I counted six friends that had a "I stand with Ukraine" banner on the facebook feed this morning. I have a few liberal friends and I want to ask them "what do you mean by that?" There are smart people, but I am sure they would take offense at me even asking the question.

I have two questions for them, (1) are you ready to go to Ukraine tomorrow and fight the war for them? If my calcs are correct ($1.5Billion/330M Americans) every single American has already donated $450 to their defense and they are losing. (2) Are you ready to force every American to donate another $450 and for them to still lose?

Ukraine is in a tough spot, but I think there best option is to surrender some Russian speaking territory and move on.

Well, I want back the $1,350 in taxpayer money my family paid.

Not for the first time or even tenth time, I’ll say it again: Fuck Ukraine.

quote:

Originally posted by ibanda:
Every single American has already borrowed donated $450 to their defense and they are losing. (2) Are you ready to force every American to borrow donated another $450 and for them to still lose?

We're borrowing the money to pay Ukraines bills.

We aren’t donating and they’re not borrowing. Donations would be optional and borrowing means they’ll pay us back. This is nothing but a high level grift by that con man and the dems to skim money from our tax dollars.

FAFO:

Russia’s Defense Ministry said at the moment all eyes were on Trump-Zelensky meeting that its forces were busy seizing two more villages along the eastern frontlines.

"Moscow on Saturday said it had seized two more villages in eastern Ukraine as Kyiv officials said Russian strikes had killed one person and wounded 19," AFP reports.

"The Russian defense ministry said its forces had captured Skudne and Burlatske in the south of the eastern Donetsk region," the report continues. This is just outside the town of Velyka Novossilka, which Russia captured at the end of January.

The Ukrainians have been steadily losing ground for months in Donetsk, but have continued efforts to strike Russian oil and gas facilities inside Russian territory, which hasn't made any level of a strategic difference in the war. Russia too has been sending drones on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, with at least 150 launched overnight. Ukraine said it was able to down at least 100 of these inbound UAVs.

The Russian military and security services are also reportedly taking back ground in southern Kursk region, which has been occupied by Ukrainian forces since last August.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Friday that four villages have been taken back in the Kursk region over the last week, with the village of Novaya Sorochina being the latest to be liberated.

And days ago the military announced it had recaptured the nearby villages of Pogrebki and Gorlovka, near Novaya Sorochina, and also the village of Nikolsky, toward the Sudzha direction.

This steady Russian progress has been well understood by the Trump White House, which is why during the Friday meeting Trump kept telling Zelensky that he has no more cards to play.

"You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people," Trump said. "You're gambling with World War III, and what you’re doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country that’s backed you far more than a lot of people say they should have."

In essence, everyone but Zelensky (and some European leaders, apparently), understands that there's no military solution to the conflict, and that greater Western military intervention seems a sure path to WW3. The 'solution' at this point is for Ukraine to negotiate and cede territory, or face total military defeat. Trump is now making crystal clear to all allies that any kind of US-NATO military intervention simply will never happen.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geop...-trump-showdown-oval

quote:

Originally posted by TXLe:
That grifter's days are numbered. His sham is blown. He will ended up either like Sadam or Marcos.

I'm going to amend my prediction to Zelendsky will end up like Sadam.

quote:

Originally posted by TXLe:

quote:

Originally posted by TXLe:
That grifter's days are numbered. His sham is blown. He will ended up either like Sadam or Marcos.

I'm going to amend my prediction to Zelendsky will end up like Sadam.

I wonder how much intact Ukraine government exists and what the line of succession is.

quote:

Originally posted by pbslinger:

quote:

Originally posted by TXLe:

quote:

Originally posted by TXLe:
That grifter's days are numbered. His sham is blown. He will ended up either like Sadam or Marcos.

I'm going to amend my prediction to Zelendsky will end up like Sadam.

I wonder how much intact Ukraine government exists and what the line of succession is.

The smart money in Ukraine is either gone or half way out the door. It would be interesting to see how many Swiss and French Chateaus were sold in the last few years to Ukrainian businessmen and government officials. Our money is parked in many offshore accounts, some of which belong to Dims and a few RINO warhawkers. If Doge could get a look at the Ukraine books, we will find out that USAID fraud was just kids raiding a piggy bank in comparison.

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:
This is nothing but a high level grift by that con man and the dems to skim money from our tax dollars.

I said this six months ago in another thread.

I wonder how much money was laundered through USAID and Ukraine that not only padded our politicians bank accounts, but also how much of it made it to the democrats campaigns. They had seemingly a limitless supply of funds in the last election. And strangely the ungrateful little shit can’t account for most of the “aid” that was given to him.

I want them to follow the money. My bet is they weren’t careful in covering their tracks with Grandpa at the helm.

Zelenskyy needs a "name 5 things you did last week to help your country" e-mail from Elon.

Pity VP Vance didn’t look Zelenskyy in the eye, and in his best imitation of Foghorn Leghorn say “Go away, son. Ya’ bothering me.”

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
I wonder how much money was laundered through USAID and Ukraine that not only padded our politicians bank accounts, but also how much of it made it to the democrats campaigns. They had seemingly a limitless supply of funds in the last election.

Bingo.

Hansen's insight and his ability to provide context make him a national treasure. Interesting seeing him wearing a variety of hats now for these videos

Chris Cappy (of lighthearted Task & Purpose videos) surprisingly hits it out of the park as he pulls-apart some nuts n'bolts to this. He puts out solid points for those who are insistent that continued financial and military support for Ukraine has to continue.


https://x.com/cappyarmy/status...912473762677129?s=42

VDH is appearing almost daily on The Daily Signal, and has a podcast that airs 4-5 times a week @70-80 minutes a segment. Plus a few appearances on “Robinson’s Podcast”. Who I believe is a Stanford grad that also has some serious Commie douchebags on, as well. Robinson interacts and laughs with Victor and sits stonefaced when, say, a Richard Wolff is vomiting up epic stupidity.
My point is, Mr Hanson is omnipresent lately, which is a development as priceless as the direction of the country.

quote:

Originally posted by ibanda:
I counted six friends that had a "I stand with Ukraine" banner on the facebook feed this morning. I have a few liberal friends and I want to ask them "what do you mean by that?" There are smart people, but I am sure they would take offense at me even asking the question.

