Trump Slump 😱✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️😱

TrumpCession:  Last October the Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board noted that whoever wins the White House will take office with “at least one huge asset: an economy that is putting its peers to shame.  It is outrunning every other major developed economy, not to mention its own historical growth rate.”  Then Trump proved political commentator Rick Wilson’s oft made observation that “everything Trump touches dies” correct.  So now, as predicted by almost everyone other than Trump, tariffs fueled by their erratic application, are killing the US’s once envied economy. And it certainly doesn’t help that those tariffs are on top of mass firings and threatened mass deportations of many in the labor force.  We’ve heard many times that the stock markets aren’t the economy, but their performance reflects expectations about earnings and right now the expectations are that corporate earnings will be down because of the tariffs and belt tightening by freaked out consumers watching their retirement account balances shrivel and fearful that their Social Security payments and health insurance will soon follow suit.  As the WSJ pointed out yesterday afternoon, the trouble with trade wars is that once they begin, they can quickly escalate and get out of control. All the more so when the guy imposing them “behaves as if his manhood is implicated because a foreign nation won’t take his nasty border taxes lying down.” As bad as things are, you do have to love that the WSJ is questioning the orange maniac’s manhood 😂. Ketchup flying at Mar a Lago? The WSJ went on to say that the North American trade war is the dumbest in history, and that’s being kind. For good measure they pretty much called Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick an idiot, pointing out that his illogical comments about how tariffs affect prices make it clear that he doesn’t understand commerce. As to concerns about impending cuts in Medicare and Social Security, the programs that Trump promised to leave completely intact, those fears are valid because Elon Musk has woken up to the reality that while slashing and burning soft diplomacy programs like US AID gives him joy and makes Putin and Xi happy, cutting Medicare and Social Security, as well as Medicaid, is the way to go when your objective is cutting taxes for the very, very rich and that’s what both he and Trump desperately want to do. By the way despite Trump and Elon’s assertions there are no 200- year-olds on the Social Security rolls but those folks over 100 receiving Social Security payments that’s because they’re alive and they earned those payments. Similarly, the children getting benefits, those are the survivor benefits eligible minors receive when they lose a parent.  With the markets tanking, Elon, like all those other billionaires who paid bigly to attend Trump’s inauguration, has seen his net worth drop but unlike them, he now has Trump doing infomercials for him.  Yesterday, while the rest of us did our best to avoid checking our IRA and 401K balances, Trump played QVC salesperson, hawking Tesla cars and trucks from the White House lawn, threatening to arrest anyone protesting outside of Tesla facilities for domestic terrorism.

People:  Senator Mark Kelly went on a solidarity trip to Ukraine and posted about it, so Musk called him a traitor. Musk fled South Africa to avoid military service. Mark Kelly is a former US Navy pilot who flew combat missions during the Gulf War, who then went on to be an astronaut and shuttle pilot, and whose character is further exemplified by his dedication and support for his disabled wife, former Congressperson Gabby Gifford, a victim of gun violence.  Sickening name calling but totally in character for bully Musk and something we saw Trump do to John McCain. On the subject of characters, Elizabeth Oyer, the DOJ’s pardon attorney was fired after refusing to recommend that Mel Gibson, be allowed to own guns again.  Gibson lost that right because of his domestic violence sentence but the right-wing actor who has been known to publicly express his anti-Semitic views while inebriated but maybe also when sober is a friend of the Orange guy so if he wants a gun, he gets a gun.  Worth noting, Gibson is also disdainful of Pope Francis who he finds to be too liberal for his liking.  Education Secretary Linda McMahon has been in her new job for just a few days but she’s already fulfilling Trump’s mandate to shrink her department into oblivion.  Yesterday she fired half of her work force, saying that she plans to fire more and eliminate the department as soon as she can. In theory, only Congress can eliminate the Education Department which was separated out of the Department of Health Education and Welfare back in 1980.  Legislative efforts by Republicans to disband the department have failed several times, even when the Republicans were in control of Congress.  For the record, the Education doesn’t run local schools, its functions include distributing federal funds to public schools, administering college financial aid, and managing federal student loans.  It also supports programs for students with disabilities and enforces Civil Rights laws and we know how this administration feels about Civil Rights and how Trump likes to mock people with disabilities.  RFK who would presumably pick up some of the responsibilities that now fall to Education continues to promote cod liver oil and vitamin A as well as steroids for the treatment of measles which he attributes to poor lifestyle choices rather than to a highly contagious virus.  Lastly, kudos to the Williams & Connolly law firm for stepping up to represent Perkins Cole, the law firm targeted by Trump for defending Hillary Clinton and others he doesn’t like.  

FundMe:  Yesterday by a vote of 217 to 213 with all Republicans except Kentucky’s Thomas Massie on board and with all Democrats except for Maine’s Jared Golden, who barely eked out a victory in his equally divided district, opposed the House passed a continuing funding resolution that will keep spending levels flat while it continues to work on a real budget.  The resolution increases defense spending by $6 billion, taking the money from other programs including slashing Washington DC’s budget by $1 billion.  At the last minute, Republicans slipped in a provision legitimizing Trump’s tariffs even though they know they are off the wall crazy and illegal because like 1930’s Germans they do what they’re ordered to do. The bill is now in the hands of the Republican controlled Senate where it will need 60 votes to pass. The question is whether seven Democrats will support it over fears that they’ll get blamed for a government shut down if a resolution isn’t passed, or whether they’ll stand strong and extract some changes before signing on.

Fog:  After meeting with US officials in Saudi Arabia where they were hosted by a bone saw killer, Ukraine announced that it has agreed to implement a 30-day ceasefire with Russia.  In exchange Trump is lifting the pause on intelligence sharing he had imposed and also resuming security assistance.  However, and it’s a big however, Russia hasn‘t agreed to anything yet so while this could be a good thing it could also be a nothing burger or worse because it appears that Trump expects Ukraine to agree to give up territory, Russia not so much. Still, it’s a start. In other news, as predicted the Trump administration has turned former Columbia University graduate student Mohamed Khalil into a martyr of sorts because it turns out that it’s not so easy to take a Green Card away from a “permanent” US resident.  There’s a legal process involved, and whether we like Khalil or not, we should all want that legal process to be followed because not following it sets a precedent that could be very bad for others. Ernesto Miranda wasn’t a nice guy, but the “Miranda warning” speech advising of the right to be silent is delivered because of him.  By the way, regardless of your country of origin, if you are here on a Green Card, now would be a good time to take your citizenship test because it’s unlikely that Trump will stop at Khalil.