Dispatches from Vilnius

Not surprising that the next day was given to all the anguish among liberal pundits over the debate, who are demanding Biden step down for the good of the party.  As usual, John Fetterman had the perfect response, " Chill the fuck out! "   As bad as Biden's performance was, it wasn't without precedent.  Obama gave a lackluster performance in his first debate with Mitt Romney back in 2012 that left many Democrats deep in anguish over the Republicans returning to the White House. Romney surged in the polls by as much as 12 percent.  Obama didn't panic.  He pulled up his bootstraps and delivered better performances in the succeeding debates and all was forgiven. Joe was back on the campaign trail the very next day and gave an excellent summation of his debate performance.  Fact is he was never a very good debater.  All you have to do is look back to the 2020 Democratic primary debates, where he was often outflanked by his opponents, with Kamala dro...

Democrats were hoping for a knockout blow coming into this debate.  After all, it was supposedly structured to favor Biden with no audience to side with candidates.  Just the two of them on stage facing two CNN personalities in Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, whom Trump frequently rails against.  Yet, Biden stumbled repeatedly, couldn't complete his thoughts during the short time segments and failed to land anything more than glancing jabs as Trump danced around him with his many lies.  Biden was unable to effectively counter them and CNN refused to fact check Trump's absurd claims. I wouldn't think twice about a debate like this except there will be a lot of gloating from the Trump camp for the next few weeks, as the audience scorecard gave Trump a resounding victory.  This will be pretty hard for Democrats to swallow and already there are calls for Biden to step aside for a younger candidate like Gavin Newsom.  If he did that would be admitting defeat.  T...

Summer always begins with such optimism.  Even the rain didn't bother me as I ran the Vilnius 10K, which serves as an opening salute to the warm weather everyone has been looking forward to all winter.  It was actually quite refreshing as the temperature had peaked at nearly 30 that day, which for Lithuania is a heat wave. The event attracts more and more runners every year.  The numbering was a bit deceiving as I was 21206.  There were actually just over 5000 participants.  I hadn't done enough to get in shape and had to take a break at the 7,5 km mark but got myself going again, with people still gathered at the finish line cheering us stragglers along.   I got my medal, a bottle of water, an energy bar and walked home along the river, where the runners completing the half marathon course were starting to filter back into the Old Town.  Some looked at me perplexedly as I had the medal hanging from my neck, which was the same for whatever distanc...

I almost spit out my coffee when I saw this meme posted by one of my old high school friends on facebook.  Really? I responded.  Another popular meme is " I am 34 times more MAGA than ever. "  It just went on and on and on but I figured it was better not to respond to all of them.  These persons are more hopelessly deluded that I ever imagined. Trump's appeal among religious conservatives appears stronger than ever despite being dragged through the mud in court the past few months.  It is not just religious yahoos that voice their undying support but Republican leaders as well, which led former Republican Rep. Kinzinger to quip that the Republican Party " lost all ability to think for itself ."  It has become a cult answerable only to Trump. This has far-reaching consequences, especially if god forbid he were to win in November.  The most radical of Republicans have devised a mission statement that they call Project 2025 , in which they plan a complete...

Aaron and Tucker provide a "history lesson" The only thing more funny than Aaron Rodgers telling Tucker Carlson how unfairly Putin is being maligned in the media is a previously unknown placekicker telling graduating women at Benedectine College that they shouldn't feel ashamed to be homemakers.  Needless to say both are feeling the heat from their controversial messages, but Harrison Butker moreso, as the nuns of the college have spoken out against him  for so badly politicizing a commencement address.  Yet, the Kansas City placekicker went from a virtual nobody to viral sensation and hero of the right wing.  His football jersey is now one of the hottest selling jerseys in the NFL. The NFL has been a slow motion trainwreck for decades long before black players chose to kneel for the national anthem in solidarity with Black Lives Matter.  FTR, Rodgers supported his teammates at the time.  He was widely lauded as one of the few white players to show any so...

It is safe to say Donald has a Nikki problem .  Even in the ruby red state of West Virginia, Nikki Haley polled 10 percent without so much as stepping a foot in the state.  She won 16 percent of the vote in the Charleston area.  She did much better in Maryland and Nebraska, where she polled 20 percent.  Yet, the Donald hasn't made any attempt to reach out to her.  Instead, he was holding a rally on the Jersey shore, imagining himself as Bruce Almighty. I suppose Wildwood Beach is an easy reach from Manhattan, where Trump was getting a day off from court.  His team claimed he drew a mega-sized crowd, yet the flock of worshippers couldn't have been more than 20,000 as the mayor of the beachside community said that is all the beach holds.  That didn't stop Roger Stone from posting a picture of a Rod Stewart concert from the 1990s and exclaiming "Could Biden draw a crowd like this?"  Other Trump supporters posted pictures of Rio and other crowded bea...

