https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/2025/05/18/trumpschlacht-debuts-with-vivid-energy/

Read the whole thing if you are interested in a positive view of Trump, for a change. She compares the Trump-battle strategy to the earlier Reaganschlacht (much ignored or dismissed by the press at the time), both derived from von Moltke the Elder’s 19th-century Kesselschlacht, the term he used “to refer to his campaign practice of “surrounding and annihilating” an opponent. Kesselschlacht is typically translated “cauldron battle,” to evoke the effect of the surrounded enemy being heated up in a cauldron and dispatched.”

My thought here was precipitated by some of her comments about the Qatar jet controversy, which suggested a connection to some material I read some time ago in the context of interpersonal relations. To wit: sometimes it is better to let friends or relatives give you a gift, whether material goods or services, rather than paying or reimbursing them for what they provided. In effect, reducing gifts to commercial transactions removes the emotional satisfaction of the giver. Of course, sometimes it’s appropriate to pay immediately, and often we “pay back” later with gifts or services ourselves, but usually it is better for the relationship not to do so as an obvious exchange.

IIRC, gift giving is a very important part of Arab hospitality, and although everyone knows that there will be a reciprocal situation later, no one calls attention to that part.

It’s somewhat like the Bible story of Abraham negotiating for a burial place for Sarah, in Genesis 23. Even though Abraham ends up paying the price of the land and cave, it is necessary for the owner to insist repeatedly that he take it as a gift, and be reluctantly persuaded to take the money.

Tying that to the jet intended to be a temporary Air Force One: Qatar is getting “paid back” in some non-transactional way, perhaps by the permission to buy a fleet of Boeing jets (although why they want them is obscure, since that’s the company that hasn’t been able to complete the AF-1 replacement already ordered). The jet is not a bribe to Trump personally, although it may end up in his Presidential Library (so did Reagan’s AF-1; see the Factcheck post); rather, it is a necessary cultural prologue to doing business with the US, under either president. Remember, Biden started the negotiations. What was he planning to do with the plane later, presumably when Boeing finally came through?

Factcheck has a pretty decent write-up, including noting that the government gets gifts all the time; it’s the later transfer to Trump’s library that’s the sticking point. And that may just be more Trump trolling: what would he do with it?
https://www.factcheck.org/2025/05/unwrapping-qatars-400-million-winged-gift-to-trump/

Even if no historian writes about it with full honesty.
And I don’t think we will ever know everything that transpired in his life.

Yeah, I wouldn’t believe a thing Biden’s medical team nor his family might say about the timing.

What a bizarre chapter in American history Biden’s life will make.

I have my doubts. My brother-in-law died of prostate cancer, fifteen years after the initial diagnosis. OTOH, my father died within three months of his lung cancer diagnosis—though in hindsight there was something about his facial expressions in photos, as long as 6 months before diagnosis, which may have indicated something was not quite right. Cancer wrapping around the spine hastened death.

If my doubts are correct, there are at least two possibilities. Coverup of Biden’s being diagnosed with prostate cancer a while back, as our quixotic commenter suggested. Or not a true diagnosis at all—a pseudo-diagnosis to distract attention away from the growing noise about government and media coverup of President Biden’s aging issues. That I would consider this a possibility indicates the low level of trust I have in Democrats or the MSM. No need to cite chapter and verse.

I wouldn’t wish cancer spreading to the bone on anyone. If the diagnosis is correct, I hope that the remainder of President Biden’s life is pain-free. That was the best that my father could hope for.

When I read of his spinal degeneration, I wondered if his problem weren’t more serious than cognitive decline.

I wish him as good a death as he can find. I hope his faith is there for him.

Its sad how they abandoned him to this fate

A recent neighbor a very good man was diagnosed and passed in a very short time some years ago

His offspring sadly accelerated the process with the actions they took,

‘How like a serpents tooth’ or words to that effect

And irony….

“The Irony Of Moody’s Downgrade Of U.S. Credit”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/irony-moodys-downgrade-us-credit

** Though the ONLY mysterious thing about this Palm Springs dude is that he wasn’t a member of “Biden”’s Cabinet in some kind of Health, Education or Welfare position.

It’s complicated — as one might imagine — being as the visible signals and the purport of speeches shift from day to day, if not even at times, from hour to hour.