The Return

Vice President Harris joined Brittney Griner (top)

 and several members of the Phoenix Mercury

in the locker room before the game

(Mario Tama/Getty Images)

To be sure, I don't care all that much about a basketball game, or a basketball league, or a basketball player.

But there's something more important about the Brittney Griner thing than simply one shitty thing that one shitty government did to one individual American. That's not trivial, but it's not all that unusual either.

The thing is that the US government went out of its way, stepped up big, and helped a woman of color who was being fucked over for no better reason than "We've got the power - we do whatever we want - so fuck you."

My government did good things for a woman of color. That's not something that lands on the front page very often here in USAmerica Inc.

Brittney Griner’s improbable WNBA return was accompanied by a sense of triumph

LOS ANGELES — Brittney Griner crouched slightly at the half-court line, leaped and extended a long arm over her lean 6-foot-9 frame to easily bat the ball backward to her teammate. It was one of several movements — the tip-off to start the game — that Griner has performed hundreds of times over the past decade as the dominant center for the Phoenix Mercury.

But doing it again, and this soon — in a fired-up arena with the vice president in attendance — would have been nearly impossible to picture less than a year ago, when Griner was shackled in a Russian court, being sentenced to nine years in prison.

By the scoreboard alone, Griner’s return Friday to professional basketball, as Phoenix took on the Los Angeles Sparks to open the 2023 WNBA season, was a rout. The Sparks claimed a 94-71 victory, and Griner had 18 points, six rebounds and four blocks in 25 minutes. But her return cemented one of the most unlikely comeback stories in sports history — and one of the most unusual.

Griner, a top star in her league, faced a dark future in a penal colony as a pawn in international relations after customs officials in Russia, where she played for a professional team during the WNBA offseason, found vape cartridges with cannabis oil in her luggage. She ultimately spent 294 days in Russian custody before being returned to the United States in December in a controversial prisoner swap for convicted arms trafficker Viktor Bout. Friday’s season opener was her first WNBA game since Game 4 of the WNBA Finals on Oct. 17, 2021.

Following the game, Griner, 32, said that her incarceration caused her to “appreciate everything a little bit more” — which included a warm welcome in an opposing team’s arena and a surprise visit to the locker room by Vice President Harris. But the sentimentality had its limits.

“Not good enough,” Griner said to sum up the game. “We didn’t get the dub.”

The night at times felt like a celebration accompanied by a basketball game. Before tip-off, Griner’s every movement was followed by a gaggle of video and still photographers. Fans waved cutout photos of her face, and the announcer led the arena in a chant of, “Welcome home BG!” Griner motioned to her heart as she received a standing ovation. The vice president walked on the court and waved, and several celebrities, including former Lakers all-star Pau Gasol, Hall of Famer Magic Johnson and tennis champion Billie Jean King, sat courtside.

Griner stood with her teammates during the national anthem, a departure from her stance pre-incarceration, when she refused to take the court during the anthem. Her protest, which started amid national uproar over police brutality and racism in 2020, attracted conservative ire when she then required rescue from the American government. Griner explained after the game that the anthem “just means a little bit more to me now,” saying of her incarceration: “I was literally in a cage and could not stand the way I wanted to.”

Griner said that she still supports her teammates who choose not to stand for the anthem, adding that making such decisions for yourself “actually makes you more American."

Mercury Coach Vanessa Nygaard echoed that sentiment before the game, calling Friday a “day of joy" that made her proud of her country. “We brought home this woman, this Black gay woman, from a Russian jail,” Nygaard said. "And America did that because they valued her. ... It makes me very proud to be an American. And even though there are people for who that doesn’t make them proud, for me, I see [Griner], and I see hope.”

Griner was stopped at a Moscow-area airport on Feb. 17, 2022 — a week before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — but her detention was not reported in the press for weeks afterward. For most of 2022, the American public — and Griner’s family and teammates — only received sporadic glimpses of her plight via images of her in chains or behind jail cell bars. An eight-time all-star who helped lead the Mercury to a championship in 2014, Griner sometimes seemed forgotten — which Nygaard tried to combat last year by starting every news conference with a new tally of how many days she had been incarcerated in Russia.

