Bad moments in novice diplomacy

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September 23rd, 2024: Zalenski traveled to Biden’s hometown, accompanied by Pennsylvania’s governor Shapiro to sign mementos and ask for more of them. My advice: never insert yourself into another country’s political race unless you’re sure, really sure, that the candidate you’re pubicly supporting is going to win. Oops.

And he hasn’t improved his skills since:

Treasury sec reveals Zelenskyy nixed Trump's mineral deal twice prior to Oval Office blowup

"This has to be one of the greatest diplomatic mishaps of all time by President Zelenskyy," Bessent said in an interview Friday with Laura Ingraham, host of Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle." 

Bessent explained that Zelenskyy told him during a meeting in Kyiv that he would not sign a mineral deal, which would exchange billions of dollars in US aid funding for rare earths and other resources from Ukraine.  Zelenskyy also refused to close the deal with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Bessent stated. 

On Friday, Trump and Vance reprimanded Zelenskyy in full view of reporters, with cameras rolling. The tense exchange led to a canceled meeting between Zelenskyy and Trump.

"It was supposed to be a great day and this is one of the biggest own goals in diplomatic history," Bessent said, referencing a soccer term about scoring against your own team. 

"Today, I was shocked that he would behave like this on camera in front of the world," he added. 

Zelensky tries grandstanding for the cameras and attacking the President of the United States; that would have worked with the former occupant of the oval office; now? Not so much.

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What the Heck Was Zelensky Thinking?

Bonchie:

Volodymyr Zelensky visited the Oval Office on Friday, and as RedState reported, things blew up in spectacular fashion. The latest reports are that the Ukrainian president was kicked out of the White House, with the prior negotiated mineral rights for aid deal shelved indefinitely.

So what exactly happened? That's a good question because I have no idea what Zelensky was thinking. This was not a situation where President Donald Trump was beating him over the head or demanding he submit to a specific narrative surrounding the war in Ukraine. On the contrary, the meeting was essentially over when Zelensky decided it'd be a great idea to try to publicly embarrass Trump and Vice President JD Vance in front of the press.

The sticking point appeared to be Vance, who was wrapping up the press conference, mentioning diplomacy being a means to end the war. Zelensky, for whatever reason, took great offense at that suggestion and asked the vice president if he could ask him a question. The Ukrainian president then leaned forward and began to dismiss the idea of a ceasefire, citing deals that Russia has broken in the past. That's when things touched off, with Zelensky and Vance going back and forth. 

VANCE: I'm talking about the kind of diplomacy that's going to end the destruction of your country... Mr. President, with respect, I think it's disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media. Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems. You should be thanking the President for trying to bring an end to this conflict.

ZELENSKY: Have you ever been to Ukraine that you say what problems we have?

VANCE: I've actually watched and seen the stories, and I know what happens is you bring people, you bring them on a propaganda tour, Mr. President. Do you disagree that you've had problems bringing people into your military? And do you think that it's respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?

ZELENSKY: First of all, during the war, everybody has problems. Even you. But you have nice ocean and don't feel now. but you will feel it in the future. God bless, you won't have war.

It was that last line that brought Trump back into the conversation, likely because it felt as if Zelensky was threatening the United States. 

TRUMP: Don't tell us what we going to feel. We trying to solve a problem. Don't tell us what we going to feel, because you in no position to dictate that. Remember this. You're in no position to dictate what we're going to feel.

This was a colossal miscalculation by Zelensky. Trump has never accepted the idea that Ukraine is doing the United States a favor by fighting Russia as a way of justifying unlimited aid. Perhaps Joe Biden found that argument persuasive, but Joe Biden is not in office anymore. Russia is not going to invade the United States or any NATO country (if for no other reason than a lack of capability), and using that as a type of blackmail for support was never going to play. 

Here's the deal. Fairness or being "right" doesn't factor into a situation like this. Zelensky is in a desperate spot, and Trump had largely acquiesced to a very Ukraine-friendly deal over the last few days (including lowering the repayment amount to just $90 billion). The negotiations were over. All the Ukrainian president had to do was show up, shake hands, smile for the cameras, and sign the deal. His attempt to lecture Trump and Vance for the cameras was an ego move that he didn't have the leverage to pull off. 

