QOTD: Trump's Hypomanic Episode

 

From the documentary makers at The Shallow State on the mentally ill Malignant Fascist's posting of AI slop late last Sunday night:

"Trump has been having a hypomanic episode the past 2 hours. Post after post after post. I count about 60 of them - mostly images, many of them AI. All his trademark pathologies; all his underlying themes: Malice. Grievance. Division. Entitlement. 

His gut is a simmering stew of agitation, rage, and desperation. His disordered brain is filled with paranoid fantasies of revenge alongside fantastical visions of regaining his grandiosity.         

He hates being trapped and stuck in Iran. He hates that Epstein won't go away. He hates being told his speech at the dinner was inappropriate. He hates that his name needed to come off a building. He hates that musical artists canceled from his show. He hates losing in court. And he especially hates his own mortality.     

Neither you nor I can EVER feel the kind of frenzied fear and fanaticism that Trump feels now. This is a man, who knows he's in his final chapter, who is confounded that he, all that he is, all that he ever said he was, his lifetime of secrets and lies and false constructs - is vulnerable to exposure.      

How can he possibly sit still? How can he sleep?  Who can he trust?      

Malignant narcissists in decline always get worse, it's always messy, and they never want to go down alone."

Has anyone seen coverage of this mental breakdown by the MF in our legacy media? Of course not. They would rather ignore this and see what happens than show their viewers / readers that the MF is quite literally out of his mind. 

 

QOTD: War Costs And Lies

 

Heather Digby Parton writes in Salon.com today that testosterone-obsessed Whiskey Pete Hegseth's math for the Iran war and the eye-popping Pentagon budget don't add up, but will get little push back from the supine and cowardly MAGAt Republicans in Congress.  Her article's coda:

"As usual, Hegseth behaved like a teenage bully during the Senate hearing. He argued with senators, blamed Biden and insisted that America has won the war in Iran while simultaneously requesting many more billions to win it. Since the GOP is attempting to push this supplemental package through using reconciliation, they won’t need Democrats to pass it, so one can probably expect that he’ll get what he wants. The firehose of money flowing to the Pentagon and all the insiders who are making massive bank from it isn’t going to dry up any time soon.  

Hegseth ended the week with a gratuitous gesture to his commander in chief, who spent a good part of his time explaining that the 18 deaths in the Iran war are nothing compared to all the deaths in previous wars. To make Trump feel better, Hegseth removed from the tally four troops who were killed in renewed fighting, bringing the official death toll back down to 14. Military officials told the New York Times that 'one reason behind the change was . . . because their deaths occurred after President Trump declared a cease-fire in the war in April.'

Nonetheless, Trump attended the dignified transfer of the four fallen soldiers’ remains and concocted a story to burnish his war lust. “All of them said very strongly, ‘We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon.’”

Sure they did." (our emphasis)

Lying about fallen men and women of our armed forces is on brand for the dishonorable, draft-dodging narcissist felon Malignant Fascist. 

 

QOTD: Grievances, Fear, And Accountability

 

"The same man whose grievances stirred up that violent mob that sacked the Capitol still cannot let go of is shame and humiliation at having been dealt that defeat by voters here in Georgia and across the country. And so, at a moment when his war spirals out of control, prices for American families climb higher and higher, instead of focusing on the nation's needs, as always, he nurses his grievances. As always, he forces the rest of us to help him process his shame. As always, he centers his own fear of the accountability he'll face when we win decisively this fall." -- the charismatic and Dem superstar Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, at a campaign rally laying out the bare facts about what motivates much of the sick Malignant Fascist's actions. 

Please consider contributing to Senator Ossoff's campaign for reelection by going here.  It's one of the most impactful contributions you could make this year.

(photo: Megan Varner/Getty Images) 

 

QOTD: The Problem Is Their Beliefs

 

Paul Waldman has a terrific piece in his "The Cross Section" Substack about why Lindsey Graham and others of his ilk showed us their true selves as principle-free, amoral windsocks seeking power at any cost.  Please read his entire piece.  Here's the coda:

"Just as Trump awakened in so many Republican voters a barely-suppressed desire to be their worst selves — to be racist, to be sexist, to be obnoxious and cruel and loudly proud of all of it — there’s no reason to think that isn’t true of politicians as well.

