The Sixth Sense 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🚀🚢

War Drums:  Last night Jordan intercepted and destroyed five Iranian ballistic missiles that targeted US bases in the Kingdom. Also yesterday, together with Saudi Arabia the US carried out strikes on Iranian-backed militias in Iraq in response to Iranian attacks on Saudi oil facilities.  And because the world is one big Venn diagram with lots of overlapping circles, Iran considered but then held off on attacking a seaport in Ukraine.  The seaport attack would have been in response to a Ukrainian strike on an Iranian ship, which was a response to Iran and Russia providing each other with military assistance. Keeping with the Venn theme both Ukraine’s Zelenskyy and Israel’s Netanyahu were in Washington DC yesterday, where in addition to attending the funeral of their long-time, now forever gone supporter Senator Lindsey Graham they had individual closed-door meetings with Trump. Curiously, Laura Loomer, the right winger who has Trump on speed dial has done a radical 180 shift and is now a supporter of all things Ukraine. Maybe she’s been visited by Grahams’s ghost?  Netanyahu could use a supportive spook of his own because despite all the help he gets from Miriam Adelson’s wallet, his star continues to wane, taking all things Israel with it. With Graham out of the picture, Trump seems disinterested in Bibi’s satellite imagery of Iran repairing and building up its missile production infrastructure at its heavily fortified Pickaxe Mountain facility because while nukes and missiles may have been the reason Trump jumped into the war, now the orange one is looking for an exit door as even he seems to get that a 62% un-favorability rating (The Economist/YouGov), is a bad thing especially with the midterms in the not so distant future.  Trump’s refusal to acknowledge that affordability really is a thing and that the electorate cares about pocketbook issues, also explains why his DOJ has asked the Supreme Court to accelerate a review of his executive order restricting mail in voting because if Trump can’t appeal to voters with policies that benefit them, all that’s left is preventing those who blame him for their grocery, gas, and health care bills from voting altogether.  Mail-in voting and regulating elections are supposed to be the purview of states, rather than the federal government, but Trump’s sway with the Supreme Court should neve be underestimated, so it’s anyone’s guess how they’ll rule.

Peeps:  Former Senator Graham who no one expected to see exit so soon is gone. Energizer bunny Trump who frequently appears on the cusp of something dire continues to soldier on even if that soldiering includes incoherent speechifying and inopportune naps. Senator Mitch McConnell is another story altogether.  His handlers have produced another questionable proof of life picture of him with his wife former Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao sitting by his side. The party line is that Mitch is now in rehab on the mend but not yet ready to reappear in the Senate chambers.  Nor is he up to meeting with Andy Beshear, Kentucky’s Democratic Governor.  The moderate Beshear who is frequently mentioned as a potential 2028 Democratic president or Veep candidate is getting lots of heat from the left of his party and from Kentucky’s dead man walking Congressman Thomas Massie who harbors delusional Twitter dreams about becoming Mitch’s interim replacement for not barging into Mitch’s room to personally take his pulse. It’s almost as if the Democratic Socialists want to take Beshear down 🤷‍♀️.  In any case, Mitch’s absence comes with benefits because no Mitch in the Senate chambers means the Republicans remain short a vote.  Yesterday, Jay Clayton, Trump’s pick for Director of National Intelligence was confirmed by a vote of 51 to 47 with all Democrats voting against him and all Republicans except for the absent Mitch and the mourning Darline Graham voting for him. At one point a few Democrats had planned to support Clayton’s nomination because while he lacks relevant experience he’s not the truly awful Interim DNI Bill Pulte who fired more intelligence staff yesterday, but Clayton lost their votes by refusing to say that Trump lost the 2020 election during his confirmation hearing.  Mitch’s absence didn’t matter for Clayton, but it might matter for Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche whose confirmation remains up in the air. Republicans John Cornyn and Thom Tillis want him to formally commit to “spiking” Trump’s weaponization fund.  As of this morning, that has not happened.  Worth noting that both Cornyn and Tillis, who famously questioned Hegseth’s suitability but then voted for him anyway, tend to cave.  In other people news, details about the horrific abuse that Congressman Max Miller has perpetrated on his wife, the daughter of Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno, keep surfacing.  According to police reports Miller who has been endorsed by Trump,  poured hot water on his wife, put a gun to her head, and may have broken his two-year-old daughter’s mysteriously broken collar bone.  Crickets from Dad/Senator Moreno and Trump about all this. Speaker Johnson says that despite the police reports the accusations against Mills are just “allegations.” Others have been booted from the House for lesser crimes, but Johnson needs Miller’s vote and anyway he’s not a Democrat so that wife abuse thing does not count. Right about now Graham Platner probably wishes that he was a Republican.

More 💩:  On Friday, an Energy Department attorney who apparently didn’t want to be disbarred for lying to a judge, admitted in a court filing that the administration withheld federal grants from states because they had “awarded their electoral college votes” to Kamala Harris during the 2024 election. Similarly having two Democratic Senators was another reason for doing the same.  Contrast that to Joe Biden who intentionally provided energy related funding to Republican controlled states.  In other news, while it’s good that $600 million that had been pledged to international vaccine alliance GAVI is now being unfrozen, all is not good on the vaccine front.  Measles is at record levels, virus guru Fauci is being skewered again in Congress because apparently saving lives is a crime, and Trump is pressing RFK to find those phony links between autism and vaccines.