Salesmen are the biggest suckers in the world.
You wouldn’t think that. You would think that salesmen are the people who do the suckering, and therefore they would know all the tricks and see them coming a mile away. You would think that. You would be wrong. Speaking as someone who’s spent a bunch of time in corporate America, and even ran my own business for a while, I have spent a lot of time with a lot of salesmen, and one of the most curious things about them is that they will buy just about anything. From practically anyone. If there were some sort of study that ranked different types of people by percentage of deals in which they got scammed, salesmen would certainly be at the top of the graph.
And of course I’ve noted that Trump is just a particularly sleazy salesman in these Doom Reports before ... over and over again, even (and even, once, pre-Doom-Reports altogether). There are a lot of tells for this, if the hawking of steaks and bibles and gold sneakers wasn’t already a dead giveaway. See, salesmen have these tricks that they rely on, and, if you’re unlikely to to run into the same customer twice, that’s fine. But when what you successfully conned people into buying was your election to the presidency, then everyone gets to see you do the same tired tricks, over and over. And one of Trump’s all-time favorites is promising that something will be ready in “two weeks.” Have you ever noticed that whatever Trump is talking abou
This week, Trump used it again. In this interview (covered by Brian Tyler Cohen), he says:
... if we didn’t hit that with the B2 bombers, Iran would have had a nuclear weapon within two weeks from that date because they were ready to go.
Now, BTC is primarily focussed on the fact that this is Trump’s answer to “why don’t you see any urgency in trying to bring down gas prices?” But I wondered something else. Where did Trump get this “two weeks” from? I mean, maybe he made it up entirely: that certainly wouldn’t be out of character for him. But, if he did actually get it from somewhere, where did it come from? Not from his own government intelligence sources. But, in February, Trump got a visit from Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. And we know for a fact that Netanyahu has been saying that Iran will have a nuclear weapon in “a few years,” “a few months,” or “a few weeks” for the past 30 years. This is a very well known phenomeon: in fact, one article refers to him as “the man who cried bomb”.
So my theory is, Netanyahu used Trump’s favorite tric
Other things you need to know this week:
- Legal Eagle has another video on Trump’s slush fund for insurrectionists, this time featuring Lawfare reporter Anna Bower. This is the first time I’ve seen reported that the fund literally says it can only be used for people targeted by “the sustained use of the levers of government power by Democrat elected officials, political and career federal employees, contractors, and agents.” So people can keep making jokes that all the people illegally targeted by Trump’s DoJ should apply for some of this money, but they can’t do that: the money can’t be used for victims of Republican administrations.
- Adam Kinzinger theorizes on whether Texas could end up electing a Democratic Senator for the first time since 1988. In fact, should James Talarico beat Ken Paxto
n— one of the most corrupt politicians of our time not named “Trump”— he’ll be the first Democrat to win any statewide election in Texas since 1994. For what it’s worth, both Pod Save America and Jamelle Bouie agree with Kinzinger that Talarico has a real shot. All because Trump decided to meddle in the primary over his dislike of John Cornyn. Let’s hope it comes back to bite him in the ass.
- Leah Litman from Strict Scrutiny shows up on a breaking-news episode of Runaway Country to talk to Alex Wagner about the DoJ’s pointless case against E. Jean Carroll. Obviously they have no shot at winning, but, just like their cases against Comey, Jerome Powell, and Letitia James, the harassment is the point.
- Want to know how Elon Musk is rigging the stock market to force you to fund his SpaceX IPO? Then you should watch the More Perfect Union video that explains it all in moderately easy-to-understand terms. Chilling.
Here’s a little bit of lighter news. As part of Trump’s 250th birthday celebration for America, the “Great American State Fair” was announced this week, with the first round of headliners being country star Martina McBride, “Everybody Dance Now” singers C+C Music Factory, infamous plagiarist Vanilla Ice, infamous lip-syncers Milli Vanilli, “Bust a Move” singer Young MC, true legends from the 70s through the 90s the Commodores, Purple Rain co-stars Morris Day and the Time, rapper Flo Rida, and Poison frontman Bret Michaels. And, if you’re thinking “whoa ... that’s a whole lotta 90s going on there,” you’re certainly not alone. On the other hand, if you’re thinking “whoa, I’m kinda surprised some of those people agreed to perform at a Trump venue” ... turns out you’re not alone there either. Because, it turns out, many of those folks had no idea they were supposed to perform at a Trump venue: some knew they’d hired to perform, but not the details; others say they were never contacted at all. And so Young MC is out, Day is out, McBride is out, the Commodores are out, Michaels is out, C+C Music Factory appears split on the decision, and, as for Milli Vanilli, the non-lip-syncing singers say they were never in in the first place. Flo Rida is getting shit from his fans, but so far has not responded with anything other than emojis; Vanilla Ice, meanwhile, has surprised no one by saying he’d play for pretty much anyone—
Meanwhile, Bruce Springsteen and the Foo Fighters have announced the Power to the People festival, where they will be joined by Rage Against the Machine frontman Tom Morello, Dave Matthews, Joan Baez, Public Enemy, Jack Black, Cypress Hill, Killer Mike, the Dropkick Murphys, and many others. It’s a few months later than Trump’s bullshit, so one can’t call it proper counter-programming, but the contrast in lineup is striking (and purposeful). Once again, the MAGA motto of “we don’t need anyone” is proven impotent. As Yoko Ono once said:
A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.
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