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Oh, Canada

Published by digby on March 10, 2025

People have always wondered what it is about now former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that Donald Trump just cannot stand. His politics aren’t demonstrably different from any other center-left leader Trump has dealt with around the world and the US Canadian relationship until now had been the most congenial, peaceful, cooperative relationship in the history of both countries. I happen to think it’s personal, as is so much of Trump’s behavior toward his global counterparts.

Just as he admires Russian President Vladimir Putin for his strongman image or North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for his (plainly insincere) obsequiousness, he likewise loathed German Chancellor Angela Merkel for being a plain, dumpy woman and currently hates Volodymyr Zelensky for being in his mind, the instrument of the humiliation of his first impeachment. With Trudeau I think it’s always been simple, juvenile jealousy of his youthful good looks. Trump is not a complicated man when it comes to his judgments of other people. He is, after all, a person who commonly hires people because they are “out of central casting.”

During Trump’s first term his antipathy for Trudeau was evident from the start and it began with one of Trump’s famous handshakes. He likes to try to dominate his peers by violently yanking their hands toward him and it often makes for bizarre awkward situations. But a couple of weeks after his inauguration, during the traditional visit between tour two leaders, Trudeau resisted the “yank” at the White House door and then hesitated before taking Trump’s weird palms-up outstretched hand in the oval office. The picture went viral.

The BBC even published a long disquisition on English physician John Bulwer’s 1644 “eccentric tome Chirologia: Or the Naturall Language of the Hand, Composed of the Speaking Motions, and Discoursing Gestures Thereof.” to explain what had happened. (It said Trudeau’s hand position wasn’t disdainful but rather dejected while there was no explanation for Trump’s odd gesture at all.)

It also didn’t help that when Trump brought in Trudeau to a meeting with businesswomen, including his daughter Ivanka, the swoon was heard around the world. Trump clearly believed, and still does, that he was the leader with the movie star good looks and he didn’t like it one bit.

From that point on, Canada was in Trump’s cross hairs and he refused to meet with Trudeau at various meetings or shake his hand and he constantly threatened to throw tariffs on everything whenever he felt he was being disrespected. They did finally agree on an update of the NAFTA treaty which Trump had characterized during his campaign as screwing the U.S. (It did, but not in the way Trump said it did.) In the end they basically just ended up tweaking it so that he could strut around like a hero.

I suspect that the straw that broke the camel’s back was this moment caught on tape at that G7 where Trump absurdly announced that it had been decided that the very best location for the next meeting, scheduled to be held in the U.S., would be his Doral Golf Club in Florida.

Considering all that, I suppose it’s not a big surprise that Trump would still be holding a grudge and would give Trudeau a hard time when he became president again. But never did anyone imagine that he would launch a full scale rhetorical assault on Canada itself, insult its people and proclaim that he wants to annex the country and make it America’s 51st state,

Trump had said he planned to throw huge tariffs on Mexico and Canada during the campaign but nobody knew if it was just the usual Trump bluster or if he meant it. He went forward with them as promised and since then has gone back and forth so often that nobody knows what he’s really after.

It’s obvious that his deep antipathy toward Mexico stems from immigration and his belief that it is just another sh**hole country. He is sending combat troops to the border and has previously entertained plans to invade the country ostensibly to “take out” the drug cartels. As grotesque as it is, it isn’t exactly a surprise. But this ongoing threat to make Canada the 51st state, even repeatedly calling Trudeau “governor” is entirely unexpected.

According to the NY Times, what they first considered a typical Trump insult joke is now being taken very seriously by the Canadian government. They report that the phone calls between Trudeau and Trump as well the trade talks between the two countries are extremely acrimonious, beyond anything previously experienced. Trump has even said explicitly that he does not believe that he doesn’t believe that the treaty that officially declared the borders between the two countries is valid and he intends to change them.

The Times writes:

“The excuse that he’s giving for these tariffs today of fentanyl is completely bogus, completely unjustified, completely false,” Mr. Trudeau told the news media in Ottawa. “What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that’ll make it easier to annex us,” he added.

They seem to think he means it.