Lindsey Graham didn’t lose his way or betray his principles, and neither did Vance, Rubio, or Cruz. The problem isn’t that they abandoned their beliefs. The problem is their beliefs. They showed us who they really are, and if some day in the future they try to convince us that they’ve rediscovered the virtue that had merely lain dormant within them for a while, we’d better not buy it."

We'd better not buy it, indeed.  

 

 

 

QOTD: The Source Of Trump's Power

 

From former Labor Secretary and Emeritus Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley Robert Reich, writing in his Substack column after the unstable Malignant Fascist's performance at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey:

"It’s important to understand the source of Trump’s power.

His power doesn’t come from his being president of the most powerful nation in the world. In fact, his arbitrary tariffs, absurd war in Iran, and outright abduction of Nicolás Maduro and his wife have reduced America’s standing in much of the world.

Nor does his power come from his MAGA base, which is now having second thoughts about supporting someone who got the U.S. involved in another Middle Eastern war, caused prices to rise, and still refuses to release the complete Epstein files.

Nor does his power flow from his strategic brilliance or cunning. Of all U.S. presidents in modern times, he easily ranks as the stupidest.

Trump’s power comes from his willingness to violate all the norms, rules, and laws about how American presidents are supposed to act — to do anything that helps him accumulate more wealth, power, and glory, and wreak vengeance on anyone who has tried to get in the way.

The NATO presidents and prime ministers treated Trump with extraordinary deference because they’re afraid of what he might do if he doesn’t get what he wants.

Whether it’s NATO, Iran. the World Cup, the 2020 election, making billions off his presidency — or anything else — he’s unconstrained by norms, rules, treaties, and laws."  (our emphasis)

Reich's entire perceptive column is well worth the read. He's zeroed in on what makes the MF so dangerous and disturbing, and why we'll be cleaning up his messes for years to come.

 

QOTD: Stick A Fork In It

 

Former Federal prosecutor Joyce Vance writing in her Substack on the corrupt sexual abuser Malignant Fascist on trying to delay and frustrate payment of the judgement he owes to his rape victim, journalist E. Jean Carroll:

"The most annoying thing, from a legal perspective, about Donald Trump is how he plays the delay game, drawing cases out far longer than any other litigant could get away with. He relentlessly files borderline (and sometimes outright) frivolous motions and fights every step of the way, using every motion to reconsider and every other procedural tool available, even when it’s hopeless.

That’s how it felt today in the E. Jean Carroll case. We’ll get to what happened during the day in a minute, but first let’s start with how it ended, just after 10 p.m. ET. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals denied Trump’s request to stay District Judge Lewis Kaplan’s order that it was time for Trump to pay Carroll the $5 million, plus post-judgment interest, that he owes her. The Second Circuit ruled just hours after Trump asked for the stay.

Trump, of course, isn’t done yet. Next, he’ll ask the Supreme Court for a stay. Prediction: It will be similarly unavailing. Stick a fork in this case. It’s done."

It's a sign of how far the culture and corporate media have been degraded to treat this story with a yawn, as if it's commonplace for a U.S. President to avoid paying for his criminal actions, in this case, defamation of his rape victim. But it's time to stick a big fork in the MF's desperate move.

 

QOTD: Arrests For Laughing At Them

The always insightful Amanda Marcotte, writes in Salon.com about the farcical effort of the delusional and incompetent Malignant Fascist and his cult to blame the disastrous re-make of the Reflecting Pool on nonsensical "sabotage" by imaginary box cutter-wielding, algae-loving libs. Here's an excerpt from her great read:

"Do these people believe this silly lie? With MAGA, it’s always hard to distinguish the line between self-serving tales and genuine delusion. Ultimately, it’s irrelevant: What matters more is why right-wingers are burrowing so deeply into this nonsense. Like Trump, they want an excuse to arrest people for laughing at them. It really isn’t deeper than that. Just as Trump is too egotistical to admit he screwed up the iconic Reflecting Pool, his followers cannot stomach admitting liberals were right all along about how stupid it was to vote for him.

The whole debacle is another blunt reminder that fascism is a movement for people who would rather blame everyone or everything else — including diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives; the word “woke;” antifa; Obama; Hillary Clinton and three-time Olympians — for their failures than do the hard work of improving themselves and their country. This is evident in the clown car that is Trump’s Cabinet, which is stuffed full of members like Pete Hegseth and Kash Patel — people who would never succeed on their own terms, but have been able to ride the wave of conservative resentment into positions they’re not qualified for. But it’s also true of the everyday MAGA voters that fall for these politics, and constantly vote against their economic self-interest just to stick it to those smarty-pants liberals with their annoying competence." (our emphasis)

With a cult like MAGA, any lie or delusion supporting their twisted agenda and beliefs will suffice, and their pathological cult leader will eagerly supply them with those lies every hour of every day.