Nygaard said that Griner’s freedom was a result of the persistence of those within the league. “When one of their sisters was in this predicament, this terrible situation, they used their voice and they amplified it,” Nygaard said. “I think it was the voices of the WNBA and the fans of the WNBA that finally got the Biden administration until they said, ‘You know what, let’s make this happen.’ ”

In December, President Biden authorized the swap of Griner for Bout, a Russian national serving a 25-year sentence in American prison for arms trafficking. In remarks announcing Griner’s return, Biden said that Griner “didn’t ask for special treatment,” and that her only request was that his administration not “forget about me and the other American detainees.” Griner has since attempted to put a focus on those detainees still in Russia by posting messages to her social media encouraging “everyone that played a part in bringing me home to continue their efforts to bring all Americans home.”

Griner’s saga has shed light on the compensation of the world’s best female basketball players, whose relatively paltry pay — WNBA salaries top out at just over $200,000 — has forced even the greatest of them to moonlight overseas, as Griner was when she was detained. And even with all of the pomp for Friday’s game, which was broadcast on ESPN and attracted national sports reporters, the empty upper decks of the Crypto.com Arena did not escape the attention of players and the Mercury coach. “Honestly, c’mon L.A. — we didn’t sell out the arena for B.G.?” Nygaard said. “It was great, it was loud, but how was it not a sellout?”

Griner expressed hope that the media focus on her will bring new fans to the WNBA. “Hopefully everybody tuning in to see me now will see somebody else,” she said.

Griner scored 11 of her points in the first half but appeared to tire in the second half, and after the game discussed improving her stamina to the point in which she could play 40 minutes if necessary. These are the sorts of problems — basketball problems — that, Griner acknowledged after the game, she sometimes thought she would never experience again.

“Me personally, I look at it as the worst case scenario so I don’t get hopes up,” Griner said of her perspective while incarcerated. She then added with a wink: “I’ll elaborate on that a little bit more, just make sure you get a copy of the book.”

Today's Geopolitics

It's a poker game where everybody's cheating,

and everybody knows everybody's cheating,

so everybody has to cheat to stay in the game.

Cynical Mike says - Iran is doing this in an attempt to get leverage as they negotiate a deal with their 'western enemies' to ease the sanctions. 

"We're gonna do this deal with Russia - what's it worth to ya to get us not to do it?" 

It's so fucking infuriating to hear these assholes say they don't care about the outcome - and they're not taking sides - outa one side of their mouths, and then "we want an end to the crisis through diplomatic means" outa the other side.

Its also not unreasonable to think Iran is doing this really shitty thing as a way to distract from the borderline revolution they have on the their hands, while demonstrating to "the west", and to their own people, that they're just as murderously capable as anyone else to rain fire and death on their enemies.

The world is a really fucked up place.

Exclusive: Iran agrees to ship missiles, more drones to Russia, defying the West

Iran has promised to provide Russia with surface to surface missiles, in addition to more drones, two senior Iranian officials and two Iranian diplomats told Reuters, a move that is likely to infuriate the United States and other Western powers.

A deal was agreed on Oct. 6 when Iran's First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber, two senior officials from Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards and an official from the Supreme National Security Council visited Moscow for talks with Russia about the delivery of the weapons.

"The Russians had asked for more drones and those Iranian ballistic missiles with improved accuracy, particularly the Fateh and Zolfaghar missiles family," said one of the Iranian diplomats, who was briefed about the trip.

A Western official briefed on the matter confirmed it, saying there was an agreement in place between Iran and Russia to provide surface-to-surface short range ballistic missiles, including the Zolfaghar.

The Iranian diplomat rejected assertions by Western officials that such transfers breach a 2015 U.N. Security Council resolution.

"Where they are being used is not the seller's issue. We do not take sides in the Ukraine crisis like the West. We want an end to the crisis through diplomatic means," the diplomat said.

Ukraine has reported a spate of Russian attacks using Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones in recent weeks. Iran has denied supplying the drones to Russia, while the Kremlin on Tuesday denied its forces had used Iranian drones to attack Ukraine.

