Welcome to shabbos for Jewish cats: it’s CaturSaturday, 2025, and March 1. Here’s March from the illuminated manuscript the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, produced in the second decade of the fifteenth century. Time for plowing and planting!
It’s also National Pig Day, World Compliment Day, Beer Day in Iceland, The beginning of Ramadan, and National Peanut Butter Lover’s Day (note once again the misplaced apostrophe, implying that only a single lover of peanut butter is being honored.
Here’s a joke for World Compliment Day; pardon the misspelling:
A man goes into one of those Seattle fern bars and orders a drink. As he nurses his white wine, a peanut jumps out of the bowl on the table, runs up to him and says, “Nice turtleneck, buddy” and proceeds out the door.
“Whoa”, thinks the man with the wine.
A minute later, another goober runs by and yells, “Great haircut, pal!”, and strides out the door.
Enough!!
“Hey bartender”, calls out the patron, “What’s with these peanuts?”
“Oh, they’re complimentary snacks, sir”.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the February 21 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Trump had a meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky in the White House yesterday, and it wasn’t pretty (article archived here). Trump wants Zelensky to lick his boots and abase his country because it got aid from America.
Tensions between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and President Trump burst into the open Friday in the Oval Office as the Ukrainian leader urged the U.S. not to trust Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump responded that Kyiv needed to accept that it had a weak negotiating hand.
Ukraine had sought the meeting to line up U.S. support against Russian aggression, which it hoped to solidify with the signing of a mineral-rights deal later in the day.
But after a half-hour of a generally polite discussion, the tone of the session became testy as disagreements that typically occur behind closed doors spilled out into the open.
Zelensky sought to explain to Vice President JD Vance that Ukraine had signed a number of agreements with Russia that Moscow had subsequently broken.
Vance, and later Trump, said Zelensky hasn’t been grateful enough for the assistance his military received from the U.S.
“If you didn’t have our military equipment,” Ukraine would have lost in the war in weeks, Trump said. He added: “You have to be thankful.” At one point, Trump told Zelensky he is “gambling with World War III.”
Zelensky said he has been thankful to the American people. But as the tense exchange continued, Trump provided a dire picture of Ukraine’s military situation. “You are running low on soldiers,” Trump said. “You’re not in a good position…you don’t have the cards.”
Vance participated in the humiliation, too. From the WaPo:
But Trump has been skeptical of his Ukrainian counterpart, calling him a “dictator” last week and blaming Ukraine for the war even though it began with an unprovoked invasion by Moscow.
“You’re in no position to dictate what we’re going to feel,” Trump said at one point in the Oval Office. “You don’t have the cards right now.”
Vice President JD Vance also chimed in, saying that it was “disrespectful for Zelensky to come into the Oval Office, litigating in front of the American media.”
“Have you said thank you once?” Vance asked.
But the best way to gras[ this debacle is to watch this ten-minute a video of the meeting (it was a press conference preceding a meeting that didn’t occur). Trump comes off as a total jerk. Vance doesn’t look well, either, and Zelensky looks very uncomfortable.
Even as the back-and-forth grew more heated, Trump said he wanted the American people to see the exchange. To read an analysis of this debacle, read the Free Press articke, “A fiasco in the Oval Office.” Zelensky was summarily kicked out of the White House without even a closed-door meeting:
Before dismissing the press corps and kicking Zelensky out of the White House, Trump observed that the last 40 minutes had made for some “great television.”
It certainly had. And that’s the only good thing one can say about the entire meeting.
One image of Ukraine’s ambassador to Washington with her head in her hands captures the entire debacle.
*The NYT has an editorial-board op-ed on how the Trump administration is controlling speech (article archived here). Here are a few examples, and there are more, including government posts with the “wrong” gender ideology, including deep-sixing words like “diverse”.
The Orwellian nature of this approach is deliberate and dangerous. This posture is not about protecting free speech. It is about prioritizing far-right ideology — and at times celebrating lies and hate speech under the guise of preventing the criminalization of language — while trying to silence independent thought, inconvenient truths and voices of dissent.
Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning.When Mr. Trump announced that he was changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, for example, it seemed to be an essentially harmless bit of nationalistic chest-puffery, paling in comparison with the real damage he intended to do to national security, public health, the Civil Service and the rule of law. But then he made it clear that compliance was mandatory.
This month, a reporter for The Associated Press showed up at an Oval Office event and was barred from entering because the news organization continued referring to the gulf by the internationally recognized name it has had since at least the 16th century. That was an editorial decision that The A.P., just like The Times and many other outlets, has every right to make on its own without government interference.
The White House press office then upped the ante; it is now keeping both A.P. reporters and photographers away from many press events and off Air Force One on presidential trips, making it far more difficult for the nation’s largest wire service to provide essential coverage. The A.P., to its great credit, has sued officials in the administration, saying it was doing so “to vindicate its rights to the editorial independence guaranteed by the United States Constitution and to prevent the executive branch from coercing journalists to report the news using only government-approved language.”
Federal District Judge Trevor McFadden has yet to rule on The A.P.’s request but made it clear that the White House appeared to be improperly punishing the wire service for its editorial decision. “It seems pretty clearly viewpoint discrimination,” the judge said at a preliminary hearing.
This struggle is obviously about more than the name of a body of water; the White House wants to use coercion to control how it is covered and even who gets to cover the president. On Tuesday the press office said it would begin handpicking the news organizations that cover Mr. Trump as part of the press pool — a decision that up to now was made by a group representing the news outlets themselves. The White House immediately cut Reuters and HuffPost from the pool and added two sycophantic outlets, Newsmax and The Blaze.