 

QOTD: Trump's War On Clean Energy

 

In his Substack, Nobel Prize laureate Paul Krugman discusses the mentally unstable Malignant Fascist's opposition to clean energy here in the U.S., while ironically his actions boost it abroad:

"Trump has so far committed $2.5 billion in taxpayer dollars to killing renewable energy projects. The administration has also tried to stop offshore wind farms already under development — moves that have been blocked by the courts — while the Pentagon has been refusing to grant routine permits for onshore wind projects.

Yes, $2.5 billion to destroy already-approved, cost-effective clean energy projects while Americans are suffering from soaring electricity prices thanks to data centers and high gasoline prices.

Yet here’s the irony: Donald Trump’s disastrous Iran war has delivered a huge boost for renewable energy around the world — except in the U.S.. Trump has so far done more to shift the global economy away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy than any other single individual in history.

Why do Trump and his gang hate green energy so much? The roots of their hatred range from the power of fossil fuel interests, to Trump’s petulant whine that wind turbines ruined the view from his Scottish golf course, to a general sense among right-wingers that clean energy threatens their masculinity." (our emphasis)

The ignorant MF, from withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accords, to boosting oil and coal production and use, to killing renewable energy projects, has made the U.S. more polluted and has created the conditions for severe impacts on the global environment, which may be irreversible. Bastard.

QOTD: Marriage of Convenience

 

Yair Rosenberg, writing in The Atlantic, on the schism between Bibi "Bomb Bomb" Netanyahu and the corrupt Malignant Fascist. Here's a brief excerpt, but read his entire article:

"For years, Netanyahu has built his brand on two promises to the Israeli electorate: that he alone could withstand international pressure to compromise on Israeli security, and that he alone could handle Trump. Now the president is forcing Netanyahu to choose between the two. Either he defies Trump’s diktats about Lebanon and Iran to save his reputation as a stalwart security hawk, or he folds to preserve the perception of his alliance with the president. Whatever path Netanyahu picks, he will imperil Israel’s geopolitical standing and undermine his own case to Israeli voters. [snip]

As the president has demonstrated time and again, the only person whose interests matter to Trump is Trump. Those interests have often aligned with Netanyahu’s, but this was always a marriage of convenience." 

(photo: Reuters) 

QOTD: A Trump Exorcism

 

Andi Zeisler, writing today in Salon.com, looks at the pure joy of the New York Knicks winning the NBA championship, the "exorcism" of the hated Malignant Fascist, and what is says about the optimism and future of the city. Excerpts, but read her entire article:

"Whatever New York is becoming, 2026 has made one thing clear: It will never again be Donald Trump’s city. Knicks fans felt the vibe souring as soon as Trump announced that he would be attending Game 3 of the finals, and social-media platforms lit up with a determined boo-this-man energy that was in full force the night of the game. Trump got the dog-and-pony show he thrives on  — the barricades that shut down watch parties around Madison Square Garden, the beefed-up entry process that inconvenienced both attendees and MSG staff, the demonstrators holding oversized orange letters that spelled out GO KNICKS F*CK TRUMP. But however powerful he felt as boos rained down and drowned out the National Anthem, the strongman bravado fell apart when Trump was seated and became, as Jimmy Kimmel put it, 'the first sitting president to shut down a major United States city so he could take a nap in front of a sold-out crowd.' [snip]

Well before he was elected president, Donald Trump sought to turn New Yorkers against each other; sadly, he often succeeded. The people of New York vanquished him with none of the spite he has spent decades sowing, but with grace, love, and pride in their city."

So well expressed. Zeisler quotes Toi Derricotte saying, "Joy is an act of resistance," and the people of New York City expressed cosmic joy this past weekend.

