So Not Normal 🤯😱🌻✡️😱🤯

💩: It’s not normal that there were so many more mass shootings this week that it’s only because one involved a fire and a Mormon church that we can tell them apart.  It’s also not normal, though common, that the right’s answer to those shootings was another call for “thoughts and prayers” as well as the suggestion that the shooters were trans, antifa, leftist radicals when they were, as they most frequently are, seriously disturbed white men with easy access to military style weaponry.  It’s not normal that Homeland Security officials are beating people up, so badly that in the case of one NY area woman, the INS official involved was actually “suspended.”  The suspension unusual because these days, the excuse for brutality is usually that the INS agents were only doing their job and the beat-up migrant, or their petite spouse was obviously very, very dangerous.  It’s not normal that soldiers, with their assault rifles in tow, are marching through the streets of Chicago and that the dear leader now plans to send some more of them to Portland, Oregon using photos of years-old protests as his justification.  It’s not normal that after getting his insurance lawyer to indict one former FBI director on trumped up charges, the dear leader is now threatening to go after another one, Chris Wray, the Comey successor who he appointed and subsequently replaced with a conspiracy spreading podcaster.  Wray’s alleged crime, secretly sending hundreds of undercover FBI agents to act as agitators during the January 6 Capitol insurrection, an allegation that’s been debunked by an Inspector General report and that is even disputed by FBI Director/conspiracist, Kash Patel.  It’s not normal that to get the Comey indictments, the dear leader and his complicit Attorney General Pam Bondi who are cool with Border Czar Tom Homan accepting a Cava bag of cash had to fire Erik Siebert, the experienced and respected Virginia US Attorney he’d appointed for refusing to pursue an indictment for a crime that was not a crime.  It’s also not normal that Michele Beckwirth, a US Attorney in California was fired for telling border agents to follow the law during immigration raids because they found her caution offensive.  It’s not normal that Siebert and Beckwirth are just two on a growing list of career US Attorneys who have either been forced out or have quit after being told to take actions that violate their oath to the Constitution with more likely to follow as the dear leader’s Department of Justice fulfills his need for retribution by going after Fulton County’s Fani Willis, California’s Adam Schiff, New York’s Tish James, John Bolton, and so on.

💩 💩: It’s also not normal that the current Supreme Court keeps expanding the power of the presidency or maybe just Republican presidencies, making it likely that they’ll soon overturn a decision made in 1935 in Humphrey Executor v the US, and that as a result the dear leader’s firing of members of the boards of independent agencies, perhaps even the Federal Reserve Board, will be deemed totally okay.  On the SCOTUS front, it’s not normal that one of the Justices, the very right-wing Clarence Thomas, actually went on record this week telling an audience at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law that precedent and that whole stare decisis thing is not gospel, that he’s all in on overturning decisions he doesn’t like, which we kind of know because of what the Court’s done to voting rights and Roe and is likely to do to Humphrey and maybe even to Obergefell v Hodges, the case that legalized same sex marriage, another thing that Thomas and some of his cronies find abhorrent. They’ll have the opportunity to do that when they hear the case of Kim Fields, the Kentucky clerk who was jailed and then fined for refusing to give a license to a same sex couple. It’s also not normal that the Secretary of Defense, who the dear leader is now calling the Secretary of War, has all of his generals and admirals flying in to attend what he is characterizing as an opportunity to “communicate” his new vision for the military, including a return to a "warrior ethos." Not wanting to be upstaged, the dear leader is also planning to speak and it’s fair to assume that his message will go off script, not in a good way. That meeting is so not normal that retired US Army Commanding General Ben Hodges compared it to a meeting Hitler convened in which German generals were required to take an oath of allegiance to him.  Hegseth mocked that comparison, but who doesn’t think he plans or at the very least planned to make them retake their oath?

💩 💩 💩:  It's also not normal that the dear leader keeps insisting that inflation, grocery prices, and energy costs, including prices at the gas pump, are down despite all evidence, or at least all legitimate evidence to the contrary but then again he also took to social media this weekend to repost a bizarre AI video in which he was seen promoting “med beds.”  Med beds for those not in the know are magical beds promoted by the lunatic right that supposedly can heal any sickness.  In the post, which he has since taken down, he’s seen rolling out this magic technology to hospitals nationwide. To be clear med beds will not be coming to a Walmart near you anytime soon because they are most certainly not a thing, However, the dear leader must wish they were because unless his back on meeting with Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer leads to the reinstatement of some health care funding including at the very least an extension of the Obamacare subsidies, the government is likely to close down on October 1, as in Wednesday.  It’s also not normal that the dear leader is now giving medical advice via Truth Social. Late last week he reupped via post the unproven claim Tylenol is linked to autism, recommended that the MMR vaccine be given in “three totally separate shots,” the chicken pox vaccine be administered separately, and that the hepatitis B vaccine only be given to children aged 12 or older.  He “stressed” the importance of receiving vaccines during five separate medical visits, although it was unclear which specific immunizations he was referring to. Putting aside that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about and that his advice will likely lead to more, not less, illness, he’s cutting health care to millions upon millions of people.  How are those people supposed to schedule five medical visits when they’ll be luck to have the money or find a clinic for even one? Late last week, Utah acknowledged 27 new confirmed cases of measles, all but one among unvaccinated school children.  As a result, a number of exposed babies, all too young to have been vaccinated, had to be given immune globulin, a treatment that temporarily protects them from a disease that they would have been prevented from being exposed to if only their community had achieved herd immunity. And RFK Jr, the woefully unqualified HHS Secretary now plans to review mifepristone because keeping the anti-abortion crowd happy helps them overlook the damage to health that he’s doing on the vaccine front.  

💩 💩 💩 💩: It's not normal that Speaker Johnson is holding up the swearing in of newly elected Arizona Congresswoman-in-waiting Adelita Grijalva but he is planning to because the dear leader fears her vote on the discharge petition that could lead to the release of the Epstein files. It’s also not normal that the dear leader is now teasing the release of the Amelia Earhart files because though they’d be nice to see, who among us loses sleep over the details regarding the crash of the long missing pilot’s plane, assuming it really did crash and that she’s not still alive, having tea with JFK Jr 😊.  It’s also not normal that Georgie Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green, one of those who has voted for the release of the Epstein files is now on record warning that she might be killed for acting against the dear leader’s interests and that if she is, no one should for one minute believe that she’s committed suicide because to quote her X post: “I am not suicidal and one of the happiest healthiest people you will meet.” Also, not normal but NY politics rarely is, NYC’s “allegedly” corrupt Eric Adams has dropped out of the November mayoralty race so that now New Yorkers will get to pick between an ex-Governor, a cat guy, and a socialist who won’t condemn globalizing the intifada. And, though it was far from normal that three different corporations responded to the dear leader and his Maga follower’s insistence that Jimmy Kimmel be fired, it’s nice to report that all three of those corporations, Disney, Sinclair, and Nexstar are airing his nightly program and that his ratings are, at least for now, through the roof.

Lastly, it would be great if the dear leader’s new 21-point peace plan to end the Gaza war worked but we’ve been down this road before so who knows. #BringThemAllHomeNow   

Wishing an easy fast for all those fasting.

 

The Tool of Tyrants 🤯😱🌻✡️😱🤯

The Rapid Slide to Autocracy:  Former FBI Director James Comey is a bit of a sanctimonious prig; however, being obnoxiously self-righteous is not a crime, but apparently crossing Trump is.  Last night Lindsey Halligan, Trump’s newly appointed US Attorney for Virginia, the insurance lawyer who was plucked from her job erasing references to slavery from the Smithsonian Museums so that she could redirect her energies to going after Trump’s “enemies” convinced a Virginia Grand Jury to indict Comey despite being advised by the experienced prosecutors in her new office that the evidence against him was insufficient for a conviction.  In theory, Comey was indicted for lying to the Senate in response to a question posed by Texas Senator Ted Cruz as well as for obstructing justice for that same response but in reality, he was indicted because Trump hates him and wants to see him suffer, the same fate he wishes for Adam Schiff, Tish James, and John Bolton to name a few on his target list.  We know that Trump wanted Comey indicted because Trump, who ran on retribution and has long had Comey at the top of his enemies list, tweet ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi, who according to press reports was not supportive of the indictment, to get Comey indicted ASAP, the ASAP part because the window for indicting Comey was due to expire in five days. 

