With elections scheduled for next spring, and his right-wing Fidesz party slipping in the polls, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is desperately seeking ways to discredit his principal opponent in order to boost his own chances of reelection. And in his desperation, he’s just making stuff up as he goes along.

(Hmm . . . that sounds strangely like someone else I could name. But that’s a whole different nightmare.)

Orban has long been vocally pro-Putin, refusing to supply weapons to Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s invasion, or even to allow them to transit from other countries through Hungary’s territory. Instead, he continues to demand that sanctions issued against Russia be lifted, and vehemently opposes EU membership for Ukraine.

But now he’s truly gone off the deep end, accusing his leading political opponent — Peter Magyar — of “entering into a treasonous pact with Kyiv to overthrow his government and install a pro-Western, pro-Ukraine administration.” [Justin Spike, AP, June 20, 2025.]

In comments on state radio earlier this month, Orban said:

“Let’s be under no illusions: Brussels and Ukraine are jointly building up a puppet government [in Hungary]. They want to change Hungary’s policy toward Ukraine after the next elections, or even sooner.” [Id.]

Bizarrely, he claims that Ukraine’s becoming a member of the EU would flood Hungary with crime, cheap labor, and low-quality agricultural products, thus threatening national sovereignty and economic stability.

But wait . . . it gets better. He also says that Brussels and Kyiv plan to force Hungarians to fight Russia on the front lines on Ukraine’s behalf. He has even posted a video to his social media page depicting AI-generated animated scenes of wounded, machine-gun-toting Hungarian soldiers engaged in battle, with rows of caskets beneath Hungarian flags.

“We don’t want our children, in the form of the Hungarian army, to be deployed to the Ukrainian front lines or to Ukrainian territory and to come back in coffins,” he says in the video. [Id.]

Orban’s delusional smear campaign is an obvious attempt to discredit an opponent who is gaining in popular support. Peter Kreko, director of the Budapest-based Political Capital think tank, says:

“There is an ongoing campaign against any critical voices in Hungary saying that they are agents of Ukraine, and this can be used also against [Peter Magyar’s] Tisza party. If you can’t win back public opinion anymore, then you can try to use a more authoritarian toolkit.” [Id.]

Unfortunately, this doesn’t end with verbal accusations. In May, Ukraine’s main security agency arrested two people on suspicion of spying for Hungary by trying to gather intelligence on Ukraine’s military defenses in the western part of the country. Diplomats were expelled on both sides, and Orban accused Magyar and the Tisza party of orchestrating the affair in order to undermine him.

Orban then further accused Magyar and a prominent Tisza member — without evidence — of having “deep ties with Ukrainian intelligence.” [Id.]

*. *. *

It’s hardly news that politics is a dirty business. But when a political campaign is based — not only on lies and false promises — but on paranoid, conspiracy-driven fantasies, it’s time to take stock of the people running, or hoping to run, the country.

Any country.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/23/25

It’s a little early, I know. But Donald Trump has just given his two main adversaries the biggest, bestest Christmas gift that U.S. taxpayer dollars could buy, in the form of 14 GBU-57 bunker-busting bombs dropped on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The propaganda value alone is incalculable. Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul summed up the effect Trump’s action would likely have on the Russian and Chinese leadership:

“I think we’ve really got to understand our other interests in the world that might be affected by this attack today. This is a preemptive war. The world does not support preemptive wars. We learned that in 2003” (referring to the U.S. invasion of Iraq).

McFaul continued: “Putin will be celebrating this because he did his own preemptive war in Ukraine and now it’s like, well, this is just what great powers do. Maybe Xi Jinping is going to think the same. He’s going to say, ‘Well, if they can do it here, we can do it in Taiwan.’” [Sarah Fortinsky, The Hill, June 22, 2025.]

And from a purely practical point of view, what has Trump actually accomplished? Even assuming, as he apparently does, that the sites were totally destroyed, does that necessarily put the Iran nuclear program out of business?

Not according to Dmitry Medvedev, the ultra-hawkish Deputy Chairman of Putin’s Security Council, who said on Sunday:

“What have the Americans accomplished with their nighttime strikes on three nuclear sites in Iran? The enrichment of nuclear material — and, now we can say it outright, the future production of nuclear weapons — will continue. A number of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads.” [Adam Schrader, UPI, June 22, 2025.]