Lessons learned from this year's Eurovision.  It is best not to be overtly gay.  Don't drown yourself out with visuals,  Don't touch the camerawoman.  And, of course, don't take any of this too seriously. Eurovision is essentially a gay pride rally but even gay performances can be a little too over the top as was the case with British "bad boy" Olly Alexander , who received zero points from the audience.  The Lithuanian singer Sylvester Belt put in a good performance but he was virtually hidden among the bold graphics so that it was hard to see what was going on during his song.  Lastly, the "Dutch artist" Joost Klein got a little too friendly with a camerawoman and was booted from the finals.  Not that it really mattered as his song sucked, even if it was considered one of the favorites. Honestly, I don't know why we continue watching this crazy thing.  The kids are long gone, but here we were staying up till two in the morning hoping that Nem...

While Jon Stewart keeps harping on Biden's age, the NYTimes dropped the bombshell that Robert Kennedy Jr. claimed in his 2012 divorce proceedings that a parasitic worm had eaten part of his brain and that he had lost some of his cognitive ability.  Either that or mercury poisoning from eating too many tuna fish sandwiches.  Take your pick. While Stewart's schtick has grown old, the campaign keeps revealing numerous surprises from its field of septua- and octogenarians vying for the highest office in the country.  Bobby Jr. is not a young man himself.  He may look spry doing push-ups in front of the camera, but the man is 70 and if we are to believe his story still might have a few parasitic worms eating away at his brain.  Meanwhile, a 77-year old Trump continues to doze off in front of the sketch artists in court.  We hardly hear a word from 70-year old Cornell West, whom I assume is still running for president .  Or 73-year old Jill Stein, who ha...

It's hard to make sense of these student protests spreading throughout the country.  Palestine has never really been foremost on American minds, even young minds, but here we see thousands of students closing down buildings on college campuses, waving Palestinian flags and calling for the end of military aid to Israel. In part, I can sympathize with them.  I've long thought the US has given far too much military aid to Israel when it uses it mostly to repress Palestine, which it has occupied for close to 60 years.  Jimmy Carter once likened the situation in Israel to Apartheid South Africa.  He was roundly chastised for doing so, but it does bear a lot of resemblance.  The protests echo those against South Africa in the 1980s, demanding that universities divest in Israel.  However, many of the grievances being expressed don't make any sense.  The US is trying to negotiate a ceasefire and has used its political sway in the region to bring all sides to ...

On an entirely different topic, it has been interesting following the NBA playoffs.  Many of the teams have Eastern European players, the most prominent being Nikola Jokic and Luka Dončic.  It has changed the face of the league with some of the NBA old guard not too happy about it.  Gilbert Arenas has been one of the most vocals critics, saying that these players get entirely too much credit.  He has taken a particular dislike to Jokic, who won MVP two years in a row before leading Denver to an NBA championship last year.  Arenas called Jokic " the worst MVP ever ." The frustration was compounded when the US failed to medal in the FIBA World Championships last year.  Team USA lost not once but three times, starting with Lithuania in the first round of bracket play.  It wasn't like the American team lacked for star power.  It was led by Anthony Edwards, Jalen Brunson and Tyrese Haliburton, but lacking a big man they proved no match for the bigger ...

I was running along the river yesterday and the pathway was still flooded under the Žverynas bridge.  The Neris River has been running high the past two weeks, which seems a bit odd since we haven't had any rain.  Meteorologists say the unusual flooding is due to a severe storm that passed through Belarus a couple weeks ago but that doesn't really explain why the river is still so high.   I told Daina about it and she wondered if Lukashenko was releasing a dam somewhere upstream as the Neris emanates from the Northeastern marshlands of Belarus.  Sure enough, there is a large reservoir upstream.  Could the wily Belarusian president be playing games with us? Six days ago, Belarus' top security officer claimed his vaunted air force shot down Lithuanian drones , which he says Lithuania and Poland are producing for a coordinated attack on their country.  He didn't produce any evidence but it was enough just to say it to have Lukashenko foaming at the mou...

No wonder the NYTimes is so upset.  For months they had been begging the White House for an exclusive interview and were rebuffed, only for Biden to pitch up on the Howard Stern Show.  That must have been a big jolt as Biden went on for over an hour.  Granted, Stern talked for much of that time, but Biden was in full control of himself, even cracking a few jokes as he covered a wide range of subjects including his low grades in law school.   When he first ran for President in 1988 this had been a big issue , as he was accused of plagiarism and subsequently dropped out of the race.  Now he laughs it off, saying he didn't take law school as seriously as he should have.  Not that it really mattered in the end, as he had a successful career in Congress just the same.  But, Howard didn't dig too deep, much to the chagrin of the NYTimes, who felt Stern should have been ... well more stern. Instead, Howard gave Biden his enthusiastic endorsement, recall...

I never really understood why the Republicans were blocking the military aid packages to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, as support of these countries is very strong among their constituency, especially Israel.  Virtually all my conservative friends on facebook support Ukraine as adamantly as they do Israel.  Yet, here was Johnson holding up the aid package for over 6 months to the point Ukraine was really suffering along the front line with Spring maneuvers in full swing. One can argue why European countries aren't supplying more aid and ammunition to Ukraine?  Unfortunately, we have Mike Johnsons of our own.  It took at least 6 months to get a 50 billion euro aid package through the EU parliament with Viktor Orban blocking it until the EU unfroze funds for Hungary.  There was no military aid in the package, as it was aimed at bailing Ukraine out of its economic crisis as a result of the two-year war.  The funny part is that Orban backed down without the EU h...