I've been meditating every day for the last 2 or 3 years. The book "Letting Go" really got to me and I'm trying to get more into spirituality/buddhism. I would also like to surrender my Ego and surrender my belief systems.
I would love to get a situation of Zenness, where I can listen to people's opinions, but sometimes hearing people quote simple dogma while taking on a moral superiority, triggers me.
I would love to detach from all my political believe systems, as I've been living in Thailand, Philippines, Brazil, Ukraine and Latin America and I've noticed how much happier I am because of the fact that I don't really have political knowledge or a political opinion of things happening in these countries. I noticed in these countries the people on the left will rationalize corruption on the left and people on the right will rationalize corruption on the right, even if politicians have stolen millions of dollars.
I would also like to not have an opinion about the politics in the US, I haven't even visited the country.
I get tired with:

• Moral superiority, other people are bad - We are against poverty, e.g. like communists, while suppressing your own dark side.
• People idolising the poor, I come from a poor area. My best friend's ex-boyfriends were drug-addicts and would hit her, raped as a child, her 4 brothers were murdered, got robbed multiple times, she was raped multiple times in her lives. Surely immoral actions happen more in poor areas?
• Totalitarianism, always more rules and more bureaucracy, I had to process 300 pages of tax forms while migrating back to my origin country a few years ago.
• Equality of outcome, as if that's possible. Obviously Elon Musk's child is going to make more money than a child from the ghetto, partially become of a better education by the environment. I don't even think it's the money. Education is free in my country in Northern Europe, but poor people mock education and invest massively in lottery tickets, gambling, fireworks instead.
• All the narcissistic fantasies. It's really not that easy to just make the lives or people easier. People really believe in their own mind and their own theories and these theories are getting crazier day-by-day, e.g. cultural appropriation so I cannot do yoga or meditate. It becomes totalitarian so quickly with people wanting to have power to boss other people around for the greater good.
• Men are completely equal as woman, I let go of this one and I don't care much about this one, but it just seems BS.
• People being obsessed about making society better, the greater good, but being completely selfish dicks to each-other in daily life.
• The hypocrisy of tech companies generally being super progressive, wanting to make things better, but at the same time being the most predatory companies of all. They will often also hire child labourers or find reasons to pay extremely low wages to competent employees in poor countries, because they can. I work a lot with Silicon Valley and the hypocritical behavior is pretty extreme there of wanting to help victims and also being very predatory.
• The denial of some demographics being very self-destructive, obsessed with money/greed, but not very competent/skilled and very immoral, lying a lot. I work a lot with people from India and it's a pain all the incompetency, dishonesty. I've interviewed so many people from India, but it's just not worth it anymore.

It's mostly the idea of moral superiority, people completely believing in their own ideological belief system. And you being a bad person for just observing that many people will just rationalize immoral behavior of themselves or others (if they are victims).
So many people are just on "the right side" for moral superiority reasons. They pick up social dogma and take it as their own and tend to idolize the poor, say only things in favor of oppressed people. You can't even talk freely without walking on eggshells. People will want to hurt you.
I have always given 5% of my income to charity, even when I didn't make much money at my first full time job, but it seems life is full with people who are only signalling their value to other people, but secretly don't mind destroying other people's lives, for their own selfish interest.
They will have always excuses why they can't contribute with charity, blame corporations etc. / no personal agency, but are very judgmental and aggressively pointing out flaws in other people's behaviors. I don't live in the western world anymore and feel that I can speak openly in Asia and Latin America. People seem much more down-to-earth in areas where suffering and a hard life is normal. Having a different opinion isn't considered evil, but actual evil acts are evil.
Western Society seems to twist morality completely around, what's good is bad, what's bad is good. Like Nietsche's Slave Morality. People are judged on their opinions, not on their actions in the western world.
Anyway, I would like to get more detached from this and my goal is to let go of this belief system, get more objective and stop feeling negative emotions when I see this behavior. Regularly these thoughts just pop up in my mind on a daily basis, even without any reason or trigger. It shouldn't affect me so much. There isn't much more that I can do than to live with love, compassion, honesty and contribute to my local environment, not being concerned about people that just talk the talk.
I have muslim family that can't stop talking about how often they have been to Mecca, I guess it's a similar type of signalling as we currently have in the western world. They're really not saints and regularly laugh sadistically at other family members' miseries, e.g. that person got so fat haha.

As the 6th of June, 1984 dawned two leaders in two separate nations began their days. In Omsk, Dimitry Yazov the Glavkoverkh of the Russian National Reclamation Government awoke to find a nation eager for tomorrow. Nearly two decades of constant war, death and struggle had led them to their destiny, the Great Trial. Records suggest Yazov spent much of the early day putting the finishing touches on Operation Destiny, the reclamation of Moskowien, even if what he did exactly is shrouded in mystery. As the sun hung highest in the sky the radio waves of Russia and its surrounding communities were overtaken with the powerful voice of Yazov as he gave a speech. A transcription of the speech was preserved in the Omsk bunkers:
"Friends, Patriots, Countrymen;
I come before you today with the utmost eagerness. Our Motherland has spent the last four decades being humiliated, abused and discarded by the world. Her most fertile lands are being raped by the German scum and millions of her children suffer under their oppressors. The bastards in Germania speak of 'liberalization' and an end to the slave system, but did they not just recently brutally crush a popular slave revolt in the East? Did they not hunt down the revolts leaders, string them up like dogs and throw their conspirators into camps? The promises coming from Germania are no more full than the promises coming from Washington. They speak highly of being the last bastion of freedom in the world. The Americans presume to impose their freedom on whichever poor nation catches their interest. Was it not the OFN's 'Mandates' which continue to exploit African resources? Is it not OFN troops which prop up petty dictators across the world? How can a nation founded on and extolling the ideals of freedom have such barbarity like segregation enshrined in their national laws? Unlike the scum in Germania and the liars in Washington, the new Russia rings true to its goal; that of national unification.
Fortunately that day has finally come! All of our hardship and all the trials we have endured have led us to our final, Great Trial! I shall not lie to you, the next few months or years will be the hardest our League has faced since the death of Karbyshev and the Gauntlet, but have faith in our destined victory! Now, forwards! Crash over the rotting carcass of Moskowien! Sweep away the corpse of the Nazi Empire in the unstoppable tides of history! Next time I speak to you, it will not be from this bunker in Omsk, but in the Volkshalle in Germania!"
Back in Moskau Kommissar Alexis von Roenne and his tenuous administration were suddenly thrown into anarchy. After Yazov's speech was broadcast League infiltrators and terrorists within Paktkommission Moskowien sprung into action. Sabotage, terrorism of both the bio and conventional kind, revolts and assassination brought the Pakt administration to screeching halt. Meanwhile on the border the enemy units facing the League either refused to fight or defected in the case of majority Russian units, or were so stunned and confused by the chaos in the rear that they were quickly smashed by the ferocious League assault. Within an hour the border had been crossed in hundreds of places and the Pakt armies were falling back in disarray. As the League advanced, they gave the Rape of Moskowien its name. Russian civilians were largely left alone and either joined the League or stayed out of the conflict as best they could. However German settlers and the collaborators who were unable to flee in time met horrid fates. Near Near Yaroslavl nearly a thousand German settlers were executed by League soldiers and their homes burned. In Pskov the German administrators were tied up outside and left to die. They would later be found half eaten by wolves and other scavengers. In a forest outside Saratov a League Redemptionary Brigade, which had just undergone brutal fighting in the city, beat an entire battalion of captured German soldiers and civilian conscripts to death with entrenching shovels. This last incident has spawned the repugnant meme in today's far right internet culture "Shovel Gang". All of these incidents and thousands more were either ignored by League officers or actively encouraged. Its debatable whether Yazov knew of these atrocities or not. While three separate memorandums issued to officers before the invasion did demand German prisoners be taken, the fact that these memos were ignored without consequence showed that if Yazov didn't approve of them he at the very least didn't disapprove.
As the League surged forwards the Pakt rule in Moskowien faltered and broke down. Pakt officials were lynched when they left the safety of military bases and Kommissar Roenne began to plan for moving his government into exile in the Reich itself. Back in Germany itself Fuhrer Speer, alarmed and not the least bit angered at how rapidly and totally his 'Eastern Bulwark against the Slavs' had failed, decided to intervene directly. The Wehrmacht however was less than ready for the fight they were getting into. The military was still reeling under the purges conducted by Speer after the twin Eastern Revolts of the Slaves and Schorner. Not only that but manpower shortages had left many units sent to the East at least partially understrength. However, despite initial looks the Wehrmacht preformed well against League soldiers in preliminary engagements. Of particular effectiveness were the Flugtruppen or Flight Troops. Based on American Air Cavalry units encountered during the South African War these elite troops were dropped on top of enemy positions by helicopters and behind League lines. However, their effectiveness was not enough to change the tide of battle and it was not long before Moscow itself was taken by the League on August 15th, 1984. In a final attempt to salvage the situation in the East, Speer launched a desperate offensive. The creatively named Speer Offensive however was rushed through planning and preparation and fell apart after only a few weeks. Tens of thousands died for nothing. After Smolensk fell to League forces Speer, in his final mad act, sent a single telegram to the League, OFN and Co-Prosperity Sphere. It said if the League did not stop their advance within 48 hours of them receiving the message, the Nazi's would resort to the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
This led to panic gripping the world as it raced towards midnight. American warships appeared off the Siberian coast as Manchu troops prepared to cross the border at a moments notice in a desperate gamble to force the League to stop. These provocations were ignored utterly by the League until finally, at 3:45 PM on September 29th, 1984 as League troops began to cross into Ukraine, Kaukasien and Ostland a series of nuclear detonations occurred up and down the line. This was foreseen by Yazov who had built his own, albeit meager by comparison, nuclear arsenal. However these nukes were used to their full effectiveness as what few missiles the League had were launched and more than a few so called 'suitcase nukes' were also used. After that, not much is known. Exactly how the exchange between Russia and Germany drew the US, Italy and Japan to use their own nuclear arsenals is unknown but inevitably they did and the Clock chimed 12 times. Cities from Siberia to Alaska and back again were reduced to dust, billions died and the First Age of Humanity came crashing down. Time however, did not. We survived through the fires of our own hell and we rebuilt what was lost. Nations incinerated in nuclear fire were reborn like great phoenixes and among those nations, was the Grey League. Their history is as shrouded in mystery as the First Age is, but reliable evidence links them directly to the survivors of the Black League. Their frenzied National Redoubts had worked as intended and after the radiation died down and the fires smouldered to their very cinders, they re-emerged from their bunkers to face a world they had destroyed. According to Grey League histories Yazov returned to the surface and wept for the world he had murdered. Afterward the newly reformed Grey League was turned into a force of peace and reconstruction. Today the League sends the most peacekeepers to trouble spots across the world, the most aid to regions devastated by war or disaster, and they have saved the most their past to learn from. Some say this is enough to redeem the League of the sins of their ancestors, others say the Russians should never be forgiven. This author has no opinion of use. Instead this text, with the help of the Omsk Reconstruction Library, wishes to simply lay the facts as we know them before you, the public, and ask yourself a question the League shall ask itself for all of eternity.
Was it worth it?

Introduction

Over the past 10 days, we've seen Trump fully indulge his authoritarian impulses in an attempt to stamp out any inkling of facts that he dislikes - whether that be for personal, egocentric reasons or to shore up political strength. One could argue the true "start" of this no-holds-barred dictatorial spree actually stretches back to the Republican acquittal in the impeachment trial. I'd agree with that, too. But 10 days ago Congress was given its first formal warning of the dangers facing our democracy in the next nine months. That Trump launched a war on the intelligence community in response to Americans trying to protect their country from foreign influence speaks volumes to me.
Trump and the Republican party are actively abetting an attack on our nation. "To abet" is to encourage or assist (someone) to do something wrong, in particular, to commit a crime or other offense. Using the immense power given to him by willing Republicans in Congress, Trump is using his authority to hobble the ability of anyone - even America's national security leaders - to stop him and his regime from carrying out Trump's desires, however corrupt, self-serving, or insane.

10 days ago...

The briefing

Ten days ago, on Feb. 13, the intelligence community warned House Intelligence Committee members that Russia is interfering in the 2020 election to try to get Donald Trump re-elected. The briefing, provided by top election security official Shelby Pierson, informed House lawmakers that Russia had “developed a preference” for Trump and would also interfere in Democratic primaries.
Trump - who learned of the briefing from the committee’s Ranking Member Devin Nunes - grew angry at acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Joseph Maguire for providing the information to Congress. The following day, Trump “berated” Maguire for allowing it to take place. According to The New York Times, “Trump was particularly irritated that Representative Adam B. Schiff” was present because the president worried that Schiff would “weaponize” the intelligence about Russia’s support for him.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff responded to Trump’s anger at the briefing: "We count on the intelligence community to inform Congress of any threat of foreign interference in our elections. If reports are true and the President is interfering with that, he is again jeopardizing our efforts to stop foreign meddling. Exactly as we warned he would do."
Side note: A Pardon for Assange
Trump is so desperate to keep Russia’s interference on his behalf a secret, that he may have supported then-Rep. Dana Rohrabacher’s offer of a pardon to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in exchange for denying Russian involvement in the Democratic National Committee email leak.

