The little smug face at the end is really something
— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) September 24, 2025 at 10:53 AM
Am I the only one who hopes Bessent ends up with a top-ten guillotine number, come the revolution?
In any case, it seems the Oval Office Occupant once again feels disrespected by Putin. And since he doesn’t dare insult Russia directly, he’s rounding on those snooty European elitists, who have treated him — US — very unfairly!!!
The only way the world can know if the president meant what he said today is if he comes back to Washington and puts America firmly back on the side of NATO and Ukraine with money and materiel.
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv…— Tom Nichols (@radiofreetom.bsky.social) September 23, 2025 at 10:42 PM
Tom Nichols, at the Atlantic — “Why Trump Changed His Mind on Ukraine” [gift link]:
… Trump’s latest policy reversal came after he spoke to the United Nations General Assembly for nearly an hour. His speech was classic Trump: full of grievance, inappropriate references to American political feuds, embarrassing moments of self-promotion, detours into odd tangents, and claims that everyone in the world but him is stupid. Trump seemed irritated with everyone, including Putin, for depriving him of the Nobel Peace Prize he thinks he deserves—an oversight he whined about to the UN audience. The diplomats in attendance could be forgiven if they didn’t take any of it seriously.
After his address, however, Trump met with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and France’s President Emmanuel Macron. And then he said something genuinely startling. Should NATO shoot down Russian aircraft if they cross the alliance’s borders? Yes, he said, sounding like a born-again Cold Warrior. Russia, Trump later explained on his social-media site, Truth Social, is just a “paper tiger,” a feckless nation that “has been fighting aimlessly for three and a half years a War that should have taken a Real Military Power less than a week to win.”
Ukraine, Trump now says, can win the war. “With time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, NATO, the original Borders from where this War started, is very much an option.” I assumed he meant the 2022 starting position of the Russian invasion, not the 2014 borders that Russia violated when it seized Crimea, but maybe not: With Western help, Trump wrote, “Ukraine would be able to take back their Country in its original form and, who knows, maybe even go further than that!”
The president has come a long way since he berated Zelensky in the White House last winter. Back then, Trump wanted Ukraine to fold because it doesn’t “have the cards.” And after the disastrous Anchorage summit, last month, Trump was still telling Ukraine it was going to have to accept some territorial exchanges. (Translation: Russia would get to keep some of the land it stole.) Now Trump seems to be saying that Ukraine could win back all of its conquered territory and then some.
One explanation is that Trump just doesn’t like being humiliated. Trump made it clear at the UN today that he thought his relationship with the Russian president would make Ukraine the easiest of the world’s many conflicts he intended to solve. But Putin has merely taken advantage of Trump to continue his war effort and has signaled no willingness to make concessions in the name of peace. Perhaps Trump is sending a message—finally—that there are limits to the amount of abuse and embarrassment the president of the United States is willing to take from the Kremlin.
Possible, but unlikely. Trump has always had a high endurance for Putin’s abuse. Besides, this isn’t the first time he’s lashed out at Moscow. Unless Zelensky and Macron told Trump of some amazing plan to win the war, the president has no reason to have changed his mind about Ukraine’s ability to win. Note, too, that Trump’s messages include no action items to beef up the Ukrainian war effort: no weapons, no money, no increased U.S. intelligence or technological support. Even Trump’s call for sanctions on Russia is an empty threat, because it relies on conditions—such as a requirement that NATO nations impose massive tariffs on China, rather than on Russia—that other countries are unlikely to fulfill.
