When Trump Rants, This Is What I Hear
Ignore the Polls
Supreme Court Reform Is in the Air
Trump Has Become Unmoored in Time On Thursday, in the course of a rambling, at times incoherent speech to the Detroit Economic Club, he declared, “We don’t have electricity. In California, you have brownouts or blackouts every week. And blackouts, I mean, the place is stone cold broke, no electricity.” This isn’t true, it wasn’t true when he made similar assertions last year, and 39 million Californians can tell you that it isn’t true. But in Trump’s mind, apparently, that long-ago electricity crisis never ended. ................ New York’s transformation into one of the safest places in America has been especially spectacular: The city had 83 percent fewer murders last year than it did in 1990, and neither I nor my neighbors seem terrified about crossing the street to buy bread at my local bodega. ................ ............. In big cities, he has asserted, “You can’t walk across the street to get a loaf of bread. You get shot. You get mugged. You get raped. You get whatever it may be.” ................ New York’s transformation into one of the safest places in America has been especially spectacular: The city had 83 percent fewer murders last year than it did in 1990, and neither I nor my neighbors seem terrified about crossing the street to buy bread at my local bodega. ................ he may actually believe some of what he’s saying because he has become unmoored in time ............ During his Detroit speech, the former president did something unusual for a candidate one might have expected to flatter the voters in an important swing state: He insulted the city that was hosting him, declaring that if Kamala Harris wins, “Our whole country will end up being like Detroit.” ................... Actually, that would be great if true: Detroit has been experiencing a major economic revival, so much so that it has become a role model for struggling cities around the world and has been praised for its startup ecosystem. But I doubt that Trump knows or cares about any of that, and in his mind Detroit is probably still the poster child for the industrial Midwest’s economic struggles around, say, 2010. ..................... Trump routinely peddles a grim picture of America that has little to do with reality ................. what would Trump say about an opponent who, like him, seems stuck in the past, who routinely describes America in ways that suggest that he doesn’t know what year it is?
Kamalanomics, Revealed: A Solid Center-Left Agenda For one thing, Harris actually outlined her economic proposals, rather than veering off onto topics like who has the biggest crowds and how windmills are killing birds. For another, she doesn’t seem to have said anything demonstrably untrue — a sharp contrast with Trump, who lied or distorted the facts about twice per minute during an event at Mar-a-Lago. ............ the restoration of an expanded child tax credit, which the Biden administration implemented in 2021 but expired at the beginning of 2022 because Democrats didn’t have a big enough congressional majority. This credit significantly reduced child poverty while it was in effect; Harris would supplement it with an even bigger credit for families with children in their first year. ............. On average, Americans who grow up in poverty have worse health and lower incomes as adults than those who don’t, which makes fighting child poverty an investment in the nation’s future. ........... the broader problem with housing affordability in America is zoning and regulation that blocks construction of new housing units. Unfortunately, these barriers to construction exist mainly at the state and local level and are out of reach of any politically plausible federal policy. ............ By the way, one little-noticed aspect of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 is that despite all the railing against red tape and environmental regulation, its “Mandate for Leadership” blueprint goes all in on NIMBYism: “Localities rather than the federal government must have the final say in zoning laws and regulations, and a conservative Administration should oppose any efforts to weaken single-family zoning.”
Drill, baby, drill — but don’t build affordable housing.
................. For example, Texas (yes, Texas) prohibits many businesses from “demanding an exorbitant or excessive price” on things including food and fuel during disasters. .......... So what have we learned about Harris’s economics? She is, as expected, moderately center-left. And for those determined to view her as a communist — sorry, she isn’t.
Don’t Lose Sight of Project 2025. That’s the Real Trump. ..... and their unofficial aspirations, embodied by Project 2025. ........... Project 2025 is a blueprint by and for some of Trump’s close allies, put together by the Heritage Foundation, to ensure that if Trump wins in November, MAGA will hit the ground running. It seeks to provide “both a governing agenda and the right people in place, ready to carry this agenda out on day one of the next conservative administration.” The particulars are laid out in a roughly 900-page document, “Mandate for Leadership,” with specific action plans for many parts of the federal government. .......... Earlier this month, Kevin Roberts, Heritage’s president, said that the country is in the midst of a “second American Revolution” that will be bloodless “if the left allows it to be.” ............. Republicans seem, however, to have belatedly realized that much of what’s in Project 2025, especially its multipronged attack on reproductive rights, is deeply unpopular. Trump has tried to distance himself from the project, claiming last week that he knows “nothing” about it, even though quite a few of the people who’ve worked on it are former Trump officials and aides, and even though in 2022 Trump told a Heritage conference that its people were “going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do.” ................. it’s more than reasonable to think of Project 2025 as a guide to what could happen in a second Trump term. ............ it basically calls for replacing much of the federal work force, which consists mainly of career civil servants somewhat insulated from partisan pressures, with political appointees who can be hired or fired at will. ............ Trump actually made a significant move in this direction near the end of his presidency, issuing an executive order that created a category of political appointee, Schedule F, which would have allowed the replacement of many career officials with partisan loyalists. President Biden rescinded that order, but Project 2025 would bring it back in some form — probably on a much larger scale. .................. In 1883, less than two years after President James Garfield was assassinated by a deranged and disgruntled man seeking a political appointment, Congress passed the Pendleton Act, which created a professional civil service in which most employees can’t be fired or demoted for political reasons. There were very good reasons for that reform at the time, but the case for insulating most government employees from partisan pressure is far stronger now. ........... back in 1883 the federal government had a much smaller footprint on American life; federal spending was only a bit more than 2 percent of the economy. Today’s federal government is about 10 times as large and also has a huge impact through its regulation of everything from pollution to antitrust enforcement. ............ Remember, during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, Trump openly suggested that he might not help states whose governors didn’t support him: “It’s a two-way street. They have to treat us well, also.” If he wins and Project 2025 goes into effect, he’ll be in a position to engage in that kind of arm-twisting on a massive scale. ...........
