Wednesday Massacres 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

🔫 🔫 🔫:  There are over 500 million civilian owned firearms in the US, not counting the cute water pistols🔫 which were the only icons available for this post.   Since the majority of the country’s 340 million people don’t own guns, that means that the 30% of Americans who do, own more than one.  One of those with multiple guns used them to shoot a bunch of kids at a Minneapolis area Catholic elementary school yesterday, killing two and injuring 17 others.  The pro-🔫 crowd wants you to ignore the guns, instead focusing on the fact that the shooter was a crazed transgender person.  Other countries have deranged people and transpeople, some of whom are both deranged and transgender, but what they don’t have are repeated incidents of mass shootings at schools and malls because they restrict gun ownership.  So, please ignore the hateful anti-trans hysteria coming from the pro-gun crowd and focus on the proliferation of easily obtainable guns, because that’s the source of the problem. It’s also worth noting that upon retaking the presidency, Trump, another one who prefer we focus on the shooter’s sexcuality rather than guns, cut $611 million in funding for gun violence prevention. Rupert Murdoch’s NY Post is all in on that too while also claiing that the godless left hates religion which is why one of his rag’s inflammatory headlines  claims that MSNBC’s Jen Psaki attacked prayer last night.  She didn’t.  However, while tearfully mourning the death of the two dead children and expressing the fear that many parents are feeling right now as they send their children off to begin a new school year, the mother of two young children whose mother-in-law is a retired Catholic school teacher, said that “prayers and thoughts” aren’t enough.  She’s right.

 

Viral Musings:  Early yesterday the FDA announced that it had approved updated COVID shots.  However, that approval is limited to the 65 and over set and to those with underlying medical conditions. The limited approval contradicts the established science, which indicates that across all age groups especially for the very young and those over 50, health outcomes are better for the vaccinated.  To be clear, we’re not talking about COVID shot mandates, just about making shots widely available to those who want them.  Before the shots become available to anyone, the CDC has to signoff.  Ordinarily that’s not a problem but last night CDC head Susan Monarez who was appointed by Trump after he dinged his first nominee, quit or was forced out.  The facts behind her forced exit remain murky though it is clear that her departure from the position that she has only been in for one months (three Scarramucis) is because she forcefully opposed Health Secretary RFK Jr’s decision to limit access to the COVID vaccines. Reports are that she so opposed the brain hole/heroin guy’s decision that she had enlisted Lousiana Senator/doctor Bill Cassidy to help persuade him that limiting access to the COVID vaccine will result in more sickness and death. Cassidy, the Chair of the Senate’s Health Committee, delusionally thought he’d extracted a promise from RFK to maintain sane vaccine policy before he cast his pivotal vote for his confirmation. Monarez, who has now hired Abbe Lowell and Mark Zaid, the lawyers reprsenting a number of Trump’s other victims and misfires, isn’t the only one who has “quit,”  three other highly respected senior CDC officials also resigned last night, including the Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, the CDC’s Chief Medical Officer, and the Director of the National Center for Zoonotic Infectious Diseases.  They said that they could no longer work for a government agency that ignores science and weaponizes health care for political purposes. RFK who earlier replaced the 17 members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel mostly with anti-vaxxers and more reently appointed someone who believes that mRNA shots are lethal and should be banned altogether appears to be unphased by all the quitting. Last night the White House made it clear that despite calls from Ranking Health Care Committee Senator Patty Murray for RFK to be fired, Trump is standing with him because having a Kennedy in his pocket is all he cares about.  That’s particularly ironic since Trump got accolades for bringing us the COVID shots in the first place.  One things for certain, as a result of last night’s CDC massacre, our collective health is in jeopardy.   Back in the Nixon era the mass resignation of respected professionals mattered but not so much anymore because as Trump said during his off the wall multi-hour cabinet meeting this week where he was treated like the Dear Leader and the Secretary of Labor bragged about posting a Kim Jong un worthy oversized portrait of his likeness on the Labor building, people like him even more because of his dictatorial ambitions so he might as well be one.

🐊 🐊 Plus: For the second time this year Democrats flipped an Iowa state senate seat; as a result Republican’s will no longer have a super majority. Though we keep on hearing that Democrats are in disarray, they’re doing well in red state special elections. It looks like Alligator🐊Alcatraz is sinking back into the  Everglades, at least for now.  Currently there are only 300 people imprisoned  there and they’re expected to be transferred out shortly meaning that the much bragged about and costly boondoggle is about to be shuttered.  On the not so good side of the news, Trump is now calling for the prosecution of George Soros and his son targeting them for their support of liberal causes because dictators can’t tolerate liberals.  And in a weirdly distrubing story, the Danish government has summoned the US charge d'affaires in Copenhagen to express  “concern” (fury) about reports of covert US influence operations in Greenland. The operations in question involve at least three Trump connected Americans seeking to undermine the relationship between Denmark and Greenland because the not so stable genius who this week said that Ukraine shouldn’t have started the war that it didn’t start with Russia, is still thinking about or maybe even laying the groundwork to seize Greenland?  Lastly, tariffs on India are now set at 50% to punish the government for obtaining oil from Russia, that’s the oil that Biden said they could obtain and that Trump tacitly signed off on until now to keep US energy prices down.  Fill up your tank now because that illusory sub $2 per gallon gas Trump keeps talking about is about to become even more elusive.   

#BringThemAllHomeNow to end the madness  

Happy Labor Day!

         

 

💩💩💩💩  🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

💩: Maybe it’s because Trump’s trying to deflect from the attention on the growing splotch on one hand that appears to have inherited a growing new partner on his other hand or maybe it’s that his former Labor Secretary Alex Acosta who was the US Attorney from Florida who cut the sweetheart deal with Jeffrey Epstein  has agreed to sit for an interview, albeit a closed door one, with the House Judiciary Committee, or maybe it’s just that he thinks that tossing 💩 at democracy in what should be a quiet holiday week is the way to go but here we are.  Yesterday, Trump started the day by announcing that he was signing an executive order outlawing cashless bail while also making the “violation of the sanctity of the American flag” a federal offense. New York is one of those states that has eliminated cash bail for most misdemeanor and nonviolent felony charges to reduce the financial burden on those who would otherwise end up in pretrial jail simply because they can’t afford bail.  Though the concept of cashless bail is controversial, statistics show that the percentage of alleged offenders who don’t commit another crime and show up for subsequent hearings is about the same regardless of whether bail is imposed or not. In any case, Trump threatening to withhold funds from states with cashless bail laws is just his way of trying to paint states with Democratic governors as pro-crime, an extension of the rationale he’s using for sending the National Guard into cities in those same Democratically controlled states.  We know this is all politically gamesmanship because he pardoned all the January 6 criminals and isn’t sending the National Guard or any other military arm of government into Republican states that have cities with higher crime rates than DC, Chicago, New York, and Baltimore but with the help of those Republican governors is deploying or planning to deploy National Guard’s from those states in the Democratic ones he’s trying to demonize. His next target is Chicago, where Illinois Governor Pritzker, a likely 2028 presidential contender, has made it clear that he’s not interested, won’t cooperate, and views Trump’s interference as the act of an uncontrolled dictator wannabee.  As to the flag sanctity order, the Supreme Court has twice previously ruled that burning or otherwise showing disrespect for the flag, offensive or not, is protected free speech so it’s meaningless at least until this autocratic leaning court overrules their prior decisions something they might do because Trump is their🤴.       

💩 💩:  Keeping on topic, Trump announced last night that he’s firing Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook.  Cook responded, that’s nice but since you don’t have the authority to fire me particularly for a crime that I haven’t committed I am not gong anywhere.  Cook is right, not only doesn’t Trump have the authority but his action is unprecedented. He can’t fire Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell who he wants to fire so he’s instead targeted Cook over an alleged mortgage violation.  Also, as previously mentioned, Cook is a Black woman and Trump seems to really enjoy going after Black women and for some reason, perhaps the same reason that his base is okay with him saying that slavery wasn’t such a bad thing, they’re okay with that.  Putting aside the legality of Trump’s action, the issue here is that countries’ economies do far better when their Federal Reserve Banks remain independent. When that independence is breached, bad things tend to happen, like unfettered inflation.  Combine that with Trump’s attack on the independent statisticians who report on items like inflation and hiring to get the picture of what he’s doing.  His strategy is to hope is that no one will notice that the economy is going down the crapper and they can’t afford food if he manipulates data and appoints a crowd of willing cronies to the Federal Reserve Board.  The economy won’t bow to the whims of a feckless dictator so we should all be concerned, very concerned especially if SCOTUS says that firing Cook is okay because of that 🤴thing.

