There is good news tonight: congratulations to Sergio Garcia on a Masterful performance at Augusta. One may have noticed a slight lack of color on CBS; they let the azaleas slip for once (no one is perfect, even the National). I guarantee the color will be back next year – along with many, many astounding changes (more on that later [HUGE doings in Augusta in years to come…]).

In Russia, the color is red. That’s what Putin is seeing and how he describes the line Trump crossed last week in Syria.

One of the things that got Trump elected was the fear that a second President Clinton would merely be a shill for the war parties, who would steer us uncomfortably close to armed conflict with Russia. Trump channeled his inner 2000-era W and promised a humble foreign policy. That all went out the window – missile tube, rather – last week.

Honestly, I would have picked another man to piss off… Drudge.

From The Daily Mail:

The Assad regime has denied it was responsible and the Russians have claimed it was a ‘false flag’ incident carried out by jihadists who want to stir up tensions between Russia and the US.

President Trump infuriated Moscow when he authorised an airstrike on a Syrian air base on Friday, which killed at least six people.

British Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon said today it was the ‘right call’ for the Americans to bomb the air base as retribiution for a ‘barbaric, immoral and illegal’ act by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who he described as a Russian ‘proxy’.
But in a joint statement the Russian and Iranians said: ‘We will respond to any aggression’.

The Sun reported that a joint command centre in Syria said: ‘What America waged in an aggression on Syria is a crossing of red lines. From now on we will respond with force to any aggressor or any breach of red lines from whoever it is and America knows our ability to respond well.’

The Sun has a parallel story, perhaps most interesting because they dial back the rhetoric on the “definitive” narrative of the chemical attacks. Now, it’s only “suspected”. Next, will be privately written off and publicly ignored.

Right now, this all looks like two things: First, there’s tremendous rah-rah for Trump’s actions from the British Foreign Secretary. Second, there’s militant posturing from Damascus and Tehran. All well and good if it stays like that. Cooler heads might have a chance to prevail.

The British always have our backs. No change expected there. And neither Iran nor Syria have the ability to harm the U.S. in any significant fashion. It’s Russia that should worry sane people. They do have detrimental abilities.

Concerns mount that Kim-Jong Un(well) may have the ability to get one ICBM to Hawaii. Russia can get thousands of them everywhere. They can certainly disrupt American operations in Syria and the Med.

None of this is remotely good and it represents one of the major fears of last year’s campaign. Worst of all, is the fact that there is no rational basis for any of it – not for our intervention in Syria nor for anything but friendship with Russia.

To my previously dejected liberal friends, I say, “congratulations; it looks like your girl won after all”. To my Republican chums, I say, “congratulations; you elected Mr. Hilary Clinton”. To the rest of us, I say, “pray”.

The long odds are that this will all blow over. The short call is that it may blow up.

Developing…