Miraculous Loaves
21 hours ago
Monday, August 04, 2025
Saturday, August 02, 2025
Friday, August 01, 2025
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Trump's tariffs are the greatest act of economic and political self-harm in modern American History
Donald Trump has succeeded in forcing America’s democratic allies to their knees. His country must henceforth live with the invidious consequences of what he has done.
“It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal,” to borrow a line from Henry Kissinger.
Vladimir Putin has strung Trump along for six months without paying a price. China has turned the tables, forcing the White House to hand over Nvidia H20 chips in exchange for rare earth magnets that Trump should have thought about before launching his trade war. Didn’t the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, say China was playing with a “pair of twos”?
Trump’s full viciousness is reserved for Canada, a Five-Eye and core NATO loyalist, so dependable that America can leave its entire northern border undefended. It is punished with 35pc tariffs, hit harder because it dares to differ on the Middle East, though the effects will ricochet straight back into the US economy.
US-aligned Taiwan gets 20pc and a landing ban in New York for the country’s president as Trump curries favour with Xi Jinping. The Swiss get 39pc for failing to jump smartly to attention.
Brazil is outraged by 50pc tariffs explicitly intended to subvert the Brazilian judiciary and rule of law. Years of diplomatic effort to lure India into the Western camp are squandered by petulant 25pc tariffs plucked out of thin air and a burst of hectoring posts of Truth Social.
There is hardly a better way to keep the unnatural but menacing “BRICS” confederacy alive as the epicentre of a new global power structure dominated by China. Trump is achieving the near impossible. He makes the predatory communist dictatorship of China look almost attractive.
And if I sound angry, it is because I am. Nobody will forget this disgraceful abuse of American power.
The average US tariff rate will settle near 20pc. This is comparable in nominal terms to the Smoot-Hawley tariff act of 1930 but tariffs were already high before that infamous bill and the US was then a closed economy. Imports were just 5pc of GDP. They are 16.4pc today and include critical components that keep the productive machine going.
“We’re looking at a shock to the economy seven or eight times as big as Smoot-Hawley,” said Paul Krugman, a Nobel laureate for trade theory.
Euphoric markets are wishing away the reckless demolition of a global trade system built, led, and painstakingly nurtured by the US for 80 years. “People just keep wanting to believe that Trump is making sense, that he isn’t as ignorant and irresponsible as he seems. But he is,” said Prof Krugman.
US economic growth slowed to 1.1pc in the first half of the year. You have to combine the two quarters because tariff “front-running” distorted the GDP data. The relevant metric is that real final sales are the weakest since 2022.
“We estimate that real personal consumption has now stagnated on net for six months, which rarely happens outside of recession,” said Jan Hatzius, the chief economist at Goldman Sachs.
If you think America is booming right now, you are looking a) in the rear view mirror, and b) at the wrong data. The next year will see a drip-drip of accumulating damage as stagflation hits with the textbook delay.
Trump’s tariffs are a tax on the US consumer. Maury Obstveld, ex-chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, says the pass-through from the Trump 1.0 episode was total.
“Not only did the prices of tariffed goods rise, they rose by the full amount of the tariffs. American households and businesses bore the entire burden; none was shifted to foreign exporters,” he said.
The well-informed are watching the US bureau of labor’s monthly index of pre-tariff prices for imports. This rose in June. It is the smoking gun that tells us who is really paying the tab. The Yale Budget Lab says consumers will face price rises of 40pc for shoes and 38pc for clothes.
Read the rest here.
This needs to be read in its entirety.
Tuesday, July 29, 2025
Trump Administration to Allow Proselytizing in Federal Work Place
WASHINGTON, July 28 (Reuters) - Federal employees may discuss and promote their religious beliefs in the workplace, the Trump administration said on Monday, citing religious freedoms protected by the U.S. Constitution.
Agency employees may seek to "persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views" in the office, wrote Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Personnel Management, the U.S. government's human resources agency.
Supervisors can attempt to recruit their employees to their religion, so long as the efforts aren’t “harassing in nature,” according to Kupor's statement. Agencies can't discipline their employees for declining to talk to their coworkers about their religious views.
The statement represents the latest effort of the six-month-old Republican Trump administration to expand the role of religion in the federal workplace.
Read the rest here.
Monday, July 28, 2025
Imperial Japan's last veterans are speaking out
As the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II approaches, only a few veterans of Japan’s brutal war remain. Some are talking.
Read the rest here.
Sunday, July 27, 2025
A quiet mutiny is brewing in the Israeli Army
...Immense pressure has been building on Israel over the dire humanitarian conditions inside the strip, with aid agencies warning of mass malnutrition and widespread hunger. France on Thursday said it would move to recognise Palestine as a state. On Sunday, the IDF said it was introducing a ‘tactical pause’ in fighting in some areas of Gaza.
Mr Feiner’s opinion on the futility of the conflict appears to be shared by a rising number of serving and retired senior officers who are turning against Benjamin Netanyahu’s war.
Gen Assaf Orion, the former head of strategic planning at the IDF, said while there were clear strategic goals in the Israel campaigns against Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon, there was no longer any clear military imperative for the continuation of military operations in Gaza.
He told The Telegraph: “In Gaza, I suspect that the strategic train of ends, ways and means was kidnapped by ulterior motives.
“I think the main reason for a prolonged war in Gaza is political expediency.”
Eran Etzion, a former deputy head of Israel’s national security council, was even blunter.
He said: “By now it has long been clear to most Israelis that the main reason the Gaza campaign lingers on is because of Netanyahu’s political, personal and judicial interests, and he needs the war to go on in order to sustain and even enhance his grip on power.”
Many believe Mr Netanyahu fears his government will collapse if the war ended as ultra-nationalist parties in his coalition would abandon him.
“That’s the main reason. It has nothing to do with Hamas and everything to do with Netanyahu.”
If even some of the spate of leaks from Israel’s security cabinet are to be believed, the scepticism is not confined to retired generals.
Read the rest here.
Friday, July 25, 2025
Wednesday, July 23, 2025
With Obama in His Sights; Trump's Revenge Agenda Gains Momentum
This is what Washington thought retribution would look like.
When President Trump started his second term, there were deep fears among current and former Justice Department officials, legal experts and Democrats that Mr. Trump would follow through on his repeated promises to “lock up” or otherwise pursue charges against high-profile figures like Liz Cheney, James B. Comey and former President Barack Obama.
Mr. Trump quickly went after perceived enemies — but not always the anticipated ones and often not in the anticipated ways.
Displaying a willingness to weaponize the federal government in ways that were as novel as they were audacious, he took on a wide variety of individuals and institutions — from law firms and universities to journalists and federal bureaucrats — that he felt had crossed him, failed to fall in line or embodied ideological values that he rejected.
But on Tuesday Mr. Trump reverted to earlier form, resurfacing — in a remarkably unfiltered and aggressive rant — his grievances against Mr. Obama, prominent figures in past administrations and others he associated with what he considers a long campaign of persecution dating back to the 2016 election.
Seeking to change the topic at a time when he is under bipartisan political pressure over his unwillingness to do more to release investigative files into Jeffrey Epstein, he said the time had come for his predecessors to face criminal charges.
“I let her off the hook, and I’m very happy I did, but it’s time to start after what they did to me,” Mr. Trump said of Hillary Clinton, adding: “Whether it’s right or wrong, it’s time to go after people. Obama’s been caught directly.”
