Wednesday Reads

Posted: August 20, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Good Afternoon!!

I’ve been surveying the day’s top news stories and my head is spinning. I don’t know what to focus on or where to begin, and there’s no way I can cover everything. There is too much happening, so I’ve just chosen the stories that interested me the most.

Trump’s fascist crackdown on Washington DC

The New York Times: National Guard Troops in Washington Stick to Tourist Areas.

The 800 National Guard troops sent into Washington last week will soon be augmented by hundreds more, as several states with Republican governors commit to supporting President Trump’s crackdown in the city.

But Army officials appear to be trying to keep the troops on the sidelines of the mission, despite the tough-on-crime image that Mr. Trump has sought to project.

The troops have joined an array of federal agents who appeared on city streets after Mr. Trump declared last week that the federal government was assuming law enforcement responsibility in the capital, which he has falsely claimed is essentially lawless.

The first wave of troops sent to the city all came from the D.C. National Guard, which the president can call out directly. National Guard troops from Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina and West Virginia will soon also be deployed, according to the governors of those states. National Guard officials said that there were 869 troops in Washington as of Monday night; the Republican-led states so far have pledged 1,000 more.

The Republican governors said they were providing the additional troops at the request of the Trump administration. Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio said that Army Secretary Dan Driscoll had asked for the extra troops. “When the secretary of the Army asks for backup support to our troops that are already deployed, yes, we will back up our troops,” Mr. DeWine told the Columbus Dispatch.

The number is still expected to grow. But the role of the additional troops appears vague, and the answers to even basic questions, including whether they will be armed, have shifted.

What is the purpose of this militarization of a city beyond Trump’s effort to distract from the Epstein story and his overall fascist dictatorship project?

“There is no justification for any deployment of Guard forces in D.C., let alone the deployment of hundreds of Guard forces from multiple states, which smacks of a military occupation of the district,” said Elizabeth Goitein, a senior director at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s law school.

“Local crime is a matter to be handled by local law enforcement,” she added.

Members of the National Guard stand near D.C.’s Union Station, within view of the U.S. Capitol.

The places where the troops have been deployed so far tell part of the story. Most have been seen near the National Mall, large monuments and other tourist-heavy areas.

Army officials said that more would be sent to 10 metro stations, most of which are also near tourist and entertainment sites. They include the Foggy Bottom, Smithsonian, Eastern Market and Waterfront stations.

Near the Washington Monument over the weekend, troops posed for photos with tourists. The National Guard presence, with desert sand-colored vehicles parked near the capital’s most visited tourists spots, is now showing up regularly on social media feeds in posts by visitors to Washington.

The rules of engagement for the troops, at the moment, remain limited to supporting, but not providing, law enforcement. That means that troops are not making arrests, though Army officials acknowledged that could change if Mr. Trump decides that he wants an even more forceful presence.

CNN: National Guard troops from GOP-led states begin arriving in DC as part of Trump’s crime crackdown.

West Virginia National Guard troops have begun to arrive in Washington, DC, to assist with President Donald Trump’s crime crackdown in the nation’s capital, a defense official told CNN on Tuesday.

The troops could begin assisting the DC National Guard operationally as soon as Wednesday after they have completed their in-processing, the defense official added.

Their arrival comes after the Republican governors of six states — West Virginia, South Carolina, Ohio, Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee — announced they will send guard members to Washington, DC.

The deployment of other states’ troops marks an escalation of Trump’s efforts to amass forces in the capital. The president previously announced that he was deploying DC National Guard troops to the city, surging federal agents into the streets, and federalizing DC’s police force. The president has repeatedly complained about rising crime in DC, but overall crime numbers are lower this year than in 2024.

Servicemembers from the West Virginia and South Carolina National Guards receive an orientation brief upon their arrival at the Washington, D.C. Armory, Aug. 19, 2025

The defense official said Tuesday that while there are roughly 2,400 personnel in the DC National Guard, assistance from other states was needed because of how many troops are either undergoing training elsewhere or are on leave.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said Monday he approved about 135 National Guard troops to DC, while Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves announced he would deploy approximately 200 members.

Tennessee will send roughly 160 guard members to the city this week following a request from the Trump administration, Gov. Bill Lee’s press secretary said in a Tuesday statement to CNN.

Over the weekend, West Virginia’s governor said his state was sending 300 to 400 National Guard troops to the nation’s capital. South Carolina authorized the deployment of 200 troops, and Ohio said it will send 150.

Federal officers assigned to DC are focusing on beating up food delivery people. NBC4 Washington DC: Detentions of D.C. delivery drivers leave immigrant communities on edge.

Washington, D.C., resident Tyler DeSue woke up tired and craving breakfast Saturday morning, so he did what many people in that situation would do: He used Uber Eats to put in an order for burritos.

When his driver took longer than usual, DeSue checked the app and noticed something seemed wrong — the delivery driver’s GPS location had stopped short of his address. He went outside to look for him.

“I stepped into the street, I looked down and see lights in the direction, like police lights, in the direction of where my driver was,” DeSue said in an interview. “It was my driver by himself and, like, nine different officers all wearing different uniforms. … Most of them had face coverings on.”

When DeSue went to investigate, the driver — whose name appeared on the food app as “Sidi” — was being questioned, first about his vehicle’s registration and then about his immigration status, he said.

“You’re gonna come with us, you’re gonna come with us today,” a masked agent can be heard telling Sidi in video that DeSue recorded and provided to NBC News.

“Can you tell me in Arabic, please?” Sidi says, adding that he did not understand what was being said and that he was nervous.

