Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

A 70-point drop among independents on inflation

Consumers are indeed feeling it. Inflation, that is.

Trading Economics:

The annual inflation rate in the US jumped to 3.3% in March 2026, marking the highest level since May 2024 and a sharp increase from 2.4% in both February and January. Figures came in line with forecasts, with the rise primarily driven by higher energy costs (12.5%), mostly gasoline (up 18.9%) and fuel oil (44.2%), due to the war with Iran. On the other hand, prices for used cars and trucks continued to decline (-3.2% vs -3.2%) while inflation steadied for shelter (3% vs 3%) and eased for food (2.7% vs 3.1%). On a monthly basis, consumer prices rose 0.9%, the largest increase since June 2022, following a 0.3% gain in February and also in line with forecasts, boosted by a 21.2% jump in gas prices. Meanwhile, core inflation which excludes food and energy, also picked up though much more moderately, to an annual rate of 2.6%, compared to forecasts of 2.7%. On a monthly basis, core consumer prices increased by 0.2%, below expectations of 0.2%. source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

BREAKING: Stunning new polling reveals that Donald Trump is 60 points underwater when it comes to the issue of inflation. This is the number 1 issue voters care about. Donald Trump is set for a rude awakening in November. pic.twitter.com/IZvac5idY2

— Democratic Wins Media (@DemocraticWins) April 20, 2026

And a 70 point drop among independents on inflation.

Washington Post:

Just 29 percent of Americans approve of the president’s handling of the area, while almost two-thirds — 64 percent — disapprove, a Economist/YouGov poll found. Discontent with the highest inflation since 1981 propelled Trump back into office in 2024. But now it’s become a political albatross of his own.

Trump’s Iran war and tariffs are surely to blame, but:

The deeper explanation, though, is that voters remain furious at the rise in costs from the inflationary period of 2021 to 2025. Since Trump cannot reverse those high prices, their disillusionment has grown.

<glug, glug>

Sign Guy on Monday had a too-close encounter of the MAGA kind with a dude super-triggered over this sign:

Last week’s close encounter was a MAGA overeacting to this one:

Are we detecting a pattern?

Sign Guy is your canary in the coal mine. If MAGAs are getting this worked up over the price of gas and Oreos, how will they respond when, after Labor Day with Trump facing a crushing, humiliating defeat, Sign Guy very publicly starts urging 1000s of independents per week to vote in November?

Trump can’t be trusted. Who knew?

Fact-checker extraordinaire, Daniel Dale of CNN: Even Trump’s most basic claims about the Iran war can’t be trusted

Trump said Friday that the Strait of Hormuz situation was “over.” It very obviously wasn’t.

Trump said Friday that Iran agreed “to never close the Strait of Hormuz again.” The next day, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz again.

Trump said yesterday that Vance isn’t going to Pakistan for the talks. Officials quickly said Vance is going to Pakistan for the talks.

Trump said this morning that Vance had left and would be there tonight Islamabad time. Officials quickly said Vance is actually leaving tomorrow.

Trump said Iran has no military anymore and that “everything’s gone.” Iran continues to have a military with destructive capabilities.

Trump said the pope issued a statement saying Iran can have a nuclear weapon. That never happened.

Trump said nobody expected Iran to retaliate against Gulf countries. That was widely expected.

Trump said the only planes the US has really lost in the war have been to friendly fire. He said this at the same event at which he had spoken at length about what happened after Iran shot down a US plane.

Story on the president’s ever-growing number of false claims on big and small matters related to the war – and his triumphant claims about supposed Iranian concessions that we just can’t assume are based in reality:

Trump said Friday that the Strait of Hormuz situation was "over." It very obviously wasn't.

Trump said Friday that Iran agreed "to never close the Strait of Hormuz again.” The next day, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz again.

Trump said yesterday that Vance isn't going to…

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) April 20, 2026

The rest of the world knew. That’s who.

