Welcome to another installment of Life Its Ownself. I offer insight, analysis and context on Texas and national politics, as well as entertaining stories of life its ownself in the Lone Star State. If you like what you read,please 1) hit the Like button at the bottom of this installment, 2) subscribe to this newsletter, and 3) tell your 1,000 best friends to read and subscribe. Also, feel free to comment below. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
But first, your moment of Zen … The Chispa Road wanders through the Chihuahuan desert from Lobo to Candelaria in deep West Texas. My friend Marfawitz and I found some backcountry cows when we drove the road last week.
Sunday, March 2, 2025
Quote of the Day:
"Texas has yet to learn submission to any oppression, come from what source it may."
Sam Houston, rolling in his grave after the disgraceful display in the Oval Office last Friday.
Today, March 2, is Texas Independence Day – the 189th, to be specific. (Big party next year?) Around the state, folks celebrate the various myths of Texas independence – the disctatorial repression of the cruel Santa Anna, refusal to even negotiate greater autonomy for the province of Texas y Coahuila and its increasing population of Americans, the provocative gesture of marching his army into Texas to put down a “rebellion” – and of course, the brave stand of 186 men at the Alamo, which bought the Texians time to declare their independence and petition the United States for aid.
The Alamo is a mythic symbol of bravery and counrage against overwhelming odds for Texans, Americans and people all around the world. Texans, especially, like to think that the DNA of those long-dead heroes somehow still courses through our veins, as do many Americans.
Such illusions should be thoroughly shattered by the disgraceful shitshow in the Oval Office last Friday. There was only one person in that room who had a hero’s courage, freedom’s courage, revolutionary courage running through his veins – in short, who was worthy of being called a Texan – and he was VolodymyrZelensky.
(The treasonous draft-dodger lectures the heroic wartime leader about integrity.)
The event was an ambush, as VPINO (Vice President In Name Only) J.D. Vance attacked Zelensky with a barrage of untruths that demonstrated Vance’s willful ignorance of the situtation on the ground in Ukraine. More revealingly, he castigated Zelensky for failing to say “thank you” enough to the American people, by whom he meant “Donald Trump and J.D. Vance.” The whole meeting was intended to frame Zelensky as an abject supplicant, and to spin any refusal to play his scripted role as evidence that Zelesnsky did not want “peace,” by which they mean unconditional surrender to Moscows demands, which Team USA has now adopted as their own.
Trump even said so, in a post on his ironically named “Truth Social:”
Perhaps the most cringe-worthy moment of the whole debacle was when Trump allowed Newsmax “reporter” Brian Glenn to scold Zelensky for not wearing a suit:
Jesus in a Petting Zoo, what the hell was that! Take a look at what Brian Glenn considers appropriate attire:
He’s the doofus on the left, copying the signature Trump’s waist-level thumb’s up. Look at those pants! That tie! And if you have any remaining questions about his lack of taste, yes, that is Marjorie Taylor Greene on the right, his girlfriend!!
Admiral James Stavridis, USN, Ret. had the best comment on the whole “suit” kerfuffle:
There is a lot of nonsense commentary on the fact that President Zelensky wore his trademark informal combat gear to the White House. Here’s a snapshot of unarguably the greatest leader of the 20th century, Sir Winston Churchill, doing exactly the same on a visit to FDR.
Grownups around the world were appalled by the Oval Office attack and said so:[i]
American thought leaders – not to be confused with our feckless elected representatives, especially those of the GOP tribe – also had thoughts:
Impossible to watch this video without shame at the abusive behavior of Trump/Vance to this heroic Ukrainian leader Zelensky. This Administration now an ally of Putin… a criminal thug and enemy of US and European values and democracy.
Thomas Friedman: “This Never Happened With an American President Before.”
What happened in the Oval Office on Friday — the obviously planned ambush of President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine by President Trump and Vice President JD Vance — was something that had never happened in the nearly 250-year history of this country: In a major war in Europe, our president clearly sided with the aggressor, the dictator and the invader against the democrat, the freedom fighter and the invaded.
Trump and Vance have revealed to Americans and to America’s allies their alignment with Russia, and their animosity toward Ukraine in general and its president in particular. The truth is ugly, but it’s necessary to face it.
If Roosevelt had told Churchill to sue for peace on any terms with Adolf Hitler and to fork over Britain’s coal reserves to the United States in exchange for no American security guarantees, it might have approximated what Trump did to Zelensky. Whatever one might say about how Zelensky played his cards poorly — either by failing to behave with the degree of all-fours sycophancy that Trump demands or to maintain his composure in the face of JD Vance’s disingenuous provocations — this was a day of American infamy.
