Written on .

 

Mr. Krasnov (aka Donald Trump) has made true on his campaign promise to save the world from the impending climate disaster. By levying a global round of customs tariffs he succeeded single handedly to shrink the world economy by (a still to be calculated) x percent, returning it to levels of CO2 output last seen in 200X or 199X. A herculean task skilfully performed which promoted Krasnov's candidacy for honorary leadership of the Last Generation NGO.

As could be expected, Krasnov has exempted Russia (the only country) from the new customs tariffs. Cheap vodka for the U.S. Sa Sdorówje!

Ihsan al-Tawil
 

BRUSSELS — Washington and Moscow are in talks to revive the Nord Stream gas pipelines, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, as the Kremlin vies to regain a foothold in Europe amid the prospect of a ceasefire in Ukraine. "There is talk about the Nord Streams," Lavrov told Russia’s state-controlled Channel One TV station, according to a readout shared by his ministry Wednesday. "It will probably be interesting if the Americans use their influence on Europe and force it not to refuse Russian gas." (editor's bolding)

POLITICO
 
 
 
 
The Krasnov tariff calculations based on massive error, Axios says:
 
 
Source: United States Trade Representative; Graphic: Kavya Beheraj/Axios

"The formula used by the Trump administration to levy reciprocal tariffs contains a serious math error that over-inflates the impact by about a factor of four, economists at the American Enterprise Institute said."

The BBC is reporting that, in a not-at-all shocking development, the US and China have agreed to reduce mutual 100+% tariffs by 115% for 90 days.

Removing idiotic tariffs you only just imposed is not a trade deal, it's a capitulation.  Krasnov, of course, will spin it as a "trade deal" just as he did a few days ago when he removed tariffs on imports from the UK and got almost nothing in return.

Much of the damage, of course, cannot be undone so easily.  The rest of the world no longer sees the US as a reliable partner, and the US cannot even begin to fix that perception while Krasnov remains in office.

Rusty Sword of Truth -- Daily Kos

 


Krasnov’s financial disclosure report shows that he still personally benefits from private deals

by annieli

 

Because he’s all about the sneakers and t-shirts, pretending he’s an NPC, ducking out of a commencement ceremony to play golf.

“Trump says it’s separate — the presidency and his business,”

Mr. Truong said. “But he has the power to do whatever he wants.”

This $1.5 billion golf complex outside the capital, Hanoi, as well as plans for a Trump skyscraper in Ho Chi Minh City, are the Trump family’s first projects in Vietnam — part of a global moneymaking enterprise that no family of a sitting American president has ever attempted on this scale. And as that blitz makes the Trumps richer, it is distorting how countries interact with the United States.

To fast-track the Trump development, Vietnam has ignored its own laws, legal experts said, granting concessions more generous than what even the most connected locals receive. Vietnamese officials, in a letter obtained by The New York Times, explicitly stated that the project required special support from the top ranks of the Vietnamese government because it was “receiving special attention from the Trump administration and President Donald Trump personally.”

And Vietnamese officials have waved the development along in a moment of high-stakes diplomacy. They face intense pressure to strike a trade deal that would head off President Trump’s threat of steep tariffs, which would hit about 30 percent of Vietnam’s exports. 

www.nytimes.com/...

 

 

Trump Destroys His Own Claim that Russia Wouldn’t Have Invaded Ukraine if He Were President

On Tuesday morning Trump posted a comment on his failing Twitter ripoff, Truth Social, wherein he made an unexpected confession. He wrote that...

"What Vladimir Putin doesn’t realize is that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD. He’s playing with fire!"

And there you have it. Trump is admitting that he has been been protecting Putin and Russia from some unspecified "really bad things." So while Putin was massacring innocent Ukrainian civilians, destroying the nation's infrastructure, and insisting that it doesn't have any right to exist, Trump was shielding Russia from any harm that might have come its way.

That's been noticeably true as Trump halted America's military and intelligence support for Ukraine. He also refused to impose any new sanctions on Russia, or to seize the billions of dollars of frozen Russian assets in U.S. control. And Trump has been Russia's strongest advocate to reenter the world community in organizations such as the G7.

News Corpse
 

Musk announces the establishment of his American Party

Musk’s announcement initially inspires joy in our hearts.  Get the popcorn!  The matinee is showing Frankenstein versus Dracula!  However, there is a non-trivial possibility that Musk’s announcement is simply a bargaining chip against Comrade Krasnov.  Something to make Trump back off. 

I think this unlikely.  The worsening relationship between these two men is not subject to the usual calculations of logic.  We are dealing with the most massive, unleashed, and untreated (not counting Ketamine) egos on the planet.  Men who do not see themselves as having rivals, only subjects and minions. 

There can be only one! 

FDRDemocrat

Written on .

 

As President Donald Trump bragged about slapping tariffs on more than 180 countries and territories, there was one conspicuous omission: Russia. 

It was yet another example of Trump’s bizarre obsession with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin as well as his disdain for Ukraine, which got slapped with a 10% tariff. News outlet NOTUS reported that a White House official said that “Russia is not on this list because sanctions from the Ukraine war have already rendered trade between the two countries as zero.”

(The) White House official flat-out lied to NOTUS. The U.S. does conduct some trade with Russia—and far more than some of the countries on its tariff list, like Norfolk Island, which had $655,000 in exports to the U.S. in 2023.

Last year, the U.S. traded an estimated $3.5 billion of goods with Russia, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. “U.S. goods exports to Russia in 2024 were $526.1 million,” the office says on its website. “The U.S. goods trade deficit with Russia was $2.5 billion in 2024.” 

Remember, Trump stupidly sees any trade deficit as a country screwing the U.S. And yet, while Russia has a fairly significant one, Trump has remained mum. 

So what is Russia sending to the U.S.? No. 1 on the list: fertilizer. 

And therein lies the likely reason Trump exempted Russia. 

American farmers get the vast majority of their potash fertilizer from Canada, which the U.S. has now heavily tariffed. Watch him try to replace Canadian potash with Russian fertilizer to both mollify furious farmers and their Republican legislators, and do a solid for his pal Putin.

@kos

 

BREAKING: Trump has announced that he has suspended the tariffs planned against the penguin occupied Heard and McDonald Islands. The penguins have agreed to triple their imports of American made egg warmers. A bubbling Trump made the following statement to a gaggle of reporters:

“This is the greatest deal with penguins ever made"

Written on .

 

It is obvious that we Europeans will have to look for new friends in the wake of Trump's anti-European policy. There is little choice: the only possible future allies are Russia, China and the BRICS states.
Russia has excluded itself due to the war in Ukraine. The BRICS countries, which include Russia and China, are too heterogeneous and undisciplined to serve as partners for Europe. That leaves China.
Why not a partnership with China? China does not have a disputed border with Europe. We are protected from China's expansionism by the existence of Russia, which is big enough to make China's drive for conquest come to nothing.
Competition with China for the role of the world's largest economic and military power is America's problem, not Europe's. Our sole aim is to reorganize the ailing European economy so as not to fall by the wayside in the competition with China and the USA.
American sawing at the roots of NATO has already led to the formation of a new coalition of the willing focused on Europe. This alliance should be in a position to negotiate with China on equal footing and discuss cooperating not only on climate issues, but also on armaments.

The aim could be to purchase US-free armaments: Chinese jets instead of US jets, for example. Why not?

They are obviously good and modern and could complement France's and Sweden's models.

Heinrich von Loesch
 

Beijing would of course try to influence how we govern Europe. Chinese technicians would work at European air bases, Chinese military personnel stay at European command posts: Beijing would know everything without having to spy. Washington would be forced to cut all ties to Europe for fear of Beijing's espionage. Sad, but: Tu l'as voulu, Donald Dandin.

 

 

China expert Wuttke warns that the European Union is distancing itself from the United States and moving closer to Beijing in response to Trump's tariffs. "China is still not just a partner, but a competitor and systemic rival. The USA, on the other hand, remains an irreplaceable partner for Europe," says Wuttke.

WELT
 
 
Spain will pursue closer trade ties with China in the interests of its citizens and of the EU, its agriculture minister Luis Planas said,  rejecting a U.S. warning that moving closer to the Asian country would be "cutting your own throat". 
"We have excellent trade relations with China which we intend to not only continue having, but expanding," Planas told reporters from Ho Chi Minh City, where he was accompanying Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on a trip to Vietnam and, on Friday, China.
 
....key U.S. allies are already considering declaring “independence” from Washington—pursuing nuclear weapons, building new regional groupings, challenging the dollar’s role. Some, spurred by domestic reactions to U.S. pressure, are contemplating moving closer to China, even at enormous peril to their industries or security. The United States risks fracturing the free world and closing its best path to scale...As some in the United States talk about creating divisions among China’s partners by executing a “reverse Kissinger” with Russia, Beijing is determined to exploit fissures in Western alliances, notably between the United States and Europe.
 
Update
Trump to strong-arm EU into splitting from China
Trade deals with US will hinge on president’s tough demands on cheap Chinese imports.  Donald Trump plans to strong-arm the EU into splitting from China in return for lower tariffs
 
 

Xi Jinping urged the EU to stand up to “bullying” and signalled he was ready to work with leaders in the bloc. The Chinese leader’s comments came as China publicly confirmed for the first time it was suspending sanctions against some European politicians. Xi said: “China and the EU should uphold multilateralism, defend fairness and justice, oppose unilateral bullying.”

 

As the US bond market faces turbulence, China appears to be accelerating a strategy of divestment from Treasuries. Beijing, for years the United States' largest foreign creditor, is seeking to reduce its exposure to an asset once considered a safe haven. Behind this development lies a major geopolitical issue: can China really do without the dollar, and what would be the macroeconomic consequences for the United States? Economist Alexandre Delaigue explains.

 

Since Chinese President Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, China's spies no longer seem to fear the U.S., according to former diplomat Jim Lewis, whose direct experience with China's intelligence agencies spans more than 30 years. China's Ministry of State Security, or MSS, is the largest and most active spy agency in the world, according to Lewis. Toward that end, China secretly opened an overseas police station in the middle of New York City. Chinese expats could renew government documents at the station, discovered in 2022, but federal prosecutors said the main purpose of the outpost was to target and harass Chinese dissidents. "They've done it in the Netherlands, they've done it in Canada. But the idea that you'd open a police station in another country, that's a signal disrespect of the sovereignty of that nation," Lewis said. "This is – in scale and in scope and in brazenness – the biggest espionage operation against the U.S. in its history," Lewis said. According to the latest assessment from America's intelligence agencies, China is the most active and persistent cyber threat to the U.S., but hacking has not replaced Beijing's pursuit of old-fashioned human intelligence. China's Communist Party leverages a worldwide network of covert agents to monitor and influence events outside its own borders. It's also surveilling and intimidating Chinese dissidents in the U.S. A Ministry of State Security propaganda video posted on China's largest social network, WeChat, last year boasts that the spy agency "senses things before they happen" and "fights against evil." The video serves as a public message to both foreign adversaries and China's own citizens about the ministry's growing power. The MSS might have as many as 600,000 employees, according to one estimate - CBS

Michael Bociurkiw--This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
 
....China will likely demand the EU lift tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles or even reopen the bilateral trade treaty, the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment. Either or both would send a powerful signal to Washington.

But China’s main goal is ensuring the EU remains an accessible and affluent market for goods that might not reach the U.S. because of Trump’s tariff blitzkrieg. Despite a truce in the trade war, Chinese businesses are widening their global reach to be less dependent on the U.S.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has further disaffected Europe from China. Despite Beijing’s claims of neutrality, Europe largely sees China as complicit in, if not covertly supporting Russia’s war machine.

The EU recently cancelled a high-level economic and trade dialogue with China, due to a lack of progress on trade disputes. It also has moved to restrict Chinese participation in EU medical devices procurement.

.

AP

.

.

 
 
 
 

Written on .

The Polish government intends to prepare its entire population for a potential war with Russia, said Chief of the General Staff Wiesław Kukuła. The country has announced military training courses for both men and women, Politico reports.The plan includes short courses in civil defense and first aid for civilians with no military experience, firearms training programs for those with basic military background, and the expansion of a school program called “Education with the Army.”

“We are neighbors with the Russian Federation and its ally Belarus, so we don’t have a buffer between us and them, and we have only a limited time to prepare and respond,” Kukuła said.

Poland is strengthening its defense capabilities, and now has the largest army in Europe and is spending billions of euros on modern weapons – from fighter jets and tanks to missiles and artillery.

 “[The] Russians are building a massive army in the rear. If peace is not reached and the split within NATO continues, Russia will attack the Baltic states,” said former Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces, General Leon Komornicki.

“This could happen at the end of this year or the beginning of next. An invasion is part of their plan,” Komornicki said.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk previously announced ambitious plans: to grow Poland’s regular armed forces to 500,000, and to train millions of reservists trained by the end of 2025.

“By the end of the year, we want to have a model ready so that every adult male in Poland is trained for war, and so that this reserve is adequate for possible threats,” Tusk said in parliament, adding that women can also sign up.

The military training will be voluntary and short-term: within just a few days, civilians will be introduced to the basics of civil defense, first aid, and self-defense skills.

Poland is expected to present the full plan for training soldiers, reservists, and civilians by the end of this month, after which legislative work on its implementation will begin.

The plan aims to train 100,000 people by the end of 2026 in its initial phase. However, the approach has already drawn criticism.

Former commander of Poland’s rocket and artillery forces, Jarosław Kraszewski, considers that number to be too low. He believes that Polish society has grown too comfortable and forgotten the importance of basic military preparedness.

“Training 100,000 people a year? Too few. We should bring back [the] draft,” the general said. “We have switched to a consumerist lifestyle, the joys of democracy, and traveling around the world without any problems, but we have forgotten that each of us should have basic knowledge in this area.”

In fear of a potential war, Poland also plans to begin preparing school students. Starting as early as September, civil defense subjects may be included in physical education classes.

Kyiv Post
 

For Putin, ammunition costs money, and the dead cost nothing

Russian attacks now led by the walking wounded, as the dictator tries to keep the care costs down

Tim Collins -- The Telegraph

 

That's not quite true. Only if the dead are reported missing, Putin can avoid paying indemnities to the families...

--ed
 
 
(Secretary of Defense Pete) Hegseth’s guidance acknowledges that the U.S. is unlikely to provide substantial, if any, support to Europe in the case of Russian military advances.
 
Foreign Affairs

 

 

Written on .

 

Summary

 In a powerful interview on Politics Done Right, investigative journalist Greg Palast exposes the extensive and racially targeted voter suppression tactics that helped re-elect Donald Trump in 2024. Drawing from his film Vigilantes Inc: America’s New Vote Suppression Hitman, Palast lays out how millions of voters—especially Black, Brown, Indigenous, and young—were disenfranchised through purges, false challenges, and rejected ballots. He explains that had these votes been counted, Kamala Harris would have won the presidency. Palast’s findings are rooted in federal court data and collaborations with civil rights groups, highlighting a coordinated assault on democracy.

Key Bullet Points:

  • Mass Voter Suppression: Over 3.5 million voters, primarily people of color and youth, were disenfranchised in 2024 through purges, rejected mail-in ballots, and provisional ballot disqualifications.

  • Vigilante Challenges: Right-wing operatives, under groups like True the Vote, individually challenged hundreds of thousands of voters without evidence, reviving tactics used by the Ku Klux Klan.

  • Racial Targeting: African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and young voters were disproportionately targeted, with Black mail-in ballots four times more likely to be rejected.

  • Systemic Failures: Palast criticizes the Justice Department’s inaction and highlights bipartisan silence on these systemic abuses of voting rights.

  • Call to Action: If possible, voters must check their registration, avoid mail-in ballots, and support grassroots voting rights organizations to protect democracy.

Greg Palast’s investigation is a blistering indictment of a system that claims to be democratic while actively silencing millions of its most vulnerable citizens. Through meticulous research and a fearless commitment to truth, Palast exposes how the GOP, with complicity and indifference from key institutions, weaponizes bureaucracy and racism to suppress the vote. For progressives, the message is clear: the right to vote is under siege, and without a relentless defense of it, every other progressive cause—from healthcare to climate justice—is imperiled

In the aftermath of the 2024 election, many Americans asked how Donald Trump—who had consistently trailed in polls and faced widespread criticism for authoritarian leanings—could have clawed his way back into the White House. Investigative journalist Greg Palast has an unsettling answer: It wasn’t the people’s will that elected Trump. It was a coordinated campaign of mass voter suppression—legal trickery, bureaucratic barriers, and modern-day Jim Crow tactics—that engineered a stolen victory.

