Thom Hartmann sees how obsequious Trump is towards Putin and wonders: “Does Putin own Trump”?
Given that he has just given Putin everything he wanted in Ukraine, it’s a natural question.
Please open the link.
Archives for category: Extremism
Mercedes Schneider writes about a remarkable decision by Louisiana’s top health official.
He has decided that getting vaccinated should be a personal decision, not a mandate that applies to everyone. It’s not possible to stop the spread of a highly contagious disease if vaccination is optional.
Please open the link to read the order of the Louisiana Surgeon General.
A lot of people, mainly children, will get seriously ill, and some will die, because of this idiocy.
Schneider writes:
If it were only that easy:
Do you want to contract polio? Measles? Smallpox?
No?
Well, now it is only a matter of personal choice: Just say you don’t want a disease, and you will not catch a disease.
Of course, that’s not how it works. If it did– if one’s “personal choice” could prevent disease, especially disease epidemic– then count me in. I really don’t care for shots, anyway.
But you know what I like less that those shots?
The diseases themselves.
When I enrolled in my masters program at West Georgia in 1995, I received a letter stating that I needed to have a booster of the MMR (measles mumps rubella) vaccination since my first shot in that two-shot series occured before I was a year old (I was 10 months old at the time).
So, I went to the health clinic where I received my childhood vaccinations, and I received the booster.
While I was there, the nurse asked if I wanted to also have a tetanus shot, as I had not had one for 10 years.
I remember that shot making my arm ache. I replied, “I hate that shot.”
Without missing a beat, and dryly-stated, she responded, “You would like lockjaw even worse.”
Indeed I would. And so, I also received a tetanus booster.
If you want the benefit of disease protection without incurring the full wrath of a disease, the prophylactic properties of unvaccinated personal choice fall far short.
Nevertheless, in the name of “personal choice,” the Louisiana surgeon general has decided that the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) will no longer promote vaccinations, as Contagion Live reports on February 16, 2025:
The Louisiana Surgeon General, Ralph Abraham, MD, is advocating for autonomy over one’s body and that the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) will no longer be publicly promoting vaccination, but rather saying it is a discussion between people and their providers. Abraham told the LDH staff to not encourage vaccines, and LDH will no longer have vaccination events, according to a memo sent late last week (see below).
“The State of Louisiana and LDH have historically promoted vaccines for vaccine preventable illnesses through our parish health units (PHUs), community health fairs, partnerships and media campaigns. While we encourage each patient to discuss the risks and benefits of vaccination with their provider, LDH will no longer promote mass vaccination,” Abraham wrote in the memo.
So, no campaign to stop outbreaks from happening, but Louisiana will promote vaccination once there is an outbreak.
If I have an outbreak of measles, there is no longer a vaccination option for me to prevent it. I just need to plug it out. By the way, at 57 years old, I now fall into the category of people likely to experience complications, including pneumonia and encephalitis (I.e;. brain swelling, whereby “most people require hospitalization so they can receive intensive treatment, including life support.”)
However, I am vaccinated against measles, so the odds are pretty slim (3 in 100).
Speaking of measles, the personal choice prophylactic is currently falling short in neighboring Texas, where NBC News reportsthat by February 14, 2025, 49 cases had been confirmed in rural West Texas:
On Friday, the number of confirmed cases rose to 49, up from 24 earlier in the week, the state health department said. The majority of those cases are in Gaines County, which borders New Mexico.
Most cases are in school-age kids, and 13 have been hospitalized. All are unvaccinated against measles, which is one of the most contagious viruses in the world.
The latest measles case count likely represents a fraction of the true number of infections. Health officials — who are scrambling to get a handle on the vaccine-preventable outbreak — suspect 200 to 300 people in West Texas are infected but untested, and therefore not part of the state’s official tally so far.
The fast-moving outbreak comes as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. takes the helm of the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic, has long sown distrust about childhood vaccines, and in particular, the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, falsely linking it to autism.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can only send in its experts to assist if the state requests help. So far, Texas has not done so, the CDC said.
The CDC has sent approximately 2,000 doses of the MMR vaccine to Texas health officials at their request. However, most doses so far are being accepted by partially vaccinated kids to boost their immunity, rather than the unvaccinated.
Without widespread vaccination, experts say, the outbreak could go on for months.
Seems like a good time to promote measles vaccination in Louisiana.
Nah. Let’s just wait until the outbreak finds its way to East Texas then crosses the state line.
I was invited to write about the Trump agenda for education by The New York Review of Books. This is a publication I love to write for, because it’s the most distinguished literary-political-cultural publication in the nation. In addition, the editing process is arduous and careful. Every word, every sentence was carefully scrutinized. I happen to love close editing because it is a demonstration of seriousness. The editors at NYRB are very serious.
Here is the article. It is not behind a paywall.
Timothy Snyder is a professor of history at Yale University, who has written many books about European history. His book “On Tyranny” was a bestseller. He writes a blog at Substack called “Thinking About…”
Americans have a certain idea of freedom. We are fine just the way we are and the only problem are the barriers in the outside world. In this mental world, Musk’s hollowing out of the government can seem justified. Trump’s betrayal of friends and destruction of alliances can seem convenient. We will be great again by being all alone, with no one to trouble us.
This fantasy leads right to tragedy. It sets the stage for the weak strongman.
Trump is a strongman in the sense that he makes others weak. He is strong in a relative sense; as Musk destroys institutions, what remains is Trump’s presence. But other sorts of power meaning vanish, as Musk takes apart the departments of the American government that deal with money, weapons, and intelligence. And then the United States has no actual tools to deal with the rest of the world.
The strongman is weak because no one beyond the United States has anything to want (or fear) from the self-immolation. And weak because Trump submits to foreign aggression, putting waning American power behind Russia.