Medvedev added that Israel’s pursuit of a regime change in Iran has not succeeded, and in fact may have “come out even stronger.” [Id.]

Russia’s Foreign Ministry similarly condemned the strikes as a violation of international law and the United Nations charter, and “a substantial blow to the global non-proliferation regime built around the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. They have significantly undermined both the credibility of the NPT and the integrity of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) monitoring and verification mechanisms that underpin it.” [Id.]

It’s impossible to overlook the irony of those words being spoken by officials of a country in the fourth year of its own illegal war of attrition against the sovereign nation of Ukraine. But it does make a point.

And then there’s the reaction from China’s Foreign Ministry, which also issued a statement charging that the U.S. had violated the U.N. charter and international law, and added:

“China stands ready to work with the international community to pool efforts together and uphold justice, and work for restoring peace and stability in the Middle East.” [Id.]

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, bringing peace to the world. Surely I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole.

*. *. *

In short, if Donald Trump had actually been trying to push Iran into the waiting arms of Putin and Xi, while simultaneously turning the United States into an international pariah, he couldn’t have done a better job of it.

I can hardly wait to see what he does for an encore.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/23/25

In 1939, Russia and Germany signed a non-aggression agreement — the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact — pledging that neither would ever invade the other’s territory.

Two years later, on this date (June 22) in 1941, Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa: three parallel offensives into Russia staged by more than three million German troops . . . 19 panzer divisions, 3,000 tanks, 2,500 aircraft, and 7,000 artillery pieces across a 1,000-mile front. [“This Day In History, History.com, June 22, 2025.]

Hitler’s word meant nothing. But he paid dearly for his betrayal: by opening a second front, he became the instrument of his own ultimate destruction.

*. *. *

Vladimir Putin, seeking to reinforce his image as Russia’s strongman, periodically stages a revolt or a “terror attack” by his scapegoat du jour — perhaps Chechnya, one of the Central Asian nations, his own friend Yevgeny Prigozhin, or more recently, Ukraine — and then brutally retaliates, claiming a victory in “protecting” his people from perceived harm.

I call it “heroism by proxy.” It is, of course, nothing more than an excuse for a lie.

*. *. *

Yesterday, Donald Trump . . . after pledging a two-week pause allowing Iran’s leaders time to consider their position as to a nuclear weapons agreement . . . and without bothering with the requisite Congressional approval . . . bombed three of Iran’s principal nuclear sites in a sneak attack that shocked the world. Or everyone but Israel, at any rate, in whose defense Trump claims to have acted.

In so doing, he thinks he has established himself as America’s tough guy, a force not to be messed with. In reality, he has proven himself, once again, to be nothing more than a world-class liar.

He lied to his supporters when he campaigned as the peace candidate who would never lead America into war.

He obviously lied when he told Iran he would hold off for two weeks.

And he may be lying when he says that these attacks were a one-off, that there would be no further action, and that negotiations could now resume. Because he has also said, while claiming this action as a great success, that there are still “many targets” left to destroy.

He lies daily, then denies that he ever said what millions of people around the world have heard him say.

He is no more wedded to the truth than Adolph Hitler or Vladimir Putin. In fact, he wouldn’t know the truth if it walked up and smacked him across the face.

Which it may be just about to do. Meanwhile, we wait for whatever comes next.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/22/25

When Donald Trump berated NATO’s European member countries for what he said was their failure to contribute their fair shares to the alliance, and threatened to pull the U.S. out completely, he may inadvertently have done them a huge favor. Because what he did was jump-start a review of their respective defense capabilities vis-a-vis any possible threat from nearby Russia.

What the leaders of those European nations understand, but Trump refuses to acknowledge, is that such a threat is very real. Vladimir Putin has no intention of ending his expansionist plans with Ukraine. And while the world is occupied with conflicts in the Middle East, Putin is not sitting idly by.

According to a report published by the German news magazine Spiegel, citing a new strategy paper from the Bundeswehr, the German military considers Russia an “existential risk,” not only to Germany, but to the whole of Europe. The confidential document warns that “the Kremlin is aligning both its industrial and leadership structures ‘specifically to meet the requirements for a large-scale conflict against NATO by the end of this decade.’” [Reuters, June 20, 2025.]

