The Assault on Democracy Is Underway

Posted: February 1, 2026 | Author: Tom | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Access Hollywood Tape, Customs and Border Protection, Declaration of Independence, Director of National Intelligence, Donald Trump, FBI, Fulton County Georgia, history, Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), Russia, The Epstein Files, United States Constitution | Leave a comment

Demonstrators protest Immigration and Customs (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agent actions in Minneapolis. (picture by Jaida Grey Eagle for NPR)

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” An excerpt from the Declaration of Independence.

It is ironic that as we approach the 250th anniversary of our independence from Great Britain that our foundational beliefs are under attack from the government and its millions of supporters. The key members of the Trump regime, including the president himself, do not believe that it is “self-evident” that all of us are “created equal” just because we are all human beings and should be treated with respect. They do not believe that anyone other than themselves has “unalienable Rights.” Most certainly they do not believe that their power comes from the “consent of the governed.” Trump and his key supporters believe that they are in power because they deserve to be in power. It is not unlike white plantation owners in the period leading up to the civil war believing that they had a right to own slaves. They believed that humankind is naturally divided into classes. Some people are destined to be rich and powerful and others are destined to be workers, minions, slaves, tools of the powerful. This thinking is also a basic premise of the Project 2025 playbook which envisions a country run by white, rich, Christian men. Everyone else should know their place and that place is to serve and preserve the powerful. In that context, what is happening to our democracy right now should not be a surprise. They keep telling us what they are going to do and put into writing. This is their chance to “save” our country and their belief in a history of white heritage. Believe them.

Basic rights delineated in our Constitution are under ever increasing attacks. It is time to wake up. This is not a fever dream or a political statement or a scare tactic. Wishing it isn’t so is not going to stop what is happening.

In Minnesota and around the country, ICE and CBP agents continue to attack citizens and non-citizens alike. Peaceful demonstrators whose only “crime” is filming the agents attacking people are themselves being attacked with chemical weapons, beaten, arrested and, in two cases, murdered. Last week Tom “CAVA Man” Homan declared at a news conference that he planned to de-escalate the contentious interactions between the federal agents and citizens and to begin a drawdown of the 3,000 paramilitary forces in the state. At the time I wrote that it was a lie. His statements were a change in demeanor but not in policy, and it turns out he did lie. But don’t take my word for it. When asked by a reporter last Thursday if he was going to order a drawdown Trump responded “No, no, not at all.” Our civil rights will continue to be violated. If citizens are being treated like “domestic terrorists” I can only imagine what happens to the people taken into custody and placed in detention centers. From July 2025 to the end of January 2026 thirty-five people are known to have died in immigration centers. Those are the ones that the government reported.

The recent arrests of journalists in Los Angeles and Minnesota — all black, all independent — is meant to put a damper on reporting about the federal government. All were covering a protest at a church where an ICE agent was thought to be a leader. Whatever you say about the incursion, and in no way do I condone the interruption, religion is off limits under the Constitution, they were honestly covering it, not fomenting it. The Department of Justice (DOJ) went to two different judges, one at the appellate level, to get warrants. The judges refused. The DOJ then convened a grand jury to deliver an indictment. This is clearly a test case to see how far DOJ can go in prosecuting citizens for exercising their rights. Taken in conjunction with CBS and ABC paying Trump to stop lawsuits, Trump expressing his desire to get Jimmy Kimmel off the air (and he was for awhile), suing the New York Times and other media outlets and on and on, there is clearly an attempt to stifle reporters and to keep them from reporting what Trump does not want reported.

So much chaos all the time. It is easy to get overwhelmed or to give up. However, let’s not forget the Epstein files. Last Friday the DOJ released millions of documents and thousands of images. They admit that it is only half of it. Besides breaking the law, a law signed by Trump himself, purposely or carelessly the documents released identify some of the victims of the sexual abuse, but not the perpetrators. A multitude of reasons were given as to why the rest of the documents would not be released — can you spell cover up — but the most curious was that they would not release images depicting “death, physical abuse, or injury.” Well, that sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? For about half a second. Just saying that they would not release them in fact proves that such images exist. That raises a lot of questions. Who is in the pictures? What happened to them? Who killed, abused or injured the people in the pictures or videos? That such images are not released to the general public is not unreasonable, but who is investigating the circumstances surrounding them? We already know that we cannot trust the Trump DOJ to do a credible investigation that may implicate Trump or any of his well-heeled friends. Where is a credible third party to investigate them? The most recent release does not put the issue to rest. On top of all that, not only was Epstein running a child sex trafficking ring, there are plenty of hints in the documents released that he was probably also running a blackmail scheme. How can we trust that a convicted felon, adjudicated sex offender, instigator of an insurrection who is on tape bragging about groping and kissing women without their consent and saying “when you’re a star, they let you do it.” I for one, do not see how anything so far “exonerates” Trump.

Most disturbing of all, perhaps, is the FBI raid on the election headquarters in Fulton County Georgia. Fulton County is where most of Atlanta is located and where many Democrat voters live. As we all remember, it was the scene of many false, even ludicrous accusations about rigged elections. Is this part of Trump’s campaign to “prove” that he did not lose the 2020 election? Maybe. I see something worse at work.

This is clearly an effort to rig the mid-term elections this year and in 2028. It is both a trial run, and an attempt to keep Democrats from winning elections in Georgia. Most likely, the federal government will declare that they found illegalities perpetrated by the local election board and poll workers. This will cause the state-wide election board — packed with Republican supporters of Trump — to step in to ensure a “fair” election. Doubtless they will change the voting rules such as no mail-in ballots or early voting or whatever else they can come up with to disenfranchise as many potential voters as possible. An election interference wolf disguised as a free and fair election sheep. In my view, this is also a trial run for other Democrat heavy cities and states. Combine those actions with ever growing ICE and CBP agents in more blue cities and states near or around polling places acting like they currently are in Minneapolis. Intimidation leading to lower turnout. Maybe even using them to confiscate ballot boxes. The possibilities are endless. We now know the intricate, detailed and long standing plan for him to void the 2020 election that culminated in an attempt to overturn the government and planned to hang the Vice President and murder the Speaker of the House. He’s already done it once. Why would anyone think he won’t do it again? No one, including me, thought that he would try to overturn an election through violence. We were wrong. We cannot be wrong again. Last month in a wide-ranging interview with the New York Times Trump said that “I should have” had the National Guard seize ballot boxes in 2020. This is a direct assault on all of us as a nation.

To make matters ever more unsettling, Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) was there during the FBI raid in Fulton County. The DNI is responsible for all intelligence from throughout the government agencies and has no direct connection to the FBI. She is not empowered to oversee domestic law enforcement. She is, however, a known conspiracy theorist who believes all sorts of incredible falsehoods. She is also known to be a Russian sympathizer. Was she investigating Trump’s recent claim that Italian military satellites changed votes from Trump to Biden? Apparently, “China reportedly coordinated the whole operation,” one of his Truth Social posts reads. “The CIA oversaw it, the FBI covered it up, all to install Biden as a puppet.“? (I cannot make this up. This is where we are as a country.)

I am sick of politicians, political analysts and talking heads saying that Trump’s actions are very politically damaging to the Republican Party and to Trump. They opine that the Republicans will lose in a landslide to Democrats in the mid-term elections. The pundits wonder, therefore, as to why do the Trumpists keep doing unpopular things? Because, repeat after me, THEY DON’T CARE. They are in power, control the levers of power, and they do not plan to give up anything. Perhaps ever. Recall that 147 Republicans voted against certifying the 2020 election — even after the attack on the capital on 6 January when many of them ran for their lives. Now there are even more Trumpists in Congress. These folks are serious about taking over and holding all power in the country. We should not be limited in our imagination. If you can think of it, they already have. Autocracy rarely springs into being overnight. The institutions that hold up individual rights slowly erode until they are gone. They do not evaporate in one big push, but rather in lots of smaller, more manageable pushes until such actions are normalized and then its on to the next one. We are seeing it happen now.

These are dark days. More and more people are beginning to realize how serious the threat can be. Thankfully, we are also seeing more nationwide demonstrations as people begin to push back. I hope that they continue to grow. It isn’t too late, but we can all see big trouble on the horizon.

An Insecure or the Most Insecure President?

Posted: January 19, 2026 | Author: Tom | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Arctic Ocean, Denmark, Greenland, Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), Maria Machado, Martin Luther King Day, Minneapolis, NATO, Nobel Peace Prize, Norway, Russia, Vladimir Putin | Leave a comment

Nuuk, the capital of Greenland. (Getty Images)

Today is a federal holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, despite the current administration’s efforts. Thanks to Trump’s anti-DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) efforts, you cannot get into a national park today without paying, which we used to be able to do today and as is done on several federal holidays. However, for the first time you can now get in for free on June 14. Although that is Flag Day in the United States — which is not a federal holiday — one can get in for free because it is Trump’s birthday, according to the official website of the National Park Service. Nothing is awarded to anyone without Trump becoming jealous and trying to take it for himself. We have a six year old for a president. I am sorry he is so insecure about how people view him, but his insecurity is ruining our country.

Like most bullies, nothing is ever enough. The primary opposition leader in Venezuela Maria Corina Machado earned the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize that Trump insisted should be his. Last week Ms. Machado presented her Nobel medal to Trump, hoping that he would help her to get rid of the Maduro regime in Venezuela and help to move the country towards democracy. Instead she got a bag of Trump “merch” and a photo op. Trump prefers to work with the murderous Maduro regime — every member of that dictatorship remains in power except for Nicolas Maduro himself — rather than to help the people of Venezuela improve their lives. Taking someone else’s Nobel Peace Prize and pretending it is your own is cringe worthy. I am embarrassed for the man and for our country.