Trump does not care about the press. You aren't going to bully him into a certain point of view by appealing to CNN or any other legacy news outlet. Whether that's fair or not is irrelevant. What's relevant is the reality of the moment, and Zelensky chose to pick a fight with Vance when it was completely unnecessary. Liz Cheney and David Frum may do performative outrage online, but they are not going to cut a check to Ukraine. Zelensky needed this deal and chose to blow it up for no good reason. What was the point of him even coming to the White House if he was going to publicly denounce any possible ceasefire? 

What this really comes down to is how Zelensky handled this. If he has issues with Trump negotiating a deal with Putin, then he should express those behind closed doors, which is something Vance pointed out during the exchange. By trying to embarrass and undermine the U.S. president in public, he destroyed an already frayed relationship. In doing so, he might have cost his country its war. 

Of course, our Native Embarrassment rushed to put himself in front of the cameras to denounce this grievous betrayal of our most loyal ally and to pull out once again, ho-hum, the Russia conspiracy trope:

Our state’s ambitious lightweight has been positioning himself to run for the presidential nomination since he first crawled out from the muck of local politics (well, sooner than that, actually) and it’s working, so far as his naturally constituency of mouthbreathers and retards is concerned:

By Annie Karni

Reporting from the Capitol

Feb. 23, 2025

As Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, sat seething in his office last month watching President Trump blame diversity requirements at the Federal Aviation Administration for the deadly plane crash over the Potomac River, members of his staff warned him against publicly venting his rage.

The midair collision had happened less than 12 hours earlier, they reminded him; bodies were still in the water and families were still being notified about the deaths of loved ones. Perhaps it would be more befitting of a U.S. senator to be respectful of the tragedy and all of its unknowns, rather than seize the political moment and respond?

Mr. Murphy had no time for that.

“Everybody in this country should be outraged that Donald Trump is standing up on that podium and lying to you — deliberately lying to you,” he said in an impassioned video he recorded and posted within 30 minutes of Mr. Trump’s news conference. “Every single senator and member of Congress should call him out for how disgraceful it was.”

Many did, but none managed to do so quite as quickly or concisely as Mr. Murphy, 51, who has seemed to be everywhere, all at once, since Inauguration Day, staging a loud and constant resistance to Mr. Trump at a time when Democrats are struggling to figure out how to respond to him.

Mr. Murphy, a career politician who rose to national prominence as a gun safety advocate after the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn., has emerged in the opening weeks of Mr. Trump’s second term as one of the most effective Democratic communicators pushing back against a president unbound.

In two-minute videos on social media, which he records from his office on Capitol Hill; an almost constant stream of posts on X; passionate floor speeches; and essays he writes on his Substack, Mr. Murphy is attempting to explain in digestible sound bites that what is happening in Washington is very simple: It’s a billionaire takeover of American democracy.

Mr. Murphy in 2013 with activists against gun violence. He rose to national prominence as a gun safety advocate after the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn.Credit...Rod Lamkey/Getty Images

He is also seizing a political opportunity to position himself as a future national leader for Democrats who find themselves deep in the wilderness as they seek a strategy for simultaneously rebuilding their party and resisting Mr. Trump.

“It’s an overwhelming moment,” Mr. Murphy said in an interview on Wednesday in his office on Capitol Hill. “Our political brand is fundamentally broken, the rule of law is disintegrating and a lot of people still don’t know what Trump’s actual agenda is.”

Mr. Murphy has spent the past three years immersing himself in the literature and ideas of the “new right,” listening to the podcast “Red Scare” and reading thought leaders like Curtis Yarvin and Patrick Deneen. He credits that immersion for his being prepared for Mr. Trump’s return to power.

“It gave me a window into how thoughtful they were being to make sure they were ready on Day 1,” he said.

Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said that Mr. Murphy has been meeting the moment “when too many Democratic elected officials seem several steps behind. He’s providing Democrats with a messaging blueprint for how to take on Trump and Musk and win back working-class voters.”

Mr. Murphy, who is aging out of the “boy wonder” phase of his political career (he was 33 when first elected to the House), is not exactly charismatic; he is cerebral and serious. At a recent news conference, he did not crack a smile when Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, made corny jokes about his grandson losing his first tooth, waiting them out stone-faced until it was his turn to speak.

The comedian Hasan Minhaj recently described him as having the look of a McKinsey consultant, “just blending into congressional crowds of white men like an arctic fox.”

At times, Mr. Murphy can sound like a high school history teacher giving a civics lesson.

