Dispatches from Vilnius

Roseanne is such a committed loyalist that she ran interference for His Trumpness when news broke of the adjusted death toll in Puerto Rico as a result of Hurricane Maria. You might remember the last time His Trumpness paid any attention to Puerto Rico was when he was  tossing out rolls of Bounty paper  to islanders in the aftermath of the hurricane.  It was just more than Aunt Sarah could handle at the press conference this past week.  How else to explain these crazy tweets in the early morning hours? The Ambien queen hit all the favorite whipping posts from Valerie Jarrett to Chelsea Clinton to George Soros, ultimately blaming Michelle Obama for the cancellation of her sitcom reboot, although you have to wonder why VJ at this stage?  It was so bad even her Friends and Fox were urging her to cease and desist, but there was no stopping the conservative den mother once she got going.  Leave it to the old man to come to her defense.  Sort o...

It seems Trump can't wait for that military parade this Veteran's Day, telling naval graduates that they are part of "the most powerful and righteous force on the face of the planet."  In his mind, this makes the US "respected" again, intimating that threats not diplomacy is what brings belligerent countries like North Korea and Iran to heel. This should give moderate Republicans further pause, as Trump, a draft dodger, used a naval commencement address as just another backdrop for a political rally, in which he not so subtly proclaimed his "victory" over the NFL, and proudly proclaimed that he will never "apologize for America," which conservatives felt underscored Obama's administration. At every stop, our president trumpets a highly toxic form of nationalism meant to divide the nation between true believers and agnostics.  This religious tone is as false as his feigned military stance. This a man who has rarely set a foo...

I guess when the military mints a shiny new medallion for the event, you do get second thoughts about pulling out.  After all, this is a man who loves shiny objects, and this is definitely a collectible .  Twenty per cent discount today, although I wouldn't count on it arriving any time soon. Trump's ghostwriter chalks it up to His Trumpness' morbid fear of being humiliated and shamed , but I'm guessing it is his inner circle that got cold feet, afraid Trump might pull a " Reykjavik ."  This was the time Reagan almost gave away the farm to strike a deal with Gorbachev, but in the end got nothing.  Bolton and Pompeo and to some degree Pence worried that Trump would either go all in or botch the deal so best not to risk it.  Instead, Bolton and Pence taunted Kim, who retorted as expected, leaving their Commander-in-Chief with no choice but to sign a letter to "His Excellency," backing out of the highly anticipated date.  It's rather obvi...

Watching the royal nuptials today, I was amazed by just how smitten Harry is of Meghan.  He literally melted into a teenage boy, as if she were the storybook princess being escorted on his father's arm.  It was really beautiful in that sense, as you see how much love there is between the two,  which the Reverend Michael Curry expounded upon in his rollicking sermon that momentarily transformed St. George's Chapel into a black gospel church. Town and Country offers a timeline of the events that led up to their engagement last year, as well as the tensions that ensued.  A lot of folks weren't ready for this storybook romance.  There were a lot of ugly anecdotes thrown around, and Meghan found herself having to deal with two half-siblings who tried to suck all the air out of her impending wedding.  Even her father, not in the best of health, got dragged into this tabloid fever, and in the end chose not to escort her down the aisle for fear he would dr...

It's like "road rage" has spilled over into every segment of our society, thanks largely to social media.  We  insulate ourselves as we would in a car, our "safe space" if you will, and get very agitated when someone violates that space.  That seems to be the case with the NRA, whose new president vented his frustration and anger with the Parkland students , branding them "civil terrorists" and threatening a "counterpunch," kind of like Trump's thinly veiled threat on the Campaign Trail 2016. The NRA does itself no favors by making Oliver North its new president. This guy appeals to a very limited following, and in no way is going to expand the reach of the embattled organization, so one wonders just how much weight the NRA will carry in the polling booths this Fall.  It's kind of like having Rudy Giuliani as your lawyer. As it is, the NRA represents less than ten per cent of gun owners in America, which itself is only about...

The Trump administration telegraphed their decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal as you would on a bad reality show.  Everyone knew it was coming.  There was nothing Emmanuel Macron or Angela Merkel or even John Oliver could do to prevent it.  In the end, it was Bibi Netanyahu's powerpoint presentation that sealed the deal, although I imagine Trump had long made up his mind (what's left of it anyway) on the subject. Bibi wasted no time going after Iran in Syria , claiming the Iranians launched rockets at Israeli forces in the Golan Heights first.  Who's to say?  We only have Israeli "intelligence" to verify the claims.  Of course, in most Americans' minds that's good enough. The repercussions will be felt far and wide, as it is not just Iran, Trump rejected, but the UK, France, Germany, China and Russia, who are all co-signatories.  This leaves it up to the remaining parties to salvage the deal before Iran takes matters into its own h...

Does anyone even remember the White House Correspondents Dinner, of for that matter Melania's State Dinner for the Macrons?  No sooner did we have a chance to digest these events than Trump flies off on whole new tangents, erasing any memory of the past. This is a guy who should have stayed in Mar-a-Lago after the Christmas break.  Signing a massive tax cut and recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel did little to offset the sexual assault charges filed against him by 19 women.  This in the wake of his support of pervert Roy Moore who went down in flames in a Senate special election in Alabama.  If Republicans had been smart they would have pushed Trump to resign, but he slouched back to Washington, only to get into a twitter war with Kim Jong-un as to who had the bigger "nuclear button." It should be clear to everyone that Trump has no shame, yet he continues to enjoy widespread support among his base, and as he noted in his rambling NRA address ...

I never heard of Michelle Wolf before the White House Correspondents Dinner , but I'll have to pay attention to her now.  It wasn't that her jokes were all that good, but she sure knew how to get under everyone's skin, particularly Sarah Huckabee , who served as Trump's proxy at the event.  For me, it was her grating voice, but it worked in this case. What the Trump base got was a little bit of its own medicine.  Michelle was raucous, dirty and at times downright malicious in her attack.  No one was spared in Trump's administration, least of all the Chief Clown.  "It turns out the President of the United States is the one pussy you can't grab," noting his absence for the second year in a row. For his part, the President was in Michigan offering a running commentary of the WHCD among other things in his long-winded harangue.  But, this didn't match the performance he gave on Fox and Friends the day before, leaving the crew absolutely...