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| Smoke rises from Russian oil refinery after Ukrainian drone strike (BBC) |
The order to limit Ukraine's ability to defend itself from Russian missile attacks came from inside the Trump administration. As we reported in yesterday's post, Ukrainian officials generally were pointing fingers of blame in Trump's direction. Now we have a jointly published report from Reuters and Yahoo! News indicating Ukraine's leaders were right on target. We also have a report from Foreign Policy that Ukraine has resumed strikes on Russian refineries in direct defiance of Donald Trump. First, under the headline "Order to limit Starshield for Ukraine came from inside White House, sources say," Erin Banco and Gram Slattery write:
The order to limit a satellite system used by Ukraine for battlefield communications and drone operations came from inside the White House, according to two US officials and a Western official briefed on the matter.
The officials said leaders at the Defense Department received a message that the SpaceX Starshield service for the Ukrainian military needed to be slowed.
The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, did not specify who in the White House made the decision or who was responsible for implementing the order. The Pentagon is the biggest customer of Starshield, which is the military-grade version of the Starlink service.
Ukrainian officials said this week that military-grade Starlink receptors stopped working in Ukraine when mounted on fast-moving objects, interfering with the performance of Ukrainian drones that rely on them for onboard guidance systems over Ukrainian territory.
A person in Ukraine's Defence Ministry said on Thursday that the receptors were now working when in motion, but only at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour (160 kph).
In what should be a surprise to no one, the Starshield episode reveals that Trump is a frightfully inept negotiator. If I might don my amateur psychiatrist's hat for a moment, I think Trump's status as a malignant narcissist makes him -- ironically known as "Mr. Art of the Deal" -- useless at the real-world negotiating table. I learned in med school (hah!) that a narcissist at Trump's level listens only to whatever spasms his own brain is sending to him. He has little concern about how his words sound to others and almost no ability to even listen to what others around the table are saying. With the contingent from Ukraine, led by President Vlodymor Zalensky, Trump is not dealing with a bunch of dolts. Trump tipped his hand in recent public statements, and Ukrainians picked up on it immediately -- and as we will learn shortly, responded accordingly. Here is more from the Reuters/Yahoo! report:
The move to temporarily restrict the vital communications system came as President Donald Trump has pressured Kyiv to stop its attacks on Russian refineries, which he has blamed for the soaring energy prices that are denting his Republican Party's prospects in the November midterm elections.
But experts say that surge in energy costs is mainly the result of the US-Israeli war with Iran, which brought Iranian attacks on energy facilities and has largely shut the vital Strait of Hormuz.
In response to a request for comment about the order to limit Starshield, a senior US official said: "No such request was ever made by the president."
Uh, right. Any chance Zelensky is stupid enough to buy that? Nope, not even a little. Trump went so far recently as to suggest Ukraine needed to get a new president. Many Americans responded online with retorts like "We think the U.S. is the one that needs a new president." I could not agree more, and I would be delighted (for selfish reasons) to see a one-for-one Zelensky-for-Trump deal. It could be like one of those major-league baseball (MLB) deals that happen right before the annual trading deadline. Heck, we could even throw in a couple of minor prospects-to-be-named later just to get rid of Trump.
This notion, however, does make me queasy because the people of Ukraine have suffered deeply with Putin as their neighbor, and the last thing they need is to have Trump dumped on their plate. (This scenario reminds me of a classic line that grew out of the capture and release of 52 Americans in the 444-day Iranian Hostage Crisis, which began in 1979 when 66 Americans were taken hostage at the U.S. embassy in Tehran and ended with the release of all living hostages in 1981. MLB decided to celebrate the hostages' freedom by offering them a personalized, bronze lifetime pass to any major- or minor-league game. Beano Cook, a prominent sports-media figure at the time responded by saying, "Haven't they suffered enough?" The line was so memorable that it became the title of Cook's posthumously published memoir.)