Lawyer Edward Fitzgerald told a court on Wednesday that a witness statement application claimed that then-California representative Dana Rohrabacher went to visit Assange at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London on the instruction of the "President." According to the statement described by Fitzgerald, Rohrabacher's mission was to offer Assange a US pardon, if he would "play ball" by saying the Russians had nothing to do with the leak -- an assertion Assange had previously made.

The White House has denied the claim and distanced itself from Rohrabacher.
The former congressman admits to making the offer to Assange - but does not state that President Trump directed him to do so.

“I spoke to Julian Assange and told him if he would provide evidence about who gave WikiLeaks the emails, I would petition the president to give him a pardon,” Rohrabacher told Yahoo News. “He knew I could get to the president.”

The purge

In retaliation for the briefing, Trump ditched considerations to nominate Maguire to be permanent DNI and quickly replaced him with loyalist Richard Grenell.

• Ominous warning: William H. McRaven, a retired Navy admiral who oversaw the 2011 Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden, wrote in The Washington Post that “if good men like Joe Maguire can’t speak the truth, we should be deeply afraid.” McRaven continues: “in this administration, good men and women don’t last long. Joe was dismissed for doing his job: overseeing the dissemination of intelligence to elected officials who needed that information to do their jobs...when presidential ego and self-preservation are more important than national security — then there is nothing left to stop the triumph of evil.”

In the days that followed, two other top Intelligence officials announced their departures: (1) Grenell fired the second-highest-ranking official at the ODNI, Andrew Hallman, who had over three decades of intelligence experience; (2) the top lawyer for the ODNI, Jason Klitenic, submitted his resignation, to go into effect in early March. It is unlikely that Klitenic was pushed out, because he played a role in helping prevent the Ukraine whistleblower’s complaint from reaching Congress last year.
Within his first 48 hours, Grenell proceeded to name Kash Patel, former adviser to Rep. Devin Nunes, as a senior adviser in the office of the DNI. As Nunes’ top staffer, Patel authored a memo used to argue that the FBI and DOJ’s probe of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election was actually a deep state plot to take down Trump. Patel also assisted Trump in his pressure campaign against Ukraine: Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and Fiona Hill testified to Congress that Patel “misrepresented” as the NSC expert on Ukraine, which was actually Vindman’s position.

Vindman also testified that he was told Patel had been circumventing normal NSC process to get negative material about Ukraine in front of the president, feeding Trump’s belief that Ukraine was brimming with corruption and had interfered in the 2016 election on behalf of Democrats.
That upset Vindman, along with Hill and Bolton, he testified, because they were constantly having to counter that narrative with the president.

Furthermore, there is evidence that Patel may have coordinated the hold on aid to Ukraine to begin with:

...the 300-page impeachment report released by House Intelligence Committee Democrats Tuesday said that Patel spoke with Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal attorney, in the spring, before nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine was suspended.
According to the call records revealed in the report, Patel had a 25-minute phone conversation with Giuliani on May 10. Five minutes after their call, Giuliani spoke with an unidentified number for 17 minutes and then with associate Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian-American who has been accused of illegally funneling foreign money to U.S. political candidates and of aiding Giuliani in his Ukraine investigations.

Acting officials

Richard Grenell, Trump’s newest acting-DNI, has served as U.S. ambassador to Germany since 2018. By taking advantage of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, Trump has been able to maintain a cabinet full of acting officials with little Congressional oversight. If a vacancy occurs in a position that requires Senate confirmation, Trump can appoint someone from any agency who is serving in a different Senate-confirmed position, Grenell, as an ambassador, has already been confirmed by the Senate - though for an entirely different job with entirely different qualifications.
Acting officials can serve in the vacant position for 210 days. If the president submits a nomination to the Senate during that time, the acting officer can continue to perform the office’s duties while the nomination is pending, however long it takes. If the nominee is returned, the officer can work as acting for another 210 days, and then through a second entire nomination process, and a final 210 days if that second nominee is returned. Then, if time runs out, the office must remain vacant until someone is confirmed by the Senate for the job.

• Note: Enforcement of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act is problematic. It is up to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to track time of acting service for each position. If the GAO finds a violation, the office must send a letter to the agency involved, to the president, and to Congress. At this point, the person’s actions have no force or effect - but someone with legal standing needs to bring a lawsuit in order to enforce the provision.

Therefore, because Maguire was serving as an acting official as well, Grenell cannot remain in the acting DNI position past March 11 unless the president formally nominates someone else for the job. The White House and Grenell have acknowledged that a search for a formal nominee is underway. The administration was reportedly considering Rep. Doug Collins for the post… until Collins turned down the job on national television.

• Jan. 2019, Trump said: "I sort of like acting. It gives me more flexibility. Do you understand that? I like acting. So we have a few that are acting. We have a great, great Cabinet." A recent analysis found that acting officials in the Trump administration have held down 22 cabinet and cabinet-level jobs for a combined 2,700 days -- about 1 out of every 9 days across those jobs.
  
• Hypothetical: Let’s say Trump wants to keep Grenell in the position for as long as possible, without nominating him because it is unlikely Grenell would be confirmed, even by the Republican-controlled Senate (see below). As long as Trump nominates someone for the position by March 11, Grenell can serve for however long as the Senate confirmation process takes - typically, around 2 months if the nominee is uncontroversial. That puts Grenell’s end date in mid-May. But Trump could intentionally nominate someone controversial to slow the process, or possibly even instruct his Senate allies to slow-walk the process. That would push out Grenell’s end date into the summer. If the nominee is not confirmed, the 210 day clock resets, giving Grenell an additional six months to serve in his acting capacity. As the end of that six months nears, Trump could put forward a second nominee, during whose confirmation process Grenell can continue to serve in the position. If that nominee fails as well, Grenell has a final six months to be acting-DNI before the position must remain vacant.
  

Sunday update: A Lawfare analysis

The term of art for this process is “manipulation-by-appointment.” Rather than trying to force intelligence analysts to change their views in ways that are politically convenient, this kind of politicization works by making sure their bosses are politically pliable. Manipulation-by-appointment reduces the risk of a public scandal because politicians are less likely to come into conflict with intelligence chiefs. There is no need to strong-arm intelligence agencies to fall in line with policy if the chiefs are already on board. source

Who is Richard Grenell?

Grenell has no experience as an intelligence officer and has only served in government as a communications director for the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. during the George W. Bush administration. After that, Grenell ran a public affairs consultancy and appeared on Fox News. In May 2018 he was confirmed as the ambassador to Germany, where he quickly made enemies:

Grenell’s tenure as ambassador to Germany has been rocky, at least from Berlin’s perspective. He has palled around with far-right groups, spoken openly of a desire to change Angela Merkel’s government, and made statements about U.S. views that sounded like direct orders to sensitive German ears. Last spring, leaders of two German political parties called him a “brat” and a “failure” and urged his ouster.

Additionally, Grenell is an associate of none-other-than Rudy Giuliani. According to Lev Parnas, Victoria Toensing asked Grenell “for advance notice if the Department of Justice were to move to extradite an indicted Ukrainian oligarch, Dmytro Firtash, from whom Giuliani hoped to get compromising information. Parnas also claims Grenell said he would comply.” Firtash is a powerful ally of Vladimir Putin and has assisted the Russian president’s attempt to gain control over Ukraine’s political system and economy. In 2017, the U.S. Justice Department said Firtash was among the “upper echelon associates of Russian organized crime.”
Aside from being remarkably unqualified, it is unclear whether Grenell even has a top-level security clearance or could qualify for one. A report by ProPublica revealed that Grenell used to do consulting work for Moldovan politician Vladimir Plahotniuc, “who is now a fugitive and was recently barred from entering the U.S. under anti-corruption sanctions imposed last month by the State Department.” Grenell failed to disclose this work and did not register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Undisclosed work for a foreign politician would ordinarily pose a problem for anyone applying for a security clearance or a job in a U.S. intelligence agency because it could make the person susceptible to foreign influence or blackmail, according to the official policy from the office that Trump tapped Grenell to lead.
“That’s really easy, he should not have a clearance,” said Kel McClanahan, a Washington-area lawyer specializing in security clearances. “If he were one of my clients and just a normal [federal employee], he would almost assuredly not have a clearance.”
McClanahan said it’s unclear how Grenell could have already gotten a clearance as an ambassador. The House Oversight Committee is investigating whether the Trump administration has overruled career officials in granting security clearances to political appointees.

Aside from his appearances on Fox News, Grenell may have come to Trump’s attention through the patronage of Trump properties. The Washington Post found that the Trump International Hotel in D.C. listed Grenell as a “Gold” level member of the Trump Organization’s “Trump Card” loyalty program in 2018. Kelly Craft, the ambassador to the U.N., was also listed as a gold level member.

Russia’s bet keeps paying off

Moving back to the source of Trump’s fury: The nation knows that Russia prefers Trump to win re-election. When told this, Trump’s Republican allies on the House Intelligence Committee challenged the ODNI’s conclusion. But, as Russia expert Julia Davis points out, Russian state media has never stopped declaring the multitude of ways that Trump’s election has proven “exceedingly beneficial for the Kremlin.”

Russian state media openly gloats about the Kremlin’s influence over Trump, believing that he can endure the exposure without repercussions, and by flaunting the Kremlin’s sway with the White House, Russia further weakens U.S. democracy, which has always been one of its main pursuits.
...Every denial of Russian election interference coming out of the White House brings Putin one step closer to the fulfillment of his goals. Every election-security bill that is blocked by the GOP in the Senate gives advantage to our foreign adversaries—and they are not sick of winning.

We don’t need to rely on Russian state media to tell us that Putin prefers Trump: The Russian president has told us so himself. In 2018, at a joint press conference with Trump in Helsinki, Putin told the press that he wanted Trump to win in 2016 because he believed Trump’s policies would be more beneficial to the Kremlin. "Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Because he talked about bringing the U.S.-Russia relationship back to normal,” Putin said.
Washington Post columnist Max Boot lays out the global benefits Russia enjoys:

Putin doesn’t care about Trump’s sanctions on Iran, which indirectly help Russia by boosting the price of oil. But he does care that Trump has strengthened Russia’s longtime ally in Syria, Bashar al-Assad.
...Trump has facilitated Russian designs not only in Syria but also in Libya, where the Russian-backed strongman Khalifa Hifter is trying to overthrow a United Nations-backed government in Tripoli. The U.S. government ostensibly supports the regime in Tripoli, but Trump called Hifter and gave him a green light for his offensive. Trump is making Russia great again in the Middle East for the first time since Egypt expelled Russian advisers in 1972.
...Far from strengthening NATO, as he now boasts, Trump has weakened it by relentlessly criticizing the alliance and portraying it as a bunch of deadbeats.

Addendum

The purge, act 2

While Trump purges officials he sees as disloyal from the intelligence community, newly-returned staffer John McEntee is busy searching out “Never Trumpers” to punish. According to Axios, “McEntee called in White House liaisons from cabinet agencies for an introductory meeting Thursday, in which he asked them to identify political appointees across the U.S. government who are believed to be anti-Trump.” Those officials “will no longer get promotions by shifting them around agencies.”

• Reminder: McEntee was Trump’s personal aide throughout much of 2017 and into 2018, but was pushed out by then-Chief of Staff John Kelly over gambling debts that threatened his security clearance. Trump reportedly sees McEntee as “the ultimate loyalist” and brought him back at a time when the president “feels he’s surrounded by snakes and wants to clear out all the disloyal people.”

SUNDAY update: The Trump White House and its allies, over the past 18 months, assembled detailed lists of disloyal government officials to oust — and trusted pro-Trump people to replace them — according to more than a dozen sources familiar with the effort. Included in this network of conservative activists assembling purge lists is Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Meanwhile, Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Peter Navarro is on a quest to identify and remove the author known as “Anonymous,” responsible for many anti-Trump op-eds and the book “A Warning.” Last week, it appears that Navarro has zeroed in on a potential suspect: Deputy National Security Adviser Victoria Coates, who is being transferred to the Department of Energy. Though the official White House line doesn’t acknowledge it, The New York Times reported that Coates has been “targeted by a whisper campaign among some pro-Trump conservatives that she was Anonymous.” Allies of Coates deny the allegation.

