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Heather Cox Richardson: A Chaotic Few Days

By dianeravitch
March 6, 2026 //
12

Heather Cox Richardson pulled together the extraordinary events of the past few days. She is the master of the question, “Make it all make sense,” even when it doesn’t. Her commentaries are wildly popular. She has about 3 million subscribers on Substack and an equal number who follow her on Facebook.

President Donald J. Trump is behaving more and more erratically these days, seeming to think he can dictate to other countries.

This morning, Trump told Barak Ravid and Zachary Basu of Axios that he needs to be involved personally in choosing the next leader of Iran. Speaking of Iranian politicians who are preparing to announce a new leader, Trump told the reporters: “They are wasting their time. Khamenei’s son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy [Rodríguez] in Venezuela.”

Foreign affairs journalist Olga Nesterova of ONEST reported that in a call with Israel’s Channel 12 this morning, Trump called Israel’s president Isaac Herzog “a disgrace” and demanded Herzog pardon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “today” because Trump doesn’t want Netanyahu distracted from the war with Iran. Trump said Herzog had “promised” him “five times” to pardon the prime minister, and he appeared to threaten Herzog when he added: “Tell him I’m exposing him.”

In a statement, Herzog noted that “Israel is a sovereign state governed by the rule of law” and said the pardon is being dealt with by the Justice Ministry, as the law requires. After its ruling, Hertzog’s office said, he will examine the issue according to the law and “without any influence from external or internal pressures of any kind.”

In a conversation today with Dasha Burns of Politico, Trump insisted that “[p]eople are loving what’s happening” and said: “Cuba’s going to fall, too.”

The most astonishing example of Trump’s international aggression came from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Although Trump initially said he attacked Iran to keep it from acquiring nuclear weapons, Leavitt yesterday explained that Trump joined Israel in a military attack on Iran because Trump had “a feeling based on fact” that Iran was going to attack the United States.

Trump’s assertion of power globally contrasts with increasing setbacks at home.

Since the Supreme Court struck down the tariffs Trump imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) as unconstitutional, the administration has tried to slow walk repaying the $130 billion the government collected under those tariffs. But yesterday, Judge Richard Eaton of the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled that companies that paid the tariffs are entitled to a refund.

After the Supreme Court’s decision, Trump immediately imposed new tariffs of 15% on all global trade, using as justification Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. As Lindsay Whitehurst and Paul Wiseman of the Associated Press noted, this is awkward because the Department of Justice under Trump argued in court last year that Trump had to use the IEEPA because Section 122 did “not have any obvious application” in fighting trade deficits.

Today the Democratic attorneys general of more than twenty states filed a lawsuit to stop the new tariffs imposed under Section 122. “Once again, President Trump is ignoring the law and the Constitution to effectively raise taxes on consumers and small businesses,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement Thursday.

The Department of Justice has also quietly backed away from Trump’s demand that it investigate whether former president Joe Biden broke the law by using an autopen to sign presidential documents. Yesterday, Michael S. Schmidt, Devlin Barrett, and Alan Feuer reported in the New York Times that prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., “were never quite clear what crime, if any, had been committed by the Biden administration’s use of the autopen.”

They concluded there was no credible case to make against Biden. The journalists noted that “the failed inquiry has only added to the sense among many federal investigators that Mr. Trump has become increasingly erratic in his desire to use the criminal justice system to punish his political adversaries for behavior that comes nowhere close to being criminal.”

Trump had been so invested in his attacks on Biden over his quite ordinary use of an autopen that he replaced a White House picture of Biden with one of an autopen, so the prosecutors’ shelving that investigation has to sting. Likely even more painful, though, is today’s news that Trump’s hand-picked National Capital Planning Commission has put off a vote to approve the ballroom Trump is proposing to replace the East Wing of the White House that he suddenly tore down last October.

At a Medal of Honor ceremony on Monday, Trump called attention to his ballroom and boasted: “I built many a ballroom. I believe it’s going to be the most beautiful ballroom anywhere in the world.” But the American people do not share Trump’s vision. The chair of the commission said “significant public input” has caused him to delay the vote until April 2. Jonathan Edwards and Dan Diamond of the Washington Post say that of the more than 35,000 comments the commission received, more than 97% were opposed to Trump’s plans for the ballroom.

But perhaps the biggest setback for the Trump administration showed in the testimony of now-former secretary of homeland security Kristi Noem before Congress this week. There, days after Trump launched a major military operation in the Middle East without consulting Congress, angry lawmakers of both parties exposed the lawlessness and corruption taking place in the department under Noem’s direction. But their stance was about more than Noem: her lawlessness and corruption represented the larger lawlessness and corruption of the Trump administration.

Noem testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday and the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. In both chambers, Democrats jumped right to a central feature of the way in which Noem and the administration are setting up the idea that anyone who opposes the actions of the Trump administration is participating in “domestic terrorism.”

They tried to get Noem to walk back her statements that Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both shot and killed by federal agents acting under her authority in Minnesota, were “domestic terrorists.” Noem refused to do so. She has not actually called them “domestic terrorists” but has said they were engaged in “domestic terrorism,” a distinction that reveals the administration’s attempt to criminalize political opposition. Rachel Levinson-Waldman of the Brennan Center explained that “[t]o actually be called a ‘domestic terrorist, an individual must commit one or more of 51 underlying ‘federal crimes of terrorism,’” which involve nuclear or chemical weapons, plastic explosives, air piracy, and so on. Good and Pretti, and the many others administration officials have accused, do not fit that description. But on September 25, 2025, Trump’s NSPM-7 memo claimed that those opposing administration policies are part of “criminal and terroristic conspiracies” and that those who participate in them are engaging in “domestic terrorism.”

Noem refused to back away from the idea that Trump’s opponents are engaging in “criminal and terroristic conspiracies” by, for example, opposing the behavior of federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol. Leaving that definition behind would undermine the administration’s entire domestic stance.

Democrats slammed Noem for her handling of detentions and deportations, ignoring court orders, and detaining U.S. citizens. In the House, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the committee, said she “turned our government against our people, and…turned our people against our government.”

Republicans also called Noem out. Noem’s poor handling of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has left North Carolina still suffering after terrible storms in 2024, and Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) went after her.

He highlighted a letter from the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), who said the department’s leaders have “systematically obstructed” the work of him and his staff. He identified eleven instances in which the department had refused to provide records and information. In a criminal investigation with national security implications, the department would permit him to access a database only if he revealed details of the investigation of individuals who might be related to the investigation.

