I Don’t Care

“He has no respect for America’s history. He doesn’t care about the Constitution. He doesn’t understand what the United States is all about, really.”

“Huh?”

“President Chrome-Head. If he had any respect for our country’s history, he would not be demolishing the East Wing on his own say-so. And for what? A ballroom built for wealthy people? When’s the last time you went to a ball?”

“It’s not literally for balls,” Dolores defended. “It’s an event space.”

“An event with 1,000 people masticating together is not an event I’d want to be a part of,” I told her. “They are going to need more bathrooms.”

The ballroom fiasco was, of course, a handy distraction from questions about the Epstein files. And the ugly eyesore was not the only distraction and not the only demonstration that the president disrespected our country and its history.

He desecrated the Kennedy Center by putting his name on it above JFK’s. The performing arts center was intended to be a “living memorial” to the assassinated president. But he has taken all the life out of the place just to score another Epstein distraction.

“Don’t let it be forgot,” I said to Dolores, “that once there was a spot for one brief shining moment.”

I knew I was showing my age, and she probably thought I was nuts.

But the distractions just kept on coming. He wanted to build a mammoth Arc d’Obscene across the bridge from the Lincoln Memorial. I suppose he wanted to out-pomp the French.

“And don’t forget, he wants to put his signature on our money, but I guess he believes our money is his.”

Dolores was rolling her eyes.

The distractions were not working all that well. He was still getting questions about his escapades with Epstein. He felt in his bones that he needed a bigger distraction, and starting a war in Iran would be a colossal distraction. Congress, for what it’s worth, had not declared war, but he didn’t care about Congress or the Constitution. For trolling, all the better that it would be an illegal war. It would be a war with no strategic goals, a war that had no aim. No one could say why we were warring or how we would know if we’d won.

Even Dolores was against the war. “He’s got no business being in Iran,” she admitted.

I could not agree more, but he would continue the war until Iran begged for peace. He believed that all he had to do to end the war was to show overwhelming military power. If he showed that the U.S. had overwhelming power, Iran would give him whatever he wanted, he thought. This neat trick had always worked for him in business. He felt he was in complete control of the distraction. As a bonus, the war in Iran it would provide cover for Netanyahu to bomb southern Lebanon. He admired Netanyahu. Netanyahu was powerful. Netanyahu had convinced him that starting a war in Iran was a good plan.

When things started to go sideways in the war, he tried to blame the whole thing on NATO and Obama. Asked if he was desperate to negotiate a “deal” to end the war, he said “I’m the opposite of desperate. I don’t care.”

He didn’t care about a lot of things, but he enjoyed videos. His hair-gelled Secretary of Defense (aka War) fed him highlight reels of things the U.S. military was blowing up in Iran. With so many explosions going on, he began to believe that the war must already be “won.”

The U.S. was using high-tech munitions such as Tomahawk cruise missiles at $2 to $4 million per explosion, and at that rate the Iran excursion was costing a billion dollars a day. As president, he knew that he alone could fix it. He asked for $1.5 trillion in military spending for fiscal 2027, a 42% increase from the current year. With that kind of money, he could buy a lot more Tomahawks and other war stuff like Bump-class battleships.

To offset the $1.5 trillion, he proposed trimming nondefense spending by 10%. He gravely announced that the reductions were necessary because it simply was not possible for the federal government to fund childcare: “We’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of day care.”

Take note of that plural. I’d like to see the list of wars, but I guess he included blowing up Venezuelan fishing boats, invading Greenland, taking Cuba and, of course, warring against the enemy within.

He threatened to exterminate the entire civilization of Iran “by 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time” if Iran did not agree to a peace deal and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. It was another example of negotiation by force. The civilization was spared annihilation when the president agreed to a two-week ceasefire brokered by Pakistan. The conditions of the ceasefire agreement were not disclosed to the public.

The strait, which was open before the war started, remained closed and under Iran’s control even as the president claimed that Iran, desperate for a peace deal, had agreed to open it. Iran, however, planned to levy a toll (aka bribe) on ships seeking passage through the strait. Iran would use the toll revenue to rebuild what U.S. bombs had destroyed in Iran.

The scheme was a violation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, under which ships making innocent passage through a country’s territorial waters cannot be charged a fee.

The president, who was aroused by money-making schemes, perked up when he learned of Iran’s plans for a toll. His first reaction was to float the fiction that he was collaborating with Iran: “We’re thinking of doing it as a joint venture.” It was a win-win: securing the Strait of Hormuz and cashing in at the same time. “It’s a beautiful thing,” he said.

Two days later he posted: “There are reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz Strait. They better not be and, if they are, they better stop now!”

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Some other stuff for later,