Palast, best known for his work with The Guardian and the bestselling The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, has long sounded the alarm about attacks on voting rights. In his latest film, Vigilantes Inc: America’s New Vote Suppression Hitman, narrated by Rosario Dawson and produced by Martin Sheen with support from Leonardo DiCaprio, he reveals the chilling extent of the manipulation used to undercut democracy. His evidence is not speculative but backed by forensic analysis, federal court proceedings, and fieldwork conducted in partnership with civil rights organizations like Black Voters Matter, Rainbow/PUSH, the NAACP, and the ACLU.

Palast asserts that had no voter suppression in the 2024 election, Vice President Kamala Harris would have defeated Trump by 3.56 million votes—enough to win both the popular vote and a decisive Electoral College majority. That’s not hyperbole; it’s math. Drawing from data supplied by the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) and verified by professional analysts, Palast tracks the disenfranchisement of voters—primarily Black, Brown, Indigenous, and young people—through purges, rejected mail-in ballots and discriminatory voter ID laws.

One of the most egregious tactics Palast exposes is the return of “vigilante” voter challenges, a method resurrected from Ku Klux Klan playbooks of the 1940s. In 2024, a right-wing group named True the Vote launched a campaign to challenge the eligibility of over 363,000 voters—often targeting people of color—without any governmental authority. Palast details how Major Gamaliel Turner, a Black military officer stationed in California, was among those wrongly challenged. Despite being a legal Georgia voter with a right to cast an absentee ballot, Turner’s vote was denied unless he physically traveled 2,700 miles to prove his citizenship and residency. He did—but thousands of others couldn’t.

This is not an isolated story. According to the EAC, 43% of all provisional ballots—typically given to voters facing registration issues—are rejected. The rejection rate for mail-in ballots is shockingly high: Black voters are 400% more likely to have their mail-in ballots disqualified than white voters. These numbers should be headline news, but instead, they are buried in obscure databases and ignored by mainstream narratives obsessed with political horse races.

Palast’s work shows that modern vote suppression is systemic, racially targeted, and executed with both high-tech precision and legal cover. Voter rolls are purged en masse based on flawed data. Ballots are disqualified for technicalities. Voters are misled or unaware they’ve been challenged until it’s too late. While Republicans frame these efforts as protecting “election integrity,” the actual result is the disenfranchisement of millions of legal voters.

Perhaps most infuriating is that this war on voting rights is openly supported—or at least tolerated—by Republican-controlled legislatures and secretaries of state. In Georgia, for instance, Palast and his team verified that 63% of the nearly 5 million voters purged from the rolls had not moved and were still eligible. These purges disproportionately affected Black voters, the Democratic base, and communities least likely to have the resources to fight back.

The film Vigilantes Inc. doesn’t merely diagnose the problem—it prescribes action. Palast urges voters to check their registration status months before any election. He recommends voting early in person if possible to avoid the pitfalls of mail-in ballots. Most crucially, he calls on Americans to support grassroots voting rights organizations that are doing the heavy lifting to inform, register, and protect marginalized voters.

At its core, Palast’s investigation reveals a disturbing truth: the United States does not suffer from voter fraud; it suffers from voter suppression. This isn’t a fringe theory. As legal scholars, civil rights advocates, and election data analysts consistently affirm, these tactics are deliberate, racialized, and antithetical to democracy. If left unchecked, they will continue to warp elections, silence communities, and keep power in the hands of those who fear a truly representative electorate.

 

The progressive movement must recognize that voting rights are not simply a civil rights issue—they are the linchpin of every other cause, from climate justice to economic equity. Without the vote, the people have no power to chart a different future. That is why exposing the crimes detailed in Vigilantes Inc. is not just important—it is urgent.

You can stream Vigilantes Inc for free at gregpalast.com and share the film widely. As Palast puts it, “It’s time to fight like democracy depends on it—because it does.”

Egberto Willies

More Articles ...