Frank's Musings

The agreement in principle reported between Iran and the U.S. constitutes an advance of both the Islamic regime and the Trump administration towards conventional international political behavior. In other words, both sides will have acknowledged that the law of nations only exists among countries that tacitly accept certain norms, such as keeping open straits like Hormuz and not resorting to punishing military attack when trying to modify each other’s policies.

International relations is not a zero-sum game. It is encouraging that someone seems to have convinced the negotiators of that.

Trump’s settlement of his billion-dollar suit for compensation from the I.R.S. for its release of supposedly confidential information on Trump tax returns shows how, in his view, government is all a game. He and his acting Attorney General have concocted a trade-off that withdraws his threat of an unlikely award of $10 billion to him in exchange for creation of a slush fund of “only” 20% of that amount to fund thank-you gifts for the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol at his request on January 6th, 2021.

Rich American cuisine begins owing to immigration. The people who came from foreign lands because of low opportunity, repressive discrimination, adventurism, and even slavery have brought their eating styles with them.

My children’s ancestors continued to compose their meals of whatever they could afford that matched the selection they were used to. The items they ate became part of the local menu wherever they settled, if only by default.

Usually some of those dishes persist in the habits of subsequent generations.  Intermarriage between separate immigrant populations produced unique blended cuisines, like the Eastern European Catholic/Jewish meld which my close relatives share.  Among the foods placed on the dinner table were the following:

Polish dishes            

Kiszka

Czarnina

Pierogi

Head Cheese

Kolats

Kolacki

Golomki

Oplatki

Kapusta

Uzka

Jewish dishes

Latkas
Brisket
Hamen Taschen
Matzoh  brei
Chicken soup with matzoh balls
Challah

Blintzes

The USSC decision in Louisiana v. Callais essentially approves using political party preference as the determinant for shaping voting districts regardless of its impact on other criteria. In reality. there are many ways to slice up the relative interests of voters. These include geography, economic activity, religious adherence, educational level, country of origin, amount of wealth, size of taxes paid, etc., as well as race

Some media pundits have praised President Trump for the tenor of his White House comments following the lone gunman assault at the WHCD yesterday. Although the president did admirably fulfill his obligation to assuage Americans’ concerns about that most recent display of criminal violence against civil order, he was only performing an incidental portion of the duties with which he has twice been entrusted. Comforting a disturbed nation in a fatherly fashion, while essential, is really important for the Chief Executive only when the disturbing event occurred out of his control.

Presidents are primarily elected to promote and maintain the peaceful and prosperous condition of the nation’s citizens. Calming them in a time of concern is just a magic trick when the President himself is the cause of the troublesome event. The war with Iran, the draconian repression of immigration, the failed attempt to supplant higher income taxes with new tariffs on imported consumer goods, etc., are all harmful initiatives of the Trump administration and can’t be mollified by kind words from the President.

The analogy has never been clearer:  any spoiled brat always ignores rules.  World order is only kept up by every nation's acceptance of collaborative behavior--i.e. conformance with expectations.  Dysfunctional families are a product of insisting on or awarding exceptional treatment to one of its members.  

Maybe it was Trump's presentation of himself as an exception to the customary acquiescence of liberal democratic leaders to the rule of law that won presidential elections.  But both domestic and international patience with his petulance is finally disappearing.  Hopefully, this year's midterm U.S. elections will carry that impatience into the heretofore subservient Congress. New majorities in both legislative Houses will be able to fulfill their parental responsibilities and discipline America's embarrassingly disorderly President.

 The plan of the Trump administration to offer refuge in Congo to America's Afghan collaborators sheltering in Qatar (cf. New York Times, 4/21/2026) is another example of the cruelty, not to mention immorality, of the Trump administration.  Its failure to fulfill the country's obligation to them is horrifying.  Another instance of such disregard of civility has been Trump's refusal to recognize the assistance and support that the U.S. received from its NATO allies for its retaliation against the Taliban for allowing Al-Qaeda to use Afghanistan as the base from which to mount the 9/11 attack.  Now Trump acts ungratefully by treating shamefully those Afghans who courageously helped us penalize the terrorist plotters who had trained on their soil.  

Hopefully, Trump's embarrassingly selfish attitude towards fulfilling universal norms of human behavior will be corrected soon and considered by the people of other nations as only an aberration, to the extent possible.  Otherwise, finding powerful allies in the future will be next to impossible.