Tripartite

In May, Edward Wong in The New York Times wrote that President Trump's

actions and statements suggest he might be envisioning a world in which each of the three so-called great powers — the United States, China and Russia — dominates its part of the globe, some foreign policy analysts say.

It would be a throwback to a 19th-century style of imperial rule.

Mr. Trump has said he wants to take Greenland from Denmark, annex Canada and re-establish American control of the Panama Canal. Those bids to extend U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere are the clearest signs yet of his desire to create a sphere of influence in the nation’s backyard.

He has criticized allies and talked about withdrawing U.S. troops from around the globe. That could benefit Russia and China, which seek to diminish the American security presence in Europe and Asia. Mr. Trump often praises President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping, China’s leader, as strong and smart men who are his close friends.

In March, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius had argued much the same, that

The best assessment of Trump’s strategic “vision” that I’ve seen comes from Alex Younger, a former head of the British intelligence service known as MI6. He said in a Feb. 21 interview on BBC’s “Newsnight” that “we are in a new era where, by and large, international relations aren’t going to be determined by rules and multilateral institutions. They’re going to be determined by strong men and deals"...

Trump seems to envision a new balance of power with three poles: the United States plus Russia and China, whose leaders he sees as kindred spirits. The rest of the world, including the United States’ oldest allies, must fend for itself.

Two months later, as more evidence rolled in, Edward Wang in The New York  Times agreed, writing that President Donald Trump's

actions and statements suggest he might be envisioning a world in which each of the three so-called great powers — the United States, China and Russia — dominates its part of the globe, some foreign policy analysts say.

It would be a throwback to a 19th-century style of imperial rule.

Mr. Trump has said he wants to take Greenland from Denmark, annex Canada and re-establish American control of the Panama Canal. Those bids to extend U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere are the clearest signs yet of his desire to create a sphere of influence in the nation’s backyard.

He has criticized allies and talked about withdrawing U.S. troops from around the globe. That could benefit Russia and China, which seek to diminish the American security presence in Europe and Asia. Mr. Trump often praises President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping, China’s leader, as strong and smart men who are his close friends.

Not quite as presciently- it appears- Ignatius had added

European leaders tell me they are so worried about an expansionist Russia that they are prepared to take a strong stand in Ukraine by committing to send troops there to deter further aggression after a ceasefire. The Russians are outraged, but if Europe holds firm, will Trump really take Putin’s side against America’s closest allies? I doubt it.

Doubt no longer. In the months which have followed, Donald repeatedly has taken Russia's side againt Ukraine, pressuring Zelenskyy to give up territory and on a few occasions claiming that Ukraine itself started the war. While the President criticizes NATO, his Administration has advocated "ending the perception, and preventing the reality, of NATO as a  perpetually expanding alliance."

That attitude throws into doubt the possibility of an agreement ending the Russia-Ukraine war which would give Ukraine significant security guarantees. The President does not view the transatlantic alliance as helpful to his dream of a world dominated by the world's three greatest powers- Russia, China, and the USA. Unfortunately

... the haggling over who gets dominance over what and where would likely come at the expense of (countries other than the USA, China, and Russia).

"Today's major powers are seeking to negotiate a new global order primaraily with each other," Monica Toft, professor of international relations at Tufts University in Massachusetts wrote in the journal Foreign Affairs.

"iIn a scenario in which the United States, China, and Russia all agree that they have a vital interest in avoiding a nuclear war, acknowledging each other's spheres of influence can serve as a mechanism to deter escalation," Toft said.

If that were the caase, "negotiations to end the war in Ukraine could resemble a new Yalta," she added.

Yet the thought of a Ukraine deemed by Trump to be in Russia's sphere is likely to send shivers down the spines of many in Europe- not least in ukraine itself.

"The success or failure of Ukraine to defend its sovereignty is going to have a lot of impact in terms of what the global system ends p looking like a generation from now," Mankoff said.

When Donald Trump forces an end- an unjust end- to the war in eastern Europe, he will have taken a step in promoting Vladimir Putin's plan to gain control over the entire region. "He (Putin) wants to see it happen," President Trump says. We know what Putin wants, and it has been clear since the beginning of this presidential term that Donald Trump wants the same thing.

Trump: "I saw a very interesting President Putin today. I mean, he wants to see it happen. He wants to see it. He told me very strongly. I believe him. Don't forget, we went through the Russia Russia Russia hoax together and he'd call me, I'd call him, I'd say 'Can you believe… pic.twitter.com/CKFq6bYYe2

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 28, 2025

 

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Poppycock

Give this guy from Texas 4th Congressional District a cookie. He's right about mainland China, at least in the past.

We've lost tens of thousands of Americans a year to fentanyl, made in China and trafficked into our country by cartels.

Striking the narcoterrorists at sea is in America's best interest.

It's a shame that Democrats can't get over their hatred of President Trump to agree. pic.twitter.com/QU0KMkYTgN

— Rep. Pat Fallon (@RepPatFallon) December 26, 2025

Obviously, it is brought into the USA by carters, as Representative Fallon asserts. However, little of it is coming from Venezuela or Columbia. According to the top official at Customs and Border Protection in September

We saw that as China scheduled fentanyl in 2019 [as a class of drugs that are controlled and restricted], the fentanyl production moved to Mexico. The precursors started moving to Mexico, and we started seeing the pills and powder come across the southwest border specifically trafficked mostly by the Sinaloa cartel. Even today, they control that corridor between Mexico and Arizona and California….

As we started looking for precursors based on the intelligence we had garnered from our previous operations, we saw these substances coming into Los Angeles, JFK, and some of the other express hubs. And we also continued to see the pill presses, dies, and molds that are used for producing the fentanyl pills.

