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Part 1: Of Course William Spaniel Gets the Witkoff Call Wrong
William Spaniel’s take on the Witkoff leak is not just wrong in detail; it is wrong at the level of basic problem definition. Anyone who watches his latest video and comes away thinking the leak somehow weakens the case that President Trump is structurally aligned with Kremlin interests has been misled. In plain English: on this question, Spaniel is behaving like a fucking idiot. The point is not that he and I disagree; the point is that Spaniel refuses to see the game that
john raymond
Nov 26, 20257 min read


The Witkoff Phone Call Proves Witkoff Isn’t a Freelancer for Trump or Putin but Is a Cutout Working for Both at the Same Time
The leaked Witkoff–Ushakov transcript closes one of the last convenient fictions in this scandal. Steve Witkoff is not “going rogue for Russia,” nor is he a naïve Trump loyalist being played by the Kremlin. The call transcript shows him acting as a joint cutout for two principals at once: President Trump and Vladimir Putin. Witkoff’s real job is to help both men coordinate a collusive “peace” project that sacrifices Ukraine and misleads the West. The point of the phone call w
john raymond
Nov 25, 20256 min read


That William Spaniel Is Only Now Just Beginning to See the Obvious Dysfunction in the White House Disqualifies Him as a Serious Analyst
At this stage of the Ukraine war, a minimally competent analyst must be able to do three things at once: look at the public record of President Trump’s 28-point “peace” plan, understand that it is structurally pro-Kremlin, and recognize that the chaos inside the White House is the direct consequence of that alignment, not a random accident of personalities. William Spaniel’s latest video finally admits there is “chaos” and factional infighting around the plan—but he still tre
john raymond
Nov 25, 20255 min read


Dear MAGA, Please Continue Attacking Mark Kelly. It Only Makes Him Stronger.
The more you attack Mark Kelly for his “illegal orders” video, the more clearly you explain to the country who you are—and why people like him are necessary. Your fury is not weakening him; it is sharpening the contrast between a constitutional republic and a personality cult. Every new denunciation, investigation, and threat against him simply rebroadcasts his core message: troops answer to the law and the Constitution, not to President Trump personally. This is a fight you
john raymond
Nov 25, 20256 min read


Pillar Four: How the EU and NATO Nations Should Defang the Russian 28-Point “Peace” Plan
The Trump–Putin 28-point “peace” proposal is not a diplomatic curiosity. It is a first-mover attempt by a Russian-aligned axis to fix the narrative and the end-state of this war in writing. The leaked European counter-proposal, built on the same skeletal structure, is not inherently better or worse; it simply sits inside the architecture the Kremlin and President Trump tried to define first. Under the Raymond Method, this is exactly the kind of moment Pillar Four—Operationali
john raymond
Nov 24, 20256 min read


Lindsey Halligan Is a Case Study
There is nothing wrong with women wanting to look their best. That is basic autonomy, not a moral failing, and it should be stated cleanly at the outset. Likewise, the problem is not that the women in President Trump’s orbit want to look glamorous; the problem is what his preferences reveal about him and the message they send about what matters in public life. When Trump consistently elevates women who are styled and deployed in ways that evoke a cartoonish “bimbo” stereotype
john raymond
Nov 24, 20252 min read


Dear James Comey, Don’t Confuse Our Elation at Your Court Victory as Endorsement
A judge just erased the charges against you because Lindsey Halligan was never lawfully appointed. That’s justice working—finally—and everyone who values due process should cheer it. But don’t mistake that sound for forgiveness. You still owe this country an honest apology for 2016. Your “no good options” defense was never good enough, and your memoir-era reflections only reinforced what many of us already suspected: you thought your judgment, and your discomfort with Hillary
john raymond
Nov 24, 20251 min read


Dear MAGA, Where Is All That Rule Following You Like?
You have said it for years: “If you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear.” You have told the rest of us to respect the process, obey the law, trust the system, and stop whining when prosecutors come knocking. That is rule-following taken to its harshest edge. Now the courts have just enforced the rules against your side, and the question in front of you is brutally simple: do you actually believe in following the rules, or was that all just cult talk for punishin
john raymond
Nov 24, 20254 min read


Vitamin R: Is Ukraine a Country?
Vlad Vexler’s video on the leaked Ukraine “peace plan” is framed as five insights, but they largely collapse into one simple question: is Ukraine being treated as a real country, or as a problem province inside someone else’s empire? Once you state the question bluntly, the apparent complexity of the plan falls away. What matters is not whether the deal is “clever” or “balanced,” but whether it recognizes Ukrainian statehood in substance, not just in name. Vexler’s first, s
john raymond
Nov 24, 20252 min read


Trump’s Ukraine ‘Peace’ Plan Proves He’s Working for Russian Interests
Trump and Rubio are still trying to sell a “peace plan” that everyone can see is a Russian wish list. That persistence is the evidence. An honest broker would have walked away the moment the plan’s contents and reactions were clear. They didn’t. That tells you where their loyalties lie—and it isn’t with Ukraine, NATO, or the EU. I. What the plan actually is Once we strip away the spin, the 28-point plan is straightforward: Ukraine gives up more territory in the east and south
john raymond
Nov 23, 20255 min read