Yesterday Justin Trudeau stepped down as Prime Minister after 10 years as he had promised to do. He was very unpopular over the past year and his Liberal party was expected to lose to the conservatives in the next election. That is, until Trump started talking about making Canada into the 51st state and Trudeau started telling it like it is. The Liberals have surged in the polls and will probably call elections very soon to take advantage of it. The people of Canada, across the political board, are infuriated by Trump’s audacious threats and they are not in any mood to cater to his insane impulses regardless of his tariff threats. Even those who were supportive of him have changed their tunes:

The Liberal party elected former central banker Mark Carney as the new Prime Minister and should they win the elections he will be the one to deal with Trump’s antics going forward. Luckily, although he is a nice looking fellow, he isn’t likely to inspire the extreme jealousy Trudeau inspired in Trump. But if Trump thinks that he will kow-tow to him, he may have another thing coming. His acceptance speech was a barnburner. Among other things, he said:

“My gov will create new trading relationships with reliable partners”
“My gov will keep tariffs on till America shows us respect”
“All the proceeds from our tariffs will be used to protect our workers”
“Canada will never ever be part of America in any way shape or form”
“Donald Trump thinks he can weaken us to divide and conquer”
“We can give ourselves far far more than Donald Trump can ever take away”

As I write this Trump has not written anything on Truth Social or offered a statement. If he expected that Trudeau’s replacement was going to come crawling for forgiveness it appears that he was wrong.

The Republican Party and the vast majority of American elites have certainly been a perfect illustration of that. It’s a shame that Americans have to look to our neighbor to the north for inspiration but we’re grateful for it.

BTW: Eat your heart out Trump. He’s still 25 years younger than you are

Salon

You’re Living In The Past, It’s A New Generation

Published by Tom Sullivan on March 10, 2025

They ain’t gonna change

Jasmine Crockett’s blunt message to Elon Musk drew eyeballs. https://x.com/CalltoActivism/status/1894443125701071316

All the personality of “wet cardboard,” a friend said over the weekend of Democrats’ House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.). It wasn’t a comment on his abilities as a legislator. I’m sure Jeffries can count and whip votes with the best of them. Democrats’ problem is their insistance on making their legislative leaders their spokespersons when the skill sets are not necessarily (and frequently are not) coincident.

A raft of postings describing Democrats flailing and failing to respond to Trump 2.0’s march to dismantle the republic appeared over the last week. “Democrats Voice Regret on Scattered Responses to Trump’s Speech,” declares The New York Times. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) told Fox News that Democrats’ scattered response to the president’s Tuesday address was “not a good look” and the backlash to Texas Rep. Al Green’s heckling Donald Trump “was ‘a distraction’ from Democrats’ economic messaging.”

The conservative Politico describes ‘Potty mouth’ Democrats as “cursing up a storm” and at the same time being no good at it. “If the first time you’ve used a cuss word in public is reading off a script, it’s probably not authentic and not something you should do,” says Democratic adviser Lis Smith.

The headline on Michael Tomasky’s commentary at The New Republic reads, “Humor Is Vital to Effective Protest, and the Democrats Suck at It.” Even the little signs members held up at the speech — “Lies,” “False,” “Save Medicaid,” “Musk Steals” — were lame.

Tomasky writes:

What they should have done with those little signs is mock Trump. “Stormy Daniels Says Hi.” “E. Jean Carroll Wants Her Money.” “Convicted Felon.” “43 Counts.” “2029 = Prison.” “Orange You Ashamed?” Whatever. And, reviving the old Spy magazine classic, “Short-Fingered Vulgarian.”

That would have rattled him. He doesn’t care about lies or Medicaid. He cares about his vanity and never being wrong. It also would have completely outraged the right-wing propaganda complex. It would have dominated the news coverage for days. In fact we’d still be talking about it.

Here’s something you’ve read here before: “Democrats just can’t seem to think outside the box,” Tomasky complains. “The public language of liberalism has become so timid, so afraid to offend, that too many forms of humor are just out of bounds.” They are “over-cautious and over-earnest in how they talk about almost everything.”

Semafor reported last month that the party is scrambling for a new communications strategy. It doesn’t exactly come off as authentic, writes the Bulwark’s Laura Egan:

But those efforts have led, often, to online mockery. And Democratic officials acknowledge that a lot of the content is still giving off a “How do you do, fellow kids?” vibe.

