littlemissmartypants
littlemissmartypants's JournalUkraine Has Written Off the United States
Zelensky has stopped pretending that Trump might be an ally.
By Phillips Payson O’Brien
April 18, 2026, 6 AM ET
For more than a year after Donald Trump returned to the White House, Ukraine held out hope—at least publicly—of winning him over. Trump, who revealed his affection for Russia’s Vladimir Putin again and again, largely halted American military aid to Kyiv. He insulted Ukrainian leaders regularly, personally berating President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office in February 2025. Nevertheless, Ukraine diligently took part in Trump’s peace negotiations, which were tilted to reward Putin’s invasion and turned out to be fruitless. Zelensky agreed to mineral deals that supposedly promised to enrich Americans. He even lavishly praised Trump himself. Despite Ukrainian leaders’ growing doubts, they calculated that speaking sweetly of the American president would do no harm and just might gain his favor.
But now Kyiv appears to have given up on the United States. It is aggressively seeking new diplomatic and military partners—for instance, by sharing its hard-won expertise in drone warfare with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates and forging arms-production agreements with Germany. Ukraine has sent drones to attack oil-export facilities near St. Petersburg, deep inside enemy territory, in defiance of what Zelensky called “signals” from unspecified “partners” to avoid striking Russian energy infrastructure.
Using language that would until recently have been unthinkable, Zelensky has indicated that he no longer views the United States as a reliable ally and, even more astonishingly, that all of Europe needs to start moving on from the transatlantic relationship.
In an effort to keep energy prices from spiking further amid the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, the Trump administration eased sanctions on Russian oil producers and sellers. In an interview last week with Italian radio, Zelensky criticized that decision. “In my view, Russia played the Americans again—played the president of the United States,” he said. (The sanctions waiver expired earlier this week.) Lest anyone outside Italy miss his point, Zelensky amplified an English-language version of his comments on X.
...
Subscribers:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/04/ukraine-trump-us-oil-russia/686854/
Archive:
https://archive.is/2026.04.18-101333/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/04/ukraine-trump-us-oil-russia/686854/
Interventions to Psychological Manipulation, featuring Diane Benscoter
Diane Benscoter is the Founder and Executive Director of Antidote and author of Shoes of a Servant: My Unconditional Devotion to a Lie*.
Recorded 19 March 2026 for the Cambridge Disinformation Summit webinar series.
00:00 Intro and brief history
03:23 Project 1: learning community
03:59 Five phases of manipulation
05:23 Project 2: stories bank
06:23 Project 3: attention integrity movement 06:48 Inoculation: anti manipulation identity 07:01 Education of mechanics
07:15 Community building
07:36 Why people are drawn in
09:11 How opportunists find targets
10:33 Manipulation process
11:15 How to break through
14:13 Processing trauma from revelation
15:23 Identity crisis
15:54 Rebuild agency & autonomy
17:13 What drew you in
17:55 "My people"
18:52 Self intervention
20:00 Look for dissonance cracks
20:40 Cult hopping
21:08 Reconstructing self
23:57 Scalable interventions
27:50 Conmen and cults
29:35 Dopamine addiction
31:10 Online vs in person
33:32 Customizing interventions
34:50 Empathy, protecting pride, & dignity
42:19 Opportunists source pain
43:30 Politics
47:04 Signs of being manipulated
48:43 First intervention steps
50:00 Anti manipulation identity
52:43 Policy needs
54:10 Digital literacy skills
55:58 Tips for the vulnerable
University of Cambridge (UK)
Disinformation Summit
Cambridge Disinformation Summit
"I see disinformation as preparing the landscape for corruption." Professor Jagolinzer, Summit Chair, 2026.**
Purpose:
To facilitate interdisciplinary research and policy that:
•Advances understanding of how disinformation is deployed to exploit vulnerable communities and how it amplifies and accelerates global systemic risks,
•Advances efficacy assessment, accelerates deployment, and amplifies impact of disinformation harms interventions, and
•Advances understanding of the implications of interventions on other fundamental rights (e.g., free speech), to help preserve those rights.
Key definition:
•Disinformation is when an actor intentionally disseminates a false or misleading narrative, through selected channels, to exploit a targeted vulnerable audience.
This project does not promote censorship.
*https://dianebenscoter.com/books/
**https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/2026/cambridge-disinformation-summit-focuses-on-downstream-harm/
I'm telling you guys, it's not just a grift war per usual...
These motherfuckers are going full tilt Holy War. And it started on J6.
We are currently under assault by Christian Nationalism. Christian Nationalists take everything by force. They are laser focused. This is the goal of the regime.
Here's an expert take on the topic:
The Violent Take it By Force by Matthew D. Taylor with The Freedom From Religion Foundation. Interview ~ 30"
We're in deep trouble.
Ageism irks me but I'm not opposed to ...
an age optimal age range LAW (say 25 to 65) with a law that spells out explicitly cognitive and health fitness qualifications with regular assessments and enforcement to back them up in the LAW.
In addition to initial qualifying assessments, to be effective, the LAW should include pre - and post tests at specific time based intervals and as needed for cause assessments. Other ages might be considered with the contingency that the cognitive, neuropsychological, and physical fitness standards are within acceptable limits.
As with any other enterprise and especially when we are talking about the leadership of our government, if we hire decrepit, mentally unfit psychopaths then we get what we deserve.
I'd also prefer that we get the cash/crypto out of politics, too. But without the leadership, we need to make any of this work. I guess we can all wish in one hand, and you know what in the other and see which hand fills up first.