CNN's Melissa Bell reveals the world is completely bypassing the United States. Over 30 global leaders met in Paris to secure the Strait of Hormuz, deliberately excluding Washington. The international community is actively organizing to survive Trump's disastrous war. pic.twitter.com/Ewocwti4s6

— Furkan Gözükara (@FurkanGozukara) April 17, 2026

CNN: A deal to end the Iran war seemed close. Then Trump started posting on social media

Nobody in Washington, D.C. seems to be attempting to stop the bleeding.

(h/t BF)

Sorry about all the site issues today. It’s a hosting issue. Oy.

Anyway, enjoy:

Happy 420 Day.

As always, we celebrate the 53rd anniversary of when Gail & Dale sang "One Toke Over the Line,” on Lawrence Welk.

Neither knew what the song was about. Welk thought the song was a “modern spiritual.” pic.twitter.com/DjTZeLBAtb

— Danny Deraney (@DannyDeraney) April 20, 2026

The New York Times’s Nate Cohn, considered to be the polling Oracle by the beltway media, has signed on to the view that Democrats might just flip the Senate:

At the start of the 2026 election cycle, the Senate looked far out of reach for the Democrats. The House always seemed competitive, but retaking the Senate would require flipping at least four Republican-held seats — including at least two seats in states that President Trump won by double digits in 2024. In today’s polarized era, Democrats would need everything to break their way.

So far, everything is breaking the Democrats’ way. With Mr. Trump’s approval rating falling and inflation rising, along with the uncertainty of a war in the Middle East, it’s not hard to imagine a Democratic tsunami in November. A blue wave is not guaranteed, of course, and Democrats would not be assured to flip two reliably Republican states even if it were. But a feasible path for the party to win the Senate is coming into focus.

In recent polls, Democrats appear tied or ahead in four Republican-controlled seats — the number they would need to take the Senate. These include Maine and North Carolina, where the likely Democratic nominees hold clear leads, as well as Ohio and Alaska, where Democrats have recruited strong candidates in states Mr. Trump won by double digits in 2024. There are also signs that Republicans could be in danger in two more states where Mr. Trump won by double digits: Iowa and Texas.

Coming from him that’s especially hopeful. He is quite conservative in his analysis and I wouldn’t expect him to say this is he didn’t think it was for real.

I read an interesting article about Florida of all places where the impeachment whistleblower Alexander Vindman is running against the incumbent Ashley Moody who was appointed to replace Rubio. It’s tighter than anyone expected and Vindman is raising alot of money. There was a time not too long ago that Florida was a wing state …

I’m not getting my hopes up. But if a blue wave does materialize there may be some surprises. I’ve seen it happen.

JV Last has a nominee for dark horse GOP 2028 candidate and I confess that when I saw the numbers a couple of days ago I was shocked but the same thought passed through my mind. Oh lordy:

We can already see the contours of 2028 on the Republican side. The GOP nominee is likely to be one of five people.

1. Donald J. Trump (more on this in a minute)
2. JD Vance
3. Marco Rubio
4. Tucker Carlson

And the fifth? He’s my darkhorse pick to win. You’re going to love this . . .

5. Donald J. Trump Jr.

Let’s start with DJTJ and work backwards. There have been a bunch of Republican primary polls over the past three months. Vance has been first in every one of them. Want to guess who’s been second or third in every single one of them? Donald Trump Jr.

He’s in double-digits in all but one of the polls and his head-to-head record against Rubio is 5–1–1. This—for a guy who has been invisible in the news, has never run for office, and has barely even nodded in the direction of the White House.

That’s a good starting position. There is an appetite among a significant percentage of Republican voters to take a look at DJTJ. Unlike Eric, or Ivanka, or any of the other Trump children, DJTJ is a plausible candidate. Republican voters are interested in him. But his position is even stronger than it looks. If DJTJ were to run, he’d inherit the Trump political organization and lists. He’d probably be able to finagle access to Trump’s campaign war chest,2 but even if he couldn’t, he’d have made enough money to self-fund.