[…]

FOR THOSE ADVISING DEMOCRATS ON HOW TO GET a better footing in the social media space, the general belief is that the only way through is to rip off the band-aid. That might mean enduring a number of cringe attempts at social media posts until someone figures it out, or until more dynamic and online officials emerge as national leaders.

Democrats’ aging leadership is “living in the past, it’s a new generation,” as Joan Jett sang 45 years ago. They haven’t kept up and they “ain’t gonna change.” Their risk-aversion not only makes their efforts feel inauthentic, but they come off as trend-followers not trend-setters. And it does not smell like leadership to voters, especially younger ones now registering as independents in droves.

“It is more dangerous to be ignored than it is to get yelled at,” said Pat Dennis, president of American Bridge 21st Century.

You get the idea. I’m of a certain age and I get it.

Democrats’ attempts to adapt to the new media environment and to master the attention economy fail miserably, in part, because the leadership’s politics dates from the age of 5-1/4″ floppy disks. Caucus leaders like Jeffries mistakenly resent younger caucus members like AOC and Max Frost to whom social media engagement comes naturally. And “potty mouth” Jasmine Crockett of Texas who don’t give a damn ’bout her reputation. She brings it, the newsies report it, and social media spreads it.

This party is not going to recover lost ground until it retires officials who are past their best-by dates. That’s not about age but about skill sets.

* * * * *

Have you fought the coup today?
Choose Democracy
Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink
You Have Power
Chop Wood, Carry Water
Thirty lonely but beautiful actions

Of Russian Assets And Manly Toilets

Published by Tom Sullivan on March 10, 2025

If Trump looks like a Russian asset, walks like a Russian asset, etc.

Christopher Landau (left), Matthew Whitaker (right).

The Donald Trump nominees before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week were U.S. Ambassador to NATO nominee Matthew Whitaker (the former Trump acting Attorney General who looks like Marvel’s Kingpin once sold manly toilets), and Deputy Secretary of State nominee Christopher Landau, former ambassador to Mexico in the first Trump administration. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D) of Oregon meant to use his time to talk about the elephant in the room. He wasted no time.

Clip is here. (I couln’t get it to embed.)

“Is President Trump a Russian asset?” Merkley asked bluntly.

Asked first, of course Landau said, “Absolutely not.”

Merkley then explained that he’d asked because others have asked him that question and, to all appearances, “they say, ‘If [Trump] was an asset, we would see exactly what he’s doing now.’ “

Closer to the Edge substack transcribes Merkley’s listing of evidence:

Senator Merkley: “For example… he proceeded to forward — or express from the Oval Office — propaganda that has been Russian propaganda… that Ukraine started the war… that, uh… Zelensky is a dictator.”

Step one: repeat Kremlin talking points like they’re gospel.

Senator Merkley: “Second of all… he gave away key things on the negotiating table before the negotiations even started, ensuring the U.S. would absolutely oppose, um… any possibility of NATO membership for Ukraine.”

That’s like showing up to a poker game and tossing your entire stack of chips across the table before the first card’s dealt.

Senator Merkley: “Uh… third… he’s cut off the arms shipments to Ukraine completely — undermining their ability against a massive neighbor next door with short supply lines and… and huge resources.”

Pause here and picture Vladimir Putin popping champagne.

Senator Merkley: “Fourth… he’s undermined the partnership with Europe, which has been essential to security over the last 80 years — a major goal of Putin’s.”

At this point, Merkley wasn’t describing bad policy — he was reading Putin’s wish list.

Senator Merkley: “And then… he’s done everything to discredit and demean Zelensky on the international stage — notably with that shameful press conference in which he teamed up with the Vice President to attack Zelensky.”

Ah yes, that infamous JD Vance press conference — the diplomatic equivalent of shoving Zelensky’s head in a toilet while Putin watched from the corner clapping like a seal.

Senator Merkley: “I can’t imagine that if he was a Russian asset, he could be doing anything more favorable than these five points.”

Landau dodged and changed the subject, so Merkley turned to Whitaker and asked him instead if he approved of Trump’s five actions.

Manly Toilet Kingpin demured because “We’re in the middle of a very, uh… important peace negotiation.”

Merkley responded:

Senator Merkley: “I agree. Thank you. Uh… I… I do hope that we have an Administration that works to get the very best deal for Ukraine.

