Is there nobody in this country man or woman enough to stand up to Trump and his insanity? There are rumors that ship carrying Russian diesel is already nearing a U.S. port. Where are the unions refusing to unload the ship? Where are the members of Congress moving to stop Trump’s treasonous deal? Where are the senior people on Trump’s team willing to stand up for this country and publicly take a stand against this perfidy?
The kyivindependent.com reported on October 10:
The revelation (about Trump’s diesel deal with Russia) raised questions about whether Washington had already negotiated terms with Moscow while Ukrainian and Europeanofficials were still trying to establish the parameters of an energy truce.
“It felt like a trap,” the senior Ukrainian official said.
“To be honest, everyone was shocked as f*ck.”
The timing of the U.S. decision only deepened the suspicion.
Following Trump’s direction, the U.S. Treasury Department announced that its Office of Foreign Assets Control was “immediately issuing a temporary general license to allow the supply of Russian diesel to the global market.”
One Ukrainian official pointed to April 7, the date on which the waiver was set to expire, as evidence that Washington had planned the measure around a specific timetable.
“They lifted the sanctions until April 7… So they were preparing this for Oct. 7. It’s a birthday present for Putin. They’re counting the six months,” the official said.
I’d write about this situation in my own words, but Ron Filipowski already said it best today in Meidas+:
… Trump announced today that he and Vladimir Putin have reached a deal to tamper with the American election where the US will fund the genocidal Russian war machine by buying massive quantities of oil and diesel from the evil autocratic regime. He posted on Truth Social:
“I have just concluded a highly successful discussion with President Vladimir Putin, of Russia, wherein it was agreed that Russia will immediately supply over 300,000 Tons of Diesel Fuel to the American and Global Marketplace, another 500,000 Tons during the month of November, and 1,000,000 Tons immediately thereafter. Additionally, based on the condition of their Diesel Refineries, Russia will then deliver, within a short period of time, 3,000,000 Tons of Diesel Fuel. Between our TOTAL CONTROL of the Strait of Hormuz, and this great announcement on Russian Energy, Diesel Prices for Americans and, indeed, the World, will be COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST! Lower prices for Americans, especially our Great Farmers, Ranchers, and Truckers, is my Greatest Priority. This is a very big and important announcement.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy immediately issued a statement saying that Trump betrayed Ukraine:
“At this very moment—while our team is speaking with the American team in Florida—the President of the United States is talking to the Kremlin leader, the leader behind this war and this aggression, and is reaching an agreement allowing Russia to export diesel. This means additional funds for the war, additional funds to fuel the suffering inflicted upon us.
Undoubtedly, this only emboldens Putin and enables them to continue fighting. It is happening right now, just as we are discussing peace: America is allowing Russia to export diesel. This means millions, billions. Ultimately, it all goes towards the war against people, against Ukraine—against all of us.
I believe our team is simply being used as a smokescreen. This is certainly dishonest; it is certainly not how partners should act. And, in my view, it is a weak decision—sadly, a weak decision made by strong partners.”
… And here we are, with Trump and Putin colluding to tamper with another American election. The US is now officially allied with Putin and Russia against Ukraine. We will fund Russia’s genocidal war machine in exchange for Putin helping Trump and the Republican Party in the midterms. One of the most shameful and disgusting days in the history of this Republic.
Watching Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial, a movie premiering at the New York Film Festival on October 5 about the rise of Sam Altman and OpenAI, “is like watching a horror movie you happen to be living through”, says an article in Vulture, an entertainment news website and the pop culture vertical of New York Magazine. The same could be said about watching Trump’s presidency.
As New Yorker Editor David Remnick wrote on October 12, “Because Trump is simultaneously an autocrat and a performance artist, because Americans tend to cling reflexively to the fraying notion of national exceptionalism, it is difficult to reckon with the idea that a President might be not merely shambolic and incompetent but something far darker, even evil.”
While Trump is seeking a $1.5 trillion Pentagon authorization, he is setting up a Pentagon slush fund within the Office of Strategic Capital that is expected to be a destination for money generated by profits from the sale of Venezuelan oil, which will presumably be spent unconstrained by Congressional review. A recipe for chaos.
Almost a million people have lost a combined nearly $4 billion on the $TRUMP memecoin; financial disclosures show that Trump personally has made more than $600 million from it. He is de facto stealing from mostly his own supporters.
In an astonishing case of political reprisal, Trump’s Justice Department is investigating whether the major television networks — ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and Fox News — violated federal antitrust laws when the group briefly suspended their White House pool coverage. This followed a call by Laura Loomer, the far-right influencer who has often had the ear of Trump, or an antitrust investigation into TV networks for colluding “to refuse to cover President Trump”. “The trend we’re observing is profoundly undemocratic,” commented Jem Bartholomew of the Columbia Journalism Review.
Laura Loomer
With international national security threats multiplying, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and President Trump have fired, pushed to retire, or blocked the promotions of more than two dozen senior military leaders in the past 21 months, including high profile generals, admirals, and civilian defense leaders. The latest departure was Army Secretary Dan Driscoll. The New York Times reported “…in a meeting with the president, Mr. Driscoll complained that Mr. Hegseth had fired some of the Army’s most combat-tested leaders, imperiling its efforts to modernize the force, military officials said. He also warned Mr. Trump that the firings and blocked promotions have damaged morale, causing some in the military to question the fairness of a promotion system that is supposed to be apolitical and merit-based, senior officials said.” Other departures have included: the Army’s top uniformed officer, Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George; Navy Secretary John Phelan; Army Gen. Christopher Donahue (the last U.S. soldier to leave Afghanistan); Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to serve as chief of naval operations and to become a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin; Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James Slife; the head of U.S. Southern Command, Navy Adm. Alvin Holsey; NSA director, CYBERCOM commander Gen. Timothy Haug (fired shortly after far-right activist Laura Loomer pressured Trump to fire him).
Donald Trump’s Justice Department, which has prioritized investigating people who have investigated Trump, is reaching back in history to consider whether prosecutors mistreated an earlier Republican president: Richard Nixon, more than half a century after that scandal led to Nixon’s resignation, according to the Wall Street Journal. “The department is reviewing whether the special prosecutor’s office that investigated the famed Watergate break-in committed misconduct, according to people familiar with the matter, more than half a century after that scandal led to Nixon’s resignation.