My flights of political fancy also include a scenario where we dump Trump on Canada in exchange for Prime Minister Mark Carney. I know that is a horribly one-sided trade, but hey, I'm desperate, and Carney is one heck of a smart guy who could get the U.S. back on track in his spare time. He probably would not have to give up his gig in Canada; I suspect he could handle both roles effortlessly. Carney has a doctorate in economics from Oxford University, so do you think he's smarter than Trump? It shouldn't take long to answer that question.
The notion of dumping Trump on Canada hurts my conscience. Legal Schnauzer has long had a strong readership in Canada, and it's a place Mrs. Schnauzer and I would love to visit someday, preferably in the summer. I've gotten to know some of our Canadian readers personally over the years and found them to be the kind of intelligent, engaged readers any blog would love to have. Also, I've become a fan of Dean Blundell and Zev Shalev, a pair of Canadian raconteurs who can make you laugh and make you think. You can find their work at the Podcast Collaborative Blog and narrativ.org, which also includes FiveStack with Dean and Zev. They are devout libs, who know their stuff and are talented communicators. I hope you will check them out.
The U.S., in its current state, looks like a Banana Republic -- or as Trump would say, "a shithole country" -- in comparison to Canada. One of Trump's greatest sins -- and there have been many -- has been doing his best to ruin the longstanding alliance between the U.S. and Canada. With Trump stowed away behind bars in Moose Jaw, I suspect Carney could restore that relationship in no time. He will need a competent, respectful partner as U.S. president, and I submit that a U.S. Reconstruction Commission -- which we will need to reverse the damage Trump and his GOP allies have wrought -- appoint Hillary Clinton to serve as president, a role Trump and Russia stole from her in 2016. Mrs. Clinton might want to appoint Michelle Obama to lead the effort to restore our democracy and devise documents to ensure we never have another Donald Trump anywhere near the White House.
Maybe Canada has a nice cozy jail in some very cold place -- like Moose Jaw or Medicine Hat. When the time is right, they could hand over Trump and his Republican enablers to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. I might be so bold as to petition Mark Carney to transport Trump through a route going through Winnipeg, the Manitoba city that produced The Guess Who, one of my favorite rock bands of the 1960s and '70s. Led by founding members Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman (who went on to found Bachman-Turner Overdrive of "Takin' Care of Business" fame), The Guess Who came out of the Canadian prairie, so they named their first album "Wheatfield Soul," which produced "These Eyes," which seemingly can be heard on classic rock stations at most any time of day (even though it's a ballad). Their second album, "Canned Wheat," produced another monster hit, "Laughing," and is generally considered their first classic LP.
The Guess Who went on to produce a staggering string of hits in their early days -- "Undun," No Time" "American Woman," "No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature," "Hand Me Down World," and "Share the Land." All of those, and more, are on The Best of the Guess Who, which might be one of the best compilation albums ever produced.
Later hits include "Albert Flasher," "Rain Dance," "Life in the Bloodstream," "Heartbroken Bopper," "Running Back to Saskatoon," and "Follow Your Daughter Home." The hits continued into the nid '70s with "Dancin Fool," "Star Baby," and "Clap for the Wolfman" (which went to No. 4 in Canada and No. 6 in the U.S.)
The Guess Who broke up in 1975, and Cummings embarked on a solo career, which produced a number of major hits, including "Stand Tall," "Break it to Them Gently," "I'm Scared," "My Own Way to Rock," and "You Saved My Soul."
The band reunited several times over the years, most notably for the "Runnin' Back Through Canada Tour," which produced a live album, concert film, DVD, and sold more than 200,000 tickets.
From 1978 to 2024, the founding members were embroiled in a conflict over the band's name. It started when bassist Jim Kale discovered the band's name had never been trademarked and filed registrations with the U.S. trademark office for the band's name. Unbeknownst to the other original members, Kale used his newly registered mark to continue performing under the Guess Who name. Because he owned the name, Kale leased the rights to the rest of the group for the Runnin' Back Through Canada Tour," earning a 20 percent share, despite not performing in the lineup.