“The White House press pool exists to serve the public, not the presidency,” said Bruce Brown, the executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
Politicians are allowed to criticize the press — that is free speech, too, and there is nothing new about it — but there is a difference between using language and using muscle. Government officials are supposed to use their considerable regulatory powers for the benefit of the public, not for personal or partisan goals. This administration, however, is mustering the arms of government to suppress speech it doesn’t like and compel words and ideas it prefers. It sees the press not as an institution with an explicit constitutional privilege but as a barrier to overcome, like an inspector general or a freethinking Republican senator. Members of Congress can be targeted for primaries, and inspectors general can be fired; under the same mentality, reporters need to be excluded and their bosses subjected to litigation.
The worst part, in my view, is Trump’s attempts to control the press by reducing the privileges of media that criticize the administration, threatening to sue reporters, and trying to muzzle speech like AOC’s seminar to apprise immigrants of their rights (this is NOT illegal). And that kind of stuff is truly Orwellian.
*As usual, I’ll post a few items from Nellie Bowles’s weekly news summary at the Free Press: “TGIF: Gold Bars, Gold Stars, Gold Cards.”
You’ve surely seen this (for one thing, I posted it):
→ TrumpGaza: Our President this week posted an AI-generated video of what Gaza might look like in the future as an American colony, and I cannot describe how unhinged it is. Lyrics include: “No more tunnels, no more fear. TrumpGaza is finally here. TrumpGaza shining bright, golden future, a brand-new light.” There are dancing bearded women on the beach. There are golden Trump balloons, and shots of a suspiciously chiseled Elon eating vats of hummus. You just have to watch it to understand the level of freak emanating from America’s capital. Here’s a good link.
Here: I’ll save you the trouble of clicking:
→ Lost in translation: A BBC documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone had a lot of problems, but one is that they didn’t actually tell viewers what Palestinians were saying. The British broadcaster mistranslated or just left out any Palestinians’ references to the Jews or praise of jihad. The word Yahud, Arabic for Jew—and it also kinda sounds like it already—was changed to Israel or Israeli forces. A Palestinian’s praise of Yahya Sinwar’s “jihad against the Jews” was translated as Sinwar’s fighting “Israeli forces.” Watch this side-by-side. It’s a pretty perfect example of how Hamas’s war to eliminate Israel and expel all Jews from the Middle East is whitewashed into a gentle call for better military ethics. A call for an end to the military-industrial complex.
About that one, reader Jez found the “apology”: “The BBC has finally put out a statement on the dire documentary about Gaza narrated by the son on a Hamas official.” Have a look. Jez added, “When I tried to search the BBC website to find the statement using its full title, it didn’t come up, but ironically a link to a BBC Verify video called ‘Israel-Gaza war: How to spot fake news on social media”‘did. You couldn’t make it up – although apparently they did their best to…!”
And this one is absolutely true:
→ Mayor Johnson’s astonishingly low favorability: Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson is “overwhelmingly unpopular,” per a new poll. Fully 80 percent of voters disapprove of Johnson. And—this is incredible—only 6.6 percent hold a favorable view of the mayor. The same poll found that 67 percent of Chicago voters feel crime is the most important issue the city is facing. Brandon Johnson is a 2020-style mayor meeting the year 2025.
Johnson’s a goner, and Nellie’s last line is absolutely correct.
*As I predicted, the protestors who had a sit-in at Barnard, injuring an employee, were not punished at all. They were protesting the expulsion of two students for disrupting a class on the history of Israel (bolding is mine):
Chanting “there is only one solution, intifada revolution” and beating drums, the students began their sit-in. Their demands included the immediate reversal of the student suspensions and amnesty for all other students disciplined for pro-Palestinian activism. They also requested a public meeting with Dean Grinage, who they said could decide on appeals of the student suspensions, and with President Rosenbury.
“Disruption until Divestment, Resistance Until Return, Agitation until Amnesty,” Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, a banned group on campus, posted on X with images of the sit-in. “We will not stop until our demands are met.”
After several hours, a faculty intermediary, Kristina Milnor, the chair of the Barnard classics department, told the students that Dean Grinage had offered to meet with up to three protesters, but only if they came in unmasked and showed identification, according to video posted by the protesters.
The students rejected the terms. President Rosenbury was in Florida, Professor Milnor told the students.
About 8:30 p.m., Robin Levine, a Barnard spokeswoman, issued a statement saying that if the students did not agree to leave the building by 9:30 p.m., “Barnard will be forced to consider additional, necessary measures to protect our campus.”
She said that the college did not know if all of the protesters were Barnard students, and that there had been violence entering the hall.
“We have made multiple good-faith efforts to de-escalate. Barnard leadership offered to meet with the protesters — just as we meet with all members of our community — on one simple condition: remove their masks. They refused. We have also offered mediation,” Ms. Levine said in the statement.
The deadline was relayed to the protesters by another faculty member, who told them they had an hour more to talk, before officers from the Police Department might come. Several students were seen escaping out a first-floor window as the deadline came and went.
At 10:40 p.m., the protesters, chanting and beating a drum, marched out peacefully. At least nine Police Department vans were parked on Riverside Drive near the campus about 10 p.m.
Here’s a news video:
The students were part of Students for Justice in Palestine. The fact that these students suffered no punishment, even attacking someone and sending him to the hospital, is shameful. Very few campuses seem to levy any punishment on students who break the rules about protesting.
*I recently reported that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) banned the participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports, following an EO from Trump threatening loss of federal funding to institutions that didn’t enact such a ban (see also this report from the NYT). Regardless of what you think of Trump, I see the NCAA as having promoted more fairness in women’s sports. Unfortunately, Colin Wright, in a new Substack post, tells us that we shouldn’t be so optimistic: the NCAA policy, says Wright, is a “Trojan horse” that can be circumvented by using several loopholes.
