Alpha men Trump and Vance put a beat down on dictator Zelensky

President Musk gets his VP Trump to tell President Zelensky that he should give us country to Russia, as we have already made a deal with Putin for cheap natural resources so we can become richer

last point, but strong men don't constantly pout and act like victims, or cave in to and repeat the nonsense spouted by the neighborhood bully. he is not an alpha male, he's a real housewife who preens and moans for the camera and throws drinks or flips tables when unhappy.

i mean, orange makeup and a blonde wig like his mom? golf? beauty pageants? showtunes? YMCA?

that's....macho?

There’s one simple way of looking at this (which obviously risks oversimplification):

If prior to 2015, you’d asked people if there was the potential for impending international conflict, and the NATO nations were on one side of a UN vote, and the US decided instead to vote alongside North Korea and Syria (with China abstaining but with a pretty clear preference for that side, same preference for Russia), would you consider that to be effective leadership and a good direction for the country in the US?

I believe across the political spectrum, the answer would be a resounding no, even though many people would prefer some context instead of having to answer pretty hypothetically. But if you could give more context in a way that didn’t risk identification with party politics, I expect that the point holds true. Yeah, there are many very good criticisms of Democrat policies and Democrat politicians. There are many great criticisms of “politics as usual” and of “forever wars,” alongside the strongly reasonable desire for change. But not change at any cost. The cost looks forbiddingly steep.

If this were the type of post you usually offered up instead of the standard contemptible tripe, you might seem redeemable.

vanityfair.com

How Donald Trump’s Mother Did—and Didn’t—Shape His Life

Elise Jordan

We all know what the president learned from his dad: the cons, the greed, the game. What did he learn from his mom? Anything?

Open link

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/photo-of-donald-trumps-mother-mary-trump-goes-viral-1471275

once seen, it cannot be unseen.

macho?

Musk / Trump presidency like Putin will not give up power, mark this moment they will find a rest to remain in power. They will make sure the American people experience economic poverty and call it a victory for democracy

In general I’m for this war to end by Ukraine making concessions. I also think Trump being a Russian/Putin Asset is ridiculous.

But boy was that video deeply uncomfortable. WTF did I even watch?

Im personally confused by all this. First we tried to make a minerals deal, then we seemed to work with Russia, then back to a minerals deal with Ukraine and now when it seemed this was a done deal, this?

Man, did they look like idiots.

It's kind funny you think a couple pasty suits in Washington, D.C. can put a beat down on a guy whose country has been at war for several years.

Just got home after picking up my bib/shirt for the Marathon and then spending the afternoon at roster woman #2s apartment. Good times. I might look into this, I might not. I do know if harris had won the gravy train of American taxpayer money for ukraine would still be flowing. That's OVA. In related news the border is secure and as we speak more criminal POS are being caught and deported. America!

Trump is an idiot and his followers like Vance are just pu ss ys

One thing is for sure - and I think all Americans can agree - that should not have been open to the media. Holy smokes.

Because the Biden administration was trying to put Ukraine, which is on Russia's border, into NATO which is an alliance with the sole purpose of combating Russia. What do you think we'd do if China, Iran, and Russia were working with Mexico on a military alliance where they would be putting military bases along our Southern border? The media has trained you to think of Russia as an evil empire rather than a nation which has its own interests independent of ours and acts rationally to defend them. Ukraine in NATO has been their literal redline for decades, this was well known.

For his many personal failings, Vance is at least as principled as Trump, and he’s much smarter (yeah, I know: low bar to clear). Thiel, Musk, and others are the ones who chose Vance, and similar power brokers (Heritage/Project 2025) have been developing a sense of how they can be the ones to pull the levers of power. An enormous draw for the current job for Vance is that he believes he’s set up for two upcoming terms while also getting a fair number of his policy preferences, along with a very likely enormous boost to his personal wealth. The other draw is that he probably feels that he has (and may have been promised) a role that is more like co-President than subordinate, but he just has to pay homage in very public fashion to the genius of Dear Leader. Flattery will get you everywhere with his, uh, “boss?”

(I’m not going weirdo conspiracy or neglecting the role of power brokers on the Left. The money often does much more for individual issues rather than for wholesale structural changes, though. And in the current administration, there are lots of people vying for an opportunity to grasp the puppet strings of the most amazing exemplar of the “useful idiot” high office has ever seen).

When Trump went into that rant about how much he & Putin went through and then started ranting about Hunter Biden's bedroom and bathroom, that's where I can't tell if it is flat out dementia or something else?

i mean musk is buddying up to millei and his chainsaw. argentina has like 6-7% unemployment, bad inflation (far worse than here), food affordability issues, etc.

what you figure out is it's a transnational philosophical movement. moral theories in 18th century philosophical verbiage. it predates science, statistics, and doing things because they work. and they're buddies because they're pushing the same stuff. including distracting people with culture wars since the main economic shows are a mess.

it's basically "i like small government" (18th century chain of words, moral philosophy, from an agricultural era, less educated how the world works when you try it) overriding "if you fire hundreds of thousands of government workers we will have debt defaults and a recession." (modern economics, statistics).

I don't agree. It was fantastic. I just wish they would have shown Zelenskyy being kicked out of the White House.

Who's alpha? Didn't he let a 4 year old disrespect him in front of the entire nation? Nothing alpha about ruining people's financial well being I call that weak,!

and you can stop there. you just wasted our time. the purpose was not to "combat russia." at least in any invasion sense. ukraine is not russia. it is a free country. under modern international relations sensibilities, your borders are sacrosanct. they don't get changed by force. and you can have the friends you want.

you have it precisely backwards. NATO is a defensive alliance. the purpose of NATO is not to invade russia. it is to respond to the invasion of a NATO country.

putin doesn't want NATO in ukraine because......then he can't invade if he's unhappy. which is illegal anyway.

there is literally nothing where the next step after gathering everyone in NATO was to invade russia and start WW3.

if you know your WW2 history this is more akin to nazi germany taking alsace lorraine, sudetenland, annexing austria, before beginning to invade areas to which they had no recent claim.

or, if you know your cold war history, it's USSR rolling the tanks into eastern europe in the 50s or 60s when the czechs or hungarians tried to grow their own brain.

This was a total setup. It was like Soprano's fan fiction script or something.

First there was a Russian state media reporter in the "hand picked" pool of reporters that was not on the approved list but "somehow" got into the OVAL FREAKING OFFICE unnoticed. Sure. We believe you.

Next, we have some no-name guy from Real America's Voice asking Zelensky, "Why don't you wear a suit? Do you even own a suit?" And follows with something about, "A lot of American's have a problem with you not respecting the office." And suggests that Zelensky could get a suit like his. WTF is that about? That is not a serious person or a serious question.

Trump starts with "I can be tougher than an other human being ... but you're never going to get a deal that way."

Quick side note that JD Vance said, "Putin invaded Ukraine and destroyed a significant chunk ..." That has been a hotly debated topic this week, so good to have that on the record.

Then just as Trump asks for one more question, JD Vance kicks off the main act by interjecting, and that eventually leads Trump to get all red-faced and they both start demanding that Z should be more respectful and thank them over and over.

When you ask for thanks and then demand respect, you no longer have the upper hand. When you get red-faced and angry and start pointing while the other guy remains calm and unrattled, you look weak. Trump and Vance made themselves look like fools.

In the end Trump is the big loser here because he looked like a giant baby and didn't get the mineral deal that he wanted.