What more can be said about the Middle East? Benjamin Netanyahu seems to have lost it, intent on lashing out, delivering blows to somebody, seemingly oblivious to finally stepping over a line and into a space where no Iron Dome will save him or his country from the anticipated Iranian/Hezbollah onslaught. His actions are drawing us into a bigger fight than anyone should be willing to settle for.

The world is tired. The world is on fire. People are starving, and dying in the heat. Children are born into a world that looks more hellish every day. And it seems there’s a never-ending supply of heartless thugs more than willing to line their own pockets and capitalize on somebody’s misfortune. This includes Donald Trump, the mental midget, the epitome of sleaze, the icing on a moldy cake full of spiders and snakes.

Holy shit. Got up on the wrong side of the floor this morning, I guess.

Haven’t been watching the Olympics, other than catching a highlight every now and then. I guess I’ve grown tired of the coverage and the penchant for filling air time with breathless commentary and back stories, and the never-ending advertising.

Glad to see Simone Biles and Katie Ledecky doing well, and the Women’s 7 rugby team pulled off quite the upset. The USMNT of course sucked, the marksman from Turkey generated a meme or two, and Sha’Carri Richardson was unpleasantly bested in the 100 meters.

I’d like to say that I don’t care about medal counts, but that would be a lie. I check that every now and then but then move on to something else. I guess the days when I’d be glued to coverage are over—the Olympics just don’t hold the same lofty place they once did.

Whatever innocence once existed is, anymore, overshadowed by astronomical expense and dreams of lucrative endorsement deals. Just another big business.

So now the past comes back to haunt, and the baggage, such as it is, gets exposed.

Josh Shapiro has emerged as a frontrunner for VP, and stuff from his past is coming to the surface. He’s Jewish (cue the vapors), and apparently he said, 30 years ago, that there would never be peace in the Middle East. He is of course far from alone in offering such an opinion—all one has to do is look at the track record of Israel and its neighbors—but since he’s the one being vetted, everything becomes fair game and gets put under the microscope and treated in a Defcon 5 manner.

What a ruthless enterprise. We’ll see if he survives, or if he’s treated as damaged goods.

So Trump agrees to a debate with Kamala that will be moderated by Fox News.

Of course. A home game of sorts for Trump, with what he considers allies in the Moderator roles. It’s the only way that this could unfold with Trump feeling good about his chances. Maybe he’ll even get to submit the topics and questions for discussion. Maybe he’ll get his ass kicked, anyway.

Harris best prepare for all kinds of shenanigans.

A rough end of the week for the stock market. I hate to go there, but it would be a great disappointment to learn that Jerome Powell and company don’t like the idea of a Harris presidency and decide to release info and numbers that have investors running scared and skittish.

Probably a bit of conspiracy theorist coming through, but I have trouble trusting pretty much everyone anymore. The economy is supposedly percolating along and all of a sudden the wheels look like they’re coming off– at the same time Harris’ campaign appears to be gathering steam?

I really hope it’s just me and my cynical take on things. Which would leave us with an economy that’s apparently not as solid as the Dems have been claiming.

The Russians arrest and imprison American journalists and others, charge them with espionage or just being American, and sentence them, on occasion, to years of hard labor.

What we hear in the American press is the fabricated charges and outlandish prison sentences and, meanwhile, we arrest Russan spies for actual offenses and end up having to hand them back as trade bait.

So, Russia gets actual offenders back, in return for releasing Americans who did nothing wrong except be American. Oh, the occasional detainee may have said a few relatively harmless but true things about Putin or the Russian penchant for being paranoid and oppressive, or might have been in possession of a small amount of marijuana. Who knows?

It’s a high stakes game of strategy and leverage and politics, where it’s made to sound like Russia gets their hardened criminals back while we welcome home the ones who are pure as the driven snow. And the concessions we and other countries end up having to make are cause for swallowing real hard and holding our noses.  

Books will likely be written. Maybe we’ll learn more.

I’m glad to hear that Kamala Harris is wooing big donors and getting important endorsements from organizations like the UAW. There are many jumping on board, and I guess that’s preferable to abandoning ship.

In my mind, though, there’s always room for decorum or some sense of restraint when it comes to expressing excitement. The temptation is to run fast and loose with emotions, get cocky, and turn things into more of a show than they need to be.

For example, the bold talk surrounding the debate makes we wince a bit. Trump may not be the best debater, but there’s always the chance he could be so embarrassed and pissed off by the current rhetoric that he actually does prepare and accounts for himself in a way that would surprise many, including Harris. I guess what I’m saying is she and her supporters can take the chiding and the dares too far and she could end up being the one with egg on her face.

I’m revealing my own disdain for over-confidence and trash talk here. There’s little use for it, especially in the midst of such a consequential race. Stick to facts and the givens when talking about the GOP ticket—there’s the incompetent felon alongside the billionaire-sponsored MAGA disciple who speaks in cliches, berates “cat women,” and uses words and phrases that betray his affinity for misguided scriptural interpretation and a philosophy of oppressive governance.

I’d think twice about giving Trump the satisfaction that I’m borrowing a page from his playbook. There’s a fine line between confidence and plain tired, annoying cockiness.

I wonder if the Trump playbook taps into Nicolas Maduro’s expertise. He seems to have somehow prevailed in Venezuela’s recent election, despite having been substantially behind in the polls only the day before.

Imagine the subterfuge involved in rigging an entire national election! What kind of machine is Maduro operating? How could he get that far with the sabotage?

I’m beginning to see why Maduro and Trump and the rest scratch and claw at holding onto power—they’ve made a lot of enemies along the way, and they dread returning to life on the outside. It’s not about caring or having a vision for making life better for the citizenry. It’s just about maintaining a lifestyle, and personal survival.

How rotten is that?

So has Bibi taken the bait? It seems he can always can be counted on to be in a hawkish mood.

Will the attack in the Golan Heights be the catalyst for yet more insanity? Netanyahu has, tragically, responded. The Israeli people must be exhausted.

It’s not just Hezbollah in Lebanon that’ll be in on this flare-up. This sounds like a war no one wants—not that the one in the south was on everyone’s calendar before it broke out.

To this outside observer, it all serves to reinforce the feeling that peace in the Middle East is just a cheap cliché, like a beauty pageant contestant who says she just wants to “help people,” an obligatory bucket list item that makes for a nice sound bite but will always remain unchecked, because the warring sides appear intent on fighting until no one is left.

And the instigators who thrive on creating instability will always be around.

What purpose does it serve—to know who the VP candidate will be before Kamala decides on one?

For the press it’s all about getting the scoop, hounding people on the chance they’ll wear someone down and get the answer they’re looking for. The potential picks themselves are cagey and astute enough to not reveal anything, but this doesn’t keep the intrepid reporters from prying and trying.

We’ll know soon enough. Harris has some pretty decent options.