“He’s guilty,” he added. “This was treason. This was every word you can think of.”
But if his enemies list was familiar, his capacity to pursue retribution appears to be expanding.
Repeatedly in his first term, Mr. Trump accused his perceived enemies of treason and tried to push the F.B.I. and Justice Department to indict them. He told his chief of staff that he wanted to “get the I.R.S.” on those who crossed him.
Read the rest here.
Monday, July 21, 2025
The Final Tally on Trump's Big Beautiful Bill
Congress’ nonpartisan scorekeeper released its final prediction Monday for how President Donald Trump’s signature legislative achievement will grow the national debt and affect U.S. households.
Over the next decade, the megabill Trump signed on July 4 would increase the federal deficit by $3.4 trillion and cause 10 million people to lose health insurance, the Congressional Budget Office forecasts. While the newly enacted legislation would save more than $1 trillion by cutting federal spending on health care — with the majority coming from Medicaid — CBO predicts that the package’s costs will far outweigh its savings.
The bulk of the red ink from the package comes from the GOP’s permanent extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. The analysis finds that the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over tax policy, enacted policies that would decrease the incoming federal cash flow from taxes by a total of $4.5 trillion. That sum includes the cost of tax cuts Republicans added during Senate floor debate of the package.
Read the rest here.
Foreign investors buy nearly 100 billion in euro zone debt
LONDON, July 21 (Reuters) - Euro zone debt saw nearly 100 billion euros ($116 billion) of buying from outside the bloc in May, Citi said citing European Central Bank data, the latest sign that euro assets are benefitting from a shift away from U.S. markets.
The 97 billion euros of net inflows into euro zone debt with maturities longer than one year was the largest on a monthly basis since at least 2014, Citi said, pointing to portfolio flow data from the ECB.
Read the rest here.
Monday, July 14, 2025
The New York Mayoral Election
Ok, we have five guys running. One of the contenders Jim Walden, has no chance of winning, but could collect maybe five percentage points worth of votes. Mamdani has a lock on the progressive vote, but it's unclear what percentage that will translate to in the general election. Then you have Cuomo and Adams, both of whom have tarnished reputations but who are likely to split the bulk of the moderate Democratic vote. And tempting as it might be to overlook them, around 1 in 5 New Yorkers are actually registered Republicans. Their candidate, Curtis Sliwa, actually got ~27% of the vote in the 2021 election.
Right now, I don't see Cuomo or Adams winning. The former is deeply unpopular and seen as just plain creepy. Adams is tainted by credible allegations of corruption. My guess is that it will come down to how many New Yorkers are prepared to roll the dice on an avowed socialist as mayor of a city that is also the beating heart of global capitalism. And we also need to consider the Jewish vote, which typically breaks heavily Democratic. I just can't see Mamdani carrying anywhere near a majority of the Jewish vote with his pro-Palestine record. In a normal election I'd say Curtis Sliwa's odds of being elected mayor of New York City were slightly worse than winning the Powerball. But in a five way race, if he holds that 27%, he's got an outside shot. In last year's election Donald Trump actually got 30% of the vote in New York City. If Sliwa gets the Trump voters, he goes from long shot to credible candidate. If he can pick up another 5-10% from disaffected Democrats and independents, we could... maybe... just possibly see one of the biggest election upsets in the city's history.
Sunday, July 13, 2025
The MAGA Civil War Over a Conspiracy Theory
Last week President Trump’s Department of Justice delivered a blow to one of the foundational beliefs of the MAGA movement, one that helped carry him back to the White House.
In an unsigned memorandum, the department declared that there was no evidence that Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced deceased convicted sexual predator, maintained a client list or that he blackmailed prominent individuals for various misdeeds. The memorandum also declared that Epstein committed suicide.
Most Americans saw this news (if they saw it at all) and barely raised an eyebrow. The Epstein story was part of the past; he died in 2019. But it detonated like a bomb in the MAGA universe. Pro-Trump influencers with vast audiences couldn’t believe what they were reading.
After all, they’d been told for years that there was an Epstein client list. Pam Bondi, Trump’s attorney general, told Fox News in February that the client list was “sitting on my desk right now to review.” (She later claimed that she was referring to the Epstein case file, not a specific client list.)
In October 2024, JD Vance, then a candidate for vice president, said, “Seriously, we need to release the Epstein list. That is an important thing.”
Before he was Trump’s director of the F.B.I., Kash Patel told Glenn Beck, a right-wing radio host, that the F.B.I. had Epstein’s “black book” and that it was “under direct control of the director of the F.B.I.” In 2023, Patel told Benny Johnson, a MAGA podcaster, that members of Congress should “put on your big-boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are.”
In September 2024, Dan Bongino, now the deputy director of the F.B.I., told his listeners, “Folks, the Epstein client list is a huge deal” that would “rock the Democrat Party.”
Read the rest here.
When you spend years building a cult like mass movement based on fringe conspiracy theories and outright lies, eventually it's going to become difficult to hold it all together. That said, I think predictions of the collapse of the movement are highly premature. One of the traits of cult movements is that the true believers tend to reach a point where they become impervious to facts and reason, dismissing any claims that do not align with their beliefs as false. They typically live within an ideological exclusion zone that rejects and dismisses sources of information that do not reinforce their belief system. In this case many of the faithful would give far more credibility to Tucker Carlson, Glenn Beck and Alex Jones than the New York Times or CNN. Even in the face of glaring inconsistencies or revelations that cannot be simply ignored, members will go to extraordinary lengths to rationalize or explain away those facts and contradictions which do manage to penetrate their information bubble.
See also QAnon.
Friday, July 11, 2025
Trump's Witch-hunt at the Federal Reserve
The president is desperately looking for a legal pretext that would allow him to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Details here.
Wednesday, July 09, 2025
Monday, July 07, 2025
Friday, July 04, 2025
Thursday, July 03, 2025
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Trump has dropped a big, beautiful bomb on America’s economy
China’s leaders must be wondering whether they are hallucinating or whether America’s political class really has lost its mind, committing economic and geopolitical self-harm on a breathtaking scale.
Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill” marks a wholesale retreat from swaths of advanced manufacturing and energy technology. It abandons a central front of the Sino-American superpower contest without a fight.
“Utterly insane and destructive. The bill will cause immense strategic harm to our country,” said Elon Musk, now the arch-apostate, perhaps soon to be punished, asset-stripped and deported.
The big bill is the latest in a series of Luddite measures that let China run away with the electro-tech revolution and much of the future global market for cars, trucks, short-haul aviation, home heating and cooling, smart grids, power storage and the products that deliver the cheapest energy ever known to man.
The think tank Ember says China is electrifying its economy at a rate of 10 percentage points a decade. It has already surpassed 30pc of final energy, well on its way to becoming the world’s first electro-superpower.
America has been stuck in the low 20s since 2008, lulled into complacency by its fracking boom. Europe has missed the boat too, without the same excuse. It talks big on electrons without delivering much, while clinging to imported molecules for its economic existence, failing to compete successfully on either.
The woke and the anti-woke are still arguing about renewables but we are past that developmental phase. The big trillions are going to be made in the ways we use electricity. The International Energy Agency thinks the vast electro-tech market will be eight times larger than renewables by 2035.
