Casey Jones Toilet Edition🎈😱 ✡️🌻😱 👿🎈

Attack🎈🎈:  The good news is that El Paso’s airport and airspace reopened after “only” four hours rather than the ten days that had been announced early Wednesday morning. The absurd news is that reason for the closure was that without alerting the FAA, members of the Border Patrol used an untested high-tech military laser in the active civilian airspace around El Paso to down a few party balloons that they mistakenly took for Mexican drug cartel drones.  The FAA thought an attack from Mexico was in process and reacted by closing the airport. The newfangled laser which had been gifted to ICE Barbie Noem’s Border Patrol forces by Secretary of War and Beer Pete Hegseth was used by Noem’s yutzes who thought they had detected an incoming attack from Mexico. Adding to the incompetent insanity, for a while the White House stuck with the deceptive drug cartel story with Attorney General Pam Bondi citing the extraordinary success of the mission during her opening remarks to the House Homeland Security committee in what turned out to be an insanely contentious hearing in which she answered few questions, but did attack anyone who asked her anything of substance, especially anything about the Epstein files.  She called Vermont Congresswoman Becca Balint, the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, an anti-Semite and repeatedly shifted blame for her efforts to redact Trump’s one million (!) mentions in the Epstein file to Merrick Garland, Biden, and Obama.  During her testimony Bondi repeatedly checked the notes in her ridiculously thick binder. Through the lens of a particularly sharp photographer, it was revealed that the binder included data about which of the “unredacted” Epstein files members of the committee had accessed when they had been allowed to visit the super secure SCIF where the files are being held.  And really, who is surprised that Trump’s goons are spying on the RINOS and Democrats looking through the files?  Even Speaker Johnson who forgives Trump for everything thought that wasn’t a good idea. As to Epstein, the files reveal that Center for Medicare and Medicaid Administrator Dr. Oz was another one cozying up to Epstein. In 2016, well after Epstein had served time in a Florida jail, Oz and his wife Lisa invited the convicted pedophile to their Valentine’s Day Party. In case you are counting, Oz is the ninth member of Trump’s immediate circle whose name appears in the files.  In addition to Trump the others are wife Melania, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Navy Secretary John Phelan, US Rep for Global Partnerships and Model Agency executive who brought Melania to the US Paoli Zampoli, RFK Jr, Federal Reserve Chairman nominee Kevin Warsh and Elon Musk. As to anti-Semitism, it’s a real problem but no one should for one moment believe that Trump sees it as anything more than a cudgel to use against his enemies especially given the number of people in his administration who keep getting caught spewing white supremacist and Jewish hate.  One of those people is Jeremy Carl who served in the Department of Interior in Trump’s first administration and who Trump has nominated to serve as the State Department’s Assistant Secretary of International Organizations.  Yesterday, Utah Senator John Curtis, the Republican who replaced Mitt Romney,  announced that after reviewing Carl’s record which included “insensitive remarks about Jewish people,” he would vote against his nomination.  Senator Curtis’ vote is expected to scuttle Carl’s nomination. How is it that Trump who keeps calling his enemies out as anti-Semitic has so many anti-Semitic associates?  Trump gets away with his hate and, so far, is mostly getting away with his Epstein association but the same can’t be said of Kathy Ruemmler, the Goldman Sachs lawyer who advised Epstein and was also the recipient of some Hermes and Fendi gifts from him announced she will depart Goldman in June.  

