Where We Are This Week
Birthdays, Rafah, and Donald Trump becomes a felon.
It was my daughter’s two-year birthday a couple of weeks ago and like most parents the milestone had me scratching my head wondering where the last twenty-four months had gone.
John Lennon said that life is what happens to you when you’re busy making plans but, rest assured, it still happens to you even in the absence of making plans.
We went from staring at our newborn daughter, waiting for any new movement or facial expression, to staring at our daughter, hoping she’ll sit still for just one, precious minute.
Somewhere along the way, I realized there are no clear delineations of time. I didn’t suddenly become an adult nor did I become a parent the moment my daughter entered the world — I’m the product of thirty-two years of howling wind and the lashing of rain not an earthquake. Everything is gradual and everything takes time.
Perhaps what is the most striking revelation I’ve had since her birth, however, is the duality of emotion. Happiness never arrives unaccompanied anymore. No, it carries with it the sadness of knowing that I’ll never have tomorrow what I have today and that the memories of yesterday will slowly slip through the cracks.
How beautiful life is and the futility of hanging on. It’s not the sadness that doubles you over, it’s the aching joy that pangs deep in your heart.
Make Prison Great Again
I begged him not to do it. I implored him. Longtime readers, you know what I’m talking about. I beseeched Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA, not to make a martyr out of Donald Trump.
He didn’t listen. Of course, neither did the entire Biden Department of Justice, but who’s keeping count? 34 counts that is.
I had other plans this evening. I was going to write a nice little story about Memorial Day with my family and blah blah blah — but no, Trump just had to be found guilty this afternoon.
After a grueling six weeks to which I paid next to no attention, the twelve Manhattan jurors returned to the courtroom with a guilty verdict. Color me shocked. The 45th President of the United States is now our 1st convicted felon. Number 45 in the history books, number one in our hearts, am I right?
Donald Trump was found guilty of misusing campaign finances to reimburse himself for a hush-money payment to a pornstar. Honestly, that sentence just wrote itself. After the whirlwind of the last few years where nothing seemed to follow any sort of logical order, this was about the most predictable event of 2024.
Sure, the key witness to the prosecution, Trump’s former fixer and perjurer, Michael Cohen, admitted on the stand to stealing $30,000 from the president’s campaign, and Trump has been convicted of covering up a crime the prosecution can’t indicate, but the whole thing seems very much above board. Those famous “lock her up” chants from 2016 haven’t aged well.
Some folks might say this trial was the stuff of banana republics or that it was a politically motivated farce to begin with. Others will say that the entire justice department is a sham. Not me, though, no sir. I like that I live in a country that will convict its most recent president for an obscure crime that no one cared about until the last few minutes, and that will likely have a felon as its president. Street cred is more important than you’d think in global politics. When Trump is president again, all he’ll have to do is flash his newly learned gang signs and prison tattoos to intimidate any foreign ruler into submission.
Unfortunately, first-time offenders rarely serve jail time for crimes such as these which is real disappointment for the debates. I was hoping we’d get to see the two square off inside a conjugal trailer or through double-paned glass. Maybe Trump’s parole officer will join him on stage — that would be some consolation for my dashed dreams.
Sentencing is set for July 11th but nothing will be final. The Trump team will undoubtedly appeal the decision which will only further entangle the former president in legal proceedings for the foreseeable future. As far as the 2024 election goes, however, nothing will change. You can run for president as a felon but you can’t vote from jail — isn’t that something? — and if anything, the guilty verdict will only further galvanize the MAGA fanbase.
Let this serve as a lesson to any young, aspiring politician or businessman. If you cheat on your wife with a pornstar, you’ll go to jail. Then, you’ll get re-elected thanks to the evangelical support of the religious right. Okay, sometimes there are no lessons.
All Eyes on Rafah
Our current social media outrage apparatus isn’t fit for wartime. The anxiety-ridden, overdosed-on-endorphins-and-approval generation isn’t meant to ford the rough waters of the unknown.
How can one expect fingers to sit idly by while a catastrophe ought to be taken advantage of?
How can one expect an entire generation of children (mentally or literally) to wait for more information when they’ve only known instant gratification their entire lives?
I know, it’s unfair of me to impose superhuman levels of restraint on a bunch of internet influencers whose definition of restraint is either their eating disorder or the restraining order they placed on their parents for threatening to take their phones away. I’ve got high standards, what can I say?
As predictable as the guilty Trump verdict were the events of this weekend. Israel strikes Rafah, civilians die, social media campaign accusing Israel of intentionally targeting civilians ensues. It’s the internet’s least entertaining Rube Goldberg machine.
On Sunday, Israel struck a target in Rafah that led to the deaths of at least 45 Palestinians, many of whom were women and children. Initial reports suggested that the attack occurred within a restricted area reserved for refugees and noncombatants and that the IDF had made an egregious error (or intentionally evil deed) in striking inside the humanitarian zone.
Bear in mind, that I have no intention of making light of the deaths of innocent civilians, but what a difference a day makes.
While the AI-generated image and hashtag ‘All Eyes on Rafah’ went viral, the prevailing narrative of the disaster had already fallen apart.
IDF was targeting two senior Hamas militants outside of the safe zone. The casualties also all occurred outside the safe zone. The bombs that were used were physically incapable of causing the secondary explosions that killed 45 civilians. You know what wasn’t incapable of causing those explosions though? The Jeep which was crammed full with a cache of weapons that caught fire inside the civilian area.
Under the most modest scrutiny, the anti-Israel version of the story disintegrates but that wouldn’t stop the pro-Palestine meme from being shared and seen over 60 million times across major social media platforms. You’d think with all of those eyes on Rafah they’d have a little better idea of what happened.
said it best.
It’s the al-Ahli Arab Hospital all over again. Remember that one? When these same turkeys all accused Israel of bombing and leveling a hospital inside of Gaza only to find out that a) the missile hit the parking lot and b) it was a malfunctioned rocket fired from within Gaza.
While Israel continues to pursue a material victory on the battlefield, the public relations campaign was lost months ago. What’s particularly galling, however, is that the Jewish State is making the painstaking effort to shepherd the Gazan population into humanitarian and refugee camps instead of putting them up in resorts so that they can shred some of that fresh mountain powder.
To a better next week,
Cheers,
~FDA
If the religious right only voted for politicians with ethics and morals, they would never vote.
Make Prison Again, made me laugh out loud!! Lots of funny and poignant thoughts concerning DT. Also very sad we wasted our constitution on something so frivolous. The new constitution was formed yesterday by a few judges and some lawyers. Buckle up!