Trumptopia 😱✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️😱

Big and Ugly:  At around one this morning the House started its final hearing on what Trump calls his “Big Beautiful Bill,” the one that balloons the deficit while cutting taxes, mostly for the rich.  As I write, the bill hasn’t been passed yet but it’s early so it may have passed by the time you read this.  To placate the conservative holdouts, Speaker Johnson appears to be accelerating cuts in the tax credits for some of the clean energy infrastructure projects funded during Biden’s administration and accelerating Medicaid work requirements, something that sounds good on paper but since most Medicaid recipients who can work do, mostly imposes an administrative burden that makes it harder for qualifying recipients to get the aid they’re entitled to. To placate the so-called moderates from blue states, the bill may include an increase in the amount of state and local taxes that can be deducted, although Trump who promised he’d fix the SALT “problem” he caused during Trump One, told the moderates to suck it up and move on.  This hearing is taking place during the wee hours to limit transparency but late last night we learned that one of the items that Johnson and his crowd have been trying to obfuscate is that in addition to taking a huge bite out of Medicaid and Obamacare funding, because the bill increases the deficit by $2.3 trillion over the next ten year, it triggers automatic Medicare cuts of approximately $500 billion. That’s the conclusion of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (the CBO). By the way, Medicare is one of the safety net programs that Trump promised not to touch.  Nothing to worry about though because Trump announced yesterday that he plans to spend $175 billion on a huge golden dome missile defense system that he claims will be put in place by 2029 as if that’s even possible.  The CBO estimates that the system will cost $542 billion so it’s not clear why Trump says he’ll only be spending $175 million but math, like economics, isn’t one of his strengths.  To summarize, less health care but maybe you or your final resting place won’t be wiped out by a missile.  Also, would it surprise you to learn that Elon Musk’s Space X is leading the group that has emerged as a frontrunner to win a major part of the dome project?  Maybe spending more time on the lucrative missile defense project and a need to focus on resolving dwindling sales at Tesla are among the reasons that Elon announced that going forward he’ll be dialing back his political spending, whatever that really means because given the $290 million that he spent during the last election cycle and the $20 he and his related entities threw at this year’s Wisconsin Supreme Court race, Elon’s concept of dialing back could still involve tens of millions of dollars.   

Cabinetry:  Homeland Security cosplay leader Kristi Noem who clearly wasn’t selected for her great intellect but does have gleaming new choppers doesn’t know what habeas corpus means, worse yet she thinks it means that Trump can deport anyone he wants whenever he wants which might explain why despite warnings that there would be consequences for doing so, the INS appears to have flown at least one migrant, maybe more, to a gulag in war torn South Sudan last night. The judge who told the INS not to do that is now threatening to start holding staff, including the pilots who flew the planes, in contempt.  Health Secretary RFK and his team of anti-vaxxers at the FDA plan to limit access to the COVID vaccine to people 65 and older and to certain others who can show that they are at high risk of illness. Though COVID no longer dominates the headlines and fewer people have been opting to get shots, the disease is still out there, people are ending up in hospitals, getting long COVID, and, in far too many cases, dying.  Limiting access to the shots is such a shortsighted decision especially given the cutbacks in health care coverage and the impact that those cutbacks will have on hospitals especially in already underserved areas.  Then again, RFK was chosen for his marquee name and his appeal to certain fringe voters rather than his medical acumen. Though he’s not yet confirmed, it’s clear why former Congressman Billy Long is Trump’s nominee to serve as IRS Commissioner.  Yesterday, during his confirmation hearing, Long denied knowing that the Tribal Tax Credit scam scheme he marketed during his hiatus from Congress was fraudulent. Obviously, he’s totally qualified to serve as Trump’s tax guy, after all the orange guy has been known to say that only “idiots pay taxes.”  Saving the best, and by best, think the worst for last, presumably with the approval of Attorney General Pam Bondi, NJ’s Interim US Attorney Alina Habba dropped charges against Newark Mayor Ras Baraka but quickly followed up by levying with charges against Congresswoman LaMonica McIver.   The allegation against McIver is that she roughed up INS agents during the fracas that took place outside a New Jersey INS facility that she, two other members of Congress and Mayor Baraka were trying to visit. A review of the videotape shows some squishing and maneuvering by everyone in the scrum but alleging that the mild-mannered McIver roughed up anyone is a push but, then again, she’s a Black woman and Trump and presumably his garage lawyer, Habba, are all in on going after Black female politicians.  Apparently Habba tried to get McIver to plea to a lesser violation, but she stood her ground and refused.  Habba is on shaky ground here since by law members of Congress are permitted to show up at federal facilities unannounced but defending herself will cost McIver money while the incident can be used as a pretense for House Republicans to strip her of her Congressional committee assignments which is likely the point.  By the way, I seem to remember that Trump pardoned a whole bunch of people who beat up law enforcement and did lots of damage at the Capitol on January 6 but apparently that’s okay in Trumptopia.  Also, having dropped charges against New York’s Trump friendly Mayor Adams who is now seeking reelection as an Independent rather than a Democrat, Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice is reported to be investigating former Governor Andrew Cuomo, something having to do with the testimony he gave to Congress about COVID but really because he’s the frontrunner in a congested Democratic race for NYC Mayor.  Apparently weaponizing the DOJ is cool when done by Trump’s team. 

Fog:  Trump spoke with Putin yesterday.  In a nutshell, he reports that the call was great, Putin agrees that the call was great for him.  To quote the Washington Post “Trump’s unwillingness to push Russia into a truce indicated that he may be stepping away from involvement in the talks, something that his team has been flagging for weeks. Trump said Monday that ‘the conditions for a ceasefire could only be agreed by the warring parties because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of.’” In other words, peace is not near and those additional sanctions that Trump hinted he’d impose on Russia, they’re not happening anytime soon either.

#BringThemAllHomeNow