Trump Didn't Sell Out Ukraine--Yet

The really good news from up north is that Donald Trump didn't sell Alaska to Russia as a gesture of goodwill. The good news is that Alaska wasn't Yalta, with Putin and Trump carving up the world. The decent news is that Ukraine got a reprieve of a few days before Trump tries to make Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy give up one-fifth of his country for a peace treaty that will probably not last even a few months. This puts Trump on a collision course with the rest of NATO. The other countries expect that as soon as Russian President Vladimir Putin rebuilds his army, he will either go after more of Ukraine or possibly even one of the smaller NATO countries.

Zelenskyy will visit the White House today. He no doubt remembers how he was treated last time, but he doesn't have a lot of cards to play and Trump knows it. He will be accompanied by Finnish President Alexander Stubb, one of Trump's favorite European leaders, who will try to intercede if Trump and J.D. Vance ambush Zelenskyy again. Former Dutch Prime Minister and current NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte will also be there. He is extremely skilled at buttering up Trump. It is beyond absurd that lying to the president of the United States and flattering him beyond belief is now the most important skill a diplomat can have, but here we are. Trump falls for good-looking young blonde women, so Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will be there and do her best to charm him. Several other top European leaders will also be present.

As of yesterday, Trump's position was to skip a ceasefire and go for a full peace treaty. This was a big change since Friday, when Trump was pushing for a ceasefire. Will he change his mind again by today? Probably not, because Trump has visions of the Nobel Peace Prize dancing in his head. Hillary Clinton egged Trump on by saying that if he worked out a peace treaty without Ukraine giving up any territory, she will personally nominate him for the Peace Prize. Trump said if the meeting today works out, then a meeting with Putin, Zelenskyy, and himself could be next.

Trump's decision to go for a Nobel-grade peace treaty instead of an immediate ceasefire is a big win for Russia. Peace treaty talks can take months or years, especially when one of the parties has no interest in peace. Russia has made territorial gains on the battlefield in recent weeks, and Ukraine is increasingly unable to stop it. If the gains continue while talks proceed, then in 6 months or a year, not only will thousands of additional Ukrainian soldiers have died in World-War-I-style trench warfare, but Russia will have captured more territory and certainly will insist on keeping it in any deal. Trump probably doesn't even understand this, and if he does, he doesn't care.

If discussions about a peace treaty are now the order of the day, what might it look like? As they say online, read the terms and conditions before checking the box. Trump probably thinks that if Ukraine cedes some land to Putin, there will be peace. Zelenskyy knows very well that peace will be short-lived. What he might be willing to accept is some sort of land deal together with security guarantees. That would have to consist of either allied troops stationed in Ukraine to halt the next Russian advance or a huge amount of weapons and ammo and no restrictions on its use, including attacking deep into Russia to make the Russian people feel the war. Will any countries be willing to put their troops there? Without some real guarantee that Putin won't be able to grab more land, a treaty will be meaningless. Zelenskyy knows this and so do all the European countries. All of them are well aware of the 1938 Munich appeasement agreement with Hitler and how well that worked out.

Late yesterday, special envoy Steve Witkoff said that Putin had agreed to accept security guarantees for Ukraine. What that actually means in practice remains to be seen. A promise by the U.S. or some other country to defend Ukraine if attacked is just a bunch of words unless it is followed by action of some kind. Don't count on it being a done deal until all the details are worked out and agreed to. We find it difficult to believe that Putin will give up his dream easily when he can just continue to fight.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has praised Trump for his "openness" to providing security guarantees to Ukraine. Carney wrote: "The leadership of President Trump and the United States is creating the opportunity to end Russia's illegal war in Ukraine. Robust and credible security guarantees are essential to any just and lasting peace. I welcome the openness of the United States to providing security guarantees as part of the Coalition of the Willing's efforts." Carney didn't say whether Canada was willing to provide boots on the ground in Ukraine to secure the peace, though.

The E.U.'s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, was skeptical of a peace deal. She said: "The harsh reality is that Russia has no intention of ending this war anytime soon. Tougher measures must be applied." She is almost certainly right. Putin will never give up his dream of rebuilding the Soviet Union unless forced to. Saturday, there was a not-so-secret meeting of all the foreign ministers of the 27 E.U. countries to discuss strategy. One thing that came out is that the E.U. wants guarantees of Ukraine's security in any treaty, including no limits on Ukraine's armed forces, no limits on its weaponry, no limits on its military cooperation with other countries, and no limits on any alliances it may wish to join.

