Day: February 26, 2025

Another Brick in The Wall

I could be offering up my review of a tune the I enjoy from Pink Floyd or I could be writing about the ‘wall’ of exclusion on the Southern border…..but I am not at this time…..I am talking about the wall the Trump is building around himself w2hich is also a ‘wall’ of exclusion…..if you are not on-board with the whole MAGA BS then you will be excluded.

He is slowly trying to exclude anyone from government that could possibly stand in his ascension to deity.

The newest attack is on the press….

The White House said Tuesday that its officials “will decide” which news outlets can regularly cover President Trump up close—a sharp break from a century of tradition in which a pool of independently chosen news organizations go where the chief executive does and hold him accountable on behalf of regular Americans. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the changes would rotate traditional outlets from the group and include some streaming services, the AP reports. She cast the change as a modernization of the press pool, saying the move would be more inclusive and restore “access back to the American people” who elected Trump.

  • “Moving forward, the White House press pool will be determined by the White House press team,” Leavitt said at a daily briefing. “A select group of DC-based journalists should no longer have a monopoly of press access at the White House.”
  • Critics of the move included Peter Baker, the New York Times‘ chief White House correspondent, the Hill reports. “Having served as a Moscow correspondent in the early days of Putin’s reign, this reminds me of how the Kremlin took over its own press pool and made sure that only compliant journalists were given access,” Baker said in a post on X.
  • Leavitt spoke a day after a federal judge refused to immediately order the White House to restore the APs’ access to many presidential events. The news outlet, citing the First Amendment, sued Leavitt and two other White House officials for barring the AP from some presidential events over its refusal to call the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” as Trump ordered.

He has already banned some so-called ‘liberal’ press but not called so by me) as PBS, AP, Reuters, etc.  And now the rest of the story….

This is just another page from the authoritarian handbook…..control what is reported and eliminate any opposition press, if possible.

Whatcha wanna bet that OAN, FOX, and other right wing echo chambers will have full access?

What do you see in this move?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

New Budget In Waiting

The Senate awaits!

The Trump people in the House have voted and approve the budget deal and one GOPer voted against it….

With a push from President Trump, House Republicans sent a GOP budget blueprint to passage Tuesday, a step toward delivering his “big, beautiful bill” with $4.5 trillion in tax breaks and $2 trillion in spending cuts despite a wall of opposition from Democrats and discomfort among Republicans.

  • House Speaker Mike Johnson had almost no votes to spare in his bare-bones GOP majority and fought on all fronts—against Democrats, uneasy rank-and-file Republicans, and skeptical GOP senators—to advance the party’s signature legislative package, the AP reports. Trump made calls to wayward GOP lawmakers and invited Republicans to the White House.
  • The vote was 217-215, with a single Republican—Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky—and all Democrats present opposed, and the outcome was in jeopardy until the gavel. “On a vote like this, you’re always going to have people you’re talking to all the way through the close of the vote,” Majority Leader Steve Scalise said before the roll call. “We got it done,” Johnson said afterward. Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva did not vote, the Washington Post reports.
  • Next steps are long and cumbersome before anything can become law—weeks of committee hearings to draft the details and send the House version to the Senate, where Republicans passed their own scaled-back version. And more big votes are ahead, including an unrelated deal to prevent a government shutdown when federal funding expires March 14. Those talks are also underway.
  • Democrats during an afternoon debate decried the package as a “betrayal” of Americans, a “blueprint for American decline,” and simply a “Republican rip-off.” “Our very way of life as a country is under assault,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on the steps of the Capitol.
  • The Republican majority in the House is so tight that confirmation hearings for Rep. Elise Stefanik as US ambassador to the United Nations have not been scheduled, the New York Times reports. “I had 220 Republicans and 215 Democrats, and then President Trump began to cull the herd,” Johnson said Monday. “We have a one-vote margin now—smallest in history, right?”

How nice that the GOP has a budget offer….but does anyone see this helping our deficit problem.

