Very correct: "The one remarkable point I saw was Rubio’s insistence that the conflict began in 2022 not 2014, and that’s going to be a problem IMO."
But you left out the earlier roots of the eventual SMO:
The the long US preparation of Ukraine to be the Proxy against Russia started prior to 2014. And that stemmed from the 1990s post-fall period of the USSR, which included NATO rejection of Russian attempt to join NATO, and eventually to the repeated broken commitment of NATO to not expand NATO eastward.
In my writings on this topic, I usually note the conflict began in 1945 when the OUN was rescued by the US/UK and thus kept Nazism alive. But then there’s also several earlier phases and the outset which was begun in the 11th Century by the Vatican.
80 years of conniving. All those wasted resources that have brought US to an economic catastrophe, bankruptcy.
Ritter said that the Ukrainian diaspora in the US, NY Albany from memory are still goose-stepping on parade, youngsters wearing the khaki short pants singing Bandera folk-songs.
The Bandera Youth Camps in the US and Canada are as bad as Hitler Youth. The campers swear oaths and sing songs to Bandera.
Ukrainian definition of racial purity is more stringent than the purity standards embraced by the Germans under Hitler. It is quite bad. It will take a lot to root out. Although most Ukrainoans did not adopt such beliefs, the Ukrainian diaspora has reinforced the global aspect of this movement. THis is especially true of Canada, the US, and the UK, who have governments that actively promoted Banderaism.
Absolutely correct. The US has thousands of official documents outlining programs like Project Icon, Project Aerodynamic / QRPLUMB, and showing the US gave Mykola Lebed a fake ID and job at the CIA publishing house Prolog, that produced first revisionist Ukrainian history.
The US was working with NAZI LtGen Gehlen before WWII was over. Not only did he run the program to support facism in Ukraine, he set up the framework for Operation Gladio establishing paramilitary organizations across Western Europe often without approval of the host nation.
The US was deeply involved in framing the growth of Ukrainoan facism that is the foundation of the current conflict.
There are many other examples that show US involvement in conflict before 2014 let alone 2022. The Dec 2013 admission of Victoria Nuland that the US had spent billions of dollars from 1990 to late 2013 to support regime change in Ukraine is one. The recorded conversation of US ambassador Pyett & Nuland picking the Ukrainian gov before the 2014 elections is another. Or two coups - one in 2004 and the second in 2014. Or the biolab treaty the US signed with Ukraine on 29 August 2005 establishing biological weapons labs in Ukraine. Or the 2019 Rand Corp report - Extending Russia, which shows clear intent of the US to use Ukraine to hurt Russia knowing Ukraine would suffer for it.
No the Ukraine conflict didn't start in 2022 or 2014. The US has been provoking the Ukrainians to fight with Russia for 80 years. If you begin with LtGen Gehlen and Mykola Lebed or negotiations with Stepan Bandera, it started before WWII was over.
Your 100% accurate. I spent most of my life oblivious. Partly that was a consequence of professional requirement. I was in the military and keeping a clearance meant operating in a restricted information flow. Cracks started to appear in the national narrative though.
Then my Ukrainian wife admonished me to look up US involvement in Ukraine and ultranationalist organizations there. That hole got dark very fast. The CIA reading room has 1000s of documents. No Russian talking point needed. In the meantime my brother in law is dodging conscription in Ukraine because he was caring for his mother. His church was bombed. He and my sister-in-law have been assaulted for speaking Russian. It was Russians who allowed my wife to leave. I applaud your insight - no hyperbole. I was slow. But, the Western media generally pushes a narrative that limits opposing views. The US needs to do some serious soul searching. Reporting like yours makes truth possible to discuss.
Thanks for sharing your story. My days of holding a clearance ended 40 years ago, but I was already questioning things before I was ten. And now “Ohio” by CSN&Y is playing on Sirius. Hopefully your kin will all gather together again.
The Kagans had invited a prominent banderite Dobriansky to sign PNAC. This gives us a precise date for the active collaboration among zionists and Ukrainian neo-Nazis.
Any reference material available? I'd have thought the Project for a New American Century, e.g. full spectrum dominance, etc had passed its use by date.
This is what happened when a person submits to a vicious supremacist like Anne Applebaum, known for her whoring (well-enumerated) for "integrity initiative" and her faux historical foray.
Mr. Sikorsky-Applebaum became "them" and "their" Ko-Nidre.
