Dispatches from Vilnius

I suppose if there is one good thing to come out of this war it is that the Gulf States are no longer considered a safe space for investors. The world of sports has been hit hard , as Saudi Arabia and other countries were working hard to lure boxing, F1 racing, football, tennis and golf to their sun-drenched borders, only to see that dry up over night. What were these sheiks to do with all their oil money? Now they watch their oil fields and refineries go up in smoke. Not that they won't rebound from these losses, but until then no more world heavyweight matches at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh. It's been something to watch the sports world taken over by Saudi money. Not just the sports world but television and movie studios as well, as the Saudis had been putting up big bucks to get a share of the massive entertainment pie. They are major investors in the Paramount Sundance takeover of Warner Brothers, as the Ellisons had to do something to counter the Netflix offer of $84 billi...

Day 18 and we are no closer to an end to this war than we were on Day 1, even if the Donald believes he holds all the chips. The press conferences, if you can call them that, look like something out of a bad reality show. Here's one of him flanked by Susie Wiles and Mike Johnson as he rambles on about her breast cancer. Probably would be best to have him stick to the teleprompter.  The biggest revelation to this point was counterterrorism expert Joe Kent saying there was no imminent threat from Iran and that the Trump administration started this war due to pressure from Israel and AIPAC. Kent immediately resigned in the wake of this pronouncement, which caught the administration totally off guard, resulting in Trump addressing the media in his own unique way. Yes, Donald, Iran was not a threat before you decided to bomb them, but now they are as it is clear neither you nor anyone else in your administration, save maybe Joe Kent, had any idea what would come afterward.  The U...

Day 8 of the joint US-Israeli War on Iran with no immediate end in sight. Far from buckling, the Iran military is getting intelligence from Russia and launching a steady stream of drones at targets all over the Gulf Region in retaliation to the joint missile strikes. The US and Israel are now contemplating putting boots on the ground that would seriously escalate the number of casualties in this war. So far 6 US service personnel have been killed in Kuwait, a number Donald Trump casually swats away as growing anger from his base mounts on talk shows. He also denies the US is responsible for the deaths of over 100 girls when the US accidentally bombed a school, blaming it on Iran . Things aren't looking too good for our cocky Commander-in-Chief. A weird skin rash on his neck also revealed that his ear mysteriously healed completely after the shooting during the summer of 2024 when he claimed part of his ear was blown off . That's either amazing plastic surgery or he lied. I ...

The president who spent all last year telling us how many wars he stopped has launched his biggest conflagration yet. For a moment it looked like it was just going to be a fireworks show to let Iran know that the US meant business when it came to a new nuclear arms deal. Unfortunately, the fireworks show escalated quickly as Iran was none too happy about having their Ayatollah taken out. It's one thing to kill a high-ranking general . It is quite another to kill a supreme leader .  It really made no sense as just last week our roving goodwill ambassadors, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner,  met with Iran's foreign minister Albusaidi  and announced "significant progress" had been made on a nuclear deal. And then this! It looked eerily similar to the air strikes on Venezuela. The initial aim was to take out the supreme leader and hope that Iran's vaunted Revolutionary Guard rolled over and play dead. You knew that wasn't going to happen. Iran played nice the first...