All posts tagged "ukraine"

Insider admits Iran is distraction Trump needed from big failed campaign promise

The recent US strikes on Iran proved to be a successful distraction from peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, a European diplomat believes.

The unnamed insider claimed Donald Trump's recent shift in focus to war with Iran is a distraction from his failings in Eastern Europe, particularly in brokering peace between Volodymyr Zelenskyy's Ukraine and Vladimir Putin's Russia. Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February 2022, entered peace talks held by the US last year, but a proposed peace deal has cooled off in recent months.

Trump's commitment to brokering peace in Eastern Europe has now been brought into question, with one diplomat suggesting the president simply does not have the focus necessary to contend with more than one geopolitical struggle.

A European diplomat told Politico, "It's going to be challenging to keep the bandwidth. Before the war against Iran - the Americans were already showing less interest and losing patience with Ukraine. Were they leading anywhere anyhow?"

European Union staffers are said to be working on rescheduling a meeting to bring Ukraine closer to membership status in the EU, which was set to take place in Cyprus later this week. The meeting has been suspended after an Iranian drone struck a British air base.

“It’s important not to lose the momentum,” the diplomat said. “We don’t want to allow the situation in the Middle East to affect this.”

Yehor Chernev, deputy head of the national security and defense committee in the Ukrainian parliament, believes the war in Iran will run parallel to the war in Ukraine, with the conclusion of peace talks with Russian diplomats now dependent on the US' strikes in the Middle East.

Chernev said, "They are interconnected. The faster and more effectively the U.S. acts against Iran, the more chances there are to achieve progress in peace negotiations with Russia.

"The only risk for us will be if the U.S. and Israeli campaign against Iran drags on and does not achieve any goals. Then, indeed, attention to Ukraine may weaken."

'Wars can be fought forever': Trump issues grim warning in late-night Truth Social tirade

Donald Trump has ripped into Joe Biden's presidency and the decision to support Ukraine in a late-night post to Truth Social.

The 47th President of the United States posted on the social media platform late into the night and denounced the Biden administration's decision to aid Ukraine financially. Trump also made note of the US military's current battle readiness just days after a series of strikes hit Iran.

Trump wrote, "The United States Munitions Stockpiles have, at the medium and upper medium grade, never been higher or better - As was stated to me today, we have a virtually unlimited supply of these weapons. Wars can be fought “forever,” and very successfully, using just these supplies (which are better than other countries finest arms!).

"At the highest end, we have a good supply, but are not where we want to be. Much additional high-grade weaponry is stored for us in outlying countries.

"Sleepy Joe Biden spent all of his time, and our Country’s money, GIVING everything to P.T. Barnum (Zelenskyy!) of Ukraine - Hundreds of Billions of Dollars worth - And, while he gave so much of the super high-end away (FREE!), he didn’t bother to replace it. Fortunately, I rebuilt the military in my first term, and continue to do so.

"The United States is stocked, and ready to WIN, BIG!!! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP."

Just hours before this post, Trump urged Republicans to make changes to the upcoming midterms and how people could vote.

He wrote, "America’s Elections are Rigged, Stolen, and a Laughingstock all over the World. We are either going to fix them, or we won’t have a Country any longer. I am asking all Republicans to fight for the following:

"SAVE AMERICA ACT! ALL VOTERS MUST SHOW VOTER I.D. (IDENTIFICATION!). ALL VOTERS MUST SHOW PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP IN ORDER TO VOTE. NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS (EXCEPT FOR ILLNESS, DISABILITY, MILITARY, OR TRAVEL!)."

Trump spat in the faces of veterans from the halls of the White House

Parts of the winter world are frozen. Europe, the U.S. Midwest, and even southern states are enduring the worst cold in years as the North Pole rapidly melts, pushing frigid Arctic air through a weakened polar vortex into non-Arctic regions.

So far, in the U.S., power grids are holding. Although some states experienced significant power outages in late January, they were short-lived.

Ukrainians are not so lucky.

