We Are All Zelenskyy Now 😱✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 😱

🌻 😭 🌻 😭 🌻: Yesterday, Trump blamed Ukraine for being invaded by Russia. He then justified excluding Ukraine from the preliminary peace talks between Secretary of State in name only Marco Rubio and Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov by saying that since Ukraine’s Zelenskyy had failed to stop the war, and by stop the war Trump meant had failed to fully capitulate to Russia, he wasn’t entitled to have a seat at the table. The talks were held in Saudi Arabia and hosted by bone saw guy Mohmmed bin Salman while Putin’s forces launched a particularly viscous attack on Odessa. Former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, an outspoken critic of Putin and Trump, reports that the talks were fruitful for Putin, not so much for Zelenskyy. McFaul’s sources say that Trump’s “negotiating” team offered Russia’s team all the Ukrainian territory they want, an assurance that Ukraine would never be invited into NATO, an assurance that US troops would be withdrawn from Europe, including from all those frontline states that Putin wants folded back into Mother Russia, and sanctions relief to help bolster his failing economy.  In exchange Putin’s team offered up three things: nothing, nada, and zilch. Trump also insisted that Zelenskyy who he claimed has only a 4% approval rating immediately hold elections, presumably with a dose of interference from Putin’s crowd. For the record, Zelenskyy’s approval rating stands at 52% and fair elections aren’t a thing in Putin’s Russia but why quibble about details like that?  Zelenskyy is seeking help from Europe’s stunned leaders who are trying to figure out how to deal with the impending disaster that’s more than likely to spill into Europe’s eastern countries. Sadly, right about now we are all frustrated Zelenskyy’s and stunned Europeans, trying to figure out how to escape this hellscape. Worth mentioning, Trump has put all of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security (CISA) professionals responsible for ensuring the integrity of US elections on administrative leave because who cares about fair elections here at home anyway?

Quit:  Yesterday, Denise Cheung, the head of the Department of Justice Criminal Division, a 24-year DOJ career official, resigned, after refusing to comply with a demand from her retribution minded bosses, Emil Bove and former January 6 protester/stop the steal lawyer, soon to be the US Attorney for Washington DC  Ed Martin,  to open an unfounded criminal investigation into a Biden era environmental grant initiative.  She was also asked to freeze and start clawing back the 💰 💰 that that had already been transferred from EPA to Citibank and then on to the smaller financial entities tasked with awarding the funds to environment related projects for the types of save the planet things that new EPA Chief Lee Zeldin wants to halt. Cheung essentially told her DOJ bosses that she had no interest in prosecuting a crime that didn’t exist. Cheung’s departure followed that of another long-term DOJ veteran, Ryan Crosswell, who worked in the public integrity section.  Crosswell resigned on Monday, telling AG Bondi that he “can no longer serve the department I love.” He appears to be another one protesting Trump’s efforts to extort cooperation from NYC Mayor Eric Adams. As to Mayor Adams, the charges against him have not yet been dismissed.  Instead of just okaying the request, Dale Ho, the US District judge overseeing his case has scheduled a hearing for this afternoon to learn more about the “reasons” for the DOJ’s dismissal.  Clearly the judge knows the reasons are all about Trump pressuring Adams to jump when told, especially onto the Trump INS wagon.  Ho said that while the DOJ is “the first and presumptively the best judge” of action on whether to drop a prosecution, the courts have an “independent responsibility” to make sure its actions are being taken in the “public interest.” Governor Kathy Hochul who’d rather shuffle off to her hometown Buffalo to shovel snow is now trying to figure out how to get Adams to resign because though she, like many in New York, want him out, she’d rather not be the one to hit the eject button. She held a bunch of meetings with New York politicians yesterday, including Reverend Al Sharpton who despite, or maybe because of his own history, is thought to have enough sway over Adams to help him conclude that he should exit “voluntarily.”

Quit, Quit: While Elon Musk’s rats continue to infest government agencies, the heads of a few of them have also resigned rather than turn over the log-ons to their computers.  Michele King, the acting commissioner at the Social Security Administration is now out because she refused to cooperate in giving the musk🐀s the keys to the “internal data repository” that contains extensive personal information about Americans including the financial data, employment information and addresses for anyone with a Social Security number, so basically everyone.  Social Security has a remarkably good track record at controlling fraud, but you wouldn’t know that if you were only paying attention to Musk who while seeing that anyone who ever regulated any of his companies is fired keeps repeating lies about the thousands of 150-year-olds receiving Social Security payments. For the record, that’s not true, what is true is that the Social Security system uses a “plug” birthdate as a stand in for missing data while that data is properly sourced, something that the DOGE team either failed to understand or more likely thought would make for a “fun” talking point.  Likewise, all of Musk and Trump’s claims about how much DOGE has saved the government so far, they are also made up.  A quick perusal of the DOGE claims turned up lots of mistakes, either typos that threw their “savings” assertions off by billions like the $8 million dollar savings that they misrepresented as an $8 billion savings or more likely some intentional sleights of hand so that Musk and Trump would have talking points and by talking points think lies to push out on Fox and Friends and to Sean Hannity.  As to Musk, Trump’s DOJ lawyers told a judge that he wasn’t really the head of DOGE, just some nice nerdy ketamine fan who hangs around. Another lie, he’s neither nice nor just hanging around. The lawsuits continue, some of the firings are now on hold but, though she said that she might rule otherwise once she receives additional information, federal Judge Chutkan refused for now to grant a temporary restraining order barring DOGE from accessing federal workforce data. In other highly disturbing legal news, Trump signed an executive order yesterday saying that only he and AG Pam Bondi “can speak of what the law is” because he’s the king, and therefore the Constitution means nothing.  As if that wasn’t enough seizing for one night Trump then signed an executive order giving himself greater authority over regulatory agencies that Congress had established as independent from White House control.  Affected agencies include the SEC, the Federal Trade Commission, and the National Labor Relations Board, among others.  Remember Trump’s promise to be dictator but only for one day.  Forget about the one-day part.  In other fun news the US Department of Agriculture is scurrying around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to hire back the people monitoring bird flu who were “accidentally” on purpose fired because bird flu, like measles is a real thing.  Also, Kash Patel has moved one step closer to becoming FBI Director.

Fog:  Hamas says that it will be releasing four bodies tomorrow. Though the Israeli government has not confirmed the names of the dead, Hamas claims that the bodies will include some, maybe all of the remaining members of the Bibas family: Ariel and Kfir, the red-haired children who were 4-years and 9-months old respectively, and their mother Shira, who was 32.  The three were kidnapped during the October 7 massacre. Their father was freed earlier this month.  On Saturday, Hamas plans to release six live hostages including Avera Mengistsu, Hisham al-Sayed, Omer Wenkert, Tal Shohem, Eliya Cohen, and Omer Shem-Tov.  Both Mengistsu, an Ethiopian Israeli, and al-Sayed, a Bedouin Israeli, have been held in Gaza for over ten years.  It’s believed that both men who suffer from mental illness were captured by Hamas after crossing into Gaza on their own.     

#BringThemAllHomeNow