"Kol Nidreis an ancient formula, said on Yom Kippur eve, declaring all vows we may make over the coming year null and void." Never trust the zionized US and shameless "holobiz."
In the US public school system the teachers have very little leeway with regard to curriculum, especially the ubiquitous Rah Rah Merika Good Commies Bad jingoism that's built into virtually every textbook approved by state education departments. Private schools are usually even worse. They actually *want* to brainwash the kids on that *plus* the religious aspect of why the USA is so great. And that's one of the precise reasons that the 'right' and conservatives have been historically so hard on colleges and universities as alleged training grounds for anti-American, anticapitalist sentiments. This predates "woke" and "trigger warnings" by many decades. I had never heard of "Killing Hope" (Blum) or Noam Chomsky until I went to college for engineering, of all things.
Are you aware that all the Ivy League schools have a religious affiliation and have since their founding? Their religiousness greatly influenced how and what they taught and still does. Further issues of upper-level; education were revealed over 100 years ago by Upton Sinclair in “The Goose Step.”
Yeah. For sure. I was just talking about the public K-12 system. The Ivy League schools serve one primary purpose: A networking grounds for the "elite" and grooming centers for "approved" future leaders.
NeNazification of Ukraine is crux of the matter. If the USA accepts that neNazification is desirable, perhaps without acknowledging that it was them that did it, then a way out might be for America and Russia, through Trump and Putin, to agree to collaborate in bringing it about. This would need regime reversal and a reliable way of identifying the Nazis to be eliminated from governance. Very difficult if not virtually impossible.
Actually, IMO it will be rather easy as Russia has kept watch on them all like a hawk. I say let the Prosecutors Office do their work. Most of the Nazis will try to flee just as they did at WW2's end; and like then, they'll have helpers. What will be difficult is purging society of Nazism, and not just in Ukraine but in Europe and globally.
thanks karl.. this is encouraging... the 800 pound gorilla in the room is zelensky and all that he and those who support him, represent.. who are they ( UK and friends of course!) ?? until he is gone, and i hope these talks will address this glaring inconsistency of his loss of a mandate to actually represent ukraine - it stands out..
"The one remarkable point I saw was Rubio’s insistence that the conflict began in 2022 not 2014, and that’s going to be a problem IMO."
Well, you could argue that the conflict in its current form started in April 2022 when Ukraine was told to fight a proxy war to the last Ukrainian and not no negotiatiate. The nature of the conflict was very much different from 2014 to April 2022. I'd say the Russian SMO ended and the American proxy war began in April 2022.
The conflict evolved from Russia and the US competing politically, diplomatically and covertly over their spheres of influence prior to the 2014 coup, to the civil war between US-backed Ukraine vs Russia-backed separatists, to the US trying to weaken or overextend Russia by baiting it to attack Ukraine by escalating the rhetoric about Ukraine joining NATO and Ukraine even raising the subject of getting nuclear weapons (and Ukrainian military build-up on LNR/DNR borders), to Russia taking the bait and starting the SMO with the aim to either replace the Zelensky regime with one that would actually commit to Ukrainian neutrality and other Russian demands, or at least to force Zelensky to agree to said demands, while the US, expecting that Ukraine will fall in 3 days, was hoping that Russia will subsequently collapse due to sanctions, to Ukraine, on US/UK instructions, in April 2022 abandoning all attempts to negotiate and committing to continue fighting in an attempt to collapse Russia by a combination of sanctions and Ukrainian successes on the battlefield, to the US more or less abandoning any hope of Russia ever collapsing and keeping the war going as long as possible just to weaken Russia militarily at the low cost of Ukrainian lives and Western military equipment. I'd say only the events from April 2022 onwards can be classified as an American proxy war (as in armed conflict) on Russia. Prior to that the armed conflict (the civil war and the beginning of the SMO) was about US and Russian spheres of influence, not about the US trying to defeat or at least weaken the Russian armed forces using Ukrainian cannon fodder. My point is that the situation in 2014- early 2022 was very much different from US lobbing ATACMS missiles at Russia in 2024 using a Ukrainian hand to push the button. The latter is a proper proxy war, the former was also a conflict between the same parties but of a different nature, not a proxy war proper.
