A dozen leaders from Europe and Canada visited Ukraine’s capital Monday to mark the third anniversary of the country’s war with Russia in a conspicuous show of support for Kyiv amid deepening uncertainty about the Trump administration’s commitment to helping it fend off Russia’s invasion.Some of Ukraine’s most important backers, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, were among the visitors greeted at the train station by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha and the president’s chief of staff, Andrii Yermak.
In a post on X, von der Leyen wrote that Europe was in Kyiv “because Ukraine is in Europe.”
“In this fight for survival, it is not only the destiny of Ukraine that is at stake. It’s Europe’s destiny,” she wrote.
Ukrainian and European officials have been rattled by U.S. President Donald Trump’s cordial approach to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his tough words for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. [snip]
The guests, also including European Council President Antonio Costa as well as the prime ministers of Northern European countries and Spain, were set to attend events dedicated to the anniversary and discuss with Zelenskyy further support for Ukraine.
The shift in Washington’s policy has set off alarm bells in Europe, where governments fear being sidelined by the U.S. in efforts to secure a peace deal and are mulling how they might pick up the slack of any cut in U.S. aid for Ukraine. The changes have also placed strain on transatlantic relations... (our emphasis)
Thanks to Putin's puppet ("Agent Krasnov"?), it mostly will be up to Ukraine and others to fight for democracy there, while we fight for it here. We're ultimately facing the same enemy. Theirs is a deadly war of Russian aggression that's resulted in much destruction and cost many lives in three exhausting years, while so far here we're fighting with words and maneuvers in courts, but that may change.
The Trump administration’s purge of federal workers may ultimately amount to the biggest job cut in U.S. history, which is likely to have ramifications for the economy, especially at the local level, according to economists.
The White House, with the help of Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, has fired or offered buyouts to workers across the federal government, the nation’s largest employer.
While the precise scale of the job cuts is as yet unclear, evidence suggests it’s at least in the tens of thousands so far, economists said. [snip]
Job loss can be painful for household finances.
Affected workers who can’t quickly find new jobs may be forced to make ends meet without regular income. Unemployment benefits may offer a temporary stopgap to eligible workers, but they replace only about a third of prior wages, on average, according to Labor Department data.
The majority of workers who suffer job loss are affected long term, as they have trouble finding new full-time jobs and subsequently earn less money, according to a 2016 research paper by Henry Farber, professor emeritus of economics at Princeton University, who studied data from 1981 to 2015.
“There are economic impacts to [laid-off workers], their families, to the businesses they would have bought goods and services from,” said Erica Groshen, a senior economics advisor at Cornell University and former commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“The economic consequences of layoffs are like a domino effect that spread across local economies to businesses that seem to have no connection whatsoever to the federal government,” said Ernie Tedeschi, director of economics at the Yale University Budget Lab...
The klepto-kakistocrats running amok in our country seem determined to wreck everything, and to hell with whoever gets in their way. One month in, and the hurtful consequences of their actions are already being felt across the country. Unfortunately, it's only bound to get worse.
The conservative CDU/CSU is on course to win the German federal election and form a new government, with its leader Friedrich Merz expected to lead it in a coalition arrangement that would most likely involve the SPD and potentially the Greens as the third party, if needed.
Speaking as the presumed next chancellor, Merz stressed Europe’s need to be more self-reliant on defence faced with the US under Trump, as he warned the new US administration made it “clear that this government is fairly indifferent to Europe’s fate”. He also repeated his criticism of Elon Musk for his involvement in German politics and support of the far-right AfD. His comments came shortly after congratulations from Trump.
The far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party celebrated its highest-ever result in a federal poll, with its co-leader Alice Weidel criticising the CDU/CSU for refusing to work with her party. She predicted an “unstable government which will not last the next four years”, saying the AfD would be waiting in the wings to take over the helm... (our emphasis)
Ugly, yes. Not helped by the involvement of ketamine-fueled fascist man-baby Elon "Dick" Musk. But for now, the pro- Ukraine, anti-Putin Merz will be leading Europe's arguably most important nation. An ugly win is a win nonetheless, for now. (A revealing note: the neo-Nazi AfD swept nearly all of the districts in former Soviet East Germany except for Berlin, and was nearly shut out in the districts in former West Germany. Old habits die hard?)
Now that's interesting. I hadn't done a deep dive into the AfD just knowing their platform was enough. And my own time there was almost forty years ago. I don't recall much resentment about the Germans, most were happy to see us even though some of there Dad's and Granddad's certainly served in the Wehrmacht. Interesting note: I never met any German who fought in western Europe. They all fought the Russians and loved America.
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