Marie: Substack isn't working. It has already banned two commenters, who made perfectly good comments, and it won't allow me to de-ban them. It has deleted all of their comments and will not accept new ones. It has also caused problems for those who wish to conceal their identities. So I'm going to take another look at Blogspot. I'm not hopeful. In the meantime, Squarespace is still completely broken. I can barely do updates, and you cannot comment at all. "Free speech" is taking a helluva toll on me. I'm exhausted.
Today we will see how things go when the bullies are outnumbered.
Samya Kullab & John Leicester of the AP: “European and NATO leaders announced Sunday they will join President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington to present a united front in talks with … Donald Trump on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine and firming up U.S. security guarantees now on the negotiating table. Leaders from Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Finland are rallying around the Ukrainian president after his exclusion from Trump’s summit on Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Their pledge to be at Zelenskyy’s side at the White House on Monday is an apparent effort to ensure the meeting goes better than the last one in February, when Trump berated Zelenskyy in a heated Oval Office encounter.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Avery Lotz of Axios: The leaders who will accompany President Zelensky are NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, French President Emmanuel Macron, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. ~~~
~~~ David Sanger of the New York Times: “This time, when President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine arrives in the Oval Office, he will come with backup. An array of European prime ministers and presidents are flying in for the meeting on Monday to make sure that a viable, defensible Ukraine survives whatever carving up of its territory is about to happen at the negotiating table. But they are also there to make certain that the trans-Atlantic alliance emerges intact…. [Donald] Trump’s instant reversal on the critical issue of obtaining a cease-fire before negotiating over land or security guarantees has left many of them shaken…. By most accounts, the European officials want to ensure that Mr. Trump has not pivoted too close to the Russian side, and does not try to strong-arm Mr. Zelensky into a deal that will ultimately sow the seeds of Ukraine’s dissolution.” (Also linked yesterday.)
David Gilmour of Mediaite: “… Donald Trump unloaded Sunday night in a frenzy on Truth Social, blasting personal insults to rage-posting about criticism of his Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin just hours before he’s set to host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House.” Gilmour provides an ample sample.
Erin Doherty of CNBC: “U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff said Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to allow the United States and European nations to give Ukraine ‘Article 5-like protection’ as a security guarantee to bring an end to the war. ‘We were able to win the following concession: That the United States could offer Article Five-like protection, which is one of the real reasons why Ukraine wants to be in NATO,’ Witkoff said Sunday on CNN.”
Marie: I was thinking that if, as reported, Witkoff was the dunderhead who advised the Dunderhead-in-Chief to go for “peace in our time” based on the premise that Vlad was flexible, then he probably had no idea what he was talking about now. Even Little Marco seems to agree with me: ~~~
~~~ Katie Rogers & Carol Rosenberg of the New York Times: Donald “Trump and two advisers [— Steve Witkoff & Marco Rubio —] spent Sunday trying to recast the lack of a cease-fire in the war in Ukraine as one step in a possibly slow march toward peace. It was a significant departure from the peace agreement that the president said he had wanted out of a meeting in Alaska with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia just 48 hours earlier…. In a tandem appearance on ABC’s ‘This Week,’ Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was also at Mr. Trump’s side in Anchorage, took a more cautious approach. He warned that both Russia and Ukraine would need to make concessions to end the war and that a peace agreement might be elusive in the short term.”
Timothy Snyder has some thoughts about common-sense negotiations: “… most fundamentally, endorsing the principle that invasions can legally change the borders of countries puts in jeopardy the international order that was built after 1945…. The idea that state borders should not be violated enjoys (as UN votes show) very high support. Russia has called into question this basic principle by invading Ukraine. Should the United States thoughtlessly legalize Russia’s war of aggression, it will invite global chaos…. Talking, especially repeating the propaganda of the aggressor, will not bring peace.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Snyder’s premise, which — as he says — is common-sense, makes this analysis by the New York Times’ Paul Sonne & Michael Schwirtz look like nothing less than craven appeasement of a vicious aggressor. Or simple stenography services to the U.S. dictator & his team of sycophants. ~~~
~~~ Heather Cox Richardson provides some specifics that back up Snyder’s general principles. Speculating on the reason for the cancelled Alaska lunch (menu linked below!), Richardson writes, “… Trump has recently exhibited both an inability to focus on any topic, and a need to live in a carefully constructed world that ignores reality and assures him he is the best and the brightest. A high-stakes meeting with principals about a very real situation might have been too much for him to manage for a full day.” AND she includes this strange aside: “At 8:31 [Sunday] morning, Trump posted one word, ‘bela,’ on his social media account. California governor Gavin Newsom’s social media account … wrote: ‘We broke Donald Trump.’” MB: Looks like another covfefe moment.
Meh! Katie Rogers of the New York Times: “The Trump administration this weekend downplayed a report that officials left in a public area of a hotel documents describing the confidential movements of … [Donald] Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia during their meeting in Alaska on Friday…. The documents were produced by the Office of the Chief of Protocol, a position held by Monica Crowley, a former Fox News personality who served in Mr. Trump’s first term. The papers … listed the sequence of events, which included a smaller meeting with Mr. Trump, Mr. Putin and their top foreign policy advisers; an expanded meeting and working lunch with several cabinet officials; a news conference; and an interview between Mr. Trump and Sean Hannity of Fox News. The documents also included a lunch menu for a three-course luncheon held ‘in honor of his excellency Vladimir Putin.’… The White House and State Department have both derided the documents as a glorified lunch menu.” (Also linked yesterday.)
