The World’s Biggest Asshole

It looks like the Trump Administration is working hard to be the biggest asshole at every international summit.  I’m not saying there aren’t worse regimes in the world. But even they will generally sign on to lofty statement of principles about “equity” and letting poor people have health care or clean air. The Trump Administration would too in its first term. But now that outright corruption and racism is officially U.S. policy they’re even trying to block other countries from making those statements.

Since Trump is now boycotting the G20 summit over his racist hallucinations of “white genocide,” the countries that do go may just cut the U.S. out of the process. The only long-term effect of the Trump Admininistration’s efforts will be a dramatic loss of U.S. influence in future international agreements. That’s what being a huge asshole will end up getting you.

Tokayev bamboozles Trump

Kazakhstan has recognized the state of Israel for almost its entire existence as an independent country, and it has always had good relations with the Jewish State. Israeli President Shimon Peres visited in 2009 and Prime Minister Netanhayu visited in 2016. Kazakhstan is a major oil supplier for Israel (roughly 25% of all oil in Israel originates in Kazakhstan), which is critical for Israel as many oil producing nations do not recognize the country. So Kazakhstani-Israeli economic ties are long-standing and well-established.

Which is why I had to laugh when I read that Trump has proudly announced that Kazakhstan is joining the Abraham Accords. The Abraham Accords were an agreement by several countries who did not formally recognize Israel to have full diplomatic relations with the state. Initially that meant that the UAE and Bahrain officially recognized Israel (both had had informal back-door relations but had never opened embassies in each other's countries), and it was later extended to Morocco (which also had informal relations) and, sort of, Sudan. After first-term Trump announced the inclusion of Sudan, Sudan's leaders immediately seemed to walk back the agreement. Sudan never ratified the accord before the government collapsed and it fell into a brutal civil war that is still raging today.

Anyway, the entire point of the Abraham Accords is that it is an agreement of countries that did not have diplomatic relations with Israel to open diplomatic relations with it. Kazakhstan, as a country that already had diplomatic as well as deep commercial relations with Israel is not a country that should be eligible to join that agreement because there is no point to agree to something that it is already doing.

It looks to me like Kazakhstani President Tokayev is taking advantage of the fact that Trump does not know a goddamn thing about Kazakhstan. Tokayev agreed to make a meaningless announcement, so Trump could think he was one step closer to his coveted Nobel Peace Prize. It also looks like Tokayev is offering a mineral deal with the U.S. on top of that. If there's one thing that Central Asia leaders are adept at, it is knowing how to flatter and pay off corrupt leaders to get what they want.

The starve-my-own-supporters strategy

The Trump Administration has been remarkably open at admitting that they have not been forced to cut off SNAP benefits because of the shutdown. They are doing it on purpose and even when the Court's told them they could, and must, pay the benefit, they are spending government resources to try to get out of doing it.

This is, quite blatantly, illegal. Congress created an emergency fund so that benefits would not be interrupted if the government shuts down and that emergency fund has enough money to cover the benefits for November. In other words, the money is there, and the law says that benefits must be paid during a shutdown.

They are cutting off benefits because Trump thinks it will hurt Democrats more than Republicans. He is wrong. More SNAP recipients are in red areas than blue. But Republicans, especially MAGA Republicans seem to assume that "welfare recipients" are the "urban poor," meaning black people. They ignore the wide swaths of poor areas that are spread across rural communities in predominantly red areas.

But you can't dislodge racist ideas from a bigot's head no matter what the data says. Trump is starving his own supporters, while announcing he is doing it on purpose, because he thinks that will make Democrats give in on the shutdown standoff.

Donald's big brain

Our Nobel Peace Prize obsessed President cannot comprehend that they are not going to give the prize to someone who murders random South American fishermen to score political points. And whatever miniscule practically non-existent chances he has are going to sink even further if he starts bombing Venezuela in an unprovoked and undeclared war. 

Also, I bet that these "cocaine factories" turn out to be places like hospitals or preschools.

They supported him because of his business acumen

"Incredibly, Trump’s recent announcements have made the situation even worse. By declaring that U.S. economic support will only continue if Milei wins at the polls, he has galvanized the Argentine opposition to Milei, thus leading to more capital flight and skyrocketing interest rates."

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— ryan cooper (@ryanlcooper.com) October 17, 2025 at 9:15 AM

It's pretty wild how the President managed to waste $40 billion of American taxpayer money to bail out the Argentine economy, while still making that economy worse. The only part of business that Trump is really an expert at is bankruptcy.

The real question about "AI"

I know the tech press has spent the last three years writing AI think pieces, asking whether it will destroy all jobs, or if it will trigger the robot apocalypse, but at this point I think the big question is: What will be left of the technology after the AI bubble pops?

Aside from not really being "AI", the post-collapse future of the tech is the real question. Because what AI boosters envisions requires more electricity than our society produces and because both that imagined AI future and what we have now costs many times more money than any AI company can ever hope to recoup in profits, it is clearly unsustainable and will collapse at some point. Maybe even really soon. So what large language model tech will still be around when the massive data centers start to fold and the firehose of money runs out? You can't put a genie back in the bottle. The technology exists. But what viable version of it will be left standing after all the non-viable stuff crashes and burns?

Cautiously optimistic but wondering why no one else is cautious in their optimism

It is great that the hostages are free and the ceasefire seems to be holding. But it is really interesting that people seem to be assuming that the war in Gaza is over. I hope it is, don't get me wrong. I think this is the fourth ceasefire with a hostage release deal there has been since October 7. Because all of the remaining hostages, and corpses of hostages, are being released with this one it will obviously be the last.

But the hard questions: will Israeli forces leave Gaza and what will happen to Hamas are still unresolved. Just like they were in prior ceasefire + hostage release deals. And all three of those prior ceasefires fell apart shortly after the hostage release part ended.

And yes, the plan/ultimatum given to Hamas last week by Trump essentially required Hamas to disarm. But Hamas has not completely agreed to that part, nor has Israel agreed to much about the future of Gaza. The two sides have only agreed to "phase one," the hostage release part that has happened today. But what happens next? Hamas seems to want Israel to withdraw from Gaza, and Israel wants Hamas to disarm and disband. Neither of those terms have been clearly accepted by the other side.

It looks to me like Hamas thinks Israel should withdraw from Gaza. They might agree to some token surrender of weapons without giving up their whole arsenal. And there's no way to measure if the group is "disbanded." They could just rebrand (maybe they could figure out an Arabic acronym that would work for "شدة"). In other words, Hamas might think that this agreement is essentially what it offered Israel in January 2024--releasing all hostages in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal and a permanent ceasefire. Netanyahu rejected that offer back then, so I think Israel expects to remain in at least part of Gaza, replace Hamas with some governing body run by foreigners that Israel has effective authority over, and that it is allowed to continue to take ad hoc military action in the territory, like it does in the West Bank.

Those two positions are mutually incompatible. So there is plenty of reason to expect this to fall apart. The prior ceasefires all did.

And yet, there is one big difference between this time and the other times: The world now expects the war to end. I think that might include majorities of the population in both Israel and Gaza. The Trump Administration definitely expects it to be over. Both sides have a lot to lose if they piss on Trump's victory lap. Those facts are where most of my optimism about the future lies. I do think there's more momentum in world opinion towards a complete end than there has been since the October 7 attacks.