Trump’s America is betting that it can freeze time and stop this, doubling down on fossils and hoping to force others to go with them as a condition for military protection and market access. Trump is linking trade deals with Japan, South Korea and Europe to increased imports of US liquefied natural gas (LNG). He is even demanding that the EU changes its law and embraces the joy of methane emissions.
China is betting that you cannot halt a technological steamroller or force the world to act against its own economic self-interest.
Read the rest here.
Wednesday, July 02, 2025
Did Pope Francis Lie?
Something of a scandal is brewing in Rome. Leaked documents from the Vatican seem to indicate that the late pope misrepresented the results of a survey of Catholic bishops, which he cited as grounds for the severe restrictions he placed on the traditional (pre-Vatican II) liturgical rites. The story has been all over the Catholic press and blogosphere. Now it has been picked up by the Associated Press.
Tuesday, July 01, 2025
The Dangerous Mythology of Central Banks (and out of control debt)
...Trump has purged the top echelons of the US military, the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, the justice department and every agency that stands in his way. It would be out of character if he spared the Fed.
His war of words against Powell is in full flight: “Low IQ ... a very stupid person, actually … terrible … a major loser … Mr too late ... a total and complete moron.”
Needless to say, Trump’s determination to get his hands on the machinery of interest rates and bond purchases is an admission that his “big, beautiful bill” is pushing the limits of US debt sustainability.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says the draft will add $3.3 trillion (£2.4 trillion) to deficits by 2034, mostly from rolling over the Trump 1.0 tax cuts that were never affordable in the first place.
The US is in a runaway debt compound trap. The budget deficit is 6.7pc of GDP at full employment. The next recession will push it into double digits.
Interest costs were 1.6pc of GDP in 2018, during those halcyon days of free global money. They are 3.2pc this year and rising fast. “The federal budget has become highly sensitive to interest rate dynamics,” said James Knightley, from ING.
The US is also about to breach the Niall Ferguson rule: that great powers go into terminal decline once interest costs exceed military spending as a share of GDP.
Net public debt was 54pc of GDP at the turn of the century. It is now 121pc, rising by two points a year even in good times, and heading for 140pc in short order.
Read the rest here.
See also...
Monday, June 30, 2025
Friday, June 27, 2025
Europe considers global free trade pact (without America)
BRUSSELS — Late at night, after a dinner of dumplings and duck legs, the European Union’s leadership excitedly revealed a new plan to combat the hell-raising American president’s trade war: Take him on at his own wild game.
For six months, Donald Trump has upended the global trading order, threatening and announcing tariffs, then easing them to open negotiations, while warning that punitive levies will be reimposed if the terms are not to his liking.
With just 13 days until the Trump-imposed deadline to conclude a EU-U.S. deal, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen decided the time for conventional negotiating tactics was over.
She floated the idea that the EU’s 27 countries could join forces with 12 members of the Asian-led Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership bloc (CPTPP) — which now includes the U.K. — to form a new world trade initiative.
The new grouping would redesign a rules-based global trading order, reforming or perhaps even replacing the now largely defunct World Trade Organization, she said.
Crucially, the U.S. would not automatically be invited.
Read the rest here.
Thursday, June 26, 2025
Andrew Sullivan Takes on the Extremism in the Alphabet+ Movement
To be honest, I am astonished that this was actually published by the New York Times. Mr. Sullivan just picked up a stick and and took a very big swing at one of the radical left's most sacred hornets nests. One hopes he is wearing an asbestos suit because I think he may have just supplanted J.K. Rowling as their new public enemy #1.
Read it here.
Zohran Mamdani’s Victory in NYC Rattles Wall Street
...Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury Secretary and president of Harvard University, also expressed his distaste Mamdani’s nomination.
“I am profoundly alarmed about the future of the [Democratic National Committee] and the country, by yesterday’s NYC anointment of a candidate who failed to disavow a ‘globalize the intifada’ slogan and advocated Trotskyite economic policies,” Summers said in a post on X.
Part of the stock market has already felt the pain from the prospect of a Mamdani-led NYC. Shares of New York regional bank Flagstar, with exposure to the New York real estate market, sank nearly 4% Wednesday. Office-focused real estate stocks also suffered, with SL Green Realty down more than 6% and Vornado Realty Trust down nearly 7%.
Mamdani advocates for universal rent control, and the New York City mayor has the power to appoint representatives to the regulatory board that oversees rent-controlled and rent-stabilized apartments. A pause on rent increases would hurt the profits of multi-family rental properties.
Roughly one million New York City apartments are rent stabilized but only about 20,000 are still rent controlled.
“It appears that NYC is electing to commit suicide by Mayor,” Jim Bianco, president and macro strategist at Bianco Research, said in a post on X Tuesday evening.
Read the rest here.
Monday, June 23, 2025
Food for thought
Coal miners used to form study groups to read Gibbon & Thucydides. Lincoln and Douglas delivered speeches that lasted three hours with no pauses. C. S. Lewis, like many kids of his era, read Paradise Lost at age nine and was translating Homer by sixteen. The brain rot is real. https://t.co/Wr1eHVBJRv
— Boze the Library Owl 😴🧙♀️ (@SketchesbyBoze) June 22, 2025
HT: Fr. Z
Sunday, June 22, 2025
Greek Orthodox Church Bombed in Syria
A suicide bombing by Islamic State (IS) targeting a church in Damascus has killed 22 people and wounded 63, Syrian state media have said.
The attack on Sunday night was the first major IS operation and the first suicide bombing in Syria since former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December and replaced by an Islamist-led government.
A man affiliated with IS entered the Greek Orthodox Saint Elias church in the old Christian quarter of Damascus during prayers, opened fire and then detonated an explosive vest while inside the church, Syria’s interior ministry said. Eyewitnesses inside the church reported a second gunman who did not blow himself up, but also shot at the 150 or so worshippers present.
“People were praying safely under the eyes of God,” said Fadi Ghattas, who said he saw at least 20 people killed. “There were 350 people praying at the church.”
Videos of the church’s interior show splintered pews overturned by the force of the blast and the bloodied corpses of congregants splayed out across the church. Nearby residents reported hearing a large blast and then the sound of sirens as security forces attempted to establish a cordon around the area and civil defence personnel headed towards the church.
Issam Nasr, who was praying at the church, said he saw people “blown to bits”.
“We have never held a knife in our lives. All we ever carried were our prayers,” he said.
Read the rest here.
Further this
Holy New Martyrs of Syria, pray for us.
Putin's War: One Million Russian Casualties
...This month, Russia’s wartime toll of dead and wounded reached a historic milestone.
According to the British Ministry of Defence, more than one million Russian troops have been killed or injured since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on 24 February 2022.
The estimate aligns with a recent study by the US-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which puts Russian military deaths at up to 250,000 and total casualties, including the wounded, at over 950,000. Ukraine has suffered very high losses as well, with between 60,000 and 100,000 personnel killed and total casualties reaching approximately 400,000.
While precise wartime casualty figures are notoriously difficult to verify, the independent Russian outlet Mediazona has identified the names of more than 111,000 Russian military personnel killed, using official records, social media obituaries, and images of tombstones. The outlet believes the true death toll is significantly higher.
These are staggering figures by any measure of comparison in modern Russian history.
In just over three years, Russian fatalities are estimated to be five times higher than the combined death toll from all Soviet and Russian wars between the end of the second world war and the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022.