One of the agents, wearing a vest emblazoned “POLICE HSI” — short for Homeland Security Investigations, a part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement — replies that they do not have an Arabic translator. The men then cuff Sidi’s hands, waist and feet before they put him in an unmarked car. DeSue said he has since reported the incident to Uber.

There have been other such reports.

The incident is one of several arrests of delivery drivers recorded by eyewitnesses across the Washington area that have gone viral since the Trump administration took over law enforcement in the nation’s capital last week.

An Uber Eats delivery driver is arrested Saturday in Washington, D.C.Tyler DeSue

The videos, scattered across social media and shared among D.C. delivery driver chat groups, are having a chilling effect on the drivers themselves. Some of them have chosen to stop making deliveries in the city.

It has been “five days since working, looking at what to do. And, well, closed down here waiting for things to pass, because I don’t know what to do,” a D.C.-area delivery driver who did not want to be named told NBC News in a voice message in Spanish.

On Sunday afternoon, DeSue said, an area where 15 to 20 delivery drivers typically would be parked out front of his home looking at their phones for their next orders was an empty lot.

“I haven’t seen a driver anywhere in the last two days,” he said.

There’s more at the link.

Immigration, deportation, and ICE

Paul Krugman at Substack: ICEing the U.S. Economy. Mass deportations will hurt more than people realize.

Donald Trump has been able to convert Immigration and Customs Enforcement (and Customs and Border Protection, which is effectively part of the same operation) into a huge secret police force — because what are we supposed to call an organization whose masked agents, bearing no identification, simply grab people off the street? Who shoot at a family fleeing in their truck, after agents refused to identify themselves and smashed the car window, claiming – apparently falsely according to video footage – that the driver tried to harm them?

We’ve also seen both deportations to foreign gulags and the creation of a network of domestic detention centers — call it the ICE archipelago — that are overcrowded, filthy, and breeding grounds for disease. Last week a judge ordered that detainees at ICE’s Manhattan facility be given bedding mats rather than being forced to sleep on dirty concrete floors, have access to decent hygiene, and receive three meals a day. We’ll see whether this order is obeyed, but it gives you an idea of the conditions detainees are currently facing.

And the recently passed Big Beautiful Bill gives ICE $45 billion to expand its network of detention centers, making room for around 100,000 more detainees, plus $30 billion for arrest and deportation efforts, enough to hire around 10,000 more ICE agents.

I worry, as everyone should, about how a huge expansion of this deeply un-American organization may be used as a tool of presidential power and repression. Furthermore, give people power without accountability — and it’s hard to give a better example than masked, unidentified agents authorized to use force — and some of them will abuse their position. And given what ICE has already been doing, what kind of people do you think are likely to sign up as it massively expands?

Compared with these issues, concerns about the economic impact of mass deportations are definitely second-tier. But they’re still important, and a subject I know something about. So the rest of this post will be devoted to how the Trump administration is about to ICE the economy.

A bit more:

First things first: Trump officials and some of their allies have been touting numbers that appear to show 2 million native-born Americans gaining jobs over the past year. But this claim is, as Jed Kolko of the Peterson Institute says, a “multiple-count data felony.” Read Kolko for the details showing that this is a statistical artifact, not something that really happened. No, the native-born adult population didn’t suddenly jump by 4 million in a single year.

What will actually happen is a large decline in America’s foreign-born labor force. When Stephen Miller began promising to deport 3,000 immigrants a day, many people dismissed this as an idle boast. It’s true that we can’t possibly deport people anywhere near that rapidly while obeying the law and following due process. And your point is? [….]

We don’t know how many workers will eventually be incarcerated and deported. But undocumented immigrants make up around 5 percent of the U.S. work force. It seems plausible that a significant fraction of those workers will be pushed out, along with a number of legal workers snatched up based, as Trump’s border czar has said, on their physical appearance.

Losing large numbers of workers sounds as if it will be bad for the U.S. economy. In fact, it will be worse than you may think.

The reason is that immigrant workers aren’t spread evenly across the economy. They’re strongly concentrated in certain industries and occupations, where they constitute a large share, sometimes a majority, of the work force. As a result, the Trump administration’s latter-day Edict of Expulsion will be far more disruptive to the economy than the aggregate number of workers deported might suggest.

Read the rest at the link.

Jonathan V. Last at The Bulwark: Fascist Secret Police Cars.

ICE has some new cars. They are cartoonishly fascist….

What is the purpose of these vehicles?

ICE has been performing its snatch-and-grab operations largely with unmarked vehicles. ICE officers in the wild seem to eschew any sort of identification: No badges, no uniforms. Most of the time they go to great lengths to conceal their identities, wearing mask, balaclavas, and ballcaps.

Fascist ICE trucks

Are these new vehicles meant for new kinds of operations, as ICE expands to a size commensurate with its funding?

Also: What is the use-case for an ICE pickup truck? Park Rangers and firefighters can use pickup trucks to haul large loads of gear. Why would ICE need pickup trucks in its fleet?

Next, let’s look at the design. You will notice that ICE employs the slogan “Defend the Homeland.” This slogan is emblazoned in multiple spots: On side panels and on hoods. On the Mustang variant—because apparently ICE operational requirements also necessitate a two-door sports coupe—the slogan appears to be plastered on the spoiler.

It is an odd slogan for a law enforcement organization. For starters, it’s not a statement of principle, like common police tag lines: “Protect and Serve,” or “Duty, Honor, Community,” or “Service Before Self.” It’s a command: DEFEND THE HOMELAND.1

This command implies a threat. The “homeland” is under assault, right now, and must be defended from some unnamed enemy. I cannot think of any LEO that uses the specter of an enemy as part of its self-projection.

