The big news — Vlad Putin is coming to the U.S.! Seriously! He and Trump are supposed to meet in Alaska next Friday to discuss Ukraine.. Maybe in Trump’s head Alaska is more of an annex than the real U.S. Does Trump know Alaska used to be a Russian territory? Probably not.
I’ve lost track of how many deadlines Trump has set for Putin to come to a cease fire agreement. Putin blows these off, so Trump meekly sets another deadline. The last deadline was yesterday, when Putin was either supposed to agree to a cease fire or risk sanctions. Instead, Trump invited him to Alaska.
Putin continues to make a fool of Trump, and Trump once again TACOs instead of standing firm. Who would have predicted this? Well, somebody did. Let’s review.
Last month there was a lot of commentary about how Putin had humiliated Trump. See, for example, How Putin Humiliated Trump by Jonathan Lamire at The Atlantic and Angry Trump Shocked to Discover Putin Has Humiliated Him: “Bullshit!” by Greg Sargent at The New Republic, both published about a month ago. For a time Trump sounded a bit tougher toward Putin. I guess that’s over. TACO!
Trump seems to have believed that all he had to do was make a phone call and Putin would back down. But Trump also seems to have believed that the war was Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s fault. Trump has no idea what’s going on in the real world. He shouldn’t be allowed to operate a toaster oven, never mind heavy machinery. Or the U.S.
Trump has already announced that the cease fire should involve some sort of land swap. Zelenskyy has already said no. So this will go nowhere. Meanwhile, Vance the Veep and UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy are hosting talks near London with Ukrainian officials and European national security advisers, says the BBC. So we’ll see what comes from that, if anything.
There’s an update on Billy Long’s dismissal from the IRS. WaPo reports,
The Internal Revenue Service clashed with the White House over using tax data to help locate suspected undocumented immigrants hours before Trump administration officials forced IRS Commissioner Billy Long from his post Friday, according to two people familiar with the situation.
The Department of Homeland Security sent the IRS a list Thursday of 40,000 names of people DHS officials thought were in the country illegally and asked the IRS to use confidential taxpayer data to verify their addresses, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. …
… On Friday, though, the IRS responded that it was able to verify fewer than 3 percent of the names immigration enforcement officials submitted, the people said.
The names they could find were those that had some kind of taxpayer ID number attached to them. Otherwise, not.
I doubt that Billy Long had anything to do with this, one way or another. He has no management experience and surely didn’t do much at the IRS but take up space. And he has no scruples, so he is the last person who’d defy Trump to protect innocent people. The IRS was underfunded for decades, and back in 2022 or so there were all kinds of news stories about how the IRS had an ancient database and not enough staff to do keep up with the volume of data properly. So Congress appropriated more money to help the IRS upgrade. And the Right went crazy claiming that the extra money would fund agents who would harass taxpayers, or something. So that funding got canceled at some point. And then Elon Musk came along and dismissed way too many employees. So it doesn’t surprise me that random names with no taxpayer ID are irretrievable. What did they expect?
See also Shrinking IRS faces major task to implement ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ passed by Congress.
I'll be waiting for Vlad to pull some Epstein pics (kompromat) out of his pocket. It's hilarious how Trump thinks he can force a deal on the Ukraine to 1) save his bacon at home and 2) win the Nobel Peace Prize, so he can 1) save his bacon at home.
Trump is a wannabe dictator in the presence of a real dictator, light years beyond the American Fool. The psychics I follow all hate "looking" at Putin, because not only is he evil, but he has dark psychic powers of his own, and knows when others are "looking" at him. People at that level – whether in Russia or the US – have armies of psychics working for them.
Poweful AI generated movie, Grand Opening – MAGA Ballroom 2028
Putin agreed to meet Trump. I am underwhelmed. Two of the biggest liars ever to run – no -THE two biggest liars ever to rule nuclear stockpiles have agreed to lie to each other in person to advance their wicked agendas. What could go right?
I do not think Putin will keep any agreement to respect Ukraine's sovergnty no matter HOW much land he's bribed with. Moscow needs a major rest to fill their arsenals and recruit troops, IMO, to conquer all of Ukraine. Russia's terms will forbid Ukraine from re-arming from Europe to repel the next invasion.