Instead, Trump seems to be going through one of his tantrums where he threatens just to walk away from the conflict. In the past, that presented more of a danger to Ukraine than to Russia: Trump always implied that without a peace deal, he’d cut Kyiv loose and let Putin do whatever the hell he wants. Now the president seems to be implying that he’ll walk away and let Europe do whatever the hell it wants, including send more weapons to Ukraine and shoot down Russian military aircraft (and the pilots in them) instead of merely shoo them away from NATO airspace…
Worse, Trump’s carping about Russia today could be a way for Trump to head down the road of normalizing relations with Russia—removing tariffs, encouraging trade, and ending Russia’s isolation. By showing just how deeply disappointed he is in Russia, he shows America and the Russia hawks in his own party that he’s really talked tough to Putin while simultaneously ditching the Ukraine war as an intractable and endless problem that is no longer worth his attention. Life goes on: The Europeans buy American weapons, the Russians continue to bomb Ukraine, and the Ukrainians continue to bleed and die…
Bonus gift link: Also in the Atlantic, Anne Applebaum’s report on “Ukraine’s Plan to Starve the Russian War Machine”:
In one section of a sprawling warehouse in central Ukraine, workers have stacked what appear to be small airplane wings in neat rows. In another section, a group of men is huddled around what looks like the body of an aircraft, adjusting an electronic panel. In makeshift locations elsewhere in Ukraine, workers are producing these electronic panels from scratch: This company wants to use as few imported parts as possible, avoiding anything American, anything Chinese. Jewelers, I was told, have turned out to be well suited for this kind of finicky manufacturing. Ukraine’s justly celebrated manicurists are good at it too…
Once almost entirely dependent on imports of weapons from abroad, the Ukrainians are now producing millions of drones, large and small, as well as other kinds of weapons, every year. They are using them most famously on the front line, where they have prevented the Russians from making large-scale gains this year, despite dire headlines, and where they have ensured that any territory occupied by the Russians comes at a terrible price, in equipment and lives. The Ukrainians have also used sea drones to clear their Black Sea coast of Russian ships, an accomplishment that seemed impossible even to imagine at the start of the war.
Finally, they are using drones to hit distant targets, deep inside Russia, and lately they are hitting so many military objects, refineries, and pipelines that some Ukrainians believe they can do enough damage to force the Russians to end the war. On Monday, they once again struck Gazprom’s fuel-processing plant in Astrakhan, for example, one of the largest gas-chemical complexes in the world and an important source of both gasoline and diesel. Yesterday, they hit a key part of an oil pipeline in Bryansk. Presumably President Volodymyr Zelensky transmitted this optimism to President Donald Trump, who again upended his administration’s previous policies yesterday and declared that Ukraine is “in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form.”…
Both the Ukrainians and their European allies are also looking harder at the so-called shadow fleet, the oil tankers now traveling around the world under flags of convenience, fraudulent flags, or no flags at all, carrying illicit Russian oil. Many are old, dangerous boats, with inexperienced crew and little or no insurance. Some have been involved in accidents already, and they could do real environmental damage in the Baltic Sea. Sweden, Germany, and Denmark have all announced that they will check the papers of these shadow tankers and sanction those that aren’t insured, adding them to a growing list of sanctioned ships. The point, for the moment, is not just to protect the environment but to raise the costs of Russian oil exports and thus to reduce the amount of money flowing into Russia and back up Ukraine’s air campaign. More extreme measures, including banning these unmarked, uninsured ships from the Baltic altogether, are under consideration too.
But that will take time, which no one in Ukraine wants to waste. No one wants to wait for Trump to impose new sanctions on Russia either. Drones, which can defend the front line and take the battle deep into Russia, can do more. In an address to the nation on September 14, Zelensky put it very clearly: “The most effective sanctions—the ones that work the fastest—are the fires at Russia’s oil refineries, its terminals, oil depots.” In the absence of an American policy that offers something other than rhetoric, the Ukrainians, backed by Europe, will pursue their own solution.
Wedding Zoom Link 5pm Eastern – Sent To All Who RSVP’d
SiubhanDuinne
Not just the little smug face in that clip, but Every Single Time he comes on my TeeVee or phone screen, I just want to bitchslap him from here to Toutatis.
Tenar Arha
@SiubhanDuinne: I wanna fish slap him, then give him a swirly and an atomic wedgie.
ETA (not that I ever did that when I was a kid(
They Call Me Noni
The new flag I’ve ordered sums up my feelings.
Are we great yet because I just feel embarrassed.
mappy!
Make America Guess Again
WTFGhost
Hey, everyone. Did you ever have a life so awful, that, during a bath, you realized you needed to tell someone “I’m not going to die stupidly, like, in this bath, by drowning, which would take a bit of effort, unless I was trying to die,” so that… well, so that you can remind yourself that you’re far too ethical to die in such a way that anyone would think they’d discovered a suicide?
I have. If anyone had some silly thought like “wow, this would be the perfect time for WTFGhost to die, ‘accidentally,’ and that would be awful” I just wanted to let you know that, having said something, I was guaranteeing I couldn’t do anything that would leave someone with an open question.
Not that I’m ever truly at risk, right? It’s just, sometimes, I yearn for peace, and an end to pain, and I need to say, to someone, “I’m not giving up today; now that I’ve told you, it’s a promise, so I’ll be okay until tomorrow,” to make sure there’s someone, other than me, who considers that promise to be important.
gene108
Scott Bessent, a married gay man, who thinks he’ll face no consequences, if Republicans get everything they want.
Pennsylvanian
So glad there is an open thread.
i just read this in a fark . Com thread and just need to pass it along:
“I think I’ve heard this now for the epsteinth time”
Doesn’t even really matter what the subject is, does it? I love wordsmiths.
They Call Me Noni
@WTFGhost: I am glad you’re here and sharing your opinions, insights and thoughts and would miss you if you weren’t. Please repeat every day “I am not giving up today “.
Another Scott
@WTFGhost: Every day, agreeing to meet the next day, is important.
Hang in there. We need you.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Fair Economist
@WTFGhost: Sorry to hear you are hurting. I, and I’m sure the rest of the BJers, would be happy to help if I can.
Dan B
@gene108: Bessent is blind to his likely fate if 2025 is enacted in full. The bigotry and classicism is strong with him.
catclub
This could be true. My concern is that the reporting of Ukraine’s successes hitting Russian assets seems to be silencing any reporting on Russian drones that hit Ukraine’s energy assets. I think/hope that Ukraine, having already gotten through two winters with attacks on its energy infrastructure is better adapted to this than Russia will be come winter. Maybe Russia is far more vulnerable.
mrmoshpotato
The (grown) children of 9/11 victims need to punch this motherfucker in the face.
mrmoshpotato
But women are too emotional for the highest office in the land.
piratedan
@mrmoshpotato: I’d be okay with dropping him from a plane sans chute…
NotMax
Coming soon?
“I am Proud and Honored to sign this beautiful Executive Order which NOW and FOREVER changes the title of Department Heads from SECRETARY (a Weak and Wishy-Washy designation) to UNDERTRUMP. MAGA!!!”
//
mrmoshpotato
@piratedan: Too Duterte and Pinochet for me.
Baud
China and Taiwan also know China won’t be marching into Boston.
JiveTurkin
@gene108: Scott Bessent, a married gay man, who thinks he’ll face no consequences, if Republicans get everything they want.
He wouldn’t. In Germany he would have been a true-blue kapo, gladly rounding up homosexuals to be sent to death camps.
MoCaAce
@NotMax: Undertrumph… perfect when said with a heavy German accent
chrome agnomen
fucking Bessent. no Putin isn’t marching into Boston, that’s Trump marching in, you asshole.
MagdaInBlack
@mrmoshpotato: Also too, Putin doesn’t have to. He already owns trump and the GOP.
Marc
Or, seamstresses like my grandmother, who at the start of WWII made hats and by the end was supervising a semiconductor assembly line.
Jackie
FFOTUS is coming after bike and pedestrian paths – accusing them of being hostile to car and truck drivers.
