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At the same time, Russia’s economy is crumbling as its military production takes from the civilian economy and sanctions prevent other countries from taking up the slack. Inflation is through the roof, and more than 700,000 of those fighting for Russia have been killed or wounded. Applebaum notes that the Institute for the Study of War estimates that at the rate it’s moving, Russia would need 83 years to capture the remaining 80% of Ukraine.

“The only way Putin wins now,” Applebaum writes, “is by persuading Ukraine’s allies to be sick of the war…by persuading Trump to cut off Ukraine…and by convincing Europeans that they can’t win either.”
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Today, Macron visited Trump at the White House, where the visit got off to a poor start when Trump broke protocol by neglecting to greet Macron when he arrived. During the visit, the two men took questions from the press. Macron maintained a facade of camaraderie with Trump, but as Trump slumped in his chair and recited the inaccuracies that in the U.S. often go uncorrected, Macron seemed comfortable and in command. He interrupted Trump to contradict him in front of reporters and called out Russia for being the aggressor in the war.

Remember this: Tyranny cannot prevail over people who refuse to succumb to it.

Vance makes many mistakes in his comments. First, he says, “Don’t allow this broken culture to send you a message that you’re a bad person because you’re a man…” He starts with an unproven premise that we live in a “broken culture.” He’s trying to pull the old circular logic fallacy, where he says treating men badly means our culture is broken and that the proof our culture is broken is that we treat men badly. That kind of dim thinking isn’t good for men’s image.

Men aren’t being treated badly because they’re men. Men aren’t being treated badly at all. They remain at the top of the gender food chain in terms of job opportunities, pay, and personal rights. Especially White men. But the right-wing has created the illusion that men are somehow underdogs to promise them their status back if only they’ll vote Republican.
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MY TAKE: I applaud people taking non-violent political action like this, especially when it’s clear that Congress is not willing to stand up to Trump setting fire to the U.S. Constitution.

Some might argue that in practical terms, not buying anything for a day but then purchasing from those same businesses the following day makes the protest ineffective. Not so. It isn’t just about making these businesses lose money, it’s about the threat of what people could do to their businesses in the future. When massive numbers of people coordinate to raise their voices in protest, that is the message.

This is an opening salvo aimed at those Republicans in Congress who have chosen to grovel to Trump rather than fulfill their oath of office.

As a television show, American foreign policy is about strength. In reality, it is about draining power from the United States and its allies, thereby creating atmospherics in which Donald Trump feels good and Elon Musk converts lost state capacity into personal profit. The weakness, in other words, is the point.

In the alliances that held through January 2025, the United States was an unrivaled power. By whatever measure one chose, no other country was of the same status. Without the alliances, however, the equation is different. It is not just that the United States loses the economic, military, and political strength of its allies. It is that the U.S. must now compete with them and try to subordinate them.

At the Munich Security Conference, which is just coming to an end, the American vice president instructed Europeans to open themselves as colonial vessels. They should remove any constraints on social media platforms, allowing Musk and other oligarchs to shape their elections. And those elections should then lead to the victory of far right parties that would remove any other barriers to Musk’s power. In this scenario, no conceivable American interest is served. Only Musk’s. It is unlikely to play out as JD Vance expects. What is certain, though, is the palpable alienation of the Europeans.

America is promoting Germany’s neo-Nazi party while simultaneously making it necessary for the country to acquire nuclear weapons. What could possibly go wrong?

• The fact that this demeaning and counterproductive email is controversial is a total repudiation of our politics.
• No one would receive this email without being offended, and it’s going to be more costly than it is helpful.
• Musk is acting out of transparent self interest, and many Republicans are starting to lose patience.

Musk Threatens Workers With Another Email Ultimatum in Fresh DOGE Chaos
The world’s richest man hinted at his next move after his first attempt was met with resistance by members of Trump’s Cabinet.

Police arrived at a D.C. luxury penthouse apartment last Wednesday night over a reported assault. A 27-year old woman, physically shaking and scared when the police arrived, had reported the incident. She showed them bruises and identified her significant other as the perpetrator.

That man is GOP Rep. Cory Mills, who represents an area north of Orlando in Florida. The unnamed woman, who is not Mills’s wife, said Mills has been with her romantically for over a year.

