Friday Roundup: "From Russia With Love Letters From Trump"

We Are Now Actively a Russian Asset Country

The gall burns like vodka straight down your throat—Russian officials sitting across polished tables in Istanbul, their fingers drumming impatiently as they have the sheer NERVE to request American airspace be reopened to their aircraft. You can practically smell the entitlement wafting across the negotiating room, pungent as week-old borscht.

Feel the weight of Ukrainian bodies in unmarked graves pressing down on your chest as Russian diplomats casually dismiss their ongoing invasion as mere "irritants inherited from previous American administrations." Their words clang like empty shell casings against concrete—hollow, metallic, and echoing with bloody hypocrisy.

See the twisted logic displayed in high definition: launch an unprovoked full-scale invasion that's left cities in ruins, then act OFFENDED when your planes aren't welcome in civilized airspace. Watch as they extend manicured hands expecting to be treated like legitimate partners while their military continues to flatten apartment buildings and hospitals.

To twist the knife deeper into the festering wound, that spineless weasel Donald Shitsburger is now shoving American businesses toward Russian soil—you can practically smell the stench of his cologne mixing with blood money as he salivates over profit margins while negotiating to plant corporate flags in the very ground soaked with Ukrainian tears. The audible scratch of his pen signing these betrayals grates against your eardrums like nails on a chalkboard, while the grimy texture of his handshakes with oligarchs leaves a residue you can feel lingering on your own skin. CNN

Mike Huckabee: Palestinians Are Sub Human Trash And Not Worth Living

The rank of hypocrisy hangs thick in the air as Mike Huckabee—a man who claims Palestinians "already live freely" in the occupied West Bank—inches closer to becoming America's ambassador to Israel. Who the fuck even saw this happening? For that matter, WHY the fuck is this happening? His words taste like ash in the mouth, a deliberate blindness so profound it burns the throat.

Feel the suffocating weight of the checkpoints, permits, and daily humiliations that Palestinians endure while Huckabee smugly denies their very existence. Listen to the deafening silence in his prepared remarks where not once—NOT ONCE—does the word "Palestinian" escape his lips. His denial of their peoplehood rings like a piercing alarm that somehow only half the room can hear.

Touch the rough concrete of separation walls while Huckabee's fingers point elsewhere, suggesting with casual cruelty that Palestinians should be transferred out of their homeland entirely—shipped off to Egypt or Saudi Arabia as if they were furniture to be rearranged. The callousness is palpable, like sandpaper against raw skin.

See the absurdity laid bare: America preparing to send an ambassador who has publicly supported expelling HALF THE POPULATION of the territory he'll be working with. Watch as Democrats perform their choreographed dance of token resistance before inevitable capitulation. TheNewRepublic

Climate Protest Works: Get the Fuck Up and Go Out There

Forget your goddamn Netflix subscription and the pathetic comfort of your IKEA couch—the stench of climate inaction is choking us while evidence SCREAMS in our faces that protest actually WORKS. You can feel the heat of opportunity burning against your skin as research from Yale confirms what activists have known in their bones: climate protests shift public opinion, influence media coverage, and even boost votes for climate candidates by 2-2.5 fucking percentage points.

Listen to the hollow, bullshit arguments about "backlash" crumbling like dried clay—that tired excuse for inaction rings false in your ears as researchers find that concerns about turning people off are "overstated." The metallic taste of truth coats your tongue: even if some pearl-clutchers get offended by radical tactics, those same tactics make moderate climate groups seem more palatable in comparison. You can practically smell the sweat of Malcolm X making Martin Luther King Jr. seem "moderate" decades ago—the same dynamic playing out now in climate activism.

Touch the rough edges of this moment's contradiction: protest movements swelling against Trump and Musk while governmental suppression clamps down like a vice grip on your throat. See the vivid warnings flashing before your eyes—the criminalization of dissent, Greenpeace being financially gutted for Dakota Access Pipeline resistance—all while evidence PROVES that engagement alleviates the very anxiety that keeps people paralyzed.

And for those Americans whose mouths are filled with the bitter ash of Trump's return? Local action tastes like salvation—a tangible, gritty pathway that researchers specifically highlight. The texture of community organizing feels solid between your fingers while federal climate policy disintegrates into dust.