Several officials who heard Navarro push this said they do not believe Coates is the author and several described her as loyal to the President's agenda. However, the workplace became untenable given these dynamics, so Coates began looking for an exit, officials said, which led to her move to the Energy Department on Thursday. CNN

A weakened National Security apparatus

After last year’s exodus of National Security officials, the entire system is weakened by a lack of expertise and will to stand up for the truth. The NSC has gone from 174 policy positions in October, to fewer than 115 this month. Under Trump’s National Security Adviser, Robert O’Brien, the NSC has been co-opted to building support for Trump’s craziest whims. The New York Times reports:

When President Trump’s national security adviser, Robert C. O’Brien, convenes meetings with top National Security Council officials at the White House, he sometimes opens by distributing printouts of Mr. Trump’s latest tweets on the subject at hand.
The gesture amounts to an implicit challenge for those present. Their job is to find ways of justifying, enacting or explaining Mr. Trump’s policy, not to advise the president on what it should be.
That is the reverse of what the National Security Council was created to do at the Cold War’s dawn — to inform and advise the president on national security decisions.

Most recently, O’Brien proved his willingness to do Trump’s dirty work and weaponize intelligence for political gain. In an interview with Face the Nation, O’Brien states that he hasn’t seen any evidence of Russia seeking to help Trump. But, O’Brien says, it is plausible that Russia is seeking to help the Democrats instead.

O’Brien seized gleefully on reports about Russia and Sanders but rejected reports about Russia and Trump. Russian backing for Sanders, he said, would be “no surprise. He honeymooned in Moscow.”

New: Sunday night updates

On Sunday, Trump made a veiled threat toward House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff while claiming without evidence that the Democrat had leaked information from the Russia briefing on Feb. 13: “Somebody please tell incompetent (thanks for my high poll numbers) & corrupt politician Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff to stop leaking Classified information or, even worse, made up information, to the Fake News Media. Someday he will be caught, & that will be a very unpleasant experience!” tweet
Later, while speaking to reporters, Trump called for an investigation into the leak - more concerned about the public learning of the briefing than he is about Russia’s repeated interference in U.S. elections. “They leaked it, Adam Schiff and his group. They leaked it to the papers and - as usual - they ought to investigate Adam Schiff for leaking that information,” Trump said.
Schiff responded: “Nice deflection, Mr. President. But your false claims fool no one. You welcomed Russian help in 2016, tried to coerce Ukraine’s help in 2019, and won’t protect our elections in 2020.”
 
Originally written for tomorrow's Lost in the Sauce. As such, I tried to keep it as brief as possible... didn't turn out very brief, however, which is why I posted it separately. The scary part is that it could be much longer! It's not exhaustive. For instance, I'll be covering Trump's pardons in the Sauce newsletter tomorrow even though it would fit in this post, too. As The New Yorker summed up: "The point of authoritarianism is to concentrate power in the ruler, so the world knows that all actions, good and bad, harsh and generous, come from a single source."

I found it a little weird that there isn´t any recent posts in this sub about Belarus - in which the ongoing events in this week and the next will in my opinion be the most important geopolitical event of 2020. I feel absolute confidence in saying that Lukashenko´s time in Belarus is over, possibly a matter of mere days, but certainly weeks. Once the labour unions and state factory workers started protesting, his fate was sealed. The question is, what happens next?
I think that if it were merely an internal question of Belarus, then the security forces and military would intervene after enough blood is spilled on the streets and topple Lukashenko. New elections would be called and a temporary period of actual democracy would take hold, this could in turn evolve to any possible direction. However this is not just an internal issue of Belarus. Belarus is in a Union State with Russia, borders three NATO countries, including the absolute weakest link in NATO - Suwalki corridor. Also the big neighbour to the east is infinitely interested in stopping the old colour-revolutions (now known as maidans) from spreading.
Russian media has turned against Lukashenko and this could´ve only happened if Putin gave his authorization. So it seems increasingly unlikely that Russia would support Lukashenko with force - although Russia and Russian media is certainly capable of quickly re-adjusting their tunes - it seems that Russia is no longer interested in being invested in a now failed dictator in Belarus.
Will Russia support Belarusian opposition and call for free and fair elections? Betting that a new pro-Russia / pro-Union candidate would win through democratic means? I consider this very unlikely as it is simultaneously a very narrow gamble and secondly it gives legitimacy to the maidans in general and to dissidents and protestors in Russia in particular.
Will Russia support a Belarusian military take-over? In which a junta comes in to restore order. Seems even more unlikely, as it is clear at the moment, that Belarusian people demand change and freedoms. Exchanging Batka for a junta will not please the populace.
Will Russia send in polite people/green men in a similar fashion to Crimea or Donetsk/Luhansk? Certainly a possibility, and probably one of Russia´s actions, but unlikely to be the main tool and not the most succesful tool. While Belarus in general is more russified than Ukraine was, there doesn´t seem to be a localised area within Belarus that would be as anti-Belarusian, as Crimea and Donetsk were anti-Ukrainian. All green-men movements need an actual support on the grounds, and I am not sure that there exists one in Belarus.
Would Russia simply invade? Calling it an action to restore order and democracy in the Union State. Promising the protestors to hold free and fair elections, while also guaranteeing that the victor remains pro-Russia and pro-Union. Or would they try a straight up annexation? Something else?
What can the EU do? Aside from sanctioning the already crumbling Lukashenko´s regime - not much. Economically Belarus depends on Russia and has much more limited connections to the EU. Militarily, there is 0 chance of an EU/NATO intervention. Make a deal with Russia, that guarantees Belarus a partial sovereignty in exchange of lifting EU sanctions on Russia? Some other trade that would prevent a Russian take-over of Belarus? Or trying to act tough and threatening Russia in all possible theatres unless Russia allows Belarus to hold democratic elections and maintain sovereignty? Regardless, it is the EU and it is still summer - the likelihood of a strong, quick and unanimous action from the EU is as good as none.
And most importantly - what can the Belarusian people do? Is there a possible chain of actions that would lead to a sovereign and democratic Belarus?

Hey there my favourite schwieriges Umfeld!
I mentioned in the last thread that I will create a list of potential signings. This list contains a brief description of potential transfer targets.
I used this criteria for this list:

1. I have 35 Million to spend.
   
2. In line with our clubs philosophy, I primarly focus on signing players which are either a) young or b) could develop further.
   
3. There may be 2 exceptions to the second rule.
   

Let's get started!
Goalkeepers
Im really conflicted about this one. I for one think Gregor Kobel is a decent goalkeeper and one of the best if not the best keeper in the 2. Bundesliga (at least in regards to ability as a footballer). I have come to notice that some of you guys do not trust in his ability, but Kicker gives him the highest average rating (2,95) of all VfB players. Transfermarkt estimates his value with aroundabout 4 Million Euros.
This is a tough one - If Kobel is affordable, I'd say go for it. If not, there may be a familiar face we could (should) sign. I am talking about Sven Ulreich, 31, FC Bayern. The Nübel signing has not strenghtened his position at Bayern. He knows our club well, is a decent goal, has international expierence and most of all he should be quite affordable! With an estimated value of 3,5 million Euros he could be quite a bargain. What do you think about this idea? If Badstuber leaves, he could give our defense the much needed expierence and leadership.
Defense
Waldemar Anton, 23, Hannover 96 is one of the better players of Hannovers squad. Which is not THAT of an impressive feat, but I think this guy has a lot to offer to us: Young, versatile and already quite a leader for his young age. Can play CB, RB and DM. Most of you guys have already heard of this rumour so I would like your opinion about Anton. Transfermarkt estimates his value as 5,5 million.
Svetozar Markovic, 20, Olympiakos is a serbian U21 national player and is currently signed by Olympiakos. Hear me out on this one: This season was rather underwhelming for him. He got loaned out and didn't play as much as he would like. You may ask "Why should we go for a player that didn't make it in the greek league?" and I'll answer with my gut feeling. Pavard feel out ouf favour with his coach at Lille and everybody knows his story after he signed with us. I think this guy can take a similar, albeit not as fancy path. He is a right footed centerback, which could help in regards to our overload of left-footed centerbacks (Kaminski, Badstuber...) and he has every thing he needs to develop into an international centerback. Transfermarkt estimates his value as 2,5 million Euros.
Vitaly Mykolenko, 21, Dynamo Kiev is a rising star in the Ukraine. What I really like about this guy is his offensive ability and his athletism. He assisted to 7 goals in 30 matches while scoring 4 himself. A real gem of a player, a capable leftback and hopefully a Stuttgart player soon. I do not know if its possible for us to attraced a prodigy like him, but we need these kind of signings - I haven't heard rumors about other clubs being interested in this player, so we should act quickly. Valued at 9 million Euros.
Midfield
Niklas Dorsch, 22, Heidenheim. I'm sure most of you guys know this players from our matches against Heidenheim. I feel like he has a lot to offer for our centre, he can play infront of the defense or at the centre of the pitch. For his age, he is quite the calm player with a good vision of whats happening. Valued at 4,5 Million.
Bastien Toma, 20, FC Sion is an alternative to the Dorsch-signing. He can play as a 10 and as a dm, although his favorite position is the centre. Decent player and a decent goal thread (Scored 6, assisted 2 in 22 matches) while also being very affordable with an estimated value of 2,3 million Euros.
Attack
Interestingly enough, I think Gonzalez, Silas and Kalajdzic are good enough for the Bundesliga. Still, we need to sign at least one player to have a bit of variety in our attacks. Keep in mind, this list doesn't regard players like Gonzalez leaving. (he is currently our keyplayer imo)
Transfermarkt links us to Taxiarchis Fountas, 24, SK Rapid Wien and while his numbers are impressive (scored 18 goals in 24 matches and assisted 6). Valued at 1,8 Million. I do know nothing else about this guy, anybody else care to elaborate?
If we want go full mad-man, we could sign guys like Manuel Schäffler, 31, Wiesbaden and hope he just keeps banging them in or we could try to sign Robin Hack, 21, Nürnberg, but I feel like half of the Bundesliga wants a piece of this guy.
Conclusion I'm still conflicted: Should we sign older, reliable players or take a gamble with these youngsters? I do not know how many signings we need to keep us up, I do know that we need some speed for our defense. What do you guys think? Which players would you like to see our club and which players are realistic signings?

'''
I don't want to be rude or anything but do you have any background in geopolitics? Because I do and as far as I am concerned, I don't give a single fuck about who is the bad guy or not.
I don't know why you brought up this. Try to stay respectful and serious as I don't want to waste my time.
​

Do you really the Russia is the only "bad guy"? Frankly, I don't see why Russia wants to attack any EU countries and Germany.

That's not really the point though. The point is that many elites in Baltic countries and Poland are fearful of Russia. Does it make sense? Maybe yes, maybe not.
Here you can find a free document in which many officials from the aforementioned countries explain the perception of Germany with regard to security in the Baltic sea: [[link]⁴
In short, Baltic countries, Poland and Finland still perceive Russia as the major threat in the region and, on top of that, are very critical of the German stance, namely the German way of dealing with Russia.
It has nothing to do with what you - a random redditor - thinks about Russia. The fact is that Germany must favour the NATO in order for Berlin to keep its credibility.
Should Germany underestimate the security needs of Eastern European countries, then it would undermine European cohesion as a whole. The aforementioned countries would have no interest in furthering European integration if they see their essential need being dismissed.
Do you agree with high rank Polish perception of Russia?

1. It doesn't really matter.
2. I am sure they are more knowledgeable on the matter than you.

As Germany is the face of EU, Berlin must act carefully to not antagonize any side.
Germany must maintain cordial relations with Moscow as Western Europe doesn't fear Russia and doesn't want to be brought in a new pseudo Cold War. In the same time, Berlin can't just embrace the Russian way as it would antagonize Eastern Europe.
By the way, I won't expand further on this but Germany is currently facing the exact same issue with Turkey right now.
Spain and Italy support Sarraj (GNA) in Libya as does Turkey and Rome certainly doesn't want to antagonize Ankara as the Libyan GNA-controled coasts are close to Italy borders.
This is why both Spain and Italy were supportive of a conciliatory approach against Turkey:
[[link]⁵
In both cases, Germany must seek a compromise to balance the interests of many EU members. It has nothing to do with what a random redditor that has never studied IR thinks or not.
​

The Crimea Crisis was the result of the pro western politics of the Ukrainian government which was a big risk for the Russian harbour in Sewastopol (Crimea), they needed to secure it.

