Dispatches from Vilnius

As Trump hits countries with another round of tariffs, mostly out of spite , he announces a new ballroom that would further transform the White House into his imperial palace.  The $200 million gilded ballroom is grossly out of scale but no matter.  Trump doesn't feel like he can properly entertain all his affluent guests, whom he claims will be footing the bill.  With very little pushback, he can get away with pretty much anything these days.  I'm not sure how his MAGA base is going to take it, especially after all the Medicaid cuts in the latest spending bill, but he made sure to note the Fed is spending much more money on its home improvements . Hard to believe that Trump " came one appellate court ruling away from losing control of his empire ." He has doubled his fortune over the past year and now acts like King Midas, forcing foreign leaders and tech barons to call him "daddy" and bend the knee.  The latest to offer praise to the Commander-in-Chief i...

More and more Trump reminds me of a bad imitation of Rodney Dangerfield.  Granted, he can be funny in spite of himself but most of the time he just comes off incredibly stupid.  Here he was promoting Tulsi Gabbard's absurd claim of Obama's sedition in the 2016 elections during a WH meeting with Filipino leader Marcos.  " Obama was sedatious ." Obama wasn't laughing.  He blasted the bizarre allegations but that didn't stop Republican Congressional leaders from trying to pass off Russia's meddling in the 2016 elections as a false flag despite ample proof of their involvement.  Trump's Deputy AG at the time launched an investigation , if for no other reason than to clear Trump's name. Donald took such personal offense that he held Sessions and Rosenstein directly responsible for dragging his name into it.  The circus went on for months with Robert Mueller eventually concluding that there was Russian interference but that it didn't alter the outco...

For all the talk that Trump has grown impatient with Putin over the ceaseless war in Ukraine, there is much this administration is lifting from the Kremlin playbook.  The recent "merger" of Paramount and Skydance being a prime example. A tech oligarch will now have control over Paramount's extensive holdings including CBS.  The merger clearly favors Skydance and will see David Ellison, son of Oracle tech oligarch Larry Ellison, as the CEO.  Both are avid supporters of Trump and are hoping that the FCC will speed things along so that they can wrap up this deal by September. "Varied ideological perspectives" just means CBS will be less "woke," and help further the conservative narrative when it comes to politics.  This also means ditching The Late Show where Stephen Colbert had been dishing on the merger for months, calling the $16 million settlement between 60 Minutes and Trump a bribe.  Trump had initially sued CBS for $10 billion over what he rega...

My neighbor called last night to congratulate me on the Fourth of July.  I didn't think much of it as I've been living in Lithuania for the last 27 years, but I thanked him just the same.  Maybe we should plan a barbeque, he asked?  Our once a summer get-together as we aren't very close but it is always nice to reconnect.  One summer, I played Jaws on an outdoor screen to satisfy the kids as we had hamburgers along with Greek salad and other fixings.  A very Fourth of July thing to do. However, this time around I don't feel so convivial.  What transpired over the past week left me with a very empty feeling as I watched Republican after Republican cave in to Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill," knowing full well it would have a devastating impact on the country. For a moment it looked like Lisa Murkowski would hold her ground but eventually John Thune offered enough concessions for Alaska that she signed on, giving the GOP the 50 senators they needed with VP Vanc...

We truly have a circle jerk with Putin, Trump, and Netanyahu pulling each other's chain in what threatens to become World War III.  Trump skipped out of a G7 meeting in Alberta, Canada, presumably to address the rapidly escalating conflict between Israel and Iran, while leaving Ukraine in the lurch .  A Russia-Ukraine ceasefire was the focus of the G7 meeting with Zelenskyy invited to Banff, but the artful dodger was too pre-occupied with other thoughts to pay the Ukrainian president much concern.   Once again, Trump pitched readmitting Russia into the G7 despite having done nothing to warrant it.  This was a relic from the Clinton years when Bubba was on reasonably good terms with Boris Yeltsin and was trying to give Russia the economic help it needed to emerge from its Cold War recession.  Russia then as now had an economy ranked in the second tier of the G20 but had a huge nuclear arsenal to make up the difference.  In this way, the US hoped that R...