DJTJ’s biggest advantage is that if he decides to run, Vance and Rubio will have their knees cut out from under them. Neither would be able to oppose him. A DJTJ candidacy would carry the explicit endorsement of Trump the Father, making it impossible for the vice president or secretary of state to contest the race without becoming un-personed. Challenging Don Jr. would turn them into enemies of the people.

Who could plausibly challenge Trump Junior? Tucker Carlson is the obvious answer. Tucker pulls surprisingly small numbers when he’s included in the field. But he has his own media company and he’s one of the most gifted talkers on the planet. That’s also his liability. Tucker has a long list of positions he’s taken over the years. DJTJ is closer to a blank slate. Trump Junior is just a mascot for the MAGA lifestyle brand. As such, I suspect he’d be amenable both to the Trump base and to the anti-anti establishment types—or at least more amenable to them than Tucker would be.

A lot depends upon Trumps status with the base by 2028. Very often lame ducks actually rise toward the end, as their voters start to feel a little nostalgia for the outgoing president. Perhaps this would bounce back on Jr. (And who knows? Trump voters aren’t very bright, they might just think it’s their guy running again!)

Last goes into detail about how this might go down and it’s super interesting. He thinks that unless Vance can get everyone else to drop out he has no chance. And basically none of the other ones do either. I agree with that but for different reasons. I think anyone closely associated with Trump is not going to win. But if Trump does get a little bounce in his last year, I’d guess Jr would be the most likely insider to wrest the nomination away from an outsider governor or businessman.

He points out rightly that the Trump grift is so incredibly lucrative that it’s hard to believe they would voluntarily give it up. If the old guy can’t run why not Jr?

Now go ahead and have that stiff drink. The MAGA base may love Junior but he isn’t his father. I think he has about the same chance of winning the general in 2028 as George Santos. So bring it on.

If you wonder why people don’t seem to be more exercised over the blatant corruption of the Trump administration it’s possible they just don’t know about it.

Judd Legum did the research:

Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, is leading U.S. diplomatic efforts with Iran while engaged in a lucrative, ongoing, multi-billion-dollar business relationship with the Saudi government. This brazenly corrupt arrangement is being completely ignored by most major media outlets.

In 2021, Kushner raised $2 billion from the Saudi government’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) for his private equity fund, Affinity Partners. Since that time, Kushner has collected more than $110 million in management fees from the Saudi government, according to calculations by Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Congressman Robert Garcia (D-CA). Even as he has assumed a central diplomatic role in negotiations with Iran, Kushner has reportedly sought billions more from the Saudis.

Accepting payments from a foreign government while leading diplomacy for the U.S. would be a glaring conflict of interest under any circumstances. But in this case, Kushner was on the Saudi payroll as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), the de facto ruler of the country, reportedly lobbied Trump both to initiate and continue the war.

Popular Information analyzed coverage of Kushner’s diplomatic role from the outset of the war with Iran on February 28 to April 19. During that period, 202 articles mentioning Kushner’s role representing the U.S. in negotiations with Iran were collectively published by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Associated Press, CNN Wire, The New York Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, and The Los Angeles Times.

Only six of the 202 articles covering Kushner’s diplomatic role mentioned his financial conflict of interest with the Saudi government. That means more than 97% of the coverage ignored Kushner’s conflict. Of the six articles that covered the conflict, five appeared in the New York Times. The other article originally appeared in Foreign Policy and was republished by the Washington Post.

The Wall Street Journal, The Associated Press, CNN Wire, The New York Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, and The Los Angeles Times collectively published dozens of articles about Kushner’s diplomatic role in the war with Iran but never mentioned the conflict.

That is malpractice, especially considering the blanket coverage we have seen in the past about Hunter Biden’s alleged appearance of conflict 8 years earlier and the trumped up scandal about the Clinton Foundation. I know there’s a lot to cover, but this has got to become part of every story featuring Jared and the Trump boys.

