Trade policy, actualities, secrecy, multinationals, and such. The "Wild West" scenario of trade among nations, and blocs of nations.

 

 International law is a topic new to crabgrass, as is the current status and flux in trade deals. Secrecy, and the public interest vs big-money players running things is a worry. Dispute resolution, public or private?

Bilateral deals, Trump's thing, exist along with a WTO and lots of multilateral stuff, where pubic need to know can often be regarded as mushrooming the public. (Keep them in the dark and feed them shit.)

Those are meandering thought in taking on the idea of - looking at trade.

Where to start and how to proceed are unknowns so dig in and there is a ton or academic publishing and current status online "blurb" news. 

First item, here, where some Senators worth more respect than others in 2015 wrote a short letter about TPP to a trade rep. The letter seems parallel to the considerations Crabgrass might post - reporting and opinion. The letter flags timely ideas still, with Trump and crew, cutting deals. Absent the four appendix pages, (which are important so review it), this is the letter:

 

click images to enlarge and read

 

In Trump's bilateral deal world, where tariff threat opens discourse, the public trust in process is, if anything, more stressed and stretched to limits. That brings us to, apart from lawmakers, the general public's place in things. Bribes and favors in secret are possibilities, and what access do lawmakers and the public have to the deal negotiations, where treaties need Senate approval to bind.

One mischief readily appoarent, negotiate something, whthhold submission for Senate ratification, and then live by the bilateral deal, both sides, until one balks, saying it never formally went into effectd.

Then repeat the cycle. 

Multilateral deals are likewise open to bribe or favoritism, and can you say Elon, or Big Oil? Or leaving submission to Senate ratification off the table, so US executive decision making can back out of anything.

Those seem to be ground rules of the Big Dog in negotiations, and dispute resolution in multilateral deals grabs onto idealogues yelling, "We will not surrender our sovereignty." 

In effect, things are wide open, nations can play one off against the other, special deals for big players in national economies can be included, and secrecy favors special interests with clout. The whole world can be cartelized and oligopolies can be set to favor public sector economic powers over the poublic interest. Instead of nation states against each other, it can end up being one multinational bloc against others. Bilateral deals are easier to negotiate, because complications and compeating interests abound with the number of parties to a trade bloc agreements. Everyone has to end up happy, or at least satisfied, even if feeling rawly treated. Enough so that nation/players say, okay, even if grumbling.

That is the framework from which Crabgrass will look at stuff online and post additional stuff.

______________UPDATE____________

Besides the Wiki other WTO links: Britannica,  Investopedia, congress.gov, review item

Volvo is selling an electric truck in the U.S. of A. What do you make of that? (Or at least they are advertising an electric one online).

 Link.

Who owns Volvo? Who owns Mack Trucks? And, have you seen the chrome bulldog ornamenting a hood lately?

Is Elon's over the road long haul vision beyond vision, or still a vaporware truck? 

It does appear Volvo has rubber on the road, and Musk, perhaps. I don't know. 

Let me say this about that: https://media.lombardodier.com/image/upload/f_auto,c_fill,w_1000,ar_1200:627/v1750151398/locom/news/2025/06/20250618/Trump_EV_LOgreen.jpg  

 Is there a true schism, or something feigned?

TPP and TIPP and where are we now, where is international trade headed? Expect UPDATING

 Wikipedia - TPPTIPP

Obama was negotiating both, TIPP on the later track. The unions did not feel Obama was protective enough of their interests there was unrest in general, and Trump in the 2016 election positively disowned Obama's effort and the Clintons in turn did disavow it too, Ms Clinton declining to follow the prior administration (something Harris did not do).

Trump criticized Obama and team's negotiations as not tough enough, as he did on the Iran - nuke situation. Trump won.

So TPP and TIPP were scuttled. That's history. Trump tariff war is his current version of negotiating and the courts will have to say what he can do to overcome a feckless Congress, both Houses. Crabgrass gueses judicial finality will be favorable to the imperial presidency, given the fact of a feckless Congress intent on pissing away time with no action.

