The Strait To Sequel

Over the weekend, someone went begging to the other major powers to help him out of a disaster of his own making (from Sam Metz, Will Weissert, Julia Frankel, and Cara Anna at AP News):

President Donald Trump said Sunday that he has demanded about seven countries send warships to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, but his appeals have brought no commitments as oil prices soar during the Iran war.

The president declined to name the countries heavily reliant on Middle East crude that the administration is negotiating with to join a coalition to police the waterway where about one-fifth of the world’s traded oil normally flows.

“I’m demanding that these countries come in and protect their own territory, because it is their own territory,” Trump said about the strait, claiming the shipping channel is not something the United States needs because of its own access to oil. Trump spoke while answering reporters’ questions as he flew back to Washington from Florida aboard Air Force One.

The gist is that after weeks of crowing how victorious he's been blowing up Iran, his handlers have finally gotten him to understand that angering Iran to the point of shutting down the Strait of Hormuz was a really bad idea.

If you're wondering if any of those nations have answered back by now, I think Germany has spelled out what the response is going to be like (via Ellen Mitchell at The Hill):

Germany’s defense minister on Monday rebuffed calls from U.S. President Trump to send ships to unblock the Strait of Hormuz, telling reporters “this is not our war.”

Trump has called on allies, including those in NATO, for military ​support to keep the vital shipping route open. Iran has effectively closed the strait for the past two weeks in response to the U.S.-Israeli war on Tehran, using missiles, drones and mines to attack oil tankers trying to get through.

“What does … Donald Trump expect a handful or two handfuls of European frigates to ​do in the Strait of Hormuz that the powerful U.S. Navy cannot do?” Boris Pistorius ⁠said in Berlin, as reported by Reuters. “This is not our war, we have not started it.”

Ever the bully, trump never understood that a bully's victims will not come to that bully's aid when he's getting punched in the face. Having mocked and belittled and threatened our NATO allies - and pretty much 80 percent of the rest of the planet - trump has no peace offering to give them. 

This isn't post-9/11, when most of Western civilization came to our nation's aid to stamp out Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan (and more reluctantly invade Iraq over WMD lies and deception). trump and his lackeys - Rubio and whomever hasn't been fired from the State Department yet - may want other nations to sacrifice their own people and resources to rescue trump from this debacle, but they don't have the genuine skills of diplomacy - compromise, long-term planning, honesty, commitment to shared objectives - to recover from this.

The world may be facing economic turmoil if oil prices keep going up, but all of the other nations seem willing to suffer the pain momentarily if it means trump and the chickenhawk Far Right get humiliated and broken by their own idiocy and hubris.

An entire Far Right ideology of toxic masculinity is getting punched in the face right now. It's the only good news we have in all this death and fire.

Addendum: I hope this BlueSky skeet stays up. Thank you Dr. SkySkull!

Europeans when being asked to unblock the strait of Hormuz

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— Dr. SkySkull (@drskyskull.bsky.social) March 16, 2026 at 2:43 PM

A Wounded Narcissist Leading Us to Ruin

If there's any solid evidence that the United States as a nation, as a global power, as a beacon of political stability is no more, the recent letter from donald trump to Norway's prime minister should be the big fucking clue we've finally gone over the cliffs (via Robbie Griffiths at NPR): 

President Trump says his controversial push for U.S. control of Greenland comes after he failed to win the Nobel Peace Prize last year, adding he no longer feels obliged to think only of peace.

In a message to Norway's prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre on Sunday night, Trump criticized the European country for not giving him the prize.

"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 States of America," Trump said in the message.

"The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland," Trump added. The message was reported by PBS NewsHour, and was later confirmed by Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre in a statement.

Gahr Støre said he received the message on Sunday in response to a text he and Finland's President Alexander Stubb had sent to Trump, in which they had conveyed opposition to Trump's proposed tariff increases on eight European countries over the recent Greenland dispute.

There are images floating around of a physical letter, but I fear they are mock-ups instead of the real thing so I'm not going to post it here. But given how too many reputable news outlets have verified the contents of that letter, we should expect the messaging is correct... and clear.

For all of trump's bluster that Greenland is necessary for America's national security, the truth is that trump wants Greenland to satisfy his own broken ego. The truth is that the current occupant of the White House - I refuse to identify him otherwise - is a bratty five-year-old throwing a tantrum and lashing out in anger towards everyone he feels has insulted him.

As Anne Applebaum clarifies at the Atlantic:

One could observe many things about this document. One is the childish grammar, including the strange capitalizations (“Complete and Total Control”). Another is the loose grasp of history. Donald Trump did not end eight wars. Greenland has been Danish territory for centuries. Its residents are Danish citizens who vote in Danish elections. There are many “written documents” establishing Danish sovereignty in Greenland, including some signed by the United States. In his second term, Trump has done nothing for NATO—an organization that the U.S. created and theoretically leads, and that has only ever been used in defense of American interests. If the European members of NATO have begun spending more on their own defense (budgets to which the U.S. never contributed), that’s because of the threat they feel from Russia.

Yet what matters isn’t the specific phrases, but the overall message: Donald Trump now genuinely lives in a different reality, one in which neither grammar nor history nor the normal rules of human interaction now affect him. Also, he really is maniacally, unhealthily obsessive about the Nobel Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee, not the Norwegian government and certainly not the Danish government, determines the winner of that prize. Yet Trump now not only blames Norway for failing to give it to him, but is using it as a justification for an invasion of Greenland.

For the past year, American allies around the world have tried very hard to find a theory that explains Trump’s behavior. Isolationism, neo-imperialism, and patrimonialism are all words that have been thrown around. But in the end, the president himself defeats all attempts to describe a “Trump doctrine.” He is locked into a world of his own, determined to “win” every encounter, whether in an imaginary competition for the Nobel Peace Prize or a protest from the mother of small children objecting to his masked, armed paramilitary in Minneapolis. These contests matter more to him than any long-term strategy. And of course, the need to appear victorious matters much more than Americans’ prosperity and well-being...

This is nothing new, by the way. Any rational observer of trump's world-view since 2016 saw this kind of self-serving mania coming. I remember what Adam L. Silverman wrote back then, and how it applies now:

...More than that, however, is that the Trump Doctrine is really the animating force or theme of the entire Trump campaign. The other candidates had better treat Donald Trump fairly, the Republican National Committee better treat Donald Trump fairly, the Republican establishment better treat Donald Trump fairly, the media better treat Donald Trump fairly, the state level parties that handle the primaries and all the delegates chosen better treat Donald Trump fairly. And Donald Trump will make them treat him fairly! And the only candidate, nay the only person in America who can ensure that you are treated fairly is Donald Trump. And if he isn’t treated fairly or the US isn’t treated fairly, then he will get even...!

It's not that America gets treated fairly - by whatever measurement anyone would use - it's that TRUMP gets treated fairly. And trump's idea of fair treatment is "Give me everything you have and worship me like a god."

trump doesn't get a Nobel Peace Prize? he'll force the soccer organization FIFA to create a brand-new Peace Award in order to keep the planned 2026 World Cup in the U.S. going. Even if everyone else on the planet saw it as the ego-boosting it was and mocked the award. Try to get the actual award winner María Corina Machado to gift trump the physical award as though he won it? The Nobel committee will go public with the reminder that the Peace Prize once given cannot be traded away.

We've seen this ever since trump stormed the public stage back in the 1980s: Denied any public display of success, trump had / is / will lash out however he can.

And with the powers of the office at his disposal, lashing out is arguably the only sadistic enjoyment he can feel.

The problem with this kind of absolutist leadership - the sins of tyrants and mad kings - is that it alienates far too many allies our nation relies relied on to remain a superpower. trump and his handlers haven't really thought this through: trump's threats to tariff most of Europe can backlash with those nations pulling out their investments in US Bonds and other financial markers. We're seeing another drop in the value of the dollar. The calls to relocate the World Cup away from the United States are increasing.