I suppose if the Gold Key was some rare and elusive object like Edgar Allan Poe's The Gold Bug , then Leon might have valued it, but judging from the quality of the key and its wood box, this is the kind of service award you would give someone who has been in your real estate company for 5 years.  Leon took it with as much magnanimity as he could muster, which wasn't much, and the very next day let loose on X all the petty and not so petty grievances he held against Trump. What is odd is that Trump is not really the cause of his woes.  If anyone was still defending Leon in the White House it was Donald.  Leon's gripes were more with those around Trump that were steering the president away from him, as his brand had severely tarnished ever since he became "The Dogefather," which he proudly boasted on his black t-shirt underneath his black jacket.  Scott Bessent was  pissed Leon didn't take a bigger chainsaw to department cuts. Petey Navarro had been nursing a...

They're calling it Pearl Harbor as Ukraine managed to hit Russia deep in its own territory, taking out as much as one-third of the Z Army's long-range bombers, which have been wreaking havoc on Ukrainian cities for the past three years.  Of course, Vlad was none too happy and shelled Ukrainian cities in another petulant display.  Meanwhile, Vlad tries to play peacemaker by sending a delegation to Istanbul to lay down  terms for surrender . At least that's the way Ukraine sees it as there is nothing in the Russian terms that would indicate they are willing to cede anything to Ukraine.  Maybe Vlad should take another look at The Art of the Deal , as this isn't going to further ceasefire talks one bit. Now that Ukraine no longer has any limits as to how deep it can hit inside Russia, the war has come home for Russians.  They no longer have the sense of security they have enjoyed the past three years.  They got a glimpse of it last year when Ukrainian fo...

The question every year is whose victory?  For Eastern European countries, the decisions made at Yalta in February of 1945 were a complete sellout as they found themselves relegated to the Soviet sphere of influence.  After a long, bloody war stretching over 6 years (4 in terms of American involvement), Team Roosevelt decided it was better to divide Europe than challenge Team Stalin, as he had moved his armies into Eastern Europe to "liberate" them from Nazi Germany.  There might have been room for some drawback but according to Oliver Stone, Truman went out of his way to antagonize Stalin and so the Soviet Union doubled down on its territorial claims.  Lost in Stone's version of events is that "Russia" had long sought a Pan-Slavic kingdom and this was a golden opportunity for the Soviet version of Russia to claim it.  And, so they did. Still some wiggle room remained.  The iron curtain didn't fall on the eastern half of Europe until 1955 when the Warsaw Pa...

If the Canadian election taught the Trump administration anything it is to "speak softly and carry a big stick," but Donald refused to heed Teddy Roosevelt's words and instead blew an easy win for Canadian conservatives out of the water.  Even on election day he was still posting that Canadians should vote for him and become citizens of the United States.  Canada hasn't been this united since the Continental Army invaded Quebec way back in 1775.  They clearly don't want anything to do with American exceptionalism. I'm trying to figure out if this is part of a longer game or if the Trump administration is really that stupid?  It would have been much easier to show support for the Conservatives and talk of re-negotiating trade deals on mutually respectful terms.  Instead, Trump doubled down on what one initially thought was a bad joke , giving the Liberal party the ammunition it needed to turn this snap election against the Conservatives.  The Liberals fell...

Those were the words of Donald Trump after Vladimir Putin launched one of the worst air raids on Kyiv since the start of the war.  This after Russia supposedly made a number of "concessions" including not taking Ukraine as a whole.  This was Putin's objective from the start of the war. Remember that 60-kilometer long convoy closing in on Kyiv back in March, 2022, only to watch it get picked apart by drones, with the husks of the tanks carried away by Ukrainian tractors.   This war has been a terrible failure for Putin as he has been unable to secure his gains and has lost well over 100,000 soldiers in the process.  Overall Russian casualties are nearly 1 million.  It has been a huge embarrassment for his country to take a beating like this.  After all, Russia was supposed to be second only to the United States as a military power.  But, Putin is not one to back down and will continue his attacks, hoping that Ukraine will eventually be forced to ...