The weak strongman undermines the rules, but cannot replace them with anything else. He creates the image of power by his rhetorical imperialism: America will control Greenland, Panama, Mexico, Canada, Gaza, etc. From there, it is hard to say that others are wrong when they invade other countries. The weak strongman is left endorsing other people’s invasions, as with Russia and Ukraine. He lacks the power to resist them. And he lacks the power to coerce them. And, ironically, he lacks the power to carry out wars himself. He lacks the patience, and he lacks the instruments.
Many Americans fear Trump, and so imagine that others must. No one beyond America fears Trump as such. He can generate fear only in his capacity as neighborhood arsonist, as someone who destroys what others have created.
America’s friends are afraid not of him but of what we all have to lose. America’s enemies are not frightened when Trump kicks over the lantern and sets things on fire. Quite the contrary: he is doing exactly what they want.
Trump plays a strongman on television, and he is a talented performer. But the strength consists solely of the submissiveness of his audience. His performance arouses a dream of passivity: Trump will fix it, Trump will get rid of our problems, and then we will be free. And of course that kind of Nosferatu charisma is a kind of strength, but not one that can be brought to bear to solve any problems, and not one that matters in the world at large. Or rather: it matters only negatively. As soon as Trump meets someone with a better dictator act, like Putin, he submits. But he can only enable Putin. He can’t really even imitate him.
Trump’s supporters might think that we don’t need friendships because the United States can, if necessary, intimidate its enemies without help.
This has already been proven wrong. Trump can make things worse for Canada and Mexico, in the sense that a sobbing boy taking his ball home makes things worse. But he cannot make them back down. Trump has not intimidated Russia. He has been intimidated by Russia.
The cruelty that makes Trump a strongman at home arose from the destruction of norms of civil behavior and democratic practice. Unlike any other American politician before him, Trump has scorned the law and used hate speech to deter political opponents here. For years he has used his tweets to inspire stochastic violence. This intimidates some Americans. It has, for example, led to a kind of self-purge of the Republican Party, opening the way for Trump, or in fact for Musk, to rule with the help of tamed and therefore predictable cadres. The effect of this is that people who have submitted to Trump see him as a strongman. But what they are experiencing is in fact their own weakness. And their own weakness cannot magically become strength in the wider world. Quite the contrary.
Stochastic violence cannot be applied to foreign leaders. Trump has said that he can stop the war in Ukraine. He wrote a tweet directed at Vladimir Putin; but the capital letters and exclamation points did not change the emotional state of the Russian leader, let alone Russian policy. And no one in Irkutsk is going to threaten or hurt Putin because Donald Trump wrote something on the internet. Something that works in the United States is not relevant abroad. In fact, the tweet was a sign of weakness, since it was not followed by any policy. Putin quite rightly saw it as such.
Trump and his cabinet now repeat Putin’s talking points about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
One could generously interpret Trump’s tweet to Putin threatening sanctions and such as an act of policy. I saw conservatives do that, and I would have been delighted had they been right. But I fear that this was just the characteristic American mistake of imagining that, because Americans react submissively to Trump’s words, others must as well. For words to matter, there has to be policy, or at least the possibility that one might be formulated. And for there to be policy, there have to be institutions staffed with competent people. And Trump’s main action so far, or really Musk’s action so far, has been to fire exactly the people who would be competent to design and implement policy. Many of the people who knew anything about Ukraine and Russia are gone from the federal government.
And now Trump is trying to make concessions to Russia regarding issues directly related to Ukrainian sovereignty on his own, without Ukraine, and indeed without any allies. He is showing weakness on a level unprecedented in modern US history. His position is so weak that it is unlikely to convince anyone. Trump is a sheep in wolf’s clothing. The wolves can tell the difference. Russians will naturally think that they can get still more.
Ukrainians, for that matter, have little incentive to give up their country. Trump can threaten them with cutting US arms, because stopping things is the only power he has. But Ukrainians must now expect that he would do that anyway, given his general subservience to Putin. If the US does stop support for Ukraine, it no longer has influence in how Ukraine conducts the war. I have the feeling that no one in the Trump administration has thought of that.
It is quite clear how American power could be used to bring the war to an end: make Russia weaker, and Ukraine stronger. Putin will end the war when it seems that the future is threatening rather than welcoming. And Ukraine has no choice but to fight so long as Russia invades. This is all incredibly simple. But it looks like Trump is acting precisely as is necessary to prolong the war and make it worse.
Thus far he and Hegseth have simply gone public with their agreement with elements of Russia’s position. Since this is their opening gambit, Russia has every incentive to keep fighting and to see if they can get more. The way things are going, Trump will be responsible for the continuing and escalation of the bloodshed, quite possibly into a European or open global conflict. He won’t get any prizes for creating the conditions for a third world war.
It’s an obvious point, but it has to be made clearly: no one in Moscow thinks that Trump is strong. He is doing exactly what Russia would want: he is repeating Russian talking points, he is acting essentially as a Russian diplomat, and he is destroying the instruments of American power, from institutions through reputation. No American president can shift an international power position without policy instruments. And these depend on functioning institutions and competent civil servants. In theory, the United States could indeed change the power position by decisively helping Ukraine and decisively weakening Russia. But that theory only becomes practice through policy. And it is not hard to see that Musk-Trump cannot make policy.
Even should he wish to, Trump can not credibly threaten Russia and other rivals while Musk disassembles the federal government. Intimidation in foreign affairs depends upon the realistic prospect of a policy, and policy depends, precisely, on a functioning state.
