Dispatches from Vilnius

I'm not quite sure if this massive Epstein photo dump is a good thing as it sure is implicating a lot of people, not just Donald J Trump. Chomsky was a real surprise to me. He was apparently BFF with Epstein, believing him to be an intellectual worthy of reform as Noam continued to correspond with Jeffrey right up to the time he mysteriously died in prison. Chomsky supposedly got financial advice from Epstein and enjoyed the contacts he made at the infamous soirees. All these new faces serve to take the focus off Trump, who has his boys assiduously scrubbing the Epstein files clean of himself before releasing them in full. What the DOJ has given us so far largely implicates Bill Clinton . Epstein reminds me of Hugh Hefner, who was able to draw a who's who of celebrities, politicians and intellectuals into his orbit thanks to his pleasure palaces, first in Chicago then New York and LA. His television show  Playboy After Dark was considered quite radical in its day, bringing to...

Senate Leader John Thune with House Speaker Mike Johnson discussing healthcare. The Little Leprechaun from Louisiana has done it again. After being told by the 8 Democrats who voted for the funding bill in November that Republicans would put forward a health care funding bill before Christmas, Mike Johnson said no . Gee, why didn't I see this coming? You'd think by this point that Dems would realize that their GOP counterparts don't play fair, yet here was Sen. Fudderman of Pennsylvania telling Chrissy Cuomo that he can still deliver it . Good luck with that Johnny. Republican leaders are banking on this being a non-issue in the midterms despite rumblings within their own party that this could kill them in the upcoming Congressional elections. Yet, Johnson and Thune just see this as a way to kill "Obamacare" once and for all. Don't forget their party voted more than 70 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act between 2010 and 2017. For more than a decade they...

George Bush with Lithuanian Pres. Adamkus in Vilnius, 2002 The reaction to Trump has become decidedly more fierce in recent days with German Chancellor Merz lashing out at the new American National Security Strategy and publicly stating that Pax Americana is over . Europe can no longer rely on the US for support.  Far from it, the new security strategy is explicitly aimed at undermining current European governments by actively supporting alternative nationalist parties throughout Europe. Over 70 years of a mutually beneficial relationship thrown out the window just like that. It doesn't stop there.  The Trump administration on its own has worked out deals with Belarus to free alleged political prisoners in exchange for easing sanctions. John Coale, another mysterious special envoy, was in Minsk this past week formalizing the latest deal with a friendly handshake with President-for-life Lukashenko much to the chagrin of Lithuania, which was forced to receive many of these 123...

It was bad enough that His Trumpness decided to overhaul the Kennedy Center. Now he is hosting the year-end event, essentially turning it into a MAGA rally . No more backseat to the cultural arts of America, Trump made it known loud and clear that he would be honoring the unsung heroes of his orange revolution from this point forward. Surprised he doesn't tear the Edward Durell Stone national theater down and build a new gilded palace in his own honor. I'm sure the thought has crossed his mind. Donald wasn't done there. He was off to the Poconos to make a pitch for the great economy no one seems to recognize. He called affordability a "hoax" and blamed Joe Biden and immigrants for dragging the economy down despite giving it an A+++++ himself . Privately, he did admit tariffs might be an adverse factor and announced a $12 billion bailout package to win back the farm belt in time for the midterms next year, but it might be too little too late as his approval number...