The Crime? The crimes that Comey is accused of committing relate to his testimony about whether or not he authorized his one-time deputy Andrew McCabe to leak some info about the Russia investigation to the Wall Street Journal. One of the problems with the case against Comey is that an Inspector General report concluded that McCabe “lacked candor” on the subject of the leak, while saying that Comey’s recollection of the events surrounding the leak were accurate.  That said, although former and probably future Fox commentator Jeanine Pirro has been unable to get more skeptical Washington DC grand juries to issue felony indictments for tossing hero sandwiches, the “rule” that a prosecutor could indict even a ham sandwich, largely because grand juries, unlike trial (petit) juries generally hear only from prosecutors, proved true here.  The Virginia grand jury wasn’t told about the Inspector General’s report or anything else that should make getting a guilty verdict near impossible.  Speaking as someone who once served as the foreperson of a NYS grand jury, where every case presented resulted in an indictment, the ham sandwich “rule” is almost always true.  Comey responded last night by saying “fear is the tool of the tyrant,” that he’s not afraid because he’s not guilty.  He added “I’m innocent, so let’s have a trial” and “keep the faith.”   Comey is expected to push for a speedy trial.  Not that it should matter but since it often does, the judge assigned to his case is a Biden appointee named Michael Nachmanoff. It’s fair to assume that Trump is now scouring the judge’s files for any evidence that he or any member of his family ever contributed to or said something nice about a Democrat especially George Soros, because last night Trump said that he wants Soros’ foundation to be indicted next, on RICO charges. Soros’ foundation has been pushed out of doing business in Viktor Orban’s Hungary, and we know how much Trump admires and emulates Orban.  Following the James Comey indictment, his son-in-law, Troy Edwards, Jr., resigned from his position as a senior national security prosecutor with a one sentence letter to Pam Bondi saying: “To uphold my oath to the Constitution and country, I hereby resign as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia in the Department of Justice effective immediately.” In case anyone is counting Edwards is now the third member of the Comey family affected by Trump’s campaign of retribution. More US Attorneys should follow, it’s not clear that they will.

More 💩:  Something’s rotten at the Pentagon too.  Yesterday, Defense Secretary Hegseth who has spent the last week putting the squeeze on reporters in an effort to restrict what they can and cannot report, summoned around 800 of the military’s generals and admirals to show up for a mandatory all hands meeting in Virginia next week.  As the Washington Post put it the order is “sowing confusion and alarm” because the military leaders haven’t been told the purpose of the meeting, and because of the Trump administration’s firing of numerous senior leaders this year as well as Hegseth’s statement that the firings aren’t over yet, since he wants to give 20% of them the boot.  Last night, Trump said that the importance of the meeting is being overstated, that it’s not unusual for all the military leaders to be called into one location where they’ll all be sitting ducks at once.  He’s lying, the in-person meeting is both unprecedented and a security risk. In other Pentagon news, somehow or other, use your imagination, Democratic Congresswoman/Military veteran Mikie Sherill’s complete personnel files, including even her social security number were leaked to the press this week. Sherill is currently locked in a tight battle for NJ Governor, running against the Trump supported MAGA candidate Jack Ciatarelli.  Just about everyone not named Trump or RFK, including Mehmet Oz and Trump’s favorite pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson, have dissed Trump’s command that pregnant women never, ever take Tylenol.  The collective view of the medical establishment is that since high fevers present a danger to pregnant women and their fetuses, taking Tylenol in moderation is okay.  However, since I am most definitely not a doctor, my advice is to talk to your doctor before taking anything 😊.  Together with OMB head Russel Vought, a key architect of Project 2025, Trump who cancelled his meeting with Democratic leaders Jeffries and Schumer is threatening to fire “mass numbers” of government workers if the Democratic leaders don’t throw their support behind the Republican’s continuing budget resolution. Democrats don’t appear ready to do so because at the very least they want the soon to expire subsidies for Affordable Care Act insurance premiums reinstated.  As financier/business commentator  Steve Rattner, the king of concise power point charts, explained very clearly on MSNBC’s Morning Joe yesterday, the elimination of those subsidies will put health insurance beyond the reach of millions of Americans, essentially eviscerating Obamacare and returning the percentage of the population without insurance back to pre-Obamacare levels, something that Trump and many Republican politicians have been trying to do for years.  Combine a lack of insurance with all the expected closures of hospitals, the places that the uninsured will need even more as they put off seeking routine care, lose access to primary care, and stop getting those “dangerous” vaccines and you get the picture, Munch’s The Scream rather than Van Gogh’s bucolic fields of sunflowers.  MAHA Not.

#BringThemAllHomeNow    

Bonkers 🤯😱🌻✡️😱🤯🍎🍯

Kimmel’s Back:  Jimmy Kimmel was a bit emotional last night and had nice things to say about Erika Kirk’s grace in the face of her husband’s murder, but he didn’t hold back in his criticism of Trump and FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr and their almost successful efforts to have him and his staff permanently fired in their quest to stifle speech they don’t like. Kimmel received a leg up from Robert DeNiro who played Carr in a Godfather skit that slammed Trump and Carr for their mobster like behavior. As a result of media groups Sinclair and Nexstar’s decisions to keep Kimmel in the penalty box, the show was dark in about 20% of the US market, but lots of people who don’t generally watch late time TV, me included, watched his return, making up some of the viewership loss. Before moving on to the guest portion of his show, Kimmel threw in a dig about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s newest efforts to muzzle what journalists who cover the Pentagon report.  The new policy bars media from reporting anything, even unclassified information, without Pentagon signoff, another example of the way that the Trump administration is trying to curtail all that free speech that is only okay when it meets Trump’s criteria or fawns over his “good looks,” “brilliance,” and “accomplishments.” Exercising his right to say whatever he wants, unhinged or not, Trump delivered one of his rambling diatribes to the United Nation’s General Assembly.  In his hour-long speech, he called the member countries stupid and their open border immigration policies and energy ideas, as in the recognition of climate change, suicidal, a “double-tailed monster” that “destroys everything in its wake.” He bragged about brokering peace between countries still at war or where he had little involvement although at least this time he didn’t claim that he’d successfully achieved peace between Armenia and Cambodia, two countries with no conflict to settle.  He also complained about the teleprompter being broken, threatening its operator even though it may not have been broken and was being operated by a member of the White House staff.  One of the UN escalators was broken, forcing him to walk up to his destination, something he actually managed to do cankles and all and that Melania pulled off in her usual high and spindly stilettos. The UN is a very flawed institution and there’s something seriously amiss about them routinely holding their annual meetings during holidays 🍎🍯when Israel, the country they take joy in slamming, can’t attend but even given those flaws, Trump’s speech, was seriously embarrassing.  His new-found support for all things Ukraine was weird too because who among us doesn’t believe that the mercurial TACO man will flip back into Putin’s camp at some point soon. After all, he negotiated the return of the Bagram base to the Taliban during Trump One and now insists that it should be given back so consistency is hardly one his strong points.  After Trump’s speech one foreign diplomat texted the Washington Post’s Ishaan Tharoor: “This man is stark, raving mad. Do Americans not see how embarrassing this is?” Some of us do see, apparently the rest either don’t see or don’t care. 🤯

Viral Musings:  With RFK Jr and Mehmet Oz by his side, Trump announced that the use of acetaminophen, Tylenol in the US, Paracetamol in many overseas markets, during pregnancy is a cause of autism.  The evidence for that connection is sketchy at best but Trump, who once mused about injecting bleach to cure COVID and still stands by hydroxychloroquine, isn’t much of a believer in science.  Giving another one of his unhinged speeches, he repeatedly called for pregnant women to avoid Tylenol no matter what.  The problem with that advice is that high fevers can be dangerous for pregnant women and taking Tylenol is often their only option.  The bottom line, pregnant women should follow the advice of their doctors, not Trump or almost anyone associated with his MAHA brigade.  The Trump crowd is also recommending leucovorin, a form of folate, also referred to as folinic acid. The drug is given to some cancer patients receiving treatments that block folate pathways because cells need folate. Several small studies have studied the drug’s impact on children with autism and found improvements in verbal and social skills, particularly among children whose mothers’ folate levels were low during pregnancy. Scientists say the studies had a number of weaknesses and need to be reproduced on a larger scale but leucovorin, while not a cure all, could help some autistic children.  However, there are side effects to taking leucovorin so again this is one to be discussed with your medical team rather than the president who plays one on TV and his sidekicks, some of whom may have ulterior motives or maybe even investments that would benefit from a run on the drug.  And lastly, while it’s true that autism rates have grown significantly, much of that increase is attributable to the broadening definition of autism, more awareness, and improved diagnosis rather than Tylenol and/or vaccines, another one of the MAHA contingents’ bugaboos.    

