Now You See It, Now You Don't 😱 ✡️🌻😱 💣🚀🚢

Weekend Warriors:  It was just another one of those Trump era holidays.  The wannabee king’s Memorial Day message called Democrats, dumocrats while attacked them for disrespecting the military, particularly ironic given the faux heel spurs that kept him out of Viet Nam, his hate for all things related to the late war hero/Senator John McCain, and his history of calling soldiers who die while serving the country losers and suckers. Over the weekend Trump also announced that he was close to signing a deal with Iran that involved a 60-day ceasefire extension during which the Strait of Hormuz would be reopened, Iran would be able to freely sell oil, and negotiations would be held on curbing Iran's nuclear program.  The promised deal supposedly involves Iran giving up what Trump calls nuclear “dust” in exchange for a $20 billion release of some of Iran’s frozen assets.  Trump’s not so artful deal was slammed by the left for being worse than the Obama JCPOA deal he walked away from and by many on the right for leaving the issue of missiles and nukes unresolved.  Just about everyone agreed that the “imminent” deal left Iran with more control over the critical Strait of Hormuz than it had before the war. In response to all the criticism, Trump tacked on a poison pill like demand that the countries involved in the negotiations with Iran agree to the Abraham Accords, a problem for Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, and Qatar because normalizing relations with Israel is not on their immediate, maybe even ever, bucket list.  For its part Iran said that while some progress had been made, no deal was imminent, a rather prescient comment since last night US forces launched what they called “self-defense strikes” against Iranian missile launch sites and boats around the Strait as one does during the middle of critical peace negotiations.  The bottom line is that Trump really wants to make his Iran problem go away because he sees the polling and knows that the war and its inflation effect are hurting him bigly but not even a Harry Potter invisibility cloak or lots of deceptive Truth Social posts can make Iran disappear.  In other weekend news, without his dad in attendance, Don Jr married his fiancée Bettina Anderson, whose late father, a prominent Palm Beach banker, had written letters of recommendation for Jeffrey Epstein because in Trump world there are far fewer than six degrees of separation.  Trump is scheduled to have another annual physical today, after which his doctors will announce that he’s the healthiest man alive. And because unscheduled dental visits are now a thing, Israel’s Netanyahu was admitted into Hadassah hospital last night for an undisclosed “dental procedure.”

Texas Two Step:  Its primary runoff day in Texas.  In all likelihood Senator John Cornyn will lose to Trump endorsed impeached but still in office Attorney General Ken Paxton.  The winner will go up against Democrat James Talarico, another one of those Democrats who Democratic optimists desperately hope can win in Texas, a state that almost always disappoints. On the Democratic side, as the result of redistricting a number of Democrats are going up against each other in the districts that remain.  In the Houston area long term 78-year-old Representative Al Green, best known to most of us for being outspoken and for being the first to call for Trump to be impeached is being challenged by 38-year-old Representative Christian Menefee, in a changing of the guard election forced by the redistricting. In Central Texas’ 35^th district, the sex-therapist anti-Semitic Democratic “progressive” Maureen Galindo who called for Zionists (as in Jews) to be castrated and who is being supported by a shadowy Republican aligned PAC because she is seen as more beatable in November is facing a runoff against the more mainstream Democrat, Sheriff Johnny Garcia.   

More 💩:  Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard submitted her resignation saying she wants to spend more time with her husband who sadly has bone cancer but really because she was forced out because of her failure to support Trump’s wars. Even her desperate efforts to “prove” that Fulton County Georgia’s 2020 ballots were “compromised” couldn’t save her. We probably haven’t seen the last of Gabbard, she could end up running for president again or as Veep, probably as a Republican, since her anti-war stance and Russia friendliness are appealing to some, especially on the right.  The White House has start erasing references to the January 6 insurrection from all official websites because if they say it didn’t happen, it didn’t happen and anyway, should Trump’s slush fund survive legal and/or legislative pushback the “nice tourists” who attacked the Capitol that day will soon be richer, rewarded for their actions. On the election front,  Trump’s election security czar, election denier Kurt Olsen whose real objective is to eliminate fair elections is trying to but so far hasn’t succeeded in outlawing voting machines for future elections because nothing says modernity and security like a bunch of people wading through 160 million paper ballots on election night. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told travel executives that he is serious about cutting back on international flights to “sanctuary” cities to force airlines to re-route their flights in order to inflict economic pain on those cities, a list that includes Portland, NYC area’s JFK and Newark and Washington Dulles because with international travel already suppressed by Trump’s policies what’s a little more economic pain among friends? Keeping with the “all immigrants except those white guys from South Africa” are bad theme, before the weekend the Trump administration announced that qualified foreigners in the US who want green cards will be required to leave the US and apply in their home country.  That’s a change in longstanding policy and also an effective way of making sure that many green card seekers lose their US jobs, never get their cards, and that those who do end up waiting for years outside the US, many in the country that they were legitimately fleeing. Green card or not, those with them who’ve been in countries effected by the growing Ebola outbreak, now ranked as the third worst in history, are being banned from reentering the US. Not much of a surprise that eliminating US AID, withdrawing from WHO, and cutting virus experts has worldwide consequences.