The interesting thing about the precursors is that they were coming in transit through the U.S., then down over the southwest border into Mexico, then being used to process the pills, and then being smuggled back north into the U.S. This gave us multiple opportunities to really hit these transnational criminal organizations that are moving the fentanyl.

So somehow the fetanyl is going from China or Mexico to the southwestern USA- then back to Venezuela and on to the USA?  That's doing things the hard way.

Donald doesn't  give a rat's behind about fetanyl, though that's still more negative than his attitude toward cocaine. The Annenberg Publlic Policy Center has reported that.

According to the indictment filed on Jan. 27, 2022, in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York, from about 2004 to 2022, (former Honduran president Juan Carlos) Hernández “participated in a corrupt and violent drug-trafficking conspiracy to facilitate the importation of tons of cocaine into the United States.” He received “millions of dollars from multiple drug-trafficking organizations in Honduras, Mexico, and elsewhere, including from the former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquin Guzman Loera,” the Mexican drug kingpin known as “El Chapo.”

Hernández used the drug money to fund his political campaigns and commit voter fraud, the indictment said. “In exchange, Hernández protected drug traffickers, including his brother and former member of the Honduran National Congress Juan Antonio Hernández Alvarado … from investigation, arrest, and extradition; caused sensitive law enforcement and military information to be provided to drug traffickers to assist their criminal activities; caused members of the Honduran National Police and military to protect drug shipments in Honduras; and allowed brutal violence to be committed without consequence.”

Hernández “contributed with his co-conspirators to Honduras becoming one of the largest transshipment points in the world for United States-bound cocaine,” the indictment also said. Loads of cocaine were trafficked through Honduras from Colombia and Venezuela by boat and air.

(The Trump administration has been building up the U.S. military presence in the Caribbean in recent months and striking alleged drug-running boats off the coasts of Venezuela and Colombia, as we’ve previously written.).

President Trump on November 28 announced that he was handing a full pardon to Hernandez and two days later told reporters

Well, I was told, I was asked by Honduras, many of the people of Honduras, they said it was a Biden setup. … The people of Honduras really thought [Hernández] was set up and it was a terrible thing.

He was the president of the country, and they basically said he was a drug dealer because he was the president of the country." And they said it was a Biden administration setup. And I looked at the facts and I agreed with them.

It's difficult to separate dishonesty and ignorance by GOP members of Congress as this regime continues its reign of terror against whom Donald Trump characterizes as "bloated, fat, and dsigusting" Americans. But there is a tell because there is no such thing as a "narcoterrorist." Transporting narcotics for fun and profit kills a lot of people but does not constitute "terrorism." so if the Republican is railing against "narco-terrorists," the congressman has a complete disregard for the truth, not unlike the President he or she follows blindly.

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Rest Assured, He's There

I don't know the context of the following statement from Morning Joe's Joe Scarborough, what may have preceded his remark or followed his remark. And the stupid may have been removed from his brain later in the segment. He remarked

So one of the great mysteries all along in this- no what Donald Trump is hiding, not what did he do, deh, deh, deh, deh- why if he's not in these files, which all reporting says he's not, why is he so obsessed on blocking access to the files? Is he trying to protect somebody?

BREAKING🚨: Joe Scarborough on the newly released Epstein files containing nothing incriminating about President Trump:

"One of the biggest puzzles for me—and many others—is that despite reporting on this for quite some time, Donald Trump doesn't appear on Epstein's list.… pic.twitter.com/JB5snr2XuE

— Officer Lew (@officer_Lew) December 23, 2025

That "somebody" may be Donald Trump himself- worse, it may be a donor. That donor could be directly related to Russia, Saudi Arabia, China or another nation, and the President's connection to him (or them) may be a national security threat. If the association does not have foreign implications, it nevertheless may reveal that Trump is tied to a donor who controls him.

Donald may be protecting Melania Trump in a matter related to her immigration to this country or to her personal past. Rumor has it that she was not, ahem, a virgin when she met Donald. That would prove extremely embarrassing, though that would be the least among possible revelations in the Epstein files.

Trump may have been involved in laundering money for Jeffrey Epstein. One of the documents released on December 23 referred to internal FBI communications following Epstein's arrest in July, 2019 which "asks about the status of what it refers to as '10 co-conspirators," with the response heavily redacted. Trump may have been one of the ten, though there is no evidence that he is.

Nonetheless, Trump may have been involved, directly or indirectly, in the sex trafficking activities of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell Or he may simply have been a client, cheerily having consensual and/or forced sex with numerous women, possibly including juveniles. And his sex may not have been restricted to females, given the (figuratively) patented Trump dance simulating a sexual act while the onetime gay anthem "YMCA"  plays. 

Or it may be a combination of two or more of those items.  The point is, as John Oliver would put it, that we don't know.  The vast majority of the files have not been released (at least not yet) and a tremendous amount which has been disclosed has been heavily redacted.

Notwithstanding Scarborough's remark, there is likely no Epstein "list."  Donald Trump does "not appear on Epstein's list" because, as far as we know, there is no actual list.

Scarborough should know this. He should know also that not all reporting says he's not in the files. Rather, the "reporting" is that no one has accused Trump of breaking any laws.  Nor has he been accused of specific wrongdoing. And that's because

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy Todd Blanche informed President Donald Trump in May that his name appeared multiple times in the government's files on Jeffrey Epstein that the Department of Justice and the FBI reviewed.

The officials told Trump of their plan not to release any additional documents, the report says, because the material contained child pornography and the personal information of victims.

Maybe, but the odds are that the other reason included the most important to the Justice Department- the repeated invocation of the name "Donald Trump." Those odds are roughly the same as those of the Houston Texans making the NFL playoffs this season. Have patience- it takes a long time to excise the name of a former businessman, actor, and current President when documents are saturated with his name.