Putin is never going to give up his dream of incorporating Ukraine into Russia proper unless he has no other choice. About 230,000 Russian soldiers have died since the invasion started, a multiple of that has been seriously injured, and many educated young men have fled the country. Putin couldn't care less. He is keeping the army at strength by giving enormous sign-up bonuses to new recruits. The amount depends on the region, but can run into tens of thousands of dollars. Soldiers' pay has been raised many times and is now $2,000 to $3,000/month, putting them in the top 10-15% of all Russian earners. Also, soldiers get large life insurance policies so if they are killed in Ukraine, their families get generous payouts. For men who are in debt, joining the army is an attractive proposition, except for the getting killed or maimed part. The recruiting campaign is aimed at poorly educated working-class men who have no realistic chance of ever earning a decent living. However, many of the men signing up are motivated entirely by the money and are often completely unqualified and also poorly trained. A motivated, elite fighting force it is not. It is just meat for the meat grinder. Putin probably knows this, but it means there is no (very unpopular) general draft. The Ukrainian population is one quarter of Russia's, but the soldiers know exactly what they are fighting for. Highly motivated soldiers are much more effective than losers who are in it only for the money. (V)

There Is Still No ERS

Donald Trump is trying to have it both ways. He wants tariffs as a major source of income for the government (to try to hide the giant hole in the budget his BBB created). But he also wants to demonstrate his negotiating skill by negotiating the tariffs away in trade for concessions on the part of foreign countries. You can't have both. Either they are permanent for the income or bargaining chips to be used to get concessions. It's one or the other. Another possibility is that the tariffs are so high and so permanent (i.e., embedded in law) that U.S. companies will start producing the imported products domestically, in which case there is little or no tariff revenue.

One indication that Trump might have intended them to be permanent is his plan for an External Revenue Service to collect the tariffs, even though the Customs and Border Protection agency (part of Dept. of Homeland Security) is already doing this perfectly well. Trump talked about the ERS from before his inauguration. Yet no steps have been taken yet to actually create such an agency or even figure out what precisely it is supposed to do. For example, does the money go directly into the Treasury or is it allocated for something else? Maybe creating a sovereign wealth fund? Or investment in crypto? Trump has floated sending checks to middle and lower-income people. So get this: People will pay more at Walmart (which imports a lot of stuff) and then get checks from the government to help pay for the price increases. Efficient, no? Where is the Dept. of Government Efficiency when you need it?

Of course, the name External Revenue Service is a complete misnomer since all the money will come from U.S. companies and individuals importing products from abroad. There is no external revenue at all from tariffs.

The lack of action on the ERS is due to bureaucratic infighting and backstabbing. If the agency will be collecting a lot of money, many government officials sense that running it will make them important. The heads of the Treasury Department and Commerce Department, as well as the U.S. Trade Representative, would all be happy to have the ERS under them. So far, nothing has happened. This is typical Trump. He throws out some random idea, there is a lot of internal fighting over what it means and how to execute it, and in the end, nothing happens.

As an aside, the tariffs currently in place are starting to cause supermarket prices to go up because, unlike some durable products, Kroger's couldn't stockpile a year's worth of Mexican avocados in advance of the tariffs. Some of the products where tariffs will hit hard include coffee, olive oil, wine, matcha, chocolate and spices. The amount of the increase will depend on where the product originates. The price of coffee beans from Brazil will go up 50%, chocolate from Switzerland will go up 39%, but spices from Indonesia will go up only 19%. (V)

Three States Send National Guard Troops to Police D.C.

On Saturday, the governors of Ohio, South Carolina and West Virginia announced that they will send some National Guard troops to D.C. to help Donald Trump take power from the D.C. police force. Ohio will send 150 soldiers, South Carolina will send 300, and West Virginia will send 300-400. In all cases, this was in response to a request from Donald Trump.

Why is Trump doing this? It is all political theater. There was no need for guardsmen in the first place and the areas of D.C. that have the most crime have not gotten any troops. It's all for show. From Trump's point of view, this is a way of forcing the governors to show loyalty to him. If there were actually a need in the first place, he could have called up more D.C. guardsmen. From a PR standpoint, having three states contribute (small numbers) of troops makes the problem in D.C. look like a three-alarm fire, which it is not. But it is all about convincing Trump's base that D.C. is out of control.