A monster tries to freeze a nation

On Feb. 13, more than half the residents of Ukraine woke up in one of the coldest winters on record with no heat, no electricity, and no water. Ukrainians are fighting both climate change and a Russian invasion, both driven by evil and greed.

When he attacked Ukraine in 2022, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin began strategically targeting its power grid, bombing one facility more than 200 times. By December 2024, more than half of Ukraine's energy-generating capacity had been knocked out. Now, roughly 60 percent of Ukraine’s families are living without heat during an extreme subzero winter, sleeping with pets and barn animals to share body heat and keep children alive.

Putin has targeted high-voltage substations and power lines to break electricity connections within and between geographic regions. Ukraine’s Minister of Energy, Denys Shmyhal, acknowledged that there is “not a single power plant in Ukraine” that Putin hasn’t bombed. Putin’s “plan is instability through total blackout.”

An American president celebrates a war criminal

Cutting off heat, electricity and water, deliberately freezing and starving non-combatant civilians to death, is a war crime. Kidnapping young Ukrainian children, stealing them to punish, torture or indoctrinate, is also a war crime. By credible counts, more than 19,000 Ukrainian children have been taken in Putin’s sick push to erase Ukraine’s national identity.

Putin is not only committing high-visibility war crimes in Ukraine as he murders critics at home, he is also responsible for the deaths of more than 50,000 Ukrainians whose only offense was choosing democracy over dictatorship.

In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest. As a result, he is now barred from entering more than 120 nations including nearly all of Europe, where border officials would immediately arrest him for crimes against humanity.

Despite the ICC warrant, in August, 2025, Trump mocked the international rule of law and welcomed Putin on Alaskan soil.

Putin is a notorious war criminal, an international pariah hated by leaders of the free world. So, on Jan. 28, when Trump installed a framed photo of Putin, standing side by side with Trump, in the White House, the collective response was disbelief.

Leaders of the free world are aghast. As one European leader quipped, “The U.S. president considers it appropriate to hang on the White House wall a photo of the greatest war criminal of the 21st century.”

Meanwhile, Trump is too compromised — financially, politically, or cognitively — to comprehend that honoring THE enemy of NATO in the White House spits in the face of our allies, not to mention our veterans.

Get a room

Journalist Michael Andersen, who has written about Ukraine and the former U.S.S.R. for 15 years, asks whether Americans know, or even care, how this feels to people in Ukraine. He writes:

Dear Americans, your president just put up a photo in the White House of himself and the biggest war criminal of the 21st century, the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. It is ‘perfectly’ timed to mark that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is about to enter its fifth year. Do you understand the feeling this provokes in Ukraine? In Europe? 10 million Ukrainians have been forced to run away from their homes, maybe 200,000 have been killed — and your country celebrates the monster responsible?

It’s a fair question.

Political analysts have long speculated that Trump owes Putin something considerable. The sooner main stream media stop sugarcoating the obvious, the better.

A love that was never free

In the late 1990s, after U.S. banks stopped lending money to the Trump Organization due to its repeated bankruptcies, Trump sought and obtained alternative financing from Russian sources. Since then, his financial ties to former Russian apparatchiks have only grown.

Trump-branded condos in New York and Florida are owned by wealthy Russians, often purchased through shell companies. In 2019, Newsweek reported that “Crime Infested” Trump Tower was home to convicted Russian criminals and “mobster tenants.” Trump’s financial ties to Russia are beyond speculation: Eric Trump told a reporter that Trump’s businesses “have all the funding we need out of Russia.”

KGB-trained Putin plays Trump like a cheap instrument: through flattery. In October, when Putin complimented Trump’s ability to “solve complex problems” and fix “crises that last for decades,” Trump ran to post a video of Putin’s praise, writing, “Thank you to President Putin!”

That Trump has solved anything, complex or otherwise, comes as a surprise to Americans suffering under his asinine tariffs, unsolved inflation, climate denial, and massive civil rights violations. That he is too stupid or narcissistic to understand how honoring Putin hurts our allies, compromising America’s vital security interests in a real and material way, is dangerous.