Mills’s office is downplaying the incident, calling it a “private matter” and saying Rep. Mills “vehemently denies any wrongdoing whatsoever.”
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Yet this story still has life and may be bigger than the incident that spawned it. As they say, the cover up is usually worse than the crime.
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If you can believe it, there are now three different versions of the police report that NBC News has viewed.
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A warrant for Congressman Mills’s arrest was forwarded to the U.S. Attorney’s office in D.C. on Friday. That office handles both local and federal crimes in Washington D.C. But to date, the arrest warrant has remained unsigned. Instead, that office sent it back to the police for further investigation.
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Trump’s newly picked top attorney there is Ed Martin, who is a hard core MAGA extremist.
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And just yesterday, Martin released a statement against the Associated Press, stating that his office was “President Trumps’ [sic] lawyers” and would be “vigilant in standing against entities like the AP that refuse to put America First.” The Justice Department are not Trump’s lawyers, of course. Rather, they serve the people. Martin is grandstanding to win Trump’s approval because the AP filed a lawsuit on First Amendment grounds for being excluded from the White House press briefing room because it would not identify the Gulf of Mexico by the new name Trump has chosen for it.

So forgive me if I don’t give Ed Martin the benefit of any doubt when it comes to protecting his president’s party.

A large bruise covered up with makeup on Trump’s right hand featured prominently in several photos taken at the Oval Office, sending social media abuzz with speculation.

“We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,” the 21 staffers wrote in a joint resignation letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. “However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments.”

The employees also warned that many of those enlisted by Musk to help him slash the size of the federal government under President Donald Trump’s administration were political ideologues who did not have the necessary skills or experience for the task ahead of them.

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The staffers who resigned worked for what was once known as the United States Digital Service, an office established during President Barack Obama’s administration after the botched rollout of Healthcare.gov, the web portal that millions of Americans use to sign up for insurance plans through the Democrat’s signature health care law.

All had previously held senior roles at such tech companies as Google and Amazon and wrote in their resignation letter that they joined the government out of a sense of duty to public service.

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According to the staffers, people wearing White House visitors’ badges, some of whom would not give their names, grilled the nonpartisan employees about their qualifications and politics. Some made statements that indicated they had a limited technical understanding. Many were young and seemed guided by ideology and fandom of Musk — not improving government technology.

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s tool for mass-firing government employees and shuttering independent agencies without consulting Congress, is setting up Republican lawmakers for political calamity by rapidly boosting unemployment and negating key services on their watch. And they’re starting to publicly concede their wariness of it.
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Assuming Republicans can hammer out a deal to avoid a government shutdown by March 14, the next long recess period for lawmakers will begin the following week. Given the rapid pace of grassroots organizing against DOGE, it could be a rough week for Republicans—potentially, a rougher week than any of them have had since their attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act in the early months of the first Trump presidency.
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Republican Joe Kent has been nominated to become the next director of the National Counterterrorism Center despite (or perhaps because of) a longstanding habit of amplifying Russian propaganda about the war in Ukraine.

Kent is fresh off his second straight loss to Democratic Rep. Marie Gleusenkamp-Perez in Washington’s 3rd congressional district. Like many conspiracy theory–curious Republicans rejected by voters, Kent has found a new lease on political life as an appointee in the Trump administration.

1. We don’t blame Russia.
2. We retract our previous criticisms of Russia.
3. Russia was provoked.
4. Ukraine should have appeased Russia.
5. We need a “positive relationship” with Putin.
6. Trump promised to end the war.
7. We’re tough on Ukraine.
8. We’ll give Ukraine no commitments.
9. We might leave NATO.
10. We’ve achieved peace talks.

1. No, USAID didn’t secretly bribe media outlets for pro-Democratic coverage
2. FEMA didn’t blow millions on luxury hotels for migrants
3. RFK Jr. is doubling down on conspiracy theories about childhood vaccines
4. Trump’s offer of asylum to South Africa’s white minority is based on conspiracy theory

This threatens to destroy what’s left of Americans’ faith in government. Moving fast and breaking things — the Silicon Valley motto that appears to inspire Mr. Musk and his DOGE initiative — is “potentially wreaking havoc,” as Senator Ed Markey and Representative Don Beyer recently wrote, on federal systems that ensure our physical and economic survival.

But there’s something emerging, too. There’s something rising.

It’s not just the US Army Chorus serenading an autocrat with a song about revolution. It’s more. It’s bigger. It’s broader.

There are examples every day, everywhere you look
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