Day: December 16, 2022

“A Sucker Born Every Minute”

Those words uttered 100 years ago ring more accurate today than they did when first uttered.

Are you into trading cards…..football, baseball, basketball, etc?

If you are then there is a new scam for those with more money than brains.

Donald Trump teased an upcoming “major announcement” Wednesday on Truth Social, and on Thursday he unveiled it. His 2024 running mate, perhaps? Nope, Trump is selling what he calls “digital trading cards” featuring none other than himself, reports the Washington Examiner. “These limited edition cards feature amazing ART of my Life & Career! Collect all of your favorite Trump Digital Trading Cards, very much like a baseball card, but hopefully much more exciting,” reads his social media post. The NFT cards cost $99 each, and examples on the CollectTrumpCards.com website feature Trump as a superhero, an astronaut, a NASCAR driver, etc.

Those who buy one are entered into a sweepstakes with a prize of having dinner with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, and those who buy 45 cards (Trump was the 45th president) are guaranteed a dinner invitation. “Buy one and you will join a very exclusive community,” says Trump in an accompanying video, per Mediaite. “It’s my community and I think it’s something you’re going to like and you’re going to like it a lot.” One digital version of the president is adorned in a Superman-like costume that features the letter “T” instead of “S.” When he recovered from COVID as president, Trump reportedly pitched the idea of ripping off his dress shirt to reveal a Superman shirt underneath.

Being reported (not verified by me) that the mailing address for the company that is issuing these cards is Mar-a-Lago.

This endeavor will probably go down with the Trump steaks, water, wine, vodka as dismal failures.

Any thoughts on this endeavor?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

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A DeSantis Foreign Policy

I know it is a little early and so far the only confirmed candidate is former president but the popular sentiment is that Florida’s governor will throw his hat into the fray for 2024.

If that is truly the case I would like to look at his possible stands on foreign policy……

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has become one of the main challengers to Donald Trump for leadership of the Republican Party in the wake of his landslide reelection victory last week over Democratic candidate Charlie Crist. 

While DeSantis is best known nationally for controversies over Covid and culture war battles, he has a foreign policy record from his years in Congress and even during his tenure as governor that also merits closer scrutiny. If he seeks the Republican nomination for president, as many now expect he will, voters should be aware of the foreign policy worldview that he brings with him. 

Before he left the House for Tallahassee, DeSantis established himself as a vocal critic of the Obama administration’s foreign policy with an emphasis on attacking U.S. diplomatic engagement with Iran and Cuba. His three terms in the House overlapped with Obama’s major initiatives of negotiating the nuclear deal with Iran and restoring normal relations with Cuba, and like the rest of his party DeSantis was hostile to both policies. 

The hardline positions that DeSantis has taken on issues relating to Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela are not surprising given Florida politics, and they have aligned him closely with Florida’s hawkish Sen. Marco Rubio and fellow Iraq war veteran Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas.

During the original debate over the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), DeSantis was an early and vocal opponent of an agreement with Iran. He co-authored a July 2015 op-ed in Time with Tom Cotton outlining the usual hawkish objections to the deal. Like most critics of the agreement, they misrepresented what it would do and exaggerated the benefits Iran would receive from sanctions relief. The op-ed was long on outrage and short on offering any serious alternative to diplomacy to resolve the nuclear issue. 

DeSantis and Cotton also indulged in rather hysterical threat inflation about Iran, saying, “They will stop at nothing to end our way of life.” 

What might a DeSantis foreign policy look like?

Typical GOP misinformation when it comes to foreign policy….

In essence DeSantis is a clone of Trump and if he is successful at winning the presidency we can expect nothing good to come out of his foreign policies.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”