“But what a Russian asset would do would be to work to get the very best deal for Russia — and that appears to be exactly what Donald Trump is trying to accomplish.”

Perhaps “Is President Trump a Russian asset?” is a question all of Trump’s nominees should have to (not) answer.

* * * * *

Have you fought the coup today?
Choose Democracy
Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink
You Have Power
Chop Wood, Carry Water
Thirty lonely but beautiful actions

Elon And Marco’s Manly Tag Team

Published by digby on March 9, 2025

This is the Polish foreign minister:

Speaking of small men…

That’s li’l Marco trying to make amends with Elon by doing a very adorable little Col. Nathan Jessup impression:

And, needless to say, Musk is very much threatening to pull Starlink and he will have Trump and Putin’s total support if he does it. In fact, it will probably be their idea.

(I guess his statement that he challenged Putin to one on one physical combat is supposed to make us all tingly down there or something… I’m not sure. But it’s a very weird non-sequitur.)

Update:

Trust him? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Surrender and Step Down Or Else

Published by digby on March 9, 2025

NBC News reports:

As U.S. and Ukrainian officials prepare to meet in Saudi Arabia this week, President Donald Trump has privately made clear to aides that a signed minerals deal between Washington and Kyiv won’t be enough to restart aid and intelligence sharing with the war-torn country, according an administration official and another U.S. official.

Trump wants the deal, which would give the U.S. a stake in Ukraine’s mineral resources, signed. But he also wants to see a change in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s attitude toward peace talks, the officials said, including a willingness to make concessions such as giving up territory to Russia. Trump also wants Zelenskyy to make some movement toward elections in Ukraine and possibly toward stepping down as his country’s leader, the officials said.

Elections in Ukraine have been paused under the country’s constitutional provision for martial law, which has been in effect since Russia invaded in 2022.

I don’t think there’s any doubt about Trump is up to. He appeared with Maria Bartiromo this morning:

On Sunday, Trump reiterated that he thought Zelensky wasn’t “grateful” and added that he “took candy from a baby” — his description of the Biden administration’s policy of military and political support for Ukraine’s military.

The president also seemed to deride the Ukrainian leader’s assertion that his country’s armed forces were serving the country bravely, as he dismissively recalled Zelensky “talking about the fact that they have fought and there’s […] bravery because somebody has to use those [US-supplied] weapons.”

General Bonespurs says what?

He claimed that nobody has been harder on Russia than he has and blathered on again about the “Russia, Russia, Russia” hoax because he is consumed with anger and resentment that people saw what a dupe he was. His oppositional defiance disorder leads him to go even closer to Putin in response. (Also, he might just be a Russian asset… or something. Who knows?)

He once again took “credit” for stopping the Nord Stream II pipeline which is bs since he was forced by Congress to impose the sanctions. (Remember when Congress used to do things like that?)

And guess what?

And some reports have indicated that his administration could be interested in cutting a deal with Russia in 2025 that would allow for the project to resume…

Referring to Trump throwing Zelenksy out of the White House before a minerals deal could be signed, Bartiromo asked the U.S. president: “Are you comfortable with that, the fact you walked away and Ukraine may not survive?”

Trump replied: “Well, it may not survive anyway. But, you know, we have some weaknesses with Russia. You know, it takes two.”

He is a monster. And some people love him for it:

“The new (U.S.) administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations,” Peskov said in an interview aired Sunday on Russian state media. “This largely coincides with our vision.”

Indeed it does.

We’ve Crossed The Line

Published by digby on March 9, 2025

Don’t look to the elites to step up. They’re all running for cover.

This article in the NY Times surveys the cowardly retreat overtaking American elites both public and private.

More than six weeks into the second Trump administration, there is a chill spreading over political debate in Washington and beyond.

People on both sides of the aisle who would normally be part of the public dialogue about the big issues of the day say they are intimidated by the prospect of online attacks from Mr. Trump and Elon Musk, concerned about harm to their companies and frightened for the safety of their families. Politicians fear banishment by a party remade in Mr. Trump’s image and the prospect of primary opponents financed by Mr. Musk, the president’s all-powerful partner and the world’s richest man.

