Yes, we ran into the dreaded ‘technical difficulties’ yesterday. Which is unfortunate, since I’m technologically illiterate. It won’t happen again. Until the next time.
Public Health? What Public Health?:
The firing of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director, Susan Monarez, less than a month after she was confirmed by the United States Senate should worry those who care about public health and American science.
But the move should not be a surprise. It comes at the end of a tumultuous summer that included budget cuts, firings and resignations, a shooting near the agency’s headquarters and a raft of bewildering changes to process and protocol. And while it may well signal an alarming new turn in the steady dismantling of American public health, that demolition was already well underway.
An official statement from the White House said that Dr. Monarez was “not aligned with the president’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again.” News reports indicate that it was her clashes with the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., over vaccine policy that did her in.
Despite his assurances in January, Mr. Kennedy is not simply trying to ensure that the best science is used to guide the nation’s health policies or demanding greater transparency into health policy decision making or insisting that disenfranchised groups be heard out. He is trying to fully dismantle the nation’s vaccination apparatus, regardless of what science says or what most people want. And less than a year into his tenure as health secretary, he is succeeding brilliantly.
Let me say it again: Where are the Democrats?? C’mon, Chris, take a stand. I mean, isn’t prison food just like a free buffet? You wouldn’t be risking much.
The Air Force will offer military funeral honors to Ashli Babbitt, the Trump supporter and Air Force veteran who was fatally shot by police during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, according to a statement from military officials issued Thursday.
The Air Force confirmed the decision, which it said came “after reviewing the circumstances of SrA Babbitt’s death,” in a statement to The Washington Post.
Judicial Watch, the conservative advocacy group that has represented Babbitt’s family in its wrongful-death lawsuit against the government, celebrated the news as another victory months after President Donald Trump’s administration settled the lawsuit with the family for nearly $5 million.
He’ll Never Get To Heaven W/O Your Recurring $15 Donations. Wonder what G-d’s membership fee is.
One of Trump’s latest fundraising email leans heavily on faith and his brush with death, framing his political survival as a divine mission. With the subject line “I want to try and get to Heaven,” Trump implies eternal life is based on his efforts.
Trump tells supporters in the fundraising pitch that God saved him from an assassin’s bullet last year so “for one reason: to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.” The message casts his political victories and survival as miracles, from defeating Hillary Clinton in 2016 to returning to the White House despite what he calls rigged elections and “sham cases.”
But the spiritual framing quickly pivots to a financial appeal. Trump declares he will “never surrender” but insists the MAGA movement depends on grassroots donations, launching a “24 HOUR TRUMP FUNDRAISING BLITZ.”
He urges supporters to chip in $15 to keep the movement alive. Yet the plea for money tied to eternal destiny comes as Trump continues to show little concern for the vulnerable people that his policies and rhetoric often target.
Perhaps that is because Trump is like Randy Newman’s depiction of G-d:
W-wait–Another Shitty Military Parade? Goosesteps mandatory:
The president was reportedly so disappointed by the marching — the marching specifically — that he is planning to throw himself another tyrant parade, this time featuring the Navy. The Wall Street Journal has this gem of a nugget in a new report on how Trump has become bolder in his autocratic tendencies during his second term:
Trump has also pushed the optics of the presidency in a monarchical direction, holding a military parade in June for the Army’s 250th birthday. Officials had thwarted a similar one in his first term by arguing it would look like a third-world spectacle. After the Washington parade, Trump told aides he was disappointed with the marching, and the U.S. Navy is trying to plan a bigger celebration this fall, hoping for a shimmering spectacle with seacraft, administration officials said.
The Navy will also mark its 250th anniversary in October, but has not yet announced any plans to celebrate the occasion. Sounds like they’re gonna throw themselves a birthday party whether they want to or not.
