Slava Ukraini 😱✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️😱

💛 🌻 💙:  After Friday’s horrific, dystopian meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski posted on X that she was sick to her stomach watching the administration walk away from our allies and embrace Putin, who she correctly called a threat to democracy and US values around the world. She’s not the only one who is sick to her stomach, quite a few are 🤮 🤮.  Unfortunately, Senator Murkowski holds little sway in the Republican Party.  Most of her colleagues, many of whom know she’s right, are gutless weaklings, so fearful of being primaried, getting threatening phone calls, or worse yet, being subjected to one of Trump’s mean social posts, that instead of expressing any outrage or even a wee bit of concern, they’ve chosen to look the other way, slinking away from the press and avoiding their own constituents, many of whom are already upset about the mass firings that continue to affect them and their neighbors and relatives. By the Republican’s scraping the bottom of the barrel standards, the slinkers look good because at least they aren’t acting like Secretary of State Rubio, who not too long ago was one of Zelenskyy and Ukraine’s supporters but who is now a groveling, quivering pile of 💩 or like Speaker Johnson, who at one point supported aiding Ukraine but now is calling for him to resign for failing to kiss Trump’s ring and for not wearing a business suit to their meeting or Lindsey Graham who said he could never have been more proud of Trump for the way he dealt with that “disrespectful” Zelenskyy.   Funny how no one on the right gets at all upset about Elon Musk’s attire. The pundit gallery has offered quite a few explanations for Trump’s hatred of all things Ukraine:  that due to his own psychological abnormalities and pathological deficiencies he can’t tolerate anyone who won’t grovel;  that he so envies dictatorial leaders that he wants to be one; that Putin either has that infamous pee tape or as one time Naval Intelligence Officer Malcolm Nance insists, Trump has long been a Russian mole and given that Trump keeps saying that he relates to Putin because they had to go through the “Russian hoax” together maybe Nance is right; and, or that Trump’s world view is so warped that rather than aligning with democratically elected free  governments he prefers to partner with Putin, Xi, and Kim Jong Un to build a new axis of evil?  Who knows and really who wants to dive into Trump’s seething brain matter to figure it out? It’s not just Trump who harbors anti-Ukraine views, Politico reports that Veep JD Vance, who played worse cop, to Trump’s bad cop on Friday, is even more anti-Ukraine than Trump and so feared that Zelenskyy would agree to the mineral agreement that was supposed to be signed during his visit to Washington, that he intentionally pushed the war weary and stressed out Zelenskyy to the breaking point.  Zelenskyy was apparently ready to sign the agreement, but in exchange, he wanted an assurance that the US would support him if, or more likely when, Putin reneges on anything he “promises” in exchange for an end in hostilities. Vance’s concern about the mineral agreement is that it would lead to Trump continuing US support for Ukraine, something that neither he, nor his foreign affairs guru Tucker Carlson want to see happen. Our one-time allies in Europe, including the impeccably attired UK’s King Charles who had no problem with Zelenskyy’s garb, spent the weekend trying to figure out if there is a way out of this mess. Their task won’t be easy. 

Free Press?  On Friday, a number of bona fide media companies were excluded from the Oval Office meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy, but not to worry because TASS, Russia’s official news agency, was there.  According to the White House, the TASS reporter was not approved, and his presence was “unplanned.”  Either someone is lying bigly or the security at the White House is very, very bad. The Washington Post which seems to be modeling its editorial policy on Pravda will now only be publishing editorials which focus on supporting “personal liberties and free markets.”  The new policy which spurred another spate of subscription cancellations originated with owner Jeff Bezos who apparently was in the Trump camp way before he squelched WaPo’s planned Kamala Harris endorsement. Bezos who claimed that his elimination of the endorsement was based on his view that WaPo shouldn’t weigh in on presidential elections was busy pushing Trump to select Doug Burgum as his VP while he was nixing the Harris endorsement.  He didn’t get his wish but he’s still trying to curry favor with the orange guy.

Also: Early in the Musk drama, Trump said that Elon Musk wouldn’t get any new government contracts while he was his DOGE man.  Apparently, that’s just another lie. Musk is now slamming the FAA’s contract with Verizon, more than suggesting that Verizon be replaced with his Starlink company. Trump’s nominee for Solicitor General is the lawyer who argued that it would be okay for a president, preferably one name Trump, to order Seal Team Six to take out one of his opponents.  He testified that presidents, again ones named Trump, could ignore court orders.  As to court orders, we are still waiting for SCOTUS to weigh in on whether it was okay for Trump to freeze foreign aid. The fact that the Court didn’t issue a ruling before or over the weekend is an indication that some, if not a majority of the court, may conclude that since Trump’s their king he can do whatever he wants. We should know soon enough. The Texas measles outbreak is spreading.  Late last week, RFK called for doctors to prescribe vitamin A to measles sufferers. Vitamin A may help on the edges, but you know what’s better, not getting measles in the first place but RFK’s initial statement omitted any reference to the vaccine.  He has now finally issued a statement calling for people to get vaccinated but only if they really want to. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta now projects that first quarter GDP growth will shrink by 1.5%, they had previously projected growth of 2.3%.  It turns out that firing lots of people while imposing tariffs and rounding up working migrants isn’t a good thing for the economy or the GDP, but not to worry because Commerce Secretary Lutnick has a solution.  He wants to change the way that the GDP is calculated because who needs growth when you can have obfuscation?  Tomorrow night Trump is scheduled to make his annual speech to the joint session of Congress. Watch at your own risk.      

#BringThemAllHomeNow