Recall some ridiculed GATT by calling it Gentlemen Always Talk and Talk. Welcome to Congress.

A latest thing: Forbes, Reuters, and Politico. That sets the table.

Crabgrass has more studying to do but that's the student reading assignment, which Crabgrass sets itself.

Before commenting thinking is best. This post is being started this way because there's little US media attention given to real things and much US media attention given to show. 

People in Honk Kong are reading Crabgrass because they've obvious vested interests in the real things. And Crabgrass in a fumbling way at least will try to post something worth reading. The regular media seem to think let the adults do the necessary, we distract public interest to protect the real things.

Something like that. That's all for now because Crabgrass admits the three "latest things" links are given before Crabgrass study of them.  Before commenting thinking is best. More to come. All for now.

Again, the caveat, this is one eighty year old American thinking and posting, but there may nonetheless be value to what's published. Again, all for now.

______________UPDATE_____________ 

CPTPP: Same day, the two May 2025 linked items say the same thing largely, quoting Reuters:

STOCKHOLM, May 13 (Reuters) - Sweden said on Tuesday it would propose that the European Union join a Pacific rim-based trading group with the aim of forming the world's biggest free trade area to help counter the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs.

The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) is a free trade accord sealed in 2018 between 11 countries - Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. Britain joined last year and China also hopes to join., 

Two South American nations are members, Brazil, not yet as of May 2025. Canada and Mexico the only North American members. Central American nations, absent, including Panama with the canal. Indian subcontinent absent, other BRICS and Islamic states, absent. Ditto all of Africa.

"If the EU and the CPTPP as trade groups link together it would create the biggest free-trade area in the whole world," Sweden's Minister for Foreign Trade, Benjamin Dousa, told Reuters by phone from Japan.

"At a time when the U.S. is closing itself off more and more and becoming inward-looking there are good opportunities for Europe to open itself up... to investment and trade," he said.

Trump's tariff blitz has upended decades of trade practice, shaken faith in traditional alliances and raised fears of a global recession.

Dousa, who is currently on a trade trip to several Asian countries, said Sweden would make its proposal on joining the CPTPP at a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Thursday in Brussels.

Export-dependent Sweden is one of the strongest supporters of free trade inside the 27-nation EU, though Dousa said he expected some member states to be less keen on a CPTPP deal.

"We are ready to take up the fight with countries like France," he said. France has traditionally been more protectionist-minded, especially regarding agricultural produce.

While negotiations could take some time, Dousa said it might be possible to conduct negotiations sector-by-sector and industry-by-industry, meaning concrete agreements could be in place relatively quickly.

Realatively quickly, or not. Crabgrass has May 2025 as its last date of imformation, and needs to search if there is online updating of info. As of today, Wikipedia entry: CPTPP. (Crabgrass has yet to read it.)

Who in Congress, which committees, and what has been done that way are points for attention. There is a feeling of not being kept in the loop as the American public, one member, but how widespread is the media-led ignorance? Not looking, but guessing, whitehouse.gov not worth checking.

There is the term "being mushroomed" where the public might fit under the term.

Crabgrass search, pending = cptpp new membership eu us russia china

Try it yourselves.  Something likely will be returned of value.

FURTHER: The facts of existing trade agreements while Trump holds a tariff war - is it being deliberately downplayed by the Trumpsters, the Democrats, and the US media, or has Crabgrass just been sleeping? 

Downplay being one thing, diversionary stuff being something else. "Need to know" seems at play, by the adults. As in "Look at Epstein, yes and no about releasing stuff" and Gaza, oh my! Dead Kirk. LLMs. Elon. While it can be asked, who gets what share of electric automobile manufacturing, have the adults divided the market already, or are free markets at play, ostensibly or in reality? Sneaksrs and clothing? Laptops? All them phones . . .

