NATIONAL LEPRECHAUN DAY UPDATES
Waitaminute – WHY ISN’T THIS ON ST. PATRICK’S DAY?!?!
-We don’t often start with an update with a THIS JUST IN, but THIS JUST IN! Donald Trump is on his first foreign visit of Term Two – and it should be no surprise to learn that this is a tour of countries eager to grease his wee tiny palms some of the more corrupt regimes he and his minions dream of transforming America into fellow gold-leaf loving misogynist violent homophobes Middle Eastern potentates. At this moment he is in Saudi Arabia, and as of this draft Trump has already dozed off twice and in need of help to find a chair and microphone to dronegrunt answers about who really cares to Legacy Media, Inc. and other media types. (Which makes sense, as the only American media figure that traveled with Trump was Sean Hannity, barely a media figure and in no way, shape, or form a “journalist.”)
-The trip naturally includes Qatar, whose bribe gift of a plane decked out like a cheap Reno whorehouse luxury airliner to the United States Trump himself has gotten tons of criticism, even from MAGAt-types like Ben “What’s WAP and Why Does My Wife Cry Every Time I Ask?” Shapiro, among others, and Trump has answered as we should all expect, by claiming any President who would turn down a $400 million violation of the emoluments clause of the United States Constitution bribe in every way, shape, and definition of the word bauble so tacky it should have been turned down just for reasons of basic human taste “gift” – and thereby any vague attempt at looking Presidential and legal – as, in Trump’s word, “SHTUPID!”
-If, by the way, you wonder why Qatar did this, there are three tracks. One of course is flat-out aforementioned bribery. A second is that two of Trump’s most sycophanthic aides, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and “Attorney General” Pam Bondi, both were very-well-paid lobbyists for Qatar. A third is that Qatar – and here, believe it or not, we will speak in terms at least vaguely understandable – is a kind of warped Middle East Switzerland with connections to most of the governments in the region as well as many of the Non-Governmental Entities like, well, HAMAS and Hezbollah.
-That is often super-uncomfortable but can also on occasion be helpful, as it was on Sunday when HAMAS released the last known American taken captive after the October 7 terrorist attacks. THIS IS NOT A DEFENSE OF QATAR, simply a note that there are reasons for why they are at the epicenter of a lot of what happened recently and what is happening now.
-After Trump is done in Saudi Arabia, he will be going to Turkey and Syria – and, oh looky looky, WHATTA COINKYDINK! – it appears all three countries have or are about to sign development agreements with The Trump Organization (which technically right now means Trump Failson Eric “Eric” Trump) to sign development deals for Trump Towers in all of those countries right now! I’m old enough to remember Jimmy Carter selling a peanut farm he owned before he became President for … get this … making sure there wasn’t even THE APPEARANCE of a conflict of interest! Now, Team Trump is basically making all these deals out in the open to make it really, REALLY clear that Trump is in this to cut deals for himself and his family – because who is going to stop him? Congress? THIS Congress? Puh. Leeze.
-But there is a little bit of work about to happen in Turkey, as on Thursday Trump is apparently going to show up along with Russian President and Trump Love Interest Vladimir Putin, as well as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. On the table is a 30-day cease fire proposal being very tentatively entertained by the important parties, and Zelenskyy for his part is not only giving a very preliminary let’s-keep-talking (along with the backing of the newly-energized European Union, now fully backing Ukraine) but also saying good things about Trump being there.
-Trump reportedly is telling aides he is ‘upset’ about Putin continually bombing civilian areas in Ukraine – which, of course, was always the Russian ‘strategy’ after being exposed as being a military paper tiger by Ukraine, and even reportedly worried Daddy Vlad lied to Donny about wanting to stop bombing and hurting Ukraine – which should make you go both “GEE, YA THINK?!” and “RIIIIIIIIIGHT” in the same breath. Still, the horrific toll that Russia has taken thanks to not being the badass military outfit the world thought they were means an outside shot of a possible deal might be possible. But let’s not get our hopes up too much. Trust and verify indeed.
-SLAVA UKRAINI!!!!!
