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not there, as least not yet, but it is curious that to establish proof of life, Trump’s press machine posted several out-of-date photos of him with some prior golf partners before he finally showed up on camera, from a distance, looking even more bloated and pale than usual.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.         

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