DCUM Weblog

Both the United States and Israel are currently facing constitutional crises due to attempts by their leaders to remove obstacles to autocratic rule. While the specifics of the events in each country are somewhat different, there is a lot of commonality. In both countries, their current leaders ran for office while facing criminal charges. For both cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, winning their current offices was a means of staying out of prison. Both Trump and Netanyahu are currently ignoring decisions by their country's supreme courts that would constrain their authority. It is not clear that the political systems of either the United States or Israel are strong enough to prevent a slide into complete autocracy. In both countries, the rule of law is at stake. As a result, one country that has traditionally touted itself as the "world's leading democracy" and another routinely praised as the "only democracy in the Middle East" may soon lose the right to their claims.

If there is one thing that I would like readers to take from today's post, it is that Shadow President Elon Musk is a liar. Not just a run-of-the-mill liar who drops the occasional white lie or simple exaggeration, but a big-time, all-out falsehood-telling habitual liar. Therefore, when you see reports that Musk is stepping back from politics, I suggest taking them with more than a grain of salt. Musk's involvement in politics has had tremendous personal benefits for him, but there have also been downsides — especially the impact on Tesla. What Musk is likely trying to do is lower his profile to avoid the blowback as much as possible, while retaining access and influence in order to continue reaping the benefits of his involvement in politics.

Arguably, much of Musk's personal wealth is owed to his lies. For instance, as far back as 2013, Musk was predicting that Teslas would be capable of driving autonomously for 90% of the miles by 2016. In 2014, he shortened the prediction to 2015. Tesla didn't come close to meeting either of those expectations, but in 2015 Musk predicted full self-driving by 2018. Musk did not deliver on that promise either, but that year he did start a pattern of annual announcements that full self-driving would be available the next year. Tesla has still not produced a fully self-driving vehicle, but now one is promised for next month. The impact of these failed annual predictions, strangely enough, has not been to undermine confidence in Musk. Quite the contrary. Each time Musk makes one of these predictions, Tesla's stock surges. In fact, as assuredly as you can predict that the sun will rise in the East, you can expect that anytime Tesla's stock dips, Musk will issue another pronouncement that full self-driving is just about ready.

Personally, I think that the U.S. DOGE Service has always primarily been an effort by Shadow President Elon Musk to seize control of several tools of government for his own benefit and to direct government contracts to his own businesses. But many people — including a number generally believed to be serious — continue to believe that DOGE is truly aimed at increasing government efficiency. There is very little evidence to support that belief. Moreover, the failures of DOGE are easily documented. Today, I will look at one specific case: DOGE's involvement in the Social Security Administration.

Social Security has long been considered the third rail of U.S. politics. A great number of individuals rely on their monthly Social Security checks, and almost everyone of them votes. It is no surprise then that politicians fall over themselves to commit to protecting Social Security. At the same time, like Willy Sutton who robbed banks "Because that’s where the money is.", those hoping to cut government spending can't resist targeting Social Security. This leads to the magical incantation of promising to protect Social Security while cutting "waste, fraud, and abuse." The problem comes when significant waste, fraud, and abuse cannot be found. This is exactly what happened in the case of DOGE's involvement in Social Security.

In another demonstration of the autocratic practices that have marked the administration of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump, the interim U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, Alina Habba, has announced that she will criminally charge a sitting member of the U.S. Congress. The charges arise from an attempt by three Members of Congress to inspect a recently reopened Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Newark, New Jersey. During the visit, ICE agents arrested Newark Mayor Ras Baraka. The three Representatives, LaMonica McIver — who represents the district in which the detention center is located — Bonnie Watson Coleman, and Rob Menendez, attempted to prevent Baraka's arrest. This resulted in a fracas involving pushing and shoving. Habba has announced charges against McIver for assaulting, impeding, and interfering with law enforcement.

During the presidential campaign, inflation and the cost of everyday goods — especially eggs — were a major campaign issue. Cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump made repeated promises to bring down costs. The fact that this commitment directly conflicted with another major campaign promise — to apply widespread tariffs that would increase the cost of imports — never seemed to bother Trump, his supporters, or most of the media. The fact of the matter was that when Americans went to the grocery store, they encountered increased prices. This provided an opening that the Trump campaign was eager to exploit.

So eager was the campaign to stress the cost of food that J. D. Vance once conducted a photo-op in a grocery store complaining that the price of eggs was $4. Unfortunately for Vance, he was standing in front of an egg display where the $2.99 price tag was clearly visible. Bumbling photo-ops were sort of a Vance specialty, especially where food was concerned. He had an unnecessarily difficult time ordering donuts in a shop in Georgia while an employee repeatedly told him she didn't want to be photographed. In one of his first campaign appearances, Vance attempted to prove his Appalachian bone fides by saying, "I had a diet Mountain Dew yesterday and one today". If anything, that remark (especially mentioning that it was "diet") made Vance seem out-of-touch rather than true to his family roots. Both Trump and Vance — one a billionaire and the other a multi-millionaire — wanted to relate to voters and show that they understood the challenges normal people were facing. Generally, however, these attempts had the opposite effect.

