The American president has lost patience with the Russian leader – so have his own people.

The Kremlin is nervous.

On Saturday night, a limousine caught fire north of the headquarters of the Russian security services.

Last week, footage showed servicemen being frisked by special protection officers.

Those same officers were later seen opening up sewer hatches in a hunt for bombs near where the Russian leader was speaking.

To Western intelligence agencies, the situation is becoming clear:  within Russia’s top brass, the knives are out for their leader.

Western analysts are often accused of wishful thinking. Rightly so.

In March 2022, an op-ed in the New York Times described Russia as a “Potemkin superpower,” naively suggesting that just the faintest push would cause the whole regime to suddenly collapse.

Such a projection has not come to pass.

But there is one thing the rising paranoia does certainly reveal:  Putin does think he’s vulnerable.

You can understand why. Let’s first consider the feeling within Russian society at large.

250,000 soldiers have died – grieving mothers are now starting to write to president Putin demanding explanations, with one telling Sky News, “It’s impossible to live like this.”

When Moscow was at war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, it was the mothers of soldiers that formed the frontline of the anti-war movement.

Then there’s the key demand made by Putin in negotiations with the US…

We’re three days into what the Democrats and their willing accomplices in the mainstream press are trying to turn into a “scandal” — the accidental inclusion of Atlantic Editor Jeffrey Goldberg in a chat about the Trump administration’s operations against the Houthis on the texting app Signal.

The more we learn, the more we know that the whole affair is a massive nothingburger with everything on it and a big ol’ side of fake news fries.

Key members of the administration’s intelligence apparatus testified that the Signal messaging thread didn’t divulge any classified information.

And for all the commendation of Goldberg for not spilling too many beans, we have a better idea that there weren’t many beans to spill.

It's hard not to speculate on why the left is so desperate to blow this thing out of proportion and make it more than it should be.

Obviously, the left wants nothing more than to slap the scarlet letter S for “scandal” on this administration because it has been so effective and popular with the American people.

But a White House press release from Tuesday reveals the most plausible reason why the left wants to discredit the administration when it comes to action against the Houthis.

“Democrats and their media allies have seemingly forgotten that President Donald J. Trump and his National Security team successfully killed terrorists who have targeted U.S. troops and disrupted one of the most consequential shipping routes in the world. “This is a coordinated effort to distract from the successful actions taken by President Trump and his administration to make America’s enemies pay and keep Americans safe. The Biden Administration sat back as a band of pirates — with precision-guided, Iran-provided weaponry — exacted a toll in one of the most important shipping lanes in the world.”

The Brits are having a field day ridiculing and condemning what’s becoming known as Signalgate.  It’s not just the ridiculous security lapse but the childishly ignorant banter primarily between Vance and Hegseth:

Below is the take of former British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, originally published in this morning’s (3/26) London Telegraph.]

The United States' military isn't often outnumbered by a foreign nation's military power, nut it is when it comes to a naval fleet.

Under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, China has spent 12 years investing in an ambitious military shipbuilding program.

That communist country now has a navy with one-third more combat ships than the U.S.

It's much more than a status thing. A large navy can project a country's power virtually anywhere in the world.

We heard about that in recent days when President Donald Trump ordered the destruction of much of the Houthis' military capabilities in Yemen.

That would be by U.S. naval forces in the region.

Armed by Iran, the world's largest exporter of terrorism, the Houthis have crippled much of the world's maritime trade through the Middle East, forcing ships to travel all around Africa at much greater cost in money and time instead of using the Suez  Canal.

Last weekend, President Trump issued a lengthy statement that said, in part:

“Today, I have ordered the United States Military to launch decisive and powerful Military action against the Houthi terrorists in Yemen. They have waged an unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence, and terrorism against American, and other, ships, aircraft, and drones.

Joe Biden's response was pathetically weak, so the unrestrained Houthis just kept going. It has been over a year since a U.S. flagged commercial ship safely sailed through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, or the Gulf of Aden.”

Pity poor John Roberts. No, he’s not corrupt or compromised.

He is simply a man who has found himself at a pivotal time and place in a position of great responsibility for which he is utterly unsuited.

He’s not a dumb man. He is, in fact, a very smart man – Hugh Hewitt knew him personally in the Reagan administration and testifies to that. I have no doubt it’s true.

I know many smart people who have similar flaws. As objectively intelligent as John Roberts is, he is unwise, and he is endangering the institution he wants to preserve because he does not understand human nature or the times he finds himself in.

Frankly, I’ll take wisdom over raw intellect any day of the week.

If he had the capacity to lead that he so manifestly lacks, John Roberts could save his institution with decisive and bold action. But that’s not who he is.

Understand what John Roberts wants. He is an institutionalist who has always wanted to protect the judiciary branch.

He wants it to be a fully co-equal branch that is respected by all. But the very actions he has chosen to take – or not to take – in response to the current crisis of out-of-control subordinate courts are guaranteeing that it will fall.