Red Mosquito

Higgs wrote:Even the r/conservative sub is up in arms about this and are saying Zelensky got ambushed for a TV opportunity to try and make Trump and Vance look tough. I've never seen that sub anything but grovelling Trump fan boys.

Unbelievable stuff.

Also, Numbers - wtaf?

i did quite a bit of exercise this morning which likely boosted my T levels higher than my normal immasculated self

trying to shed some winter blubber and be svelt for the spring

but just as zelensky on his fox news interview afterward

i apologize for nothing

also

i am coming around to the idea that this was in part a function of a strategic mistake decades ago where NATO was expanded too far toward Russia's borders

imagine if Russia put missiles in Cuba, how would the US feel

well we put missiles in Poland

i dismissed this idea for a while, and i also don't doubt that putin would re-assemble the soviet union if he could, but ultimately after reading a book by richard haass recently where even he acknowledges in retrospect this should have been handled differently, i am willing to give the russian argument some listen here

there was supposed to be a buffer zone

putin is also a cruel piece of shit

but we started arming up the buffer zone

and we didn't need to

and that likely made things worse

I spent a little more time reading r/conservative and it turns out that there are just as many Trump fan boys there still, it was just the most up voted posts were very anti-whatever the fuck happened in that meeting.

Now I feel dirty and am off to have my 2nd shower of the morning.

This administration has no idea what it is doing. And it's kinda scary.

96583UP wrote:also

i am coming around to the idea that this was in part a function of a strategic mistake decades ago where NATO was expanded too far toward Russia's borders

imagine if Russia put missiles in Cuba, how would the US feel

well we put missiles in Poland

i dismissed this idea for a while, and i also don't doubt that putin would re-assemble the soviet union if he could, but ultimately after reading a book by richard haass recently where even he acknowledges in retrospect this should have been handled differently, i am willing to give the russian argument some listen here

there was supposed to be a buffer zone

putin is also a cruel piece of shit

but we started arming up the buffer zone

and we didn't need to

and that likely made things worse

note: this blurb was not an argument to justify Russian invasion of Ukraine

rather a separate, but related, thought on the topic

We must never allow Russia to dictate which countries can join NATO. Had Ukraine joined NATO, this was would have been prevented.

Still absolutely disgusted by what we saw from the White House yesterday. Disgusted with Trump and Vance.

96583UP wrote:well we put missiles in Poland

there was supposed to be a buffer zone

putin is also a cruel piece of shit

but we started arming up the buffer zone

and we didn't need to

and that likely made things worse

Russia had already invaded Georgia by that point, and had been encroaching on Ukraine since the Tuzla island conflict in 2003.

Putin has always seen the collapse of the Soviet empire as a humiliation that must someday be corrected, and he’s never been subtle or unclear about that. The idea that he opposed even the most basic defense agreements between the West and the former Satellites out of fear, rather than because those agreements made those nations less reclaimable, is unsupported by the literature that is real life.

I don't know that I've ever had more contempt for a public official than I have for JD Vance right now

Important to remember Trump doesn’t want those materials for American. He wants them for corporations. He could give less of a fuck what Putin does in Ukraine or to Ukrainians as the extraction is happening or afterwards.
Why would Zelensky or Ukraine ever agree to it? Even the security deal wouldn’t be worth the paper it was written on. We know Trump is under Putins control. Has been since Helsinki.
No help or protection was ever going to come via Trump.

McP is right. Europe is a far more serious prospect and problem for Putin and Trump hasn’t just managed to disgust all of them, but leaders all around the world with that performance. It’s dangerous now as russias army can’t even make it across Russia, they don’t have the man power and certainly not the equipment. So the nuclear threat actually becomes serious at this point. It’s all he has left.
All this has manage to do is remove any doubt about Trump and Vance working for Putins interest and left Americas standing in the world torn to shreds.