This is such a poor argument.
Moscow took the decision to feed a conflict in the East of Ukraine in addition to annexing the Crimea because, at that moment, it made sense for them.
What if it makes sense tommorrow for Russia to annex Estonia, Lithuania or Lettonia, for example in order to gain more warm water coasts?
Well, this is why the NATO enlarged in the past.
You fail to understand that states seek to deter the risk of conflict.
In the case of NATO vanishing for X or Y reasons, Russia would defenitely benefit from more leverage to intervene in the region. Would they do it? Maybe yes, maybe not but states don't want to take that kind of gamble.
I hope you understand that if Ukraine had a military agreement with the U.S., for example, then Russia would not have acted the same way thant Moscow did in 2014.
By the way, you must recall that Russia was supposed to guarantee Ukraine's territorialy integrity.
In 1994, Ukraine accepted to give up its nuclear weapon arsenal in exchange for military protection from Russia, US, France and UK.
[[link]⁶
It turned out that to not be a successful operation, amirite?
Russia took the risk to undermine its international credibility by violating Ukraine's territorial credibilty because the context has changed.
You don't know whether or not the context will change tommorow. Estonians, Poles and Finns don't give a fuck about your own uneducated perception of Russia - they don't want to compromise their future just because a random redditor "thinks" "Russia" "is" "not" "a" "bad guy".
This is why they rely on NATO and not on your take.
​

If Russia or Putin really wants east Ukraine, it would take them a few days but not more, but for over 6 years now nothing happened.

Ahahahahah
You really have no clue.
Russia doesn't want to annex East Ukraine because it would allow Ukraine to join NATO. If Moscow formally annexes Eastern Ukraine then, lost for lost, Kiev could give up its claim and ask for entering NATO.
In the current state of affairs, Ukraine can't join the NATO as it would mean going to war against Russia: Kiev could indeed invoke article 5 as soon as they join the alliance. Of course neither the U.S nor Europeans want to engage in a large-scale conflict with Russia at the moment.
Maintaining a low conflict in the region prevents Ukraine to enter the framework.
It is the very same strategy than Moscow has been using in Ossetia and Abkhazia for more than 10 years.
Russia will never annex Eastern Ukraine, nor will they withdraw the financial and humain support (as long as they can afford it) because it makes Ukraine joining the NATO virtually impossible.
'''
Context Link
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Author: Europeankaiser
1: www.l*ia.*v/e***ubl*catio*s/*ercepti*ns-of*germany-in*the-secu*i**-of-*h*-ba***c-*ea*r*g*on-*48 2: **w.nytimes.com/*020*08/2*/**rld/*urope/greec**t***ey**u.html 3: en.*ik**e*i*.org*w*k*/*uda*est_Memoran*u**on_Security*A*surance* 4: ww*.*iia.*v/en/*ubl*catio*s**er*eptio*s-*f-g*r*an*-*n-the*security-*f-*he**al**c-sea-re**on-748*^^1 5: w*w.n*times.com/*020/08/27/wo*ld*eu*op**greece-*u*ke*-e**h*ml**^2 6: e*.w*ki*ed*a.o***wiki/Bud*pest*_Memorandum\_o*\*Secu*i*y\_A*s*ranc***^^3
Unknown links are censored to prevent spreading illicit content.

Welcome to Lost in the Sauce, keeping you caught up on political and legal news that often gets buried in distractions and theater… or a global health crisis.
Figuring out how to divide the COVID-19 content from the “regular” news has been difficult because the pandemic is influencing all aspects of life. Some of the stories below involve the virus, but I chose to include them when it fits into one of the pre-established categories (like congress or immigration). The coronavirus-central post will be made again this Thursday-Friday; the sign up form now has an option to choose to receive an email when the coronavirus-focused roundup is posted.
House-keeping:

1. How to support: If you enjoy my work, please consider becoming a patron. I do this to keep track and will never hide behind a paywall, but these projects take a lot of time and effort to create. Even a couple of dollars a month helps. Since someone asked a few weeks ago (thank you!), here's a PayPal option and Venmo.
   
2. How to get notifications: If you’d like to be added to my newsletter, use this SIGNUP FORM and you’ll get these recaps in your inbox!
   

Let’s dig in!

MAIN COURSE

Congress passes stimulus

Last week started out with a Republican-crafted stimulus bill that was twice-blocked by Senate Democrats, who objected to the lax conditions of aid to corporations, too little funding for hospitals, and a $500 billion “slush fund” for big companies to be doled out by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin with no oversight.
Conservative-Democrat Joe Manchin (WV) even criticized the GOP bill:

“It fails our first responders, nurses, private physicians and all healthcare professionals. ... It fails our workers. It fails our small businesses… Instead, it is focused on providing billions of dollars to Wall Street and misses the mark on helping the West Virginians that have lost their jobs through no fault of their own.”

Through negotiations, Democrats shifted the bill in a more-worker friendly direction. The version that passed includes the following Democrat-added provisions: expanded unemployment benefits, $100 billion for hospitals, $150 billion for state and local governments, direct payments to Americans without a phase-in (ensuring low-income workers get the full amount), a ban on Trump and his children from receiving aid, and oversight on the “slush fund” (see next section for more info). Senate Democrats also managed to remove a provision that would have excluded nonprofits that receive Medicaid funding from the small-business grants.

• Further reading: After Senate Democrats blocked the Republican-crafted bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led the House Democrats in releasing their own version, a best-case scenario of their dream coronavirus stimulus bill. It is interesting to contrast what the Democrats prioritized to what the Republicans focused on: “How the House Democrats' stimulus plan compares to the Senate's”

Echoing sentiments expressed during debate on the previous coronavirus bill (the second, for those keeping track), Republican senators derided the $600 a week increase in unemployment payments as “incentivizing” workers to quit their jobs. Sens. Ben Sasse (Neb.), Rick Scott (Fla.), Tim Scott (S.C.) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.) delayed passage of the bill in order to force a vote on an amendment removing the extra unemployment funding. "This bill pays you more not to work than if you were working," Graham said. Fortunately for American workers, the amendment failed and the improved bill passed the Senate and the House.

• Note: In 2009 only three Republicans helped Obama pass his stimulus bill in his first month in office.

The giveaways in the bill

While Senate Democrats were able to add worker-friendly provisions, the bill still required bipartisan support to pass the chamber and some corporate giveaways remained in the final version.

• NYT: “Senate Republicans inserted an easy-to-overlook provision on page 203 of the 880-page bill that would permit wealthy investors to use losses generated by real estate to minimize their taxes on profits from things like investments in the stock market. The estimated cost of the change over 10 years is $170 billion.”
  
• NYT: “...if a company owns multiple hotels, even if the overall hotel or restaurant chain has more than 500 employees — the limit to qualify for treatment as a small business — it will still be able to take advantage of the small-business benefits offered in the rescue package. ...The provision could benefit the Trump Organization, which operates a relatively small chain, with six hotels in the United States in cities including New York, Washington and Chicago.”
  

Politico:

• “A provision for the FDA to approve ‘innovative’ sunscreens—which would benefit L’Oreal, which has operations in Kentucky—appeared in the bill, which was steered in the Senate by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.”
  
• “The $25 billion allocated in loans and loan guarantees for the airlines will also benefit eligible businesses "approved to perform inspection, repair, replace, or overhaul services, and ticket agents.” The last two words — ‘ticket agents’ — mean that travel agents who book flights will also be able to apply for a piece of the $25 billion.”
  
• “The credit reporting industry got a win by defeating a total ban on negative credit reports during the crisis. Instead, a watered down version made it into the final bill: Consumers wouldn't get a negative credit report if they have an agreement with a lender to delay payments or make partial payments.”
  

Trump’s signing statement

While signing the latest coronavirus relief bill, the president also issued a signing statement undercutting the congressional oversight provision creating an inspector general to track how the administration distributes the $500 billion “slush fund” money.
The newly-created inspector general is legally required to audit loans and investments made through the fund and report to Congress his/her findings, including any refusal by the executive office to cooperate. In his signing statement, Trump wrote that his understanding of constitutional powers allows him to gag the special IG:

"I do not understand, and my Administration will not treat, this provision as permitting the [inspector general] to issue reports to the Congress without the presidential supervision required" by Article II of the Constitution.

The signing statement further suggests that Trump does not have to comply with a provision requiring that agencies consult with Congress before it spends or reallocates certain funds: "These provisions are impermissible forms of congressional aggrandizement with respect to the execution of the laws," the statement reads.
While some have said that Congress fell short in this instance, one Democratic Senate aide told Politico that Congress built in multiple layers of oversight, including “a review of other inspectors general and a congressional review committee charged with overseeing Treasury and the Federal Reserve's efforts to implement the law.”
Legal experts have pointed out that a signing statement is “without legal effect.” But that ignores the fact that oversight is not equal to enforcement. The problem, in my opinion, isn’t that Congress won’t be notified of any abuses of power by Trump. The problem is that congressional Republicans and the judiciary have largely failed to hold him accountable and enforce our laws even after learning of his abuses.

Concerns about the IG

Another potential weakness in the oversight structure is the inspector general position itself. The special inspector general for pandemic recovery, known by the acronym S.I.G.P.R., is nominated by the president and confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate. As we’ve seen from Trump’s previous nominees, particularly judicial, many unqualified individuals have been confirmed. The Democrats will not have the power to stop the president and Mitch McConnell from jamming through a loyalist to fill the SIGPR role.

Former inspector general at the Justice Department Michael Bromwich: “The signing statement threatens to undermine the authority and independence of this new IG. The Senate should extract a commitment from the nominee that Congress will be promptly notified of any Presidential/Administration interference or obstruction.”

You may recall that Trump has already proven that he’s willing to interfere with the legally-mandated work of an inspector general. When the Ukraine whistleblower filed a complaint last year, the IG of the Intelligence Community, Michael Atkinson, investigated and determined the complaint to be “urgent” and “credible.” Atkinson wrote a report and gave it to Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire to hand over to Congress. However, the White House and DOJ interfered and instructed Maguire not to transmit the report to the Senate and House Intelligence Committees. Chairman Adam Schiff had to subpoena Maguire to turn over the report and testify before his committee.
Further, there are already five IG vacancies in agencies that have a critical role in responding to the pandemic. The Treasury itself has not had a permanent, Senate-confirmed IG for over eight months now, and Trump hasn’t nominated a replacement. The Treasury Dept. has taken a lead role in the coronavirus response, with Secretary Mnuchin handling most of the negotiating with Congress on Trump’s behalf. The fact that the lead agency doesn’t have IG oversight should be troublesome in itself; replicating the situation with a special IG doesn’t seem to be a promising solution.

• The other four coronavirus-related agencies without a permanent IG: Department of Health and Human Services’ IG has been vacant for nine months, Department of Defense’s IG has been vacant for four years, Department of Education’s IG has been vacant for one year, and Office of Personnel Management’s IG has been vacant for four years. Overall, there are twelve IG vacancies in the 37) presidentially-appointed offices.

UPDATE: The nation's inspectors general have appointed Glenn Fine, the Pentagon's acting IG, to lead the committee of IGs overseeing the coronavirus relief effort.

This is one of several oversight mechanisms built into the new law. They include:
A committee of IGs (now led by Fine), a new special IG (to be nominated by Trump), a congressional review panel (to be appointed by House/Senate leaders)

Direct payments

Included in the stimulus bill is a $1200 one-time direct payment for all Americans who made less than $75,000 in 2019 (less than $150,000 if couples filed jointly). More details can be found here. I have read that the Treasury will use 2018 information for those who have not filed yet this year, but I am not 100% sure that’ll happen.
Mnuchin has said that Americans can expect to receive the money within three weeks, but many experts expect that timetable to be pushed into late April. Additionally, that only applies to Americans who included direct deposit information on their 2019 tax returns. Those who did not include their bank’s information will have to be sent a physical check in the mail… which could take anywhere from two to four months.
Other options are being discussed, including partnering the Treasury Dept. with MasterCard and Visa to deliver prepaid debit cards. Venmo and Paypal are reportedly lobbying the government to be considered as a disbursement option.
Future payments?
House Speaker Pelosi is already planning another wave of direct payments to Americans, saying that the $1,200 is not enough to mitigate the economic effects of the pandemic: “I don’t think we’ve seen the end of direct payments.” Republicans, meanwhile, are taking a ‘wait and see’ approach, using the next couple of weeks to measure the impact of the $2 trillion bill passed last week.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy: “What concerns me is when I listen to Nancy Pelosi talk about a fourth package now, it’s because she did not get out of things that she really wanted...I’m not sure you need a fourth package...Let’s let this work ... We have now given the resources to make and solve this problem. We don’t need to be crafting another bill right now.”
For the fourth legislative package, Democrats have said they would like to see increased food stamp benefits; increased coverage for coronavirus testing, visits to the doctor and treatment; more money for state and local governments, including Washington, D.C.; expanded family and medical leave; pension fixes; and stronger workplace protections.

Trump’s signature
Normally, a civil servant signs federal checks, like the direct payments Americans are set to receive. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Trump has told people that he wants his signature to appear on the stimulus checks.