Asked if Russia had used Iranian drones in its campaign in Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Kremlin did not have any information about their use.

"Russian equipment with Russian nomenclature is used," he said. "All further questions should be directed to the Defence Ministry."

The ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The appearance of Iranian missiles in addition to drones in Moscow's arsenal in the war with Ukraine would raise tensions between Iran and the United States and other Western powers.

SHIPMENT 'SOON, VERY SOON'

The U.S. State Department assessed that Iranian drones were used on Monday in a morning rush hour attack on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, a U.S. official said. White House spokesperson Karinne Jean-Pierre also accused Tehran of lying when it said Iranian drones are not being used by Russia in Ukraine.

A European diplomat said it was his country's assessment that Russia was finding it more difficult to produce weaponry for itself given the sanctions on its industrial sector and so was turning to imports from partners like Iran and North Korea.

"Drones and missiles are a logical next step," said the European diplomat.

Asked about sales of Iranian surface-to-surface missiles to Russia, a senior U.S. military official said: "I don't have anything to provide at this time in terms of whether or not that is accurate at this point."

Chafing under Western economic sanctions, Iran's rulers are keen to strengthen strategic ties to Russia against an emerging, U.S.-backed Gulf Arab-Israeli bloc that could shift the Middle East balance of power further away from the Islamic Republic.

 ➘

see: Biden's win on Israel-Lebanon agreement 

Iran's rulers are also under pressure from nationwide demonstrations which were ignited by the death in custody of a 22-year-old woman detained for "inappropriate attire".

Several European Union states on Monday called for sanctions on Iran over its supply of drones to Russia, as the bloc agreed a separate set of sanctions over Tehran's crackdown on unrest.

"They (Russians) wanted to buy hundreds of our missiles, even mid-range ones, but we told them that we can ship soon a few hundred of their demanded Zolfaghar and Fateh 110 short-range, surface to surface missiles," said one of the security officials.

"I cannot give you the exact time, but soon, very soon those will be shipped in 2 to three shipments."

An Eastern European official tracking Russia's weapons activity said it was their understanding that this arms deal was happening, although he had no specific evidence to back it up. The official said that a decision had been taken by the Iranian and Russian leaders to proceed with the transfer.

Moscow had specifically asked for surface to surface short-range Fateh 110 and Zolfaghar missiles, and the shipment will happen in a maximum of 10 days, said another Iranian diplomat.

ATTACK DRONES

The stakes are high for Iran, which has been negotiating with Western states to revive a 2015 deal that would ease sanctions on Tehran in return for limits on its nuclear work.

The talks have deadlocked, and any disputes between Tehran and Western powers over arms sales to Russia or Iran's crackdown on the unrest could weaken efforts to seal an accord.

The United States agrees with British and French assessments that Iran supplying drones to Russia would violate a U.N. Security Council resolution that endorsed the 2015 deal, U.S. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said on Monday.

The Western official, who declined to be identified due to the sensitive nature of the matter, said that like the drones, missile transfers would also violate U.N. resolution 2231.

Several senior Iranian officials are outraged about "unjust" planned sanctions on Iran over its arms shipments to Russia, said the second diplomat.

In September, Tehran had refused a request by President Vladimir Putin for the supply of Iran's sophisticated Arash 2 long-range attack drones, three Iranian officials told Reuters.

When asked the reason for the refusal, one of the officials cited several issues including "some technical problems".

"Also the (Revolutionary) Guards' commanders were worried that if Russia uses this Arash 2 drone in Ukraine, Americans may have access to our technology."

An Obit

Lookin' good in that hat, Gorby,

and you're welcome -

but ya got it on backwards

Gorbachev mourned as rare world leader but some still bitter

BERLIN (AP) — Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union and for many the man who restored democracy to then-communist-ruled European nations, was saluted Wednesday as a rare leader who changed the world and for a time brought hope for peace among the superpowers.

But the man who died Tuesday at 91 was also reviled by many countrymen who blamed him for the 1991 implosion of the Soviet Union and its diminution as a superpower. The Russian nation that emerged from its Soviet past shrank in size as 15 new nations were created.

