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