Putin

The World Moved On. Trump Went Golfing.

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Ukraine didn’t warn him. China doesn’t need him. Europe’s done negotiating. And the beavers? They’re just quietly saving the planet while America embarrasses itself.

By Mary Geddry | Jun 2, 2025

Good morning! Donald Trump spent the weekend doing what he does best: golfing, rage-posting, and letting the world pass him by. In Virginia, he posed with pro golfers and speculated, once again, on whether Joe Biden is a robot. In Russia, 41 strategic aircraft exploded in a fiery symphony of Ukrainian drone precision. And in Beijing, the Chinese government all but rolled its eyes as Trump accused them of trade betrayal, issuing a blunt “we don’t have time for your sandbox politics” response.

Let’s begin in Ukraine, where the Security Service carried out a shock-and-awe drone strike deep inside Russian territory, disabling nearly 34% of Russia’s strategic bomber fleet. Code-named Spiderweb, the operation involved 117 drones and over a year of planning. The White House was deliberately kept in the dark, according to Axios and CBS, a stunning sign of just how little Ukraine trusts, or needs, Trump anymore. His reaction? Silence. Not even a grunt between golf swings.

China, meanwhile, is treating Trump’s trade war cosplay with the weariness of someone who’s been through this sitcom before. After last month’s theatrical “Geneva Agreement” briefly cooled the tariff fever, Trump torched it again, revoking student visas and tightening export controls on AI components. Beijing’s response? Shrug. Their strategy is logical: develop domestic industries, minimize U.S. exposure, and stop trying to reason with the malfunctioning soda machine that is Trump’s economic brain.

And Ukraine? Ukraine didn’t just ignore Trump, they upstaged him. In a poetic reversal of Trump’s infamous Oval Office sneer (“You don’t have the cards, Zelensky”), the Ukrainian president played a hand so bold it reshuffled the entire deck. Spiderweb, a 117-drone blitz on four Russian air bases, crippled a third of Russia’s strategic bomber fleet. The drones launched from disguised cargo trucks parked next to FSB headquarters. The kind of op that, if carried out by the U.S., would earn a Hollywood script deal and a dozen Senate hearings. Under Trump, it earned a blank stare and a golf swing.

Zelensky didn’t ask permission. Why would he? This week, a viral meme answered Trump’s old line with Zelensky smirking: “How about now?”

As Ukraine executes one of the most surgically effective strikes in modern warfare history, Trump is busy reposting robot-Biden conspiracies and spreading lies about Harvard teaching middle school math. Meanwhile, the European Union threatens counter-tariffs, Latin America leans into Chinese trade, and even Africa is being courted by Beijing while Trump’s Pentagon pulls out. The multi-polar world Trump claimed he wanted is here, but America is now the pole no one leans on.

Back home, the Harvard math lie has gone from late-night muttering to federal policy fiction. Two agencies have cited it in official memos, canceling contracts and condemning a university whose lowest-level math course is introductory calculus. The story is built around a viral tweet misinterpreting a five-day calculus course that included algebra review, a common experience for pandemic-affected high schoolers. But in Trump’s America, if it goes viral, it becomes law.

A man shouting “Free Palestine” threw incendiary devices into a peaceful vigil for Israeli hostages in Boulder, injuring eight people. The victims ranged in age from 52 to 88. Trump’s administration immediately shifted from public safety to immigration panic, with Stephen Miller claiming, without confirmation, that the attacker had overstayed a visa. DHS has said only that details are forthcoming.

And yet, the American public appears to be catching on. A new YouGov poll shows that 57% of respondents believe Trump’s age is impairing his presidency. That’s before factoring in the part where he reposted a theory that Biden was executed and replaced with a robotic clone. Even The New York Times covered that one, on page one. Favorability numbers don’t look any better. Atlas Intel has Obama at +10, AOC at +4, Trump at –1. JD Vance is at –14, which is roughly the political equivalent of shingles.

Trump’s economic message, meanwhile, is now just a series of broken promises and nonbinding hallucinations. The “deal” with the UK? A glorified memo that favored Rolls-Royce and Jaguar over any U.S. automaker. The “deals” with China? Nonexistent. According to his commerce secretary, the new strategy is to simply let Trump set tariff rates unilaterally and call that a deal. No signatures, no talks, just an emperor with no clothes and a Sharpie.

But there is a bright spot. A humble, hopeful one. The return of the Eurasian beaver to Britain marks a bright spot; these animals have repopulated areas where rivers have been poisoned, straightened, and forgotten. Not with a press release, but with mud, sticks, and ecological wisdom. Once hunted to extinction, they are now protected and reintroduced to the wild. Their dams filter pollution, prevent floods, raise water tables, and bring back frogs, fish, birds, bats, even dormice. They do more for climate resilience than most G7 leaders.

