Trump enters the stage

Sure, but as global politics goes in a kind of reverse trickle down, how about the latest moves:

RUSSIA NEWS

Russia Brushes Off Trump’s Threats on Ukraine

Moscow believes it has the resources and manpower to keep up the fight

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President Trump’s initial attempts to lure Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table on Ukraine have been met with what essentially amounts to a shrug.

“We don’t see anything new here,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday, a day after Trump took to Truth Social to warn he would be willing to increase the economic pressure on Moscow after a raft of sanctions were applied following its invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago.

Putin’s inner circle has reason to regard Trump’s threat as hollow. While the war has drained the country’s resources and manpower, the Kremlin believes it has successfully stood up against sanctions and that Moscow has the capacity to withstand at least another year of the conflict while Russians continue to sign up to serve on the front line.

To be sure, Russia’s economy is showing some stress-related cracks and is being hammered by inflation as it drives billions of dollars into the country’s defense industry. Inducements for Russians to sign up and benefits for the families of those who have been killed or injured are biting into its budget. Western officials say Russia has suffered about 700,000 casualties in Ukraine.

But while it is losing cash and men, analysts say Russia has enough of both to continue fighting for now and has the upper hand. Russian forces have slowly chewed westward through Ukraine, threatening cities and towns that are important logistics hubs for the Ukrainian military. They now control almost one-fifth of the country.

“We have imbalances and inflation, but it’s not so acute to demand the stop of all hostilities,” said Vasily Kashin, director of the Department for World Economy and International Affairs at the Moscow-based Higher School of Economics. “We are in a position to press on with our demands…and if Ukraine’s defense continues to collapse as it is now, it would be wiser for the other side to agree to our terms.”

With another U.S. aid package for Ukraine off the table, Trump’s warning appears to be too little to force a change in Russia’s basic demands, which include de facto recognition of the land they have gained, an end to NATO-Ukraine ties and a vastly reduced Ukrainian military.

Rather, the Kremlin is inclined to see Trump’s statement on Truth Social as posturing ahead of any talks, as opposed to part of the negotiations themselves. Moscow is still waiting for a more substantial overture from Washington or a telephone call that Trump has suggested would happen soon.

“Putin’s ready, we’re waiting for signals,” Peskov said on Friday about a possible call with Trump. “Everyone is ready.”

Some Russian officials have voiced cautious optimism since Trump’s November victory in the U.S. presidential election. Putin has angled for a summit with Trump in which the two leaders could hash out a settlement amenable to Moscow, analysts say, shutting out a Ukrainian leadership he has dismissed as illegitimate.

Kyiv, meanwhile, has conceded that regaining all the territory lost to Russia during the war is an unrealistic goal, but it is asking for security guarantees that will make it impossible for Russia to regroup forces after a cease-fire and attack it again. Russia has said Ukraine must take into account “the new territorial realities,” in effect permanently ceding the land it has lost in battle.

In the broader scope of the yearslong public back-and-forth between officials in the U.S., Ukraine and Russia, analysts say Putin is likely to treat the latest warning by Trump as little more than a ploy by the new U.S. president to shore up his base and demonstrate the tough stance he has promised in regard to U.S. adversaries.

“Putin sees these statements as part of a political game. He doesn’t take them seriously,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, a Paris-based political scientist who maintains contacts with people close to the Kremlin. “He’s ready for any scenario and has no illusions that a deal will come quick.”

Stanovaya argues that the strain on Russia’s economy, while a concern for Putin, will have little effect on his calculus vis-à-vis Ukraine. For the Russian president, who has been in power for 25 years, the war is a historic opportunity to unify the two Orthodox Christian countries and arrest what he has long denounced as a creeping Western expansion into Russia’s backyard.

Russia preceded its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 by setting out a series of unrealistic demands that were rejected by the West, including forcing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization out of Eastern Europe and securing a promise from the West that Ukraine would never become a member of the military bloc.

The ambitious settlement currently favored by Putin contains elements of that earlier vision. For the Russian leader, Stanovaya says it would ideally involve a sweeping geopolitical arrangement of the kind agreed upon in Yalta, Crimea, by leaders of the U.K., U.S. and the Soviet Union toward the end of World War II, which presaged a postwar reorganization of Eastern Europe into Soviet and Western spheres of influence.

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“ Of course Putin wants to stop the war, but he wants it exclusively on Russian terms,” said Stanovaya. “The war in Ukraine is a way to bring the West to the negotiating table about a Yalta 2.0.”

A draft peace treaty drawn up by Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in Istanbul in April 2022 is an indication of the sort of deal Putin may be after.

