War of the Brown Noses: The great Trump world crackup has only just begun

 

   

Donald Trump began this week calling Marjorie Taylor Greene a traitor. Standing on the steps of the Capitol, flanked by survivors of Jeffrey Epstein, Greene — someone not so much made by MAGA as made of it — flung the label back at him, unsubtly suggesting the president is captive to foreign interests. 

That same morning, Trump Whisperer and failed congressional candidate Laura Loomer issued her own dire warning to the GOP, tweeting, “I’m going to say it, the GOP has a Nazi problem.” She ought to know. The first time most people encountered her, she had her arm around one in a YouTube video, bragging about her “big tits and Ashkenazi IQ” and striking out with him anyway. Some metaphors have a long payoff.  

A war of Nazis vs. Neocons/Globalists might have remained an “ideological” battle behind closed doors, its final word a press release that got repeated until it sounded like conventional wisdom. What Loomer and Greene have done is make that battle active, present and public. They aren’t alone. 

As the Heritage Foundation is pulled in two directions by America First groypers and the significantly Jewish neoconservative foreign policy establishment, Candace “I am also a Black commentator who loves Hitler” Owens and Charlie Kirk’s widow are tearing up the young conservative grifter and YouTube maniac demographics. 

Practically before the body grew cold, Owens began suggesting that Zionist sleepers in the GOP, the Mossad and Kirk’s widow had a hand in his assassination. (Meanwhile, better check to make sure Erika Kirk isn’t secretly transgender.) 

America First is also at war with the tech fascists’ fondness for HB1 visas, just as their supposed populism confronts the reality of what the Trump economy feels like for anyone whose response to a foreclosure crisis won’t be loading up on discount property.

What Loomer and Greene have done is make that battle active, present and public.

Then there is Thomas Massie, the Republican representative from Kentucky’s 4th District, whose commitment to treating the Epstein case as exactly what it looks like has given the House permission to discuss the president as culpable in a massive child-sex-trafficking ring. 

Massie presents the tip of the spear when it comes to dividing a caucus that has been animated by the philosophy that “everyone I don’t like is a pedophile,” while also persistently ducking the “there’s a documentary on Netflix about this” reality that Jim Jordan still serves in the House, and perpetually skates on the fact that not a month and sometimes not even a week goes by without the police introducing new confirmation that “Pedocon Theory is a theory like gravity is a theory.”

Like the cartoon dog in a room filling with flames, Trump and company’s response will probably be, “This is fine.” It’s a meme from the internet, so look for it to appear on the social media timeline of something like the Department of the Interior. It will be childish, stupid and unconvincing, but you can’t fault them, because for 10 years childish, stupid and unconvincing worked. 

Like a golf handicap, Trump could count on a press corps willing to add the numbers needed to cover the gap between what he told us the score was and what he actually shot. The loss of this reflexive support is invariably depicted as his “eroding trust,” but it’s like any other Trump employer-employee relationship: He rewarded the media’s tireless work with nothing, then fired it without a plan for a replacement. 

The story that MAGA tells itself and dares anyone to contradict will find newer and odder bedfellows. If a MAGA incarnate like Greene can claim to patriotically defend it while essentially declaring its creator a traitor, then this is a game that anyone can play. Laura Loomer’s dedication to Trump is so great that she replaced whatever personality she had with his interests and his satisfaction, and she has no trouble imperiling the new base by accurately describing it. 

This is, if not courage, then at least opportunism instantly recognizable to a party full of hyenas. Every new voice creates more permission and support for the next, and every unapologetic counterargument shreds another part of an administration’s messaging almost wholly dependent on having everyone in the party respond to the damning presence of objective reality with, “Nuh-uh.” They may not call this resistance, but it is assuming the form. 

The trouble with pretensions to kingship is that they come with none of the ceremonial aspects of monarchy.

Trump would never use that word either, but he knows it when he sees it. Only five months after a big fan of his started hunting Minnesota Democrats on his kill list, Trump took to social media Thursday morning for another rousing rendition of stochastic terror. 

Democrats who encourage the military to disobey unlawful orders, he wrote, should be hanged. 

But after a decade of the Trump Death Penalty looming over their heads, they need no reminders of their sentence, nor do his followers need more encouragement to exact the punishment. No, this one went out to those in the party whose burden is maintaining whatever polite fictions the Trump administration needs to paper over divisions among the base. 

“Tariffs don’t raise prices, but our removing some just lowered them,” and “Our distinguished colleague from the SS with a doctorate in Great Replacement is very disturbed about campus antisemitism” — whatever fraud gets us over the next 24-hour hump. 

The reward for loyalty is more of the same, and the cost of disloyalty is death. The question now is whose.

The problem with polite fictions is that both parties have to keep being polite, and Trump never upheld his part of the deal, with either the media or his caucus. The latter features many people like Greene who punched their ticket by being as vindictive and self-centered as their leader. At the same time, mainstream journalism has less incentive to pretend along with him that he is intelligent and capable. 

The trouble with pretensions to kingship is that they come with none of the ceremonial aspects of monarchy — the perks and cheats — that indicate an oath binding the participants either to the royal will or the axe. The long dynastic chains bring the polite fictions to you, premade and pre-solemnized, without any of the strain on credulity that comes with inventing them on the fly in less than a calendar year. Even if King Canute’s command couldn’t halt the tide, he still ended the day as king, and he didn’t have to cordon off the shore with courtiers to pretend there never was an ocean in the first place.

 

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The Silent Massacre of Millions in Ukraine

 

Holodomor- The silent massacre of millions in Ukraine. Murder through starvation in the “Breadbasket of Europe.” In a year where there was a record harvest, millions died slowly and painfully because Stalin and the Soviet killing machine wanted to get rid of the “Ukrainian problem” of resistance and national identity. One third who starved were children... One eyewitness noted, “When we returned to school in the autumn of 1933, two thirds of the seats were empty...”

To this day, Russia denies this happened and continues its genocide against Ukraine. Eternal memory to the lost souls... Вічная Пам‘ять!

Вшанування пам’яті жертв Голодомору / Commemoration of the Victims of Holodomor

https://holodomor.ca/holodomor-basic-facts/

“We were not sitting in the Netflix headquarters writing scripts that will be Oscar-nominated" -Sergiy Kyslytsya

The US and Ukraine have drafted a new 19-point peace deal but left the most politically sensitive elements to be decided by the countries’ presidents, according to Ukraine’s first deputy foreign minister Sergiy Kyslytsya. 

Washington had previously put Kyiv under pressure to agree a 28-point proposal that had been developed by US and Russian officials and crossed several long-standing Ukrainian red lines. Kyslytsya, who was in the room as part of the Ukrainian delegation for high stakes talks in Geneva, told the Financial Times the meeting was an “intense” but “productive” effort that resulted in a thoroughly revised draft document that left both sides feeling “positive.”

After hours of painstaking talks that nearly fell apart before they started, the US and Ukrainian teams reached agreements on several issues but “placed in brackets” the most contentious points — including territorial issues and relations between Nato, Russia and the US — for presidents Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy to decide. The Ukrainians said they “were not mandated” to make decisions on territory — particularly ceding land as the original draft plan suggested — which under their country’s constitution would require a national referendum. 

The new draft, Kyslytsya said, bore little resemblance to the earlier leaked version of the peace proposal that had caused uproar in Kyiv. “Very few things are left from the original version,” he said. “We developed a solid body of convergence, and a few things we can compromise on,” he said. “The rest will need leadership decisions.” 

Each side will take the latest working drafts back to Washington and Kyiv to brief the presidents. The Trump administration was then expected to approach Moscow to seek to advance the talks, he said. Draft copies of the plan given to the heads of the US and Ukrainian delegations were the only texts to leave the room. Kyslytsya said all other copies were taken back at the conclusion of the meeting. The talks in Geneva almost fell apart before they started, according to Kyslytsya. 

The discussions were led on the Ukrainian side by Zelenskyy’s powerful chief of staff Andriy Yermak and National Security and Defense Council secretary Rustem Umerov, with Kyslytsya and a band of military officers and intelligence officials playing a supporting role on Kyiv’s side. The American delegation included secretary of state Marco Rubio, Army secretary Dan Driscoll, Trump’s special envoy for Russia Steve Witkoff, and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, whose presence initially surprised Ukrainian officials. 

Kyslytsya said the Americans were attentive, eager to hear the Ukrainians’ point of view and open to suggestions. “Almost everything we suggested was taken on board,” he said. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday said “everybody inside feels optimistic about what happened and transpired yesterday in Geneva... 

Ultimately, the vast majority of these points have been agreed upon.” While the talks ended on a positive note, they almost failed to begin, according to Kyslytsya, describing the mood in Geneva Sunday morning as “very tense”. The Americans had arrived frustrated by leaks to the media in the days leading up to the meeting and the public debate around origins of the first draft proposal. “The first hours were totally...” he said, pausing for several seconds, “hanging by a hair.” 