But it gets even more ridiculous and yet serious. It could be the focus of many a psychiatrists’ case study, but this has real world consequences.

Trump sent a text (!) to the Prime Minister of Norway Jonas Store informing him that because Norway did not give him the Peace Prize — as we all know, the government of Norway does not pick the winners, an independent five member committee decides, as it has since 1901 (“life is hard, but it’s harder when you’re stupid”) — he was going to take Greenland, which is a semi-independent territory of Denmark. The text was later put into a demarche, or letter, to other governments and delivered to their Ambassadors. Here is the text (punctuation, grammar and capitalization as in the original):

“Dear Jonas, Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United State of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only a boat that landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT“

Wow. There is so much to unpack there it is hard to know where to begin. Once again, it shows a complete and utter misunderstanding — ignorance? — of how NATO works. We have military access to Greenland and Denmark has been our staunchest ally for over two hundred years. If we want to build more bases, they would allow it. You have heard the arguments before, so, what is really going on?

One explanation might be what always drives Trump. Money. Greenland is rich in natural resources, and probably has vast deposits of rare earth minerals which are crucial to burgeoning industries. But again, through diplomacy and cooperation the U.S. could get access to those minerals.

As the sea ice continues to recede due to climate change, year round passages are beginning to appear in the Arctic region. This opens up new commercial shipping routes and also has military implications. The solution, again, is NATO. Obviously Russia has a long coastline on the Arctic Ocean, but so does Canada, a member of NATO as well as the U.S. and Scandinavian countries.

The Artic map created by U.S. State Department geographers.

In 2023 to prevent a president from unilaterally withdrawing from NATO, Senators Kaine (D-VA) and Rubio (R-FL) (hmmm) successfully included a provision in the 2024 National Defense Appropriations Act that requires a two-thirds majority of the Senate or a law passed by the entire Congress in order to withdraw from NATO. Legal experts differ as to the effectiveness of that provision and possible efforts to litigate it in court. Trump claims that as president, he alone has the power to withdraw.

But there is another way. Get kicked out.

This is what Trump’s game plan may be and it is back to Russia, Russia, Russia again. Nothing would please Vladimir Putin more than to see the U.S. withdraw from — or get kicked out of — Europe and Trump always defaults to what Putin wants. If the U.S. leaves NATO, under any circumstance, there will be many “Ukraines” as Putin endeavors to re-create the Russian Empire. In the worst case scenario for most of the world — but the best case for Russia — if the U.S. tries to take Greenland by force, and Denmark invokes Article Five of the treaty which says that an attack on one country is an attack on all, and other former allies respond to the U.S. attack, fighting could break out. The U.S. would be at war with its allies. Unthinkable? Of course. At least until the last few months. Reporting indicates that senior military officials in the Pentagon are pushing back hard on any use of the U.S. military in Greenland or anywhere else protected by NATO. It is not clear whether they will be listened to at all. Numerous NATO countries have already moved military forces to Greenland for “exercises.” Even if no fighting breaks out, irreparable harm has been done to our relationship with Europe. Put simply, we are no longer trustworthy or a reliable ally.

Trump threatened to put tariffs on the nations leading the resistance to his taking Greenland. (Which is an entirely different area of discussion as we await a Supreme Court decision as to the legality of existing tariffs.) Perhaps the European Union (EU) will respond in a way that creates a financial crisis for the U.S. They could impose their own tariffs, or sell U.S. assets or bonds or block U.S. firms from doing business in Europe. If other former, but not NATO, friends and allies do the same our economy will collapse.

Multiple media outlets are reporting that several NATO countries are limiting or stopping their intelligence cooperation with the U.S., especially with respect to Ukraine, because of suspicions that the information may be shared with Russia by U.S. intelligence agencies. We are markedly less secure than we were one year ago.

The lawlessness continues in other areas. Last Friday the Department of Justice (DOJ) told a federal judge that they do not have to follow the law and release the Epstein files because the law has no enforcement mechanism and no entity or person has standing to sue them to force their release. All that I can think is that there must really be something that they want to hide.

Meanwhile, in addition to 3,000 Immigration and Border Patrol agents terrorizing the streets of Minnesota, the Department of Defense (DOD) issued a Warning Order (notification to prepare to deploy) to 1500 paratroopers to move from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage Alaska to Minneapolis. The DOJ also announced that they are pursuing a criminal investigation into Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for allegedly conspiring to obstruct federal immigration enforcement, despite their mostly successful efforts to keep protests peaceful. The Trump regime is clearly trying to provoke a serious incident so that they can take over a major American city as an “example” to the rest of the country to stay in line with their repressive policies.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are in deep trouble.

As our government acts in our name to prop up a murderous dictatorship, attack our allies, suppress our fellow citizens, and break the law, we can try to take a moment on this day meant to honor a great American man of peace and remember his thoughts on peace and justice.

“True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.“

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.“

Dr. Martin Luther King (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968)

Don’t Believe Your Lying Eyes

Posted: January 10, 2026 | Author: Tom | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 6 January Insurrection, Donald Trump, Greenland, Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), International Law, NATO, Oil, Renee Nicole Good, Russia, Stephen Miller, Venezuela | Leave a comment

An “X” post by Katie Miller, White House staffer and wife of Stephen Miller Deputy Chief of Staff, regarding questions about the U.S. taking over Greenland.

The new year is only ten days old and already I am exhausted by all of the shenanigans pulled by the Trump regime. Trump and his advisers are dropping any pretense of trying to persuade us, as citizens, that their actions are in our best interests. From Venezuela to Minnesota we now know that they have only their own best interests guiding them. International, national or local laws are only guidelines. If the law is not convenient to get what they want, then damn the law, they will do it anyway. Am I exaggerating? No. Let Stephen Miller, the power behind Trump’s throne explain the world view of Trump and his advisers. In an interview earlier this week with Jake Tapper of CNN he explained (actually he shouted, as he does in every interview I have seen) how they will act towards Greenland.

“The United States should have Greenland as part of the United States. There’s no need to even think or talk about this in the context that you’re asking, of a military operation. Nobody’s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland.” Then he added more.“We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time.”

Will we really invade Greenland? I have no idea. There is no strategic reason to do so, despite the lies coming from the administration. Greenland is a semi-independent Danish territory. The Danes are, perhaps, our strongest and most supportive ally in NATO. There are treaties and agreements that go back to the early 1950’s about the use of Greenland for military activity. If the U.S. wanted to build another base there (we have one already called Pituffik Space Base formerly known as Thule Air Force Base) we could and the Danes and Greenlanders would welcome it. Greenland is on the western flank of the Greenland, Iceland, U.K. Gap (GIUK Gap). That gap is the avenue used by Russian naval forces, especially their ballistic missile submarines, to get from the ice free year-round port in Murmansk to the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean. NATO has significant anti-submarine warfare (ASW) assets monitoring the gap. There is no military reason for the U.S. to occupy Greenland or to take it away from Denmark.

There is only one real reason and it is the same as for our incursion into Venezuela. Trump wants it. He wants to dominate the Western Hemisphere and he wants to demonstrate his domination. He also wants to make money off any endeavor that the U.S, undertakes, but that is almost a given after nearly a year of watching his policy decisions from tariffs to oil to the rare earth elements believed to be in large deposits in Greenland. Trump has no desire to be a part of, or abide by any international treaty. Last week he withdrew the U.S. from sixty-six international organizations.

Everything that Trump and his minions said about Venezuela were lies. Many of us knew it at the time, but now the whole world knows it. It was never about drugs, or democracy or giving Venezuelans a better life, it was simply another grab for money in the form of oil. We sent our sons and daughters and husbands and wives into full-fledged combat so that Trump can look tough and steal oil. Does that make our military forces mercenaries? Fighting for money? Of course, as usual, he did not know what he was talking about because either none of his Cabinet members did their homework, or because Trump did not listen, but the truth remains, U.S. oil companies have mostly moved on from Venezuela and have no intention of going back.

As usual, as multiple oil executives explained to him yesterday as to why they were not interested, Trump waved his hand and promised to make the real world problems go away. As one of my favorite sayings goes, “nothing is impossible for the person that doesn’t have to do it.” (I am no geologist or oil industry expert, but even I know that Venezuelan oil is hard to extract, hard to refine, the infrastructure would have to be rebuilt costing at least 100 billion dollars and the government and internal unrest are not conducive to safe operations any time in the near future. Not to mention that the cost of oil right now is low and therefore barely profitable and U.S. producers use a lot of U.S. and Canadian shale oil.)

Here is the real “tell.” At last count we have already seized five “ghost” tankers that are headed to the U.S. worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Trump announced that Venezuela will “give” us the oil now in storage in Venezuela because of the embargo. All together, that oil could be worth several billion dollars. Earlier he announced on Truth Social, “this oil will be sold at its market price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!” CNN reports that the money will not go into the U.S. Treasury. Instead it will “utilize a collection of international oil traders and offshore bank accounts to sell the oil and manage the resulting cash.” A billion dollar slush fund for Trump! What could go wrong? Does anyone still doubt what the real purpose of the incursion into Venezuela was all about? Does Congress remember that we have a Constitution? Article I gives control of the purse strings to Congress, but I have little hope of anything coming from them to check his power.

This same lawless exercise of raw power is evident in our domestic policies as well. One example is ignoring the law — not a request, not a subpoena, not a committee hearing — to turn over the Epstein files. They were to be turned over by 19 December and now the Department of Justice (DOJ) is saying that they have released less than one percent of the documents in the file. We should not expect to see any real progress on that front anytime soon, if at all. Stonewall. Deflect. Ignore. We know the routine by now.

