Frank's Musings

The Donald’s latest transparent unilateral tax revenue scheme (requiring no Congressional authorization) would affect virtually all imports and penalize all US consumers, rich and poor, including his own family. Nevertheless, it would constitute a more burdensome drain on lower- and middle-income budgets.

The President’s advisers are, no doubt, proud that they have found a way to disguise new funding for one of Trump’s self-glorifying monuments that doesn’t directly raise graduated income taxes. Not only does the White House believe that the MAGA Crowd will stupidly ignore the inequity of billing them disproportionately more in comparison to his wealthy friends.  They are convinced that feeding Trump’s ego will solve many others of their goals.  Moreover, they blindly accept Trump's contempt for anyone else's self-interests.

This is an anomaly of liberal democracy with a written, but debatable, Constitution that was not anticipated by the founders of our republic.  Their good intention to liberate themselves from monarchic autocracy ironically made us victims of economic abuse not seen since the gilded age.  

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.