Buckle Up Buttercup 🤡 🤮 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️

Syria, Russia, Iran:  Well, so much for my prediction that Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth would be a history burger by now.  He’s still the Defense Secretary nominee because Trump has “spoken to people that know him very well, and they say he does not have a drinking problem." Also, some of the Republican Senators Trump has spoken with think Hegseth is “fantastic” because apparently alleged rapists with drinking problems are in vogue with the MAGA set.  It’s far from certain that Hegseth is confirmable but at least for now he’s still in the game and why not given that Trump who once told us all that “I alone can fix it” probably doesn’t think he needs a sober Defense chief since he’s the one making all the decisions and, anyway, he’s got deposed Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s one time and maybe still friend Tulsi Gabbard, his DNI pick, whispering in his ear. Unfortunately, as this weekend’s events in Syria indicate the world is an unpredictable place but sure who really needs a sober and experienced military advisor? As to Syria, the rapidity of the toppling of Assad’s regime was surprising but the fact that he was ousted less so because with Putin, one of Assad’s backers otherwise occupied in Ukraine and Assad’s other major supporter, Iran, dealing with Israel’s overwhelming response to the October 7 attack by Hamas, one Iran surrogate, and dismantling of one of its other surrogates, Hezbollah, Syria had become an expendable friend at least for now. While it’s great to see the brutal Assad dynasty toppled, it’s worth noting that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the jihadist rebel group that sent Assad packing to Putin’s Moscow is led by a “previously” al-Qaeda linked Islamist named Abu Mohammed al-Jalani. Syria is an ethnically diverse country with several Islamic sects, significant Kurdish, and Christian populations and even some Jews.  Though al-Jalani insists that he and his group will tolerate the beliefs of the difference groups, under his leadership the northwest Idlib region of Syria that he’s been running is currently governed by hardline Sunni Islamist principles. Moreover, the US and other Western countries consider HTS to be a terrorist group.  Also, Russia will want to keep its Syrian based Mediterranean bases, Israel which has already moved forces into the Golan Heights, is wary of an Islamic state on its border, Turkey, with its Ottoman Empire aspirations, disdain for all things Kurdish, and large population of Syrian refugees is involved and the US, which continues to battle the pockets of ISIS remaining in Syria is likely to stay in the mix even under Trump. It, like everything else about governing, is complicated.  

Déjà vu Again:  With his favorite billionaire, or as one reporter dubbed him his BOTUS Elon Musk in tow, Trump,  weird handshake, and all, attended the reopening of Notre Dame this weekend.  FLOTUS Jill Biden was there too, but naturally Trump got all the attention because that convention of the US having one president at a time is so quaint.  Bucke up, it’s going to be a long, long four years.  Trump also sat for an interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker where he said a lot of scary and also stupid things.  He admitted that those tariffs he is so enamored with might raise consumer prices but so what. He also talked again about getting rid of Obamacare because it “stinks.”  He has no planned replacement but, just as he said during the campaign, he has some concepts.  If his Obamacare fascination sounds familiar, it’s because it is. As in 2016, the last time he tried to strip away health insurance from millions of Americans, he clearly has some advisors telling him that he needs to save money to pay for the tax cuts that he has pledged to extend and increase. Cutting Obamacare in its entirety didn’t fly last time, and probably won’t this time either but there will be drama, and there is a chance that he will manage to cut some of the Medicaid expansion that benefits the working poor because really why do those folks need help paying their medical expenses if that money comes out of the pockets of billionaires with multiple mansions, planes, yachts, and even rocket ships?  Trump also talked about eliminating birth right citizenship as part of his deportation plan. He claimed that the US was the only country in the world that has birthright citizenship.  He’s wrong but then again, he was also surprised when Welker pointed out that birthright citizenship is explicitly protected by the 14^th Amendment to the Constitution, a document he’s probably never read.  And no one should be surprised that the guy who’s promised retribution believes that all the members of the House January 6^th Committee should be jailed.  He didn’t say that he would order their prosecution, but since his wannabee FBI Director Kash Patel has said that they should be arrested for treason and his Attorney General is likely to do whatever he wants, no one should be surprised if they are prosecuted which is why President Biden is seriously considering pardoning all the committee members, not that most of them want to be pardoned.     

 Fog:  Over the weekend Hamas released a proof of life propaganda video of Israeli hostage, 24-year-old Matan Zangauker, and this morning the Times of Israel reported that Hamas and Israel have started exchanging “release” lists, again. One can only hope something good comes of this.

#BringThemAllHomeNow