Inauguration Day |
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21 January 2025 - Switzerland
Yesterday I watched clips of the US inauguration day from the other side of the world with more hopefulness than I've felt about a president in a long time. It is the first time in 20 years that a president I voted for got elected I suppose. It is still odd though, because I didn't vote for Trump as the Biff Tannen of presidents in 2016. Michael Lewis wrote a whole book about how unprepared for taking over the federal government Trump was. And many of his early initiatives hit a wall and died. But, on the main, I think looking at the record of no wars, peacemaking, and lowering taxes Trump's first term was a good one. It took covid to knock him out of office, with the vaccine coming out right after the 2020 election. But this time Trump is flanked at his inauguration by the billionaire captains of industry who mostly supported Obama and Hillary. Elon Musk may be able to do to the federal government what he did to Twitter. Trump made the deal to pull NATO out of Afghanistan before he left office, but Biden's execution of that deal was a mess. This no doubt emboldened Putin to invade Ukraine as Bob Woodward wrote in his most recent book. And then there's the war surrounding Israel that has blazed ever hotter, but Trump vowed to end. Netanyahu, knowing that this week Biden was on his way out agreed to a ceasefire that will likely lead to his exit from office and entrance into prison. Assad is out of Syria, and with it Russian influence. If the Ayatollah would deign to meet and shake hands with Trump he could probably see a deal there as well. Trump has already publicly reached out to Putin from the Oval Office to meet and do a deal to end the war in Ukraine. So what if he didn't get it done on day one as he bombastically pledged during the campaign. Ross Ulbricht isn't out of prison yet either. Of course Trump couldn't really get everything he promised done on day one. Since FDR presidents have been judged on what they accomplish in their first 100 days, but with Trump now it's day one. But that is his own fault I suppose.
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This weekend I drank to the inauguration with a commemorative shotglass that I picked up in Washington DC on my way back from the holidays. Iwona's sister Jola and her partner Andziej were in town from England and we always have a good time together. It was ironic though, drinking out of a shotglass with Trump and Vance's faces on it. Trump is, after all, a lifelong teetotaler. And Vance wrote a book about his family's struggle with addictions to opiods and alcohol. On Saturday we saw one of Iwona's favorite comedians, Max Amini, make fun of just about every nationality in the audience. Then on Sunday Andziej and I went to the FCZ game as Andziej is now trying to visit stadiums in as many towns as he can. This was after my already long week of a Mikeller run the prior Sunday, game night on Monday (where Moose Master, the game Nancy got me for Christmas, was a hit), Tuesday at beer on Tuesday with the computer security group DC 4131, and Wednesday night's software craft study group. Phew! This week will hopefully be a little more low key and then Iwona is going to Poland for a couple weeks so it will be just me and the puppos.
