not clear that a lot of Republican officials would want him to do so since many of those using mail-in ballots are the same Republican voters they encouraged to vote by mail. Notably, Trump is one of those Republicans who has a history of voting by mail. The more likely takeaways from Trump’s most recent madness is that he’s still and always will be smarting from his 2020 loss to Biden, he’s doing all he can to divert from the Epstein affair, and he’s scared shxtless about the midterms, doing all he can to disrupt and cheat his way through what he fears, without his interference, will be a loss of the House and maybe even of a few critical Senate seats 🙏 🙏.  One person who knows a lot about his desperation is Democratic Texas Representative Nicole Collier who has been forced to stay and sleep on the floor of the Texas House over her refusal to sign an agreement allowing a Texas Department of Public Safety official to shadow her to make sure she appears back in the House on command for the redistricting/gerrymandering vote. As to the Epstein affair, former AG Bill Barr testified this week, nice but kind of pointless because though he was running the DOJ when Epstein died, he wasn’t around when Epstein committed all his sex crimes.  Supposedly, the DOJ will start to release its millions of pages of files, not to be confused with the much thinner, less revealing Grand Jury testimony which a judge has ruled against releasing, by the end of the week, assuming the pages don’t get eaten by a pack of Siberian Huskies or shipped off to Moscow.  Also, in case you missed it the current MAGA position is that slavery wasn’t really all that bad which is the reason that Trump has commanded the Smithsonian to alter its exhibits.  And up is down and left is right.

Human Resources:  Dan Bongino, the podcaster who threatened to resign from his position as Deputy Director of the FBI over the Epstein affair hasn’t resigned but he may have just been shunted off to the side because yesterday the White House announced the appointment of Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey as Deputy Director of the FBI. That’s two people doing the job of one person, something that seems to violate that rationale behind all that DOGE stuff.  Also, DNI Tulsi Gabbard who Hillary Clinton warned was a favorite of the Russians, revoked the security clearances of 37 professionals yesterday, some of whom still work in government and most of whom have had something to do with Russia.  Could it be that the earworm that Putin stuck in Trump’s ear directed him to do more than just get rid of mail-in ballots and ballot counting machines?    

Fog:  Lots of talk but still no agreement on a Gaza ceasefire.  Supposedly Hamas has agreed to release some but not all of the hostages, but Israel is threatening to take over Gaza City if they aren’t all released. 

#BringThemAllHomeNow            

 
Phone a Friend 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

Summit Woes:  Trump’s meeting with Russia’s Putin met expectations in that Putin who got the full red-carpet treatment stuck to his guns, literally and figuratively, and starry-eyed Trump who had told Ukraine’s Zelenskyy and several European leaders that he would push for a ceasefire did not.  The meeting ended early and while the two leaders made statements after they ended their “summit” they did not take questions at was supposed to be a press conference.  Following the meeting, Trump gave an interview to his favorite Foxy, Sean Hannity, where he characterized the meeting as a “10,” blamed the war on Biden, said peace was up to Zelenskyy, while adding that he and Putin both agreed that the 2020 election that Biden won had been rigged by all that sketchy mail in voting.  Trump went on to say that his bestie Putin told him that no countries allow mail in ballots, a weird lie because many including Putin’s Russia do but the forever KGB agent has Trump’s number and knew exactly how to push his buttons to get what he wants so he did and since Putin wants as much of Ukraine as he can get, either through war or through a Trump supported “swap,” by the end of the weekend, Trump and several members of his “negotiating” team more than implied that they had shifted their position from supporting Ukraine’s sovereignty, calling for a ceasefire and imposing heavy sanctions if they couldn’t get one, to cozying up to Uncle Vlad’s demand for land concessions. Zelenskyy is due in Washington today for a follow-up meeting with Trump and like a stymied contestant on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” he’s opted to invoke all his lifelines.  He isn’t just phoning a friend, asking the audience for the answer, or doing any of the other things that the game show allows, he’s bringing along the who’s who of European leadership including France’s Emmanuel Macron, the UK’s Keir Starmer, Finland’s Alexander Stubb, Germany’s Friedrich Merz,  Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, NATO secretary general Mark Rutte, and president of the European Union Ursula von der Leyen in the hope that the crowd will break Putin’s spell, getting Trump back to where he was before the Alaska meeting, or, at the very least, prevent Trump or his henchman/VP Vance from publicly chastising Zelenskyy for refusing to hand over Ukraine’s Donbas region which Putin wants to add to the regions of Ukraine that he’s already seized.  The supportive crowd is pushing to get Trump onboard for some security guarantees, something along the line of what NATO members give each other, ironic since NATO membership is one of those things that Putin insists has to stay permanently off the table, and both Biden and Trump have already more or less conceded.  Oh, and though the crowd in Alaska cancelled their lunch plans, via a sloppy, incompetent member of Trump’s travelling squad who left a trove of summit documents on a hotel printer, we know that they had planned to dine on filet mignon and halibut Olympia and that Trump planned on gifting “his excellency” Vlad with a bald eagle statuette.  More significantly everyone is now privy to the American team’s home contact information and a few other things that should not have been left on a printer.  

