Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: Trump Tower Two, cruelty lessons, and the spiritual cost of hate
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This is one of those weekends where the news is unfolding rapidly, shaking things up well after the pundits parked their pens and went off to spend a weekend in the mountains, or on the beach, or down a bottle. Articles from the New York Times have revealed tAbbreviated Pundit Round-up: Trump Tower Two, cruelty lessons, and the spiritual cost of hate
This is one of those weekends where the news is unfolding rapidly, shaking things up well after the pundits parked their pens and went off to spend a weekend in the mountains, or on the beach, or down a bottle. Articles from the New York Times have revealed that the infamous Trump Tower meeting … was one of a pair, if not a set. Donald Trump Jr hosted another meeting at the tower in which representatives from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, improbably teamed with an Israeli social media expert, offered to lend a considerable hand to the Trump campaign. The meeting was brokered by Erik Prince. Seychelles Erik Prince. Russian back-channel Erik Prince. I had no contact with the Trump campaign, Mr. Congressman, Erik Prince. Why is he still not in jail, Erik Prince. That meeting also became part of a chain that included a who’s-who of other Trump associates and Republican big-wigs. Including Jared Kushner. Including Michael Flynn. Including Elliot Broidy, the guy who coincidentally signed a contract with Michael Cohen also using the name David Dennison, to buy his way out of his affair. While a lot of details are still to come out, this second Trump Tower meeting and its follow-ups certainly look like the world’s biggest shakedown — one in which Trump agreed to let the Saudis and UAE blockade Qatar, silence their enemies, and enrich themselves from rising oil prices. And for a finishing note, Jared Kushner got to lean on Qatar to the tune of $1.2 billion. The Saudis won, the UAE won, and Putin won … all making enormous profits. And Jared got his billion. But hey, that’s just one aspect of how this deal could have screwed the world. Just the surface of it. Because everything seems to be about 10 times as awful, and 100 times more blatant, than it previously seemed. And it was already hideous. That’s not even touching on how any of this affected the election. Did Erik Prince put in teams of social media special forces to help Trump? Did the Middle Eastern autocracies that Trump was so eager to assist after the election help to make sure he made it over the line? None of that is yet clear. What is clear is just how far we are from knowing everything that the Trump campaign managed to fit into a few brief months of graft, extortion, and conspiracy. Though of course, Rudy Giuliani will probably be on the tube any moment now to explain that none of this — from lying to congress to selling out American allies — is an issue. Because … It’s just not. After all, Giuliani’s job seems to be to transition Trump fans from “he didn’t do it” to “he did it, so what?” The skull-splitting details of this story, on the top of a week that ended with yet another school shooting in Texas, I mean Georgia, make that Texas and Georgia, may make it tough to get through the week’s pundits. So … feel free to engage in some punditry of you own. Just come on in. Read more