Dispatches from Vilnius

It's interesting to see Trump try to play both sides of the war in Ukraine.  The other day he said that Ukraine should lay down its arms as it has no chance of winning against Russia.  Further noting that Russia had obliterated Ukraine with towns and cities gone that could "never be duplicated."  He then meets Zelensky and says "Putin cannot win."  Which is it? For his part, Zelensky is also playing both sides in meeting with Republican and Democratic leaders with the hope that the US will continue to support Ukraine regardless of who wins the election.  He still faced criticism from Lindsey Graham for meeting Gov. Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania.  Graham saw this as a partisan move .  Yet, Zelensky met with Donald in Trump Tower, supposedly to hash out his "victory plan." I find it hard to believe Zelensky shared much information with Trump knowing that he is such a blabber mouth.  No sooner had the Ukrainian president left the building than Trump...

The United States isn't the only country in the heat of an election.  Lithuania is holding parliamentary elections next month with over 20 political parties vying for the majority in the Seimas.   No single party will win an outright majority so that means coalitions will be formed like the current one that saw three parties come together to lead the Seimas.   We've been watching the debates and it is not a pretty sight.  With so many political parties, Lithuanian National Radio and Television (LRT) has opted to show five parties on any given night, pitting one of the coalition government parties against three challengers.  Last night it was Aušrinė Armonaitė of the Freedom Party against three pro-Russian parties.    The Christian Families Alliance is so avowedly pro-Russian that you would think its leader, Waldemar Tomaszewski was a direct agent of Moscow.  It was hard to say where the other party stood. Don't let the Polish name fool y...

Donald Trump can't seem to get any break these days.  You can visualize him loosening his tie as he complains about there being no bump in the polls after all the news channels ran with the story of the second assassination attempt all week.  He vented on Truth Social, hoping to boost its plummeting stock value, but it too hit a record low of $13.55 on Friday.  Meanwhile, the Dow hit a new high of 42,000 on news that the Fed is lowering interest rates.  Here again, Donald bemoaned that it was a political move that favored Kamala Harris, even though the Fed had been talking about this for months. Donald isn't the only one having problems.  The man he called  " Martin Luther King on steroids " turns out to be a " Black Nazi " in disguise.  CNN uncovered Mark Robinson's screen avatar on a porn site from some years ago where he went off on a number of vile tangents, including one where he preferred Hitler to Obama.  He also praised slavery and wished ...

That was not the takeaway Trump loyalists wanted coming out of the debate.  Not only was he brutally fact checked on the spot, but three days later it still remains a viral meme .  It even spurred the premier "childless cat lady" herself to post on instagram that she is endorsing Kamala.  A move that drove over 400,000 visitors to vote.gov that night, encouraging young Swifties to register to vote!  A petulant Trump could only say she will " pay a price in the marketplace ." I wasn't planning to watch the debate but my dog woke me up at 4 in the morning and so I turned on CNN thinking I might catch the last half hour.  Turns out I caught the whole thing as it came on at 9 EDT.  Everyone was carrying the debate, even BBC and Lithuanian News.  An estimated 67 million Americans and countless foreign watchers. To say it was an awful night for Donald is a massive understatement.  The only thing stopping Republican leaders from asking him to step down ...

For a moment I took a break from everything.  I ran the afternoon 10K race of the Vilnius Marathon.  I was standing with a contingent of NATO soldiers from some European country.  I couldn't make out the language.  They were all wearing light blue t-shirts that read "We Run This Together." There have been a lot of threats emanating from Moscow recently.  It felt good to have that spirit of solidarity even if NATO countries tend to go their own separate ways in regard to Russia.   Summer has lingered on.  It was over 30 degrees Celsius running along the cobblestone streets of Vilnius with the heat rising up from the pavement.  The only break was when we ran through Žverynas as the trees along Vytautas Street provided some shade.  The residential street is named after one of the Great Dukes of Lithuania who defended the Grand Duchy against the Teutonic knights at the Battle of Žalgiris in the early 15th century.  My throat was parched...