Then there’s the word “homeland.” Not “America,” or “the United States.”

The Mustang variant

America and the United States are places that anyone might join, or become a part of. But the homeland is about blood and soil. It’s the patrimony of the true volk.

Finally: “Defending the homeland” isn’t even ILstice Department weaponization chief, called for the resignation of New York Attorney General Letitia James and posed for photos outside of her Brooklyn home last week – all as he is conducting investigations into her conduct.

His investigation of James, whose office brought civil fraud charges against Trump, his adult sons, and the Trump Organization resulting in a half-billion-dollar judgment last year, is one of several the Justice Department has launched into the president’s perceived enemies.

But since beginning of the investigation into James, Martin has taken several unusual steps that fall outside the norms of prosecutorial conduct. He sent a letter to James’ attorney Abbe Lowell on August 12 suggesting New York’s top law enforcement officer resign, he appeared outside of James’ home with a colleague trailed by a photographer for the New York Post, and appeared on Fox News pledging to take an expansive look into all of James’ conduct.

In video obtained by CNN, Martin can be seen posing for photos outside of James’ home.

“This is a criminal investigation, not social media,” said Elie Honig, CNN’s senior legal analyst. “A stunt like that might get clicks, but it’s patently inappropriate for a prosecutor to do and it certainly will give James and her attorney a basis to oppose any indictment, to argue it was prejudicial to the jury pool and that an indictment was brought in bad faith.”

The conduct is “outside the bounds of DOJ and ethics rules,” Lowell said in a response to Martin.

Justice Department policy generally prohibits discussing criminal investigations publicly, and attorneys are not supposed to pursue investigations for political means or to go on fishing expeditions.

Jah’han Jones at MSNBC: Trump’s ‘weaponization’ chief seems to admit to punitive fishing expeditions.

Ed Martin is going fishing. On Sunday, the lawyer and Donald Trump loyalist tapped to lead a Justice Department “weaponization” group that’s targeting the president’s perceived enemies vowed to rummage around in the lives of New York Attorney General Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., in search of what he says could be potential fraud — or … something.

Ed Martin

During his 2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly targeted people who had been investigated or opposed him with thinly veiled threats of legal prosecution. Now, Martin, in his capacity as head of the so-called Weaponization Working Group at the Department of Justice, has been tasked with putting those prosecutions into action. The list of targets includes James, who led a successful mortgage fraud case against the Trump organization that resulted in a judgment of hundreds of millions of dollars; and Schiff, who served on the House Jan. 6 select committee that documented Trump’s role in fomenting insurrection in 2021.

Officials at DOJ are investigating both Schiff and James of mortgage fraud; both deny any wrongdoing and accuse the administration of political retribution. Martin, a former “Stop the Steal” organizer and attorney for Jan. 6 insurrectionists, has been assigned to oversee the cases. He’s previously said his group would be used to “shame” people it can’t charge with crimes.

In comments to Fox News this Sunday, Martin suggested his group intends to use its powers to poke around in other parts of James’ and Schiff’s lives in search of things unrelated to the mortgage allegations.

He said, “We’re gonna go to the very bottom of the facts, and if somebody did something wrong, we’re not only gonna hold them accountable, we’re also gonna look at everything else that they’ve been doing. Because when you’re a liar, you lie not just on one thing. When you’re a cheater, you cheat not just on one thing. When you’re doing corruption, you generally don’t just do it on one thing.”

The Independent: Bongino to work alongside ‘co-deputy director’ of FBI after sparring with administration over Epstein files.

The FBI has moved to appoint Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey as its new “co-deputy director,” meaning its current deputy, Dan Bongino, will be expected to share his duties in the role in the future.

The appointment was made by Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel and comes after Bongino, 50, a former Secret Service agent and podcaster, reportedly clashed with Bondi over the administration’s failure to release the Jeffrey Epstein files last month.

“I am proud to announce I have accepted the role of Co-Deputy Director of the FBI,” Bailey wrote in a brief post on X. “I extend my thanks to President Donald Trump and AG Bondi for the opportunity to serve in the mission to Make America Safe Again. I will protect America and uphold the Constitution.”

Bongino responded to a journalist’s post about the appointment by writing simply, “Welcome,” accompanied by three Stars and Stripes emojis.

Explaining the decision, Patel told The Daily Beast that the FBI “will always bring the greatest talent this country has to offer in order to accomplish the goals set forth when an overwhelming majority of American people elected President Donald J Trump again.

You have to wonder why Bongino hasn’t resigned. Maybe this is a step toward pushing him out.

The Epstein case caused controversy in early July after the FBI and Justice Department put out a statement saying that the late pedophile and sex trafficker left behind no “client list” among his possessions and died by suicide in a New York City jail cell in August 2019.

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino will find himself sharing his official duties after Missouri Attorney General Andrew Mitchell was hired by the Trump administration

The assessment started a civil war among Trump’s MAGA movement, many of whose members had long been encouraged to suspect foul play in Epstein’s death and had hoped to see influential people brought to justice over their alleged involvement in the disgraced financier’s crimes.

The controversy raged for more than a month, with the president himself repeatedly urged to release all federal files on Epstein and to explain his past friendship with the disgraced financier, a cause of apparent frustration to him….

Even before the contested verdict on Epstein was published, Patel and Bongino, both of whom had stoked conspiracy theories on conservative media before joining the Trump administration, had drawn fire for attempting to pour cold water on the case during a May interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures.