But we don't know for sure. We don't know because the Trump Justice Department has been balking all along at releasing the files. And the odds that this is unrelated to Donald Trump being involved in highly unsavory, if not illegal, behavior are approximately equal to the Indianapolis Colts entering the playoffs.

 

    

                                       MERRY CHRISTMAS

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Late to the Game. And Dishonest.

This woman, a reporter from The Federalist by the name of Brianna Lyman, is slick. This is from CNN's "Saturday Morning Table for Five."

Brianna Lyman on the "Trump-Kennedy Center": "I do find it funny that… because no one in [the Democratic] party cared in 2020 when you guys were changing names of hospitals, parks, schools, streets, everything in the name of George Floyd."pic.twitter.com/2fP6T0yUhv

— Thomas Sowell Quotes (@ThomasSowell) December 22, 2025

Lyman, referring to the Democratic Party, claims

.... no one in your party cared in 2020 when you guys were changing names of hospitals, parks, schools, streets, everything in the name of George Floyd.  Wikipedia has an entire page called List of name changes due to the George Floyd protests. It's the longest Wikipedia page I've ever seen.

Indeed, it is long, though if it's the longest she ever has seen, she has to get out more. But notice it's called (emphasis mine) the "List of name changes due to the George Floyd protests."  It's not the "List of things changed in the name of George Floyd."

Yet, she contended that names of hospitals, parks, schools, streets, everything" were changed in the name of George Floyd."

The number of things changed to anything "George Floyd" did not hover far above zero. The reason for name changes varied considerably. In many cases, it was done to avoid the word "Dixie" or something else relating to the Confederacy. Many times, there was something apparently racist or otherwise bigoted in the original name. In other instances, there was an effort to eliminate an ethnic stereotype, whether against blacks, South Asians, or tribal people.  

One guest, Cari Champion, pointed out

I think that this country had a racial reckoning and they understood — Please let me finish because I let you finish — They had a racial reckoning and they understood that this country had done some things that were very unfair, especially to marginalized [people], especially to Black people, and they were giving tributes and statues to people who were slave owners who were considered heroes at one point.

Lyman responded, sarcastically, "Like Jefferson and Washington,"  a legitimate remark because there were a few- very few- instances involving statues of the two ex-Presidents. However, as they continued in disagreement, Champion advised her "The reality is that they may have over corrected but right now they're over correcting in another way."

That is clearly what the Trump Administration is doing. What no one, understandably but unfortunately, advised Lyman is that during the height of the Floyd protests, even Republicans and conservatives largely avoided criticizing the movement, perhaps because it is difficult to criticize something called "Black Lives Matter." (Tucker Carlson was a notable exception.) It started to become fashionable only in retrospect for the right to criticize those 2020 protests. Few conservatives are able to claim that they were critical in real time.

My favorite entry on the Wikipedia page The Federalist reporter lied to us about pertained to a band called "Slaves." It announced on 6/25/20 that it would become "Rain City Drive" because "As obstinate supporters of the BLM Movement, we cannot continue to tie our music and our positive message toa word associated with such negative weight and hurt."

That was commendable, though as a non-obstinate supporter of the BLM movement, I would have thought it obvious that "Slaves" was not a good name for a band. If nothing else, it trivialized a reprehensible aspect of American history.

The name "Slaves" for a band was never wise and trivialized a reprehensible aspect of American history. Though a non-obstinate supporter of the BLM movement, I realized, as anyone should have, that "Slaves" (or "Enslaved People") was a bad move and needed to be shelved. 

Perhaps Brianna Lyman would agree, assuming that she actually read that Wikipedia page she wanted everyone to believe proved that Democrats were fond of "George Floyd" this and "George Floyd" that. It's impossible to determine whether she did even skim the page. However, conservatives have learned over the last few years that attaching "Democrats" to "George Floyd" is a winning ploy, even though at the time those protests were taking place, most of them kept their mouths conveniently shut.

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Don't Credit God for Unbridled Murder

Don't blame God for this. He- actually, not a "he"- is not to be blamed.

Thank God for the Second Amendment
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 https://t.co/M1tFRviWHq

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 19, 2025

After 35 people were gunned down in the Tasmanian city of Port Arthur in 1996, Australia

essentially banned assault rifles and many other semiautomatic rifles, as well as shotguns. They imposed mandatory gun buybacks that took as many as one in three privately held guns out of circulation, and, according to some estimates, melted down as many as one million guns. They also imposed new registration requirements and restrictions on gun purchases.

Thereafter, mass murders by firearm, aside from domestic situations, were almost unknown in Australia until 15 individuals were slaughtered at Bondi Beach in Sydney on December 14.  In the USA, they are common, whatever the definition of mass shooting. And so it is notable, though regrettably no longer shocking, that

There were almost 47,000 firearms-related deaths in the United States in 2023, the most recent year with available data from Pew Research Center, for an average rate of 13.7 deaths per 100,000 people.

Of those, about 18,000 were gun-related homicides, for a rate of 5.6 gun murders per 100,000 people that year.

During a comparable period (July 2023 through June 2024) Australia saw only 31 gun-related murders, a homicide rate of 0.09 gun murders per 100,000 people, according to data from the Australian Institute of Criminology.

And so, unburdened by a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right of every resident to own a musket he can take upon joining a no-existent militia, the government of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is encouraging stricter gun control measures.  The nation's officials evidently are determined to prevent Australia from creating the killing fields we have in the USA.  A merciful God would approve.

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Unknowable Future

The good news from Secretary of State Marco Rubio's news conference today is a response which bore no resemblance to those typically seen from President Trump nor Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. There was no blame placed on Joe Biden, imaginary, domestic Communists or Socialists, "fake news," nor the "Democrat," or even Democratic, Party. The bad news is that his vocabulary knowledge is deficient, a minor deficiency. (Comma day!) And so we had

Q: By any metric, the Israelis are flouting the ceasefire Trump negotiated by killing an average of 2 children a day, not allowing aid into Gaza. How long can the Israelis be allowed to show such disrespect to President Trump?

RUBIO: That's your characterization about… pic.twitter.com/0sMtxORJ1Y

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 19, 2025

Rubio is seen remarking

.... all the hostages were released and we have relative piece now for the most part despite the things you're pointing to. That was very difficult. But this is not easy. Peace is a verb, it's an action, it's not a sentiment.

Actually, peace is not a verb and not an action, but a state or period.  But given that he serves an authoritarian with grandiose delusion, that's trivial.  H

He continued

Every single day will bring challenges. Every single day. We've also had incidents where for example, the last couple of weeks, where Hamas elements emerged from a tunnel, attached an explosive device inside a vehicle, and injured and almost killed Israeli soldiers. 

We still have and see every single day, Hamas taking steps to strengthen themselves within those places in Gaza they still control. We saw early on the atrocities they were committing in the streets against people. They ere trying to show people how strong they were. 

This highlights how, with both sides periodically breaking the ceasefire, the Trump-inspired deal is not a peace deal but merely a ceasefire, and an imperfect, fragile one at that.  In an article, written soon after the 10/7/23 Hamas attack, the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point noted

both before and after the so-called “Shalit deal” in which Israel released over 1,000 Palestinian security prisoners in exchange for one Israeli soldier captured in Gaza in 2006—Gilad Shalit—Hamas has ceaselessly engaged in kidnappings and attempted kidnappings in hopes of gaining a valuable bargaining chip to use in future negotiations with Israel.

One of those 1,000+ prisoners released included Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind 26 months ago of the most successful terrorist attack upon Israel in its nation's history. 

The September agreement which, at least temporarily, ended the Hamas-Israel war included release of all prisoners held by the butchers of Gaza, which slashed the ability of Hamas to blackmail Israel. Well: good, or great. Hamas has been, as it was before the deal, largely, though not totally emasculated. As part of Trump's 21-point peace plan, the group is to disarm. Good luck with that. 

Moreover, a peaceful and just accommodation of "Palestinians"- presumably a Palestinian state- is no closer than it has been for several years.  The famine was precipitated by Israeli warfare but encouraged by the Trump Administration, which replaced the United Nations and its partner organizations with the largely ineffectual private Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.  Though not genocide, it was an active effort to curry favor with private interests at the expense of human life.

The contempt for human life echoed a major theme of this regime, such as the Secretary of State's stubborn refusal to back down from his enthusiasm for the elimination of USAID, which has killed hundreds of thousands of individuals abroad, with the clock running. Hopefully, at some point Rubio will realize that reinforcing and deepening human suffering is a major objective of President Trump. 

More importantly, we can wish that none of the nearly 2,000 prisoners held by Tel Aviv since before 10/7/2023 becomes the instigator of a  major terrorist attack, such as the one led by the late Yahya Sinwar. I don't like Israel's odds.

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Keeping the Public in the Dark

This is a classic ploy of propagandists, in this case one with 3.9 million followers:

Why do these traitors always get to testify behind closed doors? https://t.co/88irN7lrnt

— Catturd ™ (@catturd2) December 17, 2025

On Wednesday, 12/17/25, former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith told members of the House Judiciary Committee in a closed-door interview

that his team of investigators “developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that President Donald Trump had criminally conspired to over the results of the 2020 election, according to portions of his opening statement obtained by The Associated Press.

Smith also said investigators had accrued “powerful evidence” Trump broke the law by hoarding classified documents from his first term as president at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and by obstructing government efforts to recover the records.

 “I made my decisions in the investigation without regard to President Trump’s political association, activities, beliefs, or candidacy in the 2024 election,” Smith said. “We took actions based on what the facts and the law required — the very lesson I learned early in my career as a prosecutor.”

 He said that if asked whether he would “prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether the president was a Republican or Democrat.”

The answer to the slick, disingenuous question from the tweeter is: because committee chairperson Jim Jordan subpoenaed Smith before he had a chance to appear in public. Thus,

The deposition before the House Judiciary Committee gave lawmakers of both parties their first chance, albeit in private, to question Smith about a pair of investigations into Trump that resulted in since-abandoned criminal charges between the Republican president’s first and second terms in office. Smith was subpoenaed by the Republican-led committee this month to provide testimony and documents as part of a GOP investigation into the Trump inquiries during the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden.

The former special counsel cooperated with the congressional demand, though his lawyers noted that he had been volunteered more than a month before the subpoena was issued to answer questions publicly before the committee — an overture they said was rebuffed by Republicans. Trump had told reporters that he supported the idea of an open hearing.

In a statement earlier this month, Smith attorney Peter Koski had issued a statement reading

Nearly six weeks ago Jack offered to voluntarily appear before the House Judiciary committee in an open hearing to answer any questions lawmakers have about his investigation into President Trump’s alleged efforts to unlawfully overturn the election results and retention of classified documents. We are disappointed that offer was rejected, and that the American people will be denied the opportunity to hear directly from Jack on these topics.

That part about Trump telling reporters that he supported the idea of an open hearing comes with a huge "however." As explained beginning at 3:56 of the video below, Donald Trump (both as 2024 candidate and as President), has urged Judge Aileen Cannon not to permit release of Volume 2- the stolen documents matter- of the Smith report.

. 

The point is, as John Oliver would put it, that the former special counsel wants as much information as legally possible to reach the public. Prominent House Republicans and President Trump will do what they can to prevent it. It's a wise move for political preservation.

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Casting Blame is Imperative

On Thursday, November 20, President Donald Trump

accused several Democratic lawmakers of “seditious behavior,” calling for them to “be arrested and put on trial” for behavior that, he said, could be “punishable by death.”

The lawmakers, many of whom are veterans, had posted a video Tuesday telling military and intelligence officers to "refuse illegal orders."

“It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. Their words cannot be allowed to stand — We won’t have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET,” the president wrote in one Truth Social post Thursday morning, linking to an article about the video from the Washington Examiner.

“This is really bad, and Dangerous to our Country. Their words cannot be allowed to stand. SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP???” Trump wrote in another post.

In a third, he wrote: "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!"

Trump also reposted multiple posts from other Truth Social users about the video, including one that said, “Hang them George Washington would.”

The lawmakers in the video, which Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin posted Tuesday, are all military veterans and former intelligence officials who spoke directly to members of the military and intelligence community.

The next day, Donald

sought to clarify that he was "not threatening death" against Democratic lawmakers who released a video urging military members to refuse unlawful commands.

His remarks to Fox News on Friday came after bipartisan condemnation of Trump's earlier social media post accusing the Democrats of "seditious behaviour, punishable by death"...

Following his social media posts, Trump told Fox News in a radio interview on Friday: "I'm not threatening death, but I think they're in serious trouble."

"If you look at sedition", Trump continued, "that's a form of, a very strong form of being a traitor. It's a terrible thing to say, I must tell you."

"Cleanup on aisle six" so 

Following his social media posts, Trump told Fox News in a radio interview on Friday: "I'm not threatening death, but I think they're in serious trouble."

 "If you look at sedition", Trump continued, "that's a form of, a very strong form of being a traitor. It's a terrible thing to say, I must tell you."

O.K., so the President of the United States of America recommended for only 24 hours, give or take, that six members of the United States Congress be hanged. The next day, feeling a surge of compassion, he merely recommended they be tried for sedition, which carries a penalty of fines and a prison sentence of up to 20 years for a civilian and the death penalty for active-duty military members.

But Republicans and conservatives are warming up to blame Democrats for the civil insurrection likely during Donald Trump's second term. Trump says "seditious behavior, punishable by death, James Carville muses aloud "but I just wonder if deep down inside, somebody can't do some sort of intervention. For one Trump supporter, this means Carville "is hoping someone can 'end their suffering'" (quote marks added by the tweeter).

James Carville’s Sick World Is Disintegrating: "I wouldn’t piss down Trump’s God damn throat if his heart was on fire." Think that’s bad? One voice in millions of deranged Dems losing their minds. He’s hoping someone can “end their suffering.” WTH?
Encouraging an assassination? pic.twitter.com/JYQRcZcTmy

— John Cremeans (@JohnCremeansX) December 16, 2025

No intervention or anything remotely similar is coming. We learned Thursday from Chief of Staff Susie Wiles that the President believes "there's nothing he can't do, nothing, zero."  

And he has had good reason to believe that since at least July 1, 2024, when the Supreme Court ruled that Trump, as the ACLU put it, is "presumptively immune from criminal liability for his official acts and is absolutely immune for some 'core' of them." There is virtually nothing Donald can't get away with, and "virtually" is headed out of town. There is no one from inside the house- the White House- who will question him. 

So if Donald Trump calls for the execution of political enemies, there is little downside for him. And one of the major upsides is that if civil insurrection ensues, he can blame it on Democrat. As we can see from the tweet above, his disciples will be only so happy to oblige him in his authoritarian fantasy. 

          

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Deplorable

On Sunday, a tweeter on X with more than 189,000 followers commented

All I have seen is people being shocked and saddened by Rob Reiner's murder. You will always get some lunatic posting but I haven't seen one person on the right say something nasty.

This is a tragedy. He was a massively talented man.

On Tuesday, after he was criticized for "pretending" those conservatives "don't exist to protect your feelings," the tweeter responded "What are you talking about? Since last night I have seen a couple of stupid posts but the vast majority have been respectful. Now do the Charlie Kirk murder."

Unfortunately, he spoke a little too soon

Regardless of how you felt about Rob Reiner, this is inappropriate and disrespectful discourse about a man who was just brutally murdered. I guess my elected GOP colleagues, the VP, and White House staff will just ignore it because they’re afraid? I challenge anyone to defend it. pic.twitter.com/j3dvzRxLQJ

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) December 15, 2025

When Charlie Kirk was murdered, Rob Reiner was asked by Piers Morgan "what was your immediate reaction?" The actor turned director and producer replied

Well, horror. Absolute horror. And I unfortunately saw the video of it and it's beyond belief. What happened to him. And that could never happen to everybody. I don't care what your political beliefs are, that's not acceptable. That's not a solution to solving problems and I felt, like what his wife said at the service, at the memorial they had, was exactly right, totally. And I believe- I'm Jewish but I believe in the teachings of Jesus and I believe in doing to others. I believe in forgiveness and what she said to me was beautiful and absolutely she forgave his assassin and I think that's, that is admirable.

How about this? pic.twitter.com/OWNYesnI5G

— Dede Watson (@Dede_Watson) December 15, 2025

I would have added a point and kept a couple out, and "I believe in doing to others" was inartful. However, the argument was sensitive and generous and its thrust, spot-on: "I don't care what your political beliefs are, that's not acceptable. That's not a solution to solving problems...."

Steve M. lists numerous comments from Trump supporters on the Fox News and Breitbart websites who "pat themselves on the back for not being haters while.... being haters." I've similarly been bombarded on my X timeline by MAGAts with no sense of irony. They blame the left for allegedly "celebrating" (in the word of a few) Charlie Kirk's murder and blaming the right for condoning the murders of Rob Reiner and his wife. Then they themselves admit not a whiff of regret about the latter crime.