Tillis said: “Does anybody have any idea how bad it has to be for the [Office of Inspector General] in this agency to come out and do this publicly? That is stonewalling, that’s a failure of leadership, and that is why I’ve called for your resignation.”

Lawmakers also focused on the corruption in DHS, which now commands more than $150 billion thanks to the Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Lawmakers referred to a November 2025 ProPublica story in which reporters traced a $220 million contract for an ad campaign featuring Noem. The contract went first to a brand new small company organized by a Republican operative just days before winning the contract, and then to a subcontractor, Strategy Group, owned by Noem’s former spokesperson’s husband and closely associated with Noem’s advisor and reputed affair partner Corey Lewandowski.

Noem insisted she had nothing to do with the contract award and claimed Trump had signed off on the ad campaign. About the contract, Representative Joe Neguse (D-CO) commented in apparent disbelief: “You want the American people to believe that this is all above board, that $143 million of taxpayer money just happened to go to this one company that doesn’t have a headquarters, doesn’t have a website, has never done work for the federal government before, and is registered apparently or attached to a residence from a political operative, and of course one of the subcontractors of that contract, as you know, is a political firm that’s tied to, to you back when you were governor of South Dakota?”

Since Noem’s testimony, the Strategy Group released a statement saying it received only $226,137.17 for its work on the ad campaign.

Also under scrutiny was Noem’s purchase of a private plane with a luxurious bedroom in it, which brought up questions about whether, as is widely reported, she is having a sexual relationship with a subordinate. She refused to answer, and insisted Lewandowski had had no role in approving contracts. Joshua Kaplan and Justin Elliott of ProPublica promptly fact-checked her: in fact, Lewandowski has signed off on a number of contracts.

Lawmakers’ indictment of Noem for her extreme partisanship, disregard of the law, corruption, and lying condemned similar behavior from the administration in general. Today Trump told Steve Holland and Ted Hesson of Reuters that he “never knew anything about” Noem’s $220 million ad campaign, suggesting she lied to Congress under oath. This afternoon, just before she went on stage to speak, Trump announced by social media post that he was replacing Noem with Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma.

This is an assertion of power the president does not have: he can nominate Mullin, but the Senate must confirm or reject his appointment.

Apparently unaware she was fired, Noem proceeded to give a speech in which she recited a false quotation from George Orwell, the writer who devoted much of his work to the importance of manipulating language to facilitate authoritarianism, a fitting end to Noem’s career in the Trump administration.

But Noem is not likely to disappear from the news. Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker recorded a video saying: “Hey, Kristi Noem, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Here’s your legacy: corruption and chaos. Parents and children tear-gassed. Moms and nurses, U.S. citizens getting shot in the face. Now that you’re gone, don’t think you get to just walk away. I guarantee you, you will still be held accountable.”

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) was more direct: “Turns out lawlessness is not a winning strategy,” he posted. “See you at Nuremberg 2.0.”

—

Notes:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/trump-demands-disgraced-herzog-immediately-pardon-netanyahu-so-pm-can-focus-on-iran-war/

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/responding-to-trump-herzog-says-hes-not-dealing-with-pardon-request-mid-war-will-decide-without-pressures-of-any-kind/

https://www.axios.com/2026/03/05/iran-leader-trump-khamenei

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-iran-war-white-house-briefing-b2931933.html

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-new-tariffs-lawsuit-b2932816.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/judge-rules-companies-are-entitled-refunds-trump-tariffs-rcna261870

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/federal-court-rejects-trump-administration-attempt-slow-tariff-refund-rcna261445

https://apnews.com/article/global-15-tariffs-trump-lawsuit-2247451a7cbc9b8283c4574e3ee54537

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/03/05/trump-ballroom-federal-review-panel/

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/labeling-renee-good-domestic-terrorist-distorts-law

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/countering-domestic-terrorism-and-organized-political-violence/

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/26371599/bondi-memo-on-countering-domestic-terrorism-and-organized-political-violence-1.pdf?inline=1

Firm Tied to Kristi Noem Secretly Got Money From $220 Million DHS Ad Contracts

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-he-didnt-sign-off-200-million-border-security-ad-campaign-2026-03-05/

https://abcnews.com/Politics/noem-testifies-house-committee-after-refusing-apologize-labeling/story?id=130752384

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/05/trump-cuba-iran-regime-change.html

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/05/trump-unleashed-president-bullish-on-iran-eyeing-regime-change-in-cuba-and-impatient-with-ukraine-00814292

Kristi Noem Misled Congress About Top Aide’s Role in DHS Contracts

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/politics/watch-sen-tillis-calls-for-noems-resignation-as-dhs-head-at-oversight-hearing

https://democrats-judiciary.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/ranking-member-raskin-s-opening-statement-at-hearing-with-homeland-security-secretary-kristi-noem

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/04/noem-lewandowski-relationship-tabloid-garbage-00813182

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/inspector-general-says-kristi-noems-dhs-has-systematically-obstructed-its-work-32496cfe

X:

Acyn/status/2029257090318086439?s=20

Bluesky:

onestpress.onestnetwork.com/post/3mgdd4r4s6c2l

atrupar.com/post/3mgdrq3x6tt2y

jakelahut.bsky.social/post/3mgdh7ws2es2e

qjurecic.bsky.social/post/3mgdjcjtxcp2l

govpritzker.illinois.gov/post/3mgdiung2uk2n

wyden.senate.gov/post/3mgdivc4oxs2n

atrupar.com/post/3mgcyn6zyg22m

Categories Accountability, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Ethics, Extremism, Fraud, Funding, Trump

Timothy Snyder: Apocalypse Now, a Satire

By dianeravitch
February 27, 2026 //
3

Timothy Snyder left his endowed professorship at Yale University and is now ensconced at the University of Toronto, where he holds the inaugural Chair in Modern European History at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. Snyder is known for his many books about European history.

After Trump’s long and tedious State of the Union speech, Snyder wrote this satirical description of a Cabinet meeting.

He begins:

Donald Trump, president of the United States. “Calling this meeting to order. That was a long speech that I just gave. State of the Union. Long speech. Not going to stand up and do that again next year. So let’s hear it. Plans to make sure I don’t have to. Plans to end the United States by a year from now. Around the table. Go. Start us off, Linda.”

Linda McMahon, Education. “Thank you, sir. Nothing is more important for the country than public schools. So we are destroying them by directing tax money away from public school parents and towards private education scams.”

Russ Vought, Management and Budget. “The republic depends on its institutions. As you know, sir, we are wrecking our civil service by firing those who are qualified and replacing them with political hacks. I don’t want to overstate my case, sir, but these are not just normal hacks. They are hackety-hacks, sir. They will use what remains of the government to hasten the process of its destruction. Hackety-hack, sir.”