Let us take one policy instrument that Trump mentioned in his tweet about Putin: sanctions. Under Biden, we had too few people in the Department of the Treasury working on sanctions. That is one reason they have not worked as well against Russia as one might have hoped. To make sanctions work, we would need more people on the job, not fewer. And of course we would also need foreign powers to believe that Treasury was not just an American billionaire’s plaything. And that will be hard, because their intelligence agencies read the newspapers.
The United States cannot deal with adversaries without qualified civil servants in the departments of government that deal with money, weapons, and intelligence. All of these are being gutted and/or run by people who lack anything vaguely resembling competence.
Americans can choose to ignore this, or to interpret it only in our own domestic political terms. But it is obvious to anyone with any distance on the situation that the destruction of the institutions of power means weakness. And it creates a very simple incentive structure. The Russians were hoping that Trump would return to power precisely because they believe that he weakens the United States. Now, as they watch him (or Musk) disassemble the CIA and FBI, and appoint Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel, they can only think that time is on their side.
The Russians might or might not, as it pleases them, entertain Trump’s idea of ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia. Even if they accept the ceasefire it will be to prepare for the next invasion, in the full confidence that a United States neutered by Musk-Trump will not be able to react, that the Europeans will be distracted, and that the Ukrainians will find it harder to mobilize a second time.
Trump is not only destroying things, he is being used as an instrument to destroy things: in this case, used by Russia to destroy a successful wartime coalition that contained the Russian invasion and prevented a larger war.
What is true for Russia also holds for China. The weak strongman helps Beijing. Time was not really on China’s side, not before Trump. There was no reason to think that China would surpass the United States economically, and therefore politically and militarily. That had been the great fear for decades, but by the time of the Biden administration the trend lines were no longer so clear, or indeed had reversed. But now that Trump (or rather Musk) has set a course for the self-destruction of American state power, Beijing can simply take what it would once have had to struggle to gain, or would have had to resign from taking.
A weak strongman brings only losses without gains. And so the descent begins. Destroying norms and institutions at home only makes Trump (or rather Musk) strong in the sense of making everyone else weak. In our growing weakness, we might be all tempted by the idea that our strong man at least makes us a titan among nations.
But the opposite is true. The world cannot be dismissed by the weak strongman. As a strongman, he destroys the norms, laws, and alliances that held back war. As a weakling, he invites it.
The speed with which Trump embraced the Russian view of its war on Ukraine is head-spinning. Trump said that Ukraine started the war, even though the world saw that Russia invaded Ukraine and that Russia has destroyed Ukrainian hospitals, schools, apartment houses, cultural sites, its power grid, and other non-military targets for three years. Even now, American and Russian delegations are meeting in Saudi Arabia to discuss how the war should end. Neither Ukraine nor Europe was invited.
Meanwhile, Trump lobs insults at Zelensky, calling him “grossly incompetent” and insisting that Ukraine must hold an election before peace can be reached. Zelensky was elected in 2019 with 73% of the vote while Putin had another fraudulent “election” after disposing of any other candidates. Yet today, Trump lashed out at Zelensky and called him “a dictator without elections.” Trump’s insults mirrored Russian propaganda.
After three years of international isolation, Putin has been rehabilitated by Trump and treated as the leader of a major power.
What has become clear is that Trump is hostile to our European allies and is excited to move the United States into an alliance with Putin, with Putin as the senior partner. It’s a shocking turn of events.
Heather Cox Richardson wrote about recent events:
The sixty-first Munich Security Conference, the world’s leading forum for talking about international security policy, took place from February 14 to February 16 this year. Begun in 1963, it was designed to be an independent venue for experts and policymakers to discuss the most pressing security issues around the globe.
At the conference on Friday, February 14, Vice President J.D. Vance launched what The Guardian’s Patrick Wintour called “a brutal ideological assault” against Europe, attacking the values the United States used to share with Europe but which Vance and the other members of the Trump administration are now working to destroy.
Vance and MAGA Christian nationalists reject the principles of secular democracy and instead align with leaders like Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán. They claim that the equal rights central to democracy undermine nations by treating women and racial, religious, and gender minorities as equal to white Christian men. They want to see an end to the immigration that they believe weakens a nation’s people, and for government to reinforce traditional religious and patriarchal values.
Vance attacked current European values and warned that the crisis for the region was not external actors like Russia or China, but rather “the threat from within.” He accused Europe of censoring free speech, but it was clear—especially coming from the representative of a regime that has erased great swaths of public knowledge because it objects to words like “gender”—that what he really objected to was restrictions on the speech of far-right ideologues.
After the rise and fall of German dictator Adolf Hitler, Germany banned Nazi propaganda and set limits on hate speech, banning attacks on people based on racial, national, religious, or ethnic background, as these forms of speech are central to fascism and similar ideologies. That hampers the ability of Germany’s far-right party Alternative for Germany, or AfD, to recruit before upcoming elections on February 23.
After calling for Europe to “change course and take our shared civilization in a new direction,” Vance threw his weight behind AfD. He broke protocol to refuse a meeting with current German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and instead broke a taboo in German politics by meeting with the leader of AfD Trump called Vance’s speech “very brilliant.”
Bill Kristol of The Bulwark posted: “It’s heartening that today the leaders of the two major parties in Germany are unequivocally anti-Nazi and anti-fascist. It’s horrifying that today the president and vice-president of the United States of America are not.” German defense minister Boris Pistorius called Vance’s speech “unacceptable,” and on Saturday, Scholz said: “Never again fascism, never again, racism, never again aggressive war…. [T]oday’s democracies in Germany and Europe are founded on the historic awareness and realization that democracies can be destroyed by radical anti-democrats.”
Vance and the Trump administration have the support of billionaire Elon Musk in their attempt to shift the globe toward the rejection of democracy in favor of far-right authoritarianism. David Ingram and Bruna Horvath of NBC News reported today that Musk has “encouraged right-wing political movements, policies and administrations in at least 18 countries in a global push to slash immigration and curtail regulation of business.”
