America For Sale - Buy Now & Get Photo Op With #47

Imagine, if you will, Hillary Clinton had used a public chat to discuss current/ongoing military maneuvers with a circle of correspondents that included journalists, Bill and Bill's brother, Roger. They wanted to lock her up for wedding plans she didn't even keep in the bathroom!

Imagine, if you dare, Hunter Biden creating a meme coin. $BIDEN,  offering it for sale, and then offering a meeting and private White House tour with his dad for the highest meme coin buyers, raking in millions of dollars for the family. Man, Congress woulda had a heyday with that one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Imagine, if you will, the royal family of Qatar presenting President Felon with brand new Air Force One jet worth over $400,000,000 with all the bells and whistles. I wanna know what kind of bells and whistles are on the plane. Gift-giving in the Arab world is rife with bakshish... a kind of quid pro quo where the gift is a way of greasing the wheels to make something happen. Some would call it a bribe to expedite a transaction. The Qataris want something....access to the Oval Office? Access to the president? A blind eye turned away from other sorts of activities? A highly favorable trade deal that freezes out other states? It could be anything. But it will be something because that's how that part of the world traditionally conducts business. 

And in case you forgot, one of the 9/11 masterminds, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, slipped away from US custody thanks to a tip from the Qatari government. 

Toon smash-up by Rob Benson

President Felon has lined his own pockets with these $trump and Melania meme coins. Now, they're planning a big dinner to auction off access to the White House and the President to a select crowd of his meme coin purchasers.

“If you are one of the Top 220 $TRUMP holders, you’ll receive an invitation with details to confirm your attendance at the Gala Dinner. Join President Trump on May 22, 2025 at his private Trump National Golf Club in Washington, D.C. for a once-in-a-lifetime evening. Learn about the future of Crypto!” 

The Posts also points out the top 25 Trump meme coin owners get an exclusive private event with the president. The website states, “Trump is appearing at the dinner as a guest and not soliciting any funds for it.”

Sure, he's not. Do we all look like we fell off the turnip truck this afternoon??????? Let's be real: President Felon never does anything unless there is something in it for his pocket. 

Meanwhile, back on the tarmac, The Hill reports:

Trump insisted the gift would be received by the Defense Department “in a very public and transparent transaction,” as he pushed back on criticism from Democrats who described the arrangement as a grift.  

The luxury jet would temporarily replace Air Force One and then be transferred over to the Trump presidential library at the end of his term.

Well, that sorta sounds like it's not being given to the US Government, but rather it's a private grift...I mean gift...to President Felon. In other words, this is not a gift to the government of the United States, this is a personal gift to the grifter-in-chief...something the Emoluments Clause seriously frowns upon. I wrote about said clause back in February, but in case you forgot what it says, Article I Sec. 9 of the Constitution states very clearly:

Article I, Section 9, Clause 8:

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State. 

I may be about as far away as Mars for being Laura Loomer's biggest fan, but she does happen to agree with me and makes a valid point for her own position. From the same article in The Hill: 

“I love President Trump. I would take a bullet for him,” Loomer wrote in a post on the social platform X. “But, I have to call a spade a spade. We cannot accept a $400 million ‘gift’ from jihadists in suits.

“This is really going to be such a stain on the admin if this is true,” I’m so disappointed. It’s going to be hard for the admin to designate the Muslim Brotherhood and obliterate Iranian proxies in Hamas and Hezbollah when Qatar funds the Muslim Brotherhood, harbors HAMAS, and the US just accepted a $400 million jet from Qatar, The biggest lobby in DC is the Qatar lobby. We are watching an Islamic takeover of our country in real time."

All things considered, Qatar is not exactly Switzerland in this game; they are hardly a neutral power. They housed and fêted the upper echelon of Hamas in Doha, providing them with a base of operations from around 2012 forward. The Wikipedia article on Qatar and State Sponsored Terrorism will give you a quickie overview. None of this is news. More recently, they are  openly and not-so-openly funding pro-Palestinian actions in the US, including but not limited to the encampments and the non-student leadership of the movement. 

And they're gonna give POTUS a plane. There are so many What-Ifs in that fuselage that someone would have to take the whole thing apart to find all those bells and whistles. Since the Muskrat has already removed all technology experts from the intelligence agencies and has fired all the significantly smart brass, there's no one left to do that level of work. He even fired the librarian at the Library of Congress....and everyone knows librarians know to find out everything! 