Michael Andersen finished his commentary on Putin’s new photograph in the White House by asking, “Where is your red line, Americans?”

If a Putin photo in the White House is fine with Americans, “How about one of Adolf Hitler?”

It’s another fair question.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

Firestorm as Washington Post lays off reporter in the middle of a 'frigid warzone'

Outrage erupted Wednesday after The Washington Post announced it would lay off more than 300 people from its newsroom — including a reporter in the middle of a warzone in Ukraine.

The reporter received the news under harsh conditions while covering the war in Ukraine.

"I was just laid off by The Washington Post in the middle of a warzone. I have no words. I'm devastated," reporter Lizzie Johnson wrote on X.

The move to cut one-third of the staff was met with sharp criticism.

"A publisher who lays off a reporter whose pen is freezing because she's covering a frigid war zone while dodging missiles is not an editor you want to work for, in a more perfect world," journalist and professor Bill Grueskin wrote on Bluesky.

"I am appalled by this. please be in touch if you’re interested in continuing to cover Russia/Ukraine, either full time or as a stringer. least i can do is introduce you to the folks making our relevant hiring decisions," author and political scientist Ian Bremmer wrote on X.

"I’m so sorry. Thank you for your courageous and indispensable work," New York Times columnist David French wrote on X.

"So sorry my friend - I truly feel for all of you guys but particularly for those dodging fire," CNN anchor Jim Sciutto wrote on X.

Military head warns Trump may carry out 'forever-war' despite having ability to end it

A top US military official has warned Donald Trump may prolong the end of the war in Ukraine.

Colonel Jonathan Sweet explained how the president could bring the conflict between Russian and Ukraine to an end, but that it would rely on military intervention and the help of NATO. He wrote in The Hill, "Trump has the cards to end the war, but those cards need to be played against Russia and not Ukraine.

"He must coerce Russia to stop attacking, give up their territorial aspirations for the Donbas, and accept a European military peace-keeping force in Ukraine.

"That will likely require military force. It begins with a NATO-enforced no-fly zone over western Ukraine, sufficiently arming Kyiv to defeat Russian forces in Ukraine, and destroying Moscow’s ability to fund and sustain the war.

"Anything less equals a Team Trump forever war in Europe." Sweet had previously referred to this prolonged decision-making as a "forever war" which Trump may have orchestrated.

Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were present for talks between the two nations, which Col. Sweet says did little to ease the tensions.

He wrote, "The talks commenced and concluded in Abu Dhabi the next day. The outcome? Russia refused to back off their maximalist demands and continued to demand Ukraine unilaterally withdraw from the Donbas.

"The U.S. is now 0 for 7 in its negotiations with Russia to end the war — chiefly because Ukraine stubbornly refuses to commit national suicide.

"Kyiv will not give Moscow in negotiations what the Russians cannot take on the battlefield. Nor should they be persuaded or coerced into doing so."

EU diplomats believe the relationship with Trump has broken down and that their dreams of working with him and the administration in the future are dead.

One EU diplomat said, "Our American Dream is dead. Donald Trump murdered it." Another senior envoy from a country described as a "key American ally" by Politico suggested the "trust is lost" with the U.S.

They added, "We are experiencing a great rupture of the world order."

Trump's Davos embarrassment proves who is pulling his strings

Donald Trump went to Davos on Wednesday morning and gave the speech that Vladimir Putin wanted him to, lying and pissing off Europe and shaking the North Atlantic alliance to its core.

Our president has refused to help Ukraine in any meaningful way for a year now, giving Russia the room to destroy much of that country’s electric and heat infrastructure so badly that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had to cancel his trip to Davos to deal with the crisis.

Trump’s now invaded Venezuela and is threatening the same with Greenland, legitimizing Putin’s land-grabs in Georgia and Ukraine.

Trump’s ICE goons are destroying the rule of law in America, running amok in Minneapolis, punishing — and killing — the residents of that city for having elected politicians who’d dare advocate democracy over autocracy.