Trump officials are withholding updated COVID vaccines from the Vaccines for Children program, delaying access for children in at least 11 states and one U.S. territory, The Guardian reported. More than half of American children receive vaccines through the program.
Trump consulted Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot in deciding whether to capture Nicolás Maduro. In December 2025, about a month before the U.S. invaded Venezuela and captured its president,Trump met with Elon Musk and spent hours talking to Musk’s Grok chatbot, including asking how Venezuelans would respond to the capture of their president. Grok characterized Maduro as a “deeply unpopular dictator” and said Venezuelans would celebrate his downfall, prompting Trump to conclude the chatbot was “ingenious.”
The Trump administration is using public dollars not appropriated for that purpose to produce and pay for television adsTimes. Trump personally instructed his budget director to use taxpayer money for TV ads , according to The New York Times. The money came from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, an arm of DHS that oversees the Border Patrol and customs and immigration at airports. The Washington Sun reported that on Sept. 19, the White House Office of Management and Budget gave Customs and Border Protection $20 million for “OBBBA commemorative events.” The next day, CBP awarded the advertising company LMD Agency Inc. a contract for $20 million for a “national media campaign.” Lawmakers are pointing to the $20 million apportionment as an unauthorized use of funds, claiming the administration went around Congress to pay for an ad campaign that the law had deemed prohibited.
Donald Trump’s Truth Social company is charging investors $100,000 for faster access to his posts announcing government policy, allowing them to trade on information before everyone else gets it, while his company makes money selling this advantage. the practice continues while 53 former federal prosecutors and agents have advised a federal court that the program likely violates federal criminal laws involving securities, conflicts of interest, and public corruption.
The U.S. war against Iran has cost the Department of Defense more than $38 billion through Aug. 1, and will continue costing up to $3 billion a month or more depending on the intensity of this now preparing to send a third aircraft carrier strike group, led by the USS Theodore Roosevelt , to the Middle East, adding 9,000–10,000 troops to the more than 50,000 U.S. troops already in the region.
According to Forbes, President Trump is an estimated $2.7 billion richer than when he won the 2024 election, having cashed in on crypto ventures and overseas deals. The Washington Post reported growing anger among younger crypto enthusiasts who supported Trump only to watch his family haul in enormous sums from their crypto ventures while several Trump-linked investments plummeted in value.
Adding insult to injury, the Washington Sun reports that GetTrumpMemes.com is promising invitations to ‘an evening at his members-only club, Trump National Washington D.C., with 3 Legends and President Donald J. Trump for the 185 largest holders of the Trump Coin. The top 29 purchasers will be invited to an additional ‘VIP Reception with YOUR FAVORITE PRESIDENT,’ while the 4 biggest will also receive an 18-karat Trump-branded gold watch. “The winners will be chosen based on a formula that seems designed in part to increase sales of $TRUMP in the next two months,” the Sun said, noting that Trump’s meme coin has already earned him $635 million from the venture since it started in 2025, while purchasers of Trump’s crypto products have lost an estimated $4.7 billion combined thus far.
President Trump’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has opened an investigation into Nike over the company’s racial diversity hiring and promotion strategy. Trump has objected to Nike’s marketing campaigns around social justice.
In an unprecedented move, Melania Trump has earned over $18 million since 2024, according to federal financial disclosure reports released in mid-2026. with $10.71 million from an Amazon MGM Studios licensing agreement for her self-titled documentary, Melania. and over $6 million ($6,011,259) from digital assets and collectible sales, which surged significantly from prior years.
Over 5 million Americans, or 13% of beneficiaries, have lost SNAP benefits following the implementation of strict federal rules from the Republican’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
During his second term, Trump’s administration has systematically targeted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) through budget cuts, staff reductions, and the termination of major climate research programs. The agency has lost roughly 20% to 30% of its staff due to firings and early retirements. Only after intense public pressure and bipartisan backlash from lawmakers and scientists did the administration halt a plan to dismantle the $368 million Ocean Observatories Initiative , which would have removed over 900 deep-ocean sensors and high-tech data buoys. Trump has also proposed major cuts to research funding at the National Science Foundation across all its directorates and halting funding for the Arctic Report Card, a longstanding effort to synthesize the latest research about the fastest warming place on Earth. Meanwhile,in another part of NOAA, NOAA Fisheries, the arm of NOAA tasked with overseeing commercial fishing, is facing a budget cut of more than 40% in the fiscal 2027 budget proposal. That would result in cuts to science programs, fisheries management and data collection.
In a September 28 interview with Time magazine, Trump was asked, “Would you rule out declaring a state of emergency in the lead up to the midterms unless there’s widespread violence in the streets? Trump: replied, “I don’t rule anything out or in. We’ll see. You mean the Insurrection Act? TIME: Yeah. Trump: No, I’ve never used it. I could use it. A lot of people think I should use it sometimes.”
Trump went on to laud his intellectual superiority in the Time interview. “I have the highest of IQs. I have the highest. I’m fine, and I understand that stuff,” he said in a rambling statement. “You know, my uncle was at MIT for 41 years, and you know, I’m a—I believe in genetics, frankly, and I understand. I understand it much more than I think any president would, because I do have an ability on this. I have an ability on those things that were the new frontiers.”
In the same Time magazine interview, Trump repeatedly declined to rule out demolition of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Asked if he would commit to not bringing in wrecking balls to demolish the building, he respond, “I’m not committing to anything. We’re going to see how it plays out in court.”
Noncitizens residing in the United States who faced removal proceedings have traditionally been eligible for bond hearings. As independent journalist Anthony Davis has pointed out, So long as an individual could demonstrate that they posed neither a public safety threat nor a flight risk, immigration judges regularly permitted them to remain at home with their families while their legal cases progressed. The Trump administration discarded this standard, reinterpreting the Immigration and Nationality Act to dictate that any migrant who entered the U.S. without authorization must be subjected to mandatory, un-bondable detention until their case resolves. In short, asylum, protected under international law, has been criminalized in America.