The link details many of the projects being derailed – sadly way too many for me to add to this post. I suppose this is the first step in changing the law that gives most pedestrians “the right of way.”
different-church-lady
NEITHER ARE YOU, ASSHOLE!
MagdaInBlack
@Jackie: I guess I was not aware “cars” were a protected class now.
different-church-lady
@WTFGhost:
I have been that tired, yes.
hells littlest angel
If you just go by the feces that spews out of his mouth, every day Trump comes a long way from where he was the day before.
What he says means nothing. NOTHING. Anyone who fails to understand that is as mentally defective as he is.
Matt McIrvin
@different-church-lady: Michelle Wu gonna go full Pritzker if he tries.
hells littlest angel
A Russian shivering in a freezing apartment in the dead of winter will just drink another bottle of shoe polish and carry on.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: this is where Stephen Miller starts screaming “BECAUSE THEY’RE ALREADY THEEEERE”
(remembering how one of my Chinese-American coworkers at a previous job got his tires slashed on a business trip to New Jersey, some ugly shit out there)
mrmoshpotato
@MagdaInBlack:
Don’t you know all asphalt is CARS ONLY!
Another Scott
Nope, not Tylenol…
Best wishes,
Scott.
Jackie
@MagdaInBlack:
Check out the link; your comment was mostly tongue in cheek, I’m sure, but you’ll discover you’re more correct than you realized.
AnthroBabe
Gosh, Scott, you bell end, I WONDER why Ukraine’s economy isn’t as big as Poland’s?!
(stares directly at camera)
(cue curb your enthusiasm music)
Matt McIrvin
@SiubhanDuinne:
“par Toutatis, ils sont fous ces Romains!” **TCHAC
MagdaInBlack
@Jackie: I read something on it earlier and was completely disgusted. Yes, we must protect car culture. FFS.
(because they hate renewable energy)
iKropoclast
Man is all in on car culture. By force. I’ve been working my whole adult life at reducing my reliance on cars. I’m a little resentful toward cars since my parents moved me out to the burbs from the city as a teenager so I’m acutely aware of how things are arranged so many of us can’t function without one and how liberating public resources can be.
I guess fostering dependency is only bad when it’s in the government, not on private companies and durable assets.
NotMax
@MagdaInBlack
“To ensure complete freedom on the roads we have ordered removal of all lane markings and other distracting symbols painted on the pavement..”
//
Ruckus
@SiubhanDuinne:
I don’t know where that is but I know it isn’t far enough.
He wants to do circus tricks he should be shot out of a very large gun, like a 16 inch battleship gun. And it doesn’t matter that he won’t fit in the barrel, just stuff him in and lock the door. We can all chip in and pay for the entire cost. Think we could raise it in less than 2 weeks? I do.
zhena gogolia
@MagdaInBlack: That’s the crux of it.
scav
@NotMax: Curbs are an unholy infringement on the ordained right of cars to roam freely. Release the Freedom!
//s
Deputinize America
@iKropoclast:
Translation of the USDOT impoundment announcement:
”Some redneck took his rusty F150 to a relatively large town to pick up a load of concrete, and got upset when he saw a spandex-clad dude ride by on a bicycle.”
WaterGirl
@WTFGhost: I consider your promise important. You matter. Very sorry things are so very tough that you would even have to write that, to make that pact with yourself.
Matt McIrvin
@Ruckus: It’s a near-Earth asteroid (named after Astérix’s favorite Celtic god), so, yeah, it gets worryingly close to home.
It is also the name of a roller coaster at Parc Astérix near Paris, but that Toutatis just looks like a good time.
Deputinize America
@scav:
“Why should I have to have working headlights! I see fine at night without them!”
prostratedragon
@WTFGhost:
In praise of procrastination.
scav
@Deputinize America: Let alone allowing some govvverment beurrocrat telling me how fast I kin drive this chassis — hell, I’m even a little better at it when well-juiced.
iKropoclast
As long as that anti-American tyrant rages, I will keep my pedestrian-oriented opinion of cyclists to myself. Even spandex.