We are close friends with a couple 40+ years- wives went to HS together----her hubby and I fraternity brothers.......she went full TDS after the election - and continues to do so. We never talk politics but because they "know" we voted DT she has defriended my wife and continues to post nonesense.

It's taking every ounce of willpower to not post this on her feed:

Victor Davis Hanson: 10 bad takeaways from the Zelenskyy blow-up

Friday's extraordinary Oval Office meeting between President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy went off the rails, leaving hopes for a U.S.-brokered peace deal between Russia and Ukraine in question. Here are some reasons why things went wrong, and where it leaves efforts to end the war.

1. Zelenskyy does not grasp—or deliberately ignores—the bitter truth: Those with whom he feels most affinity (Western globalists, the American Left, the Europeans) have little power in 2025 to help him. And those whom he obviously does not like or seeks to embarrass (as with his Scranton, Penn. campaign-like visit in September 2024) alone have the power to save him. For his own sake, I hope he is not being "briefed" by the Obama-Clinton-Biden gang to confront Trump, given their interests are not really Ukraine’s as they feign.

2. Zelenskyy acts as if his agenda and ours are identical. So, he keeps insisting that he is fighting for us despite our two-ocean-distance that he mocks. We do have many shared interests with Ukraine, but not all by any means: Trump wants to "reset" with Russia and triangulate it against China. He seeks to avoid a 1962 DEFCON 2-like crisis over a proxy showdown in proximity to a nuclear rival. And he sincerely wants to end the deadlocked Stalingrad slaughterhouse for everyone’s sake.

3. The Europeans (and Canada) are now talking loudly of a new muscular antithesis, independent of the U.S. Promises, promises—given that would require Europeans to prune back their social welfare state, frack, use nuclear, stop the green obsession, and spend 3-5% of their GDP on defense. The U.S. does not just pay 16% of NATO’s budget, but also puts up with asymmetrical tariffs that result in a European Union trade surplus of $160 billion, plays the world cop, patrolling sea-lanes and deterring terrorists and rogue states that otherwise might interrupt Europe’s commercial networks abroad, as well as de facto including Europe under a nuclear umbrella of 6,500 nukes.

4. Zelenskyy must know that all of the once-deal-breaking impediments to peace have been settled. Ukraine is now better armed than most NATO nations, but will not be in NATO, and no president has or will ever supply Ukraine with the armed wherewithal to take back the Donbass and Crimea. So, the only two issues are a) how far will Putin be willing to withdraw to his 2022 borders and b) how will he be deterred? The first is answered by a commercial sector/tripwire, joint Ukrainian-US-Europe resource development corridor in Eastern Ukraine, coupled with a Korea-like DMZ; the second by the fact that Putin, unlike his 2008 and 2014 invasions, has now incurred a million dead and wounded to a Ukraine that will remain thusly armed.

5. What are Zelenskyy’s alternatives without much U.S. help—wait for a return of the Democrats to the White House in four years? Hope for a rearmed Europe? Pray for a Democratic House and a third Vindman-like engineered Trump impeachment? Or swallow his pride, return to the White House, sign the rare-earth minerals deal, invite in the Euros (are they seriously willing to patrol a DMZ?), and hope Trump can warn Putin, as he did successfully between 2017-21, not to dare try it again?

6. If there is a cease-fire, a commercial deal, a Euro ground presence, and influx of Western companies into Ukraine, would there be elections? And if so, would Zelenskyy and his party win? And if not, would there be a successor transparent government that would reveal exactly where all the Western financial aid money went?

7. Zelenskyy might see a model in Netanyahu. The Biden Administration was far harder on him than Trump is on Ukraine, suspending arms shipments, demanding cease-fires, prodding for a wartime, bipartisan cabinet, hammering Israel on collateral damage—none of which Westerners have demanded of Zelenskyy. Yet Netanyahu managed a hostile President Biden, kept Israel close to its patron, and, when visiting, was gracious to his host. Netanyahu certainly would never before the global media have interrupted and berated a host and patron president in the White House.

8. If Ukraine has alienated the U.S., what then is its strategic victory plan? Wait around for more Euros? Hold off an increasingly invigorated Russian military? Cede more territory? What, then, exactly are Zelenskyy’s cards he seems to think form a winning hand?

9. If one views carefully all the 50-minute tape, most of it was going quite well—until Zelenskyy started correcting Vance firstly, and Trump secondly. By Ukraine-splaining to his hosts, and by his gestures, tone, and interruptions, he made it clear that he assumed that Trump was just more of the same compliant, clueless moneybags Biden waxen effigy. And that was naïve for such a supposedly worldly leader.

10. March 2025 is not March 2022, after the heroic saving of Kyiv—but three years and 1.5 million dead and wounded later. Zelenskyy is no longer the international heartthrob with the glamorous entourage. He has postponed elections, outlawed opposition media and parties, suspended habeas corpus and walked out of negotiations when he had an even hand in spring 2022 and apparently even now when he does not in spring 2025.

Quo vadis, Volodymyr?

I was just about to post that, as well. It would be very interesting to hear the best of the left try to rebut/refute that. Maybe more hilarious than interesting.

And the UK just gave him $5B
The scam continues.