The report further cites the strategy paper as saying that Russia is preparing for such a conflict by strengthening its forces in western Russia “at the borders with NATO,” and that they could have around 1.5 million soldiers on active duty as early as next year. [Id.]

Unlike the United States, Europe remembers all too clearly the years of living under Soviet occupation following World War II, and the way any revolt was met with brutal military force (most notably in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968). And those nations that were once republics of the Soviet Union itself — Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Georgia, and ten others — have known independence for little more than three decades . . . and most do not intend to surrender to Putin’s vision of a new union.

When Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently agreed with Donald Trump to increase Germany’s NATO defense spending target to five percent of GDP, he wasn’t submitting to Trump’s demands. He was being smart, and listening to what his military intelligence was telling him.

And we need to do the same. Pulling out of NATO at this point in time is probably the worst thing we could do, both for our European allies and for ourselves. In the modern world, isolationism simply cannot work to protect us.

We need our allies as much as they need us.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/22/25

In an action closely mimicking the methods of Russian authorities, the Court of Serious Crimes in Baku, Azerbaijan, has convicted journalist and economist Farid Mehralizada, along with six other journalists, on various charges of smuggling, illegal entrepreneurship, tax evasion, gang smuggling, and document forgery.

Their sentences ranged from seven and a half to nine years; all of the defendants have denied the charges, which they say are politically motivated.

Mehralizada, who received a nine-year sentence, had been reporting for RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani Service, known locally as Azadliq Radiosu. He was arrested on May 30, 2024, when he was jumped by security agents who put a hood over his head and whispered in his ear, “You talk too much.” He had been held in detention for more than a year before finally reaching trial this week. [RFE/RL, June 20, 2025.]

In his final statement before the court, Mehralizada said that he understood “that the verdict you will read will not be the verdict of the judges, but of those who ordered our arrest. If they want, they can issue a life sentence for us, or even change the criminal code, restore the death penalty, and send us to execution. Because in countries where the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary are not respected, judicial processes are nothing more than a fake smile from authoritarian governments.” [Id.]

His actual “crime”? Publishing economic analyses critical of Azerbaijan’s oil and gas policies, and questioning official statistics regarding poverty and unemployment. [Id.]

With more than 30 journalists and human rights activities having been arrested recently on similar charges, there is little question that Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, has adopted his methods of governance from Vladimir Putin’s playbook. Of course, Azerbaijani authorities — like their Russian counterparts — maintain that each and every arrest is the result of criminal activity, and not politically motivated.

Farid Mehralizada and the others sentenced on June 20th — Ulvi Hasanli, Sevinj Abbasova (Vagifqiai), Mahammad Kekalov, Hafiz Babali, Nargiz Absalamova, and Elnara Gasimova — are now to be added to our list, though they are outside of Russia. In the final analysis, they are all Putin’s Hostages.

*. *. *

And tragically, we have news of another Russian prisoner: a young woman named Nadezhda Rossinskaya, also known as Nadin Geisler, who was arrested for running a group called the “Army of Beauties” in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine during 2022-23, assisting some 25,000 people to flee to safety.

She was arrested in February of 2024, and later charged with treason and aiding “terrorist” activities by posting requests on Instagram for donations to Ukraine’s Azov Battalion. As previously reported, the Azov Battalion has been deemed a terrorist organization by the Russian government.

Geisler stated that she was not the author of the Instagram post, but was convicted anyway. Hers is the second-longest sentence handed down to a woman in modern Russian history. The longest was 27 years, issued to Darya Trepova, a Russian woman convicted last year of delivering a bomb that killed a pro-war blogger in 2023.

And so our list grows this week. I hate that.