Shiny Objects: As one Twitter poster put it on Sunday: “The meeting with Putin was so disastrous for Trump he may have to bring up the Epstein files as a distraction.”  It’s not just the summit, the economy is starting to show the effects of his tariffs, polls indicate that the Big Ugly Bill has a lot of the electorate concerned about their personal “lifelines,” and even some immigration hardliners are finding the deportation and imprisonment of their migrant neighbors hard to stomach so Trump is back in full distraction mode. Last night he took to Truth Social to insist that MSNBC (which he calls MSDNC) fire Nicole Wallace, the former Bush communications director who hosts the daily Deadline White House show, likely due to a Fox News report that she “went on a tear” against him on the runup to the Alaska summit. It’s doubtful that Wallace will be fired anytime soon, although she might need some added protection, but there’s lots of other more troubling things going on.  Following Texas Governor Abbott’s lead, more Republican dominated states are looking into creating more Republican friendly districts, moves that are leading the few Democratic states who can, to do the same.  The desperate redistricting maneuver is a clear sign that the polls are going against Republicans and anyway why should voters get to decide who represents them when some politicians with sharpies can do so much better?  On the legal front,  Ed Martin, head of the DOJ’s Stalinesque Weaponization (😱) Working Group, who is so toxic that Trump pulled his nomination to serve as the US Attorney for Washington DC after it became clear that he couldn’t get enough Senate votes for confirmation for the role that ultimately went to the also toxic Jeanine Pirro, is moving forward with the Pam Bondi approved investigations into California Senator Adam Schiff and New York AG Tish James while also threatening to go after all of those who served on the January 6 committee. The occupation of Washington DC, or at least the most TV visible, low crime areas of Washington DC by federal forces continues, though at least for now due to the intervention of the courts, the DC police department remains under the control of the District’s Police Commissioner rather than flunky Bondi’s special appointee.  And if Trump is to be believed, more Democratically run cities in blue states are in his cross eyes. 1251 days to go.              

#BringThemAllHomeNow     

Subs and Heroes 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

From Russia But No Love:  Trump is in Anchorage for his meeting with Putin.  For the most part the pundits, or at least those who are experienced in international diplomacy and/or things Russian, believe that he’ll accomplish little in the way of peace but might concede part of Ukraine with some rare minerals thrown in as a sweetener.  They are also concerned that the bluster and strong arming that Trump has been able to work to his advantage with weaker, less experienced leaders, law firm heads, and his party will fall flat with the wily Putin.  We should know soon enough although it wouldn’t be a push to assume that Trump who apparently doesn’t know that in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union, Leningrad’s name was restored back to St Petersburg, its pre-Soviet name, will spin the meeting as a huge accomplishment.  Illusionary peace being another reason that he should get the Nobel Peace prize that he covets so much that according to the Norwegian news outlet Dagens Naeringsliv, he called Norway’s Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg “out of the blue” to tell him so, more than hinting that things could turn darker on the tariff front if Norway doesn’t make it happen. Norway’s five-member Nobel committee is responsible for choosing the Nobel laureates that are announced in October. While Trump is hanging in the 49^th state, things are getting darker and weirder in Washington DC where his occupying forces have federalized the police.  Last night AG Pam Bondi who should be disbarred when or if we ever get through this dystopian time, appointed Terry Cole, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administrator as “Emergency” Police Commissioner usurping the powers of DC’s police chief.  Her actions are likely illegal but since when has that matter to anyone in Trump’s orbit. To be clear, if Trump or any of his minions really wanted to improve law enforcement in DC, they would restore the $1 billion in funding that they took from the city’s coffers and work as a team focusing their efforts on things like drug enforcement rather than stopping cars and otherwise acting like bullies.  The situation is now so stupid that Trump’s federales charged a now former employee of the Department of Justice who threw a Subway sub at the “invading” forces while screaming F-You with a felony.  Since a DC grand jury has twice refused to indict the woman who was accused of “assaulting” an FBI agent despite video evidence that shows her doing little more than flailing her arms at an ICE agent, it’s highly likely that the sub offender will not be indicted either, though he might have started a trend because who doesn’t feel like following a turkey sub or two right now and anyway, sandwiches are a whole lot more dispensable than shoes, which as George W Bush once learned is the item more typically tossed in protest in some cultures. Also stupid, Ivanka, the daughter who other than appearing in Jeff Bezo’s wedding pictures, we haven’t seen much of lately has assumed the job of organizing the UFC cage fight to be held at the White House next year to celebrate the 250^th independence anniversary.  I don’t know, nor want to know what a cage fight is, and will be busy that day washing my hair.     