They don’t tweet, they don’t hold summits, they just fix things. Quietly, effectively, and persistently.

In a world of unstable tyrants and collapsing legitimacy, the beaver is proving to be a more trustworthy civil engineer than most of the Trump cabinet. While Trump fantasizes about trade wars and robot clones, the beavers are making rivers livable again. And the rest of the world, Zelensky, Xi, Brussels, even Ottawa, is increasingly doing the same.

They’re not playing his game anymore.
And neither should we.

Ukraine gets nothing in Trump’s proposals for peace, says Boris Johnson

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Former British prime minister posts apparent criticism of US president over his plans for peace deal with Russia

By Jessica Elgot

Boris Johnson has issued stern criticism of Donald Trump’s Ukraine peace proposals in one of his first apparent censures of the US president, saying under his terms the Ukrainians would “get nothing”.

The former British prime minister, a strong supporter of Ukraine who remains close to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has previously said there is “method in the madness” of Trump’s approach and that he believed the US president could bring peace.

But in a post on X, Johnson criticised the apparent terms of a deal that Trump is pushing Kyiv to accept.

On Wednesday, Trump accused Zelenskyy of jeopardising what he claimed was an imminent peace deal to end the war in Ukraine as he gave the clearest hint yet that the US would be willing to formally recognise Russia’s seizure of Crimea as part of any agreement.

Russia then carried out one of the most devastating air attacks against the capital for months, with Kharkiv and other cities also targeted.

“Putin indiscriminately butchers more Ukrainian civilians, killing and injuring 100 in Kyiv including children,” Johnson posted. “And what is his reward under the latest peace proposals?

“1. The right to keep sovereign Ukrainian territory he has taken by violence and in breach of international law. 2. The right to control Ukraine’s destiny by forbidding Nato membership. 3. The lifting of sanctions against Russia. 4. An economic partnership with America. 5. The chance to rebuild his armed forces for the next attack in a few short years’ time.”

He added: “As for Ukraine – what do they get after three years of heroic resistance against a brutal and unprovoked invasion? What is their reward for the appalling sacrifices they have made – for the sake, as they have endlessly been told, of freedom and democracy around the world?

“Apart from the right to share their natural resources with the United States they get nothing. What is there in this deal that can realistically stop a third Russian invasion? Nothing. If we are to prevent more atrocities by Putin then we must have a long-term, credible and above all properly funded security guarantee for Ukraine – a guarantee issued by the UK, the US and all western allies.”

Keir Starmer condemned Moscow’s Wednesday night’s strikes on Kyiv, saying it was “a real reminder that Russia is the aggressor here and that is being felt by the Ukrainians, as it has been felt for three long years now. That’s why it’s important to get Russia to an unconditional ceasefire.”

He added: “We’re making progress towards the ceasefire. It’s got to be a lasting ceasefire. But these attacks – these awful attacks – are a real, human reminder of who is the aggressor here and the cost to the Ukrainian people.”

Trump also criticised the strikes in a post on his Truth Social network. He said: “I am not happy with the Russian strikes on KYIV. Not necessary, and very bad timing. Vladimir, STOP! 5000 soldiers a week are dying. Lets get the Peace Deal DONE!”

Johnson has previously criticised some of Trump’s language about Zelenskyy, including during their White House fallout, saying it was “ghastly to hear some of the language that’s been coming from Washington about who started the war and Zelenskyy being a dictator”.

But in the aftermath of the row, Johnson defended Trump again in a column for the Mail, saying the war of words “was not meant to happen” and that the US president did have a viable plan for peace.

Source: Ukraine gets nothing in Trump’s proposals for peace, says Boris Johnson | Ukraine | The Guardian

Kleptocracy Inc: Trump will turn America into Russia unless we stop him

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“No dictatorship is ever the work of a single man.”

Highlights of Bulwark’s interview with Anne Applebaum:

0:00 Sen. Van Hollen meets Abrego Garcia
12:54 Trump neglecting court order
17:01 Kleptocracy, Inc. (Don’t skip this !!!- The Hobbledehoy)
23:53 Opposition & Hungary comparison
38:46 Cultural Revolution
43:27 Aid in Africa
47:17 Rubio on Ukraine

History is watching. And this time, it’s our names on the line

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By Oliver Kornetzke 

I’m not a historian. I’m not a Kremlinologist or a credentialed scholar on authoritarian regimes. I’m not a behavioral psychologist, and I don’t hold a PhD in fascism or kleptocracy—though frankly, given the state of the world, I’m starting to wonder if we all should. But I’ve lived in Russia for some time. I’ve spent time in Eastern Europe. I’ve read obsessively, listened carefully, and paid attention like my life depended on it—because, in a very real sense, it does. And while I’ll leave academic dissection to the ivory tower, what I can tell you from the ground is this:

What’s happening in this country isn’t just cruel—it’s methodical, strategic, and deeply familiar to anyone who’s studied or survived under regimes built on repression and rot.