The message burns your retinas like staring at the sun: GET OFF YOUR ASS. "Action is the antidote to despair," Joan Baez declared—and now science confirms with thunderous clarity that your protest signs and marching feet aren't just therapy for your doomer brain, they're literally changing the fucking world. And as a Druid, I say, Defend her. Defend the Mother and her earth. TheNewRepublic

GOP Panic is Full Tilt Over Tariffs

Feel the cold sweat breaking out across GOP brows as the realization sinks in: their president just declared economic war on ALLIES and ENEMIES alike with no goddamn plan beyond "Liberation Day" theatrics. The rough texture of farmer calluses pressing into senatorial palms during district visits, begging for protection from the retaliatory tariffs that will crush American agriculture first.

See the naked fear in their eyes as they realize inflation—their golden ticket to election victory—is about to get TURBOCHARGED by price hikes on everything Americans buy. J.P. Morgan's recession warnings blaring like sirens: probability skyrocketing from 40% to 60% in A SINGLE DAY, while Goldman Sachs slashes forecasts faster than a butcher with spoiled meat. TheHill

1. MURKOWSKI (ALASKA): "There's a lot that I certainly don't know. How long are they going to last? There's a lot of uncertainty... folks back home are certainly afraid about what it's going to mean for price increases, very afraid about that."

2. MORAN (KANSAS): "Most Kansans, including agriculture, which is so affected, I think they were expecting something less dramatic... I think most Kansans would say, 'Let's do this in a more gradual way.'"

3. CRUZ (TEXAS): "I'm not a fan of tariffs... Tariffs are a tax, and I'm not a fan of raising taxes on millions of American consumers."

4. ANONYMOUS SENIOR GOP SENATOR: "It's a bad idea, and I don't see a way out."

5. TILLIS (NORTH CAROLINA): "I was just in meetings today with different associations... They're all concerned... The initial concerns are coming out of agriculture because they're the first to get hit with market access and any retaliatory tariffs... It will ramp up from here... If it works, it will be fabulous. If it doesn't work, it's going to be fabulous for the other side."

6. COLLINS (MAINE): "In general, one of my biggest concerns is we should be distinguishing between our allies and our adversaries and not treat them the same way."

Jerome Powell Pretty Much Says It Like It Is

These goddamn tariffs will RAVAGE inflation like a wildfire through dry brush, sending the economy into a death spiral while Americans watch their savings evaporate into thin air. You can taste the acidic irony as Trump—his voice grating like sandpaper on exposed nerves—labels "market volatility" a "disease in America" when HE'S the one injecting the poison straight into the economy's veins. MSNBC

Meanwhile, Jerome Powell stands like a stone wall, his silence toward politicians' rants as palpable as the crushing weight pressing down on consumers' chests. You can feel the suffocating pressure of those "high price levels" still squeezing the life out of everyday Americans who are seething with rage at their shrinking purchasing power.

Powell acknowledges this fury with clinical detachment—you can see it in his calculated gaze—making it clear he KNOWS exactly what's happening while refusing to be baited into Trump's chaotic economic theater. The contrast stings your eyes: while doomsaying forecasters scream about "massive unemployment" from these tariffs, Powell calmly points to the cold, hard data from March 12th showing employment remains strong.

Listen to the dismissive tone of US Representatives calling Powell "boring"—the word hangs in the air like cigarette smoke—while he responds with a cutting "thankful for that" that slices through the political noise like a blade.

When pressed about Trump specifically, you can smell Powell's calculated restraint as he refuses to name the economic arsonist directly. Instead, his words land with measured precision: this new administration is unleashing a hurricane of "rapid policy changes" creating an uncertainty that hangs thick and heavy in the room. Powell's message penetrates like ice water in your veins—forecasts are just forecasts, and he's stepping back to wait for clarity before acting.

The unspoken promise resonates with primal force: if Trump's economic vandalism damages the stability Powell is sworn to protect, the Fed will intervene with whatever tools necessary. You can feel the tension between these two forces—Trump's chaotic disruption versus Powell's methodical stabilization—grinding against each other like tectonic plates, regardless of how desperately Trump tries to demolish what's left of America's economic foundation.