(photo: Worth a thousand words. Jim Watson via Getty Images) 

 

QOTD: "Grooming Us For Nuclear War"

Yesterday's Daily Beast podcast featured Dr. John Gartner, a former assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, who has been warning about the deranged and dangerous Malignant Fascist for 10 years. His latest dire observations:

"In 40 years of clinical practice and almost 30 years of teaching psychiatric residents, I've never encountered a patient as sick as Donald Trump. He's so many standard deviations away from what we would normally consider normal, and that it's coming to a head now is in his fantasies of being this military conqueror. [snip]

What I believe, [is that] he is setting us up. He is grooming us for nuclear war. He wants to be the person who pushes the button first, because that would put him in history as the most powerfully destructive military leader in human history. And that is what he gets off on because of his sadism. [snip]

He actually gets incredible gratification from destroying things and hurting people and feeling powerful through that. As he's starting to have more and more problems at home, his poll numbers are in the toilet. The economy is in the toilet. He might lose both houses of Congress. If he does, what's the one power he has that no one can assail? Even if we have both houses of Congress, he will still be the commander in chief, and he's going to want to exercise that power in a way that makes him feel powerful." (our emphasis)

Dr. Gartner was one of 27 psychiatrists and mental health professionals who wrote of the MF's mental illness in their book "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump", originally released in the fall of 2017 and updated since. It's an indictment of the corporate media (and most Dems) that this book and these professionals haven't been widely interviewed and publicized.

QOTD: Trump's Lifelong Egomaxxing

 

The opening paragraphs to an excellent article in Salon.com by Kirk Swearingen:

"As anyone paying even the slightest attention well knows, not one iota of evidence exists that the 2020 presidential election was 'rigged,' as Donald Trump endlessly insists.

"Trump’s lifelong egomaxxing — to make up for whatever he never received in childhood, beyond millions of dollars and a father’s admonishments to 'be a killer' — means he will never accept the possibility of losing any contest of any kind.

Art Davie, a roommate of Trump’s in military school and founder of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, recently told the Daily Beast that Donald imagined himself the best at everything even at the age of 16, and felt aggrieved if he thought he was being slighted in any way.

Things never change for those who never grow up.

Trump remains that overprivileged bully who embraces (and embodies, it seems) his grievances. He surrounds himself with lackeys who will only praise him, rather than offer actual advice, and is led only by those voices in the media who are 'nice' to him. (His media enemies list names only organizations that employ actual journalists.)

He even cheats at golf, determined to 'win' the game that most depends on personal integrity.

So, how could this man with one of the most fragile egos in history ever accept that, as an incumbent, he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden by more than 7 million votes? Rather than concede, he was prepared to burn down our democracy. It would mean no more to him than having his caddy toss one of his poorly struck balls onto the green."  (our emphasis)

QOTD: Virtueless Paragons Of False Masculinity

 

John Beske, writing for DailyKos, looks at the traditional definition of masculinity and compares it with the perverted MAGAt version, using the Boy Scout's code from his youth and its 12 positive attributes as guide:

"A boy scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.

These were, it seemed to be, the twelve attributes that a good boy should aspire to in order to become a good man and an upstanding citizen. [snip]

But when I see Trump and pretty much all Republican lawmakers as well as major right wing icons like Steve Bannon, Andrew Tate and Nick Fuentes, I see people who claim to be the paragons of masculinity, yet possess absolutely none of these virtues.

Let’s use Trump as an example: he cannot possibly be trusted to do anything he says he will do, he is loyal to no one, he only helps people who reward him with massive cash or power, no one would ever mistake him as friendly, he is probably the most discourteous person on the planet and likewise the most unkind, he’s only cheerful when he is in the act of hurting somebody, he wastes vast piles of other people’s money to support a ridiculously opulent lifestyle while depriving others enough money to live, he is an absolute coward, he is unkempt, slovenly and by many reports smelly, and he demands reverence to himself while offering it to no one else.

Likewise his Republican and rightwing sycophants and trolls all strive for personal power and wealth above all else, all view other people who don’t look like them as inferior and undeserving. They feel that they are superior to and therefore allowed to steal from and hurt anyone who is not a member of their privileged little clique. Meanwhile, they attach themselves like barnacles to anyone they deem superior and they endure any indignity and humiliation as long as it helps them advance their status in this dark and devious hierarchy."  (our emphasis)

As the Malignant Fascist's birthday approaches with his vulgar, UFC mixed martial arts event on the south lawn of the White House, it's worth noting that he aligns himself with that part of the culture, while being weak and cowardly and hoping that this view of "masculinity" rubs off on him.