More 💩:  Yesterday Trump abruptly cancelled the meeting that he’d agreed to hold with Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries.  The purpose of that meeting was to hammer out a deal to keep the country funded past the end of the month.  The Democrats want the government to keep funding Affordable Care subsidies and to reinstate some, if not all, of the Medicaid money that was cut by Trump’s big not so beautiful bill.  Without the subsidies, premium costs are expected to increase dramatically, putting insurance out of the reach of many.  The Medicaid cuts will also leave many without care and lead to the closing of hospitals, particularly those in rural communities.  The blame game has just begun.  In other political news, as expected Democrat Adelita Grijalva won the Arizona special election to fill the House seat left vacant by the death of her father, Raúl Grijalva.  She will be sworn in early next month when in addition to upping the size of the Democratic caucus, she is expected to provide the remaining vote needed for the discharge petition that could force the release of the Epstein files. And yes, despite Trump’s shiny objects efforts, Epstein remains an issue.  Lastly, Trump has declared antifa to be a domestic terrorist organization despite antifa not being an organization. What he’s really doing is justifying targeting left wing groups and the people who fund them while ignoring that the majority of domestic terrorism originates on the right.

#BringThemAllHomeNow   

 

Apples and Honey  🤯😱🌻✡️😱🤯🍎 🍯

Hate and Retribution: Yesterday during the memorial service for Charlie Kirk, Trump stated that he hates his opponents and doesn’t wish any of them well, not a surprising statement given that he ran for office promising retribution but still an alarming message from a president of a country founded on democratic principles.  So much for soothing the nation or taking the high ground.  Then again, he took to Truth Social on Saturday night to demand that Attorney General Pam Bondi more aggressively prosecute his “enemies,” including NY AG Letitia James, former FBI Director James Comey, Senator Adam Shiff, and former national security official John Bolton, calling them “all guilty as hell.” His post went on to say "We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!"  Replace JUSTICE with PAYBACK to get what he really means. To hammer his point home, Trump forced the resignation of Erik Siebert, the career prosecutor who he had earlier promoted to be the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Siebert’s transgression: concluding that since he didn’t have evidence to convict Letitia James of mortgage fraud, there was no point in trying to indict her. Siebert also had made no progress indicting James Comey, who hasn’t committed any indictable crimes though he did start the Trump ball rolling by mucking up the 2016 election with his sanctimonious statements about Hillary Clinton and her emails.   Trump appointed Florida attorney Lindsey Halligan to replace Siebert.  Halligan, an insurance claims lawyer with no prosecutorial experience previously served as one of Trump’s personal lawyers.  Her most recent assignment included rooting out radical ideology at the Smithsonian Museums. It’s fair to assume that once she locates her desk, Siebert will try to indict Tish James, and who knows maybe unlike Jeanine Pirro, the former Foxy who is now the US Attorney for DC, who has been having trouble indicting Washington DC denizens for felonies that aren’t felonies, she’ll get an indictment from a Virginia grand jury, but getting a conviction will likely be near impossible. Kelly Hayes, the career prosecutor currently serving as US Attorney for Maryland could be Trump’s next target.  She’s been tasked with prosecuting Senator Adam Schiff for “mortgage fraud” and John Bolton,  for mishandling information.  She has told her colleagues “that she was under no illusions of the pressure she would face if she refused to bring cases she believed to be unsupported by evidence.” Weird thing about all that alleged mortgage fraud is that their only crimes when committed by Trump’s opponents, not much of a concern for his cabinet members, a list that has grown to include Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. And even weirder, mishandling secret stuff, that was okay when it was Trump stashing documents in Mar a Lago’s ballroom and toilet.  Also, apparently no one in Trump’s orbit was particularly concerned that before the 2024 election, Border Czar Tom Homan was caught accepting $50,000 in cash from FBI agents posing as businessman though they’re probably less than pleased that the facts about his case have just been published. Homan who was not a target of the FBI sting, got caught up in the operation when, taking a page from the forced out former VP Spiro Agnew,  he accepted the bag of money and agreed to help the  “businessmen”  secure future government contracts related to border security.  The funniest part about this episode is that the cash was hidden in one of those yellow Cava bag that have become so ubiquitous in my neighborhood, the not so funny part is that Homan spends his days crowing about the administration’s brutal treatment of migrants, none of whom are served tasty Cava Mediterranean salads when they’re thrown into INS holding pens or end up in overseas gulags.

Media and Tech: Moving forward, H1-B visas, the ones sought by skilled technology workers, will cost $100,000 per applicant.  That’s a problem for those seeking employment in the US, and also a problem for all the technology firms and banks seeking workers with the types of skills that they say and maybe are in short supply in the US. The tech titans who run the firms who need these workers have written bigly checks to Trump to forestall this, but at least for now their largesse has been trumped by mini- Goebbels Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon’s nativist positions.  Odds are that they’ll work out their differences, but in the meantime, no one should be all that concerned about those pro-Trump tech titans.  Over the weekend Trump announced that he’s closing in on finalizing an agreement to wrest control of Tik-Tok from its “manipulative” Chinese owners. His deal will involve handing over the reins of Tik-Tok and its valuable algorithm to a group including tech and media giants Larry Ellison, Michael Dell, and Lachlan Murdoch, the pro-Trump scion who recently emerged as the winner of the battle to take over his father Rupert’s media empire. Assuming the Tik-Tok deal goes through, Trump will be one step closer to having achieved his goal of getting US media into the hands of his conservative allies. Not that all of his wishes are coming true.  Late last week, US district court judge Steven Merryday from Tampa, Florida tossed his $15 billion defamation case against the NY Times saying that the suit was filled with “vituperation and invective” and violated civil procedure in federal cases for failing to get to the point. The judge, who wasn’t all that interested in a reading about why it was a crime to ignore Trump’s brilliant moves on the Apprentice, gave his lawyers 28 days to refile, but told them to keep their argument on topic and brief.  Even then he may toss the case because endorsing Trump’s opponents is not a crime or at least wasn’t one before Trump started killing the First Amendment and going after Disney, ABC, CBS and so on.  Jimmy Kimmel is still out of a job and people have started cancelling their Disney subscriptions but isn’t that part of Trump’s game plan?

Viral Musings:  As expected, on Friday, RFK’s vaccination panel further dissed COVID vaccines no longer recommending that anyone, even those over 65 get the jab. That contradicts the already watered down recommendations provided by the CDC earlier this month. The vaccine panel’s view is that anyone crazy enough to want one of those “killer” RNA shots first get a prescription from their doctor. The good news is that if you live in one of the western states (California, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington) or eastern states (Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont) and probably a few others  on the verge of joining one of the two groups, you will still have easy access to COVID shots and other vaccines.  The not so good news is that access in the rest of the country will be patchy and more restrictive and, really, why should Florida, the home of lots of elderly people care about keeping their vulnerable residents healthy anyway.  We’re closing in on another one of those government funding deadlines and the major issues separating Democrats and Republicans relates to health care funding. More people without affordable health insurance and fewer hospitals to treat them when they get sick.  That’s going to be a bigly problem especially when all those unvaccinated people start seeking emergency room care for COVID, the flu, measles and whatever comes next. 

Fog:  Vladimir Putin has concluded that Trump won’t do anything to stop him and given that Trump has characterized his incursions into the air space of Poland, Estonia, and Romania as mere accidents, who’s to disagree. Putin keeps ramping up his attack on Ukraine while Trump dithers.  Similarly, Trump’s Middle East peace efforts are bearing no fruit because maybe sending one’s real estate buddy to solve an intractable problem isn’t the best approach.  More countries recognizing Palestine probably isn’t what Trump intended either but not surprising.  Hamas is still doing its thing. Bibi is Bibi.  The hostages are still hostages.  And now Trump wants the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan back or else. So much for peace on day one. 