-This trip is also a convenient way for Team Trump to try to hide the utter capitulation with their STUPIDSTUPID Tariffs (see, THAT’S how you use the word “stupid,” DONNIE) towards China. With a very woozy Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent making the announcement (and Bessent still hasn’t caught up on his sleep, as he was just seen dozing in Saudi Arabia – although that could also be because Trump’s drooldroning on and on) (Petty Atrocity of the day!!!), Trump backtracked from the obscene 145% tariffs down to a still-economically-damaging 30% tariffs on Chinese goods, though not the biggest-ticket goods like electronics and textiles and cars, apparently.
-China, which reportedly literally refused to respond to calls made by Trump and others to give them a face-saving way out make Trump and his minions squirm to their delight return to the table, still have 30% tariffs on American goods, and there will still be shortages as exports ramp up again, and we are likely to have to go through this rigamarol again in mid-August as this is “only” a 90-day deal, and other MAGAGOPTrump STUPIDSTUPID tariffs are still on, but at least the stock markets were happy yesterday.
-The truly smallest of victories …
-Another Trump wants-you-to-think-there’s-a-deal-where-there-may-not-be-a-deal deal was announced (“One of the most important announcements EVER!” he posted online on Sunday, raising false hopes he would announce his resignation) yesterday, this one involving prescription drugs. Recall President Biden actually signed laws and executive orders that worked to reduce prescription drug prices in a variety of ways, from allowing Medicare and Medicaid the ability to negotiate the lowest prices (which wasn’t the case and was cried for by activists for decades) to $35 insulin prices, and naturally Trump stopped all of that because Biden did it and the Trump MO is to destroy things his predecessors did. (That is also a potential explanation for why so much medical research is being axed out – remember Biden’s “Cancer Moonshot” he started to work on in the waning days of the Obama Presidency.)
-The key – Biden didn’t do it and Trump did – is what you need to remember, as Trump yesterday thumped his chest and announced an executive order a TrumpClamation that, for the most part, reinstates a lot of what Biden had done in a gold-foil-crusted and faux-leather-binder piece of paper involving drug prices. That it was preceded by one of the more notable Trump storyblatherings about an unnamed “really fat” CEO who was “shocked” at how expensive “the fat shot” (we believe this is a reference to Ozeympic?) was in the US instead of Europe, which to Trump was a jaw-dropping revelation that the rest of the U.S. has always known.
-And even that proclamation may not be worth the Sharpie ink Trump scrawed on it, as other reports indicate Trump is trying to put pressure on Big Pharma – not to make the prices of prescription drugs as cheap in the United States as they are everywhere else in the world, but to raise prices worldwide so that prices are more in line with what Americans and American companies are paying.
-Because OF COURSE that’s how Trump and his minions would do it …
-We now move on from stories Legacy Media Inc. are not telling to a general story Legacy Media Inc. loves: DEMS IN DISARRAY! Only there is much more to this story than what your Axiosi and Politicos are already writing about …
-The story: the Democratic National Committee has announced it will need to redo elections for their two Vice Chair posts for “technical reasons.” Recall that, in an effort to work to rebuild the under-30 and 40 voters that stayed home or (in the case of men) voted Trump, the Party officially elected two rising young stars: Parkland shooting survivor and activist David Hogg, and former Pennsylvania State Representative Malcolm Kenyatta.
-The announcement has been met with a bit of fury by Hogg in particular, who has been making a slew of media appearances decrying the decision for the redo and raising the spectre that the “old guard” Democratic Party was after him specifically, particularly given his announcement that a PAC he controls was going to fund primaries to oust what Hogg and others see as too-comfortable, too-for-the-status-quo Democrats, and that the entire effort was patently corrupt.
-That round prompted Kenyatta to make a video posted on social media that was catnip to the Dems-in-Disarray crowd. Kenyatta referred to “internal Democratic nonsense” in flat out saying Hogg’s accusations “rub(s) me the wrong way,” adding “David knows (his charges) are bullshit.”
