The 2019 Puerto Rico Governor Hunger Games Have A Winner! (For Now)
So Puerto Rico has now had three governors (the equivalent of the president in any other country) in a week. Take that, mainland United States Congress!!!
After the Puerto Rico Supreme Court found that Pedro Pierluisi was unconstitutionally sworn-in as governor and told to him vacate La Fortaleza (The Fortress, the name of the governor's mansion in Old San Juan), Wanda Vazquez Garced became the Governor of Puerto Rico. On his way out, Pierluisi released a taped statement that appeared to be filmed in front of a green screen:
Or on the set of Lex Luthor's library in Richard Donner's Superman.
Even had Otis doing sign language!
Manhattan DA Takes A Bite Of Trump's Big Apple
New York, New York, it's a hell of a town, Vance is up, and Trump's goin' down. Well, maybe! Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance has subpoenaed the Trump Organization and the National Enquirer's parent company, AMI, for records relating to the Stormy Daniels hush money payments. So with a little luck, Bill Barr won't be able to stick a shiv into the investigation of Trump's porn star pecker payoff after all. Allegedly!
The New York Times reports that Vance's office is investigating the president's company for possibly falsifying business records and violating tax laws by trying to disguise the payments to Stormy Daniels as a reimbursement for legal work.
Here, Wonkette is a happy helper!
Stable Genius Wows Stock Market By Tweeting Us Into A Trade War
Attention Walmart Shoppers, and literally everyone else in US America! Almost everything you buy is about to get just a little bit more expensive since President Impulse Control decided to impose a 10 percent tariff on the remaining $300 billion of Chinese imports. Hooboy, are we tired of winning yet?
The message was delivered in the usual manner, and without informing our Chinese negotiating partners in advance.
Making diplomacy great again! Trump prefaced his announcement by speculating that China and Iran had simply decided to wait him out, "drooling" at the prospect of being able to "rip off our beloved USA like never before" if a Democrat wins in 2020. But it wasn't all bad -- at least he managed to wait until Mnuchin and Lighthizer were back from negotiating with their Chinese counterparts in Shanghai before losing his shit and blowing up the deal on Twitter!
Trump spent months mollifying the big money market guys by promising that a great new trade deal with China was just around the corner. Wowed by his steely acumen and giant manly hands, China had promised to start buying massive quantities of US agricultural products. Or was it a vow to get serious about preventing intellectual property theft? Wait, maybe they were going to execute all the fentanyl smugglers.
Oh, whoops! Apparently it was NONE OF THEM, KATIE.
And that asshole is still out there swearing up and down that the Chinese pay all the tariffs and we'd all be so much richer if we just cut out China entirely and started making our own running shoes in America again.
Which is all well and good, except here in America wages are stagnant and people who can afford to eat, and pay rent, and shell out for health insurance, and still buy a pair of $15 American-made socks are thin on the ground.
China has not yet announced what its next move is, but safe bet it will be retaliatory tariffs. Which the Chinese will pay if they want our stuff, just as we pay to import Chinese goods. Because SHUT UP YOU DEMENTED LOON, THAT IS HOW TARIFFS WORK. Except the Chinese can just turn around and buy their soybeans from Brazil and Russia, who are only too happy to pick up the slack in the market. And then American taxpayers can pick up the tab for that one, too, since there is no way on God's green earth that the GOP is going to blow off Iowa farmers during a presidential year, especially with Joni Ernst on the ballot.
Let's see how the markets looked for the day.
Graphic via CNN Money
WOOF.
Oh, hey, remember that fun time on Wednesday, barely 24 hours before the Stable Genius had his tariff temper tantrum, when the Chairman of the Federal Reserve announced that he was cutting interest rates because we're in a trade war and no one knows whether it's going to peter out or blow up the entire economy because some idiot with no impulse control can't stay off Twitter? (We might be paraphrasing. A little.)
Once more with feeling now ... TRADE WARS ARE GOOD, AND EASY TO WIN.
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Ay! What The F*ck Is Going On In Puerto Rico?
Puerto Rico. A beautiful island of enchantment. A place filled with amazing people, great culture, delicious food, and beautiful vistas. But the island is in a fucking uproar due to the clusterfuck of mismanagement from federal (Trump) to local (Ricardo Rosselló's Cabinet).
Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico with a
final death count of 2,975, which happens to be the exact number of Americans that died during the September 11 attacks. But while America will "Never Forget" 9/11, unless you're Rand Paul, mismanagement at both the federal and local levels caused those AMERICANS to be largely ignored. While most were (rightly) criticizing Trump for his numerous failures in Puerto Rico, seems Governor Rosselló was doing some undercover dirt.
The Post-Hurricane selfie with Trump really should have been a clue.
