Glory to Ukraine!
Glory to the defenders of Ukraine and all of modern civilization!
- August in the USA is a time of political holidays, with rare exceptions
- The USA has a new Attorney General. More precisely, the president’s top lawyer
- The Graham bill and the bill to support Ukraine. Will they become laws?
- Trump: “we own the strait”. Reality: shipping through the Strait of Hormuz is 10% of what it was before February 28
▶ August in the USA, with rare exceptions, is a month of political holidays. Both houses of Congress traditionally end sessions in late July-early August and then begin new sessions after Labor Day, which is celebrated on the first Monday of September in the USA.
That means this year Congress will return to work after September 7.
However, this year is an election year. All members of the House of Representatives and senators who plan to be re-elected will conduct their election campaigns in August, not relax.
And the exception to the August political holidays was in 1974. On August 9, 1974, President Nixon resigned. The first and only such case in American history. He left under the threat of inevitable impeachment and removal from office after a meeting with a group of Republican senators who told him they could not support him in the Senate impeachment trial.
Now are different times, different morals, and a different Republican party…
During the two and a half weeks that I haven’t posted American news reports, various events occurred. They cannot be called epochal. But they have had and continue to have their influence on the country and the world due to the role the USA plays globally.
Here is what I would like to highlight from what has happened during this time.
▶ Trump’s lawyer for his criminal cases, Todd Blanche, was confirmed by the Senate as the United States Attorney General. The Senate vote can be called the most disgraceful in the country’s history. Never in history has the Senate voted to confirm an Attorney General who sees his role not in upholding the rule of law, fighting crime, enforcing laws, and protecting citizens’ rights, but in fulfilling any wishes of the president. In this case, also a president striving to establish an authoritarian regime in the country.
Initiate criminal cases against those the president considers or appoints as his enemies? Certainly. We will initiate cases against everyone. Accuse anyone of anything. Incitement to assassinate the president for a photo of seashells on the beach. Conspiracy for urging military personnel not to follow illegal orders. Sabotage because green algae grow in the Lincoln Memorial pool (they always grow in summer when it’s hot), and the president demands the pool be blue. If it’s not blue, it’s sabotage. Attempted assault on a law enforcement officer for throwing a sandwich at an immigration police officer. And so on.
Violating the law by hiding documents from the criminal case of serial rapist and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, concerning Trump and people close to him? Certainly.
Exempt Trump and his family from tax audits and from liability for any tax violations committed before this exemption? Certainly.
Dismiss everyone from the federal prosecutor’s office who investigated criminal cases involving Trump? Certainly.
Block investigations into murders committed by immigration officers? Certainly.
Display a giant flag-portrait of Trump on the Justice Department building? Certainly.
There is nothing Todd Blanche wouldn’t do for Trump.
He proved it by being the first deputy attorney general and acting attorney general. To understand that he will continue to serve Trump and fulfill any of his whims, one doesn’t need to speculate. Just follow what Blanche has been doing for the past eighteen months.
Knowing all this, Blanche’s appointment was supported in the Senate’s Judiciary Committee by all 12 Republican members of the committee (all 10 Democrats were against it). At the same time, Republican Senators Cornyn and Tillis demonstrated a complete lack of basic self-respect. Both of them are in their final months in the Senate. Tillis decided not to seek re-election, fearing that Trump would run a primary challenger against him. Cornyn was pushed out of politics by Trump, who backed his own candidate against Cornyn in the Texas primaries, who naturally won. Initially, both decided to play principled and refused to vote for Blanche until he confirmed in writing that the Justice Department would not create a fund to pay nearly $1.8 billion in taxpayer money to participants of the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot and other Trump allies who committed criminal offenses. Blanche wrote an inconsequential text for the two senators, which he can declare meaningless at any time. In response, Cornyn and Tillis voted to confirm Blanche.
When the Senate voted on Blanche’s confirmation, Republican Senator Cassidy, also ousted by Trump in the primaries for voting to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial, joined Cornyn and Tillis in a display of a lack of self-respect. Cassidy stated he spent a lot of time talking with Blanche in his office and decided that Blanche dispelled all his doubts and would be a good attorney general.
Only two Republican senators, Susan Collins from Maine and Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, voted against Blanche’s confirmation. Since the first days of Trump’s presidency, both have occasionally (Murkowski probably more often than Collins) reminded that there is a certain red line that a person with self-respect and at least some understanding of morality cannot cross. They are not dependent on Trump. Trump tried to get rid of Murkowski in the 2018 elections, running a primary challenger against her, but Murkowski is very popular in her state, and her popularity is not dependent on Trump. Collins is up for re-election this year in her “blue” state of Maine (she is the only Republican senator from a “blue,” Democratic state) and is also not dependent on Trump, as Trump knows he cannot find a MAGA candidate in the “blue” state of Maine capable of winning the election. In 2017, Murkowski and Collins, along with Senator John McCain, voted against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), and thanks to their votes, Trump could not repeal Obamacare.
In the current Senate, McCain is no longer present.