The loss of pride and power also eventually led to the rise of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has tried for the past quarter-century to restore Russia to its former glory and beyond.

U.S. President Joe Biden praised Gorbachev for being open to democratic changes. Gorbachev won the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in ending the Cold War.

“After decades of brutal political repression, he embraced democratic reforms. He believed in glasnost and perestroika – openness and restructuring – not as mere slogans, but as the path forward for the people of the Soviet Union after so many years of isolation and deprivation,” Biden said.

Biden added that “these were the acts of a rare leader – one with the imagination to see that a different future was possible and the courage to risk his entire career to achieve it. The result was a safer world and greater freedom for millions of people.”

Although Gorbachev was widely feted abroad, he was a pariah at home. Putin acknowledged that Gorbachev had “a deep impact on the course of world history.”

“He led the country during difficult and dramatic changes, amid large-scale foreign policy, economic and social challenges,” Putin said in a short telegram sending his condolences to Gorbachev’s family.

Gorbachev “realized that reforms were necessary and tried to offer his solutions to the acute problems,” Putin said.

Reactions from Russian officials and lawmakers were mixed. They applauded Gorbachev for his part in ending the Cold War but censured him for the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Oleg Morozov, a member of the main Kremlin party, United Russia, said Gorbachev should have “repented” for mistakes that went against Russia’s interests.

“He was a willing or an unwilling co-author of the unfair world order that our soldiers are now fighting on the battlefield,” Morozov said, in a reference to Russia’s current war in Ukraine.

Lech Walesa, the leader of Poland’s pro-democracy Solidarity movement in the 1980s and the country’s president from 1990-1995, had a more nuanced view of Gorbachev. He said he “admired, even liked him, but did not understand (him).”

“He believed to the last that communism could be reformed, but I, on the contrary, did not believe it was possible,” Walesa told the Wirtualna Polska media.

Walesa added: “He knew that the Soviet Union could not last much longer and he was doing everything he could to prevent the world from bringing Russia to account for communism. And he was successful there.”

World leaders paid tribute to a man some described as a great and brave leader.

In Germany, where Gorbachev is considered one of the fathers of the country’s reunification in 1990 and is popularly referred to as “Gorbi,” former Chancellor Angela Merkel saluted him as “a unique world politician.”

“Gorbachev wrote world history. He exemplified how a single statesman can change the world for the better,” she said, recalling how she had feared that Russian tanks might roll into East Germany, where she lived, as the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.

Current German Chancellor Olaf Scholz praised Gorbachev for paving the way for his country’s reunification, though he also pointed out that Gorbachev died at a time when many of his achievements have been destroyed.

“We know that he died at a time when not only democracy in Russia has failed — there is no other way to describe the current situation there — but also Russia and Russian President Putin are drawing new trenches in Europe and have started a horrible war against a neighboring country, Ukraine,” Scholz said.

Outgoing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that “in a time of Putin’s aggression in Ukraine, (Gorbachev’s) tireless commitment to opening up Soviet society remains an example to us all.”

French President Emmanuel Macron described Gorbachev as “a man of peace whose choices opened up a path of liberty for Russians. His commitment to peace in Europe changed our shared history.”

Others in Europe challenged the positive recollections of Gorbachev.

Gabrielius Landsbergis, Lithuania’s top diplomat who is also the son of Vytautas Landsbergis, who led Lithuania’s independence movement in the early 1990s, tweeted that “Lithuanians will not glorify Gorbachev.”

Memories are still fresh in the Baltic country of Jan. 13, 1991, when hundreds of Lithuanians headed to the television tower in Vilnius to oppose Soviet troops deployed to crush the country’s bid to restore its independence. In the clashes that followed, 14 civilians were killed and more than 140 others were injured. Moscow recognized Lithuania’s independence in August that year.

“We will never forget the simple fact that his army murdered civilians to prolong his regime’s occupation of our country. His soldiers fired on our unarmed protesters and crushed them under his tanks. That is how we will remember him,” Landsbergis wrote.

But another Baltic leader, Latvian President Egils Levits, noted that Gorbachev’s policies enabled the eventual independence of the three Baltic countries.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called Gorbachev “a one-of-a kind statesman who changed the course of history” and “did more than any other individual to bring about the peaceful end of the Cold War.”