FURTHER: Same day, Google Analytics tell me I have had one view of the blog from  Brunei over the past 24 hrs. That's my first from there. I remember Ollie North and the Sultan of Brunei, back in Iran Contra days, and -- here again. Small but wealthy??

Wha's 'appening? 

I guess Trump seizes powers when he knows a spine is missing. Jimmy Kimmel's late night show suspended by network nervous nellies because the gist of what Kimmel said was the fucking plain truth.

 AP carried by Strib: 

The veteran late-night comic, made several remarks about the reaction to the conservative activist's assassination last week on ''Jimmy Kimmel Live!'' Monday and Tuesday nights, including that ''many in MAGA land are working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk.'' 

 And that is a bottom line truth. 

[...] President Donald Trump celebrated ABC's move on the social media site Truth Social, writing: ''Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done.''

Earlier in the day, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr called Kimmel's comments ''truly sick'' and said his agency has a strong case for holding Kimmel, ABC and network parent Walt Disney Co. accountable for spreading misinformation. He said the comic appeared to be making an intentional effort to mislead the public that Kirk's assassin was a right-wing Trump supporter.

There is truth to the last sentence from the AP's quoted reporting below, with "might have" not being a statement of fact but of possibility, but a blame game over a whack-job head-case problematic Utah youth is ugly and wrong. Wrong both ways (attributing either a right or left wing motive)  and wholly off base to say it was other than hostile animus specifically against Kirk. The kid registered to vote and for two electionrs didn't. Read the politics that single fact shouts out. It seems Tyler Robinson was apolitical but against Kirk's hate messaging. Authorities hold evidence to that effect, details have been published, and young Tyler did not have roots of any deep political kind. No trail of email or messaging against Trump and JD, but solely seeing Kirk as a hate filled provocateur. (Which Crabgrass agrees is a true opinion of Kirk.)

Research it. The AP item continues: 

During his Monday evening monologue, Kimmel suggested Kirk's alleged killer, Tyler Robinson, might have been a pro-Trump Republican. ''The MAGA Gang (is) desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,'' Kimmel said. ''In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving.''

''This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney,'' Carr said on the Benny Johnson podcast. ''We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.''

Benny Johnson is a rightwing flak. Going on that podcast is rightwing red flag waving at us. AND Trump and his lackeys are dancing on Kirk's grave, while blithely ignoring Kirk's repeated strong feelings, publicly expressed, about releasing all the Epstein evidence. All! One unstable trigger-pulling Mormon youth from a gun-love rightwing very Christian family is being wrongly called a leftist ideologue (rather than a misguided soul) by every MAGA talking head top down, when he went against a strong family ultra-conservative outlook in gunning down Kirk. What you really have: A kid from the gamer culture, with a trans female lover, bonded to a shoot 'em up diet of games conditioning a pliant mind. 

Meanwhile, that regulator, Carr, is bloviating a mobster-like "cave in, bow and kiss the Godfather's hand, or feel hurt" threat. 

Recall, Project 2025 head pusher, Kevin Roberts, with Heritage Foundation's similar theme and threat: 

Heritage faces blowback after ‘bloodless’ revolution comment 

by Emily Brooks - 07/06/24 6:00 AM ET

The Heritage Foundation and its president, Kevin Roberts, are facing blowback in the wake of his comment about an ongoing second American revolution that will “remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

President Biden’s campaign jumped on the comment, with a spokesperson saying it shows that former President Trump’s allies are “dreaming of a violent revolution to destroy the very idea of America.” Commentators ranging from former GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) to MSNBC hosts and guests reacted with alarm.

And in the wake of the comment, though without mentioning it, Trump distanced himself from Project 2025 — an initiative led by the conservative think tank that aims to provide a conservative policy blueprint for the next Republican administration and that has also ignited political firestorms.

Heritage and Roberts, though, are standing by the comment, dismissing the criticism as being in bad faith.