While the new policy might seem reasonable at a glance, a closer look reveals a giant loophole that could be used to defy the clear intent of Trump’s executive order. In fact, the updated protocols could make it easier for males to compete in women’s sports.
The NCAA’s policy has several troubling features. First, it deliberately avoids referencing objective biology, and defines “woman” as a “gender identity” rather than as an “adult human female”—the language of the executive order. Further, it defines “gender identity” circularly as “an individual’s own internal sense of their gender.”
Second, though the policy states that “a student-athlete assigned male at birth may not compete on a women’s team,” and that eligibility will be determined based on the sex “marked on [the athlete’s] birth records,” this standard is easily manipulated. In rare cases, though more commonly in developing countries, doctors may misidentify a male newborn’s sex due to female-like or ambiguous genitalia caused by a developmental condition. The NCAA’s policy does nothing to keep such misclassified males out of women’s sports. Just this summer, a loophole of this kind allowed two male athletes, Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting, to compete as women and win gold medals in boxing at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
The larger issue, however, is that 44 U.S. states and many countries allow individuals to amend their birth certificates to reflect their self-declared “gender identity.” Progressive lawmakers are keenly aware of this loophole, which is why officials like Washington governor Bob Ferguson are expediting approval of their constituents’ birth-certificate-modification requests. In a recent X post, Ferguson stated, “[T]he Department of Health will now process all requests to change gender designation on birth certificates within three business days. Previously, there was as much as a 10 month wait.”
Since sex is a matter of objective biology, any policy aiming to maintain the integrity of women’s sports must incorporate an active screening process rooted in empirical reality. This could include a cheek swab (Barr body) test to verify an athlete’s sex chromosomes, or a direct test for the SRY gene, which determines male development. Simply relying on changeable birth certificates is not a viable solution.
And believe me, those loopholes will be used! Changing birth certificates retroactively is not something I approve of, since biological sex is immutable. If one finds out that at birth one was declared a member of the wrong biological sex, well, then, changes can be made. But using self-identification on those certificates? Not something I favor.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, the Queen is feeling neglected:
Hili: I don’t know what to do.Andrzej: What about?Hili: To get you to take more interest in me.
Hili: Nie wiem co mam zrobić.Ja: Z czym?Hili: Żebyś się mną więcej zajmował.*******************
From Things with Faces, a snarky ice-cream bar:
From The Dodo; the Branch Manager and the Assistant Branch Manager:
From I Love Cats; isn’t it gorgeous?
Via Masih, an Iranian woman arrested for singing in public (she’s not wearing a hijab, either).
The voice you hear belongs to Hiva Seyfizadeh, an Iranian singer arrested last night simply for singing in public.
Why? Because in today’s Iran, a woman’s voice is a crime, but public executions are not.
Hiva defied this injustice with an act of civil disobedience, breaking a… pic.twitter.com/8pLmTvPjZ7
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) February 28, 2025
Yup, another institution of pro-Palestinian demonstrators, who violated campus rules at Bowdoin College, getting off scot-free:
It’s definitely not getting the attention it deserves, but the students at @BowdoinCollege who were suspended for occupying Smith Union have had their suspensions lifted.
Bowdoin says there are ongoing “disciplinary proceedings” but it sounds like no one is getting punished. pic.twitter.com/op6MwiZggW
— Stu (@thestustustudio) February 28, 2025
It’s curious, but I never thought about this question before!
Explain what makes them trans. https://t.co/epiraJFIWP
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) February 27, 2025
From my Twitter feed: Sister Rosetta Tharpe (195-1973), showing the gospel origins of rock and roll:
Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
She was there before Little Richard, Johnny Cash & Elvis Presley swiveled their hips and strummed their guitars. pic.twitter.com/vnQf9niAYi
— 🎸 Rock History 🎸 (@historyrock_) February 28, 2025
From Malcom: “Friends”:
Cat and a horse.. 😊 pic.twitter.com/FL9TwOrPry
— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) January 16, 2025
From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:
A fifteen-year-old French Jewish boy died in the camp. He was one of a million Jews who died at Auschwitz (and of a total of 1.1 million people)
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-03-01T11:09:40.525Z
One tweet from Matthew. He says it’s a bee, and the black bits are “pseudopupils”: part of the compound eye.
Plus the upper part of the labrum makes it look glum. Mind you, it probably is if it’s been paying any attention.
— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2025-02-05T21:23:13.150Z
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
We should not be simply fighting evil in the name of good, but struggling against the certainties of people who claim always to know where good and evil are to be found. -Tzvetan Todorov, philosopher (1 Mar 1939-2017)
I thought of one! Took all day :
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Appears in the Satires, a work by the Roman poet Juvenal from the 1st–2nd century.
[ from Google’s Gemini AI ]
“Here’s a joke for World Compliment Day; pardon the misspelling:”
Happy to pardon, but I can’t find one.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe – great pick! I found a ton in my subscription service! They even have full videos!
[ new section ]
J.K. Rowling : “Explain what makes them trans.”
Bullseye – my answer is belief in “gender performativity” (Judith Butler). Or crudely, a brainwashing.
That is merged with Queer world-making and transformation of “man” (as the old books write it) – i.e. everyone, including J. K. Rowling – to adapt new sensibility (Marcuse), or sublated consciousness of the species-being (Marx). It’s sociognostic Hermetic alchemy – it’s even in a book title :
Body Alchemy
Loren Cameron
1996
… sometimes I guess it is done really well and they don’t need to repeat the slogan…. and here we go ’round the mulberry bush again…
[ new section ]
The perdita was posted before but it is welcome as far as I am concerned – precious!