In reality, crime in D.C. has been dropping for years and there is certainly no crisis. Trump is simply trying to take over the D.C. government in an unpresidented power grab.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser sent out this tweet on Saturday evening: "American soldiers and airmen policing American citizens on American soil is #UnAmerican." (V)

Get Ready for The Arnold vs. Gavin Show

Within 2 hours of the special session of the Texas legislature ending, Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R) gaveled in a second special session. This time, Texas Republicans are determined to steal five Democratic House seats by rigging the district boundaries. When the Texas House Democrats come back, which they have said they will do, there will be a quorum and the bill adopting the new map will pass. The Democrats said they made their point and simply couldn't stay in Illinois indefinitely, even with the support of Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL). Being in the Texas legislature is a part-time job. It pays $7,200 per year plus $221 per day the legislature is in session. No one can live on that except very rich people, so most legislators have regular jobs and businesses they can't leave for 6 months. Burrows told the absent legislators that if they returned before the session today, they would be arrested.

Meanwhile California Democrats announced their response to the Texas move on Friday. There is a new map that will override the map drawn by the independent commission, but only for 2026, 2028, and 2030. Then, after the next census, the independent commission gets to draw the map for 2032 to 2040.

The new map is based on partisan registration numbers rather than PVIs. Here is a summary of the new map, whose goal is to unseat these five Republicans. First, Doug Malfa's district, CA-01, which covers Chico, Redding, and Susanville in the north, had a GOP registration advantage of 17 points and a PVI of R+12. That will swing to a Democratic registration advantage of 10 points.

Second, Kevin Kiley's 450-mile long district that includes the Sacramento exurbs and Lake Tahoe will be significantly shortened. The 6-point GOP edge in the R+2 district will become an 8-point Democratic registration edge.

Third, David Valadao's R+1 district in the Central Valley, including parts of Bakersfield, will become much bluer, raising the Democratic registration edge by 6 points. Valadao will have a tough time hanging on, especially if there is a blue wave.

Fourth, Ken Calvert in CA-41, an R+2 district around Riverside County and Palm Springs, will change dramatically to a 20-point registration advantage for the Democrats. Bye, Ken.

Fifth, Darrell Issa, one of the richest and most detested members of the House, has an interesting history. He was first elected to the House in CA-48 in 2000. In 2002, the district was renumbered CA-49. Issa ran and won again. He was reelected again in 2004, 2006, 2008, and 2010. After the 2010 census, the district was made more compact, but Issa ran and won again. Also in 2014. In 2016, he won by about 3,000 votes. In 2018, he saw that he would not win and did not run. In 2020, he switched to CA-50, a friendlier district to him on the grounds that he owned his mother's home there. He ran and won. In 2022 he switched to the new CA-48, which now covered the eastern part of San Diego County and western part of Riverside County and won. In 2024 he won again. The new district will add deep-blue Palm Springs and purple Escondido and San Marcos and take out deep-red Poway. This will be his biggest challenge ever.

In addition to targeting the five Republicans above, three vulnerable Democrats will get help from bluer districts. These are Adam Gray (R+1) around Modesto and Merced, Derek Tran (D+1) in Orange County, and George Whitesides (D+3) in northern L.A. County. Small blue areas have been added to the districts of Democrats Josh Harder (D+1) in San Joaquin County and Mike Levin (D+4) around Oceanside and Encinitas. By making these districts bluer, Democrats won't have to spend as much money defending them, leaving more money for other fights.

One problem Democrats had is they complied with what is left of the Voting Rights Act. That restricted their ability to muck around with minority-majority districts, even though it would have helped them. In Texas, they are simply ignoring the VRA and are assuming that the Supreme Court will either bail them out or take so long to rule on the expected lawsuits that it is too late to change the 2026 map. If the California Democrats had ignored the VRA, they could possibly have made the House delegation 52D, 0R.