> A personal hero of mine, Russian patriot and dissident Alexei Navalny. <

We’re watching a script play out—one that was written in the blood and bureaucracy of Putin’s Russia, refined in the dungeons of Chechnya, perfected through decades of oligarchic decay, secret police intimidation, and mafia-state theatrics. And now it’s being re-staged here in America, rebranded with flags and lapel pins and the tired language of “law and order.”

The Trump regime—this carnival of third-rate strongmen, grifters, sycophants, and sadists—isn’t innovating anything. It’s copying. It’s importing the authoritarian model wholesale. They’ve read the Putin playbook, dog-eared the best parts, and now they’re running it in real time. And the cruelty? That’s not a flaw in the system. That is the system.

Because cruelty serves a dual purpose: it distracts and it paralyzes. It shocks the conscience just long enough to make you forget about the theft happening in broad daylight. It freezes resistance by making you wonder who’s next. It’s not just about dehumanizing the target—it’s about disarming the observer. You see a 52-year-old seamstress abducted by masked agents in broad daylight, and your mind stops. That’s the point. While you’re frozen, they’re looting the vault.

Putin’s critics—brave dissidents like Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Kara-Murza, and Alexei Navalny—laid it out plainly: behind the thuggish repression, there’s no grand ideology. There’s only theft. Power is just a means to steal more, protect the stolen, and destroy anyone who threatens the racket. Navalny made that crystal clear. Putin’s state isn’t built on belief—it’s built on plunder. And everything else—beatings, censorship, propaganda, disappearances—is just set dressing for the heist.

Trump, a failed businessman and serial conman, didn’t stumble into power because he had a vision. He stumbled into it like a raccoon into a jewelry store: overwhelmed, opportunistic, and desperate to grab everything shiny before the lights come on. He brought with him a gang of similarly hollow, self-serving goons—parasites in flag pins—who recognized that brute force and spectacle could serve as a perfect cover for mass-scale corruption. All they needed was enough boots, enough masks, and enough Americans too scared or too exhausted to resist.

That’s what ICE is now—a terror squad designed not just to punish the “other,” but to frighten the rest into submission. They don’t need to knock on your door. They just need you to see what happens when they knock on hers. They want you disoriented, enraged, heartbroken, and above all—silent.

It’s not about immigration. It’s about domination.

But here’s the part they never count on: you can only keep people paralyzed for so long. Fear calcifies. Shock fades. And eventually, rage focuses.

So let’s speak plainly: this is not normal, it’s not American, and it’s not sustainable. It’s a kleptocratic death cult wearing the face of democracy. It’s an authoritarian racket hiding behind courtrooms and uniforms. And it will fall—just like every regime before it that mistook violence for invincibility and corruption for competence.

What can we do? First, resist the paralysis. Rage, yes—but don’t retreat. Pay attention. Speak out. If something feels wrong, say it’s wrong. Refuse to play along with their language, their framing, their euphemisms. They are not “removing undocumented immigrants.” They are disappearing people. They are not “restoring law and order.” They are weaponizing the state.

And just as importantly: take care of yourself. Joy, community, love, rest—these are not luxuries in a time of repression. They are acts of defiance. They are the fuel for the long fight ahead. Because this will be a long fight. There will be distractions, casualties, betrayals. But there will also be courage. And solidarity. And moments that remind us exactly why we fight.

Because we don’t do it for the flag. We don’t do it for politicians. We do it for every seamstress dragged from her car. Every family torn apart. Every dissident silenced. Every protestor jailed. We do it to honor the civil rights marchers, the freedom riders, the Stonewall rebels, the water protectors, the labor organizers—the defiant, the bold, the brave.

And we do it for the Americans who laid down their lives to crush fascism in Europe. For the soldiers who stormed beaches to fight against tyranny, not wave it in through the front door. For those who fought in the jungles and the deserts and the streets—not for conquest, but for freedom. For those who knew that authoritarianism doesn’t need to speak a foreign language to be a threat.

And we do it because we must. Because history is watching. And this time, it’s our names on the line.

Let’s make sure they’re remembered for the right reasons.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Navalny