Trump’s $1 Billion Bribe Request Matters Less Than What He'd Do for Free
May 13: Trump’s oily ask … Israel re-destroying Hamas … Putin’s new move … Menendez trial starts …
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There is no imaginable alternate universe in which D4FRFP Donald Trump wouldn’t want to pick up where he left off after four years of destroying environmental protections and helping Big Oil. There is also no imaginable alternate universe in which Trump wouldn’t want oil barons to give him one billion dollars.
The Washington Post on Friday framed this in terms of corruption: “What Trump promised oil CEOs as he asked them to steer $1 billion to his campaign,” the headline read. The article was juicy shit about a secret meeting at which oil execs were promised a pony for Christmas with a side of fries.
The resulting freakout followed in those tracks. It was sexy because secret. It was sexy because quid pro quo, the sexiest Latin.
Which is too bad. Because the implication is that Trump is promising to sell Earth for one billion dollars. Which isn’t actually what the story says, which is why the headline says “as he asked them to steer” instead of “in exchange for.”
Which means now MAGA can push back (not wrongly!) on the bribery angle as more fake news.
And even if they don’t, we’re still missing the real, central scandal here, namely, that Trump is promising to:
Destroy dozens of environmental protections
Prevent new environmental protections
Roll back progress on clean energy
Roll back progress on cars that roll forward electrically
Kill emissions caps for fossil-fuel vehicles
Open the fossil fuel floodgates for more liquefied natural gas exports
Auction off more leases for offshore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico
Kill Alaskan oil-drilling restrictions
And if everyone weren’t so “Ooh-Ooh He Did a Thing!” about the proximity of Trump’s promises and the ask, maybe Democrats could focus a wee bit more on something that might actually matter to voters and can’t be easily dismissed by MAGA’s (not wrong!) media critiques. Specifically:
Trump’s promises are a disaster for the auto industry.
Why? Because what most companies in most industries want is regulatory stability. America’s big automakers have already retooled their business plans and programmed their business-model GPS with electricity as their destination. Not just because of Pres. Joe Biden’s rules, but because of the rules now coming online in the rest of planet Earth, which is a place where American automakers would like to sell autos.
What makes companies crazy is when regulations vary wildly from jurisdiction to jurisdicktion.
(That’s why California is so influential: It’s so big that its state policies can drive national product changes, because following California rules everywhere is cheaper than trying to differentiate bespoke rules for each individual state, just so you can sell Texas your gas-burning, seatbelt-free, lead-lined, Furiosa-armored SUVs with asbestos head cushions made by trafficked nine-year-old Rohingya sex workers working 12 hours a day without breaks on an IV nutrient drip teeming with microplastics.)
The billion dollars Trump wants doesn’t matter. He’d ask for it anyway and kill the Earth anyway. What matters is the killing the Earth part. And focusing on the parts that tend to stroke our hate-the-bad-man nerve endings tends to blind us to the parts that might save the planet1.
Mission Uncomplished
The Israeli military this weekend began efforts to re-destroy Hamas in new areas of Gaza, areas where Hamas had already been destroyed, which justified pre-devastating those areas, which will now be re-devastated. Got that?!?
And world leaders have been pushing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to launch a major ground offensive in Rafah, as if he is not already doing that.
Netanyahu has said the Rafah ground offensive is necessary to finish the job of destroying Hamas, which by one estimate has returned to as much as 90% of the areas Israel cleared of Hamas..
Also necessary to destroy Hamas, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said: the military is now operating in Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, towns in Gaza’s north that the AP reports were subjected to heavy bombing in the first days of the war to destroy Hamas there.
Also, an apparent air strike killed four people at a hospital in central Gaza, where Hamas was previously destroyed, as part of efforts necessary to re-destroy Hamas there. There were also reports of an Israeli Hamas-re-destroying bombardment this weekend at the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza.
The IDF for a week now has been re-battling Hamas in Zeitoun, east of Gaza City, where Hamas was also pre-destroyed.
It’s believed Hamas is resisting being re-destroyed by reoccupying areas after they’ve cleared of Hamas. The terrorist organization seems to be responding to Israel’s attacks by moving. New intel suggests Hamas may have feet.
Meanwhile, despite not launching a major offensive in Rafah, where roughly half the Gaza population fled to avoid being destroyed along with Hamas, the IDF has now cleared the population from a third of the city. About 300,000 people have now left the city to seek safety in areas where Hamas has been destroyed.
(Historically, a “major offensive” is defined as when 12/33s of a city is evacuated, or 300,001 people.)
Displeased with the IDF’s minor offensive in Rafah, Egypt, just across the street, announced it’s joining South Africa’s complaint against Israel with the International Criminal Court.
The death toll in Gaza has now topped 35,000 and with cease-fire talks ceased for the moment, approximately 100 hostages are still being held by Hamas, which has not been destroyed.
State Department: U.S. Arms Prolly Used in War Crimes
A mandatory (but still late) report by the U.S. State Department, delivered to Congress Friday, reportedly concludes that it’s “likely” and “reasonable to assess” that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) has used U.S. weapons to commit illegal acts that violate international laws about war, which is a long way of not saying “war crimes.”
