By James Moore
“In politics, nothing happens by accident. If something happens, you can bet it was planned that way.” – Winston Churchill.
The above quote might be apocryphal. There is no audio or film or written record that Churchill ever offered up such an insight. The words have also been attributed to Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, but no confirmation exists of those claims, either. Hardly matters, though. I don’t think there has ever been a truer declamation in human endeavors, and it’s also central to why I believe the scene in the Oval Office with President Zelensky was a set up. After fifty years of writing and reporting on politics from city councils to state legislatures, congress, and presidential campaigns, I acquired a fairly refined olfactory skill of smelling a rat, and there were a couple of large ones in that meeting.
Consider the run up to the drama. Elonald Trump made clear only days after he took office that he was going to cut a deal with Putin to end the war. Initial negotiations did not even invite the Ukrainians to the table at a summit in Saudi Arabia. The Russian mass murderer, though, who moonlights as a dictator, accelerated his attacks on Ukraine. Even as Zelensky sat with fellatio performing artist J.D. Vance and Elonald in the White House, Russia was stepping up drone attacks on Ukrainian civilians. The dying is a long way from done, and Trump is apparently not getting regular reports sent to the presidential golf cart. The meeting was supposed to finalize a deal where Ukraine would trade rare earth materials in exchange for armaments from U.S. defense contractors, but Elonald had no intention of settling terms. Was never even a part of his plan for the meeting. It was set up to humiliate Zelensky and make him look like he was resisting peace.
President Zelensky was expected to genuflect and offer thanks multiple times before the scope of any deal was outlined, if ever there were one being contemplated. There was, however, no indication from the American president that he might agree with any arrangement. He seemed to want to bully and embarrass a man that the wider world believes will be remembered by history as a courageous leader standing up to Russian aggression. Vance’s role was to accuse the Ukrainian hero of embarrassing the U.S. but he and the president were managing that task quite well without additional assistance. The minerals were a pretense to get Zelensky to Washington, to give him the appearance of a Dickensian character, begging, “Please, sir, may I have another?”
The history that was made and recorded was the first time a U.S. president has raised his voice in a confrontational manner against another sovereign nation’s leader. Not even Hitler yelled at Neville Chamberlain as they worked out a truce that was allegedly designed to prevent war. Hell, in talks with Poland’s Foreign Minister, before the invasion of Sudetenland, Hitler was stern but still diplomatic. His crazed mind was less visible than the one Elonald is sporting around the West Wing. The goal of the meeting was to figure out potential values of Ukraine’s rare earth materials and use that value to purchase a continuous supply of military weaponry for its national defense. The U.S. position seems to be that it is already owed the mineral resources as payment for defense armaments already supplied to Ukraine.
Zelensky can now be effectively branded as the man who did not want to make a deal for peace, even though nothing was presented to him other than Vance’s hillbilly hypocrisy. Putin can accelerate the war and drive on deep into Ukraine while the White House puts out disingenuous news releases that he had refused offers to negotiate a peace settlement. The American president argued that Zelensky did not want to sign a cease fire but the Ukrainian insisted there have already been thirty with Putin in the past ten years since he invaded Crimea and he violated all of them only days after execution. If Ukraine were to get no money for its natural resources, meanwhile, how would it rebuild after the war? Investment capital will not exactly run in that direction unless bonds are guaranteed by third party countries, and who will want to do that with Russian guns still pointed eastward?
“I tried to help him,” Elonald said. “But he didn’t want to end the war.”
Shortly after the Ukrainian president was kicked out of the White House, the U.S. State Department announced it was sending another $3 billion dollars of weapons to Israel under an emergency authorization. The amount includes munitions and D9 armored bulldozers, which have but one purpose, and that is to destroy homes and roads on the West Bank and kill and remove Palestinians. Israel is not done with its unlawful expansion and is spreading its genocidal tactics to the West Bank and Americans are happily providing the resources. It’s a great time to be working for a defense contractor in this country, but not in one of our national parks. We are firing rangers and service workers and nature guides and experts under President Musk’s orders to reduce waste, which will also increase decay and misuse of our parks.