Russian media is proudly proclaiming that their own internal crackdowns on immigrants, dissidents, and people of color aren’t so bad because Trump’s doing the same thing in America. We’ve legitimized Putin’s racist police state.

Trump’s destroyed much of America’s “soft power,” our friendly relations with resource-rich developing nations, by killing off John F. Kennedy’s USAID program, directly causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people with more to come.

Many of the countries we’ve abandoned are now re-aligning themselves with Russia and China, to Putin’s delight.

Trump’s duplicating Putin’s “enemy within” rhetoric to amplify the Russian-promoted “Great Replacement Theory” meme that claims wealthy Jews are paying to have Black and brown people “replace” white men in their jobs and lives.

It’s become the operating system for ICE and is tearing America apart, pitting friends, neighbors, and relatives against each other while Russian media celebrates.

The biggest thorn in Putin’s side has been NATO, all the way back to his days as a murderous KGB intelligence officer, and Trump is now shaking that organization all the way down to its foundations by threatening to seize Greenland and trash-talking alliance member states.

Early on as Putin was rolling out his dictatorship, having destroyed Russia’s brief experiment with democracy, he put himself above the law by simply refusing to enforce rights the Russian constitution and laws gave to average citizens.

Trump’s today doing the same thing, simply defying the Epstein Transparency Act and other laws while approving as his ICE goons routinely violate Americans’ civil rights.

From Russia’s point of view, America’s biggest historic strength hasn’t been our formidable military (they have just as many nukes) but was our rock-solid multi-century relationships with allies.

Today, Canada is — for the first time in over a century — preparing to fight back against an American invasion, while the European Union is trying to figure out how to disentangle itself from our economy in the event we start a war with them.

Meanwhile a bigoted Australian billionaire family continues to pump daily pro-Russian-worldview (racist, nationalist, anti-democratic) poison into the minds of Americans.

In the 1940s, Sir Keith Murdoch built his family’s media empire, in part, by running sensationalist articles about Black American GIs stationed in Australia during World War II “raping” and having affairs with white Australian women. Now Fox “News” is one of the most frequently quoted American sources for Putin’s captured domestic media, according to The New York Times.

Everything Trump does, when it doesn’t involve soliciting bribes, hustling pardons, or making himself richer inures benefit directly to Putin. Which raises the question diplomats and leaders across Europe are increasingly asking out loud: why are elected Republicans tolerating this?

Is it just because five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court legalized bribery and thus billionaire oligarchs who don’t believe in democracy now own them?

For example, billionaire Peter Theil, who financed JD Vance’s rise to power as the senator from Ohio, has said:

“I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible,” and “Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron.”

Could it be that most Republican politicians simply agree with those types of sentiments, that democracy is mob rule and inconvenient, and that strongman autocracy is a more stable and predictable form of government? That they’d love to jettison European and Asian democracies in favor of corrupt police states like Russia and Hungary where they can get away with just about anything just so long as they keep the emperor happy?

After all, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was nakedly taking millions in “gifts” from rightwing billionaires with business before the Court and became the deciding vote in the Citizens United case; are Republicans going along with Trump’s corruption because they, themselves, are also taking bribes and using otherwise illegal insider information to make themselves rich?

Or is it because six corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court gave Trump immunity from crimes and he thinks of himself as America’s monarch, as if he were mad King Ludwig of yore?

Are Republicans afraid — as Mitt Romney told his biographer, McKay Coppins — that Trump will use the force of law or activate his lone-wolf white supremacist terrorists to bring GOP politicians to heel or even have their families intimidated or their homes attacked like the Trump supporter who went after Paul Pelosi?

Could it be that Republicans know that most Americans — at least those who haven’t bought fully into the Fox “News” and MAGA cults — have figured out that the GOP’s only loyalty is to billionaires and massive corporations?

All they’ve done since the Reagan Revolution is cut taxes on the morbidly rich while gutting the agencies that catch criminal or unethical activity in government and the military; maybe the GOP now realizes we’ve got their number and that’s why they’re working so hard to purge voting rolls in Blue cities?