it’s every bit as menacing as critics report.
And despite Trump’s disingenuous attempts to distance himself from the project, it gives us a very good idea of what a second Trump term could be like.Reminder: Trump’s Last Year in Office Was a National Nightmare Voters are supposed to remember the good economy of January 2020, with its combination of low unemployment and low inflation, while forgetting about the plague year that followed. ............. 2020 — the fourth quarter, if you will, of Trump’s presidency — was a nightmare. And part of what made it a nightmare was the fact that America was led by a man who responded to a deadly crisis with denial, magical thinking and, above all, total selfishness — focused at every stage not on the needs of the nation but on what he thought would make him look good. ............. most workers have experienced wage gains considerably larger than the price increase. And President Biden is currently presiding over a remarkable episode of “immaculate disinflation”: rapidly falling inflation with unemployment near a 50-year low. ........ Unfortunately, at the time, the man in charge denied, dithered and delayed at nearly every step of the way. .............. It’s well worth reading a timeline of Trump’s statements amid the growing pandemic, which some estimates suggest had already caused around half a million excess deaths by the time he left office. ............. On April 3, he said: “With the masks, it’s going to be really a voluntary thing. You can do it. You don’t have to do it. I’m choosing not to do it.” At that point, the main purpose of masks was not to protect the wearer but to protect those around him; why should exposing others to the risk of deadly disease be a voluntary choice? And why wouldn’t the president lead by example, by masking up? .............. There’s no real question that thousands of Americans died unnecessarily because of Trump’s dereliction of duty in the face of Covid-19. ........... Are we really supposed to feel nostalgic about 2020?
Hail to the Fraudster in Chief Suppose, for example, that a wheeler-dealer uses borrowed funds to make risky investments in New Jersey casinos. If the investments somehow end up making money, he can pocket the profits. But if the investments fail, he may — if he’s been tricky about the wording in his loans or manages to persuade his creditors not to go after his other assets — be able to walk away and leave other people holding the bag. That is, it’s heads he wins, tails the creditors lose. .............. He may also be able to siphon off some of the borrowed money, say by having the casinos pay him or businesses he owns large sums for various services before they go bust. ............... It is the story of Donald Trump’s New Jersey casino empire, a venture ending in multiple bankruptcies that was a disaster for outside investors but appears to have been quite profitable for Trump. ............... there are a couple of ways to pull this off. One, perhaps the main story with those casinos, is sheer power of persuasion, perhaps supported by a cult of personality: Convince lenders that these dubious ventures are actually good investments or that you’re a uniquely effective businessman who can turn straw into gold. ............... Alternatively, you can try to persuade lenders that they’re safe by offering collateral that seems sufficient to protect them but isn’t, because you’ve inflated the value of the assets you put up and possibly also inflated your personal wealth to make it seem you are both a brilliant businessman and a reliable borrower. ............... Trump did, in fact, persistently commit fraud by overvaluing his assets, possibly by as much as $2.2 billion....... Engoron ruled that Trump went far beyond those limits, creating a “fantasy world” of indefensible valuations. ............ The judge made special note of Trump’s claim that he had a 30,000-square-foot residence in New York, when the true number was only 11,000; square footage isn’t subjective. ............. For years, only one major Wall Street player, Deutsche Bank, was willing to deal with him at all, leading to much puzzlement about that bank’s motives. And eventually Deutsche Bank also pulled the plug, citing concerns about his financial claims. Trump did manage to pay off that debt, although it’s a mystery where he found the cash. But as I just explained, getting lucky is no excuse for fraud. ................. Back in 2016, some observers warned conventional political analysts that they were underrating Trump’s chances because they didn’t appreciate how many Americans believed that he was a brilliant businessman — a belief based largely on his role on the reality TV show “The Apprentice.” What we now know is that the old joke was, in Trump’s case, the simple truth: He wasn’t a real business genius; he just played one on TV. ................ But the truth is that this was obvious, to anyone willing to see, from the beginning of Trump’s political rise. .......... I’d like to predict that this ruling will finally destroy Trump’s public persona. In reality, however, his supporters will probably brush this ruling off, partly because they’ll view it as the product of a left-wing conspiracy, partly because at this late date, few of those who backed him will be willing to admit that they were taken in by a charlatan. ........... But they were. And the fact that so many Americans were and remain fooled should lead to some serious national soul-searching.