However, even with the new map, the Democrats are not home free. There will be a special election in November in which the voters have to approve the map for 2026, 2028, and 2030. It is not a slam dunk that the initiative will pass. Former Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will fight tooth and nail to defeat the initiative, so there will be ads from dueling governors flooding the airwaves soon. The amount of money to be spent on the special election is expected to be way north of $100 million. Here is Schwarzenegger training for the special election campaign. In addition to his partisan instinct to help save Republicans, Schwarzenegger is insulted by the workaround. The independent commission was instituted on his watch and he is very proud of it:

Schwarzenegger won't be the only Republican opposing the measure. Kevin McCarthy is leading the fundraising campaign. Charles Munger Jr. has already pledged $30 million. It is possible the Republicans will be able to outspend the Democrats, but if spending the most money determined the winner, President Harris would be sitting in the White House now. She and her super PACs outspent Trump by $800 million and she still lost. Also, in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race in April, Elon Musk's $21 million for the Republican dwarfed what Democrat Susan Crawford had to spend but she still won by 10 points. (V)

Appeals Court Allows Trump to Dismantle CFPB

The banks hate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which prevents them from robbing their customers blind. So they tossed some money into Donald Trump's pay-to-play pot last year and bingo, he wants to abolish the CFPB. He tried, but CFPB employees sued and a lower court wouldn't let him fire them. The government appealed. On Friday, the panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. ruled 2-1 that the employees' case was flawed and Trump could dismantle the agency. Two Trump appointees, Judges Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao, voted for Trump. Judge Cornelia Pillard, an Obama appointee, dissented. Katsas wrote the opinion, in which he said the employees' mistake was a broad challenge against shuttering the agency altogether. He reasoned that shuttering an agency was not a decision for the judicial system to make. What Katsas didn't bother to mention is that an agency created by Congress can only be terminated by Congress, not by the president. We guess he just forgot.

The employees can ask for an en banc ruling by the entire appeals court, or go directly to the Supreme Court. (V)

People Who Mock

Authoritarians of all stripes always want to project power. They want to intimidate people. If no one is afraid of them, they lose their power. Direct attacks on them never work because that plays to their strength: projecting power. When attacked, they respond with power.

But they do have a weakness. When they are mocked and ridiculed for being stupid and weak, they are at a loss to respond. Blustering just makes them seem like fools. Some people are starting to get it that the way to go after Donald Trump is not to scream that he is a criminal who breaks the law all the time, but to mock him mercilessly and make him look like a bumbling idiot. This enrages him but he has no good way to respond.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has this down pat now. Whoever said "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" needs to think again. Here are some of Newsom's recent tweets:

The style is an attempt to mimic Trump's over-the-top style and make him seem like a buffoon, not a criminal. The remarks about how great he (Newsom) is, fit the pattern. The "THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER" is straight Trump and looks absurd. Even the signature GCN (Gavin Christopher Newsom) is modeled on Trump's DJT signature. If the style doesn't get to Trump, the "hands (so tiny)" and "little baby stairs" will. Newsom has also posted to TikTok and sued Fox News. It's psychological warfare and Newsom is much better at that than Trump.

To give credit where it is due, the idea of mocking Trump (and possibly some of the text) was from the leader of Newsom's media team, a young Latina named Camille Harper Zapata. She has a B.A. degree in anthropology from UC Santa Cruz, so she knows how cavemen think. Still, Newsom gets credit for hiring her and following up on her ideas. Here is Zapata:

Newsom isn't the only one in the business of mocking Trump. So are Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park. They just got a $1.25 billion contract from Paramount, which owns Comedy Central, so they are prepared to take the gloves off and skewer Trump with everything they've got, which is a lot. They have been rewarded with a ratings boom. After the first episode aired this season, the number of viewers doubled for the second one. Here is a short AI-generated clip from the premiere (which we also linked before). We can't embed it because it is R rated. But if you are over 18 and have a Google account, you can watch it on YouTube. Viewer discretion advised.

Their cartoon show is no Bambi. It is crude, foul-mouthed, and utterly unsubtle. In the recent episode "Sermon on the 'Mount" ("'Mount" being short for Paramount), Trump, portrayed as a tinpot dictator, is in bed with Satan (literally), tiny... hands and all. One of the townsfolk calls him a "re***ded fa**ot." When he is not in bed, Trump is suing everyone. Jesus shows up, stands on a small pile of dirt, and tells the crowd: "All of you, shut the f*ck up or South Park is over." Here is a link to the whole episode. If you just want to watch some of the scenes about Trump, skip to 8:00 or watch this. Watch at least one minute of it to get the feel of it.

Parker and Stone have said that since media powerhouses, multibillion dollar corporations, top law firms, and elite universities are knuckling under to a vengeful president, someone had to speak up. So, they did. After shows are aired, clips of them go on the South Park website.

