Blinded, Not by The Light

If, God willing, Abdul el-Sayed loses his bid to become the Democratic nominee to replace retiring Democratic senator Gary Peters of Michigan, he can always take up a career in storytelling.

Here, Haley Steven's opponent states "I don't hate anybody but I love everybody." Presumably, that would include Benjamin Netanyahu, whom el-Sayed has reason to dislike. Yet we do not know becuase el-Sayed speaks a few lines which bear as little resemblance to reality as "I love everybody".

Abdul El-Sayed: “When AIPAC drops $30M on a race, you know why that is? It’s a $30M downpayment on a vote to send $3B somewhere else. And where does that go? To a foreign government that’s done genocide and apartheid and now has taken us to a war for the goal of annexing Southern… pic.twitter.com/RfZGcrsXPt

— Marco Foster (@MarcoFoster_) July 27, 2026

 It's astonishing that a nuclear power would commit genocide while ignoring Palestinians in Jordan and the rest of the Palestinian diaspora.  The habit of warning residents to vacate ahead of  a ground assault or air strikes? This is no way to conduct genocide. As explained in 2021 by Raphael Cohen-Almagor of the Middle East Study Group of the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, & World Affairs 

Unlike the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, Israeli Palestinians are entitled by law to enjoy the same citizenship rights as the Jewish citizens of Israel. The Israeli Palestinians constitute a significant minority in Israel: 21% of the population. I will differentiate between full citizenship and formal citizenship, arguing that the Israeli Palestinians enjoy formal but not full citizenship. I detail the areas in which Israel needs to invest to make the Palestinians full citizens. It is argued that while Israeli Palestinians are discriminated against, there is no apartheid in Israel. Apartheid exists in the occupied territories....

Critics of Israel should clearly distinguish between the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, where Palestinians are separated from Israelis who reside there and where Palestinians are routinely subjected to oppressive regulations of the occupation, and the condition of Israeli Palestinians inside the Green Line. As far as Israel’s Palestinian citizens are concerned, the apartheid argument does not stand. While Israeli Palestinians do not always receive equal treatment and they de facto at times are discriminated against, Israeli Palestinians do not live under anything that resembles South African apartheid.

According to Open Secrets, as of 2024, AIPAC was the 191st largest lobby in Washington, D.C. and from 2016-2026, nine countries spent more on lobbying than did Israel. But with the anti-Israel obsessives, it's always "AIPAC" and "foreign government."

And it has become widely accepted that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pulled the strings that pulled Donald Trump into the war in Iran. However, the President's decision to launch Operation Epic Fury in lae February

in a joint operation with Israel followed weeks of behind-the-scenes pressure from Israel and Saudi Arabia, the Washingron Post reported on Sunday, citing accounts from officials and regional sources.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly pushed for strikes against Iran, whileSaudi Arabia's role appeared more complex.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly made several private phone calls to Trump over the past month, pushing for an attack despite publicly endorsing a diplomatic solution, the Washington Post reported.

Simultaneously, Riyadh released a statement that the state would not allow its territory to be used in the event of an attack.

Salman reportedly warned US officials that if the strike didn't happen soon, Iran would come away stronger and more dangerous.

That shouldn't have been surprising given that both Israel and Saudi Arabia consider Iran their mortal enemy. And it didn't hurt that the president's son-in-law has extensive financial involvement, including a $2 billion infusion of funds from the Saudi Public Investment Fund to the Kushner's Affinity private equity firm, with the Kingdom. Good work, if you can get it.

There is a lot to dislike about the foreign policy of the Israeli government, beginning with the guy, the Prime Minister, ultimately responsible for it. However, a distinction needs to be made between that nation's current leaders and the nation itself, just as there are differences between the Trump Administration and the United States of America. There are a few Democrats who understand that, but their voices are being drowned out. 

Abdul el-Sayed, Hasan Piker's pal, is not among those making a cogent and rational argument against current Israeli policy. There are varied reasons for that, but we should acknowledge that one of them is the Jewish thing. 

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This blog is going on hiatus. Or at least I am. Please come back on the weekend.

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Trusting Saudi Arabia

To be fair, this fellow posted his tweet on Monday, July 20.

I'll tell you what kind of Democratic Party I don't want. I don't want a Democratic Party that denies Israel's right to exist, supports Hamas and Hezbollah, questions Western values and engages in Kremlin apologia.
If my party starts hugging tankies and anti-Zionists, I am out. https://t.co/877P51Zval

— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) July 20, 2026

Ben Rhodes probably doesn't care whether Israel comes or goes.  Melat Kiros, who defeated progressive incumbent Diana DeGette in Colorado for the Democratic nomination for US Senate, would like t see Israel evaporate. Dariza Avila Chevalier, the anti-Semitic, anti-interracial marriage, pro-Hamas Democratic nominee for the House of Representatives, would love to see both Israel and the USA destroyed.  Then there is Zohran Mandami, who on October 8, 2023 posted

I mourn the hundreds of people killed across Israel and Palestine in the last 36 hours. Netanyahu’s declaration of war, the Israeli government’s decision to cut electricity to Gaza, and Knesset members calling for another Nakba will undoubtedly lead to more violence and suffering in the days and weeks to come. The path to a just and lasting peace can only begin by ending the occupation and dismantling apartheid.

And he is the reasonable one, compared to Kiros,Chevalier, and a host of others. The day after Israel gets pummeled by terrorists who killed more than 100 people because the latter were Jewish, the man who would go on to become mayor of the largest city in the country condemns Israel. Hey, it's not Mamdani's fault those partygoers were Jewish!