Even if trump pulls back on the tariffs threat, if he does follow through on sending US armed forces to seize Greenland any time soon (gods help us, it might be this week depending on where these airborne troops go) it will not only trigger the collapse of NATO - which benefits only Putin - but also turn far too many nations against us at one time. The US had a hard enough time fighting a War on Terror on two fronts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Trigger this kind of war and we're counting at least eight nations - including the bordering Canada - cutting off our overseas bases, shutting down our logistic capabilities, and arguably going toe-to-toe on a battlefield in multiple locations.

The Far Right - and a lot of the Alpha Male wannabes in trump's world drooling at the fantasy of war - may think we have the world's greatest military and we can take all comers, but they're dragging the rest of the nation into a fight that most Americans - even other Republicans - don't want. Our military may be the best-trained, the best-supplied, the best period, but even we have limits on both manpower and resources. Fighting most of NATO - which may drag in Mexico and various South American nations already pissed at trump, and with the likelihood of our Asian allies like Japan and Philippines refusing to side with us - is not going to be easy.

Everything the United States did over the decades to rise to become a global superpower is getting demolished and firebombed into ash all because of one man's demented ego, this hollow man donald trump who struts upon the stage like an unsatisfied fool.

The only way this ends well is if someone in a position to do anything - a cowering Republican Congress, a military command structure wary of pulling a coup that would still harbinger an end to the constitutional order - steps up and forces trump to step down.

The odds of that happening are less than the odds that trump will drive us into a ruinous war.

Stay safe, everyone.

The Bully Circus

There was a time when Teddy Roosevelt declared the presidency as a kind of "bully pulpit," a means of preaching and advocating for issues that mattered. As Taegan Goddard notes at his Political Dictionary site:

The bully pulpit in Roosevelt’s mind wasn’t about pummeling legislators with presidential authority; rather, he believed the president could encourage the public to push their legislators on behalf of his agenda.

In these times, however, bullying means something darker. Under donald trump, the bullying is a means to treat people not in his circle of power with cruel, insulting, threatening, and aggressive actions.

trump's assaults on Venezuela - not only killing boat crews on dubious accusations, but also seizing oil tankers and running an illegal military operation to capture that nation's president - is but one example of the aggression trump wants to inflict on others.

Here at home, trump's pumped-up immigration police in ICE/Border Patrol under the aegis of "Homeland Security" are committing acts of violence and attempts at intimidation towards the cities of DC, Los Angeles, Portland OR, Chicago, and lately Minneapolis-St. Paul where the escalation has turned bloody (via Edith Olmsted at New Republic):

Following the news that Minnesota and the Twin Cities were suing to stop the Trump administration’s “Operation Metro Surge,” the president took to Truth Social to air his frustration with his besieged constituents.

“Do the people of Minnesota really want to live in a community in which there are thousands of already convicted murderers, drug dealers and addicts, rapists, violent released and escaped prisoners, dangerous people from foreign mental institutions and insane asylums, and other deadly criminals too dangerous to even mention,” Trump wrote. (note: trump is gaslighting again to fearmonger to his flock) 

He claimed that all the “patriots of ICE” wanted was to “remove” these individuals. But last week, the residents of Minneapolis saw something entirely different: an ICE agent senselessly killed a U.S. citizen, Renee Good, and was then defended by every level of government.

Good’s death sparked civil unrest in Minneapolis (and nationwide), as well as requests for federal immigration forces to take their leave. But the Trump administration has doubled down on its occupation, deploying roughly 1,000 more U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers.

Instead of toning down on the rhetoric - the agent who shot Good was caught on his own body cam calling her a "f-cking b-tch" - and violence towards our own communities, the government thugs are crowing and acting worse (from Ashley Vega at People (yes, they're covering this)):

A Minneapolis pastor said he was detained by ICE after heading toward protests near his church. Pastor Kenny Callaghan of All God’s Children MCC shared his account with Fox 9 Minneapolis, saying the encounter unfolded on the morning of Wednesday, Jan. 7.

Callaghan told the outlet he realized something was happening nearby when he heard whistles and car horns outside. He said he grabbed his own whistles and moved toward the commotion, only for the situation to escalate quickly.

He told Fox 9 he managed to take a few photos as the vehicle drove down Portland Avenue before pocketing his phone when he noticed agents surrounding a “brown-skinned woman.”

Callaghan said he joined in as a crowd chanted, “We are not afraid,” and tried to redirect attention toward himself, telling the agents to arrest him instead of the woman they were surrounding.

“Before I knew it, they were putting handcuffs on my arms and they asked me, ‘Are you afraid now?’ ” he recalled.

He said he answered, “No, I am not,” as agents continued detaining him. Callaghan told Fox 9 he was held in the SUV with two other detainees as agents returned multiple times to question him.

Callaghan said the message stayed the same during those check-ins, with agents repeatedly asking if he was afraid. He also said they asked for his ID and his phone while he remained in the back of the vehicle.

At one point, Callaghan said he asked whether he was under arrest and was left alone for a period of time afterward. He also told Fox 9 that an agent allegedly waved a gun in his face, and while fear flickered for a moment, it was quickly overtaken by outrage.

“And then they came back the last time and they said, ‘Are you afraid yet?’ ” he said. “And I said, ‘No.’”

Meanwhile, the ICE and Border thugs are firing tear gas canisters in nearly every crowd and sometimes right in people's faces.

This is what they want, what trump wants, what the Far Right has wanted for decades. They want the thrill and elation of making the rest of us terrified of them, of their authority and their potential for violence.

trump wants the violence to escalate: it will justify any plans he has of suspending the Constitution under "emergency powers" and make himself Dear Leader For Life. While the protesters will do everything proper and avoid conflict whenever possible, expect the armed and body-armored ICE gangs to reenact the worst of police violence that would make Chicago 1968 seem like a block party.

And this all happening here in the U.S. Outside our borders, trump is busy waving his big stick towards Iran (again), Syria, Cuba, and worst of all Denmark in a brazen attempt to seize Greenland from one of our NATO allies. If we do invade Greenland, it would break that alliance and drive Europe - already coping with a belligerent and desperate Russia - into chaos.

Instead of a bully pulpit, what we have is a bully circus. trump and his Far Right allies are running amok behaving like Alpha Male Wannabes, mistaking arrogance for leadership and violence for success. The problem is they don't show any genuine thought or planning into what they're actually doing. They kidnaped Maduro from Venezuela from the looks of things thinking it would immediately collapse that government. Instead, Maduro's party promoted his veep Delcy Rodríguez into acting presidency leaving trump on the outside threatening more attacks and demanding she bend to his will.

If trump thinks there won't be any consequences if he sends an invasion force into Greenland, he's ignoring the reality that the end of NATO would end our military presence across most of Europe: Our extensive overseas base network is a major reason why our logistics and military effectiveness is the best in the world, and if that goes so too goes our military dominance.

Instead of projecting themselves as Alpha Males, trump and his lackeys are posing as clowns... albeit clowns armed with assault weapons, flashbang grenades, and long-range missiles that can ruin anybody's day.

The world tonight is a circus of fear, stained with the blood of innocent lives and propped up by the violent fantasies of an aging, addled narcissist. 

Stay safe, America. Stay safe, people of Venezuela and Greenland and Iran and everywhere else trump is bullying us all.

Quick Observation About That Disastrous trump Speech to the UN

Update: Thanks again to Batocchio for including this blog in the Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Roundup! P.S. So far the AI traffic has reduced but I need to take the next step in blocking the scavengers. Alas, this is what corporate obsession with technological shortcuts brought us to...

You know, that speech where trump goes up to the podium and basically insults every nation, lies about the United States' financial status, demands he be awarded the Peace Prize for wars and border clashes that haven't ended or were calmed by their own people, while threatening more tariffs and mocking climate change renewable energy agendas as a "con job". 

