March 1, 2025

OPEN THREAD: Because I love you and want you to be happy.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds 1848

DAVID SACKS: Why Zelensky Cannot Make Peace.

While England’s Kier Starmer is still helping advance the gravy train for Zelensky, even he’s saying: Go back and patch things up with Trump.

Posted at 6:18 pm by Ed Driscoll 708

AD ASTRA, PER ARDUA:

Posted at 6:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds 149

FLASHBACK: Is Democracy Like Sex? I think we’re seeing a vindication of electoral turnover’s anti-parasitic effect now.

Posted at 5:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds 66

ROGER KIMBALL: Zelensky goes to town.

Trump, noting Zelensky’s expressions of “hatred” for Putin, explained that he was in no position to dictate terms. “You don’t have any cards” in this game, Trump pointed out. We want to end the killing. That cannot be done by abusing the other party in the conflict. You cannot successfully negotiate that way. “You want me to say really terrible things about Putin and then say, ‘Hi, Vladimir. How are we doing on the deal?’ It doesn’t work that way. I’m not aligned with anybody. I’m aligned with the United States of America, and for the good of the world.”

All this is true. But for some, the pleasure of abusing Vladimir Putin is great enough to risk World War Three. The commentariat was shocked by the spectacle, as was the Ukrainian ambassador to the US, who could see that Zelensky was making a dog’s breakfast of the press conference. “I have never seen anything like it before,” was a common refrain. Zelensky was used to being a moral hero to his interlocutors. But here was a US president who was interested in peace, not preening. J.D.Vance not only pointed out that Zelensky had not only come to Pennsylvania to campaign for Kamala Harris in October, but also cut to the chase with a pointed question: “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?”

Yikes.

The social-media post Trump issued after the episode was tart and to-the-point. “We had a very meaningful meeting in the White House today,” Trump wrote:

Much was learned that could never be understood without conversation under such fire and pressure. It’s amazing what comes out through emotion, and I have determined that President Zelenskyy is not ready for Peace if America is involved, because he feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiations. I don’t want advantage, I want PEACE. He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office. He can come back when he is ready for Peace.

Zelensky even lost Lindsey Graham, possibly the most pro-Ukraine senator of either party, with his exhibitionist bit of grandstanding. “Americans witnessing what they saw today would not want Zelensky to be their business partner, including me,” Graham said. “I’ve never been more proud of Trump for showing the American people and the world, you don’t trifle that this man.”

Related: The Approach Trump Had in the Zelensky Meeting Is One Democrats Can’t Wrap Their Head Around.

Trump’s negotiation strategy vastly differs from many other American leaders, especially those on the Democrat side of the aisle. Despite Trump’s reputation as a rough-around-the-edges man whose political charm is far divorced from what people expect after watching The West Wing too much, he is a master negotiator.

Even when it comes to our enemies, Trump is not going to negotiate from a position of bad faith. He sees everything as a businessman would. There are no friends or foes while at the table, just good deals and bad deals.

I thought The Federalist CEO Sean Davis put this very well in a post he made on X:

Trump doesn’t bad mouth anyone who comes to the negotiating table in good faith. Ever. It’s a near-cardinal rule of negotiations for him, and a major reason he’s been such a successful dealmaker.

If you refuse to negotiate, he will trash you. If you lie or negotiate in bad faith, he will trash you. He has zero interest in allowing empty moralizing to get in the way of a deal that he wants.

He has done this his entire career, in business and in politics, and it’s fascinating to me how many people who think of themselves as smart and savvy are incapable of seeing or understanding this dynamic.

The key here isn’t just that Trump is holding the cards and that Zelensky needs him — not the other way around — it’s that Trump is negotiating from a fortified position of “America first.” Everything at the table is subject to that one point, and if anything drifts away from that, then Trump pushes back and pushes back until he’s all the way gone from the table.

Zelensky acted like a petulant child who showed no respect to the country that had given him the money for his war while trying to secure more, and Trump saw no value, not in the war, and not in Zelensky’s disrespect.

