Donny Two Dolls 😱✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️😱👱‍♀️👱‍♀️

Skimp on the Barbie:  The thing about stupid policies explained by tone death politicians is that they provide great fodder for headline and script writers so after Trump said kids would have to live with only two dolls during the holidays and then admitted that any dolls they are lucky enough to receive from their cash strapped parents, those also struggling to put food on the table, would cost more, the NY Post times came up with the Skimp/Barbie winner and one time writer for The West Wing, current MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell gave Trump his very own Sopranos, mob name – Donny Two Dolls 👱‍♀️👱‍♀️.  And because everything bad isn’t his fault, Two Dolls blamed the first quarter decrease in the GDP as well as any future declines in the economy on Joe Biden, the not so sleepy guy who had left him an economy that Rupert Murdoch’s other paper the Wall Street Journal had called remarkable. Two Dolls’ rationale for his blame shifting was that he hadn’t taken over until January 20, that anyway his tariffs hadn’t been in effect during the quarter, and that unwinding “Biden’s economic mess” would take a long time.  Apparently, while sleeping through Economics at Wharton, he missed the lecture on how expectations and planning impact consumer and corporate behavior and is unfamiliar with Truman’s “the buck stops here” thing. As to those kids who will have to live with their skimpy Christmas stockings, granddaughter Kai won’t be one of them, she’s too busy tooling around in the Tesla Cybertruck gifted to her by her honorary uncle Elon.

Deck Chairs on the Titanic:  National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, best known for accidentally inviting The Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg, into the Signal chat group where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared war plans is out, or at least out of his National Security job.  Yesterday, Donny Two Dolls fired him and his aide Alex Wong by Truth Social post.  Then after uber-MAGA loon Laura Loomer took credit for Waltz’ and that “Chinese” guy Wong’s demise, Donny announced that he wasn’t completely ridding himself of Watlz who gave up his safe Florida House seat to serve in his administration; he’s nominating him to serve as UN Ambassador, the position that he previously snatched away from the still aggrieved Congresswoman Elise Stefanik to bolster Mike Johnson’s Republican majority. Two Dolls then went on to announced that Secretary of State Marco Rubio will assume the National Security Advisor role until future notice.  In case anyone’s counting that’s Little Marco’s fourth job, he’s also the head of what’s left of US AID and the National Archives. A little unpacking here, the Signal chat is only the excuse for shifting Waltz to the UN, we know that because the other prolific Signal user, Pete Hegseth is still Defense Secretary.  The real reason is thought to be that Waltz’s foreign policy views aren’t adequately MAGA and isolationist for Trump or for Loomer who previously got a few of his aides fired by whispering bad things about them into Trump’s ear. To assume the UN ambassadorship position, Waltz will have to be confirmed by the Senate. Those confirmation hearings will give Democrats an opportunity to interrogate him about the use of Signal, something he was once again caught doing during this week’s North Korea style cabinet meeting. Don’t be surprised if Trump changes his mind about Waltz’s UN appointment because he probably doesn’t want more focus on Signal Gate, especially since any further discussion will shed more light on Hegseth’s second call, the one with his bro squad and family.  Also, don’t be surprised if Trump ultimately appoints his real estate friend Steve Witkoff to the National Security Advisor post, apparently, he is the current front runner.  He hasn’t achieved peace in the Middle East and hasn’t ended the Ukraine-Russia war but he has buddied up with Putin and maybe is also taking some credit for the finally signed Ukraine-US minerals agreement, the one that doesn’t give Ukraine the written security assurances they wanted but also doesn’t require Ukraine to reimburse the US for aid received to date. 

More People: Trump has removed one time Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff from the Holocaust Museum board because of course.  Virginia Congressman Gerry Connolly announced that due to a return of his esophageal cancer he is stepping down from his position as Ranking Member on the House Oversight Committee and that he will not be running for reelection. For the time being Massachusetts Congressman Stephen Lynch has stepped into the Ranking Member position but just about every other Democrat on the committee, including the outspoken Jasmine Crockett, is now campaigning for the position and AOC who left the committee when she lost out to Connolly is considering the position as well.  NJ Congressman Donald Norcross, the Democrat who’d been in the ICU suffering from gall bladder related sepsis is now out of the hospital, recovering at home.  On the confirmation front, Democrats are doing everything they can to prevent a confirmation vote for Ed Martin, Trump’s nominee to serve as US Attorney for Washington DC.  Among other disqualifying things, Martin, who is currently serving as acting US Attorney, has praised and then despite video evidence of that praise, denied under oath that he praised, a known Nazi sympathizer with a Hitler stache which raises the question why Trump who wants us to all believe that he’s so opposed to anti-Semitism that he needs to take over Harvard, Columbia and whatever other institutions of higher learning he can, as well as a spate of law firms, is surrounded by so many Nazi sympathizers. As to those law firms, Simpson Thacher, one of the ones he captured, was replaced by Microsoft with one of those who has been resisting Trump’s extortion after the company concluded that Simpson Thacher couldn’t adequately represent them given their conflict of interest.    

More:  Yesterday, a Trump appointed federal judge in Texas rejected the use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 (the “AEA”) to deport the Venezuelans accused of being members of Tren de Aragua.  The judge wrote that "the historical record renders clear that the President’s invocation of the AEA …. exceeds the scope of the statute and is contrary to the plain, ordinary meaning of the statute’s terms." Naturally, the DOJ is appealing. Worth noting that quite a few of those who’ve been deported by Trump and his cronies haven’t been proven to be members of gangs, including Kilmar Abrego Garcia who Trump tried once again to paint as a Tren de Aragua member by pointing to a picture of his hands which included an obviously photo shopped in gang insignia. The DOJ is also appealing the release of Mohsen Mahdawi, the Palestinian Columbia student/green card holder who had been detained by INS when he showed up for his US citizenship interview. The Vermont judge who released Mahdawi said that Mahdawi had "made substantial claims that his detention is the result of retaliation for protected speech," making the point that immigration laws aren’t supposed to be used to shut down debate or curb free speech.  He likened the Trump administration’s current policy to the Red Scare and McCarthyism.  Echoing the McCarthy era last night, Trump issued an executive order stripping federal funding from NPR and PBS, something about their political bias and their spreading of wokeness but really about his attempt to control all media.

#BringThemAllHomeNow