💩 💩 💩: Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the alleged gang member who isn’t a gang member but who much to his dismay has become the poster child for Trump, Stephen Miller, and Kristi “cosplay” Noem’s rounding up of brown, Spanish speaking people with tattoos, was able to spend the weekend with his family before being arrested again when he showed up for his scheduled INS appointment.  That arrest was expected because having made him their poster child for all things evil, Trump and has abettors are determined to throw scads of our taxpayer dollars into deporting him anywhere they can, pronto instead of going after the real violent criminals that most of us want ousted .  After Abrego Garcia turned down the government’s offer to plead guilty to questionable human smuggling charges and then be deported to Costa Rica the government said it would deport him to Uganda instead, a coercive tactic to force a guilty plea because Uganda?  His lawyers have filed a lawsuit to prevent his deportation without due process. Last night, saying that she needs more time to examine what smells like coercion, federal judge Paula Xinis temporarily blocked the deportation to Uganda, ordering Abrego Garcia to remain detained in the US pending further review. 

💩 💩 💩 💩:  A while ago, we learned that Sergio Gor, the head of the White House Personnel Office had a questionable personal past and that despite being responsible for making sure that all hires had filled out their vetting forms hadn’t filled out his, maybe because of that “unusual” past. Yesterday, it was announced that he’s leaving his personnel post.  He’s been nominated to become the US’s next Ambassador to India maybe because ambassadorships are Trump’s newest way of firing by sending inconvenient people far away, think former IRS head Billy Long, former NSA/Signal guy Mike Waltz, and Don Jr’s former girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle.  Final 💩 for the day, the Daily Beast reported yesterday that there’s a chance that RFK gets rid of COVID 19 shots altogether. The Daily Beast isn’t always right so take that with a grain of salt.  That said,  the report should not be totally discounted because at least so far no one in RFK’s circle has denied its validity.  In any case, in prior years the new COVID shots have been rolled out in September but, so far, the newest shots have not yet received approval and assuming they do, those under 65 will have to jump through more hoops to get them. As to COVID, we are currently experiencing a late summer boomlet, so test if you’re not feeling up to snuff or are sniffing a whole lot more than usual and do what you are supposed to do as in stay away from people for a few days and talk to your doctor about Paxlovid if you are particularly vulnerable or just don’t have the time to be sick.

#BringThemAllHomeNow   

 

Ominous Turns 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

Retribution Report:  In what the Wall Street Journal described as an ominous turn in Trump’s revenge campaign, early Friday morning the FBI raided the home of John Bolton.  For a little over a year during Trump 1.0 Bolton served as National Security Advisor.  Earlier in his career he served as George W Bush’s Ambassador to the UN.  Though Bolton is frequently criticized for his extremely hawkish views, few outside of Trump’s immediate circle even those who intensely dislike him for his views, believe that he was storing any top-secret documents at his home, the alleged reason for the raid. Instead, it’s widely understood that Bolton is being targeted by Trump who has been known to store boxes of purloined documents in his bathroom.  During his first term Trump tried to put the kibosh on Bolton’s memoir “The Room Where it Happened,” largely because that book criticized him.  The Bolton book ultimately was published, and the highly articulate Bolton has continued to criticize Trump.  One indication that the raid was all about revenge and retribution was that in an unprecedented move FBI Director Kash Patel tweeted “NO ONE is above the law…@FBI agents on mission.” Making it clear that he was all in on the raid VP Vance, who is competing with Secretary of State Rubio for Trump’s future presidential endorsement, retweeted Patel’s post.  Trump claimed that he “had intentionally avoided learning about the raid beforehand” before going on to say of Bolton "He is not a smart guy. But he could be a very unpatriotic guy. We're going to find out.”  Spoiler alert, Trump knew, and the raid was all about placating him while diverting attention away from the Epstein mess. In other retribution news, Trump has ramped up his attacks on Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, saying he’ll fire her if she doesn’t resign.  He wants her out so he can appoint a replacement who will vote for the multiple large interest-rate cuts he covets and also because she’s a Black woman.  Keeping with the theme of targeting people who don’t push the MAGA line, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired the head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency, Lieutenant General Jeffery Kruse.  It’s widely believed that Kruse was fired because of the DIA’s preliminary assessment that the US strikes on Iran only set back Tehran's nuclear program by just a few months.  For her part, Director of National Security Tulsi Gabbard who has been accused of getting much of her intelligence from conspiracists and Kremlin related sources, is cutting the US intelligence service by 40% because who needs unbiased intel when you can just go with your gut or your “overseas” friends? To cap off the weekend, Trump went on a Truth Social tirade last night calling for NBC and ABC to have their licenses revoked, something about them being biased against him.  During Trump 1.0 that would have been a laughable statement but given how he’s been extorting and winning concessions from other news networks his threat should be taken seriously.   

Epstein Chronicles:  The DOJ released the tapes of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s two day “interview” of Jeffrey Epstein’s partner in sex crimes Ghislaine Maxwell.  Surprise, surprise, the convicted Maxwell, who was indicted for lying to the FBI, claims that she never saw Trump do or say anything questionable with anyone and most definitely not with any underage girls. Of course,  Maxwell also asserted that she had been wrongfully charged and convicted and that her good friend Epstein never did anything wrong either. She also said that she never saw President Clinton do anything wrong and that despite Trump’s claims that Clinton had been to Epstein’s island hideaway dozens of time he hadn’t.  Maxwell’s comment regarding Clinton and the island are confirmed by flight logs not that you’d know that if you only read or watched Trump friendly news outlets. Commenting on Maxwell’s interview,  former NJ Governor Chris Christie said yesterday on ABC that “she might as well have said the man who can pardon me has never done anything wrong. The man who can pardon me has always been wonderful." Trump who continues to say that he has the authority to pardon Maxwell and likely will pardon her before leaving office, assuming he ever does,  lashed out at Christie, and is now threatening to reopen the investigation into Bridgegate, the scandal that snarled traffic entering the George Washington Bridge back when Christie was Governor.  The irony is that Christie and those reporting to him, were accused of closing entrance lanes to the bridge to punish local Democratic officials, the retribution strategy that Trump is now following on steroids. Christie emerged from that scandal with his reputation tarnished but ultimately wasn’t held accountable though one of his underlings pleaded guilty and two others were convicted and jailed before having their convictions overturned by the Supreme Court.  In other Epstein news, the DOJ released a trove of related files on Friday but, and it’s a big but, little of what they released was new as most of it had already been publicly shared. Lastly, Virginia Giuffre’s family plans to release her posthumous memoir “ Nobody’s Girl:  A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice” in October. Guiffre who worked at Mar a Lago before being recruited by Maxwell to become one of Epstein’s victimized girls committed suicide in April. Maxwell of course claims she did not recruit Guiffre and that Guiffre who received a large settlement from England’s Prince Andrew related to his participation in Epstein’s crimes, was a liar.   

More Militarization: The National Guard soldiers wandering the streets of Washington DC are now carrying arms.  According to the NY Times they are also arresting people for minor offenses and then up-charging them for federal crimes to artificially inflate the value of their presence. It’s reported that Trump plans to send troops to Chicago shortly, is threatening to do the same to New York, and is considering withholding infrastructure funding from Baltimore if Maryland Governor Wes Moore doesn’t welcome them with open arms. None of this is normal, we are not supposed to look and act like a third world dictatorship.   