On September 15, 2026, ICE removed thousands of immigrants with final deportation orders from its public detainee locator, eliminating the ability of lawyers and families to find where many are being held. If lawyers can’t find their clients they can be deported before an attorney or court has a chance to intervene. More than 30 human rights groups asked a UN panel to intervene. The change affects more than 16,000 people.
The federal Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 ended October 30. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates the FY 2026 Deficit will total $2.0 Trillion, with interest, at over $1 trillion, representing the second largest expenditure in 2026. “The country’s future fiscal outlook is even more dismal,” the Committee says. With annual debt payments of more than $1 trillion a year, it is inevitable that the cost of servicing the US national debt will start to cut deeply into other government programs.
Arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement this summer soared to record highs since the start of this Trump administration — with 43,000 in June, more than 49,000 in July and nearly 51,000 in August — as officials cut or narrowed the pathways to legal residency in the United States and expanded the pool of people eligible for deportation, according to the new York Times. Federal agents appeared in nearly every corner of daily life, carrying out operations at hospitals and airports, outside suburban schools and along rural construction sites and truck stops. They fanned out from coastal cities in Maine to desert towns in Arizona, across the open plains of Wyoming and down through the southern borderlands.
On September 29, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to deport immigrants to third countries where they have no ties, with little or no notice and no meaningful chance to object. In a 6-3 decision, the Court put on hold U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy’s ruling that the policy is unlawful until the justices consider the case, with arguments set for December. The Trump administration has authorized or pledged at least $410 million to facilitate deportation agreements to send immigrants to third countries with 31 countries, mostly in Africa and Latin America, as of the end of June, the Washington Post reported on September 21, and documents from inside the Office of Remigration (A 1984-ish term if there ever was one) reviewed by The Post show financial commitments that include $81 million in direct payments to 13 of the foreign governments. More than 23,000 people have already been sent from the United States to 26 countries other than their own in 2026, including large numbers of children and adolescents. The Supreme Court’s decision means the current deportation policy can remain in place for months because the court won’t hear oral arguments on the case until December, likely leaving a decision until 2027.
The Treasury Department and the IRS have proposed a rule that would revoke tax-exempt status from private schools—everything from elementary schools to universities—that offer “targeted support to Black or other minority students,” including assistance offered to minority students, such as minority student clubs and mentoring programs.
With the US military already stretched, American soldiers recently joined a police operation in Ecuador against a cartel. Eighteen Latin American nations have joined a new U.S.-led coalition against cartels, and at least three of them — Colombia, Guatemala and Ecuador — have already agreed to joint military operations with the Pentagon.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act helped roughly triple the ICE budget, allocating $45 billion for building new immigration centers and hiring 10,000 new ICE agents. “One dispiriting lesson of the imperial boomerang is that, once. bought and paid for, structures of intimidation and oppression tend to endure,“ said David Wallace-Wells.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has spread its detention center tentacles across the United States. Most of us know the names of a few Nazi concentration camps, like Dachau, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, where Anne Frank died. But they were part of a massive complex of more than 850 ghettos, concentration camps, forced-labor camps and extermination camps CNN has identified. They stretched from France and the Netherlands in the west to Estonia, Lithuania and Poland in the east that the Nazis established during the 12 years Adolf Hitler was in power. Their purpose — to segregate , oppress and persecute their opponents. Like the ICE detention centers, the Nazi system started small and then metastasized like a cancer, according to the Wiener Holocaust Library.
The Trump administration, defying Congress, has stripped tens of millions of dollars in U.S. military assistance from European and Middle Eastern countries and will give those funds instead to conservative-leaning governments in Latin America, according to The Washington Post. Some of the money was included in a Ukraine supplemental bill specifically for countries affected by the war in Ukraine.
The Trump administration has largely halted direct financial and military aid to Ukraine, shifting the main burden of support to Europe, while upending the US approach to the invasion of Ukraine and treating Russia increasingly not as an adversary, but an ally.
Two more years of this?
New York Magazine writer-at-large, Frank Rich, recently shined a light on the people collaborating with Trump. American titans of finance and tech and the law, such as Jeff Bezos, Scott Bessent, and Todd Blanche, have “enabled a kleptocracy that might make Suharto and Marcos look like shoplifters,” Rich wrote. “What’s curious is that they seem so nonchalant about it all, as if no reckoning were coming,” said Ryu Spaeth, features editor at New York Magazine “As Frank shows in this brilliant and forceful essay, history suggests otherwise.”
When, or if, all this is over, will all of its co-conspirators and enablers, who now seem to eagerly embrace the law of the jungle, seek the shield of the rule of law? Don’t be surprised.
Shortly after assuming the presidency in January 2017, he accused the press of being an “enemy of the American people”. He hasn’t held back from continuing his war on the press in succeeding years.
As an American citizen, and a former journalist at Oregon’s leading newspaper, The Oregonian, I wince every time Trump levels another unseemly attack on the media.
Now, his decision to withdraw funding from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), a move endorsed by his sidekick Elon Musk, who has described the media group as “just radical left crazy people talking to themselves,” is angering me even more because it is putting journalists’ lives in danger.
In a sudden, but not out-of-character, slash-and-burn move, the Trump administration sent out an email to employees at Voice of America (VOA) on March 15, 2025 putting them on paid administrative leave “until otherwise notified” and instructing them not to enter the VOA offices or access its internal systems. Radio Free Asia, also funded by the US, has lost its funding as well.
The moves have left exiled Russian journalists working for RFE/RL “high and dry” and at risk of being stranded overseas without any legal status. “If it can’t find funding soon, the company won’t be able to pay its staff and the consequence would potentially put a very large number of journalists who are exiled from authoritarian regimes at grave risk,” a source told The Guardian.
“Many of RFE/RL’s Russian journalists operate from Prague, Riga and Vilnius, with their work visas often tied to their employment,” the Guardian is reporting. “Terminating the broadcaster’s funding would trigger visa expirations, leaving them without legal status within months. Deportation to Russia for any of them would expose them to criminal prosecution. “
According to the Guardian, RFE/RL journalists are regarded as “foreign agents”, making them the target for arrest should they return to Russia.
RFE/RI is suing the Trump administration in an effort to reverse the cancellation of its funding, but its success is uncertain.