The way things are going, Israel may not be around in twenty years. However, that's not because of anti-Semites of the left because, as was announced on Wdenesday

The Trump administration signed an agreement with Saudi Arabia to develop a nuclear program, even as the White House escalates its war in Iran aimed at destroying that it's nuclear capabilities.

The U.S. Department of Energy described the agreement as one that would allow Saudi Arabia to develop its civilian energy nuclear program and give U.S. companies "great access" to related commercial deals.

Few details about the arrangement, which Congress has not yet approved, have been made public. But former officials and members of the nuclear community said it is a major shift in U.S. policy and risks accelerating a nuclear arms race in an already volatile region. Here's what to know about the deal and its potential impact on the war in Iran.

The agreement may allow U.S. companies to build uranium enrichment facilities in Saudi Arabia to supply its nuclear reactors. U.S. companies would provide additional technical expertise. The deal could mean Saudi Arabia would not have to import its nuclear fuel and it could provide a pathway for it at a later date to enrich uranium on its own.

The agreement would last for 30 years. If enacted, it could make U.S. companies billions of dollars.

Enriched uranium can fuel power plants. It can also be used to make nuclear bombs. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the agreement upholds "the highest standards of nuclear safety and nonproliferation," but the deal abandons key nonproliferation benchmarks, including by limiting inspections by international nuclear experts.

Thomas Countryman, a former assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation, said the deal "reverses 50 years of U.S. leadership in the global nonproliferation architecture."

Laura Kennedy, a former U.S. ambassador and acting U.S. representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, warned that the agreement "would set a dangerous precedent" across the region.

After Trump decided to give the Wahabbi regime in Saudi Arabia a thoroughfare to a nuclear weapon, thus gravely endangering Israel's long-term security , Wednesday brought better news as presidential presss secretary Karoline Leavitt declared "if they don't join the Abraham Accords, the deal is off."

Brainchild of the first Trump Administration, the Abraham Accords include Israel, the United Arab Emitates, and Morocco. Sudan, Kazakhstan, and Syria have expressed interest. So, too, did Saudi Arabia, at least until the Hamas-Israel war, whereupon the Kingdom decided that Israel would have to be serious at creating a Palestinian state before it would join. 

History, hopefully, won't repeat itself. But it's valuable to recall, as the Times of Israel reported last month, that

The Hamas terror group carried out its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel partly in order to thwart the Jewish state’s rapprochement with Saudi Arabia, according to seized documents.

The internal Hamas materials were published by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, a government-controlled think tank, and then aired by the Kan public broadcaster on Sunday.

In the years and months leading up to the attack, it was widely reported that the oil-rich kingdom was considering normalization with Israel, along the lines of the US-brokered Abraham Accords with other Arab states.

A Times of Israel report last year confirmed that, on the eve of the October 7 attack, Washington and Riyadh had already reached understandings regarding concessions Israel would have to make vis-à-vis the Palestinians for Riyadh to normalize relations with Jerusalem.

In a meeting held by Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip in February 2022, the Iran-backed terror group, which had long functioned as the enclave’s de facto government, decided to establish a new office, tasked with overseeing efforts to thwart normalization between Israel and its erstwhile enemies.

Hamas decided to heat up the conflict in Gaza as well as the West Bank and East Jerusalem, “in order to thwart the Saudi kingdom’s process of normalization,” according to the minutes of the meeting.

The terror group noted, as precedent for its campaign, that the Second Intifada – a deadly, years-long campaign of suicide bombings and other terror attacks in the early 2000s – was “one of the chief factors leading to the blow-up of the normalization process presented through the Arab Peace Initiative.”

In 2023, the group decided that its renewed attempt to stir disorder in the region was not bearing enough fruit. In late September, the group’s leadership held another meeting, chaired by Gaza chief – and October 7 mastermind – Yahya Sinwar….

On October 2, 2023, Sinwar told assembled leadership that, in light of the threat posed by normalization with Saudi Arabia, there was no way around what he described as “an exceptional action” by Hamas and its partners in the “Axis of Resistance,” referring to Iran and its regional proxies.

At this meeting, the Hamas leadership decided to move forward with the surprise attack on Israel.

Hamas deserves full blame for the terrorist attack of October 7, 2023. However, it would not have taken place- at least not at that time- had there not been a serious effort to bring Saudi Arabia into the Abrahma Accords. Nor would the time been ripe had not some one or ones in the Israeli government ignored the warning signals about an incipient attack from Hamas. 

Israel, and especially its Prime Minister, believe a nuclear armed Iran is a grave threat to Israel, and it probably is. However, that will probe to have been child's play- with or without the Abraham Accords- if Saudi Arabia, the largest country in the region by area, obtain weapons-grade uranium. If it begins to enrich uranium for weapons, Saudi Arabia could choose to drop out of the Abraham Accords. And irony triumphant, the threat posed by that nation would be at the initiative of Benjamin Netanyahu's bestie, one Donald J. Trump

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The National Embarrassment

People, at least those not taken over by PTDS (Pro-Trump Derangement Syndrome) are justifiably perturbed by this:

 SHOCKING: In a disgusting moment, Trump shouted personal insults at a reporter asking him about incriminating evidence in the Epstein files, shouting "Quiet! Quiet Piggy."

The President of the United States is a disrespectful, unfit creep. pic.twitter.com/u5VLgGlnBf

— Really American 🇺🇸 (@ReallyAmerican1) November 18, 2025

Facing little blowback, it was time to pick it up a notch.