My observation is this: How the hell didn't every other nation at that UN assembly just pack up and recall every ambassador to end diplomatic relations with the United States, as well as ending every trade talk with us, and also issuing travel boycotts and financial sanctions on banks and corporations still trying to do business with us?

I know stuff like that would cause global economic chaos. But... I mean, goddamn, how bad does it have to get before whatever's left of our allies and enemies admit in public that trump is a goddamned self-serving idiot who needs to get publicly humiliated every hour of the day?

This is classic trump behavior acting like a bully. Do you know what you do with bullies? You punch him in the nose and get all your friends together to point out he's outnumbered and outclassed.

trump's entire game plan is to get others to cave before he gets exposed as the bankrupted racist sexist asshole he is. You fight back, he and his rolls over. Yes, he'll come back a few months later pushing the same stunt, but you punch him again and make him retreat again.

O Canada! (Thank God)

God exists, and She's Canadian (yes this is a Gen X Dogma reference).

Canada held their national elections this Monday, facing down a potential conservative flip the way most other western liberal nations were facing in the post-COVID reactionary world. However, thanks to one unavoidable factor - donald MOTHERFUCKING trump, out here hitting their nation with high tariffs and taunting them with threats to make them "the 51st state" - affecting the overall mood of the Canadian electorate, the results are favoring the liberal party under new-ish leadership to continue their fight against trump's bullying ways.

Ed Kilgore over at New York's Intelligencer site took note of how trump screwed it up for himself and his wingnut conservative allies in the Great White North (paywalled):

...The bookmark at the end of the month was Monday’s national election in Canada, which Donald Trump worked hard to make a referendum on his various threats to our most important trading partner’s economy, independence, and even integrity. Elections are rarely defined by a single issue, but there’s not much doubt north of the border that Trump personally turned a certain victory for his Conservative counterparts into a stunning win for the left-for-dead Liberals. The ruling party made mobilizing the country against Trump’s various provocations the successful formula (personal edit: search for #ElbowsUp, kids!) for a fourth consecutive national win under the leadership of recently appointed prime minister Mark Carney, who is sort of the Kamala Harris of Canada, given long-time leader Justin Trudeau’s handoff to him in January.

Despite clear signals he was putting Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre in an impossible spot, Trump never let up, issuing this especially provocative bit of advice to Canadians on Truth Social on Election Day itself:

Good luck to the Great people of Canada. Elect the man who has the strength and wisdom to cut your taxes in half, increase your military power, for free, to the highest level in the World, have your Car, Steel, Aluminum, Lumber, Energy, and all other businesses, QUADRUPLE in size, WITH ZERO TARIFFS OR TAXES, if Canada becomes the cherished 51st. State of the United States of America. No more artificially drawn line from many years ago. Look how beautiful this land mass would be. Free access with NO BORDER. ALL POSITIVES WITH NO NEGATIVES. IT WAS MEANT TO BE! America can no longer subsidize Canada with the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year that we have been spending in the past. It makes no sense unless Canada is a State!

Trump was essentially offering to displace the entire Canadian election system and extinguish that country’s sovereignty in exchange for his benevolent rule from Washington.

So Trump has produced a revived government in Ottawa with a distinct mandate to fight him tooth and nail. But that’s not the only way he was a loser on Monday. It’s not at all unusual for politicians to rally domestic support by picking a fight with other countries; it’s a jingoistic political tale as old as time. In this case, there is zero evidence (outside the hardest core of MAGA loyalists) that Americans have rallied to Trump’s Canada-bashing cause. Au contraire, as they might say in Quebec. An April 22 Washington Post–ABC–Ipsos poll showed Americans opposing a takeover of Canada by an astounding 86 percent to 13 percent. Even Republicans opposed it, 71 percent to 27 percent. Yes, many of them viewed this “idea” as a classic example of Trump just trolling the world. But if that’s what it was (and he has denied he’s trolling at all), he’s taken the joke far beyond the point where anyone in Canada is laughing, making himself a bit of a laughing stock in the process...

Somewhere in trump's aging, dementia-addled brain, he's gotten the notion that he can coax, bully, and/or harass the entire nation of Canada into succumbing to his will and joining the United States as one huge state (never mind the geographic, logistical, political, and cultural nightmares that would all cause). He clearly flunked out of 19th Century U.S. history, which would have taught him that Canada resisted even American military invasions during the War of 1812. Hell, that resistance developed their own rise of nationalism and pride in having defended themselves against our arrogance. They view the Battle of Queenston Heights the way Americans view Yorktown, or Gettysburg, or D-Day.

For trump to keep insisting that "it'll be better" for them to surrender to trump's annexation pleas is a huge ongoing insult to Canada. If he's doing it to intentionally troll them, to get them to roll over in his tariff negotiation tactics, he horribly miscalculated. He's made it so that anything even indirectly related to trumpism such as the conservatives in Canada - who probably made hourly phone calls to their American buddies begging them to get trump to shut up for even a day - got the Elbows Up treatment. It's telling that the leader of the national Conservatives Pierre Poilievre lost his own seat, a humiliation even UK Tories leader Sunak never endured (via Promit Mukherjee at Reuters):

Canada's main opposition leader Pierre Poilievre lost his seat in Monday's general election, results from Elections Canada showed, as the Conservatives were beaten by the incumbent Liberal Party.

Poilievre, 45, failed to retain his seat in the Ontario district of Carleton, losing it to Liberal Bruce Fanjoy...

Poilievre, a career politician, looked set to become Canada's next prime minister at the start of the year as he pitched himself as a change from former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who had led the Liberals since 2015.

Poilievre rode an anti-Trudeau wave and his sharp one-liners resonated with the public.

But as U.S. President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on Canada and often mused about making it his country's 51st state, opinions shifted in favor of Carney over Poilievre...

Poilievre tried to deflect any anti-trumpism by loudly decrying trump's tariffs and calling on national pride, but his own rhetoric style and decades of attacking liberalism made Poilievre the one target Canadians could punish. They couldn't punch trump - safe behind our border - but they could punch him.

Granted, the Conservatives did gain seats - there is a terrifying trend of young men voting far right in Canada as much as here in the U.S. - but they failed to win the plurality, giving Liberals the opportunity to form another coalition. Poilievre may lose his spot as party leader now that he's ousted from office, but now it's a question of the next party leader and how Far Right they'll be (and how susceptible they'll be to trumpian Far Right ideology takeover).

For the Center-Left in Canada, there is relief. For the Center-Left in America, there is a sliver of hope.

For the ongoing trade and border wars trump is threatening to escalate...

The Isolation

The way things are going, you'd think donald trump doesn't want any foreign policy at all. he's burning nearly every bridge the United States has to the world (via David E. Sanger at the New York Times (might be paywalled)):

In a span of only 50 days, President Trump has done more than any of his modern predecessors to hollow out the foundations of an international system that the United States painstakingly erected in the 80 years since it emerged victorious from World War II.

Without formally declaring a reversal of course or offering a strategic rationale, he has pushed the United States to switch sides in the Ukraine war, abandoning all talk about helping a nascent, flawed democracy defend its borders against a larger invader. He did not hesitate when he ordered the United States to vote with Russia and North Korea — and against virtually all of America’s traditional allies — to defeat a U.N. resolution that identified Moscow as the aggressor. His threats to take control of the Panama Canal, Greenland, Gaza and, most incredibly, Canada, sound predatory, including his claim Tuesday that the border with America’s northern ally is an “artificial line of separation...”

Mr. Trump has imposed tariffs on his allies after describing them as leeches on the American economy. And he has so damaged trust among the NATO allies that France is discussing extending its country’s small nuclear umbrella over Europe, and Poland is thinking of building its own atomic weapon. Both fear the United States can no longer be counted on to act as the alliance’s ultimate defender, a core role it created for itself when the NATO treaty was written...

trump is presenting a master class on how to alienate allies and punish innocent people. Not just with a trade war with his insane self-damaging tariffs - yes, trump's threatening 200 percent tariffs on European wines! - but with turning our visitation/visa policies into a straight path to prison as more people traveling to the U.S. are getting detained and harassed by our customs/border agents.

