Watching the king and his courtiers compete with each other in clownishness would be fun if it weren’t all so dangerous and deadly.
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As I write this, a new, even more liberal pope, has taken over — an American who has openly criticized Donald Trump and JD Vance on everything from deportations to Vance’s take on religion. It sets up a possible global clash between two powerful fellow citizens, one the symbol of beatific aspirations and the other, well… not.
Meanwhile, Trump, with the rest of us suffering whiplash, is continuously revising his nonsensical plans, and now proposes to reduce his own astronomical China tariffs — about one doll and two pencils’ worth.
As Trump continues to behave like a puppet of Vladimir Putin, Gallup reports that public opinion is headed in the opposite direction. A record high share of Americans (46 percent) now say the US is not doing enough to aid Ukraine in its defense against the Russians.
Trump’s approval ratings are down an average of 14 points from when he took office. And, according to CNN polling, the share of Americans saying they feel “afraid” or “pessimistic” about Trump’s presidency is now up to 57 percent. Trump’s net approval rate is negative in the seven swing states
He does see what is going on and, while continuing his harsh policies and crackdown on his enemies, is suddenly proposing raising taxes on the rich, which is striking in view of his pro-wealthy policies and worldview. Trump, whose whole main appeal during the 2024 campaign was lowering taxes, especially for the rich, now claims to want to raise them.
Or does he? On May 9, he tweeted this:
The problem with even a “TINY” tax increase for the RICH, which I and all others would graciously accept in order to help the lower and middle income workers, is that the Radical Left Democrat Lunatics would go around screaming,“Read my lips,” the fabled Quote by George Bush the Elder that is said to have cost him the Election. NO, Ross Perot cost him the Election! In any event, Republicans should probably not do it, but I’m OK if they do!!!
More whiplash.
He replaced his interim DC US Attorney Ed Martin, an extremist rogue who offended even GOP figures, with a brash Fox News personality, former suburban New York District Attorney Jeanine Pirro. As CNN’s Reliable Sources noted, Fox, which has supplied two dozen members of Trump’s team, has barely covered Martin’s shocking behavior, neo-Nazi ties, etc., so its audience has no awareness of why Trump has to pull in the ever-loyal Pirro.
Internecine political rivalry is hardly a new phenomenon, but doesn’t it seem that this regime has taken it to a feverish new level, where seemingly everyone in TrumpWorld hates everyone else? The scheming is continuous, as is the brawling, to get the fickle King’s ear.
For surgeon general, Trump picked Casey Means, a practitioner of “functional medicine (FM)” — a form of alternative medicine, based on… alternate facts. Called a “grifting quack” by a noted oncologist, she is co-founder of a company that peddles supplements, creams, teas, fitness equipment, red light therapy, tubs for treating yourself with “iceology” and gadgets that might tell you what you need to buy from her company for, say, your hormone health.
Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. — whose alt-health supporters are fighting each other — waxed enthusiastic about Means on X.com:
Casey Means was born to hold this job. She will provide our country with ethical guidance, wisdom, and gold-standard medical advice.
The slashed health bureaucracy with this nut crew at the helm is also ill-equipped to handle the rapidly metastasizing bird flu — since last April, 70 human cases were reported; regular flu, of which 216 US children have died so far; and measles, now with more than 1,000 US cases.
Curtis Yarvin — the ultra-right Trump team guru and outspoken critic of democracy itself, who helped inspire DOGE — is now improbably trashing his offspring for disrespecting government experts. And no wonder: The Trump administration continues firing everyone who knows how to do anything at an astonishing clip.
Meanwhile, as we are constantly reminded, the king gets his daffy ideas (like reviving Alcatraz) from crazed influencers, TV, and old movies.
An “Ivanka Trump fan account” (imagine such a thing!!!) (“No Affiliations with @IvankaTrump… be the first to get Breaking News. Biggest Ivanka (News) Fanpage on X”) published this shining example of “breaking news”:
Elon’s mother has a book out and is all over X about how proud she is of her son, even as he becomes ever more hated.