Pete Magyar won against Orban largely by showing that Orban’s corruption was hurting Hungarian citizens. This is a big fat softball right up the middle for Democrats and it’s extremely important. This kakistocracy is rapidly hurtling out of control.

Jon Ossoff has a great campaign corruption message that all Democratic candidates should learn from. “So little effort to hide so much corruption…” Ain’t that the truth. They’re just doing it and they don’t care who knows it.

Greg Sargent has another example this morning, I know it will shock you. Just kidding:

Last year, four huge companies pledged tens of millions of dollars to help fund the creation of Donald Trump’s presidential library, a planned monstrosity in Miami that—in a perfect Trumpian twist—may also double as a hotel. The companies—ABC; Paramount; Meta; and X, formerly Twitter—entered into the agreements with Trump to settle legal cases he’d brought against them which experts had dismissed as dubious.

After the companies agreed to these shakedowns—sorry, settlements—the fund created to receive donations was dissolved last September. Since then, Senate Democrats have been asking: What happened to the money?

Now there’s been an important new turn in this saga. The four companies have provided fresh information to Senate Democrats in written responses to their questions. For these Democrats, those responses—obtained by The New Republic—raise more questions than they answer.

In these formal replies, all four companies confirmed that they did pledge that money to Trump’s library—itself a notable development. More importantly, however, the Democrats say the responses reveal that the money is still largely unaccounted for. “Not one of these companies can say with any clarity where their multi-million-dollar donations to Donald Trump’s library slush fund are, or where they will go,” Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who’s taken the lead in tracking this money, tells me in a statement.

It’s another slush fund. Surprise.

And keep in mind that Qatar’s “gift” of the huge fancy plane is supposed to go to the library too. What’s happening with that?

Check out Ossoff’s entire speech here if you have time.It’s good:

“Oh my God. It’s $5.45 per gallon.”

Wikipedia: Valley Cottage is a hamlet and census-designated place within Clarkstown, located in Rockland County, New York, United States.

The Washington Post this morning begins its profile of Americans impacted by rising costs in Valley Cottage. There, Marvel Produce has seen an over 25 percent rise in fuel costs for its delivery trucks. The produce they deliver costs more because shipping costs more:

“I would say this is the worst year in my career, besides covid and 2008,” said Mike Scicchitano, a 30-year veteran of the industry who co-owns Marvel Produce. He doesn’t consider himself political, and stresses that his views are his own, but said the war and ensuing fuel costs have exacerbated his dismal view of Washington.

Dari Sonera-Scicchitano, Mike’s wife and another co-owner, said she is considering voting in the midterm elections for the first time because “we need change,” starting with ending the war and bringing fuel prices down.

The rest of the article is about Americans struggling to cope with the prices, and small business people having to calculate how much they can raise prices without losing customers. There is also some happy talk about gas prices falling within two months of a settlement with Iran. Maybe.

Sixty percent of Americans disapprove of the U.S. military strikes on Iran, according to an Ipsos poll conducted in late March, and 56 percent said they believe the war will have a negative impact on their own financial situation. Trump’s overall approval rating has remained around 38 percent, though his approval rating for the economy hit a low of 31 percent in late March, according to a poll by CNN and SSRS.

Danielle Cifuni, 42, was on the phone with her sister when she pulled up to the pump in New City. “Oh my God,” she said. “It’s $5.45 per gallon.”

Cifuni owns two Playa Bowl franchises, in Bronxville and the Bronx. Her margins for açai bowls are shrinking as the cost of shipping in fruit has skyrocketed and she can’t raise prices. She has voted for both Trump and Lawler but said she is not sure how she will vote this fall. She wants the federal government to focus more on domestic issues.

Over at The New York Times, Lydia DePillis helps explain why gas prices rise faster than they fall. Gas station owners face the same countervailing pressures of having to raise prices without driving off customers. So they eat some of the hit to their bottom lines in the short term:

The good news, for gas stations, is that drivers base their expectations for how much gas should cost on last week’s price.

