Dear Everybody:
The big news today is Trump taking another stab (and I do mean stab--straight at the heart of Ukraine) at ending the war in Ukraine:
--Trump had Zelenskyy come to Mar-a-lago and then did everything he could to humiliate him.
Leading up to it, he bragged, "Zelenskyy doesn’t have anything until I approve it."
--Not only did not one single American meet him at the airport (remember Putin’s visit to Alaska, when there were American soldiers literally on their knees rolling out the red carpet for Putin and a military salute and everything?) but the meeting wasn’t in the Oval Office, it was in the dining room at Mar-a-lago, and then Trump bragged to Zelenskyy’s face about how he had just been on the phone with Putin and what great buddies they are.
--No Russia experts or people with foreign policy experience were at the meeting, but Stephen Miller and Jared Kushner were. Witkoff said,"Russia remains fully committed to achieving peace in Ukraine. Russia highly values the efforts and support of the US to resolve the Ukraine conflict and re-establish global security."
--Ron Filipkowski" "Every single time Trump has a meeting with Zelensky, Putin calls Trump the day before and Trump’s position in the Zelenskyy meeting then mirrors the Russian position. The talking points are the same, with all the same lies. It’s a simple playbook for Putin and it works every time."
--Trump ACTUALLY SAID at the press conference, "Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed. It sounds a little strange, but President Putin was very generous in his feeling toward Ukraine succeeding, including supplying energy, electricity, and other things at very low prices." (Note: This would be the Putin that has bombed Kyiv viciously every night since the announcement of this summit, including on Christmas.
--The look on Zelenskyy’s face was priceless. He visibly laughed at the claim and mouthed the word "yes."
--Daily Kos: "How do you say, ‘Sure, Jan,’ in Ukrainian?"
--(Note: None of this matches what the Trump administration has said in the recent past. Susie Wiles said in August, "The experts think that if he (Putin) could get the rest of Donetsk, then he would be happy," but that Trump wasn’t buying it--he didn’t believe Putin wanted peace. "Donald Trump thinks he wants the whole country.")
--Political strategist Adam Parkhomenko: "This is an absolutely unhinged thing to say about a country that was invaded, bombed, and terrorized by Russia. Calling Putin ‘generous’ while Ukraine is fighting for its survival tells you everything about where Trump’s loyalties actually lie."
--Andrew Eggar: "’Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed.’ Trump actually said this. This might be one of the stupidest things he’s ever said and a true Hall of Fame entry."
--Journalist MikeRothschild: "Just lost in the palace of mirrors of his mind."
--Adam Kinzinger: "The dumbest man to ever sit in the White House. Not even as president, just the dumbest human to ever take a seat anywhere in the White House."
--Political analyst David Axelrod: "This is the same guy who said he trusted Putin’s word over that of his own intelligence services."
--Journalist John Harwood: "Trump has always wanted Russia, his financial and political benefactor, to win--at the expense of America’s interests."
--Trump also bragged about how the war would never have happened if the 2020 election hadn’t been stolen from him.
--Kate from Kharkiv: "About the press conference--Trump is absolutely detached from reality. He doesn’t understand how to end this war or what he is doing. But he visibly enjoys bragging about his relationship with Putin and their sweet phone calls in front of Zelenskyy."
--Tom Nichols: "Either Trump doesn’t understand the conflict or that he is lying about his efforts to end it...From the point of diplomatic practice, it’s insane. You don’t check in with the aggressor when you’re talking to a putative friend and ally, and you don’t report in afterwards. You talk with your friends, with your allies, with Ukraine, and then you tell the Russians, here’s the offer. Here’s what you need to do...The fact is Putin has this hold over Donald Trump that makes Trump and the American government into basically a de facto ally of Russia."
--Reporter: "Did Putin agree to a ceasefire to allow a referendum?" Trump: "Not a ceasefire. He feels that, look, you know, they’re fighting and to stop. And then if they have to start again, which is a possibility, he doesn’t want to be in that position. I understand Putin from that standpoint."
Ron Filipkowski: "Trump sympathizes with how stressful it would be for Putin to have to stop killing people for a while because of how inconvenient it would be for him to resume it. This whole thing is a farce. A charade. Putin is playing Trump like the useful idiot that he is."
--It’s no surprise that no progress was made with this round of talks. Trump said after the talks that they were "getting a lot closer, maybe very close" to an agreement to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, but that there were still "thorny issues."
In a side note, Trump looked worse than ever at the press conference:
--There is additional discoloration on Trump’s right hand, and he is wearing larger and larger bandages. It has also spread to his other hand, which destroys his excuse that it’s caused by too much hand-shaking. (Note: People are also wondering why, if the discoloration is from repeated injections or infusions of some drug, he has not had a port implanted, as usually happens in those cases. A port would not be visible, and there wouldn’t be all these questions about his hands.)
--According to Congressional sources, "Trump’s own decay" is a frequent topic of discussion in the US Capitol.
--Aaron Rupar: "Trump looked pretty rough today--note that both of his hands are discolored."
--MAGA influencer, Paul Szypula: "President Trump is in better shape than most people half his age."
The other big news was a statement from the January sixth pipe bomber, who the DOJ now says has no political association, in spite of the fact that he was found to be a Trump supporter right after he was arrested:
--He is no longer saying he is a Trump supporter. He said he hated "both parties," but said he wanted to speak up for those who believed the 2020 election was stolen, and he denied his actions were directed toward Congress or related to the proceedings on January 6th, even though he attended the rally on January 5th. (Sure, it was all just a coincidence that he planted the bomb the night before J 6th.)
--He compared what he did to the Irish Trouble
--The DOJ says there’s no proof he’s a Trump supporter because the guy "wiped his phone on December 15, 2020." (Data can be gotten from wiped phones unless the wiping was really, really sophisticated, which this guy isn’t. It’s all really interesting, and I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could throw them.)
--The DOJ says they tracked his whereabouts the night he planted the bombs, but that they have no information about his whereabouts for 22 days before he did it because the cell phone towers "were pointed in the wrong direction." (Just like the surveillance cameras were off the night Epstein died.)
--MuellerSheWrote: "I bet the J6 pipe bomber walks because of Trump administration incompetence. Whether he’s acquitted on shaky evidence or a grand jury won’t even indict on probable cause, I don’t think Patel and Pirro are capable. P.S. And yes, I know Trump’s pardon covers him...there are literally a hundred distinct reasons this case won’t be convicted. That’s just one of them."
In Epstein news:
--Trump keeps talking about Epstein.
--More and more stuff keeps emerging from the already-released files.
--According to a new article in the Guardian, Epstein leaned on a group of employees and associates, including Ghislaine Maxwell, to secure a "steady supply of minor victims." He had "an almost assembly line-like process for procuring victims."
--One document described how Maxwell accosted three female students on a Florida campus, saying she needed young, beautiful unmarried women to answer the phones and do office work at her home on Palm Beach. One girl described the phone calls as men calling in saying when they were going to drop off particular girls. All three said Maxwell and Epstein were secretive about what was going on at the house.
--At least two of the girls complained about Epstein touching them inappropriately. They said Maxwell asked for a list of other girls "who she could call to work on short notice." She "said she needed a large pool of girls to call as she did not know how many she would need at any time."
--That appears to have been a time when they were having trouble recruiting girls in what was described as a "desperate time...running out of girls." The girls were told that they couldn’t just bring girls Epstein didn’t like and that they needed to keep looking for girls.
--He also enlisted his victims to recruit other girls under the false pretense of providing massages. One of the girls witnessed Epstein asking for ID from a victim TO MAKE SURE SHE WAS UNDER 18 and saying, "You know what I like," and "You know what I’m into." She remembered Maxwell saying of the girls she brought in, "They have to look young at least."
--One victim told an FBI agent that Maxwell once said, "Do you know anyone who could give him a blowjob today? I don’t feel like it."
--The documents make it clearer "how girls and young women were perceived as commodities: mere bodies meant to serve a predator’s twisted predilections--and possibly those of his associates."
--Documents also suggest Epstein and others shared child sex abuse images. In one case a video that depicted one or two topless women was shared with Epstein by an individual who had been convicted of a child pornography offense, and victim Maria Farmer testified that Epstein had stolen photos she’d taken of her younger sisters and sold them to ‘potential buyers.’ (Of the girls, not the photos.)
