Saturday, November 26, 2016

Briefly


Fidel
It's the end of another era.  One of my adolescent heroes, Fidel Castro, managed to yank the chain of US presidents for over fifty years.  I still chuckle over the Mariel boatlift.  Adios, Fidel.  You pretty much won.

Betsy DeVos
While most of the Left is caught up in bemoaning the appointment of Stephen Bannon, I'm a lot more upset by the nomination of Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education.  DeVos has been trying to "reform" public education in much the same way the Islamist State has tried to "reform" the Yazidis: extermination.  An advocate of public funding (vouchers) for the "Christian academies" that proliferated in response to desegregation, she also supports charter schools as a path towards the complete privatization of education.

The State Department
Romney? Giuliani?  It's hard to imagine Tr*mp settling on either of those.  Maybe he's setting us up for a "compromise" — like John Bolton, perhaps: just as rabid as Giuliani, but with more of Romney's "look of a statesman."  He wasn't terribly statesmanlike when he was W's ambassador to the UN, but I guess you could call his raucous stint there "experience."

Conflict of Interest
There is no way the Tr*mp family can effectively detach itself from its financial entanglements in foreign countries, but can it resist self-dealing?  I am reminded of Aesop's fable about the scorpion and the frog: "It's my nature," the scorpion replied.

Saving the Iran Nuclear Agreement
Trump Tower Teheran?

No comments: