19May2025
Miriam Oppenhiemer Co-Coordiantor of PJSN and Coordinator of Mondays @ McCormick’s
Again, this is why the Olympics should refuse to hold their games in Los Angeles in 2028. Heck, this is why foreign tourism has dropped like a rock.
U.S.-born citizen Leonardo Garcia Venegas, 25, was wrestled to the ground and handcuffed while at a job site in Foley, Alabama.
In the video, you can hear people yelling at ICE that Venegas is a citizen. ICE didn’t care. Authoritarian police conduct like this is wildly incompatible with the holding of international games.
Problem is, the authoritarian crackdown isn’t just limited to a few DHS or ICE agents, the US Is now surveilling foreign students who leave the US via Canada. This may become a problem for foreign students who have had their student visas revoked.
Pat Albright – Global Women’s Strike on left. Barbara Atkinson, PJSN on right
Has the US been affected already? Unfortunately, yes! Foreign travel spending in the US has
already declined by 7% or $12.5 billion so far this year. And President Trump’s comments about Canada being our “51st state,” along with talk of invading Greenland and other hostile comments have caused a discernible, measurable decline in Canadians visiting the US.
Miriam Oppenhiemer on far left – Jai Abbott on far right – (David Gibson says) “I do not have the other woman’s name unfortunately though I spent quite a while speaking with her before and after the event.”
Is there any realistic possibility of reaching a negotiated settlement between Russia and Ukraine? Not if that depends on Russia making any concessions. The section on Russia (beginning page 12) makes it crystal clear that negotiation is utterly futile. Putin feels he’s in an “existential struggle against the West that will determine Russia’s place in the world.” He wishes to avoid confronting NATO directly, but insists “that Ukraine be permanently prohibited from joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) while insisting Kyiv withdraw all its military forces from Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson Oblasts.” The NATO demand is, obviously, to ensure that when (not if) Russia resumes its offensive to take the rest of Ukraine, that Ukraine is left defenseless. These demands are completely unacceptable to Ukraine.
Update: In the aftermath of the destruction of about a third of their strategic bomber force, Russians made it absolutely crystal clear that they had no intention of altering any of their negotiating positions from 2022. They want complete and utter surrender of Ukraine, period!
Very good news on Trump and tariffs! A Wall Street Journal reporter asked what Trump later called a “nasty question,” She had asked him for his reaction to “TACO,” an acronym that she explains:
“Mr. President, Wall Street analysts have coined a new term called the TACO trade. They’re saying Trump Always Chickens Out on your tariff threats”
When financial analysts conclude that you’re in the habit of not following through on your threats, in other words, that you chicken out rather than follow through on those threats, the threats tend to lose a lot of effectiveness.
Miriam Oppenhiemer on right – Jai Abbott on left
For President Trump to impose tariffs unilaterally, it was always necessary for Congress to not stand in his way. But now, the Court of International Trade has ruled that it’s illegal for the president to impose those tariffs in any event. Pulling Trump’s chestnuts out of the fire, The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit gave him a temporary stay on that while the decision is appealed. As the tariffs were causing tremendous economic damage anyway, most economic analysts around the world were quite happy about the troubles that Trump’s tariffs had run into.
Pat Albright
And the humiliations don’t stop there! The nation of Georgia (Eastern end of the Black Sea and North of Turkey and Iran) has snubbed the US!
“The billionaire chief of Georgia’s ruling party — widely seen as the Caucasus country’s most powerful figure — has refused to meet the US ambassador…”
Marika Mikiashvili, who works in foreign affairs for the Georgian Droa Party, finds Bidzina’s attitude refreshing as he’s frankly just saying “eff y’all!” to the US.
David Gibson, Organizing Director for Peace, Justice, Sustainability NOW.
Huh! Amazingly enough, turns out government work is HARD! Dan Bongino, the former podcaster who’s now Deputy Director of the FBI is finding that government work takes actual expertise and not just a quick wit and a knack for insults. Trump Administration people are similarly finding this out.
Excellent news! Law firms that “bent the knee” to Trump and agreed to take a soft approach to his lawlessness are finding out that people don’t trust those who surrendered!
Relatedly, Representative AOC is super popular among Democrats!
One of my axioms for understanding politics is WWDDD? What Would Doctor Doom Do? (Doom will be featured in an Avengers movie in December 2026). Trump may make a lot of crazy-sounding statements. The NY Times recently featured a bizarre theory of Trump’s that former President Biden is actually dead and was replaced by a body double. Representative Byron Donalds chimes in with agreement that gee, there’s something awfully suspicious about Biden’s final months in the White House (Biden actually made public appearances at least once a week during his last months and Donalds can’t come up with a single appearance that demonstrates that Biden was losing it.)
A blogger goes over the evidence and no, there’s just no evidence that Trump’s statement is in any way crazy or deluded. Trump is talking from calculation, not from craziness.
Woo hoo! A while ago, Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he just didn’t “have the cards” to win against Russia. Ukraine has now struck a decisive blow against Russia’s fleet of strategic bombers! These are bombers that can carry nuclear weapons, but which have been used to fire missiles that have caused great destruction all over Ukraine. These bombers cannot be replaced! Russia simply doesn’t have the industrial capacity to build new ones. In a strike by 117 attack drones, at least 41 strategic bombers have been destroyed. Russia only had about 140 cruise-missile capable bombers.
Archived Photoessays 
Leave a comment