The Greta Thunberg-esque “how dare you!!!” shtick just doesn’t play with Trump as it does with worshipful leftists:

 

Earlier: Our collection of tweets from throughout the day yesterday on Zelensky’s meeting with Trump and Vance, and the Twitter-sphere’s reaction.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): I think Zelensky knew exactly what he was doing, and picked this fight on purpose. Partly because it strengthens his political position at home, and partly because it strengthens his position with the EU. I suspect, however, that he will find the EU’s support less . . . substantive than he hopes.

Posted at 4:30 pm by Ed Driscoll 954

MATT MARGOLIS: Stephen Miller Reveals What Triggered the Oval Office Showdown with Zelenskyy.

Miller explained that the confrontation stemmed from Zelenskyy’s failure to show proper appreciation for America’s substantial support of Ukraine. “The only reason that Zelenskyy has a country, that Zelenskyy is in power, is because of the United States,” Miller asserted.

During the Oval Office meeting, tension erupted when Zelenskyy suggested that America would “feel it in the future” if support for Ukraine waned, prompting Trump to erupt: “You don’t know that. You don’t know that. Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel. We’re trying to solve a problem. Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel.”

Miller highlighted Americans’ economic sacrifices in the Ukraine conflict: “Americans have suffered economically funding this war now for years, American security has been degraded, our stockpiles depleted, our ability to project power in other regions of the world negatively affected to protect and defend Ukraine.”

The confrontation reached a boiling point when Trump accused Zelenskyy of “gambling with World War III” and Vance repeatedly demanded that the Ukrainian leader express gratitude.

“He couldn’t even say thank you. Just couldn’t say thank you. Thank you, America,” Miller said.

One of the most contentious moments came when Zelenskyy appeared to resist Trump’s calls for an immediate ceasefire. “He repeatedly rejected President Trump’s statement that we should pursue a ceasefire,” Miller noted. “How could you reject a ceasefire?”

“And, you know, he kept saying, Europe’s doing so much more than us,” Miller added. “Well, then what do you need us for?”

Precisely. Zelensky will meeting with King Charles on Sunday; perhaps that meeting will go a bit more smoothly.

Related: From the home office in Kyiv, VDH proffers the Top Ten “bad takeaways from the Zelenskyy blow-up:”

UPDATE: Time to write some cheques, Old Blighty:

UPDATE (4:14 EST):

Posted at 4:14 pm by Ed Driscoll 814

REMIXING THE BEATLES: “AI is not creating John’s voice. John’s voice existed on that cassette and we made the song around him”: Giles Martin explains why you’d be wrong to think ‘AI’ created Lennon’s parts for The Beatles’ ‘Now and Then.’

Billed as the final single from The Beatles, Now and Then was always going to be a big deal. The track, which is nominated for Song of the Year at this weekend’s Brit Awards, has its roots in a 1977 demo recorded by John Lennon.

Its mix features all four original members – Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, along with the late Lennon and George Harrison – and comes with a long history that includes an aborted mid-’90s attempt at a finished release.

There’s another headline-grabbing element to the eventual release of Now and Then though. As has been widely, and on occasion a little misleadingly reported, the track’s creation has been made possible thanks to the use of neural network technology. Or, as how some have more flatly termed it – AI.

This latter fact seems to have led to misconceptions among some fans, as the track’s co-producer Giles Martin (son of late Beatles producer George Martin) demonstrates in an exclusive video for MusicRadar.

“I think there is this supposition that we used AI to recreate something, or to perhaps enhance John Lennon’s voice,” Martin tells us. “This simply wasn’t the case. All we did was clean a cassette recording he had made all those years ago.”

It’s true that some of the public reaction to Now and Then, particularly in the wake of its recent Grammy win for Best Rock Performance, has led some to raise a suspicious eyebrow. But this perception stems from the entirely false notion that the track has harnessed some form of generative AI. Which it very much hasn’t.

The demixing technology that Peter Jackson has developed seems like Clarke’s Third Law sort of stuff: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Every commercially-available demix software that I’ve either used or demoed, generates serious artifacts when separating parts, creating digital chirps and a sort of watery filtered sound that’s particularly noticeable when a track is soloed. But listening to Giles Martin playing the soloed tracks of Beatles songs in the video below, and little or no audible artifacts can be heard:

Remixing Beatles songs and digitally cleaning vocal tracks seems like pretty benign stuff. Still though, no one should forget that AI and machine learning technology can also be used to far more terrifying ends:

 

Posted at 2:44 pm by Ed Driscoll 49

HMMM:

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll 40

JONATHAN TURLEY: Democrats go full McCarthy with attacks on Musk’s nationality, loyalties.