Sometimes the administration's incompetence makes mockery easy. Apparently, some dodo remotely printed eight pages of State Dept. material on the printer at the business center in the hotel where many of the participants of the Alaska summit stayed—and forgot to pick them up. A guest found them, photographed them, and turned the photos over to NPR. The material was not overly sensitive (e.g., the seating chart for lunch) but it also had the phone numbers of some government officials. The White House called the incident "hilarious." How's that for material to mock the administration's incompetence?

And then there is TACO—everywhere. (V)

The U.S. Is Going to Destroy $10 Million in Contraceptives Meant for Africa

One of the many problems plaguing Africa is overpopulation. The population of the continent is growing faster than the food supply, water supply, land supply, and everything else, so one of the (very low-cost) things the U.S. has been doing to help is to provide free contraceptives, in an attempt to slow the population growth. When Donald Trump killed off USAID, a warehouse full of hormonal birth control pills, shots, implants and IUDs were stuck in a warehouse in Belgium. Trump ordered them destroyed because some of his believers think that using contraceptives is like having an abortion.

Sarah Shaw, of MSI Reproductive Choices, said: "It's a lie. It's a blatant attempt to misrepresent a couple of contraceptive methods and to stigmatize the women who use them."

Activists and lawmakers in the U.S. and Europe are fighting to prevent the U.S. from destroying the $10 million worth of contraceptives as medical waste. Most of the stockpile was destined for over 1 million women in Congo, Kenya, Mali, Tanzania, Zambia and other poor African countries. An agency of the U.N. has offered to buy the lot of it and handle distribution, but Trump refused. A London-based reproductive health group also offered to buy it and was also rejected. The government of Belgium has offered to relocate the stockpile somewhere else, so far without success. It isn't about the money. It is about the meanness.

Democrats in the House and Senate have introduced bills requiring that food and contraceptives that the government has already bought, paid for, and shipped, are allowed to be distributed to their intended beneficiaries before they expire. Good luck with that. Lawmakers in France are urging President Emmanuel Macron to intervene to save the supplies. They have argued that since the material is scheduled to be shipped to France for destruction, France has a right to seize it upon arrival. The French government has said that it has no such right.

When a spokesperson at the U.S. State Department was asked why they believe there are abortifacients in the stockpile, there was no reply. (V)

The Supreme Court May Revisit Same-Sex Marriage

Donald Trump has never talked much about same-sex marriage. In fact, one of his top cabinet members, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, is a married gay man. Trump has bigger fish to fry than rehashing same-sex marriage. However, some of his evangelical supporters who never liked the Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriages nationwide, are champing at the bit to overturn it. After all, the Court reversed Roe v. Wade after 49 years on the books, and Obergefell has been around only 10 years, so chucking it would be no big deal, right?

At their annual meeting, Southern Baptists called for state laws challenging Obergefell on the grounds that the composition of the Supreme Court is more favorable to their viewpoint now than it was in 2015. Three of the five justices in the majority in 2015, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Anthony Kennedy, are no longer on the Court. Two of them, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor, are still around. Of the four dissenters, Justices Samuel Alito, John Roberts and Clarence Thomas are still onboard. Antonin Scalia is not. If the chance came up to scuttle Obergefell, Alito, Roberts and Thomas are probably still of the same opinion they were in 2015, so all it would take is any two of the Trump appointees, Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh. There could well be two votes there.

In nine states, resolutions calling for Obergefell to be reversed have been introduced. Some states are also considering a new class of marriage, covenant marriage, which would make divorce very difficult (God would have to personally sign off on the divorce).

One case that could be the vehicle to overturn Obergefell has been brought by Kim Davis, a former Kentucky County clerk who defied court orders and refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 2015. She is asking the Supreme Court to take her appeal and overturn Obergefell. The Court has not yet decided whether it will take the case. All it takes is four votes and Alito, Roberts, and Thomas are probably three of them. Just one more is needed. It could happen.

If the Court reversed Obergefell next June, it would cause a stir but probably not nearly as big as the Dobbs decision reversing Roe v. Wade because many fewer people are potentially affected and probably a majority of those are already voting for Democrats. Still, if the Democrats campaigned in part on the idea that the Supreme Court is running amok and has lost all interest in the Constitution and just rules based on their personal views, it could swing some independents. (V)

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