Trump’s shocking behavior — and the even more shameful docility of elected Republicans and the lickspittles he’s surrounded himself with — raises questions that will probably only be answered by future historians.

Nonetheless, we must push back. Democrats need to grow a spine, and the upcoming vote on the DHS budget is a great place to start. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) have indicated they may support the legislation, while Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Sen. Rubén Gallego (D-AZ) are signaling a fierce opposition. The battle will almost certainly play out in the Senate over a Democratic filibuster; you can call your two senators and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) at 202-224-3121.

Democrats also must signal now and repeatedly that Trump’s pro-Putin, anti-American rhetoric and actions are so unacceptable that impeachment is necessary, both for him and his brownnosers at DHS, ICE, and the FBI.

And if there are any Republicans who have left an ounce of decency, now is the time for them to stand up and speak out. And not to back away as soon as Trump growls, the way Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Todd Young (R-IN) just did with the proposed Venezuela war powers legislation.

Republican senator Barry Goldwater famously walked from the Capitol to the White House to inform Richard Nixon that his criminality had become so severe and obvious that Republicans in Congress could no longer support him and would, if necessary, vote to impeach and convict him.

America needs today’s Republicans to find their spines, reclaim their integrity and patriotism, and politically stop Trump in his tracks. And maybe it’s starting to happen: Republican Rep. Don Bacon (R-NB) just told reporters he’s threatening impeachment:

“I’ll be candid with you: There’s so many Republicans mad about this [Greenland issue]. If he went through with the threats, I think it would be the end of his presidency. And he needs to know: The off-ramp is realizing Republicans aren’t going to tolerate this and he’s going to have to back off. He hates being told no, but in this case, I think Republicans need to be firm.”

It’s a start, but there’s a long way to go if Trump is to be held to account.

When future historians ask what Putin wanted from Trump, the answer may be painfully simple: “Everything America once stood for.”

Whether that happens is not yet settled and ultimately depends on what we Americans — across the political spectrum — do next.

Thom Hartmann is a New York Times best-selling author and SiriusXM talk show host. His Substack can be found here.

Ex-GOP rep says Russia 'on the verge of collapse' as Trump wades into peace talks

An ex-GOP representative and former US Air Force member has suggested Russia is "on the verge of collapse", three years after invading Ukraine.

Adam Kinzinger believes Ukraine will be able to hold out even longer against Russia, as peace talks involving president Donald Trump continue. The ex-Republican Party representative says the party is not matching up with the facts of the war in Ukraine. Russia's grip on Ukraine has loosened, according to Kinzinger, who says Vladimir Putin's military has lost 10% of the occupied territory they held after first invading.

Kinzinger said, "About a week or two into the war, Russia occupied about 30-some percent of Ukraine. Today, that number is a little over 20%. Think about that. The war kicks off, a couple weeks into it, Russia has 30-some percent of Ukraine, today that number is a little under 20."

"So Russia now occupies a significant amount of Ukraine less than they did when they kicked off the war which means, obviously, Ukraine has been able to shove them back. In that whole process, in that fight, Russia has lost probably close now to 1.1 or 1.2million men. That's casualties, killed, captured, wounded, missing. Russia now occupies less of Ukraine than it did."

Kinzinger went on to criticise the stance of Republican Party officials and the president in the negotiations. The former House representative for Illinois compared the drawn out war and lack of territorial gains Russia had seen to the Iraq War and the US invasion.

He added, "Is there a soul in the world that would say we are winning, or we were going to win? Of course not, the US would have pulled out long ago if that was the case. The world would be screaming that the greatest superpower in the world was getting crushed."

"So why is it that Russia occupies 20% of Ukraine at the cost of 1.2million men, and there's this belief among Trump and Republicans particularly that Russia is inevitably going to win? How?"

"They're getting wasted in Ukraine. It's like the old joke, Russia used to be the second biggest army in the world, now they're the second best army in Ukraine." Kinzinger went on to say that those calling Ukraine's loss "inevitable" were wrong.