#BringThemAllHomeNow

Shanah Tova 🍎 🍯

 

The Hungary Games 🐭🤯😱🌻✡️😱🤯🐭  

Mouse 🐭Traps: We’re all Hungarians now, and Russian, and Chinese.  US Media companies now risk extortion and extinction by a vindictive leader and his hired hands, like FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr who says that any coverage of Trump that he deems overly hostile can be decreed contrary to the public interest and thus grounds for yanking licenses.  That’s a threat that major media companies, particularly those seeking approval for mergers or acquisitions find troubling, a partial explanation for why ABC owner Disney, was so quick to dump, or temporarily sideline late night host Jimmy Kimmel. Kimmel’s purported infraction: talking truth on late night TV about how Charlie Kirk’s murder is being used as a MAGA rallying cry. His real “crime,” a history of offending Trump who, taking a page from the Viktor Orban playbook, has repeatedly said that he wants those who mock him on TV, particularly popular and funny late-night TV hosts, fired. How ironic that Charlie Kirk was an advocate of free speech, even ugly speech, not that Kimmel’s was ugly.  The cowering 🐭🐭 feared that failure to punish Kimmel would put their HULU acquisition plans in jeopardy while conservative, pro-Trump media companies Sinclair and Nexstar, who were first on the dump Kimmel bandwagon are both owners of large numbers of local stations with growth strategies that rely on the Trump administration waiving restrictions on the number of local stations they can own. As the 🐭🐭 proved when they coughed up millions as an “apology” when ABC’s George Stephanopolus said something that the thin-skinned one, or the perfectly tinted one as Jon Stewart facetiously called him last night, was offended, throwing stars and their staff under the bus is policy now because profits trump decency and in Trump’s America decency is not a thing.  When the🐭🐭 should be directing their energies to protesting against the changes in Florida vaccine policies that could turn their parks into virus laden petri dishes, they’re instead kowtowing to MAGA demands.  One more thing on the media front,  before Trump left for his UK trip, where he delivered a nonsensical and garbled speech, he slammed a reporter from Australia’s national station for asking how much wealthier he had become since becoming president again.  The retribution did not take long. UK officials removed the Australian station from the list of outlets invited to cover Trump and Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s UK press conference.  Autocracy, like measles, is contagious.

More Retribution:  On Wednesday, the Fed Reserve Bank cut interest rates by a quarter point while also signaling two more similar cuts before year end.  Only Trump’s newly appointed governor, Stephen Miran, voted against the quarter-point move, instead advocating for an immediate half-point cut.  Trump wants more Miran’s on the Federal Reserve Board which is why he’s still trying to get Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook fired.  Also, she’s Black, and we know how he feels about Black women in high places.  Despite recent evidence indicating that Cook did not commit the mortgage fraud that Trump’s partner in evil, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte claims she committed, yesterday Trump asked the Supreme Court to allow him to fire her ASAP.  It’s not just Cook that Trump wants ousted, he is also expected to fire Erik Siebert, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.  Siebert’s infraction is that his office was unable to “find” evidence that New York Attorney General Letitia James knowingly committed mortgage fraud. Trump officials want Siebert to seek an indictment against James anyway, something that Siebert refuses to do, so he’s been notified that his firing is imminent. Trump plans to appoint someone more willing to follow through.  Maybe he can figure out a way to transfer Alina Habba in from New Jersey where she’s mostly twiddling her thumbs these days? Siebert’s office has also been tasked with finding “proof” that Senator Adam Schiff, another one of Trump’s “enemies,” committed mortgage fraud that he likely did not commit.

Viral Musings:  Susan Monarez who served as CDC head for a few Scaramucci’s before being ousted by RFK Jr for failing to pre-approve his cockamamie, unscientific plans to change childhood vaccine schedules and COVID shot recommendations testified before the Senate’s health committee on Wednesday.  She was impressive, so impressive that a number of Republican Senators focused their questions on her decision to hire an “anti-Trump” lawyer instead of her medical and scientific concerns. One, Oklahoma’s Markwayne Mullin even claimed to have a tape that proved Monarez had lied about her disputed conversation with RFK. When asked for the tape, he backtracked, admitting that it doesn’t exist. It’s fair to assume that Bill Pulte wasn’t able to find a whiff of mortgage fraud in his files or they would have accused Monarez of that too.  Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, the committee’s chair who voted for RFK’s confirmation even though he knew better, did stick with the science.  Cassidy, a gastroenterologist and liver disease expert, believes in vaccines, and is especially supportive of the hepatitis B vaccine typically given to babies within 24 hours of their birth. He explained that early delivery of the first dose of the vaccine is necessary because the shot protects babies from catching hepatitis from their mothers during delivery.  RFK Jr, who is not a doctor and who has no scientific background, wants administration of the Hep B vaccine delayed until children are four, so what if quite a few of the babies become hepatitis positive before then. While they haven’t addressed the Hep B vaccine yet, yesterday, RFK’s newly formed ACIP (vaccine) committee issued its first “recommendation,” voting to no longer recommend the combined measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella (MMRV) vaccine for children under age 4.  Doctors, particularly those in the northeastern and western states that have teamed up to stick with the science will still be able to administer and be reimbursed for shots according to the previous schedules, the problem is other states and the 49% of children who receive their medical care through CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) or Medicaid; it’s not clear that those providers will be able to stray from the new ACIP recommendations which in addition to being based on whim rather than science will require more doctor’s visits, another impediment to care.  Once again, the neediest among us will suffer the most.  MAHA Not.

More 💩:  Trump appointed US District Judge Timothy Kelly has blocked the administration’s efforts to deport hundreds of Guatemalan children back to Guatemala, concluding that the administration’s claims about the operation had “crumbled like a house of cards. The administration had claimed that the children’s parents wanted them sent back to Guatemala. Turns out that was a boldfaced lie.  

#BringThemAllHomeNow

 

No Speech For You 🤯😱🌻✡️😱🤯

Free Speech?  Apparently, free speech is only free when uttered by MAGA Republicans, the rest of us not so much. At least that’s the opinion of Attorney General Pam Bondi, VP Vance, and their Dear Leader.  Yesterday, Bondi who must have snoozed through her Constitutional Law class, said she would  “absolutely target” protesters engaging in “hate speech” while claiming she had authority to investigate businesses that refused to print memorial vigil posters for the Charlie Kirk.  Hate speech isn’t pretty but it’s legal or at least has been until now.  Also, Bondi’s definition of hate speech is anything that ties Trump’s diapers in a knot which is just about anything that doesn’t feed his ego, a far cry from inciting violence, the only speech that isn’t protected by the First Amendment.  As to the posters, given that the Supreme Court has ruled that bakers can’t be forced to make wedding cakes for same sex couples, going after those who won’t print posters is also a stretch. After a number of very conservative pundits and politicians, including Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Fox’s Brit Hume schooled her on the Constitution, Bondi walked back her threats a smidge but she’s walking a fine line because her boss Trump, his wannabe Goebbels Stephen Millers, Veep Vance, and Deputy AG Todd Blanche who like Vance knows better but is all in on toeing Trump’s line, are still talking about going after anyone who speaks out against Trump.  To that end, yesterday Trump sued the “degenerate” NY Times and four of the paper’s reporters, including Susanne Craig, Russ Buettner, Peter Baker, and Michael S. Schmidt for $15 billion.  Their crimes:  endorsing Kamala Harris for president and writing probing articles about his questionable finances including the recent one about the UAE getting previously restricted artificial intelligence chips at the same time that the Trump crowd reaped crypto profits. The paper and its lawyers called the suit frivolous saying that the “lawsuit has no merit. It lacks any legitimate legal claims and instead is an attempt to stifle and discourage independent reporting.”  They went on to say that the NY Times “will not be deterred by intimidation tactics.” They’re right, the lawsuit is frivolous and without merit, but then again Trump has managed to “extort“ ABC, CBS, and Paramount for millions of dollars, not to mention all the now less than prestigious law firms that have coughed up money and promised to provide him with pro bono services. Paul Weiss has lots of good litigators, maybe one or more of them will represent him on this one?

Political Winds: Tim Walz, the one-time Democratic Vice President candidate and current Governor of Minnesota, announced yesterday that he is running for a third term in 2026.  Former Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan, the Trump critic who endorsed Kamala Harris in 2024 and who recently changed his party affiliation to Democrat announced that he’s running for Governor in 2026, to replace the state’s term limited Republican Governor Brian Kemp.  After George Secretary of State Brian Raffensperger refused to gin up 12,000 plus votes for Trump in 2020, Biden won the state, Trump then won it in 2024 so who knows, maybe Duncan can pull off the switcheroo in the purplish state where Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff is up for reelection. Republicans view Ossoff’s seat as a possible pick-up or hope it’s a pick-up so expect boatloads of money to be spent in the peachy state this cycle.  Maine Republican Susan Collins is also up for reelection during the midterms. Though she hasn’t announced her plans yet, it’s expected that she will run for reelection.  Though it’s fun to make fun of Collins and her pearl twisting, she’s well liked in Maine or at least liked enough to win elections so to date efforts to unseat her haven’t panned out. Democratic leader Chuck Schumer is hoping to persuade Maine’s 77-year- old term limited Governor Janet Mills to run against the 72-year-old Collins but it’s not clear that Mill’s is interested.  In the meantime, Bernie Sanders and AOC have endorsed 40-year-old oyster farmer and military veteran Graham Platner, a progressive political newbie who is seeking the Democratic nomination.  It’s not clear that their endorsements will get Platner to the finish line in Maine but then again who knows and while Mills is on the old side, Sanders is hardly a spring chicken, nor is Vermont’s newbie Senator Peter Welch who is 78, so maybe New England isn’t bothered by age.  For the record, both of Maine’s Congressional Representatives are Democrats, one 70-year-old Chellie Pingree is progressive while the other is 43-year- old centrist Jared Golden.

