Try to say this, they are just one people, is quite an offense of another sovereign state. And he doesn't think this only as a shared heritage.

All of it is to argue that the “anti-Russian project”, as he calls it, is unwarranted. “Partnership” assumes 2 separate entities, not one. Drawing on their shared history he goes on to describe this partnership in detail, how good it used to be and how much the Russian federation supported it, and laments the loss of the “economic unity”. Sounds like ambitions of the EU, to me. Right or wrong none of it shows a hint of any imperial ambition, despite what the cold-war propagandists of the Atlantic Council says. Further, the unmitigated fears of EU annd NATO leaders, and especially Zelensky’s claims that he is the bulwark stopping Putin from invading the rest of Europe, and democracy itself, is complete nonsense.

But because of your bright leaders that all might change and once again the Europeans invite world war as they insert themselves in a conflict they have no business meddling in. Now we get to watch them virtue-signal right into destruction.

And now you do have the most dumbest trade war. So happy self-mutilation with raising prices that with 25% tariffs are a sure thing.

I'm just waiting when the idiot will start the trade war with the EU. Won't be long, I guess.

Trump is quite likely going to walk away from NATO, so I guess that's all that great winning. After all, when Elon agrees on something, it has to be a great idea.

Of course, Trump’s tariffs are essentially a tax on the American citizen. That’s why it’s all so funny when people like Trudeau turn all Trumpian in response and starts to tax his own citizens. I suspect the EU will follow suit.

The problem is the "Kremlin talking-points" schtick is never proven. That's particularly difficult to do in any case because such talking points have been roundly censored around the globe and most of us don't speak Russian. You won't quote whom or what I'm parroting, for example. You can't; that's because it isn't an observation of reality. Rather, it's a mental stop-gap that permits you to stop thinking once the cognitive dissonance sets in.

Anyways, like you said, we shouldn't sling mud. Cheers.

Kremlin lines. Kremlin talking-points. You can gauge the depths of the anti-Trump mind by how quickly it hits this basement floor.

I guess border and sovereignty don’t mean so much anymore. That was fast.

I figured as much.

Ukraine also has red lines known as borders; most sovereign nations do.

It had borders. Then two republics seceded from the land. One wonders why we never rattled our sabres and threw around our cash when Kiev invaded them, given our talk of borders and sovereignty and all.

I’m curious where Europeans get the idea that Russia will invade the rest of Europe. I can’t find anything that bolsters this claim. Unlike Ukraine, ethnic Russians aren’t being ethnically-cleansed anywhere else in Europe, so it doesn’t make any sense that Russia would attack.

Well, I live in a country that has "forced conscription", where in my constitution it is written that "All Finnish citizens have a duty to defend their country". We, just like Sweden, have the idea of "Total defense". That's what you need to deter a bully next to you that will interfere in your matters and will try to dominate you. Worked against Stalin, will work against Putin. The doesn't have to have such, because you have oceans on both sides and Canada and Mexico.

And Ukraine's constitution declares that no elections under wartime. So you just go with meaningless Kremlin lines there of Zelenskyi being a dictator. Russia doesn't have free elections even during peacetime.

Now it’s not so much that Ukrainians want to, it’s that they have to. Something-or-other oblige’s them, even with the 90,000 desertions, the people hiding or else be black-bagged by roving bands of conscription police. By “forced conscription” I mean they’re kidnapping people in the street and sending them to the front lines. Is that what Finland does? And sanctioning political opponents? Consolidating media? Banning critics? Banning languages? Banning religious organizations? Is that how the Fins deter bullies?

So you are totally clueless about this. Start with Putin's "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians" speech. That's Putin's Mein Kampf where he spills out what is the right future for Ukraine. And then there's ample amount of Russian propaganda about this intended for the Russian people and how Russia will conquer back Novorossiya, New Russia, as it was called.

A picture of a woman holding the "Correct" map in 2015

A woman holding a map. Ok.

There is nothing in Putin’s essay about any imperial ambitions. The essay is nothing like Mein Kempf, at all. Why would you say that, knowing anyone can read it and see that your claims are untrue? Where do you get this from? Who or what is telling you what to think, here?

You understand the difference between a confederacy or an union. I've always said that the EU is a confederacy of independent states desperately trying to be an union. So in the end, it's Finnish law. Just as it is if the country is us or Hungary or Spain etc.

