China is too big for Trump to fight directly. Its PPP-adjusted GDP puts it roughly on par with the US, and China can point to middle-class of about 500 million, over a third of the 1.4 billion population, that only emerged over the past 40 years. China also has huge debt issues like the US, so neither country really wants to push default brinksmanship. Which leaves India and Brazil. Robust growth, less debt, but some semblance of rule of law. Interestingly, both of Trump’s targets this week, India and Brazil, have similar “quality of democracy” ratings vastly higher than China or Russia. Moreover, India and China have been the biggest supporters and facilitators of Russia’s shadow fleet of rust-bucket oil & gas tankers used to avoid sanctions. That is a specific target that the US and rest of the world could work on, a much better solution than tariff carpet bombings for Trump’s Peeve du Jour. As to Brazil, which has a trade deficit with the US, it is something of a surprise that Americans have suddenly lost a taste for certain top Brazilian exports such as beef, coffee and sugar. Is this RFK Jr’s doing?
Trump’s constantly evolving Epstein story seems to be returning to a Palm Beach property (today 3 separate lots) sale involving Trump and Russian fertilizer magnate Dmitry Rybolovlev. Rybolovlev just seems to suffer from an overpaying problem, making you wonder “how much illegal money does this poor guy have to launder?” On the other hand, he seems to ultimately come out of bad deals smelling like a rose and, as they say, does get himself out of cash and into physical assets.
So what was going on with Trump in the 2000s up to around 2013? Debt isn’t taxed and overpaying is not a crime. Usually we have this picture that money laundering is just converting the profits of an illegal activity into something legit, like home ownership. However, rich Russians and companies, had started to round-trip money out of (and back into) Russia to avoid taxes and other liabilities. Moreover, they had become adept at “layering” of loans (non-taxable debt) to make the money laundering opaque.
The name of the property, Maison de L’Amitie (House of Friendship), is quite amusing given that it was the deal that ended it for Trump and Epstein. Ironically, the now divided property boasts some of the most expensive housing in the US.
As usual, she makes a lot of sense. No one should lose sight of the separate issue which is de facto ending appropriated programs by shutting down the agencies that deliver it.
. And while you’re at it, have a close look at gerrymandering, which is ridiculously anti-democratic on its face, and rests on a court decision, not the Constitution.
AIPAC and American billionaires will never allow the people to get too much freedom.
You’re absolutely right. They are using every trick “in the book,” and many most of us never dreamed of. But some groups have been dreaming of denying rights every time in our history that they were expanded.
Just think, somewhere out there is an asshole who funded a bunch of asshole lawyers selling the idea that unlimited money is just free speech. And there was a Supreme Court majority, led by John Roberts, believed that same great big lie.
Just a quick reminder here that one of the slightly less insane SCOTUS conservatives (Kennedy?!) proposed a possible counter argument to gerrymandering.
I’ll see if I can find a link to more detailed information, but the gist was that a wide variance in the so-called “wasted votes**” might be sufficient evidence of gerrymandering that they might be able to declare it unconstitutional.
**in any gerrymandering scheme involving parties A and B where, say, A is in the majority and can control the redistricting/gerrymandering, A will attempt to pack as many of B’s voters as possible in as few districts as possible.
While this does create some “safe” districts for party B, it creates more districts that are advantageous, if not “safe” for party A.
Now, a party B candidate will/may easily win election in their “safe” district, but that’s part of the gerrymander. All those votes beyond 50%+1 are “wasted”, i.e., they have no impact on the election results.
This allows the party A district candidates to win many more seats, even if they may be by 50.1% to 49.9%—hey, that’s good enough!! Those elections will have far fewer “wasted” votes, especially in comparison to the seats won by party B.
Justice Kennedy suggested that a case comparing the variance in these “wasted” votes between the districts won by the two parties might be sufficient evidence to satisfy the Supreme Court.
Of course, it’s now even more fascistic than it was when he was on it, so there are certainly no guarantees. But even if the Court rules against it, it should be understandable to the average voter for messaging/campaigning purposes. 
And a majority of those supposedly brainy attorneys on SCOTUS don’t seem to understand they are giving away their own power.
She’s right you know