It took nearly two hours of talks between Yermak and the US delegation to turn down the temperature and get back on track. “Eventually we were able to go to the US mission and begin real conversations,” Kyslytsya said. A lengthy morning session with the Americans allowed the Ukrainians to air their concerns and requests. That was followed by a short break and a detailed point-by-point review of the proposed peace plan, he said. Kyslytsya said the US side appeared willing to remove a proposal to introduce a 600,000 cap on Ukraine’s army. 

He said the US negotiators had listened carefully to the Ukrainian arguments and agreed to take the points into account. “They agreed the Ukrainian army number in the leaked version [of the peace plan draft] — whoever authored it — was no longer on the table,” he said. “The military will continue to discuss the arrangements.” 

The presence on the American side of Jared Kushner, left, initially surprised Ukrainian officials. A proposal for a blanket amnesty for potential war crimes in the original draft was reworked in a way that addresses “the grievances of those who suffered in the war”, he said. A separate session later in the day brought in European allies, including representatives from the UK, France, Germany, Italy and EU institutions. 

Prior to the US talks, Ukraine had held private discussions with European national security advisers to co-ordinate positions and identify shared priorities, Kyslytsya said. He repeatedly praised the “constructive engagement” of the US team, singling out Rubio, Driscoll and Kushner. “There was no point where they said: We won’t discuss it. We went through all points carefully.” 

It remains unclear whether Trump will want Zelenskyy to approve the document with a signature, but Leavitt said “there are no plans at this moment” for a meeting between the two leaders. The US president said his Ukrainian counterpart should back a draft plan by Thanksgiving on Thursday. Washington must decide how and when to present the draft peace deal to Russia. 

The Kremlin on Monday said it had not seen or been briefed on the US-Ukrainian draft. Kyslytsya said: “It’s on the Russians to show if they are genuinely interested in peace or will find a thousand reasons not to engage ...Ukraine has no choice but to engage with US peace plan. Ukraine, for its part, has expressed willingness to continue working towards a fair end to the war and to travel 'wherever' to continue the process.” He also emphasized the broader significance of the meeting. 

“The fundamental achievement in Geneva is that we managed to preserve a workable partnership and dialogue with the Americans,” he said. “Despite the media hype and social media frenzy, both sides showed that the partnership is strong and capable of producing a viable document for the leaders.” Still, Kyslytsya remained cautious. “We were not sitting in the Netflix headquarters writing scripts that will be Oscar-nominated,” he said. “We should not be driven by excitement or hype, but by responsibility and the complexity of the issues.”

- Christopher Miller in Kyiv published November 24, 2025. Financial Times, Additional reporting by Steff Chávez in Mexico City.

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Resignation

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s resignation didn’t just send a shockwave through Georgia politics — it ripped open a question Republicans have been terrified to ask out loud: What happens to the GOP after Trump?

People like Georgia radio host Martha Zoller are already saying it plainly: “People are kind of reeling.” And they are. Not just because Greene quit — but because of why she quit. Because behind the press releases and the vague political statements, there’s a darker truth circulating in Republican circles: Greene wasn’t just feuding with Trump… she was getting death threats from inside her own movement.

Let that sink in.    

The self-proclaimed “fighter,” the woman who spent years whipping up the base with apocalyptic rhetoric, culture-war hysteria, and violent fantasy politics — ended up on the receiving end of the same machinery she helped build. That’s not irony. That’s the logical end of a party that treats rage as a governing philosophy.

Georgia political observers are scrambling for explanations, but even they sound unsettled. Greene wasn’t predictable, but she was durable. She survived scandals that would have ended ten normal political careers.

She survived national humiliation, ethics investigations, and public ridicule. But she couldn’t survive this: a base turning on her, Trump turning on her, and the death threats piling up as the MAGA machine decided she was no longer pure enough.

And the biggest question Zoller raises is the one Republicans have avoided for nearly a decade: “What is the Republican movement once it’s not Trump?” Because if Greene — the loudest, most extreme, most unquestioningly loyal MAGA star — can’t survive breaking orbit from Trump, what does that say about the rest of the Republican Party? About anyone who tries to imagine a future that isn’t chained to one man’s ego?

Greene wanted to be the architect of the post-Trump right. Instead, she became proof that such a thing might not even exist.

-The Other 98%

A Father Buries His Child that the Russians Murdered in Ternopil, Ukraine

 

So-Called Ukrainian Peace Plan, Mamdani, Greene, and Kennedy Jr.

