World Cup blues

 

No worries.  The RNC can pay MAGA voters to go.

We are goverened by a mental patient

And I mean no disrespect to mental patients, but maybe they shouldn't run the country.

More than 30 nations, including a majority of NATO countries, have pledged “appropriate efforts” to restart shipping through the critical trade chokepoint after the U.S. president slammed allies as “COWARDS” for failing to volunteer their assistance.

“One would wish for more predictability, more clarity and more strategic foresight — not only in this case,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told POLITICO on Tuesday, adding: “Let’s wait and see.”

The slow-moving talks reflect Trump’s conflicting messaging more than three weeks into his war against Iran — where he has threatened allies for failing to back his campaign, then said they weren’t needed, all while providing scant detail on how they could support the U.S.

  Politico

He just wants someone to blame for the fix he has gotten himself - indeed, the world - into.

The lack of enthusiasm about getting involved also underscores Europe’s growing self-confidence in dealing with Washington, as the continent increasingly shifts its approach from placating Trump to confronting him over a war allies were not consulted on.

“This war violates international law,” German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Tuesday. “There is little doubt that, in any case, the justification of an imminent attack on the U.S. does not hold water.”

[...]

“The big picture is: the U.S. has asked us to take care of and defend our own countries, take care of supporting Ukraine … and now [the] Middle East and global supply chains,” said one senior European government official, calling it “absurdly incoherent to put it mildly.”

A White House official did not comment on the demands on allies but told POLITICO: “President Trump and his national security team were well prepared for the Iranian regime’s attempts to close the Strait, and the U.S. military is zeroed in on systematically eliminating the terrorist Iranian regime’s ability to disrupt the free flow of energy.”

How can you not see that?

“President Trump is confident that the Strait of Hormuz will be opened very soon,” the official said.

He is also confident that women allow him to "grab them by the pussy."

In the absence of specific requests for help, allies have so far resorted to offering what they can: meetings, statements and encouragement.

The U.K. — which has so far led behind-the-scenes talks alongside NATO chief Mark Rutte — on Tuesday said it would host a security summit “in the near future” aimed at keeping the momentum on efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Here's my advice: do not invite Trump.

America - Global pariah

 

We MUST do better.  And we start by not electing Republicans to ANY office anywhere.  We have too much to clean up while soiling ourselves at the same time we're trying to clean up. We'll never get there if we allow the old energy to continue to function.  Any decent Republicans need to leave the party if they want to have a role in governance, and they won't leave the party if they can get elected while being a part of it.

Killing the economy in so many ways

 

Europe v United States

 The US is now the center of political corruption and elite depravity.  Nice job, MAGAs.

"Respected again"

 

Calls to boycott the World Cup

People are finally beginning to call for other countries to boycott Donald Trump’s upcoming World Cup—and not just usual suspects like me and The Nation’s Dave Zirin. Oke Göttlich, a powerful German soccer administrator, said that, in the wake of the execution of Alex Pretti in Minnesota, the time has come to talk seriously about boycotting the tournament. Sepp Blatter, the former head of FIFA (the international governing committee of global soccer) suggested that fans shouldn’t travel to the tournament because of rising safety concerns in the United States.

[...]

The tournament has expanded to 48 teams this year, up from 32 in previous years, which means that more people than ever will be involved in the proceedings—and possible protests. [...] [T]hose 48 countries wouldn’t actually have to boycott the entire World Cup, because this year’s tournament is also being hosted by two other countries—Canada and Mexico. Teams could refuse to play in the US while happily playing in Canada or Mexico.

[...]

This is going to sound weird to non–sports fans, but boycotting the World Cup is one of the most significant sanctions members of the international community can take against the United States right now. The World Cup is the most watched sporting event in the world. The US has been begging to host a tournament for decades. This World Cup, which runs from early June through mid-July, is a perfect opportunity for the world to stand against this country’s fascist regime.

[...]

It would be a powerful statement.

[...]

That statement won’t come from FIFA, however. FIFA is one of the most corrupt organizations in the entire world, and its current president, Gianni Infantino, was last seen licking Trump’s boots and handing him a “peace prize.” Nor is it likely to come from the powerful soccer-playing countries in Western Europe. If France, Germany, and Great Britain were to pull out of the US portions of the tournament, many other countries would follow—but, sadly, the leaders of those nations appear eager to play Neville Chamberlain to Trump’s Hitler.