“When you see important societal actors — be it university presidents, media outlets, C.E.O.s, mayors, governors — changing their behavior in order to avoid the wrath of the government, that’s a sign that we’ve crossed the line into some form of authoritarianism,” said Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard and the co-author of the influential 2018 book “How Democracies Die.”

It appears that not even ambition or opportunism is enough to make some powerful and important people risk opposing him.

Most elected Republicans are fully supportive of Mr. Trump and his agenda, and on issues like immigration some Democrats are moving in his direction, reflecting public opinion. Democrats were divided over the wisdom of the protest by Representative Al Green, Democrat of Texas, during Mr. Trump’s address to Congress on Tuesday night.

But the lack of aggressive pushback from targets of Mr. Trump’s retribution and policy agenda is striking if understandable in other cases.

University presidents are largely silent because they are protecting their institutions, said Ted Mitchell, the president of the American Council on Education. “Don’t wrestle with a pig,” he said. “You’ll just get muddy and annoy the pig.”

Business leaders rarely criticize presidents of either party, and in any case they like Mr. Trump’s plans for tax cuts and deregulation, if not his tariffs. They also recognize, one of them said, that “periodically culling the work force is actually good for a healthy organization.”

But that business leader thinks that chief executives see the way that Mr. Musk is going about slashing the federal work force as “totally crazy” — but would say so only on the condition of anonymity, fearing retribution.

Universities are supposed to be a bastion of free speech and free thought. Never mind. As for the business leaders, I would have thought they’d be concerned about their own bottom lines but apparently they are more afraid of Trump and Musk. What great stewards of private sector health they are.

How about this from the WSJ?

President Trump on Thursday signed an executive order directing agencies to strip security clearances, government contracts and federal-building access from a top law firm with Democratic ties, Perkins Coie. It followed a similar, but more narrowly tailored, order late last month against attorneys at Covington & Burling representing former special counsel Jack Smith, who oversaw the investigation and federal prosecutions of Trump.

“We have a lot of law firms that we’re going to be going after because they were very dishonest people,” Trump said in an interview that aired Sunday on Fox News.

The White House moves have sent a chill through the world of Big Law, at a time when litigation has emerged as one of the few checks on the president. 

In private conversations, partners at some of the nation’s leading firms have expressed outrage at the president’s actions. What they haven’t been willing to do is say so publicly. Back-channel efforts to persuade major law firms to sign public statements criticizing Trump’s actions thus far have foundered, in part because of retaliation fears, people familiar with the matter said.

Golly, I seem to remember that during the campaign when Trump said he was going to get revenge on anyone who crossed him many of his allies and members of media were quick to point out that he had parroted once or twice that his revenge would be “success” so he didn’t mean it literally. Oh well. The rule of law was good while it lasted.

The NY Times reports that this fear among elected officials was about literal threats to themselves and their families who begged them not to put them in the cross hairs and also the fact that Elon Musk has said he will personally fund primaries against anyone who even thinks of crossing him has put the fear of God into most Republicans.

And then there’s this inspirational leadership:

Frankly,” Mr. Coons said, “it is a combination of hoping that things change and somehow this all comes apart and the chain-saw approach to government stops.”

A few very cool, savvy people went on the record saying that the whole thing is overblown and Trump isn’t doing anything that unusual. (I’ll have what they’re smoking.) And there are some naysayers, among them the alleged Great Democratic Billionaire Hope, Mark Cuban, who insist that the real problem is the “identity politics and all the wokeness as the real silencing factor.”

Yeah, that pronoun thing was a nightmare. Wokeness destroyed the economy and the world order, fired thousands of people and killed thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands around the world) with its “identity politics” just like Trump and Musk.

Levitsky, the democracy expert, had this silver lining:

The United States, he said, has a “wealthy and diverse opposition,” and rather than outright authoritarianism, there could be “a slow and gradual slide into a gray area.”

As he put it, “no democracy this old or this rich has ever broken down.”

I would never have believed that we’d vote a criminal imbecile like Trump into office even on a fluke much less restore him to the White House just four years later so maybe we are the first test case. And maybe we’ll get out of this without the country and world blowing up but that slow and gradual slide is well underway and I don’t know if enough of those in power, private or public, have the courage to ever do anything about it. Don’t count on them for anything.

And by the way, if we do manage to survive this crisis remember what they didn’t do and rebuild this country accordingly.

They Are Taking It Seriously And So Should We

Published by digby on March 9, 2025

Center-right French senator Claude Malhuret gave a speech last week that was heard around the world. He’s an epidemiologist and former leader of Doctors Without Borders. This one’s for the history books.

Europe is at a crucial juncture of its history. The American shield is slipping away, Ukraine risks being abandoned, and Russia is being strengthened. Washington has become the court of Nero: an incendiary emperor, submissive courtiers, and a buffoon on ketamine tasked with purging the civil service.

This is a tragedy for the free world, but it’s first and foremost a tragedy for the United States. [President Donald] Trump’s message is that being his ally serves no purpose, because he will not defend you, he will impose more tariffs on you than on his enemies, and he will threaten to seize your territories, while supporting the dictators who invade you.

The king of the deal is showing that the art of the deal is lying prostrate. He thinks he will intimidate China by capitulating to Russian President Vladimir Putin, but China’s President Xi Jinping, faced with such wreckage, is undoubtedly accelerating his plans to invade Taiwan.

Never in history has a president of the United States surrendered to the enemy. Never has one supported an aggressor against an ally, issued so many illegal decrees, and sacked so many military leaders in one go. Never has one trampled on the American Constitution, while threatening to disregard judges who stand in his way, weaken countervailing powers, and take control of social media.

This is not a drift to illiberalism; this is the beginning of the seizure of democracy. Let us remember that it only took one month, three weeks, and two days to bring down the Weimar Republic and its constitution.

I have confidence in the solidity of American democracy, and the country is already protesting. But in one month, Trump has done more harm to America than in the four years of his last presidency. We were at war with a dictator; now we are fighting against a dictator supported by a traitor.

Eight days ago, at the very moment when Trump was patting French President Emmanuel Macron on the back at the White House, the United States voted at the United Nations with Russia and North Korea against the Europeans demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops.

Two days later, in the Oval Office, the draft-dodger was giving moral and strategic lessons to the Ukrainian president and war hero, Volodymyr Zelensky, before dismissing him like a stable boy, ordering him to submit or resign.

That night, he took another step into disgrace by halting the delivery of promised weapons. What should we do in the face of such betrayal? The answer is simple: Stand firm.

And above all: make no mistake. The defeat of Ukraine would be the defeat of Europe. The Baltic states, Georgia, and Moldova are already on the list. Putin’s goal is to return to the Yalta Agreement, where half the continent was ceded to Stalin.

The countries of the global South are waiting for the outcome of the conflict to decide whether they should continue to respect Europe, or whether they are now free to trample it.

What Putin wants is the end of the world order the United States and its allies established 80 years ago, in which the first principle was the prohibition of acquiring territory by force.

This idea is at the very foundation of the UN, where today Americans vote in favor of the aggressor and against the aggressed, because the Trumpian vision coincides with Putin’s: a return to spheres of influence, where great powers dictate the fate of small nations.

Greenland, Panama, and Canada are mine. Ukraine, the Baltics, and Eastern Europe are yours. Taiwan and the South China Sea are his.

At the Mar-a-Lago dinner parties of golf-playing oligarchs, this is called “diplomatic realism.”

We are therefore alone. But the narrative that Putin cannot be resisted is false. Contrary to Kremlin propaganda, Russia is doing poorly. In three years, the so-called second army in the world has managed to grab only crumbs from a country with about a quarter its population.

With interest rates at 21 percent, the collapse of foreign currency and gold reserves, and a demographic crisis, Russia is on the brink. The American lifeline to Putin is the biggest strategic mistake ever made during a war.

The shock is violent, but it has one virtue. The Europeans are coming out of denial. They understood in a single day in Munich that the survival of Ukraine and the future of Europe are in their hands, and that they have three imperatives.

Accelerate military aid to Ukraine to compensate for the American abandonment, so that Ukraine can hang on, and of course to secure its and Europe’s place at the negotiating table.

This will be costly. It will require ending the taboo on using Russia’s frozen assets. It will require bypassing Moscow’s accomplices within Europe itself through a coalition that includes only willing countries, and the United Kingdom of course.