 

“Do I understand correctly that there is now a dispute within the administration about whether this ‘peace plan’ was written by Russians or Americans?” foreign affairs journalist Anne Applebaum asked last night on social media.

Applebaum was referring to confusion over a 28-point plan for an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine reported by Barak Ravid and Dave Lawler of Axios last week. After the plan was leaked, apparently to Ravid by Kirill Dmitriev, an ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin who is under U.S. sanctions, Vice President J.D. Vance came out strongly in support of it.

But as scholar of strategic studies Phillips P. O’Brien noted in Phillips’s Newsletter, once it became widely known that the plan was written by the Russians, Secretary of State Marco Rubio tried to back away from it, posting on social media on Wednesday that “[e]nding a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and realistic ideas. And achieving a durable peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will continue to develop a list of potential ideas for ending this war based on input from both sides of this conflict.”

And yet, by Friday, Trump said he expected Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky to sign onto the plan by Thanksgiving: next Thursday, November 27. Former senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said: “Putin has spent the entire year trying to play President Trump for a fool. Rewarding Russian butchery would be disastrous to America’s interests.”

Yesterday a group of senators, foreign affairs specialists gathered in Halifax, Nova Scotia, for the Halifax International Security Forum, told reporters they had spoken to Rubio about the plan. Senator Angus King (I-ME) said Rubio had told them that the document “was not the administration’s position” but rather “a wish list of the Russians.” Senator Mike Rounds (R-SC) said: “This administration was not responsible for this release in its current form.” He added: “I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” Rounds said. “It is not our recommendation; it is not our peace plan.”

But then a spokesperson for the State Department, Tommy Pigott, called the senators’ account of the origins of the plan “blatantly false,” and Rubio abruptly switched course, posting on social media that in fact the U.S. had written the plan.

Anton La Guardia, diplomatic editor at The Economist, posted: “State Department is backpedaling on Rubio’s backpedal. If for a moment you thought the grown-ups were back in charge, think again. We’re still in the circus. ‘Unbelievable,’ mutters one [of the] disbelieving senators.”

Later that day, Erin Banco and Gram Slattery of Reuters reported that the proposal had come out of a meeting in Miami between Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Dmitriev, who leads one of Russia’s largest sovereign wealth funds. They reported that senior officials in the State Department and on the National Security Council were not briefed about the plan.

This morning, Bill Kristol of The Bulwark reported rumors that Vice President J.D. Vance was “key to US embrace of Russia plan on Ukraine, Rubio (and even Trump) out of the loop.” He posted that relations between Vance and Rubio are “awful” and that Rubio did, in fact, tell the senators what they said he did.

Yaroslav Trofimov, chief foreign affairs correspondent of the Wall Street Journal, posted: “Foreign nations now have to deal with rival factions of the U.S. government who keep major policy initiatives secret from each other and some of which work with foreign powers as the succession battle for 2028 begins, is how one diplomat put it.”

The elections of 2026 and 2028 are clearly on Republicans’ minds as polls show Trump’s policies to be increasingly unpopular.

On Friday, Trump met at the White House with New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. Although Trump had previously called Mamdani a “communist lunatic” and a “stupid person” and had threatened to withhold federal funding from New York City if Mamdani won, the meeting was friendly. Trump, who has seemed warm and affable since snarling “Quiet, Piggy!” to a reporter on Air Force One on November 14, praised the mayor-elect and said he’d “feel very comfortable” living in New York City after Mamdani takes the reins.

Trump’s friendly banter with Mamdani appeared a way to acknowledge voters’ frustration with the economy. During his campaign, Mamdani promised to address those economic frustrations. Trump told reporters: “We agree on a lot more than I thought. I want him to do a great job, and we’ll help him do a great job.” This embrace of a politician MAGA Republicans had attacked as a communist left Trump’s supporters unsure how to respond.

On Friday, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) announced she is resigning from Congress. Her last day will be January 5, 2026, days after she secures her congressional pension. In her four-page announcement, she maintained she was frustrated that those like her, who she said represent “the common American people,” cannot get their measures passed because “the Political Industrial Complex of both Political Parties” ignores them in favor of “[c]orporate and global interests.”

She blamed Trump for forcing her out of Congress, saying: “I have too much self-respect and dignity, love my family way too much, and do not want my sweet district to have to endure a hurtful and hateful primary against me by the President we all fought for, only to fight and win my election while Republicans will likely lose the midterms. And in turn, be expected to defend the President against impeachment after he hatefully dumped tens of millions of dollars against me and tried to destroy me.”