In the meantime, if any of the RFE/RI’s journalists suffer harm because of Trump’s actions, the blood will be on his hands.
If you have a few minutes, I’d like to begin by telling you about Edwin Bell Forsythe because his service to our country and his dedication to liberty are instructive.
Forsythe was a true public servant. A devoted Quaker from Moorestown, New Jersey, he served honorably in the House of Representatives as a Republican from 1970 until his death in 1984. I worked for Forsythe and remember keenly his decency and dignity.
Rep. Edwin B. Forsythe and his wife, Mary, at the Capitol.
A continuing reminder of Forsythe is the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Oceanville, NJ. The refuge includes over 32,000 acres of coastal salt meadows, uplandbrush and woodlands, and open bays and channels along the New Jersey shore.
At the dedication of that refuge, Ed Welch, Chief Counsel of the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, praised Forsythe for his effective leadership, the ability to take divisive controversies and hammer out strong bipartisan compromises in an atmosphere of fairness and civility. “The policy differences between Republicans and Democrats were never ignored, but they were not permitted to obstruct the essential workings of the Committee,” Welch said.
“Ed Forsythe was a man of integrity and principle,” said Rep. William J. Hughes of New Jersey, who served as a Democratic Member of the House of Representatives from 1975 to 1995, “He represented the very best that this nation has to offer, serving quietly but tirelessly and effectively for the people of his district. There was not an ounce of pomposity or pretension in Ed Forsythe. Ed’s unfortunate death has taken from us a great legislator and a fine individual. We have all been enriched by his presence among us.”
”His sensitivity, wisdom and quiet voice of reason will be missed,” added New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean.
In today’s tumultuous political environment, “sensitivity, “wisdom and (a) quiet voice of reason” are sadly missing. Can you name even a handful of members of Congress who are spoken of with such respect today?
In their place we have rancorous, narcissistic exhibitionists focused more on messaging and publicity than on driving good public policy.
In 2015, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, for example, a shape-shifting individual, called Mr. Trump a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot,” a “kook,” “crazy” and a man who was “unfit for office.” He’s now one of Trump’s most sycophantic defenders when it suits him.
Then there’s Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. Despite being a doctor, who’s obligation is “First, do no harm”, he voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has made multiple outrageous medical statements, as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Even Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, a supposed moderate, has lost her bearings. A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee for 12 years, she voted to confirm Tulsi Gabbard, a politician with a history of troubling statements and actions, to be the Director of National Intelligence, putting American security at risk.
Republican Senator Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, a combat veteran and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, in the face of Trump’s threat of supporting a primary competitor, voted to confirm Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. This despite serious allegations of personal misconduct and lack of judgement on his part, as well as minimal executive experience essential to managing a Department of Defense with about 3.4 million civilian and military personnel and an $850 billion annual budget.
The list of weak-kneed Republican members of Congress could go on as the Republican Party has fallen into the trap of slavishly bowing down to President Trump, less because they agree with his erratic pronouncements than because they fear losing their prestigious positions.
House Republicans are no better. In bowing to Trump’s will, they are consciously compromising their authority.
In the midst of all this stands Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, an evangelical Christian who daily declares his fealty not to the constitution, but to an erratic, morally compromised president.
On August 7, 2015, Johnson wrote on Facebook, “The thing about Donald Trump is that he lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House.”
These days, don’t count on Johnson to try to put the brakes on any of Trump’s questionable autocratic moves. As Johnson told reporters in January, “There is a new sheriff in town.”
And reveling in his position at the top of the Republican hierarchy stands Donald Trump, who sees himself as a wonder of the world, comparable to the Colossus of Rhodes constructed in homage to Helios, the original god of the Sun in ancient Greek mythology.
Wishing to be unburdened by common standards of decency and respect, Trump has even tried to fire an executive branch ethics watchdog who heads the Office of Special Counsel.
With a brusque two sentence email, the White House Personnel Office leader was dismissed on Feb. 7, 2025, with little more than a “Thank you for your service”. The firing is only on hold because a federal district court issued a temporary order keeping the lawyer in office through a hearing scheduled for Feb. 26, 2025.
The behavior of senior people serving under Trump is no better. Their abandonment of civility is exemplified by “Border Czar” Tom Homan who callously said of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a Feb. 17 Newsmax interview, “She’s the dumbest congresswoman ever elected to Congress and she proves that every day.”
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller is no more reticent. A fanatical Trump devotee, he was accused by the chairman of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol of “efforts to spread false information about alleged voter fraud” and encouraging state legislatures to alter the outcome of the 2020 election by appointing alternate electors.
Considered a racist by some of his detractors, Miller was a lead author of the zero tolerance policies that led to immigrant children being separated from their parents during Trump’s first term.
“America is for Americans and Americans only” Miller bellowed at a Madison Square Garden Trump campaign rally on October 27, 2024, “With your vote, you can smash this broken establishment” he concluded.
Trump has also brought into government efforts to indiscriminately hollow out the federal civil service. Trump and Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government efficiency, or DOGE, is hacking away with abandon at multiple federal departments. Regardless of what Trump and Musk might say, the goal is not so much to diminish the federal workforce as to replace it with clones of Trump’s most rabid supporters. Meanwhile, Republicans stand idly by.
Affected agencies include the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department oi Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Federal Aviation Administration. The IRS is also expected to lay off thousands of probationary workers in the middle of tax season.
A DOGE purge across the Department of Energy that targeted about 2,000 employees led to embarrassment and a recall when it was discovered that many of them worked on the nation’s critical nuclear weapons programs. The Associated Press noted that the firings came as the National Nuclear Security Administration “is in the midst of a major $750 billion nuclear weapons modernization effort, including new land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, new stealth bombers and new submarine-launched warheads.”
“The goal here is to dismantle the merit system and return the government to the spoils system, awarding the president who gets into office and punish people who worked for the prior administration,” Kevin Owen, a lawyer who represents federal employees in civil service and whistleblower litigation, told the Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, issues of privacy and data security are arising. Democrats and tax experts are sounding alarms, for example, about a plan by Elon Musk’s DOGE team to gain access to an IRS system that contains detailed financial information about millions of taxpayers, including their tax returns.