From 2006 to 2024, Kale and original drummer Garry Peterson formed a partnership to lead a group under the Guess Who name. Kale retired several times but continued to pay musicians to play under the Guess Who name, even though most of them had no historic connection to the original band. Albums from Kale's version of The Guess Who were not released on major labels, did not sell well, and generally received poor reviews. There were times when the band played with no original members present.
This led to bitter words from Cummings and Bachman who wrote and/or sang many of the band's most famous songs. They called the other band "Kale's Klones" and said it produced "fake bullshit shows." In October 2023, Bachman and Cummings filed a false advertising lawsuit against Kale and Peterson, claiming their band used the Guess Who name, photos of Bachman and Cummings, and original recordings to give the false impression that Cummings and Bachman were performing as part of the cover band. Bachman and Cummings sought $20 million in damages, and when a judge refused to dismiss their lawsuit, Cummings took the additional step of going through his music publishing company to terminate his license agreement with BMI so that his catalog would be removed from BMI's blanket license agreement with music venues. This meant that not only would any musician publicly performing a Cummings-authored Guess Who song be liable for monetary damages, so would the owners of any venue where the song was performed. Following this action, Kale's group was unable to perform The Guess Who's biggest hits because Cummings wrote or co-wrote almost all of them. The cover group's concerts were immediately canceled, and its website was shuttered in July 2024, effectively bringing an end to this version of the band.
Cummings and Bachman announced they had gained control of The Guess Who name and reformed the band for the "Taking It Back Tour" in 2026. In March, Cummings and Bachman announced dates for their first tour as The Guess Who in 23 years, featuring former Eagles guitarist Don Felder, who wrote the music for Hotel California," as the opening act.
Here is a link to one of many positive online reviews of The Guess Who reunion tour.
I hope you enjoyed our side tour through Canadian politics, journalism, and rock music. But we need to return to the aforementioned article where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky essentially told Donald Trump to "blow it out his ass" when the latter demanded he stop bombing Russian oil refineries to help lower rising fuel prices in the U.S. Under the headline "Ukraine resumes strikes on Russian refineries; Zelensky directly defies Trump," Foreign Policy's Alexandra Sharp writes:
Despite the White House repeatedly urging Kyiv not to target Moscow’s energy infrastructure, Ukrainian forces resumed strikes on Russian oil refineries on Thursday. “The block [on attacking refineries] is out. We’re done,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the Financial Times on Thursday.
U.S. President Donald Trump has faced growing pressure to tackle rising fuel prices, inflamed by the wars in Ukraine and Iran ahead of next month’s U.S. midterm elections. In a bid to bring down energy costs, Trump had urged Zelensky to halt all strikes on Russian oil refineries, and on Friday, he suspended U.S. sanctions on Russian diesel exports.
Then, on Sunday, Trump unilaterally declared an energy truce between Russia and Ukraine while also calling for Zelensky’s removal. Ukraine agreed to the truce and suspended such strikes for three days. However, during those three days, Russian forces launched dozens of ballistic missiles at critical Ukrainian energy infrastructure, plunging around 600,000 people in Kyiv into darkness on Wednesday.
According to Zelensky, the decision to resume strikes on Russian oil refineries was made in response to several controversial decisions out of Washington. They include U.S. military officials reportedly threatening to withhold intelligence if Ukraine continues to hit Russian energy targets, new restrictions on Ukraine’s Starlink access (which SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has accused the Trump administration of orchestrating), the White House’s apparent eagerness to ink business deals with Moscow, and Trump’s repeated admiration of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Putin is an enemy for us, and he’s the real evil of today. Absolutely,” Zelensky told the Financial Times. “How can Trump be friends with him?”
Some experts suggest that by bucking Trump’s demands, Zelensky risks widening the rift between them. Trump has long had a rocky relationship with Zelensky, going so far as to berate him during a White House summit in February 2025 and repeatedly parroting Kremlin talking points that question the Ukrainian president’s legitimacy.
Despite the risks, many of Ukraine’s European allies have backed Zelensky’s decision. “The faster all the Russian refineries and ability to sell energy will be blown to smithereens, the better, because Russia is funding the war with that,” Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal said.
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