“The world has lost a towering global leader, committed multilateralist, and tireless advocate for peace,” the U.N. chief said.

Gorbachev’s contemporaries pointed to the end of the Cold War as one of his achievements.

“Mikhail Gorbachev played a critical role in the peaceful end to the Cold War. At home, he was a figure of historical importance, but not in the way he intended,” said Robert M. Gates, who headed the CIA from 1991 to 1993 and later became U.S. defense secretary.

Calling Gorbachev “a brave leader and great statesman,” Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said the last Soviet leader “opened the gates of the Soviet Union for the great wave of Jewish immigration to Israel in the 1990s.”

In Asia, Gorbachev was remembered as a leader with the courage to bring change.

China recognized Gorbachev’s role in healing relations between Moscow and Beijing. Gorbachev had been an inspiration to reformist thinkers in China during the late 1980s, and his visit to Beijing in 1989 marked a watershed in relations between the sides.

“Mr. Gorbachev made positive contributions to the normalization of relations between China and the Soviet Union. We mourn his passing and extend our sympathies to his family,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said.

However, China’s Communist Party leaders also regard Gorbachev’s liberal approach as a fatal display of weakness and his moves toward peaceful coexistence with the West as a form of surrender.

Yesterday In France

Macron beat her by 17 points. That's a drubbing, but it was about half the margin of victory of 2017.

This may also be some kind of clue as to why "liberals" have a hard time when they try to play it down the middle.

Macron - like Biden and Clinton and Obama - has made moves intended to placate the wingnuts on the right, which has been shown to accomplish little more than to encourage Daddy State ideology.

Yes, we should always try to meet people where they are, and to listen to what they have to say. But the 'political right' has shown us time and again what they're up to - they keep moving further to the right, and then demanding we meet them halfway, and then moving even further etc etc etc. It's a stupid dangerous game and we have to stop playing - or at least stop always playing by their rules.

WaPo: (pay wall)

Opinion: Marine Le Pen is now part of France’s mainstream. That should scare us all.

French President Emmanuel Macron should take no pride in once again defeating far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. Since her first run for the presidency in 2012, she has gained a substantial degree of influence — enough that the far right is now an unavoidable force in French politics. Instead of celebrating his win, Macron and his supporters should take a close look at how Le Pen and her hateful positions have become part of the French political mainstream.

Make no mistake: Despite her loss, Le Pen managed to both raise her profile and cultivate an image that whitewashed her dangerous agenda.

Over the years, campaign posters shifted from mentioning her last name — associated with her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, former head of her party and a notorious racist — to focusing on her first name, all while depicting her with a wide and innocent smile. During this campaign, she used her Instagram account to showcase her love for cats and made public appearances singing outdated popular songs, thus presenting herself as a regular person who does not share the cultural tastes of the elite. She described herself as a single woman, like “a number of French people,” but failed to acknowledge that she was born and raised in the upper class. Former Miss France Delphine Wespiser even praised Le Pen as “a mother of the French.”

At the same time, several media outlets held debates on whether or not Le Pen was from the far right. That shocking question captures just how many people in France no longer perceive her as a threat. She has definitely won the “de-demonization” game.

Yet there is no doubt about what she stands for. Leading National Rally, a party founded by former Nazi collaborators and fascists, she is supported by the most radical and violent fringes of the far right, including fascists and antisemites. Her positions and previous statements clearly show she comes from the most extreme side of the political landscape.

As a member of Parliament, she introduced a bill last year on “Citizenship, Identity and Immigration,” proposing a referendum to prioritize French nationals over foreigners (no matter how long they might have been in France) in areas from housing to jobs to social services. The proposal would eliminate birthright citizenship (a core principle of French citizenship), facilitate deportation and end family reunification, violating international human rights laws protecting the right to family life. Furthermore, French people with dual citizenship would be prevented from accessing public service jobs.

Such policies are a threat to the principle of equality outlined in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, passed during the French Revolution in 1789 and now part of the preamble of our constitution. Le Pen also planned to partially withdraw France from the European Convention on Human Rights.