The Epstein story is not going away, and now supposedly the DOJ will begin releasing the Epstein files to the House Oversight Committee on Friday.

CNN: House panel to make Epstein files public after redactions to protect victim identities.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform intends to make public some files it subpoenaed related to the Jeffrey Epstein case, though it will first redact them to shield victims’ IDs and other sensitive matters, a committee spokesperson said Tuesday.

The panel is expected to start receiving materials from the Justice Department on Friday, though it appears the public release will come some time after that. The spokesperson said the committee would work with the Justice Department on the process.

“The Committee intends to make the records public after thorough review to ensure all victims’ identification and child sexual abuse material are redacted. The Committee will also consult with the DOJ to ensure any documents released do not negatively impact ongoing criminal cases and investigations,” the spokesperson said.

Democrats on the committee complained that Comer was slow walking the release of the material by allowing the Justice Department to miss the Tuesday deadline that had been set by the panel and instead turn over the materials to the committee gradually over time starting Friday. They said DOJ had already been directed by the House subpoena to redact material related to victims’ identities and child sexual abuse – questioning the need for further delay to do so.

“Releasing the Epstein files in batches just continues this White House cover-up. The American people will not accept anything short of the full, unredacted Epstein files,” said Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the panel. “In a bipartisan vote, the Committee demanded complete compliance with our subpoena. Handpicked, partial productions are wholly insufficient and potentially misleading, especially after Attorney General Bondi bragged about having the entirety of the Epstein files on her desk mere months ago.”

I hope this will really happen, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

Trump and Putin

This post is already too long, but I couldn’t resist including this story from The Daily Beast: Trump’s Jaw-Dropping Ignorance Exposed During Putin Meet: Author.

Donald Trump displayed a stunning ignorance of the Cold War during last week’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to his biographer.

Author Michael Wolff told the Daily Beast podcast Inside Trump’s Head on Tuesday that, in the president’s telling of the decades-long 20th century engagement, “it would appear that the U.S. and USSR are on the same side.”

Michael Wolff

Wolff, who said his sources are “twice removed” from the principals, said Trump began the meeting with “a combination of flattery” and “a combination of things that he’s just pulled out of somewhere…observations, it’s both inconsequential and incoherent.”

When either Special Envoy Steve Witkoff or Secretary of State Marco Rubio interrupted him to lay out an agenda, Wolff said, Trump just talked over them.

“Again, we’re nowhere in this meeting. We’re probably now, you know, 20 minutes in. Nothing is clear about what anyone is doing there except that Putin is totally impassive,” he said.

When Putin did speak, Wolff said, he gave a “history lesson” about ”why [Russia] should conquer Ukraine.”

And a bit more:

“Trump, not to be outdone, as this is relayed to me, goes into his own history lesson, and this is a history of the Cold War,” he said. “And as this is described to me, in Trump’s history of the Cold War, it would appear that the U.S. and USSR are on the same side.” [….]

Trump, who has been attacking “woke” history museums for not talking about “the future,” then seemed to go along with Putin’s statement resisting a ceasefire, Wolff said.

“And Trump seems to accept this and seems to agree with this,” according to the author. “Yes, let’s just move on to the peace.”

Witkoff and Rubio, meanwhile, are “basically helpless.”

“They sit there occasionally trying to interject, but you can’t really interject because Trump just talks all the time,” he continued.

“And this is then to… Putin’s advantage, because rather than any discussion of the details of what might happen here, what territory—what are you going to give for that, what are the trade offs—I mean, that level of detail Trump is not interested in, probably not capable of following the logical sequences that would be necessary there.”

What’s important to Trump, Wolff said, “is to keep talking” and “to have people listen to him.”

Those are the stories that interested me today. There’s much more happening. What’s on your mind?

Tuesday Cartoons: Vulgarity

Posted: August 19, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: just because | 8 Comments

Hello…the other day Terence Stamp died. I will do a post on him in a few days…but for now, let’s just touch on a couple of things.

Texas Republicans are holding a Black woman, a Democratic state rep, hostage in the legislative chamber. They have locked the doors and have banned her from leaving.

— Renée Graham 🏳️‍🌈 (@rygraham.bsky.social) 2025-08-19T00:20:25.475Z

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has urged same-sex couples living in the United States that they ‘ought to consider getting married’ amid SCOTUS’ decision on whether to overturn same-sex marriage.www.thepinknews.com/2025/08/19/s…

— JJ Lopez (@jjlopez1970.bsky.social) 2025-08-19T01:36:44.092Z

The mother of a 7-month-old baby who said he was kidnapped outside a store in Southern California last week has stopped cooperating with investigators after being confronted with inconsistencies in her initial report, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) 2025-08-19T00:10:02.706852Z

Doocy asks Zelenskyy an insanely loaded question: "Are you prepared to keep sending Ukrainian troops to their deaths for another couple years, or are you going to agree to redraw the maps?"

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-08-18T17:27:05.921Z

You could write a book about this photo. Everything about it is so fucking vulgar.

— Radley Balko (@radleybalko.bsky.social) 2025-08-18T22:36:21.218Z

Cartoons via Cagle:

Try and take it easy…this is n open thread.