“This is a five-alarm warning,” Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.), a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees the IRS, said in a post on X, calling the move an “illegal and blatant power grab.”
Also raising alarms are DOGE moves at the Social Security Administration, where Elon Musk’s team, alleging unsubstantiated concerns about fraud, is reportedly attempting to access reams of sensitive information. The acting head of the SSA, Michelle King, has already resigned over the intrusion. Yet, again, elected Republicans casually ignore the threat.
And I haven’t even begun to address the international chaos emerging under Trump and his servile minions.
Nowhere is this chaos more evident than in Trump’s handing of the Ukraine war. Word of impending negotiations with Russia was, first of all, a shock to Ukraine and America’s European allies.
Then, when negotiations on the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia between the U.S. Delegation, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Russian Delegation led by Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov, conspicuously absent were any representatives from Ukraine or Europe. The move was perceived by both as a slap in the face.
“Making sense of Trump’s plan – if there is one” read the headline of a Kyiv Independent article on the negotiations.
One thing was clear, though. “Decades of the old relationship between Europe and America are ending,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in address at a Munich Security Conference. “From now on, things will be different…”
On Feb.18, Trump lambasted our European allies and Ukraine for letting the war go on. “Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should’ve ended it in three years,” he said. “You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.”
On February 17, Trump went so far in a Truth Social post as to directly insult Zenenskyy , calling him “a modestly successful comedian” and ” A Dictator without Elections”.
” Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left,” Trump wrote. ” In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only “TRUMP,” and the Trump Administration, can do.”
“Trump sold his soul and our country to Putin,” said one commenter. “Hard to believe we’re defending Russia instead of the Ukrainian freedom fighters.
But Russia is likely thrilled by Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine as well as by Vice President Vance’s remarks critical of Europe and supportive of far-right forces on the continent.
“The Kremlin for years has sought to weaken Europe by boosting parties that Mr. Vance argued must be allowed to flourish,” reporter Paul Sonne wrote in the New York Times on February 16. “The same day as his remarks at the conference, Mr. Vance met with the leader of Germany’s extreme right movement, which is contesting national elections this month, boosting a party Russia has sought to legitimize. Moscow has also sought to drive a wedge between the United States and Europe, realizing that a destruction of the longstanding Euro-Atlantic alliance from within would lead to a world where Moscow can wield far more power.”
Echoing Sonne, Ian Bond, deputy director of the Center for European Reform in London, commented online, “Some of the most shameful comments uttered by a president in my lifetime. Trump is siding with the aggressor, blaming the victim. In the Kremlin they must be jumping for joy.”
If Trump’s usual bull in a china shop approach to foreign affairs, complemented by his vice president, leads to the abandonment of Ukraine and a reinvigorated Russia, the risk for Europe will be great and another American threat, China, will be emboldened.
The United States has also inserted itself into a flammable situation with Trump’s proposal that the United States take control of the Gaza Strip and push the Palestinians into other countries, principally Jordan and Egypt. The land by the Mediterranean Sea is a potential French “Riviera,” something that would be worth a “long-term ownership position,” Trump said in early February. Typical of Trump, his vague proposal was an apparent surprise even to his closest advisors and stunned Congressional Republicans.
It was all reminiscent of Trump in his first term trying to convince North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un that his country was ripe for development as a popular destination spotif he gave up his militaristic nuclear weapons program. If you can believe this, Trump even showed him a slick video the White House National Security Council came up with showing what North Korea could become if it concluded a rapprochement with the United States. “They have great beaches,” Trump said.
Where are the members of Congress voicing concerns? Where is today’s Wayne Morse, a vocal critic of the Vietnam war and an outspoken defender of the Constitution’s checks and balances during his 24-year tenure in the U.S. Senate representing Oregon from1945-69?
Fariborz S. Fatemi, who worked on foreign policy issues on the staff of U.S. Sen. Frank Church, told of how Morse frequently went to the floor of the Senate to deliver riveting and informative speeches about the rule of law, separation of powers and how the Senate and the House were slowly giving their powers away to an already powerful executive.
Way back in 2018, Berry Craig, a state AFL-CIO official, saw the relevance of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, to Trump’s behavior. President Lincoln “wanted men who would tell him what he needed to win the war, save the union and put slavery on the road to extinction – not what they thought he wanted to hear,” Craig said. “It’s the opposite with Trump. He demands obsequiousness.”
That’s still true. Instead of strong, valiant, principled members standing up to Trump on myriad issues for their institution, we have toadies worried only about their next election.
That must change.
George Washington, in his 1796 farewell address, cautioned his fellow Americans about the rise of a man like Trump. “The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty,” he warned.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently said on Fox TV about Trump’s push to control Greenland, “I met with the Danish Ambassador this past week. They said Greenland is not for sale. I said, ‘Everything is for sale.’”
We already know Marco Rubio is. He previously portrayed Trump as “a pathological liar”, a “sniveling coward” and “utterly amoral”. Now Trump’s his best buddy.
So far, the Republican Party, Republican members of Congress and obedient Republican staff seem to be for sale, too. They need to act to protect America from Trump’s lunacies.
Challenging Trump won’t be easy.
In the movie “The Apprentice”, Sebastian Stan portrays a young Donald Trump determined to make his mark in 1970s New York. Reflecting on what he saw in Trump, Stan said in a New York Times story. “What I’ve always seen in his journey, and certainly we were exploring in the film, was the solidifying of a person into stone, the loss of humanity.”
Despite his public efforts to appear amiable and open, Donald J. Trump is a cold-hearted vindictive man who will fight tooth and nail.
Under Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), China’smilitary might , including its nuclear capabilities, have been expanding rapidly while it “has demonstrated an increasing willingness to use military coercion and inducements to achieve its aims”, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.
China’s dominance in global manufacturing is greater than it’s ever been. Its government subsidies are giving industries leverage to out-compete with American products. It had a nearly $1 trillion trade surplus with the rest of the world in 2024.
China has an aggressive, global spy network and influence operation aimed at expanding and solidifying its power.
China is supporting the Russian war machine and is openly preparing for a war to take over Taiwan.
China is aggressively bullying the Philippines and other countries with its claims on the South China Sea.