Trump suggests Khashoggi had it coming: "You're mentioning someone that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn't like that gentleman that you're talking about. Whether you like him or didn't like him, things happen. But he knew nothing about it. You don't have to… pic.twitter.com/uhh8VjFy20

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 18, 2025

At a news conference/photo-op on Tuesday at the White House, ABC News' Mary Bruce posed a question to President Donald Trump and the former Crown Prince, now Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia:

MB: Is it appropriate, Mr. President, for your family to be doing business with Saudi Arabia while you're President. is that a conflict of interest? And Your Royal Highness, US intelligence concluded that you orchestrated the brutal murder of a journalist. 9/11 families are furious. Why should Americans-  

DT: Who are you with?

MB: ABC News, sir.

DT: Fake News. ABC News, one of the worst in the business. But I'll answer your question.

After lying about is involvement in the family business, Donald added

As far as this gentleman is concerned, he's done a phenomenal job. You're mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn't like that gentleman that you're talking about, whether you like him or didn't like him, things happen but he ne knew nothing about it and we can leave it at that. You don't have to embarrass our guests by asking a question like that.

After the Saudi autocrat feigned concern about Jamal Khashoggi's "death," Trump

criticized Bruce for asking the prince a “horrible, insubordinate and just a terrible question.” He laced into her after a third query, about why the White House is waiting for congressional action to release more details about sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s correspondence. “Why not just do it now?” Bruce asked.

“It’s not the question that I mind,” Trump said. “It’s your attitude. I think you are a terrible reporter. It’s the way you ask these questions.”

After addressing the Epstein question, he returned to Bruce, saying that “people are wise to your hoax.”  

In October of 2018, The New York Times reported

Saudi agents were waiting when Jamal Khashoggi walked into their country’s consulate in Istanbul two weeks ago. Mr. Khashoggi was dead within minutes, beheaded, dismembered, his fingers severed, and within two hours the killers were gone, according to details from audio recordings described by a senior Turkish official on Wednesday…

American intelligence officials say they have growing circumstantial evidence that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was involved in the disappearance of Mr. Khashoggi, who entered the consulate in Istanbul more than two weeks ago to obtain a document for his coming wedding and did not emerge.

Despite leading Saudi officials denying involvement in the murder, they "reiterated their conclusion that a team of 15 Saudi agents, some with ties to Crown Prince Mohammed, was waiting for Mr. Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate the moment he arrived, at about 1:15 p.m. on Oct. 2." 

The following month, the C.I.A. concluded that the murder of Mr. Khashoggi was ordered by the man whom Trump on Tuesday praised for having "done a phenomenal job." Khashoggi needed documents to prove that he was divorced in order to marry his fiancee.  Mohammed bin Salman, according to the C.I.A., told his brother, the Saudi ambassador to the USA, to tell Khashoggi to go to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul the following day to obtain the documents, There he was assassinated.

 

Khashoggi was a citizen of Saudi Arabia and resident of the USA, in voluntary exile from the Kingdom while writing columns for The Washington Post urging moderate reform of the monarchy.   Although not an American citizen, the journalist was a graduate of Indiana State University and at least two of his adult children are citizens of the USA.

He deserved better from the President of the USA. Yet, so did Mary Bruce and Catherine Lucey, the White House correspondent for Bloomberg labeled "piggy" by the leader of the Free World, who much prefers the noun to the object of that preposition. They deserve much better. We deserve much better.

Yet, the American press proceeds as usual, as if it is unaware that the President is determined to suppress not only dissent, but only questioning. "Don't embarrass our guest," says the guardian of the most powerful military in world history, who asserts power and influence over American citizens while frightened even to question heads of state of large dictatorships. He is both aggressively domineering and, when national interests demand strength, a pathetic coward.

 

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Wrong and Strong, Seemingly

Steve M in his No MoreN Mr. Nice Blog makes a very good point.

Remember the end of Donald Trump's 2024 campaign? The town hall that concluded with Trump dancing onstage for a half-hour? The anecdote about Arnold Palmer's penis? The Madison Square Garden rally -- in a state Trump had no chance of winning -- that turned into a racist, profane grievance-fest? The fry cook and garbageman cosplay?

We thought the wheels were coming off the bus. We thought the public would recognize Trump's obvious unfitness to serve. Instead, he won the election, won the popular vote for the first time, and received more votes and a greater percentage of the popular vote than he had in his first two elections.

So am I saying that the 2024 Trump campaign wasn't a shambolic mess? No. In many ways, it was a shambolic mess. But it appears to have been a shambolic mess in such an aggressive, in-your-face way that millions of voters responded positively to the preposterousness of it all. They liked Trump's arthritic dance moves and granddad music playlist. They decided, somehow, that the unapologetic way Trump would say any WTF thing he felt like saying meant he was just the crazy bastard America needed to take on the bad guys.....

It seems to me that voters don't care what Trump is doing -- they just like the fact that he's doing whatever he's doing vigorously and forcefully. Once again, it appears that a famous 2002 Bill Clinton remark was correct:

"When people are feeling insecure, they'd rather have someone who is strong and wrong rather than somebody who is weak and right"...

Trump is proving that there's apparently no limit to how wrong you can be and still get the benefit of seeming strong.

That is the only way- or at least the best way- to make sense of Trump bragging about this, and getting away with it.

 

2020 in his last year so gas, food, anything transported/trucked cost American people more for first couple yrs of Biden presidency until another failed trump deal expired. https://t.co/moqGFO1xyI

— Jumbo Elliott (@JumboElliott76) December 14, 2024

In the video, Trump comes off as a strong, first-class dealmaker, as he typically- successfully- tries to do. Though not the paragon of objectivity, Climate Power- in what has never been refuted- two months ago explained 

In April  2020, Donald Trump cut a deal with Vladimir Putin, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and OPEC to intentionally increase oil prices and bail out his biggest oil donors after a price war between Russia and the Saudis sent oil prices plunging.