It is entirely hard to avoid the mental image of the mobster telling the deli owner you can pay me for protection or pay more for broken windows and damage. The administration's "regulatory hurt" threats are difficult, to say the least. And Trump is what else but the Godfather of his administration 

Last - Can't resist - 

BOTTOM LINE: Kimmel told the basic truth that Trump and crowd were dancing on the grave, ("making hay while the sun shines" if you prefer), yet regulator Brenden Carr is flexing a mobster-like threat of do as we say or face a financial harm. PROVE ME WRONG. 

_______________UPDATE_____________

It is hard to leave it there. The misgivings go deep. The gist of Crabgrass feeling is Trump is bent on a strong-arm presidency for Trump 47, JD onboard, and that's galling to a long-grounded love of freedom and liberty being American. Free people don't like being strong-armed. And when we get strong arming after strong arming, what is the message and are we free?  And if not, what is going on, top down?

Brazil has had coups and strong man authority. They have thus suitably handled Bolsanaro. We have had one revolution and a civil war, but both a long time ago. We don't like being pushed around by a failed businessman, TV actor. Ease up, Trump, is the general feeling with uneasiness. Be Presidential if you know how. No Kings. 

 

 

 

Trump is a piece of work. Pulte is too. There is a nation to be run. And fair lending to happen. These two are more into mud-slinging and overstepping power and duties. The one should fire the other, and then resign.

 

  

 Bessent did what is widespread, and unpunished, so that he should be told "bad boy" and left to his Department and its running. As Cook should be left alone to do her job. Give her a "bad girl:" too, if that will settle your mind.

I may not get all the facts and thoughts out there into this post about Bolsanaro and Trump, but I hope I get enough.

 Start with an earlier thing, Trumpian motives for saying Brazil gets humongous tariffs imposed because Bolsanaro was put on trial for a coup attempt. E.g., this BBC item from August 2025.

Too close to home for Donny, published today.  

COUNTERPUNCH, two days ago describes codefendants also found guilty and sentenced. Real sleaze. Trump's kind?

WMHD (What  Might Hegseth Do) as a thought experiment, no link.

Dutiful Rubio:

"The political persecutions by sanctioned human rights abuser Alexandre de Moraes continue, as he and others on Brazil's supreme court have unjustly ruled to imprison former President Jair Bolsonaro," Rubio wrote on X.

"The United States will respond accordingly to this witch hunt," he said.  

Brazil's Foreign Ministry called Rubio's comment a threat that "attacks Brazilian authority and ignores the facts and the compelling evidence in the records." The ministry said Brazilian democracy would not be intimidated by the United States.

Bolsonaro, who had close ties to U.S. President Donald Trump during his first term in the White House, became the first former president in Brazilian history to be convicted for attacking democracy after a majority of five justices on Brazil's Supreme Court voted to convict him on Thursday. He was sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison. 

"Well, I watched that trial. I know him pretty well--foreign leader. I thought he was a good president of Brazil, and it's very surprising that could happen very much like they tried to do with me, but they didn't get away with it at all," Trump told reporters when asked about Bolsonaro being found guilty and if that means additional sanctions. 

[...] Trump, who also faced a variety of criminal charges and ultimately became the first former U.S. president convicted of a crime last year, [...] In July, he imposed 50% tariffs on most Brazilian goods to fight what he has called a "witch hunt" against Bolsonaro. He later exempted some Brazilian exports, including passenger vehicles and a large number of parts and components used in civil aircraft. 

That same month, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who presided over Bolsonaro's criminal case, accusing him of authorizing arbitrary pre-trial detentions and suppressing freedom of expression.

A how high Rubio showing, where Trump said "Jump." Ditto Bessent at Treasury.

One place I got my mind wrong, I thought it was Bolsonaro who handed Elon the chainsaw at APEC. It was an Argintine. Bolsonaro may be, (and was judged), a really bad actor, but it was not him being that chainsaw tacky. 

