Bye-Bye Bill 😱 ✡️🌻😱 💣🚀🚢

Weekend Update:  Iran or their surrogates attacked the UAE’s nuclear power facility with drones over the weekend, sparking a fire at the perimeter of the plant that is responsible for providing 25% of the UAE’s power. The UAE called the drone attack “an unacceptable act of aggression,” Saudi Arabia is furious. and Trump is again threatening to start bombing Iranian targets while his id, otherwise known as Senator Lindsey Graham, is encouraging him to act on his threats to demolish Iran’s infrastructure. Either another TACO is in the offing, or Trump will start doing damage, again.  Here at home Trump notched another victory in his war against those few Republican politicians who voted for his impeachment and as a result Louisiana Senator/Doctor Bill Cassidy will no longer be a member of the Senate come January.  Cassidy who voted for Trump’s second impeachment delusionally thought that he could crawl back into Trump’s good graces by supporting RFK Jr’s confirmation as Health Secretary. Cassidy pretended to believe that the assurances RFK gave him to leave the established childhood immunization schedule alone were real.  His self-serving gambit didn’t work. Children are going to get sick, some will die, and he will no longer be a Senator. With only 24.8 % of the vote, he came in third in this weekend’s Republican primary.  With 44.8% of the vote, Congresswoman Julia Letlow who was endorsed by Trump came in first and John Fleming, Louisiana’s current Treasurer, who obtained 28.3% of the vote came in second. Since neither of the top two finishers obtained the required 50% of the vote, a runoff for the Republican slot will take place on June 27. In all likelihood Letlow will win the runoff, going on to win in November to become Louisiana’s next Senator.  Letlow whose husband died of COVID before the COVID jab became available supports vaccines including the COVID one but believes in personal choice rather than mandates. If Republicans retain control of the Senate, Cassidy’s replacement as chair of the Health Committee is likely to be Kansas Senator/Doctor Roger Marshall, a staunch supporter of all things RFK Jr.  Having dispensed with Cassidy, Trump’s next target is Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie.  Though he never voted for Trump’s impeachment, the very, very right-wing Massie has long been a thorn in Trump’s side.  He reliably votes against all funding legislation, he voted against Trump’s Big Beautiful (Ugly) Bill, he opposes Trump’ Iran “incursion” and even worse from Trump’s point of view, together with Democrat Ro Khanna, he led the bipartisan effort to force the release of the unredacted Epstein files. He’s also not much for civil rights but in that he’s in Trump’s camp.   The Kentucky primary takes place on Tuesday.  Trump’s endorsed candidate retired Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein is breathing down Massie’s neck. Adding to the “fun,” Trump is now calling for someone to primary Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, the gun toting high school dropout who crossed the aisle to support the discharge petition that led to the release of the Epstein files, because she campaigned for Massie this weekend. Boebert was joined by Trump’s other Republican foe, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, whose son who probably didn’t fall far from the family tree is now best known for his anti-Semitic, anti-gay rants. All of these characters are awful; it’s just a matter of who is least awful. Though we keep hearing that Trump’s popularity ratings are in the toilet, his Republican fanbase remains strong, or at least strong enough to deliver him primary wins and the way things are going with gerrymandering maybe even help him retain the House because the same SCOTUS that signed off on Republican gerrymandering has rejected an emergency appeal from Democrats to reinstate Virginia’s voter-approved congressional map, leaving the existing lines in place for the midterms.   

More 💩:  Over the weekend the White House endorsed conservative Christian “Rededicate 250” rally took place in Washington DC. Trump didn’t appear because golf beckoned, but he did send a video message.  The group’s position is that the US needs to return to the Christian roots of the country because that whole separation of church and state thing is a sin pushed by Democratic heathens. Also, Eric Metaxas, one of the participating ministers took to the podium to claim that god himself put Donald Trump in power to ensure the White House gets a new ballroom. Somehow I doubt that but then again what do I know about the New Testament?  Apparently the Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough doubts the god-ballroom connection too.  Over the weekend she ruled that because the budget bill that Republicans are trying to pass includes $1 billion for ballroom funding alongside funding for ICE and Border Patrol it doesn’t comply with reconciliation rules. That’s a problem because funding bills that don’t meet reconciliation rules require 60 votes rather than a simple majority to pass and most Democrats oppose the funding package. Trump who is not god but thinks that he is, really wants that ballroom so Republicans will now have to try to rewrite their bill in a manner that meets reconciliation if that is even possible.  On the health front, hantavirus is now only one lurking problem. A particularly noxious strain of Ebola is out and about in the Republic of the Congo and Uganda.  The World Health Organization that we are no longer part of is calling this Ebola epidemic a public health emergency of international concern, but we have nothing to worry about because our Assistant Secretary for Health responsible for handling outbreaks like this is a penile implant specialist with little public health experience who hosts a podcast called Erection Connection.  You can’t make stuff like that up. Also, we aren’t just drawing troops down from Germany but without consulting the generals that matter, we are also pulling some from Poland.  2028 can’t come soon enough.