Trump cut the deal after his biggest fossil fuel backers lost billions from their net worth in just weeks, including Trump’s most crucial oil donor, Harold Hamm, who convinced Trump to bail the oil industry out after he lost $3 billion in days. 

Hamm leveraged his years of support for Trump, convincing him to host a whole roomful of oil executives at the White House to hash out the deal. Attendees included Kelcy Warren, Jeff Hildebrand, Vicki Hollub, and, of course, Harold Hamm. 

If any of those names sound familiar, that’s because they all responded to Trump’s April request for $1 billion by cohosting multiple fundraisers for him over the past six months. That includes the CEO who told Trump that she was upset at the FTC for requesting her cell phone record while they were reportedly investigating her over allegations of potential collusion with OPEC to raise gas prices....

 A USA Today editorial asked, “Amid coronavirus pandemic, why is Donald Trump trying to push up fuel prices?”… The editorial board wrote that  “the most unambiguous winners of higher prices are countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia, not the United States, which is still a net importer. What’s more, his move attempts to help oil companies by imposing higher costs on U.S. consumers, workers and fuel-reliant businesses.”

Trump boasted "said we got to get it up a little. I called Russia and the King of Saudi Arabia. We had a three-way call and we cult back on the oilbecause it was so incredible- helped fill up the Strategic national reserve" (i.e., Strategic Petroleum Reserve).  

There was little or no downside for the President because he declared victory as Democrats chose not to highlight the issue. It was a twofer for Trump- pleasing both his energy donors and boosting the economy of one of his favorite countries, Russia. Six months later, Saudi Arabia threw $2 billion dollars to son-in-law Jared Kushne, thereby consummating what Trump might satisfyingly call a "three-way."

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De-Radicalizing the Radicals

The tweeter evidently believes Iran is governed by the philosophical descendants of Mahatma Gandhi.

Depraved, warmongering maniac, Lindsey Graham is at it again. wtf is the matter with him? https://t.co/jZ7MSt4iS6

— pissed af (@freespeech707) January 4, 2024

Lindsey Graham is not depraved and probably not a warmonger. (And Iran is a major threat, and not only to Israel.)  Gay, probably, but that's off-topic. What is not off-topic, but probably misleading is the response to him by Benjamin Netanyahu, who stated

We're absolutely committed to achieving our war goals, that is destroying Hamas, releasing our hostages, making sure Gaza doesn't become a threat again, and also making sure that we can return our citizens in the north and in the south. For that we'll apply maximum power with maximum precision everywhere that's needed

I don't know what the Prime Minister of Israel meant by "return our citizens in the north and in the south." However, getting the hostages released, destroying Hamas, and making sure Gaza doesn't become a threat again are reasonable and righteous goals.

By contrast, in an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal on Christmas and summarized by The Times of Israel, Netanyahu

laid out three “prerequisites for peace” in an op-ed published tonight in the Wall Street Journal.

They are to “destroy Hamas, demilitarize Gaza and deradicalize the whole of Palestinian society,” he says....

“The US, UK, France, Germany, and many other countries support Israel’s intention to demolish the terror group. To achieve that goal, its military capabilities must be dismantled and its political rule over Gaza must end,” writes the premier.

 Second, Israel must also ensure that Gaza is “never again used as a base to attack” Israel.

 “Among other things, this will require establishing a temporary security zone on the perimeter of Gaza and an inspection mechanism on the border between Gaza and Egypt that meets Israel’s security needs and prevents smuggling of weapons into the territory,” says Netanyahu.

Destroying Hamas and demilitarizing Gaza are not only righteous goals but critical to Mideast peace. Nonetheless, the Prime Minister veers into more questionable territory when

 In light of reported suggestions that the Palestinian Authority administer Gaza post-war, he says the “expectation that the Palestinian Authority will demilitarize Gaza is a pipe dream.”

It's a pipe dream because the head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, was unpopular before the attack of October 7 and commands the support of even fewer "Palestinians" now that Hamas has been shown to be much more proficient at killing Jews. Netanyahu himself is King of the Pipe Dream as

The PA, he accuses, “currently funds and glorifies terrorism in Judea and Samaria and educates Palestinian children to seek the destruction of Israel.”

Third, he says, “schools must teach children to cherish life rather than death, and imams must cease to preach for the murder of Jews.”

“Palestinian civil society needs to be transformed so that its people support fighting terrorism rather than funding it,” he writes.

This may never happen and if it does, it will be only as a result- not a cause- of normalization of relations between Israel and the Palestinians, which probably will require a Palestinian state. Nonetheless

“That will likely require courageous and moral leadership,” says Netanyahu, attacking PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who “can’t even bring himself to condemn the Oct. 7 atrocities.”

"Moral leadership" says the man who currently is under indictment for charges of corruption in three separate cases. Nevertheless

Netanyahu points to the “successful deradicalization” that took place “in Germany and Japan after the Allied victory in World War II,” and says that “today, both nations are great allies of the US and promote peace, stability and prosperity in Europe and Asia.” He also says that post 9/11, “visionary Arab leaders in the Gulf have led efforts to deradicalize their societies and transform their countries.”

“Once Hamas is destroyed, Gaza is demilitarized and Palestinian society begins a deradicalization process, Gaza can be rebuilt and the prospects of a broader peace in the Middle East will become a reality,” he concludes.

This is not 1945, not Europe or Asia, nor secularists running their respective governments. It is the Middle East, 2024, and the leaders of Hamas and Fatah are not partial to individuals or governments who don't share their religious perspective. 