And speaking of all things trumpist, this morning’s TWiV weekly update with Dr Dan gives a good discussion on impacts on vaccine advisory board, how the admin is getting around a court order to distribute research money, and measles in the video’s first 21 minutes. I have not yet watched beyond that. Url should be
I have been enjoying this podcast. Thanks! I have also been following a scientist who’s posting news on vaccines on Instagram. Hopefully it will link here:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DGllZU6xhic/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
I’ve never been so profoundly embarrassed for my country.
+1
A disgusting performance by Vance and Trump.
Me too!
Yes. Shameful, disgusting, and infuriating.
As if T and V themselves did anything for Ukraine – that they need a thank you. But T is only trying to stop the killing, and WWIII. (So that’s why they need to treat Ukraine like sh*t.)
Never? I thought the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan was far worse. People were hanging from planes.
Not remotely close.
I was going to add: Maybe slavery? Jim Crow?
I experienced neither of those. I’m old, but not that old.
Work of art, that’s for sure.
I was actually more embarrassed for America when they voted the lying thug into the White House again, but yeah, in this episode he is displaying his fealty to Putin, so it’s embarrassing and terrifying.
Noted in passing:
ORANGEMAN
ORANGUTAN
77% positional identity (Apologies to orangutans).
Poor Ukraine ! Now we have our modern day Hitler-Stalin pact between
Trunt-Lone Skum and Putrid. Poland and the Baltics better be on guard.
They are. Largely why Finland and Sweden joined NATO.
I admit it, I was soooo wrong saying that the end of empire is a gradual process that goes unnoticed by its populace.
If I were an employee at Barnard and inured by protestors, I would sue the school and the protestors, and try to make it hurt.
The narrow (and I think hide-the-ball dishonesty) of the Zionist vs Jewish distinction is a total lefty liberal elite WESTERN lie.
There ARE a handful of anti-zionist Jews (like Neturi Karta) and people can differ on aspects of Israeli policy. If they know what they’re talking (Israeli politics) about which they never do. Ask the next pro-Pal campus girl who isn’t doing well…even which countries are Israel’s neighbors? – doubtful they know but apparently they can parse policy there? Gimme a break.
In the Middle East/Islamosphere – where it matters – there is utterly no distinction: it is not how minds and words work there. Israeli = Jew – as we see in the Hamas run BBC’s latest creme da la enema of a documentary. Arabic speakers (of which I am one albeit an embarrassingly bad one) know this.
Anybody pro-Israel and pro-civilization must push back on this at every opportunity.
Never let “Anti-Zionist not Anti-Jew” pass your bs detector.
D.A.
NYC (back from Florida! What a drive with doggie)
there is only one solution, intifada revolution
So that will be the final solution then? Good to know.
Protest chants often merit little attention, but no Jew or non-Jew with a skerrick of 20th century historical knowledge can be unaware of this chant’s message.
I find it a bit rich that the NYT is complaining that someone is “controlling speech”! That particular wind has been blowing from the left for many years now. But I’ll just smile about it as I’m in a particularly benign mood having been playing through my LPs from Magna Carta and Pentangle.
Pentangle! ❤️
I must respectfully disagree with our Ceiling Cat host, as well as with Dawkins’ endorsement of PZ Myers’ perspective (https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/).
No, Trump did not come across as a total jerk. If anything, that role was better filled by Zelenskyy. Trump didn’t emerge looking particularly noble—he appeared aligned with Putin and intent on ending the war. Zelenskyy, on the other hand, came across as defiant, uncompromising, and unwilling to settle for anything less than the U.S. delivering a direct affront to Russia.
It’s delusional to keep funneling money and weapons to Ukraine in a way that merely prolongs the inevitable. Barring direct U.S. intervention that would bring us to the brink of World War III, Russia has already won this war. The only question is how long we’re willing to delay the conclusion.
What alternative does Trump have? Should he lie? He could, of course, engage in virtue-signaling and pretend otherwise, but the truth remains: unless the U.S. is prepared to escalate in a way that risks nuclear catastrophe, the outcome is already determined.
This is one way of looking at it, at least. To me, Trump came off as a realist—one willing to acknowledge the obvious.
Perhaps it’s time for the Left to come to grips with reality. Biden never provided Ukraine with the level of support needed to secure victory, and that window of opportunity has long since closed. Now, we face three choices:
1. Escalate to a level that provokes Putin into something truly catastrophic,
2. Continue the current strategy—drip-feeding Ukraine just enough aid to sustain the bloodshed without shifting the tide,
3. Accept that Putin has already won.
I know this take won’t be popular, and I expect to be torn apart in the comments. But if that happens, I won’t be responding—it’s simply too disheartening.
“No, Trump did not come across as a total jerk.”
At which point I stopped reading…
Too bad. You didn’t get to Roz’s three choices.
Now we won’t know which one you like best.
I’ll also add that ONLY watching the clip our host suggested is misleading. I first watched that clip last night and then watched the full 49 minutes. It’s worth seeing everything: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEOv4x_FIsc
I’ll also add that I am sympathetic to Ukraine, not Russia, so much so I starting teaching myself Ukrainian and purchased a beast of a book: Ukrainian-English Collocation Dictionary. I was leading the charts on Duolingo a few years back.
Thank you for the link to the entire 49 minutes. Only watching the 9 minutes after things went south helps nobody. What Zelensky said was true, but that wasn’t the venue in which to say it and it certainly doesn’t negate the need to end the war. I agree with you that it’s time to come to grips with reality. Set the personalities aside. End the killing.
From all the comments here and elsewhere about this, Roz, all I can say is I can see why diplomacy is not conducted in public by the mob. vulg.
Trump and his understudy Vance came across as a pair of mobsters, and that’s because that’s exactly what they are. I have no sympathy left for Americans who try to whitewash this creature.
I give credit here for sticking your neck – attached to false consciousness – out to be shamed in public.