Makes me wonder how much the Qataris are paying Muskrat.  And speaking of Muskrat, how 'bout them South African refugees? How much and who did they pay to get their special refugee visas? 

Or, come to think of it,  what deal the Syrians are trying to cut. According to Reuters:

DAMASCUS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) — A Trump Tower in Damascus, a detente with Israel and US access to Syria’s oil and gas are part of Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa’s strategic pitch to try to get face time with US President Donald Trump during his trip to the Middle East, according to several sources familiar with the push to woo Washington.

First, it was Gaz-a-Largo, then it was Schuss-Greenland, now it's Damasminster Golf Club. I just wanna vomit. Is that graphic enough?

Breaking news: from the Washington Post:

Trump announces U.S. will remove all sanctions against Syria to give the country ‘a chance at a greatness’ President Donald Trump’s remarks, delivered from Saudi Arabia, garnered a standing ovation from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and others. “Oh, what I do for the crown prince,” Trump mused after some of the applause had died down.

The real question is what is the Crown Prince doing for him? 

 

On a more personal note, I want to write a bit about this past weekend. Whoever said "You can't go home again" wasn't a New Yorker. As the plane began its descent into JFK (no, never Newark) I could feel the tension roll off me as I watched waves rolling toward the beach. My intrepid cousin found me at the curb, and we headed into Brooklyn. My documentary producer came to get me for lunch, and we had the best pizza in Brooklyn (documented) at De Fara's. Falafel and all sorts of stuff for dinner and I thought I had died and gone to food heaven.

Thursday, we unveiled Aunty Gladknit's headstone. The last of my folk's generation to leave the building. That was harder than I anticipated. We stopped to see my folks down the block, and painted Minnesota stones went on every headstone.  Ambiance -10 but food +20 at Central Perk Cafe. Kosher, vegetarian, but really good. The poutine is incredible. And then, we baked. At least we made a quick stop at Brighton Beach so I could put my feet in the Atlantic.

Friday, despite the pouring rain, we managed to reach Little Miss et al in time to walk with her into the Metropolitan Museum. My turf. When she saw me, her face was priceless. I was over the moon to be doing this (L to R) Diz, me, Little Miss, Cousin Perdie, and Mrs. Junior Son.

Giving them Grandma Don't's Mandelbrot made by her only two granddaughters was a total hit. And we had a riot making it. We'd never baked together before. Doing this whole shleppy thing?  Best idea ever. Then we left them to their adventure. Perdie went off to work and Diz and I went off on an adventure.

Second best idea ever was running through the pouring rain to visit Adele Bloch-Bauer at the Neue Galerie, We were two drowned mice! But, oh, to see Adele up close and personal! Breathtaking! If you've never seen her, you should. The Galerie was marvelous and so was lunch at Le Pain Quiotidien. We laughed and caught up, talking about all things that matter to us. (JP, I know you're reading this....we missed you sooooo much! Your ears shoulda been burning!) And I managed to navigate the subway back to Brooklyn! It all felt so right.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

If you've never experienced a regular ol' Shabbat in Brooklyn,

find someone to invite you.

This was truly an island in time,  refreshing and renewing. 

I highly recommend it. 

SCREECH! SCREECH!

If I felt I could do it without feeling terribly guilty, I would take a few weeks off at this point. I am so tired of doom overload, I feel like my motherly alter-ego, Screech. 

Yeah, my dad bestowed that little moniker upon me when he used me as a character in one of the books he wrote for his grandsons. Dad was magically creative and, using coloring books, box covers, and his own ability to draw, he combined Fraggles, Star Wars, He-Man, Muppets, and newly designed characters into these bizarre adventures for Gobo Fraggle and his friends. Junior Gorg and Dr. Strangepork had prominent roles. Screeech [with 3 e's] is Skeletor's falcon. He was a fun-killer.  Apparently, that was my job: to prevent anyone from having any fun whatsoever. Or so Zayde told my sons. 

This is a page from the actual book. Junior Gorg and Dr. Strangepork are sitting on a deck that looks remarkably like the one at my folks' house, Screech (that's me) swooping in, and some Fraggles are peering out from under the deck. And if that was not enough, my folks read each of the books on tape so the kids could have bedtime stories when we went home to Minnesota. You haven't heard anything until you've heard my mother snorting while not laughing every time my dad yelled, "Screech! Screech!"