#BringThemAllHomeNow

 

 
Weaponizing Alligators 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

Teflon Don: Yesterday, a NY Appeals Court threw out the $500 million judgement imposed against Trump after he had been found to have committed financial fraud.  A majority of the court agreed that Trump had done harm but not “cataclysmic” enough harm to warrant such a large penalty. Naturally, Trump hailed the decision as a vindication and proof that he’d done nothing wrong when he lied about his finances and overstated the value and size of his assets but had been politically targeted by that evil Black woman NY Attorney General Tish James.  Trump’s assertion of being targeted is particularly ironic given that his goons are currently going after James, California Senator Adam Schiff, and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, another Black woman, for “mortgage” fraud.  None of them have massively overstated the value or size of their homes to obtain lower interest loans though Governor Cook has supported Federal Reserve Chair Powell’s interest rate decisions, the “crime” that has put her in Trump’s crosshairs.  Trump is being gleefully abetted in his retribution by Bill Pulte, his head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, who has referred all three Democrats to the Justice Department for criminal investigations where Ed Martin,  the DOJ official responsible for both pardons and the weaponization working group, because what president doesn’t have a group responsible for targeting his opponents, is willingly cooperating in the carrying out of Trump’s vendettas.  At least for now Trump’s Teflon coat isn’t doing its thing for ersatz NJ US Attorney Alina Habba, Trump’s former lawyer whose legal experience before Trump involved representing parking garages, not that there is anything wrong with parking garages.  Yesterday, a US District Court judge rejected Trump’s use of a loophole to keep her in place as NJ’s top federal prosecutor saying she “is not lawfully holding the office of United States Attorney” while noting that she has been in the position without legal authority since July 1. That’s a bigly problem for Habba and possibly also a problem for other US attorneys in Los Angeles, Nevada, New Mexico, and upstate New York where Trump and AG Bondi have also “sidestepped or overridden both the Senate confirmation and judicial appointment processes for selecting US attorneys” but good news for the accused criminals whose cases have been put on hold or who have been just handed grounds for appeal.  Also, some good news for those concerned about the Everglades and for some of the undocumented who were about to be locked up at Alligator🐊 Alcatraz.  A Miami District Court judge ruled yesterday that both Florida and the Feds have violated a federal law that requires an environmental review before any major federal construction projects. She ordered that no more immigrant detainees be sent there and that much of the facility be dismantled. Of course, that decision will be appealed because Homeland Security’s Kristi Noem who has a pile of unsigned expense requests for things that impact hurricane response and even passport scanning, is all in on her Alcatraz’s.     

Midterm Madness: Forget about waiting until 2026, the race for the control of the House is already on.  No, you haven’t forgotten to show up at the polls or slept through election day, the race is taking place in state legislatures, and it involves partisan gerrymandering and redistricting, something that the John Roberts led Supreme Court made easier to do by saying that states can pretty do whatever they want with regard to drawing district lines regardless of their motivations.   Yesterday, after Democratic legislators returned to the state and a quorum was achieved, Texas Republicans voted to approve a new electoral map, one crafted to result in five more Republicans winning House seats.  To counter that power grab, California Governor Gavin Newsom has started the process that will result in a Democratic pick up of five California seats. Given California’s more restrictive law, a statewide vote is required before a new map can be put in place but not so much for Texas where Governor Abbott just has to sign the law when it crosses his desk. A few more states on both sides of the aisle are expected to follow suit, however since more of those states are under Republican control, it’s likely that this battle will result in a net pick-up for Republicans.  This isn’t supposed to be the way things work in a democracy, but who are we kidding, that democracy idea is so old school, at least that’s what Trump hopes and while it may be fun to joke about his cankles and assert that he’s verging on dementia, the damage he and his abettors, are inflicting is substantial and could result in MAGA Republicans holding on to power for a long time to come. And just to further keep you up at night, this week it was reported that Democratic registrations have decreased by 2.1 million while Republican registration has increased by 2.4 million, a wake-up call to Democrats to more aggressively get people registered to counter Republican voter drives and suppression efforts. Moreover, Trump is pushing for an unprecedented mid cycle census, one that doesn’t count the people he doesn’t want counted.

Fog:  There's lots of it, but at least for today, I am taking a break from the international scene.

#BringThemAllHomeNow

Earworms 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

Ukraine 🌻🌻:  A number of pundits reported that though Trump’s staff and advisors tried to spin Trump’s cockamamie summit with Putin as a diplomatic triumph, most of them emerged “ashen and “wide eyed” from the meeting which goes a long way to explaining why the who’s who of European leaders dropped everything to attend Trump’s follow-on meeting with Ukraine’s Zelenskyy who wore a more polished than usual get up to placate people who care about such things.  The Europeans’ collective appearance combined with a whole lot of cajoling and golf bonding appears to have righted the Ukraine ship, at least for now, mostly moving Trump, cankles and all,  back to pushing for a ceasefire as well as some security assurances for Ukraine.  However, as indicated Trump’s bizarre caught on a hot mic comment to France’s Macron that Putin “wants to make a deal. I think he wants to make a deal for me, you understand that…. As crazy as it sounds," it probably won’t take much more than a midnight call from Vlad to get Trump to alter his position because as he noted, the idea of Putin wanting to keep him happy is crazy especially when you consider that Putin is still dropping lethal bombs and taking out residential buildings and shows little interest in moving off his demands for even more of Ukraine than he’s managed to occupy.  As to Zelenskyy, he’s right to question Trump’s support and Putin’s intentions because back in 1994, in what’s referred to as the Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine gave its nuclear arsenal to Russia in exchange for security guarantees from Russia, the US, UK, France, and China and we know how that turned out. 

Midterm Madness: During their weekend meet-up, perhaps during their unprecedented one-on-one in Trump’s armored “beast,” Putin whispered some sweet nothings into Trump’s ear, maybe even implanting an earworm, telling him that he too believed that the 2020 election really was rigged and that voting machines and mail-in voting were to blame.  Then on Monday Newsmax revealed that it had agreed to pay $67 million to Dominion Voting Systems, the company that received a $787 million settlement from the much larger Fox, to settle its defamation lawsuit over Newsmax’ airing of false claims that the 2020 election was rigged by its voting machines. So, naturally with Putin’s remarks looping through his brain, and Newsmax coughing up cash Trump, took to his Truth Social bully pulpit to announce his intention to sign an executive order “to lead a movement to get rid of mail-in ballots” while ending the use of “Very Expensive and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES.” Elections are run by states so it’s not clear that he can do either.  It’s also not clear that a lot of Republican officials would want him to do so since many of those using mail-in ballots are the same Republican voters they encouraged to vote by mail. Notably, Trump is one of those Republicans who has a history of voting by mail. The more likely takeaways from Trump’s most recent madness is that he’s still and always will be smarting from his 2020 loss to Biden, he’s doing all he can to divert from the Epstein affair, and he’s scared shxtless about the midterms, doing all he can to disrupt and cheat his way through what he fears, without his interference, will be a loss of the House and maybe even of a few critical Senate seats 🙏 🙏.  One person who knows a lot about his desperation is Democratic Texas Representative Nicole Collier who has been forced to stay and sleep on the floor of the Texas House over her refusal to sign an agreement allowing a Texas Department of Public Safety official to shadow her to make sure she appears back in the House on command for the redistricting/gerrymandering vote. As to the Epstein affair, former AG Bill Barr testified this week, nice but kind of pointless because though he was running the DOJ when Epstein died, he wasn’t around when Epstein committed all his sex crimes.  Supposedly, the DOJ will start to release its millions of pages of files, not to be confused with the much thinner, less revealing Grand Jury testimony which a judge has ruled against releasing, by the end of the week, assuming the pages don’t get eaten by a pack of Siberian Huskies or shipped off to Moscow.  Also, in case you missed it the current MAGA position is that slavery wasn’t really all that bad which is the reason that Trump has commanded the Smithsonian to alter its exhibits.  And up is down and left is right.

