If anyone wonders how democracies fade away, it's when one side of the political spectrum gets riled up by honest satire and discovers ways to persecute the satirists. Mugabe, Orban, Putin are relatively recent examples of autocrats who have quashed their opposing satirists.

And Fox fans, don't think Fox's style is satire. An analysis of Fox's "Five" shows it has non of the class or nuance or principle that Colbert has. It masquerades as a newsy talk show but is basically just a parade of bullies who resort to a chain gang of boorish insulters of anyone and everyone they want to demonize. And Greg Guttfeld's blanket accusation that every target of his "a Communist" orb"a terrorist" isn't funny or satirical. It's slanderous. And like how the honest world responded to Joseph McCarthy who made wild snd inflammatory accusations like that, there's no satire or truth in such accusations. Just mean spirited evil. (Like Himmler or Mussolini eere when they made such accusations.)

The fact that the Department of Defense (DOD) is being led by the least experienced, and least qualified SecDef is a big factor in this FUBAR situation.

But the US Senators who confirmed the immature racist to lead the DOD are ultimately to blame for its negligence in confirming a prima facie unsuitable nominee to lead the world's largest most complex, and best funded national security organization.

The sad truth that the confirmation was accomplished almost solely by Republican senators makes the Republican Party guilty by association. Sad to say.

When will the Republicans in Congress accept responsibility and serve with less blind partisanship and instead start exercising appropriate due diligence to the American Constitution and to their role in checking the excesses of the Executive Branch?

The Ukrainian casualty mark is harder to estimate. The count may be between 40% to 65% of the # estimated for Russia's. Also, casualty counts include KIA, MIA (vaporized?), and badly wounded. I think that the Russian KIA estimate is less than 55% of the total casualty edtimate " still gravely high for a war to hostily annex 4 provinces from a neighboring country.

In conventional military planning,an attacker's casualty rate is generally higher than the defenders, and in Russian military history prior to the Cold War, this Russia relied on "meat wave" assaults until their enrmy was worn down. Once the enemy was worn down, is when Russian atrocities really began. Looting, murder, and mayhem generally marked the style of Russian occupation. After that came expulsion or "disappearance" of the remaining civilian populations, and influxes of Russian speaking colonists then remake Russia's occupied places.

Surprise! This is what's happening in Russian ocvupied Ukraine.

If Trump's mental acuity fails further, what's to protect the world from his madnesses? King George III had some empathy for other's mental illness, and took his chamberlains' advise to seek treatment. Who would dare be Trump's personal confidant and advisor? The nitwit narcissist would never dare take anyone's advice except Putin's and maybe possibly Don Jr's.

Hypothetically, if it got to 25th Amdt territory with Trump's incoherence COULD Secretaries Rubio or Bessent delegate Don Jr to reach out to Putin to implore Putin to get Trump the mental health care he would need? Or would Bessent and Rubio have enough persuasive talent to convince the Cabinet to unanimously invoke the 25th before Trump goes further off tge rails?

Kim might have a huge army, but its infantry was armed as if it would fight another Korean War. What it learned in the Russian trenches in Ukraine is that it needs to modernize the equipment its land forces have in the future. The sad prospect is that Kim's gulag death camps might be employed to make in volume the field weaponry that both Putin and Kim need to suppress their own independent-minded threats to their dictatorship's social order and to invade and subjugate their neighboring nations.

Trump may be immature, petulant, self-absorbed, inhumane, mean-spirited, dishonest, unscrupulous, sociopathically narcissistic and meglomaniacal, uncurious and uninformed, and disdainful of the poor and disabled, all qualities Trump wants in his appointees. But the #1 characteristic he requires is that they be totally loyal to him.

Any indication that any appointee is even a tad more loyal to something (say perhaps the US Constitution) other than to his highness, results in unmerciful vitriol.

Someday expect Trump and Stephen Milker to issue an Executive Order replacing the current oath to "support and defend the Constitution ... ", that is required of most elected officials and all military personnel, to instead swear on a Trump catalog of Trump merch & junk, an oath of loyalty to His highness above all else.

What a farthead!

Trump has been played by KGB agents since he dated Ivana, the daughter of a Soviet Bloc secret police agent. For 50 years, Trump's been echoing Moscow's BS about the West, and that's why Trump prefers to get his intel briefings from the "expert" himself: Putin.