Netanyahu's contention that "positive Arab leaders in the Gulf have led efforts to deradicalize their societies and transform their countries"  largely refutes his argument. Sure, the Abraham Accords did in fact normalize the relationship between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain and other deals were consummated with Bahrain and Morocco. 

Yet Saudi Arabia was next, with Riyadh considering recognizing Israel in exchange for guarantees of security from the USA.  President Biden has stated "one of the reasons why they acted like they did, why Hamas moved on Israel, is because they knew I was about to sit down with the Saudis. Because the Saudis wanted to recognize Israel and that would in fact unite the Middle East." Netanyahu was on his way to freezing out the Palestinian Authority to relieve pressure on Israel to accept a Palestinian state. We saw on October 7 how his vision of a Middle East without that pesky Palestinian problem has worked out.

It didn't turn out well, and will not turn out well until people officially designated as "Palestinians" have either a homeland or are at least satisfactorily accommodated. That cannot take place without Gaza being demilitarized and should not take place without Hamas being weakened almost to the point of extinction. De-radicalization of the movement would be ideal, but is only a little more likely than someone parking a new BMW 3 Series vehicle adorned with a red bow in my driveway next Christmas. And I don't have a driveway. 

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Money Talks for Trump

If only the document(s) was taken merely for fun, then it would be less significant that

Attorneys for Donald Trump turned over material in mid-March in response to a federal subpoena related to a classified US military document described by the former president on tape in 2021 but were unable to find the document itself, two sources tell CNN.

Prosecutors issued the subpoena shortly after asking a Trump aide before a federal grand jury about the audio recording of a July 2021 meeting at Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey. On the recording, Trump acknowledges he held onto a classified Pentagon document about a potential attack on Iran.

Prosecutors sought “any and all” documents and materials related to Mark Milley, Trump’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Iran, including maps or invasion plans, the sources say. A similar subpoena was sent to at least one other attendee of the meeting, another source tells CNN.

If only:

In this clip I called our former president a “nihilistic moron.”

Upon reflection, I recognize that this comparison was deeply unfair to nihilistic morons, and for that I sincerely apologize. https://t.co/HDtLGkYjB2

— George Conway 🇺🇦 (@gtconway3d) June 6, 2023

In mid-November, President Donald Trump was

joined by his son Eric Trump and the top executive of a Saudi Arabian real estate company to sign a deal that creates new conflict-of-interest questions for his just-launched presidential campaign.

The deal is with a Saudi real estate company, which intends to build a Trump-branded hotel, villas and a golf course as part of a $4 billion real estate project in Oman. The agreement continues a practice that had been popular for the Trump family business until Mr. Trump was elected president — selling branding rights to an overseas project in exchange for a generous licensing fee.

The Trump Organization also hosted the Saudi-government-backed LIV Golf tournaments at the family-owned golf clubs in New Jersey and Florida. The Saudi government’s $620 billion Public Investment Fund has financed the LIV Golf effort, which then paid venues like Trump National Doral in Miami and Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey to host two of its tournaments this year.

The Trump administration, including Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, had close ties with Saudi Arabia during Mr. Trump’s tenure in the White House. Mr. Kushner has also received financial support from the Saudi government, a $2 billion investment in his newly formed private equity firm, Affinity Partners.

Only this year, the relation between Riyadh and Tehran has started to normalize. However, during the last presidential Administration

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain supported U.S. President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign, which included over 1,500 new sanctions and belligerent rhetoric, all aimed at isolating and weakening Iran.

The Trump family had a serious and lucrative financial arrangement with Saudi Arabia. At a time of maximum tension and belligerence between Riyadh and Tehran, President Trump apparently squirreled away a document pertaining to a possible attack on Iran.  This doesn't quite prove that a document about Iran, then a mortal enemy of the Kingdom, was taken as a quid pro quo or payment to Saudi Arabia. But as Mark Felt famously advised, "just follow the money."

            

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Apathy Would Be Improvement

Democrats still won't utter the word "evil," a stance increasingly difficult to maintain.   You'll remember when, during his inaugural address on January 20, 2017, Donald J. Trump pledged an end to "American carnage," a fascinating concept applied to one's own country.

And then there was the day almost exactly four years ago as

The president was scheduled to pay tribute at a ceremony at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in Belleau, about 85 km (50 miles) east of Paris, with his wife Melania. But light steady rain and a low cloud ceiling prevented his helicopter from traveling to the site.

“(Their attendance) has been canceled due to scheduling and logistical difficulties caused by the weather,” the White House said in a statement, adding that a delegation lead by Chief of Staff John Kelly, a retired general, went instead.

The decision prompted a rash of criticism on Twitter, with Nicholas Soames, a British member of parliament who is a grandson of former Prime Minister Winston Churchill, saying that Trump was dishonoring U.S. servicemen....

Ben Rhodes, who served as deputy national security adviser for strategic communications under President Barack Obama, said the excuse about the inclement weather did not stand up.

“I helped plan all of President Obama’s trips for 8 years,” he wrote on Twitter. “There is always a rain option. Always.”

 

And now, this:

Hmm. He didn’t want to visit the U.S. memorial cemetery in Normandy, France because of rain. https://t.co/gZTyuNcC2P

— Alexander S. Vindman (@AVindman) November 7, 2022

 

Now he tweets

The Witch Hunt continues, and after 6 years and millions of pages of documents, they’ve got nothing. If I had what Hunter and Joe had, it would be the Electric Chair. Our Country is Rigged, Crooked, and Evil — We must bring it back, and FAST. Next stop, Communism!