The war in Ukraine has proved far deadlier for the Kremlin than other recent conflicts: Russia’s losses are roughly 15 times greater than those suffered during the Soviet Union’s decade-long war in Afghanistan, and 10 times higher than in Russia’s 13-year war in Chechnya.
And it’s not just the dead returning in caskets – soldiers with amputated limbs and serious injuries are also coming home, driving a sharp rise in the production of prosthetic limbs.
“We doubled the number of our clients one year into the conflict and since then it has been a steady 10% increase annually,” said Igor Vinogradov, the director of a mid-sized prosthetics and orthopaedics firm in northern Russia.
“By far, the majority are war veterans,” Vinogradov said, adding that his company relies on imported prosthetic arms and legs from Germany, as well as some homegrown technology.
Read the rest here.
Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Pope Leo XIV brings back another tradition
It may seem like a trivial matter, but Pope Leo XIV plans to take some time off during the dog days of summer. His predecessor, Pope Francis, was a notorious workaholic. Unless ill, he rarely took time off and he never took a vacation during his papacy. It also appears he didn't want any of his successors to take any down time. Prior to his papacy it had been customary for the pope to retire to their summer residence at Castel Gandolfo for a few weeks each year in order to escape Rome's brutal heat. During that time the Vatican often slowed down with curia and staff taking summer holidays. The summer residence has a lot of history in its own right. Benedict XVI went there after his abdication to await the election of his successor. Two popes, Pius XII and Paul VI died there. And during the Second World War the Vatican hid large numbers of refugees including Jews from the Nazis in the summer palace. But Francis tried to put a stop to its use. He ordered the place converted into a museum and never spent a night there, visiting only twice for a couple of hours. In a bit of a return to normalcy, the Holy See has announced the new pope plans to revive the old custom and spend a couple of weeks at Castel Gandolfo this July.
Friday, June 13, 2025
Star Trek (the red version)
To be honest; I always thought Star Trek, especially TNG, was basically presenting a semi-communistic view of the future.
Tuesday, June 10, 2025
On the Next Archbishop of Canterbury
It's not looking good. But then, when was the last time anything coming out of the CofE looked good?
Story here.
HT: Dr. Tighe
Sunday, June 08, 2025
Germany May Revive the Draft
BERLIN — Germany may need to turn to compulsory measures to get more soldiers into the ranks of its depleted military, say senior lawmakers from Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservatives.
The government is drafting legislation to revitalize a shrinking Bundeswehr, but so far efforts to recruit more troops have relied on voluntary measures. Now, senior conservative lawmakers are warning that may have to be backed up by a return to the draft.
“If it turns out that the significant personnel needs for a Bundeswehr capable of defense and deterrence, especially in light of the new NATO plans, cannot be met through a purely voluntary model, compulsory elements will have to be introduced,” said Thomas Erndl, who represents the Christian Democrats on the parliamentary defense committee.
Read the rest here.
W's Crystal Ball
George W. Bush called out the MAGA agenda years before Trump rode down that escalator. pic.twitter.com/17U0d1DkBy
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) June 7, 2025
I've had my differences with George Bush, but he nailed this one.
Friday, June 06, 2025
ALLIED ARMIES LAND ON COAST OF FRANCE. GREAT INVASION OF CONTINENT BEGINS
It's almost impossible to imagine what it was like on the home front June 6, 1944. But you can get an idea by listening to some of the wall to wall news coverage that was broadcast periodically interrupted by patriotic music and prayer from famous clergy and FDR. It must have been gut wrenching for families with loved ones in the service. Radio coverage...
CBS
NBC
Saturday, May 31, 2025
Thursday, May 29, 2025
Trump's Assault on the Rule of Law via Abuse of the Pardon
President Trump is employing the vast power of his office to redefine criminality to suit his needs — using pardons to inoculate criminals he happens to like, downplaying corruption and fraud as crimes, and seeking to stigmatize political opponents by labeling them criminals.
In the past few days, Mr. Trump has offered pardons or clemency to more than two dozen people embraced by his obstreperous right-wing base, or favored by people in his orbit. Most are political allies, some are former officeholders accused of abusing power for personal gain, and almost all were convicted of white-collar crimes like fraud, tax evasion and campaign finance violations — not far removed from accusations Mr. Trump himself has faced.
“No MAGA left behind,” crowed Ed Martin, the pardon attorney at the Justice Department who suggested that the department should investigate Mr. Trump’s adversaries to shame them if there was insufficient evidence to charge them.
Mr. Trump has used his pardon power, like nearly every other executive tool in his kit, to assert personal dominance over processes generally, if not always, governed by established ethical and institutional guardrails. He professes to abide by the rule of law, but has often shown a willingness to do so only when he defines the rules and the laws.
Mr. Trump has said the current wave of pardons is justified by President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s last-minute reprieves for inmates on federal death row, and pardons he issued to his family — which Mr. Trump called “disgraceful.”
Yet, critics say, Mr. Trump has used the pardon powers of the presidency not to settle accounts, as Mr. Biden did, but to burn the ledger.
“Granting pardons or commuting sentences of public officials or other white-collar criminals convicted of fraud, tax evasion and other breaches of trust is likely to have the effect of normalizing nonviolent crimes,” said Barbara L. McQuade, a University of Michigan law professor who served as a U.S. attorney in the state during the Obama administration.
“Of course, stealing by fraud is still stealing,” she added. “It’s just that this is the way rich people do it.”
Mr. Trump made no secret of his intention to seek retribution against those who prosecuted him at the local, state and federal levels, whom he has described collectively as “scum.” The new pardons are necessary to right the wrongs of a politicized Biden Justice Department that twice indicted him, he has claimed.
Read the rest here.
Urgent Prayers
I do not know the details, however there are widespread reports that an Egyptian court has issued a ruling allowing the government to seize St. Catherine's Monastery in Sinai. This apparently includes all of its property, ancient treasures, manuscripts, icons &c. It would also involve the eviction of the monks. As of this post, the reports are somewhat contradictory, with some being quite alarming and others suggesting that Egypt has no plans to seize the ancient monastery. Updates will be posted as more information becomes available.
HT: Blog reader John L.
Update: Good news. It looks like this was a false alarm. Recent reports and statements from the Egyptian government are categorically denying any change in the monastery's status.
Tuesday, May 27, 2025
Monday, May 26, 2025
Sunday, May 25, 2025
Why King Charles III is Opening Canada's Parliament
TORONTO (AP) — King Charles III is coming to Canada to deliver a message: Canada is a sovereign nation distinct from the United States.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated suggestion that the U.S. annex its northern neighbor prompted new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to invite Charles to give the speech from the throne on Tuesday where he will lay out the Canadian government’s agenda when Parliament reopens.
The monarch is the head of state in Canada, which is a member of the British Commonwealth of former colonies.
“Canada has a steadfast defender in our sovereign,” Carney said when he announced the visit earlier this month.
Read the rest here.
Sunday, May 18, 2025
Traveling
Mr. Biden
On May 19, 2024 the NY Times ran a an op-ed piece under the following headline...
Seven Theories for Why Biden Is Losing (and What He Should Do About It)
To which I posted the following comment...
