A WEEK: Has the U.S. been realigned with Putin?

THURSDAY, MARCH 6, 2025

Does anyone know or care? After the commander's joint address, are we the American people still trapped in a Week That Was? 

Are we involved in a Week That Was? Did Friday's Oval Office event kickstart a week whose developments may signal a change in world history? 

Among other questions which have arisen, we wouldoffer these:

Are we the American people now being realigned into an alliance with Putin? Also, does anyone seem to be able to care?

Those strike us as serious questions. Let's return to the scene of the carnage:

At the end of last Friday's event, one president sent the other president packing. In the course of the sudden, surprising blowup, a "rare earths minerals" deal went unsigned.

In the days which followed, military aid to Ukraine was suspended. So was help with military intelligence. 

And then, along came Tuesday evening's address! In this morning's New York Times, Maureen Dowd, now sadder and wiser, highlights a largely overlooked part of that joint address:

The State of Himself

[...]

His new imperialist attitude was on display, a sharp contrast to his old rants about how awful George W. Bush was for his failed occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. About Greenland, Trump said, “One way or the other, we’re going to get it.” He also vowed, “My administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal, and we’ve already started doing it.”

The thrust of Trump’s speech was, of course, to glorify himself, to claim sanctification bestowed on him by God when he escaped assassination.

Regarding Greenland, "One way or the other, we’re going to get it?" Also, we're going to be "reclaiming the Panama Canal?"

It's astounding to think that comments like those have largely gone undiscussed. We'd call that a tribute to the sheer volume of gorilla dust the commander threw into the air Tuesday night on a hundred other topics.

That said, yes—the commander did make those statements! So you can more fully evaluate his meaning, here's the fuller passage from the Tuesday night joint address:

PRESIDENT TRUMP (3/5/25): To further enhance our national security, my administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal, and we’ve already started doing it. Just today a large American company announced they are buying both ports around the Panama Canal and lots of other things having to do with the Panama Canal and a couple other canals. The Panama Canal was built by Americans for Americans, not for others. But others could use it.

But it was built at tremendous cost of American blood and treasure. 38,000 workers died building the Panama Canal. They died of malaria, they died of snakebites and mosquitoes. Not a nice place to work. They paid them very highly to go there knowing there was 25 percent chance that they would die. The most expensive project also that was ever built in our country’s history, if you bring it up to modern-day costs. It was given away by the Carter administration for $1. But that agreement has been violated very severely. We didn’t give it to China; we gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.

[...]

And I also have a message tonight for the incredible people of Greenland. We strongly support your right to determine your own future. And if you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America. We need Greenland for national security and even international security. And we’re working with everybody involved to try and get it. But we need it really for international world security. And I think we’re going to get it—one way or the other, we’re going to get it. 

"One way or the other" may sound a bit menacing. But those were his fuller remarks.

In fairness, annexation of Canada went unmentioned on Tuesday night, as did ownership of Gaza. But that's what the commander said about the way we'll be taking the canal back, and about the way we'll end up getting Greenland.

Do those remarks display a "new imperialist attitude?"  If those remarks ever get discussed, some people will surely teach that question flat while others will teach it round.

In full fairness to Dowd, the other part of what she said in that passage was accurate. Here's the key spart of the commander's much longer presentation about what happened last July at the rally in Butler, Pa.:

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I believe that my life was saved that day in Butler for a very good reason. I was saved by God to Make America Great Again—I believe that. I do. 

Thank you. Thank you very much.

He was saved by God to make America Great! (Perhaps to take back the canal?)

That remark in Tuesday's address has generally gone unmentioned too. As you can see in the full transcript, it's part of a much longer presentation about the way the president's life was saved by God that day, while others "were not so lucky:"

At this site, we're concerned about the president's possible mental state. Within the rules of American journalism, a topic like that cannot be discussed, no matter what the person in question may actually say and do.

Within the poverty of the American discourse, other highly significant topics routinely go undiscussed. With respect to last Friday's Oval Office event, consider this slightly fuller chunk from Dowd's new column:

The State of Himself

[...]

He offered a softer tone on Ukraine, citing a message from Volodymyr Zelensky urging peace and saying he was ready to sign the minerals deal. Now that Trump has forced the Ukrainian president to grovel, now that he has humiliated the war hero in public and put his own swollen ego above America’s longstanding foreign policy principles, he may give Zelensky another chance.

His new imperialist attitude was on display, a sharp contrast to his old rants about how awful George W. Bush was for his failed occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. About Greenland, Trump said, “One way or the other, we’re going to get it.” He also vowed, “My administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal, and we’ve already started doing it.”

According to Dowd, someone has now declared his readiness "to sign the minerals deal"—but to whom does she refer? 

Who has signaled this new readiness? Is it the lady, or is it the tiger? Is it Trump or is it Zelensky? 

For whatever reason, the answer isn't clear in Dowd's text. Someone's now ready to sign the deal, but it isn't real clear who that is!