Giving credit where credit is due, US Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Mike Lawler of suburban new York also criticized the President for his classless and cruel remark on Truth Social.  Surely, there will be many more. 

Surely, I'm joking. Although events have proven then-presidential nominee Hillary Clinton correct- though injudicious- in realizing half of Trump's supporters should be put into a "basket of deplorables," less blame should go to the President's fans than to prominent Republicans, especially members of Congress who remain silent and Donald himself.  

Among random liberals and progressives, there were very few individuals who even with the anonymity of social media expressed pleasure at the assassination of Charlie Kirk, whatever his hostile views toward the LGBTQ+ community and black women. There were even very few who pointed out the irony that he was an opponent of gun safety laws. 

That can be contrasted with the views of Trump supporters toward this past weekend's murders in Los Angeles. Even if their response were far more empathetic , however, that would not make a hill of beans difference without condemnation from Republicans on Capitol Hill.  More than any, they are the real deplorables. 

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We've Been Had

On November 16, 2023, Representative Ro Khanna appeared on Meet the Press, hosted by NBC News' Kristen Welker.  The California congressman and Republican Thomas Massie were the sponsors of, and were heavily invested in, the House bill which purportedly would force the Justice Department to release all of the files pertaining to Jeffrey Epstein. 

At that point, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene had joined Massie, Representative Nancy Mace, and Representative Lauren Boebert as the few GOP Representatives willing to buck the White House and endorse the Massie-Khanna initiative, although, as Khanna told Welker, he was hoping for at least 40 Republicans overall to jump on board. 

So the NBC personality asked the Californian "Your joint bill with Thomas Massie is going to come to a vote on the House floor. It's expected to this week. Do you think you have enough votes for it to pass?" Massie responded "We do, and there's nothing I have been prouder of or more meaningful than this work. The credit goes to the survivors."

 

If this was his proudest moment, he set the bar very low.  The House passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act (with only one "no" vote), the Senate followed suit, and three days after the Meet the Press interview The Washington Post reported that President Donald J. Trump had announced

that he has signed a bill directing the Justice Department to release the Epstein files, documents related to the sprawling sex-trafficking investigation into the onetime powerful financier that are fervently sought by Trump’s political opponents and members of his political base.

After Trump’s announcement, made in a social media post, the Justice Department will have 30 days to release all unclassified documents about Jeffrey Epstein, who was arrested on federal sex-trafficking charges in 2019 and died in an apparent suicide while in federal custody.

At that point, waiting thirty days was no big deal, and that period is almost over as of today, December 14, 2025. However

despite Trump’s signature, there are many reasons to doubt that a bulk release of the files is imminent — the legislation calling for the release of the files includes major loopholes, and the Justice Department has said little about its plans….

What Congress is “legally entitled to” is a more complicated question than the rhetoric from Capitol Hill might imply.

The legislation that Trump and Congress agreed to pass gives the Justice Department a few exceptions under which it can refuse to release material. Among them: if release “would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution.”

On Friday, Trump ordered Bondi to launch a federal investigation related to Epstein — this one aimed at his ties to several prominent Democrats….

That new investigation could become a reason for the Justice Department to block release of many files. Bondi and her deputies have previously said they cannot release information about active investigations.

Other information could be covered by grand jury secrecy rules. The bill does not explicitly waive those.

The Justice Department has also said many of the files cannot be released because they contain sensitive victim information and pornographic material. The legislation contains another exception allowing the Justice Department to withhold material that “would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy” or “depicts or contains child sexual abuse.”

Nonetheless, Khanna has taken us for idiots. As The Guardian noted

a warning for those in the Trump administration who may find themselves pressed to withhold information: comply or face the consequences.

“Now, it’s federal law for those documents to be released, and if the justice officials don’t release it, they will be prosecuted, and they … could be prosecuted in a future administration,” Khanna told the Guardian on Wednesday evening, shortly before Trump put his signature on a bill intended to reveal the truth about what he spent weeks calling a “Democrat hoax”.

“The career officials [that] are making these decisions have to think that they’re going to be subject to future contempt of Congress or criminal prosecution, and they’re taking a huge risk … if they violate that, given that administrations change,” the California lawmaker added.

Oh my gosh, they're quaking in their boots, they are. We are reminded that in Barack Obama's first term, the President

made it clear that we don’t torture now — but he’s done very little to ensure that we won’t do it again in the future.

The Justice Department’s Thursday announcement that it has closed its investigation into all torture-related actions save two particularly gruesome fatalities was a poignant reminder of that inaction.

Obama has renounced torture. He has issued a new executive order defining acceptable interrogation techniques. He has reasserted the illegality of many of the techniques used in American prisons around the world during the first few years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

But he has also repeatedly expressed his desire to “look forward instead of looking backward.” As a result, there has yet to be any accountability for the actions of the Bush/Cheney administration. And none appears forthcoming.

And without accountability — without either criminal prosecutions or some sort of official national reckoning of what took place — there’s no reason to think that the next time a perceived emergency comes up, some other president or vice president will not decide to torture again.

President Trump has not decided to have anyone tortured- not yet, anyway- but the expansion the power of the Executive branch in his Administration has grown beyond what was expected by even those who long ago warned that he is a fascist. Meanwhile, Barack Obama, he of the "look expected instead of looking backward," remains not only Democrats' most popular politician, but enormously popular in the mainstream media, and in the media generally.

So those career officials Representative Khanna is warning need not fear having to appear before bar of justice in the next presidential administration or at any time. In the very unlikely event they are held accountable, Donald Trump and the American people will little notice, and care less. Even Khanna's admonition itself is telling, being directed not against President Trump, Attorney General Bondi, or even Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, but against "career officials." That's quite a bit down the chain of command.