The U.S is falling further and further behind China in shipbuilding, threatening maritime security around the world. A new report by the U.S. Trade Representative found, that U.S. international trade is “carried out on vessels made in China, financed by state-owned Chinese institutions, owned by Chinese shipping companies, and reliant on a global maritime and logistics infrastructure increasingly dominated by China.”
All together, China presents a clear and present danger to the United States,
But American consumers continue to subsidize the Community regime by procuring the countries products as though there’s a fire sale, American companies continue strengthening their ties to China and the strongest signal President-elect Donald Trump is sending to China isn’t, “I’m determined to protect American security”, but “Let’s make a deal”.
Nothing illustrates that better than Trump’s words and actions with respect to TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance.
In April 2024, with bipartisan concern about the national security threat TikTok posed to the United States and its use as a tool to spread misinformation and propaganda, the House of Representatives voted 360 to 58 in the House and the Senate voted 78 to 18 for a bill requiring the sale of the social media platform to a U.S. company or face a shutdown.
Trump actually tried to ban the app himself in his first term by signing an executive order in August 2020 asserting that the app was capturing mass amounts of information about Americans and raising risks for the country.
“These risks are real,” the order said. “This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information − potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.”
In March 2024, however, Trump flipped his position, saying he was opposed to banning the app or forcing a sale. “Frankly, there are a lot of people on TikTok that love it,” Trump said on CNBC . “There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it.”
On January 18, TikTok did shut down, but after Trump promised to issue an executive order on Monday to “extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect,” it came back up. It announced, “In agreement with our service providers” the company “is in the process of restoring service. We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive.”
The law allows Trump to grant a 90-day reprieve to TikTok, but only if he can certify at that point “evidence of significant progress” toward a sale. During that 90 days, of course, China’s alleged efforts to undermine United States security would continue, an issue of apparently little concern to Trump.
Trump’s inclination to pacify China and TikTok, reminds me of the protests of young Americans against the TikTok shutdown, favoring their personal TikTok addiction over American security. These same self-absorbed young people are likely many of the same people who are sustaining China’s economy by buying massive amounts of cheap fast fashion from Chinese companies like Temu and Shein, despite extensive reports that the apparel hides the dirty laundry of environmental damage and labor exploitation.
Trump’s moves are not, however, going unchallenged.
Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Nebraska), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has urged US companies to halt operations with TikTok. “For TikTok to come back online in the future, ByteDance must agree to a sale that satisfies the law’s qualified-divestiture requirements by severing all ties between TikTok and Communist China,” Ricketts said.
Also breaking with Trump, U.S. Senator Tom Cotton, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also issued a stern warning for companies deciding to work with TikTok after its resumption of service. “Any company that hosts, distributes, services, or otherwise facilitates communist-controlled TikTok could face hundreds of billions of dollars of ruinous liability under the law, not just from DOJ, but also under securities law, shareholder lawsuits, and state AGs, Cotton posted on X. “Think about it.”
Meanwhile, TikTok’s CEO is planning to attend a Trump victory rally at the Capitol One Arena in Washington, D.C. tonight (Sunday) and is expected to sit on the dais for Trump’s inauguration on Monday.
It’s a good time to remember Franz Stangl, the commandant of the Nazi concentration camp Treblinka in occupied Poland from Sept. 1942 to August 1943. Gitta Sereny, an Austrian born journalist, biographer and historian. wrote “Into That Darkness” based on interviews with Stangl after the war. Trying to understand how he acclimated to running the camp, she asked him how he managed to do it. “It was the small steps. Small compromises,” he said. ” You see, if you can get people to stop believing in absolute right and wrong, you can get them to do anything.”
Americans succumbing to the allure of Chinese goods, American companies allowing their drive for profits to justify strengthening China’s economy and American politicians setting aside their legitimate concerns about the challenges from China are guilty of small steps, too.
Stay tuned.
Addendum
In still engaging wholeheartedly with China, American companies are repeating how so many have responded (or not) to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. According to Foreign Policy, as of 2023, around 800 multinational companies from Western and like-minded countries were still operating in Russia—either because they decided to stay or because they were still generating revenues there despite having pledged to leave. Around 60 percent of those global firms that operated in Russia before the full-scale invasion began in February 2022 still continue to do so. Second, Germany, the United States, and France are—by far—the top three countries of origin for Western firms that retain a presence in Russia, accounting for around half of them.
What is undeniably true , according to Foreign Policy, is that the hundreds of Western firms staying in Russia are helping Moscow finance the war in Ukraine. The data is eye-popping. In 2022 and 2023, firms from the G-7, European Union, and like-minded economies generated around $370 billion in revenues on Russian soil, which was more than Moscow’s military budget over the same period. In the first two years of the war, Western firms transferred more than $11 billion in corporate taxes to Russian state coffers, with Austrian bank Raiffeisen alone accounting for one-tenth of this amount. The data is not available yet for 2024, but a ballpark estimate suggests that Western firms probably paid another $4-6 billion in corporate taxes, bringing the total to roughly $16 billion funneled to the Kremlin since the invasion began.
Remember when America welcomed Ukrainians with open arms and warm hearts when Russia initiated a brutal invasion of Ukraine in 2022?
So much for “Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” when Donald Trump takes office again on January 20, 2025.
The United States under President Trump is expected to join Pakistan and Iran in forcefully returning foreigners who have arrived from war-torn countries. And with the fall of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, pressure is likely to grow to repatriate Syrians in the United States under TPS protection
The Costs of War Project is a nonpartisan research project based at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University. It seeks to document the direct and indirect human and financial costs of U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and related counterterrorism efforts. According to Costs of War, over one million Afghans were forcibly returned from Pakistan and Iran in 2023. Under the current Taliban regime, forced returns to Afghanistan are continuing, despite a non-return advisory from the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
“States have a legal and moral responsibility to allow those fleeing Afghanistan to seek safety, and to not forcibly return refugees,” the Refugee Agency says.
Various governments justify this trend of increasing returns to Afghanistan by arguing that active war has subsided since August 2021, when the U.S. initiated a chaotic withdrawal from the country, Costs of War asserts.