Politically, it would be helpful if the Democrats did not nominate a man who is in his 80's, with the demeanor of a man in in his 90s.Seriously. Can we take a moment to address the elephant in the living room? Life expectancy for the average adult male in the US is 77(ish). If he is re-elected, he would be almost ten years beyond that point at the end of his second term of office. Even assuming he is in excellent health for a man of his age, and I have no reason to believe he isn't, you just cannot make safe assumptions about someone's long term health once they get into their 80s. Given his age and the average life expectancy of people who do make it into their early 80s, statistics suggest that the odds of Mr. Biden being able to complete another four years as president are not good. Once you get to that age, things do start to go wrong.I think we would have to go back to 1944 for the last time a major party nominated someone who was less likely to be able to serve a full four-year term as president. And in fact, FDR died just months into his fourth term. I don't know who the next president will be. But if Mr. Biden wins the election; I suspect the next president after him will be Kamala Harris.
Obviously, a great deal has transpired since then.
The Grifter N Chief
Donald Trump caught his first sight of the so-called “palace in the sky” in February as he climbed the red-carpeted steps of the Boeing 747-8.
The Qatari plane was parked at Florida’s West Palm Beach International Airport, and offered a chance for the president to see what a newly refitted Air Force One could look like, easing his frustration with the long-delayed Boeing project.
In the event, it appears to have been more of a test drive. His administration’s plan to accept the $400m (£300m) luxury jet from the Qatari royal family, which he is expected to use after his presidency, is the latest example of what many view as an increased disregard for ethics in Washington under his second term.
During his first term in the White House, foreign governments buying meals and block-booking rooms at Trump hotels set alarm bells ringing.
Yet now the president has created even more opportunities for those looking to curry favour with him – and his children. From pay-to-dine cryptocurrency schemes, a new social media platform that carries advertising and the expansion of their property empire, it has never seemed easier for the Trump family to line their pockets.
“If I had seen it [examples of this behaviour], I would have remembered it, and maybe that just shows they were better at concealing it, because this term, it’s just blatant,” says a former cabinet member during Trump’s first term.
“The kids in particular ... this is about making money. You’re dealing with royal families, and they understand how families work, and that’s the way Trump plays the game. He may not have to say anything himself, they may do it all through the kids.”
Trump’s oldest sons, Donald Jr and Eric, have travelled the globe flogging their fathers name by expanding their property empire during his second term. The president’s children have also been raking in cash from business deals in the Middle East struck before the president’s diplomatic trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates last week.
“We’ve never seen anything like this in American history,” says Norm Eisen, a former White House ethics tsar.
Even for Trump’s staunchest supporters, accepting a multimillion-dollar luxury jet from the royal family of Qatar – a nation that has in the past acted as key financier for Hamas – is a bitter pill to swallow.
“This is probably the first issue of this administration where a lot of my listeners who get mad at me for criticising Trump actually totally agreed that this is a bad idea,” says Erick Erickson, a conservative radio host and long-time voice of the Right.
“It’s been hard to find Trump supporters who think this is a good idea, except for anonymous accounts on Twitter.”
Laura Loomer, a prominent Right-wing activist and Trump loyalist, wrote on X: “The Qataris fund the same Iranian proxies in Hamas and Hezbollah who have murdered US service members. The same proxies that have worked with the Mexican cartels to get jihadists across our border.
“This is really going to be such a stain on the admin if this is true. And I say that as someone who would take a bullet for Trump.”
Ben Shapiro, one of the most loyal soldiers in the Maga cavalry, said on his podcast this week: “I think if we switched the names to Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, we’d all be freaking out on the Right.”
Read the rest here.
Friday, May 16, 2025
Moody's Downgrades US Credit Rating
Moody’s Ratings slashed the United State’s credit rating down a notch to Aa1 from the highest triple A on Friday, citing the budgetary burden the government faces amid high interest rates.
“This one-notch downgrade on our 21-notch rating scale reflects the increase over more than a decade in government debt and interest payment ratios to levels that are significantly higher than similarly rated sovereigns,” the ratings agency said in a statement.
The U.S. is running a massive budget deficit as interest costs for Treasury debt continued to rise due to a combination of higher interest rates and more debt to finance. The fiscal deficit totaled $1.05 trillion year to date, 13% higher than a year ago. The influx in tariffs helped shave some of the imbalance last month, however.
Moody’s had been a holdout in keeping U.S. sovereign debt at the highest credit rating possible, and brings the 116-year-old agency into line with its rivals. Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.S. to AA+ from AAA in August 2011, and Fitch Ratings also cut the U.S. rating to AA+ from AAA, in August 2023.
Read the rest here.
Long overdue.
Thursday, May 15, 2025
Perks now, pain later
For all four years of Donald Trump’s presidency — and those years only — Americans would enjoy benefits like no taxes on tips or overtime, under the massive party-line legislation House Republicans are trying to pass this month.
Then it won’t be until 2029, when congressional GOP incumbents have already run for reelection and Trump is gone from the White House, that voters feel the sting from many of the “pay-fors.” That includes much of the Medicaid cuts estimated to strip health care coverage from more than 10 million people, plus the nixing of clean energy tax perks Democrats created during the Biden administration.
In each slice of the megabill House Republicans are working to tie up this week, policies would kick in immediately that curry favor with voters and add trillions of dollars to the federal deficit — before those costs are ultimately offset with unpopular policies that hit after the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election.
Read the rest here.
Wednesday, May 14, 2025
What I'm Reading
I just finished "The Great Depression: A Diary" by Benjamin Roth. Roth was a young lawyer with a family in Youngstown Ohio. In 1931 he realized that he was living through historic times and started keeping a diary containing observations about what was going on locally, as well as in the broader world. Originally intended to chronical the economic calamity of the 1930s, he ended up continuing for the rest of his life. This book only covers the period up to America's entry into the World War. Roth's entries are not daily, but sporadic depending on what was going on and what his thoughts were. The book presents a very powerful picture from someone who fell between the very poor and those few who were sufficiently well off that they could ride out the depression with little impact on their lives. The professional men suffered because clients, or patients for doctors who could actually pay for services were rare. Often business was conducted on a barter basis. Roth's son, who arranged for the publication of the book posthumously noted that at one point things were so desperate his father had to borrow money against his life insurance policy in order to keep food on the table and a roof over his family. Much of the book contains Roth's thoughts as he attempts to make sense of the disaster and what could be done to prevent or mitigate future similar events.
A rock ribbed Republican, Roth supported Herbert Hoover's insistence on avoiding debt and defending the gold standard. Once FDR abandons gold he can't understand why the country isn't wiped out by hyperinflation. Periodically Roth recorded current stock prices with astonishment as blue chip securities slid to levels that were unimaginable just a few years before. He complained that he wished he had money to take advantage of what he believed to be fire sale bargains as the markets rally, only to watch them crash again to even lower levels.
Perhaps the most powerful elements of his diary were his descriptions of local conditions. The book contains many personal stories of friends and acquaintances who eschewed conservative investments like government bonds during the good years in favor of stocks and real estate, both of which became almost worthless during the dark days of the depression. Youngstown was an industrial city that was hit incredibly hard. He writes of businesses shuttering, and people being evicted from their homes because they can't pay the mortgage or rent. And then the houses sit empty as nobody can afford them even at rock bottom prices. A good deal of attention is focused on the collapse of the banks, this being before deposits were insured.
In one entry from the winter of 1931, Roth records that hours before dawn there were several thousand men lined up outside city hall hoping for a day's work. The entry ends with; "There is great suffering."