THE SIDES

War on the poor continues

Amid the coronavirus crisis, Trump has defended his continued support of a Republican-led lawsuit to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, which would result in 20 million Americans losing health insurance if successful. The Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in the case this fall. Contrasting with his position that the ACA is illegal, Trump is considering reopening enrollment on HealthCare.gov, allowing millions of uninsured individuals to get coverage before potentially incurring charges and fees related to COVID-19.
Joe Biden called on Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is leading the charge against the ACA, and President Trump to drop the lawsuit:

“At a time of national emergency, which is laying bare the existing vulnerabilities in our public health infrastructure, it is unconscionable that you are continuing to pursue a lawsuit designed to strip millions of Americans of their health insurance and protections under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), including the ban on insurers denying coverage or raising premiums due to pre-existing conditions.”

The Trump administration is also pushing forward with its plan to kick 700,000 people off federal food stamp assistance, known as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). The USDA announced two weeks ago that the department will appeal Judge Beryl Howell’s recent decision that the USDA’s work mandate rule is “arbitrary and capricious."
Additionally: The Social Security Administration has no plans to slow down a rule change set for June that will limit disability benefits, the Department of Health and Human Services still intends to reduce automatic enrollment in health coverage, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development will continue the process to enact a rule that would make it harder for renters to sue landlords for racial discrimination.

Lawmakers’ stock transactions

The Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission are beginning to investigate stock transactions made ahead of the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic. CNN reports that the inquiry has already reached out to Senator Richard Burr for information. “Under insider trading laws, prosecutors would need to prove the lawmakers traded based on material non-public information they received in violation of a duty to keep it confidential,” a task that won’t be easy.
Sen. Burr is facing another consequence of his trades: Alan Jacobson, a shareholder in Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, sued Burr for allegedly using private information to instruct a mass liquidation of his assets. Among the shares he sold were an up to $150,000 stake in Wyndham, whose stock suffered a market-value cut of more than two-thirds since mid-February.

Environmental rollbacks

Using the pandemic as cover, the Trump administration has begun to more aggressively roll back regulations meant to protect the environment. These are examples of what Naomi Klein dubbed “the shock doctrine”: the phenomenon wherein polluters and their government allies push through unpopular policy changes under the smokescreen of a public emergency.
On Thursday, the EPA announced (non-paywalled) an expansive relaxation of environmental laws and fines, exempting companies from consequences for pollution. Under the new rules, there are basically no rules. Companies are asked to “act responsibly” but are not required to report when their facilities discharge pollution into the air or water. Just five days before abandoning any pollution oversight, the oil industry’s largest trade group implored the administration for assistance, stating that social distancing measures caused a steep drop in demand for gasoline.

• Monday morning update: In an interview with Fox News this morning, Trump said he was going to call Putin after the interview to discuss the Saudi-Russia oil fight. A consequence of this "battle" has been plummeting prices in the U.S. making it difficult for domestic companies (like shale extraction) to turn a profit. It's striking that the day after Dr. Fauci told Americans we can expect 100,000 to 200,000 deaths from COVID-19 (if we keep social distancing measures in place), Trump's first action is to talk to Fox News and his second action is to intervene in an international tiff on behalf of the oil and gas industry.

Gina McCarthy, who led the E.P.A. under the Obama administration, called the rollback “an open license to pollute.” Cynthia Giles, who headed the EPA enforcement division during the Obama administration, said “it is so far beyond any reasonable response I am just stunned.”
The EPA is also moving forward with a widely-opposed rule to limit the types of scientific studies used when crafting new regulations or revising current ones. Hidden behind claims of increased transparency, the rule would require disclosure of all raw data used in scientific studies. This would disqualify many fields of research that rely on personal health information from individuals that must be kept confidential. For example, studies that show air pollution causes premature deaths or a certain pesticide is linked to birth defects would be rejected under the proposed rule change.
Officials and scientists are calling upon the EPA to extend the time for comment on the regulatory changes, arguing that the public is unable to express their opinion while dealing with the pandemic.

“These rollbacks need and deserve the input of our public health community, but right now, they are rightfully focused on responding to the coronavirus,” said Representative Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Other controversial decisions being made:

• A former EPA official who worked on controversial policies returned as Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s chief of staff. Mandy Gunasekara helped write regulations to ease pollution controls for coal-fired power plants and vehicle emissions in her previous role as chief of the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation. In a recent interview, Gunasekara, who played a role in the decision to exit the Paris Climate Accord, pushed back on the more dire predictions of climate change, saying, “I don't think it is catastrophic.”
  
• NYT: The plastic bag industry, battered by a wave of bans nationwide, is using the coronavirus crisis to try to block laws prohibiting single-use plastic. “We simply don’t want millions of Americans bringing germ-filled reusable bags into retail establishments putting the public and workers at risk,” an industry campaign that goes by the name Bag the Ban warned on Tuesday. (Also see The Guardian)
  
• Kentucky, South Dakota, and West Virginia passed laws putting new criminal penalties on protests against fossil fuel infrastructure in just the past two weeks.
  
• The Hill: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said Friday that it will extend the amount of time that winter gasoline can be sold this year as producers have been facing lower demand due to the coronavirus. It will allow companies to sell the winter-grade gasoline through May 20, whereas companies would have previously been required to stop selling it by May 1 to protect air quality. “In responding to an international health crisis, the last thing the EPA should do is take steps that will worsen air quality and undermine the public’s health,” biofuels expert David DeGennaro said.
  
• NYT: At the Interior Department, employees at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have been under strict orders to complete the rule eliminating some protections for migratory birds within 30 days, according to two people with direct knowledge of the orders. The 45-day comment period on that rule ended on March 19.
  
• WaPo: The Interior Department has received over 230 nominations for oil and gas leases covering more than 150,000 acres across southern Utah, a push that would bring drilling as close as a half-mile from some of the nation’s most famous protected sites, including Arches and Canyonlands National Parks… if all the fossil fuels buried in those sites was extracted and burned, it would translate into between 1 billion and 5.95 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide being released into the air. That upward measure is equal to half the annual carbon output of China
  

Court updates

Press freedom case
Southern District of New York District Judge Lorna Schofield ruled that a literary advocacy group’s lawsuit against Trump for allegedly violating the First Amendment can move forward. The group, PEN America, is pursuing claims that Trump “has used government power to retaliate against media coverage and reporters he dislikes.”
Schofield determined that PEN’s allegation that Trump made threats to chill free speech was valid, providing as an example the White House’s revocation of CNN correspondent Jim Acosta’s press press corps credentials:

”The threats are lent credence by the fact that Defendant has acted on them before, by revoking Mr. Acosta’s credentials and barring reporters from particular press conferences. The Press Secretary indeed e-mailed the entire press corps to inform them of new rules of conduct and to warn of further consequences, citing the incident involving Mr. Acosta… These facts plausibly allege that a motivation for defendant’s actions is controlling and punishing speech he dislikes.”

Twitter case
The president suffered another First Amendment defeat last week when the full 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals declined to review a previous ruling that prevents Trump from blocking users on the Twitter account he uses to communicate with the public. Judge Barrington D. Parker, a Nixon-appointee, wrote: “Excluding people from an otherwise public forum such as this by blocking those who express views critical of a public official is, we concluded, unconstitutional.”
Trump-appointees Michael Parker and Richard Sullivan authored a dissent, arguing the free speech “does not include a right to post on other people’s personal social media accounts, even if those other people happen to be public officials.” Park warned that the ruling will allow the social media pages of public officials to be “overrun with harassment, trolling, and hate speech, which officials will be powerless to filter.”
Florida’s felon voting
U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle ripped into Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s administration for failing to come up with a process to determine which felons are genuinely unable to pay court-ordered fees and fines, which are otherwise required to be paid before having their voting rights restored.
“If the state is not going to fix it, I will,” Hinkle warned. He had given the state five months to come up with an administrative process for felons to prove they’re unable to pay financial obligations, but Florida officials did not do so. The case is set to be heard on April 28 (notwithstanding any coronavirus-related delays).

ICE, Jails, and COVID-19

ICE
One of the most overlooked populations with an increased risk of death from coronavirus are those in detention facilities, which keep people in close quarters with little sanitation or protective measures (including for staff).
Last week, U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee ordered the federal government to “make continuous efforts” to release migrant children from detention centers across the country. Numerous advocacy groups asked for the release after reports that four children being held in New York had tested positive for the virus:

“The threat of irreparable injury to their health and safety is palpable,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers said in their petition… both of the agencies operating migrant children detention facilities must by April 6 provide an accounting of their efforts to release those in custody… “Her order will undoubtedly speed up releases,” said Peter Schey, co-counsel for the plaintiffs in the court case.

On Tuesday, 13 immigrants held at ICE facilities in California filed a lawsuit demanding to be released because their health conditions make them particularly vulnerable to dying if infected by the coronavirus. An ACLU statement says the detainees are “confined in crowded and unsanitary conditions where social distancing is not possible.” The 13 individuals are all over the age of 50 and/or suffering from serious underlying medical issues like high blood pressure.

“From all the evidence we have seen, ICE is failing to fulfill its constitutional obligation to protect the health and safety of individuals in its custody. ICE should exercise its existing discretion to release people with serious medical conditions from detention for humanitarian reasons,” said William Freeman, senior counsel at the ACLU of Northern California.

Meanwhile, ICE is under fire for continuing to shuttle detainees across the country, with one even being forced to take nine different flights bouncing from Louisiana to Texas to New Jersey less than two weeks ago. That man is Dr. Sirous Asgari, a materials science and engineering professor from Iran, who was acquitted last year on federal charges of stealing trade secrets. The government lost its case against him, yet ICE has had him in indefinite detention since November.

Asgari, 59, told the Guardian that his Ice holding facility in Alexandria, Louisiana, had no basic cleaning practices in place and continued to bring in new detainees from across the country with no strategy to minimize the threat of Covid-19...Detainees have no hand sanitizer, and the facility is not regularly cleaning bathrooms or sleeping areas…Detainees lack access to masks… Detainees struggle to stay clean, and the facility has an awful stench.

Jails
State jails are making a better effort to release detained individuals, as both New York and New Jersey ordered a thousand people in each state be let out of jail. The order applied only to low-level offenders sentenced to less than a year in jail and those held on technical probation violations. In Los Angeles County, officials released over 1,700 people from its jails.
A judge in Alabama took similar steps last week, ordering roughly 500 people jailed for minor offenses to be released to lessen crowding in facilities. Unlike in New York and New Jersey, however, local officials reacted in an uproar, led in part by the state executive committee for the Alabama Republican Party and Assistant District Attorney C.J. Robinson. Using angry Facebook messages as the barometer of the community’s feelings, Robinson worked “frantically” to block inmates from being released.

• Reuters: As of Saturday, at least 132 inmates and 104 staff at jails across New York City had tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus… Since March 22, jails have reported 226 inmates and 131 staff with confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to a Reuters survey of cities and counties that run America’s 20 largest jails. The numbers are almost certainly an undercount given the fast spread of the virus.

Tribe opposed by Trump loses land

On Wednesday, The Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs announced the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s reservation would be "disestablished" and its land trust status removed. Tribal Chairman Cedric Cromwell called the move "cruel" and "unnecessary,” particularly coming in the midst of a pandemic crisis. Rep. Bill Keating (D-Mass.), who last year introduced legislation to protect the tribe's reservation as trust land in Massachusetts, said the order “is one of the most cruel and nonsensical acts I have seen since coming to Congress.”
The administration’s decision is especially suspicious as just last year Trump attacked the tribe’s plan to build a casino on its land, tweeting that allowing the construction would be “unfair” and treat Native Americans unequally. As a former casino owner, Trump has spent decades attacking Native American casinos as unfair competition. At a 1993 congressional hearing Trump said that tribal owners “don’t look like Indians to me” and claimed: “I might have more Indian blood than a lot of the so-called Indians that are trying to open up the reservations” to gambling.
More than his past history, however, Trump has current interests at play in the Mashpee Wampanoag’s planned casino: it would have competed for business with nearby Rhode Island casinos owned by Twin River Worldwide Holdings, whose president, George Papanier, was a finance executive at the Trump Plaza casino hotel in Atlantic City.

In the Mashpee case, Twin River, the operator of the two Rhode Island casinos, has hired Matthew Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union and a vocal Trump supporter, to lobby for it on the land issue. Schlapp’s wife, Mercedes, is director of strategic communications at the White House.

