Blaise

It is true that as I get older, wine gets better.
BTW, Cincinnati's chilis are unique and best when eaten with family and oyster crackers.

[Blaise @off2wine]

@gggirl924 I love reading these comments. We had one set and, over years, stacks of National Geographic but our next door neighbor who had been in a concentration camp had four sets. I would go over and just sit in her little TV room and read the encyclopedias.

[Yasmina @yasminalombaert]

“I think we are one big step into dictatorship already.” Conservative historian Robert Kagan.

Robert Kagan: "Well, I think we are one big step into dictatorship already. It's not clear to me that any institution in the United States is really prepared to stand up to Donald Trump. It seems the only people who are willing to stand up to Donald Trump are average American citizens in Minneapolis and elsewhere, and god bless them for that, but the US Congress, both parties, are unwilling to really fight Trump. The Republicans have become the party of dictatorship. So I think we are one deep foot into dictatorship, and I am worried, as I have said and others have been pointing out, about whether we will even have free and fair elections in 2026, let alone in 2028. I think Trump has a plan to disrupt those elections and I don't think he's willing to allow Democrats to take control of one or both houses, as could happen in a free election."

[Blaise @off2wine]

@RCdeWinter Flooding on Valentine Day. Electricity on and off, no phone (which is an odd relief). Chablis early in the glass. Be a martyr, go for it, RC.

[Blaise @off2wine]

@RCdeWinter If only.. ...itans of industry...burnt to a crisp...by tongues of fire.

[PNASNews @PNASNews]

Concentrations of toxic lead in modern hair samples are 100 times lower than samples from before the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency. Average lead values fell from around 50 ppm in the 1970s to less than 1 ppm in 2020. In PNAS: https://t.co/hx8jXGJTsb

[Roman Sheremeta 🇺🇸🇺🇦 @rshereme]

US military aid to Ukraine decreased by 99% in 2025, while aid from the EU increased by 67%, according to the Ukraine Support Tracker report.

Europe sharply increased its share of assistance. The largest donors of aid in 2025 were Germany - €9 billion, Great Britain - €5.4 billion, Sweden - €3.7 billion, Norway - €3.6 billion, and Denmark - €2.6 billion.

At the same time, since Trump became president, the United States has largely halted all military aid and intelligence sharing, helping to trigger one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of the war. Ukrainians are literally freezing to death.

And instead of punishing russia for this genocide, Trump has invited Putin to the U.S. and asked russia to join the “Board of Peace”. Now, a photo of the war criminal Vladimir Putin hangs in the White House. Just think about this insanity.

Even Trump’s request for the so-called “pause” in strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure was nothing more than a distraction. It served only one purpose: to allow russia to stockpile enough missiles and drones for new mass attacks on Ukraine.

[RC deWinter @RCdeWinter]

Great, now we can all broil to death.
I hope you really have noticed that every single thing this illegitimate regime promotes and does is all about destruction and death – none of it is about growth improvements safety ecology or common sense. Remember this when you turn on your water taps
flames shoot out. I never thought I would have to revisit this subject again but here we are

Trump Allies Near ‘Total Victory’ in Wiping Out U.S. Climate Regulation https://t.co/TEXSRL1SKQ via @nytimes

[Ron Filipkowski @RonFilipkowski]

4 months after Trump pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, Forbes reports that Binance now holds $4.7 billion of the $5.4 billion supply of Trump’s World Liberty Financial stablecoin. That is 87%. It is the largest corruption scandal in the history of the US presidency.

[RC deWinter @RCdeWinter]

to follow up, if you're actually interested in seeing what I'm up to you may have to look for me because I am being squashed which tells me that whatever I'm doing to try to save this country from being turned into a shoddy and shitty imitation of Hitler Germany to appease the ego of a pedophile rapist traitor I must be bothering some people and that's a good thing but if I can't keep getting the message out that's not a good thing.

[Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum]

"While his father Steve Witkoff acts as President Trump’s all-purpose special envoy, 32-year-old Zach Witkoff now heads up World Liberty, which has doled out at least $1.4 billion to both families"
extraordinary reporting from @WSJ
https://t.co/I0CT7blJFw

[Ed Krassenstein @EdKrassen]

BREAKING: House Oversight Democrat @Rep_Stansbury just came out of the Ghislaine Maxwell deposition to torch Trump for being at the center of a cover-up of the largest sex-trafficking scandal in American History:

“We know that there are more than 3 dozen associates, family members and individuals directly associated with Donald Trump in those files… The United States government is engaged in an active cover-up of the largest sex-trafficking scandal and influence pedaling scandal in the history of the United States and Donald Trump is right at the center of it.”

