44 Comments
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Lisbeth Farnum's avatar

It’s TUESDAY🎉 The title of your piece reminds me of how I do love an oxymoron.

Greg Olear's avatar

This one has both an oxymoron and a moron. We are twice blessed!

Gandalf the Blue's avatar

I like the insertion before the "America First" slogan. Plunder is what the Orange Hole is all about.

Sara Frischer's avatar

Sadly. Spot On, Greg. Help!

Kathy Hughes's avatar

Trump’s whole method of operation is to grift money from people and let someone else eat the expenses. He did that with creditors, suppliers, contractors and subcontractors.

Greg Olear's avatar

He’s really just the worst. Just a complete scumbag in every way.

AndTheSlithyToves's avatar

But he's OUR scumbag!! lolol

Old Man's avatar

Thoughts on a very bleak Tuesday.

We live with government driven by the spur of the moment decision making driven by, as you say, what's in it today for me, donald j trump. In stock market terms this results in societal and economic backwardation, resulting in a downward-sloping futures curve.

Is the end nigh? It certainly seems so. More scary there seems no help in the offing. Each cabinet member who is displaced, the successor is worse, think Blanche after Bondi. Media neutered, former allies simply tending to their own knitting, enemies picking off what they can. Oligarchs supporting corruption, indeed encouraging it.

Xi and China salivate, sitting back, tweaking the slippery slope, waiting for the next Chinese dynasty, this iteration global not regional.

Are the epstein files the remedy? Not really as long as the apathy over them grows. When did you last see a file headline? Will the mid-terms be the needed tonic? Assuming they happen or manipulation of the vote overcome, again not really as the imbecile will simply ignore the results, he, family and friends will go on their merry way, the courts rubber stamping whatever they wrought.

A day so bleak, will I ever again get to bask in the sun, I fear not.

Hopeless? Sadly me thinks so.

Chopinsheart's avatar

It’s like, “we are not coming to save us.” That’s what it feels like.

Greg Olear's avatar

Don’t worry, Chuck Schumer is on the way! 🙃

Greg Olear's avatar

What gives me hope is the fact that he’s less able than ever to conceal his true nature. The war with Iran is an epic fail failure, there’s no easy way out, and everyone knows it’s his fault. He can turn around and try to blame Pete Hegseth, I suppose, but I don’t know that that will work. And he’s not allowed to really blame bibi. Meanwhile, everything is chaos, inflation is up, gas prices are up, the situation is impossible to ignore. There’s definitely a rift. Will it be enough to save us? I don’t know. But it’s not all bleak news. I don’t think.

Old Man's avatar

Thanks, from your pen to God's ears. He is without a doubt losing his grip.

Teri C's avatar

What gives me some hope is that aides reportedly kept the president “out of the room” during the rescue of the downed pilot. Maybe they could just show him AI of stuff being bombed every morning and give him a dummy version of the nuclear football in case he melts down so that the world doesn’t?

Chopinsheart's avatar

My first comment on “fast read.” Strategy; such an old fashioned word for America now. It requires “relationship” with something else. Your basic narcissist requires first a good feeding ground. Like searching for krill. Or prey. There’s no relationship there other than Me-Need-You. My second thought is we are dealing with a whole new species of imitator predators. Those not suited for being an actual narcissist but who are camouflaging for survival. And I feel like I’m reading a scientific article out of Nature magazine while I write this. It’s phenomena discussion we all seem to be leaning toward in an effort to see how to survive this.

Greg Olear's avatar

It’s so hard on the brain. Constant struggle to fend off those who seek to destroy reality.

Chopinsheart's avatar

“These and other measures would not have happened had Trump not exploded the old, idealist grand strategy. “. Yes, make lemonade from lemons; we are all doing this to see our options but not stupid enough to then say, there, it’s all for the better. It’s like throwing a bunch of newborns in the air to see who survives and celebrating life. My comment is pretty extreme but we are in the extreme. Was I naive as a teen deciphering Gulliver’s Travels and thinking we needed to create fiction to understand reality because it is too complex face to face. Seems like horror is pretty simple up close. Apparently the frog-pot thing…it’s real. We need to pray for a rush of Wisdom Greg. It’s like we keep thinking we need more clues?

Greg Olear's avatar

Paging Vanna white. It’s time to solve the fucking puzzle!

Chopinsheart's avatar

Who is actually writing these speeches? They remind me of old black and white tv shows where the criminal was caught; sweating, his white shirt is filthy, hair too long and greasy falling over his makeup with fake sweat and he’s giving his last speech and he’s actually forgotten if he is speaking to the cops surrounding him or his fellow criminals but he’s just gotta talk it out; his strategy was totally justified because blah blah blah. The audience doesn’t even care what the blah blah blah is about cause it’s the end of the show now and the popcorn is all gone anyway. Reading this piece is reassuring that before all this fat sugar and salt was served up as nutrition we needed for schooled learning, we could learn Greg. We WERE teachable. And we came out really good when that happened. 🙏

Greg Olear's avatar

The policy document has the same hollow soulless quality as the writing in Jared’s book. It’s either someone who can’t write very well, AI, or a combination of the two.