It’s difficult to get a bite to eat in Washington, D.C. ~~~
~~~ Jordan Fischer of WUSA Washington: “D.C. restaurants saw a more than 25% drop in diners in the days following … Donald Trump’s takeover of the city’s police department, according to a WUSA9 analysis of reservation numbers…. As of Sunday, the city stands nearly alone among the largest 20 U.S. cities tracked by OpenTable in having a drop in August dining reservations compared to last year. Only Las Vegas, which has seen its own economy buffeted by Trump’s immigration and trade policies, has seen fewer diners this month than August 2024.” ~~~
~~~ Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, et al., of the Washington Post: “Federal agents detained a food delivery driver as he emerged from a Northwest Washington coffee shop Saturday morning, an incident captured on video by numerous witnesses — including a Washington Post reporter — that showed the officers tackling him to the ground, holding him down and appearing to use a stun gun before driving him away in an unmarked black vehicle. After video of the incident spread widely online, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman identified the man as Cristian Enrique Carias Torres, a Venezuelan national who she said illegally entered the United States in 2023 and was ordered removed by an immigration judge later that year…. The arrest sparked fear and outrage among some residents during the first weekend of … Donald Trump’s ramp-up of federal agents on D.C. streets.”
“Trump’s Thugs.” Ittai Sopher & Alexis Wainwright of WUSA: “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials proudly claimed responsibility on Sunday for tearing down a homemade sign in Mount Pleasant cursing out immigration authorities, with the agency posting a video [on its official X account] to social media featuring eight masked people in bulletproof vests. The X video was was posted Sunday afternoon…. [It] appeared to show ICE agents tearing the message down from its post outside Lamont Plaza, a park in the Northwest D.C. neighborhood with a sizeable Latin American population on Friday. ‘We're taking America back, baby,’ one of the masked men says in the video…. The White House reposted the video on Sunday.”
Anabel Munoz of KABC-TV Los Angeles: “A federal agent fired shots during a targeted immigration enforcement operation in San Bernardino on Saturday morning, according to the Department of Homeland Security…. [A passenger in the car named] Martin says … their vehicle was suddenly surrounded by unmarked cars and masked men…. Martin stressed that they asked [for identification], but the masked agents did not identify themselves. Martin and his family stayed in the locked car as agents insisted they come out. Video shows moments later, the agents shattered two windows…. [This frightened the driver, who drove away.] In the video, three gunshots can be heard.” Read on. MB: See who you believe, “Martin” or DHS.
Anna Merlan of Mother Jones (August 15): “… at the moment, the official voice of the US government [is] a rancid mixture of trolling, cruelty, propaganda, and crass jokes about the human suffering they’re creating, an effort, as Wired’s Tess Owen recently put it, to turn actions like mass deportation into ‘one big joke.’ On Instagram and Twitter (their largest audience), government entities including the White House, ICE, and the Department of Homeland Security attempt to surf viral trends to expanded public attention…. A lot of the trends are specifically designed to appeal to young white men…. [These j]oking memes about imprisonment, deportation, and death by alligator are designed to radicalize and desensitize ... ‘to get people to buy into the fun of sadism,’ says [Prof.] Jason Stanley…, who’s in the process of leaving the United States because of, as he baldly puts it, ‘concerns over fascism.’”
Glenn Thrush of the New York Times profiles “Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox co-host who took over the U.S. attorney’s office in the District of Columbia three months ago…. Over the past week, Ms. Pirro has emerged as a central player in a confrontation that will do much to define her legacy and the role of the Justice Department in Mr. Trump’s second term: the White House-mandated takeover of the District of Columbia’s law enforcement….” And here’s a tidbit: “Late last year, after Mr. Trump tapped Kash Patel … to be F.B.I. director, his aides approached Ms. Pirro about becoming his deputy. She told them she had no interest working for Mr. Patel….”
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Florida. Marie-Rose Sheinerman of the Washington Post: “The Republican Party of Florida was pushing a new line of merchandise Friday: baseball caps, T-shirts, mugs and insulating drink sleeves with ‘THE DEPORT DEPOT’ in blocky stencil font diagonally across a bright orange square. Two days later, after Home Depot expressed concern about the unapproved use of its branding, the items had been scrubbed from the Florida GOP’s digital storefront and posts on X about the new line had been deleted…. The short-lived deportation-themed merchandise came after Thursday’s announcement by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) of plans to turn an underused state prison into a migrant detention center that can hold up to 1,300 detainees — a facility he referred to as ‘Deportation Depot.’”
North Carolina. Audra Burch of the New York Times: “Last year, Concerned Citizens of Tyrrell County [North Carolina,] a civic group made up of mostly older Black residents, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina against the county[, calling for the removal or covering of an inscription on a monument that reads,] ‘IN APPRECIATION OF OUR FAITHFUL SLAVES’…. It is believed to be the only courthouse monument in the country to ‘textually express’ such a message, according to the lawsuit…. The Columbia case is unfolding amid a reverse reckoning of sorts, as the Trump administration reclaims Confederate iconography, part of a sweeping mission to shift or reframe how American history is presented.”
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Ian Austen of the New York Times: “The union representing Air Canada’s 10,000 flight attendants said on Sunday that it would defy the government’s back-to-work order and continue a strike that shut down Canada’s dominant carrier and severely disrupted travel throughout the country. The announcement came at the same time that Air Canada had ordered the flight attendants to show up for work Sunday afternoon to restart service that evening…. A union spokesman said [the union] will be seeking an injunction from the Federal Court of Canada on Sunday to block the order.”
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This is a link to the NYT.
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