“Dictators and despots, they use law enforcement to try and compel loyalty,” he said in one video, explaining why people needed to care that the Justice Department had dropped its charges against Mayor Eric Adams of New York. “They threaten you with arrest if you’re not loyal; they will let you get away with crimes if you are loyal. That’s what’s happening in America today.”

But a constitutional crisis can offer an opportunity for a civics refresher, and Mr. Murphy appears to be breaking through.

So sayeth the echo chamber.

UPDATE: This just in from America’s Paper of Record:

Now, you see? This is why Martha's Vineyard residents were so eager to toss their unexpected unwashed off the island and into an onshore military base (UPDATED)

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“come back when you’ve learned ironing!”

Remember when Ron DeSantis brought the results of Biden’s throwing open the border to national attention by busing 48 unwashed Venezuelans to Martha’s Vineyard? I’m sure the residents there would like to forget it, because, after pouring out of their mansions to “welcome” the new arrivals and pose for the cameras, they called in buses and shipped the poor people to Otis Air Force faster than you can say “hold my martini”. A certain embarrassment followed for about ten minutes and then faded back into oblivion, but DeSantis and, within days, Abbot of Texas, had changed the national dialogue from one of Episcopalian feel-gooders moaning about no one being illegal, and inviting all 6 billion of the world’s poor to our our shores, to one where ordinary people were suddenly noticing that Biden had loosed 23 million people: that’s the population of 3 NYCs; 6 Connecticuts; or 23 S. Dakotas, to roam our country demanding free food, shelter, medical care and education for their fecund families. It was the beginning of the end for Biden and his fellow anti-American co-conspiracists.

But, while American wised up, those notoriously-slow learners, the French, are still in the discovery mode:

That French theater that invited migrants to a show and then they refused to leave? The owners are now abandoning the building.

The Gaîté Lyrique theatre in Paris opened their doors for a free event called "Reinventing the welcome for refugees in France" on December 10. The conference featured leftist academics, who quickly invited a bunch of African refugees to the event, because who else would come to such a thing?

However, when the conference was over, the refugees remained - and they're still there, occupying the theater.

Halfway through January, when that article was published, the migrants had been there for over a month. Now, they've been there for 11 weeks and counting.

And, because this is why we can’t nice things, here’s the latest development:

Left-wing managers of a Paris theatre occupied by hundreds of homeless African migrants are set to abandon the building because of sex-related violence.

They say the crisis at the Gaîté Lyrique - one of the French capital's most historic arts venues - is now ‘so explosive' that retreat by this Friday is their only option.

…

There are now 446 people living inside illegally, most of them claiming they are minors under the age of 18 who deserve permanent housing.

But local officials have insisted that they are adults and that most are known to the authorities and had been sleeping on the streets before entering the theatre.

HAHAHAHHA!

But there may be an easier, softer way of assuaging the heartbreak of liberalism, one that involves neither discomfort nor inconvenience. FWIW’s Indigenous Peoples Land Reclamation correspondent Susie sends along this photo of a Vancouver Island resident’s simple solution:

UPDATE: I inadvertently used an outdated version of the Associated Press Stylebook to describe the French. The AP’s correction is shown below:

I’m guessing that younger Jews are right there with their peers — after all, they watch the same news, and have been indoctrinated in the same schools

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Gallup Shock Poll: 60% of Dems Are Anti-Israel; Over 80% Have Positive View of Mexico and Ukraine

Scott Pinsker, PJ Media:

Oy veh. Not a big fan of the Jewish state: Only 33% of Democrats support it. An eye-opening 60% view Israel unfavorably. (4% had no opinion.)

Yet 45% of Democrats supported the so-called “Palestinian Territories”!

Democrats are also big fans of Mexico and Ukraine: Our Southern neighbor is beloved by 83% of Democrats; 84% favor Ukraine. (Republican support for Mexico was 47%; for Ukraine, 54%.)

These were the results of a new Gallup survey that the New York Post dubbed as “shocking.”

  • Israel received exponentially more support from conservatives: 83% of Republicans backed the Jewish state — a 50-point difference between the two parties!

In Gallup’s own words:

The 50 points separating Republican and Democratic positivity toward Israel shatters the prior record of 30 points measured last year, primarily because of a 14-point drop in Democrats' rating. The current gap is also nearly three times larger than the average 18-point difference that existed between 2001 and 2023. Over this time, Republicans have consistently viewed Israel more favorably than Democrats have.