--Michael Cohen: "Marina Farmer reported Epstein to the FBI in 1996--1996--for possessing nude images of her underage sisters and threatening to burn her house down if she spoke. The FBI did nothing. Zero. Zilch. Silence. Epstein continued abusing girls for nearly another decade while institutions looked the other way."
--Journalist Sandi Bashoner: "I filmed the SDNY press conference when Epstein was arrested. Geoffrey Berman stated exactly what was confiscated by the FBI when they raided Epstein’s mansion. Tapes, hard drives, 1700 photos on the walls. They fired Berman not long after."
In other Ukraine news:
--Zelenskyy is supposed to meet with Trump this next week, though I wouldn’t hold my breath for anything to happen.
--Ukrainian forces have liberated most of Kupyansk.
--A new assessment says that Russia does not have sufficient manpower or materie; to conquer the remainder of Donetsk while simultaneously continuing offensive operations everywhere, even though Russia is demanding Ukraine give up Donetsk in peace talks.
--A Ukrainian strike in occupied Berdyansk has hit a Russian command post and killed 51 Russians in a special forces brigade.
--Ukraine attacked Russia’s Syzran Oil Refinery with drones.
--A Russian freight train heading from Russia to occupied Crimea was derailed in the Rostov region, causing major delays on the line.
--A Russian radar designed to detect drones got taken out by drones.
--Drones are now hitting Moscow, causing flight delays at Moscow’s airports.
And through all this, Trump’s condition (including his dementia) continues to get worse:
--Trump: (on the Stealth planes, which for some reason he thinks are not just invisible to radar, but actually invisible) "The only time anybody could see those planes was when those bomb chutes open up, because it becomes totally un-stealth. You’re going in, you go like this. And as soon as it goes like this, for some reason the plane is totally visible. Not good. And I watched it happening. I watched it go bing bing."
--Trump, talking about Walter Reed Hospital: "Walter Reed, they’ve seen things nobody wants to see."
--Trump: "Our country was laughed at from all over the world, but they aren’t laughing anymore." (True, but not the way you think.)
--Trump, on a call with the military: "We’ve ordered a lot of Coast Guard cutters. Brand new, beautiful, the best machines in the world. I’m a looks person. I wanted the hull to be perfect. You know, I sort of redesigned the hull a little bit. The hull. But we ordered a lot."
--Trump on 6G networks: "Allow seeing a little bit deeper into somebody’s skin...I like the cameras from the old days. So they just had a nice feature. Now they cover every..."
--Trump, talking about Steve Scalise’s getting shot several years ago: "His wife was devastated. She was crying. I tell the story, I found out that night you have a wife that loves you dearly. I know many wives who would not even be crying." (The entire time he was saying this, Melania was standing next to him, stone-faced.
--Hylet Nedaf: "Top shelf insanity. Primo."
--Ron Filipkowski: "The President of the United States is very seriously mentally ill, and elected Republicans are so afraid of him that they won’t do or say anything about it." (Even when Ukraine’s fate--and may Europe’s--are in his hands.)
In other news:
--Trump hasn’t given up on the idea of annexing Greenland. He just appointed Governor Jeff Landry of Louisiana as special envoy to Greenland, to help make Greenland part of the United States.
--China launched war games around Taiwan.
--Wall Street stocks retreated as the tech and AI stock rally faltered.
--A gas line explosion near I-5 in California north of Los Angeles closed the freeway, which is THE major north-south artery in California.
In good news:
--A federal judge ordered Trump officials to give due process to the 137 illegally expelled Venezuelans who were shipped to El Salvador, saying that they have to give them hearings.
--Last Tuesday Democrat Gary Clemons won a special election for a state senate seat in Kentucky. In the last election, Kamala Harris won this district by 5 points. Clemons won it by 48!
--A federal judge ruled that the Department of Education must restore $1 billion dollars in school mental health grants in blue states.
Best comment of the day, from Andrew Eggar: "It’s not just that things are bad, it’s that they’re relentlessly so. You can’t turn it off. You can’t escape it. You can’t distinguish between real and fake, good and bad, normal and abnormal. The stuff keeps piling up."
Keep calm and carry on,
Connie Willis