[...]

Some of the teams involved are also run by repressive authoritarians. Others are financially dependent on FIFA and the World Cup to fund their soccer federations, while still others have entire economies beholden to the United States. On the other hand, a lot of those countries damn well know that if they did what the US is doing, they’d be boycotted and sanctioned and probably invaded by white people promising to restore “freedom” in exchange for all their oil and minerals.

[...]

We know that the defending World Cup champion, Argentina, with its fascist-curious Trump-puppet president will show up (as will Ecuador, whose president is also friendly with our reigning despot), but some of the other nations that made the field—Brazil, Colombia, and Uruguay—could be a different story. Their fans arguably face a real risk if they attend the matches. Could an American fan of, say, Colombia even go to a game without fear of being detained and deported by ICE?

  Elie Mystal

Absolutely not. In fact, ICE is going to have a presence at the Super Bowl next month. I expect that will cut down on ticket sales.

The future for America

 

Trump at Davos, 2026 version

Apparently, Trump was completely bonkers, dismissive of Scandinavian countries, and insulting of our allies. And they noticed.

CanadianPrime Minister Mark Carney didn't mince words.

Today I will talk about a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics, where the large, main power, geopolitics, is submitted to no limits, no constraints.

On the other hand, I would like to tell you that the other countries, especially intermediate powers like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the various states.

[...]

Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.

[...]

It seems that every day we're reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry, that the rules based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.

And this aphorism of Thucydides is presented as inevitable, as the natural logic of international relations reasserting itself.

And faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along, to accommodate, to avoid trouble, to hope that compliance will buy safety.

Well, it won't.

So, what are our options?

  World Economic Forum

Continue reading. 

He talks about the fiction of the system we have been living in for decades. It's very good.

He also lays out what Canada has been doing in light of the rupture created by Trump:

We have agreed a comprehensive strategic partnership with the EU, including joining SAFE, the European defence procurement arrangements. We have signed 12 other trade and security deals on four continents in six months. The past few days, we've concluded new strategic partnerships with China and Qatar. We're negotiating free trade pacts with India, ASEAN, Thailand, Philippines and Mercosur.

We're doing something else. To help solve global problems, we're pursuing variable geometry, in other words, different coalitions for different issues based on common values and interests. So, on Ukraine, we're a core member of the Coalition of the Willing and one of the largest per capita contributors to its defence and security.

On Arctic sovereignty, we stand firmly with Greenland and Denmark, and fully support their unique right to determine Greenland's future.

Our commitment to NATO's Article 5 is unwavering, so we're working with our NATO allies, including the Nordic Baltic Gate, to further secure the alliance's northern and western flanks, including through Canada's unprecedented investments in over-the-horizon radar, in submarines, in aircraft and boots on the ground, boots on the ice.

[...]

On plurilateral trade, we're championing efforts to build a bridge between the Trans Pacific Partnership and the European Union, which would create a new trading bloc of 1.5 billion people. On critical minerals, we're forming buyers’ clubs anchored in the G7 so the world can diversify away from concentrated supply. And on AI, we're cooperating with like-minded democracies to ensure that we won't ultimately be forced to choose between hegemons and hyper-scalers.

This is not naive multilateralism, nor is it relying on their institutions. It's building coalitions that work – issues by issue, with partners who share enough common ground to act together.

[...]

This is not sovereignty. It's the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination. In a world of great power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice – compete with each other for favour, or to combine to create a third path with impact.

[...]

We know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn't mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy, but we believe that from the fracture, we can build something bigger, better, stronger, more just. This is the task of the middle powers, the countries that have the most to lose from a world of fortresses and most to gain from genuine cooperation.

The powerful have their power.

But we have something too – the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home and to act together.

That is Canada's path. We choose it openly and confidently, and it is a path wide open to any country willing to take it with us.

The world is experiencing a shift away from rules and international law, French President Emmanuel Macron told the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday.