This will be an ongoing argument. Also, it mustn’t be forgotten that Ukraine was offered NATO membership in 2008 along with Georgia in response to Putin’s 2007 Munich Security Conference Speech. Plus, the Chenchen Wars were also sponsored by the Outlaw US Empire. So direct warfare aimed at Russia began during Clinton’s second term.
i would say the war on russia, in various direct and indirect ways - began a much longer time ago, prior to 2014 even.. until their is some accountability on this very topic of the animosity or worse from the west towards russia, any peace agreement that is achieved here will be temporary.... what is the root cause of this animus?? remaining ignorant of it historically has led to where we are now, and a specific date can't be put on this.. i suspect it is ideological and very much related to finances - who gets to control what..
The one reference to 2014 is within this batch of crap Rubio spouted:
“SECRETARY RUBIO: It also happens to be the reality on the ground. First, let me say this. We think what Putin did was terrible: invading a country, the atrocities he’s committed. He did horrible things. But what – the dishonesty that has existed is that we somehow led people to believe that Ukraine would be able not just to defeat Russia but destroy them, push them all the way back to what the world looked like in 2012 or 2014, before the Russians took Crimea and the like. And then the result, what they’ve been asking for the last year and a half, is to fund a stalemate, a protracted stalemate, in which human suffering continues. Meanwhile Ukraine is being set back 100 years; their energy grid is being wiped out. I mean, someone’s going to have to pay for all this reconstruction after the fact. And how many Ukrainians have left Ukraine, living in other countries now? They may never return. I mean, that’s their future, and it’s in danger in that regard. “ https://www.state.gov/secretary-marco-rubio-with-megyn-kelly-of-the-megyn-kelly-show/
Speaking to Nima, John Helmer highlights the sophisticated skill of Russian diplomacy and Lavrov in handling their initial dialogues with the Trump administration. Russia, more interested in facts than in paper and statements, makes gestures on the ground and waits to see if these elicit a material response from the opponent. This is how Russian diplomacy tests the veracity of the adversary's intentions.
Therefore, for Russia it is not about pompous declarations and spectacular headlines, as is the case with Trump. The meeting between Putin and Trump should be the culmination of certain achievements, not the other way around. Trump wants immediate headlines, Putin wants facts. Hence, Russian diplomacy is in no hurry for the expected meeting to take place; it has to check the true intentions on the ground as many times as necessary. Russia has made many significant gestures on the ground, but the adversary's response has not been satisfactory.
That is one of the reasons why the bellicose EU directive is not present in the bilateral talks between Russia and the outlaw empire.
I don't envy Rubio. He is at a serious disadvantage. He has to defend a Big Lie and do it in the presence of Lavrov, arguably the world's most experienced diplomat and the dean of the diplomatic corps. He will have to think very seriously before he tries to slide any BS past Lavrov.
According to the transcript, Rubio did not say "2022". The year "2022" was spoken by the questioner: "Is it acceptable to the U.S. for Russia to retain any territory that is annexed since the beginning of the war in February 2022?"
Rubio did not speak of any particular years. So maybe Rubio isn't as dumb as I thought he was.
Here’s the link to the transcript published by the State Department. What I was looking for was his saying 2014, which he did in a paragraph filled with him echoing Team Biden propaganda. IMO, Rubio has zero integrity.
I see a link to Rubio speaking around Jan 30 to Megyn Kelly where Rubio did repeat CIA lies. But after speaking to Lavrov maybe Rubio is learning diplomacy. He's still an idiot, but maybe he's learning to hide it.
I wonder how much background vetting Lavrov personally (provided by staff) did on Rubio and the rest of Trump’s team? I’ll bet that was reading material for the flight from Moscow to Saudi Arabia. I don’t think Rubio’s capable of becoming something he’s not. Today’s get together was simple. The actual negotiations won’t; they’ll be very hard ball.
Very correct: "The one remarkable point I saw was Rubio’s insistence that the conflict began in 2022 not 2014, and that’s going to be a problem IMO."
But you left out the earlier roots of the eventual SMO:
The the long US preparation of Ukraine to be the Proxy against Russia started prior to 2014. And that stemmed from the 1990s post-fall period of the USSR, which included NATO rejection of Russian attempt to join NATO, and eventually to the repeated broken commitment of NATO to not expand NATO eastward.
In my writings on this topic, I usually note the conflict began in 1945 when the OUN was rescued by the US/UK and thus kept Nazism alive. But then there’s also several earlier phases and the outset which was begun in the 11th Century by the Vatican.
