Random Monday Morning Thoughts

And look at that date.

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• Friday's spectacle in the Oval Office was an historic, shameful, and sad day for the United States.  It's over.  We are now officially aligned with Russia and not Europe. It's was already bad enough beforehand when Trump called Zelensky a dictator, or when he said that Ukraine started the war, or (especially) when the U.S. voted with Russia at the U.N. earlier in the week, but now we have embarrassed an ally for all the world to see. An event which be remembered for decades and more.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Yesterday, Russia officially (and correctly) acknowledged the U.S. has changed sides.  I cannot believe what I'm seeing. 
  

  
  
  
• By the way, this "deal" Trump is proposing for Ukraine is no deal at all. It's just a cease fire where, at the very least, Russia concedes nothing and keeps the land they've already taken. And with no promise from us for future defense, Ukraine would become a sitting duck for later Russian advances. And Trump wants $500 billion in minerals for being a real estate broker.
  
  
  
• Vance's interruption in the Oval Office, which started it all with a demand that Zelensky grovel, was a preplanned setup.  From there, on cue, we saw two people bully and berate an ally who is fighting for his life and the very existence of his country. It was staged theater. 
• The conservative Wall Street Journal's editorial board: 
  
  
  
• And we had this very weird rant from Trump at the end of the Oval Office confrontation -- he managed to horseshoe in Hunter Biden's laptop.
  
  
  
  
• Of course. You don't spy on your friend.  
  
• And there it was late Saturday night. It's a Russian dream.
  
  
  
• And Elon was in the news for another reason over the weekend.
   
• He might as well do this before we switch to Russian. 
  
  
  
• The country's whole problem is that the public is so gullible that it can't discern what is true.  No one seems to have an internal radar that says, "Man, that sounds sketchy" whenever some "news" comes across their timeline.  Case in point, after the Oval Office blow-up, a lie from some spare person who admits to just "speculating" made it's way all the way to a U.S. Attorney who treated it as if it were true.
  
  
  
  
• Barely noticed was another Five Questions email was sent out on Friday with an instruction to repeat the task every week. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• After the catastrophe in the Oval Office, Trump went to Florida to golf and then joined Musk at Mar-a-Lago. They returned together to the White House last night as Musk was seen exiting Marine One.  J.D. Vance, meanwhile, went skiing where he was met with hundreds of protestors. 
  

  

  
  
  
  
• I can't think of a worse place to have a panic break out than where thousands of hyped up cheerleaders and their parents are gathered.  Here's a pretty good overhead video of people running away outside as the crowd feared that gunshots had been heard. It was actually just a fight between parents. Video.
  
• "Farmers Branch PD confirmed that a man attending the NTR volleyball tournament, which was held at the RYSE Energy StarCenter Multisport gym, accidentally discharged a gun that was in his back pocket and shot himself on Saturday."
  
  
  
• An engine on a FedEx plane got fire on Saturday causing it to return to Newark, NJ. Video.
  
  
  
• Anti-vax update.
  
  
  
• Uh-oh. A private school in Wise County made this list.
  

  

  
  
  
  
• Local sports: The Decatur Lady Eagles won the state championship in basketball, but I also noticed these bizarrely low scores by the Bridgeport golf team. 
  
  
  
• Europe embraces Ukraine . . . .