Evidently, Trump has the least to worry about because we learned in July that

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy Todd Blanche informed President Donald Trump in May that his name appeared multiple times in the government's files on Jeffrey Epstein that the Department of Justice and the FBI reviewed.

The officials told Trump of their plan not to release any additional documents, the report says, because the material contained child pornography and the personal information of victims.

Here is a safe guess: the child pornography and/or the personal information of victims were not mutually exclusive of the name "Trump."

Now they are, thanks to the FBI's work on behalf of Bondi and Trump. As is probably obvious to Representatives Khanna and Massie, the full, unadulterated Epstein files will not be released even if the Justice Department complies with the law as written. On a positive note, we will know whether the Administration has chosen to be fully transparent or instead hide behind issues of national security, current investigations, or claimed concern for victims. If after release, there is a deep and widespread, fully bipartisan call for President Trump's resignation, we will have seen much of what had been hidden.. If not, we've been had.

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Simple Questions Requiring a Simple Answer

In a law class (but not in law school) a few decades ago, the law professor periodically would pose to my class a yes/no question and ask for a response. Before he got one, he would answer it himself: "it depends."

And so it was that Bill Maher on his podcast asked Ana Kasparian of The Young Turks "if you had to live in the Middle East, so, tomorrow, where would you live?" He mentioned several cities and countries, Pakistan, Karachi, Cairo, Amman/Jordan, Beirut/Lebanon. Syria, Tel Aviv, West Bank/Ramallah, even name-checking the Houthis.  He added "Where would you live/ What city would you live in? Where would you be comfortable- in that dress?

Bill Maher SNAPS at Ana Kasparian after she blames “Islam on whitey.”

MAHER: “If you had to live in the Middle East. Any city. Where would you live where you’d be comfortable in that dress?”

ANA: “I’m sure I would not be comfortable in this dress in any of the various Middle… pic.twitter.com/RyeqrYUkyN

— Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) December 8, 2025

" 

Kasparian would have flunked Professor Rose's class. Instead of defaulting to blaming USA policy on the Middle East, she should have replied "it depends." (The complete discussion of the topic, according to this blogger, is below.)

A rudimentary search for information regarding clothing permissible in the Middle East reveals a confusing array of laws and rules. What can be worn depends upon the country, the sex/gender of the individual, and, to a lesser extent, circumstances. There is no "one size fits all," especially because the government of each nation determines its own regulations.  Regrettably, the clearest explanation, and an objective one, comes via artificial intelligence, Google's Gemini:

A woman can wear a dress in nearly all Muslim countries, but the style and modesty required vary greatly, from Western-style dresses in fashion-forward cities like Dubai or Istanbul to modest, loose dresses in more conservative areas, with countries like Turkey, UAE, Qatar, and Central Asian nations being generally relaxed, while places like Saudi Arabia (which recently relaxed mandatory abayas) and Iran still have strong cultural expectations for covering shoulders and knees.

Kasparian could have explained that whether she'd be comfortable in a Middle Eastern country wearing her dress depended on several factors. But of course she didn't.

She didn't do so because she would be acknowledging something the left is loathe to concede.  Islam is different than Christianity or Judaism, the other two major monotheistic religions. And although Jewish extremism and Christian extremism present their own particular issues at times and places, in the modern world, Islamism represents both a broader and more serious problem.

Imagine someone being asked whether a normal dress- not even one especially revealing could be worn in Israel, currently being governed by a coalition of the ultra Orthodox; in the USA, in which the base of the governing party is composed of evangelical Christians; or in the white supremacist nation of Russia. The woman would be incredulous that even such a question would be asked.

But being unable to dress as one wishes without threat of punishment is widely, though not universally, prevalent in Muslim countries of the Middle East. And it could not be admitted to Bill Maher by a fairly prominent individual of the left. (Neither, truthfully, is it admitted by most centrists and, yes, conservatives.)

Clothing can be a complicated issue. Nuclear weapons not so much, thus this hypothetical is at least as telling:

MAHER: “Well, they have nuclear weapons, which they don’t use. If Hamas had a nuclear weapon, how many seconds would it take before they used it on Israel?”

ANA: “I don’t know.”

MAHER: “Three. Three’s the answer. Three seconds.”

ANA: “How do you know that, Bill? Come on.”

MAHER: “Because it’s in their charter.”

"I don't know?"  A living, breathing human being, co-host of  The Young Turks podcast, with 6.7 million subscribers, doesn't know whether Hamas would launch a nuclear weapon at Israel if they had one.  

That can't be stupidity or naivete. No one can be that stupid or naive. There is a glaring absence of honesty in political discourse in this country, and failure to recognize the danger of radical and militant Islamism is one of the most dangerous.

ANA: “You wanna get exhilarated right now? I can exhilarate you.”

MAHER: “I know you’re gonna say genocide, and I’m gonna say, well, you don’t know what the word means… Hamas is the bad guy. If you don’t get that, you don’t get much.”

ANA: “What Hamas did on October 7th was disgusting killing.”

MAHER: “Well, that’s the easiest thing in the world to say… If you hate oppression… Hundreds of millions of women have basically no freedom in the Muslim world.”

ANA: “So we should slaughter them instead, which is what’s been happening.”

MAHER: “Well, you should prosecute a war to the end. That does involve slaughter in every war.”

ANA: “Civilians get killed in wars.”

MAHER: “Especially when you hide behind them.”

ANA: “But when 83%, according to the IDF’s own data… 83% of the people that they’ve killed are civilians—”

MAHER: “Because they hide behind them.”

ANA: “But Bill, do you understand that by killing so many civilians, they are essentially multiplying extremism.”

MAHER: “I do understand that. Do you understand that there’s very often in the world two very bad choices… You don’t have a good choice. You have the bad choice and the even worse choice.”

ANA: “Israel has nuclear weapons, Bill. They have nuclear weapons.”

