No Milk for US 😱✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️😱

Abomination:  The Musk-Trump bromance may really be over.  Yesterday saying that he “can’t stand it anymore” Musk told us what he really thinks by calling Trump’s “big beautiful” budget bill” a “massive, outrageous, pork-filled disgusting abomination” not because it cuts billions in Medicaid funding and food subsidies for the hungry but because it further balloons the deficit. Musk also isn’t happy that the bill eliminates most electric vehicle tax credits. Ironically, his opinion of the spending bill aligns him with House and Senate Democrats, though not with their reasons for hating the bill.  While they agree with Elon’s concern about the ballooning deficit, their solution would include keeping benefits intact while increasing taxes on people like Musk. Though Republicans, including Speaker Johnson, tried to soft pedal Musk’s criticism implying he’s just one drug deluded guy, his disgust with the bill shouldn’t be taken lightly because through his ownership of X (twitter) he controls a powerful mouthpiece, and he’s already started calling for voters to elect more fiscally conservative legislators.  Though Musk said recently that he won’t be making political contributions for a while, he previously pledged to spend around $100 million on the midterms.  He’s mercurial enough to change his mind again and do just that, putting his ample war chest to use in Republican primaries to get more budget hawks, Trump thorns like Kentucky’s Thomas Massie and Rand Paul on Republican tickets.  No one should discount Musk’s power because he’s still a powerful ketamine infused billionaire with lots of money to burn.  Moreover, though his DOGE team’s activities didn’t really save much and as a result of the disruptions they caused and the spate of re-hirings of what turned out to be government employees providing necessary services may actually have cost more than they saved, some of them may become law.  The Office of Management and Budget, run by Project 2025 creator Russel Vought, has sent rescission legislation to the House and Senate for their approval.  If passed, that legislation would rollback $9.4 billion in funding for the programs that Trump has cut through his questionable executive actions. The bulk of the rollbacks impact foreign aid with the rest, about $1.1 billion, rescinding funding for NPR and PBS. So far, the only Republicans who have expressed concerns for those rescissions are the usual outliers, Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski.  Collins is particularly concerned about the cutting of PEPFAR (international AIDs funding) while Murkowski is focused on the NPR and PBS cuts. It would only take a simple majority vote in both the Senate and House to codify the rescissions and as we know Republicans control both houses, and as a result of the death of a few Democratic Congressmen the Republican’s House majority has grown.      

Mean People:  Fresh off his trip to Asia where he actually delivered a surprisingly coherent speech that was well received and appreciated by our allies in the region, yesterday Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the Navy to take LGBTQ icon Harvey Milk’s name off of a US Navy Sealift Replenishment ship citing a “need to align with a ‘warrior ethos’ and a push to purge diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.”  Harvey Milk, who served in the US Navy during the Korean war until he was forced to resign because of his sexual orientation, was the first openly gay politician elected to public office in California. He served as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors until both he and San Francico Mayor Goerge Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, a disgruntled former City Supervisor, in 1978. A Navy spokesman said that the decision to strip Milk’s name off of the ship during June, gay pride month, was intentional. Does anyone know how institutionalized hate makes the country’s military stronger?  In other people news, former football coach and current Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville, who has spent his somewhat short Senate career displaying his ignorance of just about everything not related to the gridiron while also serving as Trump’s biggest fan, has announced plans to run for Alabama Governor to succeed current Governor Kay Ivey who is term limited. Tuberville doesn’t live in Alabama but that didn’t bother Alabama voters when he ran for the Senate. If necessary, he can purchase a camper or a big box and park it within state lines.   Tuberville won his Alabama Senate seat by beating Democrat Doug Jones who’d only one his seat because of his opponent’s unseemly history of hitting up underage girls so it’s highly likely that his Senate replacement will also be a Republican. For a while, it appeared that Iowa Senator Joni Ernst was the winner of this week’s “stupidest” award but now she’s running neck and neck with Acting Head of FEMA David Richardson.  Richardson who was appointed to his position after Trump’s first choice had the audacity to say that, contrary to Trump’s plan, FEMA shouldn’t be eliminated, told his staff that before his appointment he hadn’t known that there was a hurricane season.  Apparently, Richardson has spent his life with his head in the sand, not ocean sand, just a park sandbox.  Apparently, he also doesn’t watch TV, even Fox which has been known to report on storms.  After making his moronic hurricane statement Richardson went on to tell his FEMA staff that they should shxt can the newest hurricane plan, because they’ll be reverting to year’s plan instead.  The problem is that given all of the staff cuts, FEMA no longer has the staff needed to implement last year’s plan.  No worry though because with hurricane season having begun on June 1, there’s plenty of time to come up with a solution.  Or not.  Then again maybe they don’t need the staff because though he attacked President Biden for failing to provide North Carolina with enough FEMA aid, Trump has refused to give the state the additional aid it has requested and only provided his former Press Secretary/current Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders with the storm aid she requested after she asked repeatedly and make a stink about his initial denials.  Trump’s vision continues to include the elimination of FEMA because he, or more likely Russel Vought, believe that states should pay for their own storm relief whether they can or not. Has anyone checked with Florida and Texas or any of the other red state most frequently in need?  Tuberville better make sure that his “box” is on sheltered high ground.   

Fog:  The White House has announced plans to immediately deport the family of Mohamed Sabry Soliman, the despicable, hate-filled terrorist who threw the makeshift flamethrower at peaceful marchers in Boulder Colorado, scorching twelve including 88-year-old Barbara Steinmetz who’d been born in a concentration camp during the Holocaust. Soliman had entered the country on a legal visa but had overstayed it while applying for asylum. Deporting Soliman’s family who’ve cooperated with law enforcement officials, seems like a poorly thought out, rash decision but totally something in Kristi Noem and Trump’s playbook. If anything, it has the potential of turning Soliman and his family into martyrs. Punishing children for their father’s sin, that doesn’t feel right and creating more martyrs a bad thing to do. That’s not to say that Soliman and anyone who can be shown to have helped him don’t deserve everything the courts can legally throw at them. They do.  Turning back to Hegseth, he won’t be attending this week’s NATO meeting on Ukraine aid taking place in Europe.  Maybe he’s too busy stripping “DEI” names off ships.

#BringThemAllHomeNow