Sunday, May 11, 2025
The Most Corrupt President in US History (Yet Again)
The royal family of Qatar is planning to gift President Trump a brand new luxury Boeing 747 for use as Air Force 1, and for his private use after leaving office. The bill for the necessary upgrades in security, communications etc., will presumably be footed by the American taxpayer. Of course this is illegal under the US Constitution but Trump and his lawyers have a plan to get around that. The Qataris will officially gift the plane to the US Government, with the understanding that the Air Fore would then gift the plane to Donald Trump's presidential library at the end of term. Of course, he doesn't have a presidential library and has taken no steps towards creating one. (One of the few things I actually approved of after he left office in 2021.) Apparently the plane would then be available for his personal use. Lawyers working for Trump and the administration (more or less the same thing at this point) believe this little shell game will get them past the Emolument Clause in the constitution.
The level of sheer corruption in this president, his family, and the broader administration defies the descriptive capabilities of the English language.
Read the story here.
Friday, May 09, 2025
Trump Considering Suspension of Habeus Corpus
White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller said Friday that the Trump administration is “actively looking at” suspending the writ of habeas corpus — the constitutional right to challenge in court the legality of a person’s detention by the government — for migrants.
Miller’s comment came in response to a White House reporter who asked about President Donald Trump entertaining the idea of suspending the writ to deal with the problem of illegal immigration into the United States.
Asked when that might happen, Miller responded: “The Constitution is clear, and that, of course, is the supreme law of the land, that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in time of invasion.”
“So, I would say that’s an option we’re actively looking at,” he said.
Read the rest here.
The Attack on Freedom of Speech
I just had a disturbing conversation with a green card holder—a legal permanent resident of the United States. He had asked if he thought traveling internationally was wise for him as someone who has criticized President Trump and Israel and whether he should avoid any further criticism and/or remove any past criticism from his social media before he travels.
In a free society, the answer would be: “You should say whatever you want, criticize whoever you want, and not worry about traveling because the government cannot punish you for what you say.” But until the Supreme Court reaffirms that the First Amendment protects noncitizens in the United States from banishment for their speech—and until President Trump obeys the Supreme Court—we do not live in a free country.
The Trump administration is revoking green cards and visas solely based on speech. Individuals are explicitly being targeted based on “beliefs, statements, or associations” that are “lawful within the United States” but which Secretary of State Marco Rubio has deemed “adverse to the foreign policy of the United States.” Even authoring an op-ed criticizing a foreign government’s foreign policy can now trigger visa revocation. The administration is also searching electronic devices at ports of entry for evidence of “adverse” views.
Read the rest here.
See also this on Trump's orders targeting law firms that have crossed him in the past.
Thursday, May 08, 2025
Leo XIV
I'm not easily stunned, but this time I am. He wasn't even on my radar. And he is an American. I know almost nothing about him. Two slightly encouraging signs.... he came out dressed like a newly elected pope (unlike his predecessor). And his papal name is a good one. Leo XIII was a great champion of the poor and working class, but also doctrinally (small 'o') orthodox.
Tuesday, May 06, 2025
Making Kookery Great Again
People who question whether the Earth is round — a fact understood by the ancient Greeks and taught to American children in elementary school — might have been political pariahs a decade ago. Now, they’re running local Republican parties in Georgia and Minnesota and seeking public office in Alabama.
A prominent far-right activist who has said, despite years of research and intelligence establishing otherwise, that the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, were an inside job by the U.S. government commemorated the 9/11 anniversary last year alongside President Trump.
And Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, pledged the agency’s support last month for a fight involving so-called chemtrails, a debunked theory that the white condensation lines streaming behind airplanes are toxic, or could even be used for nefarious purposes.
Conspiracy theories that were relegated to random and often anonymous online forums are now being championed or publicly debated by increasingly powerful people. Mr. Trump in particular has embraced, elevated and even appointed to his cabinet people promoting these theories — giving the ideas a persuasive authority and a dangerous proximity to policy.
“The real problem with the ideas and the communication of conspiracy theories is when they get evinced by people with the power to act on them,” said Joseph E. Uscinski, a professor at the University of Miami who studies conspiracy theories. “If some guy, somewhere, thinks the Earth is flat, the answer is ‘So what?’ But when people in power have those beliefs, it becomes a serious issue.”
He added: “You can wind up harming many, many people over a fantasy.”
Anna Kelly, a spokeswoman for the White House, said in a statement that the mainstream media “has tried and failed to paint President Trump as extreme for his entire political career” and that his agenda was “common sense.”
Read the rest here.
Thursday, May 01, 2025
Francis II?
If you are Catholic, or just a curious observer of the transition from the Bergolgian pontificate, here are a few random thoughts.
Roughly four of every five Cardinal Electors (those under 80) were appointed by Francis. Almost all of them share Francis' progressive inclinations, although the degree may vary. I cannot name any pope who went to such lengths to flood the College of Cardinals with like minded ideologues. For those hoping for a return to something resembling small 'o' orthodox Catholicism, or just a degree of post Vatican II normalcy, the odds are not in your favor.
By my estimation there are only four Cardinal Electors who can be described as staunch "conservatives." Those being Gerhard Müller (77 Germany), Péter Erdő (72 Hungary), Robert Sarah (79 Guinea), and Raymond Burke (76 USA). Of those, Erdő and Sarah have been mentioned in at least some sources as possible successors. In my opinion Erdő is a long shot. His election would would put someone in the mold of the late Benedict XVI, but at 72 much younger, on the papal throne. That would require a remarkable repudiation of the Franciscan legacy by a significant number of those he appointed. As for Sarah, I think he is on the list simply because the various media and news sources needed another conservative name to try and disguise just how stacked the deck actually is. Sarah will be 80 next month and is considered a traditionalist. So his election would not just be a repudiation of Francis but to at least some degree, of the post Vatican II liturgical reforms. If he emerges on the balcony, I would be stunned.
Are there any moderate contenders? Depending on how you define that term, I'd say yes. The two most prominent names are Peter Turkson (78 Ghana) and Pietro Parolin (70 Italy). An outside possibility would be Wim Eijk (71 Holland). Of the two, Parolin is perhaps the most widely mentioned name in a conclave where there is little consensus on the likely successor. He is known to share Francis' progressive attitudes on the poor and immigrants, though his theological views are a bit more murky. It is generally believed that he leans left, but may not be the doctrinal wrecking ball that Francis was. Traditionalist Catholics are highly suspicious of him as it has long been rumored that he is hostile to the old rite. Parolin is a career diplomat and is believed to be a power broker in the Vatican Curia. One very strong point in his favor, is his nationality. After almost a half century of foreign popes, Italians are keen to see one of their own as Bishop of Rome and primate of the Italian Church. And there are quite a few cardinals from across the ideological spectrum who will likely want to look first and hard at the Italians to see if there is an acceptable compromise among them.
Zuppi, and Pizzaballa are the two other Italians frequently mentioned. Zuppi is a radical progressive and rumored to have been the one Francis wanted most to succeed him. Pizzaballa is more of a mystery on doctrinal questions, though he has solid credentials as a diplomat. The fact that he has served as the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem would also make him a rather political choice given recent events in that part of the world. That said, he is only 60 which makes him something of a long shot, unless the cardinals are prepared to roll the dice on a pope likely to outlive most of those electing him.
