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...