Sometimes, things come together. Sometimes the stars align serendipitously, and sometimes the alignment is by process.
For the past 11 years we have been awash in serendipity. True, we’ve lost a son–and people can’t be replaced–but everything else we’ve lost has, spookily, been restored. Quickly, and without effort. When the house we were in before mostly burned down, the house we’re in now was ready within two days.
Money has come when we’ve lost money.
When the economy tanked in 2008 we, as commercial landlords, became fully tenanted for the first time.
I could continue, but nobody can truly explain serendipity. It’s more than just good luck–it verges on the miraculous.
Process, of course, is the complete opposite.
A trial is process at its most exacting; a conclusion is usually reached, but only after a painstaking ordeal.
We’re currently covering a marathon evidentiary hearing to determine if money seized by the district attorney is contraband. It’s a slow-motion lobotomy. My soul has fled.
I expect the machinations of government are similar. I mean, imagine the depth and complexity of the Mueller investigation. Picture the political jujitsu in Congress.
There’s a lobotomized body for you–the Senate of the United States. Can someone sufficiently explain the rationale behind lifting the sanctions against Russian oligarch Oleg Daripaska?
In the House that notion was trounced. Even our own Devin Nunes–remember him?–voted against the move.
And now that Alice–or should I say Nancy Pelosi?–has forced the president from his shutdown rabbit hole, if only until the 15th of this month, it’s time to sharpen the scalpels again.
I don’t think we’ll see an encore of the shutdown. It failed the first time and was, generally, a bad business. I do think it flaked off that portion of the president’s base who were not for the wall at any cost. Like a shutdown. Talk about a lobotomy.
But neither will he get a wall.
The president will either allude to its already having been built or he’ll engineer his terminology to match a broad interpretation.
Joseph Oldenbourg
In answer to the narrow question of the rationale for lifting sanctions against Deripaska, I would point out that the sanctions are against corporations controlled by Mr. Deripaska, which is a subtle but real difference.
The rationale for lifting sanctions, particularly against the aluminum company, is that they are a significant contributor to the world economy and that sanctions against the company have ripple effects that harm other companies that depend on the commodity they sell. The rationale is augmented by the assertion that ownership restructuring have left Deripaska with significantly less direct control and benefits from these companies.
I didn’t write that I agreed with the rationale, I merely posted what the rationale was. It strikes me as yet another freakish example of Trump’s concern for Russian interests.