“So if the costs fall 20 cents, and the station lowers the price by 5 cents or 10 cents, the consumers say, ‘That looks like a great deal, compared to what I think is supposed to be there,’” said Matthew Lewis, a professor of economics at Clemson University who has studied retail gas markets. “Everyone just stops searching when the prices start to fall.”

So prices fall slower than they rise as owners try to recoup upside losses on the downhill side.

There is no guarantee, however, that gas vendors will recoup margins they lost on the way up by holding prices up slightly as rack prices come back down. Also, there is a newer problem: Gas stations make most of their money on stuff other than gas.

About that other stuff. I walked through the cookie aisle on Sunday and was struck by the visual flood of sale stickers. Deals! Except one look at the retail prices dispelled that notion.

The Oreos (standard package) that sold for about $4 in 2024 now sell for $6.28. The bargain is getting the “World’s Best Selling Cookie” cookies for $5. That’s up 25 percent from 2024 prices at the sale price.

No wonder mentioning planning for a $5/gal staycation set off Reckless Endangerment Guy last week. He can’t afford even a sugar high. Republicans may not withstand the blowback.

The aliens are here and living, not among us, but in spite of us

A truly disturbing article in The Atlantic is one I need to reread to truly absorb. Noah Hawley created the FX series Fargo and Alien: Earth. What he learned from three nights at Jeff Bezos’s Campfire retreat in 2018 carries the ominous tenor of dystopian science fiction. Even worse for it being reality.

Bezos had recently beome the world’s second centibillionaire, his wealth then half what it is today. Wealth on such a scale, Hawley sensed, removes one almost completely from the moral universe. Where there is no moral universe, there is no arc, no bending toward justice, and no justice. Visiting this stop on a circuit of ideas festivals revealed just how alien is the world of the ultra rich. Not just their world is alien, but the metahumans themselves (gift link):

This sense of invulnerability has deep psychological ramifications. If everything is free and nothing matters, then the world and other people exist only to be acted upon, if they are acknowledged at all. This is different from classic narcissism, in which a grandiose but fragile self-image can mask deep insecurity. What I’m talking about is a self-definition in which the individual grows to the size of the universe, and the universe vanishes. Asked recently if there is any check on his power, President Trump—himself a billionaire, and by far the richest president in American history—said, “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.” Not domestic or international law, not the will of the voters, not God or the centuries-old morality of civic and religious life.

Decades of research in developmental psychology have shown that moral reasoning develops through consequences—not punishment, necessarily, but experiencing the effects of your actions on others, receiving honest feedback, having to accommodate reality as it actually is rather than as you wish it to be. It’s not that the wealthy become evil; it’s that their environment stops teaching them the things that nonwealthy people are forced to learn simply by living in a world that pushes back. When you can buy your way out of any mistake, when you can fire anyone who disagrees with you, when your social circle consists entirely of people who need something from you, the basic mechanism by which humans learn that other people are real goes dark.

When Peter Thiel said, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible,” he wasn’t talking about your freedom. He was talking about his own. You don’t exist. When Musk took a chainsaw to the federal government as part of the inside joke he called DOGE, he did so with the air of a man who believed that nothing matters—poverty, chaos, human suffering. He was having fun. It didn’t even matter that the entire destructive exercise ultimately yielded no practical financial gains. For him, the outcome was a foregone conclusion: He could only win, because losing had lost its meaning.

When, now and again, a politician proposes a wealth tax, the rich react with horror at the prospect of their agency being constrained by mere mortals. How dare society make any claim on them? Just as Hawley observes.

I’ve long seen the modern corporation as a kind of Frankenstein monster, a legal alien of our own creation and loosed upon the world. Let them grow large enough and they become the world-dominating Weyland-Yutani, the “company” of the Aliens franchise. Nation states become mere corporate tools. Humans become mere inputs to exploit. You see it already in “human resources.”