More 💩:   FBI Director Kash Patel performed as expected during yesterday’s Senate hearings.  He was rude, evasive, and “pugilistic.”  His performance, particularly his verbal tussle with California’s Adam Schiff, probably earned him points with Trump but showed once again that when you choose a conspiracy minded podcaster to serve as head of the FBI, you get what you ordered rather than competency, a Shanda (Yiddish for shame) because during these challenging times we really could use competency.  No one should be surprised to learn that the Department of Justice deleted a study on the politics of domestic terrorism from its website this week because the study indicated that “right wing violence continue to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism,” hardly the reality that Trump, his DOJ and FBI, want to talk about while they’re out weaponizing Charlie Kirk’s assassination to take down radical liberals as in anyone to the left of MAGA. Ironically, Kirk was a free speech absolutist, another one of those things that the Trump team would prefer we forget.  On the Make America Sick Again front, RFK’s handpicked Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) panel, bolstered by some more of his not so competent appointees, is due to meet this week.  They will be focusing on vaccines for hepatitis B, COVID, and measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella. The expectation is they will impose further restrictions on vaccine administration, endangering the health of all of us, especially children and the elderly. Separately, the recently fired CDC head Susan Monarez and several of her ousted colleagues are due to testify today in front of the Senate Health Committee where Monarez is expected to say that she was fired for refusing to provide carte blanche signoff on RFK’s conspiracy laden and science devoid anti-vax policies. Lastly, Trump is enroute to the UK where he will be greeted by lots of reminders of the Epstein affair, including a film projected onto Windsor Castle, but maybe not by Queen Camilla who is either suffering from acute sinusitis or just doesn’t want to be anywhere near him.

#BringThemAllHomeNow   

                                                

Bad, Horrifying, Wrong 🤯 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤯

🤯 😱 🤯 😱:  Charlie Kirk’s assassination was horrifying. The views he professed were awful too. It should be okay to say that without being accused of celebrating his terrifying murder but apparently that is a problem, at least for some people and some companies which is in itself part of the problem confronting us, a problem amplified and distorted by social media.  Trump who was largely silent when Minnesota politician Melissa Hortman and her husband were murdered, who consistently responds to school shootings by invoking the overused “thoughts and prayers” trope, and who still jokes about the brutal beating of Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul, has come out swinging, blaming radical leftist Democrats and George Soros for Kirk’s death because he blames them for everything and why not use Kirk’s murder as another cudgel against those he considers his enemies which includes just about anyone who isn’t in his MAGA tent or hasn’t sent a minimum of $1 million his way. Thus, Kirk will be getting a posthumous Presential Medal of Honor while all those other victims get his John McCain treatment.  Trump’s outrage is even more over the top than usual because Kirk was in his family circle, a position he earned by employing his Turning Point USA platform to grow Trump’s support among young conservative voters, something that helped Trump win the popular vote in 2024. Kirk was unquestionably a force to be reckoned with. He left college after only one semester but took to politics like he had doctorates in sociology, psychology, and political science.  According to the internet he had a net worth of at least $12 million, not bad for a 31-year-old college dropout.  As noted by the NY Times, his views were extremely right wing.  He criticized the separation of church and state, disdained all things LGTBQ, and was such a strong supporter of gun rights that he said: “it’s worth it to have a cost of unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment,” though he probably didn’t contemplate that he’d be one of those losing his life. He believed the Civil Right Act of 1964 was a mistake, called Martin Luther King an awful person, and said that Harvard College and Law School graduate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was a “diversity hire,” though given the commonality of their views he had no problem with Justice Clarence Thomas who he thought was a great role model for Black people. Like the Charlottesville tiki torch marchers who chanted “Jews will not replace us” he was a proponent of Replacement Theory.  He also rejected climate change, saying it was complete gibberish, but to be fair he probably didn’t take any science courses during his one college semester. Kirk was also a staunch opponent of abortion even for ten-year-old rape victims and thought that women should prioritize motherhood and marriage because feminism was detrimental and would leave them angry and bitter. Ironically, his wife who has already taken to social media to raise money off of his death, is hardly a shrinking violet, rather she’s a former Miss Arizona with three degrees. His extreme positions resonated with the MAGA right which viewed him as a hero. Before last week’s shooting many of the rest of us may have been familiar with his name but probably knew little about him but now we’re to believe that he was a hero, right up there with Abraham Lincoln and George Washington because saying otherwise could come with consequences.  Given Trump’s personal foibles, multiple marriages, proclivity for porn stars and Playmates, and admiration for first daughter Ivanka’s “accomplishments,” it’s hard to believe that he bought into all of Kirk’s beliefs, but he did share a lot of them particularly the racist ones, but more than anything he loved the voters Kirk delivered. It’s not just Trump, JD Vance considered Kirk to be among his closest friends (his only friend?), or at the very least a valuable friend because getting Kirk’s endorsement would have been key to him getting first dibs at the mantle he hopes to grab upon Trump’s exit, assuming that is that the Orange one ever exits. With Kirk out of the picture, JD will have to find himself another charismatic leader to latch on to because while he has the support of billionaire Peter Thiel and his friends who are good providers of funds, they have far less sway among the MAGA right, particularly those who share Kirk’s anti LGBTQ views.    

The Shooter: It turns out that the shooter who won’t be cited by name here is not a radical Soros funded Democrat nor transgender but unsurprisingly fits the profile of most of those who commit this type of heinous crime.  He’s a 22-year-old once promising college drop-out who grew up in a conservative household in Utah a state with few limitations on gun ownership.  He was heavy into online gaming and despite initial assertions that the messages he wrote on his bullets had to do with gender ideology they were more likely gaming terms and/or reflected his interest or alliance with Groypers.  You’d be excused for not knowing that Groypers refers to an alt-right white nationalist group led by Nick Fuentes, the neo-Nazi who once dined at Mar a Lago together with Kanye West but who has since been more or less been banished from the MAGA bandwagon for being too extreme.  Apparently, Fuentes and his Groyper followers weren’t all that fond of Kirk because as part of his efforts to become more acceptable to the mainstream, Turning Point USA and Kirk had been excluding Fuentes and his supporters from their events. That said, no one is sure what motivated the shooter, least of all FBI Director Kash Patel who by making several inaccurate announcements during the run up to his arrest proved that appointing a conspiracy spreading podcaster as FBI Director wasn’t the most brilliant decision but instead was right up there with putting someone who abhors vaccines in charge of health care. And no one should be surprised to learn that earlier this year the head of the local FBI office, an experienced and respected agent was fired.  Her crime, she is a woman of Pakistani heritage.

Shiny Object Alert:  Trump is already milking Kirk’s death for all it’s worth.  The tragedy is serving as a useful distraction from all those other things that are looming over his head: Ukraine, Gaza, the pissed off Qataris, his buddy former President of Brazil Bolsonaro’s guilty verdict and 27-year sentence, the questionable missile attack of the Venezuelan “drug” boat, the faltering economy, and Epstein. We should all be concerned because despite a few Republicans like Utah Governor Spencer Cox sounding kind of reasonable, far more on the right are calling for retribution or worse.  Stephen “Goebbels” Miller who Rolling Stone reports is the architect and implementer of Trump’s worst immigration policies, took to Fox to declare that he and Trump should use the shooting to “dismantle” left-wing organizations saying that Kirk’s final message to him was the importance of taking on the “radical left organizations in this country that are fomenting violence."  Elon Musk posted on X where he has 219 million followers that "the Left is the party of murder" adding "if they won't leave us in peace, then our choice is fight or die."  Steve Bannon said, "Charlie Kirk is a casualty of the political war," adding for those who missed his point that "We are at war in this country." Along those lines, Fox’s Jesse Waters said we are at war, presumably with the left or anyone who isn’t MAGA, while asking what are we going to do about it?  As if the environment isn’t treacherous enough MSNBC, which is one of those so-called radical left entities that the Miller’s and Bannon’s want destroyed, fired political contributor Matthew Dowd for saying that Kirk may have “fueled the violence that took his life.” Dowd probably said that too soon but in addition to hardly being the worst thing said this week, given what we’ve learned about Kirk’s view about guns wasn’t far off the mark and certainly wasn’t the same as saying that the murder was justified because to be clear it was definitely not. Worth noting that while Dowd is out, Fox’s Brian Kilmeade isn’t because all he said was that homeless people should be euthanized.  #WTF