Hero Special: Not a sub but maybe the hero we need right now, California’s Governor Gavin Newsom, who is clearly positioning himself for an Oval Office run, is the spicy meatball living inside of Trump’s head.  Not only is he younger and infinitely better looking than the doughy 🍊 🤡 but he’s taken to gleefully mocking him on Twitter with ALL CAPS missives, witty ones like this:

DONALD 'TACO' TRUMP,  AS MANY CALL HIM, 'MISSED' THE DEADLINE!!! CALIFORNIA WILL NOW DRAW NEW, MORE 'BEAUTIFUL MAPS,' THEY WILL BE HISTORIC AS THEY WILL END THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY (DEMS TAKE BACK THE HOUSE!). BIG PRESS CONFERENCE THIS WEEK WITH POWERFUL DEMS AND GAVIN NEWSOM — YOUR FAVORITE GOVERNOR — THAT WILL BE DEVASTATING FOR 'MAGA.' THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER! — GN.”  

Newsom followed his Twitter jibe with an announcement that he’s initiating a process that should it work will lead to the redistricting of enough California districts to make up for the ones that Texas, at Trump’s insistence, is seeking to redistrict away from Democrats. The process in California is more complicated given that Newsom unlike Texas’ Governor Abbot has to hold a state referendum to accomplish his objective, but his message is clear, Democrats need to fight fire with fire, no more knives at gun fights. As to guns, a bunch of Trump’s INS thugs made an appearance outside of Newsom’s press conference.  If anything, their threats emphasize Newsom’s argument, that democracy is at risk because Trump could give two 💩 💩, he just wants to stay in power no matter what it takes. Further proof of that is that he’s now invited Missouri’s state Republicans for a sit down at the White House to see if they can gerrymander him a few more House seats.  And given that inflation is once again out and about because tariffs, Trump likely needs to cheat to get those seats because things really are costing more and though it may be possible to manipulate statistics, when coffee, bananas, and schools supplies cost more, and jobs are difficult to find people on the ground notice.   

#BringThemAllHomeNow      

Bamboozle 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

205 Days In:  Trump pardoned the January 6 rioters, appointed one of their most ardent defenders to run the US Attorney’s Office in Washington DC, and hired a former FBI agent who was videotaped urging his mob cohorts to kill the police officers who were trying to stop their invasion. That former FBI agent is now advising on how best to seek retribution against Trump’s political enemies.  Yesterday, after asserting that Washington DC, which on January 6 he characterized as a peaceful haven full of fun seeking Trump supporting tourists, is now a lawless hell hole, Trump deployed 800 National Guard members to control the “punks and scumbags” who reside there.  His action, which he’s long mused about taking, appears to have been triggered by the recent mugging of Big Balls, the 19-year- old former DOGE employee who is now an official tasked with mucking around in the Social Security Agency’s code.  Big Balls really was a crime victim.  He was bloodied in an attempted carjacking, and DC is hardly a crime free idyll, however, as indicated by the DOJ’s own crime statistics, year on year homicides in DC are down by 32%, robberies by 39%, armed carjackings by 53%, and assaults with deadly weapons by 27%.  If Trump was serious about helping out the cash strapped District he’d see to it that its funding which was cut $1 billion by the Congress he controls was restored but instead, he’s into performative messaging and autocratic actions, so we have the National Guard in DC, the same National Guard he refused to deploy on January 6 when it was really needed because then the marauders were his supporters.  Washington DC is a bit of a strange animal, it’s not a state, its residents pay lots of federal taxes but don’t have Congressional representation and its mayor has limited powers when compared to those of state Governors so it’s particularly vulnerable to Trump’s dictatorial whims. That said, Trump who has already sent a bunch of soldiers and guardsmen into Los Angeles, is now threatening to do the same to NYC, Baltimore, Chicago, and Oakland, California, lumping them all together as teeming masses of criminals when what they mostly share in common is that they are urban places with large non-white, Democratic voting populations.  None of these cities are perfect but their crime rates are mostly declining from pandemic levels, and while being the victim of a crime is always a bad thing, don’t for a minute believe that felon Trump’s actions are motivated by a desire to make things better for their residents.  The forces he’s sent into DC and is threatening to send into the other cities aren’t the right people for that job, and in places like NYC with its 36,000 uniformed officers aren’t needed, he’s just playing dictator, making it clear that, he gets to do whatever he wants.  That’s not hyperbole, with Trump’s support, Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon is considering the establishment of a "Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force" composed of National Guard troops, for deployment in US cities experiencing protests or other unrest. The force would consist of 600 National Guard troops, split into two groups of 300 each, they would be stationed at military bases in Alabama and Arizona, covering regions east and west of the Mississippi River, respectively, they would be on standby for rapid deployment (within an hour) to address situations that Trump deems "domestic civil unrest.” Asking for all of us, will election days in swing districts with large blue voter turnout be examples of civil unrest?         