Balloon Juice collaborator Rose Judson - from what I can tell, she's watching all of this from the safety of the UK - is documenting these atrocities towards average Euro tourists:

Since the start of the new administration I’ve seen lots of UK- and EU-based folks wondering aloud on social media whether they should travel to the US. At first, this impulse was couched in a moral objection to Trump and Musk and everything they stand for. Now, this chatter has an edge of self-preservation, thanks to several recent news stories about tourists with minor visa irregularities vanishing into ICE custody for weeks at a time...

From the Guardian, “British tourist detained by US authorities for 10 days over visa issue”:

His daughter wants to leave the country and fly back to the UK, he said, but he feared the immigration crackdown in the US meant there could be a long delay before her case was dealt with.

“She’s in this orange prison outfit,” he said. “She just feels so isolated and desperate, you can imagine, she’s saying, ‘I want to come home’.”

She is safe, he said, but living “in horrendous conditions” and had not had access to legal representation. He was taking comfort from the fact that the other women at the facility, many of whom have been incarcerated for months or even years while fighting deportation, had “all been really nice to Becky,” Burke said.

But wait, there’s more!

Two German tourists were detained for more than 10 days each in separate incidents: a young man and a young woman. The young man, Lucas Sielaff, was traveling with his American fiancée from Mexico. He was held in detention for two weeks (his fiancée also alleges she was shackled and handcuffed and subjected to a body search)... 

Jessica Brösche, a 29-year-old tattoo artist from Berlin, will reportedly join Lucas Sielaff, 25, from Bad Bibra in Saxony-Anhalt, who is reported to have returned to Germany on 6 March, after being arrested at the Mexican border on 18 February before being detained for almost two weeks.

The families of the two tourists, who were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), had compared their ordeals to “a horror film”...

Judson's conclusion?

If you have family or friends planning to come from abroad, ensure they triple-check their entry requirements with the US consulate in their country and that they send scans of their documents (passports, visas, etc.) to you before they travel. Or, better yet, rearrange your plans. This isn’t getting better anytime soon.

As a Floridian - whose state relies a lot on international tourism - this royally sucks.

And there's been no need for ICE to go overboard detaining people especially for weeks at a time. Most of these issues tended to be minor glitches in the paperwork, or misunderstandings that a good translator would negotiate down to a stern lecture about not doing that again. Now? The cruelty and sadism of the trump regime requires handcuffs, incarceration, harassment, intimidation, and psychological (if not physical) harm. Nobody's going to want to visit a nation where the law enforcement can lock you up over the slightest quibble and subject you to hellish, soul-breaking conditions.

Throw into all this how trump and his lackeys have killed off - literally - the international health and financial aid we've been providing to third-world nations for decades, and you can see how trump is creating an environment where most of the globe is going to hate America for the cruelty and stupidity we allowed to happen by voting for this sadist/asshole.

And if you look far enough ahead, you can see what the end result trump wants: he wants us tied - financially and politically and emotionally - to Putin's Russia.

Think I'm joking? Look at the recent UN vote - which was mostly symbolic as the United Nations has no way to enforce it - where the U.S. were the only nations alongside Russia, North Korea, and Belarus to reject a motion declaring Russia the aggressor in their war against Ukraine. We are now siding with the dictatorial nations we declared over the decades as the bad guys.

With all the tariffs and trade wars our nation will enact, we'll be cutting our business ties with all the major economic powers - not just the European Union or the UK, not just Canada and Mexico, not just Central and South America, but pretty soon Japan and India as well - we could rely on... leaving only Russia as a "trading partner" - more like "raiders" as Putin and the oligarchs vacuum up every bit of wealth our nation has left - to give Putin fresh lease on rebuilding a Russia he's broken through corruption and war. 

Think I'm exaggerating? Putin's already preparing for trump to lift as many sanctions as possible: While the other G7 economic powers will likely keep their sanctions in place, rebuilding any trade with the U.S. - the largest economy on the planet - will quickly repair many of Russia's losses over the past decade.

What trump is doing is the standard practice of an abusive gaslighting narcissist - any cult leader - does in all relationships: he's enforcing his will on other people to make them reliant on himself and to any belief system he imposes. he's cutting us off from friends and families who are warning us of the dangers, who could provide sanctuary or rescue and end his control of us. he's going to isolate the whole nation from a western (liberal) culture we've been attuned to for centuries - a culture that we helped create - and force us to make friends with his fellow bullying authoritarians - and fellow uber-rich oligarchs like Elon Musk - so that we'll have nowhere to find relief.

There are a lot of Americans - even among the Republican voting base - who aren't fond of Putin or his spiteful world-view, and yet Putin's world-view - hating homosexuals and trans people, fighting border wars to build empires, letting only the rich and connected enjoy the fruits of everyone else's labor - is going to get shoved down our throats very quickly, very painfully.

Don't accept any of it, America. trump is pushing us over a cliff into inept, corrupt rule that tends to implode on itself every cycle of history. We're better than this. We should have been better last November, but that's in the past and we're fighting for our souls today.

Don't buy into the hate that Putin/trump/Musk sell us.

(P.S. This is the 2499th blog article at this site. We're coming up to 2500. I'll try to make it a special one)

The Failure and The Fall

When I heard a few days ago that Ukrainian President Zelenskyy was going to visit the White House to meet with American President Nope Still Not Going There donald trump to discuss arrangements to keep the U.S. committed to Ukraine's defense against Russia, I knew it was going to be a disaster.

We've long known that trump adores/worships Russia autocrat Putin - that trump seeks to emulate Putin's corrupt ruling style - to the point of defending him on the global stage in spite of America's own interests. There's been stories, rumors, even criminal investigations into trump's ties to Russia that exposed how extensive those ties were (and still are). With regards to which side trump took in Russia's prolonged and expanded war on Ukraine ever since 2022, it was clear trump was rooting for Russia even parroting every pro-Russian talking point in opposition to the real world.

Whatever Zelenskyy was hoping to get out of this meeting revolved around confirming at least security agreements in Ukraine's favor leading to any legitimate peace negotiations, making sure that Ukraine won't get abandoned at the table. Leading up to all of this were efforts from trump and his foreign handlers trying to squeeze a reckless deal for Ukraine's rare minerals to the tune of $500 billion, a public and vulgar attempt at extortion.

So this meeting, whatever hopes people had going in... well, that got stomped into dust real quick. This is trump we're talking about: his idea of "the art of the deal" is to bully and yell at his opponents until they cave and give him something to crow as a victory.

The bullying came in different directions, not only from pro-Russian media attendees asking skewed and insulting questions at Zelenskyy but also from Vice President "Weird Boy" JD Vance making accusations that allowed trump to ratchet up his own threats (via NPR):

Trump told Zelenskyy, "You're not acting at all thankful" for the support Zelenskyy's country had received from the United States, adding that the Ukrainian leader had been disrespectful and telling him, "You're gambling with World War III."

Zelenskyy tried to object, saying he has "all the respect for your country" and saying, "I said thanks," as Trump raised his voice to speak over him...

The argument came at the end of a lengthy question-and-answer session with reporters, after Trump defended his approach with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying he was trying to broker a deal between two parties.

"I'm not aligned with anybody. I'm aligned with the United States of America, and for the good of the world, I'm aligned with the world, and I want to get this thing over with," Trump said.

Vice President Vance then defended Trump's approach as "diplomacy."

That elicited a strong response from Zelenskyy, who said Putin had broken previous deals. "He broke the ceasefire. He killed our people... What kind of diplomacy, JD, you are speaking about? What do you mean?" said Ukraine's president, who has been seeking greater security assurances as part of any deal to end the war.