With Trump's short attention span, and his internal bias to trust Putin instead of dissonance-inducing DIA & CIA analysts, I think Tulsi's got a great idea. We hope it's legit US & allies intel vetted reports, rather than Moscow-sourced propaganda.

If showing Trump cartoons as an accurate attention getting briefing medium works, then dammit, turn those briefings into comic books! Somebody's gotta teach our POTUS that Putin's a very bad guy.

Remember this motto that USMC officers are taught, "Keep it simple stupid".

If any president ever needed his briefings to be kept "simple stupid" it's Trump.

Trump has been played by KGB agents since he dated Ivana, the daughter of a Soviet Bloc secret police agent. For 50 years, Trump's been echoing Moscow's BS about the West, and that's why Trump prefers to get his intel briefings from the "expert" himself: Putin.

With Trump's short attention span, and his internal bias to trust Putin instead of dissonance-inducing DIA & CIA analysts, I think Tulsi's got a great idea. We hope it's legit US & allies intel vetted reports, rather than Moscow-sourced propaganda.

If showing Trump cartoons as an accurate attention getting briefing medium works, then dammit, turn those briefings into comic books! Somebody's gotta teach our POTUS to that Putin's a very bad guy.

Remember this motto that USMC officers are taught, "Keep it simple stupid".

If any president ever needed his briefings to be kept "simple stupid" it's Trump.

When DOGE entered the USIP building IN March to replace its leadership, fire its staff, and assume building ownership, it demonstrated some more developed techniques than those employed by Hitler in his government's early days of becoming a dictatorship.

Without any legitimate vetting by a federal court or legislature,Trump alone ordered DOGE to wreak havoc on the databases and information systems of any congressionally-funded organization he wanted to silence, disable or kill. Just like any would-be dictator would do.

Some of USIP's former leadership contested the legality of these moves in court, citing the agency's independent structure, and on May 19, Judge Beryl Howell ruled in favor of USIP.

DOGE is arguably an illegal misappropriation of a congressionally created and funded agency of the government with a chartered mission to make government computer systems that are used by the public more accessible to the vast majority of potential users. What DOGE is now is apparently a privacy invading, data-harvesting vehicle of Elon Musk and a tool forTrump to weaken agencies of government that have any potential to interfere with the narcissist/megalomaniac-in-chief's powers.

There are so many people around the world whose problems have only worsened under the chaos wrought by the 2-month old Trump/Vance administration. No wonder the Bizhop of Rome put a low priority on meeting with a co-author of America's national policy to embrace war criminals and dictators and to burn the lifelines that so many needed.

I agree with so many others here; I thought this was news of a federal court ruling against the type of extortion used by this administration against the press and news media. Maybe the Preakness event win is a good omen for news media?

Unfortunately Drudge Retort doesn't recognize the Cyrillic alphabet nor huge parts of texts written in Germanic or Scandinavian languages.

Alleluia! Saint Augustine lead us to become a more virtuous generation. Lead us to become more understanding and collaborative with each other. Teach empathy and charity to all, especially to those who do not understand these virtues. And make the path of people of good will safe and blessed, and protect us from people and nations of ill-will, corruption, narcissism, and selfishness,

Ukrainian:

!
, , . ' . " , , " . , , , .

Latin:

Alleluia! Sancte Augustinus, nos duc ut generationem virtuosiorem efficiamus. Duc nos ut magis intellegentes et inter nos collaborantes simus. Doce empathiam et caritatem omnibus, praesertim iis qui has virtutes non intellegunt. Et viam hominum bonae voluntatis tutam et beatam fac, et nos protege ab hominibus et nationibus malevolentiae, corruptionis, narcisismi et egoismi.

Spanish:

Aleluya!
San Agustn, guanos para ser una generacin ms virtuosa. Guanos para ser ms comprensivos y colaboradores entre nosotros. Ensanos empata y caridad a todos, especialmente a quienes no comprenden estas virtudes. Haz que el camino de las personas de buena voluntad sea seguro y bendecido, y protgenos de las personas y naciones de mala voluntad, la corrupcin, el narcisismo y el egosmo.

French:

Allluia !
Saint Augustin, guide-nous vers une gnration plus vertueuse. Guide-nous vers plus de comprhension et de collaboration les uns envers les autres. Apprends-nous l'empathie et la charit envers tous, en particulier envers ceux qui ne comprennent pas ces vertus. Fais que le chemin des personnes de bonne volont soit sr et bni, et protge-nous des personnes et des nations malveillantes, corrompues, narcissiques et gostes.