#pee tapes

Remember Trump's campaign promise to "end inflation on Day One"? Apparently he doesn't.

Americans’ pain at the pump is only getting worse, as gas prices on Tuesday reached new highs since President Donald Trump launched the ill-planned boondoggle of a war in Iran. The average price per gallon of gasoline in the U.S. is now $4.18, according to AAA. That’s higher than the previous high of $4.17 per gallon from April 10, and a full $1.20 more than the average price per gallon before Trump started this dumb war that he has no idea how to end. [ ... ] As of press time, Brent Crude—used as the benchmark to set gasoline prices—is back up to $111 per barrel. That’s where it was on April 1, when Trump made his bizarre address to the nation claiming that the war was nearly complete. Three weeks later, the war is still unresolved, and negotiations for its end are a clusterfuck. Experts say that while Trump’s comments calmed gas prices in the immediate term, his false assertions that the war was ending likely made things worse in the long run, as oil and gas producers did not ramp up production thinking that the oil shortage would soon end. And Trump's Iran war, undeclared and poorly conceived, failed to take into consideration the natural advantage Iran has at the Strait of Hormuz.

Oil may have difficulty getting through the Strait – but not Russian superyachts owned by oligarch cronies of Putin.

Russian superyacht sails through Strait of Hormuz despite blockade

A superyacht linked to one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's key allies has sailed through the Strait of Hormuz, despite the ongoing blockade of the critical shipping channel. The 142m-long (465 ft) multi-deck luxury boat, named Nord, is linked to sanctioned Russian billionaire Alexei Mordashov. It travelled from Dubai to Muscat, Oman, over the weekend - one of few private vessels to transit through the strait in recent months. Iran held high-level talks with Russia this week as its standoff with the US over the strait's re-opening continues.

It's clear that Russia has been colluding with Iran during Trump's war. Yet Trump still panders to Putin. Those pee tapes must be pretty graphic.

Anyway, back to the spike in US gasoline prices...

^^^ What the summit was really about was Putin reminding Trump who is the Alpha in that relationship.

Anyway, while Putin was on his way to Alaska, Ukraine sank a Russian freighter in the Caspian Sea which had been transporting Iranian drone components.

Ukraine says it has bombed Russian ship carrying drone parts at Caspian port

This signals a greater willingness by Ukraine to go after weapons shipments heading to Russia from Iran. This is probably not a one time operation.

Donald Trump and his MAGA minions are trying to imply that aid for Ukraine will lead to nuclear war. This is bullshit which is meant to bolster Putin's illegal war of aggression against a peaceful neighbor.

We hear MAGA Russophiles repeat this whenever new aid or new weapons systems are sent to Ukraine. The last time I checked, Putin hasn't nuked San Diego or Memphis. And we have crossed more of Putin's "red lines" than Trump has red neckties.

Even a delusional imperialist like Vladimir Putin understands that the ultimate outcome of any nuclear war would leave him as a shirtless congealed blob of radioactive fat. ⚛

With nuclear option unlikely, Putin struggles to defend his red lines

“There has been an overflow of nuclear threats,” said a Russian official speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. “There is already immunity to such statements, and they don’t frighten anyone.” A Russian academic with close ties to senior Russian diplomats agreed, calling the nuclear option “the least possible” of scenarios, “because it really would lead to dissatisfaction among Russia’s partners in the Global South and also because clearly, from a military point of view, it is not very effective.”

The United States and its NATO allies have no intention of giving nukes to Ukraine.

What we don't hear from scare-mongering MAGA zombies or Putin-friendly tankies is that the war in Ukraine would end immediately if the Russian invaders simply left Ukraine. Anybody who truly wants peace should be telling Russia to get the fuck back to their own country.

This week, Trump and former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote in an op-ed for the Hill that a decision to grant Ukraine permission to use Western long-range missiles “would put the world at greater risk of nuclear conflagration than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis” and called for direct negotiations with Moscow instead.

The only thing to "negotiate" with Moscow is a short ceasefire while Russia withdraws all its invading troops. The bottom line is that Russia has no business in Ukraine. The invasion is in violation of numerous international laws, treaties, and memoranda.

As for technology, Russia's means of using ICBMs in nuclear war just ain't what it used to be.

Latest Russian ICBM Test May Have Failed, Satellite Images Suggest

Russia is a third-rate power which happens to have nukes and a lot of empty territory that looks deceptively impressive on a map. Its ability to handle any atomic technology competently is questionable. Even during the glory days of the Soviet Union it gave the world its worst nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in 1986.

Chernobyl is in northern Ukraine which became independent in 1991. Ukrainians had done a good job of cleaning up much of the radioactive mess left by Moscow.

But Russia then temporarily occupied the area around Chernobyl in the early part of the invasion. Russian occupiers there did incredibly stupid things like dig military trenches in radioactive soil and loot radioactive materials to take home as souvenirs.

Russia has few serious competitors for the Darwin Awards this year. 🎖  ⚛️

What we should worry more about is another nuclear accident inside Russia caused by recklessness or incompetence. The sooner Ukraine is victorious, the more likely Russia will be able to tend to its own problems at home.

