Day: August 18, 2025

What Is It With Documents?

I recall after Donny left the WH the first time and all those official government documents they found at his luxury playground for the rich and disgusting there was somewhat of an uproar but not much came of it….then in his second time at the palace of corruption some of his underlings we caught discussing classified stuff over an unsecured phone line….and now more document stuff….

Recently Donny met with Vlad for the all important change in the balance of Eastern Europe…..it appears that some guests at the hotel found official documents in a public printer…..

Unreleased details about plans for the meeting in Alaska between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin could be learned on Friday morning by anyone who checked a printer in the business center of an Anchorage hotel. Eight pages were left behind, apparently produced by US government staff members and carrying State Department markings. Three people staying at Hotel Captain Cook, a four-star hotel about 20 minutes from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, where Trump and Putin met, said they found the document on a public printer about 9am. NPR reviewed photos of the pages taken by one of them. Information on the eight pages includes:

  • Page 1: The sequence of meetings for the day was listed, as well as the names of the rooms on the base where they were to take place. There was a reveal about the gift Trump planned to present Putin: “American Bald Eagle Desk Statue.”
  • Pages 2-5: The names and phone numbers of three American staff members and 13 US and Russian state leaders are listed, per NPR. Included are phonetic pronouncers for all the Russian men: “Mr. President POO-tihn.”
  • Pages 6-8: The last pages are all about the luncheon planned “in honor of his excellency Vladimir Putin,” setting out the seating chart and menu of green salad, filet mignon, halibut olympia, and crème brûlée.

The day went off schedule. The document sets aside an hour for a Trump-Putin press conference, starting at 3:30pm. Not only did they not take questions, but they broke their joint appearance off after about 12 minutes, per Forbes. And luncheon was not served, per Axios. The White House and the State Department did not respond to NPR’s requests for comment about the document.

It seems that the Trump Admin has a problem with idiots who control documents…..let me say more confidence has been chipped away from the whole affair of a Trump presidency.

I wonder what the next shoe on the document doll will fall to the floor.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Ukraine Comes To Donny

The disastrous meeting between Vlad and Donny was a bust….nothing was accomplished which is pretty much what well figured, and today enter from stage right will be Zelenskyy and NATO notables in tow (my guess is that it is more about continuing the war than looking for a possible solution…..

Volodymyr Zelensky will make his case in person on Monday to President Trump at the White House, and he won’t be alone. So far, the leaders of the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Finland, NATO, and the European Commission have pledged to attend the follow-up meeting to Trump’s summit with Vladimir Putin, reports CNN.

  • “The trip serves as an exchange of information with US President Donald Trump following his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska,” said the office of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
  • In the meantime, Kiev’s European allies will meet Sunday to discuss ways to secure Ukraine’s security as part of a potential peace agreement. That could involve stationing Western troops in the country: The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump told European leaders Putin has accepted the possibility.
  • After his meeting with Putin, Trump backed off his demand for an immediate ceasefire. Instead, he is now pushing for what he calls a more permanent peace agreement, a move aligned with Moscow’s wishes. Putin is demanding that Ukraine give up its eastern Donbas region, which Zelensky has long called a nonstarter, in exchange for a halt to fighting elsewhere.

This smells like yet another ambush to me….

But that aside is there a solution to the war raging in Ukraine?

There is but NO one will like the answers….

After the summit in Alaska between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to produce a breakthrough in negotiations, a couple of potential outcomes top the list of likely resolutions to the fighting over Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reports. Ukraine could:

  • Lose land but survive as a secure and sovereign but smaller nation.
  • Lose territory and its sovereignty, returning to life in Moscow’s sphere of influence.

The Journal breaks those possibilities down.

The 20% solution: President Volodymyr Zelensky has rejected concessions on territory, and European leaders repeated Saturday that Ukraine’s borders must not be changed through force, per the Guardian. But Zelensky has indicated to other leaders that he’d be willing to negotiate once a ceasefire had locked in the existing front lines. And the idea isn’t universally opposed among his people. Under this scenario, Ukraine would lose about 20% of its land and receive Western help ensuring the lasting security of the remaining 80%—an outcome similar to the one to the Korean War in 1953. Putin seems unlikely to be pleased by this resolution: He’d be shut out of his goal of controlling Ukraine for good, which he has not abandoned. “The Russian viewpoint at the moment is that this war isn’t sustainable, but Ukraine is less sustainable, and by the time economic problems would force an end to the war, Ukraine will have lost,” said Janis Kluge, a Russian economy expert at a Berlin think tank.

Russian control: What worries Ukraine most is the realization that a smaller Ukraine might not be able to resist a third Russian invasion and could end up a Russian protectorate. Putin’s demands from the beginning have gone well beyond land and include shrinking Ukraine’s military, and arsenal, as well as changing its leadership, constitution and government policies on language, history, and national identity. That complete capitulation can only be achieved by outlasting Ukraine in battle. “I don’t see the Ukrainian army collapsing,” said Michael Kofman, a military expert at a Washington-based think tank. “But on a long enough timeline, we could get to a point where, if Ukraine fails to address its problems of force generation and force management, it might not be defeated on the battlefield, but it will grow increasingly exhausted.”

I said few will like this solution/s but how long must the war go on and how many Ukrainians must die?