"We’re being eliminated now." This was tweeted last night by Motasem Dalloul, a Palestinian journalist reporting from Gaza for international news outlets. At the time Dalloul sent this tweet, Israel was in the midst of a wave of over 150 air attacks across Gaza and was expanding ground operations in parts of the Palestinian territory. The reality of life in Gaza these days makes it impossible to tell whether Dalloul was referring to the elimination of journalists or the entire Palestinian population of Gaza. Given Israeli words and actions in recent days, either interpretation could be valid. Israel has been systematically killing journalists. For instance, Hassan Aslih first suffered severe burns when Israel bombed a tent encampment sheltering displaced persons. Aslih was ultimately killed when Israeli jets bombed the burn unit of the Nasser Medical Complex where he was being treated. There was a time when Israel vehemently denied that it attacked hospitals or killed journalists. Now the country proudly takes credit for both. But journalists are far from the only victims of Israel's aggression. Overnight, at least 85 Palestinians were killed by the Israelis. In several cases, entire families were murdered. This has become the daily toll recently and things are likely to get worse.

Today I would like to speak to the Democratic establishment. I know that none of them are likely to read this, and if by chance one of them did, they would ignore it. After all, I'm nobody. I wouldn't pay attention to me either. But I really have a need to get this off my chest.

For the past two days, my social media feeds have been dominated by discussion about whether or not there was a cover-up of former President Joe Biden's mental state. The few posts that filtered through that mess were about an upcoming Democratic National Committee election aimed at getting rid of David Hogg. Let me be clear. None of that matters. Our democracy is very much in danger. Cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump has deployed masked goons to kidnap people off the street and hide them away without charges in hellish detention centers. He has sent, and hopes to continue sending, individuals who have not been charged with a single crime to a foreign gulag from which they may never be released. Shadow President Elon Musk has embedded a cadre of loyalists throughout the government who have seized control of the government's most sensitive data. Who knows what he plans to do with that? Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is in the process of dismantling our healthcare system and destroying our ability to conduct medical research. We are essentially in a building engulfed in a four-alarm fire, and you folks are devoting your time to debating the fitness of a retired fire chief. If you are not interested in putting out the fire, move out of the way and make room for someone who is.

Today I am going to provide updates on some of the immigration cases about which I have previously written. I tend to fixate on immigration because I see it as the leading indicator of where our political system is going. As I have written before, authoritarianism is frequently introduced through the "boiling frog" method in which it happens gradually and is not immediately obvious. In the case of the United States, steps against migrants — a marginalized community that often has little support — can often be taken with limited resistance. Once the authoritarian methods used against immigrants are normalized, they can be expanded to be used against American citizens. Even before that step is reached, there is the chance that U.S. citizens will be caught up in the anti-immigrant measures. The administration of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump's opposition to due process means that an American citizen might not have the opportunity to prove citizenship. Indeed, there have already been cases of U.S. citizens jailed after they were wrongly identified as non-citizens. Therefore, I consider immigration topics to be a barometer for the state of our political system

The Gulf state of Qatar is in the news these days for a number of reasons. One is that cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump is about to visit the country. Another is that Qatar offered to provide Trump with a free luxury Boeing 747 valued at around $400 million. Beyond that, Qatar has recently become something of a public enemy number 1 in Israel. Given the multiple controversies surrounding the country, I thought it might be useful to take a closer look at it.

On the face of it, Qatar seems like a fairly quiet, unassuming country about which most people probably rarely hear anything. I doubt that even 1% of Americans can correctly name the country's ruler (full disclosure, while I knew the Emir's last name, I had to look up his first name). Qatar hosts the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East, Al Udeid Air Base, which serves as the forward command post for the U.S. Central Command. Qatar also has oil and gas. A lot of it. As a result, it boasts the fourth highest GDP per capita in the world. The country also hosts the Al Jazeera Media Network, which has been hugely influential in the Middle East and beyond.

I have written two earlier posts about cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump's erratic Middle East policies. Following Trump's Middle East pronouncements is like watching a drunk driver careen down the road, swinging wildly from one lane to the other. One day Trump suggests that he wants to empty Gaza of its Palestinian residents and turn it into a Trump resort, the next day he says that "Nobody’s expelling any Palestinians." While Secretary of Deportations Marco Rubio does the bidding of Canary Mission and attempts to deport college and university students that the shadowy organization has identified as critics of Israel, de facto Secretary of State Steve Witkoff ignores Israel and cuts deals directly with Israel's enemies. As a result, Trump is one of the most pro-Israel U.S. presidents in terms of crushing freedom of speech within the U.S. to prevent criticism of Israel, while simultaneously acting with the most independence from Israel of any U.S. president since Dwight D. Eisenhower. This week, things are likely to get even more unpredictable.