Apostasy  🤮 🐊 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤮 🐊  

Ugh 🤮:  As expected, Trump’s big ugly bill passed through Congress with all but two Republicans voting for it and all Democrats voting against it.  The two Republican holdouts were Kentucky’s Thomas Massie who felt the budget cuts didn’t go far enough and Bucks County, Pennsylvania’s Brian Fitzpatrick who feared the impact of the bill’s huge Medicaid cuts on his ability to continue to win elections in his swingy suburban district. With much fanfare, an emboldened Trump signed the bill into law on Friday.  If these were normal times, this bill never would have passed in its current form.  The extreme budget hawks on the right would have held their ground, refusing to sign on to a bill that further balloons the deficit, and the so-called moderates from swingy districts including the crowd from New York and California would have refused to sign on to the extreme Medicaid and SNAP cuts and maybe even opposed the cuts in environment sparing alternative energy projects.  With Republicans in control of the House and Senate, some conservative leaning compromise legislation probably could have passed, maybe without all of the Trump 1.0 tax cuts and with some safety net “tightening” but not this monstrous bill.  However, as former Republican Senator Jeff Flake noted in his NY Times op-ed this weekend, with Trump in charge “any deviation from his dictates is treated as apostasy.  It’s no longer about ideas or governing philosophies.  It’s about personal allegiance to a single man.”  

Messaging, Messaging, Messaging: Going forward, it’s going to be all about messaging.  Following Trump’s lead, Republicans will continue to insist that they didn’t cut anything that matters, that they only eliminating fraud and forcing “lazy” people to get off their duffs, and at least for a while they’ll be helped by the fact that some of the cuts won’t go into effect immediately.  Trump, who as recently as last week, is reported to have told a group of “moderate” Republicans that it was important not to cut Medicaid as his bill was bigly cutting Medicaid, an indication that he really is suffering from dementia, was only focused on the continuation of his Trump 1.0 tax cuts or was lying.  The answer:  all three.  He has already begun his messaging campaign and if we’ve learned anything by now, he’s a scarily effective messenger.  Over the weekend seniors received a partisan email from the Social Security Administration that claimed that Trump’s “beautiful” bill eliminates federal taxes on most retirees’ social security benefits.  It doesn’t.  The bill temporarily raises the deduction that seniors in certain income categories can take.  That will reduce some seniors’ taxes, again temporarily, but far fewer of them than the unprecedented and inappropriate email implied.  Trump’s Social Security minion, Frank Bisignano, knows that the email was misleading and diminished mental capacity or not, Trump knows that too, but their hope is that millions of older voters will miss the details, instead believing that their “dear leader” has delivered bigly.  The messaging on tips is much the same, most of those who rely on tips don’t pay much in taxes anyway so the new tip provisions will benefit few of them but that‘s not what they are being told.  Democrats will have to ramp up their messaging game big time to compete and even then they have to hope against hope that Trump with the help of his slavish, complicit Justice Department, stacked SCOTUS, and ramped up INS militants don’t put off the midterms or more likely, just make it harder for people they don’t like to get to the ballot box.  On the subject of messaging, Trump who has been justifying cuts in funding to major academic institutions, his efforts to rewrite university curricula, and the recent forced departure of the University of Virginia’s president by insisting that he’s just fighting against anti-Semitism, attacked “Shylock” bankers this weekend.  While it’s unlikely that he ever actually read the Merchant of Venice or for that matter any Shakespeare, Trump’s claim that he didn’t know that Shylock is an anti-Semitic slur is just another one of his lies.  If New York’s “globalize the intifada” mayoral candidate pulled the Shylock card, Trump would double down on his call to strip him of his citizenship. 

Tariffs, Tariffs, Tariffs:  After being squeezed out of the news cycle while attention was focused on the big ugly tax bill, tariffs are back on the front cover again.  No, we didn’t get 90 deals in 90 days, and the deals Trump asserts he has achieved and that his minions Howard Lutnick and Scott Bessent claim are about to be announced aren’t really done yet, they’re mostly concepts. Last week Trump bragged about a deal with Viet Nam, one that includes a minimum 20% tariff on Vietnamese goods exported to the US. Trump may be celebrating but the rest of us shouldn’t be because that's double the rate US businesses are currently paying.  Late last night, Trump broadened his rationale for tariffs, warning that “Any Country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS, will be charged an ADDITIONAL 10% Tariff. There will be no exceptions to this policy.” That threat is due to reports that in response to Trump’s foreign policy shifts, some countries previously aligned with the US policy are considering teaming up with the BRICS, not a pile of Legos but a list of countries that has historically included some combination of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, and the UAE. Could it be that pursuing irrational policies can have unintended consequences?

Flood:  The horrible situation still unfolding along Texas’ Guadalupe River is unimaginable.  As of this morning 80 are dead and dozens, many young campers, remain missing.  The finger pointing has already begun and taking a page from his mass shooting playbook Speaker Johnson is praying.  We may never know if the tragedy could have been avoided but some things are true: due to Trump and the DOGE funding cuts the National Weather Service is short staffed, Texas prides itself on minimizing the funding of government services, and climate change is real and needs to be addressed. Those once in a century events, they seem to be happening yearly, ignoring that has increasingly deadly consequences.

Fog:  Trump keeps on complaining about Putin’s ramped up attacks on Ukraine while cutting arms shipments to Ukraine.  This is a case of ignore what Trump says, watch what he does because his actions are what matters.  Something’s up in the Middle East where it looks like a Gaza ceasefire may actually be in the offing.  Or not.   

#BringThemAllHomeNow