So the “cease fire” didn’t last very long, but apparently the Trump Administration plan is to act like it’s working and send JD Vance along with Witkoff and Jared to Pakistan to hear the demands of Iran. Iran’s going to grind out everything they can, and unless Trump is willing to have a protracted war, he’s going to have to take chicken shit and sell it like it’s chicken salad.
Oil prices took a dive, but unless a whole bunch of tankers start going through the Strait of Hormuz, that’s not going to last.
Anyway, the fairly predictable breakdown of the cease fire wasn’t the biggest example of MAGA incompetence yesterday. Apparently, they dragged the Pope’s emissary to the US to the Pentagon and threatened him:
According to a Monday report from The Free Press, the two sides have also had more direct conflict. Following Pope Leo’s “state of the world” address this past January, the Pentagon invited Holy See ambassador to the U.S. Cardinal Christophe Pierre for a meeting. The move was characterized as “unprecedented” in the report, as “there is no public evidence of any Vatican official ever taking a meeting at the Pentagon.” […]
According to both Vatican and U.S. officials briefed on the meeting, Pentagon brass picked apart the pontiff’s January speech, reading it as a hostile message directed at Trump’s policies. What particularly enraged the Pentagon, one Vatican official said, was the passage in which Leo appeared to challenge the Donroe Doctrine—Trump’s update of the Monroe Doctrine, which asserts unchallenged American dominion over the Western Hemisphere.
At one point in the meeting, the report said, one U.S. official made mention of the Avignon Papacy of the 14th century. During this time, the French Crown used its military power to influence the papacy.
Pope Leo will not spend the 4th of July in the US — he’ll be on the island of Lampedusa, which is apparently a gateway for North Africans trying to get to Europe. By the way, the person who made the Avignon threat was apparently one of these Opus Dei Catholic converts, which isn’t surprising. JD Vance is one, too. They’re basically Klan Catholics, and Leo and his predecessor Francis want/wanted to stamp out their influence in the Church.
As far as I’m concerned, Popes Leo and Francis are just two more Catholics trying to put a bit of a velvet glove over the Church’s iron fist that wants to perpetuate the patriarchy by controlling women. Still, the notion that the representatives of a centuries-old religion, men who have forgotten more about wily diplomacy than Trump and his drooling morons have ever learned, would cower in front of some shit talking, is more than a little amusing.
Moving on to NATO, Trump brought the Secretary General of that organization to DC to shit in his ear. Afterwards, he posted this on Truth Social:
NATO WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN. REMEMBER GREENLAND, THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE OF ICE!!
This is government by Fox News grandpa sitting in his recliner and yelling at everybody, then wondering why his kids won’t visit anymore.