NC (my home) is familiar with posers and turncoats, by the way. Tricia Cotham* comes to mind.
1. Aggressive, callous, and cunning
2. Complete absence of conscience and empathy
3. Very adept at manipulating others
4. Willingness to engage in immoral, criminal conduct
5. Willingness to take what they want and do as they please, regardless of who is hurt or wronged
6. Deceptive ability to appear outwardly benevolent
7. Deceptive ability to behave in superficially charming ways to hide purely selfish motives
8. Willingness to use intimidation and violence to control others in order to satisfy their own needs
9. Willingness to intentionally violate the basic inherent human rights of others
10. Complete absence of any sense of guilt or remorse for the harm their actions have caused to others
11. Rationalization of their own immoral behavior
12. Will attempt to lay blame upon someone else for their own conduct
13. Denial, will deny their own wrongdoing outright
14. Utter contemptuousness toward the feelings and desires of their fellow beings
15. Pathological lying, will say anything without any concern for truth to advance their own hidden agendas
16. Ablity to feign [fake] normal human emotions and empathy
17. Distorted sense of the consequences of their actions
18. Total failure to accept any responsibility for their own socially irresponsible ways
19. Strong bellef that they will never be brought to justice for their criminal behavior
*Tricia Cotham aka Patricia Ann Cotham
[Rumored girlfriend of North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore(R)]
"Cotham represented the 100th district in the North Carolina House of Representatives from 2007 to 2017 as a Democrat. She was elected as a Democrat in 2022 to represent District 112. Cotham formally changed her affiliation to the Republican Party on April 5, 2023, granting the North Carolina House Republicans a supermajority. Prior to her party switch, Cotham had campaigned on a traditional Democratic Party platform and had voted for abortion rights legislation. Shortly after her party switch, Cotham cast the deciding vote for legislation to restrict abortion access in North Carolina.
[2]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricia_Cotham
Putin started that with the invasion of Ukraine.
DJ is just helping him finish the job while the billionaire class works on becoming the trillionaire class.
Whale Shark gliding through Bioluminescent Algae looks like its floating through space
🔥 Whale Shark gliding through Bioluminescent Algae looks like its floating through space. By Mike Nulty
🔥 Whale Shark gliding through Bioluminescent Algae looks like its floating through space. By Mike Nulty
— Digital Brain (@yourdigitalbrain.bsky.social) 2026-03-21T06:39:23.000Z
Be sure to click through to the full frame version.
❤️✌️🤓
🔥"I read the Trump-backed "Save America Act" so you don't have to." Jennifer Cohn Here is my 8-point summary.
Most of the media apparently *hasn’t* read the Act because, if they had, they would sound the alarm about Point 1, belowBy Jennifer Cohn, 3/13/26
I read the Trump-backed so-called “Save America Act” (SB 1383) because most of the media and most of our lawmakers apparently have not. It’s obvious that they haven’t read it because if they had, they would sound the alarm about Point 1, below.
The Save America Act:
1. States that all states “shall” submit their voter registration lists to the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS)“SAVE” voter purge program, which reportedly has error rates as high as 14% & relies on data from the Social Security Administration (SSA) whose databases were mishandled by DOGE per:
The SSA itself (in a recent court filing titled “Notice of Corrections to the Court Record”),
A whistleblower report by the SSA’s former Chief Data Officer, and
A new whistleblower report, which alleges that a former DOGE member claimed to have retained his SSA computer & credentials providing “God level” access to SSA systems.
(The Act mentions giving flagged voters “notice” and an “opportunity” to prove citizenship without specifying the form or length of time for the notice and while simultaneously making it very difficult to prove citizenship if flagged or purged. See also FN 1.)
In addition, the Act:
2. Imposes no penalty for erroneous purges, but subjects officials to citizen suits & potential prison time for registering a single voter without correct documentation — even if the voter is a citizen. (Note: The GOP has wrongly purged thousands of voters in past elections.
Snip...more
https://jennycohn1.medium.com/i-read-the-trump-backed-save-america-act-so-you-dont-have-to-here-is-my-8-point-summary-0cac998e6415
No paywall. Click through using the 'X' in the upper right hand corner.
About Jennifer Cohn
After practicing law for 20+ years, I now write about elections, propaganda, & extremism.
Good Morning and Good Day, Everyone!
Keep the Faith!
❤️pants
Be a uniter, not a divider.
The problem is...
the willingness to build bridges, not quagmires. To fail to see everyone with humanitarian respect. To value those who have generational respect for land and the compulsion to provide for humanity at large by being stewards of the planet and feeding their families.
It's remarkable, to me, how so many who have no first-hand knowledge of a subject are eager to speak on it.
I'll be impressed if an old wooden mule plow, a pile of wooden tobacco sticks, or stacks of wooden potato baskets live in one's memory or even better in their own barn.
Agriculture is constantly changing, and farmers today are some of the most compassionate forward-thinking and innovative business people on the planet.
It's past time to stop beating them down and start lifting them up. Otherwise, be prepared to grow your own food and get healthier as you eat it.
Decisions start with each person's pocketbook guided by their brains and hopefully their hearts.
Individual people are the growers of their own output. Some grow flowers. Others unfortunately decide to grow weeds.
PDF DOWNLOAD
https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Highlights/2025/Census22_HL_FamilyFarms_FINAL.pdf
❤️pants
Profile Information
Gender: Do not displayMember since: Tue Aug 28, 2012, 07:58 PM
Number of posts: 34,034