The Weekly Flail — May 17, 2025

OVERVIEW

It is becoming a pattern as political systems slide into chaos while science and technology advance rapidly. We will touch on the political as an overview and deal with the other in the body of this week’s newsletter.

The Trump disaster continues, but is floundering. Except for his cult followers, including those he has surrounded himself with in the most incompetent administration in US history, the world has Trump’s number.

It is important to remember that his father and Roy Cohn trained him as a grifter. His training was in exploiting and trickery, not in negotiation. Limited by his mental problems and evolving senile dementia, he is an easy mark on the international political stage. His current world tour demonstrates that.

Trump has succeeded in making a fool of himself while those behind him and the world leaders he deals with are using him for their own purposes. His inability to remember what he is doing makes it difficult to understand who’s side he is on. He is an instrument of chaos, but just as domestically he has destroyed everything he has touched, there are no positive accomplishments.

The one possible exception is the Qatar 747 8 if they successfully present that to Trump. They have been trying to sell it since 2020 with no luck, as it is too expensive to…