*. *. *

Prisoners of War:

The People of Ukraine
The Azov 12

Political Prisoners:

The Azerbaijan 7:
— Farid Mehralizada
— Ulvi Hasanli
— Sevinj Abbasova (Vagifqiai)
— Mahammad Kekalov
— Hafiz Babali
— Nargiz Absalamova
— Elnara Gasimova

David Barnes
Ales Bialiatski (in Belarus)
Gordon Black
Andrei Chapiuk (in Belarus)
Antonina Favorskaya
Konstantin Gabov
Robert Gilman
Stephen James Hubbard
Sergey Karelin
Ihar Karney (in Belarus) on
Vadim Kobzev
Darya Kozyreva
Artyom Kriger
Uladzimir Labkovich (in Belarus)
Michael Travis Leake
Aleksei Liptser
Ihar Losik (in Belarus)
Mikita Losik (in Belarus)
Daniel Martindale
Farid Mehralizada (in Azerbaijan)
Nika Novak
Marfa Rabkova (in Belarus)
Nadezhda Rossinskaya (a.k.a. Nadin Geisler)
Igor Sergunin
Dmitry Shatresov
Robert Shonov
Eugene Spector
Valiantsin Stafanovic (in Belarus)
Siarhei Tsikhanouski (in Belarus)
Laurent Vinatier
Robert Romanov Woodland
Vladislav Yesypenko (in Crimea, Ukraine)
Yuras Zyankovich (in Belarus)

. . . and any others I may have missed.

You are not forgotten.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/22/25

And come to think of it, isn’t that an oxymoron?

Or perhaps, just a pair of actual morons.

One, allegedly in charge of overseeing the entirety of our national intelligence; the other, supposedly listening to the person he himself chose for the position; and neither of them knowing what the hell they’re doing.

Tulsi Gabbard — after testifying that, according to her information and analysis, Iran was not building nuclear weapons despite having a stockpile of materials — suddenly has an epiphany and declares that Iran could indeed have a nuclear weapon after all . . . and “within months.” She attributes the turn-around to her earlier statement having been taken out of context by “dishonest media.” [Sofia Ferreira Santos, BBC News, June 21, 2025.]

Right. When caught in a lie, blame the media. Classic Trump.

Who, not coincidentally, had just said publicly that Gabbard’s initial statement was “wrong.” [Id.]

Well, of course she had to be wrong. Because if she had been right originally, then he wouldn’t have an excuse now to attack Iran for failing to accede to his demands . . . would he?

So there she is, looking like a deer caught in the headlights of an 18-wheeler, with the boss making faces at her from just a few feet away. What’s she supposed to do . . . tell the truth?

Yeah . . . sure!

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/21/25

No, I’m not talking about Donald Trump and Elon Musk; that’s yesterday’s news. This is another on-again-off-again alliance, one that has been bouncing back and forth for decades. I’m talking about the USSR/Russia and China . . . or, in more current and personal terms, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.

Formal diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and China were established as far back as 1949. But in the early 1980s, relations between the two countries were at a low point. The United States had been working toward improved trade relations with China since Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger’s historic visit to Beijing in 1972, making Moscow unhappy; the Soviet Union was continuing its support for Vietnam, and had amassed troops along the Sino-Soviet border, seriously irritating Beijing. The two countries’ leaders were virulently distrustful of one another.

And the joke going around my office was that I had just prevented World War III.

My boss at the time was Walter Sterling Surrey, a Washington attorney whose international practice involved corporate clients doing business throughout the world, including China and the Soviet Union. He was, in the earlier part of his career with the U.S. Department of State, the chief legal draftsman of both the Marshall Plan and the NATO Treaty. He had also later worked with Nixon and Kissinger in reestablishing relations with China. He was well connected.

So it was natural that we would have contacts in numerous embassies to facilitate negotiations of commercial transactions on behalf of our clients. And one day, it happened that back-to-back meetings were scheduled in our office, the first with an economic officer from the Soviet Embassy, and the second with a delegation from China. And we had timed them so that they wouldn’t overlap.

But then Murphy’s Law took over . . . you know, the one that says if anything can go wrong, it will. The Russian visitor, who was meeting with Walter in his office, stayed longer than we had anticipated, and the Chinese group arrived early. I knew we couldn’t let them see each other, but there was no way the Russian could leave without passing through the lobby where the Chinese visitors were waiting.

That was when I went into my Keystone Kops routine. First I rang Walter’s phone and whispered to him that his next appointment had arrived early, and that he should keep the Russian gentleman talking until I gave him the all-clear signal.