Musk, who cast apparent Nazi salutes before crowds on the day of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, wrote an op-ed in favor of AfD and recently spoke by video at an AfD rally, calling it “the best hope for Germany.” In addition to his support for Germany’s AfD, Ingram and Horvath identified Musk’s support for far-right movements in Brazil, Ireland, Argentina, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa, the Netherlands, and other countries. Last month, before Trump took office, French president Emmanuel Macron accused Musk of backing a global reactionary movement and of intervening directly in elections, including Germany’s.
Musk’s involvement in international politics appears to have coincided with his purchase of Twitter in 2022. And indeed, social media has been key to the project of undermining democracy. Russian operatives are now pushing the rise of the far-right in Europe through social media as they did in the United States. Russian president Vladimir Putin has long sought to weaken the democratic alliances of the United States and Europe to enable Russia to take at least parts of Ukraine and possibly other neighboring countries without the formidable resistance that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) would present.
Russian state television praised Vance’s speech. One headline read: “Humiliated Europe out for the count. Its American master flogged its old vassals.” Russian pundits recognized that Vance’s turn away from Europe meant a victory for Russia.
Vance’s speech came after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told other countries’ defense ministers on Wednesday, February 12, that he wanted to “directly and unambiguously express that stark strategic realities prevent the United States of America from being primarily focused on the security of Europe.” Since 1949, the United States has stood firmly behind the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that said any attack on one of the signatories to that agreement would be an attack on all. Now, it appears, the U.S. is backing away.
In that speech, Hegseth seemed to move the U.S. toward the ideology of Russian president Vladimir Putin that larger countries can scoop up their smaller neighbors. He echoed Putin’s demands for ending its war against Ukraine, saying that “returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective” and that the U.S. will not support NATO membership for Ukraine, thus conceding to Russia two key issues without apparently getting anything in return. He also said that Europe must take over assistance for Ukraine as the U.S. focuses on its own borders.
On Wednesday, Trump spoke to Putin for nearly an hour and a half and came out echoing Putin’s rationale for his attack on Ukraine. Trump’s social media account posted that the call had been “highly productive,” and said the two leaders would visit each other’s countries, offering a White House visit to Putin, who has been isolated from other nations since his attacks on Ukraine.
Also on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky and offered U.S. support for Ukraine in exchange for half the country’s mineral resources, although it was unclear if the deal the U.S. offered meant future support or only payment for past support. The offer did not, apparently, contain guarantees for future support, and Zelensky rejected it.
On Saturday, while the Munich conference was still underway, the Trump administration announced it was sending a delegation to Saudi Arabia to begin peace talks with Russia. Ukrainian officials said they had not been informed and had no plans to attend. European negotiators have not been invited either. While the talks are being billed as “early-stage,” the United States is sending Secretary of State Marco Rubio and national security advisor Michael Waltz, suggesting haste.
After Rubio and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov spoke on Saturday, the Russian readout of the call suggested that Russia urgently needs relief from the economic sanctions that are crushing the Russian economy. It said the call had focused on “removing unilateral barriers inherited from the previous U.S. administration, aiming to restore mutually beneficial trade, economic, and investment cooperation.” On Friday, Russia’s central bank warned that the economy is faltering, while Orbán, an ally of both Putin and Trump, assured Hungarian state radio on Friday that Russia will be “reintegrated” into the world economy and the European energy system as soon as “the U.S. president comes and creates peace.”
But the U.S. is not speaking with one voice. Republican leaders who support Ukraine are trying to smooth over Trump’s apparent coziness with Russia. Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker (R-MS) called out Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s “rookie mistake” when he offered that the U.S. would not support Ukraine’s membership in NATO and that it was “unrealistic” for Ukraine to demand a return to its borders before Russia invaded in 2014, essentially offering to let Russia keep Crimea. Wicker said he was “puzzled” and “disturbed” by Hegseth’s comments and added: “I don’t know who wrote the speech—it is the kind of thing Tucker Carlson could have written, and Carlson is a fool.” Carlson, a former Fox News Channel personality, has expressed admiration for Orbán and Putin.
“There are good guys and bad guys in this war, and the Russians are the bad guys,” Wicker said. “They invaded, contrary to almost every international law, and they should be defeated. And Ukraine is entitled to the promises that the world made to it.”
Today on Face the Nation, Representative Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) said: “There is absolutely no way that Donald Trump will be seen—he will not let himself go down in history as having sold out to Putin. He will not let that happen.” Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark said: “I guess Republicans think this is how they manipulate Trump into doing the right thing. But Trump’s been selling out to Putin since Helsinki when he publicly sided with Putin over America’s intelligence community. And he hasn’t stopped selling out since. And the [Republican Party] lets him.”
European leaders reported being blindsided by Trump’s announcement. German leader Scholz on Friday asked Germany’s parliament to declare a state of emergency to support Ukraine, and on Sunday, European leaders met for an impromptu breakfast to discuss European security and Ukraine. Macron invited leaders to Paris on Monday to continue discussions. Representatives of Germany, Britain, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands, and Denmark will attend, as will the secretary-general of NATO and the presidents of the European Council and the European Commission.
After the Munich conference, in Writing from London, British journalist Nick Cohen wrote that those Americans trying to find an excuse for the betrayal of Ukraine are deluding themselves. He wrote: “[t]he radical right in the US is not engaged in a grand geopolitical strategy. It is pursuing an ideological campaign against its true enemy, which is not China or Russia but liberalism. The US culture war has gone global. The Trump administration hates liberals at home and liberal democracies abroad.”