The Meeting Between Presidents Trump and Зеленский Did Not Take Place
(After Baudrillard’s the gulf war did not take place)
[ pic of Baudrillard smoking a cigarette ]
UPDATE:
heartened to see no signs of a struggle session
Bravo.
I very much respect your frankness. But of the 3 choices I would choose #2 for as long as we can and I would never recognize Putin’s land grab and redraw maps. I would also continue pressure by all means possible to keep other nations from also recognizing it. I know the reality and the probability of how this will turn out. But #3 is an appeasement to a monster and recognition that a land grab is ever legitimate. That is not the America that I believe in.
Thank you. Yes, I think my heart is with you on #2. Unclear on the costs. Perhaps there are other ways of dealing with Putin.
You’re pretty much right. Would frame it a bit differently. Saw the Zelenskyy interview with Bret Baier last night…good interview…and Zelenskyy demanded “security guarantees” from the U.S. at least a dozen times. It’s the core issue. “Guarantees” is a powerful word. I understand why the Ukrainians want the U.S. military to intercede in the event of a future Russian violation of a (still hypothetical) ceasefire. Russia can’t be relied on to keep its word. But Trump is not going to obligate our country in this fashion. Should he, yes or no? To be fair, Biden (or whoever was running his administration) provided no such guarantees, and Obama CERTAINLY did not, after Putin took Crimea in 2014. And France, UK, etc., are only willing to put in a few “tripwire” troops now if we promise to defend THEM. So if you want our country to enter into a protective military alliance with Ukraine, put the bill in front of Congress and let’s hear the yeas and nays. Otherwise, it’s either a ceasefire or we can continue to help Ukraine slowly bleed to death.
But T sided with Putin. He blamed Ukraine for the war. He called Z a dictator and is giving P everything he’s taken…
This is not about stopping a war that needs stopping, it’s about Trump siding with Russia. It’s disheartening to hear a defense of this.
I agree with Roz. Anybody who disagrees with her should say which of the three options (and these are the only options) Roz mentions (1.escalation, 2. steady bloodshed, 3. peace in which Ukraine loses 20% of its territory) they prefer and why. If you are for 1 or 2 you should realize that resources (military manpower and money) are finite. Every 100 million of dollars that is invested in prolonging the military conflict cannot be invested in rebuilding what will be left of Ukraine.
The problem is that you and Roz are presenting a scenario where Russian demands must immediately met NOW.
Limited escalation, or simply not ending the conflict now, is the only tool for forcing better concessions from the Russians, who have been drawn the nuclear red line multiple times during the war and with ever decreasing credibility. Why throw in the towel to Russia right NOW, when its economy and military are under greater vulnerability? Because Trump made a campaign promise to immediately end the war?
Peace at any price might be a viable option for Trump, but not for Europe. It merely leaves Russia in a better position to wait a few years and then take more territory, either in Ukraine or its other neighbors. You’d think the “realists” would understand that.
While I am usually in agreement with you, roz, in this one I think you are completely off.
I can give you, that it’s subjective who is “a jerk” and who isn’t. But that’s about it. Russia has “already won”? On the battlefield, they are burning through men as fast as they can recruit them for pitiful gains. At the top rate of advance of 2024, the war would take at least another 3-6 years until the Russia has gotten all of the oblasts they have annexed. During the last year, the Russian state had to increase the signing bonus for new recruits by an order of magnitude and is resorting increasingly to debt bondage and trumped up charges for petty crimes to induce the person to go to the frontline instead. Satellite images show that their storage of hulls and soviet equipment are running increasingly empty and – depending on weapon type – will run empty between late 2025 and mid 2026. The Russian economy is running on government spending fueled by debt since the savings have been burned with an interest rate of 22% and inflation north of 30% and rising.
Is this a nation that has “already won”? Sure, they pound their chest and claim they can do this as long as it takes, but they can’t. But they can try to convince you.
Now the lives being lost are tragic. But the Ukrainians by and large are still willing to fight. They pay the blood price.
The US just has to spend money of which they have plenty and in return they drain the capacity of Russia to wage war. It’s a dream scenario for the US. They don’t even have to pay full in cash, but can send surplus stuff and can keep their defense industrial base humming. In return they can test their weapon systems, gather valuable experience how their systems fare and their intelligence apparatus trains war time skills. It’s hard to imagine a strategically more advantageous scenario.
The US could increase the drip feed to stymie Russia even harder or just adjust to keep bleeding Russia dry. There is very, very little downside. With the mineral deal, they would even recoup a substantial amount of their investment.
So what are you talking about? It seems you have bought into Russian propaganda.
As for that meeting – I have watched it all it it seems clear to me, that it was a stitch up that was planned from the get-go.
FX Kober,
For Ukraine to avoid the loss of about 20% of its territory (what the Russians hold at present), Ukraine would have to go on the offense. Ukraine does not have the manpower to do this. (To retake territory, you need at least a 1 to 3 advantage, in terms of the number of soldiers fighting.) So at best we can have a nearly frozen military conflict with continuing bloodshed and mostly static frontlines (and bombardments behind the lines).
Ukraine cannot win this war if winning means getting back the about 20% of Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia now (part of it occupied since 2014).
Russia’s population is about 4.35 times larger than the Ukrainian population (145 vs 33 million, Source: Wikipedia, data for 2024).
In 2021, the purchasing-power-adjusted per capita income of Russia was 2.16 larger than that of Ukraine (US $ 38,938 vs US $ 18,040; Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators, data set accessible online).
That means, compared to Russia, Ukraine does not have enough soldiers and it is a poor country. Given these facts, how is Ukraine supposed to beat Russia on the battlefield to get all its territory back?