More 💩 :  Switching gears if that is even possible, Trump is still trying to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook even though recently revealed documents show that, she did not claim her second home as a primary residence but instead appropriately referred to it as a vacation home on her loan documents, so no crime other than being a Black woman who supports Jerome Powell’s interest rate strategy.  Peter Mandelson who until last week was the UK Ambassador to the US has resigned, a casualty of the Epstein mess but Teflon Trump remains unscathed, at least so far, aided by a DOJ that continues to sit on documents while probably also dangling a pardon in front of abettor Ghislaine Maxwell in exchange for her silence.  Also Trump is talking up war with Venezuela, putting more conditions on the imposition of Russia sanctions, and trying to figure out a way to keep his Qatari friends happy all while getting ready to occupy Memphis because he’s figured out that going after Democratically led cities in Republican states is easier than going after the ones run by articulate Democratic governors particularly those who relish the opportunity to get national attention for their future presidential runs, assuming we still have presidential elections.

#BringThemAllHomeNow       

Blue Birthdays 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

Epstein, Epstein, Epstein:  The infamous Jeffrey Epstein birthday book is now in public and as first reported by the Wall Street Journal it includes a graphic note from Trump. Despite Trump’s assertion that he doesn’t doodle, a lie which was quickly followed up by his admission that he does doodle but that his doodles only include buildings, his note to Epstein includes an outline of a naked female torso with some suggestive text.  Trump and his spokesperson, the duplicitous Karoline Leavitt, continue to assert that he didn’t write the note that he wrote. To bolster their claim, they both say that the first name only signature is “obviously” a forgery, insisting that Trump always signs his full name. Unfortunately for Trump, there are many examples of him signing missives with only his first name and most of them, including one he sent to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, include the same ending flourish that is on the Epstein note. Trump hasn’t yet withdrawn his $10 billion lawsuit against WSJ publisher Dow Jones & Co., News Corp., Rupert Murdoch, and the two reporters responsible for first revealing what he calls the forged note but it’s likely he will at some point because discovery would be a disaster for him.  Maybe he’s waiting for a suitable diversion, something like a nuclear attack. Of course, his usual enablers, including Speaker Mike Johnson and a few right-wing press outlets are sticking with him, agreeing that if he said he didn’t write and sign the note, then he didn’t.  Over the weekend Johnson claimed that the only reason Trump was so intertwined in Epstein’s life is because he was working as an undercover agent for the FBI, a claim so absurd that even Leavitt denied it.  Johnson has retracted his ridiculous lie maybe because if Trump is a mole, he’s not working for the US. 

🎂 📕 Details: The contributions to the Epstein birthday book run the gamut from Bill Clinton’s rather benign birthday wish to some seriously icky sexually explicit notes, an indication that most of Epstein’s buddies knew all about his predilection for young girls and that some likely partook of his “offerings.”  One of those icky notes includes a picture of Epstein with two other men at Mar a Lago holding an oversized “novelty” check bearing a Trump signature, along with a note suggesting Epstein had “sold” Trump a “depreciated” woman for $22,500.  Depreciated in this context likely meaning a woman over the age of consent.  Though the check and the signature that accompany it are clearing false, they indicate that the Epstein’s friends were all in on the joke, the “joke” being Epstein and his pedophilia. Some joke.  The Epstein estate, the provider of the Epstein birthday book, plans to release more of its files soon. The Massie/Khanna discharge petition still hasn’t passed through the House but will soon be short only one vote since last night, as expected, Democrat James Walkinshaw won a special election for the seat that opened up following the death of Congressman Gerry Connolly. Another special election for a safe Democratic seat in Arizona takes place on September 23, after that the discharge petition is expected to have all the votes it needs for passage. Trump must be very concerned about what’s in the Epstein files.  Why else would he be lying so much and trying so hard to block them?  Earlier this week Trump told attendees at an event at Washington’s Museum of the Bible that statistics about how much his use of troops were reducing crime in DC would be better if only local officials would stop including domestic violence data because “incidents that take place in the home” such as a man’s “little fight with the wife” shouldn’t count.  During a 1990 divorce deposition Trump’s first wife Ivana, the one buried at his NJ golf club, accused him of rape, just one of those little fights that shouldn’t count? Is it a stretch to believe that Trump knew all about Epstein activities? During her interview with Deputy Attorney General Blanche, Ghislaine Maxwell noted that a few of Trump’s cabinet members were friends of Epstein’s, something that Blanche curiously did not follow-up on.  Moreover, the NY Times wrote this week about how various senior bankers at JP Morgan facilitated Epstein’s curious financial activities with one admitting that he also had sex with at least one of Epstein’s “girls.” To be clear, we haven’t seen any proof of Trump doing that, but his comments about domestic violence combined with all his denials and deception are hardly exonerating.    

Law and the Economy:  Trump notched a few legal victories this week.  By a vote of 6 to 3, the Supreme Court said that at least for now it’s fine for roving federal agents to conduct immigration stops using factors like race or language to identify individuals because if you speak Spanish or have brown skin, you are obviously guilty of something? Justice Kavanaugh seemed particularly unconcerned about the targeting, saying it was reasonable to briefly question people who meet multiple “common sense” criteria for possible illegal presence, including employment in day labor or construction, and limited English proficiency. The very white, privileged Kavanaugh seemed unconcerned that “briefly” sometimes means being tossed into jail here or abroad for a few days or weeks. Today’s NY Times reports that the same team who brought us Project 2025 want Chief Justice Roberts to step aside so that Kavanaugh can replace him as Chief.  Last night Roberts, who at least for now is still the Chief, said that it was okay for Trump to continue to freeze $5 billion that Congress had appropriated for foreign aid, at least for now.  The Court also announced that in response to the Trump administration’s request, they would soon take up his tariff appeal.  Though many pundits believe, and the tariff and appeals court have ruled, that most of Trump’s tariffs are illegal taxes, Trump appears to have SCOTUS in his pocket so who knows what they will decide. Maybe they will buy into Trump and Treasury Secretary Bessent’s arguments that tariffs imposed without Congressional approval are legal and that even if they aren’t, they should be left in place because rescinding them could cost Treasury bigly if they have to pay back what they’ve already collected.  The Justices have job security so they might not be all that concerned that the tariffs appear to be making the economy, which JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon warns is “weakening,” worse.  It doesn’t help that, as revealed by yesterday’s data revisions, the job situation is 911,000 people worse than what was previously reported. In other legal news, last night a federal judge in Washington DC, temporarily blocked Trump from firing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.  Cook is the Governor that Trump wants ousted claiming she lied on her mortgage applications, the crime that’s only a crime when done by Democrats, and okay for Trump’s Cabinet members.  He wants her out so that he can exert control over Federal Reserve decision making, another one of those things that could add to economic uncertainty and translate into more woes.

Fog:  The Russians have been bombing the bejesus out of Ukraine and yesterday about 20 or so of the hundreds of drones that they used to attack Ukraine crossed into Poland’s airspace. Calling the invasion of their airspace, a provocation, Poland, with the help of some of our other NATO allies, shot down four of the Russian drones, an escalation of the conflict that Trump was going to end on day one of Trump 2.0. Also, yesterday in retaliation for an attack by Palestinian terrorists in Jerusalem that resulted in the killing of six Israelis and the wounding of dozens more, Israel led by the trigger-happy Bibi launched an attack against Hamas leadership.  That’s not unusual, the unusual part is that the targeted leadership was in Qatar. The Israelis said that they alerted the US in advance, but Trump denied that he knew about their plans. That Qatar is where many members of Hamas’ leadership reside is hardly a secret, but Israel actually attacking Qatar to takeout some of their leaders was a bit of a shocker, even for Trump who probably is now a bit worried that not only won’t he get his coveted Nobel Peace Prize but that the Qataris might ask for their plane back. None of this is good, peace is that much more elusive, and the hostages are still hostages.