Mostly Monday Reads: Educating Donald

Posted: August 18, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: #FARTUS, Finland, Foreign Affairs, France, Germany, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United Nations | Tags: , , | 7 Comments

“Last-minute shopping,” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Orange Caligula’s Reign of Terror and Tackiness continues. Oh, and we can’t forget that he’s busy rigging elections, ruining the economy, occupying cities, kidnapping immigrants, and fending off Epstein stories. President Zelenski is once more headed to the White House to ensure the US keeps the promises it made to the people of Ukraine. This time, Zelenski is bringing back-up from Western Europe. You’ll remember the last time he came, he brought out the bully in the childish Trump, who focused on Zelensky’s military uniform as a wartime president wearing a soldier’s uniform. Yam Tits hates to be upstaged and was hostile during that entire summit.

I don’t think that the Europeans can rescue the world from the Grandiose Narcissist, but they can make him look pathetic. As I write this, the Chancellor of the German Republic has arrived. This brief summary by AXIOS puts the occasion into perspective. Barak Ravid and Marc Caputo have this headline today. “Trump-Zelensky summit: The suit question, again.” Let’s see how he does when the premier leaders of Europe gang up on the infamous bully. Trump’s pettiness is likely to ruin the day.

Andrea Mitchell has just stated that President Zelenski is wearing a suit. Our embarrassing President is welcoming him and, of course, mentions his fetish partner, Putin. He’s thanking Yam Tits. I guess Zelenski got the message JD Dank sent him last time. And Trump’s calling Putin’s attack on Ukraine as “Biden’s War.” The man just can’t keep himself from lying. Here’s some perspective on the Trump/Putin bromance event last week in Letters from an American.

On the heels of President Donald J. Trump’s Friday meeting with Russia’s president Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, Trump will meet with Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky Monday afternoon at the White House. According to Barak Ravid of Axios, Trump called Zelensky from Air Force One on the way home from Alaska. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House special envoy Steve Witkoff were also on the hour-long call. The leaders of the European Commission, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the United Kingdom then joined the call for another half hour.

In the call, Trump embraced Putin’s view of the conflict, telling Zelensky and European leaders that Putin does not want a ceasefire. Trump indicated that he is abandoning his own demand for a ceasefire and adopting Putin’s position that negotiations should take place without one. Zelensky insists on a ceasefire before negotiations. After the call, Trump posted on social media that “it was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up.” “All” is doing a lot of work in that sentence: it appears to mean Putin, with the possible agreement now of Trump.

Key unanswered questions from Friday’s summit were why it ended so abruptly, with the cancellation of a planned luncheon and more discussions, and why Trump immediately told Fox News Channel personality Sean Hannity, “Because of what happened today, I think I don’t have to think about [further sanctions on Russia] now. I may have to think about it in two weeks or three weeks or something, but we don’t have to think about that right now.”

The abrupt cancellation could mean that U.S. officials sent Putin packing without lunch because he would not agree to a ceasefire. But it seems worth keeping on the table that Trump has recently exhibited both an inability to focus on any topic, and a need to live in a carefully constructed world that ignores reality and assures him he is the best and the brightest. A high-stakes meeting with principals about a very real situation might have been too much for him to manage for a full day.

At the press conference following the summit, NBC News White House correspondent Peter Alexander reported that what struck him was “the looks on the faces of a lot of the American delegation here. Karoline Leavitt…, Steve Witkoff, who came into the room, then left quickly, then came back in. Leavitt appeared to be a bit stressed out, anxious. Their eyes were wide, almost ashen at times.”

At 8:31 this morning, Trump posted one word, “bela,” on his social media account. California governor Gavin Newsom’s social media account, which has been trolling Trump by imitating his boastful, insulting, all-caps posts, wrote: “We broke Donald Trump.”

As of midday Sunday, there appeared to be no mention of the Alaska meeting on the State Department’s website, although it has been updated since Friday to acknowledge Indonesia Independence Day and the Gabonese Republic National Day.

What is clear from the summit, though, is that Trump and Putin badly miscalculated the nature of power in democracies.

While Trump came out of the White House to greet Zelinski, the situation was different for our European Allies. This is from The Daily Beast. “Trump Snubs Greatest Allies With Greeting From Fox News Host. European leaders arriving at the White House were met by the Chief of Protocol, Monica Crowley.”

After rolling out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday, President Donald Trump did not directly greet European leaders arriving at the White House on Monday.

Seven European leaders including British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Secretary General of NATO Mark Rutte, have all flown to Washington to show a united front as Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

A gathering of so many European leaders at the White House at one time with such little notice is unprecedented in recent times.

As they started arriving at the White House, European leaders were greeted by the Chief of Protocol and former Fox News personality Monica Crowley rather than the president.

While Trump did not step out to meet European leaders who hastily flew to Washington, he did acknowledge that their visit for the summit is a big deal.

“We have never had so many European Leaders here at one time. A great honor for America,” he wrote on Truth Social.

And Yam Tit’s speaking about himself in third person again, and how the Press underrates him. He’s also bragging about the “success” of the District occupation. Well, I can’t hear his voice without feeling like I’m going to vomit. He’s still ass-kissing and performing for the Nobel Peace Prize. He just hates that Obama got one. I just turned the TV off, and I’ll end here. We know he’s outnumbered in the brain department. Let’s just hope they can break through that Narcissistic Personality Disorder and get him to do what’s necessary for the good of all the democracies in the world.

What’s on your Reading, Blogging, and Action list today?

Sunday Cartoons: Fuck a Duck

Posted: August 17, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: just because | 5 Comments

What a dump…of a Trump.

And so we go…

Those are some cute medieval cats…

Now some cartoons via Cagle:

Sorry it is only cartoons today…I’m just tired of all the bullshit.

Be safe.

Lazy Caturday Reads: The Putin-Trump “Summit”

Posted: August 16, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Good Day!!