FX Kober, what you seem to suggest is that the US should continue to finance this war in order to bleed the Russians dry. In your “dream scenario for the US” we will also bleed Ukraine dry, that is, accept more deaths on the Ukrainian side and interfere with helping to rebuild the parts of Ukraine not occupied by Russia (since the US does not have unlimited resources).
Some people here are getting thrown off by
1. Trump calling Zelensky a dictator and
2. by Trump having said or implied that Ukraine started the war or
3. by Trump having said that Zelensky is not grateful enough to the US.
Even if we grant that these 3 statements by Trump are false (I do think there are false), this does not change the military situation in Ukraine. You still got only the three options that Roz laid out.
A couple of points:
1) Ukraine has taken back occupied territory before. All it needs is for Russia to experience another manpower crunch – which very well might be happening. Putin has shown, that he fears a general mobilization since it would jeopardize his grip on power.
2) There is a difference between accepting that 20% of your territory is occupied by an invader and officially recognizing the annexation of 25% of your country. Official recognition of the annexed oblasts and withdrawal from those oblasts is the baseline Russian position from which they haven’t budged. Given that Trump has made Putins position to the US position, I see no reason for Putin to move one iota. So Ukraine should just hand over multiple population centers to Russia without a fight?
3) Yes, a prolonged war is bleeding the Ukranians dry as well. However, that’s not Trump’s call to make. If Ukraine wants to fight for its sovereignty and against becoming a Russian puppet state, we should honor that determination.
4) You claim a continuation of the war will “interfere with helping to rebuild the parts of Ukraine not occupied by Russia”. Given that the US ignores Ukraine’s need for security guarantees and Putin has made clear that he won’t do a peace where Ukraine is safe from further aggression (he refuses NATO membership, EU membership or NATO forces to safeguard a peace), what do you think will happen after a peace? Will US investors invest into a country that has been invaded twice within 10 years when there is no deterrence for Russia to go for round 3? What do you think the demobilized soldiers will do, once males of fighting age may leave the country again? They will take a look at that third invasion looming on the horizon with no help in sight and they will leave – especially the young ones.
The “peace” Trump pushes down Selensky’s throat will turn Ukraine into a Russian puppet, invalidating the valiant defense the country has pulled off so far. If that’s the outcome, Ukraine really should have rolled over and let Russia take them. Though in that case we would now be looking at troops massing at the border of the Baltic states.
Selensky has stated, that he’s willing to be realistic and freeze the current front lines giving the Russian occupied territories the same status as Crimea after 2014. He would probably even give up Ukrainian gains in Kursk and demands for reparations if he gets a US trip wire deployment until Ukraine can join the EU or a similar long term security guarantee can be found. However, I’m willing to bet, that Putin won’t sign such a deal.
“Zelenskyy, on the other hand, came across as defiant, uncompromising, and unwilling to settle for anything less than the U.S. delivering a direct affront to Russia.”
Zelensky isn’t willing to settle for a “peace” deal that gives no meaningful security guarentees and leaves Ukraine open for future attack by the Russians. Putin has been able to gain 20% of Ukraine’s land mass from this war. What’s to stop him from waiting a few years and coming back for more? He did exactly the same thing after taking over the Crimea. Trump has so far been pushing deals that allow the US access to Ukraine’s natural resources but with nothing concrete in return. And you have the effrontery to suggest Zelensky should be happy with this?
“It’s delusional to keep funneling money and weapons to Ukraine in a way that merely prolongs the inevitable. Barring direct U.S. intervention that would bring us to the brink of World War III, Russia has already won this war.”
Wrong again. Russia’s goal was to take over Ukraine entirely. That’s why it advanced on Kyiv and made multiple attempts to assasinate Zelensky. That’s what people like you said would be “inevitable” when the war began. Instead the Ukraine fought back and the Russian war machine stalled. The Russians took over the parts of the country that were easiest to capture and then got bogged down. The Russians failed in their original goal and are now stuck and ailing. Providing further assistance to Ukraine further wears down the Russians into possibly accepting a deal that includes better concessions and security guarentees to Ukraine. But what you want is for the US to just cut and run, and agree to whatever Russia wants.
“unless the U.S. is prepared to escalate in a way that risks nuclear catastrophe, the outcome is already determined”
This is what appeasers were saying at the very beginning of the war. If we’d listened to them, even more of Ukraine might be under Russian control at the moment. The Russians have been threatening WWIII every time Ukraine received support. Years later, some people still fall for it.
“To me, Trump came off as a realist—one willing to acknowledge the obvious.”
So the obvious course is just give the Russians whatever they want NOW, regardless of what their real bargaining position is? Trump isn’t a “realist.” He wants to end the war now so he can pretend to be a great dealmaker and peacemaker, regardless of what happens to Ukraine. He said as much during his campaign.
“Perhaps it’s time for the Left to come to grips with reality.”
Perhaps it’s time for Trump’s enablers to admit that they just want to throw Ukraine to the wolves, and that they don’t care what damage results from America becoming a pliant partner of an agressive authoritarian kleptocracy like Russia. And perhaps it’s time for everyone else to listen to Europeans and Russia’s neighbors instead of the “America First” crowd, who’ve proven themselves just as delusional as the original “America First” fools.
Revelator60 where you are wrong, in my opinion, is that in your preferred scenario the US does not just wear down Russia it also bleeds Ukraine dry. It isn’t just the Russians who have trouble to put more soldiers on the battlefield. The Ukrainians are in the same, if not worse situation. (The Russian population is 4 times larger than the Ukrainian.)
This war is pretty much in a stalemate (with Russia making small territorial gains), with no realistic prospect for the Ukrainians to make significant territorial gains. Again, to retake territory, Ukraine needs to have at least a 3 to 1 advantage in terms of numbers of soldiers on the battlefield.
