Strait Poker 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🚀🚢

Elusive Peace:  According to Trump the Iran deal is moving ahead swimmingly.  Unfortunately, that’s only true in his mind.  Yesterday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard attacked a Singapore flagged ship transiting through the Strait of Hormuz.  As a result, a number of countries have once again halted the movement of their ships through the Strait and the UN's International Maritime Organization has paused its Strait evacuation plan. Secretary of State Rubio keeps whistling into the wind that Iran has no right to charge any Strait transit fees or to dictate transit routes, but Iran appears to have other plans, and those plans include military action. Strikes or no strikes, Trump is keeping with his deception strategy, last night in an effort to rally support among US farmers Trump repeated his claim that Iran has promised to purchase US grown agricultural products including corn and soybeans with the funds that he agreed to unfreeze because unlike Obama when Trump frees funds it’s okay. If the crop purchase claim was true that would be a boon for farmers who’ve suffered from Trump’s tariffs.  The problem is that Iran insists that they have not agreed to use the funds to buy any American agricultural goods.  While Tehran is willing to call Trump out when he lies, it looks like two of the Republican Senators who voted to limit his war powers have caved to his threats. Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy who is on his way out of the Senate because he lost his primary after Trump endorsed his opponent changed his vote and now no longer supports crimping Trump’s war powers.  He asserts he flipped after receiving a convincing private briefing on the Iran deal, but more likely it’s because that briefing involved threats perhaps involving decapitated horses and beds 🤷‍♀️, that Trump would make sure that no one hired him for any lucrative lobbying jobs upon his departure.  Rand Paul, one of the other Republicans who had voted with Democrats shifted his vote to present, muttering something about since the hostilities are over, boat strikes aside, he changed his vote to enhance Trump’s negotiating position. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins stuck with their war powers votes. Murkowski because she frequently walks to her own drummer,  Collins because she’s got a pass to cross Trump on an as needed basis through November’s election.   

Legal Update:  We’re still waiting for the important SCOTUS ruling on birth right citizenship which may or may not come today.  However, a few opinions have been released. Yesterday the Court issued some anti-immigrant decisions.  In one of their 6-3 ideological decisions, written by the extremely conservative Justice Alito, the Court ruled that the government can legally turn away asylum seekers who attempt to reach a port of entry as long as they haven’t physically set foot on US soil. In another ideological decision, also written by Alito, the Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to remove temporary protected status (TPS) protections for citizens of Haiti and Syria under a federal program that allows foreigners to stay in the US when the US government believes that it is not safe for them to return to their homes. The bottom line is that though neither country is much safer than they were when their citizens were granted TPS, their citizens are no longer welcome here because they’re not white South Africans.  The legal news wasn’t all bad.  Yesterday, Boston based District Court judge Indira Talwani blocked Trump’s order for the US Postal Service to impose limits on voting by mail, a real problem because Postmaster General David Steiner has said that if Trump wants him to refuse to process likely blue ballots from states that decline to hand over sensitive data, as in bogus incomplete and inaccurate citizenship files, he would be happy to do so.  Of course, the Trump administration is expected to appeal because squelching votes, alongside political gerrymandering, is a key part of their midterm and future presidential election strategy.  On the Epstein front, in response to a lawsuit by attorney and journalist Katie Phang US District Court judge Emmet Sullivan ordered the DOJ to un-redact and produce more Epstein files by July 2 or show cause why the documents must remain blacked out. 

Other 💩:  The administration is now seeking $1.4 billion to help combat Ebola because it turns out that the DOGE boys’ decision to defund those efforts was incredibly short sighted and ignorant.  In a similar vein, all the branches of the military are once again requiring new recruits to get flu shots. On the personnel front, Gregg Phillips the third ranking FEMA official in charge of disaster response has been ousted, something to do with his repeated claims that he had been teleported to Waffle Houses.  On more serious note, War/Beer Pete has ousted Chris Donahue, another four-star General, General Donahue had been the Army commander in Europe.  Apparently decapitating the military by eliminating its most competent and experienced leadership is his thing. Similarly, Bill Pulte, the housing official with no intelligence experience who is the acting Director of National Intelligence because Trump is holding up the confirmation hearing for his less controversial permanent pick Jay Clayton in an effort to get his voter squelching SAVE Act passed has started firing DNI staff as one does when the concept of coordinating intelligence among the various intelligence agencies to avoid another 9.11 is no longer prioritized. Similarly, Trump cancelled the signing of a bi-partisan passed Housing bill claiming there are parts of it he who is an expert in all things housing suddenly doesn’t like but really because he is holding it hostage to get the SAVE Act passed.  The Senate doesn’t have the votes to pass the SAVE Act but Trump doesn’t like taking no for an answer and though it’s hard to see how he could get the SAVE Act passed, he did just get two Senators to flip their war powers votes so we shouldn’t totally discount the chance that he’ll force something, something bad.