Back to the "moderates." Peter Turkson is from Africa and shares Francis' progressive views on the poor and immigration. However, and unlike Parolin, he is believed to be doctrinally conservative. Prior to Francis election he had spoken out rather forcefully on the subject of sexual morality, though he has toned that down over the last twelve years. The alphabet people and their lobby would almost certainly oppose his election. For that reason, I disagree with those labeling him a top tier candidate. However, if there are enough moderates to block a radical progressive from being elected, he could end up as a compromise choice. His odds would likely improve if the conclave does not settle on someone in the first two days. Eijk typically gets mentioned farther down the roster. But like Turkson, his chances might improve if the conclave is deadlocked and the progressives lack the votes to install one of their own. Of the various "moderates" named as papabile, he is likely the most conservative. Some observers have labeled him as a conservative. For that reason alone, I think there would be strong resistance to him among progressives. His age, at only 71 would likely add to those reservations with the likelihood of a long pontificate.
This brings us to the progressives. I'm not going to go too deep here. The list is long and depressing. Rorate has it pretty well covered for those with a strong stomach. Of the progressives, I think Zuppi and Tagle are the two most mentioned. Zuppi, being Italian, has the lead among his fellow cardinals. Though I think Tagle has more name recognition and is the one that most Catholic lefties outside of Italy are hoping for.
With all of this noted, I am not sure there has been a conclave in modern times where there was as much uncertainty about the outcome. There are so many possibilities, from so many different corners of the globe that I think anyone would be well advised to take a deep breath before making any predictions here. A lot of conservatives have been trying to calm themselves with the old Italian adage that "a fat pope is followed by a skinny one." The problem is that there are very few skinny Cardinals. The one consideration that might temper the radicals, is the fear that another doctrinal bomb thrower could provoke an outright schism. Most unusually, Cardinal Müller has dared to warn of this openly. Even spoken quietly and in private, such a threat would be shocking enough. The fact that he made it in front of the press cannot be seen as anything other than a flashing danger sign to all of the electors.
Monday, April 28, 2025
The Systematic Assault on the Constitution and the Rule of Law
In his first hours back as president, Donald J. Trump did an extraordinary thing: He made a direct assault on the Constitution. He declared that his government would no longer treat U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants or children of lawful, temporary immigrants as citizens, as the 14th Amendment commands.
You can draw a straight line from that executive order on birthright citizenship to his administration’s revocation of visas, the detention of foreign students and the wrongful deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident, to a Salvadoran prison and the subsequent refusal to try to extricate him in spite of court orders. Mr. Trump is claiming far-reaching but dubious powers, pushing or exceeding legal limits without first bothering to determine if they were permissible, as past presidents generally did.
Times Opinion recently reached out to dozens of legal scholars and asked them to identify the most significant unconstitutional or unlawful actions by Mr. Trump and his administration in the first 100 days of his second presidency and to assess the damage. We also asked them to separate actions that might draw legal challenges but are, in fact, within the powers of the president. And we asked them to connect the dots on where they thought Mr. Trump was heading.
We heard back from 35 scholars — a group full of diverse viewpoints and experiences, including liberals like U.C. Berkeley’s Erwin Chemerinsky and Harvard’s Jody Freeman; the conservatives Adrian Vermeule at Harvard and Michael McConnell, a former federal appeals court judge who directs Stanford’s Constitutional Law Center and is a member of the Federalist Society; and the libertarians Ilya Somin at George Mason University and Evan Bernick at Northern Illinois University. Many are among the nation’s most cited scholars by their colleagues in law review articles.
From all of their responses, we constructed a road map through Mr. Trump’s first 100 days of lawlessness, including his defiance of our judiciary and constitutional system; the undermining of First Amendment freedoms and targeting of law firms, universities, the press and other parts of civil society; the impoundment of federal funds authorized by Congress; the erosion of immigrant rights; and the drive to consolidate power.
This road map largely draws on the scholars’ words, which serve as bright red warning lights about the future of America:
Read the rest here.
Sunday, April 27, 2025
Friday, April 25, 2025
Trump is Going After Wikipedia
..As you know, Section 501(c)(3) requires that organizations receiving tax-exempt status operate exclusively for “religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational purposes. . . [.]” It has come to my attention that the Wikimedia Foundation, through its wholly owned subsidiary Wikipedia, is allowing foreign actors to manipulate information and spread propaganda to the American public. Wikipedia is permitting information manipulation on its platform, including the rewriting of key, historical events and biographical information of current and previous American leaders, as well as other matters implicating the national security and the interests of the United States. Masking propaganda that influences public opinion under the guise of providing informational material is antithetical to Wikimedia’s “educational” mission.
In addition, Wikipedia’s operations are directed by its board that is composed primarily of foreign nationals, subverting the interests of American taxpayers. Again, educational content is directionally neutral; but information received by my Office demonstrates that Wikipedia’s informational management policies benefit foreign powers....
Read the rest here.
I saw this coming from the moment he won the election. The language is straight out of every tyrant's playbook. Attack any source of information you can't control. Start by accusing it of being a foreign propaganda entity, cut off its funding, and then shut it down.
Trump is an Authoritarian Fool
To see the true face of Donald Trump, look no further than Ukraine. Laid bare in his handling of that issue are not only his myriad weaknesses, but also the danger he poses to his own country and the wider world – to say nothing of the battered people of Ukraine itself.
Don’t be fooled by the mild, vaguely theatrical rebuke Trump issued to Vladimir Putin on Thursday after Moscow unleashed a deadly wave of drone strikes on Kyiv, killing 12 and injuring dozens: “Vladimir, STOP!” Pay attention instead to the fact that, in the nearly 100 days since Trump took office, the US has essentially switched sides in the battle between Putin’s Russia and democratic Ukraine, backing the invaders against the invaded.
On Friday, Trump’s real-estate buddy and special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, held talks in Moscow with Putin. But any resemblance between the US and an honest broker is purely coincidental. On the contrary, previous encounters between the two men resulted in Witkoff parroting Kremlin talking points, essentially endorsing Russia’s claim to the Ukrainian territory it seized. In that, Witkoff was merely following the lead set by his boss: the supposed peace deal Trump is now in a hurry to seal amounts to handing Putin almost everything he wants and demanding Ukraine surrender.
Hence Trump’s anger on Wednesday, when he accused Volodymyr Zelenskyy of making “inflammatory statements”. What had the Ukrainian president said that was so incendiary? He had calmly pointed out that he could not do as Trump demanded and recognise Russian control of Crimea, which Russia grabbed in 2014, because it was forbidden by his country’s constitution. It’s telling that Trump should be enraged by a president who thinks constitutions have to be respected.
Whether Trump succeeds in making Kyiv buckle or not, the new reality is clear. The US president is taking an axe to an international order constructed in the aftermath of a bloody world war, a system that has held, however imperfectly, since 1945. A central tenet of that order was that big states could not simply swallow up smaller ones, that unprovoked aggression and conquest would no longer be allowed to stand. Yet here is Trump bent on rewarding just such an act of conquest, not simply acquiescing in Putin’s land grab in Ukraine but conferring on it the legitimacy of approval by the world’s most powerful nation.
Note how he speaks as if Putin had every right to seize the territory of his neighbour. Asked this week what concessions, if any, he had extracted from Moscow, Trump replied that Putin’s willingness to stop the war, rather than gobbling up Ukraine in its entirety, was a “pretty big concession”.
Read the rest here.
I can't remember ever really agreeing with Jonathan Freedland on much of anything. But he is pretty much dead on here.