More tragically are the efforts to remove immigrants from our country. Many, not all, that are being rounded up and hunted down are here legally, either through the Temporary Protective Status (TPS) program or because they followed the rules and officially applied for asylum. A mere fraction are “the worst of the worst.” As reported in the New Republic, on New Year’s Eve the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agency announced a new 100 million dollar recruitment effort that ICE called “a wartime recruitment” strategy that will target people “who have attended UFC fights, listened to patriotic podcasts, or shown an interest in guns and tactical gear.” Starting last summer, they used social media to advertise the hiring of more agents as a chance to “Serve your country! Defend your culture! No undergraduate degree required!” Since then they have reportedly hired 12,000 new agents, more than doubling the size of the agency. I will not speculate on the quality of the hires, or the extremely shortened training they receive, but when it is all put together, there is a troubling theme to the recruitment effort. Think about the term “defend your culture.” Do you honestly believe that they are appealing to Jews, Muslims, Latinos or any other minority group in our country? There is a very specific type of person they are hiring and while the horrific killing of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis has sparked protests around the country, we can probably expect more killing. Our highest government officials lied about the situation before her body was removed from the scene. The ICE agent that shot her is on tape after he shot her and as she crashed saying “f***ing b*itch.” As if she deserved to get shot in the face three times for trying to help her neighbors. There is a sense for those within this administration that they are untouchable. No one is held accountable. If there was any doubt that a cover-up would ensue, that doubt was erased when the FBI announced that no Minnesota or Minneapolis law enforcement agencies would be included in the investigation of the murder of Renee or be allowed access to evidence.

We need to protest, peacefully but clearly. This is not the America I love and served for twenty eight years. It is important to remain calm but resolute. My gut tells me that Trump is hoping that these various confrontations result in a major escalation of violence so that he can declare martial law and cancel the upcoming elections, or at least severely inhibit them, under the guise of national security, their go to explanation for everything illegal that they do. But, don’t take my word for it. Here is Trump talking to a gathering of Republicans. “You gotta win the midterms ’cause, if we don’t win the midterms, it’s just gonna be – I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me, I’ll get impeached.”

He is weaponizing the government and his supporters. When his administration tells ICE and other instruments of repression that “we’ve got your backs” he is telling them that anything goes. For proof, look no further than pardoning all of those that tried to overthrow our government. Then, last week on 6 January, the fifth anniversary of the coup, an official website of the United States of America went up that repeated every lie ever told about that day. (You can find it here. Be ready to be disgusted.) According to the official government website, “peaceful patriots” were framed that day. The attempted coup was really staged by Democrats with the help of the law enforcement officers at the capitol.

There are no limits. Trump believes that he can do whatever he wants and take whatever he wants. Or as he said in response to a New York Times question about obeying international laws and treaties, “I don’t need international law, I’m not looking to hurt people.” He was asked if there were limits to what he could do and he replied, “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

Stay vigilant.

That Was The Year That Was

Posted: December 30, 2025 | Author: Tom | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Authoritarianism, DOJ, Donald Trump, FBI, Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), NATO, Russia, Signalgate, Tariffs, Ukraine, United States Constitution, US AID | Leave a comment

The plaque below an image of an autopen signing former President Joe Biden’s signature, displayed in place of a portrait on Trump’s “Walk of Fame” at the White House. Apparently, he has nothing better to do than to mock his predecessors and to put his social media screeds in bronze. (picture by Jessica Koscielniak of Reuters)

“The only thing that has truly served as an anchor of the United States of America is that we have been, and by the grace of God we always will be, a Christian nation.”

J.D. Vance on 21 December 2025 at the “Turning Point USA” national rally. As usual, a member of the Trump regime ignores the Constitution, specifically the First Amendment. The founding fathers clearly spelled out that there was no religious foundation to the Constitution.

Many of us prefer to look forward at the end of a year hoping that the new year will be better — regardless of whether the last year was personally good or bad. It is also a tradition to gather lists of key events, books, movies, songs and other notable achievements from the past year. I could not resist the temptation to do the same for the Trump regime and gather the ten worst things that they have done to our country. It was hard. Not because of a lack of anything to say. Rather, because there was so much to choose from. For example, Ron Filipkowski of Meidas+ posted the top 500 worst things that Trump did since taking office. There is a lot to choose from scanning the spectrum from trying to overturn the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship via an Executive Order (now before the Supreme Court) to turning the White House, the People’s House, into his own personal vision of Mar-A-Lago meets Versailles. In looking back, it is astounding how much our government has been corrupted in eleven months. I had forgotten some of his worst efforts because everyday we get more and more incredibly poor actions, decisions, and self-enriching “deals.” It is hard to keep track.

I am still at a loss as to how he got re-elected. The best analogy I have heard is to compare it to hurricane warnings and how people react. His first term was predicted to be a Category Five storm of destruction. For most people, it was only a Category Two. As they often due in the south, people evacuated for a “five” but would have ridden out a “two.” Predictions of a second Category Five storm are received skeptically since they survived and the predictions were wrong about the first one. No one believes the predictions. “It can’t be all that bad. We rode it out before.” And here we are.

Many of you may disagree with my list or the order of the rankings. Feel free to let me know where I went wrong. In order from bottom to top — the worst — is my list.

Destroyed Valued Institutions. The Trump administration is systematically destroying or changing our military, cultural, educational, and other institutions. For example, the Smithsonian Institution has been directed to remove from The African American History Museum, The Women’s History Museum and the American Art Museum any exhibits that promote “divisive narratives” (discrimination and slavery) or that promote “improper ideology” (does not conform to Project 2025). It also means firing senior military officers and other officials that are women or minorities. By the administration’s definition, they only got to where they were because they are “DEI hires.” A potent indicator of the racist and misogynistic tendencies of this administration.
Undermined the Rule of Law. Trump uses the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), two institutions that were the gold standard for justice and law and order throughout the world, as his personal tools of retribution. He has directed the prosecution of his perceived enemies from the former FBI Director Jim Comey to former President Barack Obama (yes, in order to prove the “Russia, Russia, Russia hoax” is really an ongoing conspiracy to rig elections.) On his first day in office he pardoned or commuted sentences for all of those involved in the January 6 attempted coup. Most of those pardoned had either pleaded guilty or were found guilty at trial for breaking the law and attempting to overthrow the government. They also injured 174 law enforcement officers, four of whom later died. Every FBI agent and federal prosecutor that had anything to do with investigating and prosecuting J-6 was fired.
Used Grift and Graft to Enrich Himself. If you are a “crypto bro” or a billionaire, or a staunch defender of Trump and you broke the law, you have nothing to worry about. A “contribution” of a few million dollars and you can walk free. Pardoned of all crimes. Which also means you do not have to pay your victims the millions of dollars that you took from them in your schemes. They were all suckers anyway. Need approval from the government for a corporate merger? No problem. Just make a “contribution” to Trump’s PAC or ballroom or buy a few million of his meme coins. If you have a spare five million dollars you can get a Trump Gold Card and become a citizen.
Destroyed Our Health and the Environment. The two are interlinked. First, get rid of the scientists. Whether it be health care or climate change, like everything else (these folks have a limited vocabulary) it is a hoax. No need to spend money on research to keep people healthy. It is all waste, fraud and abuse. Fire most of the experts at the National Institute of Health (NIH) and Center for Disease Control (CDC) and replace them with non-doctors and influencers. Vaccines? No need to worry about that even though diseases we thought we eradicated are making a come back. Polio anyone? It is just natural selection. Hey! Look at all that land in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge (AWR) in Alaska. Perfect for drilling for oil and gas. Clean coal rules! Renewable energy is a hoax (again). Besides, wind turbines spoil the view. Deregulation is the way to go. Make toxic emissions great again!
Demonstrated Incompetence with Signalgate. Is there is any better symbol of the incompetence, abrasiveness and contemptuousness of the Secretary of Defense than putting out tactical attack information over an unclassified network hours before pilots and others were going in harms way to attack the Houthis in Yemen than the scandal surrounding Signalgate? Hegseth checks all the boxes for what is wrong with this administration. And no accountability.
Destroyed the Economy with Arbitrary Tariffs. The ups and downs and pure arbitrariness of this administration is fully on display with their policies around tariffs. Besides outright lies that the country of manufacture pays the extra money — they don’t, American companies and consumers pay the tax — it is the sheer lack of understanding or consistency that makes it worse. Trump seems to think that tariffs are some magic panacea to solve all of our problems. Recall that he earned his nickname of TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) because one phone call — good or bad — changed what a country or industry would be charged that day. Tomorrow it could be different. Good bye strategic planning and hello chaos.
Conducted Illegal Murders in the Caribbean Sea and East Pacific. Trump continues to murder people on boats at sea in international waters. Drug dealers or not, there are legal processes to deal with criminals. Extrajudicial executions where Trump is judge, jury and executioner is not how we, as Americans, roll. This is not about stopping drugs. As I have written before, this is not how the flow of drugs into the U.S. will stop. This is pure and simple a case of Trump throwing around his weight because he can and he wants to rule the Western Hemisphere. More money into his pockets and his buddies pockets from larger access to oil is a benefit. So far, the administration has provided no proof of anything that they are claiming is a justification. Indeed, the evidence points in other directions, especially when Trump pardons a convicted drug kingpin who is quoted as saying that he will “stuff the cocaine right up the noses of the gringos.”
Expanded Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Raids. Trump and his minions continue to insist that they are only arresting and deporting the “worst of the worst” criminals who are not in the country legally. Somehow, as the publication ProPublica has been able to document, there are at least 170 U.S. citizens arrested in 2025 by ICE and the Border Patrol that we know about. Not arrested for interfering with legal arrests but swept up in raids because of the language they spoke or the way they looked. A year ago who among us would have thought we would have a paramilitary force on our streets, out of uniform with no identifying markings, driving unmarked cars, wearing masks, and that they would snatch people off the street without a warrant and spirit them away to a detention center in another state without legal representation? It seems to me that rhymes a lot with a form of national government that starts with an “f”.
Undermined Allies and Hindered Ukraine. It is astounding to witness the degree that Trump will go to assuage Putin’s every whim. Putin is determined to restore the Russian/Soviet Empire. Trump, apparently, wants to help him or at least stand by with admiration at how powerful he is. He continues to denigrate NATO and our other allies and takes Putin’s side in every way. We can speculate as to why, but Trump, and now his administration, stand by a dictator that invaded a democracy rather than supporting that democracy. He continually pushes Ukraine to end the war by giving in to Russian demands and expects Russia to do nothing. Threatening Denmark over Greenland does nothing to dissuade our allies from their increasing realization that the U.S. has the worst possible motives. It fits Trump’s world view that only three leaders matter in the world today, Trump, Putin and Xi. They are powerful and everyone else is weak and therefore unimportant. Eighty years of a generally stable world order is fading away. We may never get it back. Even if a new administration tries to renew and strengthen our ties to Europe, Canada and elsewhere, the damage is done. Two Trump terms taught the world not to trust us. We are no longer a reliable partner and therefore they are going to look elsewhere to strengthen their security and economies. We will become ever more isolated.
Shutdown US AID. In my view the shuttering of nearly every U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) program is the worst thing this administration has done on many different levels. It is amoral, it is un-American and it is short sighted. In practical terms thousands of people around the world have already died who could have been saved. Over the next few years hundreds of thousands will needlessly die from diseases and malnutrition that could have been prevented. Despicable. The U.S. has always been a force for good in the world. Now we are despised. It was also a symbol of soft power — giving people insight into America and its people and that we are basically kind. That can pay dividends in the geo-political world, the intelligence world and the peace keeping world. In a practical selfish sense, those programs also gave us access to and “eyes on” governments, movements and potential threats — natural, military or terrorist — around the world. That is lost. At home, thousands of people’s jobs depended on that aid as well. Farmers, truck drivers, shippers, dockworkers and others that depended on supplying those programs for their livelihoods. We should be ashamed.

