Fu*%face Von Clownstick

JCB said:
(and Kurt Vonnegut, a man who suffered from life-long depression)
Click to expand...
implying he was crazy? damn, vonnegut out here catching strays

look, all i do is observe the political situation and try to determine who stands to gain. the american government started the war with iran by attacking them in the middle of negotiation. its an unwinnable conflict which is broadly unpopular with the american people and the economic fallout cuts across the entire country. its a fact that anything which immiserates the populace will electorally punish the party in power, which benefits the party that isnt in power by default. of course theres a second alternative come election time, which hillary clinton and kamala harris discovered.

during the obama administration the republican party was maximally obstructionist, in lockstep opposing every single legislative measure introduced by his party and by his administration. why have the democrats not taken this strategy with donald trump? time and again chuck schumer has wheeled and dealed reaching across the aisle to allow various appointments and budget measures through.

synthesizing these two points is what led me to my original analysis. in order to be maximally obstructionist the democrats would have to oppose funding for the defence department, oppose support for israel, etcetera. these would be winning issues with their ostensible political base for whom uncritical american support for israel is becoming an albatross and who oppose the iran war at all levels. democratic leadership doesnt want to do those things, they want to maintain support for israel and not seriously impede american military spending. how do you win an election when the things your voters want are in opposition to the things you want? well you can stand by and watch the other side's mistakes punish them and try to win by default. thats the only explanation i can come up with that makes sense for why the democrats arent holding the government to complete procedural and budgetary deadlock in every legislative session, in every committee, in all quarters. the republicans did it for years and it wasnt even in protest of an empire-shattering war, just a black president!

i grant this is not genuine insight into the hearts and minds of the political leadership of the democratic party. i can only look at their actions and make deductions and predictions to the best of my experience and knowledge
 
Syrian Billionaires Needed a Favor in Washington. They Invoked the Trump Name.

Last summer, Representative Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, sat in his Capitol Hill office in rapt attention as Middle Eastern investors laid out their plans in a video call to develop coastal property in Syria: A cruise ship port. A polo club. A Bugatti car showroom. A world-class golf course. All in a country that had just recently been torn apart by civil war.

Nor was this everything. While Mohamad Al-Khayyat, a powerful Syrian-born businessman, was pitching the proposal, his brothers were winning more than $12 billion in government-sponsored contracts to rebuild a wide swath of the devastated Syrian economy.

There was a hitch, though. The Khayyats needed a big favor from Congress with the support of President Trump: the permanent lifting of crippling sanctions imposed on Syria before the fall of President Bashar al-Assad in late 2024.

That is when Mr. Wilson, himself a former real estate lawyer and proponent of the sanctions repeal, offered a tactical suggestion. “I know how to get the president’s attention,” Mr. Wilson said. “Make it a Trump National Golf Course in Syria.”

Mohamad Al-Khayyat was already a step ahead. He said he had planned to propose a Trump-branded resort.

At the same time, his two older brothers were negotiating an even bigger real estate partnership with Ivanka Trump, the president’s elder daughter, and Jared Kushner, her husband, to help them finance a multibillion-dollar resort in Albania.

Such a mixing of personal and diplomatic affairs has long been the norm in Middle Eastern nations, where a small set of players have historically run, and profited from, their dominant role in society. But it has become the way Washington operates in Mr. Trump’s second term, too.

Business discussions involving the president’s family, be it merely aspirational like the golf course or active like Mr. Kushner’s project, are consistently blurred with important policy decisions or consequential nation-to-nation negotiations.

It is also a sign of how powerful Mr. Trump has become. To get almost anything done in the nation’s capital requires not alienating a vexed and vengeful president, and, ideally, pleasing him.

The golf course proposal became part of a lobbying effort on Capitol Hill, a hint of how simply invoking the Trump brand has become politically advantageous to certain political causes.

Mohamad Al-Khayyat returned to Washington late last year toting a special stone celebrating the proposed golf course, carved with the Trump family emblem. He presented it to Mr. Wilson in his Capitol Hill office to deliver to the White House. Mr. Al-Khayyat then joined meetings with other lawmakers to push the sanctions repeal.

Weeks later, legislation for a permanent repeal won approval in Congress and was signed into law by Mr. Trump in late December.

Golf Course Diplomacy

The wooing of Congress began in the spring.

Free flights to Syria were being offered to some members of Congress.

Repealing the sanctions was broadly supported by Syrian American groups and some lawmakers. They argued the move would boost Syria’s recovery by encouraging more foreign investment now that Mr. al-Assad was gone.

A chunk of the heavy lifting in Washington was done by a Syrian American businessman, Tarek Naemo, a lifelong friend of Mohamad Al-Khayyat who acknowledged in an interview that he was working on the proposed Trump golf course project.

Mr. Naemo, who is based in Florida and runs an investment firm that he said had done deals with partners including the Qatari Investment Authority, began with his wife to court at least a dozen members of Congress, starting with Speaker Mike Johnson.

The access was facilitated by a series of campaign contributions, records show, by Mr. Naemo, his wife and others who were championing the cause.

Mr. Wilson, the South Carolina Republican, was a particular target. Mr. Naemo became a social partner for the lawmaker, joining with him to shoot skeet, catching up with him at the Omni Homestead Resort in Hot Springs, Va., and attending a Kennedy Center performance of “Les Misérables” with him and other Trump allies. (Mr. Trump also attended.)

By June 2025, Mr. Wilson had introduced legislation calling for the complete repeal of the Caesar Act sanctions.
 
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