(If a treaty included the provision that Ukraine would fully and automatically become part of NATO if Russia crosses the new border, I'd look at that.)
This is a huge nothingburger. Putin will day his deal with Trump is final and binding on Keiv – please surrender next week. Trump will say the chat guarantees him the Nobel Peace Prize. I think Zelenski will tell both of them to shove it where the sun don't shine.
We are in a new era of drone warfare, How it might work if the objective is guerrilla warfare against an occupying army, I'm not sure. The Soviet Union had ALL of Afghanistan but the US supplied the Taliban and the Taliban provided the martyrs The Soviet Army was decimated on the ground and in the air. That's after they won. Ulraine may not be the prize Putin wants – winning could cost Russia everything if Europe covertly supplies the resistance. I am not saying this WILL happen. I'm saying it HAS happened when the occupied country was fanatical about refusing to quit.
Not to be ignored is the length the war has gone on and the scope of Russian casualties. The ones that didn't make it back are one aspect, but the ones who did, minus limbs or with permanent visable injuries remind the Russian people how exepnsive Putin's war has been. And for what? Reportedly, the Kremlin isn't admittting a lot of the casualties to avoid paying out to widows. I doubt that injured vets are being taken care of, which means they are littering street corners, begging. Putin controls the media there but the more this goes on, the less thrilled the Russian people are about the war. But there are no honest polls or ways to measure dissent.
The Romanov family found out how sudden and violent Russian rage can be.
Does Trump know Alaska used to be a Russian territory?
Can he find it on a map? I don't think he owns a golf course there.
Come to think of it, does he know Alaska is a US state?
I've said it before.
Watch donnie "negotiate" with Putin. Will it be like when he "negotiated" with the Taliban, including releasing thousands of prisoners, one of whom killed hundreds with a suicide bomb? Don't forget, donnie "negotiated" with the Taliban, excluding Afghanistan, the government.
No wonder it went so wrong. I mean, aside from having a dumb donkey "leading" our side.
I have been commenting here for 20 (+?) years (starting with the US invasion of Iraq); I may even be responsible for Maha's inclusion of the phrase "Group Therapy" in the subhead (very top, above). I know that most of you here disagree with my perspective on the war in Ukraine, but please don't close your ears/eyes.
IMO, continuing the war in Ukraine will only result in more dead and maimed people (some Russian, most Ukrainian), and MORE territory that Ukraine will have to cede to Russia.
My priority is the humans, not the 'territorial integrity' of Ukraine. Anyone who knows anything about [European or Terran] History knows that borders are never permanent.
Does anyone here really think that Ukraine's army can regain control of the areas currently occupied by Russia? If so, plz spend more time examining the strategic and operational balance of forces, using more accurate and balanced sources. (Note: if US/NATO put a few hundred thousand troops into Ukraine, we *might* be able to retake those territories, but that would risk a nuclear war, so it's a terrible idea).
Bottom line: if Trump can force Zelensky to agree to trade land for peace, I'm all for it. Yeah, it's ugly, but nowhere near as ugly as the mangled bodies (dead and alive) that the war is currently producing.
I apologize for pooping in soup here at our Group Therapy session here, but good therapy needs to be grounded in Reality (I think).
I understand what you’re saying, but the international relations experts are all doubting that Putin would really end his military aggression for a bit of Ukrainian territory. The commentary I’m reading is that Putin made the land swap proposal to Trump because it put the conflict on Trump’s level — real estate — and Putin desperately needs the U.S. on his side because hardly anyone else is, other than Belarus. It’s expected that along with a chunk of Ukraine Putin will also insist that Ukraine not enter NATO or any other alliance and also not be allowed to build up its own military, so that Ukraine will remain vulnerable. Ukraine will never agree to that, and the rest of the NATO alliance will side with Ukraine. It’s widely been reported that Putin’s ultimate goal is to break up NATO and then retake as much of the old Soviet empire in eastern Europe as he can. So appeasing him may not be possible.