Second, demand that any agreement include the return of kidnapped children and prisoners, as well as absolute security guarantees. After Budapest, Georgia, and Minsk, we know what Putin’s agreements are worth. These guarantees require sufficient military force to prevent a new invasion.

Finally, and most urgently because it will take the longest, we must build that neglected European defense, which has relied on the American security umbrella since 1945 and which was shut down after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The task is Herculean, but history books will judge the leaders of today’s democratic Europe by its success or failure.

Friedrich Merz has just declared that Europe needs its own military alliance. This is a recognition that France has been right for decades in advocating for strategic autonomy.

Now it must be built. This will require massive investment to replenish the European Defense Fund beyond the Maastricht debt criteria, harmonize weapons and munitions systems, accelerate European Union membership for Ukraine, which now has the leading army in Europe, rethink the role and conditions of nuclear deterrence based on French and British capabilities, and relaunch missile-shield and satellite programs.

Europe can become a military power again only by becoming an industrial power again. But the real rearmament of Europe is its moral rearmament.

We must convince public opinion in the face of war weariness and fear, and above all in the face of Putin’s collaborators on the far right and far left.

They say they want peace. What neither they nor Trump says is that their peace is capitulation, the peace of defeat, the replacement of a de Gaullian Zelensky by a Ukrainian Pétain under Putin’s thumb.The peace of collaborators who, for three years, have refused to support the Ukrainians in any way.

Is this the end of the Atlantic alliance? The risk is great. But in recent days, Zelensky’s public humiliation and all the crazy decisions taken over the past month have finally stirred Americans into action. Poll numbers are plummeting. Republican elected officials are greeted by hostile crowds in their constituencies. Even Fox News is becoming critical.

The Trumpists are no longer at the height of glory. They control the executive branch, Congress, the Supreme Court, and social media. But in American history, the supporters of freedom have always won. They are starting to raise their heads.

The fate of Ukraine will be decided in the trenches, but it also depends on those who defend democracy in the United States, and here, on our ability to unite Europeans and find the means for our common defense, to make Europe the power it once was and hesitates to become again.

Our parents defeated fascism and communism at the cost of great sacrifice. The task of our generation is to defeat the totalitarianisms of the 21st century. Long live free Ukraine, long live democratic Europe.

He. Is. Right.

Long live free and Democratic America. It’s on life-support right now.

Translation courtesy of The Atlantic

Shock and Awe, Shock Therapy

Published by digby on March 9, 2025

Trump and his minions believe they have a mandate to completely dismantle the American economy. I guess it’s because the “vibes” over egg prices were so bad? Really?

Axios reports:

President Trump believes it’s worth risking pain to achieve his medium-term goal of rewiring the U.S. economy. He is attempting a form of economic shock therapy, while accepting there could be collateral damage.

That willingness to shrug off risks of inflation or recession is now rattling financial markets and confidence — and has itself emerged as the biggest near-term economic risk.

The administration has embraced that the economic disruption it envisions could be painful.

Not painful for them of course. Trump’s cabinet is full of billionaires.

Axios says this means that there will be no Washington cavalry coming to save us. I kind of doubt anyone believes that anyway.

Trump is seeking to rapidly undo a global economic order that has been decades in the making. Americans enjoyed the fruits of cheap goods made around the world, at the cost of a diminished domestic manufacturing base.

He envisions an economy with many fewer bureaucratic paper-pushers and much more factory work.

He seeks to bring down the deficit while keeping taxes low — which only pencils out if there are major cuts to America’s social welfare programs.

Treasure Secretary Scott Bessent says we’ve become “addicted to government spending and there’s going to be a detox period.” Ok.

Axios does point out that the American economy was in good shape with a 4% unemployment rate and a .5% inflation rate in 2024. In fact it was the envy of the world. But, you know, there were bad “vibes” about something which the media pumped like we were in the Great Depression and Trump ended up eking out a palty victory last November,

The Trump team rejects that view completely, arguing that Biden handed over an economy so terrible that it demands a wholesale rebuild. “Biden left him a pile of poop,” as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick put it on Bloomberg TV last week.

They say the numbers were “illusory” and that the economy is in such terrible shape that it requires a massive intervention. (You can believe me or you can believe our lying eyes.)

And anyway, they don’t care:

Administration officials are increasingly acknowledging the potential costs of the adjustment.