‘Market Complacency Until The Last Possible Moment’:
For those of us who follow economic policy in general and the Federal Reserve in particular, the past week has been shocking and terrifying. Donald Trump’s ongoing attempts to bully the Fed into large interest rate cuts have escalated into an attempt to fire Lisa Cook, a member of the Fed’s Board of Governors, over unsubstantiated claims that she committed financial fraud while still a college professor. Indeed, Trump claims that he has already fired her, although he has no legal right to do so.
Whatever happens, Trump’s campaign to take over monetary policy has shifted from a public pressure to personal intimidation of Fed officials: the attack on Cook signals that Trump and his people will try to ruin the life of anyone who stands in his way. There is now a substantial chance that the Fed’s independence, its ability to manage the nation’s monetary policy on an objective, technocratic basis rather than as an instrument of the president’s political interests and personal whims, will soon be gone.
So why aren’t markets freaking out? Nations in which central banks lose their independence sooner or later suffer high inflation, especially when they are taken over by autocrats who buy into crackpot economic doctrines. And Trump, who has been demanding large rate cuts because, he claims, the economy is running hot — which almost every economist would say is a reason to raise rates, not cut them — certainly fits that pattern. Yet although there have been small tremors in the bond and currency markets, there have been no significant upheavals in financial markets that reflect the severity of the situation we are in. Throughout this episode, the stock market has remained fairly flat and bond yields haven’t spiked.
My read of economic and financial history is that market pricing almost never takes into account the possibility of huge, disruptive events, even when the strong possibility of such events should be obvious. The usual pattern, instead, is one of market complacency until the last possible moment. That is, markets act as if everything is normal until it’s blindingly obvious that it isn’t.
ICE Arresting Firefighters Now. ‘Fundamentally-sick’ indeed.
Patty Murray, the Washington senator, has called for the Trump administration to provide “immediate answers” about reports that two firefighters were detained by border agents as they were responding to a wildfire in the state.
Federal immigration authorities on Wednesday staged an operation on the scene of the Bear Gulch fire, a nearly 9,000-acre (3,600-hectare) blaze in the Olympic national forest, where they arrested two people who were part of a contract firefighting crew, the Seattle Times first reported. The fire is the largest currently burning in the state.
Murray in her statement said the president had been undercutting firefighting abilities in other ways, including by “decimating” the US Forest Service. The administration significantly cut budgets and staffing at the agencies that manage much of the country’s federal lands, leaving the US unprepared for this year’s fire season, the Guardian previously reported.
“Here in the Pacific north-west, wildfires can [burn] and have burned entire towns to the ground. We count on our brave firefighters, who put their lives on the line, to keep our communities safe – this new Republican policy to detain firefighters on the job is as immoral as it is dangerous,” said Murray, who has represented Washington in the US Senate since 1993.
“What’s next? Will Trump start detaining immigrant service members? Or will he just maintain his current policy of deporting Purple Heart veterans?”
LMK if you hear any sort of a similar response from our Delaware Congressional delegation. Which reminds me, will someone please primary Chris Coons (‘D’-Gore-Tex)?
Legislation to limit the restrictions that a county may impose on operations of marijuana establishments has been vetoed by Governor Matt Meyer.
In his veto message of Senate Bill 75, the Governor said this approach would override local judgement on the location and operation of cannabis businesses in ‘sensitive’ locations, such as near schools, child care centers, parks and libraries.
He also said revenue-sharing should be explored to offset local costs, while respecting local zoning.
(Sen. Trey) Paradee’s statement in part said:
“My father used to have an expression: “Son, if you ain’t got your word, you got nothing.” He meant: If you give someone your word and you later back out or do not deliver as you promised, you will irreparably tarnish your name and reputation. Once that happens, no one will trust you or want to work with you again.”
“I struck a deal with Matt Meyer in late June. I agreed to support his initiative to allow the Counties to share in the State’s revenue from recreational marijuana – a concept that I was very much opposed to. In return, the Governor agreed to allow SB 75 to pass into law without his signature. Today, he backed out on his word by vetoing SB 75.”
Paradee’s correct. You give your word, you keep your word.
If Meyer ends up a one-term governor, actions like this will have greased the skids for his demise.
What do you want to talk about?