I reprised this in February. But let’s review:

Fifteen years ago, I wrote about the resentment the rich feel about educating the golden gooses that fill their plates and coffers:

In the Atlantic’s “The Rise of the New Global Elite,” Chrystia Freeland describes the super-rich as “a nation unto themselves,” more connected to each other than to their countries or their neighbors. Freeland writes that “the business elite view themselves increasingly as a global community, distinguished by their unique talents and above such parochial concerns as national identity, or devoting ‘their’ taxes to paying down ‘our’ budget deficit.” Thomas Wilson, CEO of Allstate, explains that globalization means, “I can get [workers] anywhere in the world. It is a problem for America, but it is not necessarily a problem for American business …” Why should it be?

In a global economy driven more and more by bottom-line thinking, public education is just another community expense the elite would rather not bear, isn’t it? The rich can afford private schools for their children and have little need for educated workers in the multiple cities where they own houses. How much education do gardeners and waiters really need anyway?

But allow those legal fictions to grow planet-sized in their reach, and they spawn trillionaires who exist in a post-human universe where meat sacks such as yourselves are no longer fellow crew members on a shared celestial lifeboat. It’s their super yacht. Serve or be thrown off.

It seems more and more likely that this was the reason Melania gave that weird press statement last week:

In 2023, Amanda Ungaro, a Brazilian model who was brought to the United States on Jeffrey Epstein’s plane when she was 16, was trying to build a new life in South Florida with her teenage son, far removed from the modeling world she had grown up in New York.

Two years later, Ungaro, 41, was bound in handcuffs and thrown into an immigration detention center in Miami-Dade where she spent three months of misery before being abruptly transported to Louisiana and then deported back to Brazil.

Ungaro, a former diplomat in the first Trump administration, came to the attention of police in April 2024 after authorities received an anonymous tip that she and her husband, Joao Araujo, a Brazilian plastic surgeon, were conducting cosmetic procedures without a license at their wellness center in Aventura.

Her arrest by Aventura police last June led to her being deported to Brazil in October. Ungaro claims her deportation was instigated by her former partner, Paolo Zampolli, a longtime Trump ally and a Trump administration official. She accused Zampolli of using his influence to pressure the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to deport her to gain custody of their 16-year-old son. Now she is fighting back.

Ungaro, who was part of President Donald Trump and Melania’s social circle for years, issued a number of angry posts on X directed at the first lady, the president as well as former U.S. attorney general Pam Bondi. “I will tear down your corrupt system, even if it’s the last thing I do in my life. I will go all the way — I am not afraid. Maybe you should be afraid of what I know … of who you are, and who your husband is,” she said in a post dated April 8 that tagged the first lady’s X account.

She threatened legal action against the first lady “and your pedophile husband.”

To Bondi, she said in a post: “Do you fully understand the information I possess regarding you and the individuals associated with you? I strongly advise you to consider the seriousness of these matters. Any actions taken against me or attempts to escalate this situation could have significant legal consequences.”…

“I have nothing left to lose in my life,” Ungaro wrote on X that same day. “I will tear down the entire system —be careful with me bitch.”

Does she have any goods? Who knows? But she was on the inside of the Epstein scene as an underage model during the period when Trump, Epstein and Melania were all partying in New York and Palm Beach. Clearly she was close to them because he actually made her the U.N. ambassador to Grenada in the first term. And now she’s been treated very badly by the Trumpers who intervened on her ex-husband’s behalf in a custody battle and had her deported. Nothing could be more enraging and if she does have information, they played with fire.

If I had to guess I would think that she may very well have the goods but will never actually reveal it. Trump is the most powerful man in the world and he’s a vengeful monster. In fact, she may have already doomed herself by saying what she’s said. But you never know. She may just throw caution to the wind and let fly. Melania certainly thinks she might.