Every European country appeared to support Zelensky after he exited Trump’s tirade. Each of their national leaders issued public statements saying, “You will never walk alone.” Unlike the U.S., they are prepared to help Ukraine defend itself without a transactional agreement, which makes war feel inevitable. The first front of the new world war will likely develop along the western frontiers of Ukraine and NATO allies will send men and materiel to stop Putin’s advance. He will suddenly have multiple enemies and will likely also try to capture the least defensible territories like Latvia and Estonia, to procure ports on the Baltic Sea. Russia is economically weak, though, and will be unable to sustain any conflict without weapons and troops from China and North Korea, which will complicate the fighting. Iran, angry with the West and its unilateral support of Israel, can be expected to offer air support for Putin’s warriors. Eventually, tactical nuclear weapons will be deployed and humans and communities will be vaporized.
This article was originally published on Texas to the world.
James Moore is the New York Times bestselling author of “Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential,” three other books on Bush and former Texas Governor Rick Perry, as well as two novels, and a biography entitled, “Give Back the Light,” on a famed eye surgeon and inventor. His newest book will be released mid- 2023. Mr. Moore has been honored with an Emmy from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for his documentary work and is a former TV news correspondent who has traveled extensively on every presidential campaign since 1976.
He has been a retained on-air political analyst for MSNBC and has appeared on Morning Edition on National Public Radio, NBC Nightly News, Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, CBS Evening News, CNN, Real Time with Bill Maher, and Hardball with Chris Matthews, among numerous other programs. Mr. Moore’s written political and media analyses have been published at CNN, Boston Globe, L.A. Times, Guardian of London, Sunday Independent of London, Salon, Financial Times of London, Huffington Post, and numerous other outlets. He also appeared as an expert on presidential politics in the highest-grossing documentary film of all time, Fahrenheit 911, (not related to the film’s producer Michael Moore).
His other honors include the Dartmouth College National Media Award for Economic Understanding, the Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio Television News Directors’ Association, the Individual Broadcast Achievement Award from the Texas Headliners Foundation, and a Gold Medal for Script Writing from the Houston International Film Festival. He was frequently named best reporter in Texas by the AP, UPI, and the Houston Press Club. The film produced from his book “Bush’s Brain” premiered at The Cannes Film Festival prior to a successful 30-city theater run in the U.S.
Mr. Moore has reported on the major stories and historical events of our time, which have ranged from Iran-Contra to the Waco standoff, the Oklahoma City bombing, the border immigration crisis, and other headlining events. His journalism has put him in Cuba, Central America, Mexico, Australia, Canada, the UK, and most of Europe, interviewing figures as diverse as Fidel Castro and Willie Nelson. He has been writing about Texas politics, culture, and history since 1975, and continues with political opinion pieces for CNN and regularly at his Substack newsletter: “Texas to the World.”
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How can USA defectives, Dimwits, Deviates, Deludeds, Dills, Duds actually support a huge skinful of Dogshit as President? Vance is clearly a floppo failure also, so.., it is rapid decline in reputation and soon, in trade, finance, status. Liquidation?
Trump unfairly blamed Zelensky for starting the War. You surely didn’t think he was going to admit that the US started it. Zelensky didn’t start the war but the murderous little villain/now officially outed as a dictator, is still guilty of collaborating with the US and its NATO allies and other subservient nations in this wicked plot to isolate, weaken and destroy Russia, as explained in not exactly prescient(they were supposed to win!) detail in the Rand Report of 2019? under the title ‘Extending Russia’.
