Frank's Musings

Careerist Congressmen are happy when the President comes up with a way to raise revenue without having to increase income taxes. Trump’s tariff scheme makes American consumers pay higher prices for imports by adding duties to the cost of engaging in global trade. Those consumption taxes are politically more palatable to wealthy funders of both Trump’s dishonest schemes and of legislators’ reelection campaigns.

In her opinion piece in the 8/13/2026 NY Times, Natasha Sarin is vain to “hope that Congress will eventually push back” against Trump’s audacious subterfuge. He wants to give politicians a way to spend more on government contracts without having proportionately to assess those contractors for the privilege.

It was obvious from the beginning that Senator Rand Paul’s objective in using his investigative committee to grill the former head of the NIH NIAID agency about his role in combating the COVID 19 Pandemic was only to raise his own political profile. How could he have forgotten or ignored the ultimate condemnation that the late Senator Joseph McCarthy brought on himself by conducting a similar witch-hunt of alleged communist sympathizers in the U.S. Government 75 years ago.

The reduced budget for the Head Start program, proposed by the Trump administration, is only a gratuitous change that merely reduces its supposed burden on wealthier taxpayers.  Sure, a briefer babysitting service would be cheaper than Head Start; but at the cost or shirking its original goal under the Great Society objectives of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

It reflects the failure of those wealthy, like Trump, who have benefited by lucky birth to meet their obligation to help others, who don't have access to great wealth, take advantage of opportunity.  Trump does not recognize that those with great wealth must perform, and not resent, their essential role in leveling the playing field.

President Trump attended the 7/24/2026 White House Corresponsents Association dinner.   After giving a nonsense address, he witnessed a performance by an amazing mentalist, Oz Pearlman, who was able to convince the audience, which included AG Todd Blanche, of his skill to guess or even influence their thoughts.

The deal announced on 22 July 2026 between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia permitting the Kingdom to enrich uranium used for peaceful nuclear energy generation is likely a forerunner to an eventual U.S. concession to Iran that would allow the Islamic Republic similarly to develop its own domestic nuclear power industry in return for ending its interference with shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. This is a risky bargain for Trump to make, but the Iranian regime seems to have forced Trump to admit that he and Netanyahu overplayed their cards by attacking Iran.

I wonder if MBS is comfortable with an incipient nuclear rival across the Persian Gulf.  That decision may reflect his anticipation of the eventual reduction of Saudi Arabia's oil-based economic prominence.

By minimizing the size of the financial gains he and his family have gleaned so far, particularly from his second term in the White House, Donald Trump believes his MAGA supporters will shamefacedly lament they couldn’t more adequately compensate him for his excellence as their leader. He has, after all, demonstrated that, like those of us without superior professional qualifications, admirable intellectual accomplishments, or hundred-billion-dollar fortunes, we can, at least, appear to prevent a complete collapse of our liberal and equitable democracy.

In fact, Trump is willing humbly to settle for being memorialized on Mount Rushmore instead of being given full access to the U.S. treasury. Bless his unpretentious heart, he does realize that stone can’ t simply vanish like paper wealth. His sculpted face would constantly remind the country how much it owes to him for his audacity.

Did we really need President Donald Trump to remind us all around the world that lasting personal happiness only occurs when we strive to maximize the common welfare? Sure, the President believes he has attained his best personal results by ignoring everyone else’s goals except when they achieve his own. But his win/lose strategy only works in a zero sum game,