Human Resources:  Dan Bongino, the podcaster who threatened to resign from his position as Deputy Director of the FBI over the Epstein affair hasn’t resigned but he may have just been shunted off to the side because yesterday the White House announced the appointment of Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey as Deputy Director of the FBI. That’s two people doing the job of one person, something that seems to violate that rationale behind all that DOGE stuff.  Also, DNI Tulsi Gabbard who Hillary Clinton warned was a favorite of the Russians, revoked the security clearances of 37 professionals yesterday, some of whom still work in government and most of whom have had something to do with Russia.  Could it be that the earworm that Putin stuck in Trump’s ear directed him to do more than just get rid of mail-in ballots and ballot counting machines?    

Fog:  Lots of talk but still no agreement on a Gaza ceasefire.  Supposedly Hamas has agreed to release some but not all of the hostages, but Israel is threatening to take over Gaza City if they aren’t all released. 

#BringThemAllHomeNow            

 
Phone a Friend 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

Summit Woes:  Trump’s meeting with Russia’s Putin met expectations in that Putin who got the full red-carpet treatment stuck to his guns, literally and figuratively, and starry-eyed Trump who had told Ukraine’s Zelenskyy and several European leaders that he would push for a ceasefire did not.  The meeting ended early and while the two leaders made statements after they ended their “summit” they did not take questions at was supposed to be a press conference.  Following the meeting, Trump gave an interview to his favorite Foxy, Sean Hannity, where he characterized the meeting as a “10,” blamed the war on Biden, said peace was up to Zelenskyy, while adding that he and Putin both agreed that the 2020 election that Biden won had been rigged by all that sketchy mail in voting.  Trump went on to say that his bestie Putin told him that no countries allow mail in ballots, a weird lie because many including Putin’s Russia do but the forever KGB agent has Trump’s number and knew exactly how to push his buttons to get what he wants so he did and since Putin wants as much of Ukraine as he can get, either through war or through a Trump supported “swap,” by the end of the weekend, Trump and several members of his “negotiating” team more than implied that they had shifted their position from supporting Ukraine’s sovereignty, calling for a ceasefire and imposing heavy sanctions if they couldn’t get one, to cozying up to Uncle Vlad’s demand for land concessions. Zelenskyy is due in Washington today for a follow-up meeting with Trump and like a stymied contestant on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” he’s opted to invoke all his lifelines.  He isn’t just phoning a friend, asking the audience for the answer, or doing any of the other things that the game show allows, he’s bringing along the who’s who of European leadership including France’s Emmanuel Macron, the UK’s Keir Starmer, Finland’s Alexander Stubb, Germany’s Friedrich Merz,  Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, NATO secretary general Mark Rutte, and president of the European Union Ursula von der Leyen in the hope that the crowd will break Putin’s spell, getting Trump back to where he was before the Alaska meeting, or, at the very least, prevent Trump or his henchman/VP Vance from publicly chastising Zelenskyy for refusing to hand over Ukraine’s Donbas region which Putin wants to add to the regions of Ukraine that he’s already seized.  The supportive crowd is pushing to get Trump onboard for some security guarantees, something along the line of what NATO members give each other, ironic since NATO membership is one of those things that Putin insists has to stay permanently off the table, and both Biden and Trump have already more or less conceded.  Oh, and though the crowd in Alaska cancelled their lunch plans, via a sloppy, incompetent member of Trump’s travelling squad who left a trove of summit documents on a hotel printer, we know that they had planned to dine on filet mignon and halibut Olympia and that Trump planned on gifting “his excellency” Vlad with a bald eagle statuette.  More significantly everyone is now privy to the American team’s home contact information and a few other things that should not have been left on a printer.  

Shiny Objects: As one Twitter poster put it on Sunday: “The meeting with Putin was so disastrous for Trump he may have to bring up the Epstein files as a distraction.”  It’s not just the summit, the economy is starting to show the effects of his tariffs, polls indicate that the Big Ugly Bill has a lot of the electorate concerned about their personal “lifelines,” and even some immigration hardliners are finding the deportation and imprisonment of their migrant neighbors hard to stomach so Trump is back in full distraction mode. Last night he took to Truth Social to insist that MSNBC (which he calls MSDNC) fire Nicole Wallace, the former Bush communications director who hosts the daily Deadline White House show, likely due to a Fox News report that she “went on a tear” against him on the runup to the Alaska summit. It’s doubtful that Wallace will be fired anytime soon, although she might need some added protection, but there’s lots of other more troubling things going on.  Following Texas Governor Abbott’s lead, more Republican dominated states are looking into creating more Republican friendly districts, moves that are leading the few Democratic states who can, to do the same.  The desperate redistricting maneuver is a clear sign that the polls are going against Republicans and anyway why should voters get to decide who represents them when some politicians with sharpies can do so much better?  On the legal front,  Ed Martin, head of the DOJ’s Stalinesque Weaponization (😱) Working Group, who is so toxic that Trump pulled his nomination to serve as the US Attorney for Washington DC after it became clear that he couldn’t get enough Senate votes for confirmation for the role that ultimately went to the also toxic Jeanine Pirro, is moving forward with the Pam Bondi approved investigations into California Senator Adam Schiff and New York AG Tish James while also threatening to go after all of those who served on the January 6 committee. The occupation of Washington DC, or at least the most TV visible, low crime areas of Washington DC by federal forces continues, though at least for now due to the intervention of the courts, the DC police department remains under the control of the District’s Police Commissioner rather than flunky Bondi’s special appointee.  And if Trump is to be believed, more Democratically run cities in blue states are in his cross eyes. 1251 days to go.              

#BringThemAllHomeNow     

Subs and Heroes 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

From Russia But No Love:  Trump is in Anchorage for his meeting with Putin.  For the most part the pundits, or at least those who are experienced in international diplomacy and/or things Russian, believe that he’ll accomplish little in the way of peace but might concede part of Ukraine with some rare minerals thrown in as a sweetener.  They are also concerned that the bluster and strong arming that Trump has been able to work to his advantage with weaker, less experienced leaders, law firm heads, and his party will fall flat with the wily Putin.  We should know soon enough although it wouldn’t be a push to assume that Trump who apparently doesn’t know that in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union, Leningrad’s name was restored back to St Petersburg, its pre-Soviet name, will spin the meeting as a huge accomplishment.  Illusionary peace being another reason that he should get the Nobel Peace prize that he covets so much that according to the Norwegian news outlet Dagens Naeringsliv, he called Norway’s Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg “out of the blue” to tell him so, more than hinting that things could turn darker on the tariff front if Norway doesn’t make it happen. Norway’s five-member Nobel committee is responsible for choosing the Nobel laureates that are announced in October. While Trump is hanging in the 49^th state, things are getting darker and weirder in Washington DC where his occupying forces have federalized the police.  Last night AG Pam Bondi who should be disbarred when or if we ever get through this dystopian time, appointed Terry Cole, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administrator as “Emergency” Police Commissioner usurping the powers of DC’s police chief.  Her actions are likely illegal but since when has that matter to anyone in Trump’s orbit. To be clear, if Trump or any of his minions really wanted to improve law enforcement in DC, they would restore the $1 billion in funding that they took from the city’s coffers and work as a team focusing their efforts on things like drug enforcement rather than stopping cars and otherwise acting like bullies.  The situation is now so stupid that Trump’s federales charged a now former employee of the Department of Justice who threw a Subway sub at the “invading” forces while screaming F-You with a felony.  Since a DC grand jury has twice refused to indict the woman who was accused of “assaulting” an FBI agent despite video evidence that shows her doing little more than flailing her arms at an ICE agent, it’s highly likely that the sub offender will not be indicted either, though he might have started a trend because who doesn’t feel like following a turkey sub or two right now and anyway, sandwiches are a whole lot more dispensable than shoes, which as George W Bush once learned is the item more typically tossed in protest in some cultures. Also stupid, Ivanka, the daughter who other than appearing in Jeff Bezo’s wedding pictures, we haven’t seen much of lately has assumed the job of organizing the UFC cage fight to be held at the White House next year to celebrate the 250^th independence anniversary.  I don’t know, nor want to know what a cage fight is, and will be busy that day washing my hair.     

