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