Boat Meet Bus 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡 🚤 🚌 

🤡 🤡:  Yesterday, after spending Monday night posting 160 messages on Truth Social including one by conspiracist Alex Jones that asserted Michele Obama controlled Joe Biden’s autopen during the waning days of his administration, Trump held one of his North Korean style news conferences.  He stuck with his usual lies, asserting that inflation and grocery prices were way down even though neither are while also taking credit for reducing drug prices by as much as 800%, mathematically impossible since that would imply that people are being paid to take their meds. He claimed that he has secured $18 trillion of new foreign investment in the US, a number that is two times higher than the also very exaggerated number claimed on his White House website. Keeping with the crazy, ICE Barbie Noem praised him for this year’s relatively minor hurricane season, expressing appreciation for his control over the weather gods. Could it be that Trump has gotten hold of a few of Margie Q’s Jewish Space Lasers? Trump, who announced on Monday that his most recent MRI, the one he took just for the heck of it, proved that he remains the healthiest man ever to occupy the Oval Office, nodded off when Secretary of State and lots of other things Rubio spoke; maybe it was all that overnight tweeting rather than the reality that while he’s still breathing, he is not the healthy guy he claims to be since super healthy guys don’t have cankles, cardiac insufficiency or MRI’s of their abdomens and vascular systems.

🚤 🚌 Trump did manage to stay awake when the subject turned to the “double tap” obliteration of the alleged narco-terrorist boat, the more than likely illegal act that intentionally killed two people who may or may not have been smuggling drugs. Trump claimed that he’d been totally unaware of the September 2 strike when it happened, theoretically possible given how much time he’s been spending on his ever-expanding East Wing ball room boondoggle, the project that his original architect appears to be distancing himself from. He’s sure that whatever his SSecretary of War and Peace Hegseth ordered was totally copacetic.  For his part Hegseth whose nameplate either intentionally or not so intentionally included two Nazi evoking S’s yesterday insists that the decision to double tap the boat wasn’t his, instead he shifted the blame on to Admiral Frank M Bradley, the mission commander who according to Hegseth was responsible for killing the two who’d been clinging to the hull of their blown-up boat. Hegseth who’d previously claimed that the Washington Post story that revealed the “double tap” killing was just more fake news, especially frustrating for him because he thought that banning mainstream media from the Pentagon would result in less real news, now acknowledges that the attack took place.  However, no surprise, he’s now distancing himself from it, saying he left the room after the initial attack, missing the “double” part altogether. Military law experts say that a second-strike targeting survivors would have been illegal under any circumstance, armed conflict or not, but especially in this case because the US isn’t even in a legitimate armed conflict. Admiral Bradley, who until following Hegseth’s order to obliterate people and being thrown under the bus, had a good reputation.  If he hasn’t already, he should retain a good lawyer, because at the very least he is going to be called to testify in front of Congress and at the very worst, he might be on his way to being this decade’s William Calley as in the guy who was left holding the bag for the Viet Nam era My Lai massacre. At least for now Hegseth despite his incompetence and distain for the rules of war isn’t going anywhere.  The same may or may not be true of the less camera-ready FBI Director Kash Patel who has a whole crowd of FBI guys leaking about his incompetence and missteps including his refusal to disembark from his plane, the one he uses to fly his girlfriend around, until someone snagged him an FBI jacket emblazoned with cool badges, when he was “investigating” the Charlie Kirk shooting.  By the way, Kirk’s widow Erika says she’s readying her JD Vance presidential endorsement so what if the presidential election isn’t until 2028.  As to Trump, he’s still threatening Senator/Astronaut Mark Kelly and the other five “seditious” Democrats who advised members of the military that they should question illegal orders, like the double tapping of boats, with the death penalty. Mark Kelly may not have Erika’s endorsement, but getting threatened by Trump is enhancing his standing as a potential 2028 Democratic party candidate.

Other 💩:  Despite all the hype, Republican Matt Van Epps was expected to win yesterday’s special election for the 7^th District Tennesee seat vacated by Republican Mark Green and he did.  He won comfortably, defeating his Democratic opponent Aftyn Behn by 9 points. However, though she lost, Behn’s performance was impressive.  Tennessee’s 7^th district is heavily gerrymandered, rendering it virtually impossible for a Democrat, especially one as progressive as Behn, to prevail.  By comparison, Trump won the district by around 21 points in 2024 so Republicans are concerned that Behn’s ability to keep Van Epps’ victory to single digits could be an omen of things to come during the midterms, even in seats previously considered safe. They can’t attribute Van Epps’ meh showing to it being an off year special election since turnout was relatively high.  More likely, voters just aren’t happy with the Republican Congress and with Trump, whose approval and disapproval ratings have sunk to 36% and 60% respectively.  It doesn’t help that he keeps calling affordability a faux issue because “it’s the economy stupid” is more than just a catch phrase.  The pendulum may be swinging, well maybe, because counting Trump out isn’t a good strategy, he still has the power to screw up elections. In other news, Republican’s still haven’t come up with a health care plan and probably won’t, news out of Russia and Ukraine remains dismal, RFK is well on his way to making it harder to get lifesaving vaccines, the drug running former Honduran President has been released from jaiil, and an appeals court has ruled that Alina Habba, like Lindsey Halligan, is an illegitimate US Attorney.  The pendulum can’t swing soon enough.