Trump. “Good. Hack. Good. But maybe something faster.”

Scott Bessent, Treasury. “A government works on the basis of tax revenue. From the beginning of your administration, sir, we have been overseeing a shift whereby people who actually have the money won’t pay any taxes. Indeed, our oligarchs will be the happy recipients of whatever tax money we can scrape up from the middle and working classes. This wealth shift from the population at large to the wealthy few is inconsistent with the survival of a republic. This will help speed along the change Russ is talking about.”

Howard Lutnick, Commerce. “And there’s a next step, if I may, sir. When we empower the oligarchs they can help us. Big tax cuts make them happy and destructive. The endgame here, sir, is to have billionaires control extraterritorial zones, like Epstein Island, a place that I know well, but without any fear of taxation or any other form of government control. These little fiefs then replace the United States. This is the scenario and I do think we can bring it home within a year.”

Pam Bondi, Attorney General. “And a republic is based upon law. This is where Justice comes in. We can ruin law in a number of ways, such as investigating the people we ourselves murdered, or persecuting your personal enemies. A good way to kill our Constitution is to protect pedophile oligarchs, such as yourself, sir. I was attorney general in Florida while Epstein pioneered our future, sir, and I can see this through on a national scale. We can make this Epstein World, sir.”

Trump. “I like it. But that’s familiar stuff. I mean I live there now, right. Let’s see some movement. How about some color.”

silhouette of building under orange clouds

RFK Jr, Health and Human Services. “There was a lot of color in the middle ages, sir. Our freedom and security are based on modern vaccinations and hygiene. We undo all of that and promote epidemics. We see good results already in Texas and South Carolina. Not just people dying but babies and children getting really colorful diseases like encephalitis. By the way, this also opens up wellness markets for the people Howard and Scott are talking about. It takes people a while to die and there is money to be made there.”

Doug Burgum, Interior. “I may have something even more basic than that, sir. Everything we know about human history indicates that rapid changes in climate can bring down whole civilizations. We are deliberately engineering one of those. By suppressing green energy we can generate rapid global warming and make human life unsustainable. And along the way we get that color. People turning against each other, guns out until we run out of ammunition, then clubs, starvation, the works, a real spectacle. And, as Bobby says, disease. Very colorful, sir.”

Lee Zeldin, Environmental Protection. “And, if I may add, sir, our campaign to fry the species gives us all good practice in telling big lies, which are needed for all of these plans. Also, the billionaires will be fine on their islands when all of this happens.”

Trump. “OK, that’s colorful, I get it, but I want something with bad guys. Like a movie. The warming thing doesn’t work as a movie. Do you remember The Day After Tomorrow. I don’t remember the Day After Tomorrow. I want enemies. Bad guys who win.”

Marco Rubio, State. “I can help there. You are right, sir, that a republic to survive has to defend itself against autocratic enemies. So we empower the autocrats in China and Russia. We break the international system that held them back. We prop up Moscow in Ukraine and we give Beijing our most sensitive technology, ideally by way of middlemen who enrich you, sir, personally. If I may say so, sir, your friends and family have been very helpful in all of this.”

Tulsi Gabbard, National Intelligence. “Intelligence is the eyes and ears of our republic, sir, and we want these eyes and ears to be penetrated by foreigners who wish for us to fail and die. So we have liftedour cyber-defenses and announced that we have done so. If I may add, sir, both Russia and China support your incredible leadership in their information ops. It’s as though we all want the same thing. I see it every day and it’s beautiful. Spirit of Aloha. We say hello and they say goodbye…”

Kristi Noem, Homeland Security. “Without disagreeing with any of that, I just wanted to add that a republic exists because people believe they belong to a single nation. So the most direct way to kill our republic is a civil war. This almost worked the last time; this time we are getting the federal government behind white supremacy. We are creating a giant national secret police force in order to invade cities and force a conflict.”

Pete Hegseth, Defense. “Kristi is right. The war we can win is against Americans. And now that we are bringing unsupervised AI to direct our weapons, we won’t have to start it ourselves. It will be automated, we just watch from those safe islands. You see, sir? Movies. Terminators. Squiddies. Remember Wargames, sir, shall we play a game? AI likes nuclear war, it will recommend it 95% of the time. Get me into a conventional war, I lose it quickly, and boom. That would save you from having to give the speech, sir.”

Trump. “I like it. No long speeches. No Union. Steal what we can and burn the rest. Or burn first and then steal? Works either way. Steal, burn. Either way. Burn, steal. To help out I will just be me. Steal, burn. Me. Burn, steal. Me.”

(Applause)

•••

The conversation is fictional, of course. In essence, though, this is little more than a review of the news of the last few days and weeks.

Categories Accountability, Corruption, Cruelty, Democrats, Disruption, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Fraud, Humor, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes

Pennsylvania: Teenagers Arrested During Anti-ICE Protest Face Jail Time

By dianeravitch
February 26, 2026 //
6

High school students across the nation have staged walkouts and protests against ICE since the killings and brutality in Minneapolis. This is the story of a protest that went wrong.

Officials have released few details about the arrests, but two people with knowledge of the case who asked not to be identified to discuss an ongoing investigation confirmed the charges. The police department and the district attorney’s office have declined to disclose the teens’ names, ages, or charges they face.

A melee broke out in Quakerstown, Pennsylvania, when the chief of police, out of uniform, plunged into the midst of a group of teens protesting ICE and began beating them. They and their friends responded in kind. The kids were arrested, jailed, and criminally charged.

This is a “which side are you on” moment in Quakerstown.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported:

Five teenagers arrested during a protest in Quakertown last week face charges of aggravated assault and related crimes after a judge ruled Tuesday that prosecutors had presented sufficient evidence for the case against them to proceed, according to sources.

The teenagers had been held since Friday, when they were taken into custody after a scuffle with Quakertown police officers — including the department’s chief, Scott McElree.

After the more than three-hour hearing in Doylestown, which was closed to the public, prosecutors left the courtroom without answering questions. The teenagers’ parents, speaking through intermediaries, also declined to comment Tuesday.

But Ettore Angelo, a lawyer representing one of the teenagers, said his 15-year-old client had been released to her parents and placed on house arrest. He said she faces an aggravated assault charge — a felony offense that, if sustained in juvenile court, can carry a penalty of up to five years in a detention facility.

The teenagers who were arrested had been taking part in a protest of Immigration and Customs Enforcement that began at Quakertown Community High School and moved off campus to Front Street. Witnesses have said that a confrontation erupted there, in front of Sunday’s Deli and Restaurant.