If J.D. Vance thinks we are a “Christian nation” then he must be talking about a different Christianity than the one I know. This administration is perhaps the most un-Christian like in its policies concerning dealing with real human beings that I know about. What he really means are the principles outlined in their operating manual Project 2025. A white Christian nationalist nation ruled by powerful white men.

If asked on a scale of one to ten, with ten as doing great, how bad the administration has been to date, I would give it a three. It has been worse than I expected — not in what they have tried to do because they told us exactly what was coming — but because I did not think that they would be able to pull it off. I especially did not think that they would be able to do it as fast as they have. So, I give it a three because they are capable of doing even worse, more damaging things and I have to leave room to rank it. Call it the Trump Scale.

And yet. I believe in the United States of America. I believe that the majority of us see exactly what is going on, where we are headed and how bad it could be unless we raise our voices and register our dissatisfaction. I believe that Trump has built a house of fake gold gilded cards and that soon, it will come crashing down. How bad that crash will be is anyone’s guess, but from it we will restore our foundational values, put morality back in our policies and move forward as a renewed democratic republic.

Best wishes to all for a great 2026. As Sergeant Phil Esterhaus would say at the end of roll call on the television police drama Hill Street Blues, “Hey! Be careful out there!”

Party Like It Is 1880!

Posted: December 23, 2025 | Author: Tom | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Donald Trump, Gunboat Diplomacy, Kleptocracy, MAGA, Monroe Doctrine, NATO, Russia, The Epstein Files, Venezuela, Western Hemisphere | Leave a comment

The new sign defacing the memorial to President John F. Kennedy on December 19, 2025. (Getty Images)

After eleven months of the Trump administration, I am exhausted by the antics, crass behavior, crude language and the methodical destruction of our democracy and cultural foundations. Perhaps you are equally exhausted. However, after a breather to enjoy the holidays and the company of friends and family, we will need to get back to pointing out that nothing this regime does is “normal.” It is not “just politics.” It is a systematic assault on the United States in an attempt to change our fundamental way of life and to establish a kleptocracy that enriches Trump and his buddies and that keeps the rest of us down while they accumulate billions. (Even Doctor Evil from the Austin Powers movies — “one billion dollars” — would be an underachiever and not in their league.) It is said that Trump’s frame of reference is the 80’s. I would suggest that it is the 1880’s. Robber barons? Check. Close down immigration? Check. Discriminate against minorities? Check. Build big, slow outdated battleships? Check. Lesson the power of women in politics, society, and business? Check. Restore gunboat diplomacy? Check. Create banana republics in Latin America? Working on it. Consolidate power in the hands of a few white Christian men? Almost there. Like the old saying goes, history rarely repeats itself but a lot of times it rhymes.

After nearly a year of their relentless pursuit of crazy, I am noticing a pattern. It appears to me that the Project 2025 authors and advocates (Miller, Vought, Vance to name a few) are working to attain their goals while keeping grandpa with the addled brain busy with inane “branding” exercises where Trump runs around doing landscaping and tearing down public buildings and defacing monuments (the newly renamed Trump Institute of Peace is another example). No one is actually governing. While Trump sleeps through Cabinet meetings, they go about developing their individual pet projects and then do them in any manner they see fit. Legality, morality or ethical behavior play no role in the pursuit of their goals. If Trump likes to rename organizations, agencies and monuments then he should rename the Department of Justice (DOJ) the Department of Retribution and Bribe Collecting (DORBC). If you pay, you walk away — no matter the scope of your crimes. If you criticize Trump you may be prosecuted for accidentally checking the wrong box on a form. The Department of Defense (DOD) could be renamed The Department of Toys for the Regime’s Enjoyment (DOTRE). There is no coherent policy coming from Trump as he is focused only on destroying his perceived enemies, adding billions of dollars to his personal accounts and pretending to be powerful. All of his advisors are world class liars. It is no longer about Democrats and Republicans or even MAGA, in my view we should focus only on morality versus immorality. Everything is justified by claiming that it is a national security threat whether it is approved and effective wind farms along the East Coast or tariffs or blowing up small boats in the Caribbean. Everything, legal or not, is justified under the rubric of national security. They clearly believe that there will be no accountability and no one can stop them. They may be incompetent, but they clearly have a plan. Cruelty is the path to achieving their goals. When one steps back and looks at the big picture it is clear that Trump is mostly a figurehead while the boys in the back of the room pursue their agenda. There is a reason as to why they do what they do, no matter how random it may seem in the moment.

Examples abound. The new National Security Strategy is nearly incoherent and undoes eighty years of a working world order. In addition to enumerating why Trump is the best president ever and all the other recent presidencies were horrible, it lays out The Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. In other words, according to Trump, we own the Western Hemisphere. All hail! We will do what we want and destroy anyone or anything that gets in our way. It calls for the redeployment of military assets to the hemisphere and away from other regions. It also essentially claims that natural resources in the region should go to the United States through our American companies in order to strengthen our position in the region. The desire for regime change in Venezuela makes sense in that context. Venezuela has the biggest known oil reserves in the world. Trump wants to make the fossil fuel barons happy so that they will keep giving him millions in “contributions.” He will keep repeating that Venezuela “stole” “our” oil and land (they did not — they nationalized the oil industry in the 1970’s and paid the oil companies nearly a billion dollars a piece in compensation). If we are going to be the hegemonic power in the Western Hemisphere then his noise about Greenland and Canada makes sense. It is our American destiny, not the rantings of a man that is clearly declining in physical and mental health. (Did you see his prime time address to the nation last week? I watched — a waste of 18 minutes I won’t get back as there was no new news there — and was worried for the man. He is not well.) Borders are arbitrary, in their telling of history, therefore they can be redrawn or even ignored. Denmark, NATO and the European Union, not to mention the Greenlanders, are taking his comments seriously. Putin is loving it. Imagine if Trump takes Greenland by force. That is a NATO country attacking another NATO country — not only the end of NATO but a green light to Russia to take what it wants in Europe. (So long Baltic states.)

And then, there are the Epstein files. Exhibit number 27 that the Trump regime easily disregards any law that they do not want to follow. The law required DOJ to turn over all of the files last Friday. It specifies the way it should be done, exactly what needs to be turned over and other specific details. All ignored. The Attorney General of the United States is purposely breaking a law passed by a nearly unanimous vote in Congress (one Representative voted no) and signed into law by the President of the United States. They do not care. It also indicates to me that something really bad must be in there. Way too much effort to obscure, hide and cover-up for there to be nothing in them. Even Trump’s body language whenever he is asked about the situation shows his fear of what may be in the files. (My own theory is that he knew about the sex trafficking even if he did not personally get involved. In my opinion, his real fear is that his and Epstein’s money laundering operation in Florida and elsewhere in the 1990’s and early 2000’s will be exposed. Real estate deals broke up their friendship. The Russian’s know. A lot of it was for their oligarchs.)

The most disgusting part of the entire Epstein situation is that nobody in the administration — not Trump, not the Attorney General, not the Vice President — has expressed any sympathy or explanation or concern about the hundreds, perhaps thousands of survivors, most of whom were young girls when they were trafficked. Not a word. Trump only cares about Trump. I am still surprised that millions of people, some of whom work for him, believe that he cares about them. All loyalty and concern goes only one way.