Hero Special: Not a sub but maybe the hero we need right now, California’s Governor Gavin Newsom, who is clearly positioning himself for an Oval Office run, is the spicy meatball living inside of Trump’s head.  Not only is he younger and infinitely better looking than the doughy 🍊 🤡 but he’s taken to gleefully mocking him on Twitter with ALL CAPS missives, witty ones like this:

DONALD 'TACO' TRUMP,  AS MANY CALL HIM, 'MISSED' THE DEADLINE!!! CALIFORNIA WILL NOW DRAW NEW, MORE 'BEAUTIFUL MAPS,' THEY WILL BE HISTORIC AS THEY WILL END THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY (DEMS TAKE BACK THE HOUSE!). BIG PRESS CONFERENCE THIS WEEK WITH POWERFUL DEMS AND GAVIN NEWSOM — YOUR FAVORITE GOVERNOR — THAT WILL BE DEVASTATING FOR 'MAGA.' THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER! — GN.”  

Newsom followed his Twitter jibe with an announcement that he’s initiating a process that should it work will lead to the redistricting of enough California districts to make up for the ones that Texas, at Trump’s insistence, is seeking to redistrict away from Democrats. The process in California is more complicated given that Newsom unlike Texas’ Governor Abbot has to hold a state referendum to accomplish his objective, but his message is clear, Democrats need to fight fire with fire, no more knives at gun fights. As to guns, a bunch of Trump’s INS thugs made an appearance outside of Newsom’s press conference.  If anything, their threats emphasize Newsom’s argument, that democracy is at risk because Trump could give two 💩 💩, he just wants to stay in power no matter what it takes. Further proof of that is that he’s now invited Missouri’s state Republicans for a sit down at the White House to see if they can gerrymander him a few more House seats.  And given that inflation is once again out and about because tariffs, Trump likely needs to cheat to get those seats because things really are costing more and though it may be possible to manipulate statistics, when coffee, bananas, and schools supplies cost more, and jobs are difficult to find people on the ground notice.   

#BringThemAllHomeNow      

Bamboozle 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

205 Days In:  Trump pardoned the January 6 rioters, appointed one of their most ardent defenders to run the US Attorney’s Office in Washington DC, and hired a former FBI agent who was videotaped urging his mob cohorts to kill the police officers who were trying to stop their invasion. That former FBI agent is now advising on how best to seek retribution against Trump’s political enemies.  Yesterday, after asserting that Washington DC, which on January 6 he characterized as a peaceful haven full of fun seeking Trump supporting tourists, is now a lawless hell hole, Trump deployed 800 National Guard members to control the “punks and scumbags” who reside there.  His action, which he’s long mused about taking, appears to have been triggered by the recent mugging of Big Balls, the 19-year- old former DOGE employee who is now an official tasked with mucking around in the Social Security Agency’s code.  Big Balls really was a crime victim.  He was bloodied in an attempted carjacking, and DC is hardly a crime free idyll, however, as indicated by the DOJ’s own crime statistics, year on year homicides in DC are down by 32%, robberies by 39%, armed carjackings by 53%, and assaults with deadly weapons by 27%.  If Trump was serious about helping out the cash strapped District he’d see to it that its funding which was cut $1 billion by the Congress he controls was restored but instead, he’s into performative messaging and autocratic actions, so we have the National Guard in DC, the same National Guard he refused to deploy on January 6 when it was really needed because then the marauders were his supporters.  Washington DC is a bit of a strange animal, it’s not a state, its residents pay lots of federal taxes but don’t have Congressional representation and its mayor has limited powers when compared to those of state Governors so it’s particularly vulnerable to Trump’s dictatorial whims. That said, Trump who has already sent a bunch of soldiers and guardsmen into Los Angeles, is now threatening to do the same to NYC, Baltimore, Chicago, and Oakland, California, lumping them all together as teeming masses of criminals when what they mostly share in common is that they are urban places with large non-white, Democratic voting populations.  None of these cities are perfect but their crime rates are mostly declining from pandemic levels, and while being the victim of a crime is always a bad thing, don’t for a minute believe that felon Trump’s actions are motivated by a desire to make things better for their residents.  The forces he’s sent into DC and is threatening to send into the other cities aren’t the right people for that job, and in places like NYC with its 36,000 uniformed officers aren’t needed, he’s just playing dictator, making it clear that, he gets to do whatever he wants.  That’s not hyperbole, with Trump’s support, Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon is considering the establishment of a "Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force" composed of National Guard troops, for deployment in US cities experiencing protests or other unrest. The force would consist of 600 National Guard troops, split into two groups of 300 each, they would be stationed at military bases in Alabama and Arizona, covering regions east and west of the Mississippi River, respectively, they would be on standby for rapid deployment (within an hour) to address situations that Trump deems "domestic civil unrest.” Asking for all of us, will election days in swing districts with large blue voter turnout be examples of civil unrest?         

Factoids: It’s not just Trump’s militaristic tendencies that are a bigly problem, he also has his complicit henchman rewriting history and playing with economic statistics because when he doesn’t like the facts, he makes up his own.  Yesterday the White House announced that it’s embarking on a comprehensive review of the Smithsonian Institute’s exhibits to make certain that they reflect Trump’s vision of America, that would be a vision that doesn’t reference his two impeachments and presumably also whitewashes out the role that people of color and women have played over the years, the women that Pete Hegseth and his favorite extremist pastor believe should never have been granted the right to vote.  Trump has already moved the portraits of former presidents Obama and GW Bush into an infrequently used stairwell, Biden’s official portrait is not yet completed, but you know when it is it will get similar, or worse, treatment. Maybe that Mar a Lago toilet is still available?  Trump has also nominated the Heritage Foundation’s EJ Antoni to serve as his new Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Antoni, one of those responsible for bringing us the Project 2025 blueprint, announced that he plans to eliminate the monthly labor report that so annoys Trump, only issuing quarterly reports that presumably will be suitably rosy.  Trump, who celebrated only the “good” part of yesterday’s inflation report, ignoring that price increases are starting to rear their ugly head on items subjected to his tariffs, also called on Goldman Sachs’ head David Solomon to fire his firm’s respected chief economist, Jan Hatzius for warning on Sunday that US consumers will end up absorbing an increasing share of the cost of Trump’s tariffs.  As to those tariffs, Trump 🌮ed again, he has extended the deadline for resuming the higher tariffs on China, another 🌮anticipated by the investor community.  It’s fair to assume that Trump is also quite distressed with the CBO (Congressional Budget Office), looking for ways to kneecap them over their distributional analysis that concluded that America’s poorest households will see their incomes drop by $1200 while the wealthiest among us will see an additional $13,600 annually as a result of his Big Ugly Bill.   

People and Politics:  Former Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown has made it official.  He’s running again.  Keeping with the comeback trend, though he was only gone for a little more than a week, Dr. Vinay Prasad who had been forced out by right wing influencer Laura Loomer is back at the FDA, again making decisions about gene therapy and vaccines which explains why shares of biotech companies fell on Monday. Prasad has a habit of overruling his own scientific review staff, taking a confrontational approach that his critics say will “stymie scientific innovation and slow drug approvals.”  Then again, that seems to be HHS head RFK Jr’s objective, at least with regard to anything the guy who majored in heroin in college doesn’t like.  To that end,  FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, defended the decision to defund mRNA vaccine development, saying that the public has lost confidence in the mRNA technology.  Of course, Makary conveniently ignored that the loss of confidence is the result of the volume of misinformation that he, RFK, and their anti-vax cohorts have relentlessly spread. Like Trump, RFK continues to try to play with facts, but at least one reputable publication isn’t buying his attempts.  Yesterday Annals of Internal Medicine, an influential medical journal, rejected his request that they retract a large Danish study that found that aluminum ingredients in vaccines do not increase health risks for children. 

Fog:  Trump’s Anchorage, Alaska meeting with Putin is still on for Friday.  Everyone not part of Trump’s sycophant squad, especially Ukraine’s Zelenskyy and most of our one time but probably not for long European allies, are concerned that Putin, who has ramped up his attack on Ukraine, will bamboozle him.

