In America I ordered a milkshake and the young man turned it upside down over my head.
I did not move. A samurai does not flinch, even when the ice cream is above him and gravity is the law.
Nothing fell.
The cup hung there, upside down, defying the sky, and the boy held it over me with the calm of a man who has done this ten thousand times and buried his fear long ago.
This is the Blizzard. This is Dairy Queen.
If it falls, they told me, you get it free.
I understood at once. This was not dessert. This was an ordeal.
The boy was not showing off. He was swearing an oath, with his own arm, that he had made the thing thick enough to hang against the earth, and he was betting the price of it on his honor.
The flip is not a trick.
It is a vow.
In my land a smith proved his blade by cutting.
Here a boy of seventeen proves his by turning it over a stranger's head and looking him in the eye while the whole line waits to see if he lied.
He did not lie.
He set it upright, handed it to me, and said "there you go, man," then turned to the next customer as if he had not just gambled his good name across a counter.
I tipped him everything in my pocket.
He tried to give it back. He said it was just a Blizzard.
I told him it was not just a Blizzard.
I could not explain the rest in English, and there was a line, and he was busy.
So I bowed instead.
He said, "You too, man."
That answered nothing I had said.
It answered everything I had felt.
I hope everyone had a great 4th of July. I know @realDonaldTrump and family did.
250 years ago we declared independence from a king who ran the colonies as a family business. In just 18 months the Trumps have made King George look like an amateur.
A $620 million Pentagon loan, the largest in the program’s history, to a company Don Jr.’s firm bought into three months before.
An Air Force drone contract to a startup the princelings took public through a golf course company they own a piece of.
The Army’s largest drone motor order ever, to a company where Don Jr. sits on the board and holds millions in stock.
A $24 million Pentagon robotics contract to the company that employs Eric as Chief Strategy Advisor.
A stake in the largest undeveloped tungsten deposit on earth, in Kazakhstan, backed by $1.6 billion in US government support.
Jared’s fund seeded with $2 billion from the Saudi crown prince, now $6.2 billion, 99% of it foreign money from Gulf governments. Over $110 million in fees collected from the Saudis alone. He negotiates American foreign policy with the governments that pay him.
$2.3 billion from crypto ventures their father regulates. More than a million people bought in and lost $2.3 billion. The money didn’t grow. It simply moved from the subjects pockets to the crown’s coffers.
And the next one is already drafted. A proposed ATF rule that will allow guns to be shipped straight to your front door. The government’s own estimate is 3.3 million home gun deliveries a year. Don Jr. sits on the board of the online gun megastore built to cash in. He holds 300,000 shares.
And that’s only the fraction they’ve allowed us to see. Not one subpoena served. Not one search executed. Why hide anything when you own the investigators?
Me? They searched a laptop for six years. Federal prosecutors. Grand juries. Subpoena power. Congressional hearings. They found nothing. I made about $200k a year selling paintings when my Dad was President, and they made my paintings part of an impeachment inquiry.
For six years they’ve asked Where’s Hunter? What about the laptop?
Wrong questions. The right one is 250 years old. Does America belong to a family?
They’ve given their answer. Long live the King.
today on the streetcar the man sitting across from me ended what seemed like an important business call with “well, as snoopy would say: gawrsh!” then he frowned, looked at me, mouthed “goofy?”, I nodded, then he said “I’m just being goofy!” and hung up, and gave me a thumbs up
Conservatives suddenly being anti-gun so they can side with a tyrannical government should confirm they don’t actually stand for anything.
They’re just contrarians who side with whatever is the most evil
If you support ICE or Donald Trump this world would be 1000% better off without you in it, nothing can ever change the fact that you’re a massive fucking chud who gets no bitches and never will