This year marks the first time any party group has had majority-level unfavorable ratings of Israel, with 60% of Democrats expressing that view. Forty-four percent of independents also have an unfavorable opinion of Israel.

It’s a generational problem in the Democratic Party. Younger voters — those between the ages of 18 and 34 — were the most critical of Israel. As older Democrats die off, the Democratic Party will increasingly define itself as an active enemy of the Jewish Homeland.

This ain’t Joe Biden’s party no mo’. The future belongs to AOC, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar.

….

It used to be that supporting the Jewish Homeland was a bipartisan American position.

…. Not anymore.

Joe Biden was probably the last Democrat president we’ll ever have who even gave lip service to supporting Israel. Because that’s not what liberal donors want anymore. 

Nor does it motivate liberal grassroots activists.

In 2020, 67% of Democrats supported Israel. By 2022, it was 63%. In 2024, it was 47%. Today, it’s down to 33%.

In just five years, Democratic support for Israel has been cut in half!

The Democratic Party is now the anti-Jew party. For all its “tsk-tsk” condemnations about hand gestures and/or accusing everyone they don’t like of being a Nazis, they’re now the go-to party for antisemites: If you wanna protest Israel, attack Jews, and make sinister-sounding allegations about “Jewish money and influence,” you’re not welcome in the Republican Party.

But you’ll find plenty of support in today’s Democratic Party.

And that’s bad for the Jews.

Why the rush to complete the job? The state’s almost over the edge already.

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hey y’all, watch this1

California Considering Taking Over Oil Refineries Because It Works So Well in Iran and Venezuela

David Strom, HotAir

“It's not only in the fever dreams of Right-wingers seeing communists behind every bush (hint: it's only every third bush). Apparently, according to the LA Times California's communist-inspired politicians are seriously considering taking over the refining of oil in their state.”

“Russia. China. Venezuela. Iran. More than a dozen countries make gasoline at state-owned refineries. Could California be next on the list?” asked the Los Angeles Times in an article this week. “California policymakers are considering state ownership of one or more oil refineries, one item on a list of options presented by the California Energy Commission to ensure steady gas supplies as oil companies pull back from the refinery business in the state.”

Strom: “I love that lede in the Los Angeles Times so much that I will quote it again:

Russia. China. Venezuela. Iran. More than a dozen countries make gasoline at state-owned refineries.

Could California be next on the list?

California policymakers are considering state ownership of one or more oil refineries, one item on a list of options presented by the California Energy Commission to ensure steady gas supplies as oil companies pull back from the refinery business in the state.

“The state recognizes that they’re on a pathway to more refinery closures,” said Skip York, chief energy strategist at energy consultant Turner Mason & Co. The risk to consumers and the state’s economy, he said, is gasoline supply disappearing faster than consumer demand, resulting in fuel shortages, higher prices and severe logistical challenges.

Gasoline demand is falling in California, albeit slowly, for two reasons: more efficient gasoline engines, and the increasing number of electric vehicles on the road. Gasoline consumption in California peaked in 2005 and fell 15% through 2023, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Electric vehicles, including plug-in hybrids, now represent about 25% of annual new car sales. By state mandate, new sales of gasoline cars and light trucks will be banned starting in model year 2035.

Strom:

Is it any shock that oil refineries are shifting their production or closing down in California? Of course it isn't. California energy policies are designed to destroy the oil industry, up to and including pursuing a policy to bankrupt them through lawsuits. If the market weren't so huge--12% of the US population--I would recommend that the companies all bail out of the market as the insurance companies are doing. 

It is just too risky a place to do business. Proto-communists run the state.

…. California has EV mandates designed to eliminate internal combustion engines, but there is no way that they can do that in any conceivable timeline. Even when the date hits for banning the new sales of ICE cars, the ones on the roads will still be there and people will find ways to get them. The policy will fail, but the policy risk for companies in the market is enormous. Any company that can should and will insulate itself from the policy risks as quickly as possible. 

As predicted (and as anyone else could have, too)

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8 Oval Avenue in Riverside is reported under contract – 8 days.

I wrote about this when it came on last week:

Irony aside, this one probably won't last, and will in fact sell for more than its listing price

22 Oval Avenue, Riverside, $2.850 million. Built in 1928, it sold for $2.110 million in 2013 and has been upgraded since.

And there’s no available inventory in Riverside.