Next, I called one of the firm’s partners who also worked with Walter on matters involving China, told him of the predicament, and asked him to greet the Chinese, take them into a conference room, and keep them behind closed doors until I could scoot the Russian out of the building.

When he had done that, I knocked on Walter’s door, stuck my head inside, and said, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but you’re needed in the conference room.” The Russian diplomat took the hint, and I escorted him past the conference room, through the reception area, and into the elevator, while Walter went on to meet with the blissfully unsuspecting group waiting for him.

Crisis averted. Had their paths crossed, there would have been more than a little discomfort and embarrassment involved; it could have destroyed the trust our firm had built up over years with the embassies of both countries, and cost our clients millions of dollars in lost business opportunities . . . not to mention the possible loss of some of our firm’s biggest clients. Not literally World War III, of course; but to us and our clients, it would have felt like it.

*. *. *

Such was the state of Sino-Soviet relations in the early ‘80s. Since then, their governments have run hot-and-cold toward each other numerous times. And right now, in 2025, they’re mostly comfortably warm.

Together, Putin and Xi have aligned in an attempt to de-escalate the Israel-Iran conflict, and are calling for Trump to back off and not become involved on the side of Israel. In so doing, they are setting themselves out as the world’s foremost peacemakers, and as power brokers ready to step in where the U.S. has failed.

Ironically, the Kremlin has condemned Israel’s actions as a breach of the United Nations Charter and other standards of international law — typically ignoring Russia’s own ongoing invasion of Ukraine, which China steadfastly refuses to condemn. [Nectar Gan, CNN, June 20, 2025.]

Xi, on his part, has not specifically condemned Israel, but urged both Iran and Israel — “especially Israel” — to call a ceasefire as soon as possible. [Id.]

And in a message to Trump, Xi stressed that “major powers” having a special influence on the parties to the conflict should work to “cool the situation, not the opposite.” [Id.]

So they’re now on the same side of this issue, as well as being allied through their respective memberships in Russian-led BRICS and Russia’s participation in China’s Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI). They have declared that their friendship has “no limits.” The two totalitarian leaders are, for all intents and purposes, best buddies.

But if that’s the case, then why — according to a New York Times report — has China been increasingly busy hacking Russian government agencies and companies since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine? [Firstpost.com, June 20, 2025.]

Last year, for example, a Taiwan-based cybersecurity research firm, TeamT5, established that a China-backed group was behind a cyberattack on a major Russian engineering firm, searching for information on nuclear submarines. [Id.]

Spying is said to be the world’s second oldest profession. (If you’re too young to know what the oldest one is, you should probably ask a parent.) And in today’s world, that means cyber-spying, as well as HUMINT (human intelligence). It’s business as usual.

We civilians, in our happy ignorance, tend to think of spying as existing between enemies — not allies. But nothing could be further from the truth.

In 1984, National Security Agency intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard was arrested for selling classified defense information to America’s staunchest ally in the Middle East: Israel. He was convicted, spent the next 30 years in prison, and finally moved to Israel in 2020. Friend or no friend, Israel had no right to our classified information; but that didn’t stop them from wanting it, or finding a way to get their hands on it.

And so it goes. Since Moses sent his spies into Canaan, the world’s nations have been peering through one another’s curtains.

And “friendship” be damned.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/21/25

Donald Trump has been called a lot of things. “Forgiving” is not one of them.

But to carry a grudge for nearly five years, and to continue trying to prove a point that has already been disproved by numerous federal courts and by his own first-term attorney general when there is nothing to be gained . . . well, that defies reason, even for an angry, embittered, supremely sore loser.

Or might there, after all, be something to gain by calling for a special prosecutor to open yet another investigation into former President Joe Biden’s actions during his term in office, as well as Trump’s never-ending insistence that the 2020 election was fraudulent? What purpose could be served by dragging an ill, elderly man through the muck of Trump’s delusions, and submitting the country to yet another ignominious travesty?

Trump would have us believe that he is taking his time and attention away from the country’s very real problems to regurgitate his five-year-old bile for the sole purpose of saving our nation. In his own words:

“Biden was grossly incompetent, and the 2020 election was a total FRAUD! The evidence is MASSIVE and OVERWHELMING. A Special Prosecutor must be appointed. This cannot be allowed to happen again in the United States of America! Let the work begin!” [Eric Tucker, AP, June 20, 2025.]

