Vladimir-a-Lago
“An armed Russian jet drone hit the engine of a passenger train in Ukraine near the Polish border on the weekend. Meanwhile, President Trump lectured Ukraine’s President to stop hitting energy targets in Russia. Go ahead, make Vladimir Putin’s day, Mr. President.” WSJ Editorial Board (Gift Article): Trump Lectures Ukraine, not Russia. (I wonder if his lecture was in English or the original Russian?)
+ If you’re surprised that Trump is siding with Putin, you really haven’t been paying much attention over the years. Anne Applebaum describes our new empire of grift in The Atlantic (Gift Article): “Far-right ideologues have transformed American foreign policy into a tool of private gain and antidemocratic reaction.” MAGA Is Making the World Safe for Corruption. “The idea that a dedicated group of Americans has a plan to dismantle Canada, or that businessmen with opaque links to the U.S. government might want to create political conditions for a U.S. takeover of Greenland, may surprise Americans. It shouldn’t. Every single tactic used against Brazil, Canada, or Denmark has also been deployed elsewhere—not to support democracy, not to build American prosperity, but to spread the illiberal revolution and make money for the predators who support it.”
+ Just consider who we’re sending abroad to negotiate our deals. Dexter Filkins in The New Yorker: Jared Kushner’s Dollar Diplomacy. (alt link) “He represents a new kind of Washington figure, for whom public office serves as a means to extraordinary wealth. In the past two years, an array of people linked to the White House—including Witkoff’s sons, the cryptocurrency adviser David Sacks, and other members of the Trump family—have used their official positions to bring in billions of dollars for themselves. ‘I know all these guys,’ a former American official who served in the Middle East told me. ‘They go into these meetings, and they are doing business right alongside their diplomacy. ‘O.K., enough about the ceasefire. We have this hotel we want to build.’ That’s the kind of foreign policy America has now.'”
+ I know, this all seems too sickening to believe. But, in reality, it’s even more sickening. Pro Publica: Donald Trump Jr.’s Bahamas Wedding Was Secretly Bankrolled by Russian Oligarch Close to Putin.