80 years of conniving. All those wasted resources that have brought US to an economic catastrophe, bankruptcy.
Ritter said that the Ukrainian diaspora in the US, NY Albany from memory are still goose-stepping on parade, youngsters wearing the khaki short pants singing Bandera folk-songs.
As I replied to Bob Marsden, Nazism will be tough to purge because it’s global.
The Bandera Youth Camps in the US and Canada are as bad as Hitler Youth. The campers swear oaths and sing songs to Bandera.
Ukrainian definition of racial purity is more stringent than the purity standards embraced by the Germans under Hitler. It is quite bad. It will take a lot to root out. Although most Ukrainoans did not adopt such beliefs, the Ukrainian diaspora has reinforced the global aspect of this movement. THis is especially true of Canada, the US, and the UK, who have governments that actively promoted Banderaism.
Absolutely correct. The US has thousands of official documents outlining programs like Project Icon, Project Aerodynamic / QRPLUMB, and showing the US gave Mykola Lebed a fake ID and job at the CIA publishing house Prolog, that produced first revisionist Ukrainian history.
The US was working with NAZI LtGen Gehlen before WWII was over. Not only did he run the program to support facism in Ukraine, he set up the framework for Operation Gladio establishing paramilitary organizations across Western Europe often without approval of the host nation.
The US was deeply involved in framing the growth of Ukrainoan facism that is the foundation of the current conflict.
There are many other examples that show US involvement in conflict before 2014 let alone 2022. The Dec 2013 admission of Victoria Nuland that the US had spent billions of dollars from 1990 to late 2013 to support regime change in Ukraine is one. The recorded conversation of US ambassador Pyett & Nuland picking the Ukrainian gov before the 2014 elections is another. Or two coups - one in 2004 and the second in 2014. Or the biolab treaty the US signed with Ukraine on 29 August 2005 establishing biological weapons labs in Ukraine. Or the 2019 Rand Corp report - Extending Russia, which shows clear intent of the US to use Ukraine to hurt Russia knowing Ukraine would suffer for it.
No the Ukraine conflict didn't start in 2022 or 2014. The US has been provoking the Ukrainians to fight with Russia for 80 years. If you begin with LtGen Gehlen and Mykola Lebed or negotiations with Stepan Bandera, it started before WWII was over.
I’m trying to promote acceptance of that, 1945, timeline, but at minimum from 2014.
Your 100% accurate. I spent most of my life oblivious. Partly that was a consequence of professional requirement. I was in the military and keeping a clearance meant operating in a restricted information flow. Cracks started to appear in the national narrative though.
Then my Ukrainian wife admonished me to look up US involvement in Ukraine and ultranationalist organizations there. That hole got dark very fast. The CIA reading room has 1000s of documents. No Russian talking point needed. In the meantime my brother in law is dodging conscription in Ukraine because he was caring for his mother. His church was bombed. He and my sister-in-law have been assaulted for speaking Russian. It was Russians who allowed my wife to leave. I applaud your insight - no hyperbole. I was slow. But, the Western media generally pushes a narrative that limits opposing views. The US needs to do some serious soul searching. Reporting like yours makes truth possible to discuss.
God bless you and your work!
Thanks for sharing your story. My days of holding a clearance ended 40 years ago, but I was already questioning things before I was ten. And now “Ohio” by CSN&Y is playing on Sirius. Hopefully your kin will all gather together again.
The Kagans had invited a prominent banderite Dobriansky to sign PNAC. This gives us a precise date for the active collaboration among zionists and Ukrainian neo-Nazis.
Any reference material available? I'd have thought the Project for a New American Century, e.g. full spectrum dominance, etc had passed its use by date.
You can check the names of the signatories on the web.
Sikorsky. It was a fake.
This is what happened when a person submits to a vicious supremacist like Anne Applebaum, known for her whoring (well-enumerated) for "integrity initiative" and her faux historical foray.
Mr. Sikorsky-Applebaum became "them" and "their" Ko-Nidre.
"Kol Nidreis an ancient formula, said on Yom Kippur eve, declaring all vows we may make over the coming year null and void." Never trust the zionized US and shameless "holobiz."
I blame the teachers, filling impressionable small minds like that of Rubio and ilk with horse-shit historical fiction.
The resources invested by USA.org in maintaining these levels of idiocy, cradle to grave, are vast.
