"Putin Is A Ruthless Murderer Who Has No Interest In Peace And Cannot Be Trusted"

I had hoped to take a break this holiday week but the madness and malevolence of Putin and Trump have made that impossible......

Morning all. Have a few things for you on this Saturday, all involving the deep disquiet of Trump’s mind and his worsening madness during this time of the “festival of lights” and “peace.”

Trump’s manic, deranged meltdown over the Epstein files continued yesterday:

Both the NYT and CNN have run stories on the mystery of why Trump bombed the part of Nigeria he did on Christmas Day. Here’s the CNN headline:

Here’s the CNN article. It’s incredible:

A day after part of a missile fired by the United States hit their village, landing just meters from its only medical facility, the people of Jabo in northwestern Nigeria are in a state of shock and confusion.

Suleiman Kagara, a resident of this quiet and predominantly Muslim farming community in Tambuwal district of Sokoto state, told CNN he heard a loud blast and saw flames as a projectile flew overhead at around 10 p.m. on Thursday.

Soon after, it came crashing down, exploding on impact with the ground and sending the villagers fleeing in fear.

“We couldn’t sleep last night,” Kagara said. “We’ve never seen anything like this before.”

Kagara did not realize it at the time, but what he was witnessing was part of a US strike that President Donald Trump would later refer to as a “Christmas present” for terrorists.

Not long after the impact in Jabo, Trump declared on Thursday that the US had carried out a “powerful and deadly strike” against ISIS militants in the region, who he accused of “targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even centuries!”

According to US Africa Command, the operation neutralized multiple ISIS militants.

But Trump’s explanation has left Kagara and his fellow villagers scratching their heads.

While parts of Sokoto face challenges with banditry, kidnappings and attacks by armed groups including Lakurawa – which Nigeria classifies as a terrorist organization due to suspected affiliations with Islamic State – villagers say Jabo is not known for terrorist activity and that local Christians coexist peacefully with the Muslim majority.

“In Jabo, we see Christians as our brothers. We don’t have religious conflicts, so we weren’t expecting this,” he said.

Bashar Isah Jabo, a lawmaker representing Tambuwal in the state parliament, described the village to CNN as “a peaceful community” that has “no known history of ISIS, Lakurawa, or any other terrorist groups operating in the area.”

He said the projectile had struck a field “approximately 500 meters” from a Primary Health Center in Jabo and that, while there were no casualties, the incident had “caused fear and panic within the community.”

Here is a screen grab of the Vatican’s website this week:

Yesterday The Senate Foreign Relations Committee released this statement:

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Thom Tillis (R-NC), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), John Barrasso (R-WY), Chris Coons (D-DE), Angus King (I-ME), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) released the statement below on Russia’s killing of civilians as Christians around the world celebrate the Christmas holiday.

“We condemn Russia’s brutal attacks on Kherson, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Sumy, Donetsk and Kryvyi Rih waged on innocent Ukrainians as they convened to mark the birth of the Prince of Peace with their loved ones and in prayer.

“It bears repeating that President Zelenskyy agreed to a Christmas truce, but Putin declined, yet he directs soldiers to continue to commit brutal crimes of aggression on one of Christianity’s holiest days.

“Even for countries at war, there is a long history of Christmas ceasefires, including notably during World War I. Today’s decision by Putin to launch attacks rather than hold fire is a sobering reminder for us all: Putin is a ruthless murderer who has no interest in peace and cannot be trusted.

“We stand with the people of Kyiv, Odesa, Kharkiv, Kherson and Donetsk marking the birth of Christ under the most challenging of circumstances. Ukrainians’ faith is a stronger force than the evil unleashed today by the Kremlin.”

Yesterday, Putin not satiated with the Christmas Day carnage across Ukraine, escalated, launching it’s most significant attack on Kyiv perhaps at any time since he first invaded Ukraine in 2014:

This dramatic escalation comes days after Putin suffered a significant set back on the battlefield, further piercing their global info campaign to gaslight Trump and the world into believing their victory in Ukraine is inevitable and his opponents should simply yield:

On Tuesday Senators Shaheen and McConnell placed an important op-ed in the Washington Post warning Trump/Kushner/Witkoff they were getting played by Putin’s repeated claims he was “winning the war”

They write:

Administration officials say that the “fall” of the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk is a bellwether for what’s to come for Ukraine. Yet, Pokrovsk, whose population was only around 60,000 even before the war, has yet to fall. And in the entire year and a half that the Russians have spent trying to take this relatively small city, their minuscule gains have come at staggering material and human costs.