#BringThemAllHomeNow  

 

Apocalypse Now🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

War: Last week Trump changed the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War.  Remember when Nobel Prize seeking, draft dodger Trump said that he would end all wars on day one of this administration, forget about that.  In addition to sending the wrong message about solving disputes peacefully, the name change is technically illegal because name changes require Congressional action, but legitimate or not Secretary of “War” Pete Hegseth has already started changing signs and stationery.  Depending on who you ask, the rebranding will cost somewhere north of $100 million, maybe closer to $1 billion, hardly in keeping with that whole DOGE thing but then again, DOGE was never really about cutting costs or efficiency, it was always about exerting control, deregulating, and keeping millionaire tax cuts intact. Costs aside, the renaming also sends a combative and threatening message to allies and “enemies,” but then again so did blowing up an alleged drug smuggling boat and its eleven occupants without first establishing that they really were drug smugglers or even just boarding the boat and arresting its occupants. Trump isn’t only threatening foreign enemies, over the weekend he, or more likely someone in his communications department, posted a message of  a svelte version of Trump along aside a “Chipocalypse” label threatening to go to war against Chicago, saying “I love the smell of deportations in the morning…. Chicago is about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR 🚁 🚁🚁.”  Yesterday, before embarking on his trip to the US Tennis Open, Trump sort of walked back his threat to attack Chicago, but who is he kidding?  It’s hardly a coincidence that his minions felt that they had to warn the USTA that the sensitive 🥭maniac didn’t want any of the booing they knew would accompany his arrival at the NYC tennis center broadcasted. The order was disregarded, there was booing, and it was aired. Unfortunately, the Chicago attack will probably unfold sometime this week.  The Chicago invasion will involve the rounding up of undocumented workers under the guise of ridding the city of crime. The red state Governors with cities with higher crime rates who’ve been sitting on the sidelines applauding Trump’s actions, maybe they should stop because they’re not immune either.  On Thursday, Homeland Security raided a Georgia construction site for what is supposed to become a “sprawling” electric battery plant.  They detained somewhere around 300 mostly South Korean workers. When completed, assuming it is completed, the battery plant which Governor Kemp lobbied hard to have built in his state, is supposed to provide around 8500 jobs.  Trump has now deeply offended South Korea, a staunch ally, who has been doing what he says he wants, moving production into the US. At least the South Korean workers will be luckier than most of the migrants that Homeland has been rounding up as they won’t be sent to a gulag facility, their government has chartered a plane to bring them home.  The plant will probably still be built, but it will take longer, and some hurt egos will now need to be unruffled through diplomacy rather than hostile actions. As to the 8500 jobs it looks like we need them now more than ever because as indicated by Friday’s anemic job figures, Trump’s economy is not humming along because tariffs are taxes and they cause wary corporations to act cautiously.  Moreover, firing boatloads of government employees affects them as well as lots of people and small businesses in their orbit.  There are now fewer job openings and unemployment is up.  But not to worry, because Trump’s economic gurus insist that of all that is Biden’s fault, and that if we wait long enough there will be a major turnaround, or at the very least, they’ll get better at falsifying statistical data in the hopes that no one notices that their grocery bill is increasing while their paychecks are disappearing.

MAHA Not:  In keeping with combat, deception, and discombobulation, Health Secretary RFK testified before the Senate last week.  It did not go well.  He lied about almost everything, called the recently fired CDC Director Susan Monarez a liar, misstated “facts,” and engaged in verbal battles with the Senate panel, a group that included two Republican doctors, Senators Bill Cassidy and John Barasso, who both appeared shocked to learn that that the anti-vaccine RFK lied to them during his confirmation hearing when he promised not to implement anti-vaccine policies. RFK answered yes to Republican Senator/Doctor Bill Cassidy’s disingenuous question as to whether Trump should receive a Nobel prize for getting the COVID vaccine out so quickly during the pandemic but then immediately followed up by trashing the vaccine.  He also said that the COVID vaccine really didn’t save lives because those CDC statistics about more than one million being saved could not be believed. He even denied that the Trump’s beautiful budget bill cut Medicaid, a stunning statement given the bill includes almost $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts.  After the hearing, Trump reaffirmed his support for his pocket Kennedy because of course he did but even he appears confused about Kennedy’s dissing of his vaccine. A few western blue state Governors are now forming a health care alliance to replace some of the information that will no longer be provided by the CDC and they and a few others are taking actions to ensure that the COVID vaccine remains available in their states.  On Friday New York Governor Hochul ordered that providers in NYS provide the vaccine to everyone who previously qualified for it. To that end over the weekend Walgreens (Duane Reade) eliminated its requirement that those seeking COVID vaccines first obtain a doctor’s prescription.

People and Politics:  It turns out that lots of folks, including three of Trump’s cabinet members, have claimed more than one primary residence on their mortgage applications, the so-called crime that Trump is using as his justification for firing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook while also going after California’s Adam Schiff and New York’s Tish James.  According to ProPublica those three cabinet members are the EPA’s Lee Zeldin, Transportation’s Sean Duffy, and Labor’s Lori Chavez-DeRemer.  It’s not just cabinet members, the father and stepmother of Federal Housing Director Bill Pulte, the Trump toady who scoured this housing files to find the “incriminating” information about the prominent Democrats, is also “guilty” of the same offense.  Though no one has suggested that EJ Antoni, Trump’s choice to run the Bureau of Labor Statistics is a multiple mortgage offender, he is a prolific social media poster and many of those posts included lewd comments about Kamala Harris, grotesque comments about other prominent women and gay people, and spread far-right conspiracy theories. Of course, all of that may be why Trump has nominated him because it’s not like he has any relevant credentials. Though the discharge petition has not yet passed, there’s likely to be more news on the Epstein/Maxwell front this week since the Epstein estate is expected to release its trove of documents, including the now infamous Epstein birthday card that Trump denies, but probably did, contribute to.  Last week, O’Keefe Media Group, a far-right organization, caught Joseph Schnitt, the acting Deputy Chief of a Justice Department on hidden camera saying that the government will “redact every Republican” from the Epstein client list. He and his bosses at the DOJ now claim he was just basing that on press reports.  Oopsie. And the government runs out of money at the end of the month.   

#BringThemAllHomeNow

 

Contagion 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

Epstein, Epstein, Maxwell: The controversy that won’t go away continues to haunt Trump.  Yesterday a group of Jeffrey Epstein/Ghislaine Maxwell accusers appeared outside of the Capitol.  While the women took to the microphones to talk about being targeted and abused by the creepy duo, Trump who appears increasingly desperate to prevent the release of the full trove of Epstein files, continued to call the Epstein affair a Democratic hoax while his enabler Speaker Mike Johnson did his best to impede the release of the full set of Epstein files. The two of them have made it clear to House Republicans that they shouldn’t vote for the Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie sponsored discharge petition that would force the release of all the Epstein files rather than the selectively filtered cache of files that the Department of Justice released earlier this summer and again earlier this week.  In addition to Massie, only three other Republicans including Nancy Mace, Marjory Taylor Green and Lauren Boebert have signed on to the discharge petition.  Assuming all 212 Democrats sign on, and it’s expected that they will, two more Republicans are needed for the petition to pass.  The bottom line is that there must be something really, really incriminating in the full set of files that Trump fears because why else would he be working so hard to prevent their release and why else would Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice have had 1000 FBI agents scour the files for all references to Trump? Naturally, Trump being Trump his efforts also include throwing lots of shiny objects, as well as a few missiles, into the air as a diversionary tactic so he also had his Pete Hegseth led Department of Defense shoot a Venezuelan drug smuggling boat out of the Caribbean, killing eleven people, rather than just forcing the boat to stop, the normal, and by normal think legal, way that those boats are typically handled. While the boat incident including the military build-up in the seas outside of Venezuela and the Epstein saga are dominating the news cycles, Trump and his administration have also continued their war against the environment, cancelling and defunding renewable energy projects especially those that include the windmills Trump hates so much, and issuing factually inaccurate reports that deny that climate change is real while also continuing to put the nation’s health at risk by demonizing vaccines. So basically, a normal Trump 2.0 month.  

