Dispatches from Vilnius

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 ...

At least 34 killed in missile strike on Sumy When the war first broke out in Ukraine, the Lithuanian Prime Minister Šimonytė called it our "Poland moment," referring to Hitler's attack on Poland in 1939.  Had Putin been able to overrun Ukraine the way Hitler had Poland, it very well could have been the start of WWIII.  In many ways it still is because NATO was relatively quick to come to the defense of Ukraine and help the country hold off the Russian onslaught with a steady supply of munitions. Witless Steve Witkoff proudly announced he had reached a ceasefire agreement in the Black Sea after what he described as " compelling " talks with Putin.  This hasn't stopped Vlad the Impaler from continually firing on Ukrainian cities, including the Black Sea city of Odessa, which was hit with a barrage of missiles and drones this week.  Nevertheless, the Trump administration presses on, using a combination of "diplomacy" and Trump rants on social media ...

Palm Sunday and speculation abounds that Trump will declare martial law on Easter to deploy troops to the southern border.  His administration seems to have a knack for invoking old acts, in this case the 1807 Insurrection Act, to justify their heinous policies.  So far, the Supreme Court has been very accommodating as they upheld the Trump administration's use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to detain and deport what they regard as dangerous immigrants.  Autocracy appears to be the logical next step. He's certainly managed to put everyone on guard, but so far he hasn't exactly followed through on his initiatives.  All his talk of tariffs to rectify what he regarded as a massive trade deficit blew up in his face last week when the Dow tumbled 5000 points.  He very quickly pulled back on the tariffs which even his DOGE efficiency expert called "dumb as a sack of bricks."  Musk was referring to Pete Navarro out of deference to Trump.  Petey was the supp...

Steve Witkoff addressing the press on the White House lawn. Listening to Steve Witkoff herald Putin as a man who wants peace is one the most cynical things I've heard recently.  All through these "negotiations," Russian missiles have been raining down on Ukrainian cities.  An unrelenting barrage that has seen a daily average of 23 warheads since the start of the war in February, 2022.  The prime targets have been civilian buildings, although Putin claims these are military targets much like Netanyahu claims everything is fair game in Gaza.  To date, more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians have died and another 30,000 injured, according to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission. Not to mention the millions that have been displaced.  Then there is all the infrastructure  that has been destroyed. Putin's forces have taken out an estimated $58 billion in housing alone.  Close to $200 billion in infrastructure all together, as of December 31, 2024. ...

There's a whole lot of buyer remorse being expressed in town halls across the country as the full weight of Trump 2.0 begins to be felt by voters.  Yet, the media goes on and on about how the Democratic Party is in free fall and offers a number of bleak scenarios for 2026 and beyond.   Some Democratic leaders are even attaching themselves to some rather unsavory creatures.  Gavin Newsom has recently been found flirting with Steve Bannon , hoping to feed off the MAGA dissent in a presidential bid in 2028, but Bannon isn't abandoning the movement. Rather, he is robustly predicting Trump will win a third term. Bannon's chief problem isn't Donald, but Elon, whom he thinks has overstepped his role in the MAGA movement. Like most MAGAts, Steve seems to have a poor understanding of how the Constitution works.  It would take 2/3s of Congress and 3/4 of the state legislatures to amend the Constitution to allow a president to seek a third term.  Anyway, there's ...