Even if he were right — which he isn’t — what would it matter now?

Well, consider this: We’ve all heard his disingenuous comments about a possible third term . . . and even a sly suggestion that there might be a simple way to circumvent the Constitutional two-term limitation.

If the 2020 election were, as he so fervently desires, somehow to be declared null and void, wouldn’t Trump then retroactively declare himself the actual winner? And is it a stretch of the imagination to think he would then proclaim himself entitled to serve out that four-year term, in addition to the one he is currently serving?

In such a cataclysmic event, who would decide these questions . . . The Republican-majority Congress? The conservative-weighted Supreme Court? And what would happen to all of the actions that were taken during Biden’s four-year term?

Any way you look at it, it is a Constitutional nightmare waiting to happen . . . one that would make the Watergate scandal of the ‘70s look like a day at Disney World. And the decision as to the appointment of a special prosecutor rests in the hands of Trump appointee, Attorney General Pam Bondi.

I think I’m going to be sick.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/21/25

If he’s not blowing up rockets, or decimating government agencies, or fathering another little mini-me, it seems that Elon Musk’s favorite pastime these days is fighting with White House personnel.

Being Musk, of course he started at the top of the pyramid, engaging in a little name-calling with Donald Trump before finally apologizing (sort of), when he admitted he had probably gone “too far.”

But he now blames that falling-out on Sergio Gor, head of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, whom he has called a “snake,” and accused of failing to submit the required form for his permanent security clearance. He also has called Gor out for nixing Musk’s recommended choice to head NASA out of spite aimed, not at the nominee, but at Musk himself.

It seems as though everyone in the White House wants to be daddy’s favorite. But, unlike an actual family feud, these internecine scuffles at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue make international headlines. And they usually spread faster than the latest strain of COVID.

Today Musk said that Gor committed a federal crime when “He deliberately lied about where he was born on Federal forms. That’s a serious crime.” [Farrah Tomazin, Daily Beast, June 20, 2025.]

It’s also a serious accusation. I don’t know where Musk got his information, but his isn’t the only mention of Gor’s questionable origins. It has been said that his real name is Sergey Goryachov (or possibly Gorokhovsky) of Saratov, Russia — though these allegations do not appear to be from the most reliable sources.

Without verification, of course, these rumors remain just that: rumors. But in light of the access and authority granted Gor by his position in the White House, perhaps they bear further investigation to determine whether he has indeed lied about his background.

After all, people are being deported for far less.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/20/25

If he can’t get his story straight about something as simple as a holiday, how can he be trusted to take control of the Middle East situation?

“He,” of course, is Donald Trump. And never mind his whiplash-inducing u-turns on the plethora of natural and manmade disasters currently overtaking the planet . . . those are enough to drive anyone mad. But how can we expect any individual to take charge of our futures when he can’t even remember that, during his first term in 2020, he took credit for making Juneteenth “very famous,” when “nobody had ever heard of it.” Or that one of his campaign pledges that year was to make it a federal holiday . . . but that it was actually done by President Joe Biden in 2021.

(But of course, Trump still doesn’t recall that he lost that election, so why would he remember such a little detail?)

Now, however, he wants to eliminate the holiday he once promoted — one that celebrates the end of slavery in the United States — on the specious grounds that we have too many paid holidays as it is . . . not because it recognizes diversity, which we all know is his real reason.

So the man who spends virtually every weekend on the golf course — costing the taxpayers millions of dollars for travel, salaries of his Secret Service entourage, etc. — has this to say to the people who put him into the White House:

“Too many non-working holidays in America. It is costing our Country $BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to keep all of these businesses closed. The workers don’t want it either! Soon we’ll end up havinng a holiday for every once [sic] working day of the year. It must change if we are going to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” [Alejandra Jaramillo, CNN, June 19, 2025.]

Right. We Americans — who already have the second-lowest number of paid vacation days and the fewest paid leave days of any nation in the world [Business Insider, December 6, 2022] — want nothing more than to work ourselves to death for the glorification of the Draft-Dodger-in-Chief.

I’ll sign up for that . . . just as soon as he sells his golf clubs.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/20/25