Factoids: It’s not just Trump’s militaristic tendencies that are a bigly problem, he also has his complicit henchman rewriting history and playing with economic statistics because when he doesn’t like the facts, he makes up his own.  Yesterday the White House announced that it’s embarking on a comprehensive review of the Smithsonian Institute’s exhibits to make certain that they reflect Trump’s vision of America, that would be a vision that doesn’t reference his two impeachments and presumably also whitewashes out the role that people of color and women have played over the years, the women that Pete Hegseth and his favorite extremist pastor believe should never have been granted the right to vote.  Trump has already moved the portraits of former presidents Obama and GW Bush into an infrequently used stairwell, Biden’s official portrait is not yet completed, but you know when it is it will get similar, or worse, treatment. Maybe that Mar a Lago toilet is still available?  Trump has also nominated the Heritage Foundation’s EJ Antoni to serve as his new Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Antoni, one of those responsible for bringing us the Project 2025 blueprint, announced that he plans to eliminate the monthly labor report that so annoys Trump, only issuing quarterly reports that presumably will be suitably rosy.  Trump, who celebrated only the “good” part of yesterday’s inflation report, ignoring that price increases are starting to rear their ugly head on items subjected to his tariffs, also called on Goldman Sachs’ head David Solomon to fire his firm’s respected chief economist, Jan Hatzius for warning on Sunday that US consumers will end up absorbing an increasing share of the cost of Trump’s tariffs.  As to those tariffs, Trump 🌮ed again, he has extended the deadline for resuming the higher tariffs on China, another 🌮anticipated by the investor community.  It’s fair to assume that Trump is also quite distressed with the CBO (Congressional Budget Office), looking for ways to kneecap them over their distributional analysis that concluded that America’s poorest households will see their incomes drop by $1200 while the wealthiest among us will see an additional $13,600 annually as a result of his Big Ugly Bill.   

People and Politics:  Former Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown has made it official.  He’s running again.  Keeping with the comeback trend, though he was only gone for a little more than a week, Dr. Vinay Prasad who had been forced out by right wing influencer Laura Loomer is back at the FDA, again making decisions about gene therapy and vaccines which explains why shares of biotech companies fell on Monday. Prasad has a habit of overruling his own scientific review staff, taking a confrontational approach that his critics say will “stymie scientific innovation and slow drug approvals.”  Then again, that seems to be HHS head RFK Jr’s objective, at least with regard to anything the guy who majored in heroin in college doesn’t like.  To that end,  FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, defended the decision to defund mRNA vaccine development, saying that the public has lost confidence in the mRNA technology.  Of course, Makary conveniently ignored that the loss of confidence is the result of the volume of misinformation that he, RFK, and their anti-vax cohorts have relentlessly spread. Like Trump, RFK continues to try to play with facts, but at least one reputable publication isn’t buying his attempts.  Yesterday Annals of Internal Medicine, an influential medical journal, rejected his request that they retract a large Danish study that found that aluminum ingredients in vaccines do not increase health risks for children. 

Fog:  Trump’s Anchorage, Alaska meeting with Putin is still on for Friday.  Everyone not part of Trump’s sycophant squad, especially Ukraine’s Zelenskyy and most of our one time but probably not for long European allies, are concerned that Putin, who has ramped up his attack on Ukraine, will bamboozle him.

#BringThemAllHomeNow