The blueprint would effectively turn Ukraine into a neutered state permanently vulnerable to Russian military aggression, bar the country from rearming with Western support and leave Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, under Moscow’s control. Putin has cited the Istanbul formula as a basis for talks on Ukraine.

Trump, for his part, has conceded that it could take far longer to end the war than he suggested on the campaign trail, when he said he would get a deal done within 24 hours of returning to the White House. After his inauguration, the president acknowledged that Ukraine “wants to make a deal” while Russia might not.

Political analysts suggest Trump’s threat of new sanctions reflects his realization that a deal could take some time—and could also drive Russia further from the negotiating table.

“The Russians always want to be spoken to directly; the Kremlin was already annoyed by his messaging style in the first term,” said Oleg Ignatov, Russia analyst for the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing and resolving conflict. “It’s not how you deal with Russians.”

Write to Matthew Luxmoore at matthew.luxmoore@wsj.com and Thomas Grove at thomas.grove@wsj.com

The War in Ukraine

News and insights, selected by the editors

Trump’s Envoy Has a Hard Climb to Peace Deal

Putin’s Torturers Couldn’t Break These Ukrainian Prisoners

Ukraine Says It Killed Russian General in Moscow Bombing

Inside Ukraine’s Battle for the Skies

Trump to Europe: Overseeing a Cease-Fire Would Be Your Job

Ukraine Clings to Shrinking Sliver of Russia

Kyiv’s Western Missiles Threaten Big Russian Assets

The ‘Deathonomics’ Powering Russia’s War Machine

If that wasn’t enough , this; (a credible opinion) stating that that Trumps neo fascism is playing havoc with the overall popularity , respecting post Trump inauguration decline in favorable ratings.

I lost the opinion’ source, but it was more balanced than most of them.

At any rate, a reverse trickle down theory of an ideological focal Turn around, may not, does not mean the way Heidegger uses the turn, ( he changed his position because of utilitarian pragmatic necessity) and the apparent contradiction serves merely as an expedient explanation, to get things sorted out for those who can’t sense the necessity through primal function of interpretation.

To get to that sense, check out Leo Strauss’s evaluation of the primal significance of the Meno Paradox over his view off Olato’s Republic.

I apologize this flow (rambling) because time is becoming more essential as we get on with this new change in executive power. I grant you he is but a cig in the wheel, that maybe even he can not realize.

Very latest(shocking)

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https://www.politico.

oreign Affairs

State Department issues immediate, widespread pause on foreign aid

The “stop-work orders” appear to apply to US aid for all countries except Israel and Egypt.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday issued new guidance halting spending on most existing foreign aid grants for 90 days. The order, which shocked State Department officials, appears to apply to funding for military assistance to Ukraine.

Rubio’s guidance, issued to all diplomatic and consular posts, requires department staffers to issue “stop-work orders” on nearly all “existing foreign assistance awards,” according to the document, which was obtained by POLITICO. It is effective immediately.

It appears to go further than President Donald Trump’s recent executive order, which instructed the department to pause foreign aid grants for 90 days pending review by the secretary. It had not been clear from the president’s order if it would affect already appropriated funds or Ukraine aid.

The new guidance means no further actions will be taken to disperse aid funding to programs already approved by the U.S. government, according to three current and two former officials familiar with the new guidance.

The order shocked some department officials for its sweeping mandate. “State just totally went nuclear on foreign assistance,” said another State Department official.

Still, the document leaves room for interpretation and does provide some exceptions. It specifies that foreign military financing for Egypt and Israel will continue and allows emergency food assistance and “legitimate expenses incurred prior to the date of this” guidance “under existing awards.” At points, it also says the decisions need to be “consistent with the terms of the relevant award.”

One current State Department official, plus two former Biden administration officials, said the pause appears to stop aid to key allies such as Ukraine, Jordan and Taiwan. These officials were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive internal government documents.

The guidance could open the U.S. government up to civil liability as lawsuits could be filed over unfulfilled contracts if the terms are deemed to have been violated, the current and former officials said, although at points it says the decisions need to be “consistent with the terms of the relevant award.”

The guidance states that “decisions whether to continue, modify or terminate programs will be made following the review” from the secretary.

A State Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The omission of Ukraine is particularly troubling to American officials who want to help it defeat Russia.

Trump and Republicans have for years homed in on what they described as wasteful foreign aid spending under the Obama and Biden administrations. But in recent days, Trump has ratcheted up his rhetoric toward Russia, threatening Moscow with sanctions if it does not end its nearly three-year invasion of Ukraine and declaring that Putin bears responsibility for ending the war.