Revelator60 and FX Kober, it seems that Zelensky agrees with what I just wrote. Zelensky wants security guarantees from the US. He is not asking for more military aid to prolong the war in the hope of achieving a better bargaining position in peace talks. (Or is he?)
Revelator60, your claim that “Russia’s goal was to take over Ukraine entirely” is unambiguosuly false. By invading Ukraine, Putin wanted to coerce the Ukrainian to come to the bargaining table. His goal was to keep Ukraine out of NATO. He did not intend to conquer Ukraine and then incorporate it into Russia.
The Russian army that invaded Ukraine in Feb/March 2021 had at most 190,000 soldiers. Putin would have to be crazy to believe that with an army of that size he could conquer Ukraine. Hitler’s army invaded Poland (a country of about half the size of Ukraine!) in September 1939 with more than 1,000,000 soldiers.
Regarding:
The problem is that there is no country in the world that wants to send soldiers to fight the Russians so that Ukraine can join NATO. NATO is now unwilling to admit Ukraine because all NATO countries know that this would mean that NATO would enter a war with Russia.
What the Europeans seem to prefer is to wait for Zelensky to say “We can’t fight anymore.” In contrast, Trump wants to end this war now. The issue of security guarantees is a reasonable one. But, Revelator60 and FX Kober, you seem to want Ukraine to keep waging war not because you expect that it can retake a significant chunk of the Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia, but to bleed Russia dry, never mind the cost to Ukraine and the US taxpayers (and again: every dollar spend on prolonging the war, is a dollar that can’t be spend on rebuilding Ukraine).
The reality is that this war should have never been started. The principal culprit here is the United States. The sequence of events was like this:
Ukraine: we want to join NATO
USA: okay, you can join NATO
Russia: we will not allow Ukraine to join NATO
USA to Russia: We don’t care what you want. What are you going to do about it? You are threatening war against Ukraine? We think your are bluffing. You will not invade Ukraine.
Russia: we are not bluffing
USA: you are bluffing
Russia: invades Ukraine
USA: never supplies enough military aid for Ukraine to hold on to all of its territory because the USA does not want to be in a war with Russia
Essentially, the US made a bet that the Russians would not do as they said. When the US lost the bet, it was the Ukrainians who paid the price in blood, lost lives, and destruction of infrastructure.
The underlying reality is that, in international politics, great powers like the USA, Russia and China play by different rules. Why? because they can, given that they are great powers. Whether I or anybody else likes that is irrelevant.
It is often said that Putin can’t really think that NATO expansion could threaten Russia.
The counter-argument: in 1960 the US was adamant that it would not allow Cuba to station Soviet missiles on Cuban territory and establish a Soviet naval base there. Why not? Did the US seriously believe that this would be a threat to its security?
As a matter of empirical fact:
paranoid (Oxford English Dictionary): unreasonably or obsessively anxious, suspicious or mistrustful
John Mearsheimer: The Crisis in Ukraine. Feb 15, 2022 (8 days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began), King’s Politics (King’s College, University of Cambridge), 82 mins, on YouTube
(the quote is @ 50:20 mins)
The problem with option 3 is that, if you just give Putin whatever he wants, who’s to say that he won’t be back for more in a year? President Zelenskyy certainly believes he will be.
This is the unsolvable problem of Russia’s geopolitics. They are defenceless on the Western border, and their leaders are always using this to justify aggression, or at least aggressive stance. The way they try and deal with it is by surrounding themselves with satellite countries i.e. colonies, and the consensus is no one wants to be a colony of Russia. Poland was that for 120 years, and then another 45. They don’t treat their cushion peoples well, although they claim they love them. To death. As for nuclear option, Putin (and Trump) know very well this is a propaganda tool and no war weapon. In what situation you use it? Do you have a death wish?
Historically Russia/USSR/Russia is a Ponzi scheme which involves capturing neighbors, forcing them to expand the imperium, then forcing those they conquer into growing ever outwards by conquest.
From Czars to commissariats to gangstas today.
I guide you interested in this to youtube’s Perun’s weekly podcast – and Preston Stewart’s podcast for some of the best info from a defense economics and military analysis standpoints. Both very valuable. And turn off the TV and twitter. REALLY – turn off broadcast and cable media – useless for the literate and high IQ. (sorry – I know the host enjoys his NBC, presumably for nostalgia).
D.A.
NYC
team Ukraine, team Israel, team civilization.
The black spots on the bee face are not pseudo pupils but decorations, outside of the compound eyes. I don’t know the reason for them, but possibly they are markings for communication. Once can see that the bee is a dried specimen, mounted on a triangular paper point.
Trump recently made remarks that Zelensky attributed to being misinformed. He (Zelensky) was trying, patiently, to explain why a deal without security guarantees would be worthless, as Putin has demonstrated by past behavior. That was not showing disrespect. If Donald thinks that was disrespect, then he can’t be much of a deal maker. I could make a deal with Putin, just give him whatever he wants. Done deal. What do we need Donald for? Well maybe he (Donald) is going to come up with a deal that ensures Ukrainian independence. If he does I will admit I should have voted for him. But right now that TV show looked like a set up to get Zelensky to explode and give Trump a way out of having to help Ukraine.
I agree 98% with Colin Wright on the NCAA. That said. Buccal Swabs are a bit much for the NCAA (but not the Olympics). It is quite true that some athletes are born with conditions (5-ARD) that cause them to be incorrectly thought of as females. Of course, these athletes are really male. Caster Semenya and Imane Khelif are textbook examples of male athletes who were thought to be female at birth, but were really always male. 5-ARD is very rare, but quite real (in one part of the DR, 5-ARD is actually common).
