It exposed the pro-Putin commitments of the president

Brother’s visit was a good one. Our time together included an afternoon in a restaurant in East Lansing joined by Sister and Niece plus another niece and wife from Grand Rapids. My Sunday viewing was the Oscars. I enjoy this type of show (and may need to check out Anora). Brother politely put up with it, finding things to do on his computer. While Brother was here I didn’t keep up with reading the news. I’m still a couple days behind. Even so I saved several articles to write about. We’ll see how many I get to before I decide they’re out of date. The Carnival parades in the German cities of Dusseldorf and Cologne feature floats that are politically pointed. Some are not safe for work, as this collection of photos from HuffPost says right in the post title. Beyond that there are floats about the nasty guy’s denial of climate change, about Putin and the nasty guy squeezing Zelenskyy, and about Napo-Elon running loose. There are also photos of the way the nasty guy was depicted in previous years, including one from 2018 getting fresh exposure elsewhere showing a Russian bear mounting the nasty guy (also not safe for work). The Telegraph also posted several photos, some not in the HuffPost collection. The big news since my last post was President Zelenskyy of Ukraine visiting the Oval Office last Friday. Walter Einenkel of Daily Kos posted a short article (other news outlets discussed it at length) calling what was supposed to be a diplomatic press conference an “ambush” with rants supplied by both the nasty guy and vice nasty. Zelenskyy remained as cool as one can be when being berated by two idiots spouting lies. Zelenskyy even remained diplomatic in tweets afterward. Einenkel included videos of the ambush, though I didn’t watch. Morgan Stephens of Kos wrote about the reactions by Democrats. Stephens includes quite a few. Many of the comments mention that the nasty and vice nasty are doing Putin’s dirty work. In a pundit roundup from Tuesday Chitown Kev of Kos has a quote from Paul Krugman writing for his own Substack saying Europe is capable defending Ukraine without the nasty guy’s help. Europe has enough resources – it has long exceeded American aid and can easily replace America’s share. There are systems America may stop supplying that Europe can’t quickly replace. But we’ve been hearing predictions of Ukraine’s imminent collapse for at least a year. That gives Europe time. “So it really comes down to political will.” The nasty guy could try to pressure Europe into abandoning Ukraine, but Ukraine is more important to Europe than America is. Frank Gardner of BBC News looked at the manpower that might be required of Europe. Zelenskyy said he would need a peacekeeping force of up to 200,000 troops along the 600 mile line of contact. Europe would struggle to supply a third of that. Stephanie Kelton, writing for The Lens on Substack, says the “Social Security is running out of money” debate isn’t the one we should have but it’s the only one getting serious consideration. I read Kelton’s full article and much of it gets rather wonky. However, her last few paragraphs explain much. The 1983 projection on Social Security solvency was accurate in projected life expectancy and the decline in birth rates. So they’re not the reason for current difficulties. There is one thing the 1983 projection didn’t anticipate – the rise of extreme wealth, personified by Musk in this article. In particular, the payroll tax, which fund Social Security, is capped at an income of $176,100 in 2025. Make more than that and the rich pay no more into Social Security. Down in the comments of the pundit roundup Fiona Webster posted a cartoon by Garth German showing a couple in bed. She’s on her phone and says, “How many times do we get to say, ‘This isn’t America, we’re better than this’ before we have to admit that we’re not?” The Naked Pastor posted a cartoon showing 100 figures, all of them white except the one in the corner colored as transgender. The one in the opposite corner says, “Hey everybody, let’s persecute that one on the bottom right.” The Pastor included a quote from Pedro Pascal:

I can’t think of anything more vile and small and pathetic than terrorizing the smallest, most vulnerable community of people who want nothing from you, except the right to exist.

In Saturday’s roundup Greg Dworkin quoted Jonathan Chait of The Atlantic discussing Zelenskyy’s visit:

Might Zelensky have gotten a different outcome by taking Trump’s abuse and stream of lies with more self-abasement? Sure, it’s possible; if you reason backwards from a bad outcome, any different strategy is almost axiomatically smarter. Zelensky had no good options at the White House. He walked into an ambush with a president who empathizes with the dictator who wants to seize Ukraine’s territory. Everyone who spent years warning about Trump’s unseemly affinity for Putin had exactly this kind of disastrous outcome in mind.

A tweet from David Frum:

No, the meeting did not go badly for Ukraine. It exposed in the most undeniable, unequivocal way possible the pro-Putin commitments of the president and vice president. That was information Americans and allies needed to have clear before them.

Down in the comments are several cartoons about Zelenskyy’s visit. Monday’s roundup has more cartoons about the Oval Office ambush.