He added, "Ukraine is winning this war. All a defending country has to do to win a war, is keep defending. That's it. The Russian economy has turned into a war economy. The Russian economy is on the verge of collapse, the Russian demographics are awful. The price of energy is down and Russia exists solely on her energy."

This litany of betrayals shows Trump is about to sell us out to our most dangerous enemy

Many of us have long suspected or even predicted that Donald Trump would betray America, gut our democracy in favor of a police state, and align us with Russia. You know, the country that the Financial Times reported this week tried to launch multiple terrorist attacks against the United States and Europe over the past year.

We’re now there.

It’s the most under-reported story of the year, perhaps of the century: under Trump, the United States is abandoning advocacy of democracy (shutting down Voice of America, etc), abandoning our democratic allies in Europe, and for the past year has abandoned Ukraine to the tender mercies of the Butcher of Moscow.

At the same time, Trump’s building ties to Middle Eastern dictatorships, adopting Russia’s explicit worldview, trashing civil and human rights at home, and now handing to China our most valuable military-potential technology.

In other words, we’ve been betrayed by Donald Trump and the people around him in ways that would have made Benedict Arnold blush.

A few weeks ago, Trump presented Ukraine with a so-called “peace deal” that was apparently written, in first draft, by Moscow. This week, he told that nation they have “until Christmas” to hand over more than 20 percent of their country to Putin and surrender their own military abilities forever, leaving them vulnerable to Russia’s next attack.

Trump’s brain trust just produced a new National Security Strategy (NSS) for the United States that largely abandons Canada and Europe while embracing a racist, neofascist worldview straight out of Putin’s rhetoric.

As the National Security Desk writes:

“It abandons allies, misidentifies threats, emboldens aggressors, erodes deterrence, and even drives allies to consider nuclear proliferation.”

Alexander Vindman, the former Director of European Affairs for the United States National Security Council (NSC), wrote:

“The prevailing sentiment among European observers was that this document represented not only the closing chapter of decades’ worth of cooperation between the United States and Europe, but also that Washington may soon actively sabotage the political and economic systems of the European Union through the promotion of ‘patriotic parties’ and far-right figures. Amidst an ongoing impasse over a potential peace agreement in Ukraine, representatives of the Russian government claims that the document is ‘consistent with our vision.’”

David Rothkopf, a former senior national security/trade official in the Clinton administration, was equally blunt in an article published by the New Republic:

“Indeed, the document, released by the White House on Thursday, reads as if it were dictated by the Kremlin, much as our recent ‘peace proposal’ for Ukraine turned out to have been. Or, perhaps more accurately, it reads like the product of a collaboration between Vladimir Putin and Stephen Miller, the deputy White House chief of staff for nativist hate.”

Russia expert Olga Lautman called it “Russia’s return on investment for interfering in the 2016 election,” and it sure looks like she’s right. An earlier article by her titled “America’s Foreign Policy Now Aligns With Russia” noted:

“The NSS does not merely ‘shift priorities.’ It flips seventy-five years of American policy on its head and declares political war on Europe’s democratic institutions while elevating the far-right parties in Europe that Russia has been cultivating for more than a decade. Trump’s team packaged this as a vision for a ‘new’ transatlantic relationship, but the core message is unmistakable, and that is to weaken NATO, fracture Europe, isolate Ukraine, and empower nationalist movements that are openly friendly to Moscow, with every paragraph carrying the same cold, transactional, subservient logic that has defined Trump’s relationship with Russia for decades.”

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, rarely one to engage in hyperbole, wrote of this document in an article titled “Is This the End of the Free World?”:

“The language is astonishing. Europe, the document warns, faces ‘the stark prospect of civilizational erasure.’ Why? Because ‘it is more than plausible that within a few decades at the latest, certain NATO members will become majority non-European.’ I don’t know why they bothered with the euphemism: ‘non-European’ clearly means ‘nonwhite.’

