How this headline may connect to industries in Wisconsin. Technical scores are below — click any ? for what a metric means.
Commentary | Graves Registry: Shallow words and marrow deep corruption.(Trump is) “leveraging his presidency for profit.” – Forbes magazine “I don't think about the Americans' financial situation, I don't think about anybody.” – Donald Trump I guess, if only by the law of averages, he has to tell the truth once in a while.He does devote an awful lot of time to his own financial situation and it has never looked so rosy.Just the other day, while dad presided over Republican efforts to cut food and health care benefits to millions of Americans, the dimmer of the two bright light sons—the heirs to the kingdom—was “excited” to announce plans to build another Trump Tower.This one is in the former Soviet republic of Georgia in Eastern Europe.The Trump clan had to enlist the financial help of Bidzina Ivanishvili, a Russian oligarch, who happens to be sanctioned by the United States.Small matter with this subbasement crew.Eric gushed, “With a prime location, in the heart of Tbilisi, this tower will quickly become a landmark as the tallest building in Georgia.This marks our first project in the region and we are so excited to bring it to life!” I'll bet a fair number of readers had never heard of a place called Tbilisi, much less learn that it had a heart.The key word, of course, in Eric--or in any Trump sales pitch--is "tallest." It just wouldn't be worthy of the name without an est attached.You might recall that his dad expressed his grief after 9/11 by stating that he now owned the "tallest building in Manhattan” which, needless to say, wasn’t true.The Trump Tower in Tbilisi (it has a nice alliterative ring to it, doesn’t it) comes on the heels of a bitter disappointment in Australia, where plans for a tower there were rejected because the country associated the Trump name with something toxic.They were already saddled with hosting the most venomous snakes in the world.It must have seemed like a rush to judgment to supporters of the project just because of those 34 felony convictions and an estimated 16 forays into various business ventures that didn’t…how shall I put this…turn out so well.Donald Trump is back from China and the general consensus seems to be that he didn't make an arrogant fool of himself, a high bar, if unusual, for this particular president.We have been assured that a lot of really great deals were made by the self-titled master dealmaker, although specifics were carefully avoided.I not sure that omitting details is necessarily important given Mr.Trump's propensity for--let's take the high road and call it exaggeration.The president was accompanied by a carefully chosen cross section of Americans as long as they were rich CEOs, assumedly to act as guardrails when the president started to veer off the road.China’s president Xi Jinping is an old hand at dealing with reckless drivers.One member of Mr.Trump’s entourage was Jensen Huang.The name probably doesn’t ring a bell, but Mr.Huang is the CEO of Nividia, a company that makes advanced computer chips.I suppose he had as much right to tag along as any other fat cat, but there is one particularly troubling aspect of Huang’s being on board.Dan Beyer pointed out, Donald Trump’s financial disclosure form, signed in that failed lie detector scrawl of his, revealed in fifteen separate transactions that Mr.Trump bought a million dollars worth of Nividia stock over the course of last year.Dutiful son Eric indignantly protested that his father’s assets are all tied up in a blind trust while he is president, but the signature was right there on the document.It looks as if Eric is going to have no trouble at all following his father’s sneering contempt for the truth.Aside from the fact that the computer chips should not be falling into the hands of a nation that has a tenuous and occasionally combative relationship with the United States and the fact that Trump is lying about profiting from his office, the Nividia stocks were purchased with the obvious advance knowledge of their tremendously increased value when Trump opened up the market in China.Insider trading by any other name smells just as rancid.It must be one of the great things that was accomplished on the trip that they chose to keep quiet about.Among the other concepts that the Trump family has rendered obsolete is the sense of shame.It didn't always deter the act, especially in the political arena, but at least it wasn't publicly celebrated.The problem with the gluttonous Trump clan is that nothing, not shame, integrity, honesty, or something that bears an uncomfortable similarity to treason stands in the way of them getting More (capitalization intended).A person far wiser than I am once told me that the only comfort the rest of us can take is that more will never be enough.One last note: Kyle Rittenhouse was recently hospitalized.Those of you who don't remember Mr.Rittenhouse are fortunate, but he became the apple of the far right's eye after he shot and killed two people and wounded another while roaming through the night in Kenosha, Wisconsin in 2020 with an assault rifle looking for trouble.He later excused the cold-blooded killings as "protecting local businesses.” That is always high on the to-do list when you are a 17-year-old crusader.Kyle is expected to recover from the bite of a brown recluse spider.He’ll live to wield his AR-15 again in the glorious cause of freedom, even if some others may not if they encounter the little man with his big gun.I am assuming that the unfortunate spider died.