Trump out there trying to make everyone’s choices for them…🤬
Joy in FL
@WTFGhost: You are so worth keeping that promise. You matter, every day.
NotMax
@Deputinize America
“None of them wimpy bulbs either. I paint the lenses with radium.”
Deputinize America
@iKropoclast:
“Dingdingding…BEHIND YOU!!!!”
iKropoclast
@Deputinize America: Don’t stop for red lights, don’t respect crosswalks…
Wait, I said I wouldn’t talk about this.
NotMax
@iKropoclast
And then there’s cargo bikes.
iKropoclast
@NotMax: I like the idea. Those can be real useful in the city, potentially taking a lot of large vehicles off the road, but the bike infrastructure needs to support it. The speed and battery issues the video mentioned are important, too.
I hope it’s something city planners can accommodate for without making bike lanes unappealing for normal commuters.
Deputinize America
@iKropoclast:
“I was going thirty miles an hour by this hotel and this bastard tourist getting out of the back seat of a taxi DOORED ME!”
iKropoclast
@Deputinize America: Oof, that sounds like a major hurt. Yes, as a general rule people opening car doors when parked on the street should keep their eyes open ..for anything.
mrmoshpotato
@iKropoclast:
Mmmmm, crashing into the edge of sheet metal.
Pennsylvanian
@WTFGhost: whenever people ask me how I’m doing, I am usually honest. So sometimes, that answer is “good enough”. And it’s the best I can do. And that is ok. Frankly, I think people appreciate honesty in the every day human interaction bc there is no shame in saying “I’m having a shit day.” It squares the focus. Be well.
prostratedragon
@Deputinize America:
When I used to ride, used one of my four eyes to scan right for potential doors. Scarier than cars coming up on my left.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
Here’s hoping Putin and Russian media insult Trump enough that he gives them the Brazil treatment. I want the Tankies dispirited, Putin furious, and Trump flinging ketchup.
Kayla Rudbek
@WTFGhost: love and spite are both powerful forces that are keeping me alive; love for my family, and spite and stubbornness that I am not going to let those bastards defeat me, that I will be the one dancing on their graves someday. Some days it’s the love that carries me, some days it’s the spite.
Kayla Rudbek
@mrmoshpotato: the GenX children of the Cold War veterans need to punch this guy in the face
Kayla Rudbek
@Jackie: this is what rolling coal gets you, and it will make Americans fatter and less healthy.
Kayla Rudbek
@mrmoshpotato: if it wasn’t for the cyclists, the roads wouldn’t have been paved in the first place, back in the late 19th-early 20th centuries! The League of American Wheelmen were the ones who pressed for it: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_American_Bicyclists
prostratedragon
Mr. George Wallace:
Gretchen
@WTFGhost: I hope you’ll decide to go on for another day. Your voice is valued here. Take care.
Gloria DryGarden
@WTFGhost: and if you ever can’t make it to tomorrow, could you hold on for another 5 minutes?
the thoughts of killing oneself are like shock waves, when they come, to rip you from your mooring in your body. In my experience. It can be hard not to succumb.
I wish you ease from your pain, and a sense of peace, and a break from the daily challenges you live with. What else is possible? I sure hope you can stick around.. I appreciate your voice.
Ramona
@Tenar Arha: his shitty face is just made for a swirly!
Sally
@NotMax: how about “oftrump”?
PhaedrusOnBass
I’m sorry – maybe I missed something…
Why is the Secretary of the Treasury treated as an expert in foreign policy?
Signed, Curious
Paul in KY
@WTFGhost: Keep on rocking till you can’t.
Paul in KY
@NotMax: ‘UnterTrumpenfurhrer’ is what they would really want.
Paul in KY
@Deputinize America: With his hot spandex wearing girl right there riding with him.