Proving his point, on Saturday after Vance’s speech, Trump’s social media account posted: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” This message, attributed to French dictator Napoleon Bonaparte, not only claims that the president is above all laws, but also signals to supporters that they should support Trump with violence. And that is how they took it. Right-wing activist Jack Posobiec responded, “America will be saved[.] What must be done will be done,” to which Elon Musk responded: “Yes[.]”
Political scientist Stathis Kalyvas posted: “There is now total clarity, no matter how unimaginable things might seem. And they amount to this: The U.S. government has been taken over by a clique of extremists who have embarked on a process of regime change in the world’s oldest democracy…. The arrogance on display is staggering. They think their actions will increase U.S. power, but they are in fact wrecking their own country and, in the process everyone else.”
He continued: “The only hope lies in the sheer enormity of the threat: it might awake us out of our slumber before it is too late.”
Donald Trump, for reasons of his own, has decided to join in alliance with Vladimir Putin. He has indicated that the U.S. may leave NATO, which has kept the peace in Europe since the end of World War II. There is a chance that NATO might expel the U.S. due to Trump’s partnership with Putin.
Since 1945, this is the most consequential development in U.S. relations with Europe.
Trump has a deferential relationship with Putin. He made certain to install a Putin-friendly person as director of all national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.
Meanwhile, on the home front, Trump has busied himself installing stooges at every important agency: Kash Patel at the FBI; Pete Hegseth at the Defense Department; Pam Bondi at the Justice Department; John Ratcliffe at the CIA. None of these people will complain or resign if Trump declares that the U.S. is leaving NATO and forging a partnership with Russia.
The New York Times reported today:
President Emmanuel Macron of France called a second emergency meeting of European allies on Wednesday seeking to recalibrate relations with the United States as President Trump upends international politics by rapidly changing American alliances.
Mr. Macron had already assembled a dozen European leaders in Paris on Monday after Mr. Trump and his new team angered and confused America’s traditional allies by suggesting that the United States would rapidly retreat from its security role in Europe and planned to proceed with peace talks with Russia — without Europe or Ukraine at the table.
Mr. Trump’s remarks late on Tuesday, when he sided fully with Russia’s narrative blaming Ukraine for the war, have now fortified the impression that the United States is prepared to abandon its role as a European ally and switch sides to embrace President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
It was a complete reversal of historic alliances that left many in Europe stunned and fearful.
“What’s happening is very bad. It’s a reversal of the state of the world since 1945,” Jean- Yves Le Drian, a former French foreign minister, said on French radio Wednesday morning.
“It’s our security he’s putting at risk,” he said, referring to President Trump. “We must wake up.”
Fear that Mr. Trump is ready to abandon Ukraine and has accepted Russian talking points has been particularly acute in Eastern and Central Europe, where memories are long and bitter of the West’s efforts to appease Hitler in Munich in 1938 and its assent to Stalin’s demands at the Yalta Conference in 1945 for a Europe cleaved in two.
“Even Poland’s betrayal in Yalta lasted longer than Ukraine’s betrayal in Riyadh,” Jaroslaw Walesa, a Polish lawmaker and the son of Poland’s anti-Communist Solidarity trade union leader, Lech Walesa, said Wednesday on social media, referring to the American-Russian talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.
Rasa Jukneviciene, a former Lithuania defense minister who is now a member of the European Parliament, said it was “hard to understand” the sudden shifts in policy by the United States, the once reliable pillar of Europe’s security for decades. She said she was “wondering what historians will write about the events of this time, say, in five decades.”
“It is already clear that the Euro-Atlantic connection will not be the same as it used to be,” she said. “The stage when European security after World War II was basically guaranteed only by the U.S.A. is over….”
Meanwhile Secretary of State Marco Rubio was developing a new relationship with Russia at a bilateral meeting in Saudi Arabia, to which neither Ukraine nor NATO nations were invited.
Mr. Rubio said they hammered out a three-part plan, which would start by re-establishing bilateral relations between Washington and Moscow and end by exploring new partnerships — geopolitical and business — between Russia and the United States, while addressing the parameters of an end of the war with Ukraine in between.
Mr. Rubio said he would consult with Ukraine, the American “partners in Europe and others,” but in the end, “ultimately, the Russian side will be indispensable to this effort.”
Afterward, speaking to reporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, President Trump blamed Ukraine for starting the war, despite the fact that Russia had invaded.
“You could have made a deal,” he said, denigrating President Zelensky’s popularity and indicating he didn’t deserve a seat at the negotiating table.
“Well, they’ve had a seat for three years. And a long time before that,” Mr. Trump said. “This could have been settled very easily. Just a half-baked negotiator could have settled this years ago without, I think, without the loss of much land, very little land. Without the loss of any lives. And without the loss of cities that are just laying on their sides.”
Mr. Trump’s comments blaming Ukraine for the war stirred outrage in the Czech Republic, whose centrist government has been a stalwart supporter of Ukraine. “I’m afraid we’ve never been this close to Orwell’s ‘war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength’ before,” Interior Minister Vit Rakusan said on social media.
Mr. Le Drian called it a monstrous reversal of world alliances, as well as an “inversion of the truth.”
“The victim becomes the attacker,” he said, adding that the United States seemed to be retreating to a 19th-century view of itself, and telling an aggressive, expansionist Russia to do what it wants in Europe. “It’s the law of the strongest,” he said, adding “tomorrow, it could be Moldavia and after tomorrow, it could be Estonia because Putin won’t stop.”
John Thompson, historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma, describes the Republican infighting in Oklahoma. Meanwhile School Superintendent Ryan Walters continues his crusade to Christianize the state’s public schools.