Aside from that, a little past, present, and Rubio "promise" about the future, blogged here briefly over a grudge feeling one pissed off former scorn-monger election-loser had in a coincidental embrace of another. One fucking hell of a way to do foreign policy, but that's only the Crabgrass thought, and others may see it differently.

Crabgrass belief: Brazil got it right. Good voters get good results. 

It arguably deserves more trenchant analysis, and I am sure in Brazil due attention is given. Crabgrass is not the place to overreach in commentary where little here is known but what's web content.

However, it had to be mentioned. Not commenting about it would have been negligent. It needs attention, and Crabgrass gives it some. The U.S. in a bad posture perhaps should not be dwelt upon, but there's been sooooo much bad posture these days that the nation needs a figurative chiropractor, to adjust its spine.

__________________UPDATE________________

https://www.counterpunch.org/ 

It is one of the web's good outlets. It recently published an op-ed about political murder. 

COUNTERPUNCH also opined on tariff impact on farmers and how things could be better. Beyond give a bigger subsidy to offset tariff impact. Again, a worthwhile outlet, left oriented.

FURTHER: The site seems more set on commentary than attempted or feigned "just the facts reporting" with two additional items highlighted. Here. Here. 

 

Using AI generated data to train AI? Great idea?

 If you cannot trust MIT, who can you trust?

From the MIT Technology Review -  

The trouble is, the types of data typically used for training language models may be used up in the near future—as early as 2026, according to a paper by researchers from Epoch, an AI research and forecasting organization, that is yet to be peer reviewed. The issue stems from the fact that, as researchers build more powerful models with greater capabilities, they have to find ever more texts to train them on. Large language model researchers are increasingly concerned that they are going to run out of this sort of data, says Teven Le Scao, a researcher at AI company Hugging Face, who was not involved in Epoch’s work.

The issue stems partly from the fact that language AI researchers filter the data they use to train models into two categories: high quality and low quality. The line between the two categories can be fuzzy, says Pablo Villalobos, a staff researcher at Epoch and the lead author of the paper, but text from the former is viewed as better-written and is often produced by professional writers. 

Data from low-quality categories consists of texts like social media posts or comments on websites like 4chan, and these examples greatly outnumber those considered to be high quality. Researchers typically only train models using data that falls into the high-quality category because that is the type of language they want the models to reproduce. This approach has resulted in some impressive results for large language models such as GPT-3.

One way to overcome these data constraints would be to reassess what’s defined as “low” and “high” quality, according to Swabha Swayamdipta, a University of Southern California machine learning professor who specializes in data-set quality. If data shortages push AI researchers to incorporate more diverse data sets into the training process, it would be a “net positive” for language models, Swayamdipta says.

In the old days, when processing power and memory were in shorter supply, the word was garbage in garbage out.

Now MIT can say it with many more words. We have come a long way, and the way out is obscure.

Ask the Unibomber?

google = use AI output to train AI

See what you get.

 UPDATE: I was contemplating a post with well linked authority about something I'd not seen posted about yet, expecting it for some months.

The Epstein and the Ehud Barak 

Mossad. That's what some say about who created Epstein and the honey pot.

Epstein was Jewish, The Victoria's Secret guy was Jewish. Leonard Black? Jewish. So it's low-grade easy to say it was all part of the Jewish conspiracy, which gets mentioned a lot on various web segments.

What interests me, and I have nothing like proof either way beyond the circumstantial -

If you web search = Epstein Barak business ventures

See what you get. Tune the search if you feel that's needed. See what their mutual greed produced. Search Barak separately to get his Wiki Bio.

Then try Wikipedia for names you may get as to money making thoughts Epstein and Barak may have shared for trial ventures they considered, something that may have hit the shoals or still be going. 

Something perhaps existing for one purpose, but having commercialization possibility elsewise? 