The report emphasises that all of Russia’s actions must be presented as detrimentally as possible. Perhaps one of the most shameful things about this deliberately created US proxy war against Russia, has been the constant bias and deceit presented by the disgraceful Western media. It’s as though they are united in their determination to prevent their audiences from being properly informed about what is really going on. No wonder the collaborative media flew into a frenzy when Trump’s went off script and forgot to blame Putin and Russia for starting the war when they invaded to stop the Kiev regimes assault on the Eastern Provinces.
Now why was Zelensky, who had won the Presidency by promising to go down on his knees and beg shamelessly for peace if that is what it took to achieve it, why was he about to launch a much more numerous force than the Russian SMO, trained by NATO instructors and armed to the teeth with NATO weapons, to attack and overrun the Eastern Provinces, and not stop till they had reached the Azov Sea? A clear and present danger is how the Russian generals, who advised Putin to pre-emptively invade, must have seen it.
I doubt if Trump wants WW3, he has too much stuff that will get destroyed.
To follow DT, one would need to wear blinkers or have a tendency to wander around unthinkingly, like a sheep. How many still want DT now the Demonrats are gone?
As for “Russia is economically weak”, I doubt that. It’s resource-rich like Aust and has almost x2 the land mass of the USA with under 50% of the population.
Their politics is really one party rule, backed by brute force. I see Aust heading in a similar direction with either Libs or Labs securing permanent tenure soon thanks to all the draconian legislation that has been passed in recent years. When digital ID goes live that’ll likely be the end of freedom as we know it, imo. After that, nod agreement with the Party mandates or else.
For insider insights into Russia and their education/employment/family systems, try Rumble channel, Cafe Locked Out (note: this is freedom movement archive):
‘Two Australian Men, one From Uzbekistan and one From Russia’
Now we have that dangerously undemocratic, irrational, misogynistic predator, Donald Trump – a CONVICTED CRIMINAL – in a depraved collaborative Diarchy with that narcissistic, self-serving UNELECTED multi-billionaire and would-be dictator, Elon Musk, running America with their shaky, vindictive fingers over the Doomsday Button, the world has become a terrifying and dangerous place!
The fact that these two megalomaniacs are now cuddling up with cold-blooded murderers like the ex-KGB assassin, Vladimir Putin and the appalling Islamophobic genocidal Israeli “leader”, Netanyahu whose hired thugs are, right now, gunning down unarmed Palestinians – Muslims and Christians alike – attempting to flee Netanyahu’s KILLING FIELDS in the Gaza strip, is BEYOND evil! RED FLAG WARNING …. If there were EVER dangerously deluded, power-obsessed lunatics crazy enough to willingly start WW3, it is the evil Trump/Musk Diarchy! If they do, ONE THING is certain, is that the depraved, yellow-belly cowards – Trump and Musk – will ensure that THEY will never sacrifice their OWN lives, or the lives of any member of their family, in any war that THEY instigate! God help us all!
FFS, WAKE UP AMERICA AND DUMP THE TRULY DANGEROUS, ERRATIC TRUMP/MUSK DIARCHY AND MAKE IT PERMANENT!
POTUS demonstrated to any of their allies that deals and pacts with him are meaningless – if the aggressive side is winning you throw in the towel and let them have it all. He’s doing it with Israel – Gaza and the West Bank are to be annihilated so there is nowhere for the Palestinians to call home, and Russia is to have Ukraine (and then the Baltic States,Moldova etc) He can never be trusted to honour a deal – he’s following Putin in that
As much as Kathryn Byrne’s pleas for sanity within the USA ring true, it won’t happen, just as it didn’t happen in other countries; Germany’s Hitler, Italy’s Mussolini, the Romanian Ceaușescus, Libya’s Gadaffi, Iraq’s Hussein, Egypt’s Mansour and al-Sisi, Israel’s Netanyahu, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Il-sung, Idi Amin, Franco, Pinochet, Francois Duvalier…a handful amid a long list of autocratic pathological individuals who rose to positions of power within their respective countries.
