Diversionary Tactics 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🚀🚢

Slush:   During his Senate Confirmation hearing Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said that Trump’s weaponization/slush fund, which includes a provision granting permanent tax amnesty to Trump, his family, his companies, and any affiliated companies, was dead. He refuses to put what he said in writing, a confirmation that he was lying. Blanche is a Trump tool, more than 1,200 former DOJ employees and hundreds of federal prosecutors, including former colleagues from the SDNY have signed letters opposing his confirmation.  In addition, he has intentionally mishandled the Epstein files, likely to hide anything that might implicate Trump. Despite all those flaws soon to be ex-Senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis say that they’d happily confirm Blanche but only if he first puts his promise to nix the weaponization fund, including its Trump tax amnesty, in writing. The catch is that Trump wants his slush fund and really, really wants that tax amnesty so he won’t let Blanche put what Cornyn and Tillis insist they must have in writing. Assuming the dead man walking duo aren’t persuaded to cave, their demand is a problem for Blanche and his orange client because both Cornyn and Tillis are on the Senate Judiciary Committee.  With all of the Committee’s Democrats voting against his confirmation, Blanche can’t make it out of committee to the Senate floor for a vote without Cornyn and Tillis’ support.  Yesterday, providing further indication of how important the slush fund, particularly its tax amnesty provision is to him, Trump threatened to pull Blanche’s nomination until January, resubmitting it once Cornyn and Tillis are gone. Putting aside that there’s a chance, albeit a small one, that Republicans won’t control the Senate come January, Trump’s threat is form over substance because he can keep Blanche on as Acting Attorney General for as long as he wants though being confirmed is better than being acting. It’s very revealing of how important the tax amnesty is to Trump.  We’ve long known that he owes at least $100 million plus interest on one of his prior returns, It’s fair to assume he and some other members of his family owe or anticipate that they will owe much more because why else would he be fighting over a “mere” $100 million, small potatoes for someone with a $6 billion plus net worth. There’s got to be more to his financial picture. 🤷‍♀️

 

The Fauci Diversion: The on again, off again Iran war is mostly on, economic growth is anemic, inflation continues, and Trump’s sinking polls are dragging down Republicans, so this week Republicans dragged Virus Guru Fauci in to testify about all the horrible things he did and the lies he “told” during the COVID pandemic. COVID killed 1.1 million of us but thanks to Fauci and his team’s efforts and Operation Warp Speed championed by Trump, 3.2 million more didn’t die.  None of that matters to people like Senators Rand Paul and Bernie Moreno because where’s the fun in acknowledging that?  Instead, they went all in on attacking Fauci, who admittedly is a mere mortal who made mistakes at a fraught time in an attempt to protect people from a novel death causing virus. At the end of his first term Trump awarded Fauci a Presidential commendation for his efforts but that was back when Trump who gets a COVID vaccine every year still publicly admitted that COVID was a thing and before MAGA world concluded that all vaccines were bad and that Fauci and his ilk are devils incarnate. Trump’s commendation was nice, so was the Presidential Medal of Freedom that Fauci received from George W Bush for his AIDS work, but as it turns out neither is as valuable as the pardon that Biden granted Fauci before he left office.  Unfortunately, Biden’s pardon doesn’t protect Fauci for anything he says now so on the advice of his counsel he plead the Fifth instead of answer questions, many of which were intended to “catch” him up in what later could be claimed to be a criminal “misstatement.” A few Republicans are now threatening to prosecute Fauci for committing made-up state crimes to get around Biden’s federal pardon.  They’re also condemning him for pleading the Fifth because only Trump gets to do that.  Trump’s name is being emblazoned everywhere, but Fauci is the evil one?  Make it make sense.  Notably though he used the “F” word, cursing at the “evil” Fauci, Senator Moreno is still fully supportive of his son in law/ Representative Max Miller because all Max did was throw scalding water on Moreno’s daughter and break his two- year- old granddaughter’s collar bone.   Shifting back to the economy, the Federal Reserve now chaired by Trump’s new guy Kevin Warsh held interest rates constant rather than raise lower them in an effort to keep inflation under control.  Funny how former Fed Chair Jerome Powell was lambasted by Trump for doing the same. Regrettably, the bond market didn’t react well to what it viewed as Warsh’s incoherent accompanying statement. It remains skittish, something about expensive wars and tariffs fueling inflation so while the Fed Rate didn’t go up, long term interest rates did.  In other war news, Trump announced that his Board of Peace has reached an agreement for the "complete disarmament" of Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza.  🤷‍♀️ 🤷‍♀️

 

More 💩:  Former FBI Head Jim Comey’s and his “86 47” shell configuration case were back in the news.  He’s trying to have the vindictive case against him thrown out.  To that end Comey’s lawyers asserted that he was illegally surveilled by the Secret Service, an argument bolstered by reports that Secret Service agents didn’t believe that Comey had done anything that warranted surveillance but were told that they had to pursue aggressive measures because Trump was seething about those shells.  Also, as crazy as it sounds, the DOJ sought confirmation from convicted Mafia killer Sammy Gravano and a few other people of that ilk.  They wanted Gravano to confirm that Comey’s use of “86” in his seashell post was a threat against Trump’s life.  Gravano said a “gangster would never use that term” and that he didn’t believe that Comey had nefarious intent.  In other words, fuhgeddaboudit, which is what Democrats would like to do about the Wisconsin Governor race. Last week, Lieutenant Governor Sara Rodriguez dropped out due to alleged campaign finance irregularities, yesterday another leading contender, former Lt Governor/Senate candidate Mandela Barnes, followed suit.  He said he was dropping out because he couldn’t win but it appears that he dropped out over allegations that he used his position within the state’s Democratic party to pursue sexual encounters with young women.  Progressive candidate Francesca Hong who is endorsed by the Democratic Socialists is now leading in the polls. That’s nice for her but maybe bad for Democrats’ chances of keeping the governorship because she may be too left leaning for the 50:50 state. On the subject of socialists, against the advice of his advisors, NYC Mayor Mamdani announced he’d released the list of all those “rich” people who own “pied a terre” residences. The problem is that the list includes lots of people who live full time in those alleged pied a terre house, coops, and/or condos meaning that many of those identified as real estate tycoons are not and are not subject to the new tax.  Yesterday, the Mayor announced that he’s hired more staff, as in he’s spending more money, to help the misidentified fill out the annoying forms required to prove that they don’t owe the tax.  It increasingly looks like Mamdani is the flip sign of the Trump coin. By the way, though more people are jumping turnstiles, despite Mamdani’s campaign promise, buses are not free. Also, Bibi has not been arrested and though somewhere around 50% of NYC lawyers are Jewish, there are no Jews on Mamdani’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary, 🤷‍♀️ 🤷‍♀️ 🤷‍♀️