Greene appears to be shifting to fit into a post-Trump future. “When the common American people finally realize and understand that the Political Industrial Complex of both parties is ripping this country apart, that not one elected leader like me is able to stop Washington’s machine from gradually destroying our country, and instead the reality is that they, common Americans, The People, possess the real power over Washington,” she wrote, “then I’ll be here by their side to rebuild it.”

Another scandal coming from the Cabinet will not help the administration dig out from its cratering popularity. Just after midnight Friday night, the former fiancé of the journalist who had a romantic relationship with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dropped another installment of his version of the saga. It included a graphic pornographic poem that would have ended a cabinet member’s career in any normal administration. The ex-fiancé said other poems he had found were even more explicit.

This revelation came the day after Kennedy acknowledged that he had personally told the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to change information on the CDC website to say the claim that vaccines do not cause autism is not “evidence-based.” As Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times notes, Kennedy admits that studies have shown no link between vaccines and autism, but he wanted the change because there are still other studies to be done. As Stolberg wrote, “He said he is not saying vaccines cause autism; he is simply saying there is no proof that they don’t.”

Kennedy is neither a doctor nor a scholar of public health, and Stolberg notes that “[i]t is highly unusual for a health secretary to personally order a change to scientific guidance.”

In order to get support for his cabinet nomination, Kennedy promised Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a physician, that he would not remove from the CDC website a statement saying that vaccines do not cause autism. That statement is still at the top of the “Autism and Vaccines” page of the CDC website, but now it has an asterisk keyed to a footnote saying it had not been removed because of Kennedy’s promise to Cassidy, and the text of the page says that “studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities.”

Today, CNN’s Jake Tapper said to Cassidy: “He lied to you.” Cassidy answered: “Well, first let me say, what is most important to the American people, speaking as a physician, vaccines are safe. As has been pointed out, it’s actually not disputed. It’s actually quite well proven that vaccines are not associated with autism. There’s a fringe out there that thinks so, but they’re quite a fringe. President Trump agrees that vaccines are safe.”

Cassidy tried to suggest that focusing on Kennedy’s lie was “titillating” but that Americans needed to move on. Tapper answered: “This isn’t about titillation. This is about the fact that you are the chairman of the health committee and you voted to confirm somebody that by all accounts from the medical and scientific community and his own family…is actually making America less healthy.”

—Heather Cox Richardson

 

The Week Ahead

The Week Ahead: I prepped you for developments in several important areas: the National Guard cases coming out of both Chicago and Oregon, the Epstein files, and, in counterpoint to Trump’s revenge prosecutions, his pardons for those he favors. What Happens When the Government Loses Its Credibility: The Comey Prosecution: First context, then an in-depth analysis to help you understand the significance of developments in the Comey case, a case that is emblematic of the state the Justice Department is in. A reason to be concerned and to stay informed. "Quiet Piggy!": My thoughts on the president’s words to journalist Catherine Lucey and why they bear noticing and remembering at this moment. Live with Norman Eisen: Norm and I discuss the possible shift in mood around Trump, which we’re cautiously optimistic about—cautiously, because Trump has shown an ability to wear people down, distract them, and outrun challenges to his primacy. Is Trump on the verge of his Joseph McCarthy moment? Live with Stacey Abrams: Stacy and I offer practical advice for questions including: what are you going to do at Thanksgiving dinner? Whether you’ll be with family or friends, people who agree about politics or not, we offer specifics. I won’t spoil it—click on the photo at the top or read the transcript to see what we suggest, and please share your own ideas in the comments! Sorry, George Washington Would Not Have Hanged Them: We took a look at some of Trump’s most shocking recent comments regarding “seditious behavior from traitors” (lawful behavior by elected members of Congress). Read my take on why every American needs to understand this news and what it means. Five Questions with Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers: In a week where Trump took significant steps toward making good on the threat from Project 2025 of shutting down the Department of Education, we had the chance to hear from a fierce advocate for teachers and public education. These are complicated legal times, and it’s easy for the truth to get lost in the chaos. Civil Discourse doesn’t just track today’s headlines—it connects them to the legal and political history that explains why they matter. We won’t forget what’s at stake, or let Trump and his allies rewrite the past. You can subscribe to Civil Discourse for free and get clear analysis that helps you see the whole picture, delivered straight to your inbox. If you’re in a position to, your paid subscription helps me devote the time and resources it takes to write the newsletter. That means everyone has access to information they can share with friends and family—a constructive act we can all participate in right now, helping more Americans understand how critical this moment is. We’re in this together, -Joyce Vance