Two simple solutions that NO one in Congress wants to grapple with….raise taxes and cut spending…..but Congress is not paid to use their commonsense they are paid to take orders….but not from the voter.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

From The Mouth Of Zelensky

Now that Trump is in office Zelensky has lots to say about the war and the end of it….

First, he is still trying to force feed NATO to the US in one fashion or another….

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he was “ready” to resign as leader if it meant it would bring peace to his country, suggesting he could swap it for NATO membership – while also pushing back against US demands for Ukraine’s critical minerals and other natural resources as part of negotiations to end the war.

Asked at a press conference Sunday if he was ready to quit if it ensures peace for Ukraine, Zelensky said: “If (it guarantees) peace for Ukraine, if you really need me to resign, I am ready. I can exchange it for NATO.”

Earlier this month, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said that Kyiv joining NATO was unrealistic, upending the alliance’s stated policy that Ukraine was on an “irreversible path” to membership.

After the martial law, there will be elections. Perhaps [Trump] will say something good about me,” he said, per NBC. But “it is more important what Ukrainians think about me.” Turning focus to US aid negotiations, Zelensky suggested Ukraine was “ready to share” its rare earth minerals. But he said he would not accept the latest US proposal, which lacked security guarantees yet would’ve required Ukraine to pay $500 billion to the US though natural resource revenues. The sum is “more than twice the value of Ukraine’s economic output in 2021,” per the Times. Zelensky claimed US aid has totaled around $120 billion so far and took issue with a term in the proposed deal that he says “states that for every dollar of [future US] aid, Ukraine must return $2.”

US efforts ought to represent “peace through force, but toward Russia, not in the other direction,” said Zelensky, per the Times. He spoke hours after Russia launched what Ukraine said was its largest single drone attack on the country since war erupted three years ago. Noting representatives of more than 30 countries would meet virtually or in person Monday at a peace summit in Kyiv, Zelensky called for US and European support in brokering “a lasting and just peace.” He said NATO membership for Ukraine would be on the table, but only time would tell how the discussions “finish,” per the BBC. Hopefully there will be a “turning point,”

Not to take sides with Trump but I think Zelensky is wrong…..

The Ukrainian leader also said he was not prepared to pay back the $100 billion because President Biden and Congress agreed to provide the aid as grants, not loans that would be paid back.

“I made agreements with Biden and with the US Congress. I’m grateful to Congress. It was about grant support, and a grant is not a debt. We don’t have to repay a debt. So, it’s not about the figure, it’s about the fact that we do not recognize it as a debt,” Zelensky said.

I guess it depends on how one wants to define ‘debt’….I say he is in debt to the US for its unswerving support….Ukraine has gotten billions in taxpayer money that could have been used here on many projects that need updating.

While writing this post word came out that a deal has been made with Ukraine on the mineral thing….

Ukraine and American officials have apparently reached an agreement on a deal involving Ukraine’s rare earth minerals. Ukrainian officials tell outlets including the AP and the Washington Post that the framework of a deal granting the US access to Ukraine’s minerals, oil, and gas has been worked out. Last week, insiders said an “improved” deal was in the works after Volodymyr Zelensky rejected one that would demanded $500 billion in compensation for earlier US aid to Ukraine, with no future security guarantees.

According to the Post‘s sources, the new framework does not include the $500 billion figure. The real amount of US aid to Ukraine since Russia invaded three years ago is believed to be around $140 billion. The AP’s sources say the deal now involves joint US-Ukrainian ownership of a fund that will include 50% of revenue from state-owned resources, including minerals. The sources say it still doesn’t include security guarantees, but those could be worked out in a meeting between Zelensky and President Trump.

After reporters asked him about a mineral deal on Tuesday, Trump said he had heard that Zelensky is coming to the White House on Friday. “Certainly it’s okay with me if he’d like to, and he would like to sign it together with me,” he said, per the Post. “And I understand that’s a big deal, very big deal.” ” We’re helping the country through a very very big problem,” he said, per the BBC, “but the American taxpayer now is going to get their money back plus.”

We knew a deal could be had…..money is involved and that is always a starting point.

Any deep thoughts on this turn?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”