Last licks

Since the ceasefire was announced, Israeli air strikes have killed 81 people and injured almost 200, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.  Ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, who make Netanyahu look conciliatory, appear to be the stumbling blocks.  So the slaughter continues.

Some wars take longer to conclude than the fighting itself.  More than 100,000 Poles were massacred between 1943 and 1945 by Ukrainian nationalists under the leadership of Nazi occupiers.  Now President Zelenskyy and Prime Minister Tusk have reached an agreement to allow the exhumation of Poles who died in what is known as the Volhynia massacre.  Poland has been a strong ally of Ukraine during the Russian invasion and this can only bring them closer.  Nobody in Poland wants to be next on Putin's wish list, especially with NATO suddenly looking vulnerable to the whims of Putin's American puppet.  Perhaps in the same spirit UK Prime Minister Starmer visited Kyiv to announce a "hundred year partnership" with Ukraine.  

The Washington Post has abandoned "Democracy Dies in Darkness" in favor of "Riveting Storytelling for All of America," which could be the motto of People magazine.  At least they're honest.

For all the bluster, the crowd for the January 20 "RIP Democracy" events continues to thin.  Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama are willing to witness the perjurious swearing-in of the Leader but they won't eat lunch with him.  Nancy Pelosi is also skipping the fun.  Jair Bolsonaro would love to attend but the high court of Brazil took away his passport on account of he's considered a flight risk after his coup attempt of 2022.  Speaking of coups, President Yoon Suk Yeol is sitting in the Seoul Detention Center refusing to answer questions for a second day.  Another flight risk?

NATO, the UN...the Olympics?  The 2028 summer games are scheduled to take place in Los Angeles but Jim Jordan says the Leader should "hereby order" them moved to a red state like Ohio (!) because of "how poorly [California] is being run."  It's not the Leader's decision to make, and I'm not sure another city could build all the necessary facilities in less than four years, but sure, Gym, keep abasing yourself.  Maybe groveling will be an event.

Kremlinologists used to earn a good living interpreting the May Day Parade pictures of the inner party on Lenin's tomb -- who's right next to the chairman, who's applauding, who's missing.  In the new field of (let's call it) gremlinology, pundits study the interactions and facial expressions of the Important People.  Rachel Maddow, a leading practitioner, was full of praise for Karen Pence's refusal to shake hands with, or even stand for, the Leader at the Carter funeral, just because he was comfortable with her husband being torn to pieces by a mob at the J6 coup.  

Joe Biden's farewell address is being compared to Eisenhower's.  In 1961 the general-turned-president warned of a "military-industrial complex" of defense professionals and arms manufacturers which would bite off more than its fair share of the federal budget and promote unnecessary military adventures.  Sixty-four years later, with trillion-dollar defense spending questioned only by a few people like Bernie Sanders, Biden spoke of "an oligarchy...of extreme wealth, power and influence."  We should not ignore him as we did Ike, who knew a little about armies and the men who arm them.  Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and lesser events like Grenada could have been avoided.  Now democracy itself is at stake.