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The Bough Breaks

One of the biggest frustrations among Lithuanian citizens is that the government hasn't done enough to prepare for the prospect of a Russian invasion.  In Vilnius, we don't have a vast underground metro system like they have in Kyiv.  All we have are basements, which aren't very bombproof if the Kremlin decides to launch air strikes on Vilnius in the near future.  There are some old bunkers that were built during Soviet times but they haven't been kept up and are now infested with vermin.  One journalist investigated these bunkers four years ago and the images were appalling .   Most of these bunkers date from the Cold War.  Some go back to between the world wars.  You can even visit an old nuclear missile base in the northwest part of the country, which we did a few years ago.  It probably looks better than any other underground facility thanks largely to it being a popular tourist destination for Lithuanians and foreigners alike.  How...
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The Tariff King

We're not even one month into His Orangeness' term and already the trade wars have begun. Trump has managed to alienate our closest neighbors and allies ten days into his administration.  This will not only increase inflation but lead to significantly higher prices at the pump as we get the majority of our imported oil from Canada and Mexico.  Thirty-plus years of a North American Free Trade Agreement, better known as NAFTA, goes down the drain to placate the petty grievances of a deeply addled man, driven by a group of advisors who seem to want to blow up the economy.  Is this what voters wanted when they pulled the lever for his Orangeness in November? You really can't say you didn't see this coming as Trump promised tariffs.  He wanted to be the Tariff King.  He sees it as a way of hard bargaining but you have to have an inordinate amount of leverage to bargain like this.  Given the trade deficits we have with virtually all our major trading partners, I...

Mourning again in America

Aren't they sweet?  You would almost think it was a Fourth of July celebration if it wasn't for the MAGA handbags and the heavy black coats.  An estimated 20,000 persons are lining the streets of Washington for Trump's inauguration parade.  A much smaller number than he hoped for, but thanks to the Arctic chill few people are braving the cold on this winter day in the nation's capital.  Trump will take his inauguration indoors to avoid the cold, only the second time in recent decades. It was Ronald Reagan who coined the phrased " Morning again in America " during the 1984 campaign, and had his second inauguration in the Rotunda of the Capitol building.  It was only 7 degrees Fahrenheit then.  About 20 degrees colder than it is today in Washington.  At least there was a tone of optimism as the economy had started to improve in 1985.  Today, it is hard to view Trump's second inauguration as anything other than a negation of everything our country st...

Por que você está tão interessado no meu blog?

I have to say I like that so many persons are looking into my blog.  However, these "persons" don't seem to be looking at any recent posts.  Did you just happen to click on the wrong blog site? This month has seen a major upsurge in visitors - 18,861 to be exact - and it is only January 14.  The greatest number of visitors is from Brazil.  It tapers down significantly to Turkiye, Uzbekistan, Argentina, Russia, and Venezuela.  United States, UK and Canada are not among the top locations, and this is an English-speaking blog, mostly about American-centered stories.  I have to think something else is afoot, so I consulted Quora. There is a list of possibilities, the most likely being spam traffic through bots.  I don't think any of my past posts have gone viral, although some of the older ones have had quite a few hits.  I just hope these posts weren't spammed.  Nothing in the comments to suggest that.  Maybe blogger is finally blocking spa...

What gives?

To no one's surprise Donald Trump exploited his "friendly talk" with Barack Obama at the state funeral for Jimmy Carter.  I thought Barack knew better than engaging with Donald, especially after Jill Bidens' moment with Trump at the dedication to the restored Notre Dame cathedral became a  promo  for his $199 cologne. Sure, you say hello out of politeness but there he was " yukking it up " with Donald, making it so easy for anyone to put words in his mouth afterward. Words that Donald was all too glad to share on Truth Social. It seems that the principal target of this parody was Kamala Harris, who refused to acknowledge Trump.  Smart move on her part.  Who knows what her future plans are, but Governor of California seems the  most logical choice .  I don't think she wants to run again for President, assuming we have another election.  To hear Republicans talk these days, Trump will be President for Life as we move toward a more autocratic f...

As LA Burns

What a set of overlapping stories!  As LA burns , Donald Trump Jr. flew to Nuuk to make his father's pitch to buy Greenland.  Daddy couldn't go because he had committed himself to the state funeral of Jimmy Carter, where he made small talk with Barack, whose wife Michelle was conspicuously absent.  I'm guessing she didn't want to sit next to Donald.  No one did, not even his wife .  Elon Musk used the opportunity to have a " friendly chat " with the newest leader of the ultra-right wing AfD party of Germany on his X chatbox.  The fetching Alice Weidel, which "Leon" mispronounced Veedle, is supposed to represent a moderating force for the neo-fascist party, but here they were talking about Hitler, saying he was a "communist and socialist," not a "conservative and libertarian" like themselves.  Nice dodge.  Meanwhile, unusually cold weather blankets much of the US with a freeze warning in Northwest Florida, which my old high school...

