Bad decisions
Can you say "lickspittle"? Some House MAGAts are conspiring to re-name Dulles International Airport for Trump, who for them symbolizes "freedom, prosperity and strength." Their bill has no chance of becoming law, it's just more performance art to impress the Trumpanzees back in the hollers. Everything else they've tried since January 2021 has failed -- Biden remains unimpeached, the government is meeting payroll, the Fourteenth Amendment is still on the books and awaiting a Supreme Court who can read.
Back in 2019, when we were enjoying all that prosperity and strength, there were already enough buildings and other properties removing Trump's tainted name that Forbes magazine, which he hates, ran a list of them. Trump's business failures were already the stuff of punchlines. The people of Monaco don't understand how it's possible to bankrupt one casino, much less four. And as we now know thanks to Letitia James, lying to secure bank loans and dodge taxes is not a legal basis for a business.
In short, everything Trump touches dies. Naming an airport for him would be inviting catastrophe. As Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) said of this hopeless gesture, "The point is to suck up to their Dear Leader." Gerry Connolly (D-VA) was more blunt: "Trump is facing 88 felony charges. If Republicans want to name something after him, I'd suggest they find a federal prison."
By way of illustration, Wall Streeters are already using the term "pump and dump" to describe Trump Media and Technology Group, a fancy name for the Twitter knockoff he founded to harangue the masses and share posts comparing himself to Christ. Twitter, Xitter, whatever, has hemorrhaged subscribers under the Genghis Khan-like leadership of Elon Mush, but not enough of them have moved to Ministry of Truth Social to make it worth $44 a share. The board of the shell company it merged with, Digital World, made sure Trump couldn't cash in his 78 percent for six months and he can't even use the site to rage against them IN ALL CAPS. In a new SEC filing there is doubt that the platform will still exist in six months. At this point, naming a federal prison Trump Penitentiary would be inviting a riot followed by a mass escape followed by the destruction of the surrounding community, and he would still try to fundraise off it.
Fortunately Trump was welcomed back to the Xitter by Chairman Apartheid, so when his own platform bursts into flames like Deepwater Horizon, we won't miss out on posts like this:
"I am not running to terminate the ACA, AS CROOKED JOE BUDEN DISINFORMATES AND MISINFORMATES ALL THE TIME, I'm running to CLOSE THE BORDER, STOP INFLATION, MAKE OUR ECONOMY GREAT, STRENGTHEN OUR MILITARY, AND MAKE THE ACA, or OBAMACARE, AS IT IS KNOWN, MUCH BETTER, STRONGER, AND FAR LESS EXPENSIVE." What, no Infrastructure Week? Questions about his foreign policy may be referred to V.V. Putin c/o the Kremlin.
Pediatricians have become the abstract and brief chronicles of Israel's war on Gaza. In addition to bombing and shelling, the doctors report "a steady stream of children, elderly people and others who were clearly not combatants with single bullet wounds to the head or chest." They conclude that IDF snipers are using them for target practice, which is of course denied. As if this is not appalling enough, Palestinians describe "quadcopters," remotely controlled drones used to shoot civilians. Sometimes the snipers -- Israel prefers "sharpshooters," for some reason -- target people entering or leaving a hospital, as at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, or when they go in search of water.
"This is not a normal war," said Fozia Alvi, a Canadian physician. "The war in Ukraine has killed five hundred kids in two years, and the war in Gaza has killed over ten thousand in less than five months...This is something that is a dark stain on our shared humanity." We live in a time when abducted Ukrainian children are the lucky ones. At least we're not arming the Russians.
Another triumph for Israel: World Central Kitchen had to stop food deliveries after seven of its workers were killed, people from the UK, Canada, Australia and Poland as well as a Palestinian. Netanyahu promises to "investigate fully," of course. Maybe Hamas did it. You never know.
"A solar eclipse is a rare natural phenomenon with great religious significance to many," says a complaint filed against the New York Department of Corrections on behalf of six inmates at the Woodbourne Correctional Facility. The unit is on lockdown next Monday, but the men -- a Muslim, a Baptist, a Seventh-Day Adventist, two practitioners of Santeria and an atheist -- want to be allowed to engage in "celebration, worship and prayer" as the moon blocks the sun for a few minutes, while the atheist presumably murmurs, "Einstein was right." Prisoners elsewhere in the state who are allowed outside will be issued with proper glasses so they don't do anything stupid.
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