“But there’s hope, the document declares, thanks to ‘the growing influence of patriotic European parties,’ by which it clearly means parties like Germany’s neo-Nazi AfD.”

Meanwhile, Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea are working together to destroy Ukraine, the gateway to Europe, and fielding armies of bots to fill social media and other venues with pro-Trump and anti-democracy rhetoric.

And the world’s richest man and recipient in billions in American government contracts, Elon Musk, the architect of the destruction of America’s soft power via USAID, this week called for the abolition of the European Union itself.

Finally, to the shock of the western world, Trump “cut a deal” to let Nvidia sell some of their most advanced chips to China after our military and intelligence experts have explicitly warned of the danger that this could accelerate that country’s move toward seizing Taiwan and threatening us with World War III.

Add to that Trump’s bellicose and murderous actions against Venezuela that could lead to us engaging in warfare in our own hemisphere, and you have the formula to tie up our military while bringing about the final end of American influence in the larger world, exactly as Putin and Xi want.

NATO chief Mark Rutte yesterday urged the West to prepare for war “like our grandparents endured,” adding:

“Conflict is at our door. Russia has brought war back to Europe. And we must be prepared.”

Trump could use such a war — as has been done before by presidents Wilson and Roosevelt — to gut civil rights in America and imprison the people he sees as his “threats” or political enemies.

And try to call off or steal the elections of 2026.

These developments, combined with the naked brutality of ICE that was revealed by this week’s report from Amnesty International, are shocking. American democracy is being gutted from within, our foreign policy is realigning away from Europe and toward Russia and China, all while dictators and corporate oligarchs openly bribe Trump and members of his family.

Where is our media? Where is the GOP? Democratic politicians are speaking out, as are some commentators, but elected Republicans and the majority of the corporate media are “business as usual.”

This is a five-alarm fire for democracy, both here and around the world.

Pass it along and help wake up our country.

Trump admin ignites 'intense battle' with top allies over 'profound' change to Europe

The Trump administration has given its European partners a plan on how it wants to rebuild Ukraine and bring Russia back into the world market, according to an exclusive Wall Street Journal report published Wednesday.

The appendices have not been publicly released; however, U.S. and European officials have described them to The Journal and have indicated that U.S. financial organizations and businesses will use about $200 billion in frozen Russian assets to help fund projects in Ukraine. Those efforts include a new, large-scale data center to be powered by a nuclear plant currently under occupation by Russian troops.

"The proposals have sparked an intense battle at the negotiating table between America and its traditional allies in Europe. The outcome stands to profoundly alter the economic map of the continent," according to The Journal.

One appendix apparently focuses on a vision to bring back Russian energy across Western Europe and globally, with U.S. firms investing in rare-earth extraction and oil drilling in the Arctic, the report indicated.

"Some European officials who have seen the documents said they weren’t sure whether to take some of the U.S. proposals seriously. One official compared them to President Trump’s vision of building a Riviera-style development in Gaza," The Journal reported. "Another, referring to the proposed U.S.-Russia energy deals, said it was an economic version of the 1945 conference where World War II victors divvied up Europe. 'It’s like Yalta,' he said."

Here's why this malignant fool is the last person to deserve a Nobel Peace Prize

Trump recently had his name engraved on the U.S. Institute of Peace — now renamed the “Donald J. Trump U.S. Institute of Peace.” Last week, the White House confirmed the renaming, calling it “a powerful reminder of what strong leadership can accomplish for global stability.”

Actually, it’s a reminder of what a strong malignant narcissist can accomplish when untethered from reality.

On Friday, Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, the world football league, awarded Trump the first (and likely last) annual FIFA Peace Prize — along with a hagiographic video of Trump and “peace.”

What FIFA has to do with peace is anyone’s guess, but Infantino is evidently trying to curry favor with Trump. (Infantino, by the way, oversaw the 2020 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, defending and minimizing Qatar’s miserable human rights record. He also played a key role in selecting Saudi Arabia to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup, notwithstanding the Saudi murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.)

