CSotD: Mysteries of Motivation
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Ohman’s exaggerating, at least for the moment. There’s no telling how deep into the bag of distractions Dear Leader is willing to reach if this Epstein business doesn’t go away, and, after all, he did send a couple of nuclear subs to lurk off Russia’s coast.
The first question is whether these “nuclear” subs are nuclear-powered or carry nuclear arms?
This article from the Center for Strategic and International Studies strongly suggests the former, since the US submarine fleet is entirely nuclear powered and only a small number carry nuclear arms.
The second is why Trump would announce the move publicly?
That’s a little more tricky. It’s not unusual to position a ship or two in a first-response position, but the normal protocol is to keep it on the down-low. The nation being monitored almost certainly knows the ship or ships are there and the public doesn’t have to, assuming the move is defensive rather than intended to intentionally antagonize an opponent.
It’s unclear whether Trump wants to intimidate Russia or, as Ohman suggests, is creating a diversion for his own people.
Earlier, Ohman pointed out Trump’s suspiciously generous treatment of Ghislaine Maxwell, which came after the lead prosecutor on Epstein’s case had been fired and Maxwell had been questioned, without the usual FBI agent as a witness, by Trump’s former personal attorney.
In order to transfer Maxwell to “Club Fed,” it was necessary to get a waiver, since sex-crime perpetrators are not permitted to be housed in minimum security. The move was far from routine and suggests that some sort of agreement was hatched, or, perhaps, an agreement to agree.
Ohman suggests that she might as well be settled in the Lincoln bedroom, given that the building already houses a convicted sexual predator.
Bagley, now safely ensconced in Portugal, suggests that Trump’s decision to seize power in the District of Columbia is also a move to distract from his Epstein connection.
The move otherwise makes little sense since the crime rate in DC, and around the country, is down to a level not seen in 30 years.
But Trump’s approval ratings are sagging and he may have wanted to make a flamboyant gesture to kindle paranoia among his faithful and to warn Democratic mayors and governors that he will send troops to take control of disloyal cities and states.
There’s also this: Republicans have an established record for not caring about problems until they are personally affected. They disapproved of gay and lesbian people until Dick Cheney’s daughter came out and opposed stem cell research until Reagan developed Alzheimer’s.
Now a DOGE figure got mugged and so the Republicans care about street crime.
The IDF has a too-long record of killing journalists, and more journalists have died in Gaza than were killed in the Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam and Ukraine combined, according to al Jazeera and the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The shooting of Shireen Abu Akleh was an accident until it was shown to be otherwise, and the rocket attack on the tent that acted as headquarters for al Jazeera’s reporters was justified on the theory that the most well-known correspondent among them was a terrorist.
Jennings notes that the Netanyahu government claims there’s nothing to see in Gaza, which justifies barring the foreign press and occasionally shelling tents full of terrorists and witnesses.
And perhaps there really is nothing to see in Gaza. Wilcox is one of several cartoonists — chiefly Australian and British — who make a telling pun on western governments recognizing a Palestinian state by pointing out that it’s become unrecognizable. Her bleak, ill-focused landscape is more effective than a detailed drawing could be.
Meanwhile, back in the UK, Schrank comments on Britain’s recent move to arrest people for peacefully demonstrating against the war in Gaza.
Declaring people “terrorists” for the dread crime of holding up a sign supporting a pro-Palestine group seems excessive, or at least a throwback to the days of Margaret Thatcher, but if it was shocking in those days, look around at the modern world, where accusing former heads of state of treason is no longer confined to banana republics.
Palestine Action is hardly innocent, but this is the first time a direct-action militant group has been declared to be a terrorist organization in Britain. And when a group has substantial support on the street, it seems sensible to take a second look at what has people flocking to its standard.
There comes a point where fixing the problem is more efficient, and more democratic, than repressing the complainers.
If nothing else, those who want to throw stones should first make an honest assessment of their own standing. Sometimes their conflicting stories make things clear as glass, and equally fragile.
Granted that the voice of the people is not always the voice of God, but, then again, Emerson’s quote is that “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”
Governments have a moral requirement to see if their consistency is foolish before acting upon it.
I sometimes discount riffs on classic cartoons, and Gillray’s plumb pudding is adapted too often for my taste. However, placing Zelenskyy, and thus Ukraine, as the prize to be divided is so accurate that Bunday gets my nod for this one.
It is unconscionable to leave Ukraine on the sideline. Even in the dubious peace talks for the Vietnam War, North and South Vietnam, as well as the southern rebels, were represented. It held things up while they quarreled over the shape of the table, but everyone involved had a seat at that table.
If Russia and the US want anything even as tenuous and temporary as that agreement, they need to start by bringing all parties into the conversation.
De Adder suggests that the pair may not be in quite so much conflict after all.
The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again: but already it was impossible to say which was which. — Animal Farm
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