There is stuff online but I will let you find it and make inferences from it. Suffice it to say that if Epstein had his honey pots stocked with cameras having a remote feed, via the internet available tech as then might have existed, such as then leading edge tech one might market for feeding video to a 911 site to aid its responsiveness, wouldn't that possibly suggest streaming the activity at the honey pot to remote storage, somewhere, so that if the FBI or US intelligence people were to have the right warrant to look, (warrantless searches, they don't happen do they), then they might not find any incriminating video evidence on site at the honey pot? And if live-streamed somewhere, where would you guess? Ventures, patents, there might be a circumstantial trail, but only hard evidence - if it happened that way which is uncertain - if you know the remote data storage site being streamed to and have access to it.

And, have a nice day. Technology is your friend. Look how it helped Kash and the Mormons track down Robinson. It can do that to, with you. The Unabomber wrote about yesterday's technology and we need to contemplate its movement given the tons of money, hardware, brain power, and electricity being invested into tomorrow's AI. We have a future, but who other than you is charting it and bringing it to being. And for what reasons are they routing things in the directions things are moving? With all of your best interests in mind? Making a better life for the children?

FURTHER: Selfless benevolence is the major human motive. What being "human" means. 

Only the good die young.

Reconciling  opposing thoughts is sometimes easy, sometimes hard, right? 

See what you find if you search. See what you think about it.

Stephen Miller has a darkness problem. How did he get this way? When he lost his hair. what?

 This online item speaks for itself.

What's the point of this bluster? I will stop posting quivering in fear? Make me tremble?

Go figure. We've a First Amendment Miller's aware of, but does he honor it in his speaking against freedom of expression? We're going to get these leftists - I'm old enough to say I hear it, I doubt it.

Blustery weather passes, and the sun shines again. As to me, it is Stephen, go after the Soros family first, get them and I will take your raised voice seriously. Otherwise, have a nice day.

Leave things there. There is no need to go beyond what's been said. Only, is this helping Trump, or hurting cred in general? That's for each reader to figure. What does JD gain?

UPDATE: Lyndon Johnson made martyrs at Kent State and Jackson State, and alienated a large part of a generation into distrust of power. Also, roughly a century ago U.S. action solidified popular resolve in Mexico.  Stephen Miller nonetheless pushes on. Wisdom in some places is in short supply, usually where hubris is in excess. And ranting satisfies no need of the people of our nation. Miller can still show an upward sloping or at least stable learning curve, or can take the free hand Trump is giving him and fuck things up royaly, well past today's already heated feelings and counterfeelings. Pop the popcorn and watch.

 

Why not release the total package, Epstein Files, which is something Charlie Kirk publically advocated. It would be trustworthy instead of a shit-show.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/stephen-miller-issues-unhinged-threat-172426683.html 

Carrying a New Republic item -

Stephen Miller Issues Chilling Threat Over Charlie Kirk’s Death

Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling

Mon, September 15, 2025 at 12:24 PM CDT

2 min readWhite House deputy chief of staff

Speaking with Vice President JD Vance Monday during a tribute to Charlie Kirk on the far-right firebrand’s eponymous show, Miller said that he intended to “channel all the anger that we have” against the left, claiming that leftist groups and nonprofits had created “terrorist networks” that led to Kirk’s murder.

“The last message that Charlie sent me … was that we needed to have an organized strategy to go after the left-leaning organizations that are promoting violence in this country,” Miller told Vance, celebrating what he described as focused anger. “I will write those words onto my heart and I will carry them out.”

Miller elaborated that, per his belief, these supposed terrorist organizations had produced “organized doxing campaigns” and “organized cells” that facilitated violence.

“It is a vast domestic terror movement,” Miller said. “With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people.

“It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name,” Miller added.

 The little shit Miller does not have a heart. He is the Tin Man and Scarecrow in one persona. No brain either. And Miller's not acting in Charlie's name, he is his own man doing his own shit and saying it's not mine, it's somebody else's. Or I'll steal a dead man's aura. It's his child. Abusing Kirk's name and memory or not, it is Miller's bastard thing. Do a paternity test. His. Hunt a witch for Miller, not Kirk in retrospect.