Wednesday, April 23, 2025
Francis
Francis had many real and undoubted virtues. His love for the poor and marginalized was not a show, likewise his humility. Yet I can't help but recall Winston Churchill's damning assessment of Clement Attlee; "a humble man, with much to be humble about."
The hallmark of his pontificate was the elevation of religious indifference, and by extension indifference to Divine Revelation itself, to a degree that made the proclamation of anything as objectively true, a punishable offense. I honestly have more respect for Calvin and Luther who at least stood for something. At the end of the day Francis was a heretic. Who, in the course of twelve years did incalculable damage to his own church, and by example to much of Christendom. Out of charity, I shall refrain from further comment on his legacy until after the funeral.
Hungary takes another step towards dictatorship
Just last week, Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party adopted a bill that would allow the government to temporarily strip dual citizens — specifically those who are also nationals of non-EU or non-European Economic Area countries — of their Hungarian passports, should they be deemed to have acted “in the interest of foreign powers” and “undermined the sovereignty of Hungary.”
The ambitions of this bill are clear as day. This is not about national security; it’s about silencing dissent. It’s about targeting civil society, journalists and activists — both within Hungary and the diaspora — who refuse to fall in line with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
I’ve already been the subject of many such attacks. My name and my organization, Action for Democracy, have been fixtures of the Hungarian government’s propaganda machine for years.
The government has commissioned illegal surveillance, covertly recording videos and taking photographs of me and my family in front of our apartment in New York. It has published unfounded allegations in pro-government newspapers. It has launched misogynistic attacks against my wife. And it has instructed the Hungarian intelligence agencies, as well as the Orwellian “Sovereignty Protection Authority” — a body modeled on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s repressive state machinery — to investigate my organization on the grounds of “national security.”
Read the rest here.
Tuesday, April 22, 2025
The Face-Plant President
Harold Macmillan, the midcentury British prime minister, supposedly said that what statesmen feared most were “events, dear boy, events.” Misfortunes happen: a natural disaster, a terrorist attack, a foreign crisis. Political leaders are judged by how adroitly or incompetently they handle the unexpected.
Luckily, the Trump administration hasn’t yet had such misfortunes. Its only misfortune — and therefore everyone else’s — is itself.
So much has been obvious again this week, thanks to two stories that are, at their core, the same. First, there was the revelation that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had shared sensitive details of the military strike on Yemen with his wife, brother and personal lawyer on yet another Signal group chat. That was followed by an essay in Politico from a former close aide to Hegseth, John Ullyot, describing a “full-blown meltdown at the Pentagon” — a meltdown that included the firing of three of the department’s top officials. Donald Trump Jr. responded by saying Ullyot is “officially exiled from our movement.”
Then there was a market rout and a dollar plunge, thanks to President Trump’s unseemly and unhinged attacks on Jerome Powell, the Fed chairman. Powell’s sin was to have the audacity to describe the probable effects of the president’s tariffs: namely, that they’ll cause prices to go up and growth to slow down. This sent Trump into a rage, complete with White House threats to examine whether Powell can be fired — a potential assault on central bank independence worthy of the worst economic days of Argentina.
Both cases are about adult supervision: the absence of it in the first instance, the presence of it in the other and the president’s strong preference for the former. Why? Probably for the same reason that tin-pot dictators elevate incompetent toadies to top security posts: They are more dependent and less of a threat. The last thing Trump wants at the Pentagon is another Jim Mattis, secure enough in himself to be willing to resign on principle.
The same goes for other departments of government.
An adult secretary of state would never have allowed his department to be gutted in its first weeks by an unofficial official (Elon Musk) from a so-called department (DOGE) by unaccountable teenage employees with nicknames like Big Balls. But Marco Rubio has a moniker with a very different meaning, Little Marco. He’ll do as he’s told right until he’s fired, probably (like one of his predecessors, Rex Tillerson) via a social media post.
Read the rest here.
Monday, April 21, 2025
Sunday, April 20, 2025
Wednesday, April 16, 2025
Thursday, April 10, 2025
Trump Orders DOJ Investigation of Critics
President Donald Trump is targeting two former first-term appointees over their criticism of his actions, stripping their security clearances and opening federal probes of their tenures.
The directives that Trump signed on Wednesday order the Justice Department to scrutinize Chris Krebs, who ran Trump’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and former senior Department of Homeland Security official Miles Taylor.
The two critics are the latest to be swept up in Trump’s expansive retribution campaign, where he’s sought to use federal powers in unprecedented ways to punish political opponents, law firms, universities and others that he believes have wronged him.
A president ordering investigations of specific individuals whom he considers to be his political enemies is a remarkable breach of the traditional wall of separation between the White House and the Justice Department. Under that norm of separation, criminal investigations are supposed to be insulated from political pressure, but Trump has repeatedly scorned the notion of DOJ independence. Making Wednesday’s action even more remarkable, and perhaps unprecedented, is that Trump used the formal power of executive orders to effectively brand two individuals as subjects of criminal investigations.
Read the rest here.
Tuesday, April 08, 2025
Bret Stephens: There’s Nothing Real About Trump’s ‘Real America’
Even by the ugly standards of this administration, the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia stands out.
A Salvadoran migrant and metal worker in Maryland with no criminal record other than traffic violations and illegal entry into the country, he was arrested by immigration authorities in March and deported to one of the notorious prisons of his homeland, in contravention of a U.S. immigration judge’s order. The government acknowledged the “administrative error” — an Orwellian euphemism for a Kafkaesque nightmare — but petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a federal judge’s order requiring his return on Monday. The same day, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked the lower court’s order so it can have time to consider the case.
Abrego Garcia was an unimportant person when he was deported — except, of course, to his wife and son and two stepchildren. He is the subject of an accusation that he belonged to the MS-13 gang — but there is only flimsy evidence and no proof. The entire edifice of American justice is built on the conviction that there is no guilt without proof beyond reasonable doubt — and that there is no unimportant person, at least not in the eyes of the law.
I’ve been thinking about this case as an emblem of everything that makes Donald Trump’s presidency so vile and destructive, even when I’ve bent over backward to give him the benefit of the doubt, and even when I’ve agreed with him on this or that point of policy. I have, to borrow a line from Peggy Noonan, a “certain idea of America.” He ain’t it.
What is that “certain idea”? It has to do with a type of democratic nobility, something most of us can recognize the moment we see it. It’s Sojourner Truth asking the suffragists at the 1851 Woman’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, “Ain’t I a woman?” It’s Lou Gehrig, stricken with A.L.S. in his 30s, calling himself “the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”
...This is what feels so wholly absent today. Those of us who count as coastal elites are expected to be deferential to the “real America” that elected this administration — one that’s supposedly more in tune with the country’s spirit than the Martha’s Vineyard set. Fine, please educate us.
But I struggle to understand what’s real in JD Vance’s shape-shifting political beliefs or Trump’s meme coins. I fail to see what’s American in denying due process to someone like Abrego Garcia, or in repeatedly threatening our neighbors and allies with treaty cancellations and possible conquest, or in cavalierly mulling an unconstitutional third term, or in profiting from political office, or in arbitrarily sacking senior military officers and national security officials because a conspiracy theorist deems them to be disloyal. I don’t grasp the connection between Making America Great Again while tanking that symbol of American greatness known as Wall Street — all in the name of an economically illiterate and diplomatically ruinous obsession with tariffs and trade deficits.
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