Bob 😱✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️😱

@drprevost: His friends call him Bob, his X (Twitter) handle was @drprevost and going forward the American born and raised Robert Francis Prevost will be known as Pope Leo XIV.  The white smoke indicating a new Pope had been selected wafted above Vatican City not long after Trump announced that he had achieved his first tariff deal.  The good news for Catholics is that they really do have a new Pope, the not so good news for Trump and the rest of us is that he merely has a concept of a tariff deal with the UK.  Given their post Brexit desperation, negotiating a deal, or the outlines of a deal with the UK, is the equivalent of picking the lowest hanging fruit first. The UK is only our ninth largest trading partner behind Viet Nam. We ran a trading surplus of $11.9 billion with them in 2024.  Already US car makers General Motors, Ford and Stellantis are more than a bit perturbed, concerned that the deal that Trump bragged about striking with Prime Minister Starmer will harm the US auto sector since British carmakers will be given a quota of 100,000 cars a year that can be sent to the United States at a 10% tariff rate, almost the total number of cars Britain exported last year, compared to 25% for Mexico and Canada and nearly all other countries. The bottom line is that the deal, or concepts of a deal with the UK is better than nothing but it doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of tariffs, the equity markets rallied yesterday because after announcing his “deal” Trump hinted that tariffs on Chinese goods could come down soon.  Whether they will or won’t is still a big unknown since he also dismissed concerns about the lack of ships at our ports by saying that the slowdown is a "good thing" for US trade as we will "lose less money,” a nonsensical and delusional remark right up there with his absurd statements about dolls and baby carriages and his threats to set tariffs on all Mattel toys at 100%. After the Pope selection was announced, Trump posted a congratulatory note on Truth Social highlighting Pope XIV’s American roots, because an American Pope is so American First.  However, the MAGA crowd is already questioning the new Pope’s selection because it turns out that though he’s American, he’s not sympatico with all things Trump and MAGA. His recent twitter history includes criticism of JD Vance’s views on Catholicism and Jesus, the posting of an article opposing Trump’s immigration policies and retweeted criticism of Trump and El Salvador’s Bukele laughing about the deportation of migrants to El Salvador’s gulag.  In 2018 he retweeted a post saying that there was nothing remotely Christian, American, or morally defensible about a policy that takes children away from parents and warehouses them in cages.  As the Grateful Dead’ song says: Trouble ahead, Trouble behind because the Pope is likely to continue to inflame MAGA with his concerns about migrants and the markets, including the currency markets, are going to react to tariff uncertainty.  

Surgeon Who? MAGA or at least Laura Loomer, who seems to have an “unusually” close relationship with Trump these days, wasn’t all that fond of Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, Trump’s first choice to serve as Surgeon General.  Dr. Nesheiwat, another one of those Trump had picked from the Fox swamp, had been scheduled to appear before the Senate health committee on Thursday, but her nomination was pulled after Loomer argued that Nesheiwat, who had fudged her resume to claim that she received her medical degree from the University of Arkansas rather than the Caribbean School of Medicine in St. Maarten, “was not ideologically aligned” with Trump.  Yesterday after pulling Nesheiwat’s nomination, Trump announced that his new Surgeon General pick is Casey Means who though she graduated from the more prestigious Stanford Medical School, unlike Nesheiwat, never completed her residency and has never practiced medicine.  Means who describes herself as a health influencer and “chronic disease entrepreneur” was recommended to Trump by the brain hole guy, RFK.  RFK’s former running mate and chief funder, Nicole Shanahan so dislikes and distrusts Means that she conditioned her support for RFK’s confirmation on the administration not appointing Means to serve in any capacity.  That probably doesn’t matter much to Trump but what might matter is that Loomer, whose time at the White House far exceeds Melania’s paltry 14 days, is also upset about Means’ nomination.  Yesterday Loomer posted “This is honestly insane….I do not believe for one second that Donald Trump made this decision.” She went on to label Means a “Marxist tree hugger,” adding in caps “PRESIDENT TRUMP’S PICK FOR US SURGEON GENERAL CASEY MEANS SAID SHE PRAYS TO INANIMATE OBJECTS, COMMUNICATES WITH SPIRIT MEDIUMS, USES SHROOMS AS ‘PLANT MEDICINE’ AND TALKS TO TREES! SHE ALSO DOESN’T EVEN HAVE AN ACTIVE MEDICAL LICENSE.” As Rachel Maddow frequently says: “watch this space.”

Shuffling the Deck:  Controversial Washinton pick Ed Martin is no longer Trump’s choice to serve as the US Attorney from Washington DC.  Yesterday, after it became clear that as a result of a few Republicans, most notably North Carolina’s Thom Tillis, finding his support of Nazi loving insurrectionists a step too far, Martin didn’t have the votes needed for confirmation, instead of arm-twisting Tillis, Trump pulled the nomination.  That’s the good news.  The ridiculous news is that, again dipping into the Fox swamp, he’s picked the almost always outrageous Jeanine Pirro to serve as DC’s interim US Attorney. Pirro has real experience. Before running for and losing a NYS Attorney General race, she served as a judge in Westchester County, NY and also served as the county’s elected prosecutor from 1993 until 2005.  Long a Trump supporter, she’s since descended into Rudy Colludy, toady territory which makes her the perfect pick. In case you were concerned about Martin, don’t be, Trump’s found another job where he’ll be able to do even more damage.  He’s moving to the Department of Justice as a special prosecutor responsible for rooting out DC corruption, meaning he’ll get to go after all those who opposed his US Attorney confirmation. And just because, late last night, while few were watching Trump “abruptly” fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, another step in his purging of those perceived to oppose his agenda.  Her crime, encouraging reading while being a Black woman.

More:  JD Vance has suddenly noticed that Putin isn’t all that nice or reliable.  Yesterday, the Veep said that Putin is asking for too much to end the war with Ukraine, including a few sections of the country that Russia hasn’t occupied, or at least hasn’t occupied yet.  House Republicans are finding out that math is hard, even when further ballooning the deficit is on the table.  Adding further complications to their budget nightmare, Trump is now talking about raising taxes on those earning more than $2.5 million while taxing carried interest at the same rate as ordinary income rather than at the capital gains rate.  Speaker Johnson is also trying to placate those vulnerable blue state Representatives pushing for the elimination or lifting of SALT (State and Local Tax) cap, many of whom are also among those concerned about how cutting Medicaid will hurt their reelection bids. Note that I didn’t say that they were concerned about millions losing health care coverage, it’s mostly their reelection chances that concern them, people not so much. In North Carolina, the Republican judicial candidate who had been trying to overturn the election results has finally conceded that he lost his election meaning that Democratic candidate’s victory is now official.  And lastly, Kari Lake who still hasn’t conceded her election losses is now planning to make far right-wing news outlet OANN the provider of news to what’s left of Voice of America. All the news that’s fit to flush?

#BringThemAllHomeNow