Well, That was Interesting...

 Yes, indeedy. McCarthy losing a vote of confidence. Led by the All-Time-Loser, Matt Gaetz. Wow. Just goes to show what Lenin said was right: a small number can have an outsized effect. McCarthy gave them power, and he caved to them all along. Until he did the right thing, passed a continuing resolution with the support of Democrats - and against the mini-mob. The rest of the GOP has also shown their colors - they might have supported him as Speaker, but they too are so afraid of their extreme wing that they do nothing else. American politics are so f-d up.

The gag order on Trump is lovely, but of course he doubles down. And runs away from his lawyers in NY to go pout and spout from Mar-a-Lago. The question now is: when (not if) he spouts his vile lies from there, will a NY judge slap him down? And how? Personally, were I that judge, I'd give him a meaningful fine (say $5 million) the first time. Double it the second, and nail him to the wall for contempt on the third.  If Trump really has the cash to pay $15 million in fines for the first two, and continues?  Make it very clear that the next one will be heavily fined and incur even more limits on his bile. Like $50 million plus jail time. I hesitate with the jail thing, because Don would relish that as campaign fodder. 

Don's request for further delay in the rest of the cases should be denied out of hand, by all judges. Or conditional: only if he retires from campaigning (for anyone) and agrees to leave politics altogether. He's just too nuts to continue to be a player of any type. The DOJ did it with Agnew; do it with the far more toxic Trump!

Would that stop the extremists? O no, I doubt it. They are loving their tastes of power; only being turned out of office by their constituents would defang them; they'll then go on the speaking tours and rile up others. How do we get the slime of the troll cohort to crawl back under their slime and stay there?

I'm very worried that US support for Ukraine will be cut off; Putin's treasury may be big, but his military and political classes are not ignorant of what is going on in the war. Can he expand that further? He'll try, no doubt, and he loves waving his nuclear toys about. In a way, I see that as fair: Truman did that when we had the atomic weapons, to get Stalin to participate in the war against the Japanese. I can only hope that somewhere in the Putin sphere there are military commanders with the foresight and courage to stop him. Given Vlad's record dealing with opposition, they are going to have to be quite brave and put their lives on the line. 

I'm really hoping that Zelensky will have the will and courage to call elections, and that he can win. And that Putin and Trump can stay the hell out of Ukrainian politics!