The report says Israel is investigating suspected instances of war crimes, including the April killing of World Central Kitchen workers. It calls Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s March pledge to comply with international law “credible and reliable,” clearing the way for additional U.S. weapons supplies.
Citing Hamas operating in civilian areas and the fact that “Israel has not shared complete information,” the report says it could not definitively prove a U.S. role in specific illegal military operations. The report said the fog of war is especially thick in areas under heavy bombardment by IDF dry-ice machines.
The report also says Israel is not currently restricting the supply of humanitarian aid in ways that violate U.S. law. “That’s why we have hundreds of thousands of Palestinians that have nothing to do with Hamas on the verge of starvation,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) snarked to show how pissed he is..
Israel, the report says, could be operating differently. The IDF, it says, “has the knowledge, experience and tools to implement best practices for mitigating civilian harm in its military operations.” Which is why “results on the ground, including high levels of civilian casualties, raise substantial questions” about whether the IDF is doing all it can to minimize civilian deaths.
Israel reportedly has been generating target lists and planning its strikes using AI programs, which apparently define civilians as anyone having six fingers.
International Crisis Group lawyer Brian Finucane, formerly with the State Department, said the report “bends over backwards” to avoid saying that Israel is breaking the law. Finucane said the report was “lawyered,” presumably after a major lawyer offensive to rescue Pres. Joe Biden from the politics of this mess.
“They don’t want to have to take any action to hold the Netanyahu government accountable for what’s happening,” said Van Hollen, still pissed.
Ukraine Embleakens
Two depressing developments out of Russia and Ukraine today. Or heartwarming, depending whose side you’re on!
Russia is slowly but steadily racking up new advances and controlling more territory in Ukraine. This is attributed to a few things. One, Russia is big. Two, the U.S. waited months and then some more months to give Ukraine new old weaponry and new ammo for the old old weaponry. Three, Ukraine is still prohibited from using its western weaponry to target military sites in Russia, even if those sites are targeting Ukraine.
And it’s not clear that the new infusion of aid will arrive in time to reverse the momentum Russia has built.
One possible sliver of hope can be seen in another development, in Russia, which suggests that Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t seem to anticipate a quick victory [/sliver of hope]. The bad news is, Putin seems to be preparing for a long war of attrition.
That’s because he just put in place a new military guy who’s not a military guy. The Institute for the Study of War reports that Putin’s new appointment is an economics guy. The implication of that being that the new guy, Andrei Belousov, is being put in place to use his econ brain to reconfigure Russia’s economy to better serve Russia’s military.
In other words, Putin is hunkering down for such a long conflict that he doesn’t want the military or its supply lines bogged down by anything, not even the time-honored Russian tradition of rampant wholesale corruption.
Top Democrat to Take on Trump
A leading Democrat this week will begin challenging D4FRFP Donald Trump to determine who’s really the most corrupt politician of our era. The trial of Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) begins today. He allegedly acted as a foreign agent in exchange for bribes delivered in the form of literal gold bars because sacks of money with giant dollar signs on them were deemed insufficiently cartoonish.
Menendez is expected to seek leniency because the $480,000 in cash that he did have was not stored in cartoonish sacks with giant dollar signs on them.
Roll Call reports that Menendez is preparing for a possible defense with Trumpian overtones: My wife did it.
The defense has also suggested it may cite several potential explanations for squirreling cash: Trauma from his father’s suicide, Cuba’s confiscation of his family’s funds, and a lifelong love of squirrels.
Defense filings suggest Menendez may testify that he was traumatized when his father killed himself after Menendez stopped paying Dad’s gambling debts. (Which, admittedly, is fucked up.) However, fear of losing family members apparently isn’t strong enough to prevent Menendez from telling the court he may testify that his wife “led him to believe” they weren’t breaking the law.
Menendez is accused of taking the money in return for helping an Egyptian monopoly, which apparently is a version that doesn’t come with Get Out of Jail Free cards.
Campaign Watch
SENATE Republican billionaires and their billionaire-wannabe friends are going to spend $70 million targeting Democratic Senate candidates in Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, Politico reports this morning.
Using a dark-money piggybank called One Nation, the rich GOPers are already targeting Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT).
The money is bankrolling ad campaigns hitting Pres. Joe Biden and congressional Democrats on fears about inflation, which is raising costs, and immigration, which is lowering costs.
One Nation President Steven Law said, “Americans are increasingly concerned about our porous Southern border and saving for the future because the cost of living is so high,” referring to Republican efforts to make Americans increasingly concerned.
“There are solutions to these problems, but liberals in Washington, D.C., aren’t listening,” said Law without mentioning how D4FRFP Donald Trump stopped a draconian border bill and opened up a massive inflation loophole.
And lest anyone think that only MAGA loyalists are driving the fossil-fuel-powered Trump bus, Law was deputy secretary of (stopping) labor under Pres. George W. Bush. He’s now president and CEO of American Crossroads, which was co-founded by Karl Rove, who used to be known as “Bush’s Brain” back when that kinda shit still seemed funny.
TCB
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Go get ‘em, kids…!
Worth noting, with more than a footnote, that under Biden the United States is now producing more oil than Russia. And Saudi Arabia. And any other country that has ever existed in ever. As an objective journalist, I’m obliged to note that this is objectively bad and should stop.