European law has primacy, I’m afraid.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/glossary/primacy-of-eu-law-precedence-supremacy.html

Wrong. Ukrainians themselves decide how long they will fight. If they want to continue the fight for their independence, we can give them the weapons.

Right, forced conscription. No elections. Opposition parties banned. Nationalized media. “Ukrainians themselves decide”.

Wrong, this is about those values and the independence of sovereign states and defense of the Russian reconquista Putin has started. And Putin would have started that with or without NATO. The collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest tragedy in history, remember?

All of that is deep-state dinner-theater. Russians have been saying for decades that they would intervene should Nato integration sharpen ethnic divisions and create civil war in Ukraine, which it did. They have been saying for decades that Ukraine’s NATO membership is threat to national security and they would have to take appropriate measures. Not a single one of them mentioned a return of the Russian empire. Americans in particular have known about this for decades and the cables prove that they knew about it, but did it anyways.

“Nyet means Nyet. Russia’s NATO enlargement Red Lines”.

https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html

Lol. Going off the far end here? Nations can send in their applications if they want to join. And even in the negotiations, then can view it that it's not worth it. Just like, well, Norway did. Hilarious to see EU as a Great power, as everybody knows its a confederation of quite independent states.

Wrong again. For members like Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Romania, it genuinely is about sovereignty. It starts from things that Russia demands to have a veto on what actions as sovereign states can European countries do. Like to join EU or to join NATO. That kind of sovereignty issues.

Independent and sovereign states, eh? Which law has supremacy, Finnish law or EU law?

When Trudeau celebrated a Ukrainian Nazi in the Canadian parliament a couple years back it served as an ointment against the pro-Ukrainian propaganda in Canada. What the hell are we supporting again? I doubt European leaders are as stupid, and will show a little more due diligence in who they glorify, but how do Europeans feel about glorifying a president who nationalizes his press, cancels elections, and bans and persecutes the opposition?

This sort of question was asked of the Commission a few years back, and the answer was unwavering in its support for Zelensky, ensuring us that “regular dialogues” about freedom and human rights were occurring between EU and Ukraine, and other bureaucratic gobbledegook. A couple years later the abuses have only continued.

I’m curious as to why The Commission and its biggest supporters wish to aid the little dictator, and with so much gusto?

Giving everything on a platter to Putin! Kiev will be a Russian city should any peace deal involving Trump go through! If only we give the Ukrainians more money and weapons everything will be alright!

In effect, though, what the EU and NATO are doing is sacrificing their own economies and Ukrainian soldier’s lives on the altar of what amounts to political theater. We know none of this is about democracy, freedom, human rights and other verbal claptrap or else it would have raised a huff when the US ousted the democratically-elected leader of Ukraine, causing a civil war. Or it might denounce Germany’s abysmal freedom of speech. We know it isn't some principled stand against Russian expansionism or meddling because the EU has been trying to annex Ukraine for years, for the sole purpose of exploiting it for grain and fuel. We know it isn’t about sovereignty because the EU is supranationalist. So all this preening comes at the expense of the reality. Hell, only one country involved in that war attacked EU jurisdiction when it sabotaged those pipelines, and oddly enough it’s the same country the snivelling bureaucrats there wish to fund.

You read Breibart news?

So much for "Man of Peace" getting the Nobel peace-prize. The fucking Putin-loving moron.

He’s still done more than any of the Euro bureaucrats, and he’s only been in office a month. Europe looks like it wants to fight to the very last Ukrainian because they don’t like Putin. I wonder who will start world war 3?

Huge.

Maybe that’s why Trump hasn’t threatened tariffs on Australia.

Thanks

Sounds like an interesting read. Do you know of a free copy of the essay, or did you buy it? I’ll read it then comment.

AltGov: Bureaucrats in revolt.

According to the guardian:

Calling itself #AltGov, the network has developed a visible, public-facing presence in recent weeks through Bluesky accounts, most of which bear the names or initials of federal agencies, aimed at getting information out to the public – and correcting disinformation – about the chaos being unleashed by the Trump administration.

With 40 accounts to date, their collective megaphone is getting louder, as most of the accounts have tens of thousands of followers, with “Alt CDC (they/them)” being the largest, at nearly 95,000 followers.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/26/altgov-elon-musk-doge-federal-workers

A small band of bureaucrats have taken their anti-Trump efforts to social media, turning their conspiracy theories into outright government insubordination. At best this appears to be a non-story. The “AltGov” operates on an app called Bluesky, known for congealing woke and weird political and fetish communities into information silos, protected from any other information. The presence of preferred pronouns indicate their woke bonafides and the live-action-roleplaying indicative of this sort of ideology.

