I don’t think we’re necessarily going to ask for a declaration of war. I think we’re just gonna kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. We’re going to kill them. They’re going to be, like, dead.
- President Donald Trump
Oct 23 (at 58:50 in the video)
This week's featured post is "Crime in the Cabinet".
Ongoing stories
- Trump's assault on American democracy. Courts continue to push back against Trump. Trump's spiteful indictments of James Comey and Letitia James got thrown out.
- Climate change. COP30 was dispiriting. The fossil fuel industry seems to be winning the information war.
- Gaza. In spite of the "ceasefire", the death toll keeps rising. It's now over 70,000.
- Ukraine. It looks like Marco Rubio has managed to stop the attempt to force Ukraine to surrender to Putin's demands.
This week's developments
This week the Ukraine peace negotiations got more confusing
Initially, we heard that the Trump administration had negotiated a 28-point plan to end the Ukraine/Russia War. Trump's amateur diplomat Steve Witkoff (a real estate mogul) supposedly had worked it out with Putin's representative Kirill Dmitriev (who is the head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund).
Ostensibly, this was "the Trump plan". But the deal looked suspiciously one-sided, and was essentially a reiteration of Putin's demands: Ukraine would yield all the territory that Russia claims (including territory it has been unable to conquer), Ukraine would limit the size of its army, NATO would agree not to station peacekeeping troops in Ukraine or let Ukraine join the alliance, and a few more points. Russia would yield essentially nothing, beyond making commitments similar to ones it had already broken by invading Crimea in 2014 and attacking the rest of Ukraine in 2022. Western sanctions against Russia would be dropped, opening up lots of business opportunities for men like Witkoff and Trump, if Putin felt inclined to look on them favorably.
Worse, some odd phrasing in the proposal suggested it had been translated from Russian. In other words, Witkoff had received a Russian plan and passed it off as "the Trump plan", which Trump seemed content to go along with. Trump gave Ukraine until Thanksgiving to respond to the plan, warning that Ukrainian President Zelenskyy "is going to have to approve it" or face an even worse future for his country.
Two major things have happened since. First, Marco Rubio managed to insinuate himself into the process, pull Ukraine and our NATO allies back in with him, and rewrite the plan in a more balanced way that Putin is likely to reject. In other words, Trump's Secretary of State for now has managed to scuttle "the Trump plan" to force Ukraine's surrender.
Second, Bloomberg (behind a paywall) released transcripts of phone calls Witkoff had with Dmitriev and Putin's top foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov. The calls raise serious doubts about Witkoff's true loyalties. (The Foreign Office blogger Michael Weiss refers to Witkoff as "Dim Philby", a play on the name of the famous Cold War British traitor Kim Philby. The nickname seems to be catching on.) In the transcripts, Witkoff coaches the Russians in how to pitch their proposal to Trump, as if Witkoff's job were to manipulate Trump for the Russians, rather than the Russians for Trump.
Slate's Fred Kaplan summarizes:
Trump is left with two choices: to either fire Witkoff, who is not a formally appointed official anyway, or essentially confirm that he is acting as a Russian tool as well. The fact that Trump has decided to send Witkoff to Moscow for further talks in the coming days suggests the latter.
Three sources tell the story in more detail: Marcy Wheeler, Fred Kaplan, and Michael Weiss.
My two conclusions:
- The 28-point "Trump plan" is dead, at least for now. Ukraine will not be pressured to surrender for at least another week.
- We're going to see more of this kind of behind-the-throne maneuvering, as Trump's cognitive abilities continue to fade. Strong-willed lieutenants like Witkoff, Rubio, J. D. Vance, Stephen Miller et al will keep trying to manipulate Trump's increasingly simple thought processes to get their own pet projects through, or just do things and hope the details never rise to the level of Trump's attention.
and someone killed one of the National Guard troops Trump posted to DC
Two members of the West Virginia National Guard were shot near the White House Wednesday. One, Sarah Beckstrom, has died. The other, Andrew Wolfe, is in critical condition. The two were victims of what appears to have been a planned attack. No motive has been identified.
The alleged gunman, identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, came to the US in September 2021 under an Operation Allies Welcome program that gave some Afghans who had worked for the US government entry visas to the US. He was granted asylum in April this year, under the Trump administration, Reuters reported. Lakanwal’s ties to the Central Intelligence Agency, which worked alongside US special forces in Afghanistan, were confirmed by the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, to media outlets. The New York Times reported that the shooting suspect had worked for several US government agencies in Afghanistan, including CIA-backed units in the southern province of Kandahar, a stronghold of the Taliban.
Trump, of course, did what he always does: blamed the Biden administration, took no responsibility for his own administration's role, and cast collective blame on all asylum seekers.
The Trump administration has halted all asylum decisions following the shooting of two National Guard soldiers in Washington DC, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) director has said. Joseph Edlow said the pause would be in place "until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible".
That article is an example of "sanewashing". It makes Trump's actions sound like a reasonable, if maybe misguided, response. But you get a different impression if you read what Trump actually posted:
Even as we have progressed technologically, Immigration Policy has eroded those gains and living conditions for many. I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden’s Autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country, end all Federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our Country, denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization. These goals will be pursued with the aim of achieving a major reduction in illegal and disruptive populations, including those admitted through an unauthorized and illegal Autopen approval process. Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation. Other than that, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for — You won’t be here for long!