Belarus is the New Syria

Early Receptions

The European Coalition has decided that they would take a gamble and go into Belarus to create a border state between NATO nations and Russia by backing up Belarus. This was undoubtedly a polarizing decision in France, the UK, and Canada who were furthest away from the conflict.
The Canadian citizens were absolutely peeved by their government after it was announced that there would be entry into Belarus. Their citizens called for their government to immediately pull out, and the support behind withdrawing was resounding- cripplingly so. Canadians were not so ready to go die for Belarus, when many of them couldn’t even find it on the map, or even spell it. The Liberal Party of Canada flocked against the Conservative government calling for an immediate return of the armed forces, with no reason to participate in a non-NATO activity if Germany wasn’t even going to participate. The lack of more EU nations in the coalition royally pissed off the Canadians, calling for the resignation of the Prime Minister and the leading Conservative government. Despite Canadian troops not even actually being deployed to the front, the people did not care and insisted on withdrawal regardless.
In the UK, the reception was a lot less one-sided. There were clear supporters and dissenters of the intervention. Far-right borderline Russophillic organizations like Brexit Party and UKIP were staunchly against the intervention, but it was sort of a meme so no one really paid much attention. However, the SNP, Lib Dems, and the Greens really kicked up a fuss about the situation in general. Labour was in a 70-30 split where the majority called for no-intervention while the side that still defends intervention in Iraq in the minority was shouted down. There was no specific unison to one side, and the debate was so radicalizing that a fist-fight broke out in Parliament over the intervention. Labour’s large majority to anti-intervention created some very vocal and popular players that started Anti-War protests which have stalled above ground traffic in London to a halt. However, the mood is very split, and the media is just as split. The younger generation erring on the side of withdrawal, the older generation thinking it's a good idea.
Obviously, the National Rally threw a fit, they called Russia an “old threat” stating that Macron should move on and stop taking advice from his teacher wife. En Marche rallied around Macron without much dissident, they were just glad that France was doing something and was in charge. The Socialist Party was really upset that France was going abroad while quality of life in France has been going down in recent years, stating that the money could better be spent on infrastructure and renewables. The Republicans were split with The Popular Right faction siding with the National Rally, and condemned the intervention. Largely, France was pretty split politically, but still the sitting government was large enough to sustain the tension with a slight decrease in the polls. The French public was more waiting to see the results than anything else, no one was really excited and ready to jump to a conflict, but they were going to see how it went before getting too worked up.
Poland was having a wild time.

Detours and Delays

Lithuania and Latvia on the other hand, wanted absolutely nothing to do with the intervention and told the European Coalition in the nicest terms possible that they love their protection but will not support an intervention from their soil out of concerns for the safety of their citizens and countries. Because this wasn’t a NATO operation, they asked the coalition to leave. Which left the Coalition with a major issue- where to go next? It was eventually agreed upon that the initial pushes from Latvia and Lithuania would have to be delayed as the troops moved around to Ukraine who gave them the go-ahead to use their area instead, since they were in a frozen eternal war already. However, parts of the Polish contribution were still ready to go as they bordered Belarus, with the Lida-Baranovishi offensive cancelled to bring troops around. Polish troops at Bialystok moved into Belarus and reinforced Belarus’ western flank, as another unit from Biala Podlaska moved to Brest and up to Pinsk to reinforce.

Kaliningrad was Relevant for the First Time since WW2

However the most early operation was quite unexpected- France moved 3 FREMM ships off of Poland’s coast and began volleys of missile strikes on identified Russian SAM positions using satellites (the drones were helpful but some got shot down and were not as consistent as satellites). This took out a few SAM batteries in the first volley, but there was a grizzly, forgotten enemy silently lurking. A scream ripped through the sky as the hull of the first FREMM was split at the waterline and folded in before exploding in a ball of fire. Russian Zicrons. The ASM hypersonic missiles were quickly wheeled out into firing range in Kaliningrad and launched at the FREMM ships sitting like open ducks in the water. Moments later the second ship was hit and began suffering engine troubles, unable to escape as it was hit by a second missile and sunk. The third FREMM escaped from combat.

Su-57 just ok, but SAM go brrr

At the same time, the European Coalition began launching their aircraft in an effort to establish air-superiority. Russia began launching interception aircraft from Eastern Belarussian air bases that were unable to be destroyed, and from far-western Russian air bases. Which was originally ordained as a “struggle to escape production,” the Su-57 proved its worth as it engaged Polish F-16s over the skies. Russia had the early-battle advantage in air-superiority as the Su-35 proved itself as an effective fighter still, and the MiG-35 entered the area, both of them scoring some F-16 and Rafale kills. However, clear issues surfaced as Rafale F4.2 was able to lock on to an Su-57, and downed it. It appeared that both the Rafale and the F-16 were able to engage these new Russian aircraft. Although, due to the new Su-57M not having seen combat yet, it remains uncertain as to its capabilities. After a long series of back and forth, the European Coalition was able to gain temporary air superiority, but it was consistently under the threat of S-series SAM weapons. As expected, the Typhoon was a disappointment, sorry. While they controlled the area as Russia licked its wounds, how long could Europe sustain it as they had taken a number of losses as well, and they were still climbing.

Welp, we did it boys, Minsk is no more!

While the real war was happening in the sky, and oddly enough off the Polish coast, the Russian Bear had finished licking the blood off of its claws and came in for the head of Belarus strategic operation. Minsk was one of the only places that was avoided entirely by the European Coalition, and the Belarussian defense force was already significantly disadvantaged. While Russia had some logistical issues before, the European spearhead that was supposed to cripple Russia had not come yet due to the tactical detour. Russian engineering corps rolled out and began fixing up bridges and roadways. However this would take time, but luckily temporary bridges were laid down and in some places over destroyed roadways just to create a stable area and the fuel, ammunition, and mechanic corps began rolling in. With Russian troops now rolling in with their needs partly relieved, there was great motivation to keep going for Minsk as the city was quickly encircled. Belarussian troops made a valiant effort to hold their own, but with the city facing encirclement, and already bruised, the government chose to attempt to set up a new HQ in the south, which was quickly halted in the southern outskirts as Russian troops closed in around them, capturing President Lukashenko and the general staff. From there on, Minsk fell to the Russian forces with many of the remaining Belarussian forces surrendering to the Russians or just destroying and hiding their uniforms and tossing their weapon to the street, attempting to go on with their lives without the threat of execution. Many of Minsk outer neighborhoods were reduced to rubble, and President Lukashenko, now in Russian hands, felt that the European Coalition deliberately sacrificed him.

The Western Fronts

Grodno and the offensive from Lida to Baranovichi was destined to be a slog. Polish troops pushed for Grodno, which was hotly contested. However, Russia was extended and ended up in a conflict in Minsk. Poland was pretty much dedicated to only two objectives rather than maintaining a front line like Russia had to, but that was going to quickly change as surrendering Belarussian forces gave up, some choosing to stay and fight with the Coalition. As Poland began pushing Russia back into Grodno, Russian troops took advantage of the breaking lines at Lida and lurched towards Baranovichi, but this came at the cost of Grodno. Russia expected that Minsk would have held on longer, but the pincer seemed to be what was needed to cause its collapse. Russia continued to move towards Baranovichi where it met some of the Polish forces also arriving from the spearhead from Grodno. A large battle began there, splitting the city in half, as Poland began having to take over front-line duties with Russia as Belarus units crumbled they also became spread out like the Russian forces which essentially stopped any rapid advance. Russian forces arrived south of Baranovichi as well, just while another main unit pushed through Pinsk and engaged at the midway point between Brest and Pinsk. At this point, the conflict essentially halted as Russia was able to thicken their lines as the border grew smaller, and Poland began fanning out into maintaining a front.

The Thunder from Down Under

Russia began receiving intelligence reports of massive European Coalition columns moving through Ukraine with photograph and video evidence from local Russians and those sympathetic to Russia. Russia was able to track these gradually across their movement across Ukraine, but was really too busy dealing with Poland and Minsk to pull troops off the line to prepare for it. What Russia didn’t know is what size of force to expect. They had an idea of a large European Coalition, but that didn’t really help them with actual size. MVD Internal Troops were called in by Russia to defend objectives and guard the supply chains earlier during the operation, but with the forces busy with Poland, they were unsure of how to temporarily face the situation, so deployed MVD Internal Troop units to the border south of Gomel. Gomel seemed like where European troops were going to come into Belarus from, and when they arrived, they came in force. Coalition aircraft began hitting the internal troop units in Gomel, which they were definitely not prepared for as Coalition mechanized units and armor rolled them over straight into Gomel. Quickly realizing what was happening, Russia sent more of the Internal Troops and some of the back line from the southern push over to hold it off, but the coalition took Gomel. As these new units began to engage, it was difficult stopping the spearhead without a dedicated force, and the logistical issues were beginning to resurface, which was the primary objective of the spearhead. Cutting off Gomel meant that troops at the front near Brest and Pinsk had to rely on longer routes from Mogilev and Viciebsk near the border. The Coalition began driving the knife into the back of the Russian forces, but at what cost? The Coalition was unable to pull off their original encirclement, and Belarus wasn’t able to be saved due to timing. Only a minimal buffer state area remains and they began asking themselves what their next move will be. Poland and Russia were slapping each other in the West while Russia began considering a large deployment to the East. Both sides had significant issues, and yet both sides made gains. It was truly the new Syria.

Time to Talk [Mod Sanctioned Diplomacy- you must now talk]

Officers on both sides agreed that it was time to talk about some sort of ceasefire or peace agreement now that Belarus was no longer a primary part of the equation. An escalation between the European Coalition and the Russian Federation could end badly, and neither side is thrilled about prolonging the conflict. Now, the Russia Federation is having issues with anti-war protests since Belarus has largely been taken and they are not wanting a full confrontation with the European nations. In the coalition, there are rising political sentiments that are becoming impossible to ignore, and a full-scale conflict with Russia has already arrived, members of the defense ministries and government of both sides have pleaded with the leadership to do something about the situation before this spirals out of control. While Brest and Grodno was not what was initially hoped for, a buffer state still looks possible under different leadership. President Putin will still be able to walk away with most of Belarus, the stage has been set. Latvia has agreed to host discussions in Riga and the invitations have been sent out. Now that Belarus is no longer separating the parties or acting as a basis for the conflict, a deal must be made to prevent a conflict of catastrophic proportions.
Map
Russia

• Infantry: 17,147 killed, 26,882 wounded
• T-90MS: 64
• T-72: 51
• BMP-2M: 83
• BMP-3M: 52
• S-400: 3 batteries
• S-300: 9 batteries
• Buk: 15 batteries
• MiG-35: 5
• Su-24: 10
• Su-25: 8
• Su-34: 5
• Su-35: 12
• Su-57: 3
• Mi-28: 7
• Ka-52: 10

Belarus

• Infantry: 28,944 killed, 34,100 wounded, ~30,000 captured/surrendered/MIA, ~10,000 in Coalition territory
• 50-60% of all equipment was destroyed or lost in the final stages of Minsk
• 10% captured by Russia

Poland

• Infantry: 7,161 killed, 10,253 wounded
• 10% of deployed ground vehicles lost
• F-16: 8
• MiG-29: 13
• Mi-24D: 4

UK

• Infantry: 562 killed, 603 wounded
• 5% of deployed ground vehicles lost
• Typhoon: 14

France

• Infantry: 414 killed, 561 wounded
• 5% of deployed ground vehicles lost
• Aquitaine and Provence FFGs
• Rafales: 12
• Mirages: 6
• Eurocopter: 7
• MQ-9: 2

Canada

• Blackjacks: 5

Plz stop fighting, k thank.