The guidance was cleared by a litany of top State Department staffers, including State Department counselor Michael Needham and policy planning director Michael Anton.

The State Department is expected to prepare a report within 85 days of the guidance being issued, which will then accompany a recommendation from Rubio to Trump about which foreign assistance programs to continue and which to discontinue.

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And a planned bilateral meet:

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Coming from verified trolling accounts, yes… the instant the inauguration ended, the instant trolling-accounts were set up to start sharing disinformation and to troll from… as did all of the Democrat-run news outlets.

…they have the technology to find such things out, at the press of a button… remember… ; )

Sounds like the I spy comics from the Sunday edition Sunday comics, where both belligerent snoops angled with the same shtick, mimicking on another, phew, that was say a generation or more ago, where ever has the time gone…

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I was thinking just that, earlier today… so am making the most of every minute awake/making every minute count.

…as I am sure, is President Trump… ; )

Are you really THAT sure?

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On the other hand the cliche, two wrongs don’t make one right comes to mind, that is, a resounding opinion by a past member here, Arminius, who’se sounding off on this very topic still assures me that yes , two wrongs can make a right, as well a slight twist , can turn things around( with no lesse source as Husserl-Heidegger in mind.) (( years ago as now I am flabbergasted by these recent evolved links)

That: the future is necessarily sunny and virtually bright, b

As most everyone children and adults alike, who really would like to be children all over again; including those who hold the trump card.

So? Let’s not go to jail, and pass go without collecting $200, for might is right, and so is Mr. Darwin, even if it’s still a ruse.

And, what could have Baron Trump say to Biden? ( in the context of his father)

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So far, I’m liking what Don T is doing with the tariffs and the federal funding freeze. It’s these kinds of changes that can disturb stability and order, making it more possible that a greater conflict occurs and produces an irreversible breakdown in society.

The greatest benefit of having Don as prez is the fact that he’s an asshole and capable of fucking everything up beyond repair (FUBR). And that’s exactly what i need to happen to get my freedom back. I need the American people to say “enough is enough” and take to the streets so that i can slip through the smoke and ash and go my own way.

Imagine being able to lay down on the cool grass somewhere without having to drive to the sheriffs office first to get permission, describe the location so they can tell the whole world where you are, and then be arrested for trespassing and vagrancy.

I hope to god Don and his homeboy Elon come up with some very dangerous ideas on those rich tough-guy walks they take together.

Yeah. Pro-Israel, pro-pharma Trump and pro-brain AI merger transhumanist Elon, two mega-billionaires ‘fighting the elites’. LOL.

What a meme. And everyone bought it.

You got it right the first time. This is orchestrated chaos, a controlled demolition and agitation propaganda all meant to feed the divide and conquer dialectic.

Be careful what you wish for.

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…only for those with an IQ low-enough to not be able to see the bigger picture, and so not be able to discern the ‘goings on’ for themselves, and therefore fall for it.

True, but sadly that is a majority of people…

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I know:joy:

News flash:

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olitics

Trump signs order withdrawing US from UN bodies

By ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS, 18 hrs ago

AFP

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Trump has long railed against Washington’s levels of funding of multilateral bodies, calling for other countries to increase their contributions /AFP

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order withdrawing Washington from a number of United Nations bodies, including its Human Rights Council (UNHRC), and setting up a broader review of US funding for the multilateral organization.

The executive order said it withdrew Washington from UNHRC and the main UN relief agency for Palestinians (UNRWA), and would review involvement in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The moves were made in protest against what White House staff secretary Will Scharf described as “anti-American bias” at the UN agencies.

The 47 members of the UN Human Rights Council are elected by the General Assembly to three-year terms, with the United States ending its latest term on December 31. It currently has observer status at the body.

Tuesday’s order would appear to end all US participation in the council’s activities, which include reviews of countries’ human rights records and specific allegations of rights abuses.

“More generally, the executive order calls for review of American involvement and funding in the UN in light of the wild disparities and levels of funding among different countries,” said Scharf.

Trump highlighted the “tremendous potential” of the UN but said it is “not being well run.”

“It should be funded by everybody, but we’re disproportionate, as we always seem to be,” he said.

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Now does this not smell of a reasonable diversete toward Brussels?
The leverage is a masterstroke of tit for tat;

You can’t eat your cake and have it too,?

Marie Antoinette’s lesson has sadly not been learned.

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…because perhaps they like other peoples’ money too much… 🫰🏼

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It’s a good start, but we should be withdrawing from ALL UN-related functions. Including our membership in the UN itself.

Then it would be a repeat performance of how maybe the Legue of Nations held for a while a faux Wilsonian peace not to last too long- too many parallels,