So:
- Trump wants us to believe that immigrants (and not billionaires or Trump's tariffs) are responsible for the dismal current economy and the long-term hollowing out of America's middle class.
- In general, even illegal immigrants are not a "disruptive population". The vast majority keep their heads down, try not to draw attention to themselves, and work hard for very little money.
- Trump is promoting the Biden-autopen conspiracy theory, which has no evidence to back it up.
- Terminating Biden's "illegal admissions" means getting rid of 1.3 million people who came here entirely legally, through programs like temporary protected status for victims of natural disasters.
- "Denaturalization" is not a thing, unless your path to citizenship was based on fraud, as Melania's probably was. Naturalized citizens are like native born citizens; you can't get rid of them by labeling them "non-compatible with Western Civilization" or making vague claims about "undermining domestic tranquility".
This is all White supremacist rhetoric otherwise unhinged from reality.
Some background: The US fought a war in Afghanistan for more than 20 years, until President Biden finally faced the reality that we were accomplishing nothing and pulled out in 2021. The pullout was chaotic, which only emphasized the need to get out: Presidents Bush, Obama, and Trump had been telling us for 20 years that we were building a viable government with a viable military, but in fact everything collapsed before we could even get our people out of the country.
In the chaos, everyone who had helped the US military or the CIA was in danger. Operation Allies Welcome was designed to get them out of the country before the Taliban could find and kill them. It was followed by Operation Enduring Welcome. About 200,000 Afghans got at least temporary legal status in the US.
Now one of those 200,000 has done something terrible. So of course we should have left them all to the mercy of the Taliban. And refugees from every other country are also suspect -- except Whites escaping South Africa.
and Trump continues to lose in court
Not long after last week's Sift posted, a federal judge threw out the James Comey and Letitia James indictments because Lindsey Halligan had not been lawfully appointed as US attorney for eastern Virginia. Halligan is a former personal attorney of Trump's and has no previous experience as a prosecutor. She was appointed after the previous US attorney refused to prosecute the Comey case.
The regime may find another way to prosecute James, but the statute of limitations has run out on what Comey is accused of.
Another court just took out a different Trump prosecutor: An appellate court panel upheld a lower court ruling that Alina Habba was not legally appointed as acting US attorney for New Jersey. Every case she has prosecuted since July 1 is now subject to challenge. The issues here are slightly different than in the Halligan situation, but similarly concerns a scheme to keep a Trump-friendly and unqualified US attorney in office without Senate confirmation, beyond the 120-day period allowed for acting appointments.
and you also might be interested in ...
The Epstein files issue hasn't gone away. The Epstein Transparency Act gives the regime until December 19 to release the files. The clock is ticking.
During the shutdown, Democrats were holding out to get ObamaCare subsidies extended, in an effort to avoid premiums skyrocketing on January 1. Republicans said no, but that they'd deal with the problem after the Democrats caved on the shutdown.
Well, Democrats eventually caved, and guess what? Republicans can't get a proposal together. Trump briefly seemed to be pushing for a plan to extend the subsidies for two years. But that ran into opposition in the House and vanished.
The basic problem is that a sizeable number of Republicans favor a plan they can't defend in public: Let poor people die.
Kristi Noem's contempt of court got covered in the featured post. But that wasn't even the only Noem scandal this week: $220 million of DHS money has gone to an ad firm with close ties to Noem. The money is for image-building ads starring Noem herself.
Under Noem, DHS bypassed the normal competitive bidding process when awarding the contracts — allocating the majority of the money to a mysterious Delaware LLC that was created days before the deal was finalized. The Strategy Group does not appear on public documents about the deal.
My annual dose of humility: The NYT's 100 Notable Books list for 2025. This year I've read three: 1929, Katabasis, and Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza.
In stark contrast to Trump's apparent concern with drug smuggling, which has caused him to have the US Navy murder 80 or so Venezuelan fishermen -- see the featured post -- he said this week that he intends to pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who is serving a 45-year sentence in US prison for drug trafficking and related offenses.
Who knows what this is about? Maybe Hernandez paid somebody off. Or maybe Trump is just showing loyalty to a fellow criminal president, or his characteristic sympathy for people at the top of a pyramid, no matter how corrupt the pyramid is.
Similarly mystifying: Trump commuted the sentence of convicted fraudster David Gentile from seven years to 12 days. Gentile ran a Ponzi scheme that defrauded more than 10,000 investors. Does Trump just identify with fraudsters? Or is there something more sinister happening?
The War Defense Department is investigating Senator Mark Kelly for his role in an ad reminding members of the armed forces not to obey unlawful orders, which is just what the Uniform Code of Military Justice says.
President Bone Spurs and Secretary Drunkard don't seem to understand that any story placing them next to decorated-pilot-and-astronaut Kelly works to his benefit, not theirs.
Meanwhile, South Park has its sites on Hegseth in its Thanksgiving episode. The episode ends on a song that obscenely insults Hegseth, then asks "Pete Hegseth, what you gonna do? Your kids will watch this, and their friends will see it too."
and let's close with something fishy
No doubt this question has been keeping you up nights: Can an octopus learn to play the piano? The answer is: kinda/sorta, if you apply huge amounts of time and ingenuity to the project.
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