Gary Martoni's avatar

I think you are absolutely right Greg. This is not hyperbole, it's fact. Question is, why do so few people see it.

Greg Olear's avatar

I like to think that more people are seeing it every day. The Iran war makes it impossible not to see it, unless you choose not to look. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself.

Gary Martoni's avatar

I do hope that if we have a midterm election in November we can regain both Houses and at least slow him down if not impeach him. Impeach him yes. Convict him, I doubt it. There are just too many craven Republicans supported by the still existing MAGA Horde, mirabile dictu, for that to happen. "Impossible not to see"? An armed insurrection broadcast around the world live in broad daylight was impossible not to see too. Surely that would have sealed his fate. Not in Nebraska!

Chopinsheart's avatar

The age of Botox diplomacy.

Earl Heflinger's avatar

I’ve been saying for the last ten years—but, lacking the platform you have, mostly to myself—that he’s a creature of instinct. As you say, like a shark. Funny how he’s singled out sharks as something he fears (but less than electric boats, as I recall). Maybe the fear is really profound respect.

Greg Olear's avatar

That had not occurred to me, Earl, but you’re absolutely right. I forgot about the shark week thing. Takes one to know one?

Homi Hormasji's avatar

The ability of the unenlightened bigots whom you quote, their ability to bend themselves into pretzels in order to shade Trump's avarice with some sort of greater meaning would be laughable if it wasn't so dangerous.

What does it say about us as a nation, though, that so many who could make a difference, by removing this monster and consigning him to jail, choose instead to remain complicit with him? (Yes, I mean you, you blithering idiot Republicans.) I mean, how much more clear does it need to be that Trump is hellbent on enriching himself while destroying this nation from within?

As you have clearly outlined, Greg, Trump will do anything to stay in office. Wake up, America! Those looking for a change of course after the midterms (yes, you - you weak-kneed Democrats) are clutching at straws: does anyone really believe that Trump is going to risk impeachment and removal from office?

Greg Olear's avatar

I agree, of course. The problem with impeachment is that, even if he is somehow impeached, and the Senate votes to remove him, which I don’t think is going to happen, he will not leave. He’ll appeal to the Supreme Court, and the court will rule in his favor, and all hell will break loose. He will never leave willingly. The only reason he left last time is because his coup attempt failed.

Homi Hormasji's avatar

That’s exactly right, Greg: Trump is not going to risk removal. If only our mainstream media outlets weren’t owned by complicit corporations and would scream out about this on a daily basis. If only… But that just shows how naive I am.

M-R's avatar

Finally I've paid for my subscription and am now one of the Olear faithful. Nono - I was one of those even when unpaid; but have long longed to be able to write erudite stuff in the Discussion, expressing admiration for the amazing research expressed in a delightfully literary way.

I now do so. :)

Greg Olear's avatar

Thank you so much for subscribing, and for the kind words. Welcome to the comment board. It’s a lovely community here, and I’m happy you’re part of it.

SUE Speaks's avatar

Do you know what I've been writing, about bribing him to fire his hires before he and Vance resign, or even for him to apologize -- after some MDMA -- and become our salvation?

Greg Olear's avatar

I actually set up a GoFundMe in December 2016, half as a joke, with the argument that if everybody who voted for Hillary paid $20 into the fund, maybe we could pay him to not be president. It’s all about the money with him. But it’s also about the power.

Wd52's avatar

Trump has had one primary goal for fifty years: EVADE PRISON

SUE Speaks's avatar

That could be in our bribe.

Wd52's avatar
Apr 21Edited

#Trump is and has always been a #Mobster, owned by Israel, Moscow and Saudi for the last 30 years, by the FBI & CIA before that  He WAS a #MOB stool pigeon informant TO DA #Giuliani in NY the late 1980s. That's how they first met!

 FULL HISTORY: 

1. https://gregolear.substack.com/p/tinker-tailor-mobster-trump

2. https://gregolear.substack.com/p/from-trump-to-trump-how-the-mobs

3. https://gregolear.substack.com/p/give-me-secrecy-and-give-me-death

Wd52's avatar

There is no coherent plan. There's only an industrial-scale smash and grab.

#Trump is and has always been a #Mobster, owned by Israel, Moscow and Saudi for the last 30 years, by the FBI & CIA before that  He WAS a #MOB stool pigeon informant TO DA #Giuliani in NY the late 1980s. That's how they first met!  

FULL HISTORY: 

1. https://gregolear.substack.com/p/tinker-tailor-mobster-trump

2. https://gregolear.substack.com/p/from-trump-to-trump-how-the-mobs

3. https://gregolear.substack.com/p/give-me-secrecy-and-give-me-death

John McNellis Rich's avatar

The semi-cryptic esoterica excerpted from the 2025 National Security Strategy of The USA sounds like a bad fake reality TV script writer was goofing on Dear Leader’s, The Art Of The Deal as Sun Tzu’s, The Art of War.