Something seriously dysfunctional about the way politics and power are prosecuted that individuals of these ilks rise to the tops of the pile and then prosecute terror, carnage and death across their respective landscapes.
I’m on the record as being a supporter of the US alliance.
Now I’m completely unwilling to chime in with any support.
If Australia closed Pin Gap , I’d get it
If we walked away from AUKUS , I’d understand
If we discontinued sharing intelligence with the US I’d be fine with the decision
If we stopped offering our ports to the US navy I’d be quite comfortable
AC:
I wouldn’t just accept it; I’d cheer.
Leefe: Good one!!
The Orange Messiah has got a big dose of the shits because he isn’t the hero of the day.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/03/trump-zelenskyy-end-russia-ukraine-war
Just recently, I’ve had to remind myself to be very careful to not characterize my antipathy by the name of a country, but rather, the political regime / govt under which it operates, ie: ‘Trump’s America’ or ‘Putin’s Russia’ because the vast majority in each country / region are grossly misinformed by their leaders, govts and media. In lieu of real responsibility and diplomacy, propaganda has reached its apogee via the Techbros and cyber warfare.
After a long traipse through the history of politics and warfare, I find myself meeting with the same old stories of differentiation and righteousness peddled by the same types of person, whether civil secular or religious. That type of person is the lead propagandist, often suffering psychological derangement, but always pursuing self-aggrandizement and enrichment, and surrounding themselves with flunkies with the same interest. There are few exceptions, particularly in the global ‘north-west’.
As such I find myself unable in modernity to take sides and be an apologist for the politics and actions of Russia, Europe and America. By the push and/or collaboration with various ‘churches’, through the 19th and 20th centuries they have devastated their societies, and those of others, by their propaganda, entrapped economies and conquests through war, to the extent of murderous devastation of ordinary folk and ‘peasants’ and the land and environment.
Despite the establishment of the UN, and so-called ‘rules-based-order’ (by whose decree?), through guile and trickery, they have continued almost unabated. And have concealed themselves through the anonymity and wiles of corporations largely unregulated or constrained. They are now inextricably linked, doing one another’s bidding. It’s a circle of dangerous clowns.
The last 40+ years of ‘privatizations’ has again focused on edifices to the process, distorting the fundamentals of ‘common-wealth’ ultimately giving rise to and a firm hold by the oligarchs. Oligarchs that are hopeless at anything but accumulation at huge cost to ordinary folk. Oligarchs that hold more capital than the treasuries of countries. Oligarchs that don’t know what to do with their accumulations other than perpetuate the system of devastation. A rush of greed that has caused systemic collapse of the economies and common-wealth in which they operate.
America, always riven with hubris, violence, criminality and corruption is the standout in this systemic debilitation, and Russia, riven with isolation and prevention, tribalism and confusion has opted for its own form of the American nightmare.
Against the background of Russia saving Europe’s bacon, after Europe invited the madman Stalin to help, at a cost of 40 million Russian lives, Europe’s old blathering gentry warlords, tugged their forelocks to the rising American imperium. America, became a competitive political duopoly of systemic devastation. And Russia, but for the Gorby period, became a dictatorial autocracy. Profound amounts of energy, resources and social development were further wasted by the paranoiac building of barriers and weaponry in pursuit of supremacy disguised by dysfunctional detentes and deceit.
Now, in the midst of the existential crisis of climate change and energy transition, all nearly bankrupt, we have the two most dangerous narcissists on the planet facing off – proxy wars and devastation exposed. America’s brutal hegemony now in the hands of the insane and labile Trump, and the stubborn dictatorial criminal, Putin.
It just goes to show the outcome of history’s endless cycles of propaganda by malevolent leaders and their flunkies.
Things are on the brink, but still they dwell in conflict, rather than diplomacy, negotiation and compromise. The wrecking ball is still rolling. It appears that in the existing framework, by accident only can we be saved or destroyed.