Well, that was just about what most of us expected. Trump practically bowed down to Putin. Uniformed U.S. troops were seen on their hands and knees setting up a red carpet from Putin’s plane to where Trump stood to welcome him.

When he saw Putin coming, Trump clapped his hands. He was obviously thrilled to see his idol again, and he gave Putin a warm handshake while patting him on the shoulder. Then Putin was invited to ride in the Beast where the two men could talk privately. Or perhaps Putin handed Trump a written message–who knows?

The cats are not happy today.

After the meeting, Putin and Trump appeared at a supposed “press conference,” but no questions from the press were allowed. Traditionally the host speaks first, but Trump deferred to Putin, who gave a dissertation on the history of Russia in Alaska. Putin also agreed with Trump that there never would have been an invasion of Ukraine if Trump had been president. Trump spoke only briefly, and he complained about how the “Russia Russia Russia hoax” interfered with his “fantastic relationship” with “President Putin.”

We were interfered with by the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. It made it a little bit tougher to deal with, but he understood it. I think he’s probably seen things like that during the course of his career. He’s seen- he’s seen it all. But we had to put up with the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. He knew it was a hoax, and I knew it was a hoax, but what was done was very criminal, but it made it harder for us to deal as a country, in terms of the business, and all of the things that would like to have dealt with, but we’ll have a good chance when this is over.

Trump also noted that he was going to call NATO and Zelensky to let them know what happened in the meeting.

No questions from the press were allowed. You can read the full transcript at CBS News. It’s not very long.

MSNBC’s Peter Alexander reported that Trump’s entourage did not seem happy after the meeting:

Peter Alexander: "What struck me was the looks on the faces of a lot of the American, delegation here. Caroline Leavitt, Steve Witkoff, who came into the room, then left quickly. Leavitt appeared to be a bit stressed out, anxious. Their eyes were wide, almost ashen at times."

— Blue Georgia (@bluegeorgia.bsky.social) 2025-08-16T00:44:02.105Z

Wow. Witkoff was in the meeting. I hope he leaks about it.

Meanwhile, the Trump people committed a terrible security breach. NPR: Government papers found in an Alaskan hotel reveal new details of Trump-Putin summit.

Papers with U.S. State Department markings, found Friday morning in the business center of an Alaskan hotel, revealed previously undisclosed and potentially sensitive details about the Aug. 15 meetings between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir V. Putin in Anchorage.

Eight pages, that appear to have been produced by U.S. staff and left behind accidentally, shared precise locations and meeting times of the summit and phone numbers of U.S. government employees.

At around 9 a.m. on Friday, three guests at Hotel Captain Cook, a four-star hotel located 20 minutes from the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage where leaders from the U.S. and Russia convened, found the documents left behind in one of the hotel’s public printers. NPR reviewed photos of the documents taken by one of the guests, who NPR agreed not to identify because the guest said they feared retaliation….

The first page in the printed packet disclosed the sequence of meetings for August 15, including the specific names of the rooms inside the base in Anchorage where they would take place. It also revealed that Trump intended to give Putin a ceremonial present.

“POTUS to President Putin,” the document states, “American Bald Eagle Desk Statue.”

Pages 2 through 5 listed the names and phone numbers of three U.S. staff members as well as the names of 13 U.S. and Russian state leaders. The list included phonetic pronouncers for all the Russian men expected at the summit, including “Mr. President POO-tihn.”

Pages 6 and 7 in the packet described how lunch at the summit would be served, and for whom. A menu included in the documents indicated that the luncheon was to be held “in honor of his excellency Vladimir Putin.”

A seating chart shows that Putin and Trump were supposed to sit across from each other during the luncheon. Trump would be flanked by six officials: Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles to his right, and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and Special Envoy for Peace Missions Steve Witkoff to his left. Putin would be seated immediately next to his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov, and his Aide to the President for Foreign Policy, Yuri Ushakov.

During the summit Friday, lunch was apparently cancelled. But it was intended to be a simple, three-course meal, the documents showed. After a green salad, the world leaders would dine on filet mignon and halibut olympia. Crème brûlée would be served for dessert.

I wonder which side cancelled lunch?

The Russians released embarrassing footage. Sarah Ewall-Rice writes at The Daily Beast: Kremlin Leaks Footage Showing Trump Fawning Over Putin.

The state-run Russian international news network Russia Today (RT) has released behind-the-scenes video from Alaska that appears to show President Donald Trump fawning over Vladimir Putin.

The video shared by the Kremlin shows Trump and Putin standing together backstage near where they delivered public remarks following their three-hour meeting.

Despite walking away without a deal and without sharing any details on progress toward ending the war in Ukraine, the president could be seen laughing as he spoke to Putin.

The only person standing with the two leaders as they spoke was Putin’s translator.

In the video, Trump can be seen offering his hand first to shake hands with Putin. The president then tapped their joined hands with his other hand, embracing Putin with a two-hand shake. He also shook the Russian translator’s hand at the end of the clip.

The Kremlin was quick to release the video. While the White House has been posting a series of clips from the historic visit in Alaska, it has not yet shared any candid video of Trump and Putin together. The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment.

According to RT, the video was taken right after their public remarks, during which neither man took any questions from reporters. It described their behind-the-scenes banter as “light chatter.”

This is also from The Daily Beast, by Farrah Tomazin: Trump Leaves Alaska With Nothing Except a Lecture From Preening Putin.

President Donald Trump has ended his high-stakes Russia summit without announcing a deal to end the war in Ukraine, despite rolling out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin as the first U.S. president in years to invite him to America.