Both Trump’s absurd renaming of the U.S. Institute of Peace and the equally absurd FIFA award are parts of Trump’s campaign to get the Nobel Peace Prize — something he has coveted since Barack Obama was awarded it in 2009 (anything Obama got credited with, Trump wants to discredit or match).

Too late for this year. The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to María Corina Machado of Venezuela, “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.” (The prize is awarded annually on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death, in a formal ceremony at the Oslo City Hall. Trump has his eye on the 2026 prize.)

Ironically, Trump has declared war on Venezuela, without congressional authorization — causing the death so far of at least 87 people bombed by American military jets targeting vessels allegedly carrying drugs into the United States.

Those 87 include two people who barely survived a first bombing, only to be bombed again. (Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who saw a video of the second strike in a closed-door briefing, told CBS’s Face the Nation that the two survivors “were barely alive, much less engaging in hostilities,” when the follow-up strike took place.)

Trump has designated a Venezuelan criminal group — Cartel de los Soles — as a Foreign Terrorist Organization led by Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. Yet analysts have pointed out that the Cartel de los Soles is not a hierarchical group but an umbrella term used to describe corrupt Venezuelan officials who have allowed cocaine to transit through the country.

Could it be that Trump wants access to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves?

He doesn’t seem to be particularly upset about cocaine trafficking. While he’s bombing small vessels in the Caribbean allegedly for smuggling fentanyl into the United States, Trump is pardoning Honduras’ former president Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted of trafficking large amounts of cocaine into the United States.

Trump is also in the process of giving eastern Ukraine to Vladimir Putin. Steve Witkoff, Trump’s golf pal and itinerant diplomat, has offered Yuri Ushakov, Vladimir Putin’s top foreign policy adviser, a plan for carving up disputed territory in a way likely to appeal to Putin.

As revealed in a transcript of a recent meeting, Witkoff told Ushakov, “Now, me to you, I know what it’s going to take to get a peace deal done: Donetsk and maybe a land swap somewhere.”

Witkoff also advised Ushakov on how Putin can get the best deal for Russia — by having Putin flatter America’s narcissist-in-chief:

”Make the call and just reiterate that you congratulate the president on this achievement [in Gaza], that you supported it, that you respect that he is a man of peace and you’re just, you’re really glad to have seen it happen.”

Ushakov responded:

“Hey Steve, I agree with you that he will congratulate, he will say that Mr. Trump is a real peace man and so-and-so. That he will say.”

While Witkoff has been seeking a “peace” deal in Ukraine by giving Vladimir Putin much of what he wants, Witkoff and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner have been seeking billions of dollars in business deals with Russia. It’s a brazen conflict of interest.

Witkoff spoke on the record to The Wall Street Journal, characterizing the talks with Russia over oil, gas, and rare-earth minerals as “a bulwark against future conflicts there. Because everybody’s thriving.”

Everyone’s thriving, that is, except Ukrainians and those conscripted into the Russian army.

Other potential beneficiaries of the deal include ExxonMobil, along with a Trump donor and college pal of Donald Trump Jr. with the improbable name Gentry Beach. Beach hopes to acquire a 9.9 percent stake in a Russian Arctic gas project.

Meanwhile, Trump has allowed Benjamin Netanyahu to continue bombing Gaza, even after declaring a ceasefire there.

Peace prize? Please.

Trump is taking credit for achieving “peace” between nations that weren’t even at war.

He’s also trying to change the name of the Department of Defense back to the Department of War.

And he’s conjuring up “enemies within” the United States as pretexts for prosecuting political opponents, attacking American universities, and attempting to stifle media criticism of himself and his administration.

According to Alfred Nobel’s will, the Peace Prize is awarded to the person who in the preceding year “shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” Nobel’s will further specified that the prize be awarded by a committee of five people chosen by the Norwegian Parliament.

Memo to the Norwegian Parliament and the Nobel committee: No president in American history deserves the Nobel Peace Prize less than does Donald J. Trump.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.
Robert Reich's new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org