Blanche was confirmed as Attorney General by a single vote majority (50:49, with all 47 Democrats, Collins, and Murkowski voting “against,” and 50 Republicans voting “for.” Senator McConnell has been ill and hasn’t appeared in the Senate for over two months). If there had been even one more Republican senator with a sense of dignity, Blanche would not have been confirmed as Attorney General. But this is not 1974, as we mentioned above. And it’s not even 2017…
▶ The Senate voted on the “Lindsey Graham 2026 Russia and Iran Sanctions Act.” There has been a lot of discussion about this bill. For some reason, in Ukraine, it was and is still called the “hellish sanctions bill.” However, this bill does not provide for any “hellish” sanctions.
It contains three good provisions:
– It elevates to the status of law absolutely all the hundreds, if not thousands, of sanctions imposed based on Joe Biden’s Executive Order of April 15, 2021, concerning the national emergency posed by Russia’s malicious actions threatening the national security of the U.S. and its allies. This order needs to be extended each year. The Graham-Blumenthal bill creates a protective umbrella over all sanctions imposed based on this order, which was extended by Biden in 2022, 2023, and 2024, and by Trump in 2025 and 2026. Thus, to remove all these sanctions, a new law would need to be passed. The President cannot lift them without Congress.
– The bill prohibits American financial institutions from any transactions with Russian sovereign debt bonds.
– The bill prohibits the U.S. from importing uranium from Russia.
All other provisions of the bill are more political or symbolic rather than defining any real actions.
Trump will not impose new tariffs on imports from China (the bill does not require him to do so, only authorizes him to). He has already been burned by the trade war with Xi Jinping, completely lost, was forced to retreat, and will not start this war again, especially not in an election year. Because Xi will respond again by banning the purchase of American soybeans and other agricultural products, as well as the export of rare earth minerals to the U.S. Farmers growing soybeans are an important part of Trump’s and the Republicans’ voter base. Without rare earth minerals, all sectors of American high-tech industry will suffer.
However, the political impact of such a hypothetical measure on Chinese and Indian companies buying and processing Russian oil could be significant, as they will have to consider whether to continue risking buying Russian oil and face American sanctions, or to look for other sellers.
Sanctions against the president and all members of the government of the evil empire, as provided for in the bill, are purely symbolic gestures. Since they are all already under sanctions.
The strange provision in this bill is its last article. If the bill becomes law, it will only be in effect for 5 years.
Whether it becomes law depends on whether the House of Representatives approves it. Both chambers of Congress are independent in their legislative activities and are not required to consider bills passed by the other chamber. For the House of Representatives to approve this bill, Speaker Johnson must include it on the agenda. And he will do this only if instructed by Trump. We will see in September when Congress returns from vacation.
A much stronger bill than this is the Ukraine Support Act of 2026, passed by the House of Representatives but not considered by the Senate. This bill was passed by the House despite Speaker Johnson. It was placed on the agenda by collecting 218 signatures from House members (signed by all Democrats and 4 Republicans). It was passed with votes from all Democrats, 18 Republicans, and one former Republican. This bill provides for the resumption of military aid to Ukraine, the renewal of lend-lease for Ukraine, a long-term loan of $8 billion for Ukraine to purchase American weapons, and total sanctions against the Russian oil and gas and financial sectors.
But the Senate does not consider this bill, as the leader of the Republican majority and de-facto Senate speaker, John Thune, does not place it on the agenda. He does not do so because he has not received such instructions from Trump.
▶ From the latest news. The 47th president declared that the US completely controls the Strait of Hormuz. In fact, the US is blocking ships going to Iran through the strait. But Iran is blocking the passage of virtually all other ships. On Tuesday, 13 ships passed through the strait, whereas before February 28, the passage of 130 ships per day was the norm. In other words, shipping has decreased by 90% compared to pre-war times. Iran’s proxy force, the Yemeni Houthis, is blocking shipping through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait. Two days ago, the Houthis fired at an Egyptian container ship passing through the strait. Six sailors died. No matter what the 47th president claims, the war with Iran is currently his biggest strategic failure across both his first and second presidential terms. And there seems to be no solution in sight. By the way, he has stopped talking about Iran’s nuclear program altogether. He should focus on opening the Strait of Hormuz. But he can’t. And the strait was open for free navigation until February 28. Now even the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait is blocked by the Yemeni Houthis…
There are 894 days left until the end of the story titled “Fear: Trump in the White House” © (the title of the book by Bob Woodward, published in 2018).
Thank you to everyone who read this. Take care of yourself and your loved ones. Take care of each other and help each other. Health to all.
Ultimately, what happens in the world depends on us. Whether we fight against evil, do good, remain mere observers, passively wait and believe that someone somewhere will decide for us, or fight against evil and do everything possible to ensure that good prevails.
We must not allow evil to win. The victory of evil would mean the end of the world we live in. We cannot allow this. Especially now.
Ukrainian Friends, I embrace and love you all. Please take care of each other, I ask you very much.
Ukraine is and will always be.
And evil will be defeated and punished. And this is inevitable.
