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Don't they always have to have someone to blame? It's a reason Trump may want to stay barricaded in his ballroom after 2028.  There's probably a good chance a Democrat will succeed him.  And when they start detailing all the grifting that is occurring it will make Trump Media look small ball.

I know I shouldn't reveal client secrets.  But here goes. I actually have to role play this with Patriot Pete when he pays me to be my submissive. I tie him up, whip his pretty tattoos, and dress up like an Ayatollah and rant at him in unintelligible ways that is supposed to be Farsi. Then as I fuck him I chant, "Whose your Daddy?  Whose your Daddy?  Donald's your Daddy, isn't he?" Works every time.  Makes Patriot Pete cum.  Better that than alcoholism. I'm always happy to do the dirty work, Sis.

Rant incoming. I found that interview so depressing.  It's a brief interview.  But you don't have to watch it to get my point. Most of the interviews I watch - and i watch lots of them - are of critics of Trump and the bombing.  So they are talking about why it's going badly.  And how this is empowering Iran's theocrats  in ways that will hurt American interests.  This includes people like John Bolton. Who would love to see regime change in Iran.  And would be even harder ass than Trump to achieve it.  Even the presumably independent business-oriented experts on CNBC say it's now just a given that the Iranian regime Trump said he wanted to change will forever more have a level of influence over the Strait of Hormuz and the global flow of oil they never had before.  Recession, anyone?  Robert Pape goes a lot further and says Trump is turning Iran into a regional hegemon and fourth global power.  Who will ally with China and Russia against America and the West.  Although increasingly "Western" nations don't even want to associate themselves with what Trump's America wants or values.  They're all saying, "Let's go talk to China." Walid Phares is a Lebanese-American conservative who was a paid consultant on Romney's 2012 campaign and Trump's 2016 campaign.  What's depressing about the interview to me is he keeps bringing it back to one thing:  the Iranian people.  As Bolton will say, they are the ones who don't like this regime.  And they are the ones who smart conservatives say we should have spent huge amounts of time and resources with, to lay the groundwork for change.  If we had any hope of seriously making things better for the Iranian people.  Which is not what Donald Trump gives a shit about.  He keeps saying, "We should take the oil." Phares is less blunt than Bolton.  But he's saying the same thing, in my mind.  Instead of that, we have Donald Trump's impulses.  So the strategy to work with Iran's opposition or people is to get the brilliant idea of threatening to nuke them all.  Or blow up their power plants so they can starve to death.  Or so the theocrats retaliate by blowing up infrastructure all over the region so that Muslim people can't live there anymore.  This is what it is about today.  Pape argues that even the pro-democracy movement will be on the side of the regime now, simply because they don't want to get nuked or starve to death. It's truly remarkable that Donald Trump has somehow managed to make George W. Bush and Dick Cheney look like master war strategists.  😱 And I think Mark Halperin got under my skin more than anything.  I truly respect him as one of a small group of very smart and well connected people who try very hard to look at it both ways.  But in this context, he basically gets to be the Ugly American.  Weeks after a war was started that we are losing, or at least that is empowering the theocrats in Iran we all despise, he asks what we can do to arm and train Iran's people.  Which of course even George W. Bush would have been planning to do months ago.  Halperin often comes off as a Trump lackey these days.  A good and honest journalist who wasn't just trying to operate in Donald Trump's good graces might have asked, "Isn't it too late for organizing the opposition?  Isn't that precisely why Donald Trump really fucked this up badly?" I'm glad Trump didn't even think of that, given his narcissism and lack of impulse control.  I'm pretty sure the generals told every other POTUS, including Bush and Trump 1.0, that if we try this it's just going to end very badly.  Including for the people of Iran.  So now what has to be delicately managed is how Trump can gracefully lose while he brags about winning.  If we are all lucky. I hope Trump burns in hell forever.  He has unleashed hell on Iran, America, and the world.  He is a stupid, evil, and dangerous man.  And listening to smart people like these guys, who want to understand Trump and support him, just reinforces this to me.          

Just among friends in Rio.  They reminded me that Monique has not added any improvements to the place during all those years of ownership.  The place is shabby in many parts.   Unnamed friends say that she gives off the feeling that she is tired of the place but likes the money, then reminds them that more than twenty years of ownership have been difficult.  Maybe it is all conjecture or assumption on the part of my friends who believe that she is planning a shutdown or sale of the place.   All things eventually come to an end.  Think of all the wonderful saunas in Brazil that once were but are no more.  Think also of Sao Paulo, a huge city with only one sauna.  Junior might soon be the symbolic Rodolfo of Rio (only one sauna in a huge city). 

Certainly China is one of the largest investors in Thailand, and it looks like Thailand is coming to the realization that some of that investment is to the detriment of Thai businesses, such as the coconut industry, highlighted in the video.  Investing is one thing, but monopolizing entire industries through ruthless and unethical tactics is another issue, not unlike the robber barons that operated in the US during the late 19th century. One positive action was taken this past January 1st, when Thailand imposed a 10% duty on all imports valued at 1,500 baht or less, as Chinese companies such as Temu and Alibaba were squeezing small Thai companies, to the point they could no longer compete with the cheap imports that were flooding into the country.   The Thai government is pushing back in some areas, but for some like the coconut farmers and processors, it looks like too little, too late.