At least Zelenskyy left having retaining his nation's mining rights and natural wealth from falling into trump's greedy mitts. On the other hand...

In terms of actual diplomacy, this was a disaster for the United States. It exposed trump as a bully - yet again - on the international stage, and this time with arrogance and recklessness that our allies can no longer ignore. It showed trump and his administration are wholly on the side of Russia, which is the clear villain in all of this tragedy, and signals the growing likelihood that trump will flip almost 80 years of American pro-Western policy to turn us into Putin's next puppet state alongside Belarus and Georgia (and what Putin wants to do to Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Baltic nations, and the rest of Eastern Europe).

There was this dread during trump's first term disasters that he was going to pull the United State out of NATO, a long-standing alliance that assured peace between the major Western nations since the 1950s, all to appease Putin who is desperate to dissolve NATO in order to rebuild his dream of a Russian Empire. Previously, he didn't have full control of his Cabinet or the Joint Chiefs who were likely horrified to lose NATO allies. This time, trump is in full control and all he needed was an excuse like "being disrespected" for everything the U.S. (under Biden) did to support Ukraine since 2022.

After today, the NATO nations have to understand they are on their own. The newly elected (likely) German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said after his party's victory this past weekend that it's clear "this administration does not care much about the fate of Europe." Whatever dominance the United States had as a superpower in the post-World War era - our political influence, our ability to maintain global alliances across every continent - is fading fast as trump reveals that most of the nations out there can no longer rely on America.

Doubling down on this has been the recent freezing of USAID financial, medical, and transactional support of nations and peoples in need of aid. trump's open disdain of "shithole countries" has translated into an immediate refusal to provide any support, leading to broken services overseas and broken promises as people start dying from this cruelty (via Alan Yu, Allison McManus, and Laura Kilbury at American Progress):

The forced takeover comes after two weeks of attacks on foreign aid. On January 20, President Trump signed an executive order freezing nearly all U.S. foreign assistance for 90 days, claiming a need to reassess taxpayer dollars spent abroad. Days later, Secretary Rubio issued further guidance that forced U.S. officials to issue “stop work” orders to contractors, nongovernmental organizations, and aid groups; in response to strong opposition, Secretary Rubio later issued a waiver for core “life-saving” humanitarian needs, but its scope remains ambiguous.

In total, the Trump administration’s actions the past two weeks have caused unnecessary chaos and disruptions across the world. U.N. agencies, international relief organizations, and U.S. aid groups are scrambling to assess and mitigate the damage to lifesaving programs and more. While some of the administration’s efforts are already facing legal challenges and strong pushback from members of Congress—several of whom were denied access to USAID headquarters this week—these actions have real and lasting consequences for Americans and people around the world.

Trump’s attacks on aid are not about cutting waste or making the government more efficient; they’re about using blunt force to fulfill Project 2025’s pledges to put to death U.S. foreign assistance spending and “serve the President’s agenda...” But slashing the U.S. foreign assistance budget is a textbook example of penny-wise, pound-foolish. In fiscal year 2023, USAID managed a budget of $43 billion, comprising about 0.7 percent of the total U.S. budget. Extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, by comparison, would represent the equivalent of more than nine USAIDs each year: $400 billion in costs that would disproportionately benefit the ultrawealthy...

The broad range of U.S. foreign assistance programs—from lifesaving global health programs to alliance-building security partnerships—represent cost-effective ways to ensure global safety, security, and stability that do not require the United States to send troops into war. Foreign aid accounts for just 1 percent of the federal budget, and by disrupting it, the administration invites costly litigation and job loss throughout the foreign assistance sector...

Nothing kills trust like abruptly halting equipment, training commitments, and funding. Foreign governments that count on U.S. assistance now see their agreements suddenly upended by a political decision in Washington. Such harmful actions are “own goals,” both undermining trust and partnership with recipient countries and sending a clear message of unreliability and untrustworthiness around the world. This weakens U.S. global power—not just the so-called “soft power” of foreign assistance but also the required foundation of trust, durability, and respect to rally foreign partners’ support and action when it comes time to achieve U.S. goals. These include competing with China; combating transnational threats such as climate change, narcotics trade, and pandemic disease; and addressing the next global macroeconomic crisis...

The United States - for all the sins we've committed over the decades, the questionable wars and military interventions, the economic dominance we've imposed that kept poorer nations struggling to serve our needs, the cultural hegemony that made America arrogant and ignorant on the global stage - was (no longer is) a legitimate leader among nations trying to keep the peace and perform real humanitarian work. Now, no nation can trust us nor should they rely on us. Other superpowers like China and Russia - whose goals on the global stage are not humane nor friendly to their regions - are likely racing to fill the void of leadership that trump created, and the chaos that's coming will be unavoidable.

Today was the day the American Empire - not so much an empire of nations as it was an empire of ideas - fell from grace. The damage being done even if we free ourselves of trump's - and the Far Right sadists' - corrupt rule will last at least this generation and the next.

I apologize to the rest of world: I know there are a sizable number of Americans - broken and spiteful - gleefully reveling in this destruction. There were a near-equal number of Americans who tried to prevent this, and there's arguably a growing number of Americans who were disaffected before now waking up to the damage done. But all the guardrails were torn down in my nation the last 40 years, and now we're all falling over the cliff into the rocky shoreline.

I call on America's allies, our long-standing friends across every continent, to stand against the evils trump and his wingnut lackeys are inflicting on all of us, do everything possible to break and end his corruption before it ruins us all.

The Rattling of Sabers

trump's not even in the White House (again) and he's already causing our diplomatic corps and foreign policy experts to reach for the nearest bottles of Jack Daniels with his social media announcements raging against our neighboring nations and long-standing allies.

trump's fauxrage towards Mexico remains ongoing, left over from all of his "we're gonna build a wall to keep out the rapists and drug gangs" grandstanding during his first tenure. Since this November, trump openly plans to issue painful tariffs - painful for the United States, not Mexico - on our southern neighbors as retaliation for what he claims is an "ongoing invasion" of America. Mixed in with that are more unsettling threats to order U.S. military strikes on drug cartel locations across Mexico, violating their sovereignty and likely killing a high number of civilians. The kind of acts that lead to open wars.

Toss into this mix how trump repeatedly "jokes" about annexing Canada but does so as part of his ongoing - and spreading - obsession with raising tariffs on our major trade partners. It doesn't help that a number of Far Right pundits and MAGA followers fantasize about invading Canada (much like the War Hawks of 1812).

Now in the news, trump is making demands - threats - towards Panama regarding control of the canal, a vital shipping route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Coverage from the recent Turning Point USA conference has trump beating the war drums to "take back" control of the region (via Julio Ricardo Varela at MSNBC):

President-elect Donald Trump blurted out another outrageous promise at a Turning Point USA event Sunday in Phoenix: He now wants the Panama Canal back. Trump claimed that Panama’s shipping fees were “ridiculous” and threatened to demand the canal’s return if these fees aren't reduced.

“I can proudly proclaim that the Golden Age of America is upon us,” Trump said. “There’s a spirit that we have now that we didn’t have just a short while ago.”

Trump’s invocation of a “Golden Age” will always excite his supporters, who thrill at his call to “Make America Great Again.” But for much of Latin America, the era that slogan harks back to was defined by U.S. imperialism and exploitation. Panama knows this history better than most, having endured decades of American control over a canal that defines not just the country’s economy but its very identity.

Trump’s notion to take back the canal is not just inflammatory. It risks reigniting tensions between the U.S. and many Latin American countries, after those countries have worked hard to move past fears about American intrusions on their sovereignty. Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino swiftly rebuked Trump, stating, “Every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjoining zone is Panama’s and will remain so. The sovereignty and independence of our country is non-negotiable.”