Making America Sick Again: Trump formally announced that since climate change isn’t a thing, regulating carbon emissions is no longer necessary.  Apparently, those genes he inherited from his brilliant MIT professor uncle provide him with more knowledge about the environment than any of the real experts and his EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin who lucky for New York never made it to the Governor’s Mansion is with him on that conclusion.  No comment from RFK who once cared about the environment because he and his advisors are too busy ensuring that we eat lots of meat and keep catching viruses.  Yesterday, we learned more about the FDA’s refusal to review Moderna’s new mRNA flu vaccine.  The decision was made by Vinay Prasad, the FDA administrator responsible for overseeing vaccines, who overruled the recommendation of the FDA’s scientists. Moderna which had received approval for its trial methodology from the FDA said that it will continue seeking approval from other countries which means that Europeans will get what is likely to be a more effectively targeted flu vaccine, one that can be designed to protect against the expected strains of the flu closer to the start of the flu season, while we won’t. It’s not just flu protection that we’ll be losing out on, this morning Moderna’s CEO announced that it will no longer invest in new Phase 3 vaccine trials for infectious diseases because “you cannot make a return on investment if you don’t have access to the US markets.”  As a result, vaccines for Epstein-Barr virus, herpes and shingles have been shelved. Epstein-Barr isn’t just the cause of mono, the “kissing disease,” it is now considered a “primary, essential, and sometimes initiating factor for developing multiple sclerosis.”  We knew that RFK’s confirmation would have dire effects, now we know it’s not just childhood diseases, the effect of his reign will be widespread and long lasting but he’s not worried, yesterday during an interview with podcaster Theo Von, he said “I’m not scared of a germ, you know. I used to snort cocaine off of toilets.”  UGH and WTF.

Other 💩:  The decision of the Grand Jury to vote against indicting the six Senators and members of Congress who spoke out about not following illegal orders was unanimous meaning that not a single one of them fell for Jeanine Pirro’s bull 💩. Unfortunately, Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin expects that Pirro, or another Trump US Attorney, will try again with a different grand jury. Since Pirro couldn’t get any experienced US Attorneys to present her case, she instead deployed a recent hire, a dance photographer who still runs an active studio because under Bondi the DOJ has gone from garage lawyers to insurance lawyers to dance photographers.  In other DOJ news, Bondi immediately fired the US attorney that the district judges in Northern New York appointed to replace one of her illegal interim attorneys leaving that spot vacant out of spite.  And at least for now Arizona’s Mark Kelly will not be demoted or see his retirement pay cut since DC District Judge Leon ruled that doing so would violate his First Amendment rights while setting a chilling precedent for all retired members of the military.   We are about to have another partial government shutdown.  This one will impact only the bloated and overfunded Department of Homeland Security, part of an effort mostly by Democrats to rein in the overreach of Ice Barbie’s militias. However, like last time, airports may be affected so check your flights.  On the tariff front, all Democrats except Maine’s retiring Jared Golden and six Republicans, including Nebraska’s Don Bacon, California’s Kevin Kiley, Kentucky’s Thomas Massie, Colorado’s Jeff Hurd, Pennsylvania’s Brian Fitzpatrick, and Washington’s Dan Newhouse.  The Republican naysayers include some who are about to retire or come from swingy seats in states most impacted by the tariffs.  Trump is screwing around with the invitation list for this weekend’s annual Governors meeting.  At first it appeared that he was excluding all the Democratic Governors but now he says he’s “only” excluding Colorado’s Jared Polis and Maryland’s Wes Moore.  He didn’t invite Polis because he’s trying to pressure him to release convicted election breacher Tina Peters from Jail, he’s also cut crucial funding from Colorado as part of his pressure campaign.  He didn’t invite Moore, the nation’s only Black governor because he’s “foul mouthed,” also he’s Black.  Because Oklahoma’s Republican Governor Kevin Stitt criticized Trump’s move, the orange one is now lashing out at him too, calling him just another RINO.  It’s not clear if any Democratic Governors will attend, it is clear that Trump is growing increasingly deranged and has three more years to go further down the rabbit hole. We still don’t know all the details, but it turns out that the Trump official that was being discussed by foreign players on the call that Tulsi Gabbard has been hiding was son in law Jared Kushner. Lastly, one piece of good news, most of the ICE and Homeland Security militias are leaving Minnesota.  Lots of damage has been done but at least Minneapolis residents will be able to start living their lives again except for Renee Good and Alex Pretti.