Apology
First – To all readers of Workers Comp Insider, apologies for accidentally sending an unfinished post last night about Juneteenth, which, as you’d imagine, I meant to send on Juneteenth, not two days ahead. On another note, I need to let you know we are retiring Workers Comp Insider at the end of June. We created the Insider in 2003, and it’s time to put it to bed. Thank you all for reading it.
In 2018, I created a Substack column, Tom Lynch’s Letters from the Berkshires. You’ll find it at: tomlynch.substack.com. It’s easier to get to and read, and, unless you let me know otherwise, I’ll soon be migrating everyone from the Insider to it.
Thanks again for 22 years of reading the Insider.
Now for:
Donald Trump and his new shiny object, Iran
Before the G7 conference, Donald Trump seemed uninterested in Iran. Israel was going after Iran’s military leaders and nuclear research sites, and Trump seemed happy to let them do it while suggesting negotiations. Two weeks ago, he seemed confident a nuclear deal with Iran was easily within reach.
Then, Israel became more successful, really successful, having killed both the top military and scientific Iranian leaders, as well as pulverized the country’s nuclear sites. Trump had just endured a deflating, poorly attended, lackadaisical parade where parade troops merely ambled, rather than marched. On returning to the White House, he had also had to suffer through TV coverage of 2,000 No Kings demonstrations around the country, where people seemed joyful in their protesting. A lot more joyful than anyone who’d attended his embarrassing, shrivelled-up parade.
What’s a narcissistic sociopath to do? Donald Trump’s whole life is devoted to controlling everything and placing himself at the center of it all. And now he wasn’t at the center of anything, especially Israel’s success.
I’ll say this for the man: he can pivot on the head of a pin. In about a nanosecond, he went from calling for a cease-fire and urging negotiations to demanding “unconditional surrender” from Iran and to saying “we now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran” and “we” know the whereabouts of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Then, saying something no president has ever said in public about a foreign, sovereign leader, Trump said, “We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least for now.”
He added, “Our patience is growing thin.”
Now, all eyes are once again where Donald Trump wants them — on him.
Never mind that killing foreign leaders violates executive orders signed by a series of presidents dating to Gerald Ford. The operative one says: “No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.”
The trouble is that right now, unlike Trump 1.0, there isn’t a soul in the Trump 2.0 administration who has the competence to do the job they’re in or the capacity to disuade Trump from doing whatever crazy thing has popped into his squishy brain, like killing Iran’s leader.
So, here we are.