What to do, what to do?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Meeting Was A Dud

Last Friday Donny and Putin held their head to head talks on ending the Ukraine debacle….and how did that go?

President Trump and Vladimir Putin spoke for three hours on Friday, but they did not cinch an agreement to end the war in Ukraine. “We haven’t quite got there, but we’ve got some headway,” Trump said at a cordial news conference afterward, reports the New York Times. “There’s no deal until there’s a deal.” Trump said he would now call Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and other world leaders to update them on the details of the talks, which were not divulged during the news conference. Trump said some major sticking points remained, without elaborating, but he also called the meeting “extremely productive.”

Putin, for his part, praised Trump and thanked his “dear neighbor” for hosting the “long overdue” summit, per the Washington Post. He said the two nations had reached an “understanding” on a path toward peace, and he warned Europe not to “torpedo the nascent progress,” per the AP.

  • “Russia is interested in ensuring that the settlement in Ukraine is long-term,” he said. “I hope that today’s agreements will be a starting point for achieving peace in Ukraine.”
  • Putin also said he agreed with Trump’s past statements that the war would not have started had Trump been in the White House.
  • He also invited Trump to come to Moscow for another summit at some point. Trump joked that he might take “some heat” about that but called it a possibility.

“Extremely productive”?

In what sense?

President Trump said on his flight to Alaska that there would be “severe consequences” if Russian President Vladimir Putin didn’t agree to a ceasefire during their meeting Friday. “I’m in this to stop the killing,” the president said on Air Force One. But Putin did not agree to stop the fighting, there were no consequences, and by Saturday, Trump had abandoned the idea of a ceasefire altogether. The result, Peter Baker writes in a New York Times analysis, is that Putin has been given a free pass to keep waging his war on Ukraine indefinitely, without fear of penalty.

“Even in the annals of Mr. Trump’s erratic presidency, the Anchorage meeting with Mr. Putin now stands out as a reversal of historic proportions,” Baker writes. A former US ambassador to NATO under Barack Obama said Trump’s longtime priority changed fast after the friendly tarmac greeting, chatty limousine ride, and brief sessions. “He got played again,” said Ivo Daalder. “For all the promises of a ceasefire, of severe economic consequences, of being disappointed, it took two minutes on the red carpet and 10 minutes in the Beast for Putin to play Trump again.”

Skipping the ceasefire step makes the peace talks based on Ukraine turning over territory it controls to Russia, per the Times. The tough new sanctions Trump had threatened to impose on Russia, complete with deadlines, appear to be off the table, as well, per a CNN analysis by Stephen Collinson. “Because of what happened today, I think I don’t have to think about that now,” Trump told Fox News later Friday.

As usual the gas bag of a president accomplished NOTHING that he said he would…..as usual any threats made were idle words.

Next up is a visit from Zelenskyy today…..but what will this accomplish…..will it be yet another ambush?

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he’ll meet US President Trump in Washington on Monday after a Russia-US summit in Alaska ended without an agreement to stop the fighting in Ukraine after 3 1/2 years, reports the AP. Meanwhile, in a reversal only a few hours after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump said an overall peace agreement, and not a ceasefire, was the best way to end the war. That statement echoes Putin’s view that Russia isn’t interested in a temporary truce and instead is seeking a long-term settlement that takes Moscow’s interests into account. More:

  • Zelensky: The Ukrainian leader, who didn’t receive an invite to the summit, said he had a “long and substantive” conversation with Trump early Saturday and that he’s looking forward to meeting with Trump in DC to “discuss all of the details regarding ending the killing and the war.”
  • Trump: The US president spoke to Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Friday after the summit, calling his Putin get-together a “10 out of 10” and a “very warm meeting between two very important countries,” per Fox News. “I think we’re pretty close to a deal,” he added, but “Ukraine has to agree to it.”
  • Trump II: The president wrote early Saturday on Truth Social that “it was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up.” He added that he’d be willing to have up a three-way meeting with himself, Zelensky, and Putin “if all works out,” which he reiterated to Hannity. “Not that I want to be there, but I want to make sure it gets done—and we have a pretty good chance of getting it done,” he told the Fox News host, per Fox.
  • Europe: The general sentiment among leaders on the Continent is one of wariness, especially with one big issue at hand for Europeans, per the New York Times: “They have no strategy of their own for bringing the war to a close, let alone for defeating Moscow.”
  • Ukrainians I: The vast majority of people in Ukraine don’t trust Putin, and the sentiment around the summit is one of “deep skepticism,” per the BBC. “Many soldiers gave their lives for these territories, for the protection of our country,” a Ukrainian sniper says. “A freeze [on the front lines] would mean demobilization would begin, wounded and exhausted soldiers would be discharged, the army would shrink, and during one of these rotations the Russians would strike again. But this time, it would be the end of our country.”
  • Ukrainians II: A minority of Ukrainians, either due to war fatigue or due to pro-Russian sentiment, are OK with compromises on ceding territory. “My belief is that the war should be stopped in any way possible,” a retired factory worker in Donetsk tells the BBC. “The further it goes, the worse it becomes.”

What will this repeated meetings with Donny actually accomplish?

Is any of this truly about ending this deadly conflict?

Or is it just semi-clever stagecraft?

I Read, I write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”