If trade wars mean U.S. farmers get shut out of foreign markets they’ve spent decades building, well, there “may be a little bit of an adjustment period” as Trump said this in this week’s Congressional address.

What if the stock market drops, hitting Americans’ retirement accounts? “I’m not even looking at the market, because long term the United States will be very strong,” Trump said this week.

Axios notes that economic change is often painful. (Ya think?)

 Americans who voted for Trump seeking a return to the low-inflation, steady-eddy conditions that prevailed in 2019 may be in for a rude awakening. But the president and his advisers believe they have a mandate for big-time change, whatever the costs.

I’d like to give a shout-out to everyone in the media who pumped the “eggs” inflation story like it was Pearl Harbor in the run-up to the 2024 election. They seemed determined to punish the old man and his Black lady successor for the fact that they didn’t entertain them enough setting the stage for this completely unnecessary, counterproductive “shock therapy.” Thanks a lot.

The Real Enemy Within

Published by Tom Sullivan on March 9, 2025

Trump 2.0 might as well use bombs and arson

Photo by Ed Hunsinger via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

If citizens feel whipsawed by the contradictions and backpedaling by Trump 2.0 policy malfeasance, it is hardly surprising. It’s not just the obvious intention to privatize government services things ought to be public (and not-for-profit), it’s the threat those privatizing efforts pose to “Americans’ health, safety, and economic security,” writes Heather Cox Richardson.

Social Security is a perennial target for the right, and is once again. Trump 2.0 will sabotage it, collapse it, then argue that Republican dysfunction by design is reason to kill it:

In another blockbuster story that dropped yesterday, the Social Security Administration announced it will begin to withhold 100% of a person’s Social Security benefits if they are overpaid, even if the overpayment is not their fault. Under President Joe Biden the agency had changed the policy to recover overpayments at 10% of monthly benefits or $10, whichever was greater.

Those who can’t afford that level of repayment can contact Social Security, the notice says, but acting commissioner Leland Dudek has said he plans to cut at least 7,000 jobs—more than 12% of the agency—although its staff is already at a 50-year low. He is also closing field offices, and senior staff with the agency have either left or been fired.

How about some more whipsaw?

Dudek yesterday retracted an order from the day before that required parents of babies born in Maine to go to a Social Security office to register their baby rather than filling out a form in the hospital. Another on Thursday would also have stopped funeral homes from filing death records electronically.

One new father told Joe Lawlor of the Portland Press Herald that he had filled out the form for his son’s social security number and then his wife got a call saying they would have to go to the Social Security office. But when he tried to call Social Security headquarters to figure out what was going on, the wait time was an estimated two hours. So he called a local office, where no one knew what he was talking about. “They keep talking about efficiency,” he said. “This seemed to be something that worked incredibly efficiently, and they broke it overnight.”

Why Maine, asked Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent. I can think of one reason.

Cruelty may be the point, and retribution may be Trump 2.0 policy, but chaos is the plan. It’s also an M.O. Streamlining government to save money isn’t the goal. Whatever else they fail at, Republicans are hell at sowing chaos. And sabotage.

You may recall how in Gov. Scott Walker’s Wisconsin Republicans in 2011 passed a strict voter ID bill that disproportionately impacted “elderly voters, young voters, students, minorities and low-income voters.” To obtain the IDs, they would have to visit their local DMV offices with sometimes hard-to-get documents. Then Walker announced plans to close as many as 16 of them across the state before reversing after the backlash.

I wrote recently about a North Carolina bill that would make holding voter registration drives using official voter registration forms a misdemeanor. Making government user unfriendly is policy.

Musk-Trump chaos is already hurting the economy and the people who live with it, the New York Times editorial board suggested on Saturday. They need “a government that is steady and reliable“:

But in their campaign to shrink the federal government, Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump have defied laws passed by Congress, and they have challenged the authority of the federal courts to adjudicate the legality of their actions. Mr. Trump recently referred to himself as a king and then insisted he had been joking, but there is no ambiguity in his assertion of the power to defy other branches of government. It is a rejection of the checks and balances that have safeguarded our nation for more than 200 years. Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump are not trying to change laws; they are upending the rule of law.

That’s not a byproduct. That’s their program, sabotaging democracy and replacing it with something far worse except for everyone except the elite.

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