Legal Morass:  Trump hasn’t been faring well in the courts this week, or at least in the lower courts.  On Tuesday, US District Court Judge Charles Breyer ruled that the administration had violated the Posse Comitatus Act when it used the military to patrol the streets in Los Angeles. The Posse Comitatus Act is the 1878 law that prohibits the use of the US military for domestic law enforcement. It’s okay for the military to protect federal buildings but street patrols are not supposed to be within their remit because in theory the US is not a dictatorship or a banana republic.  Breyer’s ruling only applies to California and will be appealed, so Trump is still planning, or at least loudly threatening to send the military into other cities, most notably Chicago despite the equally loud but much more articulate pushback from Illinois Governor Pritzker.  Also on Tuesday, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reinstated Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, the Democratic appointed Federal Trade Commissioner who Trump had fired from the agency that is responsible for consumer protection and antitrust enforcement. In a split 2-to-1 decision, the court said that the Trump administration’s attempt to block Slaughter, from resuming her role at the FTC. had “no prospect of success” because she’d been fired without cause rather than on the required grounds of “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” When he fired Slaughter, Trump had also fired Alberto Benoya,  another Democratic appointee, but since he subsequently resigned citing personal financial reasons, he was not reinstated as a result of the Court’s ruling.  Keeping with the Tuesday string of Trump losses,  by a vote of 2 to 1, a 5^th District US Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled that Trump can’t use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to speed the deportations of people that he and his abettors Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem accuse of being in Venezuelan gangs like Tren de Aragua, the gang that they claimed based on tattoos rather than real evidence that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was a member of.  Abrego Garcia is the migrant who’d been sent to the El Salvador gulag before being flown back to a US prison after his deportation received so much bad press.  The Alien Acts case is another one “destined for a showdown” at the Supreme Court.  It’s a good thing for Trump that SCOTUS is stacked with his appointees and a few other like-minded justices because he’s going to need them to get all his nefarious plans back on track.

Viral Musings:  Southern California health officials are encouraging residents to don masks to impede the spread of the COVID that is “surging” through their communities. While masking up is depressing, it’s a rational response to the upswing, particularly for those who are vulnerable or just need to go stay healthy enough to work.  The California recommendation which is partially in response to the very high levels of COVID in the sewer system, a tool used to measure COVID spread, stands in stark contrast to the idiocy that’s going on in Florida.  Yesterday with Florida Governor DeSantis’s support, the state’s Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo who first came to attention for his cavalier attitude towards COVID and his total and complete disdain for masks, even in hospital settings, announced that Florida will work to eliminate all vaccine mandates.  He emphasized that by saying he means “All of them. All of them, Every last one of them” because they are all “wrong and drip with disdain and slavery." The polio virus, in concert with the measles, German measles, chicken pox, and all the other viruses that we should be protecting children from are celebrating.  The folks at Disney World should be shaking in their boots because the park will soon be the virus epicenter (Epcot center?).  Maybe it’s time to add a virus exhibit next to the It’s a Small World ride? Sure, most parents in Florida will probably continue to get their little ones vaccinated but herd immunity only works when somewhere around 95% of us are protected and that’s not going to happen as long as the criminally dopey Ladapo eliminates school vaccine mandates. Parents with young children, particularly those too young to have received all their shots, should really think about that when they make their holiday travel plans. And young kids are just part of the problem, it’s more than fair to assume that Ladapo’s disdain and “slavery” claims will impact the uptake of HPV, meningococcal, tetanus vaccines as well. And it won’t be only Florida because idiocy, like viruses, is contagious, and viruses don’t respect state lines.

#BringThemAllHomeNow

 

Sunny With a Chance of Autocracy 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

Welcome to September:  The weather may be changing but the political environment looks a lot like August, only worse. Congress is back in session. The House which fled Washington early to avoid having to deal with the Epstein mess is back and so is the Epstein mess.  While Trump continues to tease a pardon for Epstein’s partner in sex crime Ghislaine Maxwell, the bi-partisan House team of Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie have scheduled a press conference to take place on the Capitol steps on Wednesday with ten Epstein victims, some of whom have never publicly discussed their horrible experiences. There is another government funding deadline at the end of the month, and Trump is trying to push through another rescission package defunding $5 billion in foreign aid,  this time without Congressional approval, an attempt that is expected to end up in the courts. Right before the Labor Day holiday, a Federal Appeals Court ruled that since tariffs are taxes and since taxing power lies with Congress, most of Trump’s are illegal. For now, the tariffs will remain in place while the Trump administration appeals the decision to the Supreme Court but to state the obvious, Trump is not a happy man.  He’s also not a healthy man or at least that’s what was all over social media over the weekend.  Noting that he’d been both unseen and uncharacteristically silent for several days, the Twitter (X) crowd claimed that we were in Weekend at Bernie’s mode. We’re not there, as least not yet, but it is curious that to establish proof of life, Trump’s press machine posted several out-of-date photos of him with some prior golf partners before he finally showed up on camera, from a distance, looking even more bloated and pale than usual. In contrast, a smiling Joe Biden, clearly aware of the Trump health rumors, was seen enjoying one of his favorite ice cream treats.

MAHA Not:  The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) crisis continues.  More long-time professionals have resigned, outraged by RFK Jr’s destructive policies and his war against vaccines.  Over the weekend nine former CDC directors published an op-ed in the New York Times titled "We Ran the C.D.C.: Kennedy Is Endangering Every American's Health." They accuse RFK and his cronies of undermining the nation's public health system.  There have been calls for RFK to resign, but as long as Trump stands behind him, that’s not likely to happen.  If anything, RFK appears to be solidifying his control, the White House has appointed his deputy Jim O’Neill, who like Kennedy is vaccine “skeptical” and particularly hates the COVID vaccine to serve as interim CDC head.  As to the COVID vaccine, the upheaval at the CDC is already having an effect on its availability.  CVS and Walgreens are now requiring a prescription or are not offering COVID vaccines in some states pursuant to their understanding of state guideline that prohibit or limit the administration of the shots without CDC approval a problem because though the FDA has signed off on the shots, the CDC has not yet done so, assuming it ever will.  This isn’t a blue versus red state thing, absent change in state policy, New York is one of the states where a prescription will be required and the shot won’t even be made available in Massachusetts, Nevada, and New Mexico. Trump who once bragged about getting “his” amazing COVID vaccine into arms in record time is now demanding that drug companies prove the shots are effective.  The shots are and have saved lives, but Trump’s base thinks they’re not, believes that mRNA is evil incarnate, and that may be all that matters to him.  The COVID shots and RNA technology are just the tip of the iceberg.  RFK’s faux study examining the link between childhood vaccines and autism is expected to be released this month.  That’s the link that has been debunked but that RFK says exists because he can see it in the “overburdened mitochondria” of children he sees in airports. And one more health note, the Pediatric Brain Cancer Consortium’s NHI funding is being cancelled because why would we want to find a cure for that?

People and Politics:  Rudy Giuliani whose car was rearended over the holiday weekend under unusual circumstances for anyone except the bizarre former Mayor has been released from the hospital. Trump is using the accident as a reason to award him the Congressional Medal of Freedom which he’s really getting because he lied about the election and refuses to say anything bad about Trump.  In keeping with rewarding allies, especially those who pushed his election lies,  but punishing opponents, especially those he has targeted with hate, Trump has cancelled former VP/presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ Secret Service protection which had been extended by President Biden; reports that California will take up the slack. The FEMA employees who collectively questioned the mismanagement of their agency have been put on leave because no one criticizes the Dear Leader or his henchwoman Kristi Noem, except for a federal judge who has ruled that their efforts to deport a group of unaccompanied migrant children back to Guatemala isn’t kosher. This morning New York City Congressman Jerry Nadler announced that he will not be seeking reelection.  Unlike Iowa’s Joni Ernst, Nadler’s decision isn’t about electability but is in response to concerns among the Democratic electorate that the average age of their delegation is too old, especially when compared to Republicans.  It’s not about the views of the elders, many of whom like Nadler are very liberal.  It’s the concern that like Joni Ernst said, everyone dies and they’re probably closer to doing so, while in office.  That would put a Democratic majority at risk assuming there really are midterm elections and that Democrats manage to retake the House despite Trump’s continuing efforts to get more Republican states like Missouri, Ohio, Florida, Indiana and wherever else possible to squeeze out Democratic seats as well as his new likely illegal push for universal voter ID.

Fog:  It turns out that Trump’s disproportionately high tariffs on India aren’t just about pushing India to stop buying Russian oil.  According to the NY Times, the tariffs are also punishment for India’s Prime Minister Modi not supporting Trump’s very public Nobel Prize campaign. Trump who hasn’t managed to end the Ukraine-Russia war or the Gaza 💩 show, believes or wants Modi to say that India and Pakistan are now BFFs.  They’re not, and Modi isn’t prepared to say they are, instead he’s now buddying up with China’s Xi and Russia’s Putin, something that prior administrations have tried hard to prevent. As to Russia and Ukraine, Politico reports that real estate friend Steve Witkoff’s inexperience has been “shining through,” saying that his failure to understand the complexity of negotiating has led to “miscues” rather than actual peace.  And son in law Jared is back, making plans for post war Gaza.  Oy.         

#BringThemAllHomeNow