Trailer - https://youtu.be/GlKkj_aHMXk
In 2017, explosive allegations first emerged that the authorities of the Chechen Republic were reportedly interning gay men in concentration camps. After a three year period of dormancy, the accusations have resurfaced in a new feature length documentary by HBO Films entitled Welcome to Chechnya. Shot between mid-2017 and early last year, the film has received widespread acclaim among Western media and film critics. Shortly after its release last month, the Trump administration and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced an increase in economic sanctions and imposed travel restrictions against Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and his family, citing the putative human rights abuses in the southern Russian republic covered in the film.
Most of the boilerplate reviews of Welcome to Chechnya have heaped particular praise upon the documentary’s novelty use of ‘deepfake’ technology to hide the identities of alleged victims in the cinematic investigation. Yet at the closing of the film, one subject who previously appears with his likeness concealed by AI reveals himself at a news conference without the disguise—rendering the prior use of synthetic media fruitless. Maxim Lapunov, who is not even ethnically Chechen but a Russian native of Siberia, is still the only individual to have gone public with the charges. Despite the obvious credibility and authenticity questions regarding the use of such controversial technology, it has not prevented critics from lauding it unquestioningly. Unfortunately, even some in alternative media have been regurgitating the film’s propaganda such as The Intercept, a slick online news publication owned by billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar whose financial ties to the national security state and U.S. soft power institutions conflict with the outlet’s purported mission. Notably, The Intercept’s glowing review of Welcome to Chechnya was written by Mehdi Hasan, a journalist who also works for Al-Jazeera, a news agency owned by the ruling emirs of Qatar, a theocratic dictatorship where homosexuality is actually illegal .
The documentarians follow the work of a purported network of activists who evacuate individuals like Lapunov out of the Caucasian republic. This is the film’s primary source of drama, despite their encountering seemingly no difficulty from the local authorities in doing so. We are then subjected to random cell phone clips of apparent hate crimes and human rights abuses going on, but at no point does the film crew even visit the Argun prison where the anti-gay pogroms are alleged to have taken place. In 2017, the imperial hipsters at Vice news were given unrestricted access to the facility where nothing was found and the warden adamantly denied the allegations — but not without expressing his own disapproval of homosexuality which was assumed by his interrogators to be evidence of the detentions having occurred. In the HBO documentary, a similar hatchet job is done to Ramzan Kadyrov, whose uncomfortable denial of the existence of homosexuality in the deeply conservative and predominantly Muslim republic is implied to be proof that the purges must be happening. One may recall this same sort of smear tactic was previously done to former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. However, Kadyrov and the warden’s predictable responses to the subject serve only as confirmation bias, not confirmation.
The selective outrage in response to the alleged purges, like all things Russia-related, is highly politicized. Western viewers would have no idea that of the 74 countries worldwide where homosexuality is still criminalized, Russia isn’t among them. In more than a dozen of those nations, same-sex activity is punishable by death, a few of which happen to be close strategic allies of the United States, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. As recently as 2017, the U.S. was one of 13 countries to vote against a United Nations Human Rights Council resolution condemning countries with capital punishment for same-sex relations to avoid falling-out with those allies, most of which have legal systems established on their respective interpretations of Sharia law. While the local authorities of the Muslim-majority Chechen Republic have been allowed to introduce some elements of the fundamentalist religious code by the Russian government such as the banning of alcohol and gambling and requiring the wearing of hijab by women, as a federal subject it is still ultimately beholden to Russia’s secular constitution. In fact, it was Kadyrov’s predecessor, Alu Alkhanov, who hoped to govern Chechnya with Sharia law, not the current administration. Credulous audiences would have no clue that Kadyrov actually represents the more moderate wing of Chechen politics because there is absolutely no history or context provided, a deliberately misleading choice on the part of the filmmakers.
The absence of any historical background deceptively suggests that theanti-gay sentiment in the mostly Muslim North Caucasus is somehow an extension of the homophobia in Russia itself, despite the autonomous differences in religion, culture, and society. In the last decade, the weaponization of identity politics has been central to Washington’s ongoing demonization of Russia and its President, Vladimir Putin, with the issue of LGBT rights particularly given significant attention. While homosexuality is decriminalized, there is admittedly no legal prohibition of discrimination against the LGBT community in Russia. In particular, human rights groups have condemned the notorious federal law passed in 2013 known as the ‘gay propaganda law’ that forbids the distribution of information promoting “non-traditional sexual relations” to minors, which entails the banning of gay pride parades and other LGBT rights demonstrations. However, the measure enjoys widespread support among the Russian people whose social conservatism has been resuscitated by the Orthodox Church since the breakup of the Soviet Union. It is rather ironic and hypocritical that the West has since taken issue with this turn, considering it facilitated that political transformation.
In reality, the reason for the relentless vilification of Putin has absolutely nothing to to do with the exaggerated plight of gays in Russia and a lot more to do with the reversal of policies under his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin. In the nineties, the mass privatization of the former state-owned enterprises during Russia’s conversion to capitalism resulted in the instant impoverishment of millions and the rapid rise of the notorious ‘oligarchs’ which the West characterized at the time as progression towards democracy. In the loans-for-shares scheme, a new ruling class of bankers and industrialists accumulated enormous wealth overnight and by the middle of the decade, owned or controlled much of the country’s media outlets. The oligarchs held enormous power and influence over the deeply unpopular Yeltsin, who would surely have lost reelection in 1996 without their backing and the assistance of Western meddling in the form of massive loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
While economic disparity and corruption persists today, overall the Russian economy has been rebuilt after its energy assets were re-nationalized and brought back under state control by the Putin administration, resulting in improved living standards and income levels for the last two decades. By the same measure, the Russian people can hardly be blamed for associating homosexuality with the unbridled neoliberalism, vulture capitalism and draconian austerity imposed on their country by Western capital. It is also truly paradoxical that the notion of “Russian oligarchs” has become synonymous with Putin in the minds of Westerners when many of the most obscenely wealthy oligarchs of the Yeltsin era now live in exile as his most ardent political opponents after they faced prosecution for their financial crimes. Not coincidentally, the initial reports of the ‘gay gulags’ in Chechnya were published in Novaya Gazeta, an anti-Putin newspaper partly owned by former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, the very man who ushered in the economic liberalization which auctioned off the state assets to oligarchs like co-owner Alexander Lebedev.
Gorbachev’s reforms, particularly that of perestroika (“restructuring”), also had destructive consequences for the national question and ethno-regional interests. V.I. Lenin had famously called the Russian Empire a “prison house of nations”, in reference to its heterogeneous range of nationalities and ethnic groups. The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 especially re-agitated ethno-national conflicts in the Caucasus, a region that had enjoyed several decades of relative harmony and stability under socialism with rights and representation that did not exist in pre-revolutionary Russia. While Azerbaijan and Georgia were granted independence, Chechnya and many other municipalities remained under federal control of the Russian Federation, as sovereignty did not constitutionally apply because it had never been an independent state. Not to mention, its oil and gas reserves are essential to Russia’s very economic survival.
The jihadism which plagued the Caucasus was an outgrowth of the U.S.-backed ‘holy war’ in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the brainchild of Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor in the Jimmy Carter administration. It was the Polish-born Brzezinski who not only authored the geostrategy of arming the mujahideen against the Soviets but the efforts to turn Russia’s own large Muslim minority community against them. This was mostly unsuccessful as the majority of its 20 million Muslims (10% of the population) are harmoniously integrated into Russian society, but the Atlanticists did fan the flames of a militant secessionist movement in Chechnya that erupted in a violent insurgency and became increasingly Islamist as the conflict dragged on. For Washington, the hope was that the West could gain access to Caspian oil by encouraging the al-Qaeda-linked separatists rebranded as “rebels” vulnerable to its domination in the energy-rich region. The collapse of the USSR already escalated hostilities between the intermingling ethnic communities of the region, but the antagonisms were intensified by CIA soft power cutouts like the Jamestown Foundation fomenting the secessionist insurrection. As the separatist movement grew increasingly Wahhabist thanks to U.S.-ally Saudi Arabia, its more moderate nationalist faction led by Akhmad Kadyrov eventually defected back to the Russian side. The elder Kadyrov would pay the price when he was assassinated in a 2004 stadium bombing in Grozny during an annual Victory Day celebration, with his son becoming one of his successors.
The Kremlin’s support for the Kadyrovs should be understood as a compromise which prevented the more radical Islamists from taking power, which apparently Washington would be happier with running the North Caucasus. What a human rights utopia Chechnya would be as a breakaway Islamic state, under the salafists which during the Chechen wars committed unspeakable acts of terrorism including the taking of hospital patients, theater goers, and even hundreds of schoolchildren as hostages. One can be certain that if there aren’t anti-gay pogroms going on in Chechnya now, there definitely would be without the likes of Kadyrov in power. In the documentary, what the Chechen leader does implicitly acknowledge may be occurring are individual honor killings within families and clans, a social problem common in other Muslim countries such as Pakistan, and certainly not a human rights issue particular to Chechnya. Many instances of honor killings in the Muslim world have included homosexuality as a motive for the extrajudicial killings by relatives of victims believed to have betrayed the family honor. On the other hand, Kadyrov himself has overseen the establishment of unprecedented reconciliation commissions to address the issue of honor culture, blood feuds and vendetta codes of Caucasian tribes. Kadyrov’s promotion of reconciliation has made significant progress in reducing such killings which were rampant during the Chechen Wars as family members would often seek to avenge the deaths of loved ones. Now that the region is in a period of relative stability, peace and economic recovery, with the once devastated city of Grozny now known as the ‘Dubai of the North Caucasus’, the West is suddenly feigning concern over human rights.
The swift end brought to the conflict by Putin was another reason for his becoming a target of Washington who had been counting on the balkanization of southern Russia. In a pinnacle of imperial projection, the explanation for Putin’s rise to power has since been revised by the Atlanticists to his having somehow secretly masterminded the 1999 Moscow apartment bombings while director of the Federal Security Service (FSB, the KGB’s successor), as if the neocons hope to deflect all of the longstanding rumors about the Bush administration and the 9/11 attacks onto the Kremlin. Except this Machiavellian conspiracy would be a lot more believable if the Chechen wars had not been going on since the early nineties, with much worse terrorist attacks already having been committed by the separatists, such as the taking of thousands of hospital patients as hostages in southern Russia. Since the end of the Chechen Wars, on the flip side the U.S. has also backed Russian opposition figure and Putin critic Alexei Navalny, a right-wing Islamophobe who has pledged to secede the North Caucasus while comparing its Muslim inhabitants to cockroaches. Despite his anti-immigrant rhetoric and minuscule 2% support among Russians, Navalny has been depicted as a “pro-democracy” and “anti-corruption” campaigner in Western media, who have been crying foul over his recent suspected poisoning in Russia and ensuing comatose airlift to Germany. If only the naive American liberals who read The New York Times and The Washington Post had any idea that Mr. Navalny has far more in common with the dreaded Mr. Trump than Putin does.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has already experienced blowback for its nurturing of terrorism in the Caucasus in the form of the Boston Marathon bombings, which recently returned to the news when convicted Chechen-American perpetrator Dzokhar Tsarnaev’s death sentence was vacated on appeal last month. In the aftermath of the April 2013 attacks, it was revealed that Tsarnaev’s deceased older brother and co-conspirator Tamerlan Tsarnaev had been radicalized attending seminars financed by the Jamestown Foundation while traveling abroad in Tblisi, Georgia, and the brothers’ uncle Ruslan Tsarni had previously been married to the daughter of high-ranking U.S. intelligence officer Graham Fuller, Brzezinski’s CIA station chief in Kabul, Afghanistan, during the Afghan-Soviet war. It also came to light that ‘Uncle Ruslan’ had previously worked for the CIA-linked United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and established a company called the Congress for Chechen International Organizations which funded Islamic militants in the Caucasus. Despite the astounding ‘coincidences’ surrounding the Tsarnaev clan, Uncle Ruslan was never considered a person of interest by the FBI, who had ignored warnings by the Russian FSB of Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s extremism prior to the attacks.
Two years before Putin’s election, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the prime mover of the West‘s plan to dominate the globe by using Islam to bring down the USSR in delivering the Soviet equivalent of the Vietnam War, wrote in The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997):
“…The last decade of the twentieth century has witnessed a tectonic shift in world affairs. For the first time ever, a non-Eurasian power has emerged not only as a key arbiter of Eurasian power relations but also as the world’s paramount power. The defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union was the final step in the rapid ascendance of a Western Hemisphere power, the United States, as the sole and, indeed, the first truly global power.”
Those words were written before the return of both Russia and China on the world stage, developments that have thrown a monkey wrench into Washington’s plans which the Russophobic Warsaw-native did not anticipate in his blueprint for Western hegemony. When the U.S.-backed headchoppers in the Syrian war nearly had control of Damascus, just a thousand miles or so from Sochi, the threat of jihadism returning to the Caucasus became very real. Beginning at the Munich Conference in 2007, Putin had begun to criticize the monopolistic expansion of NATO on Russia’s borders — but after the subsequent overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi where Moscow witnessed Libya transformed into a hotbed of terrorism like post-Saddam Iraq, the prospect of the same happening in Syria was an existential threat that could not be tolerated. In mainstream media, reality has been inverted where Moscow’s self-defense has been portrayed as expansionism, even though the so-called “annexation” of Crimea was virtually nonviolent compared to the Nazi junta initiated by Washington in Ukraine and the Russian-speaking people of Donetsk and Luhansk who voted to join Russia did not wish to end up like those massacred in Odessa. Besides, is the U.S. not currently annexing northeast Syria? The Crimean parliament and Syrian government invited Moscow, while the same cannot be said for the US presence in violation of international law.
Those with no respect for the sovereignty of nations in Washington would prefer Americans to see Russia as an adversary. During the Cold War, the threat was communism, but with capitalism restored in Eastern Europe, it became necessary to manipulate liberals into perceiving Russia as a ultra conservative regime. They must also keep Americans from knowing the true history of US-Russia relations — that Russia was the first nation to recognize American independence when Catherine the Great’s neutrality during the Revolutionary War indirectly aided the Thirteen Colonies in their victory against the Loyalists and Great Britain. During the War of Independence, the Russian Empress had maintained relations with the U.S. and rebuffed British requests for military assistance. The Russian Empire also later helped secure the Union victory during the Civil War, with an Imperial Navy fleet off the shores of the Pacific preventing the Confederates from landing troops on the west coast and deterring intervention by the British and the French. Then as Allies in WWII, while the U.S. was victorious in the Pacific, it was the Soviets who truly won the war in Europe, a feat the Anglo-Americans are still trying to take credit for to this day. Unfortunately, despite his promising rhetorical embrace of détente with Moscow that has made him the subject of political persecution, Donald Trump has proven to be every bit as hostile toward Russia as his forerunners. With the latest actions taken by his state department regarding Chechnya that are right out of the Brzezinski playbook, the idiom that “the more things change, the more they stay the same” certainly applies to Washington and US-Russia relations.
*Max Parry is an independent journalist and geopolitical analyst. His writing has appeared widely in alternative media. Max may be reached at [email protected]