Dear GOP, MGT’s Exit Proves MAGA Is a Cult
Let’s be clear about the frame from the start: Marjorie Taylor Greene’s implosion is a MAGA civil-war casualty, not a victory for the left, and certainly not our responsibility to mitigate. President Trump turned his own shock trooper into a cautionary tale to discipline the rest of you. That is your problem. You built that system. You chose to live under it. Do not look to liberals, Democrats, or “the left” to save you from the consequences. Greene’s resignation is not compl
john raymond
Nov 22, 20255 min read


Moral Inversion: Towards Understanding the Operative Vocabulary of the Ukraine War
The 28-point “peace plan” now being pushed at Ukraine is not a mistake, not naïve, and not merely amateurish. It is the visible tip of a long project: to invert the moral frame of the war so that Ukraine, not Russia, is blamed for the continued killing, letting Trump finally abandon Ukraine. For years, Trump and Putin have been working toward this exact moment. Every “I can end it in 24 hours,” every complaint that Ukraine “could have made a deal,” every flirtation with land
john raymond
Nov 22, 20256 min read


Part 2: A Plan So Bonkers Even William Spaniel Can See It
The leaked 28-point peace proposal for the war between Ukraine and Russia—crafted in the name of a deal, but all too clearly serving Moscow—has triggered widespread alarm. What makes the reaction especially telling is that William Spaniel—a political scientist who habitually frames his commentary in neutral terms rather than partisan or even moralistic ones—spent his recent video walking through this plan and openly mocking it. He does not invoke the traitor-general hypothe
john raymond
Nov 21, 20253 min read


Dear GOP, If You Refuse to Act, Trump’s Attacks on Democrats Will Land on You in Time
President Trump is telling you, in public and in real time, exactly what kind of system he is building and where you fit in it. When a president calls six Democratic veterans “traitors” who have engaged in “seditious behavior, punishable by death” because they reminded the military that illegal orders must be refused, that is not a policy dispute. That is regime-security language from an aspiring autocrat, directed at anyone who might one day say no. At the same time, when he
john raymond
Nov 21, 20258 min read


Trump’s Latest “Peace Plan” for Ukraine Proves Once Again He Works for Putin
We must begin from an explicit working assumption: President Trump is operating in alignment with Vladimir Putin’s regime interests, not American interests, and has done so consistently for years. That alignment has two reinforcing layers. First, there is the personal-kompromat layer: the blackmail, financial leverage, and sexual or criminal exposure that would allow the Kremlin or its cutouts to destroy Trump’s political and personal life if he ever truly turned against the
john raymond
Nov 21, 20252 min read


Stephen Miller’s Tough-Guy Cosplay Is the Result of a Defective Mind—One That Mistakes Cruelty for Strength and Vitriol for Power
The defining feature of Stephen Miller is not intelligence, not conviction, and certainly not courage. It is a warped internal compass that confuses cruelty for strength and vitriol for power. What he has built for himself is a lifelong tough-guy cosplay routine: the pseudo-Rasputin of Trumpism, draping a brittle ego in the trappings of “hard decisions” and “border security,” while his actual legacy is the deliberate infliction of suffering on the weakest people he can find.
john raymond
Nov 21, 20256 min read


How Can You Still Toss the One Ring into the Pit of Doom Once You Have Drawn the Eye of Sauron?
The question is not abstract. It is the concrete problem facing anyone in Washington—or anywhere in public life—who has finally stood up, spoken plainly, and in doing so has attracted the full attention of a corrupt power. You called out the blackmail system, you voted for transparency, you told the truth about illegal orders, you refused to bow. The Eye turned. Now it is on you, and on the people you love. At that point, every pleasant theory about courage collapses. The pro
john raymond
Nov 20, 20258 min read


Day 304 Looks Like the Beginning of the End for Trump
Day 304 of President Trump’s second administration reveals a regime that has passed beyond simple incompetence and entered the terminal phase of authoritarian decay. The promises—cheap goods, mass deportations, instant victory in Ukraine—have collapsed. The factions—Groypers, “new-wave” neo-Nazis, and the MAGA establishment—are now openly at war with each other. And the president, trapped in a bunkerized information cocoon, is reduced to lashing out at Democratic lawmakers up
john raymond
Nov 20, 20253 min read


The Epstein Vote Should Be a Wake-up Call to Foreign Leaders: President Trump Is Not Normal
The recent congressional discharge petition on the Epstein matter is more than domestic theater—it is an unmistakable signal to foreign governments that President Trump cannot be treated like his predecessors. Many foreign leaders—from Mark Rutte to others—appear to assume they can engage him as a semi-conventional head of state. That assumption is dangerously wrong. They must instead regard him under the paradigm of the Byzantine traitor-general: a figure whose primary goal
john raymond
Nov 20, 20253 min read


And Then There Were Three: Real Proof Accountability Is Coming
People are asking whether today’s overwhelming Epstein-files vote actually means anything. They see the 427–1 tally, the easy Senate assent, and they wonder if this is another Washington gesture that will evaporate on contact with reality. It isn’t. And we know it isn’t because the exits have already begun. Here is the deal. Accountability shows it is working not when institutions speak like they did today, but when powerful men start running for the door. We now have three
john raymond
Nov 18, 20252 min read
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