McElree, the police chief, who was dressed in plain clothes, grabbed a teenage boy and placed a teenage girl in a chokehold, they said, prompting other students to intervene and a larger scuffle to break out.

Angelo said the central allegation against his client is that she struck McElree during the melee, an accusation she denies. He contended that students reacted in confusion and fear when a man rushed into the crowd.

He said McElree “put himself smack in the middle and created a melee” when he charged up to the teenagers while out of uniform and without announcing who he was. “I think he owes the community and these teenagers an apology,” the lawyer said.

He added that, in his view, some of the teenagers had acted instinctively to protect one another. Speaking by phone Tuesday afternoon, a 17-year-old girl who participated in the protest but was not among those arrested described what she said had been a peaceful demonstration even as counterprotesters drove past in vehicles, honking and shouting. The teen, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, said teenagers were gathered on the sidewalk and speaking with a uniformed officer when a man pushed through the crowd and “barged onto the sidewalk.”

The man — whom she later learned was McElree — grabbed a teenage boy by the back of the neck, she said. “All the kids thought he was a counter protester,” she said. “So everyone started to protect their friends.”

The girl said she saw McElree throw one student to the ground and place another in a chokehold. At least three students were injured, she said — one with a broken nose and another who required stitches to his chin. McElree, too, was injured, she said, and left the scene bleeding from his head.

She recorded portions of the confrontation and shared the videos with The Inquirer.“It was really scary, because it was a group of kids versus this really angry man,” the teen said, adding that it took what felt like several minutes for uniformed officers to step in. “It was the kids doing what the police should have.”

The girl said she did not realize that the man at the center of the fight was the police chief until she returned home and showed the footage to her father, who recognized McElree.

Manuel Gamiz, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office, said Monday that the investigation remains ongoing and that no additional information was available.

Police initially said an adult had also been arrested during the confrontation. But the district attorney’s office later said no adults had been charged in the melee.

Outside the courthouse and along the hallway leading to the courtroom of Denise M. Bowman, more than two dozen community members gathered in quiet support Tuesday. Some held handmade signs: “We support Quakertown students” and “Keep families together.”

Among them was Lolly Hopwood, 47, of Doylestown, who held a poster reading, “We stand with you.” She said she and others wanted to counter what she described as harsh online criticism directed at the families.

“There’s a lot of negativity online right now that the parents are seeing,” Ms. Hopwood said. “We wanted to show them the community is really here for them.”

On Monday night, the episode had spilled into borough politics. At a Quakertown council meeting, several residents called for the teenagers’ release and demanded the resignation of McElree, who also serves as the borough manager. After the public session, the council met privately with its attorney. As of Tuesday morning, it was unclear whether any action would be taken against the chief.

Members of the borough council and the borough’s attorney, Peter Nelson, did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.

A GoFundMe campaign created to help cover the teenagers’ legal expenses had raised more than $41,000 by Tuesday afternoon. The funds will be divided evenly among the five families, said Heidi Roux, director of immigrant justice at the Welcome Project PA, which organized the drive.

I don’t know about you, but based on what this article shows, I’d say the mess would have never happened if the chief of police had been in uniform. He just into a group of students and started assaulting them. They didn’t know who he was and they defended themselves and their friends. If I were on the grand jury, I would set them free.

According to Dan Froomkin of Press Watch, writing on BlueSky:

3 of the 5 Quakertown high school students arrested for anti-ICE walkout are free–after 4 days! Not sure about 2 others, who are accused of felony assault against the police chief–when it was the chief who actually attacked them, putting one girl in a chokehold!

As of last night at midnight, the GoFundMe had raised $106,000 for the legal defense of the students. If you open the GoFundMe, you will see the Chief of Police pinning a girl in a chokehold. Chokeholds are actually very dangerous; police in NYC are not allowed to use them.

Categories Disruption, Pennsylvania, Resistance, Students

Paul Krugman: Day 1461 of Putin’s Three-Day War

By dianeravitch
February 24, 2026 //
37

On this day in 2022, Vladimir Putin launched an unprovoked invasion of the sovereign state of Ukraine. He expected to encounter token resistance, but the Ukrainians fought back fiercely. For four years, the brave Ukrainians have held back the Russian onslaught.

Russia aimed its barrage of missiles and drones at apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, train stations, shopping centers, power plants–all civilian targets. The Russian onslaught conquered territory but at a high price in Russian men (about one million) and vast amounts of tanks, airplanes, weapons, and supplies.

Writing on Substack, Marius Didziokas disparaged the view that Russia is winning:

Imagine that, four years after invading Poland, Hitler’s troops were bogged down fighting over unnamed villages 80 kilometres from the border. The Bismarck and half of the German navy would be lying at the bottom of the Baltic Sea. Polish drones and missiles would be raining down on Berlin’s refineries and weapons factories throughout the Reich. This is Russia today.

Some victory!

Paul Krugman is also skeptical about Russia’s “success.” As he notes, Biden made a terrible miscalculation in limiting Ukraine only to defensive measures, not permitting them to strike back at Russian targets. Putin’s threats of nuclear retaliation were a bluff.

Krugman writes:

Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2002. Putin expected a quick Russian triumph — reports are that he expected the Ukrainians to fold in days. He never said “three days,” but this meme has become shorthand for his belief that it would be a walkover. Western military analysts who had bought into propaganda about Russia’s military strength shared his assessment.

U.S. right-wingers were especially enthralled with what they perceived as the toughness, masculinity, and anti-wokeness of Russian soldiers.

But Putin’s dream of a short, victorious war has turned — as such dreams usually do — into a long nightmare of blood, destruction and humiliation. Ukrainian courage and Russian incompetence — combined with the effectiveness of British and American man-portable weapons — ensured that the attempt to seize Kyiv became an epic debacle. The three-day war is about to enter its fifth year.

I am not a military expert. But I pay attention to those who are — especially Phillips O’Brien, who has been far more right about this war than anyone else I know. Furthermore, the future of the war will depend greatly on an issue I do know something about, Europe’s ability to provide Ukraine with the support it needs. So I thought I would use the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the war to talk about where we are right now.

First, about the military situation. The maps at the top of this post show how the area of Ukraine under Russian control — shaded pink — has changed over the past year. You may ask, whatchange? Exactly. The Ukraine war isn’t like World War II, in which breakthroughs could be exploited by armored columns sweeping into the enemy’s rear. It’s a war in which the battlefield is swarming with drones, where there isn’t even a well-defined front line, and the “kill zone” within which even armored vehicles are basically death traps is many kilometers wide.