Much of the country and of the mainstream media has long understood that Donald Trump is interested in Donald Trump alone. However, he had us fooled because we've assumed that means that he does not care what happens to the country.

However, Donald Trump cares very much what happens to the USA. When he worked to undermine NATO, he cared, just not in a good way. When he knew in March 2020 that Covid-19 was serious yet told Bob Woodward “I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down because I don't want to create a panic," he cared enough to downplay the coronavirus repeatedly to encourage Americans to remain reckless. 

He cares about oil prices. Fortune reported in April, 2020 "Saudi Arabia had pumped every possible barrel for sale at rock-bottom prices, punishing Russia for refusing to support deeper OPEC+ output cuts in early March." After President Trump intervened- apparently by threatening to withdraw American troops from the Kingdom- the two nations agreed to "reduce daily production by millions of barrels." Oil prices soared, as expected.

But this was Donald Trump, whose "America First" slogan should be understood as a means to divert voters and the media from understanding that his intent always was "America Last." Now the man who wouldn't venture out into rain to honor the American men and women who died in combat in Europe in World War II will brave the elements to run down America. He's always in character.

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Menacing

In what should be alarming news, Qatar-owned Al Jazeera reports

Saudi Arabia’s Kingdom Holding Company (KHC), along with the private office of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, will continue their ownership of Twitter shares valued at $1.89bn after Elon Musk’s takeover of the social media company, making them jointly the second largest investors, according to a statement released by the Saudi prince.

Bin Talal, who shared the statement on his Twitter account on Friday, and made reference to Musk as “Chief Twit”, stated that the deal was in line with the long-term strategy of KHC.

The company was founded by bin Talal, and is 16.9 percent owned by the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund.

As of January 2022, Saudi Arabia, with a population of 34.8 million, had the eighth most Twitter users of any country in the world, with more than 12 million users.

But auspiciously:

Today I am requesting the Committee on Foreign Investment — which reviews acquisitions of U.S. businesses by foreign buyers — to conduct an investigation into the national security implications of Saudi Arabia's purchase of Twitter.https://t.co/IDwnKGaxt7

— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) October 31, 2022

And in further good news

BRAVO: Our 🇨🇦 Ambassador @BobRae just took the floor at the UN today on behalf of 50 nations to call out China's “arbitrary and discriminatory detention of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang” which “may constitute crimes against humanity.” /1 https://t.co/A6KgZvQCXb pic.twitter.com/HUh3KEoLOj

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 31, 2022

Forty-nine nations joined Canada in its statement. Among those notably absent was the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.  So now the regime is supporting mainland China, cutting OPEC+ oil production to aid Russia, continuing its stake in Twitter, and is once again buying arms from the USA. It's a national security threat we'll need to acknowledge, preferably sooner rather than later. 

 

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I Went To Riyadh, But All I Got Was A Fist Bump

George Conway tweets “I can think of at least two billion reasons why no member of the Trump family should not be heard to make any criticism of the President on this issue.” But in a way she does not intend, Lara Trump is right

Lara Trump: I think this whole trip was so embarrassing… I think back to when my father-in-law visited in 2017 and what a difference..
Host: Could you imagine if this was the former President actually fist bumping with the Crown Prince.. pic.twitter.com/l5S4b7Zwxq

— Acyn (@Acyn) July 16, 2022

President Trump never would have done the fist bump thing with Mohammed bin Salman.  There was no need for it. He already was in the Saudis' pocket without a fist bump.  As to the price exacted:

Six months after his father-in-law left the White House, Kushner secured a $2 billion investment from the main Saudi sovereign wealth fund — despite the fact that those responsible for helping oversee the fund were highly skeptical about giving Kushner’s firm this money. In fact, they accurately noted that Trump’s son-in-law had no relevant experience, and the firm’s operations were deemed “unsatisfactory in all aspects.”

Aside from the very real issue of a likely payoff to the son-in-law of an American president, there was Trump's visit early in 2017 to the Kingdom. He received an award from Saudi Arabia's de jure leader, King Abdullah, and in return, bowed down to the monarch. Rationalized as a squat, it was probably all Trump could muster, or perhaps he didn't want to get his suit pants dirty. There was also the mysterious glowing orb that President Trump joined Saudi dignitaries in saluting, which no one ever has been fully able to explain. The famous sword dance of the Saudis probably was Trump's favorite.

As Conway suggests, the two billion dollars was likely particularly significant, given that it exemplifies the Trump pattern of corruption and selling out the American people.  However, Lara Trump accidentally uttered a truth.  Her father-in-law would not have been satisfied with a meaningless and superficial fist bump when he could have gotten on his knees and really expressed his appreciation.

   

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Horrific War

He was a day late, but definitely not a dollar short. In what was criticism directed primarily against the media, Kyle Kulinski (video below) on December 4 argued

Yemen is the world's worst atrocity and it's currently ongoing and there's a famine there. There's a blockade from Saudi Arabia. There's indiscriminate bombing of civilians. They've bombed open marketplaces. They've bombed mosques. They've bombed civilian infrastructure and this is something that got a little bit of coverage for awhile but now it's mysteriously disappeared.

Now, why did it disappear? Well, Joe Biden famously came out and said we're not gonna help Saudi Arabia anymore with offensive bombing.

Now, notice the wording there? He added the word "offensive," which means--what- he's leaving the wiggle room to say we're gonna help them with defensive bombing. Yeah, but what if none of the bombing is defensive? Well, they'll just call it defensive and help bomb and that's the gist of it and that's what they did.

And the left has been placated, too. I haven't seen much from any of the people, even the ones who led the charge, whether it's Bernie Sanders or Ro Khanna on the left. I haven't seen them really take it to Biden on this.

