Extra, Extra
Off Campus: “People have been forced to consume ‘grass and peanut shells,’ the regional director for Eastern Africa of the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday. ‘If assistance doesn’t reach them soon, we risk witnessing widespread starvation and death in Darfur and across other conflict-affected areas in Sudan.'” An update from one of the global conflicts we don’t follow much.
+ Odd Audit: In addition to the stock itself being totally worthless garbage, the auditor that worked for the company is a criminal. “The Securities and Exchange Commission accused the auditor of Donald Trump’s social-media company of massive fraud affecting hundreds of companies and more than 1,500 regulatory filings.” Every single thing Trump touches is criminal, fraud, or criminal fraud. Speaking of which, in between acts of contempt, the NYC trial goes on. Hope Hicks is today’s witness.
+ Commitment Issues: Dana Milbank in WaPo: “Their frustration with the president’s support for Israel is understandable. But in making Biden the enemy, including with chants of ‘Genocide Joe,’ the plans to trash the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and the proliferation of vows of the ‘uncommitted’ never to vote for Biden, they are in effect working to elect Trump. This isn’t principled protest; it’s nihilism.” (I’m sorry, but if you’re a liberal who’s uncommitted, you need to be committed.)
+ Club Bibi: “To put it bluntly, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has put his country’s worst religious extremists in jail, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has put his country’s worst religious extremists in his cabinet. And therein lies a tale.” Thomas Friedman in NYT: Israel and Saudi Arabia Are Trading Places. (Here’s an irony: Saudi Arabia will normalize ties with Israel before American campuses do.) And there’s this: Houthis offer education to students suspended in US protest crackdown. In diplomatic moves: Israeli Officials Weigh Sharing Power With Arab States in Postwar Gaza. For humanitarian, geopolitical, and internal American political reasons, postwar can’t come soon enough.
+ Sand Trap: “In the dark world of conflict minerals, there’s a deadly black market that pulls in anywhere between $200B and $350B a year. It’s not blood diamonds. It’s not cobalt. It’s sand.”
+ Barking Mad: Here’s a headline from WaPo that belongs right at the top of the time capsule. Noem’s dog-killing isn’t popular, though Trump supporters are divided.