Some observers still don’t understand how the reality of war has changed. Thus there have been breathless reports about the danger Ukraine would face after Russia seized the “strategic city” of Pokrovsk since July 2024. Russian forces finally entered Pokrovsk late last year and may now occupy most of the rubble. But it made no difference.

This reality shows how idiotic it is for the U.S. Department of Defense — sorry, Department of War — to decide that its mission is to embrace a “warrior ethos.” Bulging biceps and macho posturing won’t help you prevail in modern war, while bombastic stupidity is a good way to get many soldiers killed.

So if modern technology has turned war on the ground into a bloody stalemate — much bloodier for Russia than for Ukraine, but still indecisive — what will determine victory and defeat? The answer, which has been true in most wars, is that it will come down to resources and logistics.

If this were purely a conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the Ukrainians, for all their heroism, would be doomed. Russia, after all, has four times Ukraine’s population and ten times its GDP.

But Ukraine has powerful friends.

For the first three years of the war, the United States was the most important of these friends. Indeed, Ukraine wouldn’t have been able to resist Russia without U.S. aid.

Unfortunately, top Biden officials were too cautious. They didn’t want Putin to win, but they clearly lost their nerve at the prospect of outright Russian defeat. So they slow-walked aid and kept putting restrictions on the use of U.S. weapons. Without those restrictions, Ukraine would have been able to hammer Russian rear areas, and this war might well have ended in its first year.

As it was, Ukraine was able to hang on but not triumph. And now we have a U.S. president who clearly wants to see a Russian victory. He’s unwilling or unable to openly throw America’s weight behind Putin, but he has effectively cut off all U.S. aid to Ukraine. That’s not hyperbole. Here are the numbers:

A graph of different colored bars AI-generated content may be incorrect.

Source: Kiel Institute

This is a betrayal of everything America used to stand for. We’re witnessing a war between freedom and tyranny, between an imperfect but decent government and a monstrous mass murderer — and the U.S. government is de facto backing the tyrannical monster.

Yet despite Trump’s pro-Putin policy, Ukraine is still standing, while Russia’s year-long offensive has been a bloody failure. While Trump may have thought that he could discreetly hand Ukraine over to Putin, it turns out that he didn’t have the cards.

Crucially, as you can see from the chart above, Europe has for the most part stepped up to the plate, replacing most of the lost aid from the United States. True, some of the military aid takes the form of U.S. weapons purchased by European nations and transferred to Ukraine. In particular, there is still no good alternative to Patriot air defense systems. And the Trump administration has been stalling some military deliveries even though Europe is paying.

But European — and, increasingly, Ukrainian — arms production has been ramping up. One indicator of European potential for arms manufacturing is that U.S. officials have gone ballistic over proposed buy-European provisions in Europe’s ongoing military buildup and threatened retaliation. This is quite rich: America in effect reserves the right to use its control over weapon systems to hobble other countries’ military efforts — on behalf of dictators the president likes — but is furious at any attempt to reduce dependence on those systems.

But does Europe have the resources to ensure Ukrainian victory without the United States? Mark Rutte, a Dutch politician who is currently secretary-general of NATO, made waves last month when he told people who believe that Europe can defend itself against Russia without the United States to “keep on dreaming.” One sees similar declarations of helplessness from some other Europeans. But it’s really difficult to see where this defeatism is coming from. Combined, the economies of the European nations that have strongly supported Ukraine are vastly larger than Russia’s:

A graph of a bar chart AI-generated content may be incorrect.

Source: International Monetary Fund

It’s true that Europe has in the past had great difficulty acting like the superpower it is. But that may be changing.

So, how will this war end? Russia’s strategy now appears to be to terror-bomb Ukraine into submission, but as far as I know that has never worked. The more likely outcome is that European aid and Ukraine’s own growing prowess in arms production will gradually shift the military balance in Ukraine’s favor, and that Russia’s war effort will eventually collapse.

I hope that’s how it turns out. But even if it does, shame on America, for betraying a valiant ally.

Categories Accountability, Biden, Courage, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, International, Resistance, Trump

Stephen Dyer: GOP Sponsors a Bill That Will Screw Trump Voters

By dianeravitch
February 11, 2026 //
0

Stephen Dyer, former legislator and critic of school privatization in Ohio, explains here how a Republican-sponsored bill will hit Republican districts hardest.

He writes on his blog Tenth Period:

It’s no secret that over the last decade, Ohio has gone from a battleground state to a pretty red one, especially when Donald Trump is on the ballot. The major swing that occurred between 2006 when Democrat Ted Strickland won 70+ counties and 2024 has occurred in rural and urban counties, especially around the Mahoning Valley.

Gov. Ted Strickland’s 2006 victory map

President Donald Trump’s 2024 victory map

So what does the Ohio GOP do this year, which is shaping up to be a tough year for them anyway, to hold onto their Trump coalition? 

10th Period is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Try this: Introduce a bill that would, if passed, require folks living in Mahoning County to increase their property taxes by an average of $2,300 per $200,000 home and Trumbull County by $1,886, or close their kids’ schools. 

During a year where everyone is so pissed about property taxes being high that they want to actually get rid of property taxes.

Yeah. Pretty stupid, right?

Why would they do something so stupid, you ask?

So they can maintain an unconstitutional private school tuition subsidy that lets Les Wexner — the guy who was best buddies with Jeffrey Epstein —get a taxpayer funded break on his private school tuition bill.

I can’t make up this shit, man. 

These guys obviously think they’re politically invincible. 

I ran some more analysis of the bill that Callender introduced (who was Ohio Charter Schools’ go to lawyer prior to returning to the House a few years ago), which would block state aid to any school district that’s suing the state over its private school tuition subsidy, which, again, has been found to violate the Ohio Constitution.

Needless to say, the results are not awesome. 

The average Ohio school district would have to go for a levy that runs about 32 mills and would cost a homeowner of a $200,000 home an additional $2,200 a year. And that’s only if they want to keep their kids’ schools open. 

Because scores, if not hundreds, of school districts would cease operating under this bill

As you can see, the impact is worst for urban districts, but rurals are really hammered too.

This data is using the most recent Ohio Department of Education District Profile Report (for income and millage) and the most recent District Payment report for February 2026

I mean, you’re going to have poor, small town¹communities having to contemplate losing an additional 5% or more of their income to pay for Les Wexner’s private school tuition cut? That’s what you’re going with? This year?