 Vance should know better. A witch hunt does no one any good, and gets distrust as it's due reward. 

 

Since Charlie Kirk's been shot, his thinking is now frozen, but he and Tucker Carlson had a fairly long conversation, and you can watch it and think about it for yourself.

Link. Who are these two, and where do they sniff out a truffle, and where do they show something we should worry over?

Or think, they're all one way, good: or all one way; bad. It may be a pick and choose, and a general impression on the whole, with caveats.

And the thought, wealthy people and those who control big corporate business; how does social liberalism and economic liberalism (with the term liberal in its larger sense, say progressivism instead) split?

Let people live, if they show up every day on time and punch out a good quota of widgets, or is our national character something else, and if so, what?

 Tucker saying he's worked menial jobs, his family made him do it in summers? Something like that.

Facing middle and old age lifting and fitting stuff is not the same as trying a summer of it. 

And demonizing boomers? They had numbers, bur only a handful had hands on power, and shaped things to mirror a non-bluge population system, in terms of equal distribution of national product and enjoyment of a dream of some kind?

Finally, I thought of turning people loose on the item without front loading some of my thinking, but I did not. I can be faulted for that.  

I think false prophets can sound legit to some, not others, and your prophets making sense might at the same time be my false ones, so watch and form your own take on the two talking at length.

It could reflect on you and how your childhood stood as much as about the two and what they share.

Trump's health. He is making major decisions and needs all the help, including exercise, good diet, and learning to trust others, even if not the most loyal or obsequious.

At a week and a half from 81, I know old age, but at 200 lb I do not abuse my body as if I were a flab ridden 320 pounder. Which Trump seems to have allowed himself to be. 

I'd get sleep and park the golf cart a bit of a short walk from the green to get a few steps in. Little things.

He lacks the discipline. He indulges short term, and fats out. Not body shaming, but health shaming, given his position in politics. He owes us, the nation, the best decisionmaking good health he and unlimited med resources can give us.

His history of pigheadedness and coincident bad business decisions and bankruptcies suggest he needs to have the best of advisors and to trust them. His lifelong inferiority complex, for which he's found compensating postures and conduct need revision. He'll never be all Fred wanted, but live with it and be the best possible, given genetics and environment and personal slobbish indulgent history leading to this point. 

He's let himself whale out.

His mental acuity is not what it was thirty years ago in sharper-minded Apprentice entertainment days. He's slipping and slurring and meandering from the point. He needs JD to not only front the stuff, small and bigger, but to have an entire competent cabinet with everyone on board saying, "Health matters." He says he's healthy, but he is not, and likely believes he's deluding people when we see and know.

Anyone saying this is a healthy man is in self-delusion, or lying.

That said, the job of others in politics is to try to channel help and positive personal feelings, even if thinking his policy is a road to the Great Depression of this century. Obama had to overcome the Bush 2008 disaster, Biden to overcome the Covid mishandling and lack of pandemic preparation, which is going worse under the Kennedy chap. 

Bad things, and bad health are each capable of being fought against.

This cheap fist pumping, "Fight, fight, fight" is delusional for a man who will not even eat well or trust enough those he elevates to positions of trust. Hegseth and Kennedy are physically fit, overly so perhaps, but mentally impaired, and they've so far had relative longevity in Trump 47, despite publicly expressed misgivings of others. 

Trump at his core is an awful judge of people, wanting to install those less gifted than himself, to his detriment since he is more salesman and sound-bite specialist, than gifted in any needed sense.

He even delivers his sound-bites these days in writing, Truth Social, where ghost-writing is a question? 

Washington, D.C., we have a problem.