If trump even hopes to build any foreign relations successes, he's burning bridges before he can cross them. /headdesk

And for the love of God, trump is making noises - again - about wanting to buy - or worse, seize - Greenland away from Denmark, a nation not in the mood to make any deals now or ever.

Just how many nations does trump want to anger / alienate / piss off before Inauguration Day?

If there is a simple or well-meaning reason for all of this, trump's behaviors and statements are all part of the blustering and bullying he inflicts on everybody when he thinks he's "negotiating" his deals. This is his game plan: 

1. Blow up any existing deal to cause chaos,
2. Bully everyone he has to make deals with,
3. Force them - or wear them down - to accept deals that pretty much were the same as before except trump himself gets a bigger piece of the action,
4. Claim he's the greatest deal-maker of all time.

I honestly don't believe any of that ever worked in his - or America's - favor every time he tried bullying his way to deals as President. trump did all of this when he blew up NAFTA to force Canada and Mexico into negotiating a new trade deal... that pretty much was the same deal but with stricter labor provisions that Democrats in Congress pushed through in 2019. trump's administration had a rougher go of it throughout their foreign policy efforts, because trump was not able to bully other nations into giving up more to him. One of the few foreign policy deals trump did accomplish... was signing a peace deal with the Afghani Taliban that gave them everything they wanted - prisoners freed, and the opportunity to take over Afghanistan within a year - while trump left Biden holding the blame.

For all the talk about military strikes into Mexico and "territorial expansion" as part of trump's agenda for 2025, he had talked like that before and never really followed through. trump DID expand a bombing / drone strikes campaign across the Middle East - especially an attack on an Iranian military leader while he was visiting Iraq - and at one point openly discussed missile strikes and possible invasion of Iran itself, but when push came to shove trump did not engage in direct warfare or military action against the nations he kept threatening. Hell, he turned into North Korea's best buddy when Kim Jong Il sent trump love letters.

However...

Back in trump's first term, trump had to rely on established political and military leaders within the government - his Joint Chiefs, his national security advisors, and foreign policy Cabinet figures - who counseled towards caution and who kept talking trump out of his more violent proposals. Going into his second term, trump is not relying on any of those people and is tapping some of the more... volatile talking heads on Fox Not-News who are less inclined to urge caution (and more inclined to sadistic punishment of others).

One of the things trump and his team remain focused on is a mass deportation plan to round up, imprison, and exile millions of "undocumented" Latinos (and Asians, Africans, and anybody else not-White) with the likelihood of just yeeting all those millions across the Mexican border in violation of the Constitution, international human rights treaties, and basic human decency.

It also runs into a wall of logistical headaches, as that deportation plan requires more manpower, facilities, and resources than our immigration services - and even local law enforcement - can provide. Which is why trump is all too eager to deploy the U.S. military to cover those logistical issues, even though the armed forces are not designed - or required by law - to perform those actions.

The only way trump can get around those legal constraints would be to invoke a national emergency - this is where his alarmist rhetoric of "invasion by illegals" comes into play - and what better way than to use executive powers to declare us in a state of war with the nations - Mexico and most of Central and South America - where most undocumented workers come from? Not only would that allow trump and his cohorts to federalize the National Guards - even the ones from Democratic states - but it would also serve as a big stick to threaten Mexico into either giving into trump's demands to accept the mass deportations or risk U.S. invasion to force them to.

Thing is, Mexico is going to do whatever is in their best interests, not trump's. Even submitting to trump's will in this matter for the short term would be a strain on Mexico's own resources and capabilities, not without financial concessions that trump and his wingnut allies will likely refuse to give. Even the risk and costs of war with a global superpower might prove a more palatable outcome for Mexicans...

...as well as the rest of Central and South America whose populations will be greatly affected by trump's deportation plan and who may well ally with Mexico, giving them the political - and military - support they would need.

As much as American arrogance will convince us that we're the world's greatest military, our own recent attempts at war - the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq - demonstrated our own abilities have their limits. Much like I noted before about the costs and hazards of a potential invasion of Iran, any war against Mexico has its own risks. 

We won't have the advantages of distance: This would be a straight-on border clash along a wide border that Mexico can exploit as much as the U.S. can. We won't have any advantages of allies: trump's overt belligerence and open inhumanity towards migrants would alienate every potential support even if he tries to insist on help from NATO or other treaty groups. Canada - and much of the UK Commonwealth across the Caribbean - would likely ally with Mexico, which is where the American wingnut threats to "annex Canada" would come back to bite America in the ass.

This may all be alarmist and unnecessary. Again, trump proved before he is more bluster than action. The problem is that this time, trump is more determined than ever to resolve his fixation - his rage and racist hatred - on an immigration "problem" he swore to end.

If "fixing it" requires going to war, trump will go there.

And Gods help us - not just Mexico, maybe not just Canada and/or Panama - all if he does.

The Fall of Assad, and the Fate of Syria and the Middle East

This had been happening over the past two weeks, but I didn't want to say anything about it because I'm tired of getting ahead of myself on historic events as they occur, but in the Middle East - alongside all the fighting and bloodshed - we're witnessing the swift and sudden downfall of a tyrannical regime in Syria (via Willem Marx at NPR):

A rapid advance by Syrian rebel groups on the country's capital has led to the collapse of Bashar al-Assad's control of a nation his family had ruled for half a century.

Crowds celebrated the seismic political shift in the streets of Damascus overnight and into Sunday, as Syrian state television broadcast a statement from a group of rebels, one dressed in a black hoodie, who announced that all Syrian prisoners had been freed from jail and Assad had been deposed.

The man reading that statement on television, just hours after the city's fall, had echoed calls from the leading group in this lightning rebel offensive, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, demanding that citizens and fighters alike ensure the country's national institutions were protected. He ended his statement with a declaration after more than 13 years of bloody civil conflict: "Long Live a Free Syria..."

The British-based war monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Assad had left the country to an undisclosed destination.

Hours later, Russia, which had long used its military to prop up the Assad regime against wide-ranging opposition forces, also said that the toppled president had left the country. The Russian foreign ministry did not say where he had gone.

There's a timeline at AP News that helps highlight just how quick this whole turnabout moved. A lot of foreign policy think tanks are working overtime - like this Atlantic Council - to figure out the massive implications that Assad's fall means not just for Syria but for the entire Middle East region.

We're talking about a key Arab nation that had long contributed to the violent instability and chaos in the region well back into the 1950s. Syria - alongside Iran, and backed by Russia - were themselves backers for such extremists groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, which contributed to ongoing violence with Israel and leaving Lebanon in political and economic turmoil for decades.

Syria itself has been broken by a decades-long civil war since 2011 - among a number of uprisings going back to the 1980s - that sent millions of civilians fleeing as refugees to avoid the indiscriminate bombing and gassing that Assad's regime deployed as means of putting down resistance. Gods, I last blogged about this civil war in 2015 when I pledged some financial support to help those refugees, and the war itself in 2013 when Obama's presidency attempted to defuse Assad's use of chemical weapons in that civil war.

The end of Assad means only a temporary respite in that war, unfortunately. Syria as a nation was cobbled together by a mix of differing ethnicities and religious groups - Kurds, Turks, Sunnis, Shi'a, Christians, dozens of smaller cultural communities - some of whom remain hostile towards each other even in this moment of possible nation-building into functioning coalitions.

This is the thing a lot of Western nations are dreading: the potential of Syria to backslide much like Iraq or Afghanistan or Libya into still-broken internally squabbling states that could become home to corruption and religious extremists.

In opposition to that dread, there looks to be a sizable amount of hope. The HTS rebels who claimed victory are posing - at the moment - as functional moderates looking to legitimize their rule. In the years that they've received training from their Turkish handlers, there is the decent possibility that they've learned how Turkey handles religious tolerance and can placate the larger Christian populations in Syria. The Turkish government - looking to reduce or end the ongoing Kurdish separatist movement in their own borders - would want Syria to take the burden of dealing with the Kurds: This would require genuine coalition-building.