Some other tidbits:

  • Trimble Local in Athens County would have to raise their property taxes by a staggering $11,355 per $200,000 home to replace the extorted money. That’s a 162.26-mill levy to raise what amounts to 23% of the average district resident’s income.
  • Steubenville — the home of Dean Martin and a famously Trump-y area — would need to go for a 119-mill levy, costing the $200,000 homeowner another $8,350 per year, which is 16% of the average family’s income there.
  • There are 56 Ohio school districts that would need to go for 50-mill levies or higher to replace the state aid Callender wants to cut. Or those kids — all 137,455 of them — will no longer have schools.
  • There are families in 22 Ohio school districts that would have to give up 10% or more of their average income to make up for Callender’s proposed cuts.
  • The average share of the cost in these districts that’s borne by the state is 47%. So the “you need to tighten your belt” argument ain’t working for these districts.
  • All so Les Wexner can get his private school tuition subsidized. 

I could go on. I posted the spreadsheet here, in case you want to look at more of these just amazing consequences. Not every school district has joined the lawsuit. So these data only apply to those who have. But there are so many of them (@300, or half of all Ohio school districts) that you can extrapolate the results. If every district joined, the effect would be nearly identical to what’s happening in those that have already.

I will say that this bill is clearly unconstitutional. I don’t know how the state will argue that removing funding from 700,000 students is going to provide those same students with a thorough and efficient system of common schools, as the Ohio Constitution mandates. 

So, in short, there is simply no way this bill survives even a modicum of legal scrutiny. So the chances of this happening are next to nothing.

Bu then if it’s clearly unconstitutional, as Callender must know it to be, then why do it? Scare local school districts form joining the lawsuit, or leaving it? Fat chance of that happening. I’ve been hearing districts and, more importantly, parents are more pissed now than they were before.

Like I said earlier, this is quite a play for Callender to make in an already tough political environment 9 months from an election that is expected to be focused on affordability and corruption.

But hey. It’s worked for these guys before and they keep winning in gerrymandered districts. 

So why change now, right?

1. These district types are ones developed by the Ohio Department of Education, not me.

Categories Charter Schools, Disruption, Funding, Hypocrisy, Ohio

Minneapolis: What Kind of Nation Terrorizes Its Children?

By dianeravitch
February 4, 2026 //
8

Italia Fittante is a high school literature teacher in Minneapolis. This essay was published by Education Week. Trump promised during his campaign to deport “the worst of the worst,” criminals, rapists, murderers. Instead he has put a target on the back of every immigrant, no matter how long they have lived here, no matter how much they have contributed to society. Our children are experiencing a reign of terror.

One of my seniors walked into my classroom after school yesterday. He needed an extension on his final project, and I could see he’d been working up the nerve to ask me.

His parents haven’t left the house in over a week for fear of being stopped by immigration agents, which means someone has to work. At 17, that someone is him. After school every weekday and all day on weekends, every week, because the bills don’t stop.

He carries his U.S. passport everywhere now, tucked in his pocket, transferred from his jeans to his school uniform and back again, refusing to let it out of his sight even in my classroom. He’s been stopped twice on his walk home from work by masked men and women in unmarked cars, demanding he prove his right to exist in the country where he was born.

He wants to go to medical school; he’s always dreamt of being a doctor. He told me about the university in Mexico holding a spot for him, the contingency plan he never thought he’d need. Just in case things get worse here and he has to follow his parents across the border, just in case his future is decided by policy instead of potential.

I told him to forget the deadline.

Another one of my seniors came to me early Tuesday morning before class started, her eyes hollowed out and bloodshot from lack of sleep. She was concerned about making up a reading quiz she had missed the day before.

In tears, she explained to me that she was working the register at a fast-food restaurant over the weekend when ICE agents burst through the doors midshift. They pushed past her, forced their way into the back of the restaurant, and violently detained two of her co-workers. Nobody knows where they went, when they’re coming back, or if they’re coming back at all.

She told me she hadn’t slept since the raid. This student, who immigrated with her family to the United States just three years ago, described being paralyzed with fear.

I told her to forget the quiz.

The past few weeks in Minnesota have been marked by relentless federal immigration operations. Agents operate openly and without restraint. This week alone, ICE detained multiple students from a neighboring district, one as young as 5 years old. Children and teenagers have been taken on their way to school, from driveways and from cars. My students live with the constant awareness that anyone they love could be taken at any moment. They themselves could be next.

What we’re asking these kids to do seems impossible. Show up. Focus. Read about the American Dream in Advanced Placement Literature while you wonder if your father will be deported before graduation. Solve for x while you’re solving how to pay the electric bill. Write your college application essay about overcoming adversity while doubting you’ll survive it.

They already come to school knowing they might die there. We’ve made peace with that somehow. Lockdown drills and barricading doors are routine. My students can tell you the difference between shots fired in the building versus shots fired nearby. At the beginning of the school year, two elementary students were killed during mass at a Catholic school just miles from us. Before the media even covered it, my students were calling their parents. I could hear them crying in the halls, in my classroom. 

Some of them knew the victims. Now, they come to school and know which corner of each room has the best cover. They are 17 years old and fluent in survival tactics.

My students carry U.S. passports in their pockets like keys to a house where the locks keep changing, navigating their own city like it’s hostile territory. Their walks to and from school are haunted by the persistent possibility that they’ll come home to silence, their parents taken by masked strangers who leave no forwarding address.

We’re creating a generation of students from immigrant families who understand exactly how little this country values their safety. 

They’re learning the lesson we’re teaching, even if it’s not the one we claim to be giving. They understand the message we’re sending when we demand their labor and their silence and their gratitude, all while treating their existence as conditional and their families as disposable. How can we expect them to love their country when those in power have made it clear their country doesn’t love them back?

The curriculum is clear. Documentation determines dignity, and borders determine which families matter. Authority needs no accountability, not when violence can be rebranded as policy if it advances “our” goals.

My students understand what’s happening because they’re living it. The stakes are clearer to them than to most adults I know. They don’t need explanations or sympathy or platitudes or extensions. They need safety without surveillance, because this country is theirs, too. No child should have to carry identification to prove their right to exist.

What sort of nation terrorizes children and calls it enforcement? That demands loyalty while offering nothing but fear? My students already know the answer. They learned it the moment they started carrying passports in their pockets.

Categories Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Freedom, Freedom to Learn, Immigration, Minneapolis, Students

Federal Judge Refuses to Block Federal Surge in Minneapolis

By dianeravitch
February 1, 2026 //
1

The state of Minnesota asked a federal judge to stop the federal militarization in Minneapolis. In a much-anticipated ruling, she said no. The judge, appointed by Biden, said that a previous ruling about federal tactics had been overturned, and she thought it was a signal that any ruling favoring the state would be overturned.