But knowing the weaknesses involved and the absence of any opposition in these silos, radicalization is almost inevitable. How far will they take it? Sabotage? Murder? Terrorism?

Do notice that nobody is cheering for the trade war and the tariffs. Not even @NOS4A2 (even if he lives in Canada).

I cheer retaliatory tariffs. It’s not fair that everyone gets to tariff the US but the US is not allowed to tariff them. The reason we do not talk about tariffs otherwise and you never made a peep during other trade wars is because only Trump can make everyone freak out about it.

A kindly gesture by the British king and PM, who appears to be acting above the typical fear and loathing as indicated by the media narratives, even while the cameras are running. Knowing the froth this might bring among the moral commissars and busybodies, the public display might prove politically inconvenient, or it could signal the waning relevance of that class of intelligentsia.

Should the public display only mask the private ones as it does in other countries, I guess we’ll soon find out.

AG Bondi claimed on Fox News that we might see some Jeffry Epstein info today. I suspect it’s a huge bust, and anything pertaining to who else might have been involved will or has gone missing, but who knows?

Your government at work.

Gabbard Says More Than 100 Intelligence Officers Fired for Chat Messages
The chats had been set up to discuss sensitive security matters. But a group of employees used them for discussions that contained sexual themes, intelligence officials said this week.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/25/us/politics/gabbard-nsa-firing-explicit-chat.html

It turns out the intel community is just a bunch of redditors.

Things are moving swiftly in Europe. Perhaps peace is on the horizon.

US, Ukraine agree to terms of critical minerals deal

https://www.reuters.com/world/zelenskiy-plans-travel-us-meet-trump-minerals-deal-sources-say-2025-02-25/

It is interesting to wonder what would become of Europe without American hegemony to hide behind for the past half century. Would they be able to afford their welfare states had American soldiers never defended them while they slept and subsidized their lifestyles? Perhaps now we can find out.

At any rate, if Germany is any indication, it appears they squandered that opportunity and followed their natural inclination towards totalitarianism. Massive censorship regimes and online “safety” bills brought about by frigid commissars stand largely unopposed by the people they are meant to censor, and routinely do. And it appears no party of freedom rises to correct the trajectory, just right-and-left versions of the same regime.

Now that their benefactor pulls away and no longer supports their chosen trajectory, it’s no surprise they nip at the hand that has fed them for so long. What more can be said about the birthplace of fascism and communism, save for that the European Union is beginning to look like the Soviet one.

Expect some fire.

Sorry, I don’t follow Finnish politics. No matter who leads, I bet they’re beholden to Brussels.

No, I do feel bad for the EU members and all those countries who have essentially been doing the bidding of the US for decades. I don’t know why they never disengaged years ago, especially given the thankless anti-US sentiment which seems regnant there. How you can trust the leaders who have left you so unprepared to stand on your own feet while rattling their sabres and funding that war, I’m not sure, but I doubt any change is forthcoming.

But it was only a matter of time until that umbilical was cut. And now, given the totalitarian trends of those governments, it seems like the perfect time to wean yourself off the tit. Don’t you think?

Nor should the US trust trading with the EU. The U.S. has a 2.5% tariff on Europe’s vehicle imports, for example, while the EU charges U.S. imports at 10%. It’s bad when Trump does it but we’re silent when the EU does it, it seems. All they have to do is be fair and they have nothing to fear, but I don’t think fair trade is in their capacity.

Strikingly similar? It's not even close. I'm not sure if you're joking or trying to pull a fast one.

It’s text. It doesn’t sound like anything. Are the voices in your head throwing you off?

Last I heard your president was raving with celebrities and taking drug tests.

JD’s historic speech wasn’t for Europeans, it was for the stuffy bureaucrats in the room, many of whom were wearing military uniforms for some reason. In fact Vance defended the European citizens who were roundly silenced by the weak commissars of European governments for the smallest of speech and thought crimes. Does anyone in the EU do the same? The parasitic tentacles of the EU better find another host to suck the blood from because the Great Satan is no longer going to stand around and allow it, especially when the Old World descends back into the tyranny that ruined it in the first place.