As a retired naval officer I must make at least a short comment on Trump’s announcement yesterday that he was, personally, because he is an expert on aesthetics, designing and building the Trump class of “battleships.” There is so much wrong about the whole thing that I do not want to waste your time. I see it as another scheme to keep grandpa occupied and to make him feel like the king that he wants to be. It is yet another branding exercise — the one thing that he knows how to do. That particular ship will never be built. I will leave it at that.

Please take a moment to think about the 15,000 Americans in uniform in the Caribbean Sea that are Trump’s pawns as he and Hegseth pretend to act like they know what they are doing. Those folks will be spending the holidays away from their friends and families on an ill-defined mission to achieve unknown objectives.

Take time to enjoy the holidays be it Chanukah, Christmas or in your own spiritual way, Take some time to contemplate and enjoy the wonderful things that still exist in this world. Best wishes to all for a joyful season!

Disgusting!

Posted: August 17, 2025 | Author: Tom | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Donald Trump, Historical Perspective, NATO, putin, Russia, Sanctions, Ukraine, US-Russia Summit, Vladimir Putin, War, War Crimes | Leave a comment

Nauseating! Embarrassing! Revolting! Stomach-churning! Mind-boggling!

These are but a few of the phrases I have seen over the last few days following the spectacle that took place at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson near Anchorage, Alaska on Friday. The best thing that can be said about it is that the Secretary of Defense did not rename the facility after a Confederate general while he was there. Right from the beginning, the optics were horrible as Russian President Vladimir Putin looked like he was in charge while the President of the United States looked like he was a lost puppy that finally found his master. Trump simply could not keep his hands off Putin.

Think about this. Trump gave full honors to an indicted war criminal that is responsible for kidnapping thousands of children from Ukraine and indiscriminately bombing civilians including a maternity ward, schools, numerous hospitals and countless other buildings that have no military value whatsoever. Barbaric atrocities such as those against the poor people of Bucha, Ukraine should not be forgotten. Putin has a warrant out for his arrest by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and Trump gives him a hero’s welcome. Then again, Trump is a convicted felon 34 times over, an adjudicated sex offender, indicted for mishandling (stealing) classified documents, indicted for trying to overturn the 2020 election and impeached twice. The law and order president that pardoned nearly 2,000 convicts surrounding the assault and ransacking of the capital, put a convicted child sex trafficker in a minimum security prison, and pardoned convicted drug traffickers probably felt right at home with his counterpart in crime.

I am willing to opine that Trump went into the summit ill-prepared and thought that he could just schmooze his way to an agreement over Ukraine. Despite the fact that Putin has been unwavering in his demands for ending the war that Russia started. Somehow, people, including Trump, blame Ukraine for the war. It might help to start with the facts if one wants to solve a problem. But then, Trump has always been fact challenged. Putin had him for lunch — probably the reason Putin left early before the ceremonial lunch Trump had planned — as he had already filled up on embarrassing Trump.

Putin schooled Trump on how power really works in the world. Not only did he control the narrative, he spoke first in briefing the results of the talks (in diplomatic circles the host country speaks first) and laid out his demands. Putin did not agree to a ceasefire, and like the nickname TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out), Trump dropped his demands for a ceasefire before negotiations continue (he says that they usually do not work, anyway) and dropped imposing further sanctions on Russian oil exports to other countries. Could it be because Putin agreed with Trump that the 2020 election was rigged — because of mail-in voting according to the war criminal — and that the war with Ukraine would not have started if Trump were president in 2022? With Trump, flattery will get you whatever you want, especially if you are a ruthless dictator.

Note that no European nations or organizations were present, despite the fact that European security rests heavily on the outcome of the largest land war in Europe since World War II, and not to mention that Ukraine — the country that was invaded — had no representation. On the up side, many observers were worried that Trump would do his best Neville Chamberlain impersonation and declare “peace in our time” while handing over the Ukrainians to Russian subjugation. Thankfully, that did not happen. Yet. During the press brief (no questions from the press were allowed) Putin looked and acted elated and full of vigor. Trump looked defeated and tired.

Putin lectured the world from that podium on U.S. territory. His position has not changed. As he said, until the “root causes” of the war are resolved, there will be no peace. What are his root causes? His goal is to effectively, if not actually, return Ukraine to its role in the Soviet Union prior to the fall of the Berlin wall. Total domination. Putin claims that his goal is to “demilitarize and denazify” Ukraine. That means a “neutral” Ukraine with no NATO guarantees for Ukraine’s security, no strong Ukrainian military, and that Ukraine recognize that Crimea belongs to Russia and cede the Donetsk region of Ukraine to Russia. (The Donetsk was Ukraine’s most populous region with much of its industrial capacity before the war.)

So, essentially, here is what happened. Putin came to Alaska (which some in Russia consider still to be a part of their country), got a tremendous photo op with the leader (?) of the free world including a one-on-one ride in the presidential limousine thereby gaining prestige and increased power in his own country and the rest of the world; lectured Trump on the history of Russia and its relationship with Ukraine, including that the Ukrainians are really Russians with a different accent; laid out his non-negotiable demands to end the war that he started; refused to talk to the press; snubbed Trump’s ceremonial luncheon; cut the meeting time in half; got back on his plane and left. Meanwhile Trump in his remarks mumbled something about how the meeting was “very useful” and adopted Putin’s talking point that a cease-fire was not needed and that only a complete peace agreement was satisfactory. All taking place while more innocent Ukrainian civilians, children, women, and men continue to have drones and missiles rain down on them and people continue to die. Trump gives the word “deal” the worst possible meaning. He has no idea what a real deal might be. The only deals he knows are how to swindle people on real estate sales.

I have no problem with the U.S. and Russia meeting to try and solve the issues surrounding the war. I do have a problem with a fawning President of the United States adopting the talking points of a war criminal and not including Ukraine in the discussions. Rightly, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will not accept any agreement of which they are not a part. Their slogan could be “nothing about us without us.” President Zelenskyy is scheduled to meet with Trump tomorrow in Washington D.C. Their last meeting did not go well as Trump and his henchmen bullied Mr. Zelenskyy telling him he had “no cards” to play in the negotiations. Trump proved on Friday that he is the one being taken for his lunch money at the card table.

Russia and Putin only understand power. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of history knows that the only way to get Putin’s attention is through strength, not schmoozing. If Trump is serious about ending the war in Ukraine he should immediately put sanctions on Russian oil to third parties (their illegal oil exports are about the only thing keeping Russia economically afloat), increase the number and lethality of U.S. and NATO weapons to Ukraine, remove any restrictions on their use, including the current limited range into Russia proper and work to completely isolate Putin and Russia on the international stage.

Instead, we got one of history’s most pathetic showings by a U.S. president in international negotiations that anyone can remember. It was a bad day for America.

Appeasement Never Succeeds

Posted: April 25, 2025 | Author: Tom | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: America First, Appeasement, Crimea, Donald Trump, NATO, Russia, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Vlodymyr Zelenskyy, War | Leave a comment

“Stopping the war, stopping from taking the whole country, pretty big concession.”

Trump on 24 April 2025 when asked in the Oval Office as to what concessions Russia is offering to bring about the negotiated end of its war on Ukraine.

It has been clear for some time that the U.S. position on the war in Ukraine is the same as Russia’s. We have now switched sides in negotiations to end the conflict. Trump and his advisors put the blame on Ukraine and President Vlodymyr Zelenskyy for starting the war and for its continuation. Facts be damned, it is the way that Trump says it is and he is hopping mad that the Ukrainians will not give in to his demands.

Russia invaded Crimea, a part of Ukraine, in early 2014 following in the wake of the ouster of then Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych — a Russian proxy. Special forces personnel in unmarked uniforms — the “little green men” as they were dubbed at the time — seized key positions throughout the region and Russia formally annexed Crimea on 18 March 2014. Although the invasion was condemned throughout much of the world, Russia continues to claim that Crimea is rightfully theirs. This was the first step in Vladimir Putin’s plan to regain Ukraine in his quest to restore the Russian Empire.

Step two was the rise of pro-Russian paramilitary groups in the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donbas in the spring of 2014. The Ukrainian military sought to retake the area and a long bloody stand-off ensued. Russia continued to arm, train and support the separatists in the conflict, with the intent of eventually retaking all of Ukraine.

Step three was the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian special forces and regular army forces on 24 February 2022. Mr. Putin declared that it was necessary to conduct a “special military operation” to protect the people in eastern Ukraine and to remove the “neo-Nazis” in charge of the Ukrainian government. Those officials, according to Mr. Putin, were conniving with NATO to invade Russia and were developing nuclear weapons to use against Russia. The Russians had a duty to attack and bring about the “demilitarization and denazification” of Ukraine. The surprise attack failed and a long and bloody conflict continues.

As a candidate for president, Trump declared that he could end the war in Ukraine in “24 hours” — maybe even before he took office. He now claims that his repeated statements were a “joke.” A joke that covered the deaths of tens of thousands.

No formal direct talks have taken place involving Russia, Ukraine, Europe and the U.S. sitting down together for serious negotiations. Instead, the U.S. is trying to force Ukraine to accept a “deal” put together by Trump and his administration — some of whom were staunch advocates on behalf of Ukraine and its independence. Now they seem to have gone all in on Trump’s support of Russia against Ukraine. (I’m looking at you, Mr. Secretary of State.)

Here is the “deal” that Trump is trying to force on Ukraine.