Politico reported:

A federal judge has rejected a bid by state and local officials in Minnesota to end Operation Metro Surge, the Trump administration’s massive deployment of thousands of federal agents to aggressively enforce immigration laws.

In a ruling Saturday, U.S. District Court Judge Katherine Menendez found strong evidence that the ongoing federal operation ”has had, and will likely continue to have, profound and even heartbreaking, consequences on the State of Minnesota, the Twin Cities, and Minnesotans.”

“There is evidence that ICE and CBP agents have engaged in racial profiling, excessive use of force, and other harmful actions,” Menendez said, adding that the operation has disrupted daily life for Minnesotans — harming school attendance, forcing police overtime work and straining emergency services. She also said there were signs the Trump administration was using the surge to force the state to change its immigration policies — pointing to a list of policy demands by Attorney General Pam Bondi and similar comments by White House immigration czar Tom Homan.

But the Biden-appointed judge said state officials’ arguments that the state was being punished or unfairly treated by the federal government were insufficient to justify blocking the surge altogether. And in a 30-page opinion, the judge said she was “particularly reluctant to take a side in the debate about the purpose behind Operation Metro Surge.”

The surge has involved about 3,000 federal officers, a size roughly triple that of the local police forces in Minneapolis and St. Paul. However, Menendez said it was difficult to assess how large or onerous a federal law enforcement presence could be before it amounted to an unconstitutional intrusion on state authority.

“There is no clear way for the Court to determine at what point Defendants’ alleged unlawful actions…becomes (sic) so problematic that they amount to unconstitutional coercion and an infringement on Minnesota’s state sovereignty,” she wrote, later adding that there is “no precedent for a court to micromanage such decisions.”

Menendez said her decision was strongly influenced by a federal appeals court’s ruling last week that blocked an order she issued reining in the tactics Homeland Security officials could use against peaceful protestersopposing the federal operation. She noted that the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals lifted her order in that separate lawsuit even though it was much more limited than the sweeping relief the state and cities sought.

“If that injunction went too far, then the one at issue here—halting the entire operation—certainly would,” the judge said in her Saturday ruling.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison signaled his team would continue fighting to end the federal operation, writing in a statement that “this case is in its infancy and there is much legal road in front of us.”

“We know that these 3,000 immigration agents are here to intimidate Minnesota and bend the state to the federal government’s will,” he said. “That is unconstitutional under the Tenth Amendment and the principle of equal sovereignty. We’re not letting up in defending our state’s constitutional powers.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi on X called the decision “another HUGE” win for the Justice Department in its Minnesota crackdown and noted that it came from a judge appointed by former President Joe Biden, a Democrat.

“Neither sanctuary policies nor meritless litigation will stop the Trump Administration from enforcing federal law in Minnesota,” she wrote.

Minneapolis has been rocked in recent weeks by the killings of two protesters by federal immigration enforcement, triggering public outcry and grief – and souring many Americans on the president’s deportation agenda.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey have both called for federal agents to leave the city as the chaos has only intensified in recent weeks.

“This federal occupation of Minnesota long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement,” Walz said at a press conference last week after two Customs and Border Patrol agents shot and killed 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti. “It’s a campaign of organized brutality against the people of our state. And today, that campaign claimed another life. I’ve seen the videos from several angles. And it’s sickening.”

Backlash from Pretti’s killing has prompted Trump to pull back on elements of the Minneapolis operation.

Two CBP agents involved in the shooting were placed on administrative leave. CBP Commander Greg Bovino was sidelined from his post in Minnesota, with the White House sending border czar Tom Homan to the state in an effort to calm tensions. Officials also said some federal agents involved in the surge were cycling out of state, but leaders were vague about whether the size of the overall operation was being scaled back.

“I don’t think it’s a pullback,” Trump told Fox News on Tuesday. “It’s a little bit of a change.”

Categories Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Extremism, Fascism, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Trump

Bill Clinton Issues a Statement About the Present Crisis

By dianeravitch
January 26, 2026 //
8

Former President Bill Clinton released the following statement about what’s happening in Minneapolis and other places, as Trump unleashes the armed, masked ICE agents to arrest, harass, and murder our fellow citizens in pursuit of undocumented immigrants .

Well said. Where are other retired Presidents, Vice-Presidents, Senators?

Please speak up, Former Presidents Bush and Obama.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Disruption, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Freedom, Freedom of Speech, Guns, Trump, Tyranny

Federal Judge Questions Trump’s Demolition of East Wing and Cobstruction of Ballroom

By dianeravitch
January 23, 2026 //
6

As is well known, the day after the first #No Kings Day, Trump began demolition of the East Wing of the White House. He announced that he was adding a huge ballroom that would be almost twice the size of the White House. He didn’t bother with required reviews and approvals from “independent” commissions, which are required by statute.

Before anyone could absorb the shock, the East Wing was gone. Reminded that he needed to go through a formal approval process, Trump fired the members of the two commissions and replaced ed them with his loyalists. Approval, even post facto, would be no problem, thanks to his lapdogs.

But the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which he does not control, filed a lawsuit to stop work.

A federal judge, Richard Leon, appointed by President George W. Bush, appears to view their lawsuit sympathetically.

CNN reported:

A federal judge expressed deep skepticism Thursday that the White House has legal authority to construct President Donald Trump’s massive new ballroom without express authorization from Congress.

US District Judge Richard Leon said during a hearing in a challenge to the project that the White House was attempting to “end-run” Congress’ role in the historic undertaking. Leon appeared ready to at least partially side with the nation’s top historic preservation group in a lawsuit it brought late last year.

The judge said government lawyers defending the project were adopting “a pretty expansive interpretation of the language” of a federal law they’re leaning on in the case. That law, which authorizes the president to spend taxpayer dollars to maintain the People’s House, is meant to cover “very small sized projects,” Leon said, pointing to air conditioning and heating, lighting, and other standard maintenance.

“It’s not (for) $400 million worth of destruction and construction,” the judge told Justice Department attorney Yaakov Roth.

As Roth pointed to two other White House projects that didn’t receive congressional approval, Leon quickly pushed back and accused the lawyer of downplaying the significance of the ballroom project, which is expected to dramatically expand the size of the building.

The other projects Roth cited – Gerald Ford’s swimming pool and cabana and a tennis pavilion overseen by first lady Melania Trump during the president’s first term – did little to advance their arguments, the judge said.