<i>Putin desperately needs the U.S. on his side because hardly anyone else is, other than Belarus.</i>
Actively supporting him, I'd say you are probably correct except for North Korea and Iran with whom Russa has formal treaties but Russia is on good terms with most of the world. If anyone things that the People's Republic of China is not a very strong silient partner, then I have a nice bridge to sell you, one owner and only used on Sundays.
If you look at which countries have levied sanctions against Russia, I think there are 45 out of 193 sovereign states in the UN. There is on interesting map at https://www.castellum.ai/insights/which-countries-are-taking-action-on-ukraine that shows that no country in the Caribbean, Africa, South and Central America that have sanctioned Russia The one red spot on the South American continent is French Guiana (Guyane) which in a department of France. Mexico has not lievied sanctions.
Almost no country in Asia has joined in the sanctions regime, only Japan, South Korea, and, for some reason I don't understand, Singapore. Taiwan has but it is not a sovereign state.
Russia is a founding member of BRICS which President Trump is currently threatening with massive sanctions, that is driving these countries away from the USA and towards two of the major BRICS countries, China and Russia. BTW, Brazil is really peeved at those new sanctions Trump has imposed and it does, IIRC, about double the trade with China, a fellow BRICS member, than it does with the USA.
I'm not even sure that Turkey, a NATO member, has any sanctions against Russia. It certainly does a lot of trade with Russia which is also building Turkey's new nuclear plant.
The short response is that some things are worth fighting for, and do cost lives. It's more than territory, it's whether a bully is allowed to push you around and later, other countries. All because said bully doesn't want his people to see a nearby successful democracy, challenging the way bully is running his country.
It's also up to the Ukrainians whether they want to keep fighting or throw in the towel, and up to their patrons – America and Ukraine's neighbors if they want to continue.
I'm optimistic that Ukraine will prevail – and this may require them giving up some land – but what they want to cede should be up to them. Even if Trump sells them down the river, their neighbors are pitching in.
Putin can not be trusted. If he's serious, he will be willing to sign a "No NATO in Ukraine pledge" that flips to automatic "FULL membership for Ukraine in NATO" if he does not honor the bargain. I can't prove that Putin intends to invade anyone, but rolling tanks into Ukraine twice in the last decade does not indicate non-aggressive tendencies.
There was a signed bargain between Russia and Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union that Russia would NOT invade to re-annex Ukraine. They made this bargain because Russia wanted their nukes in Ukraine back. And they got them. If Ukraine had nukes, Russia would have never invaded.
There may be better ways than NATO or nukes to guarantee Moscow will honor a deal. If I see them on Friday, I'll eat my hat.
"Bottom line: if Trump can force Zelensky to agree to trade land for peace, I'm all for it"
Trade with whom, Putin? Putin cannot be trusted to hold up his end of the deal, he lies more than Stump. And any deal negotiated by diaper don won’t be worth the paper it’s written on? Besides Ukraine already made a deal with Russia (Budapest memorandum) back in 1994 were they gave up their nukes in exchange for security and territorial guarantees. Russia broke that agreement with their invasion of Crimea in 2014 and subsequent invasion of Ukraine in 2022. And Ukraine could certainly "regain control of the areas currently occupied by Russia" if the US and NATO would increase military aid and better enforcement of sanctions, Russia will fold eventually. Giving in now only assure that Russia will reconstitute it military and take more land sometime in the future. I always thought the moment Russia invaded Crimea we should have made Ukraine part of NATO and let Russia think about going to war with something that can really fight back.
Military aggression is prohibited as a rightful way to acquire territory by any nation. Any such action needs rejection by all other countries. This is especially true for wealthy and powerful nations. No exceptions.
We must keep it simple. As we have recently discovered people like to bend reality. Politicians worldwide have shown a disability in judgement and often confuse truth and fiction.
We must remember even "peaceful" practices can be too aggressive. Trade is an activity of peace. Inciting trade wars are acts of aggression.
I’ve been interrogating relational databases since grad school DECADES ago. Only someone totally clueless would think a robust join could be bound on something as haphazardly formatted and redundant as a person’s name. Oy!