It’s Time for America to Get Real With Iran and Israel Iran’s foreign minister says there will be “no red lines” governing Iran’s retaliation for any Israeli retaliation for Iran’s latest missile retaliation. .......... Iran has quietly told Arab gulf states that if Iran is hit by Israel, Tehran may respond by striking Arab oil fields. .............. “Let me tell you how your country looks from C.I.A. headquarters: You are infiltrated, exposed and isolated. ........... the latest joke going around Tehran is that your supreme leader is in hiding and the only ones who know where he is are the Israelis. Israel’s intelligence is very good, but the only reason it could have penetrated your leadership and Hezbollah’s so deeply is that so many Iranian and Lebanese Shiites hate both regimes and are ready to spy for Israel. .................. Israel has badly damaged your Hezbollah militia, in which you have invested billions of dollars, so it is no longer your protection against an Israeli strike on your nuclear facilities. We have inflicted heavy damage on your Houthi militia in Yemen. Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad is fed up with you and wants you out of his country, and the Arab gulf states are now doing all they can to woo Assad away from Iran. The mainstream Iraqi Shiite party led by Muqtada al-Sadr hates you for the way your regime and militias have stolen so much oil revenue from Iraq and dragged your Iraqi proxies into your fight with Israel. ............. your implantation of militias armed with increasingly more precise and longer-and-longer-range rockets in Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, Yemen and Iraq. Your proxies crippled those states from the inside and threatened Israel and our Arab allies on the outside. .............. the 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs designed to destroy their deeply buried nuclear facilities and the B-2 bombers to deliver them. ................... The supreme leader Ali Khamenei “has long believed that continued enmity with America and Israel is more vital to the survival of his regime than rapprochement or reform. For that dynamic to possibly shift, Khamenei must face a profound sense of existential angst, one that convinces him that the current trajectory risks the very collapse of his regime.’’ ................ “Iran may seem unpredictable at times,’’ he said in The Atlantic, “but it respects American strength and responds to deterrence. When we withdraw, Iran advances. When we assert ourselves — having weighed the risks and prepared for all possibilities — Iran retreats.” ....................... Our job is to change Iran’s behavior; regime change is the job of the Iranian people. ........... We must not be in the business of making Israel safe so that a radical messianic government can annex the West Bank. ............ Bibi needs to purge the settler lunatics from his cabinet, forge a national unity coalition and agree to open talks with a reformed Palestinian Authority — with a new technocratic cabinet led by credible leaders like former Prime Minister Salam Fayyad — on a two-state solution. .............. That would pave the way for the U.A.E. and other moderate Arab states to deploy troops to Gaza and for Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel and forge a security agreement with Washington. ............ This crisis in the Middle East will not end until Israel clearly defines its eastern border and declares that everything beyond it is reserved for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, once Palestinians meet the legitimate security requirements Israel needs to accept a two-state solution. ................ this crisis in the Middle East will not end until Iran, in effect, defines its western border and declares that everything beyond that is for the Lebanese, Syrians, Yemenis, Iraqis, Israelis and Palestinians to decide — so long as they respect Iran’s legitimate security needs. Iran needs to be out of the Islamic imperialism business. ..........
we really need some creative, coercive U.S. diplomacy right now to finally put an end to both Israel’s and Iran’s colonial projects, which feed each other.
........... the United States is running low on interceptors to protect Israel — should Iran and all its proxies fire on Israel at once.How Israel’s Army Uses Palestinians as Human Shields in Gaza Israeli soldiers and Palestinian former detainees say troops have regularly forced captured Gazans to carry out life-threatening tasks, including inside Hamas tunnels. ........... Mr. Shubeir, then 17, said he was forced to walk handcuffed through the empty ruins of his hometown, Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, searching for explosives set by Hamas. To avoid being blown up themselves, the soldiers made him go ahead, Mr. Shubeir said. ......... “The soldiers sent me like a dog to a booby-trapped apartment,” said Mr. Shubeir, a high school student. “I thought these would be the last moments of my life.” .......... Israeli soldiers and intelligence agents, throughout the war in Gaza, have regularly forced captured Palestinians like Mr. Shubeir to conduct life-threatening reconnaissance missions to avoid putting Israeli soldiers at risk on the battlefield. ........... While the extent and scale of such operations are unknown, the practice, illegal under both Israeli and international law, has been used by at least 11 squads in five cities in Gaza, often with the involvement of officers from Israeli intelligence agencies.
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