After a ride in the presidential limousine, a military flyover, and three hours of talks, a somewhat subdued Trump told reporters in Alaska: “We didn’t get there—but we have a very good chance of getting there.” [….]

During a press conference lasting only a few minutes, Trump and Putin spoke of an agreement of sorts, but gave no details, took no questions, and made no mention of a ceasefire.

“There’s no deal until there’s a deal,” Trump said. “I will call up NATO in a little while. I will call up the various people that I think are appropriate, and I’ll, of course, call up President Zelensky and tell them about today’s meeting. It’s ultimately up to them.”

The lack of an announcement is likely to fuel claims that Putin was using the meeting as a stalling tactic to stave off further U.S. sanctions.

And, of course, Trump used it as an attempted distraction from the Epstein files.

The Russian authoritarian has been frozen out by the West for years, and his visit has been depicted in Moscow as a win for the Kremlin.

At the press conference, Putin addressed the room first, and then spoke for eight-and-a-half minutes about the history of the two nations, his desire for more business ties with America, and flattered the American president by agreeing that the war would not have happened if Trump had been in office.

He also told reporters that he greeted Trump on the tarmac in Alaska by saying, “Good afternoon, dear neighbor—very good to see you in good health and to see you alive.”

But Putin also made the point that in order to make a “lasting and long-term” end to the war, “we need to eliminate all the primary root causes” of the conflict in Ukraine.

This is viewed as shorthand for Putin’s hardline demands, which have repeatedly been rejected: that Ukraine disarms, gives up a large part of its land to Russia, and swears off joining NATO.

Friday’s summit in Alaska’s Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson was the first time Putin has been on U.S. soil in 10 years.

It was also the first time a U.S. president has given the VIP treatment to a Russian leader who faces an arrest warrant for war crimes issued by the International Criminal Court as well as being sanctioned by the U.S. government.

This is hilarious. Trump claims that Putin told him he obviously won the 2020 election, and it was rigged because of mail-in voting. Reuters: Trump says Putin agrees with him US should not have mail-in voting.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin agrees with him that letting voters send in ballots by mail puts honest elections at risk.

Trump, who promoted the false narrative that he, not Democrat Joe Biden, won the 2020 election, cited his agreement with Putin over absentee voting as he pressed his fellow Republicans to try harder to advance overhauls to the U.S. voting system that he has long sought.

Trump has voted by mail in some previous elections and urged his supporters to do so in 2024.

Putin, who has been Russia’s president or prime minister since 1999, was elected to another term in office with 87% of the vote in a 2024 election that drew allegations of vote rigging from some independent polling observers, opposition voices and Western governments. The most formidable opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, died in an Arctic penal colony in 2024.

Imagine taking advice on fair elections from Putin. LOL

Here’s a reaction from Ukraine. The Kyiv Independent: Editorial: That meeting was sickening. Putin loved it.

Sickening. Shameful. And in the end, useless.

Those were the words that came to mind when we watched the Alaska Summit unfold.

On our screens, a blood-soaked dictator and war criminal received a royal welcome in the land of the free — as his attack drones headed for our cities.

In the lead-up to the meeting in Alaska, U.S. President Donald Trump declared he wanted a “ceasefire today” and that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin would face “severe consequences” if he didn’t go for it.

Yet after a 2.5-hour closed-door meeting, Trump and Putin emerged to share… nothing. “Progress” was made and some “understanding” reached, but the two didn’t come to an agreement on “the most significant point” — clearly, Ukraine.

Trump didn’t get what he wanted. But Putin? He sure did.

From the moment he stepped off the plane on U.S. soil, the Russian dictator was beaming.

No longer an international pariah, he was finally getting accepted – and respected — by the leader of the free world. Trump’s predecessor once called Putin a murderer; Trump offered him a king’s welcome.

Trump greeted Putin with a red carpet, warm handshakes, a flyover of U.S. bombers, and a backseat limo ride.

The chummy display stood in stark contrast to Trump’s hostile reception of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office six months ago.

Ukraine’s president endured a public shaming. Russia’s was pampered. Both episodes were disgraceful.

Read the rest at the link.

Susan Glasser at The New Yorker: Trump’s Self-Own Summit with Putin.

Glasser begins by describing the buildup and aftermath of the meeting pretty much as I’ve already posted here. Her evaluation of the event:

Sometimes the news is what it seems to be, meaning, in this case: No deal. The day began with a hellish war in Ukraine, with air-raid sirens in Kyiv and fierce battles in the east, and that is how it ended. The only difference is that Putin got one hell of a photo op out of Trump, and still more time on the clock to prosecute his war against the “brotherly” Ukrainian people, as he had the chutzpah to call them during his remarks in Alaska. The most enduring images from Anchorage, it seems, will be its grotesque displays of bonhomie between the dictator and his longtime American admirer.

Right around the time that Trump was on the tarmac, clapping for the butcher of Bucha, his fund-raising team sent out the following e-mail:

Attention please, I’m meeting with Putin in Alaska! It’s a little chilly. THIS MEETING IS VERY HIGH STAKES for the world. The Democrats would love nothing more than for ME TO FAIL. No one in the world knows how to make deals like me!