Trump has made it crystal clear he plans to repatriate Ukrainians who are in the United States under the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program. Set up in 1990, the program gave the federal government the ability to grant work permits and deferrals from deportation to nationals of any designated nation going through or recovering from natural or man-made disasters.
An ongoing Ukrainian refugee crisis began in February 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine, with over 6 million refugees fleeing Ukraine across Europe. The United States announced on March 4, 2022, that Ukrainians would be provided Temporary Protected Status (TPS). There are now approximately 50,205 Ukrainian refugees in the United States protected by the TPS program. During the designated TPS period, TPS holders are not removable from the United States and not detainable by DHS based on their immigration status. TPS for Ukrainians was recently extended until April 19, 2025, only three months after Trump’s inauguration.
The Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025”, which Trump disavowed during the campaign when criticism of it erupted, has resurfaced as a policy driver since Trump’s election. It outlines a plan to end TPS, calling it a program that encourages illegal immigration. If confirmed, Trump’s pick for Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, would likely will lead the charge to terminate TPS designations and send Ukrainian refugees home to the continuing war and devastation.
Is this what the 76,744,608 people who voted for Trump this time around wanted?
NY Times Book Review interview with Brontez Purnell, 02/25/2024:
NY Times – “What’s the last book that made you cry?”
Purnell – “The newspaper is the only thing I read that makes me cry.”
Excerpts from the Sunday New York Times, Feb. 25, 2024
Predators Leer as Moms Put Girls on Instagram, NY Times
Seeking social media stardom for their underage daughters, mothers post images of them on Instagram. The accounts draw men sexually attracted to children, and they sometimes pay to see more. Interacting with the men opens the door to abuse. Some flatter, bully and blackmail girls and their parents to get racier and racier images. The Times monitored separate exchanges on Telegram, the messaging app, where men openly fantasize about sexually abusing the children they follow on Instagram and extol the platform for making the images so readily available.
“It’s like a candy store 😍😍😍,” one of them wrote.
A record number of people across the country are experiencing homelessness. The federal government’s annual tally last year revealed the highest numbers of unsheltered people since the count began in 2007.
…the principal challenge has come at home, where additional U.S. military assistance to Ukraine has been stymied by Donald Trump-aligned House Republicans who question the importance of Ukraine for American security and in some cases even the centrality of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization alliance itself.
“You feel totally helpless, totally abandoned by authorities and society in general. You feel like nothing,” said Araceli Gatica, a 32-year-old who left San Luis Acatlán, a mountain village in Guerrero (Mexico). A local gang threatened to kill her after she refused to keep paying $200 a month in extortion. She arrived recently with her three children in Ciudad Juárez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, hoping to seek asylum in the U.S.
Bombs that struck houses, markets and bus stations across Sudan, often killing dozens of civilians at once. Ethnic rampages, accompanied by rape and looting, that killed thousands in the western region of Darfur. And a video clip, verified by United Nations officials, that shows Sudanese soldiers parading through the streets of a major city, triumphantly brandishing the decapitated heads of students who were killed on the basis of their ethnicity.
Ms. Haley’s loss in South Carolina follows a string of early defeats. She argued in her speech that the nation needed new leadership in the midst of “a world on fire.” “It seems like our country is falling apart,” she said, adding that she was worried “to my core” for its future. “America will come apart if we make the wrong choices. “
Prominent epidemiologists have estimated that an escalation of the war in Gaza could cause up to 85,000 Palestinian deaths over the next six months from injuries, disease and lack of medical care, in addition to the nearly 30,000 that local authorities have already reported since early October.
And yet, even if parts of society came to terms with natural bodies, the same cannot be said for the natural process of women aging. Wrinkles are the new enemy, and it seems Gen Z — and their younger sisters — are terrified of them. Gen Z-ers are being introduced to the idea of starting treatments early as “preventative” treatment. They are growing up in a culture of social media that promotes the endless pursuit of maintaining youth — and at home, some of them are watching their mothers reject aging with every injectable and serum they can find. But considering the speed at which social media is pushing ever more unattainable beauty standards onto children, it’s time for us to consider our moral obligation to minimizing damage for the next generation.
… increasingly in recent months, scrolling the (Tik Tok) feed has come to resemble fumbling in the junk drawer: navigating a collection of abandoned desires, who-put-that-here fluff and things that take up awkward space…(T)he malaise that has begun to suffuse TikTok feels systemic, market-driven and also potentially existential, suggesting the end of a flourishing era and the precipice of a wasteland period.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy acceded to his party’s lunatic anti-Ukraine caucus and said no to a request by Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, to address a joint session of Congress, or to bring together House members for a meeting with Zelensky during his current visit to Washington. .
Whatever you think of President Biden, he has been steadfast in his support of Ukraine, unlike the Republican party’s leader, former President Trump, who has been an embarrassing Putin acolyte.
“When he was President, Trump rarely missed a chance to excoriate the nation’s allies and praise its adversaries and parroted Russian talking points on Ukraine,” New Yorker staff writer Susan B. Glasser wrote this week. “After the 2022 invasion, he even went so far as to laud Putin’s strategic “genius.” Just a few days ago, Trump revelled once again in praise from Putin, who has all but endorsed the former President’s campaign to return to the White House in 2024.”
Peace at any price is a fool’s game. As President Theodore Roosevelt put it, “The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first…”
Yesterday, 28 Republican members of Congress, led by Senator J.D. Vance (R- Ohio) ignored this when sending a letter to Shalanda Young, Director, Office of Management and Budget.
The letter asserted, “It would be an absurd abdication of congressional responsibility to grant” the Administration’s request fort additional aid to Ukraine, specifically an August 10, 2023 request for additional supplemental appropriations, in which the Administration asked Congress to provide another $24 billion in security, economic, and humanitarian assistance related to the war in Ukraine.
The Republicans couched their opposition to additional expenditure for the war in Ukraine as opposition to “…an open-ended commitment to supporting the war in Ukraine of an indeterminate nature, based on a strategy that is unclear, to achieve a goal yet to be articulated to the public or the Congress,” but that’s a ruse. The reality is they want to undermine US support for Ukraine.
It all reminds me of the America Firsters and their isolationist pressure against American entry into World War II. “The doctrine that we must enter the wars of Europe in order to defend America will be fatal to our nation if we follow it,” Charles Lindbergh, a leading voice of the America First movement said in 1941.