Both the U.S. and Ukraine recognize that Crimea is formally part of Russia.
Ukraine cede its territory now occupied by Russian forces in eastern Ukraine to Russia.
Ukraine promises to never join NATO.
No European or NATO forces can enter Ukraine to ensure its security.
U.S. military aid to Ukraine will be suspended.
The U.S. will be given access to rare earth minerals in Ukraine to “repay” the aid that they have received in their fight against Russia.
The U.S. lifts most sanctions against Russia imposed for its repeated aggression against Ukraine.
The U.S. and Russia will resume formal diplomatic and trade relations which were disrupted following the Russian invasions.

There may be more to which we are not privy. Trump changes his demands on a whim. The deal gives Mr. Putin everything he wants without even having to negotiate. Russia and Ukraine have had past security agreements that the Russians violate at their discretion. The Ukrainian experience is that any security agreement with Russia is worthless.

Not surprisingly, President Zelenskyy has refused to accept these terms. He has agreed to Trump’s proposal of a 30 day cease fire, but the Russians continue to put up road blocks to its implementation until they get what they want. So far, Trump has put little pressure on Mr. Putin (unless you count the occasional social media posts asking “Vladimir” to stop bombing civilians in Ukraine.) One might ask as to why the Russians would negotiate anything if Trump has already given them all that they want (for now) without having to do anything other than not take over the whole country?

Here is the topper. If a peace deal is not accepted “soon” the U.S. will “walk away” from the whole thing, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President J.D. Vance. No one is sure exactly what that means. If it means the end of military and intelligence support to Ukraine — which Trump already temporarily suspended once — then we would be walking away from helping a democracy in Europe under attack by a dictator and allowing the continued destruction of Ukraine and the loss of countless civilian lives.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the largest conflict in Europe since World War II. NATO was meant to prevent one nation from forcefully invading and taking over another sovereign nation. Originally aimed at the Soviet Union, now Russia, it also has diplomatic and military impact throughout the world. Walking away from our commitments makes us less safe and is a direct threat to our own national security.

Let’s put it plainly. Trump loves Putin. Trump sides with Putin. Trump will throw Ukraine to the wolves if he thinks it makes him look good to Putin. Putin knows exactly how to play Trump to get whatever he wants. Trump handing Ukraine to Putin will undermine the world order that has basically kept the peace for eighty years. We will be in a destabilized world where everything is on the table.

If Trump follows through on his plan to appease Mr. Putin and hand over Ukraine it is likely to have long term consequences that will rate a place in history alongside British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s “peace in our time” appeasement of Adolf Hitler that led to World War II. In his mind, Trump will be awarded the Nobel Prize for bringing peace to Ukraine. (Not a joke. He talks about it. A lot. Probably because President Barack Obama was awarded a Nobel Prize. It drives him crazy.) In fact, he will be setting the stage for continued conflict.

This is not a prediction. It is looking at history and the current geo-political alignment of nations. If Ukraine accedes to Trump’s/Putin’s demands, and with the rest of NATO uncertain how to proceed, Putin will reconstitute his forces and then seize the rest of Ukraine. (Ukraine will resist, but without significant help they cannot defeat Russia over the long haul.) Putin will then turn to the Baltic States to “protect Russians” living in those countries and to “relieve” the pressure on the Kaliningrad Oblast — a part of sovereign Russia surrounded by the Baltic Sea, Lithuania and Poland. The Baltic States and Poland are members of NATO. Should they be attacked, then Article V of the NATO Treaty comes into play — an attack on one member is an attack on all. With an “America First” policy, it is unclear if the current U.S. administration would follow through on our commitment to NATO. Regardless, just like in the 1930’s, appeasement leads to large scale war.

Is this a worst case scenario? Of course. But not so far fetched. Mr. Putin has opined for decades that the worst event in the 20th century was the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He has vowed in many different forums and formats that his goal is to restore the power and grandeur of the Russian Empire. Ukraine is just the first piece of the puzzle. Any former Soviet Republic should be looking over their shoulder at the Russian bear that is preparing and planning to bring Putin’s dream to fruition.

I have no idea where Trump’s infatuation with Mr. Putin begins. We can speculate to our heart’s content but after all of this time, we all know that regardless of the cause, it exists. We can also see where it is headed if Trump continues to blame Mr. Zelenskyy for the Russian invasion and if he continues to force him to bend to Mr. Putin’s will. From where I sit, Mr. Zelenskyy and the entire Ukrainian people are not wimps. They will not go willingly into any agreement that they know will lead to their destruction as a nation. The European Union and NATO are gearing up to step in to help Ukraine if the U.S. abandons them. It is unclear where that leads or whether Ukraine can prevail without U.S. guarantees. Right now, Mr. Putin thinks he can wait out the U.S. and that he will eventually prevail against Ukraine — at great economic and military cost — but he knows he will prevail. It will be a lot easier with U.S. help.

The Kremlin Rules!

Posted: March 1, 2025 | Author: Tom | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Diplomacy, Donald Trump, International Relations, Louis XIV, MAGA, Project 2025, putin, Russia, Trump, Ukraine, Ukrainne, United States Constitution, Vladimir Putin | Leave a comment

Yesterday, 28 February 2025, was a day where you, me, historians, diplomats, and anyone else that cares about the role of the United States in international diplomacy will talk about as “before 28 February and after 28 February.” We now know that the convicted felon in the White House who tried to stage a coup to keep himself in power is totally, 100 percent behind Russia’s Vladimir Putin and against our long standing allies around the world. Trump’s and Vance’s ignorant display in the Oval Office yesterday reflected the essence of this administration — embarrassing, repugnant, vengeful, hypocritical, and extremely dangerous.

Trump invited President Zelenskyy of Ukraine to the White House yesterday. Ostensibly, the reason for the meeting was to discuss the possibility of Ukraine giving the U.S. access to the rare earth minerals believed to be in Ukrainian territory. (No one is exactly sure what or where those valuable minerals actually are as there are almost no mines actively recovering them and the existence of such minerals is based on a decades old map done by surveyors from the Soviet Union.) Instead, President Zelenskyy walked into an apparent ambush by Trump and his MAGA henchman J.D. Vance where they berated and harassed Mr. Zelenskyy while spreading lies and disinformation about the actual situation in Ukraine. (If you have not yet seen it, watch it here. The body language is as important as what is actually said. Or read about it here.) Note that J.D. Vance started the harangue. J.D. is usually not allowed to attend such meetings between Trump and foreign dignitaries (Trump doesn’t want to share the spotlight), which further indicates that he was part of some plan along with Trump to stick it to the Ukrainian. To his credit, Mr. Zelenskyy did not take the bait, stayed calm, and did not yell back at Trump. He did, however, resolutely stick to his position and to try and explain the dire situation that he and his nation are in because of Russian aggression. What really seemed to enrage Trump was when Mr. Zelenskyy tried to explain that no deal with Russia was worth anything without concrete security guarantees. Further, he warned Trump that if he made an unsecured deal with Putin, eventually the U.S. would be in danger. Trump tripped off the line and starting ranting about Hunter Biden, the Russia “hoax” that Putin suffered through, and countless other grievances that had nothing to do with the alleged negotiations at hand. In the end, Trump sounded exactly like a mafia Don threatening retribution on a business that refused to give him a cut. The point was to bully Mr. Zelenskyy in a dual attack in order to get him to concede to a deal to stop the war that would be exclusively favorable to Russia. Mr. Zelenskyy refused. The meeting ended with Trump ordering the press out of the office and saying, “This is going to be great television.”

What does this attack on Mr. Zelenskyy mean? Why would Trump take Russia’s side in the dispute since they are the clear aggressor and the war could end in one day by withdrawing the Russian and North Korean troops? Let’s take a look.

There is a difference between what things are and what things mean. This was a crude and very undiplomatic shouting match aimed at bullying one of our allies in front of the cameras. What it means is that the U.S. is no longer a reliable partner to our NATO allies and our friends around the world. It means that Trump supports the dictator Putin over the leader of a democracy suffering at the hands of an unprovoked aggressor. It means that Trump and Putin will probably work out some kind of “peace” deal without Ukraine having a say. It means that Russia will be encouraged to continue its quest to reestablish the Russian empire. It means that the U.S. is meaningfully less secure.

This is the biggest diplomatic change since the arrival of the United States on the world stage at the start of the Twentieth Century. We are now aligned with Russia who is aligned with China, Iran and North Korea. Countless leaders throughout the free world from Belgium to New Zealand lined up in support of Mr. Zelenskyy and his stance to defend Ukraine.

Where was Secretary of State Marco Rubio, known as an avid anti-Russian hawk? Slumped in a chair next to Vance looking very much like he wished he could disappear. Where was National Security Adviser Mike Waltz who as a Congressman was another anti-Russia, pro-Ukraine supporter? Missing in action. After the dust settled many, many of the MAGA crowd (there are no longer members of the Republican Party in Congress) chose to blame the melt down on Mr. Zelenskyy. They focused on the fact that he did not a wear a suit and tie (he goes everywhere in modified military gear to remind everyone his country is at war) and therefore he was disrespectful and argumentative. (Musk wore a ball cap and t-shirt to a Cabinet meeting in the White House earlier this week, but apparently he can do whatever he wants to do.)

Mr. Rubio and Mr. Waltz should resign. It is clear that they have no influence over Trump or American policy. But of course, they will not. They have been totally coopted. American foreign policy is no longer based on American values and strength. It is now based on the ignorant whims of one man who thinks he is a world player. Instead, he is getting played.

Why is Trump trying to destroy our role in the world by aligning with Putin? I have given this a lot of thought. Trump’s apologists come up with a myriad of reasons as to why he disparages our closest allies and cheers our enemies. He is a businessman. He knows the art of the deal. He is trying to get the EU to step up. It is part of “America First.” Blah, blah blah.