MAHER: “Well, they have nuclear weapons, which they don’t use. If Hamas had a nuclear weapon, how many seconds would it take before they used it on Israel?”

ANA: “I don’t know.”

MAHER: “Three. Three’s the answer. Three seconds.”

ANA: “How do you know that, Bill? Come on.”

MAHER: “Because it’s in their charter.”

ANA: “You have a difficult time at least acknowledging the atrocities that have been committed against innocent civilians in Gaza.”

MAHER: “Well, it depends on what you call an atrocity. All wars are going to have atrocities… During the Civil War, a lot of people would say, especially in the South, that Sherman did not have to burn Atlanta quite as badly as he did. I mean, we were pretty brutal. But would you also then just say, well, we don’t know who the good guys were in that war? No, I think it was the North.”

ANA: “I think much of the problems we have in the Middle East are due to the enabling of this expansion. Look, it’s an expansionist policy.”

MAHER: “They’ve never been trying to expand.”

ANA: “They’re trying to annex the West Bank right now. And Lebanon—southern Lebanon—and Syria, which they’ve succeeded in.”

MAHER: “Excuse me, these are all places that they were attacked from. When they became a country in 1947, they said, ‘Okay, we will accept half a loaf.’ They had as much right to that land as anybody. There was a continual presence there since 1000 BC, when King David had a kingdom.”

ANA: “I don’t care about that at all.”

MAHER: “But it’s relevant!”

(MAHER AND ANA TALK OVER EACH OTHER)

 MAHER: “You’re calling them colonizers. They’re not colonizers.”

ANA: “They’re expanding, and they’re annexing land. That’s what colonizers do.”

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The Wisdom of Ignorance

The favorite character in the Republican Senate caucus is Sergeant Hans Schultz- played by the late John Banner- famous for "I know nothing, nothing" or "I see nothing. I know nothing."

On December 3:

MSNBC: You just outlined the dangers posed by drugs. So what explanation do you have for Trump pardoning the former president of Honduras who was a convicted drug trafficker?

SEN. ROGER MARSHALL: I don't know the details of that pardon. Happy to look into it. I can't speak to… pic.twitter.com/oE1IVQca0m

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 3, 2025

Then on Sunday

On NBC, “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker reminded Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas that Trump pardoned a man “who trafficked more than 500 tons of cocaine into the United States.” She specifically asked, “How does that make America safer?”

The senator professed ignorance. “Well, I haven’t spoken to the president about that pardon,” Cotton replied, adding, “I’d have to know more about the circumstances.”

But that was nothing compared to the response of Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri to George Stephanopoulos of ABC's This Week when he asked the Republican "Do you support this pardon of the former Honduran president?" Schmitt replied

I'm not familiar with the facts or circumstances, but I think what's telling here is to try to imply that somehow President Trump is soft on drug smuggling is just ridiculous. It's totally ridiculous. He's the -- he has provided border security like we've never seen before. And the fact is, these cartels now, because the southern border is closed, they've gone to the high seas.

So, President Trump is acting with his core Article II powers. No serious legal expert would doubt that the president has authority to blow narco terrorists out of the water, who are poisoning a hundred thousand Americans every year. If you watched the SEC Championship Game yesterday, the Big 10 Championship Game, combine those two stadiums with the number of people there, that's how many people are dying each every year from the poison that's coming from these narco terrorists.

So the fact is, George, President Trump has been delegated the authority by Congress to designate terrorist organizations. He has done that. He sent a letter to Congress saying he was going to initiate these strikes. We've had regular briefings about it, including from Secretary of State Rubio, including from other high-ranking officials in the Department of Defense. He's executing those.

Article II does not grant the President of the USA any such powers, and it's not a close call. Moreover, the authority granted by Congress to the President to designate terrorist organizations, Executive Order 13224 provides "a means by which to disrupt the financial support network for terrorists or terrorist organizations."  It has nothing to do with blowing boats out of the water or even executing terrorists. None.

Donald Trump has practically trademarked the Art of the Big Lie, and now his disciples have joined the game. So, too, have they emulated Donald who, if he is to be believed, knows nothing- nothing. In October, he

granted a pardon to Changpeng Zhao, the billionaire founder of a cryptocurrency exchange who had pleaded guilty to money-laundering violations in 2023, and whose company struck a business deal in May involving the Trump family’s crypto venture. But now the president has claimed he did not know who Mr. Zhao was.

Mr. Trump distanced himself from Mr. Zhao in an interview with “60 Minutes” broadcast on Sunday, during which he was questioned about the decision to pardon Mr. Zhao, who pleaded guilty in 2023 after being accused of money-laundering violations that allowed criminals to move money on his cryptocurrency exchange, Binance.

“I don’t know who he is,” Mr. Trump said. “I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that. And I heard it was a Biden witch hunt.”

The President didn't know who he is, though he knew that Zhao received a four-month prison sentence and "heard it was a Biden witch hunt."  Trump has made a habit of this, falsely claiming at one time or another not to have heard of one individual or another whom he did know. They include rapper Lil John, lawyer George Conway, former defense secretary Robert Gates, then-Senator Bob Casey, former campaign manager George Papadopoulos, then-acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker, Vladimir Putin. He met them, knew them, and even worked with some of them. But he didn't know them. And of course, "I don't really know why" Jeffrey Epstein was taking young women from Mar-a-Lago.

Nonetheless, I can't blame Democrats for ignoring the apparent ignorance of Republicans. If the public cared, it could have elected Kamala Harris over Trump in 2024; Hillary Clinton over Trump in 2016;  Al Gore over George W. Bush in 2000; and truth be told, John McCain over Barack Obama in 2008, Understanding of  such things as government, foreign policy, and the office itself hasn't been a priority of American voters in at least several decades.

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