That said, something else remains unclear at this point in time. As best we can tell, no one has the slightest idea what actually happened last Friday, and it isn't clear that anyone actually cares.

What actually happened last Friday in the Oval Office? Just for starters, who refused to sign the minerals deal? 

More to the point, what was in the minerals deal—the deal that didn't get signed?

As far as we know, most reporting has indicated that it was President Trump, not President Zelensky, who declined to sign the deal. According to all the reporting we've seen, it was Trump who sent Zelensky away, leaving the deal unsigned.

As to what was actually in the deal, have you seen anyone tell you? 

Fellow citizens, what was actually in the deal which suddenly went unsigned? Again, we'll link you to this analysis by The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) a centrist Washington think tank.

The detailed analysis was published last Thursday, one day before the Oval Office disaster. Here's what the CSIS seemed to report at that time:

It seemed to report that the original minerals deal—the deal Zelensky had originally refused to sign—had been vastly watered down by the time of the Oval encounter.

The original deal had been widely described as a virtual looting of Ukraine's rare metals wealth.  The renegotiated deal—the deal which was on the table last Friday—offered far less material advantage to the U.S., or so said the CSIS.

Was that an accurate account of the matter? We can't tell you that, but the CSIS is no flyweight org.

Did the CSIS give an accurate account of the adjusted minerals deal? If so, could that perhaps explain why Trump sent Zelensky packing without the deal being signed?

We don't know how to answer those questions. Within our flailing American discourse, others don't much seem to care.

No one else even seems to have noticed that these are fairly obvious questions. In the poverty of the time, this is the way our discourse works.

In fairness, gorilla dust was widely scattered during Tuesday evening's joint address. Crazy claims were made in droves, many of which are still in the process of being fact-checked.

Amidst the attendant confusion, less attention has been paid to the commander's pledge to Make The Canal American Again and to pull a snatch-and-grab with respect to Greenland. Also, little attention has been paid to what actually happened last Friday with respect to the minerals deal, the contents of which have gone almost wholly undiscussed.

In the course of all this turmoil, has the shape of a global realignment started to come clear? As he queered the minerals deal—as he then suspended aid to Ukraine—was the commander moving the United States into full alignment with Putin?

We get Greenland, he gets Ukraine? Could that have been the state of play at the start of a possible Week That Was? 

Donald J. Trump was saved by God! Was he saved to produce realignment. Does anyone actually care?

Tomorrow: We recommend that you pity the child. But what was he like at 13?

This afternoon: A very different factcheck of the address, as performed by the Washington Post

30 comments:


  1. "Has the U.S. been realigned with Putin?"

    "Realigned with Putin?" What the fuck does it even mean?

    If it means being friendly with the Russian Federations, let's hope it's for real. The threat of a nuclear war we lived under in the last couple of years, all but disappeared. Hallelujah!

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    1. America was never threatened by Russia‘s nukes. It was always Eastern Europe and then Europe itself that were threatened. Aligning ourselves with Putin, letting him wipe Ukraine off the map, appeasing him and his naked aggression, has not made the threat of nuclear war less in Eastern Europe and Europe; it has made it more likely. that’s what happens when you abandon friends and allies.

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    2. All those countless billions of dollars spent (and stolen) by the idiot-Democrat governments to conquer in 2014 the territory of former Ukraine and holding it afterwards, it didn't work well for the US. And we're lucky, incredibly lucky, that it didn't start a nuclear war.

      Now is the time to cut the losses, and let it go.

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    3. 10:29/10:55 you seem to be a very confused person lacking a firm grasp of the facts and of reality. You come across to everyone here as a loon. If you want your falsehoods and misinformation to work here, because so far you've been an utter failure, you'll need to improve your rhetoric so that you don't seem so crazy and weird.

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    4. Thank you for reading and taking time to reply, Mr. Soros.

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    5. You’re welcome, mr Putin.

      Delete
  2. “ We recommend that you pity the child.”
    Ok. I pity Trump. Now impeach and remove the fucker.

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    Replies
    1. Surely it was pity that ended slavery and Nazism.

      Right?

      No?

      Back to the drawing board?

      Delete
  3. Somerby's buyer's remorse over Trump is delicious!

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    1. Your theory was that Somerby supported Trump, so his criticism of Trump must now be explained by an epicycle, and thus you invented “buyer’s remorse.” Got it.

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    2. For Somerby, it is more about vengeance towards Dems than support for Trump.

      "his criticism of Trump", Brother, please, you are just embarrassing yourself.

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    3. Sonerby said Trump was spreading “gorilla dust” and making claims that were “crazy.” Sounds like criticism to me.

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    4. Somerby's framing of Trump as that old grandpa, a hoot but also a bit of a coot, ignores the real issues with Trump - Trump is corrupt and a criminal. Somerby's posts might help Republicans (in reality, Somerby is irrelevant), it certainly is not in support of Dems.