 

QOTD: The Bumbling Hatchet Man

 

The always readable and perceptive Nobel laureate Paul Krugman again gives us today's quote, commenting on the sinister appointment of MAGA fanatic and the Malignant Fascist's fiercely loyal hatchet man Bill Pulte to the Director of National Intelligence position.  From his Substack post:

"Pulte is a bumbling hatchet man: so far none of his attempted lynchings have succeeded. But for Trump, willingness to engage in unethical behavior is all that matters.

What will Pulte do as America’s senior intelligence official? You might think that even someone like Trump, who has no desire to serve the national interest, who sees wars only as ways to enrich himself and distract from his domestic woes, would want accurate intelligence. After all, if you’re going to wag the dog, you don’t want the dog to bite back the way it has in Iran.

But Trump appears to have given up on governing — even governing aimed at consolidating his own power and legacy. He wants to punish everyone he imagines has wronged him but has lost all interest in making the government work, even for nefarious purposes. So he doesn’t need intelligence, just someone who will indulge his rage. And that will be Pulte’s job." (our emphasis)

Watch as Pulte discovers "domestic terrorism" among Dems and those that oppose his cult leader.  His predecessor, the opportunistic Kremlin friend Tulsi Gabbard was bad enough, but we have a feeling we ain't seen nothing yet.

QOTD: "deMAGAfication"

 

Nobel laureate Paul Krugman writes in his Substack about the need to "deMAGAfy" the U.S., much like the de-Nazification effort in Germany following WWII.  He concludes with this:

"Obviously, we need to defang Trump as much as possible and make sure that neither he nor anybody who follows in his footsteps has power after the next two elections. But beyond that, we really need to do a thorough purging of the United States. We need a deMAGAfication. And I’m not going over the top by using a word that’s very similar to the denazification that we pursued successfully after World War II in Germany.

And it’s not just the MAGA ideology, but the whole structure of hugely unequal power, hugely unequal wealth that made this horrific moment possible.

It’s not going to be easy, and maybe it’s not going to be doable, but we have to try because this is a nightmare. This is a nightmare beyond, I think, even the worst fantasies of progressives, beyond the worst fantasies of conservatives who still have a conscience. (There still are plenty of those, but they’re no longer MAGA.)

This has to be turned around and we should not, above all, whitewash or forget this moment. This is where a lot of forces in America have been leading and if we don’t do something beyond just getting rid of Trump, it’s going to happen again." (our emphasis)

We've called for this type of purging also.  The MAGA "movement" is a fascistic cult that, for now, is loyal primarily to the mentally ill Malignant Fascist, with many more pretenders to his MAGA throne.  In time, his oligarch supporters will choose, using their vast financial resources, a successor who will seek to impose their ideology on us and keep feeding the insatiable appetite of the Epstein class.

QOTD: The Malignant Fascist's Luck

 

Salon.com's Heather Digby Parton looks at the havoc the deranged Malignant Fascist has wreaked in his life, with the luck of the incompetent and a healthy bankroll supplied by his monstrous father. He's squandered his luck often, yet manages to get away and to enrich himself further:

"Trump has always been very incompetent and very lucky, and his luck may hold out once again. He is likely to survive the disaster he is making of the country by the skin of his teeth, and will probably leave office with a massive fortune derived from his presidency. There will likely be no accountability for the vast corruption and abuse of power for him personally; his friends and allies have seen to that.

"Up until now, America has been an equally lucky nation, blessed with vast resources and resilient people who came to this country with lots of energy and ambition. But it’s entirely possible that our fortune has run out and we won’t be lucky enough to survive Donald Trump. After all, his good luck almost always leaves nothing but carnage for the people he leaves behind."

Let's work to make sure his luck runs out this time. 

 

QOTD: Trump's Failed War On Iran

 

Nobel laureate Paul Krugman writes in Substack that the delusional and violent Malignant Fascist's war on Iran has already catastrophically failed, and that the MF is trying to extract himself while getting pushback from some war-minded allies in the U.S.  He closes his article with this:

"Can America still snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, or should it accept a deal that leaves us clearly worse off than we were before the war? The answer is that running away — if that is what Trump is doing — is now the right move. It’s better to accept a bad deal, one that leaves America much weaker than it was a few months ago, than to double down on a failed war. Time is not on our side: looming shortages of critical weapons, the imminent exhaustion of world oil inventories, and the lost support of our allies and the American public mean that this war needs to end soon."  (our emphasis)

The MF's recent backpedaling from his usual "peace is at hand" b.s. illustrates that a peace agreement -- one that will satisfy the warmongers and the Netanyahu government -- is far from completion, and that they may force him into a "bomb the hell out of them" mode.  Time will tell, but it's clear that Iran still has powerful cards yet to play that the foolhardy MF didn't count on.