#BringThemAllHomeNow

 

'Cause I'm the Taxman 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

State of Play:  Trump is due to meet with Putin in Alaska on Friday.  Though it’s unlikely that he’ll return Alaska, purchased by the US from Russia in 1867 years ago for $7.2 million, there’s a non-zero chance that he’ll offer up occasional thorn in his side Senator Lisa Murkowski and a far greater chance that he’ll concede to Putin’s demand that Ukraine’s Zelenskyy hand back a large chunk of Ukrainian territory in exchange for peace, or really just a ceasefire, while Putin refreshes his troops in preparation to glomming on to more Ukrainian land or invading some of the other countries that used to make up the USSR. As of now Zelenskyy is not invited to the “summit” though VP Vance says they are working on getting him into the loop.  Needless to say, Zelenskyy is not all that enthused by what South Carolina’s Senator Lindsey Graham, who really needs to keep Trump’s endorsement in his upcoming primary, is now calling a land swap, especially if that land swap involves Ukraine giving up way more than it gets back. For what it’s worth, the NY Post reports that several of our European allies, or one-time allies, believe that Trump’s real estate buddy/everything envoy Steve Witkoff who brokered the meeting may have misunderstood what Putin said he was willing to consider, not unbelievable given that Witkoff has been known to rely on Putin’s interpreters. In other international news, according to Axios, Witkoff who certainly has his hands full, met with Qatari Prime Minister Abdulrahman al-Thani in Spain on Saturday to discuss an end to the Gaza war and the release of all 50 remaining Israeli hostages, part of an effort to head off the highly contentious Israeli plan to expand its Gaza offensive and occupy Gaza City.  Remember when we had a State Department and a Secretary of State who did such things.  Apparently not so much anymore, not that Secretary of Rubio is one to trust.  If they haven’t already, his State Department which now houses the skeleton of US AID is planning to destroy a $9.7 million stock of birth control products currently held in a storeroom in Belgium rather than dispense the needed pills, IUDs, and implants to needy third world countries. Apparently, the same 🤡 🤡 who believe that the US shouldn’t help with AIDs prevention in third world countries is opposed to what they call abortifacients but what the rest of us call birth control.   And lastly, Trump is planning to send the military and the FBI into Washington DC to help with crime fighting. Though DC did experience a spike in crime in 2023, crime there has declined since, but Trump is Trump. His plan involves arresting the homeless. What could possibly go wrong?

People, People, Taxman:  In June by a vote of 53 to 44 with all Democrats voting against him, former Missouri Congressman Billy Long was confirmed by the Senate to serve as the IRS Commissioner. Long had little relevant experience but had been involved with controversial tax credit schemes before his appointment, probably one of the reasons that Trump found him so appealing.  However, much to Trump’s chagrin it turned out that Long wasn’t quite as unethical as he hoped and Democrats feared. After refusing to handover all of the requested immigrant taxpayer information that ICE requested, he was fired from his position. If anyone’s counting, Long was Trump’s sixth IRS commissioner. Keeping with Trump’s approach of assigning multiple positions to his loyalists,  Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will serve as acting IRS Commissioner until Trump can find someone more willing to cooperate with the INS.  Long isn’t completely out of the Trump-o-sphere,  he is ironically expected to be nominated to serve as Ambassador to Iceland perhaps because Greece has already been given to Donald Jr’s ex fiancée Kimberly Guilfoyle or maybe just to punk us.  In other people news, last week Trump nominated the Steve Bannon endorsed Stephen Miran, currently the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, to serve out the final few months of the Federal Reserve seat being vacated by Fed Governor Adriana Kugler who resigned last week. The WSJ reports that Miran is a strong advocate of a weaker dollar, something to consider on your next trip abroad and also whenever you buy anything originating overseas.  He is likely one of those that Trump is considering as Fed Chair once current Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s term ends in May 2026, or sooner if he manages to kick Powell to the curb beforehand but not necessarily at the top of what appears to be growing list.  Though it’s unlikely that he’ll actually get booted or even be subjected to a House ethics review, married Florida Congressman Cory Mills, the Republican who threatened to release revenge porn to punish his former girlfriend, the reigning Miss USA, who dumped him, has been getting lots of negative press coverage and has hired a defense lawyer.  Add New York Attorney General Tish James to the long list of people that Trump and his complicit DOJ are targeting. The DOJ has opened an investigation into her prosecution of Trump, focusing on her office's handling of the civil fraud case against Trump, examining whether it violated his legal rights. And lastly, there’s not a whole lot new to report on the Jeffrey Epstein front  It’s still ugly and percolating, no new files have yet been released, Ghislaine Maxwell is still in jail, albeit a nicer one, but she won’t be allowed to engage in the perk of training 🐶 🐶 because people who were convicted of sex crimes especially the abuse of minors aren’t allowed near vulnerable dogs. They’re allowed in the Oval Office and Congress, just not near the 🐶 🐶.

Midterm Madness: Thought the midterm elections don’t take place until 2026, but the battle is already on.  Trump and his Republican abettors, are continuing to press ahead with their redistricting plans which are a blatant effort to stack the cards, making it more difficult for Democrats to win back the House even if the majority of voters want a change in governance.  Though they haven’t committed any federal crimes, the FBI has agreed to go after the Texas Democrats who’ve left the state to avoid giving Governor Abbott the quorum he needs to move forward with a redistricting vote.  Other states on both sides of the political divide are now considering following Abbott’s example though a few Republican governors including New Hampshire’s Kelly Ayotte say that they have no plans to follow suit. It’s not just redistricting, a week doesn’t go by without another Republican attempt to restrict voter turnout, followed by a lawsuit by one or more Democratic entities to get the restriction deemed unconstitutional. For more details following Mark Elias and his Democracy Docket updates is well worthwhile.          

#BringThemAllHomeNow    

 

Strategery 🌮 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡 🌮

Epstein, Epstein, Epstein:  The Epstein saga continues to fester. On Wednesday it was reported that JD Vance had plans to hold an Epstein dinner strategy session at his residence with Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, FBI Head Kash Patel, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in attendance.  Among the topics to be discussed was whether or not Blanche should share an audio tape and transcript of his meeting with convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell and her lawyer with the public. That would be the tape where Maxwell who is angling for a pardon or commutation swore on a stack of gold Trump bibles that she never saw or heard of Trump doing anything or knowing anything about Epstein’s sex crimes although she saw a lot of Democrats like Bill Clinton with Epstein’s girls.  Those are the crimes that she asserts she had nothing to do with because she was obviously railroaded, or at least that’s the position that’s now being taken among her fans and Trump’s supporters. Notably, though lots of people, including the Clintons, have been subpoenaed to appear before the House Oversight Committee, former Trump Labor Secretary Alex Acosta who when he was a US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida gave Epstein a sweetheart deal was not subpoenaed.   After plans for the meeting leaked, Trump denied that he knew anything about it and Vance insisted that the reports were just more fake news. Fake news or not, a meeting did take place, however it was moved to the White House and it's not clear whether or not Vance participated. Though we don’t yet know what was agreed to on the Epstein front, we now know that after the meeting, a few more respected senior FBI agents were fired, something to do with their involvement in cases concerning January 6 and the investigation into the secret documents that Trump hid away at Mar a Lago.  What’s surprising is that they lasted as long as they did because, after all Trump promised retribution.

Tariffs, Tariffs, Economy:  Trump who earlier in the week spent some time walking on the roof of the White House as one does, found time in his schedule to share some charts that had been ginned up for him by the Heritage Foundation’s visiting economist Stephen Moore, author of the “Trumponomics” book that few voluntarily read.  Moore’s charts “proved” that Trump’s economy is the strongest ever despite the data released by the very “biased” Bureau of Labor Statistics. And of course, we now have more tariffs, again, at least for now, including some really high ones, or threats of high ones (50%), on India to punish our ally for buying its oil from Russia, something the Biden administration signed off on over concerns that a total boycott of Russia’s oil would lead to really high oil and gas prices and higher inflation for all of us. Though the impact of the tariffs on consumers has been muted so far, partially because of a lot of advance purchasing and also because of Trump’s on again, off again 🌮 shtick, their impact on prices is growing, particularly at the grocery store which explains why Trump is talking about sending out “tariff” checks. Those checks, should they ever appear would be well received by the general population, particularly if they show up right before the midterms, but would do nothing to reduce the nation’s debt, not that Trump appears to care about that. By the way, the deficit increase from his Big Ugly Bill is now projected to exceed $4.1 trillion.  As to the midterms, the polling that Trump has been seeing must be really awful because he and his party are working overtime to gerrymander themselves into around 10 or more red seats while also making it more difficult for people to vote.  Trump is even talking about a new census, one that doesn’t count anyone who is undocumented, something he tried to do last time he was president but couldn’t pull off.  As to those threats to get the FBI to search out and arrest the Texas Democrats who have left the state to prevent the votes on a new Texas map, they’re not threats anymore.  The Kash Patel let FBI is now on the case.    

