Updates on Earlier Posts

I didn't really have ideas for a particular topic on which to concentrate today. Therefore, I am going to touch on a few shorter items. The first is the mental condition of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump. I have written before about Trump's particular fixation on the word "groceries", a term that he seems to believe is old-fashioned and not widely understood. As such, he has repeatedly made an effort to define the word for his audience. Last week, The Recount put together a video compilation of Trump talking about groceries as if the word is a mystery to most people. As I suggested earlier, I believe that this is an indication that Trump might be struggling neurologically.

Earlier this week, there was another bizarre incident showing that Trump is confusing reality with make-believe. While in Pennsylvania to discuss energy and technology, Trump started to talk about artificial intelligence, saying it was not his thing. He then turned to discussing his uncle, who Trump falsely claimed was the longest-serving professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Trump told a story about a conversation between himself and his uncle in which Trump asked his uncle about Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber. Trump said that his uncle had taught Kaczynski and that he had been a "seriously good" student who would "go around correcting everybody." However, MIT has repeatedly debunked Trump's suggestion that his uncle, John Trump, was the university's longest-serving professor. At least 10 others have served longer tenures. More importantly, John Trump died in 1985, and Kaczynski was not identified as the Unabomber until 1996. In addition, Kaczynski never studied at MIT and would not have been John Trump's student. Unless Trump is confessing that he hid the Unabomber's identity for a decade, this entire story appears to have been invented. But this was not the only indication of Trump failing mentally during the appearance. He also "forgot the names of aides" and "made an unsubstantiated claim about securing $16 trillion in US investment." As the Independent wrote, "The speech raised concerns about Trump's age and capacity, as he is the oldest person to ever be sworn in as president."

I earlier wrote about the New York Times' clear bias against the Democratic nominee for Mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani. In both its opinion and news sections, the Times has continued this trend. On the Times’ opinion page, Columnist Bret Stephens wrote an article titled, "Mamdani for Mayor (if You Want to Help the Republicans)" in which he argued that the election of Mamdani would be a gift to Republicans who would run against Mamdani in other campaigns. Stephens framed his column as advice to Democrats to help themselves by not electing Mamdani. Stephens is a conservative who has recently backed down from his one-time "never Trump" position. As such, I am skeptical that he truly has the best interests of Democrats at heart. More importantly, Stephens did not suggest an alternative choice for Democrats. Like the Times did in its own editorial recommending against a vote for Mamdani, Stephens sort of half-heartedly backslide into implying that former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo might be the best choice. But, he apparently couldn't quite bring himself to make that an explicit endorsement. It is an interesting window into the establishment mind, however, to see how much more readily they would accept a corrupt sexual assaulter or a failed corrupt mayor who has wedded himself to Trump over Mamdani. Corruption is apparently forgivable, but publicly owned grocery stores and free buses are not.

In the Times' news pages, reporter Jack Healy took an even stranger swing at Mamdani. Healy was reporting on the victory of Adelita Grijalva over Deja Foxx in the Democratic primary to fill a Congressional seat left vacant by the death of Raúl Grijalva, Adelita Grijalva's father. The first thing you may notice is that this election was in Arizona, which is quite a distance from New York City. As such, you may wonder what it has to do with Mamdani. I wondered that myself. But, according to Healy, Foxx "tried to recreate the youthful magic of Zohran Mamdani’s campaign for New York City mayor". The fact that she lost demonstrated that "The Mamdani momentum withered in the deserts of southern Arizona". Healy went on to write that "Ms. Grijalva’s win showed the limits of anti-establishment energy in a heavily Latino district". If you stopped reading at this point, you would conclude that a youthful candidate who modelled herself after Mamdani and running on a similar platform — perhaps even with Mamdani's support, though that is not clear — had been soundly defeated by an establishment Democrat and, therefore, we must assume that Mamdani's politics do not play well outside of New York City, particularly in heavily Latino areas. But, almost the exact opposite is true. If you continue reading to the penultimate paragraph of the article, you will learn that Grijalva, far from being an "establishment Democrat," had actually been endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. These are two of Mamdani's most prominent supporters. In the final paragraph, Healy lets on that a "host of unions, immigrant-rights groups, and other progressive groups offered" Grijalva support. As far as I know, Mamdani showed no interest in this race and had nothing to do with it. But the same coalition that got him elected supported the victor in this election. As such, Healy's verdict should be that the progressive coalition that elected Mamdani has legs outside of New York City. But that news was apparently not fit to print and, as such, needed to be rewritten to suggest the opposite.

The final item that I am going to discuss would be a positive sign had it not been part of a terrible tragedy. Last week, Israeli settlers living in the illegally occupied West Bank attacked a Palestinian village, leading to an hours-long standoff between the settlers and Palestinian villagers. At some point, one Palestinian, Mohammad Shalabi, was shot and killed. Israeli settlers beat 20-year-old Sayfollah Musallet to death and then blocked ambulances in order to prevent them from coming to his aid. Musallet is an American citizen whose home is in Florida; he was in the West Bank visiting family. Israelis killing American citizens in the West Bank is not particularly unusual and normally generates a few words of grief before being forgotten by both American and Israeli officials. In the case of Musallet, U.S. State Department officials initially refused to even offer a comment. But yesterday, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee offered reasonably forceful words in response to the killing. Huckabee referred to Musallet's death as a "murder" and called on the Israeli government to "aggressively investigate" the incident. Huckabee later stated that "There must be accountability for this criminal and terrorist act". To be sure, while Huckabee's words are welcome, they are still just words. Whether they will lead to action remains to be seen. One of the first acts of the Trump administration was to drop sanctions that former President Joe Biden had placed on West Bank settlers. Now might be a good time for Trump to reverse that unwise decision. Moreover, Trump has generally taken a very hard line in response to terrorist attacks on American citizens. It would be good for him to show that he does not consider Americans of Palestinian descent to be second-class citizens and to respond as if he might in the case of a terrorist attack against any other American. But, more than likely, Israel will make a couple of arrests of suspects who will be eventually released without charges, and the U.S. government will consider this to be case closed.