Joseph Belbruno Blog

  Opinion | Piggy Gets Polite Credit... Jonathan Ernst/Reuters Listen to this article · 6:55 min  Learn more 1.3k Step by slimy step, President Trump has made us numb to his crudeness and cruelty. The solipsistic Trump, with the parasitic tech emperors and the internet itself, is degrading American values, making honor and integrity seem anachronistic. Still, some moments shock as beyond the pale. Whatever the pale is anymore. On Air Force One recently, Trump cut off Catherine Lucey, a Bloomberg News journalist pressing him about the release of Epstein files that could further implicate Trump in the lurid mess. Stabbing his finger at her face, the President of the United States snapped at Lucey: “Quiet! Quiet, piggy.” The press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, later preposterously explained, “The president being frank and open and honest to your faces, rather than hiding behind your backs, is, frankly, a lot more respectful than what you saw in the last administration.” It was nau...

  AI Investors Want More Making It and Less Faking It chips. This sort of circular deal had led to a nice bump in all the stocks involved in the past—but on Wednesday,  nada . Second, Nvidia’s better-than-expected results were hailed by many investors and commentators as proof that there isn’t an AI bubble, and the stock jumped more than 5% on Thursday morning, while smaller AI-related stocks soared. It only took until that afternoon for people to realize that the argument was daft. Sure, Nvidia is selling a lot of chips—but that’s an essential part of the infrastructure spending in the faking it stage, and if there’s a bubble, this is exactly what you should expect. The stock closed down, with a huge price swing not seen since the April tariff selloff. None of this is helped by the parallel selloff in stocks popular with individual traders, many of whom are being hammered by losses on crypto, or by fading hopes of a December rate cut from the Federal Reserve. Trader psycholog...

Trump’s Proposed Ukraine ‘Deal’ Is a Disgrace Nov. 22, 2025 Finally, finally, President Trump just might get a peace prize that would secure his place in history. Unfortunately, though, it is not that Nobel peace prize he so covets. It is the “Neville Chamberlain Peace Prize” — awarded by history to the leader of the country that most flagrantly sells out its allies and its values to an aggressive dictator. This prize richly deserves to be shared by Trump’s many “secretaries of state” — Steve Witkoff, Marco Rubio and Dan Driscoll — who together negotiated the surrender of Ukraine to Vladimir Putin’s demands without consulting Ukraine or our European allies in advance — and then told Ukraine it had to  accept  the plan by Thanksgiving. That is this coming Thursday. If Ukraine is, indeed, forced to surrender to the specific terms of this “deal” by then, Thanksgiving will no longer be an American holiday. It will become a Russian holiday. It will become a day of thanks that victo...

  THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE Issues an Ultimatum to Ukraine His proposal to end Russia's war is actually an ultimatum to Ukraine. Trump suggests he might end American support if Ukraine won't agree, but what might be the costs to the U.S. of a bad deal? The 28-point plan that was mooted in the press but became public on Thursday includes a reduction in Ukraine’s military and a cap on its manpower at 600,000, from about 900,000 now. It isn’t clear if foreign peace-keeping troops would be allowed on Ukraine’s soil or if it could maintain long-range weapons. The deal hands Mr. Putin all of the Donbas in the east. He’d pocket the territory he’s already seized there—and get the rest that Ukraine still holds despite nearly four years of Russian assaults. Ukraine would forfeit its right to join a defensive Western alliance in NATO. Oh—and the U.S. and Ukraine would recognize Russian control of Crimea, which Mr. Putin took by force in 2014. Mr. Putin has made these demands since 2022 af...

  Saturday 22 November 2025 News Trump issues deadline for Zelensky to sign peace deal Donald Trump welcomes Volodymyr Zelensky to the White House in October  (Getty) James C. Reynolds Donald Trump has warned Ukraine to agree to his widely criticised peace proposal by Thursday or lose access to US intelligence and weapons. Volodymyr Zelensky said his nation faces “one of the most difficult moments in our history” as he considers a 28-point US-brokered plan that appears to heavily favour Russia. Kyiv would have to cede land, agree not to join Nato, and accept limits on the size of its military – while Russia would be welcomed back into the international community. “Ukraine may now face a very difficult choice, either losing its dignity or the risk of losing a key partner,” Mr Zelensky said in a bleak address to the nation, vowing that he would not betray his country. The US has threatened to cut intelligence-sharing and the supply of weapons to Ukraine in an effort to pressure ...

  Why the Time Has Finally Come for Geothermal Energy It used to be that drawing heat from deep in the Earth was practical only in geyser-filled places such as Iceland. But new approaches may have us on the cusp of an energy revolution. November 17, 2025 Near the Krafla geothermal-energy plant, scientists drilled down to magma, creating the most powerful geothermal well in the world. Photograph by Claire-Lise Havet / Hans Lucas / Redux When I arrived in Reykjavík, Iceland, last March, a gravel barrier, almost thirty feet at its highest point, had been constructed to keep lava from the Reykjanes volcano from inundating a major geothermal power station not far from downtown. So far, it had worked, but daily volcano forecasts were being broadcast on a small television at the domestic airport where I was waiting to take a short flight to Akureyri, a town on the north coast about an hour’s drive from one of the country’s oldest geothermal plants, the Krafla Geothermal Station. Until the...