We see that there are real consequences to Trump’s admiration of and fascination with the world’s dictators, autocrats, and strongmen; that it’s not just a rhetorical preference. It’s become an actual foreign-policy direction for the country, which represents a radical shift in America’s postwar view of the world.
America’s abrupt turn from moral beacon and defender of the free world is unsurprising, given the fundamental immorality of the Trump administration. If you have the morality of a gangster, you will behave like a gangster.
In recent years, the kinship between Trump and Putin has become somewhat unfashionable to point out. After Robert Mueller disappointed liberals by failing to prove a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, conventional wisdom on much of the center and left of the political spectrum came to treat the scandal as overblown. But even the facts Mueller was able to produce, despite noncooperation from Trump’s top lieutenants, were astonishing. Putin dangled a Moscow building deal in front of the Trump Organization worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and Trump lied about it, giving Putin leverage over him…. The pattern of cooperation between Trump and Putin may not have been provably criminal, but it was extraordinarily damning….
Zelensky had no good options at the White House. He walked into an ambush with a president who empathizes with the dictator who wants to seize Ukraine’s territory. Everyone who spent years warning about Trump’s unseemly affinity for Putin had exactly this kind of disastrous outcome in mind.
This week started with administration officials refusing to acknowledge that Russia started the war in Ukraine. It ends with a tense, shocking conversation in the Oval Office and whispers from the White House that they may try to end all U.S. support for Ukraine. I know foreign policy is not for the faint of heart, but right now, I am sick to my stomach as the administration appears to be walking away from our allies and embracing Putin, a threat to democracy and U.S. values around the world.
It is bewildering to see Mr. Trump’s allies defending this debacle as some show of American strength. The U.S. interest in Ukraine is shutting down Mr. Putin’s imperial project of reassembling a lost Soviet empire without U.S. soldiers ever having to fire a shot. That core interest hasn’t changed, but berating Ukraine in front of the entire world will make it harder to achieve.
I was disgusted by the videos of the Oval Office Attack, and will no longer watch them, the way I won’t watch a video of a terrorist beheading a hostage. Trump opined at the end of the press conference, “This is going to be great television,” but he may have overplayed his hand. Americans have an innate love for freedom and admiration for the underdog, and those qualities were conspicuously absent in Vance’s tirade and Trump’s bullying.
The virtually universal condemnation of the Trump/Vance stunt is matched only by the outpouring of support for Zelensky and for Ukraine – a hero’s welcome in London, supportive rallies and marches in European capitals, and overwhelming support for Ukraine cross social media pages in the U.S.
In Austin, someone draped a Ukrainian flag around the statue of Angelina Eberly on Congress Avenue. Her courage and creativity helped make Austin the capital of the new Republic of Texas.
Texans, with their fabled passion for independence, courage against overwhelming odds, and love for the underdog, are natural allies with Volodymyr Zelensky and the people of Ukraine. We need to model that courage and steadfastness with our political leaders, who seem prepared to sell out Ukraine. Perhaps our leaders could take the, ahem, lead in insisting on U.S. support for Ukraine (and, for that matter, the whole Western alliance and postwar order, which are under attack). And we can start with the U.S. senators who have that brave Texian DNA (supposedly) coursing through their veins.
The obviousness of Trump's collaboration with Putin is gobsmacking. And this is after Trump's diktat to Defense Secretary Hegseth to stop our cyber efforts to protect our country from Russian cyber attacks. I grew up being taught to crawl beneath my school desk for protection from Russian nuclear missiles. We had a respite when The Wall was toppled, but glasnost and perestroika were easily demolished by Putin's gangster grab for Russian power and wealth. As he has continued in power, he has only increased his stranglehold over his citizens and that his alignment with other dictators is solid evidence of his nature. Trump has turned this country, and in turn, the world upside down. Perhaps it's time to mirror his actions symbolically: to fly our flag upside down. It's a universal signal of distress and danger. And to be sure, we are certainly in danger.
The obviousness of Trump's collaboration with Putin is gobsmacking. And this is after Trump's diktat to Defense Secretary Hegseth to stop our cyber efforts to protect our country from Russian cyber attacks. I grew up being taught to crawl beneath my school desk for protection from Russian nuclear missiles. We had a respite when The Wall was toppled, but glasnost and perestroika were easily demolished by Putin's gangster grab for Russian power and wealth. As he has continued in power, he has only increased his stranglehold over his citizens and that his alignment with other dictators is solid evidence of his nature. Trump has turned this country, and in turn, the world upside down. Perhaps it's time to mirror his actions symbolically: to fly our flag upside down. It's a universal signal of distress and danger. And to be sure, we are certainly in danger.
Thanks for sharing this, however sad it is to read and know what has/is happening!