In the US public school system the teachers have very little leeway with regard to curriculum, especially the ubiquitous Rah Rah Merika Good Commies Bad jingoism that's built into virtually every textbook approved by state education departments. Private schools are usually even worse. They actually *want* to brainwash the kids on that *plus* the religious aspect of why the USA is so great. And that's one of the precise reasons that the 'right' and conservatives have been historically so hard on colleges and universities as alleged training grounds for anti-American, anticapitalist sentiments. This predates "woke" and "trigger warnings" by many decades. I had never heard of "Killing Hope" (Blum) or Noam Chomsky until I went to college for engineering, of all things.
Are you aware that all the Ivy League schools have a religious affiliation and have since their founding? Their religiousness greatly influenced how and what they taught and still does. Further issues of upper-level; education were revealed over 100 years ago by Upton Sinclair in “The Goose Step.”
A bit off topic, but perhaps not, time to repeat a favorite Upton Sinclair quote:
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something,when his livelihood depends on him not understanding,”
Yeah. For sure. I was just talking about the public K-12 system. The Ivy League schools serve one primary purpose: A networking grounds for the "elite" and grooming centers for "approved" future leaders.
NeNazification of Ukraine is crux of the matter. If the USA accepts that neNazification is desirable, perhaps without acknowledging that it was them that did it, then a way out might be for America and Russia, through Trump and Putin, to agree to collaborate in bringing it about. This would need regime reversal and a reliable way of identifying the Nazis to be eliminated from governance. Very difficult if not virtually impossible.
Actually, IMO it will be rather easy as Russia has kept watch on them all like a hawk. I say let the Prosecutors Office do their work. Most of the Nazis will try to flee just as they did at WW2's end; and like then, they'll have helpers. What will be difficult is purging society of Nazism, and not just in Ukraine but in Europe and globally.
NeNazification is a repeated typo for DeNazification, not an attempt at a subtle rhetorical neologism.
Ah, didn't see this before I asked my question.
What is meant by "nenazification"? Is that de-nazification translated from another language?
thanks karl.. this is encouraging... the 800 pound gorilla in the room is zelensky and all that he and those who support him, represent.. who are they ( UK and friends of course!) ?? until he is gone, and i hope these talks will address this glaring inconsistency of his loss of a mandate to actually represent ukraine - it stands out..
America is famous for disposing of its puppets once they are not longer useful. If he's lucky he'll be allowed to flee to London alive.
true... if he is lucky..
First they'll likely want to take back what he's kept for himself, ditto for some of his friends/handlers.
"The one remarkable point I saw was Rubio’s insistence that the conflict began in 2022 not 2014, and that’s going to be a problem IMO."
Well, you could argue that the conflict in its current form started in April 2022 when Ukraine was told to fight a proxy war to the last Ukrainian and not no negotiatiate. The nature of the conflict was very much different from 2014 to April 2022. I'd say the Russian SMO ended and the American proxy war began in April 2022.
That’s a curious thesis, although I doubt Russians and Russians within Ukraine will agree.
The conflict evolved from Russia and the US competing politically, diplomatically and covertly over their spheres of influence prior to the 2014 coup, to the civil war between US-backed Ukraine vs Russia-backed separatists, to the US trying to weaken or overextend Russia by baiting it to attack Ukraine by escalating the rhetoric about Ukraine joining NATO and Ukraine even raising the subject of getting nuclear weapons (and Ukrainian military build-up on LNR/DNR borders), to Russia taking the bait and starting the SMO with the aim to either replace the Zelensky regime with one that would actually commit to Ukrainian neutrality and other Russian demands, or at least to force Zelensky to agree to said demands, while the US, expecting that Ukraine will fall in 3 days, was hoping that Russia will subsequently collapse due to sanctions, to Ukraine, on US/UK instructions, in April 2022 abandoning all attempts to negotiate and committing to continue fighting in an attempt to collapse Russia by a combination of sanctions and Ukrainian successes on the battlefield, to the US more or less abandoning any hope of Russia ever collapsing and keeping the war going as long as possible just to weaken Russia militarily at the low cost of Ukrainian lives and Western military equipment. I'd say only the events from April 2022 onwards can be classified as an American proxy war (as in armed conflict) on Russia. Prior to that the armed conflict (the civil war and the beginning of the SMO) was about US and Russian spheres of influence, not about the US trying to defeat or at least weaken the Russian armed forces using Ukrainian cannon fodder. My point is that the situation in 2014- early 2022 was very much different from US lobbing ATACMS missiles at Russia in 2024 using a Ukrainian hand to push the button. The latter is a proper proxy war, the former was also a conflict between the same parties but of a different nature, not a proxy war proper.