He writes:
At the end of January, I wrote in Diane Ravitch’s blog that:
In Oklahoma, where rightwing MAGAs, led by Governor Kevin Stitt, State Superintendent Ryan Walters, and our most extreme state legislators, continue to double down on irrational and, above all, cruel agendas, it remains unclear whether Democrats and adult Republicans will be successful in pushing back. But there are still reasons for hope.
Over the last couple of weeks, we received new hope that the Oklahoma MAGAs are forming a circular firing squad. And that encourages me to believe that the same thing could undermine the Donald Trump/Elon Musk agenda.
I also wrote:
Although Walters remains the best known voice for absurdity, I still believe that Gov. Stitt’s agenda would be the most destructive – if he could get it done.
The best news in February is that Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who is running for governor, hoping the replace the term-limited Kevin Stitt, and to defeat his most dangerous opponent, Ryan Walters, is not the only Republican who is pushing back on both of them.
As the Oklahoman reported, A.G. Drummond, a member of the Board of Equalization, recently “issued a news release saying he doesn’t trust the numbers” presented by Stitt when calling for a tax cut for the rich when “the Oklahoma Tax Commission is reporting that expected revenue will drop by $408 million.” It reported, “Drummond said Stitt has taken what should be a serious, thoughtful and collaborative gathering of constitutional officers and ‘turned it in to a scripted event that is mostly for show.’”
Then, the blockbuster news was the removal of three Board of Education members who Stitt appointed and “who would later be described as a ‘rubber stamp’ for Walters.” Now, Stitt condemns Walters for creating “needless political drama.” Stitt now “says he will not approve Walters’ proposed immigration status rule, accusing Walters and the board of ‘picking on kids.’”
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As the Oklahoman also reported, Walters replied, “Governor Stitt has joined the swampy political establishment that President Trump is fighting against.” Then he “announced the creation of a ‘Trump Advisory Team’ within the state Department of Education — to be led by two of the now-former board members.”
This is occurring at a time, I’m told, when veteran Republicans may be making progress in teaching a number of new Republican legislators about the complexity of the budget process and the causes of the economic crisis Oklahoma faced in 2017.
Moreover, both the Senate and the House have new leaders who seem to be listening to the reasons why both Stitt and Walters are undermining the state’s economy. For instance, Senate Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton “aired concerns that the public squabbling would damage Oklahoma and its endeavors to attract new business investment from out of state.” Paxton said, “’If I could say something to all three of them’ (Walters, Drummond and Stitt), ‘I would say it’s not just Oklahomans watching what’s going on. It’s the entire nation.’” Paxton added, “I always say, ‘If you’re going to have an argument in this building, have it behind closed doors and try to work it out without making a big public spectacle about everything.”
And, “Republican Labor Commissioner Leslie Osborn (who has a long history of smart, honest, pro-union, and humane advocacy) points to Stitt’s failed effort to persuade Panasonic to build a $4 billion battery plant in Oklahoma as an example of the damage culture-war politics used by Walters and others [which] can kill billion-dollar deals.” She explained that it was the rightwing attacks on the LGBT community that likely persuaded the company to reject the Oklahoma offer.
Osborn explained:
“It was National Pride Week, and Panasonic had on their website, because they are international, that they were celebrating the diversity of their clientele and their employees and that they were appreciative of the LGBT community,” But, “More than a dozen Republican lawmakers chose the week that Stitt had landed Oklahoma as one of three finalists for the plant to release a statement, on state House letterhead, condemning Panasonic.” … “two days later Panasonic picked Kansas.”
Most importantly, politically, is the pushback by business leaders against Walters. The Oklahoman reported that the CEO of Gardner Tanenbaum Holdings, who played a key role in “developing a 30-acre Oklahoma City campus where Boeing has added hundreds of engineering jobs over the past dozen years,” said the problem is, “Education, education, education — we are dead in the water without the workforce.”
Tanenbaum told the crowd of 250 of the city’s most prominent developers and business executives:
“So wherever you can, get involved: The school district and the school boards, colleges, whatever — we’ve got to get rid of this guy. What was his name again?”
The crowd laughed as a member of the audience yelled out “Walters!”
“Walters!” Tanenbaum confirmed. “We’ve got to get rid of him!”
I have a history of being too optimistic, but Walters is facing four legal challenges in the next few months, and Stitt recently praised one of the educators (with a long history as a leader, Rob Miller, of the fight against corporate school reform) who is suing Walters.
Conversely, during his second term, Stitt has been losing a very large number of legal and political battles. Although Stitt denies it, there is now speculation that he is trying to become president of Oklahoma State University.
Reporters are investigating what triggered the “feud” between Stitt and Walters. The Oklahomanreported that Walters showed up at a rally against wind energy. This happened when Stitt was bragging about a corporation from Denmark “which could eventually lead to the development of a green methanol power production facility in the state.”
Walters said:
“I’m here to support Oklahoma and Oklahoma families, … Oklahoma families have spoken loudly and clearly they want their income taxes cut, they want to have support here in the state. We don’t want to give subsidies to woke energy companies. We have been fighting a cultural war here in the state to keep Oklahoma values intact. What we’re seeing is the opening up of a woke value system in the state that undermines all the good people here today, so we’re always going to fight for Oklahoma families and for the state as a whole.”
A Republican former-legislator, Mark McBride, with a long history of defending schools being attacked by Walters, said that Walters is “speaking and acting like he’s the governor, and he’s not.”
Which leads to the question whether there could be a similar conflict on the federal level prompted by a billionaire acting like a president when he is not.
At any rate, neither Stitt nor Walters are succeeding in their goals of turning Oklahoma into a successful pilot program for implementing Trump’s and Musk’s agendas. There’s reason to hope that they could be previewing a similar rightwing civil war between the Republicans who are now supporting the Project 2025 agenda.