[Willie Ross Jr. Knee Deep @RossKneeDeep]

I have to admit my huge miscalculation on race relations. In 2009 when Obama became the president, I thought that America was on road to racial unity. Boy, was I wrong.

I was a firefighter in Detroit for 34 years. To my surprise (naivety), I started hearing white firefighters around me saying disparaging things about Obama. They somehow seemed to hate him.

Many called Obama the most racially dividing president we've ever had. These were men I'd risked my life with for 20 or 30 years, coming out as racists.

That was the start of our current racial divide, not because Obama separated the races. But, because his skin color separated the races.

Then came Trump, a known racist. He gave racists the ability to stand up and proudly be racist. I saw white firefighters around me embrace Trump and try to tell me how he's done more for Black Americans than any other president.

Today, American racists are as proud as they can possibly be as their president destroys any and everything black. Including his new Obama ape video.

Trump is currently seeking paths to remain in power forever and he must be stopped.

Well, I was definitely wrong about racial unity and today we are on a road to increasing white power (Making America Great Again).

The one good thing that Trump has done is expose the racists we really didn't know about.

I think it's time for Democrats to stop being so docile and to go on the offense. One man should not be allowed to destroy a nation.

[Rep. Mike Levin @RepMikeLevin]

America's closest allies gathered in London for the Five Eyes intelligence summit to discuss global security threats. 

Trump's FBI Director Kash Patel showed up worried about his workout schedule and where he could find a jet ski. 

A senior FBI executive said Patel's staff only cared about three things: his meals, his workouts, and his entertainment. 

YOUR tax dollars paid for this trip. YOUR tax dollars paid for staff time arranging Patel's personal vacation while our allies waited to discuss threats to national security. 

Americans deserve an FBI Director who shows up ready to work, not to party.

[Blaise @off2wine]

@RCdeWinter Going to your temps here end of week. Wood for the fire, duvets. Sorry our daffodils will from warm weather will crash.

[RC deWinter @RCdeWinter]

I don't care what Musk says about visibility and shadow banning.
When I get repeated information from people I've known and who have known me for years that they haven't seen me in a while I know I'm being throttled and I know I'm not alone either.

[Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63]

Believe it’s a coincidence if you will, but these are also Russia's prime targets because they are Ukraine's staunchest allies. Trump attacking them is yet another Kremlin dream made reality. I believe in coincidences, but I also believe in the KGB.

[Blaise @off2wine]

@AJamesMcCarthy @konstructivizm Always stay with @AJamesMcCarthy for sky reality.

[Andrew McCarthy @AJamesMcCarthy]

A plea to restaurant/bar owners:

Treat the Artemis II launch like a sporting event. Put it on all your tvs. Let patrons celebrate the brave crew as they return to the moon for the first time in 54 years.

This is a shared human success and should be experienced as such.

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський @ZelenskyyUa]

Russia is trying to destroy our power plants and our entire energy system. It’s trying to kill our light. And Ukraine, together with our friends, is fighting against the darkness.

This is a battle where everything is clear. There are no gray zones here. And there are also deep Christian meanings in this – in how we defend ourselves, in how we get assisted, in how our people help each other in any circumstances. In how repair crews work day and night, under shellings, in minus 20 degrees, to make sure enemy strikes do not destroy life and that light returns.

We fight every day so that darkness loses. So it’s important for us to have enough air defense for safe sky. It is important for us to support our people and recover after strikes. It is important for us to achieve a dignified peace and reliable security guarantees.

And I thank you for every action and every prayer that helps make this possible.

I addressed the 20th American-Ukrainian Prayer Breakfast.

[Andrew Weinstein @Weinsteinlaw]

There’s a strategy behind Trump’s Truth Social posts: push the boundaries, normalize the degradation, and hope the public eventually shrugs. But democracies don’t survive on numbness. They survive on people refusing to let cruelty become the standard.

[Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla]

NEW: Trump's coup is almost complete. And the attack on the press is a central piece of it. Bezos's gutting of the Washington Post cannot be allowed to be just another blip in the news cycle.

We are all going to have to fight for a free and independent press.
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