Russians are paying an extraordinary economic price in pursuit of Putin’s lust for glory and blood. Russian oil and gas revenue has fallen more than 30 percent due to attacks on its energy infrastructure. The Kremlin has been selling gold to stabilize its finances and shield elites from the true cost of Putin’s war. And roughly a quarter of Russian companies are now bankrupt or at risk. Russia cannot afford the war it is fighting, but it can prolong it.

Putin may be playing for time, but he is not dragging out this conflict because it is his preferred tactic. He is dragging it out because he cannot achieve a decisive victory. He’s hoping that slow, grinding attrition will divide the West.

Instead, the United States must stand with European allies investing heavily in their own defense and far exceeding American support to Ukraine. If there are economic fruits of peace, they lie in cooperation with an innovative, Western-oriented Ukraine and a resurgent Europe, not in a bankrupt, backward Russia.

Envoy Steve Witkoff has been to Moscow six times since the administration took office and worked to get Putin an invitation to the U.S. Yet, just as the Russians have barely moved in their ground offensive against Ukraine, they have not moved an inch in negotiations with the U.S.

It is fair to ask what the U.S.’s endgame should be. Wars end when leverage changes. If the U.S. and its allies want a negotiated end, the only proven, viable path is to strengthen Ukraine’s position, not to weaken it. Abandoning Ukraine or granting Russia what it cannot win on the battlefield will not bring lasting peace. Putin wants more than Donbas — he denies Ukrainian sovereignty outright. And his ambitions extend to the Baltic states and other nations once held captive by the Soviet empire.

And….

Putin is betting the U.S. will talk itself into believing Ukraine cannot succeed. The past four years show the opposite. Ukraine has defied every expectation, including our own. Kyiv is not losing, and Moscow is not winning. It is up to Washington to match Ukraine’s resolve with the clarity this moment demands.

Trump and Putin - the deranged, malevolent madmen - are not letting the people of Ukraine, Europe, and the United States rest over the Holidays, just as Putin and Trump did not let us or Europe rest over the August summer break. They want their dis-ease, their disquiet, their malignancy to be always with us. To never rest. Trump has not taken a vacation since becoming President. He has disappeared for days at a time but there has been no formal period of rest, of disengagement. He is always on, always attempting to control and influence the narrative, manically needing for his presence to be felt by us 24/7/365. They are never at peace so they don’t want us to be, either; and it is a reminder that autocrats govern against people, in an adversarial and insecure way, not with them.

And so tomorrow, once again, during a Holiday period, on a Sunday, when governments are gone, leaders dispersed, the media thinly staffed, the public checked out, “peace talks” of potentially world altering importance are taking place not in Washington, or at the White House, but at Mar-a-Lago (further humiliation for Zelensky) and are being lead by a deeply corrupt and venal man who does not clearly understand what is happening around him any longer:

Here is a statement the courageous and inspiring Zelenskyy just posted on Twitter for English speaking audiences:

I am encouraged that a bi-partisan group of Senators has emerged in recent days to forcefully challenge Trump’s dangerous selling out of Ukraine and Europe - and our own national security - to Putin, Xi, and global autocracy. But there is great urgency to this work now. Congress has been far too timid as Trump corruptly attempts to sell out the West to our adversaries. The work of this emergent group, fighting for our freedoms and our democracy, must gain the enthusiastic support of Democrats across the country, from our Congregational leaders to our leading governors - and all of us. Voices recklessly imploring us to stay focused on health care and affordability must be dismissed. We are in a grave and consequential moment, one where our leaders must summon the courage of our forefathers, dive deep into well of love of country and patriotism that lives inside of all of us, and fight.

As we do here, every day, proud patriots of Hopium. This week of peace has become something else, and we must stay in the fight - Simon