Of course, I am not on the inside so I do not know what takes place behind closed doors but here is what I think. There are only two conceivable scenarios at this point as to why Trump is turning our country over to Putin. The first is that he is actually an agent for Putin. He is trying to destroy our country from within (via Musk and his DOGE bros running amok) and without (throwing our allies under the bus). The Russians cannot believe their great fortune in his returning to the presidency. They are getting a great return on their investment. Can I prove this? Of course not. But there have been rumors since the 1980s that Trump was compromised and groomed to at least be sympathetic to Russia. Given his intellectual and psychological vulnerabilities, and his weakness for flattery, this is not too far fetched. Several uncorroborated reports have had at least four separate former KGB agents at different times reveal that there was a KGB operation, run by the then Czechoslovakian intelligence service, to groom him as a Russian supporter. It is known that many of his real estate deals were with Russian oligarchs buying properties at inflated prices. His first campaign manager Paul Manafort had known ties to Russian oligarchs and intelligence agents. All that said, this to me is the least likely of the options.

It is more likely that he has some simplistic medieval grand view where rich and powerful kings rule the world and their subjects show absolute fealty to him and carry out his every whim. He needs only confer with his fellow “kings” in Russia and China to decide how they will divide the world. Thus we do not need a federal civil service, the king and his lords will run the country. He does not need allies because he consorts with his fellow kings. Rich and powerful men know what is best. What is good for the king is good for the state. “L’etat, c’est moi” — “I am the state” — as King Louis XIV of France is said to have told the French parliament in 1655. In other words, he is an absolute monarch with complete power and not subject to Constitutional limitations. While some of you may think that I am stretching the analogy, and I doubt that Trump knows who Louis XIV was and wouldn’t care anyway, he is approaching his presidency as if he is the absolute ruler. As the absolute ruler he only needs to confer with other absolute rulers.

Whether or not he succeeds with this approach to governing, we will find out. What I am arguing is that this is his mind set and thus he acts in the ways that he does. As I have written in this space countless times, autocrats always tell you what they are going to do. They don’t always succeed, but they are going to try. Trump is telling us exactly what he wants to do and unlike in his first term, he has people around him that are willing to do it.

This is dangerous for many reasons, of course. In this particular case, and what President Zelenskyy was trying to tell Trump, is that he can not trust Putin. Once America repudiates our allies and removes itself from participation with our allies in NATO and elsewhere, Putin and Xi Jinping of China will work together to bring us to our knees. This is one of the things that infuriated Trump during the meeting. Mr. Zelenskyy told Trump that the U.S now “has a nice ocean” to protect us against Russia so we don’t “feel” Russian pressure or threats, but that “you will feel it in the future.” Trump exploded and said “don’t tell us what we’re going to feel.” Completely missing the point, but then he is not that sharp and he is intellectually uncurious. Flattery gets you everything with Trump. He is an easy mark for Putin and Xi who have been in this game for a long time.

The idea of the world being divided into “kingdoms” fits nicely with the Project 2025 playbook being implemented throughout the government as I write. Trump’s world view, Musk’s world view and that of the Project 2025 folks is that rich, powerful men became that way — became “kings” of their domains — because they are smarter and more ruthless and more capable than the rest of us. Therefore it is only logical that they should be in charge. This view is manifesting itself in the foreign policy arena with Ukraine as the example. Ukraine is relatively weak, especially compared to Russia, therefore they should submit and give Russia whatever they want in order to bring “peace” and “save lives.” Of course the Butcher of Bucha will only torture, rape and murder the good citizens of Ukraine should Putin take over.

Remember the day that it all changed. Even if Trump’s plans are thwarted, it will take a generation of hard work before our allies will ever trust us again.

The Beacon Of Democracy Is Dimming

Posted: February 25, 2025 | Author: Tom | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Autocrats, Congress, DOGE, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, NATO, Russia, U.S. Military, Ukraine, United States Constitution, Vladimir Putin, War | Leave a comment

The past few days have been tumultuous for those of us that pay attention to the systematic demolishing of the democratic norms we took for granted just a few weeks ago. In the past few days an unelected South African “adviser” to the president accelerated the use of a wrecking ball to attack our proud and dedicated civil servants, senior military officers were fired because of the color of their skin or their gender, the United States of America joined North Korea, Russia, Belarus, and others to vote in the United Nations against a resolution condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine and instead continued to claim Ukraine caused the war, and the President of these United States called the President of France a liar to his face during an Oval Office press gathering when President Macron tried to set the record straight concerning aid to Ukraine. That’s a lot and it is only the tip of the iceberg.

As Elon Musk and his DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) henchmen continue to decimate the federal government, our fellow citizens are beginning to understand what is going on and are pushing back against their elected representatives in town hall meetings across the country. Officials in both “blue” districts and “red” ones are feeling the heat. So far, the opposition to the drastic cuts has had little impact. Trump, MAGA acolytes and Musk will continue to decimate the federal government. They fundamentally do not care what happens to the people serving in the jobs, the harm caused by closing down federal funding or any other second or third order impacts caused by their reckless behavior. Their goal is to establish an autocracy run by techno-bros and other rich white men. End of discussion. This is Project 2025 in all of its dimensions.

The budding autocrats are making great progress. Already the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are under the control of MAGA and are ready to wreak havoc on those that oppose Trump. The contagion is now spreading to the Department of Defense (DOD). The Secretary of Defense (SECDEF) Pete Hegseth, under orders from Trump although I am sure SECDEF would have done it anyway, fired the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General C.Q. Brown (a black man), Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Lisa Franchetti (a woman), the Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force General James Slife (a white man that was too “woke”), Lt. General Jennifer Short (a woman) the Senior Military Aide to SECDEF, and Judge Advocate Generals (JAGs) of the Army, Air Force and Navy. On his second day in office, Trump had the Commandant of the Coast Guard fired, Admiral Linda Fagan (a woman). The JAGs were fired, according to SECDEF, because they were “roadblocks” to doing what he wanted. In other words, they had too much integrity to allow SECDEF or the Commander-in-Chief to do whatever they wanted to do when it includes illegal or unethical activity. Danger, danger! Pete Hegseth, then a Fox News host, was instrumental in getting Trump, during his first term, to pardon war criminals. In November of 2019, Trump pardoned two Army officers for the murder of civilians in Afghanistan and promoted a Navy SEAL after a court martial stripped him of his rank for similar charges.

The flag and general officers fired last Friday were considered DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) hires. Even though General Brown was appointed as Chief of Staff of the Air Force during Trump’s first administration. (President Biden promoted him to be CJCS.) This, of course, disregards their decades of service and their proven track record in command at all levels of the military. They proved themselves in tough, demanding jobs. It is an insult to believe that they only attained their positions because of their “woke” ideologies or because a political party wanted to promote people only because of some vague idea about affirmative action. What they are really saying is that only white men are qualified to lead our country and that only white men can be warriors. (Hegseth is qualified? Meritocracy my …) (For an excellent breakdown of the mind set of the current administration and advocates of Project 2025, I recommend reading the article in The Atlantic magazine by Adam Serwer The Great Resegregation found here.)

Senior officers serve at the discretion of the president. However, their terms of office are meant to straddle different administrations in order to provide stability and experience to protect our national security. Even more distressing, the president is nominating retired Lt. General Dan Cane, USAF for the position of Chairman. According to U.S. law (title 10 Part I, chapter 5) the Chairman must have previously served as the Vice Chairman, Chief of a military branch, or the commander of a unified or specified command — all are four star (General or Admiral) positions. Lt. General Cane has never been in any of those positions and never achieved the rank of a four star. Title 10 does provide for a deviation from these requirements if it is “in the national interest.” I would argue that there is no compelling reason today to deviate from the law unless the president and SECDEF want someone that is willing to do whatever they want them to do, including illegal or unethical behavior. I do not know Lt. General Cane so I will not impugn his character, but let us just note that something fishy is going on here. Just as those flag and general officers that were fired were the product of the military system that produces non-political officers that have an oath only to the Constitution I want to believe that officers promoted to fill the vacated positions have an allegiance only to their duty under the Constitution and not fealty to one man. Time will tell.

The loss of American leadership was on full display yesterday in the United Nations when the U.S. supported Russian ideals rather than traditional American support for democracy. On the third anniversary of the full scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. joined Russia in the U.N. General Assembly to vote against a resolution condemning Russia’s aggression and calling for an end to the war with a full withdrawal of Russian troops. It was an extraordinary turn of events as much of the world voted in favor of the European based resolution. In other words, we turned against our own allies to support Russia. The President of the United States continues to say that the war is Ukraine’s fault and that its leader President Zelenskyy is a dictator. It is not only embarrassing, it is frightening. It signals that our president is a pawn in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hand. Russia’s invasion is the largest ground war in Europe since World War II. The purpose of the U.N. and its charter is to protect the territorial integrity of sovereign nations. Apparently, we no longer support democracies around the world and find it totally acceptable for large countries to invade smaller ones. Everyone wants the killing to stop. The losses on both sides are catastrophic. But the current administration fails to understand that this war could stop tomorrow if Russia withdrew its invading force. Simple. Instead, Trump wants to stand proudly with a designated war criminal who favors murder, rape, and indiscriminate destruction of civilian targets.

Continuing to show his willful ignorance and lack of shame, Trump added insult to injury by telling lie after lie about the war and the circumstances around it while in a meeting in the Oval Office with French President Macron. When President Macron corrected him in front of the press corps, Trump’s body language was very telling, as well as what he actually said about President Macron’s statement. The discussion concerned Trump’s desire to get rare minerals from Ukraine to “pay back” the aid provided. (Roughly 75% of the aid we give to Ukraine actually stays in the U.S. as the money is used to buy U.S. ammunition, weapons and other military equipment. Trump also greatly exaggerates the amount of that aid.) He went on to claim that the Europeans have already been reimbursed. President Macron interrupted him to fact check him that, in fact, the Europeans have not been reimbursed. At the end, Trump told the press that they can believe those “lies” from President Macron if they want to. A great statesman.

