TWGB: Would You Buy a Watch from this Man?

 

So, obviously this thing where Trump is selling watches is a part of the "Trump campaign as business plan" ethos that the media doesn't quite know what to do with. It's at least as good as the NFT racket. It's better than the Trump DC Hotel racket, that Trump even found a new way to lose money at. 

We might not be able to really talk about things like the $10 million that flowed to Trump (allegedly) from Egypt in 2016, probably, or even fully investigate his business interests in China. But we could definitely ask why he's got the Mrs. out here pounding her book (which he hasn't read), her jewelry line, and fucking Chreestmas ornaments as a kind of Trump "lifestyle brand". 

Is this what serious people do? Like, if people can't afford bacon and eggs, is this really how you demonstrate solidarity with them? 

So, here's the thing--back in 2017, Trump trotted out a lawyer and like a pallet of blank paper in file folders to pretend he divested from his businesses, and LOL, no he did not do that. But dipstick MAGA  brainwashed cult members will tell you all about what he gave up to be president. That's right MAGA--he never did spend most of his time between Trump Tower, Bedminster and Mar-a-Lago. He wasn't still CEO of Trump Org when he was directing the payment of hush money from the White House. He didn't direct funds to his various properties from the US government whenever possible. 

Menendez Needs to Resign

 

Now, I rarely slam the hell out of Democrats, but here's one hell of an exception: Sen. Bob Menendez of NJ is busted and he needs to resign. To repeat: he is busted, used up, out of credit, persona non grata and a whole pile of bullshit. This man took the little bit of rope he got from a hung jury in his last federal case and made a noose for himself. No sympathy, no nothing. 

The man had close to a half million in cash in his home, some of it sewn into his clothes, and $100K in gold bars.  To me, that spells "BUSTED". What does that tell me? His money isn't in the bank collecting interest because if he took it to the bank, he'd get unwanted interest. And it's also a "to the mattresses" situation. It's around in the eventuality of his needing a reason to not stick around. 

I hear what Majority Leader Schumer is saying when he talks up Menendez' service and his day in court: with respect to his service, he's getting a grace period to figure out what he wants to do before the hammer comes down, so he can go out like it's his own choice. That's respectful, I get it. But if the man doesn't know it's not a "forever" pass, he's a whole idiot. Because the NJ Governor is ready to replace this fool, and he has a rich mine of good people to choose from.  And the Senate doesn't need him so much they will let him fuck around forever:

And that's what his statement is. He really wants to go with: It's because I'm a Latino, huh? 

How about that answer is what makes him seem extra guilty? 

Trump Has a Favorite Dictator and Other Tales of the Decline

In what will doubtless be a shock to the other dictators, Trump recently (a couple weeks back) voiced the opinion that he did,  in fact, have a favorite dictator (sorry Kim, Putin, etc.!):

Donald Trump once referred to Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as his "favourite dictator" as he awaited a meeting with the world leader, according to a new report.

The comment, detailed in a new Wall Street Journal report, was met with stunned silence from American and Egyptian officials, who had gathered inside the Hotel du Palais in Biarritz, France for this year's G7 summit.

"Where's my favourite dictator?" Mr Trump is reported to have said in a loud voice, several people who were in the room told the Journal.

Those witnesses said that they believed his comment was made in jest, but was nonetheless met with muted response. It is not clear if Mr Sisi was in the room, or if he heard the comment.

That's certainly sounding like a case of "the quiet bits out loud" but wow! This isn't really on the order of "things Trump usually says which are merely stupid" and vaults into the level of "things Trump says (like wanting to purchase Greenland, remember that?) which are both weird and can screw up international relations."

He is, though. The international relationships--he's messing them up. Things like firing (if he did) John Bolton, who I once characterized as a "bloodthirsty loon", would seem great if Trump was not likely to put someone in his stead who was as bad, if not worse.

But to be fair, he's messing up national security all around, including domestically. Instead of a wall that Mexico is building, it looks like we have a wall (not yet!) that the US military will build, and instead of a brilliant deal with North Korea for them to stop their nuclear program, we've got a North Korea nuclear program that, well, we're building, inadvertently, because Trump doesn't understand why we need to build up our cyber defense.

But he also doesn't understand our intelligence apparatus at all, either, which is definitely worrisome. He doesn't believe our links with foreign intelligence offices (like the Israeli contact he blew to Lavrov and Kislyak back in 2017), but is weirdly prone to dismissing the possibility of foreign countries trying to scope in on us. (Which you'd think he'd be aware is a real interest, all things considered. I guess it's my distrust of Netanyahu that makes me see "security companies" like Psy Group as possible cut-outs, but I could be wrong.)

He also seems to have abandoned steering our good friend Russia away from weird nuclear ideas. But what the hell? One of Trump's big ideas was pulling us out of the Iran nuclear deal with his Fox News-inspired fantasies about pallets of cash to Iran, and his genius negotiating tool to get Iran back to the table (that we had them at, already, and got a deal with, already!) is--pallets-worth of credit--$15 Billion worth.

So, a similar plan, with less trust, that costs the US more? Wow! Mr. Art of the Deal! That is really....

Something. It's not good. None of this is good. We can't expect good from Trump, I'm just saying.

He called Sisi his "favorite dictator." He thinks the way he talks on Twitter is how he can communicate in life, and it doesn't even work that great on Twitter.  MAGA-hats--this is your king?  He's actually pretty stupid. Shouldn't that bother you more?

My Thoughts are With Al-Arish

The terrible enormity of the attack on the Al-Rawdah mosque by terrorists under an ISIS flag is a stark reminder of the destructive nature of terror--its nihilism and ultimate defiance of meaning. There was no reason, no strategic rationale, no purpose, for these people to die at prayers. They were murdered by people who murder because they have found a group that lets them do so. The absolute grief and horror that the deaths of over three hundred people, dozens of them children, would mean to any community is impossible to contemplate without being stricken oneself with a sense of mingled sorrow, anger, and injustice. 

