Snakes on A Plane 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🚀🚢 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

Flying Blind: Trump spent at least $400 million maybe as much as $1 billion of taxpayer money retrofitting his new “grifted” Qatari Air Force One.  The plane is snazzy, has tactless golden Trumpy decor and an exterior color palate more to his liking but is missing some critical defensive features, including anti-missile capability.  It is also lacking presidential level communication capabilities including a situation room because Trump wanted it put into service ASAP, and all those critical features, which he won’t need when he takes the plane with him after his term ends, assuming it ever does, take time 🤦‍♀️. Though he shouldn’t have Trump flew it to Ankara for the NATO meetings so he could show off his new toy but, given that we’re back to what appears to be an escalating war with Turkey’s neighbor Iran, at the insistence of his security advisors, he swapped back to the old Air Force One for his trip out of Turkey.  We shouldn’t be surprised that Trump prioritized aesthetics over security to rush the plane into service, nor should we be surprised that the Memorandum of Understanding that his incompetent and inexperienced negotiating team, AKA son in law and real estate buddy, hastily negotiated is flailing because that’s how he rolls, speed over competence, glitz over function. So here we are, a fancy new plane that shouldn’t be used at all but definitely never used for international travel and a poorly planned war with the country that he very publicly referred to as the Islamic Republic of Japan 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️that is proving increasingly difficult to end.  It’s not just the war and the plane, and all of Trump’s other frighteningly delusional misstatements like the one where he referred to Ukraine’s Zelenskyy who was seated next to him as Putin, despite Trump’s insistence otherwise, he’s mucked up the economy. Yesterday in an editorial titled “How Trump’s Tariffs really work,” the Wall Street Journal pointed out that those tariffs have resulted in a 75,000 lost of manufacturing jobs, raised the costs for US manufacturers, hurt America’s farmers, depressed purchases of agriculture equipment.  National security tariffs on autos and parts have cost $35.2 billion, steel and aluminum tariffs another $17.5 billion and that auto tariffs on Canada and Mexico alone have added $1600 to the cost of US made cars while also depressing the sales of those cars. Though Trump has gotten substantially richer, inflation is up, growth is down, and the oil reserves that were released to ease the pain at the pump caused by the war are critically low and need to be replenished. 

Maine Mess: Graham Platner finally withdrew, well sort of withdrew, from Maine’s Senate race on Wednesday.  Sort of because though he said that he’s suspended his candidacy, he’s yet to officially request that his name be taken off the ballot; he has until Monday to do that and appears to be taking his time and maybe even leaving himself with an opening to stay.  Platner made his announcement on Wednesday night, via a pathetic eleven-minute video where instead of taking the high road, he went low, denying all the accusations levied against him and snarling while saying that he was only withdrawing from the race because the forces of evil, as in those Washington based establishment Democrats (cough, cough Schumer and AIPAC) have lined up against him by withdrawing their financial support 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ 🤦‍♀️. If anything, he made it clear that he never should have been the candidate. Apparently he still doesn’t know what his tattoo represents and those women, they’re all lying about everything.  Just about everyone available, including a number who’ve previously lost primary races and prior bids to unseat incumbent Susan Collins, have thrown their hats into the ring to replace Platner.  Maine Democrats plan to hold a convention during which a total of 600 delegates, 500 from each of Maine’s county party committees, and another 100 who are state committee members will meet to select Platner’s replacement. And because endorsing an unvetted candidate worked out so well for him the first time, uber-progressive Congressman Ro Khanna rushed to immediately endorse “bottle thrower” Troy Jackson, one of the leading new contenders.

More 💩:  ICE has killed another person 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️, this time in Houston where they shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo a Mexican National who had lived in the US for decades, had no criminal record, and who was on his way to work at a homebuilding site.  Araujo wasn’t even the person that the INS intended to arrest but obviously he deserved to be shot, or so authorities want us to believe. On the health front, a few months ago, the CDC cutback its surveillance of foodborne illnesses, probably not all that surprising given RFK and his propensity for hanging with brain worms and jumping in polluted bodies of water but just a bit of a problem given that there’s currently a multi-state outbreak of cyclosporiasis, a gastrointestinal illness.  At least 18 states are affected, with notable infection spikes in Michigan (over 1,000 cases) and New York City (nearly 400 cases).  Weird how those gnarly, persistent bacteria and viruses keep doing their thing even when RFK and his cronies think that if they just ignore them they won’t.  Trump still hasn’t paid E J Caroll the $5 million plus that the courts have mandated that he has to pay her, and even worse, he’s still fighting his obligation, asking for a SCOTUS mulligan.  Then again he’s all into mulligans, he also wants SCOTUS to reconsider its birth right citizen ruling. While he’s not happy about how the decision turned out, he’s already taking advantage of the decision that said he can fire anyone he wants as long as that person isn’t a law-abiding member of the Federal Reserve Board.  Yesterday, Trump terminated the remaining members of the independent, federal commission that assists election administration officials nationwide. The commission certifies voting systems and maintains the national mail-voter registration form developed by the National ​Voter Registration Act of 1993.  Nothing but everything to see there.