This will be an ongoing argument. Also, it mustn’t be forgotten that Ukraine was offered NATO membership in 2008 along with Georgia in response to Putin’s 2007 Munich Security Conference Speech. Plus, the Chenchen Wars were also sponsored by the Outlaw US Empire. So direct warfare aimed at Russia began during Clinton’s second term.
i would say the war on russia, in various direct and indirect ways - began a much longer time ago, prior to 2014 even.. until their is some accountability on this very topic of the animosity or worse from the west towards russia, any peace agreement that is achieved here will be temporary.... what is the root cause of this animus?? remaining ignorant of it historically has led to where we are now, and a specific date can't be put on this.. i suspect it is ideological and very much related to finances - who gets to control what..
I am not absolutely certain of this, but I think Rubio mentioned 2014 during an interview with Megan Kelly.
The one reference to 2014 is within this batch of crap Rubio spouted:
“SECRETARY RUBIO: It also happens to be the reality on the ground. First, let me say this. We think what Putin did was terrible: invading a country, the atrocities he’s committed. He did horrible things. But what – the dishonesty that has existed is that we somehow led people to believe that Ukraine would be able not just to defeat Russia but destroy them, push them all the way back to what the world looked like in 2012 or 2014, before the Russians took Crimea and the like. And then the result, what they’ve been asking for the last year and a half, is to fund a stalemate, a protracted stalemate, in which human suffering continues. Meanwhile Ukraine is being set back 100 years; their energy grid is being wiped out. I mean, someone’s going to have to pay for all this reconstruction after the fact. And how many Ukrainians have left Ukraine, living in other countries now? They may never return. I mean, that’s their future, and it’s in danger in that regard. “ https://www.state.gov/secretary-marco-rubio-with-megyn-kelly-of-the-megyn-kelly-show/
Speaking to Nima, John Helmer highlights the sophisticated skill of Russian diplomacy and Lavrov in handling their initial dialogues with the Trump administration. Russia, more interested in facts than in paper and statements, makes gestures on the ground and waits to see if these elicit a material response from the opponent. This is how Russian diplomacy tests the veracity of the adversary's intentions.
Therefore, for Russia it is not about pompous declarations and spectacular headlines, as is the case with Trump. The meeting between Putin and Trump should be the culmination of certain achievements, not the other way around. Trump wants immediate headlines, Putin wants facts. Hence, Russian diplomacy is in no hurry for the expected meeting to take place; it has to check the true intentions on the ground as many times as necessary. Russia has made many significant gestures on the ground, but the adversary's response has not been satisfactory.
That is one of the reasons why the bellicose EU directive is not present in the bilateral talks between Russia and the outlaw empire.
I highly suggest watching today’s Nima’s chat with Doctorow.
I don't envy Rubio. He is at a serious disadvantage. He has to defend a Big Lie and do it in the presence of Lavrov, arguably the world's most experienced diplomat and the dean of the diplomatic corps. He will have to think very seriously before he tries to slide any BS past Lavrov.
According to the transcript, Rubio did not say "2022". The year "2022" was spoken by the questioner: "Is it acceptable to the U.S. for Russia to retain any territory that is annexed since the beginning of the war in February 2022?"
Rubio did not speak of any particular years. So maybe Rubio isn't as dumb as I thought he was.
Here’s the link to the transcript published by the State Department. What I was looking for was his saying 2014, which he did in a paragraph filled with him echoing Team Biden propaganda. IMO, Rubio has zero integrity.
I see a link to Rubio speaking around Jan 30 to Megyn Kelly where Rubio did repeat CIA lies. But after speaking to Lavrov maybe Rubio is learning diplomacy. He's still an idiot, but maybe he's learning to hide it.
I wonder how much background vetting Lavrov personally (provided by staff) did on Rubio and the rest of Trump’s team? I’ll bet that was reading material for the flight from Moscow to Saudi Arabia. I don’t think Rubio’s capable of becoming something he’s not. Today’s get together was simple. The actual negotiations won’t; they’ll be very hard ball.