Derby Winner

Book: Apprentice in Wonderland

"I lost the election."

This book, ©2024, focuses on Donald Trump as a reality TV star of The Apprentice. The author is a journalist and co-editor in chief of "Variety," a magazine that focuses on the entertainment industry. Since the show's beginnings in 2004, the author conducted hours of interviews with Trump, his "boardroom advisers," Eric Trump, and some of the memorable contestants. The author shares untold tales from this legendary show that has left its mark on popular culture and shaped the legend of its star.

Trump actually said "... I lost the election." The author taped the many interviews he had with Trump. At one point when discussing Geraldo Rivera, he forgot and uttered those words.

(page 191)

Maybe He Thinks So

So many names for this idiot.

Sitting Around

Clinical depression on a toilet --

What is Wrong with This Man?

 Trump issued this threat two days ago.

Many people and organizations reacted:  The killing of an entire "civilization" would clearly constitute a genocide. Congress and the entire nation must renounce these threats. Our country's armed forces must be prepared to resist illegal orders to carry out a genocidal attack or any similar blanket attacks on civilian infrastructure amounting to war crimes.

Yesterday, as the deadline approached, Trump announced he had pulled back from this threat. Since the war began, trump has repeatedly imposed deadlines linked to threats only to extend them. The president said in his social media post that Iran has presented "a workable basis on which to negotiate."

In Rome, Pope Leo said Tuesday that the threats were "truly unacceptable" and that such attacks would violate international law. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said that attacks targeting civilian and energy infrastructure would constitute a war crime. Trump has said he's "not at all" concerned about committing war crimes. A spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was "deeply troubled" by the threats, saying no military objective justified targeting civilian infrastructure.

Potty Mouth

Trump's early morning Easter Sunday Truth Social tirade has backfired spectacularly. At 8 a.m. on Sunday, the president posted an expletive-laden rant featuring a warning for Iran that the county would be "living in hell" if it did not open the Strait of Hormuz:

If the president intended for his incendiary post to calm the markets, it has had the opposite effect, instead sending oil prices even higher on Sunday. Gas prices are at their highest since June 2022, having risen by over 38 percent since the war began to a national average of $4.11 on Sunday. Meanwhile, stock fell on Sunday with Dow futures down 0.69 percent, S&P futures down 0.76, and Nasdaq futures down 0.91 percent.

An Iranian official responded to Trump's Truth Social post by asserting that the strait will remain closed until the country is "fully compensated" for the damage it has suffered during Trump's war. He also dismissed Trump's threats as a sign that the U.S. has "resorted to obscenities and nonsense out of sheer desperation and anger."

The renewed threats came less than a week after the president claimed that the U.S. did not need the Strait of Hormuz in his Wednesday address to the nation. "The United States imports almost no oil through the Hormuz Strait and won't be taking any in the future. We don't need it," Trump said.

The president has repeatedly leveled threats at Iran in an attempt to force it to reopen the strait, including threatening to strike vital infrastructure, despite warnings that such acts could constitute war crimes. "International law protects from attack objects indispensable to the survival of civilians, and the attacks threatened by Trump, if implemented, could entail war crimes," the international law experts wrote in response to the president's initial threats against Iran's power plants.

-- The Daily Beast

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