In all, everyday we see how unqualified Trump and key members of his administration are in trying to keep our country economically strong and our country secure. Through design and malfeasance our great democracy is slowly crumbling. Trump has consolidated the centers of power in our government as he purges the Pentagon. The pillars of an autocratic government are nearly in place. Congress is missing in action. So far, the courts are holding firm as our last great hope. My view is that Trump thinks that he will eventually prevail in the Supreme Court as they will side with his idea of the unitary executive and Trump will use it to quash any remaining resistance. I hope I am wrong, but to date, they are succeeding. Given that he is a convicted felon that already tried to overthrow the country, there is no reason to think that he does not intend to become an autocrat.

Shameful? Disgraceful? Or Both?

Posted: February 20, 2025 | Author: Tom | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: AfD, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, J.D. Vance, Munich Security Conference, NATO, Russia, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, War | 1 Comment

In case you missed it, over roughly the last seven days the convicted felon and 47th president of the United States reversed 80 years of U.S. foreign policy that preserved our security and prosperity at home and allowed the world to enjoy the benefits of a largely peaceful framework for international relations. You may have been too busy following the antics of King Trump (so self designated yesterday) and President Musk as they decimate the federal civil service across the country from the Gulf of Mexico to Denali, Alaska. (Contrary to popular belief, only about 13% of the federal work force is in the Washington DC metro area, 83% is spread around the country and 2% is overseas).

In his incessant effort to please Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump and his kakistocracy betrayed Ukraine, salvaged Russia from the isolation it deserves, signaled our withdrawal from NATO and encouraged China, Russia and Iran to expand their influence and control. That’s a lot — let’s break it down.

As we approach the third anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, a quick reminder as to the chain of events is in order. When the Soviet Union collapsed, about a third of the Soviet’s nuclear weapons were in Ukraine which emerged as an independent state. Under the 1991 security guarantees of Russia, the U.S. and the United Kingdom, Ukraine’s borders were recognized and guaranteed in exchange for relinquishing those nuclear weapons. After Putin emerged as the leader of the “new” Russia, he worked continuously to promote pro-Russian leadership in Ukraine. As a gateway to the rest of Europe, Ukraine was caught between pro-Russian and pro-western European influences. In 2014, Ukrainians revolted and drove out the pro-Russian leader Victor Yanukovych. That prompted Putin to invade Crimea, a part of Ukraine, and annex it. Putin also encouraged and supplied pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine to take and hold territory. A simmering war continued there until early 2022 when the full scale Russian invasion began. Note that the quasi-war in Ukraine was underway during Trump’s first term. Also remember that Vololdymyr Zelensky defeated a pro-Russian politician for president in April of 2020. That July, Trump called President Zelensky to push for an investigation into Hunter Biden and his father Joe Biden who Trump correctly expected to be his opponent for president. President Zelensky refused, Trump withheld money appropriated for Ukraine, and the situation led to Trump’s first impeachment.

Strike one against Ukraine. Trump does hold grudges.

During his 2020 campaign, Trump declared that he would end the war in Ukraine on “day one.” Sure. Now he sees it as his mission. However, he is not trying to solve it on terms favorable to Ukraine, but rather to please his old buddy Vladimir Putin. Reportedly, Trump and Putin talked for about 90 minutes last week, the first official diplomatic contact between the U.S. and Russia since the invasion three years ago and afterwards, everything changed.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth gave a speech in Europe during an international conference on Ukraine where he clearly stated that it was “unrealistic” for Ukraine to expect to return to its pre-2014 borders, and that it “is not realistic” for Ukraine to join NATO. So much for the art of the deal when before the negotiating even starts, one side concedes to the other everything that they want. Additionally Hegseth (is he really the Secretary of Defense?) told our European allies that the U.S. would no longer safeguard the security of Europe as the U.S. “will no longer tolerate an imbalanced relationship” with our European allies. Indeed, if the Europeans deployed troops into Ukraine to provide for guarantees to protect Ukrainian sovereignty under a future deal, the U.S. would not consider it a NATO mission and therefore there would be no Article Five guarantees from the U.S. Article Five is the key to NATO’s effectiveness. It states that an attack on one member is considered an attack on all and that all members would respond militarily. Without that iron clad commitment from all members of NATO, the alliance is weakened, perhaps fatally weakened. Article Five has been invoked only once — by the U.S. following the attacks on September 11.

Vice President J.D. Vance, the embodiment of the Project 2025 playbook, then gave a speech during the annual Munich Security Conference — meeting to discuss Ukraine and NATO defense spending — that blasted and scolded our closest allies for allowing migration from the Middle East and Africa into Europe and claiming that they violated their democratic values by inhibiting free speech. What he was really attacking was the European’s efforts to counter misinformation, disinformation and outright lies perpetrated by one Elon Musk (yes that same guy) in an attempt to sway voters in several European elections to vote for the hard right parties in those countries. His speech came straight out of the Project 2025 playbook. To further insult our allies, Vance then met with the leader of the far right neo-Nazi German party Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) rather than with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, A clear signal from the Trump administration as to their future vision and undisguised disdain for our allies.

While all of that was happening, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met President Zelensky in Kyiv whose purpose, much to the Ukrainians surprise, was to demand that President Zelensky sign a document that gives fifty percent (about 500 million dollars) of Ukraine’s rare earth minerals to the U.S. When President Zelensky hesitated, Bessent gave him one hour to change his mind and sign or there would be repercussions. President Zelensky did not sign. The current status of this demand is unknown.

Strike two against Ukraine. Another grudge.

The U.S. then held bilateral meetings with Russia in Saudi Arabia (hmmm) about the war in Ukraine. This was a huge diplomatic achievement for Russia as the meeting was a sign that Russia “was back” – on an equal footing with the U.S. and once again a player on the international stage after years of isolation. Another victory for Russia in these negotiations. So far, Russia has given up nothing in return.

Oh yeah. Ukraine was not invited to the discussions about its future and neither were our European allies even though they obviously have a huge stake in the outcome.

Afterwards, President Zelensky opined that Trump was living in a “Russian disinformation bubble” and added that Ukraine was not for sale.

Strike three against Ukraine. Trump went ballistic.

In a series of public statements, Trump did what he does best. He lied and lied and lied. (Check his lies and the facts here.) Worst of all, he said that Ukraine started the war. Then he called President Zelensky a “moderately successful comedian” (ouch) who is now a “dictator.” Things went down hill from there. Trump is demanding that Ukraine take steps that fall completely within the Russian game plan to take over in Ukraine.

There are several possible scenarios playing out, none of them good for Ukraine or Europe or for our own national security and economic success. Trump is incapable of strategic thinking and only knows transactional relationships. Therefore one possibility is that, once again, Trump’s fragile ego and need to be respected, at any cost, is wounded. President Zelensky and European leaders have had, in his mind, a free ride for too long and now that he’s the new sheriff in town he wants instant respect and a lot of dollars coming to us (him). He simply cannot grasp the big picture that we benefit more from these alliances and our support of other democracies than it costs us. (See the destruction of the U.S. Agency for International Development that provided valuable support to our own national interests at very low cost. Not to mention the U.S. farmers and suppliers that sell the goods and services.)

A second possibility is that he actually believes that he alone can solve the war in Ukraine. He has always been enamored of Putin and here is Trump’s chance to show that he can deal with him. Of course, we all know that Putin is a master of manipulation. Trump doesn’t even know that he is being taken for a ride. If Putin gets what he wants in Ukraine, I fear for the Baltic states and Poland as they will be next on Putin’s list. And in the not so distant future. Remember that in a 2005 speech to the Russian people, Putin said that the collapse of the Soviet Union “was the greatest geo-political catastrophe of the [20th] century.” He is on a mission from God (literally if you read about him) to restore the Russian empire.

A third possibility is that Trump (well, those around him) have a geo-political vision that is in a way a reversion to the cold war. The “great powers” — U.S., Russia, China — divide up the world into spheres of influence. This would fit into his phantasmagoric ideas of annexing Canada, Greenland and Panama. It would also fit the vision of the Project 2025 folks and Musk and others that the world should be run by rich white men who create Christian white nationalist nations around the globe.

Whatever the motivation, the world is on notice that the United States is no longer the leader of the free world, or any world except the United States. Good luck everyone else. If Trump succeeds in giving Ukraine to Russia, it will mean hundreds of thousands of refugees pouring into western Europe (destabilizing them internally), cost thousands of lives, lead to arbitrary executions, torture and rape and eliminate a democracy and friend. It also gives Russia a green light for further territorial gains and lets China know that we will not protect Taiwan or any other Asian country.

It will be shameful and disgraceful. Not only does it undermine our long held and deeply cherished view of our role in the world and our ability to promote democracy but such actions will endanger our own security and prosperity. We will not be safe. So far, Trump has received nearly zero pushback from formerly respected leaders of the former Republican party. The world that we have cherished for eight decades will be gone and in its place will be a new world that would be impossible to imagine just a few months ago.

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The Assault on Democracy Is Underway

An Insecure or the Most Insecure President?

Don’t Believe Your Lying Eyes

That Was The Year That Was

Party Like It Is 1880!

Disgusting!

Appeasement Never Succeeds

The Kremlin Rules!

The Beacon Of Democracy Is Dimming

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