-A second post from a woman who was part of the DNC Vice Chair further explained what the aforementioned “technical reason” for the revote is: having two men as Co-Chairs of the DNC is a violation of the Bylaws of the Democratic Party, and one of those Vice Chairs needs to be a woman. To further add to the story, the voting for these two Vice-Chairs resulted in Kenyatta winning with nearly 300 votes needing at least 204) while Hogg basically squeaked through by about 10 votes. In other words, a revote makes Hogg’s position far more tenuous.
-Furthermore, multiple social media posts by Kenyatta supporters (and Kenyatta himself) report Kenyatta has been working with state and local Democratic parties to do a lot of the unglamourous work of party-building while Hogg has been making lots of splashy media appearances – and in fact Hogg caught what appears to be well-deserved flack over an appearance at that bastion of 20- and 30-something voters, REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER, where Hogg agreed with the relic about frankly misogynistic stereotypes as to why men in particular did not vote for the black woman and for the serial rapist in 2024.
-So as stories circulate about this, keep all of this in mind. All this could make many of us feel disappointed in Hogg, yet this is yet another reminder that, in the immortal words of the late, great Harold Washington, politics ain’t beanbag – and eyes should always be on the prize, not just to beat Trump and MAGA, but what will be done should Democrats regain power (and yes, they will if we do the work). If this gets the best leadership and we don’t form the Democratic Circular Firing Squad, it should.
-There is a new book about the end of the Biden Presidency, but it is full of gossip about his physical condition, and one of the co-writers is a CNN anchor who should be spending time on the ongoing decaying cognitive skills of the current President (as noted in several updates above), so fk that book and fk that author – I’m not even going to bother dropping the name other than to say it is a man – and that’s all I’ll have to say about that book.
-What I WILL say about Biden, however, is Get Well Soon – a routine health check found a ‘speck’ on his colon and further treatment will be engaged to deal with it. That’s what’s important here.
-Get it? Got it? GOOD! On to the date’s trivia!
-NEWS ON THIS DATE: In 1845, Congress approved a declaration of War against Mexico. In 1917, three children reported seeing the vision of the Virgin Mary near the Porturgese town of Fatima. Iin 1920, Eugene V. Debs became the first convict to be nominated for President. In 1940, Winston Churchill offered Britain “nothing … but blood, toil, tears, and sweat” in his first speech as Prime Minister. In 1958, Richard Nixon survived an assassination attempt in Venezuela. In 1981, Pope John Paul II survived an assassination attempt. In 1985, Philadelphia police dropped a bomb on a row house where members of the Black separatist MOVE organization were staying – the bomb ignited a fire in the block and killed 11. In 1989, 2,000 students started a hunger strike against the Chinese government in Tianenman Square in Beijing.
-DEBUTS ON THIS DATE: The kitchen knife (1637), Formula One racing (1950), THE PAJAMA GAME (1954), “Paint It Black” (1966), Howard Stern on the radio (1977), LOW-LIFE (1985).
-HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Daphne du Maurier, Gil Evans, Joe Louis, Bea Arthur, Mike Gravel, Harvey Keitel, Ritchie Valens, Mary Wells, Armistead Maupin, Lou Marini, Franklin Ajaye, Ravi Shankar, David Simon, Dennis Rodman, Stephen Colbert, Buckethead, Pusha T., Samantha Morton, Barry Zito, Mike Bibby, Ana Cabrera, Robert Pattinson, and Tyrann Mathieu.
-REST IN PEACE/POWER: Cyrus McCormick, Paul Ernst, Gary Cooper, Dan Blocker, Selma Diamond, Chet Baker, Gene Sarazen, Donald “Duck” Dunn, Chuck Muncie, Dr. Joyce Brothers, Margot Kidder, Doris Day, and Alice Munro.
-FEED THE WORMS: Jim Jones, John Kasich and Tom Cotton entered Earth on this date.
-Lena Dunham and Morgan Wallen were born on this date. You decide if they get Happy Birthdays or if they Feed the Worms.
-TODAY’S MUSIC INTERLUDE: Happy Birthday to the always-cool Stevie Wonder!