Nor is Le Pen an ally to feminism. The word “woman” is not mentioned in any of her 22 key measures or her presidential manifesto, with the exception of a general line about all men and women. Her platform includes no policies to stop gender-based violence or to promote equal rights in the workplace. She has previously spoken disparagingly of “comfort” abortions, implying that reproductive justice was a luxury, and this year she said the Muslim “veil” marked “an ideology … as dangerous as Nazism.”

Her party’s platform, moreover, pushes for a police state, in which police officers would be granted the “presumption of self-defense” if they committed a violent act. They could also file complaints against any citizen they accuse of attacking them, without having to reveal their own identity, making defending the accused virtually impossible.

Unfortunately, Macron was slow in labeling the National Rally’s platform as “racist,” and he did so only after polls predicted her rising threat. Such condemnation would have been useful to hear from him last year when his interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, criticized Le Pen for being “too soft” on Islam.

In fact, Macron’s government contributed to the mainstreaming of Le Pen by spending more energy fighting “wokeism” and “Islamo-leftism” than addressing the rise of the far right. His hard stance on immigration, Islam and security policies helped Le Pen’s xenophobic and racist rhetoric appear acceptable. Human rights organizations have raised concerns about laws enacted over the past five years that threatened freedoms; the harsh repression of social movements that left thousands of protesters injured; and the unprecedented harassment of Muslim people that culminated in the closure of 718 Muslim institutions.

The Islamophobic rhetoric used by several government members, as well as the president — who said the Muslim veil made people “insecure” because “it is not in keeping with the civility that there is in our country” — is now firmly anchored in France’s political landscape.

Winning an election after fueling public opinion with hateful discourse and changing laws to restrict civil liberties is not a victory. The far right has succeeded in normalizing its ideology — and that should worry us all.

Fuck Around And Find Out

Toronto Star:

Two travellers who arrived in Toronto from the United States have been fined for providing fake COVID-19 proof of vaccination documents and lying about pre-departure tests.

The Public Health Agency of Canada says the travellers also didn’t comply with requirements to stay at a government-authorized hotel or to get tested upon arrival.

The agency says in a news release Friday that the travellers arrived last week and have been handed four fines totalling $19,720 each.

Canada eased quarantine requirements on July 5 for fully vaccinated Canadians and foreign nationals with an exemption to enter the country, but they must upload their proof of vaccination documents to the ArriveCAN app before entry.

Those who are not fully vaccinated are still required to stay for three days at a government-approved hotel, quarantine for 14 days and undergo tests pre-departure, post-arrival and eight days later.

The public health agency is warning that all travellers are obligated to answer questions truthfully and that providing false information or documents to government officials upon entry to Canada is a serious offence.

The agency says violating quarantine or isolation instructions when entering Canada could lead to a $5,000 fine for each day of non-compliance or each offence, or more serious penalties including six months in prison or $750,000 in fines.

Weird Optics

So - I guess the G7, which used to be the G8, is now the G9 - but they forgot to tell the marketing people, and there just wasn't enough time to update the graphics?

I get so confused.

The View From Out There

It's politics, remember, so they don't tell us the whole truth.

But sometimes they tell some of the truth because - surprise surprise - it's in everybody's best interest to do it, and the Politcos not only recognize that, they manage to do the right thing (surprise surprise again).

This piece is chock-full of little slices of Scary-as-Fuck.

Buzzfeed, Alberto Nardelli:

The current standoff is a dramatic illustration of the grave international concerns over Trump.

On one level, the officials said, he is something of a laughing stock among Europeans at international gatherings. One revealed that a small group of diplomats play a version of word bingo whenever the president speaks because they consider his vocabulary to be so limited. “Everything is ‘great’, ‘very, very great’, ‘amazing’,” the diplomat said.

--snip--

Another diplomat said it had proved impossible to discuss serious international issues, such as Libya, with Trump. And seven months into his presidency, the European officials say they are still struggling to figure out who else they can engage with in the US administration.

Describing a meeting between their boss and the president as “basically useless,” they said: “He [Trump] just bombed us with questions: ‘How many people do you have? What’s your GDP? How much oil does [that country] produce? How many barrels a day? How much of it is yours?’”