Throughout the 2024 campaign, the Democrats, including President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, painted Republicans as either aspiring or actual fascists. That continued recently with Minnesota Gov. and former Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz (D), who referred to Republicans as “fascists and Nazis.”

Even journalists and civil libertarians have been reviled using the same terms. After a hearing on censorship two years ago, MSNBC contributor and former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) attacked journalists and members who had spoken in favor of free speech. She denounced the member witnesses (Sen. Chuck Grassley, Sen. Ron Johnson and former Rep. Gabbard) as “Putin apologists” and Putin-lovers.

Stacey Plaskett, the Democratic delegate representing the Virgin Islands in the U.S. House, even suggested arresting respected journalist Matt Taibbi, who, along with Michael Shellenberger, testified on their investigation into a massive censorship system developed under the Biden administration.

The attack on Musk is particularly disgraceful, given his contributions to his adopted country. Ironically, filmmaker Michael Moore denounced the deportations of criminal illegal immigrants last week by noting that Trump was deporting someone who might cure cancer or be the next Steve Jobs. Well, this is a naturalized citizen who not only could be the next Elon Musk. He is Elon Musk.

Not surprisingly, I’m not sure if Moore thought his argument through to its conclusion:

Posted at 2:14 pm by Ed Driscoll 53

BIG APPLE CUOMOSEXUALS, THIS IS YOUR TIME! Cuomo jumps into New York mayor’s race, attempting political comeback.

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) announced Saturday afternoon that he’s entering New York City’s mayoral race, adding a big name to the already busy Democratic primary challenging Mayor Eric Adams (D).

“Our city is in crisis. That’s why I am running to be Mayor of New York City,” he wrote on social platform X, along with a video. “We need government to work. We need effective leadership.”

He also included a link to his campaign website.

Cuomo’s entrance comes as little surprise after months of speculation that he would attempt a political comeback years after resigning as governor amid multiple controversies that eventually engulfed his administration.

Cuomo appears likely to be the immediate frontrunner in the race based on recent polling conducted that includes him, Adams and the half-dozen other candidates already running for the nomination.

That’s understandable, based on his brilliant track record as New York’s governor in 2020: Andrew Cuomo’s Macabre Pandemic Nostalgia.

What but personal gratification explains Cuomo’s otherwise inexplicable dredging up of his disastrous final year in office over the other nine? After all, his conduct during the pandemic remains a drag on his political prospects.

As recently as last week, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli released an internal audit that confirmed the Cuomo administration had undercounted Covid deaths in nursing homes by more than 4,000. “The audit details how health officials undercounted deaths in nursing homes by more than 50% at certain points during the height of the crisis,” the New York Daily News reported. The findings underscore the conclusions New York Attorney General Letitia James revealed in a January 2021 report alleging that the Cuomo administration covered up the true death toll and its contributions to the body count. Albany’s “guidance requiring the admission of COVID-19 patients into nursing homes” put long-term care facility residents “at increased risk of harm,” that report revealed. All this only corroborates the many independent journalistic probes into how the governor’s administration contributed to the pandemic’s death toll and subsequently covered it up.

“In politics, like in life, you stand on your record,” Cuomo brazenly insists at the close of his comeback pitch. But Cuomo had more than a record. He had a cult of personality around him, and he loved every minute of it. What he wants isn’t just his name cleared and his career back. He wants the “Cuomosexuals” to fall back in love with the erstwhile object of their affections. Toward that end, Andrew Cuomo is dwelling on what for him must have been one of the best times of his life. That it was also the very worst of times for the rest of us seems to have escaped him.

New Yorkers can finally relive the magical thinking once again.

UPDATE:

Posted at 1:14 pm by Ed Driscoll 91

YES, THEY’VE ENTERED THE “FO” PHASE OF FAFO:

Posted at 12:45 pm by Ed Driscoll 70

MORE TO THAT NSA CULT THAN SEX: The Washington Stand’s Ben Johnson digs into the back story and finds the pro-DEI/pro-Marxist roots of a bunch of now-former Intelligence Community paycheck recipients.

Posted at 12:41 pm by Mark Tapscott 33