Yes, I acknowledge that the best short-term scenario in Oklahoma is to lessen the damage that the right-wingers are doing. And as is the case on a national level, where the Republicans are still supporting Trump/Musk attacks on our democracy, it remains uncertain whether their attacks on government will first unravel their autocratic coalition or America’s public institutions. But recent Oklahoma history could preview a national unravelling of their assault on American democracy.
Sara Stevenson is a retired school librarian and Catholic school English teacher. She is a fearless advocate for public schools. Her article was published in The Austin American-Statesman. At this very time, the Texas Legislature is debating voucher legislation. It has already passed the State Senate. It is now being considered in the House.
She writes:
Many years ago at a school financing conference, I approached an East Texas House member from a rural district. I asked him, “Do y’all even have private schools for vouchers in your district?” He answered, “Hell, no. Private school vouchers are a tax break for families that already send their kids to private schools.” I thanked him for clearing that up.
Now most of those rural House Republicans opposing private school vouchers are gone. Jeffrey Yass, a Pennsylvania billionaire investor in TikTok, gave Governor Greg Abbott $10 million to primary them out of office.
Texas has been trying to pass a school voucher or (ESA: Educational Savings Account) bill since 1995, but the bills keep failing session after session. In their earlier forms, these bills called for ESAs (using public tax dollars to pay for private school tuition) as a way to help poor children or those with disabilities trapped in Texas’s “failing public schools.”
Sidenote: If Texas schools are failing, the Republican party is responsible since it has dominated the Legislature for more than two decades and has controlled the governor’s office since 1994.
But over time, the proposed bills kept demanding more, not only in the amount of tuition money offered, but in the expanding pool of students qualified to receive them.
With this year’s version, Senate Bill 2, which passed the Senate, the GOP is saying the quiet part out loud. No longer are the ESAs solely for the families who can’t afford private school tuition or those with disabilities; now a family of four, making as much as $161,000 a year, five times the federal poverty level, can still receive up to $10,000 toward private school tuition or $11,500 for students with disabilities.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick then reassures us that 80% of the vouchers will go to special needs or “low-income” children. Since eligibility is universal, 20% will go to families making more than $161,000 per year.
I remember in 1976 when Ronald Reagan talked about people who abused the welfare system by getting government handouts they didn’t need. He called them “welfare queens.” In those days the GOP praised the working poor for their dignity in refusing a government handout.
Fast forward to 2025. Now families making over $161,000 per year are entitled to your tax dollars to send their children to private schools with little to no accountability. In fact, Sen. José Menendez’s Amendment 36, requiring the state to collect data to determine if the program is even successful, failed.
In earlier iterations, the student had to be enrolled in a failing public school before receiving a voucher. Now children already enrolled in private schools are eligible. Promoters argue this is only fair because private school families pay thousands each year in property taxes to schools their children don’t attend. Well, if they deserve a taxpayer refund, what about all the Texas property taxpayers, including seniors, who have NO children currently attending Texas schools?
No, because contributing to public education is a common good; an educated citizenry benefits all Texans and the Texas economy.
And speaking of children with disabilities, this bill clearly states that these students receiving vouchers must waive any rights for accommodations guaranteed by IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act).
Although SB 2 boosters contend the bill promotes school choice for parents, the bill really means “schools’ choice” for private schools. While public schools must accept every child, private schools, including those receiving vouchers, are free to turn away or expel any child for any reason. For instance, they can continue to prefer legacies and the siblings of current students.
SB 2 earmarks $1 billion for this program in order to give vouchers to just 100,000 students. In contrast, 5.4 million Texas students currently attend public school, 10% of all U.S. school children.
Let’s first pass Senate Bill 1, the budget bill, and include increasing the basic student allotment to fully fund our public schools. Since Texas ranks 44th among the states in per pupil spending, let’s first invest in the school system we already have rather than spend a billion dollars to fund another one.
Haley Bull of Scripps News reported yesterday that Trump sent out an order to all 50 states warning that the federal government would cut off funding to any school that teaches about “diversity, equity or inclusion.”
She wrote:
The Department of Education is warning state education agencies they may lose federal funding if they do not remove DEI policies and programs to comply with the department’s interpretation of federal law.
A letter from the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights was sent to the departments of education in all 50 states, according to the Department of Government Efficiency.
“Institutions that fail to comply with federal civil rights law may, consistent with applicable law, face potential loss of federal funding,” acting assistant secretary for civil rights Craig Trainor writes in the letter. The message warns that “the department will vigorously enforce the law” to schools and state educational agencies receiving funding and that it will start taking measures “to assess compliance” in no more than 14 days.
The letter argues that a Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which found that affirmative action in the university’s admission process violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, should apply more broadly.
“The law is clear: treating students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity is illegal under controlling Supreme Court precedent,” the letter states.
This letter fails to mention that since 1970, the U.S. Department of Education has been subject to a law that states clearly that no officer of the federal government may interfere with what schools teaching.
The law states: “No provision of any applicable program shall be construed to authorize any department, agency, officer, employee, of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, [or] administration…of any educational institution…or over the selection of library resources, textbooks, or other printed or published instructional materials.“
The law is P.L. 103-33, General Education Provisions Act, section 432.
These zealots are trying to turn teaching about civil rights, about Black history, and about LGBT people into a criminal act.
They are wrong. Reality exists no matter what they ban and censor.
They are violating the law, and they must be stopped.
They must be sued by the ACLU, the NAACP, and every other legal organization that defends the rule of law.
I am posting a large excerpt from Olga Lautman’s Tyranny Tracker. Christine Langhoff shares this link with us. I urge you to subscribe. I have given up trying to keep track of Trump’s destructive orders, but Olga Lautman has not. She is a patriot. Trump is not. He is Putin’s puppet. Hillary warned us.
