May we all take some comfort from a president who understands what being a president means.
As always, Slava Ukraini!
Stay safe this holiday season and I will hope we all find glad tidings in the new year.
Stay safe this holiday season and I will hope we all find glad tidings in the new year.
31 comments:
I noticed that Trump is checking in with Putin by phone both before and again after his meeting with Zelenskyy in Mar-a-Lago.
Oy, Trump is blathering on at a press conference about how wonderful he is. I would have been better off putting on the Hallmark Channel Christmas movie for background noise.
It looks like that oil tanker being chased by our navy is now wearing Russian colors. Interesting. So, what will little Trump do, do you suppose?
The Navy has been on the trail of that particular tanker for over a week now. I don't think Trump has figured out what to do about blatant disregard for his desires such as is being exhibited by the tanker. And I don't think the painting of a Russian flag on the side will help him figure out what to do.
In the meantime the Navy hit three (3) small boats on the high seas yesterday, no information on where they were, whom they the belonged to or who, specifically, was onboard. It may have been an attempt at distraction from the tanker problem.
What's up with Trump pulling the National Guard? I can't see him giving up. Maybe going to try the extortion thing by pulling funds, like he is in Minnesota?
I'm expecting Trump to invoke some other pretext for sending in troops, and then try it again. Quite possible he'll invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807. That's been used before to deploy federal troops domestically, as well as to "federalized" National Guard Units for use by the federal government.
New wrinkle on that Venezuelan oil tanker that's been running from Trump's military henchmen out across the Atlantic Ocean. It's now been officially registered as a Russian ship, and the Russian government has formally requested the United States cease its 'pursuit' of the ship. NYT
"Large scale strike" against Caracas, Venezuela. Maduro and his wife grabbed. Dead bodies scattered around indiscriminately.
I'm surprised, but not shocked. (Probably just exactly backwards for Maduro and his wife.)
They are claiming they were executing an arrest warrant for Maduro.
Now, it they can do that for Maduro, why can't they do that for Putin? They might actually be doing something of real value then.
Yes, I can see why the oil tanker would be of value to the Russians. They seem to be having some sort of problem with their domestic production.
As it is they are having problems with keeping the lights on in Moscow.
Off topic, i finished the last season of Stranger Things. Really sucky ending. They went through all of what they did and that is the ending they chose to come up with? It didn't do much for me.
Too much ambiguity.
So we are going to run Venezuela for now. Interesting. Trump can't even run his own country.
I have to wonder, though, how this will affect oil supplies to Russia. Perhaps this may have unintended consequences for the war in Ukraine.
"So we are going to run Venezuela for now."
That would suggest that Trump had a plan for the day after the coup de'ètat. I don't believe that's true. I figure he's been wingin' it since the news came back that they managed to catch Maduro sleeping. A sneak attack in the dark of night isn't likely to get us control of the country. And the Venezuelans will likely their own ideas about who's gonna run Venezuela.
And Trump's about to learn that Venezuela's much touted "worlds largest oil reserves" are little more than a sulfur ridden tar bed. It will have virtually no effect on Russia which wasn't using much in the way of high sulfur "heavy" oil to fuel its war machine. But Russia was using Venezuelan tankers (otherwise sitting idle) to sneak its own oil to refineries in Asia and China.
Doesn't seem to be a lot of news coming out of Venezuela this morning. Everybody's keeping their head down. (And going about consolidating their own positions no doubt.)
Jim Jordan on CNN. What a weaselly little bastard. He is so good at toeing the Trump party line.
It looks like Venezuela has the heavy crude which is difficult to extract. China seems to be a big buyer. Chevron has been extracting some for export to the US in payment of debt owed to them. Or so the AI bot says.
It seems we will be spending a lot of money up front to recover oil there and keep the county from falling apart. We should have learned from Iraq. Or at least Republicans should have. I think Trump is incapable of thinking too deeply.
I think this is one big distraction from the fact that Trump and the Republicans are letting our economy and Healthcare system fall apart. As I think you said once, the Republicans are incapable of governing on their own.
The only stand out operators in this whole thing were our military who carries out the operation. I would guess that Hegseth was kept far away from those plans.
Carried not carries.
Rumor has it that Trump has driven Tim Walz out of the Minnesota Governor's race.
Skip the rumor--new headline says it's been announced already.
I heard about him withdrawing. My guess is he didn't want to play a Biden. There are people who have supported him in the past who were saying he shouldn't run again. Too bad, I liked him and would have voted for him again. But then, I would have voted for Biden too even after that horrendous debate. Anybody but a Republican now. They won't stand up to Trump.
In discussions with local dedicated Trumpkins I've found that they're discovering easily plunderable deposits of gold, diamonds, rare earth elements, and various more mundane mineral riches to exist in world record amounts in the jungles of Venezuela. (Kellyanne Conway's ‛alternative facts’ run amok.)
Hoping to not be charged with dancing on a grave here…. Nevertheless, it is the case that the Trumpkan/Republican House majority dropped by the count of one with the unexpected death of California Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R), one of the few Trumpkans to win office in California lately.
That brings Johnson's majority count down to 218/213 and Marjorie Taylor Greene soon to depart as well.
Trump has managed to seize two more Venezuelan oil tankers (including that one that painted a Russian flag on its side and which the Russians had added to their ship registries). Further, the Trump administration has announced that Venezuela is going to surrender to the U.S. some 30 to 50 million barrels of oil already barrelled up on the docks in Venezuela and continue to supply oil for the Trump administration to sell on the world market--the Trump administration to keep the proceeds.
So far Venezuela has not confirmed any of this, which may be significant.
Russia is complaining about our act of "piracy".
ICE has shot and killed a woman who they say was trying to run down ICE agents during an attempted arrest in Minneapolis.
"Russia is complaining…"
One version of the analysis is that Putin is now jealous of Trump's successful power grabs. Politico.EU
"ICE has shot and killed a woman who they say…"
ICE has been known to lie after previous altercations about the supposed provocations they have had to endure from citizens.
I noticed that the Border Patrol (friend agency for ICE) has shot a couple of citizens in their car in Portland, Oregon.
This is gettin' to be a habit with those folks. I'd say their training leaves something to be desired.
Post a Comment