A stabilized Syria should mean an end to one of the largest refugee crises facing the Middle East (and Europe/United States). Fourteen million displaced Syrians could start moving back - hopefully within weeks - just as long as serious rebuilding efforts are funded by foreign aid to rebuild cities and homes to move back to. Ending this crisis could well relieve a lot of discontent among the sanctuary nations - especially across Europe - that had their Far Right parties spewing racist outrage to promote their own agendas.

There is also the possibility that the end of Assad's regime - which was hostile towards Israel and a major backer of Hezbollah and Hamas - could shift the dynamics of the ongoing bloodshed that Netanyahu's government has been inflicting on Palestinian and Lebanese civilians over the past year. Cutting off Syrian support of Hezbollah ought to weaken their position in Lebanon to where the broken power-sharing system falls apart. Pacifying Lebanon ought to mollify Israel... although letting up on the ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank is going to require different tactics.

A lot of this is going to involve diplomacy - and money - and gods help us if any of this drags long enough until trump is back in the White House to break it all out of his greedy self-interest, but let's not stress about that just yet (get on Air Force One NOW Biden, and get to Damascus to hammer out a deal before Christmas goddammit!).

The most obvious thing to note out of all this is how broken Russia is right now. As Michael Scollon and Frud Bezhan at Radio Free Europe point out:

When Vladimir Putin took the reins of power in a post-Soviet Russia in shambles a quarter-century ago, he immediately set about restoring Moscow's status as a global power.

It took 15 years, but Russia heralded its military intervention in the Syrian civil war as proof of its return as a force to be reckoned with on the international stage.

Moscow leveraged that image to expand its influence throughout the Middle East and beyond as a counterweight to the West.

Now, the fall of the government of President Bashar al-Assad, a key ally of Moscow, has dealt a serious blow to Russia's great-power ambitions.

"Putin's military adventure in Syria was designed to demonstrate that Russia is a great power and can project its influence abroad," said Phillip Smyth, a Middle East expert. "Losing Syria is a huge slap in the face for Putin."

Assad's ouster represents not only a reputational hit to Russia but likely a major strategic setback.

Syria is home to two major Russia military installations: an air base in Hmeimim and a naval base in Tartus. The latter is Russia's only warm-water naval base and provides Moscow access to the Mediterranean Sea...

Reports were fast and furious on social media that Russia's fleet at Tartus sailed out days ago - abandoning Assad even then - arguably forced to travel the long way around to the Atlantic and Baltic Sea, as getting back into the Black Sea means facing an eager Ukrainian torpedo boat drone attack that would happily sink it (that is if Turkey reopened the path through Istanbul's waterway for them).

Moscow capitalized on its involvement in both Syria and Ukraine to sell itself as a power capable of challenging the United States, NATO, and the West in general while expanding its global reach from the Mediterranean to Africa and Latin America.

Following Russia's all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Syria became more of an asset for Moscow, experts say, while also presenting the challenge of maintaining military campaigns on two fronts...

Syria's fall quickly makes it clear that Russia can't handle a two-front war. Putin is so obsessed and focused on conquering Ukraine that he can no longer provide manpower or equipment or time to any of the client states he's been propping up across the globe. Russia - aside from their nuclear missiles, and there's even some serious doubt about that - is no longer a military powerhouse. Their political and economic influences are just as diminished.

In fact, he's been vacuuming up equipment and manpower from those client states - look at all the weapons manufactured in Iran, look at the North Korean troops "volunteered" to slam into the meat grinder in Kursk - in a desperate attempt to force Ukraine to a negotiation table where Putin hopes to retain his land gains to justify retreating and repairing his losses. Putin dares not make any more mass conscription efforts among his own Russian people without risking draft riots. And he can't provide any mercenary support - bye, Wagner! - overseas (especially now that his long-range bases are cut off).

It used to be from the Cold War onward that Soviet Russia - and Putin's Russia - were militarily and financially capable of spreading their influence and support across the entire globe. Putin was attempting to market Russia as an alternative to other global powers like France and the U.S. across Africa, but now those efforts seem empty and likely unfulfilled. Client states like Cuba and Venezuela are now literally struggling to keep the lights on. Other nations that could be allies in Russia's time of need - China and India - are now too self-sufficient and too powerful themselves to where they can stand on the sidelines and see what benefits them most as things fall apart.

There's a lot of chaos still out there - not just in Syria and in Ukraine - and a lot of it can get worse when a meddling and incompetent trump gets back into office.

Keep hoping the good things happen before then.

Georgia Protests On My Mind

No, not that Georgia, the other Georgia.

There's been a lot of unrest in that nation (via Ani Chkhikvadze at Foreign Policy):

In Tbilisi, on a cobblestoned street next to the Georgian Parliament, a robotic female voice warned protesters to disperse or face legal action. The demonstrators were gathered in opposition to the reintroduction of the controversial “foreign agent” law by the ruling Georgian Dream party.

The legislation that was retracted following widespread protests a year ago, requires civil society organizations and media outlets that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad, mainly from the United States and EU, to register as agents of foreign influence. Tens of thousands have flooded the streets, demanding the withdrawal of the legislation seen as aligning Georgia more closely with Russia, which has used a similar law to crush dissent.

In the past, the Georgian Dream party kept hold on power through a combination of fearmongering, vilifying the divided opposition, and engaging in diplomatic bartering with Western allies. However, these once-successful strategies appear to have waned. As the party navigates its third term in office, it finds itself confronted with genuine protests both domestically and internationally that may cost it the elections in October.

One thing to remember from history is how Ye Olde Imperial Russia - and later the Soviet Union - treated a place like Georgia as occupied territory. When the USSR broke up in 1991, Georgia was one of the earliest states to break away and form their own nation.

Unfortunately, political opportunism and ambition - and arguably mixed signals from NATO and the U.S. - led to the Georgian government triggering a disastrous conflict with Russia in 2008, reducing the nation back into a puppet state under Putin's control.

Georgians as a population still resent the situation, and are using the current Russia-Ukrainian conflict to express their anger:

The full-scale invasion of Ukraine shook the carefully crafted balance the Georgian government sought between Russia and the West.

Over the past two years, hundreds of thousands of Georgians have taken to the streets in solidarity in demonstrations aimed as much at their own government as at Moscow. At every turn in Tbilisi, “Fuck Putin,” “Russia is an occupier,” and “Georgia stands with Ukraine” are painted on the walls. Almost every establishment, from banks to bars, displays Ukrainian flags...

The relationship between Tbilisi and Kyiv was already strained over the arrest of former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who returned to his native Georgia after serving as a member of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration. Today, it’s near rock bottom. The two sides have exchanged strong words. Ukraine withdrew its ambassador from Georgia and sanctioned some members of Ivanishvili’s inner circle...

The current Georgian government is trying to spread fear and propaganda that "The West" is trying to drag their nation into another costly war against Russia, but the current street protests show that sizable numbers of their own people aren't buying those messages.

So the pro-Putin leadership is moving on to the next trick in the Putin playbook: mass arrests and beatdowns. Via Reuters:

WASHINGTON, May 9 (Reuters) - The United States is deeply troubled by actions taken against those protesting a draft law in Georgia and the government should change its course, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Thursday.

Georgian security forces have repeatedly deployed tear gas, pepper spray and water cannon against protesters who have been staging almost daily demonstrations for around a month against the government's "foreign agents" bill.

There's been a number of reports on social media of bloody beatdowns and arrests of known opposition figures. There hasn't been any sign of the protests abating.

It does beg the question if the Georgian government destabilizes over this uprising "what would Putin do next?" He's already been shamed on the international stage over his Ukrainian warmongering, and he's invested a lot of his military and focus on breaking Ukraine's will to resist. There is still a lot of manpower in Russia he could deploy, but it would involve diverting resources away from his primary target. And any escalation of his conscription efforts to handle a multi-front war can well trigger protests back home even he can't subdue.