The day before, the aforementioned Sanders and Khanna in an opinion piece in The Guardian wrote

The recent breaching of the United States’ embassy in Yemen’s capital city of Sanaa by rebel forces, and the detaining of Yemeni employees of the embassy, is the latest escalation in a war that has gone on for far too long. It is a war that the United States has supported and remains deeply involved in. It’s time for that complicity to end.

For more than six years, Saudi-led military intervention into Yemen’s civil war on behalf of Yemen’s exiled government against Yemeni rebels has been a key driver of the largest humanitarian disaster in the world. “The country’s economy has reached new depths of collapse, and a third wave of the pandemic is threatening to crash the country’s already fragile healthcare system,” United Nations humanitarian relief coordinator, Martin Griffiths, said in September, with millions “a step away from starvation”.

Under first the Obama and then the Trump administration, the United States was Saudi Arabia’s partner in this horrific war. In 2019, Congress made history by passing its first War Powers Resolution through both chambers of Congress, pressing Donald Trump to end this support. It marked the first time that Congress invoked the War Powers Resolution of 1973 to direct the president to withdraw troops from an undeclared war.

It appears the two congressmen (yes, Rachel Maddow and others, Senators are members of Congress) are not sitting idly by as

We have proposed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act to finally end all US support for the Saudi war effort. The House already passed this amendment for the third consecutive year. Given that this amendment simply codifies a prohibition on providing support for the Saudi war that already passed both houses of Congress in 2019 – legislation supported at the time by multiple officials now in the Biden-Harris administration – it is long overdue for this provision to be included in the final defense policy bill that is sent to the president’s desk.

Still, Kulinski is right not only on the policy but also that nobody "has really take(n) it to Biden on this.  In their commentary, Sanders-Khanna mentioned the current President only twice, the above reference to the Biden-Harris administration and when they "welcomed the Biden administration’s announcement earlier this year that it would end support for 'offensive' military operations led by Saudi Arabia in Yemen and name a special envoy to help bring this conflict to an end."

Noting "under first the Obama and then the Trump administration, the United States was Saudi Arabia’s partner in this horrific war," the two Democrats place blame on the two last presidents rather than the current one. Trump and Obama do deserve the brunt of the criticism, but it's now the Biden Administration which can, as Sanders, Khanna, and Kulinski all understand, time for an American president to end American support for Saudi Arabia's brutal adventure.

 

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Danger On The (Non-Insurrectionist) Right

In this excerpt from the portion (below) of an interview Friday evening on Bill Maher's Real Time, former Trump adviser Kelly Ann Conway contends

You know, the people who believed in Donald Trump, the forgotten man or forgotten woman, they appreciate an expansion of school choice and charter schools. Why should all- why should just the rich kids have all the opportunities?

You probably missed the "Support Charter Schools" banners amidst the Capitol Hill rioters with Stop the Steal signs, Confederate flags, "MAGA Civil War" and a Camp Auschwitz t-shirt. The weakened public school system, aided and abetted by President Obama's Administration, fortunately was another failure of the Trump Administration, which was unable to muster the financial and public support sought by Education secretary DeVos. Their loss but our gain as students, parents of students, teachers, and taxpayers.

Maher didn't take the bait, instead continuing his line of questioning. At one point, Conway claimed

... I think it's important to recognize you have dead terrorists named Soleimani al-Baghdad. You have whole judiciary, the dead terrorist, you have- well, that doesn't happen by accident.

Soleimani wasn't the only prominent individual killed in the Middle East. We recall that Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist and Saudi national resident in the USA who wrote for The Washington Post, was dismembered by bone saw, almost certainly by people close to the Saudi regime.

Prince Mohammed bin Salman bore major responsibility for the assassination, a situation which never once discomfited presidential senior adviser Jared Kushner, "the prince's most important defender inside the White House."

Conway neglected to mention Khashoggi, though she did applaud

policy gains, where you do have de-regulation and taxes lowered for people where it matters. I think his legacy on the policy stuff will survive a lot of this. Other people will be just fine, okay. Last week was horrible. I made that very clear. Last week was inexcusable, it's disgraceful.

The passive voice, "last week," does a lot of work there as substitute for supporters of Donald Trump, who did all he could to incite a riot and overthrow the government of the United States of America.

Nevertheless, the references to charter schools, judges, taxes, and de-regulation were most telling and significant.  Though omitting "far-right authoritarian" and "would-be monarch," David Frum recognizes a growing danger:

There's a legend building among the non-deadend Trumpers, that Trump had a decent record before some arbitrary date: before the election, before the pandemic. It needs to be stressed that Trump was a crook, charlatan, bigot, thug, and incompetent from the start to the end.

— David Frum (@davidfrum) January 16, 2021

There is a legend building among the non-deadend Trumpers, that Trump had a decent record before some arbitrary date: before the election, before the pandemic. It needs to be stressed that Trump was a crook, charlatan, bigot, thug, and incompetent from the start to the end.

What Kellyanne Conway calls "legacy" is a false narrative building among non-dead end Trumpers, but also likely to generate support among a wide range of conservatives, including Jeff Flake, Joe Scarborough, maybe Conway's husband George, and many others. They tend to be media darlings because they dislike Donald Trump but long for a Republican Party which promoted the policies which led us down the road to a President Donald Trump. The light is blinking red and spelling danger.

 

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National Bank Of Trump?