The backdrop for this uniquely Trumpian combination of braggadocio and toxic partisanship was, of course, anything but a master class in successful deal-making; rather, the impetus for the summit was the President’s increasing urgency to produce a result after six months of failure to end the war in Ukraine—a task he once said was so easy that it would be done before he even returned to office in January. Leading up to the Alaska summit, nothing worked: Not berating Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, in the Oval Office. Not begging Putin to “STOP” his bombing. Not even a U.S.-floated proposal to essentially give Putin much of what he had demanded. Trump gave Putin multiple deadlines—fifty days, two weeks, “ten or twelve days”—to agree to a ceasefire and come to the table, then did nothing when Putin balked. When his latest ultimatum expired, on August 8th, instead of imposing tough new sanctions, as he had threatened, Trump announced that he would meet Putin in Alaska a week later, minus Zelensky, in effect ending the Russian’s global isolation in exchange for no apparent concessions aimed at ending the war that Putin himself had unleashed.

In the run-up to the meeting, debates raged about the right historical parallel to draw between this summit and its twentieth-century antecedents: Was it to be a replay of Yalta, with two great powers instead of three settling the fate of absent small nations, and with the United States once again signing off on Russia’s dominance over its neighbors? Or perhaps Munich was the better analogy, with Trump in the role of Neville Chamberlain, ceding a beleaguered ally’s territory as the price of an illusory peace? For Ukraine and its supporters in the West, the prospect of a sellout by Trump loomed large.

But history doesn’t repeat so neatly, and certainly not when Trump is involved. He is a sui-generis American President, who, at the end of the day, seemed to have orchestrated a self-own of embarrassing proportions. As ever, Trump’s big mouth offered up the best reminder of what he wanted in Alaska and what he did not get. On Friday morning, as Trump flew out of Washington aboard Air Force One, he told reporters, “I want to see a ceasefire rapidly. I don’t know if it’s going to be today, but I’m not going to be happy if it’s not today.” But, after his long-sought meeting with Putin, as he again boarded Air Force One for the long flight home, this was the chyron on Fox News that greeted him: “No Ceasefire After Trump-Putin Summit.”

Read the rest at The New Yorker. I got past the paywall by using the link at Memeorandum.com.

From Ukraine expert Anne Applebaum at The Atlantic (gift link): Trump Has No Cards. Why would Putin need to make a deal with him?

President Donald Trump berated President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office. He allowed the Pentagon twice to halt prearranged military shipments to Ukraine. He promised that when the current tranche of armaments runs out, there will be no more. He has cut or threatened to cut the U.S. funds that previously supported independent Russian-language media and opposition. His administration is slowly, quietly easing sanctions on Russia, ending “basic sanctions and export control actions that had maintained and increased U.S. pressure,” according to a Senate-minority report. “Every month he’s spent in office without action has strengthened Putin’s hand, weakened ours and undermined Ukraine’s own efforts to bring an end to the war,” Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Elizabeth Warren wrote in a joint statement.

Many of these changes have gone almost unremarked on in the United States. But they are widely known in Russia. The administration’s attacks on Zelensky, Europeans, and Voice of America have been celebrated on Russian television. Of course Vladimir Putin knows about the slow lifting of sanctions. As a result, the Russian president has clearly made a calculation: Trump, to use the language he once hurled at Zelensky, has no cards.

Trump does say that he wants to end the war in Ukraine, and sometimes he also says that he is angry that Putin doesn’t. But if the U.S. is not willing to use any economic, military, or political tools to help Ukraine, if Trump will not put any diplomatic pressure on Putin or any new sanctions on Russian resources, then the U.S. president’s fond wish to be seen as a peacemaker can be safely ignored. No wonder all of Trump’s negotiating deadlines for Russia have passed, to no effect, and no wonder the invitation to Anchorage produced no result.

There is not much else to say about yesterday’s Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska, other than to observe the intertwining elements of tragedy and farce. It was embarrassing for Americans to welcome a notorious wanted war criminal on their territory. It was humiliating to watch an American president act like a happy puppy upon encountering the dictator of a much poorer, much less important state, treating him as a superior. It’s excruciating to imagine how badly Trump’s diplomatic envoy, Steve Witkoff, an amateur out of his depth, misunderstood his last meeting with Putin in Moscow if he thought that the Alaska summit was going to be successful. It’s ominous that Trump now says he doesn’t want to push for a cease-fire but instead for peace negotiations, because the latter formula gives Putin time to keep killing Ukrainians. It’s strange that Russian reports of the meeting focused on business cooperation. “Russian-American business and investment partnership has huge potential,” Putin said today.

Applebaum notes that Trump had already destroyed any chance Americans had of influencing Putin.

The U.S. has no cards because we’ve been giving them away. If we ever want to play them again, we will have to win them back: Arm Ukraine, expand sanctions, stop the lethal drone swarms, break the Russian economy, and win the war. Then there will be peace.

This is rich, from CBS News: Trump says he will meet with Zelenskyy after “very successful day” with Putin.

President Donald Trump said he will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Monday afternoon to discuss an agreement “which would end the war” between Russia and Ukraine.

The Truth Social post came about half a day after Mr. Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska. Mr. Trump said the meeting with Putin “went very well.” He also said the meeting was followed by a “late night phone call” with Zelenskyy and other European leaders, including Mark Rutte, the secretary general of NATO. The call took place around 2:40 a.m. ET.

“It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up,” Mr. Trump said.

Mr. Trump did not share any details of the agreement. He said Zelenskyy would join him in the Oval Office on Monday afternoon to discuss the proposal.

European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said in a statement that they had been debriefed on the meeting with Putin, and said Mr. Trump had supported security guarantees for Ukraine.

“We are clear that Ukraine must have ironclad security guarantees to effectively defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity. We welcome President Trump’s statement that the U.S. is prepared to give security guarantees,” the statement read.

Read more BS at the link.

That’s it for me today. What do you think?

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