“The ‘77 Gerald Ford swimming pool? You compare that to tearing down and building a new East Wing? Come on. Be serious,” the judge said.

The sprawling ballroom project has an estimated size of approximately 89,000 square feet, according to lead architect Shalom Baranes. By contrast, the primary White House structure, the Executive Mansion, is just 55,000 square feet.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation seeks a stop-work order and a determination by Congress to hear from the public and review the project.

Categories Accountability, Disruption, Ethics, Trump

The Idiocy of Seizing Greenland

By dianeravitch
January 22, 2026 //
6

Foreign Policy, a distinguished publication for leading scholars of foreign affairs, published an article by staff writers Keith Johnson and Christina Lu asserting that Trump’s lust to control Greenland is just plain nuts.

They wrote;

Seeking additional barrels of oil in Venezuela or digging for rare earths in ice-covered Greenland makes no sense from an economic or security point of view. And yet U.S. President Donald Trump persists, even though the costs massively outweigh the benefits.

In reality, naked resource grabs explain a lot about Trump’s dizzying foreign policy, perhaps even more so than other explanations that have been proposed. It seems Trump may have reached back even further in time for his guiding light than tariff-happy William McKinley and big-stick imperialist Theodore Roosevelt to the British and Dutch quasi-state mercantilist corporations that introduced much of the world to rapacious capitalism starting in the 17th century. The British and Dutch East India Companies did grab much of the world, usually at gunpoint. At least they got pepper, spices, and tea. All we have here is sulfurous oil and neodymium.

Gunboat diplomacy is back, only this time without the diplomacy.

Trump’s obsession with natural resources that the companies paid to extract them refuse to touch does raise several questions. Are these even the right resources to be grabbing? Is any of this legal? And most importantly, is any of this a remotely good way to promote the security of the United States?

WHEN IT COMES TO OIL, which has been a Trump obsession for decades, the answer is clearly no.

Oil demand is a tricky thing to project into the future. Some forecasters expect global demand for oil to peak within five years, while others reckon fast-growing developing economies will still be thirsty into the next decade, requiring more wells and more production. Either way, oil from Venezuela and Greenland is not the answer.

Venezuela’s oil woes have been amply demonstrated. It’s an expensive thing to produce in a place with little security and less rule of law, especially with oil languishing in the mid-$50s a barrel. The chairman and chief executive of ExxonMobil, Darren Woods, told Trump at a White House meeting last week that Venezuela was “uninvestible.” Trump then said he would ensure that Exxon was kept out of any U.S.-led Venezuela ventures—and Exxon’s stock rose on the news.

Greenland, too, is rumored to have oil: billions of barrels of it. It’s not clear if that is actually the case, because decades of exploration have hit only dry wells, but on paper, Greenland could have 8 billion barrels of oil hidden under the tundra and the whitecaps, or nearly 3 percent of Venezuela’s unattractive reserves.

But there are some daunting challenges. Most of those estimated oil resources are north of the Arctic Circle, and mostly offshore. That is not easy to access, even with climate change stretching summer on both ends. Even the oil on land is not easy to tap. There are fewer than 100 miles of paved road on an island the size of Mexico. Deep water ports, airports, pipelines, oil-export terminals, housing, clinics—all are on somebody’s to-do list to build, but not that of oil majors.

Also relevant: Since 2021, Greenland has banned further oil exploration due to environmental concerns. The only current play, a land-based oil-exploration operation on the island’s east coast with U.S. backing, relies on a grandfathered lease from years ago. That legal stricture, in the absence of a complete annexation, could complicate further U.S. efforts to tap Greenland’s possible oil.

BUT WHAT ABOUT GREENLAND’S rare earths, which Trump officials have suggested are one of the primary reasons the U.S. president is so interested in the island?

While those who focus on rare earths mining simply say the plan is “bonkers,” the real issue is that rare earths are not rare—processing facilities and magnet factories are. Which makes a race for ice-bound dodgy mining prospects in somebody else’s territory all the harder to understand.

“It certainly doesn’t make any sense as a rare-earth story,” Ian Lange, a professor in the mineral economics program at the Colorado School of Mines, recently told Foreign Policy.

Rare earths, or a set of 17 metallic elements with obscure names like neodymium and samarium, have catapulted in geopolitical importance because they power everything from F-35 fighter jets to Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. China overwhelmingly commands their global supply chains, giving it powerful leverage in its ongoing trade spat with the United States.

Sure, Greenland may have some sizable rare earth reserves, according to the U.S. Geological Survey—but so do many other countries. And a big economic question hangs over potential operations in Greenland, where no rare earth mining has ever taken place and mining itself remains a fraught and divisive issue.

The biggest problem with Trump’s resource grabs is not their lack of economic foundation, which is nil, or their legality, which is none, but with what they do for U.S. security, which is little or worse.

Also, the bulk of Greenland’s land—a whopping 80 percent—is estimated to be covered in ice. All of those factors are certain to make establishing crucial mining and processing infrastructure, already a difficult and hefty financial endeavor, even more costly and challenging.

In his pursuit of rare earths, industry experts say, Trump will likely have an easier time looking elsewhere.

AND THEN THERE’S THE QUESTION of the legality of how Trump is going about his resource grabs. Abducting heads of government to seize resources is not anywhere sanctioned in the U.N. Charter, nor is threatening to invade a NATO alliance partner to forcibly annex their territory. But rogue states are hard to red team.

Trump has waved aside centuries of international law, telling the New York Times “I don’t need international law,” because his own “morality” was the only check or balance required.

It’s not an abstruse debate. For centuries, the West has sought to paint a patina of law over the anarchy of the international system, and even today, tomes are written about revisionist powers seeking to pervert international law for their own ends. Until very recently, the United States was not among the revisionist powers.

But there’s little to be done on that front. Trump’s installed successor in Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro’s former vice president and now also acting president Delcy Rodriguez, who has been under U.S. sanctions since 2017 for human rights abuses, is according to Trump “a terrific person.” Also not entirely legal is storing the proceeds of Venezuelan oil sales the United States has carried out in an offshore account in Qatar.

THE BIGGEST PROBLEM with Trump’s resource grabs is not their lack of economic foundation, which is nil, or their legality, which is none, but with what they do for U.S. security, which is little or worse….

The great advantage the United States had, until recently, was its network of alliances: NATO, Japan, South Korea, and a multitude of others. That’s all gone now, or nearly. It is surely a sign of bungled foreign policy when Sweden dispatches troops against you.

Categories Democracy, Disruption, Ethics, Extremism, History, Hypocrisy, Inequity, International, Stupid, Trump
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