"The only winner out of today is Vladimir Putin. It was a mistake to have it broadcast. It was a mistake for the president and vice-president to be so public in their comments."
- Karl Rove -
Former White House Deputy Chief of Staff (R)

Anders wrote:Still absolutely disgusted by what we saw from the White House yesterday. Disgusted with Trump and Vance.

All decent people are.

The Argonaut wrote:I don't know that I've ever had more contempt for a public official than I have for JD Vance right now

You think he is worse than Trump?

You don’t ’slip into’ the Oval Office. He was invited.

WASHINGTON, Feb 28 (Reuters) - A reporter from Russia's state-owned news agency gained access to a Friday meeting in the Oval Office between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as they clashed about their different views on how to end the three-year war.
A White House official said that the White House had not permitted entry to the reporter from Russia's TASS, and added that he was removed as soon as press officials were notified of his presence.
A Reuters reporter saw some White House officials check reporter identities and allow the TASS reporter to walk in before the Trump-Zelenskiy meeting began, as the White House officials handpicked journalists who could cover the Oval Office meeting.
It was unclear if the TASS reporter had been allowed into the Oval Office through a mistake by those White House officials, or whether there was a conflict between the press office's plans and the access decisions made by other White House officials.

The White House did not respond to questions posed by Reuters about how the TASS reporter gained entry to the Oval Office.
"TASS was not on the approved list of media for today's pool," a White House official said. "As soon as it came to the attention of press office staff that he was in the Oval, he was escorted out by the Press Secretary."
The U.S. Secret Service didn't immediately respond to comment on the matter. TASS did not respond to a request for comment. The TASS journalist, Dmitry Kirsanov, declined a request for comment.

Reuters could not reach the Kremlin for an immediate comment.
Reporters from outlets, including Reuters and the Associated Press which have covered the U.S. President's press pool for decades, were stopped by the same White House officials from walking in.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced the White House would determine which media outlets would cover the president in smaller spaces such as the Oval Office.

The three wire services that have traditionally served as permanent members of the White House pool, the AP, Bloomberg and Reuters, on Wednesday, criticizing the new policy.
The White House Correspondents' Association has traditionally coordinated such access, through the rotation of the presidential press pool.
The pool system, administered by the WHCA, allowed select television, radio, wire, print and photojournalists to cover events and share their reporting with the broader media.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said earlier that while traditional media organizations would still be permitted to cover Trump on a day-to-day basis, the administration planned to change who participates in smaller spaces.

BREAKING: The White House has announced that there will be no more aid to Ukraine

Trump administration press secretary Caroline Leavitt stated that the U.S. will no longer provide military assistance to Ukraine because their priority is peace negotiations. This decision came after the controversy during Zelensky’s visit.

"We are no longer going to just write blank checks for a war in a very distant country without a real, lasting peace," Leavitt said.

"It was great that the cameras were rolling because the American people and the whole world got to see what President Trump and his team are dealing with behind closed doors in negotiations with the Ukrainians," she added.

Earlier, The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration is not ruling out halting all ongoing military aid shipments to Ukraine, worth billions of dollars.

the TASS reporter prob dropped a few new bugs in the office

96583UP wrote:the TASS reporter prob dropped a few new bugs in the office

No even need to do that. Trump.

Tapper in with clear eyed take:

Higgs wrote:I spent a little more time reading r/conservative and it turns out that there are just as many Trump fan boys there still, it was just the most up voted posts were very anti-whatever the fuck happened in that meeting.

Now I feel dirty and am off to have my 2nd shower of the morning.

This administration has no idea what it is doing. And it's kinda scary.

No, you’re wrong. They know EXACTLY, what they’re doing and it’s EXTREMELY scary.

Would not be surprised if zelensky needs to resign to get a deal done

Dude looks so tired could really use a break

But I just don’t know how you can come back from something like that

Yes it was ‘not all his fault’ of course

But it just doesn’t look like he is going to be effective in this process