Oh look, Putin’s mouthpiece at Mar-a-Lago is singing the Kremlin’s tune once again. Did Putin recently remind Trump that he still has those pee tapes? If we should worry about anything nuclear, it’s the classified nuclear documents Trump may have shared with Russia.

Putin understands that if he used nukes, the ultimate outcome would be of him ending up as a pile of radioactive dust. The nuclear talk from Moscow via Trump is a red herring.

Speaking of red, remember all of the red lines the Kremlin previously blustered about?

When you call the bluff of bullies, they lose.

We should worry less about Putin’s feelings and more about giving our friends the tools they need to help them survive.

The best way to “get this crazy war over” is to kick Putin’s butt so hard that he and his successors permanently give up the idea of restoring the wretched Soviet empire in all but name. Russia needs to understand once and for all that it must start acting like a normal country.

Russia is shamelessly admitting that it’s interfering in the US midterm elections. I’m sure we’re all shocked.

The powerful Russian businessman and a close Vladimir Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin has admitted to interfering in US elections on the eve of a midterm vote in which Republicans will seek to take control of Congress and state-wide offices across the country.

“Gentlemen, we interfered, we are interfering and we will interfere,” Prigozhin, who has previously been accused of influencing the outcome of elections across continents, said in a statement posted by his catering company, Concord.

Putin is sad that that his stooge Donald Trump is no longer in the White House. He misses the good old days when Trump would pass along nuclear documents to him and threaten Ukraine instead of giving them weapons to fight Russian aggression.

The US social media analysis firm Graphika last week said that suspected Russian operatives have used far-right media platforms to criticise Democratic candidates in the lead-up to the midterm elections in a number of US states, including Georgia, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Prigozhin, with a dozen other Russian nationals and three Russian companies, was indicted in 2018 as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential elections.

Prigozhin was charged with inciting discord and dividing American public opinion before the 2016 US presidential election, accusations Prigozhin, as well as the Kremlin, has previously denied.

Putin is probably a card-carrying member of the GOP. He certainly fits the Trumpist stereotype:

filthy rich – possibly the richest person in Russia

increasingly homophobic

endlessly rants about “woke” this and “woke” that

panders to conservative religious leaders but only attends church for photo opportunities

rigs elections and persecutes political opponents

suppresses the free press which he considers his enemy

Of course Trump would have let Putin take part or all of Ukraine. He was basically Putin’s vassal in Washington. And if Trump ever stepped out of line, all Putin had to do is rattle those pee tapes.

During a radio interview with Fox News host (and longtime confidant) Sean Hannity on Monday, the twice-impeached ex-president finally revealed how he personally would have prevented the war. According to Trump, all he needed to do was let Russia “take over” parts of Ukraine.

Saying that Russia was going for the “whole enchilada” with Joe Biden as president, Trump added that Russia “took over nothing” while he was in the White House because Russian President Vladimir Putin “understood” that “he would have never done it.”

The former president then added: “That’s without even negotiating a deal. I could have negotiated. At worst, I could’ve made a deal to take over something, there are certain areas that are Russian-speaking areas, frankly, but you could’ve worked a deal.”

It’s clear that Putin underestimated Biden. Perhaps Putin’s intelligence (I use that word very loosely) on how the US would react came from Trump and other pro-Russia sycophants in the US.

If Vladimir Putin “took over nothing” during the Trump administration it’s because he was hoping NATO would simply implode under a second Trump term and that he would just be able to walk into Ukraine. When Trump was defeated and Biden moved to renew US ties with NATO allies, Putin panicked and launched his militarily incompetent invasion.

For Trump to imply that Putin didn’t invade Ukraine earlier because he feared Trump is hilarious self-delusion. Putin is no more afraid of Trump than he is of his stooge Lukashenka in Belarus. 

Trump has always been willing to throw Ukraine under the bus. Remember the “perfect phone call”?

White House acknowledges strings attached in Trump withholding Ukraine aid

Yep, Ron DeSantis’s spokesperson is a foreign agent.

That must mean Ron De wants AMERICA SECOND. 😠

A spokeswoman for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) this week registered as a foreign agent of a former president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, belatedly detailing work she performed for the politician between 2018 and 2020.

The spokeswoman, Christina Pushaw, made the disclosure following contact from the Justice Department, according to her attorney, Michael Sherwin. She began her work in 2018 as a volunteer in the post-Soviet country, Sherwin said, and was ultimately paid $25,000 over the course of two years. She received her first payment, of $10,000 in October 2018, in cash, according to her filing. She stayed for free for six weeks in an apartment owned by a Saakashvili associate in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital.

Of course, Pushaw isn’t the only Republican working for foreign masters.

Trump crony Paul Manafort famously worked for Viktor Yanukovych, the Putin puppet who was president of Ukraine from 2010 until 2014 when he was overthrown in a pro-democracy revolution. Yanukovych fled to Russia where he apparently still resides.

Manafort didn't just consult for Russian-backed politicians in Ukraine — he also helped them form a new party

Feel free to laugh whenever you hear Trump Republicans chanting “America first!”  😆🤭

Donald Trump himself has long been suspect as a Russian stooge.