"It's ... a shift towards a world without rules, where international law is trampled underfoot and where the only law that seems to matter is that of the strongest," Macron said, adding that what he called "imperial ambitions" were resurfacing.

  Reuters

And, what was Trump saying?

[...]

In the midst of an active campaign to burn down the Western world order by forcibly annexing territory from a NATO ally, the rogue president of the rogue United States of America ranted incoherently for some 90 minutes about windmills, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, and an apparent daddy fetish.

He confused Greenland with Iceland not once, not twice, but three times.

[...]

The mad, delusional, ranting emperor has no clothes on. And yet there is no truth-telling child in sight. Just a coterie of shameless liars, grifters, and sycophants bent on engaging in a cover-up about the clear mental incompetence of the most powerful man on Earth.

  Zeteo

 

Yes, our president is a piece of shit.

You can only use the same vein so long before you have to give it a rest.

Donald Trump sounded like a fascist dictator suffering from a brain bleed during his speech yesterday at Davos. It was a national embarrassment even by the lowly standards of modern American politics.

[...]

Trump’s screed was chillingly aggressive. He began the Greenland part of it with a thinly veiled threat against NATO, claiming his recent coup in Venezuela proves his regime is a “much greater power than people even understand.” He contrasted his purported strength with European weakness.

“We saw this in World War 2 when Denmark fell to Germany after just six hours of fighting and was totally unable to defend either itself of Greenland,” Trump said to total silence, adding that “without us, right now you'd all be speaking German and a little Japanese.” (German is in fact an official language of Switzerland.)

[...]
Trump then channeled Hitler during the Sudetenland crisis, demanding “immediate negotiations to discuss the acquisition of Greenland by the United States" — or else.

“We probably won't get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force, where we would be frankly unstoppable. But I won't do that. Okay?"


  Public Notice

And what did he "get" after making a "deal"? Nothing.

Trump shortly after his speech pulled a TACO, posting on Truth Social about a vague “framework of a future deal” involving NATO and Greenland. But during a subsequent interview with CNBC, Trump was unwilling and/or unable to provide any details, instead characterizing the framework (which sure sounds like the status quo) as “a concept of a deal.”

Alas, NATO Secretary Mark Rutte confirmed later on Fox News that the status of Greenland wasn’t even discussed as part of Trump’s “framework.” The “deal” appears to be about as meaningful as a degree from Trump University.

In the immediate aftermath of Trump’s speech, cable coverage seized upon his “I won’t do that” comment as evidence he’s taken armed aggression against NATO off the table. But of course he also ruled out strikes within Venezuela until shortly before he launched them.

[...]

That Trump backed down hours after his Davos speech is a promising sign that financial markets and diplomatic pressure (not to mention the grassroots organizing that’s taking place in the occupied Twin Cities) can still provide something of a check on his desire to carve up the world between strongmen like himself, Putin, and President Xi. But one year in, he and his regime are getting worse.

[...]

One day after Prime Minster Carney delivered a historic speech at Davos [...] Trump huffed that Carney “wasn’t so grateful” for all America has done for his country and said, “Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that, Mark, next time you make your statements.”

[...]

He made up that “we have new steel plants being built all over the country,” claimed that “I haven’t been able to find any wind farms in China” (the country in fact operates some of the largest ones in the world), and vowed that there will soon be prosecutions over his 2020 election loss, which he delusionally claimed was “rigged. Everybody now knows that. They found out.”

 He's literally rotten.

UPDATE 02:34 pm:

It's possible.  Old people skin does that.  But what are the excuses for the previous times photographs have shown bruises on his left hand?

UPDATE 01/23/2026:   What it took to bring Kier Starmer around...

 But surely he knows he won't get one.

The uniter

 

We're "the baddies" now

 Ignorant? Delusional?  Or just plain lying?

UPDATE 01/19/2026:

Our (ex-?) allies

 Google 'Germany British Greenland':

America is a global pariah now.

Left Behind

 

Trump has withdrawn the US from numerous United Nations organizations

 

Click the above graphic, or here, to see the list of organizations.  How they - particularly environmental conventions - can be contrary to the interests of the US is beyond me.

We are an international shame

 

New world order

 

The Project for a New American Century didn't get off the ground, and its spawn - Projecte 2025 - is practically a 180 turn.