People and Politics: Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer’s best chance at taking back the Senate in 2026, to the extent he has one, is to get some stellar candidates to run in uphill states and he seems to be making progress doing just that.  Though he hasn’t officially announced yet, former Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown who lost his reelection bid in 2024 is hiring staff in anticipation of challenging Republican Senator Jon Husted, who was appointed to replace JD Vance when he became VP.   Ohio is very red, in 2024 Trump won Ohio by 11 points, but Brown did far better losing by only 3.8 points to now current Senator Bernie Moreno.  Populist Brown is viewed as the only Democrat who stands a chance of winning in Ohio, especially when Trump is not on the ballot.  Though she hasn’t signed on yet, Democrats are hoping to convince Maine’s popular term limited Governor Janet Mills to run against Republican Susan Collins who is up for reelection in 2026. Roy Cooper, the former Governor of North Carolina has already announced that he’s running for Senator for the seat that is being vacated by Republican Senator Thom Tillis.  That still leaves Democrats with a few open seats to fill in Minnesota and Michigan since incumbents Tina Smith and Gary Peters have both announced their retirements as well as what is expected to be a tough and expensive battle in Georgia where Democrat Jon Ossoff is up for reelection.  Though she’s not running for anything, at least right now, It turns out that Katie Miller, wife of junior Goebbels Stephen Miller, has not run off with Elon Musk.  Instead, she’s starting a podcast because there aren’t “enough places for conservative women to gather online.” That’s probably a surprise to a lot of people, including Megyn Kelly.  In any case, she says she wants to create a space where conservative moms like her can have ”honest conversations with people across the political spectrum and across the world.”  To her credit, Miller does tend to speak her mind.  During Trump 1.0 when she was serving as VP Pence’s press secretary, she said that "DHS sent me to the border to see the (child) separations for myself -- to try to make me more compassionate -- but it didn't work." Former Georgia Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan probably won’t be one of Katie’s first guests though their conversation would be worth hearing. The former Republican Lieutenant Governor who opted not to run for reelection in 2022 and who endorsed Kamala Harris in 2024 announced this week that he’s joined the Democratic Party.  Duncan, a Trump/MAGA critic, says that his decision isn’t sudden, he’s been moving in that direction for a while, concerned about Republicans moving away from treating people fairly. Unlike Katie, he’s not all that into putting kids in cages.  On the subject of people in cages, construction at Florida’s Alligator Alcatraz is now on hold pending an environmental review or the ruling of another judge who doesn’t care about preserving the Everglades. Unfortunately, the cages will remain occupied.    

And:  Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth who’s been busy putting Confederate statues back on pedestals announced that the Air Force, and presumably other parts of the military, will deny retirement pay to the transgender service members that are being forced out of the military because cruelty is the point.  

Fog:  Trump may or may not be meeting with Putin. Trump said that his meeting was conditioned on Putin first meeting with Ukraine’s Zelenskyy, but then he pulled a 🌮, saying said that meeting Zelenskyy would be totally up to Putin. In other depressing news, Israel’s security cabinet voted last night to take over Gaza City. Basically, another festering mess.

#BringThemAllHomeNow           

 

 
The TIPS of the Iceberg 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

Epstein, Maxwell, Combs: The House Oversight Committee, chaired by Republican James Comer, issued a subpoena yesterday requesting that the Justice Department send over "records related to" Epstein.  At the same time, the committee issued subpoenas for a slew of Democrats including Bill and Hillary Clinton; former Attorneys General Loretta Lynch, Eric Holder, William Barr, Merrick Garland, Jeff Sessions, and Alberto Gonzales; and former FBI Directors James Comey and Robert Mueller.  Notably, they left Trump, who continues to be paving the path for a Ghislaine Maxwell pardon, off their list. To that end, when asked by reporters about the Epstein case and convicted sex offender Maxwell, Trump defended Deputy AG Todd Blanche’s two days tete-a-tete with Maxwell saying that “it’s not an uncommon thing to do that.” There was nothing normal about Blanche meeting with Maxwell, officials at his level at the DOJ don’t meet with convicted felons.  Trump then went on to say that Blanche “probably wanted to make sure that people that should not be involved or aren’t involved are not hurt by something that would be very unfortunate, very unfair.” That’s Trump-speak for saying that Blanche, who was one of those who’d had the FBI and DOJ scour (cleanse?) the Epstein files for all references to him, met with Maxwell to make sure she knows that her future freedom depends on her keeping Trump’s name out of her mouth.  When asked if he had approved Maxwell’s transfer to her new “Club Fed” digs, Trump said that he “did not know about it” and that it’s not an uncommon thing.” He clearly knew about it, and her move was so uncommon that it required a waiver because sex offenders are not entitled to serve their sentences at Club Feds, so again he was lying. Clearly, Sean “Puffy” “P-Diddy” Combs lawyers have noted Trump’s willingness to provide preferential treatment to pedophiles.  They confirmed yesterday that they’ve requested he provide a pardon to their client, something that Trump hasn’t ruled out.  He’s publicly stated he was friendly with Combs in the past but has also said that Combs' past "hostile" comments towards him when he ran for office, makes granting him a pardon more difficult. Surely, Combs whose lawyers offered a $50 million bond to have him released pending his sentencing, can figure out a way to get past that difficulty.  Though far further down the celebrity food chain, Florida Congressman Cory Mills shares a lot in common with Trump, Combs, and Maxwell. Lindsey Langston, his ex-girlfriend who is a Florida Republican state committee member and the 2024 winner of the Miss United States beauty pageant, told authorities on July 14 that Mills had threatened to release nude videos of her while also threatening to harm any of her future romantic partners.  Langston broke off their relationship when she learned that the not yet divorced Congressman had another girlfriend. Mills’ harassment issues could be just the tip of his problems.  Until recently he owed $85,000 to his Washington, DC landlord. His overdue rent obligation which he blamed on problems with his landlord’s online payment system, a modern variation of the “check is in the mail” excuse, was recently settled, though it’s not clear how or which pool of money Mills tapped to satisfy his debt.  In other legal news, AG Pam Bondi has authorized prosecutors to investigate the inquiry into what Trump calls the “Russia hoax” and present a case to a grand jury in South Florida. There’s so much wrong with that, not the least of which is that the hoax which wasn’t a hoax has been investigated multiple times.  The investigation, which is all about creating another shiny diversionary object, kind of like putting the Clintons at the top of the Epstein subpoena list, and Trump’s retribution quest is unlikely to end up throwing anyone in jail, but it will cost everyone impacted lots in legal fees.    

Texas Two Step: Just a week or so ago, Speaker Johnson sent everyone in Congress home early for their August break to avoid dealing with anything related to Epstein.  Apparently, that was legitimate, but Texas’ Democrats leaving the state to protest Trump and Governor Abbott’s efforts to gerrymander the Texas map in a manner that will pretty much guarantee that Republicans win five more seats is the midterms and maybe even maintain control of the House in the 2026 midterms is a federal offense. Trump, Abbott, Texas AG Ken Paxton, and Texas Senator John Cornyn are now calling for the FBI to hunt down and arrest the errant Democratic state representative.  Cornyn who usually is a smidge more moderate than the rest of them has joined them in order to curry favor with Trump whose endorsement he desperately needs to win his upcoming primary where he’s being challenged by Paxton.   