(photo: The failed MF / Daybreak, Getty Images)

QOTD: Laughing Stock

 

Nobel laureate Paul Krugman writes in his Substack on the craven and weakened Malignant Fascist's junket to China, and how it shows his humiliation:

"One of Donald Trump’s signature claims is that Joe Biden made America a 'laughing stock', and that he has made us great again and respected around the world.

Yet this is the opposite of the truth. As a result of Trump’s petulant, self-destructive policies, much of the world now holds him and America as a whole in contempt. As the New York Times reported just before Trump’s visit to Beijing, the Chinese now talk routinely about 'American decline,' and describe Trump as 'an accelerator of American decay.'

To be clear, China has many significant problems of its own. It faces a demographic crisis: Its working age population has been shrinking for more than a decade. Its economy is deeply unbalanced, relying on unsustainable trade surpluses and unproductive investment to make up for inadequate consumer spending. Its economic growth is slowing. It suffers from high youth unemployment. Discontent is rising, held in check by autocratic, police-state measures.

But despite China’s domestic troubles, in geopolitical terms China is on the ascendant. Trump’s visit to Beijing is a field trip by a failing, flailing would-be autocrat pleading with a real strongman, who leads a much more serious country, to bail him out of the mess he’s made." (our emphasis)

Please read his entire piece for an understanding of what the MF has done to put China in the ascendancy, as we decline on his watch. 

QOTD: "The Rich and Powerful Remain Protected"

 

“I kept my identity protected as Jane Doe. I woke up one day with my name mentioned over 500 times!” Roza said, her hand clutching her face as she held back tears.

“While the rich and powerful remain protected by redactions, my name was exposed to the world. Now reporters from across the globe contact me, I cannot live without looking over my shoulder! I can only imagine the long-term impact this mistake will have on my life.” --  Roza, from her testimony in Florida today. The Trumpist DOJ deliberately un-redacted her name so as to intimidate her and suppress her testimony.

Roza was trafficked by a sleazy pedophile by the name of Jean Luc-Brunel, who ran a "model" agency and who later committee suicide.  Brunel ran in the same circles as Jeffrey Epstein and his "model" agency friends, who supplied him, and his friends, with teenage girls to exploit.

(photo: House Oversight Committee)

 

QOTD: Putin's War Comes Home

 

The great Anne Applebaum, writing in The Atlantic, describes the fear that the Russian elites have of Ukraine's increasing military prowess and reach into Russia's heartland.  The Putin-managed May 9 "Victory Day" celebration was a shadow of previous years, reflecting his paranoia and Russia's faltering position in their war of aggression against Ukraine:

"Last week, the whining noise of unmanned flying objects could be heard in the city of Moscow once again. On the morning of May 7, the mayor of Moscow announced that the Russian air force had shot down hundreds of Ukrainian drones aimed at the city. Two days later, Moscow was due to host Russia’s annual May 9 military parade, a celebration linked very intimately with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who had revived this Soviet-era celebration of Stalin’s victory over Nazi Germany and his conquest of Europe.

Suddenly, and very publicly, Russian officials appeared nervous, afraid that their parade would be spoiled. The Russian foreign minister issued a threat, promising 'no mercy,' whatever that means, if Ukrainians struck the parade. The Kremlin’s spokesperson reassured Muscovites that security was tight because the 'threat from the Kyiv regime' had already been taken into account. The Russian president even persuaded the American president to ask the Ukrainian president for a one-day cease-fire. Volodymyr Zelensky granted Putin’s wish, after Trump offered to broker an exchange of 1,000 prisoners of war. Zelensky then issued a magnanimous, droll decree, formally granting Putin permission to hold the parade." (our emphasis}

Zelensky's mock decree was the cherry on top of the sundae, demonstrating that there's been a not-so-subtle shift in the dynamic of Russia's war on Ukraine, now in its fourth and very deadly war for the Russian aggressors.  Ukraine is showing that it has some potent, lethal cards to play, too.

(photo: Pavel Bednyakov / POOL / AFP via Getty Images)