“He’s not the kind of person you can have a discussion about how to deal with [Fayez] al-Sarraj [the prime minister of Libya]," the official added. "So you look for people around him, and that is where it’s a problem: The constant upheaval, it’s unclear who has influence, who is close to the president."

A number of European officials compared Trump with Italian former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi – but said the similarities end at their inappropriate jokes during meetings.

“Berlusconi wasn’t ignorant. And behind him he had officials and a whole government structure you could engage with,” one diplomat said.

The officials revealed that at international meetings, Trump has openly mocked his own aides, contradicting and arguing with them in front of other leaders. That has compounded the impression of an administration in chaos. “We can hear everything, it’s weird,” one diplomat said.

Officials also expressed concerns over the status of the State Department, and the lack of seasoned diplomats and experts within the White House. One diplomat suggested that US counterparts have privately lamented to Europeans about the number of roles in the administration that have yet to be filled resulting in a lack of clear positions on many policy areas.

“The White House lacks crucial expertise,” one said. “The State Department and others are isolated. You have the generals, the National Security Council, and then a void. There aren’t enough diplomats, experts etc. in the White House. [Secretary of state Rex] Tillerson has a small team. Does Trump listen to [James] Mattis [secretary of defence], [H.R.] McMaster [national security adviser], to the experts?”

Beyond Words

"Aleppo is a place where the children have stopped crying." Scenes of sheer terror and grief in the last hospital in the last days of Aleppo pic.twitter.com/sy1NgjD4gY

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) December 16, 2016

Informed Comment:

After Aleppo, Russians prepare to defy Trump re: their Iran Alliance

the left-leaning Lebanese newspaper al-Safir [Ambassador] reports that the armed resistance to the regime of Bashar al-Assad in the East Aleppo pocket is finished. Reports from Wednesday morning say that the ceasefire that Russia and the regime signed onto in hopes that the few hundred hold-outs among the guerrillas would leave has now broken down amid heavy fire. Civilians also continue to flee the areas under rebel control, though the humanitarian corridors promised by Russia appear never to have materialized. The plan had been to allow some rebels to flee to Idlib, where the rebels led by al-Qaeda have a perch. Nevertheless, hundreds of rebels attempted to flee East Aleppo, as did noncombatants.

The Russian victory in Syria against fundamentalist Sunni Arab militias was made possible in part by Iran. Russian fighter jets simply bombing from on high would have been useless. It was Iran that directed the Lebanese Hizbullah and the Iraqi Shiite militias to join the fight, backing up the some 35,000 to 50,000 Syrian soldiers who remain and have not defected. The Russians gave these forces air support, bombing rebel positions until the Shiite militias and the remnants of the Syrian Arab Army could over-run them.

Nobody has any real idea what's going on in Syria except that Putin is reaping benefits by way of adding Client States to his sphere of influence, so it makes sense to me that Trump is on board - wherever there is crisis, there is opportunity.  It makes sense because it makes money, and the element of human tragedy provides Trump et al plenty of cover by allowing them to blame Obama for the whole mess (and notice, we're back to blaming Obama for everything now that Hillary has been dispatched - convenient, it ain't it?).

This looks a lot like we're taking the rise of the Authoritarians to a new level.  On a few occasions, we pay some lip service to the people caught in the middle, but the point for these assholes sounds pretty simple: 

"If those people were worthy of survival, they'd be strong like us. They aren't strong, so they're not like us, so they're not worthy. Let the snowflakes and the women and the libtards worry about weaklings - we're too busy being awesome, so fuck 'em."

Romney Fail

From The Guardian:

Ann Romney's horse fails to win Dressage,

but avoids offending British

Short of mocking Shetland ponies over their lack of stature or laying into zebras for their failure to make a significant contribution to the world of equine culture, Ann Romney's horse Rafalca was always going to struggle to match the sheer incredulity that her husband managed to provoke on his recent overseas trip.

Banks vs The World

Minor throw-back tho'ts of "fuck the French" and "those pesky Germans are at it again".  But really, it's all about who owns the decisions when it comes to the money.