There is a story behind the above picture, but someone else will tell it. Basically we’re target practice for the maniacs next door until Donald gets his shit together, or doesn’t.
The first thing that caught my eye this morning was this:
Exclusive: Trump team weighs direct talks with North Korea's Kim in new diplomatic push, sources say (Reuters, November 26, 2024)
Last time I checked, about three hours ago, Kim was supplying Vova with hundreds of thousands of tonnes of guns, ammo and, recently, North Korean soldiers.
And Ric (a.k.a. Rick, Richard or Ricky) again1. He said Uncle Joe is attempting to saddle Donald with the Ukraine bloodbath2.
A survey finding most Americans think Team USA should not send us weapons.
Ukrainians defending themselves risks World War III and nuclear armaggedon, so why bother helping them? “Why put our lives at risk,” Americans ask. “Just give Ukraine to Russia and make us great again!”
Kyiv Independent runs a long vox pop responding to Joe Rogan’s bonzo bullshit — the narrative members of Donald’s team continue to regurgitate endlessly.
Last night I considered crashing the party at Trey’s $800-a-night suite at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kyiv to pitch a story about Joe’s lunacy to FoxNews, but Trey is in Japan sipping coffee, working out/off his angst.
Trey’s network instead runs a story about Ric taking charge of the Ukraine portfolio for Donald3.
The Guardian gets around to our mortar ammo mess4.
And, finally, apropos of Donald’s transition and Team USA’s pivot to North Korea, reflections from Yury about what the establishment of dictatorship looks like. The documentary is an updated Mikhail Romm take of what happened in Belarus during the 1990s. It’s always the same pattern.
Odesa native Yury Khashchevatsky teamed up with Peter Martsev in 1996 to make the above satirical documentary. Judy wrote about it for The New York Times, with a lot of help5. The salad days of east European dictatorship.
The nomenclature was in panic!
Yury later starred in an auto-hagiographical documentary after people started disappearing in Belarus and he was beaten half to death.
We recall the 47th president-elect boasted, repeatedly, on the campaign trail that he would solve our little war within 24 hours, before his inaguration, without explaining how. New US presidents are always saddled with something, e.g. Uncle Joe was saddled with a broken foreign policy when he was elected in 2020, Barrack by a financial meltdown in 2008.
Ric Grenell under consideration to be Trump's point man on Ukraine: report. Richard Grenell was passed over for secretary of state but may still serve in the Trump administration (FoxNews, November 23, 2024)
Ukraine war briefing: Kyiv pulls back 100,000 mortar rounds after failures. Investigation after troops complained of misfires; Russian Oreshnik missile carried no explosives, say Ukrainian officials (The Guardian, November 27, 2024)
The Underground Isn't Over (The New York Times, July 6, 1997)