Trump consistently nominates the worst possible person for every job. His campaign slogan was "drain the swamp", but instead he's putting lobbyists and business executives in charge of regulating their own industries. His nominees enrich their business buddies and waste taxpayer money for their own pleasure.
I'll break down his cabinet, nomination by nomination. (plus a couple cabinet-level positions such as EPA administrator)

Commerce

Wilbur Ross

• Completely out of touch. He wondered aloud why furloughed federal workers went to food banks rather than applying for loans
• Said COVID would "accelerate the return of jobs to North America"
• Bragged about the lack of protests in his Saudi trip (protest is illegal in Saudi Arabia)
• Tried to add a citizenship question to the census. This wouldn't be objectionable on its own, but leaked emails revealed that the citizenship question was part of a Republican plot to reduce the reply rate of immigrants and rig the census in favor of Republicans.
• Held Russian and Chinese assets during his tenure, despite pledging to divest from them on his ethics agreement. After learning that reporters were looking into these holdings, he dumped some of them before the news could bring the stock price down. This may count as insider trading.
• Allegedly, Ross habitually stole large sums of money from his businesses. The allegations total over $120 million.
• Trump mistakenly said that Hurricane Dorian was forecast to hit Alabama. Simple mistake that can quickly be corrected, right? Not with Trump. He doubled down on it and demanded that his administration fall in line. Ross Threatened to fire NOAA officials who didn't repeat Trump's misstatement as fact. Dorian, by the way, did not wind up touching Alabama.

Interior

Ryan Zinke

• Promoted birther conspiracies
• Pushed Trump to loosen restrictions on trophy hunting
• Granted trophy-hunting permits to his buddies
• Seems to think that his job, and that of federal employees in general, is "loyalty" to the President
• Retaliates against employees who speak out about climate change
• Said climate change has nothing to do with the severity of California's wildfires, and instead promoted a conspiracy theory about terrorist groups
• Used taxpayer money on private aircraft trips. He tried to get out of it by saying that technically he never took a private jet, because they were private planes and helicopters instead
• His office spent $139,000 on new doors
• Worked with developers to plan out a land deal that would benefit his own businesses
• Was finally pressured to resign

David Bernhardt

• Fossil fuel lobbyist with dozens of conflicts of interest
• Illegally kept lobbying after de-registering

CIA

Mike Pompeo

• Climate change denier
• Invoked "state secrets privilege" to hinder the investigation of war criminals
• Pushed to allow the CIA to make drone strikes with no oversight
• Left to become Secretary of State

Gina Haspel

• One of the war criminals Pompeo protected. Haspel oversaw a secret CIA torture site

State

Rex Tillerson

• Oil executive with no diplomatic qualifications
• Worked with russia, and was even awared the Order of Friendship by Putin for his oil work
• Opposed Russia sanctions
• ExxonMobil violated existing Russia sanctions while Tillerson was CEO
• Did nothing about Erdogan's goons attacking protestors on US soil
• Left three countries out of the annual report on countries that used child soldiers, going against the unanimous recommendations of his staff
• Gutted the State Department, pushing out career diplomats in droves
• Trump went behind Tillerson's back to let Kushner do diplomacy, and eventually fired Tillerson

Mike Pompeo (continued from his tenure as CIA director)

• Denies that Israeli West Bank settlements violate international law
• Denied reports from his own intelligence agencies that bin Salman ordered the Jamal Khashoggi murder
• Took part in the phone call where Trump pressured Ukraine's president to give him dirt on Joe Biden

Treasury

Steve Mnuchin

• Goldman Sachs executive
• Hedge fund owner who used offshore accounts to dodge taxes
• Bought the bank OneWest, and had it foreclose on thousands of homeowners. OneWest paid the federal government $89 million to settle its violations under Mnuchin.
• Pushed for the 2017 tax cuts for the rich, saying they'd pay for themselves. Now that we've seen trillion-dollar deficits from those tax cuts, he's doubled down on his claim.
• Wastefully used military planes for travel, at a high cost to taxpayers

Defense

James Mattis

• Actually qualified
• Resigned over Trump's betrayal of our Kurdish allies
• Later called Trump "the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people"

Patrick Shanahan (Nominated)

• Appointed as Acting Secretary of Defense after Mattis resigned
• No military or intelligence background. Spent 31 years at Boeing, leading to possible conflicts of interest.
• Resigned as soon as the media started looking into allegations of domestic abuse

Mark Esper

• Former Raytheon executive
• Urged governors to "Dominate the battlespace" against the George Floyd protestors
• Told commanders to check with him before making decisions on how to protect their troops from COVID, for fear of making Trump look bad by going against his underplaying of the disease.

Agriculture

Sonny Perdue

• Has a habit of appointing his friends, donors, and campaign workers to government jobs
• Is allegedly suppressing climate science from his department

EPA

Scott Pruitt

• Climate denier
• Pushed Trump to exit the Paris Agreement
• Constantly met with fossil fuel executives, and never with environmental groups
• Fired EPA scientists to replace them with business representatives
• Rolled back dozens of environmental protections, such as the Clean Water Rule and a ban on the pesticide chlorpyrifos
• Lowered fuel emissions standards
• Blocked the release of a study showing the dangers of PFOA and PFOS
• Lied to Congress about his use of private email accounts to conduct government business
• Pulled EPA staff off of investigating environmental crimes to instead serve as his personal security guards
• Potentially took a bribe from a lobbyist couple by renting their condo below market rate
• Spent over 160k of taxpayer money on air travel
• I give up. I'm not even halfway through his corruption scandals. I have to leave some room for the rest of them.
• Finally resigned

Andrew Wheeler

• Coal lobbyist
• Rapidly rolling back environmental protections. This article covers some of those rollbacks, including:
• Gutting the coal ash rule
• Rolling back Clean Water Act protections
• Weakening the mercury emissions rule

Labor

Andrew Puzder (nominated)

• His companies committed hundreds of labor violations
• Repeatedly delayed his confirmation hearing because he hadn't submitted any of his ethics paperwork.
• Withdrew his nomination once it became clear that he didn't have the votes

Alexander Acosta

• When he was a federal attorney, he granted an extremely generous plea deal to Jeffrey Epstein.
• Illegally failed to notify Epstein's victims of this plea deal
• Resigned once people started looking more closely at the deal

Eugene Scalia

• Spent his career as a lawyer fighting against labor regulations.

Health and Human Services

Tom Price

• Used private and military jets for overseas travel, wasting over a million dollars of taxpayer money.
• Resigned in under a year

Alex Azar

• Pharmaceutical executive who jacked insulin prices
• Illegally colluded to keep Insulin prices higher in Mexico
• Tried to end federal recognition of the existence of trans people.
• Rolled back LGBT protections such as adoption equality
• HHS had a disasterous COVID response under his watch. We'll look at this in more detail in the COVID post.

Housing and Urban Development

Ben Carson

• No relevant qualifications
• Doesn't know the basics of the housing industry
• Hires loyalists from the Trump campaign instead of people with relevant qualifications
• Spent $31,000 of taxpayer money on a dining set and then lied about it
• Violated ethics rules by letting his son offer business partners the chance to have access to him
• Is trying to adopt a new rule that would allow homeless shelters to discriminate against anyone who looks like they might be trans.

Transportation

Elaine Chao

• Mitch McConnell's wife
• Her sister and father have big investments in China, leading to conflicts of interest
• Failed to divest from a paving company as required by her ethics agreement. She later sold them at a higher price than when she took office.

Energy

Rick Perry

• The Department of Energy was one of three departments Perry campaigned on abolishing back in 2012. (along with Commerce and Education)
• Instead of doing his job and promoting clean energy, he tries to keep us reliant on fossil fuels. He spreads climate denial and makes utterly absurd pro-fossil-fuel arguments like that they can help prevent sexual assault in Africa
• Met with coal executives to set up subsidies for coal companies and rollbacks of Obama-era regulations.
• Played a major role in the Ukraine scandal. We don't know the full details, since he's refused to comply with subpoenas, but we do know that one of his big donors managed to secure a major oil and gas contract out of it.
• Resigned due to fallout from the scandal

Dan Brouillette

• The one pick who hasn't been a complete disaster
• He even believes in climate change. (which is an incredibly low bar to clear for Secretary of Energy, but he does clear it)

Education

Betsy DeVos

• Doesn't know a thing about education. Completely clueless any time she's questioned. Didn't know about the debate between measuring by growth vs measuring by proficiency, didn't know that federal law protected students with disabilities, and didn't know about school accountability standards.
• Her family are long-time GOP mega-donors. She bragged that her donations were buying influence, saying "We expect a return on our investment".
• Revoked student loan protections
• Stopped investigations into fraud by private universities, and put a DeVry executive in charge of the department that was supposed to do those investigations
• Pledged to divest from dozens of companies as part of her ethics agreement during confirmation, but refused to follow through. This leads to some serious conflicts of interest, such as her investment in Neurocore.
• Was VP of the Edgar & Elsa Prince Foundation, which made large donations to extreme anti-gay groups such as Focus on the Family. She claims to have had no involvement with the foundation.
• Funded Michigan's anti-lockdown protests
• DeVos's lifelong drive has been to shift power and funding from public schools to religious and charter schools. This article is well worth reading, and goes into detail on her motivations and actions. She said "Our desire is to confront the culture in ways that will continue to advance God’s kingdom."
• Succeeded in getting Michigan to adopt widespread charter schools, ultimately leading to worse outcomes
• Is fine with government funding going towards private schools that refuse to accept LGBTQ students
• Redirected millions in COVID funds inteded for public schools to private schools
• Sided with Trump's threat to cut funding to public schools that delayed reopening. Said kids being in school is not "in any way dangerous".

Homeland Security

John Kelly

• Joked that Trump should attack members of the press with a sword
• Came up with the family separation policy, explicitly saying that its goal was to be a deterrent.
• Left after 6 months to become Chief of Staff

Kirstjen Nielsen

• This is a good timeline of Nielsen's role in carrying out the family separation policy. Of note:
• She repeatedly denied the existence of a family separation policy
• DHS separated families that were legally seeking asylum
• At least 471 parents were deported without their children
• Eventually, she and Trump gave in to backlash and repealed the policy. Trump later fired her for refusing to reimplement it.

Nobody

• Cabinet officials need Senatorial approval, which (even with a Republican-controlled Senate) is more oversight than Trump is comfortable with. He found a loophole of not appointing a nominee at all, thus letting his "acting" DHS secretary run the department indefinitely. The current acting secretary is Chad Wolf
• Under Wolf, DHS is sending unmarked federal officers to take protestors off the streets with no accountability.

Attorney General

Jeff Sessions

• Even back in the 80s, he was considered too racist for a federal judgeship by a Republican-controlled Senate
• Had contacts with Russia's ambassador during the campaign. Surprisingly, he did the right thing and recused himself from the Russia investigation due to this conflict of interest. Trump never forgave him for this, and eventually fired him.

William Barr

• The single worst person Trump has appointed
• Has perverted the normally-neutral Justice Department into an arm of the Trump White House, and gone out of his way to shield Trump from consequenses
• No links in this post, but he'll get his own section in the post on Trump's obstruction of justice

Veterans affairs

David Shulkin

• Vacationed on the taxpayers' dime, and then had his office forge documents to cover it up.
• Fired

Ronny Jackson (Nominated)

• Racked up a long list of conduct allegations during his time as personal White House physician. These include freely writing prescriptions for whatever people wanted, writing himself prescriptions, creating a hostile work environment, and repeatedly being drunk while on duty.
• Withdrew his nomination after it became clear that he wouldn't get confirmed
• The whole reason that he was considered for a cabinet position is that he sucked up to Trump by giving him a laughably positive bill of health. This included lines such as "He has incredibly good genes, and it's just the way God made him".

Robert Wilkie

• Pro-Confederacy. In a 1995 speech, he heaped glowing praise on Jefferson Davis, criticized abolitionists, and said the South's cause was honorable.
• Lied to Congress that he didn't have more recent ties to Confederate groups