 

___________UPDATE____________

At the Pentagon 9/11 memorial service Trump looked bad, but after finding the speech he gave online, he read the teleprompters on each side clearly, turning obviously from one to the other as he read. It was, however, reassuring that his vocal power had not degenerated greatly in a short few days, where speculation over a possible stroke has been given media attention.

If he'd had a stroke it did not impair his reading or articulating skill more than, say, the middle of last month or earlier. He is living a hard 79th year, and it was encouraging, his voice, even with media speculation. However, health is a concern, and his attendance rather than sending JD for the event was also encouraging.

I absolutely hope he keeps his health able, and if going into difficulty that he has the good sense to acknowledge when it might be time to cut this second term short, if that ever becomes the case.

He is not there yet, but he and staff must show care and discernment.

(I would provide a link to his speech but I found online only a composite with other more extensive lead-in content irrelevant to Trump's part of the Pentegon event.) Readers, please search the speech if caring enough, or take my analysis that he stood with no sway, and gave the speech from the two teleprompters, which is not unique, Biden having on occasion used a pair of teleprompters to aid his official event speeches. 

It is a worry, but so far the point of considering ending the term before its scheduled end has not been reached. As best as Crabgrass has seen.

If the term ends early, JD appears like-minded to where policy would largely remain as it's been under Trump. Whether you view that as good or bad is a separate question.
 

Minnesota has had a disgruntled madman shoot legislators, while Utah has had a 22 year-old white man from a devoutly gun-loving family choose to gun down an idealogue-prosyletizer. Guns do kill people. So regulate them wisely.

 The Hortmans dead, the guy Kirk dead, multiple past multiple-target-persons-shootings via assault rifles, more so than with handguns which are specifically made and sold for shooting people becuase you don't hunt with a Glock. It's under powered to drop a bear, and the range of accurate targeting even by experienced shooters exceeds many hunting distances where a long gun shot could succeed. In short, guns designed for warfare or street action - all that leading to thoughts of time to more soundly regulate firearms and firearm ownership. Walz may call a MN leg special session for that very purpose.

Republicans stoop to babble speak and evasion to push stand your ground (aggressive) measures, while not wanting guns regulated.  MinnReformer notes Republican Walter Hudson babble-speak about revolution somehow, discussed but not, says Hudson, advocated by him. And Hudson has been analyzed by Steve Timmer in Steve's left.mn postings here and here. (Hudson is not in Republican leadership making Crabgrass think of some of the brothers frats kept away from rushees during Rush Week, back when.)

Hudson votes with the Republicans, so they accept him, but have they honored or featured him? He is more inclined to feature himself,  possibly confusing leadership by what he says.

But that's not Stand Your Ground thought, although Hudson might agree with it. He surely stands his ground, politically. Leadership sometimes having to clean the ground after him.

Now, mom in the burbs Republican Kristin Robbins sees herself fit for the Governor's Mansion, and makes Stand Your Ground a thing to co-sponsor. Beyond that she is eager to serve Minnesotans better than others, where others, both parties, feel the same about their talents. She favors economic projections in state made without inflation adjustments. Despite inflation happening and everyone knowing that.

The links on Robbins again are to Timmer's analyses.

What you get is a drift that some Minnesota Republicans are lesser than others.

Now, while on guns and gun-love let us join in featuring a Utah family in togetherness over firearm feel and stroking:

 

 

 

 John Lennon, years ago, gunned down. Yitzhak Rabin, gunned down. Ghandi. Two Kennedys and a King. And this family is bringing up the youngsters gun-happy while the older brother got Charlie Kirk in the neck. Sick? Yes. I don't live in Utah and would not move there. Somebody might shoot me. And yes, Minnesota is not a best example of other ways. We have Boelters. And we do not need kerosene on the fire via Stand Your Ground as a universal thing, since in public vs in one's safe home, you first try retreat when feasible in public if threatened, while in the home there may be a more defensive reaction to a wrongful entry. But each case should rely on its own facts without a bias toward standing ground and shooting it out and damn the other options.