Lindbergh was wrong then and the 28 Republicans sending the letter to Shalanda Young are wrong now.
Whenever there’s an article about the West supplying more sophisticated and lethal weapons to Ukraine, there’s almost always a reference to hesitation because escalating the conflict could risk a direct confrontation with Russia.
As much as political and military leaders might want to argue against the risk of such a confrontation, the reality on the ground, and in the air, is that it is already occurring.
“Europeans were inspired by the visit of U.S. President Joe Biden to Warsaw and Kyiv in February. Biden reaffirmed that while the United States is far away, it is committed to freedom in Europe—and understands, as we do, that Ukraine is fighting for the freedom of all of us. Ukraine does not want to be at war with Russia. Nor do we. But it has become increasingly clear that Russia decided a long time ago that it is at war with us.”
Evidence of Russian aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere is pervasive.
Over the past several months, heavily armed Russian warplanes have repeatedly violated longstanding agreements with the U.S. by flying dangerously close to American jet fighters over Syria and over U.S. forces working in the country, US officials have said.
Russia and the United States have an agreement recognizing certain zones where the US can operate against ISIL (ISIS) fighters in Syrian areas where neither the U.S. coalition with local Kurdish troops nor the Syrian army exerts full control. Russia came to the aid of Syria’s president, Bashar Al-Assad, in 2015 in the Syrian civil war.
In March, an armed Russian Su-27 Flanker jet fighter crashed into a U.S. Reaper drone after spraying it with jet fuel on Tuesday morning over the Black Sea. The drone fell into international waters in the Black Sea.
Despite established rules designed to prevent any sort of conflict between Russian and U.S. forces operating parallel to one another in Syria, Russian pilots are locking onto U.S. aircraft with their radars and taking other provocative actions on a daily basis, according to officials with U.S. Air Forces Central Command, Task & Purpose news reported on May 2, 2023.
A Russian Su-35 Flanker fighter jet is seen maneuvering unprofessionally within 2,000 feet of a U.S. Air Force fighter jet during an intercept in Coalition Force airspace over Syria on April 18, 2023. (U.S. Air Force/Staff Sgt. Jermaine Ayers).Source: Task & Purpose
“Russian forces have violated deconfliction protocols with Coalition forces almost 100 times in two months, conducting armed overflights of ground forces in Syria 26 times, flying within 500 feet of U.S. aircraft, and in the last week, jamming U.S. aircraft electromagnetic systems,” Air Force Lt Gen Alexus Grynkewich, head of AFCENT, told Task & Purpose. “These behaviors significantly interfere with AFCENT’s ability to execute operations safely and effectively and increase the likelihood of miscalculation.”
According to the Rand Corporation, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley reportedly has kept a list of “U.S. interests and strategic objectives” in the Ukrainian crisis since late 2021 which includes: “contain war inside the geographical boundaries of Ukraine.” That has already been violated.
NBC News reported on April 11 that Ukrainian agents have pursued drone attacks inside Belarus and Russia and leaders in Kyiv have considered further targets outside Ukraine, according to recently leaked secret Pentagon documents.
One document marked “Top Secret,” noted attacks allegedly orchestrated by Kyiv on a military airfield outside Minsk, Belarus, and a gas compressor station in the Moscow suburbs.
The increasing tension with Russia may play a part in what appears to be an erosion of American support for Ukraine as the battle goes on.
In WWII, The United States declared War on Japan on Dec. 8, 1941. “No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory,” President Roosevelt declared. On December 11, Congress approved a resolution declaring war with Germany. The unconditional surrender of the German Third Reich was signed on Monday, May 7, 1945. Japan signed an official Instrument of surrender on September 2, 1945.
In other words, for almost five years the Americans persevered in the face of a brutal war with international repercussions.
Russia took control of the Ukrainian region of Crimea in March 2014. It escalated the fight in Feb. 2022 when it invaded and occupied larger portions of Ukraine. President Biden declared the attack “unprovoked and unjustified”, issued severe sanctions against top Kremlin officials and began a NATO-led military assistance program to Ukraine. In other words, aggressive U.S. military involvement in the Ukraine war has extended for slightly more than 13 months.
Yet many Americans are already wearying of the conflict.
An April Wall Street Journal poll found that while the number of voters who believe the U.S. is providing the right amount of support has remained stable, at about 35%, more and more think Washington is too involved.
About 38% of voters said the U.S. was doing too much to help Ukraine, a big jump from 6% in March 2022. Meanwhile, only 20% said the U.S. should do more, down from 46% in March 2022.The erosion in support is particularly noticeable among Republicans. About 60% of Republicans said the U.S. was doing too much to support Ukraine, up from 48% in October 2022, compared with just 15% of Democrats. Even 42% of independents said the U.S. was doing too much.
In my view, this erosion of support is a dangerous trend. If we do not see this through Russia will be emboldened, the independence of former Soviet Republics will be threatened, China’s aggressiveness will be encouraged and western influence on the global stage will be challenged.
In a recent interview with the New York Times, Bernard-Henri Lévy, a prominent French intellectual, explained why he was dodging Russian sniper fire in Ukraine to make a documentary there. “In Ukraine, I had the feeling for the first time that the world I knew, the world in which I grew up, the world that I want to leave to my children and grandchildren, might collapse,” he said.
Yes, it might… if we lose our will to win in Ukraine.
$20 Billion: The U.S. commitment of military aid to Ukraine under President Biden “to help Ukraine preserve its territorial integrity, secure its borders, and improve interoperability with NATO.”
$420 Billion: Amount of the federal budget that provided benefits to veterans and former career employees of the federal government, both civilian and military, in FY2022, which ended on Sept. 30, 2022.
$36 Billion: Biden payout to the underfunded union-run Central States Pension Fund to shore up more than 200 distressed plans; approved as part of a stimulus bill intended to reduce economic damage from the Covid-19 pandemic.
$4.8 Billion: The amount candidates, party committees, leadership PACs and joint fundraising committees spent on the 2022 midterm elections as of Oct. 19, 2022. Campaigns spent almost $1 billion on digital ads alone.
