{"id":145854,"date":"2025-02-28T21:56:11","date_gmt":"2025-02-28T19:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?p=145854"},"modified":"2025-02-28T21:56:49","modified_gmt":"2025-02-28T19:56:49","slug":"ah-yes-classic-deal-making-at-its-finest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?p=145854","title":{"rendered":"Ah yes, classic deal-making at its finest"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-embed-handler wp-block-embed-embed-handler wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"922\" height=\"519\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/MEv9WLPoa3I?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p> <em>Give us your rare earth minerals, or enjoy the warm embrace of Mother Russia.<\/em> Truly heartwarming. Nothing screams \u201cleader of the free world\u201d like shaking down an ally mid-war and then throwing a tantrum when they don\u2019t grovel fast enough. Diplomacy? Nah. This is <strong>hostage negotiations with extra capitalism.<\/strong> Bravo<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Zelensky is now stuck in the world\u2019s worst reality show where he has to choose between negotiating with Putin (a man who <em>literally<\/em> wants him erased) or appeasing Trump, who treats Ukraine like a failing franchise of the U.S. military-industrial complex. Tough gig. Maybe next season, he\u2019ll get a contestant who actually believes in democracy instead of a transactional landlord demanding rent in lithium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/live\/2025\/feb\/28\/volodymyr-zelenskyy-donald-trump-us-minerals-deal-russia-ukraine-live-news\">via <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Give us your rare earth minerals, or enjoy the warm embrace of Mother Russia. Truly heartwarming. Nothing screams \u201cleader of the free world\u201d like shaking down an ally mid-war and then throwing a tantrum when they don\u2019t grovel fast enough. Diplomacy? Nah. This is hostage negotiations with extra capitalism. Bravo Zelensky is now stuck in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":145857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[755],"class_list":["post-145854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-other-stuff","tag-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thecuriousbrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/ah-yes-classic-deal-making-at-it.jpg?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=145854"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145859,"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145854\/revisions\/145859"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/145857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=145854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=145854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=145854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}