Day after day, we see new developments in which techbros rush AI forward with barely a look in the rearview mirror. Now, Google stock is suffering, as the very idea of people searching for information becomes less probable. News organizations fret, too, that collapsing attention spans combined with the ease of using AI for quick answers and summaries mean their extensive efforts at reportage, investigation, analysis, and storytelling may be seen as extraneous.
Just as Big Money chases more big money via AI, it shows little moral leadership, with continual, self-serving kowtowing to the Trump family. As The Guardian reports, “Large institutional investors have massively increased their holdings of Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) in recent months,” raising “further questions about big business’s desire to curry favor” with Trump.
We truly are in uncharted territory and every day brings new chaos. You could drive a tank through what’s left of the Overton Window.
At the same time, the principled opposition is rising in every quarter.
Every day, judges — including Republican-appointed judges and now, increasingly, Trump-appointed judges — are blocking lawless and unconstitutional Trump initiatives. They continue to condemn anti-democratic actions of the Republican leadership. In a win for voters, a three-judge panel with two Trump appointees ruled that Alabama’s 2023 congressional map is unconstitutional and violates the Voting Rights Act, calling it “an intentional effort to dilute Black Alabamians’ voting strength.”
Across the media, more and more outfits — filling a growing gap in the educational system — are turning out civics and citizenship lessons. Of course, the MAGAsphere will remain untouched and its denizens further estranged from what everyone else knows or learns.
A dramatic trend in special election results around the country suggests that Trump — and the GOP’s acquiescence in his unspeakable awfulness — may be destroying the Republican Party. When a swing state like Wisconsin spits on Elon Musk’s cheesehead and $25 million investment, electing the Democratic candidate by double digits to give its state Supreme Court a liberal majority, it illuminates a sharp turn away from the electoral dynamics that brought Trump and the GOP to hegemonic power in November.
On Thursday, Melania Trump hosted a special ceremony unveiling the United States Postal Service commemorative stamp honoring the life and legacy of First Lady Barbara Bush.
The statement said Melania was “surrounded by members of the Bush family, friends, former Bush staff, and distinguished guests,” but in fact if you read further, it seems to have been only the Bushes’ nearly invisible daughter Doro, the CEO of the George & Barbara Bush Foundation, and a postal service official.
Even the Bushes — like former president George W. — don’t want anything to do with this crew.
What all this adds up to is essentially a political total war, with prospects for something even worse. We should all keep our eyes peeled on how the Trump regime is preparing for that looming escalation.
At press time, Trump’s agents had arrested Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and the lovely Stephen Miller was floating the idea of suspending the 800-year-old mother of all rights known as Habeas corpus.
How’s your May going?
On a positive note, science continues to amaze. In what could perhaps be seen as a metaphor for our times, a doctor, using special instruments, entered a woman’s head — through her eye socket — tunneled through her brain, all the way to the back of her head, in order to remove an otherwise inoperable tumor from her spine.
By the way, the neurosurgeon who performed this history-making procedure is Mohamed A.M. Labib, who was born in Dubai.
Let’s hope masked ICE agents don’t haul him off the streets.
The following sources were used in the illustration above:Vladimir Putin (Duma.gov.ru / Wikimedia – CC BY 4.0), Donald Trump (The White House / Wikimedia – PD), Stephen Miller (Gage Skidmore / Wikimedia – CC BY-SA 2.0), JD Vance (Vice President / Wikimedia – PD), Jeanine Pirro (Gage Skidmore / Wikimedia – CC BY-SA 2.0), Curtis Yarvin (David Merfield / Wikimedia – CC0 1.0), Maye Musk (Gilzetbase / Wikimedia – CC BY-SA 4.0), Melania Trump (The White House / Wikimedia – PD), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Gage Skidmore / Wikimedia – CC BY-SA 2.0), and Casey Means (The Plant Yourself Podcast / YouTube -CC BY 3.0).
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