MAHA Not:  Last night HHS Secretary RFK Jr, the brain hole guy who attributes his success in college to his heroin use and who advocates for steroids and raw milk announced that the federal government is calling off around $500 million worth of vaccine development projects that use mRNA technology.  As a result, twenty-two projects that were funded through the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, are now being terminated.  RFK asserts that the mRNA technology which allows the medical world to move quickly when faced with pandemics and may also provide for future cancer cures is not safe or adequately effective apparently because he prefers the survival of the fittest approach when dealing with incoming threats.   Oddly enough, he says that he wants to redirect vaccine research to old style vaccines, the ones he also thinks are dangerous and unnecessary because raw milk and vitamin A are so much better.  Another very big step back to the Dark Ages.  Also, remember when Trump promised to mandate that insurance companies pay for IVF, forget about that too. The White House has no plans to follow through on his promise.    

Unintended Consequences: Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) because he was bigly mad about last week’s anemic hiring report. By firing her for releasing statistics that don’t satisfy his “expectations” he has put the credibility of other BLS provided figures at risk, something that could jeopardize the market for Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS).  TIPS are Treasury bonds whose principal and interest payments are adjusted for inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index from the BLS.  They make up around 9% of the Treasury market.  Already concerned about the impact of Trump’s economic and tariff policies on inflation, investors are now expected to further scrutinize the inputs into the calculation of the figures that effect their TIPS’ returns. Uncertainty generally translates to higher risk premiums and that means higher borrowing costs and bigger deficits.  Lastly, Trump has been threatening to federalize Washington DC and now he’s found another reason to justify his quest to do so. Over the weekend, the former 19-year-old DOGE employee known as “Big Balls” was mugged, a victim of an attempted carjacking. To be clear, Big Balls doesn’t appear to have been targeted for his DOGE work.   

#BringThemAllHomeNow

 

 
Texas Two Step 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

Killing the Messenger: Who hasn’t considered junking their scale after a particularly gluttonous holiday season, blaming it rather than a lack of will power for the scary number flashing on its screen.  Alas, tossing the scale won’t make it easier to zip your jeans nor will firing economist Erika McEntarfer, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Commissioner,  goose hiring or inspire confidence in a jittery market.  Trump whose caddy was seen again this weekend dropping his golf balls closer to the hole and whose medical team routinely lies about his weight axed McEntarfer, holding her rather than his policies, responsible when Friday’s July jobs report showed the addition of only 73,000 jobs as well as a downward revision in the May and June numbers of an unprecedented 258,000 jobs. Trump accused McEntarfer, a respected Biden appointee who’d been confirmed by a vote of 86-8 with the support of both JD Vance and Marco Rubio, of playing politics saying that she had intentionally manipulated the numbers to make him look bad, as if the 🍊 🤡 ever needs help looking bad. Jobs reports are quirky; they rely on survey data that do not always come in on time so it’s not unusual for them to be revised.  This month’s revisions were larger than usual likely because Trump’s economic policies, particularly his on again, off again and who knows what again tariffs have injected uncertainty into corporate planning and hiring. Quirky or not, as Larry Summers said on Sunday “These numbers are put together by teams of literally hundreds of people following detailed procedures that are in manuals, there’s no conceivable way that the head of the BLS could have manipulated this number.” Firing the Commissioner won’t change the number though it will inject fear into the people who do the day-to- day work and will likely put her replacement into a bind, unless of course that replacement behaves like Trump’s doctors and golf caddies, churning out results that make him happy, who knows maybe one of Trump’s caddies will be the next Commissioner, after all one of his prior ones, Dan Scavino, is now Deputy Chief of Staff.  On Sunday, Trump’s ever complicit and smirking economic advisor Kevin Hasset, more or less implied that’s what will happen.  He defended the decision to fire the Commissioner, adding that Trump “wants his own people at the bureau.” Going forward, no one will know what to believe.  Manipulating statistics is another thing that autocrats do, the results are never good because actual hiring doesn’t go up and inflation doesn’t go down just because you say they do.

Epstein, Maxwell, Texas:  Ghislaine Maxwell hasn’t been pardoned yet for her two days of chatting, or conspiring, with Trump’s Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, but she has been rewarded with better digs.  The convicted sex offender has been quietly moved to a minimum-security federal prison camp in Texas where she will get to hob nob with “entrepreneur” Elizabeth Holmes who is serving 11 years for her Theranos mirage and Jen Shah, the former Housewife of Salt Lake City, who is serving 6.5 years for telemarketing fraud.  Convicted sex offenders are not supposed to be eligible for transfers to minimum-security “Club Fed” jails but somehow or other Maxwell was granted an exception by the Bureau of Prisons for her move perhaps because the party line among Trump’s abettors is shifting to Maxwell wasn’t really an offender, just another Epstein victim.  While Maxwell is now in Texas, a whole crowd of Democratic lawmakers aren’t.  They’ve temporarily fled the state to make it impossible, at least for now, for Texas’ lower chamber to have the quorum necessary to move forward with the redistricting that will create a new map intended to eliminate five Democratic House seats. The 150-member Texas House can only conduct business if at least 100 members are present, meaning the absence of 51 or more Democrats can bring the legislature’s ongoing special session to a halt.   Governor Abbot is now threatening to have them arrested.  If he needs help finding them, all he’ll have to do is turn on the TV or send his henchman, to New York, Chicago, or California where the peripatetic Democratic lawmakers be discussing with their blue state counterpart’s ways to counter Texas politically motivated redistricting plans. Don’t put it past Abbott, Trump, or cosplay Kristi to find some henchman who will help with the tracking, after all there are lots of extra INS agents and other military types who are available.  According to the Department of Justice, junior Goebbels Stephen Miller’s oft repeated insistence that he’s put in place a quota requiring that 3000 illegals be rounded-up every day isn’t true, not because the quota isn’t still in effect but because the DOJ has been getting pushback from federal judges about the INS and its racial profiling that’s been resulting in the arrest of anyone who looks like they might be Hispanic, know someone who is Hispanic, or gotten good grades in Spanish class.

Retribution:  Trump is bigly mad at Chuck Schumer, something that probably makes Chuck very happy.  Over the weekend Trump called for Schumer to go to Hell after he successfully blocked the confirmation of scores of Trump nominees before the Senate went out on recess.  Unfortunately, despite Schumer’s efforts, a few confirmations did make it through, including one for Jeanine Pirro who is now officially the US Attorney for Washington DC.   Pirro was one of the Fox folks named in the Dominion Voting Machine lawsuit for her repeated assertions that the 2020 election had been stolen. She is seriously all into all of Trump’s conspiracies which of course makes her perfect for the job.  The Office of Special Counsel announced over the weekend that it’s opening an investigation into former Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, accusing him of Hatch Act violations for “unlawfully taking political actions to influence the 2024 election to harm then-candidate” Trump.  It’s not normal for prosecutorial decisions to be investigated by watchdogs but since Trump’s watchdogs are lap dogs, abnormal is the new normal. In any case Smith didn’t do anything wrong but he’ll now have to spend boatloads of money defending himself.  Along those lines, as part of his divert attention from Epstein by throwing shiny objects into the air strategy, Trump and his cohorts have accused Hillary Clinton of inventing the emails that suggested Trump was in cahoots with Putin back in 2016.  Former Special Counsel John Durham who was appointed by Trump during his first administration already looked into that assertion.  He concluded that the emails in question were likely fabricated by Russian, not by Hillary but she, like Obama, is one of Trump’s favorite foils so obviously she’s the guilty party.  Trump is also really mad at Charlemagne tha God, the popular radio show host for saying during an interview with daughter-in-law Lara Trump that he “wouldn’t give him (Trump) a good rating, simply because the least of us are still being impacted the worst……Right now, people are hurting.” Thin skinned Trump called Charlemagne, who tends to speak his mind and was a frequent Biden critic, a racist and a sleazebag. It didn’t help that on his Breakfast Club show Tha God also listed all the signs that Trump is suffering from dementia. Trump also questioned the use of “god” in Charlemagne’s name because obviously Trump who thinks he’s god, finds that particularly offensive.

#BringThemAllHomeNow