Dispatches from Vilnius

If you want to know the real reason this war ended with a whimper it is that the US ran out of long-range missiles. According to reports , the military depleted 30 - 45 percent of its Tomahawks, JASSM's and critical interceptors in the first month of conflict. It simply couldn't sustain this war without putting boots on the ground, which Trump was loathe to do. So, we heard a lot of bellicose words for three months before Trump finally gave in and is now trying to make the proverbial silk purse out of a sow's ear. This is why he had everyone laughing when he entered a G7 meeting, proclaiming " I'm the boss ." The purported " deal " has raised more questions than answers, especially this 300 billion USD private fund allegedly set up to spur Iran's economy. Seems most of it is coming from the Gulf States, which is surprising given how much they are at odds with Iran and its proxies in the Persian Gulf. That figure has now grown to a whopping 425 ...

Musk is now a trillionaire. Hip, hip hooray! The megalomaniac can call himself the richest man ever thanks to this AI boom that is leaving not just individuals, but stock exchanges scratching their heads as to how a company can be worth $1.77 trillion without generating any profit. S&P 500 says it will be at least a year before it lists Space X , as it has no means of assessing its viability on the market. No matter, SpaceX stocks jumped 20 percent on the big day, sending Elon over the top, as he owns 42% of the stock in this company. The S&P decision is a big deal as it means our retirement plans won't go toward funding SpaceX for at least a year. Americans have more money tied up in this index than any other index through retirement plans, and if Congress gets its way, Social Security will get tied into it as well. Republicans want to make the roughly $2.5 trillion in asset reserves available to the market, as the fund is being rapidly depleted under the Trump administrat...

Commemorating D-Day is typically a solemn occasion. Visiting dignitaries are asked to do one thing and one thing only - honor the dead. Approximately 70,000 allied soldiers died at the Battle of Normandy. Another 150,000 were wounded. This battle turned the tide in WWII, defeating Nazi Germany on a second front after the Soviet Union had pushed back the Nazis at Stalingrad. Yet, for whatever " grotesquely stupid " reason of his own, Petey Hegseth decided to turn this somber commemoration into an anti-immigration speech. The Trump administration has been busy stirring up trouble in Europe this year, hoping to turn elections across the continent. Immigration is their ideological weapon of choice. VP Vance had stumbled into the Henry Nowak murder case with little or no knowledge of what actually happened. Deputy PM David Lammy tried to set the Vice-President straight but to no avail because Vance had one aim and one aim only, to give his buddy Nigel Farage a chest bump in the e...

Trey Parker hit the nail on the head when he said, "we have a president who thinks his job is to be the joker." For the past year, he and Matt Stone have been skewering Trump on South Park but Trump does a better job on his own, especially with all the AI-generated images he has posted recently. This has made some speculate if Donnie might be a closet homosexual. You be the judge, He recently lavished a lot of attention on Jaxson Dart, the quarterback of the New York Giants who came out as a MAGA guy and highly supportive of the president. Donnie needs all the support he can get with his plummeting poll numbers.  For the record Jaxson is 6 feet 2 inches, and yet somehow manages to tower over the president. How can that be? After a third physical and a fourth cognitive test, Trump was described as healthy as ever, although he needed to drop 14 pounds to get back to a svelte 224. He looked rather chunky in his meeting with Xi last month. No explanation for the darkened hands ...