I am Canadian.

No, I agree with all you wrote Javi.

I am American.

But you're absolutely right about everything else. I believe the US should not have inserted itself in European affairs, policed the world, and it is culpable for all of which you mention. Its cultural imperialism has rendered the EU into an overtaxed woke tyranny, a state of affairs which many seek to defend. For a while Europeans were too busy enjoying their freedoms to want to defend them. Who knows where you'd be if the Americans hadn't infiltrated the European psyche? I'm not sure. All I know is it needs to end, and that time might be now.

I've always questioned the theory of life which underlies modern education. It seems geared towards vocation, the development of mechanical faculties for the service of the mechanical organization of society, the primer for drudgery. I feel like it assumes the mistaken anthropology that man is little more than Aristotle's zoon politikon, a state animal, and one ought to be trained in the maintenance of these kinds of institutions.

I suppose the rise and fall of classical education is indicative of the trust and belief in these institutions because it isn't necessarily connected to the maintenance of any of them. I know for myself that I've learned more from how classical writers viewed the world than any bureaucratic curriculum. It's just a shame that I hadn't known of them earlier.

JD Vance’s speech to Europe’s elites was a dressing-down of the old establishment for their totalitarianism. In it he reiterated what he thought were the shared values of freedom, the ones both purported to fight for in the latter half of the last century, all of which seems to have disappeared in the next.

But we ought to remember that Europe was the cauldron of not only the politics of freedom, but also of repression and absolutism. Now, at this moment, it’s difficult to discern which spirit prevails on that continent.

In Germany you can be arrested for insulting a politician online. 60 minutes just did a little show on it, revealing to millions of Americans the political state of that country.

In the same episode the CBS crew follow around German stormtroopers as they raided people’s houses in the middle of the night and steal their laptops, phones, and other properties, for allegedly posting online things the state does not approve of. What appears to be routine in that country is anathema to the bill of rights in the United States, so-much-so that Americans ought to wonder why their tax-dollars go to defending the Old World from outside enemies when perhaps they should look at the ones within.

We know that the current European establishment is averse to so-called political strongmen, and perhaps rightfully so, but the political weakmen (to coin a term) have proven themselves to be not much better. They appear similar in method and lust for control and power, differing only in rhetoric and style. Vance mentioned that the Romanian courts annulled the election and upended democracy when the populist candidate won, on the premise that Russian misinformation promoted him. Democracy and the free-flow of information becomes a hurdle when their side loses, and never themselves are to blame.

All of this should promote one to wonder: Why are we in NATO? And why are American tax-payer dollars supporting this illiberal order?

A typical example of a political weakman would be German diplomat Christoph Heugsen, in response to Vance:

What is bad about this advice?

The whole premise is bad. Misinformation and “false beliefs” is not a threat, never has been, and their constant wolf-crying only empowers the most powerful governments, institutions, and corporations to seize control of what is true or false. So not only is it a waste of money, their works puts a chilling effect on press and speech freedom all around the world.

They had a hearing the other day, the “Eliminating Waste by the Foreign Aid Bureaucracy”. Journalist Michael Shellenberger testified before the senate that CEPPS is a part of the global censorship complex, basically a deep-state foreign election-meddler.

https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/Testimony-Shellenberger-2025-02-13.pdf

A bipartisan bill was introduced last fall to end the funding of international censorship, using your worthy cause as an example of its worst excesses, when it discussed censorship strategies with the government of Brazil as it went about dissenting voices on Rumble and X.

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/118/hr9850/text

Nice and friendly ancronym s and copy from a website just isn’t enough for me, nor anyone else who can see beyond their own skull.

The latter isn't going to be addressed AT ALL by Trump. He's already said entitlements are off the table. So the couch cushions are pulled, DOGE rearranges some deck chairs more efficiently, and the Titanic steams on.

At any rate, the state will be slimmer and tax-payer dollars should be redirected to cover the cost of those areas.

The war will work out great for Putin and Trump if they manage to divvy Ukraine's assets and leave the locals with nothing. That, is a lack of diplomacy.

How else will they pay back their loans?

This is couch cushion stuff. Politicians who ignore entitlement reform are not serious about debts and deficits. Wouldn't you agree?

This is stuff spent in other countries on boondoggle projects that have nothing to do with the American tax-payer. Entitlements, on the other hand, are designed to benefit the tax-payer. The former needs to be addressed before the latter.