WTAF?????

It's taken me a few days to cool down enough to write about what transpired in the Oval Office last Friday, when the duly elected leader of a democratic country was attacked and demeaned in front of the entire world in a set up ambush by the President and Vice-President of the United States. The run up to this included the orange man labelling Zelenskyy a dictator. He and his underling then acted all pissy, saying the Ukrainians had not thanked them enough. (And just what had Trump ever done for them? Nada, except pressure then to start an unfounded investigation into Biden and his son so that Trump would win the 2020 election. All that did was lead to Trump's first impeachment!) Things got very heated, sides separated to cool down and then Trump ordered the Ukrainians to leave, without so much as lunch. Needless to say, there were no agreeemnts on minerals or anything else signed that day. And now I understand why - - - it was all a set up. Thanks to my go-to person for all things Trump (and now Musk), Seth Abramson, I have finally come to understand that Musk is the back channel to Putin that Trump wanted in 2016 but couldn't find a way to establish it. Or, rather, he's the back channel that Putin wanted. He and Musk have a regular conversation it seems, supposedly about Musk doing business in Russia, but it has become obvious to anyone paying attention that Russia sent Musk a large sum of money which he donated to Trump's campaign last year, helping him defeat the Democrats. (I suspect some money found its way to some of the Congressional races as well.) And Musk, in his role as "special advisor to the President" and head of DOGE, is creating just the chaos that Putin wants to see in this country. Citizens are fearing for their jobs, seniors and veterans are fearing they will lose health care and Social Security payments, we all are just waiting for the next shoe to drop. At midnight today, Trump's tarriffs on goods from Canada and Mexico and China went into effect. Who knows what I will see in the grocery store tomorrow? We knew it was going to be more stressful than his first term but this is truly terrifying. The encouraging signs are there...lots of protests everywhere, on all the issues. Vance even got basically run out of Vermont over the weekend, which serves him right. His big mouth and the stupid words coming out of it were what derailed Friday's meeting. I loved Zelinskyy's line" "You’re raising the volume of your voice but not the logic in your argument.” The man is no one's fool. He speaks 3 languages, he thinks fast on his feet and speaks with humility and grace. But the oafs like Trump and Vance only see weak man, because he does not shout and use their faulty logic.