In the meantime, stay strong Georgia. Stay alive and alert and don't believe any of the bullshit Putin and his allies are going to shove at you.

And sing to yourselves the songs of Ray Charles, Georgia's beloved Favorite Son. Well, okay, the other Georgia's beloved Favorite Son, but we'll lend him out to you for the time being.

Congressional Clowns Crashing the Car, Chapter CCC (that's 300 in Roman)

When last we left the Congressional Republicans, they were happily sitting around a campfire singing "Kumbaya My Lord" ahem happily shivving their own Speaker - their second in a row - for actually allowing some legislation to reach the House floor, and for not being aggressive enough chasing after "Biden Crime Family" bullshit.

Speaker(ish) Mike Johnson promptly called a week's vacation - which Congressional Republicans do every other week anyway - in order to find ways to pander to the Freedom Caucus even further, to the point where he made a pilgrimage to Mar-A-Lago to kiss trump's ring orange buttocks by announcing legislation to ban illegal immigrants from voting in elections (something every pundit noticed was a law already on the books, and was not a source of any mass voter fraud).

In the meantime, the House Republicans succeeded in doing something... which was the unnecessary, partisan, and purely performative impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas, on charges of failing to be absolutely cruel towards migrant families at the southern border. This was something that A) was never going to succeed in a Democratic-controlled Senate anyway, and B) papered over the fact that the House Republicans themselves refused to pass any meaningful border security bill - on trump's orders no less - because they didn't want to give Biden an election year win.

So earlier this week, the House Republicans made a big show out of signing the impeachment order and walking it over to the Senate for their process. There's a video of it somewhere, here we go:

It was, to be honest, performative nonsense.

And like all things done by these House Republicans, it fell apart within a day. It had to set a land-speed record for fastest dismissal of an impeachment (via Griffin Eckstein at Salon):

In a 3-hour proceeding, the 51-member Democratic majority voted to dismiss both charges on Wednesday, concluding that the charges did not reach the magnitude of “high crimes and misdemeanors” outlined by the constitution and avoiding a trial.

Republicans in the chamber objected to the lack of a trial in the matter, with Eric Schmitt (R-MO) describing the vote as “unprecedented.” The dismissal isn’t fully unprecedented, though, as the GOP caucus in the Senate attempted a similar move in 2021, when all but 5 voted to kill the impeachment proceedings against President Trump...

Majority Leader Schumer (D-NY) argued that a trial would set a dangerous precedent in future politically-motivated impeachment proceedings.

“For the sake of the Senate’s integrity and to protect impeachment for those rare cases we truly need it, senators should dismiss today’s charges,” Schumer said...

Schumer of course wants to keep up the pretense that impeachment is a functional system, when all evidence is pointing to it being a broken, partisan mess.

In the meantime, Johnson's attempt to appease the wingnut elements of his caucus went nowhere because his primary attacker Marjorie Taylor Trump Greene renewed her Motion to Vacate calls, and getting another congresscritter to sign on to her push. Alongside this was an effort by the Democrats and a handful of pro-Ukrainian Republicans to sign a Discharge Petition to bring the foreign military aid bills - Ukrainian, Israeli, and Taiwan - to the floor in spite of the Speaker's block.

Possibly in spite of Greene and her Freedom Caucus knee-capping buddies, Johnson made the move to have those financial military aid bills brought to a vote by this Saturday. Which of course enraged the pro-Putin Freedom Caucus puppets even more.

It will be nice if the House can function - even for a day - to pass something that will genuinely serve our nation's foreign policy interests and the defense of our allies.

But it's not stopping the clown car madness of the extremist Far Right desperate to crash every vehicle over the cliffs.

This is going to get crazier and crazier. Until we Americans vote these Republican crazy clowns out of power.

Get the damn vote out this November, people. And for the LOVE OF GOD - and women, and Blacks, and children, and families, and poor people, and... well, everyone who's not evil rich white guys - don't vote Republican.

The Drumbeats To Another Unhelpful War

The Middle East is back to being a full-blown military crisis, with Israel and Hamas happily drowning each other in a bloody Gaza battlefield, and with Yemeni rebels staging drone and missile attacks on shipping lanes, and now with extremist forces in Syria staging deadly attacks on a U.S. outpost along the Jordanian border (via Zeke Miller and Lolita C Baldor at AP News):

President Joe Biden said Sunday that the U.S. “shall respond” after three American troops were killed and dozens more were injured in an overnight drone strike in northeast Jordan near the Syrian border. Biden blamed Iran-backed militias for the first U.S. fatalities after months of strikes by such groups against American forces across the Middle East since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

Biden, who was traveling in South Carolina, asked for a moment of silence during an appearance at a Baptist church’s banquet hall.

“We had a tough day last night in the Middle East. We lost three brave souls in an attack on one of our bases,” he said. After the moment of silence, Biden added, “and we shall respond...”

The large drone struck a logistics support base in Jordan known as Tower 22. It is along the Syrian border and is used largely by troops involved in the advise-and-assist mission for Jordanian forces.

Central Command said approximately 350 U.S. Army and Air Force personnel were deployed to the base. The three who were killed and most of the wounded were Army soldiers, according to several U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to give details not yet made public.

The small installation, which Jordan does not publicly disclose, includes U.S. engineering, aviation, logistics and security troops. Austin said the troops were deployed there “to work for the lasting defeat of ISIS.” Three officials said the drone struck near the troops’ sleeping quarters, which they said explained the high casualty count...

We are facing here in the states calls by the usual suspects of neoconservative foreign policy rabblerousers still eager for major military strikes - if not straight-up invasion - of Iran. Never mind how most of these "bomb Tehran" advocates are refusing to provide any military aid to Ukraine against a major global threat to democracy in Russia.

Whatever threat Iran poses to American interests abroad - and it is serious - we have to recognize how Iran and Russia are linked at the hips in their efforts to disrupt the Middle East. They've teamed up to provide military support to Syria - the source of that deadly attack - as well as providing aid through Syria to anti-Israeli forces like Hamas and Hezbollah.

As much as Iran hates the U.S. on their own terms, they're just the front, the public face of the bigger threat of Putin backing the Ayatollahs in order to give Putin what he needs: A major distraction for the United States to abandon NATO and Ukraine to Russian conquest. (Think Sollozzo and Tattaglia fronting for Barzini all along).

Going into a direct war with Iran is still a bad idea, same as I said years ago when trump was threatening to invade. If the U.S. goes barging in, we'll be doing it mostly on our own as our regional allies are either too busy committing war crimes (Israel) or unable to engage without disruptions in their own nations (Saudi Arabia and Iraq and Jordan). NATO won't engage because they'll be too wary of Putin's ambitions to send their military forces elsewhere.

If there's any good news, it's that Iran won't be in any decent shape to engage in war themselves, having shipped off a lot of their own weaponry to Russia's war effort and dealing with internal unrest that the U.S. could exploit instead of sending in troops.

Biden has difficult choices ahead. "Proportional responses" by bombing specific Iranian - or Syrian, considering how they are the proxies to Iran's involvement - military hubs hasn't worked well as deterrents before. More aggressive attacks would escalate in ways our regional allies would regret.

It's not helping that the Republicans in Congress - especially the House - are refusing to provide any kind of military funding to allow Biden a free hand in whatever foreign policy decision he makes here. Especially considering how obvious it is that Putin benefits from Middle East turmoil - to where providing more military and financial aid to Ukraine would actually help our efforts to calm the region - and so trump's political allies do not want to upset that apple cart.

I would not argue for war with Iran. I would look to doing something to cut into Syria's military capabilities, and something to support the Iranian citizenry's efforts to end the theocratic despotism hurting them. Anything to avoid another quagmire as our nation tries to bring the bloodshed in Gaza to a peaceful end.