Alex Pareene of The New Republic has an article up about the most popular governor in the USA, corrupt Republican Larry Hogan, who has made millions more than has anyone ever has while serving as  governor of Maryland.  While he "has advanced highway and road construction projects that directly boosted the value of land owned by his" real estate brokerage firm

The normalization of this sort of personal self-dealing has turned out to be one of the most successful political projects of our age; it has happened right under our noses. With Hogan, we can see clearly how the scheme works. But no one can credibly explain how Mitch McConnell’s wealth keeps increasing, or why Andrew Cuomo shut down the Moreland Commission, or why Bob Menendez is still a senator, or why Democrats in Congress are only pretending to seek Trump’s tax returns while doggedly refusing to investigate his personal finances and business dealings.

The day before that article was published, Fox News televised Laura Ingraham's interview with Donald Trump, in which the President gave Democrats new cause to investigate his personal finances and business dealings.  Remarkably- but given this gangster's track record, not unbelievably- Trump stated (seen beginning at 13:23 of the video below)

I said to Saudi Arabia. We have a very good relationship with Saudi Arabia. I said "listen, you're a very rich country. You want more troops, I'm going to send them to you. But you've got to pay us." They're paying us. They've already deposited one billion dollars in the bank. We are going to help them but these rich countries have to pay for it. South Korea gave us 500 million dollars. I said "you gotta help us along."

At best, Trump simply has made yet something else up out of whole cloth, his very fertile imagination. At second best, he is offering American soldiers as mercenaries and lifting up a "for sale, American foreign policy" sign.

However, he may be doing something a little different. We have learned that the President conflates the country with himself.  He is the USA; the USA is Donald Trump; Donald Trump is Jesus Christ. 

And so when this President says "they're paying us," it's foolhardy to assume that he means that the USA or any of its subdivisions has been paid.  He may be referring to Deutsche Bank or Professional Bank, the Coral Gables, Florida-based bank to which the President shifted some of his brokerage holdings when Deutsche Bank was asked for Trump financial records.

Riyadh (and Seoul) may be paying Donald Trump personally, albeit probably not directly with a bag of cash in some dark alley.  He already has been impressively successful in monetizing his presidency, yet is open to new and varied ways to profit from the American people or foreign nations.

If this is the case, Trump has accepted a bribe. If he did so on behalf of the US Treasury- if by "us" he means the federal government- it bears a striking resemblance to the bribe/extortion deal he tried to swing with Ukraine.

President Trump has been impeached for that (as well as for obstruction of Congress).   It seems that one political party would want to investigate whether he has done a similar thing by bribing, or extorting money from, a radical Islamist state supporting terrorism and murdering tens of thousands of Yemenis.  Or it would if Pareene is wrong and it actually is interested in the personal finances and business dealings, likely impeachable, of this President.

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Religious Freedom, Negotiable

This can't end well.

Politico reports

Aides to President Donald Trump are drafting plans to condition U.S. aid to other countries on how well they treat their religious minorities, two White House officials said.

The proposal is expected to cover U.S. humanitarian assistance, and could also be broadened to include American military aid to other countries. If the proposal becomes reality, it could have a major effect on U.S. assistance in a range of places, from Iraq to Vietnam. Its mere consideration shows how much the White House prioritizes religious freedom, an emphasis critics say is really about galvanizing Trump’s evangelical Christian base.

But experts on U.S. aid also warn that picking and choosing which countries to punish could be a very difficult task, not least because several countries that are partners or allies of the United States have terrible religious freedom records.

Well, like maybe Saudi Arabia, where the Trump Administration sent 2800 additional soldiers last month to join the Patriot air defense battery and radars sent to Saudi Arabia in September. 

Riyadh has been cited by the State Department as one of the world's "worst violators" of religious freedom. But not to worry because

One strong likelihood is that any executive order will include a clause that gives the president or his designee the ability to exclude a country from aid restrictions on grounds that it is in the U.S. national security interest.

Nations which practice religious discrimination, especially if against Christians, may in fact be denied aid- except, of course, if they welcome Trump family business or agree to investigate rivals of the President.

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Terrible Idea

It has been over fifteen years since initial publication of Thomas Frank's near-classic, What's The Matter With Kansas, and it may be time to ask "what's the matter with Delaware?"

Of course, it's the center of the credit card industry, which convinced Delaware senator "Middle Class Joe" to assume the role of a major defender of the entire financial services industry. But now it has given us Senator Chris Coons. May God help us.

I understand, I understand; President Trump was annoyed about the growing realization that Judge Brett Kavanaugh arrogantly, enthusiastically, and repeatedly lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee when he tweeted

Saudi Arabia oil supply was attacked. There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 15, 2019

But dear Lord, Senator Coons, are you daft, man? On "Fox and Friends" on Monday, Senator Coons stated "This may well be the thing that calls for military action against Iran, if that's what the intelligence supports."

Riyadh also has been carrying out against Houthi rebels in Yemen airstrikes which, The New York Times notes, have "devastated the impoverished country and exacerbated the world's worst humanitarian crisis." Yet "we," the President explained, "are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to... under what terms we would proceed." 

In his recurring effort trying to make Americans understand just who he is, the President has told us that it's not the USA, but Saudi Arabia, on whose behalf he'd be acting. Undermining America's sovereignty is terrible; doing so behalf of the nation that sliced and diced an American citizen, probably on orders of the Saudi Crown Prince, and is a monarchy based on Sharia law, is terrible, immoral, and dangerous.

That is the Kingdom which President Trump has thrown America's lot in with.  It is no defense for the Senator from Delaware that Trump is being Trump, possibly only blowing off steam or diverting voters' attention from Brett Kavanaugh. That is not a President worthy of supporting, nor a President whose presentation, and interpretation, of intelligence can be trusted.  The Gulf of Tonkin beckons.

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