There is something exceedingly weird about this election.  For a man who should be extremely worried about the direction this campaign trail is turning, he seems remarkably calm.  It's not like he doesn't see the numbers .  He is constantly remarking on them, but utters the "fake news" mantra each and every time.  It's like he is holding an ace or two up his sleeve.   There have been a lot of warnings about voter roll purges.  Texas recently removed a million people from its voter rolls.  This affects the Senate race more so than the presidential race, where Trump is expected to win easily.  Ted Cruz is having a little more difficult time fending off his latest challenger Colin Allred.  Still, it is very disconcerting.  You could show up to the poll and find you are not listed on the voter roll and it is too late to register.  FTR, the voter registration deadline is October 7 in the Lone Star state.   The Supreme Co...

Russians fleeing Kursk You might recall that when Putin took office way back in 2000, he let the Kursk submarine lie at the bottom of the Barents Sea well past the point that any chance of rescuing the 23 survivors of the explosion was lost.  Now, he finds himself in an interesting dilemma where a region by the same name is occupied by Ukraine and he is reluctant to provide the necessary military forces to regain it.  By doing so, he would sacrifice strategic gains he has made in the Donetsk region.   This was a bold move on the part of Ukraine.  Patience was wearing thin after they received the first installments of the $60+ billion military aid package from the US, along with F-16 jets and heavy artillery from NATO countries.  Ukraine needed to do something to justify these enormous expenses, and so they struck Russia's weakest point, its own border.  No one saw it coming, least of all Russia, which had minimal forces stationed in Kursk. ...

It seems Jon Stewart really regretted retiring from the Daily News early.  To think he missed out on Trump's previous two runs for president while he was busy pushing legislation on Capitol Hill that would help veterans suffering from Gulf War Syndrome and surviving first responders of 911.  Those were noble causes but apparently not enough for Jon, as he is back at The Daily Show offering us his weekly take on Indecision 2024 . I've tried to watch him but there is only so much of his smug persona that I can take.  I don't remember him being that smug before.  Maybe he was, but now it is insufferable.  Those long pauses after each punchline as if to say come on laugh, I know you can, and the audience duly responds.  He froze so long after one punchline that I thought he might be having a stroke.  He snapped out of it and reminded a member of his audience that he didn't have to pay to get in.  A good thing. There was a time I would have paid t...

That was quite a show at the United Center!  I haven't seen that much enthusiasm for a Democratic candidate since Barack Obama in 2008.  Even more as the stakes are much higher this time around.  We would have easily survived a McCain administration.  I'm not sure about another Trump administration, especially one with a blatantly autocratic agenda in Project 2025. I'm all in for Kamala and was very much impressed by her acceptance speech .  She covered all the bases and her delivery was pitch perfect.  Most importantly Democrats took back words like "freedom" and "opportunity," as they made their strongest pitch to working class voters that I have ever seen.  For decades, Republicans have been whittling away at the core of the Democratic vote, taking union states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin without offering anything in return.  Kamala offered a clear agenda that would restore child tax credits and other incentives to get more ...

Vancy was questioning the new polls on Fox News that show Kamala up by four points heading into the Convention.  He believes in all his heart that the polls are "wildly inaccurate" and that "we're going to win this race.  We just have to run through the finish line."  It's ironic since we were supposed to believe all those polls earlier that had Trump ahead before he embarked on a series of "press conferences" that have shown just how sadly out of touch he and the GOP are with reality. I suppose this comes from running a faith-based campaign, believing in this massive turnout of Evangelicals that will overturn the god-forsaken masses that still support the Democratic Party.  We have been told repeatedly how "evil" Democrats are.  Trump even going so far to say that they execute newborn babies in Democratic states.  He's also pushing the " End Times " if he is not elected.   This plays well to his faith-based audience, but ...