The NCAA should accept (in my opinion) original birth certificates unless someone protests. Only if a protest is made, should (in my opinion) the NCAA require Buccal Swabs. Of course, not even Buccal Swabs are perfect. Persons with Swyers and CAIS will flunk a Buccal Swab test, but still should be allowed to compete as females (in my opinion).
But are “original” birth certificates a thing? There’s been such a rush to accommodate trans ideology they may be an obsolete concept.
I agree with you Frank. Would we really want to test somebody’s sex who looks like, say, the young Jerry Coyne? For about 99% of athletes just looking at them (while they are clothed) tells us what sex they belong to. So it would be a waste of resources to peform a buccal swab on everybody.
You only do buccal swabs or look at birth certificates of athletes who say they are women, not for everyone. If a guy registers in a men’s event you believe he’s a guy. You might even give obvious women a pass. But if you check some and not others, someone will complain about discrimination or “male gaze” or “lookism” or something.
What if someone who looked like the young Jerry Coyne said he was a woman and had the (doctored) birth certificate to prove it? What goes through the official’s mind is, “This isn’t a woman!” What happens then is a stare-down: The official is daring the athlete to keep a straight face while he changes into a woman’s maillot and jumps into the pool without saying “Olly olly oxen free!” The athlete is daring the official to call him a liar and make him take a buccal swab. But the official knows he (not the athlete) will get in trouble with all kinds of authorities who enforce kindness and inclusiveness with a mailed fist and will harass him all the rest of his days in the sport. And the athlete knows this. I think I’m going to bet on the athlete who looks like the young Jerry Coyne not being made to take a buccal swab here.
It is incumbent on the athlete who wishes to compete in a protected category (female or disabled) to satisfy the governing body of the sport that she meets the criteria for that category. If the NCAA had the sincere belief that birth certificates would separate the men from the women (even though it must have known that nearly all states allow anyone to alter them) it should now admit that it was mistaken. The alacrity with which some Democratic governors are rushing to expedite the process to undermine the probative value of a birth certificate suggests the fix was in even before the NCAA’s announcement. The Resistance never sleeps, it seems.
It seems the NCAA will have to adopt, for all women, cheek swabs or the old-fashioned “genes” test: pull down your jeans in front of a female marshal and get a female sex certificate, or not, based on the results. (Ironically, CAIS athletes pass this one readily. It’s only when the other kinds of gene tests and tests for testosterone doping came in that they started to run into problems.)
There is often strong social pressure not to lodge “unsportsmanlike” protests against athletes who seem to be something other than advertised, especially just before a major competition. Obviously teams that have a male ringer will not protest against their own secret weapon but particularly at colleges the other teams and individual competitors may not dare to, either, for fear of academic repercussions. And what good would it do? If an obviously male athlete is found from protest to be, indeed XY with male levels of testosterone and male genitals, what of it? His birth certificate says he is female and that satisfies the NCAA’s criterion for playing on a women’s team. So fuck off, transphobes. Next game I’m going to break your faces with my head.
So no, protests won’t get you there. If no female birth certificate can be trusted, testing will make it difficult for all female athletes, yes. But athletic-aged women vote Democrat. Leave it in their capable hands. The NCAA obviously doesn’t want to help. This is “modern athletics.”
Dean Grin[a]ge, in the Barn[y]ard. Oy.
And “Barnard will be forced to consider additional, necessary measures”. You really can’t make this stuff up. So measures that are admittedly necessary are something they may now be forced to… consider. Really?
The above statement (#13) urges the NCAA to use Buccal Swabs. However, Buccal Swabs have problems. Apparently, Buccal Swabs are used to detect Barr bodies. However, some females don’t have them. See the article by Linda Blade “The Dystopian History of Sex Testing in Women’s Sports – How the International Olympic Committee (IOC) failed women by undermining sex-based eligibility in sports.” in Reality’s Last Stand.
This is what developmental biologist Emma Hilton (University of Manchester, UK) had to say about sex testing in sports (August 13, 2024):
https://x.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1823304332973834705
On free speech. While I opposed the rampant spread of Woke ideology and language under the Biden Administration, I never saw it as an issue of “free speech” when executive branch employees were directed to use such language in official documents, speeches, and websites. Nor is it an infringement on free speech to remove such language. The right will overreach on this and try to extend the language reversals beyond the executive branch; people are correct to push back on this if it is done through means other than moral suasion.
But where was the NYT editorial board when the federal government was coercing private organizations to adopt Woke policies and language? Where was their concern for free speech then? The “Gulf of America” example is telling. I find the entire renaming silly. Mexico has slightly more shoreline with that body of water; the “Gulf of Mexico” name has been convention for several hundred years. So, the AP understandably refuses to use Trump’s made-up language. But to the AP and the NYT a dude with a dick in a dress is a “woman” and must be called “she” if “she” wants to be. Because, hey, a convention as old as the English language is nothing more than a convention, and who are women compared to Mexico?
On the Oval Office meltdown, I agree with Roz that the entire 50-minute session is more illuminating than any of the clips now circulating. For those who shun YouTube, it is available at CSPAN.
https://www.c-span.org/program/white-house-event/president-trump-meets-with-ukrainian-president-zelensky/656418
Doug, you seem not to have gotten the memo: It’s only wrong when the other side does it.
Re: “It’s curious, but I never thought about this question before!”
Also re: “A transwomen is a women.”
This goes against the established way of using the trans-prefix:
A transneptunian object is a celestial body beyond Neptun’s orbit.
Transfinite numbers are beyond finite numbers.
Trans-uranium are atoms beyond Uranium.
Sticking to this convention, the claim should read like:
“A transman is a women.” or
“A transwomen is a man.”
The shift in meaning of the trans-prefix still get’s me confused once in a while. Advocates of the shift should explain why they think the shift is necessary or helpful.