And that's what I feel like right now. Only there's no snorting and no laughing. 

ALL THE KING'S MEN happens to be on while I'm writing this. It's all so terribly familiar for all the wrong reasons. 

Jack Burden, the journalist/aide to Governor Stark and narrator of the film, says this as articles of impeachment are being gathered:

The chips were down and Willie knew it. He was fighting for his life. He roared across the state making speech after speech and all of them adding up to the same thing. It's not me they're after, it's you. Willie hollered FOUL. Willie knew if you hollered long enough, hard enough, and loud enough, people begin to believe you. Just in case they didn't, he organized spontaneous demonstrations....In case anyone hollered back, he organized spontaneous slugging. Willie pulled every trick he ever knew - and added a few more...And always the trail led to one place, to Burden's Landing and the Judge.

But here's the thing, that movie is absolutely prescient. Not to mention scary. Scary because this politics of narcissism is not new; in fact it's as old as politics.

Right now, lots of people are filing suits attempting to prevent President Screeech from allowing the shadow president, Elon Musk, to gut the government while bypassing laws, the rules of law, settled law, and, shits and giggles, congress to make it happen. Enough federal judges are putting the brakes on, but will it be enough to save thousands of jobs and projects? Yes, the government needs slimming, but not at the expense of medical research, the environment, and human dignity. 

There's an interesting concept. The Preamble to the Constitution actually recognizes the need for dignity. I'm not going to talk about slavery or indigenous people in this paragraph, just the idea that the writers recognized, in their own, rudimentary way, the need for human dignity. Here's what it says:

The Preamble

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The general welfare: if you ask me, that's the phrase that pays. No matter how you feel about bloat, research, education, or food inspections, this Constitution recognizes that a government is about people first. A government is there to insure the people living within its borders are safe. Abraham Lincoln takes it a step further when he delivers the Gettysburg Address, saying:

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

I don't think he had oligarchs and narcissists in mind when he wrote that. Quite the opposite, frankly; he was stating that the  health and well-being of this nation rests in the hands of its population as a whole. When Elon Muskrat met with India's Prime Minister, the reason for the meeting...populated by the entire Muskrat family including small children (we'll talk about that in a moment)...was unclear. A reporter asked if the president knew why they were meeting, and his response was very problematic. He says, "They met. I assume he wants to do business in India."

 

This was a problem in the first term, but clearly, no one has bothered to look at the Emoluments Clause which applies to all federal employees from the president down. Wanna know what it says, in case you forgot? From the Constitution of the United States of America, Article I, Section 9, Clause 8:

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

If you're unsure about that very old-fashioned word emolument, it refers to a payment or stipend given to an individual. Basically, the clause is meant to prevent foreign influence applied to a member of the government which, in turn, might cause favorable treatment of the presenter. In short, it's there to keep government employees from taking bribes in various forms...like government contracts to their own firms, or favorable trading deals with foreign nations that are not available to other manufacturers, thereby giving a government worker an unfair advantage. In short, according to the Constitution you are not supposed to be lining your own pockets from governmental sources. 

I did want to talk for a moment about that meeting with Modi, Mrs. Muskrat and the little Muskrats. Who brings their children to a meeting like this? 

In case you don't know, or haven't read much about eastern hemisphere traditions, this was your basic attempt at dick-waving. Remember the king in The King and I telling Anna he had 67 children?

See all these kids? See how fertile I am? I have 12 kids...twins and triplets, too! I am a great man because I have impregnated many women! 

Really? 

Okay. That's enough. I know some of this is really petty nonsense, but like a snowball rolling down a hill, it accumulates more snow, picks up speed, and runs roughshod over anything in its way. Right now, that's our government. For me, the really scary part is that the men and women we elected to protect and defend the Constitution are not doing that part of their job. Thousands of workers will be entering the jobless market if the White House can carry out their plans. The dominos of food, shelter, and available medical care will fall. Inevitably, people will go hungry. Medication will be unavailable. Families will be unable to afford fuel and people will freeze, especially the older citizens who are on a fixed income. The draconian actions will have repercussions and no one seems to be planning for that. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Whenever I hear either of those two charming 40+ year old children muttering, 

"Screech! Screech!" I ignore them. 

 But I do smile.