Olga Lautman posted yesterday:
📆 Trump Tyranny Tracker: Feb 14
Welcome to today’s Trump Tyranny Tracker, where I’m breaking down the key news from the day alongside ongoing developments as Trump and his regime move swiftly to consolidate power, undermine democracy, and dismantle civil rights and freedoms.
Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone!!
🔥 In Corruption News
Musk’s Treasury Appointee Retains CEO Role, Raising Conflict Concerns
What Happened: Elon Musk ally Tom Krause, newly appointed to oversee U.S. government payments, is still CEO of Cloud Software Group, a private tech company. Treasury’s ethics office approved the arrangement, which is a massive conflict of interest.
Why It Matters: A sitting CEO running federal payment operations raises ethical and security concerns over potential financial manipulation, insider deals, and corporate favoritism. With Treasury’s $5.45 trillion in annual transactions, watchdogs warn of unprecedented conflicts as Musk’s allies tighten their grip on government finances.
Source: WIRED
Trump DOJ Guts Public Corruption Investigations
What Happened: Trump has dismantled federal efforts to fight public corruption, pausing investigations into corporate bribery, weakening the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and considering eliminating the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section. Trump also fired inspectors general across multiple agencies. The move follows the DOJ’s controversial dismissal of charges against NYC Mayor Eric Adams, sparking mass resignations among prosecutors.
Why It Matters: The Justice Department is shielding Trump’s allies while curbing corruption investigations, signaling an unprecedented shift in enforcement priorities. The DOJ’s politicization raises concerns about legal accountability under Trump’s regime.
Source: CNN
Kash Patel’s Undisclosed LLCs Raise FBI Nomination Concerns
What Happened: Trump’s FBI director nominee, Kash Patel, failed to disclose multiple LLCs tied to a $1.8 million Virginia land deal in his Senate financial disclosures. His filings contradict each other on the land’s value, and he delayed submitting records until after his Senate hearing, avoiding scrutiny.
Why It Matters: Patel’s lack of transparency and hidden financial dealings—including ties to Kremlin-linked payments—raise serious ethical concerns for a potential FBI director. His pattern of secrecy and conflicts of interest fuels fears about his ability to lead an impartial agency.
Source: Mother Jones
🛡️ In Power Consolidation News
Mass Layoffs Spark Chaos as Trump Purges Federal Workforce
What Happened: Trump and Elon ordered mass layoffs of probationary federal employees, impacting thousands. Over 1,000 VA workers, including cancer and opioid researchers, were fired. The CDC lost 1,300 employees, cutting 10% of its workforce, while the Education Department, USDA, and DOE also saw deep cuts. Many were terminated without warning, including some who had already accepted buyouts.
Why It Matters: This politically driven purge weakens veterans’ services, public health, and environmental protections, prioritizing loyalty over competence. The purge will cripple government operations and vital social services.
Source: Associated Press
IRS Prepares for Mass Layoffs Amid Tax Season
What Happened: The IRS is set to fire thousands of workers, including many probationary employees, just as tax season reaches its peak. The move follows Trump and Elon Musk’s federal purge, aimed at gutting the government. The IRS had 100,000 employees, including 16,000 probationary workers, many of whom are now at risk.
Why It Matters: The cuts threaten tax processing, refunds, and enforcement, gutting Biden-era efforts to audit corporations and wealthy taxpayers.
Source: Reuters
Elon Musk’s DOGE Arrives at Pentagon, Eyes Massive Cuts
What Happened: Elon Musk’s operatives arrived at the Pentagon as part of Trump’s push to gut government agencies and veterans’ services. This follows similar moves across Treasury, DOJ, DHS, and intelligence agencies, where Musk’s operatives have gained access to financial, security, and intelligence data.
Why It Matters: Musk’s Pentagon access raises major conflict of interest concerns, as SpaceX and Starlink hold billions in defense contracts. Unvetted DOGE operatives could gain access to classified military programs, including cyber defense, nuclear strategy, and global operations. The Trump regime’s prioritization of loyalty over security vetting risks espionage, military compromise, and insider financial manipulation.
Source: Reuters
Mass Firings Loom Over CDC and NIH as Trump Reshapes Public Health Agencies
What Happened: Senior officials at the CDC and NIH are bracing for mass layoffs, with up to 700 public health workers targeted, including members of the CDC’s elite “disease detectives” corps—the first responders to global infectious disease outbreaks. Some high-ranking officials could be forced to resign as the regime continues its efforts to gut agencies.
Why It Matters: Slashing frontline pandemic and disease response teams cripples America’s ability to contain deadly outbreaks. Experts warn this will devastate public health preparedness, drain critical expertise, and politicize key agencies—as the U.S. faces a bird flu outbreak, a resurging measles crisis, and the worst flu season in decades.
Source: The New York Times
DHS Cuts 405 Employees, FEMA Hit Hardest
What Happened: DHS laid off 405 employees, including 200+ at FEMA, 130 at CISA, and others at USCIS and Science & Technology. 12 Coast Guard DEI staff were reassigned to border security.
Why It Matters: This purge weakens disaster response, cybersecurity, and national preparedness.
Source: ABC News
Trump Purges Leadership at National Archives
What Happened: Trump purges senior leadership at the National Archives and Records Administration. Deputy Archivist William Bosanko resigned Friday, following the firing of Archivist Colleen Shogan last week. At least five other senior officials are expected to leave, as the White House moves to replace them with Trump loyalists.
Why It Matters: This purge comes after NARA’s role in referring Trump’s classified documents case to the DOJ, signaling an attempt to reshape the agency’s leadership for political control. The loss of experienced, nonpartisan officials threatens historical preservation and government transparency.
Source: CNN
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