      Somerby is a right winger, slightly embarrassed by the more distasteful elements of the current state of the Republican Party.

      Assuming good faith and accuracy in information, there is nothing wrong with defending Somerby from a right wing perspective, likewise, nothing wrong with criticizing Somerby from a progressive/left perspective.

      Most of the right wingers here do not argue in good faith, they present misinformation and little else. A few right wingers here pretend to be not right wing and defend Somerby on the grounds of reading Somerby only literally - this is highly ignorant and naive if in good faith, but more likely it is disingenuous - few adults with normal functioning brains would take Somerby's nonsense at face value; however, there are many adults that do fall prey to cons, so it is something to consider.

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    5. I think you're spreading gorilla dust and making crazy claims. But that's not "criticism," right?

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    6. Ah ok 1:00, you are willfully being ignorant. It was suspected. Got it.

      Delete
    7. "A few right wingers here pretend to be not right wing and defend Somerby on the grounds of reading Somerby only literally - this is highly ignorant and naive if in good faith, but more likely it is disingenuous - few adults with normal functioning brains would take Somerby's nonsense at face value;"

      Is this anything but a pure ad hominem argument? It seems to me that when you're reduced to making such arguments, it's probably because your main thesis is not supportable, so you have to distract with such gorilla dust.

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    8. No, it appears you misunderstand "ad hominem".

      I agree with 12:41, you are being disingenuous, apparently 12:41 triggered you into doubling down on your weird stance.

      Delete
  4. As a Republican small business owner, Trump is a disaster and an embarrassment. When Trump is gone, my party will crumble.

    I wish somebody would explain to Trump, this chaos is VERY bad for business. It may be, though, that he simply does not care.

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    Replies
    1. His plan is to bring on a recession in order bring down inflation caused by his idiotic tariffs. What could go wrong?

      Delete
  5. Latest poll, Trump disapproval +7.

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  6. Trump paused US aid to Ukraine. He did it without informing the EU. I’m sure this will help reduce all those Ukrainian deaths that DiC and Trump (I’m sure) so deeply care about by…increasing the number of deaths.

    Trump is also revoking the legal status of 240,000 Ukrainian war refugees, because he cares so deeply about the Ukrainian people.

    https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-plans-revoke-legal-status-ukrainians-who-fled-us-sources-say-2025-03-06/

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    Replies
    1. In addition to cutting off our intelligence to Ukraine military.
      There are no guardrails anymore on this overgrown baby.
      DiC cares not a whit what happens to the people in Ukraine. He's just here to sing the praises of his orange chickenshit.

      Delete
  7. I underestimated the economic genius of King Donald J Chickenshit. I predicted he would crash the economy in 3 months. He has done it in half the time.

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  8. Bob writes “

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  9. Hopefully so. They make better strategic partners than most of the NATO countries.

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  10. As we head into a recession, Ukraine is still going strong, same with inflation, the genocide of Palestinians, and Repubs cutting Medicare and SS.

    Who knew?

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  11. Wall Street is in full support of Trump's tariff threats followed by walking back threats followed by more threats followed by walking back threats......

    Yes sir, full support.

    Good day for short selling!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Ha! Bessent tried to throw a bone to banks today, did not work.

    Everyone is waking to Trump being a clown, along with his admin.

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  13. Is 100% resistance to Trump the best strategy?
    The Dems' attitude seems to be, "If Trump is for it, we're against it." That approach means opposing even the good things Trump does or tries to do, such as fixing the Southern border or reducing government waste or preventing men from competing in women's sports. Is that approach good for the country? Is it good for the Dems?

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  14. English is hard. Somerby says: "Who has signaled this new readiness? Is it the lady, or is it the tiger? Is it Trump or is it Zelensky? "

    It is obviously Zelensky, from Dowd's own sentence:

    "He offered a softer tone on Ukraine, citing a message from Volodymyr Zelensky urging peace and saying he was ready to sign the minerals deal. "

    "He" refers to Trump and it is Trump offering a softer tone. Zelensky is urging peace AND saying he was ready to sign. We know that because it says Trump was citing a message from Zelensky that urged and said those things.

    If Somerby cannot parse such a simple sentence, he may be in over his head on the complexities of today's fast-moving and upsetting events. They used to ask school children to diagram sentences so that they could see the structure and know which details went with which nouns and who did what (and how).

    If Somerby had diagrammed Dowd's sentence, he wouldn't find himself writing an unfair criticism of her. Oddly, Somerby thinks his confusion shows that Dowd is not a good writer, just as Somerby considers his own failure to understand Einstein's writing to be Einstein's failure, not his own lack of foundation in math and science.

    It must be nice to be able to automatically blame others for one's own mistakes, as Somerby does today and on many other occasions. I would find it embarrassing but Somerby seems to be clueless about where blame lies. I am considering whether this is a personality flaw generalizable to conservatives or just a Somerby quirk.

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