Besieged

 Some days it just feels like they're coming from all directions.

Remember Jared Kushner?  He has a deal with the Serbian government to build a "luxury hotel" where the Yugoslav Defense Ministry used to be.  It will contain a "memorial dedicated to all the victims of NATO aggression," like the operation to end the genocide of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in 1999.  (Today is the eightieth anniversary of D-Day, another American-Allied act of aggression which ended the genocide of European Jews.  How words like "aggression" have changed.)

The Serbian deal will keep Kushner busy while he waits impatiently for Israel to finish "cleaning up" the valuable real estate known as the Gaza Strip so he can start work on hotels and condos.  These would provide opportunities for Palestinians to "build up their livelihoods," as hotels provide careers like bellhop, maid and food service worker.  In the meantime people could be moved into the Negev Desert because they are used to going without water and food.  

The Pennsylvania House passed a bill to offer free pads and tampons to students despite the opposition of Stephanie Borowicz (R-Clinton), who fears that having "government provide everything for you" will lead to communism.  She's right -- that's how Lenin started:  Peace, land, bread and free tampons.  In the past Borowicz tried to have covid declared "God's punishment...for our presumptuous sins" and she probably thinks menstruation should be viewed the same way. 

In other news of creeping communism Bernie Sanders hailed an agreement with Boehringer Ingelheim to sell inhalers for $35 instead of $500.  Americans with COPD and asthma will now have almost the same chance to continue breathing as French people, who pay $7.  

In reproduction-related news, Senate Republicans blocked a bill to protect access to contraception.  Theocracy moves a step closer.

Cockroach-in-a-dentist-skin Paul Gosar is a surprise late entry into the running mate stakes.  He has introduced the TRUMP Act --that's "Treasury Reserve Unveiling Memorable Portrait Act of 2024" -- to put a certain swollen orange face on the $500 bill, which has not circulated since 1969.  You must be dead to appear on US currency, so -- I'm fine with it.

The MAGA convention in Milwaukee won't be the same without Steve Bannon, who has been ordered to start serving his sentence for contempt of Congress on July 1.  He continues to bluster about going all the way to the Supreme Court with his "great lawyers."  But are they better than Trump's?  Bannon's problem is not being an elected official.  As Eric Swalwell pointed out during the House Oversight Committee's ritual denunciation of Merrick Garland the other day, "The chairman is 754 days into his own subpoena defiance."  Hey, Jordan, he means you.  Go find your jacket, get someone to show you how to put it on and surrender to the nearest federal marshal.

Once again, this is Milwaukee.  It bears no resemblance to Ho Chi Minh City.

If Bannon gets a reprieve, his spot at the convention could be filled by megabrain Joe Rogan, who dedicated his radio lecture today to the Mexican election and its new president, Claudia Sheinbaum. The campaign was especially bloody, with 37 reported assassinations.  "We live next to a fucking crack house!" Rogan exclaimed.  "A crack house on fire run by a Jew...a first lady, a first lady."  Then he wondered if the US could face "another JFK-type situation."  He's not worried for Biden, of course, but for "a candidate that the government really doesn't want in."  You know how Biden is always ordering hits on his opponents.  Today is the anniversary of the murder of Robert F. Kennedy, Sr., in 1968, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't on his so-called mind either.

Convicted felon Trump will not receive the usual courtesy security briefing, for obvious reasons.  It may not matter now that Mike Johnson (probably on orders from Trump) has added Ronny Jackson and Scott Perry to the House Intelligence Committee.  The FBI still has Perry's phone, seized after the January 6 coup attempt.  Jackson is a drunk and an ethically challenged pill distributor.  Neither one should be party to security briefings.

Keith Olbermann suggests that the Wall Street Journal's hit piece on Joe Biden was part of the deal to get their reporter Evan Gershkovich released by Putin, which Trump says will only happen if he wins.  And I thought I was cynical.  (Link to YouTube)  

While we're on the subject, what about Paul Whelan, Travis Leake, Ksenia Kavana and the others?  How abandoned they must feel.






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