January 6

I found this meme on my timeline this morning, posted by one of my conservative "friends," wishing me a "Happy January 6."  There was little violence this time around as Democrats didn't make any attempt to block the certification of the electoral college.  Kamala Harris duly confirmed Trump as the winner, and so the MAGA movement has their president again.  Only a few peeps from former Congresspersons like Adam Kinzinger , who no longer identifies himself with today's Republican Party, calling it RINO.  I well imagine many past Republican presidents would feel the same way if they saw what their Grand Old Party had devolved into. Hard to believe this was once the Party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt or even Ronald Reagan.  As Kinzinger stated, it is a party driven by hate, making it even harder to understand how Trump managed to win 77 million votes.  Has our society become so filled with anger that it would give this contemptible man the most vote...

33 1/3 Years of Solitude

I was excited about the Netflix production of One Hundred Years of Solitude .  It was a Colombian production, so I figured it would have an air of authenticity unlike that blasphemous attempt to do The House of the Spirits some years back with Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons.  No wonder, Marquez refused to let anyone make his fabulous novel into a movie during his lifetime.  I think he would have been just as disappointed with this production.  While it was in Spanish, this lavish production bore only a passing resemblance to the novel.  Just to be sure, I started reading it again.  I was stunned when I reached the 150-page mark and had come to the end of the serial.  Alex Lopez and Laura Mora had only covered one third of the epic novel in their 8 hours of screentime, basically turning it into a soap opera.   I was reminded of the scene in the novel where the town of Maconda witnessed its first movie.  Everyone was so excited.  The...

So long, Jimmy. You will be missed!

Over the years pretty much everyone has come to appreciate Jimmy Carter.  He was a man who lived a truly virtuous life, although he admitted in a Playboy interview many years ago that he had committed " adultery in my heart many times ."  To think it almost derailed his 1976 campaign.   However, his legacy as president still remains contentious.  Recently, Trump vowed to reclaim the Panama Canal, which Carter "gave" to Panama during his single term.  The treaty he signed didn't turn the canal over to Panama until 1999, which Bill Clinton ultimately followed through on .  Oddly enough, neither Reagan nor Pere Bush chose to override the treaty, despite the hostilities that broke out in Panama when Manuel Noriega came to power.  Pere Bush infamously invaded Panama with the expressed aim to bring Noriega to justice, claiming that the "generalissimo" was trafficking drugs through his country.  An action that was decried worldwide.  Neverth...

Brace yourself!

I found myself looking at remote islands like Pitcairn and St. Helena .  Pitcairn Island is probably the most famous of the two as this is where Fletcher Christian led his mutiny against the Bounty and tried to settle his merry band of mutineers far from the long arm of the British Empire.  His legacy has lived on.  I couldn't help feel a touch of envy, but as much as one tries to distance oneself from events in this crazy mixed up world of ours, the bad news still has a way of seeping in.  Elon Musk has managed to reach Pitcairn, setting the 35 permanent inhabitants up with Starlink free of charge in his effort to leave no stone unturned on this planet. Elon has brought his DOGE and pony show to Washington, determined to make government accountable by slashing unnecessary spending.  Good luck with that after Republicans pushed through a whopping $895 billion defense bill  in their last month in session. The only thing they managed to cut was funding for...

Reversal of Fortune

It seems like the Heritage Foundation is taking its pointers from the Kremlin as they look to consolidate power in the executive branch.  Our Constitution is a little older than that of Russia, but no reason that the ultra-conservative advisors in Trump's administration can't find a way to undercut it.  One means is impoundment, whereby the White House exercises what amounts to a line-item veto on Congressional appropriations by impounding allocated funds.  The last president who tried to use this authority ran into a brick wall , but with a compliant Republican Congress and Supreme Court who knows this time around? I still can't wrap my head around how Trump won the election after three successive electoral defeats from 2018 to 2022.  He lost the House in 2018, then the Senate and the White House in 2020, and his party was barely able to retake the House in 2022 after what many thought would be a "red wave" that would see the Republicans regaining control of both...
We were warned back in 2016.  Has it finally come to pass.   A Princeton computer science professor showed how easy it was to hack a voting machine and urged Congress to secure voting.  Less than two months later, Trump had won a surprise victory and there were deep concerns of Russian hacking.  This led then Attorney General Jeff Sessions to launch an investigation, much to President Trump's chagrin.  In Sessions' mind he was trying to assuage all the anxiety that surrounded an election in which Trump lost the popular vote by 3 million.  The rest as they say is history.  Or is it? What's interesting to me is that Trump had virtually no coattails, similar to 2016.  Republicans would have won these contested races with or without him, as Democratic senators were doomed in West Virginia and Montana and had only an outside chance in Ohio.  If there was any senator who benefited from Trump's "surprise" victory it is Dave McCormick.  He...