What has happened here defies the cold answers of political agendas and "thoughts and prayers" blandishments. Rhetoric: the kind of nonsense that parks itself between the political dreams and racial and cultural nightmares, and the call to use ersatz-spirituality in an attempt to justify outrages, lead to this bloody and brutal event, and my words are barely any kind of comfort because I think words themselves can only do so much. 

The viciousness of this act must speak for itself. But what it must say is that this tactic, this lifestyle of terrorism comes to nothing but grief. That is all there could be. People die, people mourn, and nothing is ever changed for the better because this is not how anything better ever happens. 

But I think the West needs to look long and hard, here. The first and last targets ISIS chooses will be, more often than not--Muslims. This is not about Muslim vs West. This is not a clash of civilizations. This is just civilization being violated by people who have lost their civilization. And that is not a problem with Islam, but something else. A problem with civilization, and its discontents. A failure to connect people to a sense of value. A romanticization of the idea of violence and war as life and culture-changing. I don't know what. I only know something so horrible could not ever be simple. 

Free Speech Update: Another Nail in the Coffin?

The climate regarding freedom of speech in Egypt under President al-Sisi is becoming steadily more deplorable.  The recent arrest of Hossam Bahgat, a respected human rights defender and journalist, has been described as "another nail in the coffin" for freedom of speech in Egypt.

This is just the latest thing--Egypt is in the middle of a crackdown regarding journalism, and one of the more disturbing things they are doing is charging journalists with "reporting false stories" and calling that a kind of terrorism. If someone gets a story wrong, is that reason for mortal terror? Wouldn't it make more sense, if a story was actually incorrect, to simply make sure that the contradictory evidence was published?

Also recently arrested was Saleh Diab, the founder of al-Masry al-Youm for reasons that aren't clear. Maybe there's a good reason--maybe the government is trying to intimidate a publisher. It's a weird game being played--arrest some journalists, try them without even putting a good case against them, or hold them without charges, or sentence them and maybe let them go after a year or so--they'll get the hint.

But the thing is, isn't this awfully insecure? It's not like people with eyes can't tell when a government is becoming especially oppressive, and it's not like the reasons why can't be sussed out. But they are cracking down on critical journalists instead of real terrorists. Where people can't even discuss how effective a flood response was without being sidelined and made to be afraid for their job, how can a government pretend they are interested in working for the people, who they want to keep ill-informed and who they feel too insecure about to trust with informed opinions?

This is temporarily bad news for Egyptian journalists, but it looks to me like long-term bad news for al-Sisi, because his insecurity may be well-founded. But targeting journalists is idiotic---he can arrest people and hold them in Egypt. But the whole world is watching.

Ben Carson's Pyramid Scheme

He's so amazing--the idea that the pyramids are granaries is basically a medieval concept. The Pyramids are not hollow. You could not store much grain in there at all.

 Also, as to his supposed "Marine Todd" moment with a physicist and the idea that the Big Bang theory isn't compatible with the first law of thermodynamics--sometimes, when a person does not answer you it's because they have decided you are a crazy person or they think you would not understand the answer. Okay--he doesn't get the Heisenberg Theorem. But the point you need to know is--if something blew up in the Big Bang, something had to exist. The organization of the matter that was thrown out by the BB followed along the lines of other laws of thermodynamics. The matter was only transformed by an event--which Einstein already told us could happen.

I'm more of a life sciences gal, but really, this is not good understanding of physics at all. But it's also pretty bad history, sloppy Bible study, and not exactly unlike his understanding of things like the economy or foreign policy. He is Head Professor of Made-up Shit at the Dunning Kruger Institute of Things Anally Extracted. He is a Norwegian Blue pining for the fjords.

This man has no pants.

Freedom isn't yadda, yadda, yadda....*

The above is from Egypt, where the military served a fairly unpopular president, Mohammed Morsi, with a colossal pink slip for just not doing it for them. I don't know an awful lot about Egyptian politics, but that's all right--that feeling is probably going around, because it looks an awful lot to me like Egyptian politics is getting invented. And even though they aren't by any means in for clear sailing now that they have rid themselves of another burdensome leader in what must seem like a hot minute, I can't help but feel something like awe when I see the massive protests there, or the demonstrations happening in Turkey, and consider that   humankind is always in a state of revolution, somewhere on this planet. We hope, we dream, we imagine better things--and once in a while, we even work together to do them.

It being the tag-end of July 4th as I write, I think that sometimes, USA-ians like myself do think of freedom, democracy, progress, like it was, you know. Our thing. But I think the main ideal that our founders stood for was that striving for democracy, for self-governance, for responsive and responsible government, should be everyone's thing. So when I see those fireworks there, it makes me kvell a little for them, even while my neighbors are setting off their Independence Day displays.  Freedom should be everyone's thing.

At the same time, though, I can't help but think it means something more when self-determination does mean just that. There are limits to the degree of support that the US can provide to those who seek it, without actually kind of getting in their way. It's why I despised the argument that we should have anything to do with provoking regime change in Iraq, why I was dubious that our assistance in Libya would do us any favors, why I am damn glad the US kept it's nose out of Iran's Green Revolution, and support us not really breathing down Egypt's neck with offers of too much help. It's why I deplore the potential for our over-involvement in Syria, all hints of proxy war aside.

Maybe we could be Lafayette. But we can't do more, because that just isn't helping. Freedom is a double-edged sword, and taking on the cause of another's freedom is noble, but fraught with sharp bits.


(Yes, I know. I "yadda, yadda, yadda'd" freedom. I have so little decorum, it's not even funny.)